A Request for Advice

Dear Readers,
I need some advice.  Our guard next door, Oscar, had an operation two months ago to remove an abcess near his stomach.  It has been almost two months, but the incision has not healed.  I took Oscar to the private clinic in Maputo and they told me that there was a hard mass near the incision, probably a tumor.  Because I could not pay for further follow up care at the private clinic, Oscar turned to the national health system in Mozambique.
In the meantime, his employer, our next door neighbor Teresa, a mean-spirited lady without an ounce of humanity in her, found out that I had taken Oscar to the clinic.  When she found this out, she told him that since he had found someone else to take care of him, he was fired. 
Yesterday, I took Oscar to the emergency room at the central hospital.  We were at the hospital for 5 hours.  Although he's had an open wound for almost two months with a tumor like mass under it, they did not do any further tests.  They referred him to urology, where he has an appointment tomorrow- Oscar's wound is leaking urine, so it is likely they punctured his bladder when they operated on his abcess the first time. 
I will wait to see what they do tomorrow, but Oscar is running out of time.  He is 28 years old.  I have savings and could take him back to the private clinic, but I need to think about where I draw the line.  Oscar is a person though, a poor person at the mercy of a dysfunctional government who doesn't care much about it's poor peple.  I feel that, as a fellow human being, I need to help him or try to.   
What would you do?
Erica

Christmas in Africa

Last weekend, we went to Game.  Game is a store sort of like Target... but really no where near the caliber of Target-- 1/2 the quality and 3 times the price.  For that reason, we don't frequent Game much.  Another reason is that the kids ask us to buy them things about every 5 seconds.  But we couldn't find a trash can anywhere else in all of Maputo, so Game was a last resort. 
Game wanted $60 for a plastic trash can, so we ended up bailing on that and, instead of the trash can, we left with probably 20 other items. (Nalia was a huge influence on the number of items).  One of these was a fake white Christmas tree. 
As soon as we got home, the kids got out all the Christmas decorations and started decorating.  Because we had no proper lights for the tree, Nalia put pink plastic Easter grass on it.  Elio took out a plastic Santa being pulled by his reindeer ... it had been a decoration on top of our gingerbread house a couple of years ago.  He studied it for a minute and then looked at Nalia quizzically and asked, 'Are those gazelles driving Santa?'

Yogurt Monkey

We just made a trip to South Africa, a financially intelligent decision as the US dollar is gaining strength in almost every place in the whole world but Mozambique.  Matias and I are not known for our financially intelligent decisions, but this was a good one.  It takes almost $100 USD to fill up our car in Mozambique, but only cost $67 in South Africa. 
The Mozambican government has been fixing our currency, the metical (plural is meticais), for too long, making it artifically strong.  Everything Mozambique costs about 35% more now than it did when we arrived a year ago...  all because of the devaluation of the dollar.  Woe is me, but things here are dang expensive. 
So, instead of wallowing in the few meticais our dollars earn, we drive to South Africa and make a side trip to Kruger Park. 
We stop at Outdoor Warehouse, the South African equivalent of REI, but with special South African touches.  There are small clothes dressers made out of aluminum and mesh that you can set up in your tent.  There are enormous rechargable coolers.  There are portable braais (barbeques) that you can set up in the bush.  To South Africans, owning a braai is tantamount to having a microwave or dishwasher in the U.S.  It is essential.  And at Outdoor Warehouse, there is every kind of water container you can imagine.  No, a Nalgene bottle here would be for lightweights. These are car moutable water containers fit for driving through the Kalahari.  Nalia and Elio were thrilled to be back in a land of consumerism and were taking every free moment to hit Matias and I up to buy water guns, butterfly nets, snorkels... 
Matias and I were so caught up in fending off the rapid fire of requests from both of them that we didn't notice much else going on. 
Then, one of the workers in the store approached Matias... and started speaking Zulu.  When we are in South Africa, everyone approaches Matias in Zulu and in Swaziland, Swati.  When the guy switched to English, we found out that there was someone in the store watching us.  Apparently some malevolent South Africans in and around Nelspruit have figured out a new way to rob Mozambicans.  Mozambicans are easily identified by the license plates on their cars, and are particularly good targets because they come to Nelspruit loaded with cash to buy up.  The store employee informed us that these malandros (or bad guys in Portuguese)  will follow Mozambicans.  Then, when they go out to their cars and are driving away, the bad guys will wave at the driver, pretending like something is wrong with the car.  You, the driver, then slow down, and they rob you of everything you have, including your car. 
Luckily, we were pre-informed by a very benevolent store employee. 
Because there is so much crime in South Africa, this has changed the way people live and interact.  Most shopping is done in shopping malls, patrolled by guards.  Many people live in gated houses or neighborhoods studded with barbed wire, electrified fences, etc.  Of course, these people are the ones who have money.  There are many poor people in South Africa and they do not live like this. 
The next day, we went to Kruger Park to drive through and look at the animals.  For safety reasons, you are not allowed to leave your car while at Kruger.  When you do get to the camps, where there are places to stay for the night and restaurants, these areas are also surrounded by electrified fences to keep big game out. 
Monkeys, however, find a way to get in and target picknicking tourists.  I took out yogurts for Elio's lunch (Elio only eats 4 things, one of which is yogurt), and in a split second, a fiesty and fast vervet monkey jumped on the table and scampered away with the yogurt.  He knew exactly how to open the foil top and began to dig in.  He had perpetrated this crime before.  Elio was a wreck, crying, and all the tourists were laughing and taking pictures of the mokey eating Nutriday yogurt. 
It struck me then that in South Africa, people live behind fences, behind walls, when they are in or out of the wild areas of the national parks. 
But it doesn't stop the yogurt monkeys. 

Shark Dreams

We went to the beach last weekend, in Inhambane province, about seven hours from Maputo.  The beach, called Tofo, is known for its white sands and clear water...  and it is just that.  The water is so clear that you can be up to your neck and look down and see your toes!  Nalia and I went on a whale shark ocean safari on the first day.  Whale sharks are really sharks, but they are totally harmless.  They can be up to 25 ft. long, and there are only 1,000 in the whole world-- 300 of them are found in the waters off the coast of Mozambique. 
We didn't end up seeing any whale sharks, but saw lots of dolphins playing in the water near our boat.  We also got to travel for a quite awhile with a beautiful aqua green sea turtle next to our boat... it was as big as our kitchen table.
Fortunately these animals were alive.  On the second day, we saw fishermen bringing in their catches as usual, though one had something so large it wouldn't fit in the boat.  It was a gigantic manta ray.  When we went to see it, it was still alive, but on its last leg.  It was turned upside down, so we could see its beautiful white underbelly, smooth as silk.  When the fishermen began to butcher it they turned it over revealing a striking leopard print, same color as the sand it swam over.  The kids watched intently as the fishermen went to work.  They said they were going to eat the ray.  They were going to use its tail (stinger) as a whip.
An hour later, they brought in a hammerhead shark.  I couldn't bear to watch them cut it up.  But when I went into the water after the fishermen were gone, the only thing left were the two hammers, blue as the sky.  I didn't know sharks were so colorful.   Elio didn't watch what happened to the shark, but all of this affected him.
He woke up that night with a horrible nightmare, insisting there was a shark on top of his mosquito net... he's such a sensitive guy, and cries when when prune the acacia trees on our street in Maputo.  Nalia convinced him that there was no shark on top of his mosquito net because sharks need water to live.  Seeing the ray and hearing about the shark had just been too much, and really, he's right, it is too much.  It shouldn't be happening, but with the influx of Chinese in Mozambique, the demand for shark fins and meat has gone through the roof.  Also, the fishermen are poor and really do eat rays and sharks. 
There is a foundation, Marine Mega Fauna Foundation, that has been set up to protect sharks and rays in Mozambique.  Please visit their website at http://www.marinemegafauna.org/ and you can adopt your own shark or ray. 
Our camera broke on the first day we were at the beach, so I don't have many photos...



We've been having thunderstorm after thunderstorm... after thunderstorm.  Always at night.  For three nights, Matias and I woke up what sounded like 20 gigantic gongs being clanged at once right next to your ear.  The doors and windows rattled. This was followed by children running in our room crying and then the dog started wailing and barking like a banshee...this went on for about half and hour.  None of us slept much, so when I got up at 5am, I thought I would go on line and do some Christmas shopping... get ahead of the game.  At this time of year, I always get up around 5 or 5:30 because the sun comes up so early here. But when I went to turn on the computer, there was nothing.  I then looked at the modem and there was nothing. Black.  The electricity going out is a pretty common event here, but when I checked around, the rest of the house had electricity.  So I waited until Matias got up.  He would be able to figure it out. 

It turned out that along with all that thunder, there was of course, lightening, and the lightening just happened to completely fry the outlet where our computer was plugged in.  So no more computer, no more internet, for awhile.  This was pretty amazing to me, because I'd heard about this happening, but never known anyone who it happened to...  so the lesson (to self and to others) is to unplug all those important things when there's a big lightening storm. 
For now, we have no computer and no internet at home.  And yesterday we discovered that the cable box is also fried, so no TV either.  In a way, it's almost a relief. 

Below, some photos from my recent trip to Nampula in Northern Mozambique

Mother and baby at health post



Health Post

Nampula, Nalia's first home

Church in Nampula

Church in Nampula

Sunset...

Advising a family whose child had chicken pox

Elio's World

As Elio turns from baby to boy, his personality seems to become more apparent every day. And when he thinks something is true or right, he's emphatic.  There is no negotiation.  Wonder where he gets that from?  Matias says it's not from him. 

So, here are a few Elio-isms for a laugh or two:

For a couple of days, he kept telling me he needed an eye patch.  I was confused because his eyes are fine, but he kept insisting and we couldn't come to a mutual understanding about exactly what this eye patch was.  Then, I finally asked him what this eye patch is used for.  He told me that he needed it for watching movies, taking pictures, talking on the phone (to who, I have no idea), and 'using it for the same things Nalia wants to use it for.'
Of course, an iPad.  iPatch, iPad, same thing.
And because Elio is who he is, he's still calling it an eye patch.

While we were returning from the U.S., we had to spend another night at the transit hotel in Johannesburg.  The curtains made the room very dark, and because we were all jet lagged, we woke up at strange hours throughout the night.  Elio bolted upright in the bed at about 4am.  It was blacker than black in the room.  'Mommy, my eyes are open, but they're not turned on!!'  He was so worried... 'It's very dark,' I told him.  'Your eyes are fine.' 
'Turn them on Mommy!!' 
Lights on.

Some picture below of the last couple of months...

Elio's first dentist appointment... Stevie Wonder?

Nalia, self portrait

Nalia's Bainbridge Birthday Party

Elio and Grandpa reading

Grandma and Olin

Rafting on the Elwha

Good friends at Rehoboth

I can't turn this picture..

Tired travellers during the layover in Dakar.  Yes, that is Nalia's foot on Elio's head.

Getting to Our Vacation

3 nights in airport hotels (Erica and kids)

2 nights spent in airports (Matias)

2 arrivals in unplanned cities (Matias: Philadelphia, PA and Greenville, SC)

1 long letter to South African Airways Customer Care

24 days of pure vacation bliss in Seattle, sweet with family and friends and many many blackberries

2 trips down the Alpine Slide near Mt. Hood

5+  trips to the swimming pool

1.5 days at Rehoboth Beach full of sun-baked smiles, heartily laughs and reunions with best friends

3 boardwalk rides

Our trip home was like the best sandwich you’ve ever had on bad bread.  The flights in and out were grueling (just imagine something going wrong on every leg of every trip), but everything in between all a vacation should be… family, friends and pure recuperation.  So I’ll throw away the bread and keep the rest of the sandwich. 

We started out with Elio and a fever.  He got it the day before we left Maputo.  When we get to the airport in Maputo, the flight leaves a half hour late.  This is passable.  I’m not even worried when we arrive at the transit lounge at Johannesburg airport because we are there 1 hour 15 minutes before the flight to JFK leaves.  The thing that is worrying me is Elio’s fever.  I have some Tylenol that I brought on the plane, so I’m trying to negotiate with this very rude lady from South African Airways and give Elio the Tylenol at the same time.  He can barely wake up, so I end up just forking over the bottle to Nalia and telling her to sit down and see if she can get him to take it. 

The lady at the counter is inhumane and unapologetic.  “I can’t get you on the flight.”  That’s it.  She tries nothing else.  She doesn’t try to rebook us.  She just says she can’t and that’s it.  We (3 of us) and 7 others are supposed to wait for an Air Mozambique agent to save us.  But it's late in the transit lounge.  We ask the South African agent to contact Air Mozambique.  She says she doesn’t know the number.  Another passenger finds the number on her iPhone and asks to use the airport phone.  The SAA agent says she has no phone! 

I start crying because Elio is blazing hot and I am imaging spending the night in the transit lounge…. this happens at the Johannesburg airport, and as other seasoned Africa travelers will attest, NO ONE at South Africa Airways cares.  There is no food in the transit lounge, no phone, no pharmacy, and no stores.  I start crying to one of the gate agents… “I need to get my child to a pharmacy.”  He tells me not to cry and walks away. 

Our group of weary passengers, lost, stuck in the airport ‘border’ zone- the no man’s land of the transit lounge, where without a reservation or a ticket, you are a citizen or nowhere with no rights….we decide to walk to immigration and just sit there until we can get one of the people there to help us.  They have people at immigration all night, after all.  We cannot leave immigration and officially go into South Africa because we would have no tickets or reservations to get back in the airport.  Tara, the British girl, with the iPhone, stays upstairs, looking for anyone who will help us…Elio perks up after his overdose of Tylenol. 

Finally, someone comes form Air Mozamibque at 11pm.  We have been camping in front of immigration for 2 hours, me and 2 Zimbabweans, 1 Swiss guy, and the kids.  She issues us vouchers for the transit hotel and tells us to come back tomorrow.  It’s finally 1am when we get into our room at the transit hotel.  No dinner and no diapers.  Tara, our British angel with an iPhone, makes it a mission and goes down to the duty free to look for food and diapers.  No diapers to be found in the Joburg airport. 

I try to make Elio sleep on a towel, but his fever is back and he’s NOT nice. He’s in his African dictator mood… so he throws the towel on the floor.  At this point, I don’t care if he pees in the bed or even on me… at least someone else has to clean up the former and the latter can shower herself off. 

27 hours after arrival in Joburg, we are on our way to JFK.  We arrive a full 4 hours early for our flight to Seattle.  The kids are happy to ride on the SmarteCarte as we walk outside to the JetBlue terminal.  When we get outside, as we walk under the airport underpass, Nalia exclaims, “It’s so beautiful!” 

“What makes you think it’s beautiful?” I ask. 

“The grass is so green and soft looking and the cement is smooth.” 

I remember noticing these little things-- nuances yet indelible differences-- when I came back to the U.S. after my first overseas trips.   They were comforting surprises because I had forgotten they were differences at all while I'd been away, like the light switches in the U.S. or how much lighter U.S. coins felt after handling Mozambican ones for 8 months, or the sound of the phone ringing in the U.S.  I liked it because it always made coming back home a little more interesting and exciting, and feel like home.  It doesn’t happen much anymore, but I can experience it through the kids.

We get to the JetBlue counter and the lady tells me she has no record of our reservation.  No ticket number.  She tells me I have to call South African to straighten it out.  I have been travelling almost 48 hours now.  Elio still has a fever and has not eaten in 3 days.  So what else can I do—I break down.  Right there.  I have no cell phone that works in the U.S., my kid is sick.  And I know South African will NOT help me because I had already asked them to. 

So here I find another saint in NYC.  Anissa, that’s her name.  I won’t forget.  She walks me out to an airport phone and calls South African herself. South Africa puts her on hold.  She hands the phone to me, assures me it will be ok, and I wait on hold for SAA to fix things.

 Elio has been quiet, only uttering a disagreeable word once in awhile.  All of a sudden, he shrieks, “I have to pee NOW.”  I cannot hang up this phone.  If I don’t get on a flight to Seattle, we will have to wait 9 more hours for the next JetBlue flight there.  If I make Elio wait, he will pee his pants… I have already used his spares during the Joburg ordeal.  We are at one of the busiest airport in the US at one of the busiest times… but this is what I do.  I give the phone to Nalia, look her straight in the eyes, about 2 inches from her face and tell her, “When the music stops and a real person comes on, tell him that your mommy had to take your brother to the bathroom and she’ll be back.  Tell him you’re at JFK airport and you need his help.”

I run to the bathroom with Elio.  Elio doesn’t even remember the U.S.  He gets more happy and perky than I’ve seen in 3 days when he notices the water in the toilet.  “MOMMY, there’s a LOT of water in here!”  Right.  No toilets in the world have more water than in the U.S.  Let’s pee and add more!  I run back and sure enough, Nalia is the phone with the SAA guy.  She is there.  We make it to the gate 25 minutes before the flight leaves, and 5 hours later, Grandma is waiting for us in Seattle.  Never has a reunion been sweeter.

Why I'm No Soule Mama

I have a friend who enjoys reading a blog by this woman who calls herself Soule Mama.  I went on the site once a couple years ago and went away feeling totally inadequate, so didn't go back until a couple of months ago.  Soule Mama lives in Maine.  She has five children, and does things like take artistic pictures of herself snowshoeing (pregnant) with her other 4 children.  Then, they go back home and paint the floor of their ironic Maine farmhouse white, and then she knits an afghan for her children and then they plant organic seeds in preparation for spring gardening.

I have been working like a crazy woman for the last three months, juggling like I never thought I could juggle.  Until last week, I was putting the kids to bed and then working again until I'd start falling asleep.  One night I came home from work and the kids were eating Doublestuff Oreos for dinner (thanks to Matias and  trip to South Africa).  Nalia told me that I should "just resign at Save the Children"... I didn't even know that she knew that word.  One day Matias and the kids came to pick me up at the office where I have been working (I left the Save the Children office for a few months to work on this project at another NGO).  So, Elio walks in, looks around, checks out the bathroom, the kitchen, does the full inspection, and asks very directly and intensely, "So, now you live here?" 

But, here's the thing.  I'm no Soule Mama, and I'm not knocking Soule Mama, but I am who I am... "This above all: to thine own self be true" says Shakespeare.  Since May, I have been writing the manuals for the community health workers in Mozambique, together with two other women, one from Brazil and the other from here.  I don't think I've ever worked this hard, but out of it, the community health workers here in Mozambique can now treat and save children from malaria, pneumonia and other diseases, and that's what makes me tick.  And on a personal level, I made two new friends who will be in my life for awhile, and I also learned quite a bit.  I had to write the manuals in Portuguese, and I learned how to treat just about any bug the kids could get here in Mozambique, from scabies to conjuntivitis to plain old diarreia. 

I like my life, and I think Matias and the kids do too.  I am not perfect.  My house is cluttered...  sometimes my kids don't eat vegetables every day.  Sometimes they have dessert before dinner.  Sometimes we watch TV and don't read a book.  There are two boxes still unpacked from moving here last year.  But it's ok.  Because really those things don't matter.  My kids know that mommy is writing the manuals because there are some kids who cannot get to doctors when they get sick, so we have to help bring medicines to people in their communities.  Nalia has gone to see the community health workers in their huts, with dirt floors, walls made of sticks an mud.  She saw a 4 year old so listless from malaria she could barely wake up, but then Nalia saw the community health worker treat the sick child.  Sure, she complained about the bumpy car ride and the heat and asked if she could watch Hannah Montana when we got back to town, but she will remember what she saw and think about it... and maybe, just maybe, these experiences will shape the person she is and the decisions she makes. 

Elio as Spider Man, Homem Aranha in Portuguese!

Nalia and Kingdom Barbie

Community Health Worker on the right

Communith Health Worker standing in front of her hut

Nalia.  I love this picture. 

At the Orport

Sorry for the long long hiatus!!  They say successful bloggers must write regularly, but I cannot juggle it all!  In the next post, hopefully this week, I will divulge the not-very-exciting reason I have not been able to blog in the past month.

We were talking with my mom on Skype last week and Elio burst into tears… ‘I want to go to the or-port… I want to go to the or-port.’  Orport is airport.  We have tried to correct him, but in true Elio style, he refuses to accept the correct version and stays with the Elio version.  I sunk back in my chair.  This was happening because of me…because I have been counting the days until I get to go home for a real vacation.  I have been counting since day 89.

‘Don’t you think you’re building this up a little too much?’ my mom commented.  My mother is the world record holder for number of diplomatic understatements in a lifetime.  Yes, she was totally right and I needed to stop.  Nalia and Elio, especially Elio, are going to be disappointed when they arrive in the U.S. and find out it’s not a wonderland with chocolate rivers and candy cane trees everywhere. 

But I guess, to my own credit, it’s easy to forget sometimes how our own behavior affects our kids.  I remember when I was driving down University Blvd once in Silver Spring.  Nalia was 3.  This guy in another car cut me off.  Nalia sat up in her car seat, and said so sweetly, ´He’s a jerk, isn’t he mommy?’

I have been counting and counting because I really do need a break.  Work has been non-stop, so the counting is what keeps me going.  But I’m trying to keep it more to myself.  And I know that I’m building it up because when I get to the airport in Johannesburg and hear and see my first wiffs of Americana, it’s always a little bittersweet.  I mean, I love my country and am proud to be an American, but when you’re away for a long time, some things become so apparent. 

So this is how it goes at the Johannesburg airport… as you approach the gate for the flight to JFK or Atlanta, you first know you’re close because of the noise.  It’s not the cacophony of all the voices talking at once like Italians, but it’s several LOUD voices wanting to be heard.  And our accent is distinct.  Nalia and I were in the grocery store the other day and there were some Peace Corps volunteers there.  We walked into the Super Mohammed, and even before these girls opened their mouths, I knew they were Americans.  When you live overseas, you learn to spot your own people without words, at a distance.  It’s like an instinct we’re born with.  Matias could spot people from Southern Africa a mile away when we lived in Maryland.  So the PC volunteers start talking, and then Nalia says, ‘Where are they from?  That accent is really annoying?’  This shocked me a bit because, a) they could understand exactly what she was saying (English has become our secret language!), and b) because she couldn’t hear the similarities between their accents and mine or hers.  We don’t socialize with many Americans though, so other than me, she doesn’t hear an American accent on a daily basis.

But back to the gate at the Joburg airport.  After you hear the loud voices and distinct accents, you go around the corner and there is the gate.  Then you KNOW you are at the flight to the U.S.  The cues switch from auditory to visual.  You notice the girth.  I have to say it because it’s true.  Every time I go back to the U.S., I can’t help but notice how many of my countrymen are overweight.  And then you notice the shorts or zip-off pants and white sneakers.  We love these things more than anyone else in the whole world.  And then you notice people carrying what look like trees trunks covered in bubble wrap, bobbing like buoys in a sea of people.  These are all the wooden giraffes that our fellow passengers have purchased on their expeditions to Africa, safely encapsulated in bubble wrap for the trip back to Minnesota or wherever.  This is when I go sit with the kids in an unpopulated corner and take a deep breath. 

So when I finally get on the plane and settle in, someone will usually start a conversation.  I don’t think this happens much on domestic flights anymore, but on the flights from Africa, people are curious.  We are usually in the middle of the plane, and the conversation starts like this.  The lady next to us is a baby boomer from middle-America wearing a polo shirt that says something like Glendale Bible Church 2011 Mission Trip, Zambia.  She smiles sweetly and asks, ‘So, was this your first time?’  The first time someone asked me this, it seemed totally normal, because it WAS my first or second time in Africa.  But now, after ten years of it, and coming from the ladies that usually sit next me, I almost always burst out laughing.  She is asking if this is my first time in Africa.  No, I politely tell her.  This is not our first time… and then I give her an abbreviated version of the story. 

Nalia and the Kardashians

Nalia has been out of school for three weeks now.  It’s hard to keep a 7 year old busy all day when both her parents are working….without giving into the TV and computer.  So I promised her she could go on a work trip with me. 

Kind of ironic because one of my favorite parts of going on work trips is… well… that I get to watch cable TV at the Save the Children guesthouse at the end of the day.  There’s something that E! network really does for me… transporting me to somewhere else maybe.  And on E!, they have the Kardashians.  After a hard day in the field or at the office, Kendra and the Kardashians are what I look forward to.  Maybe it’s that they are so over the top and do so many things I don’t even imagine that makes them fascinating.  Or maybe it’s that they actually say things I only imagine myself saying in my head… like expletives for a coworker who is a total jerk.  

So Nalia was with me, and really, I did give it some thought.  Do I let Nalia watch the Kardashians?  Will she get it?  Will she understand how over the top they are or maybe she’ll actually look up to them and like them.  This was a big risk.  I mean, they wear 4-inch heals to the gym and wear their make up to bed.  These are all things that Nalia thinks are v. cool.  But I really wanted to watch and it couldn’t really hurt Nalia once or twice, so we settled in and plugged ourselves into Kourtney and Khloe in Miami.  She got really into it.  At one point, she blurted out, “I know why they call their store DASH.  You know, the KarDASHians.  Get it?”  Dominique, the other woman staying in the guesthouse, and I were impressed.  No, we hadn’t gotten it. 

The next day, we came back from a long day in the field… we’d left at 6:am and come back at 6:30pm.  Coincidentally, the Kardashians started at 6:45pm.  When we opened the door to the guesthouse, there was someone new there.  I had heard there would be a consultant coming.  She introduced herself as Joan, from New York, and she was documenting Save the Children’s early child development program.  Immediately I began to wonder and worry how Joan would react to the Kardashians, because Nalia had told me in the car that she was excited to watch it again.  

 Joan struck up a conversation while I was cooking dinner--she had a Kindle and was exploring the idea of purchasing Kindles for libraries and schools in Africa because it’s so much cheaper than shipping books. 

Joan asked me if Nalia would like to try out the Kindle.  She wanted to find out how easily kids could figure out the technology, so she was testing kids throughout Africa while she did her consultancies.  “You can just ask Nalia if she wants to try it,” I said.  Joan asked Nalia and Nalia didn’t answer… I was sweating as I cooked our pasta, because I knew exactly why Nalia didn’t answer.  Nalia smiled sheepishly and turned away.  “Nalia, you can just tell Joan if you do or don’t want to do it.  She won’t care either way.” 

Nalia paused, and then smiled again, embarrassed, turning her eyes away.

“I want to watch the Kardashians first,” she whispered.

Nice… and Joan is a child development specialist.  I swallowed hard, waiting for this woman to take down my parenting skills and style in one fell swoop, to tell me that if we were in the US, she’d have CPS after me, to admonish me as just another tired worn out e working mom who gives into any TV program to babysit her child…but, after what seemed like light years, she smiled.  

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Joan replied. 

Nalia did try the Kindle after the Kardashians were over… now she has discovered the iPad, and is trying to talk me into buying that…”because we could do the Kindle and so much more, mommy.”   

Do Something Each Day That Scares You

We have this old calendar from 2003 hanging in Nalia and Elio's room.  Each month has a quote and every night they ask me to read some of the quotes.  There are only 12 quotes (makes sense), so I know them pretty well by now.  So tonight.....even though work can suck, I was reminded ... "The world is conspiring in your favor."-Anonymous
and
"How old would be if you didn't know how old you are." - Satchel Page

Nalia's favorite is from one of the strongest, most determined American women we have in our history...Eleanor Roosevelt, "Do one thing every day that scares you."
One night, she chimed down from the top bunk, "Read the one about doing things that make you scared.  I like that one."
I like it too.

Here are some highlights of the past months!  Elio turned 3... about 3 months ago, and I was got inspired to make him a motor-cross cake (using a locally available cake mix from Brazil).  The cake design was from Family Fun, a great mag for doing stuff with the kids, any age.

Today, after getting her hair done.



With our friend Mary in South Africa.

Swaziland is the Switzerland of Africa

Superman taking a moment..

Phophonyane Falls, Swaziland

Birthday Boy!

Motor cross cake!  Our friend Greta turned 63 the same day... hence the 6.

You are what you eat

I really hate cooking.  For those of you know me, you know I wouldn’t mind eating out for the rest of my life (really).  The act of cooking and then cleaning up has always seemed like a chore, just another thing to put on the domestic task list that goes on ad infinitum, and the results of my cooking ventures have never been … gratifying or palatable to me (or those who have to consume them).  Just ask Matias.  I usually don’t even put lettuce in my salad because I hate to take the time to wash it and rip it up. 

But, while I was in New York, I picked up a copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  It’s about her and her family’s commitment to farm and eat ‘locally.’  They are so committed they move from Tucson to a farm in Appalachia to grow their own food for a year.  At first I was doubtful, I mean she’s a successful (and probably rich!) writer, so she must have time to cook and farm.  That has always been my biggest setback with cooking.  I’m tired when I get home from work, and feel like I have to rush through it all to do more important things, like spend time with the kids reading books, playing outside, or doing homework.  

And the whole local thing.  I wonder what she would have thought about my trip to Target.  I don’t think anything I bought there was made in Brooklyn, or even the U.S.  I can get into the local thing and think it’s important, but now that I’m in Mozambique, it’s a whole different ball game than going local in Southern Virginia or Bainbridge Island!  I started to imagine what it would be like to eat locally here in Maputo.  We’d have to subsist on corn flour, tomatoes, kale, spinach, mangoes, guavas, beans and fish. Most Mozambicans do, which is probably why most are not overweight.  Or could I classify South Africa as local? It’s another country, but only 80 miles away.  In her book, one farmer’s definition of local is a one hour drive, so if I drove really fast to South Africa (and didn’t count border crossing time), it would be local, right?  Almost anything packaged in a grocery store here comes from South Africa (or farther).  Milk, juice, crackers, chips, jelly all from S.A.  Canned beans, mushrooms, corn from Portugal.  Cookies from Colombia, Turkey, or one time I bought them from Oman.  I don’t even know where Oman is.  Cake mix from Brazil.  And frozen chicken also from Brazil. 

Let’s pause a moment to think about that chicken from Brazil.  Barbara Kingsolver is right about all the fossils fuels that are spent to transport these food products over long distances.  Can you imagine all the energy expended to get that chicken from Brazil to Mozambique (and keep it frozen along the way) when there are so many chickens (though usually live!) right here?  It’s really staggering.  I made a commitment to buy Mozambican products a long time ago, but most are in their raw form, and need lots of time for preparation.  And my hang up was, of course, that I see cooking as a chore, such a drag, and always rush through it instead of enjoying it. 

But Sunday night I read the next chapter, and it was written just for all of us who think we don’t have time.  In American culture, a lot of us grew up with the idea that spending time in the kitchen cooking is something just to get done so you could do other more important things.  She talks about how American women in our generation were taught they should have careers, make money, all to get out of slaving in the kitchen.  But what happened is that we got a double whammy.  We got what we wanted, but still do most of the household tasks.  And this was an opportunity for the multinationals to try to convince and coerce us into thinking we needed all the shortcuts and processed foods in order to alleviate our burden.  Hence, all the Lunchables and readymade TJ’s meatballs, Stouffers enchiladas.  However, as she rightly says, cooking is a family affair, something everyone can participate and engage in.  It doesn’t have to be a single woman slaving and sweating over it.  Cooking can bring people and families together.  Some of us sit down at the dinner table, but we should start earlier, together in the kitchen. 

So, last night, even though I got home from work at 6pm, I decided to try it.  Nalia wanted pizza.  At first I thought, how am I going to make the crust if I don’t get home until 6? But there’s Matias, and he’s a pro at making at bread, so I asked him to do it.  Nalia grated the cheese.  I made the sauce from fresh Mozambican tomatoes, and cut up mushrooms (from South Africa), green peppers, pepperoni, and olives for the toppings.  And it was happy and fun.  The kids were in the kitchen dancing and playing with the puppy.  Elio was chirping out ‘Hey soul sista, hey mista mista, on the radio, stereo…’  where does he get this stuff?  Matias was patiently rolling the crust so it was perfectly even. I was trying to ENJOY it and not to get hung up on the fact that Nalia spilled flour all over the floor and the cat’s head, who with her black fur looked like she’d been through a Mozambican snowstorm.  And in the end, it turned out to be some of the most delicious pizza we’ve ever had.  Elio asked for seconds, which is something to write home about, and Nalia asked to save some to eat the next day. 

Afterward, Nalia and I were talking about how we all participated and worked together.  I said, ‘You grated the cheese and helped roll the crust.  Daddy made the crust.  I made the sauce and cut up the vegetables for the toppings.’ 

‘And Elio?’ she asked.

‘Elio took the tomatoes out of the refrigerator and washed them.’

Not bad for a three year old.

Recipe for Pizza

For the crust, mix equal parts whole wheat and white flour (about 1 ½ cups each for 2, 12-inch pizzas), add yeast and warm water according to yeast package instructions.  Knead and let rise in a bowl covered with a towel about 45 minutes (we put it the cold oven to avoid drafts).  Remove and knead again, adding extra flour if the dough is sticky, then roll out on a heavily floured surface with a rolling pin.  Put on a floured pizza pan or stone. 

For the sauce, boil water and put in 7 tomatoes for one minute.  Take them out after one minute and plunge in cold water.  Then remove skins and cut in small pieces.  Put in a sauce pan and simmer for a long time (about 40 minutes is usually good enough, but the longer the better).  Mix with oregano, basil, salt, pepper and a little sugar if the tomatoes taste too acidic.  In summertime, use sliced tomatoes on top of the cheese for a shortcut!

While the sauce is simmering, cut up the toppings and grate the cheese.

Cover the crust with sauce, cheese, and then toppings.   

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes at 425 F

Also, because Deviled eggs are a wonderful easy treat that everyone likes, but no one like to admit they like, here’s a nice recipe that works anywhere.

Deviled Eggs

INGREDIENTS

6 hard cooked eggs                                         ½ tsp dill weed

¼ cup mayonnaise                                           ¼ tsp garlic powder or one clove fresh garlic, minced finely

1tsp white wine vinegar                                  1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp Dijon mustard                                         Fresh dill

Slice eggs in half lengthwise; remove yolks and set whites aside.  In a small bowl, mash yolks.  Add the mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, dill, garlic powder and salt.

Spoon into egg whites.  Garnish with dill sprigs… or I use paprika.

You Not My Mama

Gosh.. I hope Elio doesn't turn into another African dictator.  I've been following what's been happening with Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d'Ivoire and I've read a fair amount of African history, and well, Elio's behavior is starting to resemble that of an African dictator.  Or maybe it's just that some African dictators behave like three year olds.

Today Laurent Gbagbo was captured at his hotel in Abidjan after refusing to give up the presidency to its rightful owner, Alassane Outtara.  The BBC characterized Gbagbo as short tempered, closed to new ideas and outsiders.  Sounds kind of like Elio.  Elio's patience lasts as long as it took your to read this last sentence, and when we go to someplace new, his first question is usually "When are we going home?"

We went to a beautiful eco-lodge nestled in the mountains in Swaziland over the weekend.  It was a kid's dream. They could run and play everywhere.  There were all these streams to splash in, rocks to climb, cable TV in the TV room.  Elio did all the playing and having fun, but the first night, as we were about to go to bed, Elio said, "I want to go to my house.  When we go to my house?" 

He's also been learning new expressions and figures of speech from who knows where.  We're trying to get him off his bottle, which we are not really winning.  Usually, when he asks me for his bottle, he starts out very nice.  "I want my tee-tee please."  Tee-tee is milk.  I respond (very nicely too).
 "No, we aren't having tee tee, but we can read a book and I'll lie down with you." 
Then, it starts to escalate to "I want my tee tee." Then, "I want my tee tee now."  When I finally refuse to give in, he has been known to scream, "I'm not your mama anymore."  Nalia then jumps in and corrects him, reminding him that he was never my mama in the first place.  I try not to laugh. 
He is getting more sophisticated though, because tonight, at the end of the battle (which I lost, for the record), he screeched, "And mommy, YOU not my mama."  
Any suggestions on bottle weaning of 3 year old are appreciated!

Finding the Target in Brooklyn

Yesterday, Ometepe comes to an end and I am translado almost instantly from the sun kissed dust and smiles of Nicaragua to cold gray granite JFK airport.  Our flight arrives at 3am, but I am awakened before that because my seatmate has a problem.  My seatmates always seem to have problems on the night flights, and they are invariably large strong men.  This one has the build of Mike Tyson, but can’t take the air bumps, starts sweating profusely and having shortness of breath when we are 1 hr. outside NYC.  They decide to administer oxygen so move me to first class to get me out of the way.  Sounds great, but I didn’t sleep at all because of the whole drama.

The most important thing about my 8 hour layover at JFK was a trip I’d plotted and planned for months.  It was my second place aspiration for 2011. 

This year, on my self-evaluation at work, there was a section for career aspirations.  I left it blank.  After years of working and responsibilities, my real aspiration is to take four months off, stay with my parents on Bainbridge, and be a stay at home mom.  After that, or my aspiration for March 2011, was to go to Target and go shopping (by myself…mom readers can fully relate!).  When you live in Mozambique and haven’t been able to leave much for the last 8 months, going shopping in the US can easily become an aspiration… and an obsession.

 I had a running shopping list over the last 6 months.  All the things that are impossible to get in Moz (gummy vitamins, Ranch dressing packets, my annual dose of Peeps!, make-up that doesn’t make me look like a drag queen, TORTILLAS) or the things that are ridiculously expensive in Moz (dog leash, $40 in Moz), (ibuprofen, only $6.09 at Target for 250 pills!), (Ben Ten action figure, $8.44 at Target and $45 in Moz).   All these made the list.

But the trip was going to be tricky because I got into JFK at 3am and my flight left at 11am, and as hard as I tried cruising the net, I couldn’t find the closest Target to JFK that opened at a reasonable hour.  When I arrived at 3am, I asked the Arabic speaking information desk person… he had no idea, but still made something up.  And the Jamaican policeman standing next to him told me all the Targets were too far, didn’t open until 10 AND I would miss my flight.  ‘Forget it.  Twill not work.’ So I asked the Trinidadian lady who came through the door primped up for her flight to Port of Spain.  And then I asked the Dominican cleaning lady.  And then I asked the lady at the baggage storage.  To each of them I had to explain why I ASPIRED, dreamed of going to Target on a cold NY morning.  They all gave me different answers on where I might find this Target, and so, resigned, I tried to sleep. 

But if any of you know JFK terminal 4, there is NO place to sleep.  There are only the phone booths.  So I tried that, but kept getting interrupted by the homeless man snoring in the booth on the other side.  I was still determined though—to prove the Arab information guy and the Jamaican policeman wrong. 

Finally, I bought 4 minutes of internet and Googled:  Target Brooklyn Hours.  Yes!  There was a Target near the airport that opened at 8… and this matched the Trinidad lady’s instructions.  Finally, with two sets of instructions that matched, I decided to wait in the phone booth until 7:30, then get the Yellow Cab and go for it.  I told the cab driver the address and he nodded.  That’s supposed to mean he knows where he’s going, but not 2 minutes later, he is parked on the shoulder of the Belt Parkway, yelling at some guy named Hamid on the phone in Arabic, trying to figure out where the Target is.  I don’t speak Arabic, but didn’t need to.

‘It not come up on GPS. Hamid don’t know and Hamid know Brooklyn.’ 

So we just sit there.  Then he starts driving again, and I ask in an unconcealable worried tone, ‘But if you don’t know where the Target is, where are you taking me?’ 

‘I take you anywhere you want to go. Customer first.  I know Queens, no Brooklyn.’

I was worried.

‘But I’m not from here … never been here, so I really don’t know where anything is, but I really need to go to Target.’

‘Why you need Target?’ 

‘Because I live in Mozambique and need to buy shoes and shorts and other things for my kids because these things are really expensive in Mozambique.’

He smiles very big and I can tell we now have a bond. 

‘You live in Africa!?  I am from Egypt, so I understand!  Africa is mess.  It  poor.’

He pulls over again on the Belt Parkway and starts re-entering the address in his GPS.  I hover over him to make sure he gets the spelling correct. 

In five minutes, we are there.  It’s Target, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Home Depot…spread before me, all rolled into one strip mall in Brooklyn, a mirage for an American from Mozambique, but it’s real.   

The Egyptian dumps me off.  I ask if I can call his cab company for a ride back.  He laughs, explaining that people in NY don’t do that.  ‘Good luck getting your flight…no cab come here.’ And off he goes. 

Target has just opened and I am privileged to be their first customer.  I take a moment to let the cold air enter my lungs and watch my breath exit on the way out.  Sigh.  It’s been over a year since I felt cold and it’s revitalizing, with the Gateway Target in Brooklyn awaiting me. 

The first thing I do is go talk to Bianca in customer service… initially, she looks at me like a have 3 heads.  ‘You need a cab to JFK airport in an hour?  From here?’

Yes, and then I explain the whole story again.  She thinks it’s funny and agrees to call a cab for me because I don’t have a cell phone.  I whip out my tattered 6 month old list and am exhilarated about experiencing Target for 1 hour, only a blip on the screen of time.  It is empty and all mine… and everything is familiar, for the Gateway Brooklyn Target has the same layout and feeling as the PG Plaza Target or the Eden Prairie Target or the Academy Blvd. Target. I have grown up on Target and there is always comfort in the familiar, even with its loud red bull’s eye and glaring fluorescent lights. 

I love Mozambique, but I will always be a foreigner there…I didn’t grow up there, so though I am used to it and like it , it can never be my true home.  I will never know Mozambican culture in the sense that I know all the minutiae and idiosyncrasies of American culture.  In Portuguese and Spanish, there are two words for know—saber, which means to know facts and where things are, what time it is, and conocer, which is to know people, what a place is like, to be familiar with something all the way down to your bones.  Conocer is  that part of knowing that can’t be clearly articulated, but is simply felt.  Familiar is the closest word to conocer in English, like family, but the way we use familiar doesn’t express the depth of conocer, because while I can say that I don’t know where the Brooklyn Target is located, I know the Brooklyn Target.  I truly know… conocer…my country and how it operates.  I understand the details because I am American.  That is why I can pull off an early morning trip to Brooklyn, stock up on everything I need for the next 4 months, fit is all into my bag and make it back to JFK in time, all in 1.5 hours. It’s because I know how all the gears fit together and how to make them move.  I know how to talk to Bianca so she will call me a cab.  I know the dog collars are next to the aisle with the Ziploc bags.  I know how to deal with the cashier so she will be expeditious and help me.  There are some very comforting things about being in one’s own country.

When I get to the cashier, I pull out my pink duffel bag, smile, and tell her no plastic bags are needed because all this stuff is going on the plane at JFK.  She looks at me like I’m just another weirdo, so I feel the need to justify, explain again. 

‘I know you might think I’m just another weirdo, but I Iive in Africa, and these  things are expensive there and they don’t have some things my kids really like and….’

She smiles a nice soft sympathetic smile- whoever said that people from Brooklyn were harsh and abrupt.  These people are my red target angels. 

‘You mean, they don’t have a Target in Africa?’

‘No, and in Mozambique, no MacDonald’s.’

‘Oh man, that must be really hard for your kids…. Coming from the US.’

‘They’re happy, but they miss some things..’

I rip all the boxes off the Wheat Thins, gummy vitamins, Ibuprofen, Oil of Olay moisturizer, throw the Converse shoe box in the trash to save space, and cram, mold and coax it all into the pink duffel.  Only the castle jigsaw puzzle doesn’t fit.  2 minutes after I get outside, my cab pulls up to take me back to JFK.  I have proven the Jamaican policeman wrong.

Target booty