Alimentation

I have been handed a loaf of bread and French fries with a serious face for breakfast more than once.  I have also eaten rice and potatoes more times than I can count.  To Mozambique, these things are balanced meals.

This is where the Peace Corps helps – they tell our host families that we have to eat vegetables sometimes.  Consequently, I am handed a cucumber, a tomato, and an onion to make a salad with vegetable oil dressing.

I will miss my host family when I move out into the wider world of Mozambique, but I am so excited to control my food again.  My first meal will be: Macaroni and cheese (cheese is another thing Mozambique knows not of), a HUGE salad with many different and wonderful things in it (properly cleaned using the recipe of the intrepid Elena Kyle), and maybe a glass of milk. and then chocolate. 

*This post is a gross generalization of Mozambique.  There are definitely Mozambicans who eat what we would consider a balanced meal, but they reside more in the cities and upper socioeconomic classes.

Soundtrack to Mozambique

I have always had a soundtrack to my life.  Pre-Mozambique, it was reggaeton music (some say bad, I say good, but ask my college roommates for the final verdict), the Backstreet Boys, and Broadway musical numbers (performed by my itunes and myself). 

In Mozambique, my soundtrack is no longer for a small group.  The music bounces off the side of each mountain and echoes in a way I never thought possible to create a positive cacophony of dance music – Mozambique operates on the sharing is caring level.  Our music collection lately has been Boyz II Men, Adele songs remixed as crazy dance beats, imported Angolan hip hop music, Southern African church music accompanied by awkward music videos on the TV, and chickens.  In transportation news, I took a chapa (a van that has 14 seats but actually brings at least 25 people to their destination at a time) at one point, and we listened to R. Kelly for at least 2 hours of the 6 hour journey.

Mozambique appreciates R. Kelly. But it loves Boyz II Men.

I have noticed that Mozambique does things together.  Just as neighbors do not complain about obnoxiously loud music, people do not get exasperated when the chapa they are on has made personal space a distant memory or when chapa in question arrives hours late, does not arrive at all, or breaks down multiple times on the EN-1 (Mozambique’s first and only truly legitimate highway).  

 Here, it's collective. It's a collective struggle, it's a collective triumph, and clearly, it's a collective dance party.

On "American Efficiency"

I am most definitely from the United States.  You know how I know?  The roads here are awful.  No, but really – to get to my house, you need to brave a “hill” which is actually the side of the mountain, and sometimes a waterfall during the rain.  It has covert rock croppings in the middle that take extra pleasure in watching you fall spectacularly.  There are ravines where there are not rocks in the road (okay, so the ravines are just really big, long road canyons) that you will also fall into/over.  My North Americanness entered the equation one night when I had a talk with my host mother, after a particularly perilous journey back to the house. 

“Mama Helena, how do people not fall on the roads here?”

“You have to walk carefully, slowly, and pick up your feet. But people here still fall.”

“Do they fall all the time or only on roads they don’t know as well?”

“All the time.”

So, stereotypically, these were my thoughts: If everyone falls, why don’t they fix it? If the roads are wiped out during every frequent rain here, why don’t they fix that? Or at least try to?

See, I like efficiency.  I’ve met people who like it more (Hi James!) but I definitely miss it now that it’s gone.  If this town pooled resources together, I have no doubt they would be able to better the roads.  But they don’t.  Because the road still eventually leads to their houses.

The Time I Thought Would Never Come

I have a blog.  I didn't think I'd do it, but it turns out my whole plan of just being really good at emailing everyone really hasn't worked very well.  Therefore, this blog is not to replace my email communication, it is to supplement.  I'll probably post more musings about Mozambique generally here and save the super specific Hannah-time stories for the emails.  Also, if I ever get real internet ever again, I can post pictures here for those of you who don't do facebook.

So. I am a PCV (peace corps volunteer) in Mozambique teaching English and probably Informática (ICT).  I'm about to go teach in Zambezia province, and as many of you also already know, my town is essentially a tea field in the mountains which I'm pretty excited about.  

Training so far has been cool - learning  a lot of Portuguese and listening to medical lectures that make me pretty sure I am going to come back with HIV or Schistosomiasis (probably spelled wrong, but look it up if you want it's terrifying and Mozambique has a lot of it).

If you have any questions or just want to say hi, shoot me an email!  The one thing I hate about blogs is the lack of information I get from everyone about their lives - so email email email!

love hannah

PS I make no promises about updating this blog regularly - I will try, but most likely I will only post if I have something to say.