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.