MULUNGO! MULUNGO!

The very first Changana (local dialect) word I ever learned was mulungo, the somewhat derogatory term for a white person. And for a while after I first arrived at site, it was yelled at me regularly. I say “somewhat derogatory” because like most other words, it depends on the context. Kids yelling it in my face? Derogatory. Being introduced as one to a congregation of hundreds at my organization’s church? Not. Even when it bothers me, there’s not always mal intent behind it, and usually people simply don’t realize that I don’t like the term.

Being a very small, but very visible, minority has been a very eye-opening experience and frankly, pretty tough at times. Normally it’s easy enough to brush off; I’m quite obviously different, and for many people, I’m the first white person they’ve seen with the exception of some South Africans and Portuguese passing through town. But occasionally it reaches the breaking point, like when co-workers mockingly called another co-worker a mulungo for having lighter skin and compared his arm to mine. And sure, the fact that my pale face was the only thing to show up in a dark picture was funny, but not when everyone else was joking about it in a different language.

No matter how integrated I am, I will always be different. However, now that I’m much less of a curiosity in town, being called mulungo generally only happens when I’m going on home visits in more remote parts of town for the first time. I explained to co-workers who take me on home visits why I don’t respond to the word, and at a meeting with the organization mentioned above I asked people to call me anything else but not that word, and everyone’s been very understanding. Most successful of all was telling kids that they couldn’t color for a day if they said it; after one incident in which all the other kids yelled the equivalent of “OOOOOOOOHHHHHH you can’t color!” in Portuguese, I never heard the word again.

Now we sip champagne when we thirsty

Times were tough for a while in Macia. First, the taps stopped running. Then, the water storage tanks and the local well dried up. The closest source of water was the bakery on the other side of the highway and a 15 minute walk away when not slowed down by 25-liter containers of water. When the family told me this, I couldn’t hide my shock. Thankfully, the family took pity on me, or as they put it, “Caitlin (my former roommate) could conseguir (achieve) that, but you can’t,” and mandar-ed (ordered) their eldest sons to cart water for me in addition to the rest of the family. At the beginning though, I only got 25 liters every few days, which horrified even fellow volunteers. I cut bathing down to every few days, cooked rice and pasta in the bare minimum amount of water, re-wore clothing, went commando for several days, and finally went to Caitlin’s house in a nearby town to do laundry. Eventually, the boys brought me water more often, probably due to reports about my bathing habits from the kids. I felt really guilty about it, but I insisted on paying them and offered to make each son a mix CD.

One magical morning, I woke up to the sounds of running water. I immediately filled up every container I own with water just in case, but the water was back for good… or at least until the next time the town pump breaks down. So now I have running water, I bought a fridge from a fellow volunteer, and the family blasts Kanye’s “Power” (I snuck it in between the Michael Jackson and Eminem they wanted) from their house… just living the dream. I’m not gonna lie though; my bathing habits still horrify the kids, as they take three a day. But my new system is to claim I took one while they were eating dinner, since when they visit me afterward I’ve changed into my pajamas. Don’t judge me; even when one heats the water, bucket baths in outdoor bathrooms during African winter are cold.

Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor!

I really love my site, and even though the pace is slow, I’m starting to have successes at work. There are still lots of ups and downs, but overall I’m happy in Macia and with what I hope to achieve here. In particular, I love my dependencia and my host family. I entertain their children and send over a lot of baked goods. They took me to a wedding, and during a recent power outage, brought over a thermos of hot water for tea in the morning and a tray of beans and xima for dinner since they know I cook with an electric stove.

Kids

The majority of my friends at site are children, and I love it. My host family’s kids are always excited when I return from a trip, and they are constantly over my house to color or dance to Michael Jackson while wearing my giant shoes (see picture). And they love me too, although recently perhaps a little too much. During a game of animal bingo, an 8-year-old neighbor told me I was pretty and winked at me. My 9-year-old host brother gave my left boob a quick squeeze and then later that week said I was his woman. He looked so guilty after the former and it was such a surprise that all I could do was laugh. However, when a few weeks later all the kids started smacking my butt (or lack thereof) and telling me I looked like a vovo (grandmother) because I didn’t have a butt, it was time to have a discussion about private places. Since then, they’ve been keeping it PG, literally. We rolled out a straw mat on my kitchen floor and watched The Lion King on my computer one night; they loved it, and we watched it again the next night. And then Finding Nemo the following night. (Even though the movies are in English the kids can generally follow along and I give the older ones plot updates in Portuguese.)

Children’s Day on June 1^st was also a lot of fun. The girls in my REDES group (youth group for teen girls) had collected money from their class and came over to bake 3 cakes for their celebration. The kids joined them while the cakes were baking and we played games, ate pasta salad, and danced. The REDES girls have since baked another cake at my house (chocolate this time), and the kids have formed their own group. For their first activity, we made peanut butter from scratch, which turned out really good but took nearly 3 hours of roasting the peanuts, removing the paper, and hand-grinding with a pilão (giant wooden mortar and pestle).

Simba

After I was gone for a week due to a conference, Simba was downright adorable when I returned, running over to greet me and cuddling with me in bed for hours. After being gone for a long weekend due to a meeting shortly after that, she had had enough. She started living in the family’s cozinha (shed used for cooking) and adopted Casstilio, the son in charge of feeding her while I’m away, as her surrogate parent. She was living the life, killing 3 rats in the 4 days I was gone, and even after I returned, she would run to greet Casstilio when he got back from school every day. Message received, Simba; your love is a privilege not a right.

All of the rat hunting finally caught up, however, and Simba had a bad case of worms. The agricultural clinic in town only gives rabies shots, but they wrote down the name of a deworming medicine and sent me to the pharmacy with the instructions to pretend I was buying it for a child. The pharmacist totally knew I was full of shit (“how old is the child?” me: “pequenino? (very little)” “how many years?” me: “ummm… two?”), but he sold it to me anyway. The agricultural clinic had told me to put a small piece of a pill in Simba’s mouth rather than putting it in her food, and with one of the kids holding her by the scruff, we forced it down her throat. After the serious cold shoulder she had been giving me, I thought Megba/Simgan might be over forever, but luckily she’s back to being healthy and my friend.

Work

Like I said above, work is going slowly, but at least it’s going. Since my last update, I led a two hour training on monitoring and evaluation for AJAAB as well as a series of short organizational development workshops. We’ve written a mission and vision, and are currently in the process of designing home visits for the families of escolinha (preschool) students. Additionally, an activista from Associação Cristã and I attended a weeklong Peace Corps conference for activistas that included two days of medicinal plant training. She and I are currently in the process of planning a two day training for all of our organization’s activistas at the end of this month, covering topics related to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, nutrition, diarrhea, hygiene, and orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). Thus, even though work is sporadic, I am definitely making some progress.

Kids and my kitten!

To see the rest, click here:

Megan in Mozambique

Exploring Mozambique

One of the best perks of being a volunteer in Mozambique is getting to explore this beautiful country. I’ve visited some absolutely gorgeous beaches (I’ve previously posted pictures from Bilene, the beach near me) and thanks to a recent Peace Corps conference, I’ve seen some of Maputo as well.

• Zavala, Inhambane: 3 volunteers and I went to a barbecue held by a group of Japanese volunteers and some Mozambicans on a remote beach. It took about 20 minutes through sand paths in the back of a pickup truck with a couple charcoal stoves and several live chickens to get there, but we nearly had the beach to ourselves as we ate grilled chicken and mussels.

• Vilankulos, Inhambane: This town is a big tourist destination, but a few volunteers and I visited a fantastic secluded beach lined with some of the tallest palm trees I’ve ever seen. One afternoon we went horseback riding on the beach and passed by an archeological site from the time of Arab traders. We stopped for a Mozambican lunch in a small town, and our guide told us about her experience as a white Zimbabwean who fled to Mozambique, and then on the return, we rode on a hill overlooking the beach.

• Maputo: I still haven’t gotten to see much of the capital city, but so far I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. A group of us visited the fish market for lunch; you choose your seafood in the market and bring it to one of the vendors, who then cook it to order. It’s definitely a tourist spot, with lots of souvenirs and counterfeit sunglasses being hawked, but it’s a great experience. The constantly replenished buckets of beer certainly help. I split grilled rock fish and prawns, and everything was fantastic. If you visit me, I will most certainly bring you here, as well as the craft market. The latter consists of dozens of vendors in a small park selling everything from artwork to capulana (printed African fabric) hand bags to jewelry made from coconuts.

So come visit!

Updates on My Life

Integration

Recently, I’ve had a lot of integration successes, and I’m known all over town as “Megus,” which to my dismay seems to have stuck as the Mozambican version of my name. I’m being invited more and more for meals by coworkers and neighbors; at one, I tried ox, which is good but has nothing on goat. Coworkers will frequently visit for tea before or after work. And now that the word is out that I like to passear, I’m being invited to do more things, from just going to the market or visiting someone’s house to attending the inauguration of a neighbor’s barraca (a stall selling cold drinks and essentials: eggs, detergent, oil, etc.), which included blessings, ribbon-cutting, and a served meal. In the near future, I will be visiting a coworker’s machamba (farm) and having a neighbor over to make banana pancakes together. The local language, changana, is definitely an obstacle to further integration, but I’m learning, albeit extremely slowly.

Kids

One of my absolute favorite parts about my life in Macia is my relationship with the kids in my dependencia (basically means we share a yard). Every day, at least 3 kids, plus any visiting relatives or neighbors, come over to color on my porch. Despite their refusal to smile in a picture, they love it. Throughout the day as well, they will pop over to say hi or play a game. I’m now known by some of the neighbors as the white girl with amiguinhos (little friends). Recently, a few 13-year-old girls have started visiting and inviting me to passear (walk around, hang out, etc). When they took me to visit their homes this past weekend, more kids kept joining until the group grew to nearly 20. I hope to form a “REDES” (translated, teen girls in development, education, and health; it’s a Peace Corps volunteer-led program) group soon as a secondary project (meaning, it’s not part of my work with my two organizations) soon.

Simba

Neighbors have referred to Simba as my daughter, which pretty much means that I have, in fact, become the crazy cat lady. The mother/grandmother of the kids came over one day to tell me Simba likes to eat xima (made from boiling water and corn flour; looks like mashed potatoes) and would come to their house to beg for it, so I’m an incompetent crazy cat lady at that. But the kids love her too, and when I was away at a conference they let Simba sleep in their bedroom.

She’s no longer a kitten, however, and I live in fear of her getting knocked up. As I learned by furiously googling cat pregnancy signs when she was looking bloated one day, the telltale sign is pink nipples. They were surprisingly hard to find, and I spent a half hour feeling like a predator, attempting to grope my cat as she tried to swipe me. I half expected Chris Hansen to show up at my door. No Lion King 2 yet, but I really need to find a vet. Her ladybits are a ticking time bomb. On the other hand, a benefit of her growing up is her fierce hunting skills. Lizards and bugs stand no chance against her, and last week she killed her very first rat. A proud mom, I ran to take a picture of baby’s first rodent, which she ate all of except for the hind legs and tail.

Work

Some highlights from the past several weeks include a couple activities I led with the youth groups of AJAAB. One Saturday afternoon, 14 kids plus 3 coworkers visited for guacamole and cake (6 of them), similar to the Dia de Mulher gathering I hosted for the women of my other organization. After the food, the kids colored, and each took a turn telling the group about their drawing. Check out the pictures! A different afternoon, even more kids and coworkers meet at a primary school for a couple hours of games. I started with a name game as an icebreaker, and then taught them a few American games. Freeze Dance (thanks for the idea, Casey!) to Michael Jackson was a huge it. My coworkers threw in a few Mozambican games, like a version of Telephone where you must repeat the phrase correctly; it you don’t or have to ask for a repeat, you’re out (naturally, with my Portuguese skills I didn’t stand much of a chance). Overall, it was a great bonding activity for the kids of the different youth groups as well as for my coworkers and me.

However, I’m still not working much. I have discussed my role more with my respective counterparts, though, and I have been brainstorming ideas for the coming months. With each group, I’m going to help with organizational development: creating a mission and vision, systems for documentation, and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation. Other plans:

Associação Cristã: At the end of May, an activista and I will be attending a Peace Corps-led workshop that will include a troca de experiência (exchange of experience) and training on medicinal plants. The organization has about 20 activistas who perform home visits throughout the various bairros, but they receive no training. Therefore, I hope to develop training sessions to improve visits as my first project.

AJAAB: This organization has a lot of projects in development, and they have expressed a need for me to help devise systems of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to accompany them. Fortunately, I received some training in M&E as part of our recent conference. To start, a couple coworkers and I will create M&E for home visits.

I’m excited to get working on these plans, as well as starting the REDES group. Reading Peace Corps resources to prepare, hanging out with kids, and integrating are taking up more of my time as well.