Nightmare on Mom Street

Nightmare on Mom Street.... this is how a blogger dubbed Halloween, presumably because of the candy?  Getting together a costume?  But for me, the candy is no nightmare.  Each year, the American Embassy hosts a Hallowmen party at the USAID compound- and because the people at the compound are all privileged diplomats, they can order AMERICAN candy on the internet and hand it out to all the kiddies. 
Reeses, Smarties, Tootsie Rolls abound.  This is a dream, no nightmare, for a deprived sweet tooth like me. 

This year, however, there were two potential nightmares: The first was forced socializing/competition with too many type-A Americans-  at all these little gatherings, I get this deja vu feeling of the lunchroom cliques at Chaska High School...  and it just makes me want to barf all over again.  So, rather than pretending to like and mingle in the cliques that everyone else is pretending don't exist, all I wanted to do was sit under a tree reading Tina Fey's Bossypants, and chow down on Reeses peanut butter cups all by myself.  I didn't get the first part of this wish, but I did get the second part- the Reeses.  Yes, I shamelessly and pathetically went up to the American Ambassador, who was dressed as a hippie, and asked for a Reeses. 

The seond potential nightmare was getting Nalia's friend into the party.  American style, the event was well-planned, and you were supposed to sign kids up at least 5 days in advance.  While that may work in someplace like America, it doesn't work so well here.  As my Mozambican colleague says, 'in Mozambique, you can only get people to think about what to eat for dinner after lunch is over.'  So, while Nalia had promised her friend Francisca that she could go, Francisca was not on THE list.  Francisca is Portuguese and was uber-excited about the Halloween party... so I didn't have the heart to tell her we couldn't take her because she wasn't on some stupid list. 

So I told her she had to sneak in.  The problem was I couldn't figure out how to say 'sneak in' in Portuguese.  Luckily Nalia was able to explain what we had to do.  And since most of the Americans working in the Embassy here can't really speak Portuguese, we all agreed beforehand that we would use Portuguese as our secret language while the actual sneaking in was taking place.  When we got there, the community liaison officer checking the list was super-frazzled and stressed out, so Nalia and Francisa just walked in. 

The kids got good booty.  The morning after, while everyone was sleeping, I did what lots of moms do but never talk about.  I went into their loot bags. I used to feel bad about this, but don't anymore.  Maybe it's a combination of getting older and not caring what others think as much, along with realizing that some things aren't such a big deal.  I minimized hurt feelings and harm to my children by taking Whoppers from Nalia's bag (she doesn't like chocolate), and Bit-o-Honeys from Elios... what kid actually eats Bit-o-Honeys?  And they still haven't noticed.  To assuage my own guilt, I also let them eat 2 pieces of candy for breakfast. 

Nalia was a zebra wearing a black tutu. 

Elio in his homemade Batman costume...Darth Vader is Elio's friend, the one who climbed the roof with him

On the roof

Elio has a will of steel.  And until yesterday, I didn't totally realize that his stubborn head mixed with being a mischievous 4-year old can be quite dangerous.  Elio had a friend over, and they decided to play outside.  I was tired, so I thought it'd be ok to lie on the couch for 15 minutes or so before going outside to check on them. 
When I opened the door, there they were, front and center, on the ROOF of our porch.  Elio, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with what he had done, waved at me.  I implored them that they needed to get down right away... not realizing how they got up! It turned out they had opened the gate to the front yard, and climbed on a pile of rocks to get on top of the fence that goes around our house.  Then, they shimmied down the fence, and climbed the bars to the top of the roof. 
I demanded they both get down, and told Elio I would help them, but he rebuffed my offer, so I just stood behind him with my hands cradles, ready to catch any falling bodies. 
Afterwards, when I was telling his friend's dad what happened, the friend's dad asked his son, "Why did you go on the roof?"
"Because Elio told me to."
Great... I'm thinking, the authoritarian, tyrannical friend. 
Then the dad went on, "So weren't you scared on the roof?"
"Elio said he would protect me."
"And how was Elio going to protect you?"
"He told me not to jump."
I turned and looked at Elio... He nodded very seriously, affirming that he had been earnestly trying to protect his friend by telling him to not jump off the roof. 

Dubai Ninjas

We flew through Dubai on our way home from the US. There were four of us:  Nilda, my Brazilian friend, Nalia, Elio, and me.  None of us had ever been to Dubai or the Middle East, so we were eager to get to know a new place.  Our layover there was from 7pm to 5am the following morning... Emirates Airlines, presumably due to all its oil wealth, is very generous about taking care of passengers during these long layovers, so we received free hotel, free transport, and a free dinner.  Nilda needed a visa, so they also gave her a free one of those.  After the 14 hour flight from Seattle, we were all ready to move around... and the kids were very curious about being in a new part of the world.

While Nilda was picking up her visa, the call to prayer came on the loudspeaker at the airport.  Elio started a sing-a-long session, belting out along with the 'music' like it was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  I quickly informed him this was NOT music, and PLEASE STOP.  Next, it was on to the way people were dressed.  Elio is 4, so he's not embarrassed about much of anything.  He also really likes Lego Ninjago right now.  After watching all the women gliding around the airport in their black hijab, with only their eyes showing, Elio asked very innocently, 'Hey Nalia, are those people in black with only their eyes showing Ninjas?' 

Since were weren't tired that night due to he time difference between Seattle and Dubai (11hrs!), we decided to go on a night tour of the city... this worked out perfectly because it was still 39 deg C at 9pm... imagine what it wouldn've been like during the day?  We saw the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world and went to one of the manmade islands, AND we got our last hit of McDonalds right next to a beach on the Persian Gulf. 

With Grandma and Grandpa on the ferry leaving Bainbridge Island

On the biggest Ferris wheel in the world

Ferris Wheel

In front of a mosque in Dubai

Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world

We went hiking last week with a friend of mine from college, Jen, her son Jasper, who is in the midst of potty training, and my friend Nilda, who is from Brazil and visiting the US for the first time.  We drove and drove to the top of Blue Mountain in Olympic National Park.  When you're at the top, and it's clear, you can see all the way to Vancouver, BC, the Straits Juan de Fuca, Vancouver Island.  Unfortunately our day was not clear.  We could see about 10 feet in front of us, and we ended up temporarily losing Nilda, who as a Brazilian from near the equator, had never experienced such cold temperatures in her life.  The trail is a loop, but Nilda is learning English, and had not understood when we talked about it being a loop-she had thought we would turn around and go back.  So she sat down about half way through and waited for us.  Now she knows what a loops is. 

Jen's son, Jasper, takes a potty break, and gets a visit from a very friendly deer.

Elio the Olympian and Nalia the Nine-Year-Old

The first week of August was BIG.  Olympics time means mom, me, is glued to the TV every night, especially when swimming is on.  We were also getting ready for our big trip home to the U.S. (where we are now), and for Nalia's ninth birthday on August 3.  She really wanted a Hello Kitty cake, and since there is no pre-made icing to be found in Mozambique, I had to figure out how to make boiled white icing-- without an electric mixer.  The first time around was a syrup-y mess, but then I got on allrecipes.com, looking for some salvation.  In the end, because we didn't have an electric mixer that worked on 220, I enlisted Matias' mom and Matias to help with beating, and it worked.  All the recipes I found suggested using black licorice and Jordan almonds for Hello Kitty's whiskers and nose... but since these were at least a 3 hour plane ride away, I opted for cutting up felt and craft foam.

Elio and Nalia both participated their school's annual sports day before we left Mozambique.  Elio was very proud of his gold medal and promptly put his hand on his heart while he waited to receive it.  He then held the medal up for photo opps, just like he had seen the winning athletes in London do... can you tell his mom is an Olympics junkie?

Elio is preparing for 2024

I love that Nalia looks so HAPPY to be running...

This story won’t have a nice ending.  It’s can’t.  I don’t know exactly how it will end or when, but the ending can’t be good.  I totally understand if you don’t want to read any further.  I probably wouldn’t.  After the last few days, I have gone on all my friends’ blogs… in search of happy endings.  Birthday cakes.  Tiny muddy hands paired with smiling faces.  Strawberry patches ready for kids to pick.  Pink princesses at tea parties.

But this is a different world. 

On Thursday, I returned from Nairobi to be greeted by the glowing faces of my two beautiful children.  Several hours later I heard that our guard Jorge’s son, José, was in the central hospital.  José is three years old. 

On Sunday, Nalia, Matias and Elio left to visit Matias’ family in Chimoio.  Knowing that Jorge also has a 3-month old daughter, who was now not breastfeeding very often because her mother is in the hospital taking care of Jose, I asked Jorge to come over with the baby and try to figure out a plan.  I didn’t understand why Jorge couldn’t stay at the hospital with his son so his wife Lidia could go home and breastfeed the baby.

We talked it over and Jorge explained that men aren’t allowed to stay at the hospital.  There have been problems with abuse.  I agreed to ask Elio and Nalia’s nanny to sit with José the next day so Lidia could go home and feed her baby.  Jorge had been bringing the baby to the hospital once or twice a day to feed, but it wasn’t enough. 

Next, I offered Jorge a ride to the hospital to see his son.  I pulled up by the gate.  We both just sat there.  ‘But don’t you want to go in and see José?’

 After what happened with Oscar, I was trying to distance myself from this.  But I could tell Jorge really wanted me to go so I relented.  We ran up the stairs because the baby was now screaming to be fed. 

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw next.  I had met José before but I didn’t recognize him this time.  His whole body was swollen, head to toe.  The doctors had tried to insert an IV, but struggled to find a vein because of all the swelling, so they had shaved the sides of his head to look for a vein.  I brought one of Elio’s cars for José to play with, but his eyes were swollen shut; he couldn’t see.  ‘Tia trouxe um carro para ti… I’ve brought a car just for you,’ I told him, but he couldn’t see it.  I pulled out his small bloated hand and placed the cars inside.  He didn’t grasp it, so I closed his hand.  He sat up and started spinning the wheels around.  This was good.  There was blood coming out of his nose, and his eyes were completely bloodshot.  His mother said he had been vomiting blood, and also pooping blood.  He had had two transfusions in 2 days.  I kept asking Jorge and Lidia what the problem is all they could say was ‘anemia.’ 

The atmosphere in the hospital during visiting hours was like another macabre party.  It reminded me of Oscar’s funeral.  All these sick children lying listlessly on beds surrounded by relatives toting food, juice, and chatting and laughing.  I told Jorge that he needed to give José as much carinho as humanly possible…. To help him recover more quickly.  Carinho is love, affection, sympathy all rolled into one, but Jorge didn’t seem to know what to do.  He just looked overwhelmed.  Later, Lidia told me that Jorge had broken down from the whole ordeal and cried.  Mozambican men never cry. 

I know that I need to distance myself from these things… I can’t save the world, nor can I help everyone.  I am fully aware of this. But I can’t watch a child suffering when there’s something I can do to help. So I talked to some Mozambican friends who are nurses and doctors.  They told me I had to talk with José´s pediatrician. 

So I went this morning.  I wasn’t expecting much… I was expecting a curt, cold doctor, numb to all the suffering-- if I was able to see the doctor at all.  Not having the força, the strength, to go at it alone, I asked a friend to come with me.  Ask for help when you need it. I am learning slowly.

  

We had to wait for Dr. Simple (sim-play in Portuguese) for awhile.   She was giving a visiting doctor a tour of the ward.  The visiting doctor looked American, and when I got a closer look, I read UCSD on his jacket… a doctor from the pediatric department at the University of California, San Diego. 

‘This is where we treat with chemotherapy,’ Dr. Simple explained.  When they left, I looked inside the room, and there was nothing.  Nothing.  Just two beds with sheets. The California doctor looked totally shell shocked… from everything.  He was barely speaking.  If you have been to a hospital here and also in Europe or the U.S., then you will understand why.  The disparities are too wide to be described in words.

Then Dr. Simple called me in.  She was warm and attentive right away, but professional. She asked if I was a relative to José… I told a bleached-white lie.  Because I knew I had to.  ‘José’s mother is from Chimoio, where my husband is from…they are distant cousins.’  Not so much a lie… we are all related, right?

She sighed and opened the file.  First she told me that José is severely anemic.  His hemoglobin was 2 when he was admitted to the hospital.  I have seen blood smears with hemoglobin of 6 and the blood was so light that it looked yellow when I put it up to the light.  I can’t imagine that José´s blood was even red.  I gasped. From what I know, many people with hemoglobin this low are dead.  She then asked me if I knew what platelets do.  I had to admit that I had forgotten my biology lessons.  ‘Platelets are what keep the blood coagulating, and stop us from bleeding to death.  The low range for platelet count in a child is 150,000.  When José was admitted, his platelets were 1000. We almost lost him the night came in.’ 

‘So this is why there is blood streaming out of him all the time?’  ‘Exactly,’ she explained.  ‘I need to give him platelets, but we have a shortage of platelets in the hospital now, so I do a five day plan and ask for 2 times as many platelets as I need.  Usually I can get him platelets once a day. Yesterday his platelets were up to 70,000.  His hemoglobin is up to 8. The swelling is kwashiorkor.’

I know what kwashiorkor is.  It’s a form of severe malnutrition.  The body swells up, becoming incredibly edemic, and the child usually gets scaly open wounds around the body, especially on the limbs.

But what is causing all this? This is the question that kept burning circles through my head. I knew she was getting to it, but I knew to be patient. 

She flipped the page in José’s chart.  ´José has AIDS.´

I couldn’t contain my tears.  José is THREE years old.  He will be on medicine the rest of his short life, if he’s lucky.  He will never have children, probably never fall in love.   So many nevers.  It was too much for me.

‘We should get his CD4 counts back tomorrow,’ Dr. Simple explained, ‘and then his hematology report.  After that, we will know if we can put him on antiretrovirals (ARVs).  I am pretty sure he can start on ARVs soon.’ 

My mind immediately shot to the baby.  If José is HIV positive, so is Lidia, and the baby is breastfeeding, so at risk of contracting HIV through Lidia.  But formula is beyond the means of most people here, and when that is the case, the advice is to exclusively breastfeed up to 6 months… but Lidia could not do this because she was taking care of José. 

‘Does Lidia know that she and José have HIV?’ I asked the doctor. 

‘She knows that José is positive, yes, but I did not discuss her own status with her.’

I talked it over with my friend.  I didn’t mention to Lidia all I knew.  I will explain tomorrow what the doctor said about the platelets and the anemia and malnutrition, but will not mention HIV.  Matias, because he is a Mozambican and a man, will talk to them about the HIV.  That is the best way to go. 

Tomorrow Jorge is coming over and I will show him how to make formula, cleanly and hygienically, and explain that the baby should be weaned to formula, but not abruptly, over about one month.  I will buy the formula.  My mom wrote me an email asking what I wanted for my birthday yesterday.  All I want is formula.  That’s what I’m going to tell her.

I am praying with my entire core that someday I will see José smile.  I have never seen him smile.  He is three, but he looks like he’s not even two.  I have never heard him speak, but his mother says he does.  I have visions of the day he comes to our house to play in the dirt and eat cake and chase the dog with a stick… of the day he can be a child.  

Sushi in Nairobi with Abigail

This week, I was invited to a conference in Nairobi. I don’t get out much, especially to bigger cities, so I was pretty excited about this one.  Usually, when I go on work trips, I sleep in health posts in the middle of nowhere, and I get to eat gazelle meat, because that’s the only thing available on the menu.  When you live in a place where you don’t have much access to the usual elements of American life, you tend to yearn… obsessively …  The exact definition of these yearnings is pretty indiscriminate, and in my experience, depend entirely on the person.   For me, Nairobi is the big city, so when I woke up the night before with something threatening the chances of making my trip to the land of plenty, I was pretty freaked out.

The night before we left, we all went to Matias’ cousins’ graduation party, and I must have eaten something…  really, I have no idea, but I woke up in the middle of the night, and the whole left side of my face was swollen.  There was no pain. Allergy?  But I have never had an allergic reaction to anything in my life.  Stress? Hives?  Maybe.   The left side of my face swelled up so much that  it looked like I had cached a gigantic gumball in my left cheek 24/7.  It was pretty bizarre.  But, as usual, Matias was not worried.  Há de passar.  This is the Mozambican answer to every problem.  ‘It will pass.’  When I woke up in the morning, it was at least getting better and not worse, so I decided to go to Nairobi.  I took an antihistamine, prescribed by Matias’ cousin… everything is bought over the counter here (valium included), turned into a zombie on the plane, and arrived in Nairobi pretty much a-ok. 

And tonight I was having sushi at the West Gate mall with Abigail.  Imagine.  Abigail is the Maternal and Child Health Specialist for PSI (Population Services International) in South Sudan, and she and I ended up enjoying salmon and avocado rolls, and salmon sashimi over a nice glass of wine in the mall in Nairobi.  My Mozambican colleagues were talking about going out for chicken, and had even discussed a trip to Carnivore, the Nairobi restaurant where you can eat ANYthing (ostrich, alligator, gazelle, kudu) and I just couldn’t stomach it.  I felt like another dose of chicken and chips would be the knife in my heart. I told them I was sorry to be a non-conformist, but I had to have sushi.  Sorry.  Over dinner, we found out:  Abigail grew up in a military family just like me, and her parents now live in Germany, where I also have family.  She’s the oldest of four, like me, and her sisters live in Utah, where I was born… not many people are from Utah.  We shared all of this over our sumptuous Nairobi sushi (a critic would scoff at calling sushi sumptuous, but its true).  The food was like going to heaven and back, but the best thing was just talking with Abigail.  Sometimes the most comforting thing in life is finding someone who has something in common with you. 

In trouble with the law

On Sunday morning, I took the kids and Ginger to the beach. We had a great time.  Matias decided to sleep in, so he didn't come, and thus I was driving. 
On the way back, Ginger decided to sit in the front seat and put her head out the window and drink in the cool sea air, like all dogs like to do.  We were driving home on the marginal, the road that hugs the edge of the sea, when I passed the ubiquitous Mozambican...or African police truck--four skinny guys inside toting rifles, with nothing to do, and hungry for extra cash on a Sunday.  I passed them and before I knew it, they passed me back, gesturing out the window.  It looked like they were just saying hello, so I waved back.  They slowed down, so I passed again, and they waved again.
Finally, it was Nalia who said, "Mommy, I think they want you to stop."
When you get stopped by the police in the U.S. or any other country with laws that are remotely functional, it usually means you have done something wrong.  Not here.  It usually means something else.  There are no laws here. 
After I stopped, one of the young skinny guys holding a rifle (these are called cinzentinhos here, which means little gray guys because of their gray uniforms and general lack of respect from the population) approached the car.  He looked serious- ready to accomplish a mission.
"Senhora, you have violated the transit code of the Republic of Mozambique.  This code states that human beings are not allowed to put any body appendages outside the vehicle.  This law also includes animals, such as dogs.  Therefore you will be issued a fine because your dog had his head out the window. And I'd like to see your license."
After 11 years in and out of this continent, I have learned that questioning and getting tense and angry will only make things worse.  But I was also secretly very worried because I had only my American drivers license.  Mozambican law now requires all foreign residents to get international or Mozambican licenses, and I haven't gotten around to doing this.  He took my license, and then I got called over to the police truck to talk with the boss. 
He scrunitized my license and then looked at me.
"This license is not valid in this country, so you have committed two illegal acts," he frowned, "and we will have to impose two fines on you, one for your dog putting her head out the window and the other for driving without a valid license."
I did NOT want to give these guys any money, partly because the police here are all corrupt bastards and I'm sick of it, but mostly because I'm trying to save up all our money to pay off our plane tickets to New Zealand for Christmas, and didn't want to give them a single cent.
I knew my best bet was to play the stupid card.... and be effusively apologetic, playing into their need to feel like they are powerful and important men.  But sometimes I also just can't help myself.  By nature, I'm someone who likes to push buttons and stir things up a little.  And while the mantra in my head may be, "What would Obama do? Be like Obama," I am not Obama, so what comes out of my mouth is often drastically different from my internal mantra.
"I am deeply sorry and do admit that I did something wrong, but I would like to ask a question. May I?"
They nod. 
"What does the law say about goats, because I see them in the back of trucks, on top of buses, with their appendages clearly outside the vehicle?"
They are not understanding the sarcasm.  So this is positive.  I am enjoying the sarcasm, and they are prepared to give me a serious explanation.
"Senhora, e assim.  It's like this:  goats ride in the back of trucks and not in passenger seats like your dog.  Also, the goats have a special permit issued by the Police of Mozambique that allows them to put their heads, legs, etc outside the vehicle."
Again, I can't help myself. 
"So, if I get a permit for my dog, she can put her head out the window?"
They are getting frustrated, but they're laughing.  This is good.
"So," says the boss, "how will we resolve this."
This is a rhetorical question, of course, so there is no question mark.
"You're the boss," I respond.
"You can't drive in this country because you don't have a valid license."
"I admit that I violated the law and will not drive home, so I'll call my husband and he can walk down here to drive the car home.  He can be down here in about an hour."
"But we're working and can't wait around for your husband."
"Then, what's your suggestion?"
The oldest one is primed and ready to respond.
"Senhora should buy us a refresco."  
Refresco means a bottle of soda in Portuguese, but in Maputo it is parlance for a bribe.  The police will usually not sink as low to ask directly for a bribe. 
"Sure, I'd love to get you a soda.  I'll just run into the gas station and buy a round for all of you.  Sounds great."
"No, Senhora, you don't get it.  We need almoco, refresco."  Almoco is lunch.
Now the bribe is getting bigger.
"Great," I answered, "let's got to that restaurant down the street with my kids and my dog and we can have a nice Sunday lunch."
"No, you don't understand.  Just give us the money and we'll buy the food."
"Unfortunately I have no change, but I'd be very happy to take you out. My kids are in the car waiting and they'd love to eat too."
They are all smiling, sighing, exasperated. 
Finally, the old one shows his frustration.
"Deixa-la... vai embora!" This means Just Go Home. 
The skinny young one hands me my license.
I go back to the car, but sit to make sure they leave first.  By this point, they think I'm stupid as nails.  When they pass me, they yell out the window, "We said you could GO HOME.  GO!"

I have won, and am very proud of myself, but I do put up all the windows on the way home. 

Animal House

We have a dog named Ginger.  Her name doesn't fit her personality well.  Ginger is enormous, not fat just powerful and big.  She is a labrador/german sherperd mix, but looks more like a labrador.  Ginger has more energy than a 4 year old boy (we have tried to make comparisons with Elio's energy levels, but Ginger easily wins).  When my mom was here, she tried to teach Ginger not to jump on people, but mom would always come back with huge pawprints all over her shirt.  In the end, she decided it was best to do as the Mozambicans do and just ignore Ginger. 
Ginger also eats anything... I tell people this and they just sort of say, well, whatever, thinking she is like most puppies, but it's true: she eats almost EVERYTHING.  My brother Mark was incredulous when he visited.  Papayas, lemons, and yes, rocks.  Mostly she just chews on the rocks, but sometimes she actually swallows them.  The only thing she rejects is carrots.  But she does give them a little credit-- she chews on them.  My colleague's wife says this is a trait of Mozambican dogs.
We also have a cat named Oscar, and he hates Ginger more than anything in the world.  Ginger has, to her credit, tried to make friends with him.  She'll sniff him and lick him, but when we let Ginger in the house, the first thing she does is eat all his food.  This has not helped to create a friendly amicable relationship with Oscar.  So Oscar sits at the top of the gate and when Ginger gets near, he's ready to claw her face.  It's all premeditated. He's sitting on the gate waiting for her. 
We also had two chickens, but they didn't last long.  Ginger killed one, and when her friend Leo came over to play, he killed the other.  Leo is a bit old and tired, so we didn't think he had it in him, but when he sensed the chicken's presence, he got a resurgance of puppy energy and that was the end of the chicken. 

Photos below of kids, Ginger and her puppy friends at the beach...

First Day of Big Boy School

Elio started at Nalia's school this week!  He was proud to be going to the big boy school, and to show his excitement for the occasion, he decided to wear all orange, his favorite color.  Orange shorts, orange shirt, orange jacket and orange shoes.  He picked it all out the night before, and Nalia helped him to carefully lay the clothes out on a chair.
I was a bit worried Elio would be shy or react negatively to the change because he usually doesn't roll with changes very well in life, but he marched right into his classroom and started playing.  His teacher's name is Miss Mildred.  She is a young Filipina lady.  When Elio got home from school, I asked how he liked Miss Mildred and he answered that he loves her.
We're also enjoying Tio Mark's visit.  He was able to come to the beach with us last weekend and we had a great time.

Easter in Mozambique!

Easter in Mozambique... our car had broken down (again). Since there were no wheels to go buy Easter baskets, I decided we should paint some old baskets around the house.  Nalia and Elio had a great time.  Elio had more fun decorating his hand than anything else.  He said he was Spiderman. 
The next day we went to the Easter Egg Hunt at the USAID compound... some of the kids starting searching (and finding) eggs before there were supposed to.  Nalia got annoyed, rallied all the kids together, and made them put the eggs back!
Elio was elated to find little donuts in his plastic eggs.  When I told him these are actually called Lifesavers, he told me I was wrong.  Now we're all calling them donuts.

When God Takes Pictures of the Earth

I flew early Monday morning from Maputo to Nampula.  As the plane soars up and arches over the belly of Earth, I can literally feel and see the curve of the Earth from the plane.  I am thinking about how I am flying to the middle of nowhere…  Northern Mozambique has been this for so long-- inaccessible, off the map, forgotten by their own people and everyone else.  But really, when you look at the map, we are flying towards the middle of the Earth, to the middle of Africa.  I arrive in Nampula, the city, and we leave the same day for Namapa, more off the map.  Namapa is near the border with Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s northernmost province that borders Tanzania. 

Every time I go to a place like Namapa, it’s always interesting to find out where we will stay for the night.  This time, we arrived in the dark, in the midst of an electrifying thunderstorm.  The lightening sizzled across the horizon...it looked like big rivers do on maps—one big branch with thousands of tiny tributaries, and the light was like a celestial camera flash, illuminating everything.  Carlos, our driver, said, ‘É como o Deus está a tirar fotos… God is taking pictures tonight.’

We arrived at Pensão Cahora Bassa.  I was satisfied and relieved to see that they had electricity and a water tank (my standards are very low).  The boy running the pensão opened the door to the rooms, showing a dirty towel and sheets covered in dust. 

‘These sheets look dirty,’ I remarked.

‘I can dust them off.’

‘Can’t we have clean sheets?’ 

‘I don’t have the key to the cabinet where the sheets are, only the boss does,’ the boy says matter-of-factly.

‘Can’t we call the boss?’  We call the boss and he doesn’t answer.  The boy starts taking the sheets of and snapping them to get the dirt off.  Then, another boy walks in with clean sheets.  I wonder where this boy came from… he just appears.

I check out the bathroom—it is communal and I will be sharing it with my colleague. 

‘The door doesn’t close,’ I tell the boy.

‘Yes it does.  You aren’t pushing hard enough.’

‘I am pushing as hard as I can.  Why don’t you try.’

He tries and the door doesn’t close, but this does not prompt any response or action. 

‘Do you have a towel?’ I ask.  I know this is all futile, but I am so amused by his responses, I can’t help myself.  He brings out a small soiled square, smaller than a receiving blanket for a newborn.  It is smiling, proud to have fulfilled by request.  I smile back.  This is why I love this place. 

His world is light years from mine.  I marvel at how despite how connected the world now is, with internet and cell phones making electronic bridges into some of the most remote places (even Namapa has an internet café), so many places remain are eons away from the world I know.  It makes for such a rich, diverse planet. 

Then I ask for toilet paper.  ‘We don’t have any, but you can buy it at the market.’ It is 8 o’clock and pouring rain.  The market closed a long time ago.  I am good at the drip-dry method.

Trip to Cape Town


In February, we took the bus from Maputo to Johannesburg.  We spent the night there and then flew to Cape Town the next day, where we met my sister.  We saw some breathtaking scenery... the Cape Town area is overflowing with beauty of Mother Nature.  We had the opportunity to stay at the Moon Bay Guest House in Fish Hoek, where Tina and Peter Davies took care of us.  Highly recommended for anyone travelling to Cape Town.  Last week I was working in Nampula in the North, and my accomodation there will be the subject of my next blog entry... because the whole experience, not the just room, but the interaction with the 'hotel' staff, is outside the frame of most of us-- even mine, worthy I thought it worthy of an entry of its own, even for humor's sake. 

On the bus to Johannesburg...



Drinking hot chocolate at the airport in Joburg

African Jackass Penguins at Boulder Beach

Cape of Good Hope- I hove this picture

In traditional Xhosa headdresses at Spier Winery

The Universe Conspires in My Favor

It's been about one month since Oscar passed.  It was too intense for me in the end--and I needed some return to normalcy.  I'll always have this picture of his two cousins arriving in my house, sitting at the kitchen table, just the three of us.  They tell me that the body has been in the morgue over the weekend and needs to be buried the following day or they will have to start paying. 
I used to work in food aid, and when food sits in the port too long, you have you pay demurrage. 
So they are explaining this and I am thinking that people in Mozambique have to pay demurrage when they die. 

Then they ask very politely for money to buy the coffin.  I ask how much one costs and they say the cheapest one is 2,000 Meticais, about $75.  It seems unreal... how this is being negotiated.  I am imagining myself floating above the room...  observing the whole conversation like it's a movie, because it doesn't seem real. 

So I was craving normalcy, time with my kids, sitting relaxing.... and I got it.  Here's what the cosmos' answer was...  a week ago, Matias came to me holding a small bug about the size of the top of a pin.  Look what I found on Elio's head.  Elio had lice... and so does Nalia, and lo and behold, I do too.  Live little guys crawling off my hair. 

I have learned a lot of about lice in the past week.  They are resistant to most of the permethrin shampoos on the market (Nalia and I have shampooed about 5 times and still have the eggs).  The shampoo usually kills the live ones, but the egg stick like glue to the shaft of hair near the base of your scalp.  Sometimes I just pull out the hair to get rid of them.  The mature lice are particularly hard to get rid of because they also jump-- and far for their size. 

So the reason I am bringing up the lice is that going through Nalia's head looking for the nits and pulling them out has really forced me to relax and has returned some pieces of normalcy to our lives. The time has been good for Nalia and me to spend with each other, just talking about our days, her friends at school, and how she is feeling.  The universe is usually conspiring in our favor, in ways we'd least expect it. 

For Oscar

The funeral was on Tuesday.  It was one of our hottest days yet here.  I had never been to a funeral in Mozambique... and it felt something like a cross between a market and a carnival.  A business deal and a dance with death orchestrated together, at the same time.  There were hawkers outside selling flowers, and as soon as I got out of the car, an opportunist, or just another poor person trying to feed himself, told me that he was in charge of guarding my car-- " you know, senhora, so nothing gets stolen." He would expect about 40 cents payment.
"Entao.. so," I asked rhetorically, " there are even ladroes, thieves, at the cemetery?" 
"Always," he answered without batting an eye.
The family and friends were sitting on the grass under a tree, waiting for the coffin to arrive.  People were chatting. Women were feeding their babies. 
When the coffin arrived, the preacher, sweating under a cheap suit and faded tie, directed us toward the plot.  There were mounds of earth everywhere, with no names, no headstones, just poor pathetic wilting flowers on top with metal plaques with six digit number painted on them.  Like license plates.  There was a big confusao about where the coffin should go.  Over there? or over there? People were walking over the graves, trying to figure out where to go. 
Confusao is an interesting word we have in Portuguese, but the way we use it in Mozambique, and in Angola, is different than anywhere else.  It means something you cannot translate to English.  It is not confusion.  It can be chaos, arguments, any kind of disorder, or even refer to a difficult person--"She's a confusao." Our dog tried to attack the cat tonight, and Nalia said, "Mommy, that was a big confusao."  She did not say confusion.  The funeral here in Maputo was also a confusao.
Funerals are when our own deep-seeded cultural practices rise to the surface...  how we respond to and perceive death is so much based on how and where we grow up, who our people are.  I got a lump in my throat seeing people walk over the graves.  We don't do that where I come from. 
There was a discussion about where to start digging.  They hadn't started digging. 
The sun was penetrating, bone bleaching, and the heat had all of us dripping in sweat.  The babies were crying.  Fatigued, women started to sit on the graves and feed their babies. 
Finally, the preacher summoned us, "Ok, let's get on with it.  We can do the ceremony while they start digging.  Does anyone have a song they want to sing?"
It felt like Sunday school...does anyone have a song they want to sing. 
Almost as soon as the gravediggers started digging, they stopped.  And started another plot.  You see, there were about 6 or 7 ceremonies going on all at once.
Death is commonplace here.  It is business..  it is still misery and sadness and loss, but when something is not relatively rare, like death is in the U.S., then it becomes more routine and business-like.
The gravediggers had stopped digging because they wanted a tip. 
The preacher kept going on, asking people to sing.
Ruti, Oscar's illiterate orphaned 15-year-old niece, began to sob uncontrollably.  Now, she has no one.  And she is an illiterate teenage girl.  Vulnerable anywhere on this planet. 
All if this was going on at once.  It was too much. 
Finally, the cousin cut a deal with the gravediggers and the coffin was hoisted into the ground.  The whole family surrounded the grave and filled in the dirt.  Then they covered it with all the flowers that had already died too.  The Sun in Mozambique in January is relentless. It doesn't care who you are... about your sorrow or your pain or your grief. 
Oscar died at the hospital on Friday, January 20.  For the first nights, I kept waking up at 2 or 3 am, thinking of all that I should have done....I should have taken him to another clinic or called my doctor friend sooner.
Then, I'd get angry.  After being in the hospital nearly a month, Oscar still hadn't received an ultrasound for his tumor.  He still wasn't being treated with antiretrovirals (ARVs), even though the Cuban doctors had recommended it 3 weeks earlier.  Finally, after lots of talking with doctors, and doing some reading, I deduced that his tumor was probably internal Kaposi Sarcoma, common in the last stage of AIDS.  Maybe the doctors and nurses had just decided there was no hope and decided to let him die. 
But even before this, so many things had gone wrong.  Oscar never told anyone he had AIDS.  And as soon as he was admitted to the hospital, he refused to eat for 2 weeks, and started hiding his pills under his sheets.  When I asked the nurse about this, she said, "They do that sometimes porque dizem que ja nao querem viver, because they say they don't want to live anymore."
It is almost too complex:  a dysfunctional health system, doctors breathing pessimism, people with AIDS whose culture and country will not allow them to assumir-- admit it, accept it, and go on. 
When someone dies of AIDS here, people will always say the cause of death was doenca, sickness, the vaguest of the vague.  AIDS does not exist in people's houses, only on the TV ads and billboards telling people to use condoms.  It is not mine or ours.. it is someone else's.  But really, it belongs to all of us, not just Africa, but all of us.  And accepting that it is our mutual burden is the only way we cay start to unravel its complexity.
Oscar Pinto Amade left this world on January 20.  He was 28 years old.  He had already lost two infant children.