Fast-forward from Cape Town (there are no words to describe...) to my new job in D.C., which has already sent me to several very interesting lectures on topics of interest to the non-profit community.

Last Friday, I attended a forum titled 'PepsiCo. and the World Food Programme (WFP): A Public-Private Partnership to Transform Nutrition Across Africa', and was inspired by the observations made by the representatives from these unlikely partners. As MSME (Micro Small and Medium Enterprise) enthusiasts, non-profit workers might be inclined to mistrust multi-billion dollar corporations, perhaps even more so when they claim to incorporate humanitarian acts into their business model. The forum last week, however, put my former perspective into perspective: perhaps PepsiCo. will be part of the solution instead of the problem.

The non-profit sector is full of do-gooders who can hardly afford to buy a bottle of 3-buck chuck at Trader Joe's, including yours truly, while Pepsi and the like are lining their pockets with currencies from all over the globe. But what if there was a way (and more importantly, a will) to use the incredible resources that companies like Pepsi have at their fingertips to make a serious dent in global hunger? With developed world markets becoming increasingly saturated, the movers and shakers at the top of the capitalist food chain are naturally looking toward new markets, and what better a consumer base than the hungriest people in the world.

In Ethiopia, as in most African nations, a large percent of children do not have consistent access to the nutrients they need to become healthy energetic adolescents and subsequently adults who can participate effectively in global economies. Certain nutrient rich, locally produced foods are already a part of the diet and culture and could be the key to improving nutrition from the ground up. Well aware of this, the World Food Programme (WFP) has recruited one such legume to be the star player in their newest campaign: the humble chickpea. This little nitrogen-fixing plant has begun to make a name for itself around the globe, as dedicated carnivores have found a taste for hummus and Indian food is all the rage in cities, but it's always been important to Ethiopia. This year WFP developed a sweetened chickpea-milk compound packaged individually and targeted at malnourished youth that could not be better suited to local demand, and Ethiopian leaders and farmers are simply ecstatic to start manufacturing and distributing the product locally. This is where Pepsi comes in.

Anticipating the concerns of many audience members at the forum, the WFP representative warned us that there's really no reason to be surprised or alarmed that Pepsi may have motivations beyond the humanitarian for investing in this project as this means they are incentivized to see the project through. Because their investment depends on it, Pepsi worked to ensure that the product stays at price-point so as not to become irrelevant, a safety net that is invaluable to WFP as they begin to promote their product, at first in Ethiopia but potentially to a much wider consumer base. Large companies will have an increasingly important role to play in global nutrition, and transparent arrangements such as this one are trail-blazing the way to a new understanding of the potential of public-private partnerships.

As the WFP representative told us, "there's so much more at stake than compassion". Feeding practices during the first 24 months of life are critical in a child's brain development, and access to this powerful package of sweetened chickpea could go a long way in improving that development. Pepsi's long term goal may be to diversify their own source for chickpeas as global demand soars, but a necessary step toward achieving that goal is supporting smallholder farms which leads to improved incomes. Ethiopian farmers have always cultivated chickpea for small-scale domestic consumption, but with Pepsi's investment and WFP's guidance, the chickpea could have a real impact on child nutrition in Ethiopia and around the world.

Cape Town.

It's uncanny that a mere two and a half hours on a plane can take you to a place so exactly opposite from where you've spent the last year. And it was quite an enjoyable journey at that - it's amazing the difference between traveling on Mozambique's single airline to traveling with the world renowned South African Airlines. I usually hate flying, but an essentially empty plane with a steward who is eager to keep the white wine flowing makes for a pleasant trip! And if riding in cars made me pensive, then flying alone to a new country, yet again, is emotionally almost more than I can bear. I see that money buys the same things everywhere. Elaborate bushy sweaters for the cold months in the Cape, little girls in trendy leggings and pigtails, smiling people who can afford this direct flight. And I know that I am once again leaving those I care about behind, off to see new things and new people, all the while thinking of those I love but left back home long ago.

And then Cape Town. The land of traffic lights (called 'robots' by South Africans), bubble baths, 10pm sushi, 7am yoga, health food stores, museums, coffee shops, stainless steel bathroom fixtures that respond precisely to my temperature and pressure needs, zero struggle to make correct change in stores, recycling bins, wheat bread, washer AND dryer, the newest in fashion, and 5 different ethnic cuisine options on every block. I am beside myself, and more than a little ashamed that I have so easily fallen into the lap of exquisite luxury. Is this what I need to truly be happy? I maintain that I do not in fact NEED it, but is it wrong to want it? To just be grateful for my privilege and move forward?

Last night was an invite only Gibson guitar event that I managed to get into with the help of a friend. I'm so lucky to be here as someone's guest; it's enabled me to dive straight into the social scene, meeting musicians and getting to know all the best local spots. And I'm spending my days as a tourist, wandering around trying to keep my eyes in my head, discreetly ducking into a cafe to pull out my map from time to time. But really, it's quite an easy place to get to know. Big, but not confusing, and after yesterday's City Bus Tour (admittedly NOT the most discreet, but very informative and an efficient way to see the whole city in a hurry) I feel like I could walk just about anywhere I want to go. Maybe I'll go back down to the Water Front and have another Milk and Honey beer with a basket of fried seafood. Or cook up another Mexican feast for the neighbors. The possibilities are endless, and for now, I'm busy just trying to soak it all in. I'm almost thankful for this rainy day, to reflect on the past 3, send some emails, and convince myself this isn't all a dream.

People say that Africa gets inside you, grabs a hold of something in you. That for many it’s hard to get away once you’ve lived in this land of red earth and tall grass. I’ve seen so many beautiful and so many terrible things this year, and I’ve often tried to put these experiences into words, perhaps sometimes succeeding in communicating the true sentiment of the moment to a reader.

There are many things I will miss. Fresh tropical fruit, and other foods of the season and region; last week we went to the mountain town of Gurue and came back with beans and sunflower seeds for roasting.

The Francisco family of Nguanje; the many children of this tight knit family make up the membership of one of my favorite (sshh) youth groups. This week we visited their garden together for the last time. Jacama kept running ahead of us, jumping out of each bushy hiding spot when we passed, singing one of our favorite tunes. The girls giggled and held my hands.

Cooking with Mozambican women; I cook with my best friend in her home in Quelimane almost daily. She blames me for making her gain weight, and I accept it. This week, we went to Morrumbala for a ‘Dia de Campo’, or field day, with my kids groups, spending the whole night before preparing vitamin rich foods like sweet potato juice and soy milk to share with the children at the celebration. My neighbors came to help as well, peeling oranges as we patted out sweet potato cakes. It was one of the best nights I’ve had in Morrumbala. And on our last night, we went to my neighbor’s house for a dinner of cow liver, my first, and apparently a Mozambican favorite. It wasn’t terrible, as most Americans might fear, but I was glad I chose this evening to teach them how to make banana pudding. A nice palate cleanser.

Other moments of excitement, shock, awe, anticipation, humility. Playing an extra in a Portuguese film. Near head-on collisions; who would expect another vehicle to come around that grassy middle-of-nowhere curve? An unexpected lunar eclipse viewed from the bush. A gift of a goat valuing 15 dollars, a fortune for this family who doesn’t have electricity or running water. Who live in a mud and grass hut in the middle of the bush. Stopping on the side of the road when you can’t hold it anymore to water the grass, and hopefully not water any mambas. Playing mancala in the dirt with kids who can’t write their own name, but who have mastered this intricate game of counting and strategy.

And also many times I just wanted to shut my eyes, to hold the tears in. Children fighting over the chance to have a small cup of soy milk or sweet potato juice; would this ever happen in America? Pedestrian mortalities. Ubiquitous Catholicism which has taken the place of traditional spiritual rites, the result of years of resource dumping into schools, churches, infrastructure. So much good has been done in the name of a God that was not born on this continent. The many, many, many instances of ‘what have you brought us?’ The culture of receiving has been so ingrained here, perpetuated by a generation of foreigners who wish to atone for the sins of their grandfathers, who often feel helpless to do anything but dump charity onto Africa and its people, who have thus transitioned from “Do what you’re told and you won’t be beaten” to “Do what you’re told and I’ll give you a t-shirt that advertises my organization”.

After our Dia de Campo, I was told that the community was very pleased with the day’s activities, but that they were quite displeased with the snack we brought. “Why?” I asked. They seemed to like the sweet potato juice and soy milk and cookies.“Oh yes, they did like them. But they were expecting a full meal.”

At the end of the day, we brought out a soccer ball and the kids played their hearts out until the setting sun commanded our departure. They would have played all night had we let them, and the next day too until their tired, skinny, dirty little legs would propel them no further and they collapsed to sleep, puppies in the dirt. Sometimes I think I’ll give up on effecting complicated social change and simply distribute soccer balls across Zambezia. But how then would I be any different from any of the other dumpers to whom I condescend? To give or not to give, that is the question. Were it as simple as taking the sweet potato off the plate of an 8 year old American who refuses to eat it and popping it into the mouth of a child in Africa…but we know the redistribution of resources depends on so many political, economic, and social factors. “There are starving kids in Africa” is true enough, but it doesn’t make the food come.

I often marvel at the stark differences between socio-economic classes; how must my Mozambican colleagues feel when they go to the bush and see their countrymen who have so much less than them? When they walk past a barefoot woman in the city streets, carrying all her belongings on her back? What they must feel is this: that could very easily be me, and I categorically refuse.

I’ve written on this topic several times before, but highway etiquette here never ceases to amaze me and makes for endless amounts of writing material. Nine months in this country and my teeth must be ground to nubs. All drivers are constantly on the offensive, laying on the horn when I, in their place, would reduce my speed significantly, and nary a seatbelt in sight. Both north and southbound travelers treat the same road as though it were one way. And until recently, I maintained hoped that all the stories I heard of vehicular homicide involving NGO or government cars and rural pedestrians would remain just that: stories. Unfortunate tales that I could try not to think about. But this week, as I accompanied some colleagues visiting from another district to see the junior farmer groups in our province, we came upon an accident that left me short of breath. The feet of a frail woman, most likely old beyond her years, protruding from a black cloth spread across the center of the road. Lettuce from her basket scattered across the lanes, and a government car pulled off on the side of the road.

The woman who sat in front of me crossed herself, and we traveled on. There was nothing else to do.

Another story, the validity of which I hope to never witness proof of, is that of women who actively shove their children into the road when they see NGO cars coming, hoping to receive handsome compensation for the ensuing injury or death. Absolute desperation does very ugly things to a person, and I thank the heavens and whatever is up there every day that life has handed me such good fortune.

Road-signs are a bit different here, most notably the ones framing low bridges that warn passersby to mind the crocodiles. “Cuidado Com Crocodilo”. And people would do well to heed this warning, as I just learned that more deaths are caused by crocodiles than any other animal in Mozambique. Not at all surprising, considering that large animal populations in this country have declined significantly in the past several decades. What was a bit surprising was the information that a crocodile had somehow made its way to Quelimane, a relatively large city, where it promptly took up residence in a canal and began terrorizing the neighborhood. My initial reaction was “Why doesn’t the government get rid of it, even shoot it if necessary? After all, a human life must be more valuable than a crocodile’s” and the unexpected response I received was that the crocodile hasn’t hurt anyone (yet) and they would have animal rights groups all over their case. Animal rights groups? In Mozambique?? Where wildlife populations have been systematically obliterated without the bat of an eye? Huh. Guess it’s never too late to start caring.

The numerical results that foreign donor groups demand from on the ground NGO staff often pose unfortunate limitations on our ability to focus a sufficient amount of attention and resources on projects that have the potential to produce very meaningful results. Instead of consistently supporting a modest number of beneficiaries, we’re often running around trying to start ‘x’ number of groups with ‘x’ number of members receiving ‘x’ number of visits in order for quarterly reports to seem meaty when they reach Washington. Conversely, huge amounts of money and effort are dedicated to one-day events that have no real impact on the people our organization was designed to support and care for.

For so many people, this is just a job. Not one they chose because they want to make a difference, but simply the best option for carving out a lifestyle free from the poverty we would, in theory, alleviate. NGOs are among the most important employers in Africa, making for an interesting dynamic. For me, the machine is often frustrating, and has me longing to belong to a smaller, organic operation, albeit working on the same types of projects. But for many of my colleagues, the largest concern is, naturally, where they will find work when their 2-3 year life-of-project contract is up.

And although that has nothing to do with city-dwelling crocodiles, it leaves me equally riled up.

When I leave in July, I will certainly miss the sites that a small Mozambican city has to offer. Young men holding hands in the street. Two women walking side by side in identical wraps. An old man in a black fedora, riding a pink bicycle with a basket on the front.

Other things I won’t miss so much. It seems every time I return home, a different bug has set up camp in my humble abode (and even, at times, inside my humble body, although that’s another story. The one that tells of all the parasites I have had in the past few years). This time, it was the grasshoppers. Brown ones, green ones, fast ones, slow ones, but at least they crunch when you kill them, as opposed to making the much less desirable squish of a big hairy spider.

All creatures great and small are an important part of daily life here. Mozambicans are endlessly entertained by the commentary a passing piglet in the road can inspire. “That one was asking for it! We almost had a barbeque tonight – hahaha!” Every time.

I fell in love with food in Africa. Maybe I also fell in love with Africa through food, but that’s a different story.

Comforts are so few and far between here, so the amount of pleasure a well-thought out and carefully executed meal brings is remarkable. And although it takes a lot of effort and careful planning, I have the resources to frequently create a wide variety of exciting and flavorful meals. This is not the case for most rural Africans, who have experienced significant hunger for so long that food has become the apex of much of their folklore.

“See that mountain over there? With the big white rock on the front of it? That is a door that spirits travel through.”

“Oh? And what do they find when they get inside? Gold? Treasure?”

“No. They find food. Endless quantities of food.”

It’s amazing how far 6 miles can feel when you’re crashing through the bush down rutted dirt roads. Where every bean tree and corn stalk looks like the last and within 5 minutes, you’re hopelessly disoriented.

After finishing up a visit to 2 new and distant groups yesterday, my driver and I got a bit of a late start heading home. I asked before we departed if he knew how to get back – our guides informed us they were staying behind to head to their nearby homes – and he assured me that he did.

About 30 minutes later, we came to a huge puddle (pond really) in the road that we definitely hadn’t crossed on our way there. Questioning a passerby, we found that we had missed our turn by a long shot. But within a minute, the driver had me convinced he had this under control. Even though every road here looks the same to me, he has had a lot of practice orienting himself using mountains and sun position, so even though we were on a different route, he was still confident he could get us home. So we plunged nose first into the pond.

And promptly got stuck.

I must have let out a frustrated (or terrified because oh-my-god-i’m-not-sleeping-in-this-truck-in-the-bush-with-no-cell-service) sigh because he immediately took to reassuring me. ‘Don’t worry! We’ll get out!’ (He starts taking off his shoes) ‘A much bigger truck passed by here not long ago, so we’re just fine!’ (The socks come off). ‘I’ll just step out here and hook up the traction!’ (I have no idea what he’s talking about and am trying to breathe slowly.)

He hopped out of the car, did something to the front wheels, hopped back in, and freed us without much more ado. I relaxed, but would not do so completely until I got home. The quick African night was upon us and we still had to navigate our way around a new bridge not yet equipped for the passing of vehicles.

I feel certain that never again in my life will I have a job that is equally heartbreaking as it is rewarding. Yesterday I visited a new group of kids for the first time and was absolutely blown away by them; their attitude, their responsiveness, their vegetable garden – everything was impressive and inspiring. They proudly showed me where they had planted carrots, onions, cabbage, collards and asked that I bring them tomato seeds and a notebook so that they can keep track of their work. Maybe the program can survive when I’m gone after all!

And then today. I visited one of the first groups I started months back and their plots were abominable. Waste high weeds and all their vegetable seedlings had dies from a lack of water and mulching. I didn’t even know what to say, so I sat down on the ground, right where I stood in the vegetable garden, and asked what was going on. They were reluctant to speak at all, and only mumbled that some members weren’t pulling their weight with the watering/weeding schedule and that the sun was very strong.

I remind myself that the new group is just that – a new group. They’re still excited, the magic hasn’t worn off. But if my auxiliaries were doing their jobs (and some are more than others) and integrating work with play and education, I like to think that the kids would stay inspired year round. I can’t be everywhere at once, and come August, I won’t be anywhere near them. So I remind myself (I’m always reminding myself, so as not to slump into hopeless depression) that it doesn’t really matter if none of these groups stick with it and become Mozambique’s best vegetable farmers. What matters is that they gain something, be it emotional, educational, or purely recreational, from the experience.

A recent article from the economist, a special piece on food security, explains just how difficult it is to produce food in Africa, as if I needed any more proof. The soil is exhausted, people can’t afford fertilizers, and perhaps most importantly, water is extremely hard to come by. So the fact that these kids are out there at all has to count for something. And I’ll try not to take it so personally that a lot of them show up simply because they hope to get a ride in the bed of my truck.

Simple things give me great pleasure these days. Wearing my socks inside out so the seams don’t bother my toes. Imagining ice cubes made of coffee. A big steaming plate of matapa. A young boy wearing a shirt that says ‘Gimme a kiss’, stuffing his dirty little face with porridge. Naked babies that run dripping from the bath and screaming with laughter, black skin glistening, dark as night. Cool water is everyone’s best friend.

Upon finding out that I’ve been admitted to NYU for Fall 2011, I accidentally stayed at the office way too late using the internet, then realized I would have to bike home in the pitch black. So of course, nervous and blind and riding too fast, I drove over a hole in the road and went tumbling ass over elbow. Luckily the bike was still rideable, and adrenaline kept the pain away until I was safe and sound in my house.

When I got home, I was shocked to realize it was only 6:30. When darkness comes to Africa, it wastes no time. The sun sets and then, black night.

I’ve spent the past few days in Pebane, a tiny coastal town, helping my colleagues prepare for a health and nutrition fair held on April 7th – National Women’s Day in Mozambique. Many organizations prepared displays and activities for the fair; the purpose of our table was to promote the incorporation of highly nutritious and readily available foods, such as soy beans and sweet potatoes, into the diets of rural women and children. We spent the entire day before preparing cakes and fritters, and when night rolled around, as abrupt and dark as ever, we found ourselves preparing juice by headlamp and listening to Justin Bieber on someone’s computer. (A group of 5 or more people together at night always constitutes a music-worthy party, and that little punk sure is popular here!) A black dog that was docile and friendly all day, adorable holding a coconut shell between his paws and scratching out the oily white meat with his teeth, takes up his role as guard as soon as the sun goes down, barking valiantly at anything that moves. How do they know?

Then the fair. I was, as always, the lone white girl in a sea of black eyes, but many more than usual this time. As soon as word got around that we were giving free samples of fresh soy milk – which took all of 5 seconds – we couldn’t keep the crowds back. Piles of hungry kids, arms outstretched, all but jumped over our tables, even as the men in our group physically restrained them. Such a mix of emotions these situations produce: these kids are all malnourished and need soy milk and sweet potatoes every day, but the goal of the fair was for them to learn about the products and be able to make them in their own homes, not just suck down the current stock. In addition, they were wildly disobedient and made for a very stressful environment. Still, we need more events like this in Mozambique, and hopefully some of the women who visited our stand to buy cakes before all hell broke loose will replicate these nutritious recipes in their own homes. We had planned to charge a symbolic price for all items, milk included. But it’s impossible to deny a child a small cup when she has no money, even if you can predict the rioting that it will cause.

And there’s no amount of stress that a freshly caught grilled rock fish and a dip in the Indian Ocean can’t cure.

Peace Corps volunteers are conditioned to do whatever we can to fit in. To spend 2 years (or more) trying to “integrate”, living on 200-300 dollars a month, having authentic experiences. And it’s an important learning process. But somewhere along the way, about 2 ½ years down the road maybe, you realize you can’t fit in. Not really. That you never will. I never will. And that’s because anyone I work with, given the opportunity, would swap lives with me. Not that they want to leave Mozambique, or be American, but they would take the privileges I grew up with in a heartbeat. Sometimes I worry that that means that the integration I’ve tried to achieve is a mockery of their lives, of a situation that they never chose. At the very least, it’s self-serving, perhaps ironically, perhaps not.

When this is over, I know that I will make a smooth transition back to life in America. Maybe I’ll go to grad school in a big city. I’ll eat junk food for a while, but then I’ll set rules for myself. Maybe I won’t remember all the details of the DR and Mozambique. But I’ll never lose all the things I’ve learned simply by being here.

And not all of those things are beautiful.

Many white South African business owners in Mozambique harbor post-colonial hatred for dark-skinned Mozambicans while simultaneously profiting from the country’s natural resources. They work in the tourism industry, building beautiful hunting and fishing lodges that are meant for foreigners and priced thusly. When Mozambican NGO workers stay at these lodges while traveling for work, the tension becomes palpable. After visiting one such lodge yesterday afternoon, and having a beer with the deceivingly pleasant South African owners, one of our colleagues who had 2 extra beds in her room invited us to come back and sleep at the lodge. But upon our return around 8pm, with another friend in tow who planned to camp on the beach, the owners threw a race-based hissy-fit of historic proportions. To tell us that camping on the beach isn’t allowed is one thing – to storm into our colleague’s room looking for stowaways; to cut my friend off while he’s trying to apologize for assuming camping was allowed by proclaiming ‘I didn’t expect this from a white person’; to demand that we vacate the premises immediately because ‘this is not a South African squatter camp’ – all of that is a whole different story.

I left feeling shocked by some of the blatantly racist comments that these proprietors made, and glad to be on the other side of a war that clearly never ended. Now my Mozambican colleague’s discomfort around the South Africans living and prospering financially in Moz makes more sense; they’ve clearly seen this before.

As the only foreigner working with World Vision in Morrumbala, and a white woman to boot, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that my coworkers will always treat me differently. I don’t think it’s really racism; it’s more complicated than that. Even if one was inclined to dislike white people, they know unabashed prejudice is out of style. They’re kind and respectful to me, if reserved, almost as if they originally expected me to act superior (Because so many foreign whites have acted that way. So many still do) and are now reconciling that with the fact that I’m actually friendly, smiley, and look younger than I am. I try to imagine what it would be like if a dark-skinned foreigner entered an all-white work environment in America (do those exist anymore? I’m sure they do), speaking broken English and attempting to integrate into projects. People would smile and be cordial and helpful, especially for the first couple of weeks, maybe even take him or her out for a drink after work. But would they ever really connect?

Every woman we drive past on the road has a baby strapped to her. Every last one. Health organizations proclaim ‘family planning is key!’, but telling people it’s a good idea to limit the number of children they have and handing out birth control pills won’t have any effect on a Mozambican man’s idea of family. He needs to prove that he is virile, and can be the head of a family. He wants dozens of little workers for his fields, even if he can’t feed them. So, every woman on the road has a baby strapped to her. Every last one.

I’m learning that it’s not just me who needs to spend weekends in the city, who feels that there’s no real potential for a social or personal life in Morrumbala. It’s all the rural NGO workers. We lead transitive lives. I heard a Mozambican coworker saying the other day that no one longs to build a life in Morrumbala; you have to go where the work takes you. She said if you stay too long in the campo, the city is shocking upon your return. I was intrigued to find out that Mozambicans who have lived here their whole lives feel the same way that I do. In some ways, we’re not that different after all.

After a night of sleep made very rough by intense heat, I awoke wishing more than anything that I was heading to work in a big chilly city. I could stop and grab an enormous coffee, and I wouldn’t even mind being caught in traffic. I could listen to NPR.

Instead, I woke up just as overheated and damp as I had gone to bed the night before. I pulled on my clothes, ate a squishy ripe banana, and slathered my face in sunscreen in the bumpy truck ride to the campo.

I thought the worst of the hottest season was behind us. Think again, loira*.

*loira = blondie

My body has become a world map of scars. Everywhere I go, I carry stories with me, some more exciting than others. On my knee, from falling down on a dirt road hill in the Dominican campo, tearing an even bigger hole in my old jeans. A scratch on my stomach from Chinola, in my house in the DR. My foot, from a piece of rebar sticking out of the sidewalk around a baseball stadium in Santo Domingo. The other side of my foot, a spider bite maybe, here in my house in Moz, and another mark reminding me of the Christmas holidays I spent barefoot in Tofu. And now two more bites on my arm and knee that will surely scar. I take the world with me wherever I go.

Some days I wish I could just take a truck and drive around all day giving lifts to people going here and there with incredible loads, on their heads or balanced on bicycles. Eight bamboo floor mats rolled up and stacked one on top of the other. Ten bags of charcoal. Twenty, forty, sixty liters of water. Other days I’m incredibly frustrated that people seem to have no healthy fear of cars and the road. How is it possible that they are not at all worried about being run over? I’ve asked this question so many times, both in my head and aloud, and a few days ago, my new driver gave a shocking but also credible response: they know that if they get hit by an organization car (very identifiable with our brightly painted logos) then they’re in for a lot of money. So they don’t try that hard to get out of the way. In fact, according to him, they actively WANT to be hit.

But what does he know? He ran over my neighbor’s papaya tree and didn’t even apologize.

I arrived to Quelimane on Friday, looking, to quote a friend, “like an aid worker from the Sudan”. Hair a-tumble, skin caked brown with dust, which could almost be mistaken for a great tan were it not for the sweat streaks running down my neck. Ah yes, this is why I avoid public transport at all costs.

On Sunday, they picked me up in a huge truck to return to Morrumbala. I didn’t even see them waiting on the side of the road at first because I was expecting our usual, an average sized pickup truck. The driver was prepared for the long haul, drinking straight from a sweating 2 liter bottle of Coke. He clearly knew something I did not.

And then it was revealed to me. We would be taking a detour to pick up some bicycles in another quite distant community before returning home. Is that ok with you Mica? Well we’re already on our way, so I suppose so. Never mind that it’s already 4 o’clock. The truck doesn’t even belong to my organization, so I can hardly complain.

When we stop to pick up another passenger, someone who actually belongs to the same organization as the truck but whom the driver didn’t know was coming along when he agreed to take me, the man is startled to see me in his seat. His surprise turns to loathing when he is informed that he will be riding in the bed of the truck all the way to Mopeia. ‘Who is this entitled white woman?’ his face says. ‘It’s not my fault!’ I silently retort. I want to yell it, but instead I just play dumb as I usually do in these situations. And I resist the urge to apologize because that would be admitting that I was privy to this arrangement.

So I try not to think about the angry man bouncing along in the truck bed. Inside the cab the mood is light. (Well, other than the endless close calls with pedestrians and cyclists. Drivers here have such an attitude about those who get in their way, almost as if they wouldn’t mind killing a few if it would teach the others a lesson.) The other person riding along with us is an unusually empowered, forward thinking young woman who spent several years living in the capital city of Maputo, which can make a big difference on a person’s outlook. When the driver received a few phone calls that were obviously from a woman, our car-mate began to chide him shamelessly, asking what he thought he was doing taking on all these girlfriends when he has a wife at home, poor thing washing his clothes and just waiting for her man to come home from work. I couldn’t help but giggle, a bit nervously – everyone knows many Mozambican men are unfaithful to their wives, some openly, others covertly, but hardly anyone talks about it. My poorly concealed amusement only fueled the fire, and soon he was in full-on defense mode, hopelessly negating the obvious. All in all, not your average Mozzie car-talk.

In the late afternoon light, a strange and unnatural red and white light goes streaking through the sky, like a plane crash. Soon it was dark. I was surprised by the first owl, but quickly became accustomed to these huge, graceful creatures decorating the dirt roads we crossed. We don’t travel at night very often. Finally we arrive in Mopeia, where we spend an hour at the office, unloading this, loading that, etc. When we finally take off again, it’s past 8 o’clock and we have many kilometers of dirt road ahead of us.

On this final leg of our nocturnal journey, a single bunny barely escapes the crush of the tires. I think both my travel buddies were hoping for rabbit stew. Then a much more foreboding creature appears: an enormous black snake is crossing the road in front of us. Much too big to be a mamba, but likely still deadly. The driver swerves to miss it, and the other passenger makes me roll up my window lest the creature was able to get a belly-hold onto the truck. “It might have jumped on!” I know this is preposterous, but still feel a little better once the window is closed. Now every gnarled branch in the road poses an imminent threat. I imagine all the snakes and baboons of these forests in their own sinister, evening fight club. I notice too late that I’ve been involuntarily flexing my abs, trying to stay put in my seat as we cross over the bumpiest of terrains. Now my stomach is sore.

When I finally arrive home around 11pm – a ridiculously late hour for me to return to my house at site – I kill a spider-ant that is so fat it spurts brown guts half a foot across the floor as I jump on it. I think he thought I had moved out and the place was up for grabs. Sorry chubby.

And now I’m back to trying to let go of things out of my control, particularly transport troubles. On Monday I was supposed to head out very early in the morning in order to visit 2kids groups. But the car had a flat tire and wasn’t ready until 10 so I only got to visit one group. The others were left waiting. The next day we drove out to see the group that I had missed, fully aware that no one would be around. Fortunately we ran into a few of the kids and I apologized profusely for a situation that was out of my hands. Some days I think, “I could be doing so much more. If I didn’t need time for me, to breathe and take it all in and separate myself from all of it. And if I had the resources to realize all of my ideas: money, cars, fuel, staff, etc. I could really do a lot more.”

Not wanting the day to be a total waste, I decided to do an interview with one of the volunteer midwives who works at the hospital next to the kids’ garden. I had been planning to interview the nurse first but she’s a busy lady, and now she’s on vacation for a whole month in the city. So I sat down with the midwife and one of my coworkers who could translate from her local Sena into Portuguese that I can understand, and we talked about the maternity ward: her work as a midwife, resources the hospital is lacking, etc. The goal of gathering this information, along with photos, is to build a support network between this hospital and potential donors in the United States, namely churches or women’s groups.

Yesterday was also International Women’s Day, a fact I had strangely forgotten when I was conducting the interview. My neighbor had mentioned a party in passing, but I was still startled when, around 6 o’clock, a stunningly beautiful young woman I had never seen before arrived at my house and informed me that she had come to escort me to a party at her house, where I found my neighbor happy-drunk, swaying to the music and reveling in her womanhood. Everyone cheered when I walked in – did they think I wasn’t going to come? How lame do they think I am?? I gotta get out more.

Our most recent road trip to a training center in Lioma, about 2 hours past the beautiful tea producing mountain community of Gurué, left lots of time for introspection as these trips always do. Plus there’s always something new to see. This time, I thought a lot about how rural Africans interact with the road itself; why does an African cross the street? It could be to get water. Or maybe they simply forgot the street was there at all. Still unaccustomed to paved highways, people amble across slowly, without looking either way, or even sit in the middle of the road until they see a car – inevitably a white NGO truck – barreling toward them at speeds no amount of last minute brake-slamming could diminish enough to make a difference. A woman with 20 liters of water on her head steps into the road and panics when she sees us coming, genuinely shocked that a car is on the road at all. I grit my teeth and hope that she can maneuver out of the way in time. Eventually, I succumb to highway hypnosis and doze off, only to be jolted awake by a particularly severe brake slam and gasps from my colleagues (which only accompany the closest of calls), my eyes flashing open just in time to see a small child barely escape the crush of our tires. I didn’t sleep much after that.

Then we were in Gurué, indulging ourselves with seasonal avocados at 5 cents a pop before continuing on to Lioma through the sunflowers and towering eucalyptus trees, with thread-like branches of tinkly green leaves gently drooping and swaying around trunks in a constant state of molting. This is the only forest I have seen in Africa. When we finally arrive at the center, in a starry middle of nowhere, the electricity is out and the center has but 6 candles. There will be no bathing tonight. After preparing tuna salad in the dark, the light finally comes back but at this point we don’t miss it so much.

On the trip back, men with shovels are filling holes in the road. They see us coming and toss down their shovels to hold out their hands for an offering. Please, see the work we’ve done? There is no other work, so please pay us for making the road that much safer for you.

Then the black mamba passes in front of our car. So I spend the afternoon in terror as I crash through the bush behind a barefoot farmer who is taking me to see youth group plots. He steps lightly, quickly outpaces me, so I speed up to keep him in my sight. They’ve chosen remote areas, close to water so that vegetable production will be possible, and because this visit was last minute, I am wearing sandals. A bite from a mamba can kill a full grown adult within minutes. I calm myself by insisting that I there’s no use worrying about things out of my control. Mambas generally rest during the day and stay in trees anyway. So why did the mamba cross the street? So much long skinny green grass….and finally we’re in the clear, have arrived at the vegetable plot. And I try not to think about the fact that this is merely one leg of the many visits I have planned for this day.

In order to get the kids participating more openly, I sometimes bring cookies with me to use as incentives. Answer a question, get a treat. But what really happens is after we finish with all the questions, I end up giving out cookies anyway to the ones who were too shy or young to respond. I mean damn. They’re hungry. Am I really going to tuck half a pack of cookies back into my Aldo purse? (Which I bought for 40$ in Charleston…jerk.) Nor am I going to keep giving cookie after cookie to the few kids who speak up. Even when I do, they end up giving them to the others who haven’t gotten any, and I have to bite my lip not to smile or burst into tears.

Today I had a comic breakthrough with my colleagues. The two men I hired to help with the kids’ groups have always been nothing but respectful and humble with me, too polite almost, pleasant reverent and submissive to the point of making me feel awkward. But today, I got my first genuine laugh out of them. They’ve chuckled and smiled before, but by Mozambican standards, what I coaxed out of them today could be considered a hee-haw. And it was achieved simply by admitting that with all these men running around with ‘A’ names – Armando, Armandinho, Adolfo, Alberto, Albano, Alfredo – I often can’t remember who is who, even the people I work with on a weekly basis. I’m normally so good with names, but this alias alliteration is too much. I was very glad I admitted it, however, because the reaction that it elicited was worth having to ask your own mother a thousand times – “I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

Also, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I asked one of my kids’ groups to prepare a drama, and told them that I would come prepared with one as well. Theatre and role-play are extremely useful learning tools here; kids that merely stare at their hands folded in their lap when asked basic questions will take on a whole new persona when it’s their turn to stand in front of the group as an ‘actor’. While my drama was short and agriculturally themed, theirs went on for nearly 8 minutes (doesn’t sound long, but it actually is). Eight minutes of adlibbing about a man who had 3 kids, one boy and two girls. He sent the boy to school to learn and the girls to work as prostitutes. The daughters brought home money, the man drank it away, and all was peaceful on the home front. Until the girls were diagnosed with HIV (communicated by curling up into fetal positions on the ground and whimpering) and the father learned his lesson. Depressing, but relevant, and I certainly couldn’t accuse them of not following the prompt; it’s just that love and sex mean different things to rural African children than they do to American children.

That I can go over to my neighbor’s house wearing a worn out camisole, a skirt I got at a used clothing store, and a cheap cardigan that doesn’t even match, and be told by the young girls “ooh! You look pretty!”

The sounds – of crickets at night, neighbor kids squealing, pasada music from Cape Verde pumping from the stereos, local dialects. NOT the smells – the people a curry-sweat conglomerate, the streets a raw sewage nightmare…

That despite the hardships, it’s good for my body. A diet consisting mostly of natural foods and daily exercise.

Women and their babies. Swathed tightly in colorful fabrics, so not a moment of workable daylight will be wasted.

Tailors on every corner. Everyone sews, and there is an abundance of material everywhere you turn.

Matapa. Green leaves+garlic+coconut+peanuts boiled into mush = heaven on earth, and nutritious to boot. And if you’re fancy in the city, toss in some shrimp!

I hear there are big animals on this continent. Maybe I’ll see some one day…

When you walk in a house, you take off your shoes. When you sit down at the table, you wash your hands in a basin. What’s simple is true. And cleanliness is next to godliness.

If a child is to wear one and only one article of clothing, it is a t-shirt. Not underwear.

The driver who takes me around from campo to campo has a real talent for taking the most concise piece of basic information and turning it into an epic tale, and never at a volume less than ear-piercing. His favorite themes revolve around family life in Mozambique; conversation starters have been “MEN IN AFRICA LIKE TO HAVE LOTS OF KIDS SO THEY CAN PUT THEM TO WORK IN THEIR FIELDS!” or “WHEN TWO PEOPLE GET MARRIED, THE HUSBAND HAS TO MOVE INTO THE WIFE’S FAMILY’S HOME!” We’re talking about really revolutionary stuff here… Anyway, he means well and is as nice as he can be. But damn man, I’ve got to get me some ear plugs!

Driving down the road, so many things still remind me of the Dominican Republic. The robust lady swathed in cheap purple fabric, gyrating in the doorway of a hut to music that moves the very soul of her. Mangy dogs. Kids that run after cars and motorcycles, hoping for a lift. And yet, this isn’t the Caribbean. Both do many of the same things, but never with the same intensity. People don’t smile and visit as much here. They can’t afford to. And they certainly don’t give as much, for the same reason. They give everything they can, maybe everything they have. But what they have is significantly less than most other people in the world. They laugh and yell, but more reservedly, less frequently. They trust, but not as blindly. And by doing these things, they survive.

The two auxiliaries that I hired several months ago to work with my youth groups are two of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. For the work they do, they receive 50$ a month. They have families. They live far away. They spend hours every week on their bicycles to earn this money that is vital for their survival. And last weekend, while at church, one of them was robbed. Someone came to his house, took everything of use, which couldn’t have been much in the first place, and then set fire to the mud and grass hut. Now he literally has nothing but the clothes on his back. And when I met him at the office, he smiled and was just as polite as usual, though his face showed exhaustion beyond anything I’ve ever known.

Incidents like this leave me reeling; how could something so devastating happen to someone so good who has so little? It’s more than unfair, worse than unholy. And what can I do, other than fumble around in my purse and awkwardly offer him a few bucks, which he accepted gracefully? And place another call to the city office, where they have yet again forgotten to arrange his monthly salary.

‘Bonita’, or beautiful, is a word used much more generally in Portuguese (and Spanish) than in English, often employed where we would say ‘nice’, ‘good’, or simply ‘normal’. So I try not to feel weird when multiple people, such as colleagues or my landlord, tell me “I saw you riding your bicycle and you looked ‘bonita’.” Considering the climate and amount of energy and focus I invest in not tipping over into the sand, I highly doubt that ‘beautiful’ is how I look.

I can now add yet another country to the ever growing list of where-i-have-made-banana-related-desserts. Today my neighbor invited me over to make a cake, so I shared my mom’s banana bread recipe with her. And it came out wonderful, so moist and fluffy – probably because she beat the tar out of the batter with her huge wooden spoon. All in all, a great success and entertaining to boot.

Aaaaand my new guard doesn’t seem to understand much of my Portuguese. Excellent.

On the way back from the campo today, a bright green, metallic beetle flew in the truck window and landed on me. As I squirmed to remove it from my person without touching it – you never know what bites here – the driver sensed my distress (which required minimal powers of perception considering I was doing the hokey-pokey in my seat) and stopped the car. He promptly picked the beetle off the seat where I had managed to corral it and tossed it out the window. When I asked if it was something dangerous, he said no, it just smells weird because “brinca muito com cocó”…

It plays with poop a lot.

(*For any one of several small stores in Quelimane, Moçambique run by enterprising Chinese families)

O Chinese ‘loja’

Tireless importer of all things plastic from the Orient

Countless items in endless quantities, of questionable quality

Without you, my Little House on the Savannah

Would stand empty

No washcloths with 0% absorbency rates

Nary a stainless steel spoon that can prodigiously produce rust overnight

Nor a stick-free pan that loses its ‘teflon’ at the mere mention of utensils

O where would I find nail-polish so tiny, yet so defiant when confronted with nail polish remover?

Even when it comes in the form of oily, orange smelling cotton pads, suggesting not a hint of alcohol in its constitution

Hangers for my clothing, and clothespins too, were merely a dream before you

And so many colors you do offer!

O Chinese ‘loja’, who else can convert 85% of their store front stock to ‘Croc’ sandal knock-offs overnight?

Nevermind that you make me check my bags at the door

Your holdings are much too valuable to risk theft, this we know

Bright lights, clean floors, energizing tunes

Hark! Is that Elton John singing in Mandarin?

You inspire us to fill our lives with shiny necessities

For who could live without a miniature salad dressing bottle?

Or a hat with a double Nike swoosh?

I ate my last mini Hershey’s bar today. That deserves an entry to itself, but I will refrain from moping.

Instead, I will tell of my new arch nemesis, the Spider Ant, apparently also known as the Red Roman, a nasty creature that comes sprinting, not crawling or even creeping, into my house each night just about the time it starts to get dark outside. With the body shape of an ant, but about 90 times bigger, six spider legs and two more in front that it carries aloft like javelins, this creature gives me gooseflesh in the most insufferably hot of climates. Is it a spider? Is it an ant? Who can say? Locals call it “friend of the scorpion” because, they say, it carries a scorpion underneath it, attached to its stomach. Alksjdoihfmzdbvnlkhaf!!!!

After 2 years of stubbornly refusing to become ‘the English teacher’ in the Dominican Republic, my resolve finally crumbled when my neighbor, the cutest 14 year old girl named Delicia, showed up to my house bearing a small notebook and a gorgeous shy smile, and announced that she was there to learn English. No one has ever tried this exact technique before, simply showing up ready to get started. How could I say no? Especially since all I was doing at the moment was watching my 87th episode of Friends for the day. She already knows quite a few nouns and verbs from school, but can’t speak them very well at all, so we’ve started out by expanding her vocabulary and practicing a lot of sentences out loud. It’s really no work for me – she’s happy if I sit with her for 15 minutes and send her on her way with a little homework assignment. I don’t love that she feels the need to become versed in yet another European language that sadly has taken root and displaced (to some extent) many local dialects, but I can choose to be pragmatic about this: it really could help her get a job someday. But only if she figures out how to pronounce the word ‘shirt’ in a way that doesn’t sound quite so…offensive.

It’s mango season, and not a moment too soon. Millions of eager children across the continent have been sinking there solid teeth into green mangos for months, and finally, the fruits have ripened, and their sweet, juicy flesh is a miracle that I can only wonder why the gods saw fit to confine to a few short months out of the year. A delicious treat, straight off the tree or cooled in the fridge for a few hours, mangos offer vitamin A and C, boost the immune system, and protect against infections. I will blame their late arrival in my community for the terrible incident involving my left foot that, thanks to another of nature’s miracles (that of mold growing on another ‘orange’ fruit) has finally healed into an itchy scab. It started out as a little blister on my ankle, could have been a bug or a cut, but I didn’t notice when it happened. Which to me, means it definitely could NOT have been a snake bite, contrary to popular belief. So I did what I’ve been taught – gritted my teeth and scrubbed the fire out of it, hoping that would take care of any potential infection. The next day, it was so painful and swollen I could barely walk, and by the next day, I headed into the city to seek the counsel of a doctor friend. I had to go in for other reasons, but by this point, what my sister has endearingly called my “club foot” was top priority.

Ten days, twenty Co-Trimoxazole tablets and as many Hail Mary’s later, and I am healed! Although I must say, the fact that each pill cost approximately 3 cents was less than reassuring. Seems to have done the trick though, and now it’s just another scar to tell the story of my travels.

And all of the sudden, quite unexpectedly, my work seems to have come together as a beautiful symphony, each piece seamlessly connecting to the next to form a cohesive whole. Well, that might be a bit dramatic, but lately I feel like things are falling into place. I spent months spreading my energies here and there, and suddenly it all makes sense and seems to have paid off. Due to a miraculous merger of transport (bike and car), cell phone service, and weather, I was able to visit all 4 of my kids groups in my site this week. I was astounded at how well their crops are coming along – in some cases, the corn was taller than most of the group’s members, a fact which inspired lots of giggling once I pointed it out, and they have done a remarkable job of keeping up with the weeding, a constant problem since the rainy season has descended upon us. (Not that I’m complaining! Please keep it coming! My cucumbers have just started to germinate!) And as always, I was touched by their enthusiasm upon my arrival. Are they excited at the potential of getting to ride in the bed of my truck and then tell everyone they know? Well yes, but it’s more than that. They show me how much they missed me with their smiles, holding my hands, and I feel how much I missed them too. And in this moment, it doesn’t matter if the world of development work is dysfunctional at times, that I can think of a hundred ways to put so much of the money funneled into NGO’s to better use, and that observing change is a long and grueling process. All that matters is that we take a few minutes to skip rope before we go check out our peanut plot.

After finishing the junior farmer’s manual last week, a piece of work that took months to finally come together, we had just a few days before training was to begin; a training for rural staff members who will work with junior farmers which I was largely in charge of planning, organizing and facilitating. Arriving at the World Vision Center in Nicoadala Sunday evening – ah yes, fond memories of the week I spent in this strangely pleasing, cement block compound 4 months ago when we were just starting the junior farmer program – I spent the first night tossing and turning in a bed of wooden boards, too distracted by heat and bugs to actually sleep. This morning, somewhat rejuvenated by tea and a piece of bread (breakfast of champions), I set off at a gallop, throwing more energy than I actually had into the sessions in order to set the pace at a jaunty trot. It really paid off. I got satisfactory, enthusiastic responses, and the day flew by practically without a hitch. We somehow were able to get through 7 sessions, visit a nearby youth group, eat multiple meals and snacks, and even have time for discussions all between breakfast and bedtime. I could not be more pleased with how the first day turned out. I was terrified that the participants wouldn’t respond to my questions and discussion topics (after witnessing this exact phenomenon at a training last week, of which I was thankfully only an observer) and that my sessions would run way under time. But thanks to a few key participants who got the ball rolling, most everyone stayed interested and involved the entire day.

Just as we were finishing up the last activity of the day (planning a daily routine for our youth groups and distributing the manuals), eager to head to our rooms for well deserved rest and shower, the sky which had been grumbling threats all afternoon suddenly opened up and caught us under the grass roofed gazebo, where earlier that afternoon, I had a group of 15 adults playing Simon Says, Telephone, and Musical Chairs. Or Africa-appropriate versions of. If they’re going to play with the kids, they need to understand the games themselves! Someone joked that now they were stuck, when just a moment before they were ready to flee from Mica’s presence because “she talks a lot! Haha!” But stuck as we were, there wasn’t much left to do except…talk some more. When I could no longer take sitting and waiting for the rain to pass, I made a dash for my cell, but before I could get to the shower, the lights went out. This doesn’t happen enough here to warrant carrying around a headlamp, and the center didn’t have any candles, so I set about adjusting my eyes like a cat and soon was showering in the dark, freezing cold water tumbling down from the showerhead as well as the dark clouds outside the bathroom window. For a moment, I forgot the feverish night before, and just shivered happily.

Nothing Mother Nature (or Mother-paper-thin-mattress) could throw at me will keep me from sleeping tonight.

Due to a miraculous merger of transport (bike and car), cell phone service, and weather, I was able to visit all 4 of my kids groups in my site this week. I was astounded at how well their crops are coming along – in some cases, the corn was taller than most of the group’s members, and they have done a remarkable job of keeping up with the weeding, a constant problem since the rainy season has descended upon us. And as always, I was touched by their enthusiasm upon my arrival. Are they excited at the potential of getting to ride in the bed of my truck? Well yes, but it’s more than that. They show me how much they missed me with their smiles, holding my hands, and I feel how much I missed them too. And in this moment, it doesn’t matter if the world of development work is dysfunctional at times, that I can think of a hundred ways to put the money funneled into NGO’s to better use, and that observing change is a long and grueling process. All that matters is that we take a few minutes to skip rope before we go check-out our peanut plot.

Last night was the first I spent in my new house. I’ve learned in recent years that so much of learning to be happy in a new place, perhaps very different from any you have ever known, is being able to carve out a place for yourself, your own personal space. I can already feel that things are going to be different from now until I leave. It doesn’t matter that I spent the first night a bit nervous, cat-napping instead of truly sleeping, that my stove doesn’t work yet and I’m once again subsisting on nibble-able foods. I’m happy. And I’m home.

After an encouraging 2 day conference in Maputo, the capital, a week on Tofo beach in the south of the country, and New Years back in Quelimane with friends, I returned to Morrumbala yesterday, if not the starry idealist of years before, at least invigorated, ready to roll up my sleeves and get back to work.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the non-traditional holiday experience I’ve just come away from. First of all, the extreme heat made it difficult to think of the season as ‘Christmasy’; made it difficult to think at all in fact, as we lounged around on the sandy shores like lizards, hustling from one patch of shade to the next and sweating faster than we could rehydrate.

It all began with a conference in Maputo, the capital. I met with the other Peace Corps Response Volunteers, as well as the director for Peace Corps Mozambique, to share our experiences of the first 4 months as well as ideas about the future of the food security sector. At this conference, we were reminded that we are the first group to attempt to work in food security within Peace Corps Mozambique, a fact I had lost sight of recently. Obviously there are a lot of kinks to work out, such as visas and developing a relationship with the ministry of agriculture, and although we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into as response volunteers, I’m glad to be part of a team that is solving problems and paving the way for the very timely work of food security.

Then it was on to Bamboozi, a beachside grass-hut establishment in the sandy-white and shimmery-blue coastal community of Tofo, where barefoot international hipsters surf by day, and by night, gather in 3-walled beach bars with lofts, heavy bass music and colorful lighting. While fun and stimulating, these social hotspots at times seem the same around the world…

I had originally intended to go to Barra beach and meet up with some volunteer acquaintances (it would have been presumptuous to call people I had met only once or twice friends), but as the 10 hour bus ride ran its course, I found myself in conversation with several VSO (Volunteer Services Overseas) volunteers and ended up heading to Tofo with them instead, where I spent an eclectic Christmas among South Africans and Brits, Germans and Finnish, Canadians and Dutch. Christmas Day found us grilling fresh fish and shrimp in a hilltop hut overlooking the big blue Indian Ocean, 12 people and 9 nationalities. And a good time was had by all. Here, the moon wanes faster than I imagined possible. We attended a full-moon party on Tuesday evening, and by the time we took a midnight beach stroll on Saturday Christmas night, it was half gone.

Back in Quelimane for New Years, I attended a house party in a sparsely furnished Portuguese colonial with a Mozzie friend, her family, and some other volunteers. A few days of rest in an air-conditioned home (it pays to be a house sitter in an African metropolis!), and it was back to Morrumbala. Upon arriving with a group of USAID representatives to one of the communities in which I have a kids’ group, my trepidation about returning after a 2 week absence gave way to throat-catching joy when I saw their smiling faces. Clearly they were happy to see me, and as they sang and danced as they always do for visitors (well, not for me anymore when I come alone, but I take this level of informality as a compliment), I could hardly hold back the tears. I thought I was past that immediate surge of emotion I used to feel in these situations when I first arrived to the country, but I guess 2 weeks away put more distance between me and the campo than I had imagined.

When we went to see the kids’ plot, they showed me that their peanuts and pigeon peas were growing quite well, although the unexpected halt of the rains resulted in poor germination of their corn crop. I was dazzled by their energy in this heat; we had arrived late because of transport problems, as usual. And yet there they all had been, adults and children alike, huddled into the modest shade of one of the few large mango trees, waiting to sing to their visitors.

I spent today preparing materials for an upcoming training on Junior Farmer initiatives I will be giving to World Vision employees, and being caught up on the progress made with the kids’ groups by my two auxiliaries while I was away. It feels good to be back. Now if I can just wrangle up a truck, I can finally move into my own house…

My ever flexible and changing role as volunteer within a multi-billion dollar international aid and development organization makes it difficult to really nail down my job description, often leaves me feeling lost among the fray, and finally explains why my work the past few weeks has somewhat veered off in a different direction. I guess, to some extent, I have to just sit back and enjoy the scenery.

After hiring 2 new rural auxiliaries, at a whopping 50$ a month each, to help look after my junior farmer groups, I had more time to attend to the most recent request of my organization: that I begin work on rural income generation projects with community health councils (CHCs). I have to say, working with adults was a welcome change in some ways; not having to constantly be entertaining, singing songs and dancing jigs, but rather sharing information in a simple and direct manner, requires far less energy than I’m accustomed to devoting to the kids’ groups. Thus more energy I can concentrate on speaking Portuguese, suffering the brutal elements, and staying awake in the car as I seem to have developed an allergy to consciousness the moment we begin off-roading...

In just two meetings I conducted with the CHCs, however, the danger of a culture of dependency we (as NGO workers) are all constantly aware of was made painfully clear. Neither of these groups have a cent to contribute to start-up projects, and World Vision hesitates, for good and obvious reasons, to become the sole investor in such initiatives. Reasons such as: we’ve invested in this group before and nothing has come of it. Or: if there is no initial sacrifice made on the part of the community, how can we expect them to feel ownership of the project? Throughout Mozambique, postwar crisis response by well-intentioned organizations has lingered and evolved into expectancy that I see written all over the faces of the members of the CHCs – what is she here to bring us? I accompanied a health worker from the city to visit a group several days ago, and after her presentation was complete and we prepared to say our goodbyes, the questions that had clearly been on the minds of the group members the whole time were finally vocalized: “why haven’t you brought us anything today? You gave group “x” skirts, why didn’t we get skirts?” These questions were posed with no measure of timidity, rather righteous indignation at the fact that we had arrived that day empty handed, with no other agenda than to analyze several health problems the community is facing and talk about basic solutions such as improved hygiene and family planning.

It’s less obvious with the children, who ask for simpler things such as soccer balls and jump ropes, and who seem to be interested in holding my hands and working with me in the fields for the sheer novelty of it. With the adult groups, however, a whole new set of questions arise and cannot be ignored: Will we ever find a balance between providing immediate necessities and facilitating education and support that can lead to long-term change? Why does it seem that so many of these programs aren’t sticking, and whose fault is it, if anyone’s? Have the rural inhabitants we aim to aid made a conscious decision that it’s easier to wait for help; are they too underfed and undereducated to summon the energy to follow through with projects; or are they trying their damndest and getting nowhere? In the end, I think it must be all three. I see how hard my colleagues work, and I see how much the rural beneficiaries still suffer, and while some reports may show numerical improvements (increased occurrence of breast-feeding, decreased rate of child growth stunting) it’s hard to see any of this when you make daily observations at the community level. Obviously change takes time, and a comparison of current Mozambique to the country immediately after the war would surely speak of improvement. But even so, I still can’t quite shake the feeling that I was much more productive working as the lone white-woman in my small community in the DR than I am within a large and influential organization. It’s not that I have a problem being a cog, a tiny part of the operation, but sometimes I feel like I’m spinning in a way that doesn’t affect anyone. Maybe I’m simply cut-out for aid work on a more personal and intimate level. And maybe I can even find a way to make that happen within the framework of such a huge and ambitious project.

I left the meetings with the CHCs only after both groups had extracted from me a promise to return. But unfortunately, there’s little I am authorized to do for them until they can demonstrate that they are a group fit for investment. It seems that projects conducted with these groups (and many, many others) before have left much to be desired in terms of sustainability and numbers satisfactory for reporting, and organizations understandably are looking to support groups which they have reason to believe will succeed. But what do you tell everyone else? All of those who have no start-up money, no ace in the hole?

Fast-forward to the following week, in which I visited 2 other districts who are starting up junior farmer programs. I met with 3 kids groups and gave them my now practiced introductory spiel, debriefed World Vision staff at both locations, and finally headed back to Morrumbala to check on my own kids’ groups. Paying a few unplanned visits, I find I can remember only about half of their names, although some of their corn and bean crops seem to be germinating relatively well. But as with the adults, I can see a waning in interest, in drive, in energy. In general, it seems that the work they have been doing with the auxiliaries in my absence is half-hearted at best. They like me enough to work well when I’m there, but I can’t always be there. Maybe we can reconnect after the holidays. Also after the holidays, I plan to spend a few days at the rural health clinic I wrote about a number of weeks back. My goal is to observe their daily routines, determine their greatest needs, collect interviews, photos and stories, and begin the legwork for creating a sponsorship for this clinic by a church or organization in the U.S.

I am thankful for…

•The Indian Ocean

•Suncreen

•NGO friends with real jobs and cars, who take pity on volunteers, low men on the totem pole

•Frango Zambeziano (the grilled chicken for which the province in which I live is famous)

•Grilled grouper

•My very capable tailor

•Internet on my phone (and therefore, constant contact with supportive friends and family)

•African music

•Rain

There is so much more I have to be thankful for this year, as every year, but these are a few of the things at the front of my mind. Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.

After an arduous 3 day journey (with a stop off in Nampula for an eclectic Thanksgiving meal), made less so by a ride from a friend, we are finally at Chocas, um fim do mundo – an end of the world.

The cutest thatch-roofed bamboo hut, complete with outdoor shower for post-ocean rinsing, a late afternoon swim in the calm blue Indian Ocean (she’s definitely a woman, perhaps a mother even), a dinner of fresh clams and cold beer, then music back at the hut, swaying barefoot in the sand. A sandy scorpion joins in the dance, raises his tail, but I believe he means no harm. After, a moonlit walk on an expansive white sand beach. The tide is out, so we run around like children, and when I fall asleep in the sand, my friends line my spine with seashells. They tinkle to the ground when I rise. This is the best Black Friday ever.

And this morning, the sound of the ocean and a billowing white mosquito net. Sitting on the back porch under the coconut trees, hammock gently swaying to and fro. I could stay at Chocas for many lifetimes.

Today I found myself at the head of the lunch table, staring down the corridor of 25+ hungry men (a double dose of disciples), mounds of rice, and a fish bigger than any I’ve ever seen, marveling at the urgency and efficiency with which they tucked into their meal. These are not starving people, at least not currently, although I can’t speak to their childhoods. Yet they must realize how easily they could be, how little distance there is between them and hunger, and therefore they eat with a purpose, like I’ve seen only Africans do. As I wasn’t standing in wait by the door for the lunch table to be set, I was one of the last people to arrive to the table, and found myself picking through the dishes to put together a full meal. The food culture that exists here doesn’t seem to be greed exactly – if you show up at lunchtime at the home of a Mozambican, they will insist that you eat. Yet when everyone has their plates in front of them, it’s every man for himself on a mission of nutrition. Not having suffered through years of famine and civil war in the not-so-distant past, I can’t personally feel where it is they’re coming from.

The reason for this gathering of 30 people (3 women of which are women) is a week-long training in construction of water tanks for rural areas where water catchment and conservation is tricky. The trainer arrived from Bali, and as he speaks English but no Portuguese, I quickly became the impromptu translator. That was yesterday’s task, and I was treated very professionally as such. Today, however, the manual labor began, and try as I might to shrink myself and blend in by doing little tasks, there are a few men in this group who insist upon calling attention to my womanness. (In general, I have found the men here to be very respectful of me as a professional, but once we break down initial barriers and they learn I’m not a white ice-queen, some of them step beyond the line I appreciate.)

No matter what I did today, I couldn’t escape it. “Hey Mica, why don’t you try to saw? Haha! Or you could dig, heh.” And yet had I picked up the saw, everyone else’s work would have come to a screeching halt and I would have been, to borrow a friend’s phrasing, like a polar bear in a cage. So I ignored their urgings as long as I could before finally asking “Why is the idea of me sawing so entertaining to you? Is it because I’m a woman?” Now obviously, we all knew the answer to that question, but it was the best way to bring attention to their passive harassment, however harmless they assumed it to be. They answered yes, that’s why, and I responded tartly that where I come from, being a woman doesn’t make that much of a difference in such matters – another half truth, but it gets the point across: don’t belittle me and I will participate as an equal. It doesn’t help that I am half the size of most of these men, another reason that their face-stuffing is so curious… Anyway, in response to my comment, one of the 2 other foreigners present at this training announced, to my satisfaction “It’s just because they’re not educated on gender matters” and their giggling trailed off as they looked down at their feet and mumbled something about being educated, perhaps slightly embarrassed or maybe I just imagined it. Either way, I felt like somehow I won this, one of the battles I had chosen. And I do pick them. Every day. As wisely as I can.

Today, we said goodbye to a compassionate field-worker, a gentle and dedicated man who suffered a fatal heart attack at 48 years old. Ernesto Amado, a last name that means ‘beloved’, was in fact just that, not only by his colleagues at World Vision, but by the community and church of which he was a leader, the soccer league in which he was a referee, and his large, loving family.

The funeral began at his home, a small mud-covered structure in an urban neighborhood of Quelimane, where we gathered to hear a sermon and listen to farewell songs in Chuabo, one of the local languages. As we left the house, the wailing began. Women in brightly colored capulanas needed much support to stand as they cried out their pain, but I was most affected by his children, in their 20s and 30s, dressed all in black and staring out at nothing, leaning on one another, eyes glossy and distant.

At the cemetery, we gathered in patches under shade trees, the sun already burning my arms at 9:30am, and watched as the gravediggers finished their job. The women continued to sing, “we’ve arrived at the resting place”. After eulogies were spoken and the casket lowered, we stepped forward to toss handfuls of earth into the grave, then covered it with cut flowers. The women sang “all is calm, we’ve said goodbye to our father”.

Back at his family’s home, everyone must wash their hands. It’s the custom here, to wash away what might have come with you from the grave, the resting place. And after everything, what’s left is the memory of a man beloved for his kindness and dedication to making Mozambique a better, more balanced place, and a lingering tune of pure harmonies in a sandy African cemetery.

The goat tied up outside of my room, destined to be somebody’s lunch, is terrified of me. She jumps up and trips over her rope each time I emerge. I want to tell her, “If you think I’m scary, you’ve got another think coming”, but instead I just feed her moldy bread.

Spent a long but satisfying week in the campo with my four youth groups, all of which now have several plots prepared for corn, peanuts, and pigeon peas. It’s exhausting keeping them entertained, but this week I found a stalwart ally in the form of cookies. As they kneel down and reach up their dirty little hands to receive a meager treat, I wish I had 10 pounds of cookies for each of them, and can’t shake the feeling of a priest at communion.

In anticipation of my trip to the city this weekend, a much needed couple days of socializing with people who don’t require that I sing them silly songs, I went to the salon to have my fingers and toes painted. (Some Peace Corps girl customs are the same everywhere I suppose…) Salons are always a good place to sit and listen, to absorb the culture as a passive observer, and as I was watching my nails go from grungy to shiny chocolate brown, a large group of kids stormed by the salon, urging forward a single young boy. The woman painting my nails gave a one word explanation: thief. Apparently he was being escorted to a central location where onlookers could observe a public beating. I had read about this custom of civilians enforcing order with violence in other African countries, but this was the first time I had seen it in action, and guiltily, couldn’t help but feel a bit safer for it. Then again, maybe stealing from a white woman is an honorable deed. Hopefully I’ll never know for sure.

A group of rural health workers showed up at the compound today with the intention of vaccinating everyone in sight, particularly the suspicious white woman holed up in the corner room. I informed them, to the best of my ability considering my discomfort (there were 6 of them with very untrusting faces) that as a government employee, I get all my vaccines from Peace Corps doctors stationed in Nampula and Maputo, both very far from Morrumbala where I live. They said no, these are just pills, apparently with the power to prevent everything from malaria to pregnancy to other things I’ve never heard of. Afraid of being scruffed like a belligerent cat, I declined a little more forcefully and planned my retreat. They think I’m a weirdo, but there’s no way I was ingesting anything that came out of that box.

With the imminent promise of rain, noticeably closer each day as the sky turns gray and the wind picks up, we’ve had to step it up with our farmers and junior farmers. We spent yesterday morning preparing a 7x7 meter peanut plot with one group of kids, but learned our lesson the hard way, as by 10 o’clock it was too hot to work anymore. So last night I went to bed at 8:30, got up before 5:00 and by 6:00 was out in the fields again, preparing corn plots under a much more friendly sky. By 8:15 we were done; rather, there was more work to be done but we had to give up our measuring tape (essential for a well-planned garden) to the adult group. So we spent the next hour or so talking about manure as fertilizer, the water cycle, and playing duck-duck-goose. Or in Portuguese galinha, galinha, frango. Or in Cena cuco, cuco, sato. Or something like that.

On our way out to the campo this morning, several squealing piglets darted across the road in front of us, which prompted the driver to ask me if I eat ‘leiton’ (the root word of which is ‘leite’, or milk). After a few questions, my suspicions were confirmed. She wasn’t asking if I eat some breed of pig that is smaller than the others even when fully mature. She was asking if I eat piglet, called ‘leiton’ because it’s not even old enough to be weaned yet. I didn’t even know how to go about answering this, and think my only response was hmmm.

Just say no to: suspicious vaccines and baby animal slaughtering.

Everything seems to be picking up at once. Work, the heat, the quantity of noisy toads living in and around the guest center…

Ever since I emerged from my room several weeks ago and stepped squarely on a squeaky frog – thank god for flip-flops! – I have been very cautious about where my feet land from about 6:00 onward.

As for the heat, it is reaching critical levels as we wait with dusty, baited breath for the summer’s first rains. Riding my bicycle to and from the office, an unintimidating 8 kilometers round-trip, I arrive home covered from head to toe in dirt thrown up by passing trucks desperate to get to and from the farms at this, the end of bean season. I wait as late as I possibly can to leave the office without letting darkness overcome my ride; the magic time seems to be 5:30. The sun sets and rises so early here, even in the summer, which suits those who choose to awake at 4am to begin the day’s work before the heat becomes unbearable.

After much struggle to understand the dynamics of the World Vision team in Morrumbala, I finally gave up trying to maneuver my plans around my co-workers, and began scheduling meetings with my 4 youth groups at times that suit me and the kids. This seems to be what everyone wanted all along, and as a result, my schedule is beginning to resemble something of a real job. When I’m not traveling to and from the city for meetings, I spend 2-3 days a week in the office and the other days in the fields with the kids, which is less like pulling teeth each time we meet (they’re really starting to like me and look forward to our visits, and clearly enjoy the activities and games I bring). After preparing a 15x20 meter plot for corn and reviewing the water cycle with one group several days ago, I inquired whether they wouldn’t accompany me to a nearby Catholic mission, an enormous, beautiful old building that has stood abandoned ever since the civil war. We walked around, careful not to step in piles of excrement (fowl and human alike…) and marveled at the immense structure, lamenting that no one has taken the initiative to repair and clean it up. After a lengthy and unnecessarily complicated debate about when we would next meet, I left feeling very satisfied with the day’s work, despite the many scratches on my hands and arms from mulching with 8 month dry grass.

Today, I saw my first green mamba, a snake that, with a well-placed bite, can kill a healthy adult within half an hour, and a child within minutes. The regional coordinator is in town, so we spent the morning visiting various project sites, and on our way to the first one, he suddenly shouts from the front seat of the truck “Cobra! Mamba Verde!” When the car stops, he jumps from the vehicle and fearlessly begins to stride toward a tree covered in craggy dry vines at least 50 feet from the road. Although my first instinct was to run in the opposite direction (as eagerly as So Vasco, our plump cook who for some curious reason propels himself about the acampamento at a whistling jog), curiosity eventually got the better of me and I cautiously crept from the car to get a glimpse of the serpent. It took the regional coordinator verily climbing the exposed roots of the tree, and tossing sticks at the mamba – “Look Mica! Look! There it is! Can you see it yet?” – for me to finally catch site of its green head, and when did I could not fathom how he possibly saw it, hiding under all that roughage, from the road. He explained simply “We’re bush people!” and left me to gawk. This is not your average project coordinator, a man highly respected within World Vision, and I would be remiss if I didn’t note that his keen sense of snake whereabouts and the reckless abandon with which he approached it didn’t augment my respect for him as well.

Our next stop was to see a conservation farming plot, newly prepared by one of the kids groups I met with for the first time last week. Their choice of location is encouraging; with a well and cows nearby, they will have access to water and fertilizer, giving them a snowball’s chance in hell at cultivating vegetables and building successful compost heaps, which is unfortunately more than I can say for most of the project sites where we attempt to implement these projects. Water is such a problem here, and with people waiting in line for hours for their turn to pump water simply to drink and cook, filling gallons upon gallons to water a garden simply doesn’t fly in most places.

The kids’ plot is also right next to a rural maternity ward and clinic, and after a brief tour, I felt simultaneously shocked, hopeless, and inspired. With one dedicated nurse (who could easily find a better paying job in a city) and 20 midwives (who are unpaid and walk their patients for many kilometers to get to the ward), the rural operation has seen 27 births so far this month. And it’s only October 13th. After speaking to them at length, learning that the only contribution the government can afford is kerosene for lamps for night births, and that if the midwives want soap to wash their hands they must bring it from home, we entered the ward where two woman lay on cots, swathed in the typical colorful cloths, clearly in a lot of pain from contractions. No water. No food. No privacy. No family. Just two women on cots curled into fetal positions and moaning gently.

Of course I know that this scene pervades Africa, but this was the first time I’ve seen it, and the dedication of the nurse and midwives was enough to break my heart. No one is helping them, and yet they continue to work day and night to ensure that these women don’t have their babies alone on a dirt floor. After careful prodding, I extracted the opinion that the government is doing all it can, at the local and national levels, to improve healthcare, but that their resources are spread very thinly, in accordance with the belief that a larger number of basic facilities is better than a smaller number of well-equipped facilities. It’s hard to argue with that. My mind immediately flitted to all the places I could begin to raise funds for this hospital: friends, family, churches back home. And even if raising money to buy soap, gloves, and gowns is not “sustainable”, it’s hard to care when the need is so immediate and acute. When the effort and heart are there, but the money simply is not.

What would YOU do?

In Spanish and Portuguese ( as in all languages I imagine) there are multiple ways to say many words. Because the two languages are similar, I often rely on my Spanish vocabulary to help me communicate in Portuguese, and frequently it works. One way to say “battery” in Spanish (or at least Dominican Spanish) is “pila” (pronounced peel-uh). So that’s the word I’ve been using in Portuguese, and it seemed to be getting the point across, but after happening upon the word in the dictionary today, I doubt I will have occasion to say it again…

Although it could be continental Portuguese, my dictionary informs me that “pila” is a colloquial term for a man’s genitalia, and consequently what ‘Richard’s’ family might call him. As noted above, it’s likely that this word has other meanings as well, but that didn’t quell the panicky feeling in my stomach as I thought back on the multiple occasions on which I have used this word.

A hunt for the word “battery” reveals a one letter difference: “pilha” (pronounced peel-yah). This alongside the much safer “bateria”, which also exists in Spanish, but which as luck would have it I opted against, preferring the secretly erotic “pila”. Apparently the difference was slight enough that no one felt the need to correct me, but the snickers I thought I noticed when I used the word make much more sense now. Consider the following…

Does it have batteries?

What aren’t the batteries working?

Did the batteries die?

Maybe the batteries are old.

Maybe it needs new batteries.

I would snicker too! And if I was bored enough, probably neglect to correct the silly foreign offender. But just to be on the safe side, I’ll be sure to ask next time where I can buy “baterias”.

When I think of development work, specifically behavior change, in terms of culture and the alterations we aim to make to local traditions, however unfounded in reason those traditions may be, it makes me want to skip out on development work and return to anthropology – focusing on understanding people instead of trying to change them. But then, when I remember that so much of the way people live their lives (i.e. part of their “culture”) is the direct consequence of frivolous, unmonitored development, leaving a majority of the world’s population in misery, I remember why I’m here. Then the biggest issue becomes priorities. Every rural African, by default, has to focus on the immediate present and think about how they will provide for their family THAT DAY. Development work focuses on the exact opposite – influencing decisions that affect long term change and social improvement. Acres of trees and grass, valuable organic material, are burned to the ground every day to round up a few small wild animals that might provide protein for a family for that day…and how can I possibly presume to tell them this is a bad idea? It’s really disheartening.

Anyway, maybe there’s a way to find a middle-ground: changing people’s behavior without encroaching upon their culture, or at least the parts of it that make it unique and special, sacrificing aspects that might be partially responsible for jeopardizing personal well-being, for instance, the omnipresence of cassava, a crop that is known for its endurance but not its nutritional content. A background in anthropology tells me “keep your distance, observe respectfully, and don’t presume that people want/need to change”, and yet my experience as a development worker tells me “it’s the responsibility of developed nations to aid those in distress, those who may in fact be the casualties of the ‘success stories’ that fostered such privilege in more developed nations”. It’s really confusing.

My little soapbox for the day.

Unrelated but also potentially of interest to readers (are you out there?) is the difficulty of finding fruits and veggies in Mozambican villages. The natural inclination is to equate living in a rural town with the availability of fresh, chemical-free produce, but that’s not the case for several reasons. Most of the fruits and veggies I can find in Morrumbala are grown locally. In the States, local fare has become synonymous with "fresh and organic" and is usually accompanied with lots of options; however, that's because even small scale farmers in the States can afford lots of what we refer to as "inputs". Not only does their land have a history of being well-cared for, but they can afford fertilizer and pesticides (organic ones to boot!), they have easy access to water, and the weather conditions are more friendly, or at least can be controlled with greenhouses and shade coverings, etc. Here, you're at the mercy of the desert gods. Everyone has a lot of land, but no water. It's very sandy and hot most of the year, seeds are hard to come by, and transport to markets even more difficult. Small scale rural farmers are lucky to own a bicycle, let alone a cart to truck their wimpy produce into town.

So there are a lot of reasons that food is hard to come by in the rural areas, even if you're a little white girl with money to pay for it. :) And speaking of little white girls, we are definitely not cut out to endure the African elements.... The sun and sand are enough to have me dragging my feet by 10am every day.

On our way back from a disappointing visit to the campo yesterday – the man we were supposed to be helping to set up a demonstration plot employing conservation agriculture techniques hadn’t cleared his bean fields after all, leaving us no space to begin – my colleagues poked fun at a little grass house on the side of the road, saying the owner really must have been lazy to not at least have built a mud house. Upon my inquiries, they explained that everyone knows how to build a mud house and it costs nothing but labor, concluding that “everything in Africa depends on how much work you’re willing to put in”. This seems truer to me every day, even when applied to my work with World Vision, which is significantly less physically taxing than building a mud house.

There exists, in the NGO world as in any business or company, a hierarchy of employees and volunteers. Being white gives me a simultaneous advantage (people listen) and disadvantage (they don’t necessarily trust me), but I’m still a volunteer and only have so much influence. For instance, today we showed up at the office, expecting to spend the morning capitalizing on the much needed internet connection, to find that the person in charge had neglected to pay the internet fees, and now is on vacation in the city, to return at a date TBA. Apparently this is not a new occurrence. Not content to sit and await that evasive date, I immediately commenced to flitting around any and everyone who could potentially fix this problem – ridiculous as it is in the first place since the money to pay the energy and internet comes out of project funds as opposed to their own pockets – making calls to people in the city who had strategically turned off their phones, and generally making everyone in the office here uncomfortable. I may not win the popularity contest by the end of my year here, but I won’t just sit in my room all day and wait for something to happen. Even if I am a volunteer. Knowing I only have 10 months here (which, today, feels like an eternity) makes me want to kick things into gear, but with my colleagues acting a little put out by my eagerness, it seems I must find some sort of middle ground between aggressively trying to make things happen and sitting back and smiling dumbly, nodding passively as behaviors remain unchanged.

As I try to settle in and determine my role in Morrumbala, where I am decidedly the outcast, I feel constantly thwarted by socio-cultural differences that make my efforts seem useless. When I go to the market to buy my own groceries instead of having the cook go for me: The 12 year old cell phone credit sales-boy tries to overcharge me; the guy who sells me vinegar tries to overcharge me; and the guy who sells me coconuts allows me to buy 2 that turn out to be perfectly putrid on the inside. I try my hardest to see things from their perspective – “white skin = money, and I need money, therefore I’ll do what I can to get it” – but it makes me feel as rotten as the coconuts.

I also have the sneaking suspicion that I’m driving everyone at the office crazy with all my questions, but how am I supposed to figure out how anything works around here if they’re not forthcoming with information? For instance, I asked a woman at the office today if there were any markers around that I could use to make a presentation for the Junior Farmers I’m finally supposed to meet with tomorrow. She said no. A couple hours later, I walked into the office and saw a big box of markers. I picked them up right in front of her and said “huh, markers! Whose are these?” She said they were World Vision’s, that they specifically belonged to the Ocluvela project that I’m here to work on. Naturally I asked to use them and she, unable or unwilling to hide her frustration, said that we had to ask the owner first (who, of course, is nowhere to be found and whose name she couldn’t even give, I guess for fear of….marker subterfuge?) and that if I used them without permission they would get upset. THEY’RE MARKERS! Not personal hygiene items, not even a favorite t-shirt, and yet the owner might be angry if I used them, even for a presentation for the children I was specifically brought here to work with! I smilingly stated that that seemed like a lot of protocol for markers, and was met with a blank stare, then a tart retort that she would ask. I don’t mean to insult, or infringe upon a system I clearly don’t understand; all I want to do is the job I was brought here for, which seems clear on some days and foggy on others.

Interactions like these leave the impression that my colleagues are more perplexed by my energy and inquisitiveness than actually happy to be working with me. I’m beginning to feel that, while I desire a career that will allow me to affect social change, I might be better off going the academic route as opposed to working in the international NGO arena, or as an individual development worker at the community level as I was in the DR. I know I’m still new to the game, but it seems to require patience, determination and optimism to the nth degree, whereas I feel my temperature cooling suspiciously. It might be a long year in Morrumbala. Or just a long day.

I imagine the man we visited yesterday, with his unprepared land, felt similarly helpless. As an auxiliary worker, he is paid 50$/month for which he is expected to organize and mobilize the presidents from 4 local farmers’ associations to employ conservation farming techniques in their fields. The “due date” as it were for him to have 5 plots completed is Friday; we discovered yesterday that he has done nary a one. I also discovered, while he was being verbally chided by my colleagues for his lack of progress, that he has several malnourished children who spend the day gnawing on sugar cane, and that the plots he is responsible for are at great distances from one another. The frustrations of my colleagues seemed to be based in the fact that the farmer had misrepresented to them the amount of work he had actually accomplished, and upon our arrival, the falsity of his claims was self-evident. The vegetable patch we visited was completely overgrown with weeds, giving the impression that it had not seen a visitor since the seeds were sown. They gave him one last chance to fulfill his obligations, and because his family relies on the 50$ a month he earns, he might manage to get it done. But even knowing that these were his responsibilities to fill based on the job description, I left feeling much more sympathy for the man than did my Mozambican colleagues, hardened by field experience and the simple fact that to them, this is life. You either build a mud house, or you build a straw one.

The party dynamic. It’s an elusive concept that differs slightly from city to city, hugely from continent to continent, taking months if not years of immersion to fully comprehend. I’ve been in Mozambique less than 2 months. I’ve been in my site a total of 8 days.

October 1st marks, along with my little (a term that refers solely to age these days) brother’s birthday, the beginning of the fiscal year for World Vision Mozambique. Accordingly, a huge party was planned. Accordingly, many cases of beer were bought.

The formal celebration was a daytime affair, involving lots of singing and dancing, a swarm of children who all felt the need to touch me and were eventually shooed away by a shyly smiling adult, prayer and goat stew which tasted to me like moldy cheese at best, but which I guiltily choked down as everyone around me ate with great gusto (walking through the market the next day, I passed a herd of live goats and got a nose-full that smelled exactly like the stew had tasted…)

And then the party. Scheduled to start at 4pm, it finally began at 10:30pm after all the food had been prepared (by none other than the cook with whom I struggle daily through language, etiquette, and ingredients to strengthen a tenuous kitchen-based bond) and laid out in an impressive display, the crowning feature of which was a cake with GLITTER (which unfortunately looked much better than it tasted). After the blessing, and a cryptic warning that everyone, in serving their plates, should try to remember that others would like to eat as well, the locusts descended. I stood a little bit back, in awe of the food fervor, and allowed my plate to be occasionally graced with the passing samosa or scoop of potato salad. I didn’t even look in the direction of the grilled chicken, as there was a dangerous swarm around it from the moment of its uncovering until the last thigh was nibbled down to the bone. I couldn’t help but feel, whether condescending or sensible, that they had more of a right to it than me. Me, who has eaten well her entire life, who can afford to buy chicken whenever she wants. Me, who has never had to fight for food, nor stuff herself to popping as a strategic plan for the next few mealtimes.

Once everyone was finger-lickin’ full, the beer, which had played merely the supporting role to food’s lead, suddenly appeared center-stage. I turned down several offers for a drink, feeling awkward being one of 4 women present and, as always and forever, the only white person, until it became apparent that 95% of the group was drinking, and at 100 yd. dash rather than marathon speed. It’s always tough to decide what’s best in these situations, where you hardly know a face and certainly don’t know the culture – Do they want me to have a drink? Is it weird if I don’t/do? Do women even drink here? – but everyone seemed to smile in relief when I finally accepted a beer. Or they were making fun of me. Who can tell? As I looked around, none of the other women were drinking. But I’ve long since given up trying to fit-in with any demographic here. I’m going to be watched no matter what, so I might as well make them smile. I’m not a tee-totaler, so why pretend to be if not to some social or professional end? After one drink, I shook hands all around and headed back to the compound, luckily not a 3 minute walk away. It was, after all, several hours past my bedtime.

As with every party where you don’t really know anyone, it was a relief to escape to the safety of my own space. As I write, I can still hear the celebration, and the music seems to be getting louder by the minute…

As ever, traveling through and around cities, whether on foot, bicycle, or in car, has provided me with an abundance of writing material.

Yesterday, I saw my first African snake. Thankfully, I was propelled by the latter of the aforementioned modes of transport, and therefore couldn’t get a good look at the creature writhing on its slimy back in the middle of the road, noting only that it had a light green stomach and dark back, features fairly common in the Snakes of Southern Africa book I consulted later that evening with my director’s kids. I’m currently staying with them at their house while he’s away on work duties, although they take care of me more than the other way around. The babysitter’s here, and she’s sleeping on a waterbed!

I wouldn’t have expected, or even wished for the driver to slow down for the snake; however, they tend not to slow down for anything – teetering bicycles, semis stopped in the middle of the road – preferring instead a method I have begun to refer to (in my conversations with myself) as “the honk of faith”. It still makes me clench my teeth, ever-gritty no matter how tightly I purse my lips against the sandy, invasive wind.

Also yesterday, we visited one of the junior farmer groups who are preparing a short drama about vegetables for the visiting donor representatives, USAID and the like, who are here this week to observe the project. We were a bit late arriving because of a delay in lunch, which having not eaten anything since a piece of bread in the morning, I insisted we wait for before trudging off into the bush. A little selfish? I dunno, but a girl’s gotta eat! I should have guessed that upon our arrival, I would be invited to speak, to give The Word of the White Woman, although I had planned on simply observing. I’m getting better every day at being put on the spot, so I quickly came up with some encouraging words and fun ideas to contribute to their skit. I just hope they don’t go white with terror, pun intended, when the Caucasian contingent arrives to snap their photos on Thursday.

And last weekend, I took my first bike taxi! It was much more comfortable and much less terrifying than expected. Way to go Quelimane for being so Green!

Shameless. That's what this blog entry is, as it designed to do nothing more than provide my mailing address and a list of things I would oh-so-love. So with no further ado...

Mica Jenkins

Visão Mundial

attn: Brian Hilton

CP 474

Quelimane

Mozambique

Things that would put a smile on my sun-burnt face include: letters, pictures, black tea, chocolate, mustard, mustard pretzels, yogurt-covered raisins, dried Italian/Ranch dressing packets (Good Seasons, I think it is), wall putty/sticky hooks and fishing line or similar thin twine (for hanging things), a coffee filtering device, bracelet making thread, washable markers, and YOUR favorite book!

Feel free to add to my list as well. :) Obrigada! (Thank you!)

Tired of staring at my unopened bag of Malawian coffee, I made a coffee filter last night by sewing a chopped up piece of clothing to a metal sieve. OK, it was underwear, but they were brand-new, never worn I swear!

Today I made a Mozambican child cry with my white skin and dug a live ant out of my ear canal. All in a days work.

Working in the NGO sphere and seeing that aid, however well-intended, can create dependency among the most impoverished families it is intended to support, you can’t help but sometimes wonder, what would happen if all the organizations just left? I’m beginning to feel that the greatest loss would not be the halt of projects that, admittedly, aren’t always as sustainable as they intend to be, but the loss of jobs for the many Africans who are employed by World Vision, Save the Children, The World Food Program, and similar institutions. Every day that I spend here, it is brought more clearly to my attention that volunteer work is, ironically perhaps, a luxury. Having the time, energy, resources, and support to spend your days traveling around and initiating relief projects, as opposed to feeding your children, is not something most Africans can afford to do, and thus why NGO’s have wisely recruited Africans as salaried employees, however modestly compensated, as opposed to volunteers. Although, according to some wise old philosopher, “comparisons are odious”, when I think of the time I will spend here, my goals for the future, and even potential career paths in development work, it’s hard to imagine anything I could do as being anything but luxurious.

A rough night of sleep (mosquitoes in my net and ducks outside the window) left me ill-prepared to face the blazing sun of the campo today as we set out for yet another garden-prep and compost demonstration. Even after applying sunscreen and borrowing a hat (gotta get one of those), my face broke out in angry red dots and I had to hang back from the group a little to find shade. One of 2 women in the training group (the mother’s weren’t really participating) and one of one white people, I had no hope of integrating anyway, so might as well protect my skin…

After a little more practice on my bike today (about 10 km of practice, roundtrip to the office to use the internet), I think the trick to driving in such sandy conditions must be the perfect speed. Too fast, and you lose control. Too slow, and there’s not enough inertia to keep you moving through the really sticky patches. So I’ll just continue to navigate, teeth clenched, toward the most compacted looking spots on the “road”.

Today the cook hard-boiled eggs for my breakfast and made me more grilled chicken, with spaghetti and homemade sauce for lunch. He also informed me that he knows how to make coconut curry and various soups. We’re gonna get along just fine. He’s already my favorite person at the compound, although it’s a close tie with the guy who washed my clothes and fixed the electric water heater in the shower. I’m still surprised by how much of this country’s paid domestic labor is performed by men, but it does seem that every single able-bodied woman has a baby (or two) clamped at all times to her breast.

I finally got taken out to the campo today with some World Vision employees who are working on conservation agriculture projects. We stopped at several farms to see how the owner’s were doing with the new techniques, although on our final visit, I found it difficult to focus on farming. The family we were visiting was quite large, and the smallest baby girl, bouncing on her mother’s hip, was suffering from some terrible rash-like, scabbed over infection on her face, and some notable swelling underneath her chin. When we asked what treatment if any she was getting, they produced a frighteningly grungy bottle of milky penicillin for my observation, injections of which she had been receiving since last Thursday. After firmly stating that I am in no way medically trained, I postured that perhaps the swelling on her throat was an allergy to the medication and that they should mention it to the hospital staff the next time they cover the many dusty kilometers on foot to take the child for an injection. It’s likely that even if it is an allergy, the hospital will have no way of testing it, and nothing else to give her.

Earlier this week, the 15 month old grandchild of a well-known pastor died in the hospital after 2 weeks of diarrhea and vomiting. It’s easy for anyone but a well-trained and well-stocked rural health physician to feel completely useless here.

Today, the cook arrived and changed my life. A short, round man with a friendly gap-toothed smile, he got here just in the nick of time to jolt me from my subsistence food stupor.

I gave him basic ingredients, and in return, he gave me a delicious meal of grilled chicken, white rice, and garlic tomato sauce, a portion large enough for lunch and dinner. I spent the afternoon sneakily walking by the kitchen and taking huge whiffs of chicken sizzling on the air, ecstatic that it was being made for me.

And after I finished lunch and safely tucked away the leftovers for dinner, I nearly skipped away to my room, belching happily all along the way.

Feeling energized (the miracle of protein!) I went for my first bike ride since arriving to Morrumbala, and quickly learned that dry sandy streets are easily as treacherous as wet rainy ones. The ride to a friend’s house was enough of a constant incline for me to happily exert a little effort. The ride home, during which I rotated my pedals approximately 4 times, was infinitely more challenging as I skidded through inches of sand, even dismounting at one point to walk through a particularly challenging patch as bike taxis swerved around me carrying passengers and bags of charcoal. It was my first time, so I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.

After a satisfying dinner of cold leftovers, I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth, stepping squarely on a squishy, squeaky toad as I left my room. Lifting my foot, I found that he was not dead, and soon was chasing him back out onto the patio, hoping from a safe distance that I didn’t break any of his tiny toady bones. I guess that’s what you get for lurking in doorways.

To round out a very satisfying day, I gave the cook money to buy me eggs, which he assures me he can find despite my futile and fruitless searches. I have no doubt he knows exactly where to look.

After 3 weeks of unexpected “training”, a word which is used very loosely and can mean anything from sitting indoors at a center and copying notes from a power-point presentation to walking around a farmer’s fields, bugging him with questions about potatoes, to crashing through the overgrown bush, strategically not in front of the line so as to avoid any disgruntled snakes, I think I’m finally going to site on Thursday. However formal or informal the learning process has been during my time here, the bottom line is I do in fact feel more prepared than when I arrived.

I’m currently spending a few days in Nicoadala, at a sleepy “training center” (again, use this term lightly) with a very small group of people (just me and 6 Mozambicans), talking about conservation agriculture, visiting nearby farmers who are actually implementing NGO-promoted practices, and motivating local youth to organize themselves into groups and begin growing vegetables. That’s where I come in handy – kids the world over generally take a speedy liking to me, and my time in the DR left my head filled with ideas of how to get them excited about things they might usually see as mundane. What. You won’t race to carry 50 gallons of water from the far away stream to irrigate the garden? What if the winner gets to braid my hair? Mmm hmm. That’s what I thought. (OK So this may be a bit of an exaggeration. However, I can only hope that African children will be as susceptible to my mind tricks as Dominicans.)

Driving around is still quite an experience, for everyone involved. Most of the places I’ve been taken recently to see farming operations are far enough off the beaten path that those who catch a glimpse of me as we zip dustily by in our indestructible white pick-up truck don’t even have the forethought to make gestures or comments; they’re too busy being completely shocked to see me that all they can do is stare. The most quick-witted manage to throw a thumbs up my way, and impulsive children chase the truck until their little legs can take them no further. Those that, by some miracle, don’t notice the white woman in the front seat, who could very well be the only one they would ever see, are almost as shocked to see a car at all, and skip out to the path to watch until it’s out of site. It’s the most exciting part of their day, and the smallest jump in place and yell “Carro carro carro!” The rest of the time I spend jolting fearfully out of my strangely involuntary bumpy-car-ride-naps as we come unbelievably close to toppling yet another cyclist or herd of goats.

Each night, we return to a modest dinner, tea if I request it, and refreshingly easy and fluid conversation before we’re accompanied by the tune of crickets to an early bed in our ascetic cement chambers. Up at 6:30 to a breakfast of tea and bread, and a modest lunch of xima (corn-meal boiled to the consistency of play dough) and small bony fish, fried if you’re lucky, boiled if you’re not. There’s something to be said about such a simple lifestyle, and in fact I thought I was getting pretty good at removing the numerous tiny spiny bones of my daily fish, until lunch this afternoon, when I met the ‘Temba’. As opposed to the ‘Carapão’, a common and light-tasting fish of the sea, the Temba tastes like it’s river home, and once boiled, comes off the bone more meal than flake. It was challenging, to say the least.

I’m beginning to see why Peace Corps Mozambique has to be so fundamentally different than Peace Corps Dominican Republic, i.e. why volunteers are brought in to work at specific schools or hospitals and are provided housing by their institutions. It’s not feasible to simply arrive in the Mozambican campo, move in with a host family, try to start projects and eventually find my own house, all things I did in the DR. Poverty is too great here, resources are too few, and although I never actually blended into my site in the DR, I was able to integrate myself into daily life and develop patterns that I feel would be impossible in the most rural areas of Africa. I can only imagine the mental and emotional toll it would take until my hypothetical neighbors developed a semblance of normalcy and casualty around me. My differences here have arrived at a whole new level, and actually that’s ok. That’s good. It makes my interactions fresh and, in the end, makes the experience genuine and memorable.