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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
