Settling In Diaries, Part Two: Slowly

It was a bit of a running joke throughout training among some of my friends that I did not know how to read. I am not much of a reader—I would devour books when I was younger, I dropped off somewhat in high school, and then I spent all of college in reading-heavy courses. I still enjoyed reading and I loved the material I’d read for class, but the idea of settling into a novel when I had some free time rarely entered my brain. I did not think this was too out of the ordinary until I arrived here and found I was surrounded by a cohort made up of the most avid readers on the planet.

You see, Peace Corps Mozambique attracts Kindle owners, APPARENTLY. People were racing through books throughout training—Kathryn and Hannah L. sit together atop the leader board, each boasting a remarkable 29 books read from the time we entered Mozambique to our departure for site, just about four months. I boasted a measly zero. As training progressed and my respect for everyone and their reading prowesses grew I started to become legitimately insecure about the fact that I was not breezing through books every night, so I turned that insecurity into a joke with some friends about how I can’t read, because what else is there to do with insecurities? I took a bunch of PDFs of titles from various people’s hard drives in the hopes that I’d learn what to do with them when I got bored at site.

Arrival at site meant being reunited with my “Maputo bag,” one of the two checked bags I packed and the one that was tucked away in the Peace Corps Maputo office for all of training. Reviewing the contents of the bag was fun after four months of forgetting what I had stashed away in there: black Muji pens and colorful Moleskin notebooks, lots of Sharpies, some small whiteboards and a bunch of whiteboard markers, a number of sticky notes, a few packs of Orbit strawberry gum, a whole lot of sunblock, two years worth of solid shampoo and conditioner, three tennis balls, four sets of metal Jacks, a few hundred Bandaids, a few thousand stickers, my big high school soccer sweatpants and my winter hat (was not thrilled to see these two on a balmy 101 degree day), and many rolls of many different kinds of tape (packing, masking, duct, small Scotch). And lots of other things (including a tiny container with a sweet note my Aunt Stephanie snuck into my bag when I stayed at her house the night before our staging event in Philadelphia). The bag was full of surprises.

One of those surprises was the collection of four books I had packed for myself: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (something I’ve been meaning to read for many years and figured there’s no better time than now), East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart by Susan Butler (a thick biography I grabbed at the last minute after a movie night with my oldest friends right before I left turned into an evening of us reading Amelia Earhart conspiracy theories—I want the truth), Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (for reasons that will soon become evident), and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (my favorite book). I was honest with myself when deciding what to do with the limited space I had in my bag; I chose three books I might eventually get around to, and one book I knew I’d read over and over again.

The books tucked away in my Maputo bag.

The month of January progressed very slowly. In my first week I had seemingly met all of the important people there were to meet, and I had figured out where most important things were located—the market, the school, the church, the river. Beyond that, there was nothing of substance to do except “integrate,” which is an amorphous directive and an unattainable task—I will never fully integrate, but I will spend two years trying, and that’s sort of the whole idea. In theory, that’s lovely. In 105 degree heat, I don’t feel like moving.

For the purposes of said integration and in an attempt to keep myself busy, I gave myself two rules: go for a walk each day, and say yes to opportunities that presented themselves, regardless of whether I fully understood what was happening. This resulted in many non-adventures and some very fun days.

I’ll briefly run down the very fun days. One Saturday I was walking home from the market in jeans and a tank-top with tomatoes, onions, and bread in a small canvas bag on my shoulder when I ran into the town’s two nuns that I met on New Year’s. They were getting in their truck and asked if I wanted to join them for a meal. “Of course!” I said, and I hopped in. We picked up two other women who were wearing very nice dresses. I asked exactly where this meal was going to be and what I should expect. They said it was driving distance and a birthday party. It turned out to be the most formal event I have attended in Mozambique—a 60th birthday party celebration and house christening for a wealthy political figure who lives on the outskirts of my town complete with a giant tent and tables with fancy tablecloths, delicious food that never ran out, beer and wine on tap, a DJ, and hours upon hours of dance performances that served as gifts to the host. Even though it was one of the hottest days I’ve experienced here and I sweat through my overly informal clothes a few times over, I enjoyed spending a few hours getting to know the nuns better, eating great food, and hanging out with some kids I recognized from church. Then a few more hours passed, and I was ready to go home. By the time I’d convinced Irmã Luisa that, really, I should be getting back to put those tomatoes in the fridge, we’d been there just over 6 hours. It was dark when we got back to our neighborhood. Before dropping me off, Irmã Pilar stopped in their shared house to cut off a big piece of an aloe plant for my shoulders, which were slowly burning to a crisp over the course of the long afternoon. A very fun day that turned into a bit too much—but I learned about my own limits and I still have the aloe.

Irmã Luisa (left) sent this photo of me with her and Irmã Pilar (right). I can feel my sunburn just looking at it!

Another day when I was a few minutes into a walk, a woman called out, “Professooooraaa!” from her house and raced to meet my startled face out on the main road. She introduced herself as Kátia, old volunteer Rachel’s Changana tutor. She’s still in touch with Rachel and had heard I was coming. I had dinner at her house the next day and we’ve become—I’ll go ahead and say it, even though it’s early—friends. She is teaching me Changana and has helped me figure out greens at the market, chapas, and everything in between. She is a young mother of two and is absolutely full of positive energy. Most importantly, Kátia reminds me a lot of one of my oldest friends—hi Jordan, one day we will know what happened to Amelia Earhart—and I feel completely relaxed and like myself around her, which is a special treat. We make each other laugh a lot. She works at the EDM (Electricidade de Moçambique) building, and a few weeks ago the staff had a belated New Year’s celebration and I helped her and a few other women prepare a big meal for it all afternoon. We worked hard, but there was a lot of downtime where we just sat around telling stories and laughing. The night ended with the whole staff (no more than 10 people) dancing outside the EDM building, lit only by a dim security light and the brightness of the stars.

I did not expect my biggest very fun day to be a very fun day. Through a series of confusing conversations and connections, I ended up on a retreat for the teenagers from my town’s church assisting a nurse in giving talks about alcohol, drugs, the internet, and sexual health. I was wary of the day’s events, mostly because I was unsure of what a sexual health talk sponsored by the Catholic Church would look like—I only know from my own experience in Catholic school that a common approach is to mostly just avoid the topic altogether. So I went in openminded, but nervous. After a relaxing morning of blog writing and exchanging voice messages with a friend back home, Padre Fernando, one of our two priests, picked up Nurse Rachel and me and drove us out to the mission, a beautiful couple of buildings built by Spanish missionaries many many years ago that are off in the middle of nowhere down a long winding road, about a half hour’s trip. On the way out there, I saw a view of our little mountains that I’d never seen before and loads of cacti and wildflowers and gorgeous little trees—it felt like we were driving into a whole other world.

The day ran wonderfully. The kids were enthusiastic (there were about 40 of them), and while Nurse Rachel (rightfully so) did most of the talking, in the moments when I stood up to interact with the group, I had a lot of fun. In our breakout session with just the girls, Nurse Rachel pulled out every available option of birth control, did a condom demonstration, and discussed the process of getting an abortion at the local hospital; the whole afternoon was open and frank and refreshingly progressive. After lunch, the kids taught me a dance they’d learned the previous day to this song and we danced it over and over together in the blazing afternoon sun with the outline of the mountains at our back—I’m docking that as one of the most purely joy-filled moments I’ve had in recent memory—and during a break in the action, Nurse Rachel walked me down to the river and we had a great discussion about what my role might be when it comes to approaching these topics with my students. We got a ride back to town armed with freshly baked cookies from the mission kitchen, and I came home to find three boys standing under my mango tree. They politely asked if they could climb up and grab some mangoes. I said yes, as long as they gave me some. As I waited, I got a text of a silly inside joke from a friend up north, and then I went inside and ate cookies and mangoes and wrote the details of this day in my phone under a note entitled, “So far, my best day.”

I didn’t take many good photos of the mission, but I imagine I’ll be back and can capture it another time. This was the pretty window Nurse Rachel and I sat in front of to give our talks.

But January was more than three days long. Most mornings, a walk would take me to the market and back, and sometimes I’d stretch my legs and wander for a while in one direction until I inevitably hit a banana field. A lot of days, that’d be the highlight. I’d walk and walk and then come home, drink a gallon of water, and get frustrated trying to unpack my bags into a house that has hardly any furniture.

One of those early days as I was attempting to unpack my Maputo bag, I pulled out To Kill a Mockingbird and decided to give this “reading” thing a shot. I sat in one of my two plastic chairs in my kitchen with a cup of tea and didn’t get up until I realized I was getting hungry for dinner—hours had passed and I’d read over 100 pages. Now, I’m aware that I may often provide you, the reader, with unnecessary details in these posts, but let me assure you that this next detail is not insignificant: I was sitting inside my kitchen, with my wooden door wide open and my red metal grate closed. Okay.

I started prepping dinner, still with the wooden door open and red metal grate closed, when a visitor appeared: Calvâna is a secretary at the high school and was the first person I met from my site. She was sent as a representative to our supervisor’s conference, a two-day event in Maputo right after swear-in. She had dropped by to check in on me a few nights earlier, too. I welcomed her inside and as is customary, ceremoniously dusted off my perfectly clean plastic chair and gave her a cup of water. I swept the kitchen as we made small talk about our days, and then Dúlia appeared. I offered her the other chair, but she chose to stand. One minute later, and Junior was on my front step. I don’t think what happened next was planned, but it could have been. But I really think it happened organically.

The conversation shifted to a discussion—or, perhaps more accurately—an investigation of how exactly I spend my days. I explained that I had been trying to go for a walk each day, but I do spend a lot of time at home because I am still trying to get my house in order. Calvâna suggested that I try being an open person, and this set me way back on my heels. Dúlia said that she was worried that I didn’t like visitors because I keep my door shut all day. Junior asked, “Onde fica?” roughly meaning, where are you at? He said that, for example, he had only seen me two times that day, and we live in the very same yard. Calvâna agreed that this was a shame—imagine, two people living in the same yard and he only saw you two times that day? A shame. I had anxiously started leaning on my broom as the inquiries started coming in, but this comment made me straighten up. “Onde fica você?” I shot back at him, as playfully as I could—imagine, I said, a bit sarcastically, the two of us living in the same yard, and I only saw you two times today? Where are you at? Even though it likely reads as such, the vibe of the room really wasn’t an attack from either side, but luckily this comment made everyone laugh and dispelled the bit of tension that was starting to grow.

I returned to Dúlia’s comment and asked her to clarify what she meant when she said I keep my door shut all day. She pointed to the red metal grate and said that she’d been passing by my house a few times and noticed that it was closed, so she kept moving. I suddenly felt very dumb and very rude. It occurred to me that I had been treating the red metal grate like I would treat a screen door back home—when I’m in my house, the wooden door is open, but the grate closed, allowing a breeze to enter and keeping wandering goats outside. But this is not how the red metal grate was being perceived by passersby. When I explained my rationale—closed wooden door means I’m out of the house, open wooden door means I’m home—Dúlia agreed that it made sense, and now that she knew, she’d know when to stop by and visit. But no, I said. If you all interpreted my door as meaning one thing, it’s likely that other people are interpreting it that way, too. So I’ll play by your rules: when I’m home, wooden door and red metal grate are wide open. When I’m not, they’re shut. One issue resolved.

Looking at it now, I get it, the issue with the grate; it’s not very inviting. But having a wide open door was weird for me to adjust to at first, too.

Then I went back to Calvâna’s comment about my not being an open person—this one had hurt. Instead of refuting, though, I asked for guidance on how I could be more open. They suggested, well, that I spend more time with people. I knew exactly what they were getting at, and it was something I hadn’t wanted to confront: Mozambique has a giant pop-in culture. It is not only normal but expected for you to show up at someone’s house out of the blue and stay there for hours, doing nothing. Sit in a freshly dusted off plastic chair, sip some water, and talk. Or don’t talk. Stay for a meal. Watch a few soap operas. Just pass the time. I had been happy to receive pop-ins, but I was yet to execute a pop-in myself. (I was enjoying the relationship I was forming with Kátia particularly because we set a schedule for Changana lessons, and I work well with a set schedule and not indeterminate sitting around time.) I explained why I was having trouble with this: I had only ever lived in cities (compared to here, Waltham, MA is a very bustling city), and I had never been close with any of my neighbors. So the idea of walking, unannounced, to a neighbor’s house and spending a few hours there makes me very uncomfortable. I asked for their patience as I navigated this. I really want to try, really, but my uneasiness coupled with my difficulties unpacking and my exhaustion from the heat each day was making everything a little challenging. We came to an understanding.

This was an awkward conversation to have, but I cannot underscore enough how grateful I am that the three of them came to me so early on to talk about how my small actions were coming across. It was an important turning point in my understanding of some key things.

The next morning after eating my scrambled eggs, I opened my wooden door and my red metal grate and pulled my plastic chair outside onto my front step. I sat down with my cup of tea and dove back into To Kill a Mockingbird, ready for a new day. After I had been sitting reading for a while, Junior and Rudy and Odenélio showed up in my yard. Odenélio asked about the book I was reading, and I explained that it was my favorite book and that I’ve read it many times; I enjoy it because I always get something different out of it each time I finish it. He asked what it’s about, and we launched into a discussion of institutional racism in America. Junior was reminded of The Green Mile, and then we started talking movies. Eventually the conversation lulled. “Mana Sarah, do you have any games?” Rudy asked. I paused. I had crayons and all of those Jacks, but this was a group of teenage boys. I disappeared into my room and returned with my deck of cards, which I hadn’t touched since my arrival at site.

They taught me Cinco Cartas and Comboio and we sat on my front step playing for a few hours. Time got away from us; eventually, we all broke for lunch. I cooked, ate, and retuned to my seat and my book. I hadn’t yet made it to the trial—I was still in the first half of the story, where Scout and Jem and Dill are finding ways to pass the hot summer afternoons in their small, slow-moving town. Huh.

The next day, I repeated my routine: scrambled eggs followed by tea and reading on the front step. It was overcast and cool—a dream come true—and I was full of energy, so I decided to challenge myself. After a few chapters, I put the chair and book inside, locked my wooden door, and took off for a walk. As luck would have it, Junior was leaving his house at that same moment. We had the same destination in mind.

We arrived at Dúlia’s house a few minutes later, and she pulled out plastic chairs, absolutely ecstatic that I had come to visit. We did the thing: we sat around for a while talking about nothing. I shared some stories from training, they asked me about college life in the U.S., and they told me about college life here. We got on the topic of fruits and I inquired about mafura, a peculiar red fruit the neighbor kids had dropped off for me a few days before. Dúlia started to explain a fun way to prepare it, but I wasn’t quite following. We headed back to my house—Rudy and Odenélio had appeared out of nowhere to tag along—and she put the little pieces of fruit in water and said she’d explain the next step when they were ready. We all wandered around my yard for a bit as they pointed out different fruits. Rudy climbed one of the mango trees and got us all a snack. We retreated to my front step and Odenélio asked if we could play cards.

And it was in that moment that everything sort of clicked: it’s the tail end of summer break, this is a very small town, and these kids have nothing to do. They’re bored. And, quite frankly, so am I. I had been putting so much pressure on myself—I need to integrate into the community! and understand how everything works! and become a vital player! and blah blah blah!—but really, it was simple, and right there. We’re all just sort of bored, and playing cards together passes the time and bonds us together. It turns out that the month my cohort spent delayed going to site—a month where we sat around playing cards because we had literally nothing else to do—taught me the key to my personal process of integration: it’s boring, and once I accept that as being okay, then it’s fun.

I broke out the cards and told them it was my turn to teach some games. We played Egyptian Ratscrew and Thirteen for a while, and Dúlia let me know when the mafura were ready for the next step: draining the old water and adding sugar and a little bit of water and fresh lemon juice. Mix and mix, and the fruit turns into a sweet yoghurt-like treat. They all laughed at how mystified I was by this simple transformation.

Mafura grow in little pods on giant trees. These things are inside the pods, and they start out deep red. Once they turn this color orange, it is time to drain the room temperature water.

A little bit of water, a little bit of sugar, and some lemon juice (optional), then stir. Now you have this. What? It is so good.

I finished To Kill a Mockingbird two days later, reaffirmed it is My Favorite Book, and thanked it for the lessons I learned this time through. I became better at executing the pop-in over the course of January, and I’ve grown a lot closer with the various members of my extended “host” family here. I’ve picked up a few key phrases from Kátia’s Changana classes, and the neighbor kids—who played a vital role in this month and will get their own post one of these days—have brought consistent silliness and joy (and a little stress) to my life. Let me be clear: even after my revelation about integration, there were a lot of boring, unproductive days. I didn’t have any flat surfaces in my bedroom until I got a dresser type thing last week, so I am still not fully unpacked. Classes begin February 4th. This in-between phase of exclusively settling in time is drawing to a close.

I sweat a lot, I laughed a lot, I had a hard conversation, I played a lot of cards, and I learned how to read. I’m settled.

Settling In Diaries, Part One: Quickly

I accidentally left my fan on oscillating mode but I know if I move from my bed to switch it to stationary I’ll start to sweat again. So I lie there, as still as can be, slowly breathing in when the quick hot air hits me and exhaling longingly when the fan turns to the other side of the room. With each oscillation it seems to take incrementally longer for the breeze to return to me, but I’m sure that’s only in my head. It is a little before noon and 97 degrees. Friday, January 3rd, 2020.

I feel patterned movement on my bed. My phone is buzzing. It’s Sérgio, my Program Manager. I’ve been awaiting his call—we were told to expect someone from the programming team to call us within our first ten days alone at site. This is the first in a series of scheduled checkins; there will be more phone calls and in-person visits sprinkled throughout the next two years.

I gather the strength to sit up in bed, crawl out from under my mosquito net, unplug my fan, and walk into the kitchen as I answer the phone. As Sérgio and I exchange how-are-yous and happy-new-years, I start pacing around the square room, from the door to the stove to the fridge, again and again. I look down at the ground and see a series of small dots a darker shade of gray than the smooth but uneven concrete floor by which they are offset tracing my path. I glance up to find the source: my right elbow, bent and holding the phone to my ear, is steadily collecting a pool of warm sweat in its crease, and, at an alarming rate, one by one each droplet makes its plunge to the floor below when the time comes to make room for the next bead cascading down my arm.

I know why he’s calling, but he opens with an explanation anyway. He wants to know how the first few days have gone, how my house is, and how I’m settling into my community. I notice something on my left calf as he’s speaking. I’m batting about .200 when it comes to guessing whether that’s a fly that’s landed on my leg or it’s sweat dripping from my knee to my ankle. It’s usually sweat, but these days I find myself hoping for a fly, if only to have a brief respite from the constant physical reminder of how hot I am. This time it is a fly, and I reach down to shoo it away with my free hand. As I lean forward, the sweat that had made its way from my forehead down to my neck quickly kicks into reverse and scurries to the tip of my downward facing chin, then shoots off onto my toes. I grab a towel and wipe down my arms and my face and then keep it in my hand, knowing it’ll be needed again and again throughout the course of our phone call.

Now, perhaps you weren’t expecting to read detailed descriptions of my sweat when you decided to peruse the old blog here today, dear visitor. Some would say it’s too much. But guess what—I wasn’t expecting to SWEAT THIS MUCH. So it looks like we both received a disgusting surprise. Are you aware of how much sweat the human forearm can produce in a matter of seconds? Alright, enough for now. I’ll trust that the image has been sufficiently painted and that as you read on about my conversation with Sérgio and all of the fun tales I recount to him, you’ll picture me—Sarah, your friend—absolutely covered in upsetting amounts of pure perspiration. (For the forearm thing? The answer is: a whole lot.)

He didn’t really need to say much before I was off and running, jumping at the chance to have a two-sided, in depth conversation in English. (Typing out my thoughts in text or exchanging voice messages with my friends doesn’t feel quite the same.) I told him the story of my site drop-off adventure with the stops for buckets and soup along the way, and I briefly mentioned the window repair (sparing him the metaphor). Then I told him what happened next.

After the window debacle and my subsequent two hour nap, I woke up to a very quiet, very hot room. I still felt sleepy as I checked the time and sat up and stretched. I suddenly felt very alone. I was in a brand new place full of strangers and I had met exactly two people. I was on the verge of being very overwhelmed, really almost there, when I heard a familiar voice from outside my window.

“Mana Sarah?”

It was Junior, one half of the sum total of my acquaintances. I hopped out of bed and walked outside and suddenly I was no longer alone.

Junior was standing there with his mother and Jacob’s wife, Mana Guida, alongside three groups of people: a small group of teenage boys (presumably some of Junior’s friends), a group of teenage girls, and a big crew of very young kids. Everyone turned to look at me as I stepped in a sleepy haze out of my house. They were all smiling.

Mana Guida explained that everyone had heard I had arrived and wanted to meet me. Some names and familial relations got thrown at me, but very few of them stuck—I’ve since nailed down many, but not all—and then she asked me what my plan was for the evening. Plan? I thought to myself. I could not have less of a plan. “I might try to walk to the market?” I announced to the assembly of maybe neighbors and maybe cousins.

This was the correct answer to her question. Flip flops were shuffled on, two of the smallest children took my hands, and Junior led the crowd out to the main road. We acquired a few more young kids along the path, and I felt a new sort of overwhelmed—but a good overwhelmed. Voices from every direction pointed things out to me as we walked. “This is the police station!” “I live over there!” “That’s the ATM that doesn’t work!” It was late in the afternoon and the sun was already beginning to set, but I tried to start forming a mental map of the identified landmarks. We had only made it as far as the Posto Administrativo building (city hall is way too strong of a translation, but think: small scale city hall) when Junior ran into another group of friends and our journey took a pause. I fielded some questions from the group, which had grown to at least 20 young people at this point.

“The United States.”

“Two years.”

“English, at the secondary school.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“No, I didn’t understand what you just said in Changana.”

I was then hit a few times with the biggest question, the question that has been asked of me at least once every day since my arrival: “Do you know Mana Rachel?”

Rachel (Mozambican pronunciation: Rah-shell) was the first and only other Peace Corps Volunteer in my site, serving as a math teacher from 2016 to 2018. By all accounts she was beloved by the community, and I am grateful for that—people seem to be very receptive to the idea of my being here simply because she left behind a positive reputation. I connected with her after site announcements in October and she has been an incredible resource each step along the way, providing me with names of helpful people in the community and explaining some situations I may encounter in my first few weeks. In a lot of ways, whenever I meet a new person or make a new connection, I feel like I am discovering pieces of a puzzle that she had started designing, I will continue putting together, and the next volunteer will reshape, and so on and so on—perhaps a puzzle that is never meant to be completed, but molded and remolded again and again as time and experience and understanding march on.

I have since learned that the answer to the question, “Do you know Mana Rachel?” should be no. Because even though, yes, I know her a little bit now, the answer to all of the follow-up questions is always no: Are you from the same city? Are you her sister? Did she tell you to come here? (One day later that first week, a four-year-old girl who lives next door shyly asked me, “Do you and Mana Rachel have the same mom?” While this is arguably a rather ridiculous question, she’s four and it melted my heart. “No,” I explained patiently. “We are from different places and we have different moms.”) On my first day I hadn’t yet decided how I would handle that question, so I landed on a strong maybe, dealt with the follow-ups, and the majority of the crowd came to accept that I knew of her, but we didn’t seem to be that close.

Dusk was hastening and I really did want to get to the market before everyone went home for the night—I didn’t have any way to cook food, and I was hoping to buy a jar of peanut butter to at least get me through one day as I didn’t want to presume my landlord’s family would feed me indefinitely—so I asked the two teenage girls closest to me if they’d keep walking and show me the way. They eagerly agreed, and split off from the big group. Four of the little ones started to follow us, but they decided to change course and remained at the Posto Administrativo. So as the sun continued to set and the temperature finally began to cool, Marlene and Jenifa, an 8th grader and a 9th grader, led me further down the main road towards the market.

We had to stop at one point to let this crowd pass.

Marlene was doing most of the talking, calmly pointing out different stands at the market (almost all of which were closed for the night) and noting paths that led to the soccer field and the restaurant and the hospital. I tried a few times to engage Jenifa, but she would just smile and nod when I talked to her. After one final attempt, Marlene politely said to me, “She doesn’t speak Portuguese.” Oh. “Only Changana, then?” I asked, because the two of them had been chatting up a storm earlier. “No, she’s from South Africa, so she speaks Swati,” Marlene explained. Swati is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages, and alongside English, it is the most widely spoken language in Eswatini. Because it has Bantu roots, it is close enough to Changana that they were able to hold a conversation, sort of like when many of us first arrived, we could manage a conversation in Portuguese with Spanish. It gets the job done. However, their conversation skills were much stronger.

But—South Africa. An important detail. I leaned over and asked, “Jenifa, do you speak English?” Her face lit up. “Yes!” We had unlocked something special: for the next hour as we walked around town, we chatted in four different languages like some sort of I Love Lucy bit. I spoke to Jenifa in English and to Marlene in Portuguese, Marlene spoke to me in Portuguese and to Jenifa in Changana, and Jenifa spoke to Marlene in Swati and to me in English. Around and around we went, until it was almost too dark to see. They walked me back home, I thanked them for the tour, and then I poked my head in my landlord’s house and was invited inside for a giant, delicious dinner. I hadn’t managed to find peanut butter.

After a lovely dinner and a bit of get to know you conversation with Professor Jacob—he is originally from way up north in the country, but settled here after attending university in Maputo. He has been the high school’s only English teacher for many years, and while he loves his job, the workload has become almost too much. Last year the school added an 11th grade, and this year they are adding a 12th. Each grade has at least 4 sections of 50-60 students each (11th and 12th are smaller, but will quickly grow because the school serves a wide population), and almost all of those sections meet for English class more than once a week. That’s…a lot, so he expressed how he’s looking forward to splitting some of the work for the first time. Also, no, I don’t know Mana Rachel—I retired to my house for the night. To aid with your visualization, my house is no more than ten feet from their house. We share a yard, a water spigot, and an outdoor casa de banho, a small little structure with one door leading to the family’s toilet and bathing area, and one door leading to mine. So I made the four-second trip back to my house, went inside my room, and was alone again.

And alone again for only a minute. I looked at my phone for the first time in a few hours and saw a one line text from Elo, a fellow volunteer who was still en route to his faraway site and overnighting in his province’s capital city.

“How did site delivery go?”

Oh, oh, oh. I thought to myself. Oh, we’re going to be so fine.

I told him about the winding road getting here and the nap and the teens and getting fed by my landlords, and he told me about arriving in the capital and the heat and meeting some volunteers from other cohorts. And then he wrote what I’m declaring to be the wisest message anyone has ever sent over WhatsApp:

“This week is going to be rough I feel. We might not eat enough. We might be hungry. But we gotta stick it out and keep our heads up. There’s food out there somewhere and once we’re well fed and clean and our house is in order the world is gonna look a lot brighter.”

We’re going to be so fine.

I found water to take a bath in the casa de banho and went to sleep for my first night alone in my new home. And I slept more soundly than I had in a long while, because Junior and Mana Guida and Marlene and Jenifa and Professor Jacob and 20 kids and Elo had revealed to me that day that I wouldn’t ever have to worry about really being alone.

The casa de banho. Mine is the open door on the right. That’s a cashew tree and sugar cane growing behind it.

“That sounds like a great first day,” Sergio said. (Remember Sérgio? I’m still sweating and talking to Sérgio.) I had stopped my pacing and was standing in the doorway, running my sandal along the hinge of the red metal grate on the outside of my wooden door. I moved on to review the next day’s events.

I woke up to the beating sunrise and the sounds of roosters and goats, feeling refreshed. I unlocked my wooden door and my red metal grate and made my way to the casa de banho, took a bath, and got dressed for the day. Mana Guida saw me walking back to my house and pulled me inside for a full breakfast: two fried eggs, potatoes dressed with salt and Benny’s (powdered chicken stock), bread and butter, sliced tomatoes and onions and cucumbers dripping with oil and a dash of vinegar, and tea with milk and sugar. I expressed my gratitude, and then expressed my desire to hunt down peanut butter so that I wouldn’t be a burden. She rejected the idea that her feeding me was anything less than a pleasure, and gave me some info on the peanut butter. She told me to head to “O Valdeen” (The Valdeen) and had Junior take me outside and lead the way.

We walked behind my house towards a path I hadn’t noticed the day before. It stretched back past a few homes, then curved up to the left, out towards the main road. A yellow and pink concrete building along the road came into view. Junior asked if I could make it there and back. I said I think I could, and I headed up to explore O Valdeen. There were actually two buildings: one, a small distribution center of sorts filled with stacked palettes of Mozambique’s beer labels: 2M, Txilar, Laurentina Preta, Dourada, Manica, and others. (It should be noted that I do not claim in any way to be a local beer expert and had to text fellow volunteer Cole for help making that list.) The smaller building was a little barraca, and I knew I had a better chance of finding peanut butter there.

(What is a barraca? I just went into my PST notebook to see how Nércio defined barraca in our língua class because I was sure we’d discussed the different names for stores one day many months ago. I stand by the hasty translation I scribbled down in class on September 12th: “barraca = corner store but with beer?” It can be a bit of a catchall term for a place that sells non-produce items like sugar, canned beans, dish soap, and matches, but it can also be a small, informal bar setting. Sometimes both. You generally do not walk inside, neither for the dish soap nor for the beer: you point to a shelf from the other side of a counter with a big window. There are probably some plastic chairs outside.)

I introduced myself to the woman behind the counter, explained that I did not know Mana Rachel, and asked if she had peanut butter. She said they had run out, but suggested I head towards the Nigerian loja on the way to the market. (My notes from September 12th are less helpful with this one: “loja = store.” You probably will walk inside, but there’s still a chance you won’t be touching items on the shelf and instead pointing and asking.) I thanked her and started to head home, but then decided to explore a bit instead. I walked to the right, away from the direction of the market and towards the direction of the high school. I had driven from the high school to my home the day before with Anabela and Miambo, so I felt somewhat confident I could retrace that path.

I succeeded at guessing the two correct turns I had to make along the 15 minute walk, and arrived at the high school. It was a Saturday during summer break, so I am not sure what I was expecting to find—I more just wanted to prove to myself that I could make the walk. I stared at the building for a few moments, and then I turned around to leave. A woman appeared from inside the closest neighboring house and called over to me, asking if I needed help. I explained that I had arrived yesterday and was just exploring town a bit. I got ahead of it this time—“I’m a new teacher at the secondary school. Remember Mana Rachel?” At this point she had made her way over to me and pointed to the primary school right across the road. She told me that the director of the primary school was there in his office, and she could introduce me if I’d like. I was hesitant at first—we had been told many times in training that these sort of introductions should be formal, and preferably done by another teacher who could explain our role well. I was in jeans and sandals, but before I knew it, the woman had walked me up to the front door and was calling the director’s name.

“Ohh, Mana Sarah!” he called out as he opened the door, smiling. “Bom dia!” He was in shorts and a t-shirt. I felt relaxed. The woman explained that she had found me staring at the secondary school and saw his car here and brought me over. “And you wanted to come introduce us? Ohh, how nice! So nice!” he exclaimed. His loud and unwaveringly upbeat voice sounded familiar, and it occurred to me that he had known my name before any introduction was made. Suddenly some puzzle pieces started falling into place: This is Mana Guida’s brother. He was at my house last night, mixed in among the neighbors and the cousins and the teens and the little ones. Rachel had definitely named him as an important contact to have. She’d called him Tio João. (Tio = uncle. We covered that on September 9th.)

The kind woman returned to her house and Director João invited me inside to his office. There was a desk with many binders and notebooks and folders stacked hastily in piles. He explained that he was organizing last year’s records and preparing for the matriculation process that would start in a few weeks. Before I could ask, he grabbed a blank student registration sheet and began explaining the process in great detail. He opened last year’s fourth grade binder and pulled out one student’s paperwork. He pointed to the basic demographic information they collect, like the child’s birthdate, neighborhood, and what their parents do for work. Then he flipped to the student’s academic record, a table with subjects and numbers. Everything filled in was handwritten in perfect, neat script. “These are standardized, so if the student moves schools, they take this sheet with them and the teachers can continue adding grades at the new school,” he explained. It was all so fascinating. I flipped through the giant fourth grade binder. There were hundreds of students. I picked up one of the notebooks. It was a Livro de Turma, something of a white whale for our cohort throughout training. We’d heard about the mysterious Livro de Turma but had never seen one, and we never received a full explanation of exactly what role the Livro de Turma plays in the classroom. All we were told was that the Livro de Turma is very, very important.

“What’s this?” I said, and Director João launched into the most thorough description in the world. The students in the turma (class section, or homeroom, for lack of a perfect translation) are listed here, with their personal info here, and courses and grades are listed here. Trimester exam grades here, final grades here. The rest of the book is broken into each day of the school year, where teachers mark attendance and write a short overview of their daily lesson plan. The director signs off on the info at the end of each week. It all began to make sense—this is a record of absolutely everything pertaining to the education of a group of 60 students for a full calendar year. I get its importance now. It just took a patient, in-depth explanation.

Director João kept pulling books and binders off of the shelves and revealing more details about how the school is run. I desperately wished I had a notebook with me to write some of this stuff down—I wasn’t expecting to have the opportunity to ask every question I’ve ever had about the Mozambican school system when I left my house looking for peanut butter. I had been there just about 45 minutes when we finally started putting records back on the shelves. He asked me how I was settling in, and I explained that I didn’t currently have a way to cook food. I had a nice gas stove waiting for me in my house, but no gas tank and seemingly no way to acquire one. I could also use a bowl and a cup and a broom and an iron and a fridge and a fan and a dozen other things, too. He told me I’d have to go to Maputo. I agreed. “I’ll introduce you to my daughter and she can take you by chapa on Monday,” he said. “You can’t go alone.” I asked his daughter’s name, and he said her name is Dúlia and that she will be starting her second year of college next month. She is studying to be a doctor. I decided to test a theory. “Do you have another daughter?” “Yes,” he said. “She’s younger, in high school. Marlene.” Puzzle piece.

My high school, from afar. Three separate buildings: in the foreground, a library that Rachel helped build, behind it, a row of three classrooms, and to the right, two classrooms and the main office.

When I made it back home Mana Guida asked, worried, if I had gotten lost walking back from O Valdeen. I explained that I hadn’t, but that I also still hadn’t acquired peanut butter. She said something about talking to Valdeen tomorrow, and pointed me in the direction of the Nigerian loja. I bought the peanut butter and walked further to the market and bought two small loaves of bread. I still ate lunch with the family but insisted I would eat dinner alone, to feel a little bit independent. The peanut butter sandwich was great.

Dinner of champion.

The hot day turned into a hot night, and I was up for 7am mass the next morning. Please, please don’t tell my grandmother or my old theology teachers but I kept up my college routine and did not attend mass regularly throughout training—my host family almost never went, and I comfortably slipped into that familiar pattern. I am determined to go to mass here at site, though. I’ve quickly learned that this is a very small, very Catholic town, and for me to be an active member of the community, I ought to be a church-goer. If nothing else, it’s an excuse to meet people and gain language skills. (And, who knows, maybe something will stick. I’ll let you know, grandma and former theology teachers.)

Mass was just under two hours and was a magical mix of Portuguese and Changana. Many of the hymns were straight Changana and the order of the mass was in Portuguese, but readings and the gospel were done first in Portuguese, then in Changana. The priest would speak a few sentences of his homily at a time, then backtrack and repeat himself in the other language. It was quite lovely to try to follow. During the announcements at the end, I was asked to get up and introduce myself. (I had an inkling this might happen and had spent a portion of the priest’s homily crafting a concise two minute introduction to my whole deal.) I was sitting up front behind Mana Guida, who is one of the two drummers in the choir of five women that sit in the front row. I rose and turned around to face a church much more packed than it was when mass started. I gave my short speech and said that I was looking forward to getting to know everyone over the course of the next two years. I closed by saying that I wouldn’t be able to translate what I’d just said into Changana, but that I would try to learn really quickly. I said thank you in both languages and shot back down into my seat. I received a smattering of generous chuckles and then applause. My heart was racing but I felt surprisingly confident.

After mass I met a ton of people and didn’t register anyone’s name except for one: Valdeen. It turns out Valdeen is a person, and everyone calls his barraca “O Valdeen” for simplicity’s sake. (“Hello, my name is Steve and this is my store, The Steve.”) I have since learned that he is almost always jumping out of the cab of a truck and holding a clipboard, and he enjoys practicing his English with me. He apologized for not having peanut butter. I forgave him.

A few hours later, back at home, someone appeared at my door. We exchanged polite pleasantries and then she asked me, “Do you know who I am?” My uncertain smile grew wider and wider until we both started laughing. “It’s okay, don’t worry, we haven’t met yet. I’m Dúlia.” Junior walked up to my door with two kids who were definitely there the first night, too: Rudy is João’s middle-school-aged son, and Odenélio is a slightly older cousin through another branch of the family. So if my landlord family is effectively my host family, we were just a bunch of cousins standing there together. We chatted for a little while and Dúlia suggested we leave on a 5am chapa for the city the next day. This sounded reasonable. We moved on to other topics, and Rudy asked me if I’d been to see the river. I said no, and we were on our way.

The river, the source of the water that I use for drinking and cooking and bathing, is no more than a five minute walk from my house, across the other side of the main road. It was gorgeous and green and at the moment we arrived, full of cows. We stayed for a while as the sun began to set, I ceremoniously touched the water with one toe, and then we wandered back to my house in a roundabout way so that I could learn more of the neighborhood. The small paths and dirt roads take lots of winding turns, and I was completely disoriented until Dúlia pointed to my house, and then asked if I’d follow her to hers. Junior and Odenélio left us and we headed for her and Rudy’s home, just two minutes away.

The river, and cows.

Their house was welcoming and warm, with pretty curtains on the windows, a photo of each child framed in the living room, and two cats sleeping under the kitchen table. I sat on the couch with Marlene as Dúlia helped their mother prepare dinner. Our attention wavered between a conversation about my experiences so far in Mozambique and a Brazilian soap opera playing on the TV. I was invited to stay for dinner, and I did. Director João arrived as we were sitting down to eat, and was thrilled to learn I had met the rest of the family. When we had finished eating, I asked about logistics for the next day. How exactly does one carry a refrigerator onto a chapa? And what should anything cost? After a lengthy discussion, it was decided that in lieu of the chapa ride, Director João would drive Dúlia and me into the city in his van and show me where to buy the things I needed, and he’d negotiate prices of the bigger items so that I didn’t get overcharged on account of my looking like a wealthy foreigner and all. (I may appear as such, but the settling in allowance Peace Corps provides is intentionally not a lot.) If I paid for gas, he’d help me with everything; he felt a responsibility to do so.

Throughout the course of the five months I’ve been here, there have been many singular moments when I’ve been dumbfounded by the level of hospitality with which I am being met. That Monday was a day full of those moments. We left at 6am and got home at 7pm, and I dropped pins on Google Maps as we drove all over the city, stopping at appliance shops and bulk food stores and an amazing hole in the wall restaurant for lunch. I managed to get everything on my list: a small fridge, a fan, a mop, a broom, an iron, some basins, a gas tank, gas, sponges, steel wool, a frying pan, a kitchen knife, a tall thermos for hot water, and 10kg of rice. I would have stood absolutely no chance finding those items on my own, and it would have been impossible to transport even some of them around the city and then the three hours home without the convenience of Director João’s car. He and Dúlia had known me for less than 48 hours and had dropped everything and dedicated an entire day to making sure I had the materials to properly settle into my home. That’s not just hospitality, I think. That’s something else.

I didn’t take any photos in the city, but snapped this one on the way back: Director João spotted someone with a flat tire on the side of the road and pulled over for twenty minutes to offer his assistance.

After not having to spend almost any money for four months, it was a tad overwhelming to drop thousands of Meticais in one day on these essentials.

At this point, I’d been on the phone with Sérgio for close to six minutes. (Can you imagine if I’d actually gone into this much detail with him?) I quickly ran down the events of the next three days: I spent New Year’s Eve alone, resting and unpacking and chatting with my parents, my sister, and my grandmother on the phone for a long time; I went to a family party on New Year’s Day and met the town’s two nuns—one from Mexico, one from Spain—who run a preschool; and then on January 2nd, Professor Jacob took me around town and introduced me to the chief of police, the mayor, the hospital staff, the chefe de bairro, and lots of neighbors. I had gotten up early that Friday morning to organize my kitchen and play hand games with the kids who live next door and was just settling in for a sweaty mid-morning nap when our phone call got underway. There, all caught up.

“Yes, it’ll be very slow,” Sérgio said. “You’ll have to be patient, because settling in will all be very slow.”

I stood up straight in my doorway and crossed my arms, wondering if he had heard a word I had said. I had just recounted a series of productive adventures to him, and each day was filled with connections I was making and lessons I was learning. Everything was moving very quickly; I had used so many action verbs.

“You can’t rush these things, so don’t worry when everything feels slow,” he reiterated.

A bit confused, I thanked him for the advice and we wrapped up our phone call. I went back into my room and turned on my fan, fixed it in a stationary position, and crawled back under my mosquito net to return to my nap, confident that another fast-paced encounter would be awaiting me when I awoke.

And from that afternoon on, the pace of my days slowed to a humid, plodding crawl. More on that next time.

Everything Almost Fell Apart But Then It Didn’t

Peace Corps Mozambique’s 32nd cohort at our swearing-in ceremony on November 20th, 2019. Photo from the U.S. Embassy’s press release.

We officially swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers the week before Thanksgiving 2019. We should have left for our permanent sites that same week, but due to a technical documentation issue, we were delayed and had to stay together in our training homestay houses and then in a hotel in Maputo. We were delayed for over a month.

For lots of reasons, that’s all I can directly say publicly regarding that issue.

So instead of discussing our delay, I’m going to write about a completely unrelated topic: the first thing that happened when I was alone at my site, or the moment everything almost fell apart but then it didn’t.

But first, the events leading up to that moment.

We were finally able to leave for our sites on December 27th. The night before, Noah organized a cohort-wide Group Hug in the lobby of the hotel in Maputo where we were staying. We hugged and cried together, affirmed one another, and then went to sleep for a few short hours, bubbling with anxiety for the adventure awaiting us in the morning. Volunteers in the Northern and Central regions of the country flew to their sites, but everyone in the South was driven in Peace Corps vehicles. I am the only volunteer west of Maputo so I missed out on the clown car road trip that the other volunteers took east. I was scheduled to leave at 6am but I didn’t end up leaving until 8am with driver Miambo and Biology Tech Trainer Anabela. Because of this little delay I was able to eat a quick breakfast with some of my closest friends who were leaving on later flights. While initially, this delay in departure was frustrating (I was in the lobby at 5:30am! Why can’t I just GO already?), looking back now, I am pretty grateful. Getting to spend extra time surrounded by the people I love the most was a special treat. It made saying goodbye a little bit harder, but also a little more meaningful. When the car arrived, Cat, Maggie, Cole, and Lauren scooped up my bags and walked me outside. I lingered for a moment hugging each of them, and then we said our final farewell.

Every day for the past four months when I’ve said goodbye to my friends, it’s always been an “até amanhã!” Until tomorrow! This time, it was an “até a próxima!” Until next time! Next time will be at least three months from now, but more likely when we have our reconnect conference in May. Until May, friends. We drove out of the parking lot and I took one breath.

One last Tom e Jerry photo (for now) next to the hotel pool at Group Hug. From Cat: “The theme is sweaty.”

On a normal day it would take between two and a half and three hours to arrive at my site by private car. We managed to stretch it out to just over five hours, though. We stopped six times: two government buildings searching for a stamp for a document announcing the arrival of the Maputo Province Volunteers, a SuperSpar (the closest comparison, thanks be, is Target) because Anabela was concerned I wouldn’t have any buckets at my site (I didn’t), a market (for different buckets), and two gas stations. At the first, Miambo filled the tank and got soup and a sandwich. At the second, we picked up some ice for a cooler he and Anabela were sharing for the trip back to the city. I happily went along for this winding journey. My excitement grew with each new stop along the way.

The last hour of the trip is a slow, bumpy ride out a rocky dirt road that connects the closest neighboring town with my site, which is located further out in the countryside of northwest Maputo Province. Noting the distance when we arrived, Miambo conjectured that had the road been paved, the last leg would have only taken 20 minutes. But it is very much not paved: there were moments when the car tilted up on the slanted edge of the road to avoid a giant patch of rocks and my seatbelt hugged me tightly as my shoulder slid against the car door; at times we came to a complete stop to allow the occasional oncoming car traverse a giant bump before we took our turn slowly mounting the one safe path. Though we’d been chatting up a storm for the first few hours (providing much needed and great practice for my Portuguese, which had been lying fairly dormant for the previous weeks—the longer we spent delayed for site, the less structured our days became until eventually the peak of one afternoon’s intellectual stimulation was playing the card game Durak for the 800th time in the hotel lobby, seeing only other volunteers and hearing only English), we were fairly silent for the last hour of our trip, as it was hard to hear one another over the sound of the rattling dashboard.

It was a long, difficult journey, but we made it.

After stopping at the high school to briefly meet with one of the secretaries, we slowly drove down my town’s one main road (less bumpy, but still unpaved) towards my new house. We turned off the road onto a narrow path well-worn with one set of tire marks, continued for about a minute, and then I spotted it—I recognized the house from a photo the previous volunteer had sent a few months prior. We pulled up, my landlord and his family appeared from their house, and I stepped out of the car, ready for the first few moments of my new life.

And immediately I was hit in the face with dust. It was just over 100 degrees and incredibly windy, and the ground I stepped onto was essentially sand: very thin, very fine, very dusty dirt. The next half hour was a blur of stilted introductory conversation where I mostly just listened politely and peeled my hair off of my sweaty, dust-covered neck. We unloaded my belongings into my empty house, and soon enough, it was time to say yet another goodbye. With the small private car, the stop at almost-Target, and all of my things loaded up in the trunk, this whole day felt like I was being dropped off at college, so it made as much sense that there’d be one last family goodbye. We took a photo on my front step, Anabela gave me a hug and gifted me two spoons, I thanked Miambo for everything, and they were off. I was alone and covered in dust. I felt surprisingly calm.

Me, Miambo, and Anabela on my front step just before they headed back to the city.

But I was alone for only a moment. My landlord and his son quickly reappeared at the house with a toolbox and got to work fixing the one window in my bedroom. This had come up in conversation with Anabela—for the house to be considered livable by Peace Corps standards, I must have a bed, a small table and two chairs, electricity, a locking door, and windows that shut. All the rest (how to cook dinner without food or a stove, for instance) I can figure out on my own, but these things are essential. One window was broken, so Jacob and his son, Junior, were determined to repair it immediately. Repairing that window was crucial.

Thus, we have arrived at the moment when everything almost fell apart but then it didn’t.

Let me set up the metaphor situation for you: there was a thing that needed to happen before I could officially continue with the next phase of my service, and that thing was completely outside of my control, and entirely essential. The…“window.” And until the thing was fixed, I was unable to unpack my bags, unable to leave my house to explore my community, and unable to proceed with the job I came here to do. I had to wait, delayed, for an indeterminate amount of time until everything was resolved. If the attempts to fix the thing didn’t work, there was a very real, very scary possibility that I would not have been able to serve—I could have been sent home, in all honesty. Because of—the window. And the problems with the window. Yes. That’s all this story is about. Okay.

Jacob and Junior made a great team. Jacob stood inside with his toolbox, and Junior was outside holding the window in place. The technical piece they were fixing was a sliding lock that would allow me to open the window and fasten it in one place so that it didn’t flap about in the wind. But the metal had to be situated in such a way that it would allow the window to fully click shut, too. It seemed simple enough, and I expected them to finish the repair quickly.

The window repair in question and the sole focus of this blog post.

As they passed a screwdriver back and forth, I poked around my bags without actually unpacking. If I was going to have to wait, I was determined to keep myself busy: I opened and re-secured all of my luggage locks a few times, flipped through pages of my notebook, and shuffled my stack of new buckets. But there is only so much running in place one can do. Even in, say, a big group of people who get along very well and are united with the same purpose—when there is no end in sight, morale will eventually dip because there is simply not anything of substance to be done. We were left feeling powerless, stuck and—or, err, I felt powerless because of the window. And how I couldn’t do anything because of the window. Remember? Right.

“Bom,” Jacob said, indicating they were done. I walked over to check it out. Junior let go of his part and they tried shutting it. It didn’t come close. Their measurements had been off, and the sliding hinge got stuck, preventing the window from shutting. Junior started cracking up, and Jacob sighed, then laughed. I chuckled, too. It became apparent that this positivity would be key in the success of the window repair job: even though the odds were not in my favor, finding the humor in my situation and holding onto that small sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, the window would be fixed and I could unpack, was what I needed to focus on.

I retreated back to the edge of my bed, trying to keep my head up, but suddenly negative thoughts started creeping in. I graduated college, joined the Peace Corps, and ended up in this house. All roads led to here. And I didn’t know to expect window problems. If this house were to be deemed unlivable because of the broken window, and effectively this window were to send me home, what would I tell my family? My friends? Or more importantly, how would I reconcile all of this with myself? I didn’t break any windows. But this would still be my failure, my dream that didn’t work out. Who would remember that it was because of a window that was already broken when I arrived?

Jacob screwed the last screw, Junior let go, and they tested it again—still off by a few inches. Not quite there.

The longer I sat waiting, the harder it became to envision an outcome where this messy, complicated situation ended with a fixed window and a hassle-free two years of service. I began to grow at peace with this fact, because it felt like I had to. I also started to wrap my head around the fact that my family and friends back home would never understand what it meant to dedicate myself to this specific thing and then have a broken window take it all away. There were a million reasons why it would be awful if the window remained broken, and a million reasons why it would be wonderful if it were fixed. So many of them selfish, and some of them not. I knew, intellectually, that with each passing moment there was still a 50% chance everything would work out. The window might not be broken forever. But, my god, it was hard to feel that way.

Junior was sent back into the main house to look for a different set of screws. Maybe a new angle, with new materials, would yield better results.

The one comfort in all of this was that I was not alone. All 53 members of my cohort were experiencing the exact same issue with a...uh...broken window. We were the only people in the world who understood what it felt like to be in this situation, and because of this, during the time that we waited to hear about the outcome of our windows, we grew closer. And closer. We’d spend every waking moment of our days together because we knew that to be alone during our delay was to be alone with our spiraling, terrified thoughts. We’d be open with each other about our fears and dive into them or distract from them, together, depending on the day. We learned how to support one another by being thrown into the most extreme, stressful, unexpected reality of all of our lives.

Jacob realigned the hinge and marked a new spot on the wood with his pencil.

We were charging headfirst towards a very scary future: window repair, we get to serve. No window, no service. If the windows stayed broken and we did all get sent home, we would continue to be the only people who could fully empathize with and support one another. We’d forever be the only ones who understood. But we’d be scattered across the U.S. and the world, starting our lives over again, apart and alone. And that idea was just as terrifying as the broken windows themselves. So we lifted each other up while we still could, knowing that no matter what happened with the repairs, we would try our best to get through it together.

Another attempt. The window still wouldn’t close.

I didn’t tell many people about the broken window. I kept my mom in the loop, of course, but even with her, it took me a while to finally reveal all of the details. I could sense that I was distancing myself from people, sending simple, “Everything’s going well!” deflective responses to texts from family and friends back home. It just made no sense to tell part of the story before there was an ending; why spread fear and concern to yet another person who had no power over the situation? As I waited for the window to be repaired, I posted to my blog about site announcements and the homestay celebration, pretending like the normal timeline was still in place and secretly hoping that I could will the normal timeline back into existence. I knew that I’d have to tell this story eventually, and I might as well wait until the window was deemed broken forever, or it was fixed. Either it would be the story of how everything fell apart, or the story of how everything almost fell apart but then it didn’t.  

Screwdriver, window, window, screwdriver.

Click.

Jacob and Junior high fived, picked up their tools, and went back to their house. I stood up from my bed. I was alone again, and the room was very still. I leaned down to start unpacking my luggage, but then I stopped. I grabbed my keys, walked out onto my hot and dusty front step, started to lock my front door, but then I stopped again. I went back inside, laid down on my bed, and took a two hour nap. I was exhausted.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

I feel bad that I couldn’t write a post about the documentation issue that delayed us going to site or how it felt living through that time, because it has defined my experience with service thus far. It was hard, but a lot of good came out of it, too, and you’ll just have to believe me on that front. If you want to hear more details, I’d be happy to share offline, especially for the friends who received deflective texts or for the prospective volunteers who happen to stumble upon this blog.

The patience and persistence it took to survive the most anxiety-filled month of my life are now guiding my focused, settled outlook at site. I’ve arrived. I am a full, functioning volunteer with a fully functional window. That’s that.

Now back to regularly scheduled, less cryptic blogging.