Home. I am home. Homecoming…Homeward bound…Homemade cookies. Home has such a warm, comforting feeling to it. It’s safe. It’s what you know. It’s where a country road will take you.

Over two years ago, I left my home for Africa. Feeling like a less slutty, female Indiana Jones, I set out in search of adventure, understanding, and a way to fulfill my desire to learn about the world and its people while also attempting to make a difference. Due to heavy TSA regulations and the fact that there are so few wild lions roaming Mozambique, I left the whip at home.

I ventured into the wild and two years, many friends, and a deep addiction to mangoes later, I returned home safely. I returned home better, in fact. More enriched. More loving. But ultimately, more lost. Coming home was hard. Right when I felt like I had gotten the hang of things, when I had made true friends, when I felt like I had found my niche and was making a difference, it was time to go. Time to go home. Home to a place that carried on without me. Home where my “I just returned from Africa” glow seems to immediately dull to everyone but me. I’m caught in home-is-where-the-heart-is limbo.

Despite how blissfully happy I have been to see and talk with my friends and family at home and despite how beyond amazing they have been with their genuine interest, letting me drone along about every intimate detail of my experience, there are only so many times I can interject a conversation with “In Mozambique…” before someone goes all angry birds on me. The truth is, honey badger don’t care anymore. After being home a while, one should adjust. Repatriate. You were in Africa. Now you’re home. A vida continua. Life goes on.

In the song “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” the first verse goes like this: “A band of angels coming after me. Coming for to carry me home.” And like many spiritual coming home songs, home is considered an allegory for heaven. Nebraska is most definitely a little slice of heaven. And in this case, the chain-smoking angel that came to carry me home was my mother.

Yep, my mom came to Mozambique to fetch me and to help me say goodbye to my site and my friends. Her arrival to me was the most bittersweet taste my undistinguished palette has ever experienced. I was so happy for her get the chance to see and love Mozambique, but her visit also signified the end to my service.

For weeks prior to my mom’s arrival in Mozambique and subsequently my imminent departure, my whole community of Angoche became aware that she would be visiting. The town was buzzing with excitement about the arrival of another strange white person and soon enough, my mom’s touchdown in Mozambique was here.

My mother, armed with 15 pounds of baby wipes and the combined traveling prowess of Clark Griswold and Don Quixote, emerged radiantly from the airport. There she was, with all her luggage, cigarettes in hand, a smile on her face, and with alacrity she embraced the whole trip. Her mantra for Africa was, “I’m a gamer.”

My mom’s time in Angoche was like one big giant Show and Tell. But with a human. All my friends wanted to meet her and even people I didn’t know wanted an introduction. Parading my mom around I realized how much power an interpreter wields. I’m fairly certain the U.N. won’t be calling anytime soon requesting my translating skills based on conversations like these:

Convo 1:

Mozambican: “Margarida, why don’t you remove the shells on that shrimp for your mother. You should do more things for your mom. You are being a bad daughter!”

Mom: “What did he say?”

Me: “He said he thinks that tights worn as pants are just plain obscene. Oh and that you are a natural with that shrimp.”

Convo 2:

Mozambican: “I’ll sell this to you for 500 meticais.”

Me: “No way, dude. That price is way too high. Can’t you see, I’ve got my mother here. She’s got malaria and she’s old.”

Mozambican: “She doesn’t look old or sick.”

Me: “That’s because she’s also crazy and so she’s convinced herself she’s normal.”

Mozambican: (Considering…) “Okay, fine. 300 meticais.”

Mom: “What’s going on, Margaret?”

Me: “Oh, he just said he would give me a nice deal because you’re here with me.”

Mom: “Oh, that’s so nice.”

Convo 3:

Mozambican: “Your mother is very beautiful. We are so honored she came all the way to Angoche!”

Mom: “What did she say?”

Me: “She said you are very beautiful and they are so honored you are here. Oh and in Mozambican culture, she wanted to remind you, oldest daughters are the most highly valued of the children.”

Sensing I may have been giving myself a little latitude, my mom set out to learn all the Portuguese words she could. By the end I think she had down “thank you” “goodbye” “ my name is Nora” “mother” and “lighter.”

After taking a walking tour of Angoche, meeting all the local personalities,

sampling some delicious seafood and the Mozambican beer, visiting the Indian Ocean, learning how to take a bucket bath, and practicing her burgeoning Portuguese, I was certain my mom was on the fast track to integration. She even made several smoking buddies.

My mom, who has single-handedly bankrolled the Marlboro Man’s custom-made collection of designer chaps, would sit out on my doorstep having a cig, watching the folks pass by, waving and tossing out the new Portuguese words she had learned to anyone who approached. Since an open door is an open invitation in Mozambique to linger or to bum a cigarette, my gesticulating mom had a constant, smoky cloud of visitors. Mozambique and Mom were getting along just swell.

Then the fateful day came: Capulana shopping. For as long as I can remember my mom has had an almost physical aversion to shopping. She doesn’t like to window shop or browse. When she shops, she’s like a member of SEAL Team 6. She gets in quietly, quickly, and gets the job done.

But, I figured shopping in Mozambique was a cultural experience and she might enjoy it. I neglected to consider the fact that it was a katrillion degrees out and that markets in Mozambique are deathtraps for claustrophobes. But off we went. We meandered our way through the stalls and my mom even made some purchases. Then as we wondered deep into the market and as more and more people began trafficking, it got hotter and hotter.

We stopped at one stall to take a look at some capulanas and chat with some vendors. My mom said she was a bit tired and sat down on one of the stalls to rest. As I began to discuss prices one of my favorite students came up and wanted to meet my mom. As I turned around to introduce him to her, I noticed that she had fallen back. At first I thought maybe she just plopped down to take a nap but what an odd place. Then I thought it was a planking attempt gone awry. I was about to correct her form when I realized her eyes were closed and all her color had drained.

I lifted her limp body up and at first I thought I had legitimately killed her. I saw the headlines: “Daughter kills visiting mother in Africa by shopping her to death.” Then she started to come to. My student went to corral some drinking water as several Mozambicans barreled down the market aisles screaming “Está á morrer. Está á morrer!” “She’s dying! She’s dying!”

I felt like a Kardashian with the swarms of Mozambican rubberneckers who gathered to witness my mom’s poorly executed Scarlet O’Hara-style faint and subsequent recovery. A large group of do-gooders brought buckets of water and began delicately spritzing Mom until they collectively decided they needed to intensify their efforts. It was then that one of them took their whole bucket and splashed it in my mom’s face. It was a Mozambican baptism of sorts. We left the market amidst a ruckus, me carrying the merchandise and my mom looking like she had been bobbing for apples in a very deep trough of tequila.

Despite this, my mom rallied like a pro and participated in all the activities planned for that day including being serenaded by our girls’ empowerment group, a party for the youth center kids where they performed their theatre piece that won them 2nd place at the English Theatre Competition and where one of our students (and one of the only girls there!!) won the coveted prize of Best English Speaker. It was the culmination of a year of hard work and I was beyond proud.

We forged ahead to the finale—a big goodbye party complete with all the traditional Mozambican ceremony including speeches, feeding of the cake to the guests, the first dance, and eventually an all out dance party. It was a lovely celebration and the perfect way for my mom to get a sense of all the bizarre reasons I love Angoche.

On the final morning in Angoche, Mom accompanied me on my final goodbyes as the reality set in that I might never see these people again. The driver, seeing my tears, decided I was sick and was determined to take me to the hospital. When I explained why I was so sad, he looked at me unsympathetically and shrugged, “A vida continua.” Life goes on.

We spent several days in the capital city wrapping up paperwork and medical stuff before they thanked me for my service and gave me that coveted “R”. Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. My Mom and I said our final obrigadas to Mozambique and hopped on a plane to Cape Town where we met my old Peace Corps buddy Melissa. It was a perfect transition back to the States as Cape Town had McDonald’s and English and people walking their dogs on leashes. And it was damn fun. Cape Town is stunning, fun-loving, active, and super popular. It’s the Sandra Bullock of African destinations.

Our first activity was a trip to one of the contenders for the new Seven Wonders of the World. Despite my Mom’s fear of heights, we convinced her to board the revolving cable car and we shot up to Table Mountain, a famous Cape Town hot spot and a place with a view to rival any. Next on the agenda was a trip through the beautiful Stellenbosch wine lands. Maybe it was the fact I was in such good company surrounded by such beauty or perhaps I was a just a little tipsy, but I distinctly remember thinking to myself how Tuscany or Bordeaux or Napa couldn’t possibly be more lovely than where we were.

Plus the strange little tour guide cracked me up because he was constantly warning our group not to go “deep down” which apparently is a South African euphemism for getting wasted. My mom and he got off quite well as my mom tends to do with most people she meets. He even addressed her as Momma, and I nearly choked on my Merlot when I heard him tell her, “Now Momma, remember not to go too deep down.”

Our final day we took to the open seas to go cage diving with great white sharks. The guides chummed the water with waste to attract the sharks, supplemented by the ten or so people who were continually vomiting off the edge of the tiny boat from seasickness. As I was getting into the cage, I had to use all my willpower not to hum the JAWS theme song. Let me just say, it was legen…wait for it…dary! Those beautiful, massive creatures were completely terrifying. It was the most Indiana Jones thing I had done.

But as wonderful as Cape Town was, I was ready to get home and see my family and friends who I had so dearly missed. I rolled into Nebraska on Thanksgiving, truly grateful to see my family and friends and witness a Husker victory over Iowa the next day. I was thankful to be home.

One would think as the novelty of being home starts to wear off, I would get the hang of things and transition back to my home. But, like I said, I’m caught between two worlds. Currently, I’m in a place where an iPhone can actually emasculate a flip phone into malfunctioning. If America is the iPhone, Mozambique is the tin-can. And I’m caught somewhere in between. I’m on a rotary dial.

When I get really nostalgic about Mozambique, I think about the abysmally low days (we’re talking spelunking here) where I was truly and utterly miserable to remind myself how happy and relieved I should be to be home. But then I think of my students or my friends or the Indian Ocean and I am reminded of the halcyon days; the days where I thanked God that I was so blessed to be living where I was, my little corner in Africa. Yes, I may have even done some occasional Tebowing.

And then I go back to missing it.

The funny thing is, a lot of people when applying to the Peace Corps don’t want to go to Africa. Too volatile. Too scary. Too many problems. Too many times seeing Blood Diamond. To so many, Africa is nothing more than the big game hunting land of Hemingway, where everyone’s private heart of darkness is eventually revealed, where things fall apart.

However, I never set out to put Africa back together, to save it. It doesn’t need saving. I set out to learn. And the biggest thing I have learned is that I really don’t know shit. I learned that Mozambique has a lot of problems but with equal potential, that Mozambique is infinite in its surprises and its people infinite in their care for me. I have learned that change is hard. And slow. I learned that my mom can do anything. And I learned the hardest part was coming home.

I remind myself; though that even Indiana Jones rides off into the sunset toward home with his dad at the end. And with that, I’d like to tip my fedora and say thank you to everyone for their kind thoughts and support throughout my service. If anyone feels compelled by New Year’s Resolutions or perhaps sits next to Warren at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders gathering, here is a link through Peace Corps Partnerships to donate money to buy books in Portuguese for our Youth Center, a place that is so dear to my heart. A shameless plug, why not?! It’s my last blog. And a beautiful cause.

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=640-028

You are a wonderful audience and I hope throughout my two years here you found something thought-provoking or funny or something to entertain yourself with when you needed a break from your Fantasy Football strategizing. And I hope you found this a fitting end to margaretinmozambique. For more inquiring minds, you can always reach me at goll.margaret@gmail.com. As for me, dear readers, I am heading out to California. Time to make a new home. After all, a vida continua. Life goes on.

Mom with some neighborhood kiddos outside the Youth Center.

The Youth Center kids performing their award-winning theatre piece.

After our little gathering the students thought it would be a fun surprise to carry me around. Carregar! Carregar!

Saying goodbye to my Association.

Mom and I doing a little wine tasting in Stellenbosch.

Getting ready to go play with JAWS.

Hold on, what can't you do there, Mom?

The Corleones, the Kennedys, the Kardashians. Heck, the Simpsons. All tight-knit, powerful families in their own right. A bit touchy on who gets in though.

Keeping it in the family.

And family is something I’ve been thinking a lot about because in a few short days my brave mother, who until recently has never had a passport, will venture to Mozambique to not only see where I’ve been living for the past 2 years, but to help me say goodbye to my Mozambican family.

And a big Mozambican family I have because here, selection is not very exclusive. Everyone more or less considers each other family. Walking down the street people address each other as Brother, Uncle, Mom, or any other appropriate family member. It took me the longest time to figure out that not everyone was actually related in that way. For a while I thought I was living in the most incestuous place in the world. What I eventually learned is that family is a more general, inclusive concept. Everybody claims everybody as family. You could be the blackest of black sheeps and have nothing to worry about because family is so communal. You are the daughter, son, or nephew of everyone so your immediate family would have lots of help sharing your embarrassment.

And no one is just Fatima or Mussa or João. They are Sister Fatima or Brother Mussa or Uncle João. The whole Mozambican culture operates as one big family. Addressing someone, even if you’ve just met, as Uncle or Mother or Sister is a sign of respect and endearment.

In Angoche, I am known as…

Tia Margarida=Aunt Margarida

Filha Margarida=Daughter Margarida

Teeeeeecher Margarida=Teacher Margarida

But mostly as…

Mana Margarida=Sister Margarida.

I absolutely love it. It is nice here to always be considered part of the family. And I’m sorry to those back home if I have annoyingly started addressing you as Mano or Mana or any other Mozambican family term. I’m not trying to be esoteric. I can’t help it. I just love it and what it means. You are not just my friend or acquaintance. You are my family.

Plus, despite being here 2 years, there are still some names that are not only hard to pronounce, (Iahiah, Muazarea, Zainadine) but hard to remember. In which case I can just call this person whatever family member I pluck out of my head. Maybe it is enabling my laziness, but Mozambicans love it. I am part of their family and they are part of mine.

Through the years, a name undergoes transformations. I can always tell if someone knows my Mom from high school, college, or work by whichever name they call her.

I grew up Margaret. At college, I was Margo, and in Mozambique I am Mana Margarida.

It will be hard to not have the Mana. It will be hard to not have that family.

Still, I am so excited for my Mom to get initiated into the Mozambican family system. Several of my students here are already preparing for the arrival of “Nossa Mãe,” or Mother Nora.

I can’t wait for my Mom to see that although I’ve been away from my real family for so long, I’ve been adopted into so many others.

And soon enough, she will be too.

Zanzibar—it sounds like a mythical land like El Dorado, or Atlantis, or Costco but Reader, it's even better. Last month I celebrated two years in Africa and seeing the sad end in sight, two Peace Corps colleagues and I decided to venture outside Mozambique to get a different taste of Africa.

To Tanzania we went, home of Swahili, the Maasai, Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, and an outrageously high VISA for Americans. Not to worry. Upon disembarking in Dar Es Salaam, I was just tickled to death we even made it alive considering Mozambican airports, due to their completely un-nurturing environment, are where mothers threaten to send their children when they're naughty.

Cheers to Mozambican airlines, just another testament to our survival skills my colleagues and I toasted as we popped open one of Tanzania's national lagers, a “Safari.” Appropriately named as “safari” means “journey,” one of the few Swahili words I knew. And the first big step in our journey was understanding what the heck people were saying.

I had forgotten what it was like in Mozambique those first few months not being able to communicate and I reverted right back to this sense of helplessness, my only Swahili coming from The Lion King:

Simba=lion

Rafiki=friend

Hakuna matata=no worries

Assante sana squash banana=thank you very much squash banana

I thought my basis in Koti (the local dialect in Angoche which has similarities to Swahili) and the comforting misconception that “everyone speaks English anyway” would be enough. And, I guess it was. But it would have been nicer and more respectful if I had taken the effort to learn some more key phrases. Traveling can be hard work, so why be lazy in the single thing—a common language—that could make it so much easier?

I vow in my future travels to Rosetta Stone away the Tower of Babel.

Despite the language difficulties, my colleagues and I got our ferry tickets. This is after a ferry sank just weeks ago on the same route requiring foreign aid. All the vendors kept assuring us, “Our boat won't sink. Our boat won't sink.” Umm, Titanic anyone?

We risked it, maybe secretly hoping Leo was on board and sailed away to Zanzibar.

Ahh...Zanzibar. A magical island with giant turtles, water the color of which Crayola has yet to discover, scarves galore, the friendliest most patient people, food fit for Anthony Bourdain, and the most ridiculous tourists I have ever seen. Ridiculous to the point of being embarrassing. Let me explain.

So, we stayed the majority of our time in old Stone Town where the narrow, cobblestone streets, vendors hawking their crafts, and the beautiful semi-veiled Muslim women invoke images of Aladdin, Casablanca, and a Husker home game. It is such an interesting combination of African, European, and Arabian—a mixture that sounds disastrous. And the history of the island is nothing if not contentious, but now the cultures form a kind of peaceful symbiosis. Zanzibar and everything it has to offer---the music, the food, the clothes, the people—all of it is exempt from the rigid boundaries of geographic labels. Zanzibar is not just African or Arab or European, it is all three fused together, a tri-continental, cross cultural assimilation. It is a place unlike any other.

Still, Stone Town remains very heavily Muslim from the Arab influence. This was obvious just from the pre-school uniforms where the little girls wear the veils and robes and the boys the prayer caps and robes. My site, Angoche, is similarly Muslim and conservative so I found the Call to Prayer and other traditional practices comforting.

What I did not find comforting was seeing so many tourists in their skivvies, walking around a place that is traditionally very modest. I understand people are on vacation but if you are not going to respect any of the social norms of the place you are visiting, why even go?! Any guide book will tell you that in Stone Town it is not appropriate to walk around in bikinis (I saw both men and women, yikes!) or other clothes fit for Spring Break in Cancun. Yet, so many people did.

I don't know. Maybe two years of covering my knees has turned me into a big ole' prude, but all I'm saying is that when you are visiting another country where the customs are different than yours, for Heaven's sakes, cover your butt cheeks.

In Angoche, if someone is scantily clad, they like to say that person has no “vergonha” or no “shame.” They're shameless. Good for a Garth Brooks song. Not good for one of the most traditional hubs of African history.

I'll digress because ignoring the semi-naked tourists was easy with all the treasures of Stone Town. Apart from the people and the food and the history and the beautifully crafted doors was the shopping. In Mozambique you go to the market and barter for everything. I have spent so much time negotiating the prices of things here, be it a capulana, a chapa ride, or a bag of mangoes—the difference of which might amount to 40 cents. But it's more than just the principle of demanding a fair price and not the “nzuko” or white person price, it's knowing how many pieces of bread that 40 cents could buy. I learned long ago to stop thinking in terms of dollars. The Atkins Diet's worst nightmare, I think in terms of bread.

Mozambique had trained me well for the bartering that goes on in the streets of Zanzibar. I don't know if the vendors were more impressed or terrified by my cutthroat negotiating. I'm afraid when I return to the States, I'm going to try to barter down the McDonald's Dollar Menu. Price tags will mean nothing to me.

Perusing the aisles and aisles of little treasures Zanzibar had to offer was so much fun. The best of Zanzibar shopping for me was what I call “The Isadora Duncan Corridor of Heaven,” or the scarf aisle. The women on Zanzibar use them as beautiful head wraps so they abound all over the island. And the vendors know there are lots of crazy westerners who like to wear them around our necks. It was divine. Maybe there was a time when I would have preferred something like the shopping on Rodeo Drive to the streets of Zanzibar.

Big mistake. Big. Huge.

In Zanzibar, it's all about the experience. Walking the streets of old Stone Town was like walking through a labyrinth of stalls and stores and musicians and delicious food.

And one inevitably would find herself lost in the maze. But you never had to hurry or worry or use a spool of thread to find your way out because being lost was all part of the magic. Plus, so much more welcoming than a minotaur were the beautiful and nice shop owners or other locals who were ready to help you navigate the maze.

After some days in Stone Town and a trek to visit the famous Zanzibar giant turtles, we finally forced ourselves to venture out of Stone Town to take a tour of something else Zanzibar is famous for—spices!

After the sport of cricket, horticulture is probably the second least interesting thing in the world to me, but a tour of the origin of the spices, their plants, and how each culture used them in the past was pretty fascinating. Curry, cloves, cinnamon, mint...I'm now certain I would dominate the “Name that Spice Challenge” on Top Chef.

Our trip also entailed an excursion to the beaches of the north where Maasai warriors guarded the entrances of beautiful, honeymooning-filled resorts. It was interesting meeting fellow travelers there, many who were doing the Serengeti safari, Kilimanjaro climb and beaches of Zanzibar circuit. Many were darlings. Many were insufferable. The most important thing I learned from all the visitors was how not to be a pain-in-the-ass tourist.

You know, one night on Stone Town we were watching the sunset from Mercury's restaurant, named after Freddie Mercury himself, a native of Zanzibar, and I got to thinking. If not for Zanzibar, we would not have Freddie Mercury, and then we would not have “Fat Bottomed Girls,” or “Somebody to Love,” or “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and then where would Glee be?!

I shudder to think.

Maybe it was bizarre, walking down the ancient streets humming “We Are the Champions” simultaneously passing some Maasai, a group of Muslim women in full gowns, and tourists in string bikinis. But that's what Zanzibar is. East meets West. Past meets present. Conservatism meets tourism. Queen meets The Lion King. And somehow it all works.

Zanzibar was so lovely but truly one of the best parts was when we serendipitously ran into another group of vacationing Mozambicans. There was a big group hug, and pictures, and promises to visit each other. It was the excited embrace of fellow countrymen reunited in a faraway land finally speaking a familiar language, talking about how we miss home, how we miss Mozambique.

The vacay was great but I knew I was ready to come back to Mozambique, my home for the last two years; my home for just a while longer until November 18 when I will complete my service, hang up my Peace Corps robe, say goodbye to Mozambique, and return to America.

Last month was our annual Girls Empowerment conference. A sort of summer camp—like Salute Your Shorts on crack. Thirty Mozambican teenage girls from across the four northern provinces tossed together to share and learn and essentially have a good time. It was manic and stressful for us as organizers but so rewarding in that it seemed completely motivational and life-changing for the impressive young women.

But instead of horseback riding, canoeing, and camp fires with s’mores like traditional summer camps, we had sessions on nutrition, self defense, study skills, public speaking, sexual education, the anatomy of a woman’s body, the mechanics of HIV and how to prevent it, gender debates, and the most disturbing for me—an entire session devoted to what the girls can do if they are being blackmailed, extorted, or harassed by their teachers for sex.

Camp Nowhere…meet Mozambique.

I’ve been racked for over a year with apprehension on how to present this or even if I should. I tend to try to focus on the good things, the things that make me love Mozambique. But sometimes there are things here that also break my heart. And after our big conference, I realized if our girls were brave enough to talk about it and denounce it, then I should be too.

I guess it really started to sink in about a year ago—the first time I called home crying to my Mom. Every week at our REDES meeting (REDES is the name of our girls’ empowerment group) we do “Melhores e Piores.” This is when we go around and each girl essentially talks about the best and worst thing that happened to her that week.

Anyway, one of the girls relayed to the group how her worst thing was the fact that her friend was being harassed by a teacher who was threatening to fail her if she didn’t sleep with him. This led to all the other girls accounting a similar version of this exact same scenario. Every single one had a tale of harassment. They said of around the 50 male teachers at their secondary school, most of which are married with families, there are maybe ten that don’t actively pursue and sleep with their students.

Now, I know sometimes Peace Corps volunteers can get on their high horses—we’re talking Clydesdales here. But in this situation, I felt justified in my fury and sadness. I remember hysterically telling my mom what a fool I was preaching to these girls the importance of an education when it is at that very institution of learning where they are subjected to this sort of treatment.

Well, with another year in Mozambique under my belt, I can now say that I still think the majority of teachers here make the folks at Enron and the characters on The Wire look like honest, enterprising fellas.

But, with time comes the humbling clarity of hindsight. And it is with time that I realized just how much I did not understand. I originally thought it was just a problem of horny, pervy teachers preying on their helpless female students. And most of it is! But the problem is also so much bigger and more convoluted than I had imagined. I called my mom crying thinking I was dealing with a haiku. Really it was Tolstoy.

You see, so much in Mozambique is cyclical and interconnected. HIV and poverty and education and corruption and sexual debut and rites of initiation and transactional sex all come in a packaged deal. You don’t get one without all the others.

Let’s just say a well-meaning but slightly inebriated mechanic wants to do some work on your car. And let’s say your car is Mozambique and the mechanic is developmental aid. So he starts with the steering column. But that shows there are problems with the brakes. Which shows there are problems with the key-less entry pad. Which shows there are problems with the carburetor. Which shows there are problems with the windshield wipers. One problem just illuminates another problem, all of which were seemingly unrelated. But upon further investigation and the onset of sobriety, our mechanic can see how holistic the problems really are. And neither he nor all of Jiffy Lube will be of any real use to the car until they understand how all the parts are connected.

Now that I have explained the necessity for context, I am going to harness a bit of my initial, only slightly premature rage to explain what goes down. Basically, what happens is that these teachers approach female students in an effort to “conquistar” them. Yes, that’s the verb they use. Conquer. And like Cortes and Pizarro they are relentless and callous in pursuit of what they want.

If the girls say no to this hanky panky, the teacher threatens to fail her or worse. The girls cannot go to the Director because he is, if not equally involved in the system, completely indifferent. It is just something that is not only accepted but expected—like a bad Jennifer Aniston rom-com.

Sometimes I swear being a male teacher in a Mozambican school is the equivalent of having a coercion-based harem. The teachers can just pick and choose who to bully into having sex with them.

However, there are several other, darker ingredients in this Mary Kay Letourneau jumbo pie. For one, oftentimes parents will encourage their daughters to try to sleep with a teacher in the hopes that the professor will give some of his relatively large disposable income to this young girl as hush money. She in turn will donate it to the family fund. If they’re really lucky, she’ll become pregnant with the comparatively rich teacher’s baby and then she will become his burden and not her parents.

Money plays a very large part in this cycle because essentially after girls here go through their rites of initiation, many of their parents just plumb stop supporting them. Not all, but many. In which case, they are told to use whatever means necessary to get what they need and want. This leads to the sad fact that many girls actively pursue their teachers, knowing full well that out of the deal they’ll get a passing grade, or money, or other little presents. They call it transactional sex here. To me, it’s essentially a more technical way of saying prostitution. Young girls will have relationships with older men with the premise that the men will buy them things. If they want a cell phone, or a new weave, or a soft drink, or a new capulana, the sure-fire way to get it is to go on the hunt for a “pito.” Pito roughly translates to “sugar daddy.” Sugar daddy often translates to Biology Professor.

A lot of this behavior is whetted by the EXTREMELY popular sex and drama-filled Brazilian soap operas that nearly everyone watches here. They make The Young and the Restless look like Veggie Tales. The girls see these novellas and want to imitate the characters—what they are wearing, how they style their hair, and how they interact with men. But characters in Brazilian soap operas don’t have to worry about a 20% HIV rate. Girls in Mozambique do.

They see these characters with high heels, skirts that could double as slap bracelets, and a laissez-faire philosophy about sex, and a lot of times it doesn’t register that it is not real.

Regardless, it is my firm belief that these girls could channel Lady Godiva and strut around in their birthday suits seductively eating cherries and challenging their professors to a game of naked Twister and it still would absolutely not be okay for their teachers to act on that forwardness. Teachers are in a position of authority and the responsibility rests with them. It’s not fraternization. Most of the time, it’s statutory rape.

I wish I could say there was a solution. But each person I talk to blames something else. A good friend of mine (a wonderful professor who is known as one of the ones who does not sleep with his students and is consequently lauded or mocked depending on who you ask) blames the Rites of Initiation for the forwardness of his female students. The whole situation I tend to blame on the shameless professors who take advantage of these girls, the willing and the unwilling. Others blame the novellas. Others poverty. Others corruption in the schools.

But really, it’s all of them.

And as much as I now know this, and as much as I know that this happens in America too, I still can’t help but remember the casual way our girls told me they are harassed by their teachers. As if it were okay, normal even. And as much as I try to see all sides of the story, I mostly just see this.

Can you remember your best Christmas? Okay, how about your best birthday? Now, let’s combine those two days with an imaginary Valentine’s Day where you are given the most beautifully written Petrarchan sonnet wrapped around the Hope Diamond by the newest Calvin Klein underwear model who is, coincidentally, not a tool. And it is also the day you discover the world’s best sandwich and a calorie-free Piña Colada.

Not too shabby a hypothetical day, right?

Yet, all that awesomeness and excitement of the combination of Christmas, birthdays, delicious sandwiches, and fantasy Valentine’s Days are nothing…NOTHING…compared to the awesomeness and excitement of getting a letter, book, or care package in Mozambique.

You may think I’m exaggerating (or fishing), but cross my heart I’m not. I wish I could accurately describe the feeling you get when you realize that someone…some kind, beautiful person from home took the time and effort and money to send you something all the way to Africa. It never even matters what it is—I love it because it is a reminder of home and a welcome distraction from some of the harder aspects of being a volunteer in southern Africa.

Maybe I sound crazy…a grown 25-year old woman who gets all worked up about Crystal Light or a bar of chocolate or a People Magazine or a letter from home, but let me tell you, your standards here just change. What was once mundane or ordinary to me in the states is worth more than all the gold to ransom Atahualpa here in Mozambique. Rumpelstiltskin be damned. He could show up in Mozambique and there are some days I swear I would offer up my first born for a box of Cheese-Its.

Basically, I am not remotely picky and even things I wasn’t necessarily fond of in America, I love here because it means someone thought I would like it and took the time to send it. And I love that.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I would like this blog to serve no other purpose than to thank those dear folks back home who have been so kind to me. And maybe it’ll also be of some guidance to anyone (assuming there are others besides my Dad who read this) looking for advice on what to send someone serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer around the world.

So, let me just reiterate again that anything sent…and I mean anything!...will be used, it will be appreciated, and it will be loved. Even the astronomically large granny panties my mom sent me were amazing. Heck, I’ve got those puppies on now.

With the exception of the underwear and the Cheese-Its, which I hoard, most everything else that is sent to me gets shared. It’s fun to use things sent as birthday presents, awards at the Youth Center, prizes for student contests, or gifts for beloved friends.

I have been so blessed. Dear folks have sent homemade cookies, kids’ toys, nice smelling girly products, cake mix, books, children’s books for the Center, wedding invitations, anti-chafing gel, Connect Four, mixed CDs, stuff for our girls’ group, Nebraska paraphernalia, newspaper clippings, and scarves that remind them of me. I had a friend send me a package of everything Google recommended to her to send to Peace Corps Volunteers. I have received letters of encouragement from strangers and a book from someone who thought my writing style reminded him of the author. And I have an old professor who writes me a letter every week without fail, despite the slow return rate.

Sometimes it’s easy to slip into the egocentric frame of mind that everyone back home is doing so many fabulous things and has forgotten about you so far away being tormented by mosquitoes and BIC pens. So anytime something arrives, it is like Christmas and a welcome reminder that while yes, your friends and family are off doing fabulous things, no, they have not forgotten about you.

I was actually discussing the topic of packages a while back with a friend of mine, a high school and college classmate who is serving abroad with the Air Force. We talked about missing holidays, missing friends and family, being the only ones from home in the same hemisphere, and what were the best things we ever had sent to us. I was reminded that while our American agencies are very different philosophically, we are both serving our country, we are both far away from home, and we are both missing the same comforts of America. I felt bad thinking about one of my cousins who has been abroad in the armed forces off and on since I was little.

The realization that in the event of a severe Lime Flavored Tostitos craving, he couldn’t just pop on over to the grocery store never even crossed my mind until I came to Mozambique.

Discussing with my friend just what he and his colleagues in the military enjoyed receiving was really interesting compared to what my colleagues in the Peace Corps and I love getting. I can’t speak for him, but based on a small inventory I have collected amongst volunteers, what seem to be the hot ticket items are spices, any food packets that just require water, juice mixes, reading material, snack food, teaching materials, quite often vanity items like hair gel or deodorant, and letters.

While I have loved everything ever sent, some of the most amusing things I have received are letters from elementary classes in the states. I have included some of their very astute questions and concerns.

In Mozambique did you seen any loins thair?

Funday is tomorrow. It will be fun.

Have you maked any more frends? I mabie wood be your frend.

Do the people in Mozambique no the Pledge of the Allegiance? Is it worm there?

Can you have resese there? Can you come visit on Monday!!?

Do you have to read to the kids every day or do you stay asleep sometimes?

I am very luckiest because I have the best teacher.

I bet you’re the best Margaret that I ever knowed I hope you have a great day.

I bet you miss your family. I did when I hade to go on a trip with my mom. My dad and sister couldn’t go.

I wish I cud be with you.

Do you like to write storys? I like to write storys. One time I rote a story about a kitty who tured into a gohst.

Is it funner in Aferica than Arizona? Is it desert in Aferica like Califonia?

My favorite color is red, purple, and greyish-blackish.

Do you grow lemon trees if you do make lemonade. It’s good on a hot summer day.

Hi Mrs. Margret. I saw the Justen Bieber movie it is asome!!!!!!!!!!

Life in America is grate! I have roller skates but I’m still learning.

Upcoming is Father’s Day. It’s like Mother’s Day.

Hi. I am 8 years old. I’m sending you happyiness.

So, thank you to everyone, 8-years and older for thinking of me and sending me happiness (not just letters, books, or Cheese-Its) but newsy Facebook messages, regards sent via my mom, or just a nice thought. Those are the really good, better-than-birthday-and-Christmas-combined days.

At the end of Thelma and Louise, I was left with some serious lingering questions…

Are convertibles really that aerodynamic? So, exactly which one was Thelma and which one was Louise…I can‘t keep track! Where have all the Polaroid cameras gone? Are hitchhikers ultimately good or bad?

This last question I have been marinating on for quite some time. Sure, the hitchhiker in Thelma and Louise stole all their money causing them to commit armed robbery and eventually leading them to drive off a cliff in a show of female solidarity. But, come on, the hitchhiker was a young, sprightly Brad Pitt in a cowboy hat.

I’m torn.

Hitchhiking generally seems to be associated with bums, Jack Kerouac, hippies high on peyote, heartbroken wayfaring country singers, or serial killers. But in Mozambique, hitchhiking (or “boleia-ing”) is in fact the premier mode of transportation for many Peace Corps volunteers. For those of you who have regaled yourselves with my chapa blog, you are well aware of the horrors of public transportation. Hitchhiking, for all its bad connotations (I still think the Jack Kerouac one is the worse), has proven to be a safer, more reliable way to travel in Mozambique.

Now, you’re probably thinking that perhaps I contracted cerebral malaria that caused my brain to atrophy because one would have to be insane to stand on the side of the road in the middle of a tropically hot, recently war-torn, poverty stricken, HIV riddled country and ask for a free ride, right?

“Small town Nebraska gal hitchhiking it up in Mozambique“--sounds like the start of a bad torture porn movie cast exclusively with the stars of various CW television shows, I know, I know. But getting in a private car usually means seat belts, and a human capacity level, and functioning brakes and no car parts being held together with straw. So yes, while there are dangers in waiting by the side of the road for some random person to swing by and pick you up, the careening, accident-prone, badly maintained chapas have a far worse track record.

Now that I have sufficiently justified the whole hitchhiking culture here in Mozambique (please don’t worry Mom and Dad) I might as well get down to the nitty-gritty…how does one go about hitchhiking in Mozambique? What is the process? Well, folks, I must admit that I am a rookie boleia-er so I can only speak from comparatively limited experience. I have colleagues who have hitchhiked all over the country and only ever travel by boleia-ing. But because Angoche is a little bit off the beaten path, boleia-ing is quite a bit more difficult.

Recently, however, a friend and I took to the road (6 days on the road to be exact) to travel down south for a little Peace Corps shindig. It was on this trip where I gained some serious hitchhiking experience and a solid education in the art of boleia-ing.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was the motivation cars have for pulling over to pick you up. Understanding this is essential to getting a good boleia. I learned early on that most people who pick you up just want company on a long trip. Therefore, cars with only one person are prime boleia-ing candidates. The less people in the car, the likelier they are out of sheer boredom to pick you up.

Sometimes folks will pick you up because they are simply curious what this random white girl is doing on the side of the road. Sometimes they ask for money. Some people just want to practice their English. Sometimes they are Creepy McCreepsters and will try to put the moves on you (but this is rare in my case). But generally, cars are just trying to beat the loneliness of the road with a little company on their journey.

Once you have hailed down the car, agreed on a destination, and hopped on in, what next? There are no drive-thrus, books-on-tape, or trying to find all the states’ license plates, so usually we just chat. Most people who have given me rides love to know what the heck I’m doing in Mozambique, where I came from, what I think of the situation in Libya, where I learned to speak Portuguese, why I don’t have children, if I’ve ever been to California or Chicago (unanimously the two places Mozambicans know), and if there are black people in America. It was actually in a boleia where the driver gave me the news about Bin Laden. The people and levels of conversation are as different as Mozambique itself, and I have met some fascinating characters.

One man who gave 2 friends and I a boleia was a white man of Portuguese descent, born and raised in Mozambique who fought against the Portuguese in the war for independence. Eccentric and desperate for anyone to listen, he unleashed a torrent of disillusionments about the current Mozambican government, corruption, how everything he thought he had fought for went to hell and about being a white Mozambican. His wife, who had apparently heard this catharting before, quietly ate her bananas in blissful indifference.

Again, either loneliness, blatant curiosity, or lack of a listening ear seems to drive the whole system of boleia-ing.

There are cases where people will offer you a ride thinking you’re Rambo’s daughter or that you are a lost, rich vacationing South African, or they’re hoping you know someone who can get them a scholarship to study in America. I have encountered all these cases and as disappointed as they all are that I am just a lowly volunteer and not a personal friend of Brandy or Bryan Adams, they tend to forgive all this in light of my engaging company.

The only time I have ever felt worried or threatened in a boleia was when my friend and I, a little while into the ride, discovered that everyone in the car including the driver was diluting their Orange Fanta with whiskey. The best way to get out of these situations is just to say you have a change of destination (or you were confused where you were--geographical ignorance works well) and say you need to get out immediately. DUIs, Open Containers, and speeding tickets are nonexistent in Mozambique so drunk drivers and Speedy Gonzalezes are a reality. If the manner in which your boleia is driving is unsettling, the best deflection is just to make up an excuse and get out.

So now that you know the whole motivation behind boleia-ing (hopefully it doesn’t sound too reckless), it’s important to understand the actual mechanics. In America, mostly everyone is aware of the iconic, rather phallic hitchhiker thumbs up. In Mozambique, the universal “I’m-so-pathetic-but-I-don’t-smell-that-bad-so-please-give-me-a-ride” signal involves lifting your arm to a lateral position, whilst flapping your flaccid hand about like a small bass just fished out of the lake and dropped unceremoniously onto the deck.

The key though, like any recreational table tennis player will tell you, is that it’s all in the wrist.

It is also important to scout a good location on the side of the road, a little bit away from the crowds with enough space for cars to pull over. (It sounds like I am describing the strategy for some other tawdry transaction, but I’m not.) After you have picked a good spot to boleia, the rest is in the hand motion.

Ultimately, boleia-ing is a true test of patience. On our previously mentioned trip south, my friend and I spent nearly 16 hours total waiting on the side of the road for cars to give us a ride. Waiting for a car to stop and pick you up is the roughest part because it involves mostly waiting and mostly not knowing. While waiting, you have to fight against the emotional issues of rejection--(Why don’t these cars like me!), the physical elements of the road--(OMG it’s 113 degrees out here), as well as the always distinct possibility that no car is going where you want to go (I’m going to be stranded on the side of the road and a lion is going to eat me!). When boleia-ing, you tend to lose all sense of shame and rationality.

Yep, Mozambique has turned me into a connoisseur at doing nothing but waiting. Luckily, I have done most of my boleia-ing with friends, which means we have discovered all sorts of ways to entertain ourselves during dry spells with no cars. Such road-side entertainment has included synchronized dances with our umbrellas, playing “Date, Dump, or Marry” with Glee and True Blood characters, trying to invent new yoga poses, or composing Portuglish haikus. Still, there is only so much you can do, and on those extra slow boleia-ing days much of the time is spent just waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Yep, four years of college and a year and a half in Africa, and I am a hitchhiking vagabond and a professional waiter. Eat your heart out Brad Pitt.

This year Peace Corps celebrated its 50th Birthday. And instead of descending into the throes of a midlife crisis involving a toupee, sports car, and condo in Phoenix, Peace Corps partied like it was 1999. And as part of the celebration festivities, Peace Corps Mozambique launched a country-wide student art contest, the winners of which would be brought down to Maputo for a 50th Anniversary party to be held at the American Ambassador‘s house.

I got the email describing the contest and thought the theme “World Peace and Friendship” would be a great topic to discuss with our student art group. After mentioning the contest, the boys went to work thinking about what they could incorporate into their drawing. We talked at length about what peace meant to them, especially growing up in a country rebuilding after a brutal civil war. Two of my students, quite talented brothers, took a special interest in the project and together drew a picture that they wanted me to submit.

Not quite Michelangelo, I would say their style is more of a blind Picasso meets an even more epileptic Jackson Pollock. Still, their beautiful drawing won and as a reward they were invited, along with a chaperone and me, to attend the 50th Anniversary Party in Maputo.

I was a little apprehensive traveling with 2 pubescent Mozambican teenage boys, but I took a little comfort in knowing that their chaperone was their Mom and she would be coming with us. The trip was going to be their first time on a plane, their first time in Maputo, their first time out of the province of Nampula. It was a big deal, and it is with this excitement in mind that I braced myself for what was to be a sort of adventure in babysitting.

Now, to leave Angoche, you have to be at the chapa stop by at least 3:00 A.M. So, I told the boys to be there at 2:00 A.M. and when they showed up promptly at 3:15, I was tickled to death. What with my delight that the boys and their mother were relatively on time and my sheer exhaustion at being up in the middle of the night combined with my utter dread of the chapa ride that was to come, I neglected to see a tiny baby strapped to the back of the boys’ mother.

When we got to the airport and I realized that there was another tiny person in our foursome, I really didn’t think much of it. The baby was a newborn, he wouldn’t eat the airplane food, and he would stay in the arms of his mother the whole time. But, upon entering the security line, we were informed that yes, we needed a frickin’ baby ticket. As my students entered the waiting room, Mom and I ran back to the counter and I used a month’s worth of our Peace Corps subsidy to buy a baby ticket. Seeing as Mom spoke barely a lick of Portuguese and my Koti is still crap, translating complicated questions about the baby’s immunization records for the airline staff was a hell of a time, and I was terrified we would miss our flight.

Mom, Baby, boys, and I all ran onto the plane as simultaneously several grays hairs sprouted from my head. The plane took off, and I glanced over at Mom sitting next to me and then at my teenage students sitting right behind me. Mom was very publicly nursing her baby, eerily calm despite her first time on a plane and the day’s stressful activities. The boys were excitedly gawking out the window until they saw I was looking, at which point they sat back and tried to play it cool. Meanwhile, I tried to catch my breath and began to calculate just how many years I no doubt lost off my life.

When we arrived in Maputo, we hailed a taxi and headed to the hotel. Mom, boys and Baby stuck to me like they were tourists from Ohio and I was a guide at the Louvre. Although a foreigner in their country, having previously been in Maputo and on a plane and in a hotel gave me some clout. Just the cab ride through the streets of the capital made the whole trip worth it. It was the realization for the boys that there was a whole other world out there beyond the coconut trees and cassava and capulanas of our quiet, little Angoche.

We got to the hotel and checked into our rooms. I showed the boys, Mom and Baby to their rooms and went to drop my stuff off when I heard a knock at the door. I opened to find Mom who looked at me sheepishly, grabbed my hand, and led me to her room. Maybe she wanted to play Connect Four, I thought.

When we got to her room, she took me into the bathroom, gave a menacing glance at the toilet like she was certain it was planning to swallow her whole, and then proceeded to hop in the shower, lift her skirt up, and imitate with sound effects like she was peeing. After which, she briefly clutched both her butt cheeks, then threw her hands up in the air and gave me a look that basically said, “What ‘chu talkin’ ‘bout Willis?”

It took some more gesticulating and broken Portuguese and Koti, but eventually I understood. She thought the shower was where you peed, but was trying to ask where in the heck you go number 2. It was clear she thought the toilet was a robot.

I completely took for granted that she had never been to a hotel or taken a shower or used anything that flushed. I imagine I looked like the world’s worst Chorades player ever as I imitated how to use these new devices.

I got a little break from my glorified babysitting when the boys, Mom, and Baby met up with their uncle who lives in Maputo and took them out on the town. I could tell Mom felt at ease again when she could speak her first language to a long-seen loved one.

The following day was the day of the big party at the Ambassador’s house where the boys’ artwork would be on display, and they would be publicly recognized. There were only two other volunteers who brought students so they were a little outnumbered at the party amongst other expats, Peace Corps Volunteers, and Mozambican dignitaries. We arrived at the Ambassador’s beautiful house, munched on the gourmet finger food, and drank soda out of the wine glasses. From the collective deer-in-headlights look on the faces of Mom, my students and Baby, it seemed like we had entered an alternate reality. I imagine that’s what it’s like on the set of Gossip Girl.

Still, whenever the boys were asked about their artwork, they answered confidently and intellectually about the work they had submitted. Mom looked on so proudly as the boys described to our Peace Corps Country Director and all sorts of other folks how they used abstractionism to combine the theme of World Peace and Friendship.

There was a small ceremony where the 4 student art winners were recognized in front of the whole party, awarded a certificate and T-shirt, and photographed with the Ambassador.

On the plane back home, I asked the boys what their favorite part of the trip was. They both said the party. I agreed, and not just because of the free wine and champagne. I asked what they liked about seeing Maputo and they said all the different ways people used art, from the murals on the walls to big billboards to the paintings in the ambassador’s house to the vendors selling their crafts on the streets. “Teacher, there’s so much you can do with art.”

Sure, I love art history, knowing the context of a piece of work and how it fits into that time period. But actually creating art--drawing, designing, sculpting, painting--it has never been my gift or interest. In fact, I draw fat stick figures.

But I am so thankful that in a country where creativity is not lauded, these boys (whose gift is art) got the opportunity to be recognized for their craft.

And while the trip was stressful and sometimes awkward and I mostly felt like a chaperone at a school camping trip, I can’t help but think the gray hairs were all worth it.

Showing the Peace Corps Country Director their beautiful work.

Such a proud mom. And rightfully so.

There is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer that sometimes passes through Angoche. She served in Honduras in the late 60s. Badass is how I would describe her.

Anyway, one evening we were chatting, and she warned me that for the rest of my life Peace Corps would most likely be my “Dow Jones.” You know--that conversation topic that is so boring to everyone else except the person talking that it instantly puts whoever is stuck listening into an extreme state of comatose disinterest. For some people, their “Dow Jones” is in fact the Dow Jones. For others, it is their children, their thesis, their theories on Lost. You get the point. For me, she said my “Dow Jones” would be Mozambique.

She went on prophetically to tell me that people will be interested to hear about my service for approximately 2 minutes before my blathering instantly becomes self-righteous and boring. Even sometimes around other Peace Corps Volunteers, I can get a sense of what she is talking about. Therefore, I have done my best to spare you, dear readers.

However, I reconsidered this recently when I was home for Christmas. While most people tended to enjoy reading my blog, they also agreed that after a year they still had absolutely no idea what I did. And they actually wanted to (or at least they pretended that they wanted to).

Even my Dad routinely asks me what exactly it is that I do. My blog is apparently like one of those really awkward prescription drug commercials for some ambiguous social disorder--it’s entertaining and you laugh because it’s slightly inappropriate and the litany of side effects at the end is funny, but after it’s over you still have no idea what pain it is they are trying to alleviate.

So, I thought I might take this opportunity to try to explain better just what it is I spend my time doing here. Best be warned, I am going to use up my two minutes…

My primary assignment with the Peace Corps is as a Community Health Volunteer stationed with a little community based organization called the Associação de Solidariedade e Aconselhamento em Saúde. Just being able to pronounce that name for me was a big step.

Do I work with HIV positive people? Every day. But none of the work I do is clinical--it’s educational and preventative. My colleagues are a motley crue of Mozambicans, ages 21 to 67, men and women, some HIV positive some not, who all wanted to help those in their community affected by HIV.

A lot of people ask me why I am a health volunteer when I still consider Cinnamon Toast Crunch to be a viable addition to the food pyramid. Also, my medical knowledge starts and stops at McDreamy and McSteamy.

Well, while I am technically a health volunteer working with a Health Association, I am really a community development volunteer whose focus is on people. I am around more to help with administrative things--organizational development, capacity building, and helping them work productively with each other. Whether that includes computer lessons, helping to develop a filing system, working with financial management aspects, or helping to create a theatre piece about HIV, my role has no clear definition. Anything and everything. After two years, I don’t know if the work I do will make any impact on the HIV epidemic. In fact, I doubt it will. I am banking on the hope, though, that through one of my relationships here, someone, somewhere along the way will have garnered something from my friendship.

Whatever impact I may have (to the chagrin of our Peace Corps Monitoring and Evaluating folks), it will not be gauged in numbers and data but through people.

So, despite the complete disregard of time, lack of linear thought, and corruptive aspects that seem to seep into so many things in Mozambique (it can‘t all be good), I do generally enjoy my time at the Association.

What I have come to LOVE here, though, is my time at the Angoche Youth Training Center.

This magical place was started by an incredible Peace Corps Volunteer, Alex, my very own site mate if I do say so myself. When she returned to the States, followed by my other site mate Erin, the process of running the Center went to myself. Initially, I was terrified, but I have been channeling my inner Ms. Frizzle, and I think I am starting to get my sea legs.

It is truly one of my favorite places, and although I find teaching extremely difficult and slightly terrifying, I also really enjoy it. Last year there were twelfth grade English classes with students I came to adore, and today we began twelfth grade English classes with a new bunch of students. Originally, I had fantasies that Mozambican students would hop up on their desks and start reciting “O Captain! My Captain” to me or bust out into a rendition of “Lean on Me,“ but are you kidding? I have no idea what I’m doing. I am just thankful that the students were so excited and desperate to learn (and equally for a teacher who just showed up) that they were so patient with me.

This experience above any other has made me appreciate the impact and the work that those thoughtful teachers do. In Mozambique, teachers wear a white lab coat, like doctors in the States, a symbol of the caliber of their profession. A teacher in Mozambique is one of the most sought after and well-respected positions. This mentality is one of the things above all others (except maybe capulanas and mangoes) I wish I could take back to America with me.

Still, several of the Youth Center students went on to study at the University in the provincial capital and two of the students from the Center went on to receive very selective scholarships to study at the major university in Maputo, the capital of the country. And when they came to deliver the news to me, I was so delusional with pride and happiness for them that I swore in the distant background I could hear the hushed, reverent murmurings of Robin Williams saying over and over again “Carpe Diem.”

Because of so many factors that would require a WikiLeaks page to enumerate, suffice it to say that education is an uphill battle here. The Youth Center tries to help level off the incline.

The Center has also offered Adult English Courses, community activism, essay contests in the local language, and we have a wonderful library too. For this bibliophile, English major, and gal who still has awkward fantasies about the library scene in Beauty and the Beast, the fact that books are so hard to come by in Mozambique is a downright tragedy. Knowing that our little Youth Center is a place where students can come to find a book for school or to just escape into a story is incredible. Still, there are so few children’s books especially in Portuguese, so we have been working on a way to get more. A children’s literary program along with a local language cultural preservation project are two dreams on the horizon. The Center is just so wonderful because it provides a safe space for our students and a convenient meeting spot for so many activities.

For instance, another project dear to my heart here is our girls empowerment group, REDES, Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educação e Saúde. (Girls in Development, Education, and Health). We meet weekly throughout the year at the Youth Center doing various projects and activities and sometimes just talking. We have done public speaking, women’s health, friendship bracelets, Women’s Day Performances, and so much more. Last April, two of the girls were chosen to participate in a week-long conference/workshop/summer camp thingy with various girls from all around Mozambique. The final day of the conference all the girls climbed a mountain together to celebrate the week. If there was ever the perfect metaphor for being a young girl in Mozambique, climbing a mountain would be it. The crap these young girls have to deal with is unbelievable to me. Some days the things they say break my heart. Some days it gives me hope for Mozambique.

We also have an art group here, and we just completed painting a giant mural on the main boulevard in town about domestic violence and malaria. The whole process, including writing the grant, planning out the designs, and actually painting the mural took around 6 months. For kids that grew up without the knowledge of the existence of crayons, I am constantly impressed with their talent. Seeing folks stop by the mural when they are walking by to discuss the message is really exciting, even if sometimes they remark that the drawings of people look like Martians. Two of the boys also entered a Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Art Contest where they submitted a drawing about World Peace and Friendship. I recently found out that they won the contest and this Saturday I get to deliver the news that they, along with their mother, will get to travel to Maputo where their artwork will be displayed in an exhibit.

To be perfectly honest, I still have no idea really what I am supposed to be doing here. The Peace Corps is an exercise in uncertainty. I wish I could say I was busy saving orphans or preventing cyclones or cultivating the next Nelson Mandela or single handedly eradicating cholera. But I’m not. I’m just taking it one day at a time, trying to relish in the small victories.

Because whether it’s two years in Mozambique or two minutes of someone’s time, sometimes the little victories are what keeps you going.

Our REDES girls on the beach at our last meeting of the year before Summer Break.

Two of the students at the Youth Center giving a presentation.

A full shot of the wall.

Our Art Group celebrating our completed mural.

International HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. My Association participated in a march down the main boulevard.

Some other Peace Corps Volunteers and I with our representatives on the top of the mountain.

Some of our REDES girls with me on Mozambican Women's Day. Man, I am white.

Some of the Youth Center kids doing an activity.

Some members of my association working on a theater piece about HIV.

This was one section they painted about domestic violence.

One of the students at the Youth Center on our final day of class.

My site mate and I went out to one of the Islands to interview some of the older folks there as part of a language preservation project.

My site mate Alex and our friend Mussa during one of the first English Talent Shows.

What we started with.

One of the REDES girls giving a presentation on Public Speaking.

The REDES girls and I on the beach.

My association participated in the Science Fair at the local high school. They were there to present about HIV and answer any general health questions.

The Youth Center decorated for International HIV/AIDS Day.

From afar. Damn, that wall was work.

The little library at the Center. And this is one of the most well stocked libraries for miles.

Our motto at the REDES Conference...Anything is Possible. A fitting one to end on.

I never understood Eve or Snow White or Steve Jobs or the nicknamers of New York City. Why all the fuss over an apple? Apple schmapple. It is painfully obvious to me that these folks have never bitten into a tender, juicy, delicious mango.

Let’s just put it this way, if Snow White had ever tasted the sweet nectar of a mango from Mozambique, she would have taken that apple, regarded it, and disdainfully tossed it aside like a cheap imitation Kate Spade handbag. So while the miserable, sweltering heat has returned to Mozambique, it has also brought with it “mango season.” Ahhhhh…

I had never eaten a mango until arriving in Mozambique. In fact, my tropical fruit intake was more or less limited to Coconut Rum. Now, though, I can’t imagine my life without them. I firmly believe there are few things in this world more delicious than a mango. Even my Grandma’s famous homemade dollar pancakes taste like rotten coleslaw in comparison.

And because mangoes are as ubiquitous as Lady Gaga (there are mango trees everywhere and you can buy about 20 for under a dollar), for a little while at least, less people go hungry.

The only complaint I can file about mangoes is the messy eating process and the mango hairs that stick between your teeth in the aftermath of a mango binge.

If I were ever invited to tea with the Queen of England and that she-wolf Camilla Parker Bowles as a practical joke convinced Her Majesty to only serve barbeque ribs and mangoes, I could probably eat the ribs in a more graceful and ladylike way than I could the mangoes. There is just something so primitive and messy and wonderful about eating mangoes. I’m sure Emily Post would be disgusted with me.

I guess that after just recently returning from the States for Christmas and seeing my family, I have been feeling the sting of saying goodbye all over again, and well, my saudades are more acute than ever.

Saudade--golly, how to define “saudade”? It is just one of my favorite Portuguese words because while it is slightly ineffable, it also is the perfect manifestation of Mozambican hyper-drama into one even more perfectly hyper-dramatic word. All the aching and melancholy that could ever enter your sphere of emotions IS saudades. The best, most wam-bam-thank-you-ma’am way I heard it described was as “missing you sickness.” The point of this Portuguese vocabulary lesson, dear readers, is to say that my saudades are creeping up a bit and when that happens, I have to constantly remind myself of all the new and wonderful things I love here…like mangoes.

So while an apple a day may keep the doctor away,

A mango a day keeps my saudades at bay.

Yeppers, I am pretty sure the Bible and Disney and the Mac were a little premature with their silly apples. I’m especially disappointed with Eve. For me, if there was ever a fruit to shuck paradise for, it sure as hell would not be an apple. It’d be a mango.

Like Borat, Elian Gonzalez, and Eddie Murphy, coming to America for me was a culture shock, a whirlwind tryst through the land of social networking, unabashed consumerism, and Taylor Swift. After more than a year in Africa, I closed my eyes, clicked the heels of my ruby red slippers together and poof...three days of traveling later, I was back in Nebraska to spend Christmas with my family.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.

Apart from seeing the most amazing family and friends in the world, it was so lovely to not be gawked at all the time, to walk with a slight air of anonymity, to not constantly be asked for money or told how beautiful I am because I’m so nice and gorda (yep, that means fat), to drink a cold drink with ice, ride in a vehicle with less than 40 people, to sleep without a mosquito net and take a warm shower, to finally see what Justin Bieber looks like, and to sit down in person and chat with those I love and hear about all the wonderful things they are doing without being and feeling a world away.

As amazing as my time home for Christmas was, it went by so fast and I’m afraid it was impossible to see everyone I wanted. Even those I did see, I should probably apologize. You see, most people had such great questions but because I was so easily distracted by all the wonders of America like chocolate chip cookies, pizza, and watching Glee that I feel I may have neglected to really answer the things folks at home wanted to know. While I lament the fact that I no longer have access to Finn, Puck, Sam, Blaine, Mr. Schuester, and especially Mike Chang, I can now focus on providing slightly better answers.

Dear friends, thank you for being so patient with me while I was home and a special thanks to all those who bought my drinks. Here are your top questions…

Q: Why are you not tanner?

A: Well, I am in Africa, not South Beach. In my conservative Muslim town, it is not appropriate to flash your knees. The rest of me I lather up with sunscreen. Two years under this African sun has the potential to turn me into an ad campaign for premature aging or a spokesperson for the Lindsay Lohan Foundation for the Dangers of Over-Tanning.

Q: What do you eat?

A: Lots of starches, rice, corn meal (xima), potatoes, bread, matapa (a traditional Mozambican dish made from cassava leaves). Mozambique has so many delicious tropical fruits and because I am right on the ocean there is a big supply of fish. I can get a kilo of shrimp for around 2 dollars. Forrest Gump and Lieutenant Dan would’ve made a hell of a killing in Mozambique too.

Q: Do you feel safe there?

A: Apparently there was a big 20/20 expose right after I left about the rape/murder of some Peace Corps Volunteers in other African countries, prompting a frantic, worried call from my mother. Okay, so I do know several volunteers who have had their houses robbed, several who have been mugged, and one who was sleeping when men entered her house with machetes, threatened her and then stole most of her belongings. That being said, I have never felt endangered at my site, ever. Maybe it’s so quiet and hard to get to. Maybe I’m subconsciously being extra vigilant, maybe it’s because I have made such nice friends who keep an eye out for me. I don’t know why—maybe it’s pure dumb luck, but all I know is that I sleep peacefully and soundly at night absent of the fear that anyone here would truly try to harm me.

Q: What language do you speak?

A: The national language is Portuguese and yes I have been speaking it for over a year. I can get by just fine and get whatever I need, but I am by no means fluent. However, occasionally someone will ask me if I’m Brazilian or Portuguese, in which case I throw up a fist pump and congratulate myself for fooling someone into thinking I actually know what I’m talking about.

While Portuguese is the national language each region has their own dialect. In Angoche, they speak Koti which is a mix of Swahili, Arabic, and other African languages. I am learning it, but it is hella hard. I’ve got a few phrases up my sleeve to at least get a smile out of some people.

Q: What is the biggest difference between there and here and how much has it changed you?

A: When I was home going through some of our old children’s books to bring back to Africa, I came across Snoopy’s Book of Opposites, and I couldn’t help thinking it was the perfect metaphor for returning to America after 15 months in Mozambique. Not that I necessarily equate myself with Snoopy, it’s just that everything is different. America and Mozambique are like a book of opposites.

One thing I noticed right away was that in America there is such an emphasis and pressure on how one looks. There is such a narrow definition of beauty while in Mozambique so many shapes and sizes are considered beautiful. It was bizarre coming from a place where every day people tell you how beautiful you are (and mean it) to a place where beauty is so painfully sought after and yet so tightly confined to those who fit a particular mold.

I guess another telling experience was when I walked into Target and nearly fainted from the sheer exhaustion of choice. Who knew there were that many flavors of Doritos or brands of deodorant. I guess you could call it reverse culture shock. Everything is bigger, louder, and faster.

But seriously, everything is in excess…the word seriously, food, clothes, Jersey Shore catch-phrases. Sometimes it seemed ridiculous, how much stuff there is, how much we take for granted, and just how easier everything is in America. However, living in a poor country for a short time does not give me the right to judge. Hell, I too lusted after an iPad, watched Jersey Shore with no shame, and indulged in a pedicure the cost of which could feed my neighbor’s family in Mozambique for a week. America is what it is, and while I won’t ever be able to see it with the same eyes, that doesn’t mean I should see it with eyes full of ridicule and self-righteousness.

Being in Africa has taught me to love my country, not to resent its frailties.

Q: How do you feel about going back?

A: Granted, I am now back in Mozambique so my answer is circumstantial and anachronistic at best. Be that as it may, I would not have exchanged going home for the world. Seeing my family and friends not only revitalized me but sent me away filled with words of encouragement and confidence disproportionate to my actual abilities. I love being home with those I love. Sometimes I miss them so much it hurts.

But, I have unfinished business, and more to learn and share, and friends in Mozambique who love me too. So if ruby red slippers take me home to my family, I guess it would be three clicks of my rugged sandals that take me back to Africa. Here we go then...

There’s no place like Mozambique. There’s no place like Mozambique. There’s no place like Mozambique.

Those who know me well are most likely aware of a strange, little fetish I have developed over the years. Yes, it’s true, I have an unhealthy obsession with scarves.

I can’t really explain it--it’s a strange little tic. I just love scarves. The way they look and feel and keep you warm and elongate your neck and make you feel momentarily like Audrey Hepburn. For some it’s chocolate, others cigarettes, FOX News, mystic tans or Michael Bublé. What does it for me…scarves!

I have heard the slanderous tongues of those who call them pretentious, others who call them the trimmings of a prude, and still others who claim they are just a second-rate accessory to headbands on Gossip Girl.

Blasphemous fools!

I think they are perfectly lovely.

But, being that I am in northern Mozambique where cold is more or less nonexistent, scarves are about as ridiculous and as nonfunctional as water beds.

What’s a girl to do?

Well, lucky for me, my love and infatuation of scarves has since been projected onto the capulana. In fact, the only thing here that successfully counteracts my loathing of chapas is my love of capulanas.

A capulana, my dear readers, is this beautiful, colorful fabric that women here and in other African countries use to wrap around their waists as a sarong. It is not exclusively used for clothes but also as curtains, table cloths, towels, sheets, head wraps, rags, cloths in which women strap their babies to their backs or bundle up food to cart on their heads. There is an infinite use to the capulana. It truly serves every practical function.

When the Arabs disembarked in Mozambique and began to integrate, they brought with them the capulana, the long rectangular sarong that Muslim women used to wrap around their waist and cover their heads. The Arabs forcefully encouraged African women to adopt this style of dress. And after years and years of this fashion indoctrination the capulana became a part of African women and a part of African culture. Women here came to love the capulana. They took the idea of it and made it their own, adding beautiful, bold colors and designs.

There is a special capulana to commemorate every holiday and celebration--Independence Day, Christmas, Women’s Day, Children’s Day, weddings, elections, rites of initiation. There are also capulanas that commemorate specific people. I have seen capulanas with the faces of Michael Jackson, Obama, Guebueza (the Mozambican President), and even Pope John Paul II graced the beautiful fabric of a capulana. The designs featured on capulanas are as diverse as the capulana itself. There are tie die capulanas, capulanas with stunning African patterns and images, capulanas with random objects like high heels, casseroles, turkeys, cupcakes, maps, and anatomy a la Georgia O’Keefe.

Now, most women here wear the capulana very tightly around their waists to accentuate their derrieres--badonkadonks that would send Beyonce spiraling into a Iago-like state of envy. Always conscious of this, Mozambican women tend to strut especially slow and honey-like when wearing a capulana. Thus, their pace is about equal to a Chinese woman with her feet bound. I have neither the patience nor the frame nor the swagger for this, and my long American legs like to take long American strides. So while I do don the capulana traditionally for various occasions, my site mates and I have taken to buying a capulana and taking them to the tailors for them to make an assortment of other more functional clothes for us--dresses, shorts, pants, shirts, everything!

Because Africa has slowly eviscerated most of the clothes I brought, my entire wardrobe is now essentially all capulana clothes. And I must say, our capulana inventions and designs would make Tim Gunn proud.

Make it work.

Being that capulanas are such a huge part of being a Mozambican woman, folks here adore that we adore capulanas. Whenever I wear something made from capulana, they like to tell me, “Oooh, Margarida, now you are Mozambicana.” It is such an enormous part of the culture here that even Mozambicans equate being Mozambican with the capulana.

So, to those fashion capitals of the world Paris, Milan, New York City I say, suck it. You may have Dior, Versace, and Vera Wang but Mozambique…we’ve got capulanas.

Modeling a little capulana ware. This one is my favorite capulana ever. And yes, I had them make a scarf for me.

My beautiful site mate Erin with one of her lovely capulana creations.

In the opening scene of Cool Runnings, the guy heads out at the break of dawn for an early morning run. We see the full sun slowly rising up over the sea, almost as if it is being born out of the ocean water. The dude sprints past a pack of giggling children offering up high fives, across a white, sandy beach and down a palm tree lined dirt road. He passes by a friendly group of old and weathered fishermen in their sailboats and then through an admiring group of chatty women carting baskets on their heads. All the while he greets everyone with a good morning and a wave.

Except for the fact that I am in Africa, white, a girl, geriatric-ly slow, and sans a really sweet Jamaican accent, that scene truly serves as a pretty accurate representation of my running situation here in Mozambique.

Running.

I always thought it was such a silly ritual. For years I watched my brother run and run, all the while thinking he was a masochist with entirely too much time on his hands to be devoting so many hours to running. Running from nothing and for nothing. Just running.

I don’t know what it was--maybe I took one of my brother’s crazy pills, but one day I too, just felt like running. It was relaxing and calming and made me feel good. I wish I could say I was born to run…that I was a natural but let’s be honest, I’m slow, have terrible form, have to wear custom orthotics, refuse to do speed intervals, prefer flat terrain, and once had a fellow runner on my favorite trail convinced that I was training for the Special Olympics. Let’s just say I will not be shipping out to run Boston anytime soon. Still, no matter how slow I am or how often my knees give me problems or how awkward and uncoordinated I may appear, I still just love running.

So, upon arriving in Angoche, my home for two years, one of my first tasks was to scout running routes. As luck would have it, I found a nice little dirt road that leads out past the salt fields to a beautiful stretch of open beach. On early mornings it is usually me, the road, a few fishermen headed out to sea and several small groups of women off to farm their little plots of land.

Those first couple months were definitely an adjustment. Because I arrived in the heart of summer here, I tried to be out on the trail no later than 4:45 A.M. to try to beat the heat. Some days though, even at that time, the temperatures were well within the 110s.

And when I first started running on the road, people were downright confused. Every single person I encountered stopped dead in their tracks and stared at me as I trotted on by. Little children who had never seen a white person before were terrified. In fact, several children out of sheer horror at the sight of me burst into tears and ran screaming for their mothers.

Once the kids realized I had no intentions of eating them or harvesting their organs or taking them off to the Land of Tall White Girls or making them wear clothes, they became infinitely friendlier. Now there is a core group of kids who will wait on the side of the road for me when I pass by. My site mate Erin and I, on a run together once, taught them the concept of a high-five. Now, every run the kiddos will see me hobbling along from a distance, and they will mobilize to form their high five line. They make me feel like Jackie Joyner-Kersee…that is until some of them start to accompany me on my run and eventually have to slow down to a glacial pace so I can keep up. Quasi naked, barefoot, and sometimes with loads on their heads, those kids can still run faster than I can.

Besides the kids, I have another favorite part of my run. You see, there’s this section in the road where some mornings, if I time it just right, the full African sun will be coming up, silhouetting a row of women working their plots of land, the alternating downswing of their hoes operating like a cog in perfect rhythm. The coconut trees create a sort of canopy and the reflection of the water from the salt fields makes the women in their beautiful capulanas appear almost angelic. I half expect a giraffe to pop its head up and serenade me with some Bob Marley or Justin Bieber song. That’s how surreal it is--that picture for me--it is so beautiful and quintessentially African it should be on a calendar or in the optimistic closing scene of one of those Sponsor-An-African-Child-for-75-Cents-a-Day commercials.

I try to relish the beauty in these vistas on my runs, though, because at any moment I could happen upon someone going to the bathroom on the side of the road. There is a big lack of latrines in the neighborhood closest to the road I run on so a lot of people just stumble out in the early morning for a public pooping exhibition. I have to be careful of fecal matter everywhere I step.

Along with the high-fiving kids, I have found that there is a solid group of people that has become accustomed to seeing me running and will keep tabs on me. If I start out thirty minutes later than usual, I will hear at least three or four people when I pass by tell me "Atrasou hoje" (You were late today). Once, after being away from site for a week, Erin informed me that she had been inundated with concerned folks from the trail wanting to know if I was sick because they hadn’t seen me out running.

Having these folks start to understand this crazy ritual and get used to seeing us running for other reasons than to avoid a careening chapa driver or to catch a chicken gone awol, well, it gave us an idea. You see, every year Angoche commemorates its founding with three days of festivities including a motorcycle race, a sewing contest, a sail boat race, live music, speeches, traditional dancing, and…a foot race. Historically, they have never had a woman enter the 10K foot race because it is reserved for “homens fortes” only strong men. Women, we were told, were physically incapable of running that distance. Nearly every person gave us this forecast.

So, what did we do? We signed up and entered the men’s race.

Angoche Day quickly arrived, and I found myself at the starting line in front of thousands of gawking Mozambicans, my ashen legs seeing the light of day for the first time in 11 months, getting ready to go all Title IX on their asses.

I have never felt so exposed, spectaclized (yes, I just invented that verb: spectaclized, as in to be made a spectacle of) and so damn determined.

They blew the whistle, and off we went. The race was a continuous loop 6 times around the main drag. The streets were lined the whole way. Some people cheered, some clapped, some hollered out marriage proposals, everyone stared. Not only were we women running in a man’s race, we were also reportedly the first foreigners to participate in an Angoche Day activity. The race was supposed to start at 8 am and in true Mozambican fashion, it started at 11:30, quite possibly the hottest time of the day. We all crossed the finish line to the incredulity of so many. When my friend passed one of the men (she eventually won third place and was even interviewed by the radio) his response was “Como?”-- HOW? That was the response of so many…Como? How was it possible that women could do the exact same thing as the men?

We soon became the talk of the town. Most people seemed to get a big kick out of it--I’m not sure if it was because I was running or because I was wearing shorts and they could see my knees. Some people congratulated me, some told me that the whole race my face resembled an exhausted goat just after giving birth, others told me I embarrassed them because I didn’t win. They didn’t understand why I didn‘t just quit after someone had already won. I explained our goal was to show that we could run the same distance as the men and faster than a lot of them. I just wanted to show them and all the marginalized girls here that they shouldn’t listen to those nay-sayers who are constantly telling them they are incapable of doing something.

With the Angoche Day race over, I am back to trotting along on my road at my own pace with no plans of using running to make any more grandiose statements on gender equality. Just running to run.

It’s funny to me that in the states there are magazines and stores and doctors solely devoted to runners. It would be ridiculous to me if I hadn’t at one point actually used the services of all three of those things. For the longest time I was so convinced running was a science. And like force equals mass times acceleration, maybe it was a scientific equation I would never master.

I think though, that after a year of running in Africa (my Nike pedometer thingy tells me I’ve logged over 1,000 miles in Mozambique) I am starting to understand why celebrities who want to run a marathon or something choose to come here to train. Whether it’s with Maasai runners in Kenya or giggling children in Mozambique, Africa makes me realize how innate and beautiful and cadenced running is--and how anyone can do it. I don’t think it’s a science. I think it’s music.

In Mozambique, I have found one thing to be truly universal and incorruptible: Death. No one is immune.

I see and hear about death a lot here, every day in fact. Being a health volunteer in a sub-Saharan African country riddled by HIV makes it nearly impossible not to. Whether from a student, colleague, or friend, I am always getting reports of a recent death. Life cut short is not a tragedy, it’s an inevitability.

This Mozambican familiarity with death and subsequent indifference to its effects is a morbid reminder of things I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Then, one of my colleagues explained that a large reason for the stoic reaction to death stems from the bloody civil war, a war that raged for 17 years and killed a million Mozambicans and which only ended in 1992, a relatively short time ago. For so many people, war and death have been a staple in their lives.

During the civil war here, the RENAMO soldiers (unanimously considered the bad guys) routinely targeted hospitals and schools, indoctrinated child soldiers, and used rape as a weapon to spread disease.

I was informed that that is why there is an impassiveness that accompanies death. “Margarida,” he said, “Everyone had at least one person they loved die during the war. Some, their whole families.” He went on to explain that even today, after almost 2 decades of peace, it is still strange for Mozambicans to show emotion at the mention of death. They are automatons in that sense, he said because if they cry and mourn too heavily for someone today, they will then think about those they lost during the war, or because of HIV, or because of any number of things that are killing Africa and “Nossas lagrimas nunca hão-de parar.”

Our tears will never stop.

Besides, he wanted to know. What good does it do to weep for someone? To him, showing emotion or crying at death was not only impotent, but also insulting to those who were suffering with or without your tears.

This Mozambican philosophy on death and dying recently entered my register when I received word that someone from home, Jessica, a mentor of sorts for me, a fellow Knight, a small-town Nebraska gal who also ventured to the red soil of Africa, and a girl I grew up admiring and wanting to be like was killed in a tragic car accident.

Being in Africa leaves you with lots of time to think and question and ask why. Why such a truly good and beautiful person? Why someone with a heart so big and generous? Why her? Why now? Why at all? Why? But Mozambicans don’t ask why. There is an unquestioning acceptance of death here. Whether it is HIV, a witch doctor’s spell, hunger, bad hospital conditions or any of the other unmentionables, Mozambicans see death as something that is out of their realm of control--it is destiny, not to be circumvented.

I read a book about the civil war here and one person’s observation on why it is Mozambicans seem to be so detached about death. He wrote, “People here have to be laid back to avoid having their personalities destroyed by disappointment and death.”

I guess from just the little I know about death, I still can’t imagine it gets any easier to endure each time, no matter how capable Mozambicans are of compartmentalizing. I would think your heart just breaks a little every time.

Good thing Mozambicans have strong hearts--perhaps fragmented, but they are strong.

That is just one thing Jessica and Mozambique have in common--strong hearts. And Jess, by donating hers, ensured that it will continue to love and be loved.

When I told my colleagues about Jessica, they at first seemed very unsure of what to do in the presence of foreign tears. And although it may have been strange for them to see me emoting at death when people here don’t because of the sheer masses of tears and anger and whys that would emerge, I saw in all their eyes what can best be described as empathy. They seemed to be telling me, “Margarida, we don’t understand your clothes or your accent or most of the things you do, but we understand this.” They recited for me something they wanted me to relay to folks back home about Jessica. It is an old Koti proverb they say here when a loved one passes away.

Roho ya we ykale sana

"Her heart now rests in peace."

And for how much space Jessica’s heart had to make to contain her love and goodness, maybe it deserves a rest.

It feels presumptuous to try to rationalize or say anything more.

I had an overzealous friend who, with every good intention, once informed me that I had as much game as an asexual amoeba and was most likely destined for a lonely life full of Nicholas Sparks’ novels and Lifetime original movies. To circumvent this, she offered to be my Mr. Miyagi in the realm of dating. After I objected to her twisted version of “Wax on, wax off” and then uncovered and deleted the Match.com profile she secretly set up for me, I finally decided (since if you can’t beat em’…pacify them until they forget about it) to at least indulge her on her philosophy of courtship and why I was so bad at it. Ever the Emma and well aware of my idiosyncrasies, she composed for me a list of things that I was NEVER under any circumstances to do in the presence of the opposite sex:

1. Reveal my childhood fantasy of being David the Gnome so I could wear a red cone hat and ride around on a fox all day.

2. Quote It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

3. Bust out my British accent (which always inevitably turns into Pirate anyway).

4. Wear skinny jeans.

5. Defend Flannery O’Connor.

6. Challenge anyone to an arm wrestling contest.

7. TALK ABOUT RELIGION--instant buzz kill.

“Clarification point,” I requested. “Number 7, religion. You mean don’t talk about sex, politics, or religion, right ?”

“No! Go ahead and talk about sex and politics all you want,” she said. “But religion…Hell NO, pardon the pun. All it does is invite controversy and awkwardness. You want on the white lace road to Weddingland? Then remember this when you’re chatting: No to transubstantiation. Yes to American Idol.”

Now, as a history major (that may not count for much but let’s throw in the fact that I’m an avid Jeopardy watcher--I’m still holding out for a Ken Jennings Bobble Head doll) as well as a 3-time Perfect Sunday School Attendance Award Winner boo-ya, I was well aware of the schisms that have resulted from a lack of acceptance or intolerance of different religions in the history of our world.

But surely as a semi-intelligent person, I was certainly capable of carrying on a civil conversation about religion and why I believe what I believe, right?

Or was my friend right? Should one stick to secular conversation in all social situations?

I got to thinking about this conversation recently, when after a long hiatus from current events updates or other information from the outside world, I managed to get on the Internet. Immediately I checked my email, Facebook and then of course the scores of the Husker games…priorities…and then I trolled the BBC website in order to figure out what has going down in the other corners of the globe.

A story that I came across that immediately piqued my interest dealt with the plans to construct a Muslim Center near Ground Zero and the hoopla that it was inciting.

I thought about my friend’s insistence to avoid the topic of religion at all costs because of all the chaos it invokes, I thought about 9/11 and the religious connotations that always surround it, I thought about Islam and how sad it was that a group of religious fanatics could sully such a beautiful faith, and I thought about how in such a short amount of time my proximity to Islam had changed so drastically.

If you’ll indulge me, I would like to share some of my experiences and observations of moving from a pretty universally Christian circle of acquaintances to being plopped down into the middle of a community that is predominantly, I would say over 80% Muslim.

Let’s start by trying to put that degree to some use. Here we go, then, a little history lesson: My site, Angoche, has a an almost Biblically colorful history. Long before the Portuguese arrival to Mozambique in the 15th Century, Angoche was independently ruled by Sultans and an important commercial center on the Arab-Swahili trade routes. In fact, it was one of Mozambique’s earliest settlements and an important stop on the gold and ivory trading post.

The consensus with most people I talk to here is that the Arabs were simply seeking a mutual business partnership with Mozambique rather than a colony to lay claim to. In fact, the remnants from the Arab/African exchange is wildly evident today from the capulanas the Arab women brought with them, now used almost everywhere in Southeast Africa to the descendants of the numerous Arab/Mozambican marriages and the religion that came with them: Islam.

Today, one can just look at the most popular names here…Fatima, Anima, Mussa, Amade, Ossufo…to understand just how big the Arab/Muslim integration was into Mozambican culture.

When the Portuguese arrived and colonized Angoche, they too brought with them their religion: Christianity.

So, we’ve got the predominant Muslim population that resulted from Arab integration and intermarriage. We’ve got a large Christian group that emerged from Portuguese colonization and attempted conversion. Toss in a large Hindu Indian population that lives here and while we’re at it let’s throw in those practitioners of the traditional animist beliefs and you’ve got what would seem like a hot bed of religious tension.

Surprisingly, Angoche is nothing of the sort. Never have I heard a discussion of whose God is the right God or which religion is better. Religious harmony and toleration here is incredible to me, something Bono would write a song about.

Sometimes I imagine Angoche to be like a reverse Hagia Sophia, that famous church turned mosque turned museum in Istanbul. To me, Angoche seemed to go through so many different religious stages that it finally decided to just be a neutral museum where all religions can be represented and appreciated. Still, it is obvious from the prayer caps, rugs, and tunics I always see around that Islam has been and will continue to be the Grand Exhibit.

Islam, that enigmatic faith to so many Westerners.

Historically, we have romantic images of Richard the Lionheart headed out to the Crusades to fight the Muslim infidel. Presently, we have images of subjected, burqa wearing Muslim women and Jihadist fanatics.

My experience is so far from this, it’s comical. Peace Corps volunteers are prohibited from proselytizing about religion, which is fine since I’m entirely too ignorant and self-involved to try to convert anyone of anything either way. What I can do, though, is share with you what I’ve seen and been a part of here.

Okie dokie…

The Call to Prayer. The first time I heard the Call to Prayer from the mosque I was terrified. It sounded like the song of a very sad ghost. Hauntingly and hypnotically beautiful. Now, after hearing it every day so many times, I have come to find it comforting, like a lullaby.

Friday is an extremely holy day. Muslims are supposed to go to the mosque five times to pray on Friday. Meetings and events have to be organized bearing this schedule in mind.

We keep an extra prayer rug in the office for when my colleagues want to pray. I feel like a pervy Peeping Tom every time I happen upon one of my colleagues praying, prostate on the floor with their hands outstretched. But they never seem to mind.

Friday is also when I see the most amount of poverty in Angoche. On Friday, a Muslim is not supposed to turn away a beggar asking for alms and so every Friday all the poor people will line up outside the bakery knowing the owner is a devout Muslim and will not disregard this tenet.

A lot of people associate Islam with the oppression of women. Let me break it down for you folks. The plight of women in Africa and in Mozambique has nothing to do with religion but instead with years and years of cultural norms. Muslim women are not subjugated more so than any other women here. Being a woman in Mozambique is hard. Being a Muslim woman neither exacerbates nor mitigates that.

I‘m not saying that culture and religion are mutually exclusive. In fact, probably the opposite. It makes sense that parts of religion and culture will take on aspects of each other. Like when you’ve slept so long with the same pillow that it contours to the shape of your head.

For example, Muslim women here are encouraged to wear the head wraps--not a full on burqa like you might be imagining, but a wrap to cover the forehead and hair. Some of my most devout female Muslim colleagues and students I have never seen with a head wrap. It was made clear to me that it was a choice. I also see on a daily basis women who are not Muslim who love to wear the head wraps. It started out as something religious and has since been absorbed into the culture.

Muslim women here are not prevented or in any way discouraged from going to school. In fact, there is an excellent Muslim secondary school where a lot of non-Muslim students choose to study because it has a more expansive curriculum and the teachers actually show up to teach.

My counterpart is probably one of the most devout people I know and actively participates in a program where he visits sick members of his congregation to see how they are doing and bring them anything they need. It reminds me of meals on wheels…but without the meals or the wheels. The sentiments are still there.

There is a definite link between the Islam that many people here practice and the traditional beliefs and machinations of the witch doctors. I can’t reconcile this. I think it is something that I just don’t understand yet.

One of the reasons the HIV prevalence is lower in the north of the country where I am is directly related to the fact that the Muslim population is so much greater here. Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol and so whiskey-induced unsafe sexual practices happen less frequently. Also, circumcision is a key component in the Muslim faith, and studies have shown that circumcision significantly helps prevent the transmission of HIV.

In the Muslim faith, it is extremely impolite to shake hands, exchange change, or offer something with your left hand. Also, for many the left hand serves as the toilet paper substitute. So besides being a religious no-no, it’s also really friggin’ gross.

Pondering this difference of religions was especially interesting to me this last month as many of my colleagues, students, and friends were observing the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan involved a whole month of fasting during the day and more frequent visits to the mosque. No food or water from sunup to sundown. It made for a rather crabby, unproductive month as students and colleagues became kind of narcoleptic, falling asleep during the day from lack of energy and because they had to get up in the middle of the night to eat. Also, during the holy month most of the music playing was suspended which was depressing because Mozambicans sure love to dance.

I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon to better understand and relay the different nuances of the religion here. I apologize that I don’t. I guess, though, if I could just leave you with one thing I have learned here is that while the topic of religion may be taboo, enough to have made my “Things to Do to Avoid Cats and Spinsterhood” List, maybe it’s because it’s misunderstood and branded a certain way because of the actions of a few.

People who do such awful things under the veil of religion seem to not be following their faith in its pure form.

The Islam, thoughtful and caring and pacifist that my colleague in this sleepy little African town practices is vastly different than the Islam associated with September 11.

For me, this summer in Africa took a cue from the title of a Beatles song (Or, I guess if you’re more inclined, the song from that Target commercial or Glee episode).

“Hello, Goodbye.”

And since my sentiments on goodbyes are fairly well known (I consider goodbyes to be like middle school and stirrup pants--an inescapable depravity of life), it was a bittersweet season.

I guess in all reality, it started with a goodbye as one of my site mates, Alex, a partner in crime and sage in all things Mozambique, said goodbye to Angoche to return to the states.

Everyone here has since been offering me condolences because they say the three of us (Alex, Erin--my other beautiful, amazing site mate, and I) are like family and it‘s like one of my sisters left. I guess when you’re in such a bizarre place so far away from everything you know and love, having someone around to remind you of all the familiarities of home is instantly comforting. Whether it was just speaking English together, cooking an American meal, playing UNO, commiserating about our recent bouts of tropical illness, or making dated cultural references to Saved By the Bell, it has been such a blessing to have two other amazing girls/friends/sisters here who understand the gauntlet of emotions you go through every single day.

So, when one in our Crazy American Branca Trio left, it was a hard, very sad goodbye.

The thing that did not permit me to dwell on it, though, was the visit of my dear friend from home. Hello, Claire! And hello to the Crystal Lite, new books, girly smelling products, and news from home that she brought with her.

Hellos are infinitely more fun.

Words cannot express how wonderful and refreshing it is to see a beloved, familiar face and have them see your new life and world. My literature professors while grading my papers always admonished me to show, Margaret, don’t tell. Show.

This place is nearly impossible to accurately describe using words so having someone here I could show, rather than tell…well, it was pure bliss.

Her trip entailed an evening on the town in Maputo, a weekend outing on the beautiful and haunting Mozambique Island, a chapa ride straight out of the depths of hell back to Angoche after which I am thankful she still agreed to be my friend, the meeting and greeting of so many of Angoche’s resident personalities, bucket baths, mosquito nets, the frequent lack of electricity, a dip in the waves of the Indian Ocean, a traditional Mozambican birthday party, a boat ride to a private, palm tree canopied beach, an 8th grade Mozambican biology class, capulana shopping, piri-piri eating, and ultimately and inevitably, another sad goodbye.

Every time I introduced Claire to someone new in town, they first wanted to know if she knew Obama or was my daughter. After I explained she was a friend, they responded incredulously, “Margarida, she came all the way here just to see you?! Wow! Ela é uma grande amiga!” Yes, I agree. She is a great friend.

Sometimes it’d be nice just to be desensitized to the constant hellos and goodbyes, but I really don’t think it will ever happen. Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye. That’s just how it goes.

And one big hello on the horizon is to the new group of volunteers that will be arriving in Mozambique next month. It’s hard to believe that one year has passed since I said goodbye to my home and hello to Africa.

When it comes to coping with everything Africa throws my way and all the hellos and goodbyes that go with it, I remember Alex, Claire, Erin, the rest of the volunteers here, and all the wonderful people back home, and I take a cue from another Beatles song.

I get by with a little help from my friends.

Erin, Alex, and I at Alex's Despedida Party

To me, this sums up quite accurately our whole relationship.

Claire's first chapa ride. Don't let the spaciousness and functioning seats fool you. This was just a tease.

Claire and I standing on the famous anchors of the historic ghost town, Ilha de Mozambique.

Claire with Fabiao, the mailman, and one of the nicest people in Mozambique and the world.

Beautiful Claire waving goodbye to beautiful Angoche.

Magic carpet. Yak. Dog sled. Enterprise. A yellow submarine. The Death Star. Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. Unicycle. Being shot out of a canon. Fred Flintstone’s feet. Piggyback. Centaur. Station wagon.

Of all the bizarre, paranormal, and unconventional modes of transportation that have ever existed in the history of the world, there is nothing…nothing folks…that quite compares to what we’ve got here in Mozambique. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to “The Chapa.”

A chapa, my friends, is basically any vehicle that is used to transport people and things from Point A to Point B anywhere in Mozambique. Like the word ironic (thanks Alanis Morissette) a “chapa” has a very loose definition. Semantics aside, the chapa is what anyone who wants to get anywhere in Mozambique uses to travel. It is the heart of the public transportation system. And unless you’ve got a car here, which most people sure as hell do not, then you are left to the mercy of the chapas. The typical chapa is generally a converted 12 passenger mini-van but because my site is a bit isolated, the chapas that run to and from my town oftentimes are big, open-back pickup trucks.

When it comes to traveling in Mozambique and chapas specifically, I have a very love-hate relationship. Each chapa ride I award myself 110 integration points--10 because it is such a big part of everyday life here and 100 because it friggin’ sucks. I have recently put in my petition to Jeff Probst and CBS for them to begin filming a Survivor 47: Chapa edition. It would be cutthroat because when it comes to riding in a chapa, survival is a testament to one’s tolerance level, threshold for pain, Job-like patience, and a robust sense of humor.

What I mean by sense of humor is that when it comes to chapas, you will see things so ridiculous and find yourself in situations so uncomfortable that the only thing you can do--the only thing that will possibly make the ride more bearable--is to laugh. One of my first chapa rides, I was in a large, open back transport pickup truck sitting on top of a lumpy bag of coconuts with three other people, fish juice flying in my face and my feet dangling over the edge because we had to make room for the goats. Throw in the fact that I was the only white person (I usually am the only white person on a chapa) tucked in amongst 40 other Mozambicans who looked at me like I was one of those Yao Ming-sized blue creatures from Avatar. On average, Mozambicans spend about 2 to 3 hours of our chapa rides discussing with each other just what exactly I am and whether I am lost or crazy. The eternal question, my friends. What can you do except laugh?

You know, it ultimately wouldn’t really matter if I was some sort of extraterrestrial creature because there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that they won’t allow onto a chapa. If more people and their things want on, people squeeze to make room. There is no capacity level. They have a verb here they use specifically to describe riding in a chapa. It’s called “sardinar.” Yes, that’s right. “Sardinar.” As in, to be like sardines.

When sardinar-ing in a chapa, proximics are uniformly ignored. I realized very quickly that like Scotcheroos, hygiene, and infrastructure, my penchant for personal bubbles was just something I was going to have to get used to living without.

Chapas are, after all, an industry and everything that you find on a chapa--whether it’s chickens, fish, small appliances, goats, charcoal, or large barrels of produce--it has a price. Anything that boards a chapa has to pay. Therefore, they want to fit as much on it as possible. If people have already squeezed so tightly sitting down, they will ask you to move your feet to make room for people to stand.

Now, I know I tend to have a hankering for hyperbole, but there is absolutely no way I could exaggerate “the chapa.” It is pure craziness. Not only because it is so awkwardly crowded--one ride someone’s armpit was so close to my nasal canal I nearly asphyxiated--but also because a lot of times the roads are so bad and the drivers are worse.

In Nebraska we have what we like to call minimum maintenance roads. Here I call them zero maintenance roads. It’s as if King Kong and Sasquatch decided to pound a bottle of Vodka each and then play drunken hopscotch up and down the road. That’s about the size and scope of the potholes. And because in Mozambique where vehicles rather than pedestrians, bicyclists, and little old ladies crossing the street have the right away, chapa drivers are usually Richard Petty wannabes with slightly better driving tract records than James Dean. Even atheists pray on Bingo night and on chapas.

Okay, so my site is about 4 to 5 hours by chapa from the provincial capital. What happens if you have to go to the restroom? Well, in my case I prefer to do anything, even risking extreme dehydration to ensure that I will not have to pee en route.

But if, perchance, a pre-journey Fanta proved to be too enticing for me and nature started screaming my name, I would not be entirely screwed. Usually, about halfway through the ride the driver pulls off on the side of the road and anyone who has to go literally jumps out and hightails it out into the bush to do their business.

Some of the lazier, less gun-shy pee-ers will just go right there on the side of the road in front of everyone. I once even witnessed a Mozambican who-can-pee-the-farthest-competition. Apparently when it comes to traveling in Mozambique what they lack in comfort and luxury they make up for in cheap entertainment. Kind of like Atlantic City. And ironically (it seemed a good time to pop that word in) people seem to emerge from both places in similar conditions: covered in dirt, sweat, rain, quite possibly fish juice or breast milk, sunburned, and exhausted.

As miserable as I am making chapa rides out to sound (and they usually are), in all honesty some of my best stories have arisen from these travels and the people I have met on them. I guess if it were easier it wouldn’t be such an adventure.

“And life is either a great adventure or nothing.” I’ll give you 17 of my integration points if you can tell me who said that. Nope, actually I won’t. Those points are too valuable. I’ll just tell you. It was Helen Keller.

And to tell you the truth, you’d probably be better off with her behind the wheel of a chapa than most drivers here. But what can you do? The Batmobile doesn’t make pit stops in Africa, and we can’t all come and go by bubble.

For right now folks, of all the crazy and bizarre ways to travel, I guess I’m in a chapa.

This summer before departing for Africa, I had for the first time in a long while a hefty amount of free time. Figuring the next two years would be an exercise in deprivation and self-sacrifice, I decided to spend my remaining time stateside in a state of carefree hedonism.

So, I entered a bowling league, subsisted off a diet of pepperoni pizza and Bisonwitches, watched the entire series of Mad Men in two days, tried to start a Fight Club, and went on a rigorous search to find the best margarita in town. My true triumph in excess came, though, when my good friend convinced me to read the Harry Potter series.

For a gal who wrote her thesis on Shakespeare, HP seemed to be one small step up on the literary scale than US Weekly. But seeing as I wasn’t entirely devoting my last three months to intellectual endeavors, I figured what the hell.

So, I read the first one. Then the second. Then the third. In a little over a week I had polished off all seven books. I was consumed. All other things ceased to exist. I found myself heatedly discussing Quidditch strategies with a third grade boy named Melvin while waiting in the checkout line at the supermarket. As he was walking out with his mother, I overheard her tell him I was a cautionary tale--the dangers of methamphetamines, she explained. I started calling people dirty Muggles and waving imaginary wands at them when they pissed me off. My sister caught me trying to mount the kitchen broom hoping it would fly. I even tried to order a Butterbeer at a downtown bar. After the bartender cut me off, I again overheard someone mention something about the dangers of substance abuse. Not my proudest period in my life--having multiple people think I was on crack.

Still, having been in Africa for six months now, I have realized that reading Harry Potter was some of the best preparation for Mozambique I could have done.

See, you may think love potions and evil wizards and people that can transform into crocodiles or snakes or lions are all a part of some fictional magic reserved for the pages of J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis or any other initial loving fantasy author.

But to most Mozambicans, these things--this magic--is real.

I suppose my interest in these supernatural beliefs began when a Peace Corps friend in a neighboring province informed me that someone in her town had been eaten by a crocodile while bathing in the river. When I informed my Mozambican colleagues about this tragedy, they told me that it definitely wasn’t a real crocodile but a magical one. “Magic is everywhere in Mozambique, Margarita” they told me.

Again, cursing my shoddy Portuguese, I asked for clarification. But, indeed, I had heard right and their ensuing explanation opened up a Pandora’s Box of Mozambican mysticism, animism, and magic.

They explained to me first about the curandeiros, or Mozambican traditional healers. I knew a bit about the traditional healers because during our training we had the opportunity to visit one. The healing power of a curandeiro is vested in one person and is passed down to a family member through the generations.

Oftentimes, people will go to the curandeiros seeking remedies for problems they are too embarrassed to go to the hospital for. Gonorrhea, something which most curandeiros (many of whom are skilled herbalists) can cure, is a biggie.

My colleagues, who work in the community to raise awareness about HIV and its causes, have a simultaneous veneration and frustration with curandeiros. Sick people go to the curandeiro and many times the treatment requires that the patient’s skin be cut deeply with razors, after which the curandeiro rubs a healing root into the wound. The medicine is supposed to travel through the bloodstream forcing out the sickness. A major problem is that often curandeiros will use the same razor on several different patients.

This is especially dangerous because curandeiros also serve as a sort of judicial system where razors are the litmus test. I was told of an instance here where within a group of people, it was known that one of the members had stolen something. In order to discover the true culprit, they all went to the curandeiro who ordered them to each cut themselves with the same razor. The person who didn’t bleed, or who bled the least, was deemed guilty.

HIV Prevention 101: Shared razors in a country where the HIV prevalence is upwards of 20%=bad.

My colleagues told me they believe that for most curandeiros, the sentiment is good--the desire to heal. But for the right price, they also said most curandeiros will dabble into darker magic. To keep the metaphor alive, because why stop now? My coolness factor couldn‘t possibly plummet anymore, let’s revert back to Harry Potter.

If all the curandeiros were mandated to attend Hogwarts, there’d be a few who would be tossed into Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. The majority, though, would go to Slytherin.

For people willing to pay, the curandeiros can provide love potions, good luck elixirs, spells to help people get rich, become invisible, or to transform into some sort of animal. An area near my site is famous for its people who can turn into lions.

Where sinister magic is concerned, traditional healers are patronized when people want to curse someone, if they want the curandeiro to inflict an illness upon someone, or as my colleagues informed me was the case in my friend’s town, if a person wants to send a hungry crocodile after someone. Curandeiros accomplish this by invoking a feticeiro, which roughly translates into witch doctor or evil wizard. This is where Tolkien would squeal with nerdy, eerie fascination.

A feticeiro was described to me as an evil spirit inhabiting a person who is all the while aware of their feticeiro status. But no one else is. When someone goes to a curandeiro wanting to make someone ill, it is the curandeiro who sends a feticeiro after the victim, some poor schmuck with the unfortunate luck of pissing off the wrong person. The feticeiro leaves its human body, usually only at night, to go out and wreak havoc. If you had a bad dream, a feticeiro was probably passing by somewhere. If you heard dogs barking loudly, it is most likely because they saw a feticeiro.

This widespread belief in magic and the interest in the occult is not something to be taken lightly as it seems to serve as a scapegoat for so many things.

Someone was eaten by a crocodile--no doubt it was a feticeiro.

Someone suddenly became sick--they were certainly cursed and should not go to the hospital but straightaway to a curandeiro to get the curse lifted.

The harvest was bad--someone surely must have angered one of the ancestors. Whelp, someone needs to shoot down to the curandeiro’s hut to see how to appease the angry ancestor.

As many health workers here are discovering, so many of the problems and ensuing solutions can be rationalized away with magic.

Let’s imagine there is, to all outside observers, what appears to be a young and healthy person. However, this person is living unknowingly with HIV and suddenly gets sick, deteriorates rapidly, and dies. It is so much easier for the parent of the deceased to simply believe that their child’s death was caused by some unpreventable paranormal activity rather than to try to understand the workings of a clever biological, sexually transmitted virus.

It is simpler to explain away something terrible with magic and wizards and curses instead of dealing with the reality of the situation.

This is not Narnia. Or Middle Earth. Or Hogwarts. The magic here is not something out of the pages of a fantasy novel. A heck of a lot of people believe it is real. And understanding it--or at least why people need to believe in it--is a big step for me in understanding Mozambique and figuring out just what in the Sam Hill I can do to make myself useful here.

Because after meeting so many wonderful Mozambicans, seeing several different parts of this stunning country, and learning about the history and customs…well, (I’m sorry, I simply cannot avoid this terrible pun) Mozambique really is a magical magical place.

Oh, and to Melvin, that lippy little brat in the supermarket checkout line who, after our little Quidditch disagreement, vindictively divulged how Dumbledore died before I had read it, don’t worry. Apparently you can’t curse children.

I was invited to a big party by one of my colleagues the other day for her nine-year-old son. Immediately upon hearing this, the following internal monologue/stream of consciousness ran wild through my mind:

“A party! Whooooooooo! How fun. It’s probably a birthday party. I love birthday parties. Except when there are clowns. Ugh. Clowns are creepy. And those big shoes! Overcompensating much!? Do I bring a gift? What do nine-year-old Mozambican boys want? Do they have Spider Man in Mozambique? Damn mosquito. Cake!! Ooh cake. I wonder if there could be cake. I miss cake. Betty Crocker. Crocker brocker bo bocker banana fanana fo…oh. I really really really miss cake. Warm, chocolate, moist, melt-in-your-mouth…”

until finally my cake fantasy was interrupted when she told me the party was not to celebrate his birthday but rather to celebrate his return.

From where, I inquired. She said he was returning from his “Rite of Initiation” in which he had spent thirty days away from home out in the country. Here in northern Mozambique, many of the old traditions are still practiced including male and female rites of initiation. For the girls, the rite of initiation is basically a glorified sweet sixteen party with food and presents and traditional dancing. The age is completely arbitrary, though, since the female rite of initiation signifies to all party goers that the girl has just had her first menstruation.

Imagine Hallmark trying to market a “Congratulations On Your First Period” greeting card. It’d be a disaster because in The States, talking about that female transition is completely taboo.

To illustrate my case, picture yourself in two different movie theaters that are both equally packed--let’s say it’s opening night of the next Twilight movie. In the first theater, someone yells “Fire!” You might get banged up a little in the ensuing chaos of people bolting to the exits, but your chances of survival are good.

In the second theater, someone shouts “Tampon!” Now, I hate to be a fatalist but unless you brought Bear Grylls with you, you are going to die. The stampede of people trying to escape anything that deals with female menstruation will crush you easier than a kernel of delicious but grossly overpriced movie theater popcorn.

In Mozambique, however, this new stage in a young girl’s life is not embarrassing or something to be ashamed of. No Carrie shower moments here. Instead, it is a cause for celebration and announced to the whole world in the form of a rite of initiation party.

Party on, Wayne.

For boys, the rite of initiation is not so cut and dry. (That will be funnier in a few paragraphs. Just give it time.)

I asked my colleague more about what the boys’ rite entailed--what goes on in her son’s thirty days away from home. After some continued explanation and the realization that it still wasn’t all entirely sinking in with me, she used her hand to imitate scissors and proceeded to simulate a cutting action. I’m fairly certain she even said, “Snip snip.“ Being perennially slow on picking up subtle hints and innuendos, I promptly asked, “But what in the world could a nine-year-old boy possibly have that needs cutting?” The room burst into uproarious laughter until I finally figured it out. Ohhhh.

Yikes.

The boys say goodbye to their families and go out into the “matu,” (a Mozambican term for the boondocks) for thirty days with elder men in the community, other boys, and a nurse hired by the families. It is here where each one is circumcised, signifying that he is no longer a boy, but a man. And when they return, their families throw a party.

Party on, Garth.

Not every boy or girl has a rite of initiation, my colleague explained. Some families just don’t practice this particular custom. Other families can’t afford it. For girls, it depends on whether the family can afford to throw a party. For boys, it is if the family can afford to pay for the nurse.

She assured me that the whole procedure was very safe and that the actual operation was performed by experienced medical personnel. I was still not entirely convinced on the whole process or the health implications that could arise, and I had a hard time understanding how anyone could fathom a nine-year-old boy a man (anatomical adjustment or not).

But what I’ve learned in Mozambique is that in so many situations here, the best thing I can do is just to listen, not judge, and try to understand.

I immediately decided anything Spider Man might not be appropriate for a circumcision/snip-snip/passage into manhood party.

My colleague was so excited about her son’s return she was cataloguing for me everything she was doing/cooking. I meekly, all the while thinking my question foolish, asked if there would be cake. Of course there would be cake she said. She seemed to understand the absurdity of a party sans cake.

“RSVP, Margarita?”

Abso-frickin-lutely. I just hope there's no ceremonial cutting of the cake involved.

I have no mirror. The sweltering heat has turned my hair into a permanent state of frizz beyond any means of containment. And I have this weird rash forming on my upper arm that looks freakishly similar to SpongeBob SquarePants. Perhaps most attractive of all, though, is the fact that I have the strong scent of a high school boys locker room. Not that I have intimate knowledge of the odors of a boys locker room--I have only heard the horror stories--stuff Hitchcock couldn’t dream of.

Still, my grizzly appearance and foul musk have not frightened away my would-be husbands. That’s right. Since arriving in Mozambique, I have been proposed to more times than I can count. Mrs. Bennet would be appalled at how I have turned marriage proposal rejections into an art form.

My first proposal, a man offered to slaughter a cow in my honor if we could get married. Ok, I’ll admit it. I was a little flattered. What gal doesn’t appreciate a good cow? Ladies, forget those half-assed Casanovas with their chocolate and flowers! Wait for someone who comes a-knocking with bovines.

Despite my initial susceptibility to flattery, I have since come to find these incessant propositions incredibly annoying. Now, I know exactly what you’re thinking, You’re thinking to yourself. “Duh, Margaret, they can’t possibly resist you because not only are you a whittler of wit, but your ethereal beauty is also powerfully disarming.” Touché, my wise friends. I can’t fault them their good taste.

The sad truth of the matter is, though, that it has almost nothing to do with my charming personality or (under normal circumstances) Ava Gardner good looks. (My wannabe hubbie and I rarely speak more than two sentences to each other before he pops the question. And ummm…remember my earlier reference to a boys‘ locker room. Yeah, I smell like a communal jockstrap and look even worse!)

Instead, most of their desire resides in the fact that when they see me, they see “white” and “American” and automatically the cash register in their heads goes ka-ching. They equate me with opportunity. My site mates here and most of the other girls in my training group can swap stories for hours of bad Mozambican pick up lines. Men have wanted to marry me so I could take them back to America with me, so they could learn English, or as one gentleman told me, “Margarita, you are tall like a man and look like you would have big, strong babies.” Ohhh. Be still my beating heart. The poetry. A regular Oscar Wilde, that one.

And it’s not just Mozambican men who want to rush to the altar either. Many male Peace Corps volunteer friends here have received similar proposals from Mozambican women.

Shucks. I hope I am not making all Mozambicans out to be these opportunistic nymphomaniacs with Charlie Sheen-sized libidos. It’s just that here, most people wear their hearts, and their hormones, on their sleeves. They say exactly what’s on their minds, and that in no way excludes the times when their heads are in the gutter. Verbal filters and subtlety are nonexistent. If they think your baby is ugly, they will tell you. If you have a giant zit on your face, they will point right to it and tell you. And if they want to marry you because you’re white and they think that will lead to a better life, they will tell you. Or (in my particular case) if they just want to marry you because you look like you would reproduce linebackers, you bet your britches they will look you straight in the eye and tell you. It’s not done out of cruelty or malice. They just say what’s on their minds and what they believe to be true.

The implications of this brazen forwardness on the Mozambican sexual culture and its link to the HIV prevalence rate could be the topic of a series of anthropological and socioeconomic books.

For now, my solution to this problem is to explain that I, unfortunately, already have a namorado (boyfriend). Yes, that’s right. I’ve invented a fictional boyfriend back home. He’s lovely. He’s six foot three and a dead ringer for Marlon Brando circa A Streetcar Named Desire. He’s an Olympic qualifier in the Pentathlon, speaks fluent Urdu and quotes John Donne. Anyway, there are some people here who always ask about him. They are hoping he will come visit me in Mozambique. I explained that it might be difficult since he is currently splitting his time between Lake Como (he has a modest little villa there) where he is working on his memoirs of which Paramount has already purchased the rights to and Antarctica where it appears he has discovered a mutant penguin species.

Blatant lying? Okay, yes.

Outlandish? Of course. (My Mom always did tell me I had a very wild imagination)

A tad bit pathetic? Maybe. But, it’s not like I have a blow-up doll or anything.

I instead prefer to think of my boyfriend as an effective defense mechanism and a means to set an example. If he and I can illustrate fictional fidelity in a place where multiple concurrent partnerships rather than monogamy are the norm, then I think my delusional hunka hunka man is accomplishing something here.

Once I start picking out the fictional colors of my fictional wedding to my fictional namorado, then I’ll know I’ve got bigger problems beyond my creepy cartoon-shaped rashes and caveman hair. But for now, I’ve decided that if it helps me demonstrate that a young woman can come to Africa by herself without a man, live here without a man by her side, work here without a man, function without the need or intent to find a new man, and try to make a difference without a man. Well, then I am just fine with using my imaginary boyfriend to explain to my hopeful Mozambican suitors why I just can’t accept their cow.

Dear friends,

I am here, Africa. The land where Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti (thanks Toto), where Simba and Mufassa philosophized about the circle of life, and where Kevin Bacon was allowed to play basketball. This is Africa. This is my new home. And to chronicle my Peace Corps adventures here in Mozambique, a lush and beautiful country on the eastern coast of Africa, I thought I’d share this little blog.

While I tend to find the whole idea of a blog rather self-indulgent in a Jack Kerouac kind of way, some people have requested it. At least this way, as opposed to having it forced upon you from my Grandma or in a mass email, people at home can decide for themselves if they want to subject themselves to my rantings. Well, here you go masochists. I am nothing if not an enabler.

So while I have technically been in Mozambique now for several months and am starting to get settled in at my permanent site, I thought I would rewind and start at the beginning. Sometimes, you just need a little context.

Back then we go to September 29, a chilly Nebraska fall morning when I officially left for the Peace Corps. That is, however, after a brief tryst through the tenth circle of hell I like to call packing. The next two years of my life were stuffed Procrustean-like into two suitcases. And since my Dad affectionately likes to call me Imelda Marcos, I continue to celebrate my shoe picking decisiveness. Three pairs baby.

The night before my departure, my Mom had persuaded my siblings to come home so we could all break bread together in what she deemed my “Last Supper.” She has a very sinister sense of humor.

At 3:00 A.M. in atypical Goll fashion, the troops mobilized. My whole family awoke and accompanied me to the airport to say “goodbye.”

By the way, I find the very essence of the word “goodbye” to be a giant contradiction. The only time I can even faintly remember goodbye being an excessively cheery occasion was when the Von Trapps were singing about it. “So long, farewell, auf wiedersehem, adieu.” They just confused me into thinking they were happy with their harmonious multilingual usages of goodbye. Damn you, Liesl. I don’t care how anyone expresses it, goodbyes (especially goodbyes in the back of a cold airport security line) are terrible.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Love Actually, and since it’s just past Christmas I’m thinking many of you may have busted it out, then you might remember the closing scene and thus equate airports with Heathrow and thus with London and thus with British accents and thus with Hugh Grant and of course thus with happiness. But for me that morning of my departure, even with all the excitement of my upcoming adventure, Eppley Airport was the saddest place in the world to me.

Meeting the other volunteers in Philadelphia and having people to commiserate with regarding goodbyes was a saving grace. Philadelphia was also nice because it gave me a chance to try to locate a showing of “The Night Man Cometh.” It was a failure. The Gang must have been up to some other degenerate shenanigans (If you’ve not seen the truly awful yet wonderful “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” please just disregard this last part.)

So, following a night on the town in the city made famous by the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (Okay, everyone together now. I know you want to. “Innnnnnn West Philadelphia born and raised…”), a 3:00 A.M. bus ride to JFK International Airport, a 15 hour plane ride to Johannesburg, and another short plane ride to Maputo, we disembarked in Mozambique. Ahh…

After forty straight hours of traveling they immediately shuffled us off to this beautiful, swanky hotel for some decompression time and final sessions (not to mention final showers). I still am unsure about the philosophy of why they did this. Maybe it was a little calm before the storm--our own little Xanadu before they shipped us off to the boonies.

Okay, maybe I‘m being a little hard on our training site. Namaacha, a cold, rainy little city on the borders of Mozambique, Swaziland, and South Africa, was a wonderful community full of some of the most hospitable people I have met. My homestay family consisted of my mother, father, two little sisters and a little brother.

I would compare my host mom to the witch in Hansel and Gretel. That sounds terrible, I know, but I am referring to the fact that she was constantly trying to fatten me up. Our Mozambican host moms had a gossip network that would put junior high girls to shame, and one of the things they liked to discuss most was whose host son or daughter was plumping up the most. Needless to say, my host family loved to feed me. In what is probably construed as a giant paradox, I spent my first three months in Africa freezing cold and uncomfortably full.

Several people have asked me about the actual houses, bathrooms, water, roads, etc. As for the accommodations, everyone here had a different story, but my family’s house had electricity (yep, television and refrigerator) and an indoor bathroom with an actual toilet. No running water but it was a toilet as opposed to a latrine. Showers became bucket baths. I would describe the roads not so much as roads but more as goat paths. My house was cement with tile floors. My room was painted, and I constantly had large insect, rodent, and reptilian lodgers. Rocks kept the roof in place and sometimes when it rained, I was certain the whole house would collapse. I thought it was beautiful.

My daily routine for the first ten weeks went basically as follows: Portuguese class, health technical sessions, Mozambican cross cultural sessions, more Portuguese, some catharsis time with the other trainees, and then home to spend time with the host family. It would take a while to enumerate everything we did and everything we learned so I thought I would just share some casual observations, significant events, and particular musings about training and Mozambique that have accumulated so far. I apologize for the mass generalizations about a country full of dynamic and diverse people. I am banking on more mature, poetic insights to come later on in my service. For now, I’ve only got my junior-high-boy-sense-of-humor.

Music:

In Mozambique, there is rhythm in everything. From the way people walk to the cadence of their conversations to the way my little sister scribbled out her name. A beat can be found in the most mundane tasks and in inanimate objects.

Music in Mozambique is loved and appreciated in all its forms. Traditional Mozambican music, American pop music, my family even popped in an Elvis CD. They couldn’t get enough of “Hound Dog.”

Dancing is its own dialect. Children here don’t really have first steps; they have first hip thrusts.

I don’t care what kind of music elitist you consider yourself. Spend time in Mozambique and your Ipod will slowly but surely accumulate the musical stylings of Ne-Yo, Celine Dion, Chris Brown, and Rhianna. Guarantee it.

Cleavage smeavage:

I have seen so many exposed breasts here that I am quickly becoming un-phased. Boobs are not something women pull out of their arsenal of feminine wiles. They are not pornographic, but simply anatomical instruments for breast feeding. I have seen them whipped out at parties, strolling down the street, and in church on Sunday. Mozambican breast feeding would put Hugh Hefner out of business.

Anne Boleyn:

My host family was having a party and I had the dubious honor of beheading the chicken. With a dull knife. I named it Anne Boleyn. I was the only one who was amused.

“Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!”:

Spray N Wash!? Shout?! Tide!? Puhleeeease. Amateurs. My mãe in Mozambique could get the stubbornest of stubborn stains out of clothes. The way she attacked that laundry with her hands was something straight out of The Art of War. It was incredible. Laundry here is all done by hand usually against rough surfaces. Delicates do not survive long. However, my clothes are cleaner now than they were on the day I bought them.

Time:

For a lot of people, time is the most disobliging of things. When you want it to slow down, it speeds up. And when you would give anything for it to hurry up, it drags on. It is always there, reminding you that there is absolutely nothing you can do to affect it. Here in Mozambique, people seem to just ignore the arrogance of time. They operate in their own time zone--Mozambican time. The pace is so much slower and while most of the time I enjoy it, occasionally my Type A personality rears its ugly head and I just want to go go go. I think this adjustment to time will just take time.

I have frequently seen people mowing their lawns--with machetes.

Many Mozambicans love terrible action movies. Jean Claude Van Dame is to Mozambicans what David Hasselhoff is to Germans. The fixation is inexplicable and bizarre.

Mozambicans can have full conversations in nothing but grunts.

If you are a pedestrian in Mozambique, you are semi-suicidal.

Carting things on your head is definitely an art form perfected by many Mozambican women. I saw one woman with a bucket of water on her head, a baby on her back, and her two hands full of sacks. It was incredible. There are few things stronger than a Mozambican woman.

Mozambique vs. a cheeseburger:

When Todd Chappman, the Chargé d’Affaires, aka the interim Ambassador to Mozambique came to speak to us, he remarked that we Americans are an idealistic people. We were founded on those principles (somethin’ somethin’ life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness)--and with that idealism, the belief that we can change things, there comes a cost. In the case of Mozambique that cost is $1.50 every year for every American to be exact. Six quarters is just part of the price of global leadership he said. He then listed off several reasons, economic, national security, etc why investing in Mozambique was important and ultimately cost-effective to the United States. I am no economist. I actually only ever read “The Economist” for the book reviews. A supply and demand curve literally makes me physically nauseated.

So with my only economic experience coming from luck-luster Monopoly performances and after just writing a slew of surface level platitudes about Mozambique and Africa (Whoa, you mean to tell me they like to dance in Africa!? You don’t say!), what could I possibly say to convince people that their six quarters would not be better spent at the McDonald’s Dollar Menu?

I guess I would just say that I have seen the value of the people here--even if I can’t quite articulate it, and I think a buck fifty in Mozambique is a sound investment because it is an investment in people. And people is the greatest resource. Hah! Karl Marx couldn’t beat the idealism out of me.

Then again, I am only rounding out my first full month at my permanent site in Angoche, Nampula in northern Mozambique. I’ve got plenty of time to let my idealism morph into cynicism. However, judging from my initial reactions of Angoche, this sleepy little old colonial port city right on the ocean where you can occasionally see dolphins splashing around, I am banking on that not happening.

Yes, I survived training, my first holiday season away from my family, and my first month at site. And while my Portuguese is improving at the rate of a constipated turtle, I have managed to locate the market, the post office, and halleluiah, an Internet café.

I thought I would close this first entry (congratulations if you’ve made it all the way through. I applaud your resilience) with a few choice reactions from people upon hearing I was going to Africa with the Peace Corps. I still find them endlessly entertaining. Terms of bereavement, if you will.

“The Peace Corps, huh? You know what Richard Nixon said about the Peace Corps, don’t you? He said it was a haven for hippies and draft dodgers.”

“Two years is sure a long time.”

“Mozambique! Are you [expletive] crazy!?! They have an AK-47 on their national flag.”

“Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” (Referencing the fact that the main character in Dirty Dancing wanted to enlist in the Peace Corps. Whatever. She’s got moves.)

“Two years! Wow! That’s a long-ass time!”

“I bet you have like seven pairs of Birkenstocks.”

“Couldn’t find a job, eh?”

“What’s the adjustment stage like when you return? I bet you’re going to come back an oddball.” (Thanks, Dad)

“Two years! Are you freaking nuts? That’s so long.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? No, I didn’t think so. Well, it’s probably a good idea then for a single gal your age to try your luck abroad for a while.”

“Two years is such a long time. Hopefully they have beer there.”

(One little old lady whispering not too discreetly to another little old lady) “My, goodness, she already looks black.” (Referring to my apparent overexposure to Vitamin D and UV, aka my tan.)

“Whoa. Twenty-seven months. That’s like over two years.”

But my favorite and so far the most accurate came from my professor/thesis advisor/life sage extraordinaire…“Margaret, you will learn much, cry hard, laugh often, and come back a fuller human being.”

Mozambique and Nebraska sure are very different--two small spots on a big globe (both only entering the radar of some twelve-year-old vying to win the Geography Bee of Random and Obscure Places). Still, they are both now what I call home.

I will do my best to update this as much as I can. Please know I miss you all and think of you often (it was especially fervent during the holidays). I now have a more or less permanent address so feel free to send me anything. I have a big affinity for the lost art of letter writing so I promise to write back. Happy holidays and all my love from Africa.

Margaret Goll

Escola Secundária de Angoche

Caixa Postal #8

Angoche, Nampula

Mozambique