Two Family Photos

December 25th is “Dia da Família” in Mozambique. It is Christmas, too, but the holiday is nationally recognized as the Day of the Family. To celebrate, here are two family photos and their accompanying stories.

I.

When I arrived to my homestay house for training at the end of August, one of the first things I noticed were two photos framed and proudly displayed in the living room. They were photos of the whole family with a volunteer, taken a few years apart. I was told their stories many times. One photo was of the first volunteer my family ever hosted, back in 2012. The other was of a volunteer from 2016. I would ask about them early on before I knew enough Portuguese to have involved conversations. “What were they like?” with a point in the direction of the photo. Easy enough. They were static photos on a shelf until I inquired; then, they were full and interesting individuals who lived dynamic lives in the same house as me, and my family had so much to say about each of them. Over the course of training, sometimes I felt as though I was living a complete lifetime with my family. It kept me humble to think that years from now I will be a photo on a shelf, a daughter who once was. But I like to remain hopeful that my family will light up when they talk about me, just as they did talking about all of their previous volunteers. Maybe the next volunteer will point at me and ask.

Back in mid-November, I knew that my days were numbered with my homestay family in training and thus my window of opportunity to take such a family photo to put on the shelf was closing. I brought it up a few nights in a row at dinner, but there was always a reason to wait until tomorrow. It’s too hot today. The neighbors aren’t home to take the photo for us. It’ll be dark soon. Then my pai would leave for two nights of work in Maputo and the days grew fewer.

One afternoon just before swear-in, I walked home from training and found my whole family sitting in the living room. “We should take that photo,” I announced. “I’ll ask the volunteer next door to come over.” My family nodded. My pai was headed for work in the city the next morning, so this was indeed our last opportunity. He stood up from the couch. “Let’s do it,” he said, “but first I just want to change into pants.” He was in shorts and a T-shirt. Fair. He left for his room and I sent a message to Luciana, the volunteer in the next house over.

My sister Jú was sitting across the room and had a better view of the hallway. I heard my pai’s door open and she suddenly burst into the most joyful laughter and I turned to look. There is only one word to describe what he was doing, and that word is strutting. In only a minute, he had changed into his nicest suit with his fancy white dress shoes and he was milking his return to the living room, his grin growing larger with each confident step. He turned the corner, declared a loud and proud, “Yeah,” and my mãe shook her head with a huge smile. Jú jumped up and ran down the hallway with my mãe in toe. “Where are you going?” I called. “We have to get ready!” they yelled back, giggling.

Luciana hadn’t responded to my message so I walked outside to peek over our shared wall. She appeared from behind the house carrying some water to her room. I explained the situation and she said she’d be right over. I walked back inside to hear my mãe calling for Jú to bring her favorite earrings from her bedroom. I made my way down the hallway. They were sharing the mirror in the bathroom, my mãe doing her hair and Jú putting on lipstick. They had on fresh new outfits. I started laughing. “Now I have to go change!” I ran into my room and threw on a dress, tossing my obsolete jeans and shortsleeved button-up on my bed. I returned to the hallway and my pai gave me a high five. The four of us could not stop giggling.

Luciana quietly walked in through the kitchen and was undoubtedly surprised by the boisterous energy with which she was met. We came bounding down the hallway. “The lighting is better outside!” Mãe said. “But even better in the back!” Jú added. We headed for the back door and stepped outside into an unexpected drizzle. It didn’t hold us up for a moment; we raced over towards the back wall, stopped laughing for a couple of seconds, and Luciana snapped a few photos. We shifted to a slightly different part of the yard and took a few more. The rain started to pick up, and we were pretty sure we'd captured the perfect shot, so we went back inside. Everyone crowded around as I opened the photos on my phone. We cheered when we saw them. We cheered. We thanked Luciana profusely and she slipped back over to her house. We had a quick group hug and then went to our rooms and put our other clothes back on. The night continued on as any other night, with the addition of four goofy grins around the dinner table.

When I first arrived in Mozambique and didn’t speak a word of Portuguese, it was impossible for me to see a future where I would comfortably joke around with the strangers I was moving in with. I couldn’t envision achieving that level of understanding. But it happened. It happened and it was beautiful and I never felt closer to my family than in those silly fifteen minutes we spent frantically dressing up for a family photo. If a future volunteer points at me in a frame on a shelf in the living room, I hope my family shares this story first. It’s the one I would tell.

Left to right: Mãe, me, Pai, Jú. Family.

II.

We spent some time in a hotel in Maputo before departing for site. Because we were waiting on a specific document, we were not allowed to leave the hotel, just like at orientation back in August. We got the document on a Monday afternoon, the 23rd of December. Suddenly, the entire world was open to us. “I want to passear,” Cole texted our cohort’s WhatsApp group. “Who’s joining?” Fifteen minutes later, a group of ten of us met in the lobby and we hit the streets for the first time in a long time. I suggested we head towards water, as this is always my instinct when setting out on a destination-less journey. (Four years of college filled with procrastinating-as-wandering all the way east or all the way west in lower Manhattan taught me this instinct.) We quickly made it to the busy street along the bay and stared out at the sunset just beyond Maputo’s Katembe Bridge. We noticed a ferry taking folks across the water to the other side. Noah and I investigated timing and prices. I was set to head out in that moment, but everyone talked me down. We’d go get a drink, eat some dinner, and wake up early for a morning ferry trip instead.

So we did just that. We had a fun, free night on the (somewhat) familiar side of the bay and then we woke up the next morning, Christmas Eve, and discussed logistics over breakfast. A ferry-specific WhatsApp group chat with 18 people was formed. The large group split in half, one trailing the other by an hour. The earlier crew rushed over to the dock for the 9:30 ferry, and we arrived just before it took off. (Now, reader, even though I just mentioned walking towards water in lower Manhattan, I’m going to need you to get the image of the Staten Island Ferry out of your mind. Picture a very small boat that comfortably fits 15 people and uncomfortably fits 30. Now a little smaller. There, that’s better.) We all tucked inside the little boat and were coasting across the calm water immediately.

We made it to the other side and started exploring. We walked away from the water first, into the small beach town with sand pails and soccer balls for sale and lots of cold beer awaiting ferry goers. A few of us shared a bottle of sunscreen as Rachel and Maggie and Cole tried on sunglasses. Then we made our way back onto the beach and briskly walked across the burning hot sand towards the water. We dipped our toes. We picked up some crabs. We took a few photos. But we mostly just stared out across the bay, marveling at Maputo from afar for the very first time.

In that moment, I became aware of two distinct thoughts I know I wouldn’t have had were it not for this subtle but grand change of perspective.

The first: Maputo is a very large, very beautiful city. Before crossing the water on that ferry, I hadn’t been able to really see it. To suddenly notice its scale and liveliness filled me with a renewed excitement for the fact that I have two full years to get to know the city’s character.

The second: I am on the precipice of a gigantic adventure, and I think I had forgotten that for a little bit. Along with everyone in our cohort, I came to Mozambique at least partially motivated by a spirit of adventure, and then I stayed in one small and structured place for four full months and slowly felt my tendency towards spontaneity drift further and further from the front of my heart and mind. Rushing towards water and hopping on a random ferry and wandering about a brand new area connected me to a part of myself I was missing. That part of me hadn’t gone anywhere, it had just taken a back seat once I became secure and complacent in my new environment. The opportunity to freely explore without a net made me feel a bit more like my full self.

But more than feeling the spirit of adventure within myself, in that moment I was also feeling acutely aware of a kindred spirit with the people around me, some of the dearest friends I’ve made within in our cohort. While we’d gone on small scale adventures to the market back in training, we hadn’t yet had the chance to seek out completely uncharted territory as a group, the sort of stuff we’d been picturing when we thought of ourselves as volunteers. I felt refreshingly connected to myself and to everyone else on the beach. It was all new and thrilling and natural and calm.

We embarked on this Peace Corps journey as strangers, but together. Now that we have become as close as family we are embarking on subsequent and larger journeys as individuals, separated from one another at our isolated sites. For this reason I stood along the bay with my toes in the sand on Christmas Eve morning feeling so grateful to be surrounded by the people I love and yet so scared and sad to know I’d be leaving them for a very long time in three short days.

We turned around to wander further down the beach in search of food. I paused for a moment as everyone headed out, their backs to the water. I took this photo—a family photo—where no one is dressed up and lots of people are missing. But it’s family, nonetheless.

Left to right: Rachel, Maggie, Ted’s leg, Cat, Kathryn, Noah, Arin, Cooper’s arm, Cole, Katembe Bridge. Family.

So.

I don’t think I have cold, closed-off heart of stone. I really don’t. But I do know that there exist a limited number of moments in my life where I have felt consciously struck by an overwhelming awareness of profound love: simultaneously the feeling of being loved and accepted by a group of people and the feeling of loving and respecting a group of people like no other. These, of course, are among the most important moments in my life. These family photos capture two of those moments.

I am at site now, and thus many miles away from these two special families. (And many many more miles away from my third or “biological” family—hey guys, I hate to hide it in this post, but unfortunately you’ve been bumped to third place.) But I know that there is always an open door waiting for me at my homestay house, and inside that door is a family that understands me. And I trust in the bonds that were formed over the course of the four challenging and incredible months I spent together with my fellow volunteers. I trust in the love that so freely flowed and continues to flow between us all. I trust in our ability to support each other, even from very far away, as one big family. And I know there are many more family adventures yet to come.

Contudo, Gostaríamos de Tentar

We have started studying the local languages of our future sites. While Portuguese is the national language of Mozambique, it is not the most commonly spoken language in many of the small communities in which we will serve. Portuguese is, of course, the language of Portugal, and therefore it is the language of colonialism. There exists a powerful tension between Portuguese and local Bantu languages here: Portuguese is used in schools and on TV and radio and in all business and government settings; it is considered more formal and official. Local languages are used in homes and on the street and in the market and everywhere else. In my perception, Portuguese is used for presentation but local languages are used for communication. The legacy of colonialism (a reality that only just ended with Mozambique’s independence in 1975—when my pai talks about “the colonial period” he is describing his childhood years) is strong especially in this area: why should formal affairs between Mozambicans be conducted exclusively in a European language? The power politics of language keep me reflective (and healthily skeptical) of my own role here as a white American requested by the government to teach English.

For these reasons, I am excited to be learning my site’s local language, Changana. It is a popular language across the southern provinces, which means it is a popular language among my host family here in training. My mãe and pai, like the majority of the population in Mozambique, speak multiple languages (Portuguese, Changana, Citshwa, and Swati), and they are thrilled that I am starting to say a few words in Changana around the house.

The process of learning a local language has made me feel simultaneously incredibly proud and incredibly humbled. The pride comes from the fact that I did not speak a word of Portuguese three months ago but now I am comfortable and capable enough to be learning a brand new language in classes taught entirely in Portuguese (as with our earliest língua classes, no English is involved). This is a significant amount of progress and I want to recognize and celebrate it. But on the flip side, I am incredibly humbled by learning Changana because it is so hard. I’ve had enough basic Spanish and pretentious English floating around in my brain for years that if I try to guess at a word in Portuguese, I usually get pretty close. (See you tomorrow! is Hasta mañana! in Spanish and Até amanhã! in Portuguese.) But with Changana, I don’t stand a chance. (Hitaffuxana mudzuku! is, obviously, See you tomorrow!) The way plural nouns are formed and verbs are conjugated is different than anything I’ve ever seen. Even though sentence structure is something to adjust to, it is exactly that—something to adjust to. The hardest and most humbling component is the fact that Changana has a number of sounds that simply do not exist in Portuguese or English. My mouth doesn’t know how to produce them. Thus, so far my journey into learning a language that is almost exclusively used for oral communication has been filled with many roadblocks where I stare blankly at my mãe or my professor, unsure of where I could possibly place my tongue inside my mouth to adequately pronounce a simple word.

Portuguese had far fewer new sounds to incorporate into my pronunciation lexicon, and there was really only one word that absolutely confounded me: lhe. Lhe is an indirect object pronoun, used where we in English would use him/her.

He taught her how to speak Changana.

Ele ensinou-lhe a falar Changana.

Lhe is not pronounced like “lee”—you have to pronounce the l and the h as their own independent sounds, but also together. It almost has a throaty sound, but the “lh” comes more from the sides of the mouth and under the tongue than the throat. For my first two months here, I avoided the word at all costs. I would not volunteer to read aloud if it showed up in a passage during língua class, and in my conversations, I cut out all indirect object pronouns. I spoke like the prompts in a grammar textbook that want you to practice combining simple sentences: “She learned how to speak Changana. He was her teacher. He was the teacher and she was the learner and now she speaks Changana. That is all.”

Then I wrote a speech whose message relied heavily on my ability to pronounce a litany of five crucial lhes to a crowd made up of our cohort, all of our homestay families, the entire Peace Corps training staff, and a group of officials from the local government.

Towards the end of training, we have a Homestay Celebration to thank our families and the community at large for hosting the Peace Corps training program and supporting our work here in Mozambique. All of the families come with their own tables and chairs and we fill the yard of the Hub with delicious homecooked food, hours of dancing, and neighborhood-wide matching outfits. The day kicks off with a formal ceremony wherein all of the families are recognized and thanked for their important role in our training. A representative from Peace Corps gives a speech, two representatives from the local government give a speech, a mãe gives a speech, and a trainee gives a speech. I was elected by our cohort to give the trainee speech.

What do I mean by neighborhood-wide matching outfits? Here is Tom e Jerry to show you.

I started by writing the speech in English. I decided to play off of the idea of teaching (because we are an education group), and I asked other trainees to send me short stories of lessons they had learned from their families. I got some good responses—some funny, some sweet, some profound—and added them in one big section of the speech. I sent the Training Director the English version, she liked it, and then I started translating it to Portuguese.

I quickly learned I had made a crucial error. The section about family lessons was full of indirect objects. Noah’s family taught him x. Julia’s family taught her y. Elo’s family taught him z. Lhe lhe lhe. A nightmare. I considered convoluting that section for the sake of avoiding that particular sentence structure, but ultimately decided not to; instead, I would face my lhe fear head on.

For the two weeks leading up to the Homestay Celebration, I practiced my speech with one of the LCFs (and my future Changana professor), Elias. He was ridiculously patient with me. I would always seem to catch him just as he was headed home for the day. I’d apologize and offer to meet the next day, but he would refuse, turn around, and sit down with me for at least an hour. He would calmly sound out words and wait as I wrote them out phonetically on my copy of the speech, then give me a thumbs up when I tried again and pronounced them smoothly. We spent a lot of time on lhe. One of the lessons that a fellow trainee shared with me was the idea that people do not say thank you for small things here; the culture is much more altruistic than any of us were accustomed to in the United States. The day before the celebration, after Elias and I wrapped up our last practice session, I tried to thank him for being so gracious with his time. “I thought you learned you don’t have to say thank you for small things here,” he said with a smile. He bid me farewell and told me he believed I would do a fine job the next day.

A page of my speech with some grammar errors mended and a few helpful hints for pronunciation.

I did not tell my family that I was going to give the trainee speech. One night when I was translating the speech to Portuguese, my mãe and pai were sitting across the dining room table working on the speech one of the other mães would eventually give at our swearing-in ceremony. (My mãe had given the swearing-in speech with the last cohort and was asked to help write the speech this time around, too.) I considered telling them in that moment, but instead I maintained the surprise. I took that special moment—a sweet hour that we shared sitting at the same table writing about how much we appreciate each other—and tucked it away just for myself.

My pai and mãe work together on a speech while I work on mine.

So on the day of the Homestay Celebration, they were indeed surprised. When I got up to give the speech, I locked eyes with my mãe and Jú in the third row. They were beaming. I spoke for just over eight minutes—and I know because I asked Cat to record the speech so I could show it to my pai, who unfortunately was working in Maputo that day—and I felt nervous at first, but got more comfortable as I went along. People laughed at the jokes and nodded along with the softer messages. It was an incredibly gratifying experience.

Elias was the master of ceremonies and official microphone holder. Photo from PCT Carly.

A wider angle from the video Cat subtly took from the front row.

At a different part of the ceremony, one representative from each family receives a certificate for successfully teaching us how to be functional people in Mozambique. My sister Jú represented our family.

After the ceremony, my mãe and Jú hugged me tight and told me how surprised they were. A bunch of the mães from my neighborhood came up to me and said, “Mana Sarah, you read so well!” Elias gave me a big parabéns (congratulations). Not a single person said, “Hey, in that one section where you were talking about the lessons people learned, what was that one word you said over and over again? Leee? Lyee? Heee?” Not a single one. So I’ll take that as a win.

If the goal of learning any language is to be able to effectively express yourself, then I still have a long way to go with Portuguese and especially Changana. But if I ever need to orally express a collective sense of gratitude, appreciation, and love to a large group of Portuguese-speaking people, thanks to my many teachers in Namaacha, I now feel pretty confident in my abilities.

Mãe, me, Jú. Family.

Here, then, is my speech in Portuguese and in English. (Perhaps a vaguely interesting note: this is not the original English—after it turned to Portuguese, some of the sentiment shifted. When I reread the original English, I found it wasn’t quite representative of what the meaning ended up being. So below is the English -> Portuguese -> English version.)

(Portuguese)

Tenho o privilégio de estar aqui em nome do trigésimo segundo grupo do Corpo da Paz em Moçambique para agradecer à graciosa comunidade de Namaacha e toda a sua bela gente. Chegamos há três meses como estrangeiros; contudo, Namaacha abriu-nos os seus braços de uma maneira que nenhuma outra comunidade poderia, e acolheu-nos muito bem. Graças a hospitalidade de todos em Namaacha, não somos mais estranhos. Somos família.

Estamos aqui em Moçambique para trabalhar como professores. Antes que uma pessoa possa ensinar, primeiro precisa aprender. Namaacha foi nossa sala de aula, e a comunidade estava cheia de professores.

Sem a cooperação do governo de Namaacha, nenhum dos nossos trabalhos aqui teria sido possível. Desde o nível mais alto até a base, o governo recebeu-nos e apoiou-nos em todo o nosso processo de aprendizado de tantas maneiras. Os diretores das escolas do distrito abriram as suas portas para e permitir-nos observar as aulas e o seu trabalho. Graças a essa colaboração, temos plena compreensão do que significa ser um professor em Moçambique. Mais ainda, do que significa ser um bom professor em Moçambique. Nossos vizinhos e amigos aqui em Namaacha ensinaram-nos a ter uma mentalidade focada na comunidade. Quando perguntávamos, “Como está?” Eles respondiam, “Estamos bem.”

Esta colaboração com oficias do governo, diretores das escolas, professores, e vizinhos nas ruas ensinou-nos a não trabalhar para uma comunidade ou em uma comunidade, mas com a comunidade. E, é exactamente isso que vamos fazer nos próximos dois anos.

O pessoal de formação aqui em Namaacha complementou o trabalho da comunidade. Lindsay, Ludovina, Isaura, e Dona Agueda organizaram tudo, tendo em conta nossas necessidades pessoais, nossa formadores técnicos ensinaram-nos sobre os nossos papéis como professores, e nossos professores de língua, contra todas as probabilidades, ensinaram-nos a falar Português. Quando chegamos a Moçambique, a maioria de nós só podia dizer, “Como está?” mas não podíamos entender a resposta. Graças aos esforços incansáveis do professores—e considerável esforço para esconder as suas habilidades linguisticas a Inglês—hoje, podemos falar Português. Obrigada por tornarem nosso processo de aprendizagem divertido. Esperamos chegar a ser tâo bons professores como vocês um dia.

E, claro, aprendemos tantas lições de nossas famílias amorosas, pacientes, e incríveis em casa. A família de Noah ensinou-lhe a maneira correta de comer uma laranja. A família de Julia ensinou-lhe como pronunciar “cenoura” e “senhora” e a importante lição de que uma senhora não é uma cenoura. Abigail aprendeu com a familia dela que aqui, as pessoas não precisam dizer obrigada para coisas pequenas; as pessoas ajudam um ao outro sem esperar agradecimentos, mas de forma altruísta. Como Abigail disse, “Você não diz obrigado quando alguém passa-te a bola durante um jogo de futebol porque estão a tentar alcançar o mesmo objectivo.” A família de Elo ensinou-lhe como pilar amendoim, ralar cocô, lavar roupa, e também ensinou-lhe como lidar com portas mais baixas do que a sua altura. A família de Katie ensinou-lhe que se estiver doente ou se o tempo for muito frio ou muito quente ou se tiver um mau dia o uma má semana, que não importa quão grande seja o obstáculo, no fim, vai passar.

A minha familia ensinava-me algo novo todos os dias: eles ensinaram-me como cozinhar peixe, como limpar o chão, como conversar, e como viver uma vida equilibrada e grata. Sempre que tentava obter uma nova habilidade ou actividade, minha mãe perguntava-me, “É difícil?” Antes que eu pudesse responder, ela sempre dizia, “Só um pouco.” Quando aprendi a lavar roupa, ela perguntou: “É difícil?” E em jeito de retórica respondeu, “Só um pouco.” Quando varríamos o quintal de manhã, ela perguntava, “É difícil?” E respondia, “Só um pouco.” Quando sentava na sala de estar e fazia meu TPC de Português ela perguntava, “É difícil?” E respondia, “Só um pouco.” Ela não me dava tempo para duvidar das minhas habilidades. Ela enfatizava que com trabalho árduo, eu poderia fazer tudo, e pouco a pouco, minhas habilidades se tornariam melhores.

Estas são as lições que vamos levar conosco e passar para nossos alunos e membros da comunidade quando deixarmos Namaacha e chegarmos em nossos sítios de trabalho. Sem esperar agradecimento, trabalharemos na mesma equipa que nossos colegas professores e líderes comunitários, unidos em nosso objectivo de melhorar a educação para todos os alunos. Quando os nossos alunos tiverem um mau dia, poderemos tranquiliza-los, dizendo: vai passar. Se, no início, nossos tarefas forem difíceis, ou se não conseguirmos ver grandes mudanças após alguns meses ou mesmo um ano em nosso trabalho, lembraremos que é pouco a pouco que a mudança acontece, e nenhum desafio é grande demais para nós superar. Nossas famílias e a comunidade de Namaacha ensinaram-nos isso. Através deles, aprendemos, e por eles, estamos preparados para ensinar.

Tivemos muitas aulas de Português nestes curtas e mágicas treze semanas, mas mesmo se fossemos falantes fluentes, ainda assim, não teríamos palavras suficientes para expressar nossa gratidão para com todos em Namaacha e todos presentes aqui hoje. Contudo, gostaríamos de tentar.

Vou começar, dizendo: Muito obrigada.

(English)

I have the privilege to stand here on behalf of the thirty-second Peace Corps cohort in Mozambique to thank the gracious community of Namaacha and all of its beautiful people. We arrived three months ago as foreigners, but Namaacha opened its arms to us in a way no other community could and made us feel so welcome. Thanks to the hospitality of everyone in Namaacha, we are no longer strangers; we are family.

We are here in Mozambique to work as teachers. Before a person can teach, first, they must learn. Namaacha was our classroom and this community was full of teachers.

Without the cooperation of the Namaacha government, none of our work here would have been possible. From the highest level to the bottom, the government welcomed and supported us throughout our learning process in so many ways. The principals of the district schools opened their doors to allow us to observe their classes and their work. Thanks to this collaboration, we have a full understanding of not just what it means to be a teacher in Mozambique, but what it means to be a good teacher in Mozambique. Our neighbors and friends here in Namaacha have taught us to have a community-focused mindset. When we would ask one person, “How are you?” They would answer, “We are fine.”

This collaboration with government officials, school principals, teachers, and neighbors on the street has taught us not to work IN a community or FOR a community, but WITH a community. And that is exactly the work we will be doing for the next two years.

The training staff here in Namaacha complemented the work of the community. Lindsay, Ludovina, Isaura, and Dona Agueda organized everything, always taking into account our personal needs. Our technical trainers taught us about our roles as teachers, and our language professors, against all odds, taught us how to speak Portuguese. When we arrived in Mozambique, the majority of us could only say, “How are you?” But we couldn't understand the answer. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our professors—and considerable effort to conceal their language skills in English—today, we can speak Portuguese. Thank you for making our learning process fun. We hope to become teachers as good as each of you one day.

And of course, we have learned so many lessons from our loving, patient, and amazing families at home. Noah's family taught him the correct way to eat an orange. Julia's family taught her how to pronounce “cenoura” [carrot] and “senhora” [woman] and the important lesson that a woman is not a carrot. Abigail learned from her family that here, people don't say thank you for small things; people help one another not expecting thanks, but out of sheer altruism. As Abigail said, “You don’t say thank you when someone passes you the ball during a soccer game because you are both trying to achieve the same goal.” Elo's family taught him how to grind peanuts, grate coconut, and wash his clothes, and they also taught him how to deal with doors that are significantly shorter than he is. Katie's family taught her that if you are sick, or if the weather is too cold or too hot, or if you have a bad day or a bad week, that no matter how big the obstacle, in the end, it will pass.

My family taught me something new every day: They taught me how to cook fish, how to mop the floor, how to hold a conversation, and how to live a balanced, grateful life. Whenever I tried to master a new skill or activity, my mother would ask me, “Is it difficult?” Before I could answer, she would always say, “Only a little.” When I learned how to do laundry, she would ask, “Is it difficult?” And she would rhetorically respond, “Only a little.” When we would sweep the yard together in the morning, she would ask, “Is it difficult?” And immediately reply, “Only a little.” When I would sit in the living room completing my Portuguese homework she would ask, “Is it difficult?” And answer, “Only a little.” She would not give me time to doubt my abilities. She empowered me to believe that with hard work I could do anything, and that little by little, my skills would change for the better.

All of these are the lessons we will take with us and pass on to our students and community members when we leave Namaacha and arrive at our permanent sites. Without waiting for thanks, we will work on the same team as our fellow teachers and community leaders, united in our goal to improve education for all learners. When our students have a bad day, we can reassure them by saying that it will pass. If at first our tasks are difficult, or if we cannot see major changes after a few months or even a year in our work, we will remember that it is little by little that change happens, and no challenge is too big for us to overcome. Our families and the community of Namaacha taught us this. Through them, we learned, and because of them, we are prepared to teach.

We have had many Portuguese classes in these short and magical thirteen weeks, but even if we were fluent speakers, we still would not have enough words to express our gratitude to everyone in Namaacha and everyone present here today. However, we would like to try.

I’ll start, by saying: Thank you very much.

That Brown Envelope

Bobby McFerrin was blasting over the speaker in the Hub:

In your life expect some trouble,

When you worry you make it double,

But don't worry, be happy.

Everyone was milling about. Some people were sitting inside clutching their water bottles and cellphones, while others were just outside, holding onto their friends’ shoulders. We had used a balloon during a medical session earlier that day, and a few people were standing in a circle tapping the balloon to keep it in the air. Some people stared at the ground silently; others chatted about absolutely anything. Still others nervously paced or swayed to the gentle music.

It soon will pass, whatever it is,

Don’t worry, be happy.

I pulled out my phone and hit record on my camera. I panned across the room, capturing the balloon and the chatter and the water bottles and the tense shoulders and the music and the silence. Another trainee, Abby, passed through the frame just as she declared to no one in particular, “My insides are falling out.”

Don’t worry.

It was site announcement day. Though most of us had known that we were headed for Peace Corps in Mozambique for close to a year, and though we had already been living here for just about two months, until that afternoon a few weeks ago, we still had no idea where in the country we would spend the next two years of our lives. And Mozambique is huge, making the weight of this unknown similarly great. It took some time to wrap my head around just how big this country really is, but this image drove the point home: the coastline of Mozambique is about 1600 miles, which is the same distance from Maine to Florida. I could be placed in Georgia or I could be placed in New Hampshire—and those would be two very different placements geographically, culturally, and politically. Same thing here: the provinces of Inhambane and Nampula are two very different placements.

Earlier that week, we each sat for a short interview with one of the two Education Program Managers (our future supervisors: there’s one for the northern provinces and one for the southern provinces) to briefly discuss our preferences for sites. Ultimately, we had very little control over our placement, and few of us played into the illusion that our merely saying, “I want to be near the mountains!” would materialize an idyllic high school perfectly situated at the top of the prettiest mountain in the country. There are a million factors that go into site placements and our input ranks pretty low on that list (and that’s fair, and that’s fine). In my interview I talked about this flexibility and the conversation led to discussing my willingness to open a new site or serve in a religious school. I didn’t lobby for the North or the South or for the mountains or the beach, because I really didn’t have a preference; what’s more, the superstitious part of me felt that if I expressed one desire, I would instantly receive the opposite. Though we had learned a great deal about the country and pros and cons of placements in different provinces throughout training, I actively worked to stay as neutral as possible in terms of my preferences.

So there we were, the Thursday of our eighth week in training, pacing around the Hub as the seemingly endless wait finally drew to a close. Trying not to worry; trying to be happy.

And what we were actually waiting for couldn’t have been more alluring: the whole training staff was outside constructing a gigantic map of Mozambique out of rocks and ash, complete with accurate borders, province names in huge letters, rocks denoting capital cities, and slips of paper that marked all of our future sites. We had heard there would be a big map, but no one was expecting it to be quite so big.

A handful of LCFs lay out the South of Mozambique.

It was really hard to capture. Really hard. But trust me, the map was big.

Finally, the map was finished. The final touch was to place 53 envelopes around the edge of the ash, each one with a unique name written on the outside and a unique future written on the inside.

We gathered inside the Hub to chat for a few minutes, but our Program Managers quickly realized that none of us could focus for a single second longer. “Vão,” they said. Go.

We ran outside and began circling the map looking for our names. The LCFs stood under the biggest tree in the Hub’s yard and sang a comforting song in a local language—I have no idea what the words were, but it was beautiful and warm. After doing half a lap around, I found my name and stood patiently at my envelope. We had agreed to wait until everyone had found their names before making the big move. “Zac, get over here!” “Emily! I see you!” “Molly, yours is over there.” “Brendan!” Eventually, we all arrived in our spots. We counted to three, leaned down, and picked up the brown envelopes that contained the first details of the next two years of our lives.

Waiting for the last few folks to find their spot around the map.

The anxious view looking down.

Meaningful envelope message: enhanced.

I waited a moment and watched everyone open their envelopes. Faces lit up with excitement, confusion, relief. Everyone shuffled the papers inside, trying to take everything in at once. People ran to their spots on the map, grinning and jumping and frantically looking around to see where everyone else was headed.

When I opened my envelope, at first I couldn’t make sense of what I was reading. I saw my name, province, town, and high school highlighted in yellow on a big list. After a few seconds, the words came into focus: Maputo Province. Oh. That’s where I am now. Oh, oh. I read the name of my site and my school. A small town. Okay, okay. I don’t know where that is. It must be close. Oh. My heart sank a little bit. I was nervous. I flipped through the other papers, not actually reading anything written on them, and numbly walked through the frenzy of trainees racing to far-off places near Malawi and on the coast and up in the North all the way to the very bottom of the map where I stood at my site under the shade of the big tree next to the singing LCFs. I kept trying to read the other papers. I couldn’t process anything.

I gave up trying to read and started looking around at the new image the map presented: a giant, life-sized picture of the fragmentation of Moz 32. Everyone suddenly seemed so far away. Our tight, unified cohort was suddenly a scattered collection of individuals.

From the South looking North, everyone decodes the first few details of their sites.

The LCF’s song ended and Nércio walked up to me and asked about my site. I said the name and he started describing it well, saying lots of positive things, but none of it registered. Either in Portuguese or English or a mix of both, I interrupted him and said, “I’m so sorry, I just can’t understand Portuguese right now.” He put his hand on my shoulder and laughed. “Tá bom.” It’s fine. Cat came running up to me and we hurriedly yelled details at each other.

“Maputo. Small town. English.”

“Inhambane. Near the beach. Math.”

We turned to Nércio, who was chuckling at our anxious conversation. We wanted a number. He looked at the maps from our envelopes and did some quick math. “8 hours, or 9. Maybe more.” We nodded and nodded. Okay. Good. That’s good. That’s close. He nodded with us, probably getting a kick out of seeing us look more serious than we ever had in all of our hours of língua class together. His laughter broke through our anxiety, and our shoulders dropped. I exhaled for the first time that day.

We were then able to have an actual conversation in Portuguese. He said glowing things about both of our sites. I started reading through my packet again and the details started to sink it. The picture painted was simple, but the descriptions thorough. I began to smile a lot.

Then we all ate more food than anyone would ever need to eat. Fried pockets of meat and veggies and fish, egg rolls upon egg rolls, and a few giant cakes. This is not the training staff’s first rodeo; they know that there is nothing better for a group of young Americans stressed out of their minds than instant, easy access to a few liters of strawberry soda and a plate full of chocolate cake. We ate and chatted and pointed to maps for a few hours. We kept hugging each other as if we hadn’t seen one another in weeks; those ten minutes of reading our packets alone felt like a lifetime.

Food.

Map.

Noah, our cohort’s northern-most volunteer, points out the distance between our two sites. (I am second most southern.)

After we polished off all of the food and had regurgitated the details contained in our envelopes to a few dozen other trainees, we gathered back inside the Hub for a talent show. There was singing (Cory), dancing (Caitlin & Kirsten, Samara), slack-lining (Noah), a xima-eating contest (Abby vs. Aza vs. Maggie vs. Rachel), short form improv (Emily, Ted, me) and a timely rendition of Weekend Update (Cooper, Brendan) complete with a spot-on Stefon impression (Cole). The room was electric. We channeled all of our absurdly heightened emotions from the day into performing and laughing and cheering and celebrating one another. Anxiety became support, right in that space.

Live from the Hub...it’s Cooper, Cole, and Brendan making some funnies.

By the time the day ended and we were bound for home, my perspective on my site had completely turned around. There’s a simple explanation as to why I didn’t know how to respond to my site placement at first: no one expects to be placed in Maputo. That’s not to say that it’s a bad province, or that people do not have incredibly successful and meaningful experiences of service there; of course it’s not, and of course they do. It is the smallest province (that we serve in: technically the national capital city of Maputo constitutes its own province and the smallest one at that) and therefore has the smallest number of volunteers. Only three people from our cohort will be in the whole province. But more than on a statistical level, people don’t expect to be placed in Maputo Province because it doesn’t quite feel like any other site placement. Going to sites means leaving training, spreading your wings, and seeing the rest of this giant, gorgeous country. So to be placed a few hours down the road feels...a little off. But as the letter on the outside of our envelopes said, sites are about people and relationships, not views or locations or things. One advantage, I’m finding, is that Maputo Province volunteers learn that lesson pretty quickly.

I learned it that very same day, when I went home to my family. I walked in with my envelope in hand. Mãe, Pai, and Jú were sitting in the living room. “How are you?” I asked. “We are good,” my mãe said eagerly, “especially now that I see my daughter has that brown envelope.” I sat on the couch with them and smiled. I knew I had good news and I wanted to do my best to drag it out. Leading up to this day, my mãe had sat me down a number of times to tell me stories about how different volunteers of hers had reacted to their site placements. Some were overjoyed, and she celebrated with them. Some cried for hours and she comforted them. She reminded me again and again that she would be there for me no matter how I reacted.

“Mana Sarah, are you feeling happy?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

My smile grew. “Mãe, I am feeling very happy.”

I opened my envelope and took out the map that had all of our names pointing to our various sites. They scanned it for a few moments. Jú found my name first. She gasped. “Maputooo!” she yelled. Mãe snatched the paper and focused in on the South. “Really? Really?” Then she saw it. She threw the paper down and looked in my eyes, her face glowing. “Manaaaa!!”

I have found that it is rare, in real life, for people to be filled with so much joy that they know not what to do with themselves and can only resort to hugging and simultaneously jumping up and down, yelling and laughing and panting almost to the point of tears. I experienced that joy that day, and it was real. We hugged and jumped and yelled for a number of minutes. Jú kept saying, “Our prayers were heard!” And my mãe kept repeating, “My daughter will be close. My daughter will be close!” These homestay families pour so much love and patience and time into raising us to be functioning adults, and then we disappear, sometimes forever. To know that their daughter will be close enough to come back and visit—or, perhaps more importantly, that I will be close enough for them to come visit me—is, truly, a prayer answered. I hadn’t realized it beforehand, but now I know I would have taken the hottest, most humid site with no access to fruit and only access to chicken if it meant I could give them that gift of proximity and joy. I very quickly learned that nothing else mattered.

Mãe and Jú study the map looking for familiar names. 

But luckily, I don’t have that site. I still haven’t been there, so there are many unanswered questions, but here's what I do know about my future home. It is a very small, rural town about 3 hours northwest of Maputo City and just a few kilometers from the South Africa border. The next closest town (which has a Health PCV, my closest American neighbor) is an hour away down a bumpy dirt road. I have to travel the road to that town to pick up another bus or car to get to Maputo City or anywhere else. My school is small: it has five classrooms and one library, 15 teachers, and 400-500 students. They have had 8th, 9th, and 10th grades for a while, and this year they added 11th. When the new school year begins at the end of January, they will have a 12th grade for the first time. The director requested someone who could teach Geography or English and who could coach sports, especially basketball, outside of school. I will live in a dependencia, essentially a small guest house, in the yard of the only other English teacher and his family. The market always has tomatoes, onions, and bananas, and depending on the time of year, it may have various other fruits and vegetables. There are a couple of stores that have essentials like rice and beans and flour. There are a few small, informal restaurants. There is an ATM but no bank. A big river runs through the heart of town that serves as a major water source and my pai has reminded me almost every day that there are crocodiles in the river and thus I should never take a bath in the river. There was only one Peace Corps Volunteer there before me from 2016-2018 and the community is excited about the prospect of receiving a second volunteer.

I am excited to receive them, too.

At the end of the day we helped clear the rocks. The ash outline of the map, and the excitement of this day, stuck around for a few more weeks.