I Completed Years

I wrote an essay for a class in college entitled “Global Warming Saved My Birthday” wherein I recounted a series of cold, snowy birthdays from my youth and then offset them with the meteorological anomaly that was February 21, 2018 in New York City—a bright and sunny 74 degree day that I spent listening to joyful live music in Washington Square Park and wearing a sundress. I would always get inexplicably and existentially sad on my birthday growing up, and February in New England weather was certainly a factor in that sadness. But a surprisingly warm day led to a surprisingly happy day; my streak was over and my birthday was saved.

It is warm all of the time here, so when late February rolled around I wasn’t expecting any surprises. The biggest surprise was the very fact that it was already late February. See, I’d thought about how it’d feel to spend my first Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years in Mozambique, but my brain had never thought as far into the future as my birthday, an impossibly distant date.

(I remember a moment the night before I left for staging in Philadelphia in August. I was stressfully organizing and reorganizing my three bags, clothes and school supplies and medicine and a hundred little things strewn about the living room. My mother entered the room and gently suggested I switch a few items from my blue bag for a few items in my pink bag. I threw a fistful of black socks onto the ground, burst into tears, and collapsed on the couch, clutching a pillow with all of my might. My mother and I stared at each other for a full minute. “Two years is a long time,” I finally choked out. “I know,” she said, and she started to cry, too. For the first time all summer, we talked for a few minutes about the enormity of it all, and then took a deep breath and moved the items from my blue bag to my pink bag.

I look back on that moment now and think—what a fool. My perception of these short two years has been drastically reshaped since that moment, and I know it will continue to change. The day I’m writing this post marks six months in Mozambique. It’s been five weeks since I last saw another PCV. My life looks different now and time is racing by.)

So somehow it was my 23rd birthday last week and it was a happy day.

In a shocking twist of events, the weather did surprise me. It rained just before sunrise so the morning was humid but cool. In this hemisphere, 74 degrees in February is cold and wonderful and just like two years ago I received the day’s unique forecast with open arms.

Calvâna at school knew it was my birthday—she’d inquired at the supervisor’s conference and apparently has an impeccable memory—and she wished me well when I swung by the teacher’s room to grab chalk before running off to teach three English classes.

On my way home from school I stopped by Dúlia’s house, which is along the path, as had become my routine. I told her I couldn’t stay long—I needed to buy energy before the EDM closed for the weekend. She asked if I had any updates about the cake, and I said I was a little confused on that front still. She said she’d call Tia Guida.

Dúlia and I had hatched a plan a few days earlier to make a cake with Tia Guida—my landlord’s wife/my host mom/my host aunt? I’m still not sure what titles to assign to everyone—who works at the hospital but has a side business making gorgeous wedding cakes out of her home. Whenever I bake something remotely interesting I share some with her, and we had been talking for a few weeks about having a baking day together: I’ll teach her how to make peanut butter cookies and she’ll show me how she makes her pretty cakes. I used my birthday as an excuse to get this idea off the ground. But now I was unsure of the logistics so Dúlia called Tia Guida at the hospital as I walked to buy energy.

I swung by Kátia’s house after buying the little slip of paper with numbers that I punch into the energy box in my kitchen. Her two sons had just gotten home from primary school and preschool and were eating lunch, and I was served a full bowl of rice and beans alongside them. Mariamo, the woman who runs a small barraca on the main road near Kátia’s house, also dropped by, and we hung out for an hour chatting about the talk of the town. The previous week I’d made banana and avocado ice cream and was storing it in Kátia’s freezer because my own wasn’t cold enough or big enough. We ate it out of little cups and mugs, all of us surprised at how good it turned out. (Highly recommend: equal parts sweetened condensed milk, fresh milk, banana, and avocado. Or whatever fruit you want. Easy and good.)

I was buying eggs at Valdim’s on my way home from Kátia’s when I ran into Dúlia, who said she hadn’t heard back from Tia Guida. She promised to let me know what was up as soon as they talked. We went our separate ways again. I got home and shut my wooden door because I didn’t want any children appearing asking to play—I try not to do it often, but on days when I really need a moment to myself, I shut my door and pretend I’m not home—and I laid on my bed catching up on some nice texts from friends and family. I was halfway through a relaxing listen to Antarctigo Vespucci’s Love in the Time of E-mail when I heard a “Mana Sarah?” out my window. Oh good god, has someone gotten wise to my sneaky shut the wooden door to pretend I’m not home trick? I thought, panicking. But it was Dúlia with a cake update. (The trick still works.)

Tia Guida had already baked two cakes that morning before leaving for work, apparently, and suggested we check them out and then make a third if we so please. Dúlia and I snuck into her house to investigate: there were indeed two round cakes cooling on racks and waiting to be stacked and decorated in a few hours. After assessing the scene we immediately agreed a third cake would be absurd and there was no work for us to do; I decided I would just help Tia Guida decorate when she returned home from the hospital, hoping that would satisfy whatever bonding experience I was trying to derive from this cake. Junior appeared, and we all went to hang out on my front step for a while. Dúlia was heading back to college that Sunday with Junior following suit the next weekend. This was our last hurrah sitting on my step chatting and doing nothing for hours—a lovely birthday present.

They left and I stepped inside to do some dishes. Then an unfamiliar car pulled up outside my house. Out hopped Tia Guida, my friend Domingos (the definition of a young small town mover and shaker who speaks excellent English and spends most of the year at university in Inhambane), and a stranger. Introductions flew around in Portuguese. Tia Guida explained that Domingos had brought the stranger, identified as Georgina, by the hospital, and Guida just knew she’d have to bring them to my house so we could chat. I chuckled, reading the subtext: Hey, you are both white and blonde. You guys should…meet? Talk? There’s a solid chance you already know each other?

“What are they saying?” Georgina asked suddenly in a charming Australian accent.

Oh! I was intrigued.

I pulled my plastic chairs outside, dusted them off for my visitors, and then we launched into a conversation in English that lasted over two hours. Georgina explained her whole deal: she is a documentarian based out of London making a podcast documentary about a very specific thing that connects my small town with a large wildlife park in South Africa and an industry in Vietnam.

[You may note that I am being AS VAGUE AS POSSIBLE—heeding the safety and security advice of Peace Corps, I’ve been careful on this blog and on social media to not identify exactly where in Maputo Province I live. This is both for my own sake and for the sake of the community that I describe in detail on here. To say exactly what she is making this podcast about would be to reveal a whole new wrinkle that pretty squarely puts my tiny town on a map. And I don’t feel like doing that, at least right now. That may change, but for now—vagueness.]

We talked about her fascinating project for a bit, but then we moved on to other topics: environmental education, racism in the UK vs. racism in the US vs. racism in South Africa, animal rights, internalized prejudices, the efficacy of “development” agencies, the legacy of slavery in Africa, the legacy of colonialism in Mozambique, gender inequality, and social expectations in small towns vs. big cities. We hit so many buzzwords in such a short period of time. I’ve had this sort of conversation countless times with other PCVs, but it was particularly special to have Domingos leading the discussion this time around. It revealed to me that I should be seeking out spaces and settings to have these conversations more often with people from my community. It is so easy to talk about the legacy of colonialism and gender inequality in Mozambique with a fellow PCV—but guess who has no right to be the lead voice on the legacy of colonialism and gender inequality in Mozambique? And guess what absolutely shouldn’t be easy?

Domingos had set Georgina up for a slew of interviews throughout her ten-day stay in town. She said that through recording her conversations she is hoping to broadcast a Mozambican perspective that is almost always overlooked when it comes to her project’s topic. She seeks to humanize the people of this town for her global audience. This point resonated. It’s the idea behind The Third Goal of the Peace Corps: To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. Even if these blog entries are just for my grandma and my dad’s childhood friends—or maybe, especially if that’s who they’re for—I think I’m trying to do a similar thing here.

Anyway, back to this story that is all about me.

I poked into my landlord’s house to see if I could help with the cake decorating after Domingos and Georgina left to conduct an interview across town. Tia Guida was almost done and encouraged me to instead step outside and answer the phone call I was getting and leave her to complete the finishing touches. It was Cat calling from her home in Inhambane. We’ve stayed closely in touch since leaving for site but this was the first time we’d had a full fledged phone call, and it was an absolute delight. We talked and laughed and ran through a million topics over the course of an hour and a half. (Note to PCVs and all people in general: talking on the telephone? Super great. Recommend almost as much as that homemade ice cream recipe.)

I put Antarctigo Vespucci back on as I sat outside on my front step watching the sunset and cleaning vegetables for dinner. Betinha, my landlord Jacob’s niece (who was away living with other family when I first arrived, but moved back to Jacob’s house for the start of the school year and is now one of my students), walked over to my step and delivered the message from Tia Guida that the cake was finished. “She wants to know if you want her to bring it over here, or if it should stay in her house,” Betinha said. Confusion about logistics and a twinge of sadness started to creep in. “Oh, I uhh—I guess it should stay over there? I mean, I figured we could eat it together?” I said. Suddenly I started feeling guilty and weird about what this cake thing had become. Tia Guida made a cake for me and I played no part in its creation. “But are you having the people come to your house?” Betinha followed up. I absolutely had not planned anything beyond hey maybe we can make a cake together and now I saw everything about my happy day beginning to unravel. “Well, maybe it would be just you guys?” I responded after a moment. And then Betinha said, in the softest, most gentle voice, “Oh, Mana Sarah, you…you didn’t invite anyone else?” Her voice actually trailed off, that’s how heartbreaking this realization was for the both of us. I told her I’d figure something out and she returned to explain my sad story to Tia Guida.

I don’t have that many friends at site still. My tightest circle is my large extended host family, and I had selfishly figured they would all just spontaneously show up to eat cake at Tia Guida’s house without any prompting on my part. I began to regret every decision I’d made over the past few days, especially the decision to play an album that blasted this obnoxiously poignant lyric at me in that moment:

“You haven’t seen me in a long time,

but I’m still 23 and worrying
everyone I love is just pretending.

You haven’t seen me in a long time,

but I still walk along the beach at night,

I’m absolutely terrified
I can’t make it on my own.”

But the sun had set and there was no time to linger in that moment. I texted Dúlia.

“Can you come to Tia Guida’s house in 30 minutes and bring all of your brothers and sisters?”

She could.

Then I raced over to Odenélio’s house and chatted with his younger sister Neide and his younger brother Hélvio. Their brother walked up with Rudy in tow.

“Mana Sarah, is it true that today you are completing years?” Odenélio asked in his classic polite, calm manner that doesn’t fit his age. In Portuguese, you don’t “have a birthday” and often times you don’t “turn a certain age.” You complete years. Or you make a number. This year, I complete 14 years. Este ano, eu completo 14 anos. I made 38 years last year. Eu fiz 38 anos no ano passado. That day, I completed years.

“It is true, and that’s actually why I’m here,” I explained. I told them about the big party happening in 30 minutes and that they were all invited. Thrilled, Neide said they just had to take baths and then they’d be right over.

An hour and a half later, everyone assembled. We headed inside and gathered around the table. They giggled through a version of Happy Birthday in English, and then belted out all the verses of Parabéns in Portuguese. We ceremoniously cut the cake in traditional Mozambican wedding style, with Dúlia and me each taking one small bite, then each taking one small sip of soda—I believe Dúlia and I are married now?—and then before we actually ate the cake, Tia Guida served everyone heaping bowls of rice and beans. (Beans take many hours to cook and are not something you just whip up here, so it was either a happy coincidence that she’d made enough food for all of her nieces and nephews, or my frantic sending of last minute invitations was anticipated far in advance.) The beans were cooked in a giant pot with chicken feet, but she presented me with a mini pot that was chicken-free. The chicken flavor was still pretty strong, but it really meant a lot that she remembered my vegetarianism and wanted to at least create an illusion. The beans were delicious and the cake was delicious. Jacob wanted us to take a family photo so I could share it with my family back home, and we did just that. It is the first photo I have with everyone here and I treasure it.

The family photo is just for family, not the world. The gorgeous cake is fit for the world to see, though. 

But it was the time we spent together after eating that I will remember most when I think back on this day. We made our way over to the living room and Rudy and Hélvio pulled out a handful of board games and got right to a round of Chutes and Ladders. Odenélio and Marlene squared off in a game of checkers, and Junior beat Neide and I in dominoes. To keep him humble, Dúlia pulled out a photo album from Junior’s baby years—this did not level his humility because he was a very cute baby and is fully aware of that—and this changed the game. “You have photo albums?” I exclaimed, and Dúlia happily grabbed a few more from under the coffee table.

I hadn’t seen a photo album in Mozambique before that night. Families will often splurge for a wedding photographer when the time comes, but my general impression is that it is rare for the average family to have hundreds of printed photos of candid, ordinary life, especially going back 20 years, like these ones. I was enthralled, and looked at every single photo they had to show. The cousins crowded around me to point out aunts and uncles I had not met and to provide context for which baptism or backyard party I was looking at. In one wide angle photo I saw my little house but couldn’t get my bearings of where the main house was. The mango tree was much shorter, so maybe that was throwing me off. I asked for clarification.

“That’s our house,” Junior said. “We only built the big house a few years ago. We lived in your house until I was in sixth or seventh grade.”

The idea that the side house I was living in was once this family’s home had never occurred to me. I thought back to a moment my first week here, when I was starting to unpack my things and organize the three small square rooms. One had a bed and one had a stove and one had a small table, but because it was pretty much an empty rectangle besides that, it seemed to me I could select which room would serve which purpose. I moved the stove to the middle room and the little table to the far left room. I wanted the door to open into the kitchen. When Tia Guida came home from work and saw the stove in the middle room, she seemed slightly annoyed. She tried to insist that the far left room is the kitchen, and that the previous volunteer had set the house up that way. I explained my reasoning and dismissed the idea when she left. Now I realize that moment was not an offhand comment about what Rachel put where—it was Guida watching me obliviously mix up the layout of the place she’d made her home for over 15 years.

I didn’t think I needed this family to be “humanized” for me. I interact with them everyday; I thought I had a handle on it. But seeing hundreds of photos of everyone so much younger and hearing dozens of stories of fun gatherings and mundane afternoons put everything and everyone in a new light. I suddenly had a glimpse into a fuller, much deeper understanding of what their lives looked like before I was plopped here two months ago.

I’m fairly confident every single family holiday growing up eventually ended either with everyone playing board games or looking through old family photos, or both. That never occurred to me as being special or a comfort until it happened here and I felt completely relaxed and completely at home. The familiarity in the room was warm and new. I felt like less of a visitor than I usually did.

Hélvio beat me and Rudy in Chutes and Ladders and then we called it a night. I was sent home with a lot of leftover cake and a lot of love.