Changing Languages...

After a little lapse, I'm back.  I've had six days in the house to myself--Matias and the kids went to his hometown, Chimoio, last Friday.  That's the longest I've been alone in my house in nearly 10 years.  Unbelievable.  So I should have had plenty of time to write... and I was thinking of all the things I could write about-- how Dona Veronica, the accountant at work, told me I was getting fat and made a pose like a body builder; or my new best friend at work, Luigi, an Italian from Naples.  He calls himself a Neopolitan, not an Italian.  He's married to a wonderful Roman Italian named Sarah, who effortlessly melds being a progressive independent woman while retaining many of the characteristics of the quintessential Italian mother and wife (i.e. she calls Luigi 4 or 5 times a day at work and they yell at each other on the phone).  Luigi is a lot like me in an Italian man's body-- we both do everything fast and nothing calmly.  So we get along great. 

But, when I choose what to write in the blog, I inevitably come back to the kids, because watching them go through all the changes here is endlessly entertaining. 
Nalia
Nalia came to me the other day and asked very seriously, "What is prahncing?"
"You mean praaancing?" I replied.
"No.  Prahncing." 
"Well, it's... like galloping in a very happy way."  (I am not good at defining these things).  "In the U.S., we call in praaancing."
"Well, I'm going to say prahncing, because that's how my teacher says it.  ... And mommy, you should know that Elio has started saying 'waTer,' and not 'waDDer,' like the Americans do.  I don't understand why Americans say waDDer anyway because it's spelled with a t.  Why do English and American people talk differently anyway?"
Wow, that was a question.  So then I had to explain about how they colonized the U.S., but we don't talk like them because our countries are an ocean apart, and with the distance, over time, people pick up different accents. 

Nalia has kept her American accent for now, but she's experimenting with words like prahncing and she finds words and phases like swimming costume and being cross with someone very funny, so once in awhile, she'll slip these in to make us all laugh.

Elio is a different story.  Nalia is right.  He has started saying waTer.  He is also starting to speak English with a Porgueuse accent:  "loook Mommy."  "Seet down."  "Thees is mine."  I think it's endearing and cute, so I don't correct him.  It's really amazing to me (and makes me v. jealous!)  how fast children can pick up languages.  Elio has been here four months and speaks Portuguese fluently.

My new language is Italian.  I hear more Italian than Portuguesethese days at work .  This is because 1) there are two Italians in my office (Luigi and Francesca), and 2) Italians generally like to talk.  Also, Italian is more like Portuguese than I ever knew. So I'm understanding a fair amount and try to speak once in awhile. 

Anyway, here are a few pictures of our recent trip to the beach in Bilene, and my trip to the middle of nowhere (once again) for work. 

I love this picture of our Elio



Luigi is on the left... we are reviewing a health worker's patient register.



Maybe this will make you want to visit?

This is a health post



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Thanksgiving at Isaias' and Cherry's house



A bit about names...

Mozambique is a diverse place!  Indians have been here forever, and now with the Chinese pouring into invest all over Africa, there has been a huge influx of Chinese into the country.  Not to mention, there are many Europeans, mostly Portuguese, who have hung on since independence, and others who work for aid organizations, donors, embassies, etc.  That said, Mozambicans have been exposed to new cultures more in the last 20 years than every before. 

This has created some very funny misunderstandings regarding names from all those different cultures... names that Mozambicans aren't used to.  For example, there is a little Chinese boy at Elio's school.  When I asked teacher Ana, who speaks English very well, what this boy's name is, she said, "Oh, his name is Someone."  "Someone?" I questioned.  "Yes, that is what his parents say he name is."  Teacher Ana didn't seem to think this was out of the ordinary.  Then, when I arrived at the school a couple of days later to drop Elio off, Ana explained that she had been mistaken about Someone's name.  Apparently Someone's parents had gotten upset when they heard the Mozambican staff at the school calling him Someone.  After all, his name is Sam Wong.  But the parents' accents must be pretty thick and I am sure the Mozambican staff are wholly unaccostumed to names like this, so Sam Wong's parents had to write his name down for all the teachers so they could see the difference bewteen Someone and Sam Wong.  But in Portuguese, words don't end in g and words that end in m make an ng sound, so this was quite a stretch for many of the teachers.  From what I can see, they continue to call him Someone when his parents aren't there. 

The foreign names that Mozambicans choose put together also provide some fuel for a good laugh.  I have a colleague at Save the Children named Aguinaldo, which is a pretty good name inself, Aguinaldo Santana.  17 years ago, Aguinaldo and his wife Jamila had a son they decided to name Filkadafi.  Say it out loud.  Aguinaldo loves Phil Collins.  He loves Elton John too, but not as much as Phil.  Everytime I have to drive somewhere with him, he blares "Another Day in Paradise."  Aguinaldo also thinks that Moammar Kadafi is one of the most intelligent and exemplary leaders in the history of Africa and in the modern world.  So he named his child Filkadafi, but he doesn't go by Fil or Kadafi, it's Filkadafi.  And let's not forget that his last name is Santana, so it's Filkadafi Santana.
Anyway, since some people have asked me to post some photos about our life and friends, here are a few...


Nalia and her friends from school: Clara, Olivia and Irati.  Clara is half Brazilian and half Belgian.  Olivia is Danish, adopted from Ethiopia, and Irati is half Tanzanian and half Spanish (Basque).



At the pool!



Elio calls these his swimming glasses.

Oh man, yesterday was a hard Mozambique day, and I felt like I shouldn’t be complaining because the car finally started… it did’t move, but it started.  Right now, if you actually want it to move, you usually have to push it to get it going.  Luckily there is no shortage of able bodied (i.e. not much to do) Mozambican men who can help with this.  So we have graduated from: 

Two weeks ago: Car being pushed home 4 blocks at 2am

One week ago:  Fire in the starter (flames coming out… Matias told the guard and me to run and get sand to dump on the engine to put out the fire)

Today:  Car starts on its own (sometimes).  Needs a push to start (most of the time).

So I guess I should be happy.  But it was 39 C in Maputo yesterday… 39 C is about 102 F, and since the very unreliable Nissan was still not running, I walked to work again.  It takes me about 30 minutes each way, and some parts are very pleasant—the wide sidewalks with the shade from the acacia trees.  The jacarandas are blooming with their purple princess colored flowers and circular black seed pods that look like big coins.  But the walk has to be very strategic and I am still finding the best routes… strategic to avoid:  1) foul smelling steaming trash heaps, 2) trees that too many men have relieved themselves on 3) excrement from who knows what, and 4) blasts of diesel fumes from the minbuses.

But some parts of living in Mozambique are so much easier… for example, it is so much easier to make people happy here than in the U.S.

I asked Eusebio, our guard, to cut our grass.  He did this all by hand because mowers, like tow trucks, don’t really exist here.  I paid him 100 meticais, about $3.00, and he was so happy he about fell over.  He told me that he’s going to bring me lettuce from his farm because Matias and I help him so much.

You can also make people here very happy here just by saying good morning- ‘Bom dia.’  That’s all it takes.  If you say this to complete strangers in the U.S., they will look at you like you must be crazy or on something and then mumble something incomprehensible back if you’re lucky, but here saying “Bom Dia”  anything can make a tremendous difference in your life.  People at the office will be more helpful.  The guards at the other houses on our street will look out for us.  The waiter at the restaurant will (try) to be efficient and expeditious.  The gentleman who works at the grocery store will carry your basket for you.  So, as my mom always says, there are always two sides to every story…

Anyway, seven days after the shipment arrived, the camera cord was recovered in the rubble, so here are some photos.



Nalia and some friends in a bairro outside Maputo

 

Matias and the cow leg referred to in the first post.



Nalia and her friend Tililly at the Maputo Elephant Reserve.

 

Elio and his best friend Santiago sharing a secret at the Maputo Elephant Reserve.

 

View of Maputo from Catembe Penninsula



Beach at Maputo Elephant Reserve



Nalia in our shipment rubble.

Horsewoman Nalia!



U.S. Embassy Halloween party last week- Elio is Nemo and Nalia is a 50s girl!



Mechanics are Like Curandeiros

This is about our car.  Our car is a 2000 Nissan Terrano.  This is what they call the Pathfinder in countries where you drive on the left.  Our car had problems from the beginning because the apparently genuine honest Aussie who sold it to us claimed in the end not to be very knowledgeable about all of the repairs needed on her car.  Right after we bought it, we discovered that the seatbelt in the back didn't work and both back windows were permanently stuck.  She refused to fix it, pleading ignorance and claiming she didn't know about these things the entire time she owned the car. 

So Matias took the car to Vicente, a mechanic who was recommeneded to us by a very reliable source...honest mechanics are hard to find in Mozambique.  Sometimes they replace very good parts that function well with cheap knock offs from China that last a few weeks...sometime they just take out good parts and keep them.  Many times, your car returns in worse condition than you left it. 

When we took our car to Vicente it ran well.  He was supposed to change the oil, brake pads, filters for a grand total of $300.  Yes, this is a good price by U.S. standards.  When the car came back to us after 9 days, we were excited.  We were backing out of the driveway to take Nalia to her first horseback riding lesson when the car started coughing, sputtering, and choking out huge billows of toxic black smoke.  Then, it died.  Matias managed to get it started again so we could go to the horseback riding lesson. 

Later that night, he went to visit his cousin and it took him 4 hours to travel 2 miles home because the car would run for pregressively less and less time and then shut down.  In the end, because there appear to be no tow trucks in this whole country, Matias had to hire three guys to push the car back to our house at 2am.

I was so worried when all this was going on that I couldn't sleep and decided to spend my time reuniting with Facebook.  I got some good advice on how to deal with the problem with fellow Facebook nightowls.

Matias and I were both upset and disenchanted with the mechanic...  I wanted to call him up and give him a piece of my mind.  Matias was more philosophical and understanding- he said, "You know, mechanics are like cuandeiros (witch doctor in Portuguese)... sometimes they don't really know what's going on or what the problem is and have to try different remedies until they get it right."  Vicente came later in the day and got the car running, but it only runs when it wants to.  Meanwhile, while we wait for Vicente to find a cure, I'm too afraid to drive by myself....

Photos from Our Trip Across the USA

Our camera cord has still not arrived (along with the rest of our stuff)... but I found these pictures from right before we left the U.S.

At St. Olaf College in Minnesota

Camping in Glacier National Park

We loved Glacier!

Hiking in Theo Roosevelt N.P., North Dakota

Finally arriving in Seattle...

At the beach in Minnesota with Erin's kids and Anna

Lake St. Mary's in Glacier N.P.

We arrived in Morgantown, WV just in time for the Mountain Biker Fest....

Road Construction with Gabe and Dan in Milwaukee

Mom and Dad at the ferry terminal in Seattle... we are almost there!

Our only photo of Mozambique-- this is our house finder's car! Nalia loved the color.

From Nampula

From Nampula last week:
I am in Nampula...Nalia's first home. It has been really nice to be here.  One of those very special homecomings that we don't get to appreciate or experience much in life-- I have come back after five years to find most of the people I worked with or knew socially in better positions than they were before-- life has improved.  "A vida muda,"  as they say in Portuguese... or "Life goes forward,"  They have been promoted, they have gone to school and graduated.  The program I started has grown from 120 nutrition and health volunteers to over 2000, not because of me but because a group of dedicated thoughtful sharp people were all able to work together for a common goal.

 

I have also had the opportunity to stay in my old house with my friend Greta... she took my position when I left and also my house!  We don't often get to return to the homes where we once lived, but that has also been a treat-- bringing back all these little pieces of sweet memories I had forgotten-- the step where Nalia learned to jump, the water tank outside where I used to put my yogurt in the sun when I made it, the floorboard by the bathtroom that's still loose.  There is something very comforting about noticing all those little things... something that makes me feel all the more human. 

 

But the warm welcomes I am receiving from all the people in Nampula are even more comforting-- Nampula is the third largest city in Mozambique, but still small enough that people know each other.  The waiter at the coffee shop, Senhor Faztudo (Mr. Doeseverything! in English) is still there, along with the lady who helps him.  When people like this remember you after so many years... and you remember them, it's just one of the things that makes living here more human and intimate-- something that doesn't happen (much) in Washington, D.C.

On the Virtues of Cement and Water Taps

I travelled to Chicualacuala District last week (say... Sheekwalakwala), one of the most remote districts in the country-  8 hours or 600km on a bumpy dirt road.  You can put it in Google maps and see that it's pretty near the end of the world..It was great to be out of the city and in the middle of nowhere.  As it usually goes on these trips, it was me travelling with Mozambican men.  Luckily, I know how to deal with Mozambican men pretty well. 
Chicualacuala is on the border with Zimbabwe, and at its peak, it must have been quite a place. It was a big station on the railway that connects South Africa to Harare, via Maputo.  Now it reminds me of some of the Old West ghost towns we visited in Colorado when I was little.  You can see shells and remnants of luxury hotels, swimming pools, nice restaurants, but now these are just decaying shells.  The climate is very arid, so there is plenty of sand and dust. 
One of the most difficult things to find in Chicualacuala is water.  The Mozambique Railroad Authority decided to paint the city's old watertower, which now looks very beautiful, but unfortunately, it's not functioning-- I was the only one in our group who saw the irony in this.  All the people in the town have to haul carts to get water from a well at the border post-- and the water there is salty. 
The border post is funny because you'd never know you were at a border, save for a piece of wire and the asphalt that starts on the Zim side, and 5 border officials sitting under a thatched hut.  During the whole time I was there (24 hours), I saw only 2 other cars...  so it seems the border post is fully staffed!
Anyway, I began to re-think about cement and water taps in Africa while I was there.  To me, these are now two of the most important things in life.  Imagine life without cement!  In Africa, there are many places like this... and if it's dry, you are usually sweating and covered from head to toe in dust-- like a piece of chicken that's battered, breaded and waiting to get fried.  And if it's raining, you are muddy and sticky all the time- imagine if you have a toddler... crawling..  And a water tap.  I'm not talking about a well, because there is a huge difference between pouring water from a jerry can or dipping a cup in a water container and having a TAP.  The tap keeps your much cleaner-- try not using yours for a few hours only.
Our hotel in Chicualacuala had no tap.. anywhere.. and a shared bathroom.  Matias' parents house doesn't have a tap either, but a hotel is different because you have more people and you don't know how they are.  Sanitation? 
For that and other reasons, I was glad to get out of the hotel-- other reason that the rooms did not have good insultation.  I shot up in my bed in the middle of the night to hear this really loud snoring , like someone was in my room.  It turned out it was the guy next door and he was just snoring VERY loudly... my colleagues all heard it too.
We cannot find the cord to our camera or else I'd start putting pictures here... hopefully it's in the container?  All for now... we went camping at the Maputo Elephant Reserve last weekend, so more on that in the next post. 

We have been in Mozambique over a month now and are finally getting our routine and life in order .  Nalia and Elio are adjusting and have lots of interesting questions and comments.  Upon Elio arriving at the airport, his first comment was that it was dirty.  If you know Elio, this is not unusual-- he hates being dirty.   Next, he saw a cigarette butt on the ground and asked where our neighbor John was.  Elio loved to hang outside our old house in Maryland with Nalia, John and his daughter Kathy, and John would often smoke.  I don't know what John would think about Elio associating him with cigarette butts!  Next, Elio commented how some of the kids hanging around outside the airport did not have shoes.  "They need to put their shoes on Mommy.  Their feet dirty." 

This was over a month ago... he doesn't make these comments anymore.  We are getting used to and learning to appreciate the rough edges here--the cracks in the sidewalk that make you always look at the ground when you're walking, driving with no rules (rules only applicable when a  policeman is present looking for a little extra cash), lots of noise...I had forgotten how much noise there is in Africa: pleasent noises (birds in the morning), not so pleasant (dogs howling at 3am).  Along with the monster sidewalk cracks comes a slower pace of life, walking home from work, brilliant fiery sunsets, teachers at school who are allowed to hug and love unconditionally, fruit and vegetables smelling of the fresh sweet earth they came from. 

Speaking of freshness, yesterday Matias arranged to buy a whole cow leg from a cow that had also been butchered yesterday.  He told me this was a good idea because it would be much cheaper the buying beef in the store.  OK.  So last night  we went to the person's house to pick up with leg.  When we got there, Nalia said, "What's that!?"-- she really had no idea what it was.  For her, food is Giant grocery store.  I told her what it was and she was pretty unfazed.  Matias spent half the evening hacking up the leg so we could fit it in the freezer.  Unfotunately the water in our water tank ran out at the same time, making the clean up a little challenging.  Nalia and Elio watched very curiously as Matias cut up the meat-- at one point, Nalia remarked, "Mommy, that leg has an egg on it."  I explained that it was not an egg, but the socket to the leg of the cow.  She nodded and continued watching..  Life is real here, fresh, unprocessed, undiluted...I've been taking lots of picture and need to figure out how to upload them!  Hopefully Monday.