The other day I peered down at my feet and gave them a good look. You really don’t do this as often as you think, and because mine are usually filthy it’s all the more reason not to. It was after a shower so I thought it odd when I noticed a strange line across my feet…it was a tan line! “Oh my god!” I shouted to no one (I live alone). But there it was, my sandals tanned cleanly across both feet. I haven’t had a new tan line in…well let’s just say I’ve been rocking this t-shirt tan since the 80s (back when it was cool). And you never thought the words “Colin” and “tan” could be used in the same sentence, you ignoramus. A brand new me for a brand new decade.

And sitting not a few inches from my newly tanned feet was a gigantic tarantula. “OH MY GOD!” I shouted to no one and spent a good half a minute frozen in place planning my next move. It sat there twitching its mandibles, certainly calculating how to creep into my bed in the night, or leap onto my face while in the shower, or hide under my chair while I played guitar. But I wouldn’t be bullied by this creature of the underworld, I decided to go for the kill, but the little devils are quick and he darted away. After a few minutes of me shouting and stamping in my bathroom I eventually lost the little demon. Do I want to see it again? Do I want to live on in ignorance?

So if you couldn’t tell I lead a life of thrills here on the Indian Ocean. Every day I make life or death decisions, beans and rice or just beans? Eggs scrambled or fried? Should I jog north on the beach or south? I spend a lot of time in front of the mirror making faces. Just kidding; I don’t own a mirror.

The kicker is my job hasn’t started yet, and won’t for another couple of days. I’ve done an ok job at occupying myself. My Portuguese is improving, I play the guitar, I sketch, exercise, I’m learning some Mozambican dishes, I kill about two hours in the market every day bothering people.

But the thing is, and I guess my ultimate point is, they aren’t bothered. You can just stand there and talk to a vender and they’ll just as soon talk to you too, or offer you a chair. Mozambican conversations have a whole different rhythm. “How are you?” moves onto to “how is your family?” and then “how did you rest last night” which can morph into “how did you awake this morning?” These drawn out salutations are accompanied by the world’s longest handshakes. They WILL NOT LET GO, not until about half way through an entire conversation, and you can let go all you want and they’ll just go ahead and hold on. It’s a sign of welcome, I know, but coming from America I am tempted to wrench free and ask them not to touch me.

But get this, there is no word for awkward. The closest word we’ve found in Portuguese Is “uncomfortable,” but that is just not the same as awkward. Awkwardness in America is a friggin institution. Entire sitcoms and a slew of movies are all based on the sour taste of awkwardness. Freed from this idea conversations have a different cadence. A lot of silence can pass and the interlocutors will patiently wait it out. Yesterday after a particularly long silence my friend announced with a refreshed sigh “This is Mozambique.”
“I know,” I replied, “I’ve lived here for four months.” (A stupid thing to say, I admit it)
“Yes, but here it is!” He declared triumphantly as if pulling a veil off the entire country before our eyes. And I was honestly jealous at how he took in the moment, in zen, completely unaffected by the creeping awkwardness that confined me.

Later that night I sat in my house, making faces at the part of the wall I imagine I will someday put a mirror, lamenting awkwardness. I thought about how many conversations I had ruined by being “awkward.” Long hours of meditation were interrupted by seeing something dart across the floor out of the corner of my eye…

Soon I’ll have a cool watch tan too.

Talkin that Shitswa

Once…twice…three times a lady…

Lionel Richie made it across the Atlantic. So did Bob Marley. Assorted early 90s R&B including Bryan McKnight, KC & JoJo, and R Kelly made it. Randy Newman, Elton John accompanied The Pussycat Dolls and Akon across the ocean. Eminem's early work managed the swim. Unfortunately early 90s East Coast hip hop were lost en route, so I have nothing to listen to.

I know this because the barraka (or “bar” to us mulungus) behind my house plays the same songs once...twice…three times an hour all day and all night long. So anyway that explains my newfound hatred for Lionel Richie, and my knowing all the words to Endless Love.

The nadir of my Christmas followed by the zenith of my new years has seen a slowing down of my life. The main obstacle now is that I don’t have a job or any other specific responsibilities, just general ones like “integrate into your community,” “improve your “living situation”, “don’t get malaria”. This has lead to some impressive productivity on my part, including personally constructing a kitchen counter, but mostly it leads to a lot of sitting.

Sitting is nice when followed by a bunch of walking or standing, but when followed only by lying down it can be a killer, so I leave at least twice a day to make sure I don’t slide into a funk. Mostly this involves going to the market and bumbling around, with the general goal of learning Shitswa. Nzo gonzwa Shitswa, nzi zwizwi kwulawula kutsongwani Shitswa. Kahisa nwamuthlwa. I am learning Shitswa. I know how to speak some Shitswa. It is hot today.

This I managed to find out despite the local 18 year old’s insistence that I learn things like “Do you have a girlfriend?”, “you are very beautiful,” “I am in love with you,” and my favorite so far “you will come to my house and cook for me.” I didn’t write this last one down, maybe I should have considering I eat pretty much the same thing every single day. I learn from the skirt-chasing 18 year old, the crazy tomato lady, the guy who sells oil. So many people are so willing to invite you to have a seat and teach you a little of the local dialect. Some do it for laughs (I get laughed at A LOT) but I think most of them do it just because.

Learning Shitswa more than anything has helped me feel like I have a shot at entering into this community. Though Portuguese is spoken in school and by my Italian neighbors, but people in the street speak Shitswa. I feel like if I get up to a level so I can at least understand the gist of small conversations it will be huge. The problem is that Shitswa, being a Bantu language, is traditionally an unwritten language. In the past hundred years Bantu has borrowed the Latin alphabet such that it can be written if need be. But being an unwritten language the rules are uncertain at best.

Portuguese is studied in school, not Shitswa. The only literature in Shitswa is the occasional bible, which in addition to using strange and archaic language (it being the bible and all) it doesn’t exactly make for a very engaging read (it being the bible and all). This is further complicated by the fact that Shitswa is more regional than official. Its uncertain grammatical rules mirror its uncertain regional boundaries. Shangana was the language spoken in Namaacha, where I spent the first three months in training. I was been told that Shangana is so similar to Shitswa that the only real differences are that of pronunciation. But Shangana is several regional dialects away. Ronga is geographically closer but more different from Shitswa than is Shangana. Bitonga is just next door regionally but completely different, I've been told

None of these languages have ever seen governance or control, for hundreds or even thousands of years. I’ve heard that there do exist Shitswa dictionaries, but rest assured no one in my town has ever seen one. The blurriness of the languages is comically illustrated by the theatrical arguments my tutors in the market place will get into over the smallest things, the word “to wash” yesterday featured a lot of screaming and yelling when it was eventually decided that the one person’s word for “to wash” was weird because he was from two towns away, a distance of less than 100 km.

Therefore: one person’s Shitswa can be different from another’s. Only when I start asking exacting questions do conflicts arise. For the most part the people in the market just accept the blurriness of everyone else’s Shitswa. Maybe his is colored by Shangana, maybe hers is different because she grew up on the island off the coast. They just accept the uncertainty and roll with it. It’s all very Mozambican. My cousin Matt would have a heart attack.

It’s been an interesting and sometimes frustrating challenge for me. But it beats sitting.

Now the bar behind my house is playing a techno song that is repeating the line, and this is true: "If I marry you, will you marry me, marry me, my love?" Just more reason to leave the house.

Christmas

I had never been away from my family on Christmas until coming to Africa. Christmas is and has always been my favorite holiday. My memory is somewhere between the sound of my family’s Christmas music and the smell of our Christmas tree, backlit by our corny light-up reindeer in the front yard. I miss seeing my breath on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve came around, and I went to a small English mass at the church (I live on a mission, the church is just a few meters away). The mass was short, and without pomp. I surprised myself with how much of mass I remembered without even thinking. I didn't listen during the homily, I just thought of home.

I sat in my little house after mass. I had never felt so homesick. But I knew I would be, it was par for the course. As lonely as I was at that moment, sitting in my house, letting my mind wander down prickly paths of nostalgia I had no doubts whatsoever about my decision to come to Africa. My home will be there when I return.

As a treat to myself I spent the day watching movies. Damn Pulp Fiction is a great movie. Then the Godfather. I thought I'd save the Christmas movies for Christmas Day. What would Christmas Day be without John McClane throwing Hans Gruber off the roof of Nakatomi Plaza? It would be downright UnAmerican, and I would have nothing of it.

Nine o clock on Christmas eve was the big community mass at the church just fifty yards from my house. The church was decked out in my village’s version of Christmas decorations. I met a fellow Volunteer there, her family visiting from the States. The mass was two hours long and despite nightfall suffocatingly hot, but the children dancing and the singing more than made up for it.

I decided I'd go right to sleep after mass. Though I had done very little all day, I was exhausted from it all. When I reached my door it was open. The lock busted inwards and the door itself cracked along its length. I went inside to find that I had been robbed.

From my laptop and camera, to my bags, clothes, and even my shoes, they had taken almost everything. I dashed frantically around my little house, not knowing what to do. For two minutes I did nothing but pace around my house running my hands through my hair repeating “I got robbed.”

I should say that they didn’t take my passport or cash card, which would have been a pain to replace. They didn’t take my guitar, they didn’t touch my books or my sketchpad (thank god). But my laptop had all my jounraling on it, and that hurt the most.

I went immediately to my neighbors. They came by and were clearly shocked as well. But at that moment there was nothing that could be done. I braced the door with a chair and retired to bed for a sleepless night.

That night was the lowest point of my Peace Corps experience thus far, and the most homesick I have ever been.

The next morning my neighbor took me to the police station. Later that day the Padre at my mission came by and personally replaced the lock on my door. My mission neighbors ordered a new door from the woodshop that day.

While at the police station on Christmas morning I ran into a South African couple who were on vacation with their family who too had been robbed that night. We exchanged stories, and sympathetically the man said, “It’s a shame, you’re here to help them and they do something like this.”

Now this is a very tempting thought. But who is “they”? Does this mean I should go to the old lady next door and lambaste her, “I’m here to help you!! How could you do this to me?!” Does this mean that Mozambique has betrayed me? I was robbed, yes, but there are thieves everywhere. It was Christmas Eve, yes, but thieves see only the opportunity, not the implications. What happened to me sucks, but to believe that it indicates any faults of Mozambique or Mozambicans is foolish, shortsighted, and pointless.

In the days that have followed members of my community have stopped me in the streets to express their sympathy, and that more than anything makes me feel like I have a home here. My neighbors were fantastic from the start, and isn't that what Christmas is really all about? (queue vomitting)

And hey, I don't need my shoes to run on the beach. Merry Christmas America.

Now means now

I once took a class that focused on the social construction of time, basically discussing how open ended time really was depending on cultural interpretation. While interesting, I never really connected with its ideas until I experienced them on a tangible, emotional level. I say emotional because when someone is late--or god forbid when I am running late--the response is visceral. Being late is bad.

We say that we are on Mozambican time here. We are finally getting used to it, or at least expecting it, after a few months in the country. Yesterday I was told we'd play basketball at 2:00, and we didn't start until 3:15. A part of me wanted to be livid, but the rules just aren't the same here, and patience as they say is a virtue.

The most telling difference is the word "agora." Agora means 'now.' No bones about it, look it up in the dictionary, the word means 'now.' So when I ask my host brother if he's ready to leave and he says "sim, agora" and I wait for him as he chases Caozinho around I am in disbelief. How rude! How inconsiderate! 'Now' is one of the most unambiguous words in the history of words.

I've discussed this with my fellow PCVs (that's Peace Corps Volunteers to you citizens) and we've all experienced frustration with the word "now". There's even variations on "agora." We have "agora mesma", loosely 'right now.' We have "de aqui a nada" or "de aqui a poco", which can mean anything from 'right away' to 'right this very second' to some other vaguely nowish time.

Despite these words I remained confused. I was leaving for the local hang out spot to catch up with some friends, I ran into my host mom along the way and told her I'd be back soon. She said, "No, we say I'll be back agora, or de aqui a nada." But I wasn't coming back now, I was coming back soon. Aha! Agora really doesn't mean now! I'd been lied to. This means war.

Surprise, surprise, it turns out to be a little more complicated than that. The concept of "now", as evidenced by the very words in their lexicon (the ones that express ideas, thoughts, feelings…) are wishy-washy on this whole "now" thing. It's not because they are all a bunch of lazy scallywags, its because they experience time a little differently.

In the states we feel time as a precise and pressurized thing. I absolutely despise being late. More metaphorically, time Is constantly chasing us down. Here it is less confining. That isn't to say that the way we (United States) view time is necessarily negative, it allows us to fit more into our day and maintain a tighter order on things. But equally it doesn't mean that Mozambicans are a bunch of lazies that never get anything done--on the contrary what a Mozambican mother can do in a day is at times staggering. It's just a little different.

I manage to convey "now" by leaping up and down, pointing at my feet and shouting "THIS SECOND, THIS EXACT MOMENT" in Portuguese.

Anyways a week and a half at site, and things are going pretty good. I've cleaned out my house and am planning to paint it. I've been meeting people everywhere, playing volleyball, getting to know my town. In moments of boredom or loneliness I walk outside and look at the ocean, and that pretty much solves it right there.

Three days until Christmas, I have been attending the nightly masses, and heard "Silent Night" in Portuguese. But myboy Bing Crosby does it better. I've been blasting it on my computer all day.

Holidays in Mozambique

I wake up and brush away my mosquito net. I walk outside feeling refreshed after a full night's sleep. It's seven am, I've woken up late by Mozambican standards. The Indian Ocean is just a block away. I look out over the endless bluegreen water. I feel the soft white sand under my feet. As the warm breeze passes over me I feel a stirring deep inside me…

Diarrhea, I tell myself, is normal.

I walk resignedly back to the bathroom to give my daily offering. The food, the transition, is doing a number on my intestines. But by this time the number is a familiar one, however that sounds. A wasp flies into my bathroom and I leap up from the toilet in a panic with my shorts still around my ankles. Unfortunately that's normal too.

My house is concrete with a metal roof, I have a sink, and outside a bathroom. I have running cold water and a little electricity. The walls are hideously painted by the former volunteer who lived here, but I can fix that. I live on a Catholic mission. My neighbors are two priests, a couple of seminarians, a few nuns…sounds like high school.

I have to remind myself constantly that what I am going through is normal. I'm in a brand new place on the other side of the world. My Portuguese gradually improves, but much to my dismay in the streets here they speak Shi-tswa, the local Bantu language. In some moments I feel like I can speak great, and others I feel discouraged and worried that I'll never really catch up. But that's normal.

I take a barefoot run along the beach. The sand is soft and perfect for jogging. As I run down the beach I hit the point where I feel invincible and pick up the pace. A gaggle of Mozambican boys stares at me as I run past. I give them a big thumbs up and a smile, and I am happy to see them laugh and wave. Taking my eyes off the beach causes me to trip on a mound of sand and I fall flat on my face with a WUMP. I stand up dazed, trying to figure out what the hell just happened, covered in sand. The boys are laughing to tears. Seeing no alternative I give them another thumbs up and keep going. Two years, I remind myself, I have two years to get this right.

I sit down after my run and enjoy the endorphin high. I take deep breaths and let my mind wander. I smile to myself remembering a joke my little brother made (one of those ridiculously innappropriate ones that I will take to my grave). I tell everyone I meet that he's the funniest person I know.

I worry a little about Christmas. I know that I won't be opening presents in my living room surrounded by my family, anxiously awaiting my turn to tear the wrapping to shreds in anticipation. It won't be cold, there will be no lights and no ornamented trees--but I do have a solid collection of Bing Crosby's Christmas on my ipod (Hawain Christmas!). It might be a lonely night, but hey, that's normal. And I'll be fine.

The beans are almost done. I decide to take a shower before I take them off the heat. I remind myself that living on the beach, thousands of miles from home, amongst total strangers, for two years, is not normal. I feel good about what I am doing, though I am confused as to how exactly I should do it at this point. While I was an orientation counselor one of my freshman described me as one of the most "adventurous men she had ever known". Say that in my eulogy, baby, and my family will laugh you out of the building.

I look over the Indian Ocean and remember how far away I am. I miss my father's voice, I miss my mom. I look around and try to think about what my brother would think about all this. My longing for my family and for my home is too normal to wax poetic. Thinking of them every day is too predictable to be interesting. But I miss them just the same.

Normal? HA!

PS I have a mailing address now! I can't post it online due to Peace Corps regulations, but email me and I'll send it no problem. And then you'll send me candy!

PPS I saw Courtney today! I'll post her guest appearance...

Stardate 2301: Carry your Papers

I've haven't updated my blog in a while because the one available internet connection in my village went down. TIA etc.

This morning I woke up to screaming. Adrenaline crashed into my sleepy haize, is that a person?! I quickly realized it wasn't. But what else could be making that noise...Caozinho!

I leapt out of bed and ran into the backyard in my bozers and sandals. There was caozinho, my family's three month old, completely adorable watery eyed puppy surrounded by the same roosters that wake me up at three every morning. Caozinho was in trouble. And I hate those damn roosters.

LEAVE HIM ALONE!! Was my mighty battle cry as I sprinted across the yard. A few swift kicks and insults and the roosters were gone. Caozinho graciously licked my feet with his tiny tongue, and I remembered why I joined the Peace Corps: to be a hero. God Bless America.

Then I looked up to find my mozambican mother staring bewildered at me. She laughed about this the rest of the day. Caozinho follows me everywhere now.

Yes, Moz life as they say is almost in full swing. I say almost because next week I am leaving for my site after three months of intensive training. I'll be working at a Dominican Mission two hundreds yards from the beach. It means I'll have a house of my own, a mailing address for people to send me letters and candy (HINT SEND ME CANDY HINT). It means I'll finally be out on my own surrounded by people who don't speak english, expected to improve their lives in some way. But seriously send me candy.

Ok, a quick story. We'll call it "The Scariest Thing that has Ever Happened to Colin" or "Why Colin Recommends Carrying a Spare pair of Underpants At All Times".

So a group of us Peace Corps Trainees went to the capital city, Maputo, to buy things and enjoy th bustle of city life. It's the holidays here too, so there are more tourists, more street vendors etc. After a two hour ride crammed in a chapa I was eager to see what the city had for me. Ice cream? Dare I wish for a milkshake?

About half an hour in I am walking down the street when a police officer stops me on the street. He's asking for my papers. He has an AK-47 (it's literally on the Mozambican flag). I'm only to happy to oblige.

Except that much to my dismay I do not have my papers. I had taken them out the day before because they had gotten wet.

Right about then, me wishing I had a spare pair of boxers, the officer informed me that I would be placed under arrest, taken to the jailhouse, and that I would be turned over to immigration in two days. I pulled out my phone and called my boss, she picked up thank God, and I explained my situation. "Oh shit" she helpfully advised. And then, "Ok, give him the phone."

Not about my boss. She's a six foot, extremely fashionable, well educated Mozambican badass. The cop, as smug as he was when he knew he had me, handed me the phone back eyes downcast. My boss simply said, "Walk away now, get on a Chapa and get out of Maputo." Ten four, captain! I made a beeline for the chapas without hesitation

One hundred yards later I was stopped by another police officer. Need I say that having a spare SPARE pair of boxers would have been nice. But this one seemed a little more interested in me "helping him buy something for his boss." Hmmmm...I called my boss again. She sent a car that picked me up and wisked me away.

Never, never, NEVER walk around in a foreign country without your passport. To say that it was my fault is an understatement. It was like SUPER my fault, a mistake I will never make again. When I got back to my host village the relief I felt was palpable. The feeling of refuge reminded me how much I love my village, and am sad to leave it.

Onwards and upwards.

PS I can read emails but often can't respond, and I've been told that I'll have more available internet at site!

PPS Write me! Send me candy! I'd give one of my kidneys for a twix bar...

Chapter one million: Just another manic monday.

And training marches on. Ten weeks of intensive Portuguese lessons, teacher training, and Moz culture. Currently active volunteers are here a week at a time to assist in the training process and give us a picture of what being a volunteer is really like. My day begins...

At 5:30 when I wake up. For the most part I get plenty of sleep here. I wake up under my mosquito net, slip on my sandles and take my bucket shower. I have an indoor bathroom and my host mom heats up the water over the fire for me, so I have it pretty good. Breakfast is bread and tea for the most part, but go me I've convinced them to let me make eggs and I even get milk sometimes. I'm awesome. I get my semi-formal clothes on for training, knock my shoe on the ground (occasionally a scorpion falls out, at which point I scream like a school girl as I smash it with my shoe). And I'm out the door as my mother calls after me to iron my clothes.

On my way to training another volunteer jogs by and flashes a peace sign as two little boys in their school uniforms chase him laughing. When greeted by my good morning they either stare at me in terror or burst out laughing.

The day begins and ends with language training. My language teacher is an absolutely absurd 20 something named Vanilza, whose graphic depictions of diarrhea, sex, and other rarities along with her ludicrously excited responses when we get something right make it a blast. The other day while demonstrating a game akin to dodgeball (don't ask) she pegged me and laughed wickedly. She is slowly getting used to my sarcasm.

From ten to two we have "tech" sessions, wherein we learn the nitty gritty about being a teacher in Mozambique. We've had sessions on how to teach english, certainly, but others on cheating and corruption. The picture we've gotten of the situation looks tough. Cheating is rampant, corruption is too, and we all have to brace ourselves for corporal punishment which is still accepted among some circles.

We learn too about the AIDs situation in the country. We learn about literacy (about 30% among women). We learn about the NGO network in country. Another session was a brief history of the country. Lately we've been giving practice lessons. The biology and chemistry volunteers occassionally skip out on their sessions to see my lessons, which one volunteer described to me as being a "cracked out Mr. Rogers." Which I think oddly suits me.

For the most part at the end of the day I'm exhausted, but that won't save me from my six year old host brother Lay (pronounced "lie") who pesters me until we play his games. He cheats constantly, the little devil, and is wary of explaining too much to me for fear I might beat him. Mostly I just chase him around threatening to devour him until he gets too tired and I tickle him until he can't breathe. "OH GOD IT HURTS" he scream in Portuguese until I stop, when he harangs me "didn't hurt! didn't hurt!" By the end he is wiped out. The other day he fell asleep in his rice at the table.

As dinner is being made I often hold the eight month old baby (else Lay might get his insane little mits on him), whose only desires seems to be to jam his fingers into my mouth or pull the table cloth off the table. I fend off the cat who eyes the baby hungrily. My family laughs at my inability to understand them, but I still manage to get my strange humor across.

I smash as many cockroaches as I can on my way from my second bath to bed (there's no skipping that second bath, god knows i've tried). There is nothing in the entire world like the sound of a cockroach being stepped on.

I read two or three lines in the Omnivores Dilemma before the book falls on my face and I'm out by 9:30.

Life is good.

Tomorrow I leave for a beach town on the coast to see, you guessed it, Courtney Alev. A five day vacation on what is proported to be the most beautiful beach on the Indian Ocean. Despite the ten hour bus ride, I am psyched. The volunteer I'm staying with even has hot running water, and has offered to feed us and hold us up for free. And again, life is good.