Computer virus. This is my number one virus concern in Africa, after the HIV (of course). The main difference being a computer virus is 100% manmade---- there is no spontaneous encapsulation of nucleic acid, there is no ecology to it, no retroviral induced mutations, just some jerk sitting somewhere undoubtedly dark and windowless typing 1’s and 0’s down, and he is probably thinking that he is helping take down the Man, bringing down the Industrial Machine, or something…. Well let me tell you right now, he is not taking down the Man, he is just bringing down Africa… because this is the hotbed of computer viruses… all viruses come to Mozambique and stay in Mozambique. And flash drives (aka “memory sticks” for the technically challenged such as myself---yep, recently realized I may be the only one using that terminology) are the main vectors, they are the festering infectors, teaming with viruses.
***
In the mornings, on my ride to work, we listen to the radio, on good days it is BBC news coverage and I can feel somewhat classy, but on the other days we listen to local coverage. Sometimes it is a DJ taking in calls, most of the calls are dropped, in which case the DJ makes a quick transition with a laser sound effect (“hello…. hello…?” **pew-pew-pew**). Sometimes it is this music from Zim (I think it sounds like amped circus music, friends are trying to convince me otherwise and I’m open to conversion because it is played all through the night), this is also interrupted with the laser sound effect **pew-pew-pew** repeatedly and erratically, keeping **pew-pew-pew** a sort of anti-beat through **pew-pew-pew** seemingly random parts of **pew-pew-pew** the tune (I’m probably not Hip enough to get the musical sophistication of this “re-mix”, if this were Portland I’d put on my black rim glasses and grow a mustache at least to make it look like I get it). Sometimes it is national news, which I like because the Portuguese in Maputo sounds exotic. And sometimes it is local news, which I usually don’t like because it frequently is about some shock-and-awe story that is uncomfortably close to home: some guys cutting the hearts and lungs out of his relatives, or some guy who did a self-castration (this one apparently made national news because a friend in the south asked me about this, and for the record these are not exemplary stories of Mozambican culture but rather Mozambican news coverage). The laser sound effect makes an appearance for the local news too **pew-pew-pew**. There are actually three or so versions of the laser sound effect, apparently nothing else, and those buttons are well used.
By far my favorite radio moment is a public service announcement targeting teens and pre-teens to stop downloading music. I think the ad is targeted for Moz but they just say Africa in general. This is different from the ads back home, no scary aggressive voice calling you a thief, no screenshots of musicians talking about their feelings about illegal downloads. Instead it is a scripted dialogue with a schoolboy who is told that Africa/Mozambique is not as developed as everywhere else and does not have the same internet capacity, that when he downloads music he blocks up the system for everyone else----something along the lines of: by downloading music you, personally, are slowing down the Development of Africa, and most of the stuff downloaded is full of viruses anyways and viruses are messing up everything for everybody. The announcement also includes a list of appropriate uses of the internet in Mozambique: mostly just email (sans attachments).
Here is my plea: Dearest Computer Virus Writers: You make it so my students can’t put digital copies of their homework on my computer (that flash ain’t going nowhere near my machine), you make the computers too slow for students to learn how to do research or type out a paper, you make it so little Joao or little Fatima can’t download the latest Akon or Shakira hit. Please find a new hobby. My personal suggestion: eradicating the laser sound effect. Sincerely, Alexandra.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
A Special Performance
When I was six or so Mom and Auntie Clay took me to The City to see The Nutcracker. I was ecstatic: ballerinas. That’s all I wanted to be: one of those oh-so-beautiful ballerinas with something tinselly bunched around my waist and ribbons cris-crossed from the point shoes up the entire length of my legs. However, Mom forcibly evicted Ballerina from my Things-I-Want-to-be-When-I Grow-Up list with a big NO to ballet classes--- something about me having lasting body image problems. She did concede, slightly, with a tutu and, later, tickets to The San Francisco Nutcracker—possibly after seeing my dedication to the Ballerina idea through hours of untrained versions of the pirouette in the living room (well documented in Grandpa’s homevideos). It was a big day, just us three ladies. Mom sewed me little green chiffon/black velvet dress for the theater (man was I spoiled). It really was beautiful and hung up in my room for days before, taunting, teasing, but I had to wait for the big day. Of the performance itself I don’t actually remember that much, just walking in the City in my brand new dress, Auntie Clay piling her fur lined jacket on the chair to prop me up because I was too little to see the stage, and that one scene with children coming out from the bottom of a man’s hoop skirt. Guess it wasn’t really the show itself that was so memorable, but rather getting to do something special with mom and Auntie Clay: a Special Treat.
I thought about my day at the Theater when I asked the neighborhood girls who play at my house if they wanted to go to English Theater: Hours of short skits put on by regional secondary schools, all in English and with the theme Be the Change (and some kind of HIV/AIDS tidbit, because that is how these events are funded…. Don’t sleep with your teachers kids! Use a condom!). It was a gamble, either the girls would love it or they would be bored to tears. “Ask your parents….” And Claire was quick to point out: “You are so American.” She was right, parents just kind of let their kids run free, parental permission: pssh---as if!! Half the time these little girls show up to my house with a baby cousin or brother or sister or neighbor strapped on their back, babies holding babies, babies caring for babies.
Would they show up? Would they even want to go?
Saturday rolled around and there was a “Dona Alexandra, Dona Alexandra!” at the gate. Two of them showed up, early (!) and in their fanciest dresses and a Strawberry Shortcake plastic handbag. The mom of one of the girls had even rubbed her daughter’s shoulders and back with body oil. I’m sure we were quite the spectacle, these two little girls in their dresses with these two Americans walking through town, through the market area, and the main intersection to get to the Theater.
We watched the performances. Ate some crackers I brought. They would lean over to tell me little tidbits they were understanding in English “he just said ‘goodbye’”; “she just asked ‘how are you?’ ” They stored cookies (leftover snacks for the performing students) the coordinator of English Theater generously gave them in the little pink plastic handbag, taking them out one by one slowly munching and savoring, even when we walked home during the lunch break, they kept pulling the contents of the handbag out and stuffing it back in… just to check on it.
English Theater is a daylong event. Honestly I figured we would go for an hour tops then head home, they’d get bored, right? But they wanted to stay on. We left during the lunch break, parted ways in Bairro Quatro, but 20 minutes later they were back at my house “Dona Alexandra….” I was flopped on my bed, hot and tired (and need I say sunburned?) but they were super excited about going back, to see the last couple performances, to see who got the 1st place award. How could I say no? We trucked back into town, back to the theater to finish out the very special day, to watch every single skit. It wasn’t really about being able to understand the performances, or even the quality of the performances, it was just the excitement about getting to be there, to do something “special”.
I thought about my day at the Theater when I asked the neighborhood girls who play at my house if they wanted to go to English Theater: Hours of short skits put on by regional secondary schools, all in English and with the theme Be the Change (and some kind of HIV/AIDS tidbit, because that is how these events are funded…. Don’t sleep with your teachers kids! Use a condom!). It was a gamble, either the girls would love it or they would be bored to tears. “Ask your parents….” And Claire was quick to point out: “You are so American.” She was right, parents just kind of let their kids run free, parental permission: pssh---as if!! Half the time these little girls show up to my house with a baby cousin or brother or sister or neighbor strapped on their back, babies holding babies, babies caring for babies.
Would they show up? Would they even want to go?
Saturday rolled around and there was a “Dona Alexandra, Dona Alexandra!” at the gate. Two of them showed up, early (!) and in their fanciest dresses and a Strawberry Shortcake plastic handbag. The mom of one of the girls had even rubbed her daughter’s shoulders and back with body oil. I’m sure we were quite the spectacle, these two little girls in their dresses with these two Americans walking through town, through the market area, and the main intersection to get to the Theater.
We watched the performances. Ate some crackers I brought. They would lean over to tell me little tidbits they were understanding in English “he just said ‘goodbye’”; “she just asked ‘how are you?’ ” They stored cookies (leftover snacks for the performing students) the coordinator of English Theater generously gave them in the little pink plastic handbag, taking them out one by one slowly munching and savoring, even when we walked home during the lunch break, they kept pulling the contents of the handbag out and stuffing it back in… just to check on it.
English Theater is a daylong event. Honestly I figured we would go for an hour tops then head home, they’d get bored, right? But they wanted to stay on. We left during the lunch break, parted ways in Bairro Quatro, but 20 minutes later they were back at my house “Dona Alexandra….” I was flopped on my bed, hot and tired (and need I say sunburned?) but they were super excited about going back, to see the last couple performances, to see who got the 1st place award. How could I say no? We trucked back into town, back to the theater to finish out the very special day, to watch every single skit. It wasn’t really about being able to understand the performances, or even the quality of the performances, it was just the excitement about getting to be there, to do something “special”.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Classroom Correspondence
The three goals of Peace Corps Mission are:
1)Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2)Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3)Helping promote a better understanding of other people on the part of Americans.
Of these three points I especially value the second two, cross-cultural dialogue can be extremely illuminating and I personally feel like I have learned sooooo much. Though truthfully, sometimes "cross-cultural dialogue" can be frustrating, especially with the tired conversation of "I want an American girlfriend/wife". And for whatever reason it is impossibly hard for me to redirect the conversation here once it enters the Red Zone (maybe other PCVs have better luck? any tips guys?), and my tolerence in recent weeks has waned to a point of an emotional allergic reaction in the form of impatience and bitchiness (hmm... I don't think this is the PC way) when the "Are you married?/I've always wanted to be with an American" comes up. Thankfully not everyone is like that and everyday I am around students, colleagues, etc. who continue to engage and teach me, so I always have a positive interaction to focus on.
One of the ways PC helps facilitate Goal #3 is through classroom correspondence. I thought I'd post the first couple letters I wrote to a 5th grade class that I have been paired with in Salem, OR. Not sure if it is of interest, but maybe I talk about things here that don't usually show up in this blog.
Email #1:
Hello Ms. D.'s 5th grade class!
I'm excited to hear from you guys and be your penpal! I am also from Oregon, I grew up in Portland (I went to Chapman Elementary School)and then studied Marine Biology at the University of Oregon. I miss Oregon a lot but I'm learning so much here in Mozambique.
I live in a city in central Mozambique, it is about the size of Salem more or less and I teach biology at a University. Before I came to teach at the university, I taught 8th grade biology in a very small village in the north called Ile (or Errego). Next
year I am going to move back to a village to teach high school biology at a vocational school.
I'll try to answer all of your questions!!!
Mozambique is very very beautiful (I feel so lucky to be here), and HUGE!!!! In the south there are dry, flat sandy palm grooves, in the central part of the country it is more green and lush with less palm trees, and in the north it is more rocky (they have these big granite
rock formations that everybody says look like sleeping dinosaurs). The beaches have brilliant turquoise waters and you can buy fresh fish and squid for dinner from fishermen right on the beach when they come in at the end of the day.
The culture here is agriculture based, most people have land that they farm through the year, which are called machambas. So even though most people don't have jobs and cannot earn a lot of money they are able to provide food for their families and live a good life. Things that they farm: corn (maca roca), couve (a big leafy green... it is like chard), sweet potatoes, yucca/mandioca, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, and other things. Most people have chickens, and a few people keep goats too. A lot of what they can grow depends where in the country they live because the environment varies a lot.
Soccer is very very popular here. During the World Cup, everyone was getting together all the time to watch the games. Mozambicans were especially proud because it was being held in South Africa, just south of us, and is one of the first major world sporting events to be held in Africa. People play soccer all the time, every weekend there is day long tournaments that everybody goes to watch. Most of the soccer fields are dirt fields, which get really really muddy during the rainy season.... but that doesn't stop anybody!
I haven't seen too many predators here yet! A lot of the big game animals were killed during the civil war because it was the only food people could find. Now that Mozambique is not in a civil war people are trying to do things to protect the animals. I have seen lots of
baboons (they are kind of scary and pretty aggressive..... once I was eating peanuts with a friend and one charged at us... we had to toss our peanuts so he wouldn't come up on us.....needless to say that is how I learned not to snack around monkeys), some smaller tree monkeys,and hippos. Last week I saw a secretary bird, which is very large and looks almost prehistoric, it eats snakes. There are big snakes in the region where I live (black mambas!!!) but haven't seen one yet, I don't mind snakes back home but they get really big here, so I'm okay not seeing one. A friend found one in his outhouse and another one
found one on his porch (it was so big that it sat up and looked at him).
I think the most difficult thing for Mozambicans is the school system, it is very hard to get a good education here. A 5th grade class has 60-110 students, there are no books or anything to use. Even if a student is really really motivated they don't always get the education they deserve. But I can talk more about the schools some other time if
you are interested.
The best part about living here is the food. The food is influenced by India, Portugal, and China and the result is....YUM! Coconut-bbq-chicken (called: frango zambeziano), garlic sweet potato fries (called batatas fritas), regular french fries, rissois (little shrimp stuffed morsels), matapa (green leaves cooked in coconut milk with peanut flour), feijoada (a bean stew with peppers), and piripiri(hot pepper sauce to put on pretty much everything). Plus papayas, mangos, pineapple, guava, passion fruit, lichi, when they are in season.
I could keep on going but I'll end it here before I start to ramble!!! :) Eat lots of apples for me because the apples here are expensive and no good!
Paz e amor! Ciao e ate proximo!
***
Email #2:
Hello Ms. D's 5th grade class!!!
It was in Portuguese (it said: peace and love, bye and until next time), Mozambique was a Portuguese colony so I speak Portuguese here. They got their independence in 1975 but then had a civil war, which ended in the mid 1990s. There are also a lot of local dialects! People who speak dialects from the south can't always understand people who speak dialects from the north (it would be like if you had a special language with everyone from Salem but couldn't use that language to communicate outside of Salem, or understand the special
language from other places like Portland or San Francisco), so they use Portuguese. Since I teach my classes in Portuguese I just have been focusing on learning Portuguese (I didn't know it before I came, but I used to speak Spanish which has helped me learn Portuguese), but
I hope next year to learn more local dialect (I'm not sure which one yet). Some names of the dialects are: Shona, Sena, Macua, Lomwe, Xitsua,and many many more.
Here are some fun things to say in Mozambican Portuguese:
--Fafoca: these means gossip, people love to gossip here so it is a
good word to know
--Ate logo: means until next time, it's a lot like "hasta luego" in Spanish
--Mato: the bush, or the country; to say the word "shortcut" you say "cortamato" which roughly means cutting through the bush
--Mangueira: mango tree, it is almost mango season, I am very excited.
--Amor: love
--Catana: machete
I have not seen any ostriches, unfortunately, but I have seen many baboons... probably 70-100at this point, they aren't that common but I do see them frequently. I see them on the roads and sometimes on the outskirts of little towns but they can be pretty aggressive so I
try to avoid them. I think baboons are more common outside of Mozambique because I saw more baboons in Zambia and Malawi when I was traveling there for my summer vacation. I'm not sure how many big game animals are still around, I have not seen any. There is a big
national park (called Gorangosa) near where I live where they have some elephants and lions, but most of the animals hide away from people and sometimes people will go to the park for a week and still not see anything because the animals are so shy. Some times people get lucky though, my co-worker was at the national park last weekend and saw 40 elephants!!! I am very jealous and wish I had been there!
I got so hungry reading about your favorite foods! Even though I get good food here I still miss food from back home.
I haven't heard of people learning out on boats here in Mozambique, but they do have little wooden boats on the coast that are called dhows that they use for fishing.
A vocational school is for students who are going to go on to a trade like becoming an electrician, or a plumber, or something like that. Instead of going to a normal secondary school (grades 8, 9, and 10)they go to a vocational school that will teach them the same thing as a secondary school (Portuguese, Math, etc.) but also things for their profession. A lot of students prefer vocational schools because they will have a skill that will possibly get them a job after their studies. Here in Mozambique it is a very big deal if a student finishes 10th grade, many do not make it that far. Some don't continue because they don't want to, other can't continue because they have too many responsibilities at home (working in the fields, taking care of siblings, or even starting their own families).
Well.... I live in a city so it is pretty hard for me to know everybody, I am still making friends. People are very friendly and because I work for a well-known university often times they know who I am before I know how they are. They like coming up to me to ask me
questions about life in America. Lots of people want to learn English too, so they like to try to speak English with me for practice.
I am in Mozambique for 27 months, that is how long the Peace Corps service is. I started about 1 year ago and my service will be ending in December 2011.
It was wonderful to hear from you guys. What are you guys going to be for Halloween? We don't have Halloween here, unfortunately. I sure wish we did! We have other holidays though for different historical days, like Mozambique Independence Day. During these holidays people like to play loud music and dance, Mozambicans are very very good dancers.
Hope to hear from you soon.
1)Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2)Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3)Helping promote a better understanding of other people on the part of Americans.
Of these three points I especially value the second two, cross-cultural dialogue can be extremely illuminating and I personally feel like I have learned sooooo much. Though truthfully, sometimes "cross-cultural dialogue" can be frustrating, especially with the tired conversation of "I want an American girlfriend/wife". And for whatever reason it is impossibly hard for me to redirect the conversation here once it enters the Red Zone (maybe other PCVs have better luck? any tips guys?), and my tolerence in recent weeks has waned to a point of an emotional allergic reaction in the form of impatience and bitchiness (hmm... I don't think this is the PC way) when the "Are you married?/I've always wanted to be with an American" comes up. Thankfully not everyone is like that and everyday I am around students, colleagues, etc. who continue to engage and teach me, so I always have a positive interaction to focus on.
One of the ways PC helps facilitate Goal #3 is through classroom correspondence. I thought I'd post the first couple letters I wrote to a 5th grade class that I have been paired with in Salem, OR. Not sure if it is of interest, but maybe I talk about things here that don't usually show up in this blog.
Email #1:
Hello Ms. D.'s 5th grade class!
I'm excited to hear from you guys and be your penpal! I am also from Oregon, I grew up in Portland (I went to Chapman Elementary School)and then studied Marine Biology at the University of Oregon. I miss Oregon a lot but I'm learning so much here in Mozambique.
I live in a city in central Mozambique, it is about the size of Salem more or less and I teach biology at a University. Before I came to teach at the university, I taught 8th grade biology in a very small village in the north called Ile (or Errego). Next
year I am going to move back to a village to teach high school biology at a vocational school.
I'll try to answer all of your questions!!!
Mozambique is very very beautiful (I feel so lucky to be here), and HUGE!!!! In the south there are dry, flat sandy palm grooves, in the central part of the country it is more green and lush with less palm trees, and in the north it is more rocky (they have these big granite
rock formations that everybody says look like sleeping dinosaurs). The beaches have brilliant turquoise waters and you can buy fresh fish and squid for dinner from fishermen right on the beach when they come in at the end of the day.
The culture here is agriculture based, most people have land that they farm through the year, which are called machambas. So even though most people don't have jobs and cannot earn a lot of money they are able to provide food for their families and live a good life. Things that they farm: corn (maca roca), couve (a big leafy green... it is like chard), sweet potatoes, yucca/mandioca, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, and other things. Most people have chickens, and a few people keep goats too. A lot of what they can grow depends where in the country they live because the environment varies a lot.
Soccer is very very popular here. During the World Cup, everyone was getting together all the time to watch the games. Mozambicans were especially proud because it was being held in South Africa, just south of us, and is one of the first major world sporting events to be held in Africa. People play soccer all the time, every weekend there is day long tournaments that everybody goes to watch. Most of the soccer fields are dirt fields, which get really really muddy during the rainy season.... but that doesn't stop anybody!
I haven't seen too many predators here yet! A lot of the big game animals were killed during the civil war because it was the only food people could find. Now that Mozambique is not in a civil war people are trying to do things to protect the animals. I have seen lots of
baboons (they are kind of scary and pretty aggressive..... once I was eating peanuts with a friend and one charged at us... we had to toss our peanuts so he wouldn't come up on us.....needless to say that is how I learned not to snack around monkeys), some smaller tree monkeys,and hippos. Last week I saw a secretary bird, which is very large and looks almost prehistoric, it eats snakes. There are big snakes in the region where I live (black mambas!!!) but haven't seen one yet, I don't mind snakes back home but they get really big here, so I'm okay not seeing one. A friend found one in his outhouse and another one
found one on his porch (it was so big that it sat up and looked at him).
I think the most difficult thing for Mozambicans is the school system, it is very hard to get a good education here. A 5th grade class has 60-110 students, there are no books or anything to use. Even if a student is really really motivated they don't always get the education they deserve. But I can talk more about the schools some other time if
you are interested.
The best part about living here is the food. The food is influenced by India, Portugal, and China and the result is....YUM! Coconut-bbq-chicken (called: frango zambeziano), garlic sweet potato fries (called batatas fritas), regular french fries, rissois (little shrimp stuffed morsels), matapa (green leaves cooked in coconut milk with peanut flour), feijoada (a bean stew with peppers), and piripiri(hot pepper sauce to put on pretty much everything). Plus papayas, mangos, pineapple, guava, passion fruit, lichi, when they are in season.
I could keep on going but I'll end it here before I start to ramble!!! :) Eat lots of apples for me because the apples here are expensive and no good!
Paz e amor! Ciao e ate proximo!
***
Email #2:
Hello Ms. D's 5th grade class!!!
It was in Portuguese (it said: peace and love, bye and until next time), Mozambique was a Portuguese colony so I speak Portuguese here. They got their independence in 1975 but then had a civil war, which ended in the mid 1990s. There are also a lot of local dialects! People who speak dialects from the south can't always understand people who speak dialects from the north (it would be like if you had a special language with everyone from Salem but couldn't use that language to communicate outside of Salem, or understand the special
language from other places like Portland or San Francisco), so they use Portuguese. Since I teach my classes in Portuguese I just have been focusing on learning Portuguese (I didn't know it before I came, but I used to speak Spanish which has helped me learn Portuguese), but
I hope next year to learn more local dialect (I'm not sure which one yet). Some names of the dialects are: Shona, Sena, Macua, Lomwe, Xitsua,and many many more.
Here are some fun things to say in Mozambican Portuguese:
--Fafoca: these means gossip, people love to gossip here so it is a
good word to know
--Ate logo: means until next time, it's a lot like "hasta luego" in Spanish
--Mato: the bush, or the country; to say the word "shortcut" you say "cortamato" which roughly means cutting through the bush
--Mangueira: mango tree, it is almost mango season, I am very excited.
--Amor: love
--Catana: machete
I have not seen any ostriches, unfortunately, but I have seen many baboons... probably 70-100at this point, they aren't that common but I do see them frequently. I see them on the roads and sometimes on the outskirts of little towns but they can be pretty aggressive so I
try to avoid them. I think baboons are more common outside of Mozambique because I saw more baboons in Zambia and Malawi when I was traveling there for my summer vacation. I'm not sure how many big game animals are still around, I have not seen any. There is a big
national park (called Gorangosa) near where I live where they have some elephants and lions, but most of the animals hide away from people and sometimes people will go to the park for a week and still not see anything because the animals are so shy. Some times people get lucky though, my co-worker was at the national park last weekend and saw 40 elephants!!! I am very jealous and wish I had been there!
I got so hungry reading about your favorite foods! Even though I get good food here I still miss food from back home.
I haven't heard of people learning out on boats here in Mozambique, but they do have little wooden boats on the coast that are called dhows that they use for fishing.
A vocational school is for students who are going to go on to a trade like becoming an electrician, or a plumber, or something like that. Instead of going to a normal secondary school (grades 8, 9, and 10)they go to a vocational school that will teach them the same thing as a secondary school (Portuguese, Math, etc.) but also things for their profession. A lot of students prefer vocational schools because they will have a skill that will possibly get them a job after their studies. Here in Mozambique it is a very big deal if a student finishes 10th grade, many do not make it that far. Some don't continue because they don't want to, other can't continue because they have too many responsibilities at home (working in the fields, taking care of siblings, or even starting their own families).
Well.... I live in a city so it is pretty hard for me to know everybody, I am still making friends. People are very friendly and because I work for a well-known university often times they know who I am before I know how they are. They like coming up to me to ask me
questions about life in America. Lots of people want to learn English too, so they like to try to speak English with me for practice.
I am in Mozambique for 27 months, that is how long the Peace Corps service is. I started about 1 year ago and my service will be ending in December 2011.
It was wonderful to hear from you guys. What are you guys going to be for Halloween? We don't have Halloween here, unfortunately. I sure wish we did! We have other holidays though for different historical days, like Mozambique Independence Day. During these holidays people like to play loud music and dance, Mozambicans are very very good dancers.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
ZAP!
This last week the electrical company cut power to the house because, supposedly, a bill hadn’t been paid. I mean the most literal sense of the word “cut”, though “hacked” would really be an even better fit. After a rather exhausting day at work I came home to find a bunch of wires hanging from the side of the house. Actually I found the mangled wires the next day since it was 6pm when I first found out there was no power, which is way too late to start poking around the house for possible causes. I spent the night alone by candlelight… romantic, I know. Now I’m fine with no power, but the problem is when city-houses-that-are-set-up-to-have-power don’t have power things get complicated (complicado: this is what people say when things are a pain in the ass, as in “a situação é muito muito complicado//the situation is very very complicated”…. other words, like “difícil”, come off a bit strong, I learned this the hard way, so even when the situation is more than complicated it is better just to stick to “complicado”). When I don’t have energia I also don’t have water, because to pull water from the well I need an electrical pump, and there are no neighborhood communal pumps (that is what the villages have), no river, nada. My romantic night sozinha was briefly interrupted by my guard (the older guard was working that night): “We have no power” “I know we have no power, I noticed just now when I got home, I’ll figure it out tomorrow when the offices are open” “But I am suffering out here in the dark” “Okay…. I understand that the situation is not ideal but there isn’t anything I can do about it right now because it is night” “But the water tank doesn’t have much water” “I know, I also need water from the tank, I am frustrated too” “But how am I going to see the robbers” “Listen extra carefully, be alert” “But we have no power” ……… I’m really too tired for a cyclic conversation…….. The next day the university kindly started figuring out things with the electrical company, four days after the payment was made my house was reconnected and six days after payment was made the electrical company left the electric bill on my front porch, the very one that supposedly hadn’t been paid in the first place…. Ah, gotta love the order of things: cut energy for an unpaid bill, and then, many days later, actually provide the bill to the customer, but don’t forget to charge them those reconnection fees.
So I’m back to normal: wearing rubber flipflops when I cook with my stove…. or else the current grounds from the hot plates through my body…ouch (don’t even think about stirring that pasta water with a metal spoon), following the strict rules of what I can plug in when (oven + computer = blasted fuses), and not touching things like the ends of plugged in cords or the CD drive on my computer (ouch, again). I wonder how many times the human body gets zapped before your nervous system starts getting wonky.
So I’m back to normal: wearing rubber flipflops when I cook with my stove…. or else the current grounds from the hot plates through my body…ouch (don’t even think about stirring that pasta water with a metal spoon), following the strict rules of what I can plug in when (oven + computer = blasted fuses), and not touching things like the ends of plugged in cords or the CD drive on my computer (ouch, again). I wonder how many times the human body gets zapped before your nervous system starts getting wonky.
Mato
Every PC site has its own vibe, its own challenges and strengths, so when people talk about the Peace Corps Experience or Life at Site it can be hard to know what exactly they are talking about. The point is, every volunteer is getting an interesting and eye-opening experience no matter where they are serving, the specifics of their experience is inevitably unique. I recently went to visit a gal friend of mine who lives at a mato site, while I see the pluses and minuses of city life, she gets to see the pluses and minuses of mato life.
Visiting her was a bit complicated, mostly because she doesn’t have cell reception, so no check-in text to clarify logistics (gotta love the cellphones: some PCVs are resistant to cellphones because before service these volunteers imagined PC would help purge their dependency on electronics, sure a valid desire but, man, do cellphones make coordinating for both work and social so much easier). I talked with her on a Tuesday (she had been at another site with network) and mentioned that I’d head down to her site that weekend if standfast (i.e. PC travel restriction during the riots) was lifted. By Thursday standfast was lifted, I radioed her via another volunteer saying I was coming (though I’m not sure the radio message made it to her), packed my little bag, set my alarm clock for bright and early,…. Yay, so excited!
There was one major hitch, I wasn’t totally sure where she lived. I knew the name of the town, I knew the crossroad off the main highway that heads in her direction, and I knew transport was difficult and frustrating for her and I should get to the crossroads as early as possible to get a car into the village.
When I told the chapa to pull over, the driver doubted my request, no this is really where I want to get off. He pulled away, leaving me at a crossroad between the EN1 and a dirt road with a restaurant/bar, some farmers trying to hitch north on the main highway with sacks of corn, and a man leaning on his bike telling me: “you just missed a car”. I began to wish I had a plan B.
I sat under a baobab tree, at first with a man who had a satiny, snakeskin print shirt and classy shades---this was his cellphone tree, the spot where there was sometimes (but not always) network. His big watch and shiny clothes seemed odd at these crossroads. Eventually he caught a ride to another village down the dirtroad on a bike, and then I was alone....just me and the baobab tree and some burrowing ants. As more kids (their bums peaking through ripped seams) passed by, men on bikes, women carrying bundles on their head, the “you just missed a car” turned into “you missed the last car going to Estaquinha for the day”. Now I really was starting to wish I had a plan B. Could I walk? Nope, too far, one teenage boy estimated the distance at roughly 80 km (okay I kind of doubt this distance but it is too far to walk nonetheless).
One man came up (multiple times) and offered to resolve my situation: we can go grab some drinks at the bar and then he could take me there on his motorcycle. He had no teeth. This seemed like a really really bad idea, an even worse idea than sleeping in the shrubs on the side of the road, which according to him was my only other option. <>
And just as the need for a plan B was starting to get urgent a car came by. While I felt better in the car, I was still not totally sure the car was going to the right place, the driver said Estaquinha…. I think? At one point the car stopped and almost everyone got out, and I asked the woman sitting next to me if this was Estaquinha…. She just stared at me, so I asked again, same non-response, maybe she didn’t speak Portuguese (oh man, I’m not in the city anymore)… well it didn’t turn out to be my destination, so good thing I had gotten back in the car.
The driver, who was sweet and inquisitive, eventually stopped the car in front of a group of little concrete houses and said: “your friend gets out here.” “Are we in Estaquinha?” “But your friend gets out here.” I was hoping he was talking about my actual friend, not one of my other “friends”. Often people I meet think I am friends with all other white people. It is not uncommon to hear: “oh I know your friend John, he lives in a vila in Gaza.... he is from your land, from either New York or Chicago or London…. No, he doesn’t live in Gaza now, he lived there 5 years ago….. I think you know him or maybe he knows you? No eh?” So when the driver talked about my “friend” I was starting to worry I was going to be crashing at the house of some other white lady, not my PC buddy.
I ran up to the nearest house with people, two men laying out on straw mats. “Good afternoon? How are you? Does the Professora Rebecca live near here?” One of the men let out a single: “Yes.” That was it, nothing more affirmative or negative, just “yes”.
Guess this is the spot.
****
My friend who I visited is a wonderful actress and I really enjoyed watching her work with her students in prep for English Theater, a PC run regional competition. There were a couple of things that I thought were particularly interesting while watching her students perform (1) greetings: culturally it is very important to greet everyone and ask how they are before you bulldooze into whatever point you need to talk to them about… I still have a hard time remembering to do this without being prompted by someone else. The students struggled to resist their urge to extensively greet each other at the start of every scene (which was a necessary dialogue cut considering the time constraints of the performace). (2) that weird clapping thing: at one point during the play the characters arrange a bride price, and all the actors start a slow rhythmic unified clapping. After the third time watching the scene I realized that this was not some accidental motion. “What are they doing?” I whispered to my friend, “You know I’m not so sure…” It turns out that the slow group clapping is just one of the essential steps to the bride purchase. She later told me that when they were getting ready for the final performance the students were stressed about finding the appropriate props for the scene, specifically two plates that you sandwich over the bride-money.
Visiting her was a bit complicated, mostly because she doesn’t have cell reception, so no check-in text to clarify logistics (gotta love the cellphones: some PCVs are resistant to cellphones because before service these volunteers imagined PC would help purge their dependency on electronics, sure a valid desire but, man, do cellphones make coordinating for both work and social so much easier). I talked with her on a Tuesday (she had been at another site with network) and mentioned that I’d head down to her site that weekend if standfast (i.e. PC travel restriction during the riots) was lifted. By Thursday standfast was lifted, I radioed her via another volunteer saying I was coming (though I’m not sure the radio message made it to her), packed my little bag, set my alarm clock for bright and early,…. Yay, so excited!
There was one major hitch, I wasn’t totally sure where she lived. I knew the name of the town, I knew the crossroad off the main highway that heads in her direction, and I knew transport was difficult and frustrating for her and I should get to the crossroads as early as possible to get a car into the village.
When I told the chapa to pull over, the driver doubted my request, no this is really where I want to get off. He pulled away, leaving me at a crossroad between the EN1 and a dirt road with a restaurant/bar, some farmers trying to hitch north on the main highway with sacks of corn, and a man leaning on his bike telling me: “you just missed a car”. I began to wish I had a plan B.
I sat under a baobab tree, at first with a man who had a satiny, snakeskin print shirt and classy shades---this was his cellphone tree, the spot where there was sometimes (but not always) network. His big watch and shiny clothes seemed odd at these crossroads. Eventually he caught a ride to another village down the dirtroad on a bike, and then I was alone....just me and the baobab tree and some burrowing ants. As more kids (their bums peaking through ripped seams) passed by, men on bikes, women carrying bundles on their head, the “you just missed a car” turned into “you missed the last car going to Estaquinha for the day”. Now I really was starting to wish I had a plan B. Could I walk? Nope, too far, one teenage boy estimated the distance at roughly 80 km (okay I kind of doubt this distance but it is too far to walk nonetheless).
One man came up (multiple times) and offered to resolve my situation: we can go grab some drinks at the bar and then he could take me there on his motorcycle. He had no teeth. This seemed like a really really bad idea, an even worse idea than sleeping in the shrubs on the side of the road, which according to him was my only other option. <
And just as the need for a plan B was starting to get urgent a car came by. While I felt better in the car, I was still not totally sure the car was going to the right place, the driver said Estaquinha…. I think? At one point the car stopped and almost everyone got out, and I asked the woman sitting next to me if this was Estaquinha…. She just stared at me, so I asked again, same non-response, maybe she didn’t speak Portuguese (oh man, I’m not in the city anymore)… well it didn’t turn out to be my destination, so good thing I had gotten back in the car.
The driver, who was sweet and inquisitive, eventually stopped the car in front of a group of little concrete houses and said: “your friend gets out here.” “Are we in Estaquinha?” “But your friend gets out here.” I was hoping he was talking about my actual friend, not one of my other “friends”. Often people I meet think I am friends with all other white people. It is not uncommon to hear: “oh I know your friend John, he lives in a vila in Gaza.... he is from your land, from either New York or Chicago or London…. No, he doesn’t live in Gaza now, he lived there 5 years ago….. I think you know him or maybe he knows you? No eh?” So when the driver talked about my “friend” I was starting to worry I was going to be crashing at the house of some other white lady, not my PC buddy.
I ran up to the nearest house with people, two men laying out on straw mats. “Good afternoon? How are you? Does the Professora Rebecca live near here?” One of the men let out a single: “Yes.” That was it, nothing more affirmative or negative, just “yes”.
Guess this is the spot.
****
My friend who I visited is a wonderful actress and I really enjoyed watching her work with her students in prep for English Theater, a PC run regional competition. There were a couple of things that I thought were particularly interesting while watching her students perform (1) greetings: culturally it is very important to greet everyone and ask how they are before you bulldooze into whatever point you need to talk to them about… I still have a hard time remembering to do this without being prompted by someone else. The students struggled to resist their urge to extensively greet each other at the start of every scene (which was a necessary dialogue cut considering the time constraints of the performace). (2) that weird clapping thing: at one point during the play the characters arrange a bride price, and all the actors start a slow rhythmic unified clapping. After the third time watching the scene I realized that this was not some accidental motion. “What are they doing?” I whispered to my friend, “You know I’m not so sure…” It turns out that the slow group clapping is just one of the essential steps to the bride purchase. She later told me that when they were getting ready for the final performance the students were stressed about finding the appropriate props for the scene, specifically two plates that you sandwich over the bride-money.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Indicators of Normalcy
On our ride to work in the university van, a professor mentioned, “I’ve got some shopping to do before the end of the month, I’ve heard that prices are going to rise significantly the first of September…” This professor refers to himself as my African grandpop and teases me about my boyfriends (aka any guy he sees me with… we’re just friends I promise). He tried to direct the driver to pull over at the lojinhas (shops) by the train tracks, and the driver just smiled and shook his head in that “Oh you, always trying to break the rules….” kind of way and continued driving towards the faculdade, towards work (not shopping!). A week before, after my late class (which ends at 22:45, way too late, if you ask me, for teachers to be teaching and students to be learning) I got in the van and the driver apologized for driving with the windows down on such a chilly night, he was airing out the car since earlier in the evening the grandpop professor had decided to smoke a cigarette to alleviate stress (Truthfully, at the moment I was thinking that I could use a cigarette and maybe a night cap….. ). The driver, partly exasperated but mostly humored, complained that the professor didn’t even ask as he puffed in the back of the van: “He is naughty! He is very very naughty!/ Ele é indisciplinado. Ele é muito muito indisciplinado.”
When the professor first mentioned the price spike, I didn’t think much of it, too distracted and amused by the driver thwarting the naughty professor’s attempt to bend the rules, and figured it was the usual price fluctuation. When these so called “bread riots” did eventually start, everything was concentrated in Maputo and frankly there wasn’t a sign of anything anywhere else, just the reports from Maputo on the radio and the same flashy images on TV that ended up on major international media. The demonstrations started popping up in a couple other major cities, but daily life was generally unchanged. Not that I want to belittle what demonstrations there were or say I wasn’t a little nervous, but there wasn’t nationwide chaos (most volunteers didn’t hear a peep).
We had one day of commotion where I live. I was at work and we got a phone call saying it was better to go home, people were congregating at the mercados, the praças, etc. How many people? Not really sure, never saw anything. What was the mood of the crowd? Again, not really sure, never saw anything. Schools were closed, the neighborhood girls said they ran straight home without stopping and their parents kept them indoors the rest of the day. Someone else said there had been a tire bonfire by the fairgrounds. And someone else said the demonstrators had left the streets littered with stones. But who knows, it’s all hearsay and I’m not much of an investigative reporter, I’m satisfied with loose gossip. I spent the day at my colleague’s house, waiting for things to die down, gauging the intensity of the protests by the frequency of police gunshots and the number of cars passing on the street. It was unnerving but not terrifying. At the end of the day, after things calmed down, I got a ride to my house to pick up a couple things and returned to spend the night at my colleague’s house (I really wasn’t interested in sleeping alone at home).
On the ride over to my house I wondered what would be the indicators of normalcy here, how would I know things are safe happy and calm? Back home, I guess it would be…. buses going up Thurman Street? The only citywide shut-downs from home I can think of are Oregon so-called snow storms: 2 inches of snow and the city Portland is immobilized and in hysterics (no judgment: I can drive in a downpour fine, a snowflake stresses me out). When the buses get off their snow routes and start heading up Thurman Street again you know that it’s probably all right to drive down the hill, this is my sign that everything is a-okay.
The call to prayer was projected from the turquoise mosque. But the streets were relatively quiet and cleared, few people out, few cars. All of the lojinhas by the central market were closed and some were boarded up, but across the street the vendor boys had already laid out their t-shirts on the corner sidewalk, ready to sell. The main market was deserted except for 6 women at the entrance who had set up their baskets with lettuce, couve, and those bitter greens that I don’t know how to cook.
Normally, the main intersection at the end of the day is monitored by traffic control (traffic light at the major intersection in town… pshhh). They pull up a cylindrical wooden stand that is painted with vertical red stripes (it reminds me of those step-stools for circus elephant performances) to the center of the intersection and a traffic guard stands on top directing the hectic confusion between outgoing cars, kids on bikes, especially-full chapas going to the outside bairros, buses coming in from Maputo, and big pushcarts from the central mercado with unsellable goods. Every two seconds the traffic guard mechanically bends one elbow, then the other, left, right, left, right, regardless of the flow of traffic, left, right, left, right,…..then he turns to direct traffic on the cross-street. His trained movements are rhythmic and precisely timed. Meanwhile, a crazy man with a cotton, fisherman hat and chin-length dreadlocks, standing at the side of the intersection, also attempts to control traffic; he waves what looks like a mini padded golf club (there is a piece of blue fabric cinched at the club-end by red string) at cars as they pass by. Never mind that he only “directs” one of the cross-streets, but he does so with the pace of traffic, like how traffic control is done in the states, swinging the club at the speed the cars should be moving at and with a slight sense of urgency: “Your turn. Go Go GO!” When he is tired, which is understandable since he is out there hours on end (even covering times when the officials aren’t there), he loosely waves his club while sitting on the curb, chin resting on hand.
I’m not sure how Cotton Hat Man perceives the police traffic patrol officer: competition or assistance? Or maybe he doesn’t notice. Either way, this strange, crazy man directing traffic at the end of the day was my major indicator of normalcy, oddly comforting, more so than the market ladies or the t-shirts on the sidewalk. When I saw the swing of the club my first thought was: it’s just like any other day. It didn’t matter that the police weren’t there with their striped stand, he was there, unfazed by the commotion earlier in the day.
***
I’m no economist nor a political essayist, so I won’t comment much, but I’d say the demonstrations aren’t the critical part of it all, or even the most frightening part. For me, it’s the big picture stuff that doesn’t come with a flashy burning tire photo or a “bread riot” tag line, the stuff that is too hard to define and delineate to make a catchy headline.
I think everything has passed, at least the demonstrations. I am writing this on a national holiday and texting is not working. Rumor says: the two phone companies have blocked all cellphone texts, jamming what was the most popular mechanism for protest organization, but who knows… I’m just a spreader of unconfirmed facts. The Problem is still here (regardless of government subsidies), and will continue to remain unresolved indefinitely.
When the professor first mentioned the price spike, I didn’t think much of it, too distracted and amused by the driver thwarting the naughty professor’s attempt to bend the rules, and figured it was the usual price fluctuation. When these so called “bread riots” did eventually start, everything was concentrated in Maputo and frankly there wasn’t a sign of anything anywhere else, just the reports from Maputo on the radio and the same flashy images on TV that ended up on major international media. The demonstrations started popping up in a couple other major cities, but daily life was generally unchanged. Not that I want to belittle what demonstrations there were or say I wasn’t a little nervous, but there wasn’t nationwide chaos (most volunteers didn’t hear a peep).
We had one day of commotion where I live. I was at work and we got a phone call saying it was better to go home, people were congregating at the mercados, the praças, etc. How many people? Not really sure, never saw anything. What was the mood of the crowd? Again, not really sure, never saw anything. Schools were closed, the neighborhood girls said they ran straight home without stopping and their parents kept them indoors the rest of the day. Someone else said there had been a tire bonfire by the fairgrounds. And someone else said the demonstrators had left the streets littered with stones. But who knows, it’s all hearsay and I’m not much of an investigative reporter, I’m satisfied with loose gossip. I spent the day at my colleague’s house, waiting for things to die down, gauging the intensity of the protests by the frequency of police gunshots and the number of cars passing on the street. It was unnerving but not terrifying. At the end of the day, after things calmed down, I got a ride to my house to pick up a couple things and returned to spend the night at my colleague’s house (I really wasn’t interested in sleeping alone at home).
On the ride over to my house I wondered what would be the indicators of normalcy here, how would I know things are safe happy and calm? Back home, I guess it would be…. buses going up Thurman Street? The only citywide shut-downs from home I can think of are Oregon so-called snow storms: 2 inches of snow and the city Portland is immobilized and in hysterics (no judgment: I can drive in a downpour fine, a snowflake stresses me out). When the buses get off their snow routes and start heading up Thurman Street again you know that it’s probably all right to drive down the hill, this is my sign that everything is a-okay.
The call to prayer was projected from the turquoise mosque. But the streets were relatively quiet and cleared, few people out, few cars. All of the lojinhas by the central market were closed and some were boarded up, but across the street the vendor boys had already laid out their t-shirts on the corner sidewalk, ready to sell. The main market was deserted except for 6 women at the entrance who had set up their baskets with lettuce, couve, and those bitter greens that I don’t know how to cook.
Normally, the main intersection at the end of the day is monitored by traffic control (traffic light at the major intersection in town… pshhh). They pull up a cylindrical wooden stand that is painted with vertical red stripes (it reminds me of those step-stools for circus elephant performances) to the center of the intersection and a traffic guard stands on top directing the hectic confusion between outgoing cars, kids on bikes, especially-full chapas going to the outside bairros, buses coming in from Maputo, and big pushcarts from the central mercado with unsellable goods. Every two seconds the traffic guard mechanically bends one elbow, then the other, left, right, left, right, regardless of the flow of traffic, left, right, left, right,…..then he turns to direct traffic on the cross-street. His trained movements are rhythmic and precisely timed. Meanwhile, a crazy man with a cotton, fisherman hat and chin-length dreadlocks, standing at the side of the intersection, also attempts to control traffic; he waves what looks like a mini padded golf club (there is a piece of blue fabric cinched at the club-end by red string) at cars as they pass by. Never mind that he only “directs” one of the cross-streets, but he does so with the pace of traffic, like how traffic control is done in the states, swinging the club at the speed the cars should be moving at and with a slight sense of urgency: “Your turn. Go Go GO!” When he is tired, which is understandable since he is out there hours on end (even covering times when the officials aren’t there), he loosely waves his club while sitting on the curb, chin resting on hand.
I’m not sure how Cotton Hat Man perceives the police traffic patrol officer: competition or assistance? Or maybe he doesn’t notice. Either way, this strange, crazy man directing traffic at the end of the day was my major indicator of normalcy, oddly comforting, more so than the market ladies or the t-shirts on the sidewalk. When I saw the swing of the club my first thought was: it’s just like any other day. It didn’t matter that the police weren’t there with their striped stand, he was there, unfazed by the commotion earlier in the day.
***
I’m no economist nor a political essayist, so I won’t comment much, but I’d say the demonstrations aren’t the critical part of it all, or even the most frightening part. For me, it’s the big picture stuff that doesn’t come with a flashy burning tire photo or a “bread riot” tag line, the stuff that is too hard to define and delineate to make a catchy headline.
I think everything has passed, at least the demonstrations. I am writing this on a national holiday and texting is not working. Rumor says: the two phone companies have blocked all cellphone texts, jamming what was the most popular mechanism for protest organization, but who knows… I’m just a spreader of unconfirmed facts. The Problem is still here (regardless of government subsidies), and will continue to remain unresolved indefinitely.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Jeans.
Chimoio is chique. Women dress nice. Men dress nice. Attention is paid to such details, such as accessories, flare, shine of shoes, and matching (red on red; blue on blue; green on green… the shade is not particularly important, but keep the color somewhat constant through the outfit). And I still look like I rolled out of Eugene, not that Eugene isn’t a stylish place (there are a number of Eugene-ians that I can think of the elicit wardrobe envy) but it is the kind of place that I could wander around in a Care-Bear PJ onesie without drawing attention to myself.
Chimoio is especially chique at my work, so while my Oregon-summer-worthy wardrobe was perfectly hip for the professional environment up in Zambezia, I tend to feel Frumpy here in Chimoio---and Frumpy is not at all what a lady in their prime wants to feel. I'll be honest: I want to feel a little bit sexy (not the unsolicited attention kind, rather the inside confident glow kind), I want to feel like I’m going to be a hot mom and that I will never drive a minivan and never have a bored husband. Africa generally makes me feel completely opposite of those things, I think my internal nerd is overtly pronounced here in my effort to stay relatively conservative. I have been mistaken for a nun numerous times (I blame it on the knee length skirts and the fact I work for a Catholic institute), and in Zambia an intoxicated man on a never-ending bus ride told me I was clearly a pastor’s wife (I blame it on my passive, mental disengagement when dealing with drunks). I will, however, take being mistaken for a matrimonially bound church member over being mistaken for an albino (…damn it…*long exasperated sigh*) any day, which happens far too often for comfort or confidence. I do, however, find reassurance in the sporadic exchanges when I am mistaken for Brazilian (…much sexier than albino….): people will “Gee”-ify (bom “Gee”ia) their speech in order to emulate the Brazilian cadence and accent they hear on telenovelas (maybe to help me understand them better?).
The point is that I needed to buy… something…. just one outfit to up the Brazilian factor and down the pastor’s wife factor (though I’m sure my Dad would rather me do the opposite… Dad, you can just assume I found a heavy-turtleneck and keep my ankles covered). A PCV goes a-marketing….
You can buy perfectly nice fancy clothes in town store: American prices Chinese quality or really really expensive American prices of okay quality. You can also buy clothes at the mercados, all those things you donated to Goodwill are now in Africa (this can be a hard thing to explain, first because the Goodwill origin isn’t always known and second because there isn’t really a good defendable answer to: “But why would people get rid of perfectly good clothes?”). I’m not sure about the exact business but essentially vendors bulk buy the clothes in big plastic bundles, and then later individually re-sale the clothes. Sometimes a vendor gets lucky: contemporary clothes in good shape; other times he’ll get a bundle of mu-mus… just depends on when the bundle was packaged and where the clothes came from in the first place. At the big market outside of the town, it is like walking through 30 years of time warp: some stands with clothes straight (literally) from the 60s, other stands with sweatshirts from the early 90s, and still others with slinky slightly used lingerie. Clothes are displayed in piles, or hung up on wires, or dangled from a string with a stick as a cross-bar through the shoulders or hips. While this clothes market can provide hours of entertainment (…oh, man, did someone really wear this?!....), it can be hard to find something “professional”.
To deal with this clothing issue I went to the smaller market in-town. Same clothes, just filtered down to a manageable amount. I am not a really good shopper in Moz for a number of reasons: 1) different taste in style. Fashion is often flashy here! Bright skin tight pants with or without heavy stitching on the back beltline resembling a regrettable tramp stamp tattoo, gems rhinestone glitter accents, a little pizzazz here, a little motif there. Personally I’m not really into shiny, it makes me feel awkward and like a treasure chest, it looks great on people who can pull it off… I’m just not one of them 2) I’m bad at negotiating prices, and that is an essential part of the buying processes. 3)…. Okay I’m not really good at shopping in the states either so it’s not really a Moz-issue it’s a Alexandra-issue…..
So I went with Claire who is a good shopper, good stylist, and a good bargainer. And she probably felt like she was taking a 12-year-old shopping. “Try on these pants, it doesn’t hurt to try them!” “I don’t wanna….too much shimmer, they’re too bright, too much butt pocket stitching, too much gold!” After some fuss---on my end, and a number to trial and error changes behind a Jurassic Park bed sheet rigged up as a "dressing room", we found them: hip and happening jeans. Though they are a bit more…snug…. than what I wear in the states (…when in rome…), the purchase was a success: I got a big “Bom Gee-ia” first thing in the morning on the first day I wore them out.
Chimoio is especially chique at my work, so while my Oregon-summer-worthy wardrobe was perfectly hip for the professional environment up in Zambezia, I tend to feel Frumpy here in Chimoio---and Frumpy is not at all what a lady in their prime wants to feel. I'll be honest: I want to feel a little bit sexy (not the unsolicited attention kind, rather the inside confident glow kind), I want to feel like I’m going to be a hot mom and that I will never drive a minivan and never have a bored husband. Africa generally makes me feel completely opposite of those things, I think my internal nerd is overtly pronounced here in my effort to stay relatively conservative. I have been mistaken for a nun numerous times (I blame it on the knee length skirts and the fact I work for a Catholic institute), and in Zambia an intoxicated man on a never-ending bus ride told me I was clearly a pastor’s wife (I blame it on my passive, mental disengagement when dealing with drunks). I will, however, take being mistaken for a matrimonially bound church member over being mistaken for an albino (…damn it…*long exasperated sigh*) any day, which happens far too often for comfort or confidence. I do, however, find reassurance in the sporadic exchanges when I am mistaken for Brazilian (…much sexier than albino….): people will “Gee”-ify (bom “Gee”ia) their speech in order to emulate the Brazilian cadence and accent they hear on telenovelas (maybe to help me understand them better?).
The point is that I needed to buy… something…. just one outfit to up the Brazilian factor and down the pastor’s wife factor (though I’m sure my Dad would rather me do the opposite… Dad, you can just assume I found a heavy-turtleneck and keep my ankles covered). A PCV goes a-marketing….
You can buy perfectly nice fancy clothes in town store: American prices Chinese quality or really really expensive American prices of okay quality. You can also buy clothes at the mercados, all those things you donated to Goodwill are now in Africa (this can be a hard thing to explain, first because the Goodwill origin isn’t always known and second because there isn’t really a good defendable answer to: “But why would people get rid of perfectly good clothes?”). I’m not sure about the exact business but essentially vendors bulk buy the clothes in big plastic bundles, and then later individually re-sale the clothes. Sometimes a vendor gets lucky: contemporary clothes in good shape; other times he’ll get a bundle of mu-mus… just depends on when the bundle was packaged and where the clothes came from in the first place. At the big market outside of the town, it is like walking through 30 years of time warp: some stands with clothes straight (literally) from the 60s, other stands with sweatshirts from the early 90s, and still others with slinky slightly used lingerie. Clothes are displayed in piles, or hung up on wires, or dangled from a string with a stick as a cross-bar through the shoulders or hips. While this clothes market can provide hours of entertainment (…oh, man, did someone really wear this?!....), it can be hard to find something “professional”.
To deal with this clothing issue I went to the smaller market in-town. Same clothes, just filtered down to a manageable amount. I am not a really good shopper in Moz for a number of reasons: 1) different taste in style. Fashion is often flashy here! Bright skin tight pants with or without heavy stitching on the back beltline resembling a regrettable tramp stamp tattoo, gems rhinestone glitter accents, a little pizzazz here, a little motif there. Personally I’m not really into shiny, it makes me feel awkward and like a treasure chest, it looks great on people who can pull it off… I’m just not one of them 2) I’m bad at negotiating prices, and that is an essential part of the buying processes. 3)…. Okay I’m not really good at shopping in the states either so it’s not really a Moz-issue it’s a Alexandra-issue…..
So I went with Claire who is a good shopper, good stylist, and a good bargainer. And she probably felt like she was taking a 12-year-old shopping. “Try on these pants, it doesn’t hurt to try them!” “I don’t wanna….too much shimmer, they’re too bright, too much butt pocket stitching, too much gold!” After some fuss---on my end, and a number to trial and error changes behind a Jurassic Park bed sheet rigged up as a "dressing room", we found them: hip and happening jeans. Though they are a bit more…snug…. than what I wear in the states (…when in rome…), the purchase was a success: I got a big “Bom Gee-ia” first thing in the morning on the first day I wore them out.
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