Peace Love & Polygons: The Best Things and The Worst Things of Manjacaze, Part I

I have been at site—Manjacaze, Gaza, aka my home for two years—for three weeks. (Technically it has been three weeks and three days, but who’s counting?)

I will start by saying that when I got here and saw this medium-sized town, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a town of about 30,000 people, which seems tiny relative to the States, but is on the larger side for Mozambique (and, let me remind you, I spent four years at a university 15x smaller than Manjacaze…this is large). In the center of town, there is a pretty green space, with swings, a green house, and a small concrete soccer pitch. Lots of trees, many of whose trunks are painted white, overlaid with the HIV/AIDS awareness red ribbon. We have a bank, many lojes, which are stores in buildings—as opposed to stands in the market— where you can get foods that need to be refrigerated and other non-vegetable goods. We have a nun house, lots of churches, places to grab a beer (or two or three), pre schools, primary schools, and two secondary schools. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that if I didn’t leave Manjacaze for the next two years, I could physically survive. I would really miss yogurt, and I would be going stir crazy as hell, but all of my basic physical needs would be met.

Center of town, approaching the market.

Over the past three weeks, I have developed a couple of Sarahisms that I don’t think will go away anytime soon. They are “the best thing” and the “worst thing”. I’ll give some example uses before I move on:

“The orphans that live at the nuns’ house come over to feed the pigs. They also climb the papaya trees to get the ripe ones before they fall on their own and bruise. They usually leave one for us. It’s the best thing.”

“The chapa drivers tried to charge us 60MT for the ride instead of the 30MT it should cost because we are white and they think all white people are rich. It was the worst thing.”

I understand that neither of those situations are, in the literal sense, the best or the worst, but I say it that way anyways because it gets the point across. So—if you couldn’t guess already—I’m going to use this brand new, brilliant and “so Brades” ism to highlight the highs and lows of the last three weeks. (This is Part I. Part II will come soon.)

Before coming to site, Alex, my roommate, and I learned that we would be living in a two-bedroom house with an indoor bathroom, living room and kitchen. It is about 2km away from the school so we would need to buy bikes once we got there. It has a fenced in yard for privacy and the rent was 3,000MT per month. The health volunteer, Bbeca, that has been living in Manjacaze for 1.5 years found the house and made the deal with the landlord. Sounds great, right? Right. Well, on our way to site, I get the following message from Bbeca:

Bbeca:

Okay, so your landlord went psycho*...

And now you guys don't have a house

So Sergio is going to call you to let you guys know that you'll be staying at my house for a couple of days.

Sarah:

Oh Jesus.

Bbeca:

So a truck came by and took out my power line...

I'm sorry but I don't know when we'll have energy again.

Sarah:

Okay, our guy says we are going to live in a house by the school temporarily and not with you.

Bbeca:

Are you sure? I have an extra room and 2 beds

Sarah:

I'm sure those were the words he said but no way of knowing if they are true or not.

Bbeca:

No I meant like do you guys want to stay there?

Sarah:

I don't think it's a matter of what we want to do. We re doing what we are told.

Bbeca:

Okay. I'll call Sergio. Last time he called he asked me if you guys can stay and I had told yeah
What a stressful morning. The argument with the landlord was not fun at all.
Sarah:
I just talked to him and he said we need to go to your house.

*Psycho: The landlord increased rent by 2,000MT per month, and demanded thee months' rent (15,000MT) in advance. Peace Corps did not want us living underneath a landlord that goes back on his word/changes is mind so quickly. So that house was not an option.

It was the worst thing. We are about two hours away from our site and we don’t have a place to live. Shortly after Bbeca’s message, I get a phone call from our Education Country Director, Sergio, who confirms that we don’t have a house. His quote, “We will not let this bring us down. You will find a house.” was the best thing and the worst thing at the same time. Thanks for the encouragement, buddy, but what do you mean “you will find a house”? Does that mean I will find a house? How the hell do you expect me to do that?

Note: The house that the school offered us to live in was the SCIENCE LAB. #umwhat. It smelled like chemicals and shit (literally, poop) and nobody had actually lived in it for over 5 years. No. Thank. You. The worst thing.

In case you weren’t so sure, there is no such thing as Craigslist or Apartment Finder in Moz. The way you find a house is by asking people on the street if they know of anyone who is renting a house. If someone says yes, you ask, “com boas condiçoes?” (with good conditions?) and if they say yes you say that you’re interested and then hope that they follow up with the owner and somehow follow up with you. You also hope that their idea of “good conditions” aligns with yours. The standard for good conditions here is way different than in the States, and many times very different than Peace Corps house requirements as well, so pretty much there’s no reason to ask about good conditions because even if they say yes, we will need to see for ourselves and the house would likely fall short in some way or another. (For example, may families share one outside latrine and Peace Corps requires that all volunteers have their own private bathroom.) Considering we needed a house ASAP, this slow and uncertain process was the worst thing.

Temporarily, we were staying with Bbeca, because she lives in a house (owned by nuns) with three bedrooms and three bathrooms. We had access to one bedroom that had two twin beds in it and a bathroom attached, so it worked just fine. Bbeca’s house was perfect:

It has running water. The best thing.

It has many papaya trees, mango trees, banana trees, passion fruit trees, and pineapple bushes. The best thing.

A wash board and many laundry lines. The best thing.

Each bedroom has it’s own indoor bathroom with shower and flushing toilet. The best thing.

Fully stocked kitchen, including fridge, stove and no-stick frying pan. The best thing.

Puppies. Six of them. The best thing.

A large living room/dining room space that has accumulated decorations over the past few years from other volunteers. The best thing.

Kitchen/living Space on the left, three rooms to the right.

We wanted to live there. Bbeca, who had been in Manjacaze as the only American for a year and a half also welcomed the idea of two roommates. Peace Corps didn’t explore this idea in the first place because they thought that having three volunteers living together would stifle community integration because we would stay at home and hang out with each other instead of venturing out and meeting our Mozambican neighbors. Considering the fact that we were now in Manjacaze and not finding anything promising through our house search attempts, we thought maybe Peace Corps would reconsider this idea. It had been two weeks, we still didn’t have a permanent place to live, and I’m sure Sergio wanted this issue resolved ASAP. So we asked. And he told us to find out the price. And after a week and a half we finally got an answer from the nuns, who were willing to rent the extra rooms to us and told us the price. Within 24 hours, Peace Corps agreed to the arrangements and a contract was written up and signed by both parties. It was a day to celebrate. A few days later we got the keys to the third room and moved our stuff into our respective rooms and we were home. Three weeks later. We were home. It was the best thing.

Some pictures of Manjacaze follow: