Daydreams

I’ve been saying “I’m day-dreaming about…[xyz]” a lot lately. I will tell my roommate, Alex, this pretty much anytime I want something or am looking forward to something or miss something. Some day-dreaming is good. The good kind is when I “daydream” about something I can get here in Manjacaze. Such as crackers or pineapple or a long run. For instance, I’ll say during a long walk back from the market “I’m daydreaming about cold water” or “I’m day dreaming about that giant 30-met pineapple I bought yesterday”. Which means that’s the first thing I’m going to do when I get back because it sounds so good. The questionable (idk if it’s good or bad) kind of daydreaming is when I “daydream” about things I cannot get here in Manjacaze, or in Mozambique. You’ll understand better what I mean about not being sure whether the latter form of daydreaming is good or bad later on in this post; for now just go with it.

Some “good” daydreaming I’ve been doing includes:

“I’m daydreaming about yoga.”

Usually I say this after a long, hard, sweat-so-much-I-can-ring-out-my-clothes-and-not-because-I-just-washed-them Insanity workout. Specifically, I daydream about pigeon pose to stretch out my hips, getting lost in my ojjayi breath, and having the instructor’s voice (these are mp3 audio yoga classes) tell me pleasantly cheesy things like: “nobody is perfect. That’s what makes humans beautiful”; or “find your core. Not just your abs, but the core of who you are”; or “yoga is a safe place to practice staying calm during a challenge”; or “create space to let good things in”; or “we are all gloriously imperfect”; or “how you do anything is how you do everything”; or “open up your heart and open up your life”. I beat you to the punch by calling it cheesy, but you are reading a blog called Peace Love, and Polygons, after all. Some days, after many hours of our neighbors playing the same song on repeat, or trying to prepare 11th grade math lessons in a language I can only medium speak, and/or waking up to a minimum of 7 dead cockroaches on my bedroom floor, stuck on their backs, wiry legs flailing while a family of tiny ants eat them alive, a calming voice coming from my computer telling me to “just breathe” is the best thing.

“I’m daydreaming about Nuun.”

Nuun is like Gatorade but with less sugar. Tablets you can add to water and drink to stay hydrated. As mentioned above, saying “I sweat a lot” is quite an understatement, and sometimes my body needs more than just water. The streets in Manjacaze don’t have shade and a round trip to the market is at least 40 minutes. 100 degrees. No shade. Humidity. Sweating while you sleep/eat/read/sit/talk/be. Hydration is key, so I daydream about Nuun a lot. Luckily my mom sent me a large stock of Nuun in my first care package, so I can have it whenever I want. Good daydreamin'.

“I’m daydreaming about Chocolate.”

I’m a female and once a month I PMS and when that happens this daydream is really freaking intense. It’s less daydreaming and more if i don’t get chocolate now I’ll die and so will everyone around me. The good news is we can find chocolate bars here in Manjacaze and I will not second-think spending 70 mets on it. 

“I’m daydreaming about the iced coffee that’s waiting for me in the fridge.” 

It took me a little while to discover that I can actually make my own iced coffee. We have an ice cube tray, and a freezer, and a fridge, and a french press, and coffee, and sugar and milk. My mom sent me Starbucks Pike Place in a care package and now I drink iced coffee every morning. I brew it the night before and put the sugar and powdered creamer it in while it’s still hot so that it dissolves. I can’t put the mug of hot coffee directly into the fridge because the very hot to very cold combo will cause the cup to crack. So, I let it sit over night then put the cup in the freezer for an hour while I work out. Add two ice cubes and some fresh milk right before drinking it and it’s delicious and kinda-almost-a-little-bit like home. Usually when there is about 10 minutes left in my workout I tell Shaun T (insanity instructor) to get a move on because my chique iced coffee is waiting for me.  Who ever thought iced coffee would be a luxury that takes 12 hours to realize? Not me. But my new Mozambican self is willing to plan accordingly because the 30 minutes I spend drinking the end product is so worth it. I plan, prepare, enjoy. Then: Daydream about it until the next morning.

These are good daydreams because I actually have access to these things. I'll think, “I can’t wait to do that” or “I really want that” and I can pretty much have it same day. Instant gratification is good for the soul. Especially here in Mozambique when everything takes much longer than it should, people move without urgency, and there is a lot of time available to pass as it will (or won’t). Then, there are other daydreams—the kind one would expect of a person who is living in a foreign land away from friends and family. Things I don’t have access to, and likely won’t have access to for two years. Examples:

“I’m daydreaming about Lucy.”

I daydream about this every day. I don’t say it out loud because it just makes me feel more sad and Lucy-less. When I daydream of Lucy, one of two scenes usually plays in my head. The first one is cuddling in bed. She wraps her front legs around me like a human would and groans like an old grandpa—sometimes with a yawn too—and sighs before she falls asleep. I used to get so annoyed when she would take up half the bed and she was too heavy for sleepy Sarah to move in the middle of the night (like, not even budge a little bit). Now, I would trade the extra sleeping space for my best k9 friend in a heartbeat. The other scene is our reunion in two years. I imagine myself doing this awkward/ugly laughing/crying combo. Apologizing over and over for leaving her for two years. Being relieved that she remembers me, and grateful that dogs don’t hold grudges. I imagine her jumping up even though she knows she isn’t supposed to and putting her paws on each of my shoulders so that we are eye level. She makes eye contact with me and her mouth is open and she is panting and it looks like she is smiling. And in her face she says “I missed you mom” and I say it back out loud as I continue to cry/laugh. I hug her and she hugs me back—the way that dogs do—and it’s the best thing. In two years, it really will be the best thing.  

“I’m daydreaming about Netflix.”

Anyone who has ever had a Netflix account can understand the struggle of choosing what to watch; there is so much to choose from. Do I search by genre? Do I scan the “Sarah would like” list? Do I already have my mind made up but feel the need to consider 25 different movie titles before returning back to the one I already knew I wanted to watch? Do I make the commitment to binge watch 5 entire seasons of a show I’ve never heard of before? Do I give a show that I already tried once (but hated) another chance, hoping that this time I’ll get hooked? Do I watch a movie I’ve already seen before because I know I’m going to fall asleep? THERE ARE SO MANY CHOICES HOW DO YOU PICK JUST ONE!!!!!

Here I only have access to my hard drive with media that other Peace Corps Volunteers have shared with me. I have a lot to choose from, including every single episode of Boy Meets World that was ever made, Orange is the New Black, Mean Girls and 500 Days of Summer. It’s a pretty good spread and I shouldn’t be complaining. So I won’t. But it does not even a little bit compare to the selection that Netflix provides and therefore I will, so long as I am in Mozambique, miss the Netflix picking-out-a-moving experience that we all love and hate in huge and equal amounts. Sometimes when I am looking through my personal collection of media I daydream of all the choices I would have if my “PCV Media” folder was actually Netflix. In two years, when faced with choosing a movie to watch from Netflix, I will enjoy every indecisive second, and—let’s face it—probably pick a doozy. 

I’m daydreaming about ease of travel.”

Or: “I’m daydreaming about being able to leave one place when I want to and drive to another place, arriving at my destination in as much time--or less--as Google maps predicts it will take”. As Peace Corps Volunteers, we are not allowed to rent cars, drive cars, or do anything having to do with motorcycles besides watch them zoom by. In order to get from point A to point B, I have to find a chapa, wait for that chapa to fill up with many more people than it was ever designed to hold, wait for it to leave, make over 50 stops on the way to pick up or drop off, and eventually get there at least 1 hour after I would have been there if I had been driving myself. I said at least one hour. A better estimation of how long it takes, in relation to Google Maps, is to double it. And still sometimes that’s not enough leeway. Oh how nice it would be to get into my own car, leave point A when I want and arrive at point B in a timely manner, all while enjoying the glorious luxury of elbow room.

See you in two years, tolerable transportation. 

“I’m daydreaming about feeling cute.”

I think everyone appreciates a good, solid, fun reason to get super cute. You know, heels, a flirty dress, eye make-up—the whole nine yards. I didn’t partake in frequent fanciness when I lived in Dallas—usually a cotton sun dress, flat sandals, stud earrings and some mascara were all that went into “looking cute”. But every once in a blue moon, I would do it up. Heels. Dress. Even eyeliner. I would get a manicure and actually blow dry my hair. I would feel pretty. Not like “I look good enough to pass as a human” type of pretty. Or even the “I’m decent enough looking to not have to wear makeup and still fit into the cute category”, but like pretty pretty. I put some time into this and I like the way it came out. The type of pretty that you hope all your friends happen to want to take 200 pictures tonight because this level of pretty isn’t going to come around again for a few months. 

Well, after living here for 5 months, I can honestly say I miss having a reason to get dressed up. I sweat every day. I wear clothes that barely pass as clean (okay fine, don’t pass as clean. Don’t judge me because if you live in the States you use this incredibly convenient thing called a washing machine). We don’t have hair dryers or straighteners, so hair goes from shower wet to sweat wet, with no “dry” in between. I brought mascara and blush here with me, but with all the sweat and dirt, it’s not even worth it to put it on. Clothes should cover shoulders and knees. So instead of fun, flirty, pretty, I experience sweaty, dirty, conservative. Being an athlete, and not the most proactive in the cosmetic grooming department, I didn’t think this would be something I would miss. More like: "I don’t have to try at all and nobody’s going to care! Woohoo!" However, on the contrary, I really miss feeling pretty. I miss going shopping for a new cute outfit to wear to a specific event. I miss sitting in the comfy Pedi chairs at Garden Spa catching up with Laura and Rachel. I miss a nice new shellac manicure. I miss smelling good and feeling confident in how I look and what I’m wearing. I miss what my legs look like in heels (and I bet you do, too). In two years, after I sleep off the jet lag in my own bed in my mom’s basement, I’m going to have a pretty pretty night and it's going to be wonderful. Maybe even beautiful. But until then, I’ll settle with a capulana dress and some beautiful children yelling Mana Sara down the street. 

This type of daydreaming is, if I had to choose an adjective, I would say the bad kind. The kind that makes the idea of 22 more months in Mozambique seem like forever. For. Ev. Er (Oh yeah, I have the Sandlot on my hard drive too). It reminds me that no matter how comfortable, settled in, or integrated into the community I become, it’s just not going to be the same as home. Or should I say, there are some comforts that I willingly left at home that will stay at home for two more years. And that’s ok, because I wouldn’t, in 1000 years, exchange where I’m at for any of those faraway things that I find myself missing. 

The third type of daydreaming I do is the medium type. Things that I don’t have access to right now, or today, or even in the next week, but with time I could. These daydreams aren’t good or bad. They are hopeful. Motivating. Forward-moving daydreams. But, at the same time, can cause frustration or a feeling of stagnancy. Some examples:

“I’m daydreaming about my best friends.”

I really, really, really miss being in the company of people that know me know me. The people that call me Brades, who can—just by looking at me—know how I’m feeling. The people who I can say ridiculous, outrageous or downright disgusting things to and they will just laugh, unfazed. The people I can complain to about things that I shouldn’t be complaining about. Or do nothing with and have a blast. Or not be judged for not taking a shower even after three days and five workouts. Or for sticking my hand straight into the jar of peanut butter because I’m too lazy to walk 15 feet to the kitchen to get a spoon. I’m incredibly grateful that I have friends like this, but incredibly sad to know that they are oceans away. 

However, remember how I said that this is a medium daydream? Not good, not bad—medium. That’s because I’ve been seeing hints of this “knows me knows me” comfort level with some other PCV friends. 

A prime example:

Me: So, For a little while I thought that my boobs might be shrinking since I’ve been in Mozambique…but nope! Look at this sports bra cleavage! 

Alex: Oh…that’s good I guess? Ummm….

#gettingthere

Another prime example:

Roommate 1: *Takes a sip of water and makes a bad face.*

Roommate 2: Is that ORS? (ORS—oral rehydration salts—taste really gross)

Roommate 1: Nope, a big wad of booger just went down my throat.

All three of us: Ew. *silence. then laughter*

Alex and I share anxieties about teaching Mozambican students in Portuguese. How do we demonstrate that we know the material without being able to flawlessly execute the language? How do we teach certain concepts without calculators? What if the students don’t respect me? How are we going to handle the rampant cheating that happens in most Mozambican classrooms? Bbeca and I talk about having days where everything pisses us off for no reason. She has been here for a year and a half, so she offers insight on how to handle emotions that “America You” wouldn’t feel or face. We all three have opened up to each other about our beautiful but imperfect families, past/current romantic relationships, and future goals. I don’t feel like I can talk with my roommates about absolutely everything yet, but we’re getting there. Slowly, surely, and at exactly the pace we should.

“I’m daydreaming about race day.”

Anyone that is a runner knows that race day is the best and worst thing. It’s the worst thing because there’s a lot of pressure to perform because you’ve been training for three months and you really (really really really really) want to do your best. You push yourself and it hurts and you count down the miles and hope that when you cross the finish line your time is the best you’ve run yet. You have to wake up before the sun comes up to get to the start line with enough time to take one last pre-race dump and find your spot in the right corral. You stress about eating not enough/the right amount/too much; wondering if the shorts you picked will chafe; or whether or not you should wear the pullover or settle for freezing your nuts off until mile marker 3. It’s the best thing because race day provides one of the most positive and energizing atmospheres there is. You are surrounded by people who too have trained for the day and want to do their best. They want you to do your best because they know you trained too; your “best” and their “best” are very different, but neither less valuable than the other. People line the streets to tell you that you’re looking strong, even if you feel like shit (or promise you that there is beer at the finish line, or ask you what parade you’re a part of). And when you cross that finish line you are reminded why you pay $100 to run distances that most normal humans think are completely insane. Whether you achieve a PR or not, you are reminded that you’re a badass because your own two legs just took you 26.2 miles (or whatever distance) before most of the American population even took their morning pee. I daydream about this because in the States it had become part of my yearly routine. Four races, each with its own training plan, goal, story and new snazzy running outfit. I had a goal, I trained, I competed, I accomplished. I repeated. Race times are a concrete way to know that I have grown and improved and that I still have room to grow and improve. I miss that. 

Okay, so here’s the big news: there is a half marathon coming up here in Mozambique. It’s up north, in the province of Cabo Del Gado, which is a three hour plane ride for me. It has taken place each year for the past 5 or so years, on Women’s Day (April 7). The race is run my missionaries, and you are required to register in advance, pay 20 meticais ($0.50), and you even get a free t-shirt. On race day, all the participants pile into a giant truck, which drives 13 miles down the road and dumps everyone off. You run back the way you came and cross the finish line the same place you got into the truck. I guess if you can’t make it all the way, you’re shit out of luck (suckers!). 

I know it’s not going to be the same as the race-day atmosphere I love in the States, but it’s something. I’ll be running alongside other participants who are trying their best. The entire city of Montepuez bails on school and work to come cheer on the runners. When I cross the finish line I’ll feel proud. It’ll surely be different—not better, not worse—different. It will be wonderful and positive and surely quench this daydream, at least for a little while.

“I’m daydreaming about feeling like I have a purpose here.”

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been feeling pretty stagnant lately. When you hear Peace Corps, you hear, “changing the world!”. But I don’t feel like I’ve done that at all. Mostly I’ve been going to the market, cooking food, working out, and exchanging “olá!” with crianças over and over again until I become out of earshot. Integrating is a long and slow process, and it’s hard to identify when you’re actually taking steps in the right direction. I know I came here to teach math, but I haven’t had a chance to do that yet. So currently, I’m helping mães make a small income at the market with all the tomatoes and cucumbers I buy. I daydream a lot about taking ownership of my teaching job here. Having my own class—rules, procedures, structure—and truly doing everything I can to help my students understand the material. I want to be that teacher students come to in confidence with both personal and academic issues. I want them to trust me and I want to be able to trust them. I want to see their eyes light up when a concept “clicks”. I was to see test scores increase and instances of cheating decrease. I want my colleagues to trust me; I want to teach them and learn from them. I want to earn my title of Professora Sara. When I daydream about this, I usually daydream about teaching different topics, granting incentives to students who have earned them, or confronting a student that is cheating. Really, I daydream about doing anything that helps me know that I’m doing what I came here to do. Currently, I don’t feel like I’m doing any of it. But I know I will be soon.

The first day of classes will be on February 8th. On that day, my first ever group of students will enter into my classroom, likely with a specific set of expectations. I have no way of knowing what those are, or if I will or will not be able to meet them. However, I also have expectations for myself. And those are clear, challenging and attainable. I may not meet all of the expectations I have for myself on day one…or on day one hundred. But each day I will be working towards that, which is all I need to fulfill this daydream.

And now, because my name is Sarah and I am cheesy sometimes, and I don’t really know how to end this one, I’ll leave you with this:

“Daydreaming allows you to play out scenarios where you miraculously save the day. You play out scenarios in your head that are kind of crazy and then you personally, heroically resolve them.”

Big Goals. Tiny Steps.

Typically, I am a go-getter type of person. I like to be presented with tasks that I can work towards and eventually complete. The types of goals that have a concrete “yes I did it” or “no I did not…yet” outcome. Some USA examples:

• Run a half marathon in under 1:45 (not yet)
• Complete 30 yoga classes in 40 days (yes)
• Color-code and organize my calendar (yes)
• Have “girlfriend time” at least one day per week (yes)
• Walk Lucy 5x per week (yes)
• Read the Harry Potter series (not yet)

All of those above goals require that I do very specific things to achieve them; further, each goals requires that I take very specific steps that promise goal achievement: Follow a training plan. Get my butt to yoga practice. Time management. Call my friends. See my friends. Watch The Bachelor with my friends. Drink wine with my friends. Buy clothes that I don’t need with my friends. Do nothing—with my friends. Walk the Steven’s Park Golf Course with my beautiful Great Dane. Swap screen for book and read, read, read. 

During Pre-Service Training (PST) in Namaacha, we were presented with a list of concrete goals (much different than my goals in the States, but similar in structure):

• Reach Intermediate-Mid language level. (yes)
• Learn how to hand wash clothes. (yes)
• Learn how to light carvão (coal). (yes)
• Attend Medical and Safety & Security sessions. Pass related quizzes. (yes)
• Prepare and give mini-lessons in Portuguese. (yes)
• Help host Mãe around the house. (yes)
• Demonstrate understanding of lesson planning structure. (yes)

The structure of PST was very “Sarah” (or “totes Brades”, if you will). We were given a very busy schedule with long- and short-term goals and for 10 weeks we followed that schedule and worked towards those goals. It was easy for me to get into a routine, stay in that routine, and successfully complete all the things Peace Corps hoped that I would. Then, after 10 weeks of training and a beautiful (short, sweet and to the point just like I like) swear-in, I was ready for Manjacaze…or was I? 

Opposite of the structure we had in training, Peace Corps gave us exactly one goal to complete during the first three months at site: Integrate. This means integrate into the community. Only one task to complete in three months. Easy peasy, right? Right. Wait…No. Yes? I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s stick with maybe. Unlike most of my totesbrades goals, it’s hard to tell when this one is actually completed. Is it when the kids know your name? Is it when you can walk outside and not be stared at because you are one of 5 white people in the whole town? Is it when you start teaching your own classes? Is it when men start conversations with something besides, “marry me”?  

No one single thing or circumstance indicates whether or not a person is fully integrated into their community. In Dallas, I can retrospectively see that I was integrated into my downtown community because: my neighbors became my friends; other downtown residents knew Lucy by name; I was a member of a tight-knit Crossfit gym; I used the communal grill at my apartment complex to grill out and neighbors stopped offering to share their meat with me; I worked with a slew of education nonprofits and the leaders of those nonprofits trusted me; I had a few different friend groups that dabbled in whiskey, football, fitness, The Bachelor and restaurants with patios; I knew the best local restaurants. I would allow myself to splurge—once in a while—on an item that was sold at those types of boutiques that only carries one of everything to reassure you that $100 for this shirt is worth it because nobody else will have it (I knew where those boutiques were and how much I loved and hated them simultaneously). I frequently ran over the Trinity River Bridge, which is now in every fancy Dallas Skyline picture ever. I taught the tattered-shirt-wearing man who waited for the bus everyday near my house that he doesn’t need to be scared of Lucy. Sometimes I bought an extra late-night Wendy’s Frosty and gave it to the homeless lady who slept on the ground near the drive-thru. I discovered that the dumpy-looking shaved ice place that sold pickle-flavored sno-cones was the best post-dog-walk spot in all of DFW. I knew the neighborhoods and how to get there. I knew the Kindergarten Readiness rates for most of said neighborhoods. I knew the traffic patterns (but in Dallas the pattern is that there is always traffic on all the highways all the time). I had practiced yoga at 7 different studios until I found my favorite. I recognized people. They recognized me. I cared about Dallas. I enjoyed Dallas. I felt like I belonged in Dallas.

Surely, you must be convinced by now that after 4 years and many adventures, I was fully integrated into my own unique Dallas community. Yay! Success! However, I did not set that goal for myself. I didn’t make a list and I didn’t check off boxes. I didn’t set a time limit. Hell, throughout most of those 4 years I didn’t even realize what integration was or that it was happening. I probably never even said the words “community” and “integration” together in the same sentence until I got to Peace Corps Staging in Philly two days before getting on an airplane to Mozambique. 

And now community integration is my only goal, as unmeasurable and gray as it is.

Here is where I admit that this community integration business is challenging, makes me a little bit anxious, and still presents many big question marks. Some days it feels completely unattainable. I have been in Manjacaze for 1.5 months, and I feel like I have made very little progress in terms of integration. I don’t play with crianças every day. I have not made any progress towards starting a secondary project. I spend a lot of time in the confines of our quintal (fenced-in yard) reading or working out or watching TV shows on my computer. People still look at me funny when I walk to the market. Men still ask me to marry them before even saying hello. I get hissed at and kissed at and stared at. I understand that community integration is a slow process that needs to happen organically; that there are no 5 things I can complete in a timely manner to become integrated. No formula to plug into or rules to abide by. It takes time to build the trust of a person let alone an entire community. Logically, I know this. But emotionally, it’s hard to sit with, being the go-getting, tasking-doing, box-checking woman that I am. Each day I have to remind myself that little by little, integration will happen—is happening— and likely I won’t even notice that steps have been made until much later.

So today I will acknowledge that I am not yet fully integrated into the Manjacaze community (not even close). No matter how much passearing (walking around) I do, integration cannot happen in 6 weeks. However, I’m proud to say that steps have been made. Tiny hints that come in the form of seemingly inconsequential interactions let me know that I’m on my way there. Some little wins follow:

• Neighborhood kids call me Mana Sarah instead of Mana Rebbeca (well, most of them).
• I made a friend named Filipe. He helps me with Portuguese and I help him with English. 
• There is a Mãe that sells capulanas and we are at the “acquaintance” level. She says hi when I walk by her stand but doesn’t pressure me to buy anything. When I do want to buy something she offers a good price. 
• I sat for 1.5 hours talking to the guys that sold me the wood I used to make shelves. We talked about Manjacaze, Mozambican culture, and the family structure. They invited me to a wedding in a non-creepy way. I think I’ll go.
• My colleagues know my name and what I’ll be teaching. They trusted me to help them calculate year-end student statistics.
• The Mãe that sold me Fanta the other day laughed at me when I told her I was going to use it to bake a cake. I’ll have the last laugh when I let her try a piece of the deliciousness. 
• I get complimented on my Portuguese. I get laughed at about my Portuguese.
• A non-Portuguese speaking Mãe sprints to me and gives me double kisses and a hug every time I walk by her yard. I have no idea what she’s saying but it’s a daily joyful moment that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
• I get thumbs upped when I run. 
• I have completed a workout video with the orphans that come over to our house to feed the pigs. They don’t laugh at us working out anymore. 
• In the market I get called things like “Mana Sarah”, “Minha Amiga”, “Professora Sarah”, and “Professora de Matematica”. I am hearing less mulungu and more names that accurately describe me. 

These seemingly small moments are actually extremely important and absolutely necessary. They are organic benchmarks that let me know I’m making progress towards integrating. The smallness of these wins is sometimes frustrating—I want to be able to do more, faster. I want to attain the level of integration that PCVs who have been here for over a year have attained (impossible, duh). Each day, I need to remind myself that community integration does not work like that. Faster is not better, and small is actually quite the opposite of small. 

So for the foreseeable future I will make a promise to myself:

I will slow down. I will be mindful. I will pay attention to the little things.

I will trust that I am here for a reason.

I will do the best that I can, and that sometimes the best thing I can do is just be.

I will understand that not everything will happen today.

I will understand that everyday something will happen.

I will know that Manjacaze will feel like my home in time. 

Not too fast. Not to slow. At exactly the pace that it should.

Enjoy. Or something. You're welcome.

Sometimes I write poems.

But they are not very good.

See I told you so.

#DIYnumberone

I have a home! I have a home!

Next project on the list:

My clothes need a home.

Folded up so nicely in a square luggage case,

It’s hard to tell what I’m grabbing

Is this cotton or lace?

Nice, neat organized piles until it’s time to dress

When I dig for an article,

I’m left with a tangled-up mess.

This problem is small but annoying each day.

I shall try to solve it

There must be a way!

My room is so spacious with a cute little nook,

A shelf would fit perfectly--

Let’s go and look!

300 mets for a plastic, too-small shelf,

So I have an idea--

Call me Ms. Do-It-Yourself!

I will need some wood and some cinder blocks too.

Will you sell me some wood sir?

No?…Ok how about you?

Finally I find a man who will sell the wood plain,

But he says 500 mets...

Oh my gosh that’s insane!

I don’t want a dresser, a table or door,

I just want the wood, sir—

give me a break, I’m quite poor!

A friend of mine offered to make it to sell

But when he said 4,000 mets

I said "there's no way in hell."

I retuned to the man that said 500’s the price.

Then he lowered it to 400

And I said "thanks, you’re so nice!"

The workers and I sat and chatted away,

While a young teenage boy

sawed and sanded all day.

Okay, not really all day--just an hour or two,

Now my wood is ready

And I have work to do!

Cover the wood with capulana and secure it with string

Place atop cinder blocks

And we’ve got a shelf kind of thing!

I am now the proud owner of a Sarah-made shelf

It wasn't too hard

But I did it myself!

So now I have a home, and my clothes have a home...

And my blog can now say:

“I have a poem!”

The Best Things and the Worst Things, Part II

Something really important that Mozambique has taught me so far is that the best things are oftentimes the most subtle, and if you try to move too fast you might miss something beautiful. It has also taught me that the worst things are usually fleeting, and are the things I will roll my eyes and laugh at….and more importantly, if you don’t do the rolling eyes/laughing thing "too soon", you’ll go nuts with frustration. So, here are more best and worst things that my first month at site has brought me:

Our second weekend in Manjacaze, the nuns had an event. Three nuns had achieved the highest level of nunnery and were having a “profissão”, where they essentially decided to give up their lives to the church, accepted God as their one and only husband, and vowed that all of their actions moving forward would demonstrate this commitment. It was beautiful, and a big f-ing deal. The nuns at the house in Manjacaze started cooking and freezing food weeks in advance for the festa (party) that would follow the ceremony. The night before the party, irmãs (sisters) started cooking at 11pm and did not stop until food was served around 3pm the next day. Do that math, please: 16 hours of cooking. SIXTEEN. (I can barely make it one hour of cooking before giving up and eating straight peanut butter for dinner. #iamanadult) The party was on a Saturday and the service lasted from 9am-1pm, then the party afterwards lasted from 1pm until after 5pm (when we left). There was lots of food and refreshments and gift-giving and dancing and celebrating. There had to be over 200 people there, from not only other cities in Mozambique but also from South Africa and Portugal. All of whom were celebrating the lifelong accomplishments and future commitments of these three beautiful irmãs. I even saw one of the celebrated irmas receive a pair of red lacy underwear as a gift, but I probably shouldn’t be posting that on the internet for just anyone to read. #toolate The tables were all decorated with color-coordinated center pieces and napkins. There was more Fanta than a person could shake a stick at. The irmãs danced for many hours. Kids ate dessert until they were going to explode, and then ate some more. Girls posed for photographs and giggled sillily when they saw themselves in a digital photo. Families met. Everyone celebrated. It was a beautiful and joyful and I’m so glad to have been a part of it. The best thing.

...

At our house we have a veranda, which looks like a pavilion with tile flooring, a tin roof, and no walls. It’s the perfect place to workout because you don’t have to do burpees in the sand and rain isn’t an excuse to miss a workout. #totesbrades But, the pavilion is right next to the gate, which allows other people to peek into our quintal (yard) if they feel like being nosey. Well, it turns out that doing Insanity (a workout video that requires one to flail around until your heart rate increases a bunch and you can’t breathe) is not a thing that Mozambicans are used to seeing. So, at least one time per 40 minute Insanity video, we have an audience watching us sweat and gasp for air and do more squat jumps than probably is healthy. And to be honest, some days I don’t really mind. I’m like, okay, I get it: when you watch something on tv you don’t copy what the people are doing…this is weird. But other days, I really need to be able to zone out and sweat and forget that I’m in such a foreign place. I need Sarah time and having people watch me partake in Sarah time ruins the point of Sarah time. Trying to pretend there is nobody watching me doesn’t work. And on those days, when I need it the most but am not getting what are maybe the most important and necessary 40 minutes of my day, working out with a Mozambican audience is the worst thing.

...

We spent the last few weeks going to work at our school in the morning to help them with end-of-the-year things such as inputting final grades, counting up the number of students who passed/failed, calculating other percentages of specific student populations, and getting to know our colleagues. Some of the best conversations—and most culturally insightful—have come about at unexpected times in the middle of calculating how many 12th grade girls passed math this year (or perhaps another variation of that statistic). Not only do these conversations help me gain a better understanding of Mozambican culture, values, etc., but they also help me build my Portuguese vocabulary—talking about politics, marriage and discrimination requires a different vocabulary than the usual: “I’m Sarah. I’m a volunteer. I will teach math at the Secondary School of Manjacaze. I will live here for two years. I am from the United States. I don’t eat meat. Chicken is meat. So is fish. I don’t want to talk about my diet any more. No I don’t want to marry you. Yes I’m sure I don’t want to marry you. You don’t even know my name, why do you want to marry me? That’s not a good reason. Thank you bye.” Okay I diverged a lot so let’s get back on track. With my colleagues, I have talked about the Mozambican double-standards within a relationship (man can and do cheat but women absolutely cannot and will not). When I told one of my colleagues that if a man I was with cheated on me, I would say tchau (bye) and there would be no more conversation about it, he told me, “you would be saying tchau every day” (because men cheating is so common here). And they laughed and laughed and laughed. I also learned that Mozambicans consider Eminem black because of his mad rapping skills; they consider Beyonce to be a Mozambican because she dances like Mozambicans in one of her music videos (we watched it together during this conversation, and they have a point). I learned that marrying within your class is very important (i.e. if you are a teacher you cannot marry someone who works in the fields). I learned that a good sense of humor translates across languages and cultures. I learned that even if my colleagues don’t understand something that I do or believe in, they will not disrespect me because of it. I learned that they think of America as this faraway paradise, and cannot learn enough about it. We’ve talked about immigration, discrimination, and the fact that we have a black president. I learned they they think all Americans are afraid of Muslims and they don’t understand why. Similarly,  they love to share their ideas about Mozambican culture, and I can tell they truly appreciate my desire to learn about it. Finally, and quite humorously, it’s extremely hard for them to understand why a person would leave America to come live in Mozambique…and work for free. I can explain a lot of things about America to you. And a lot of things about American culture. And the reasons behind many decisions that I make. However, this one is pretty freaking hard to translate. So instead I just laugh as say “no sei” (I don’t know) and they laugh too. And we move onto another thought-provoking topic, such as Eminem being black or how Mozambicans break in a new bed. #awkward #yesthathappened No matter how these conversations come about, or what ridiculous turn they take, or even the fact that sometimes I don’t understand half of what’s being said…they are authentic, insightful and organic. A true cultural exchange. And that is the best thing.


...

Before coming to site, my roommate Alex and I bought a “stoven”. It is a stove and an oven put together—picture a toaster oven with two electric burners on top. However, upon getting to site we learned that it would be much better to have a gas stove so that when power goes out we can still cook things. So we bought a gas stove too. At that point we had spent about 4,000MT on each thing and we definitely didn’t need both. We decided to make a day trip to Maputo from Manjacaze to return the stoven and get 4,000MT back to spend on things we actually could use in our house. The trip there was great. Bbeca knows a chapa driver named Vitorino that picked us up from our house at 4am and we made it there in 3.5 hours. Considering chapas usually stop a whole bunch on the way to the destination, 3.5 hours is pretty much unheard of. So we get there, take two more chapas within the city to actually get to the store, return the stoven, buy some new things that we need (toilet brushes and super glue, for example) and start the journey back to Manjacaze. We called Vitorino, but he had already left. One of his friends met us at the main chapa stop in Maputo to pick us up, telling us that Vitorino had called him, that he was going back to Manjacaze, and that we could ride with him. We were grateful, got in the car, and [thought] we were headed home, to be there in about 4 hours. Well, we thought wrong. And it was the worst thing. We spent from 12:45-3:30 driving around Maputo helping other Mozambicans run their errands. That’s almost three hours. Sitting in a van with a bajillion other people, stopping and going on really shitty dirt roads. The only thing I had eaten that day was a dark chocolate bar and a Coke Zero. I was crabby and over it…and we hadn’t even left Maputo.  Imagine people piling in a kid-napper-sized van with at least 20 people. Plus a bunch stuff—giant bags of maize flour, tools for working in the fields, bags and boxes and all the things. At one point there was a rope tied to a box, through a window, over the outside of the van, through the other side of the window and tied to a door handle. I couldn’t even. Then we finally leave Maputo—headed back to Manjacaze after 3 hours of nonsense—and about 30 minutes outside of the city the wheel of the van breaks. They spend about 30 minutes fixing it (none of them are mechanics and gosh knows if it was actually fixed) and then we were on the road again. And four hours later we got home. What should have been a 4 hour trip turned into a 7.5 hour trip, and neither Alex nor I could do a single thing about it. Except ride along, silently, hoping that sooner rather than later this damn driver would decide to actually take us home. It was the worst thing. 

...

There is a word in the local language that means a couple of different things. Mulungo in Changana means "white person" or "rich person". It is very common to hear that word when walking by a group of Mozambicans because there are I think 5 white people in all of Manjacaze (~30,000 people). So, you'll hear a bunch of words that you don't understand in Changana, sprinkled heavily with mulungo, and you know they're talking about you. And at first I thought it wouldn't bother me because yes, I am white, and compared to most, I'm on the richer side of the poor-rich scale, even just living on the Peace Corps monthly stipend. But after a while it really started to bother me. I am not just a mulungo. I am a person. I have a name. I am living here in your community for two years and I will be teaching your students. I am not a tourist. I am not a visitor. I do not have unlimited income. I live on a budget that makes second think spending 100MT ($2) on cheese. Roaches run through my reed walls at night. When your power goes out, so does mine. Water is just as valuable to me as it is to you. I don't have shady streets to walk on, either. I love and I feel and I care. I enjoy learning and growing and sharing. I want to know you. Do you want to know me? I am not mulungo, I am Sarah.
Because I clearly don't speak Changana, most people who talk about me probably don't realize that I know that mulungo refers to me. But I do. And one day I decided to say something about it. There were a group of kids hanging out in front of a house (in the front yard, on the front porch and even some chillin' on the roof). As Alex and I walked by, the kids started shouting "mulungo! mulungo! mulungo!" at us. It was the worst. Without thinking, I responded: "Não sou mulungo. Eu tenho nome. Eu sou Sarah." I am not Mulungo. I have a name. I am Sarah.
Quiet. I think the silence was part "oh shit she understood us" and part "what do we say to that?". Once they processed through what I had said, they started shouting again. But this time: "Sarah! Sarah! Mana Sarah!". I said obrigada (thank you) and waved. They smiled and waved back. I like to think I taught them a little lesson that day...that there is more to a white person than skin color or deep pockets. I felt proud of myself for speaking up. Alex and I laughed about it. And it was the best thing.