Shifting My Coordinates 65°S, 109°E

So I’ve had this AMAZING opportunity to participate in the first international IR-VICOBA training held in South Africa. Over the past ten days, I have come to know people from Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, South Africa, Botswana, Southern Sudan, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique.

IR- Vicoba (Inter religious Village Community Banking) is a micro finance model which aims to mobilize savings and create business opportunities among African people living in rural villages. The program began in Niger in 1991 based on the system of “Upatu” (merry go round); a group collects money and gives it to one person at a time until all members have benefited.

IR-VICOBA groups consist of between 15-30 members who can be both men and women. Each IR-VICOBA group has a leadership committee: chairperson, secretary, treasurer, 2 counters, and 3 key holders. The bank is a metal box kept shut by three padlocks. Each key holder has the power to open one of the padlocks and the treasurer guards the box in his/her home. Inside of the bank (metal box) are three containers: share fund container, social welfare fund container, and fine container. The paper records and other supplies (pens, stamp, stamp pad, white-out) are kept inside.

An IR-VICOBA group works like this: For the first 12 weeks, members of the IR-VICOBA group buy shares. The members determine the value of a share and the number of shares each member can buy per meeting. For example, a share may be valued at 10 rand and a member may be able to buy one to five shares per meeting. After 12 weeks of consecutively buying shares, members begin the process of applying for loans. When a member applies for a loan, he or she completes a business proposal, which is then reviewed by 4 other members. If the 4 members approve, a loan may be issued. A member may take out a loan worth no more than 3X their shares and they must pay a 2% insurance fee. The 2% insurance fee is used to cover the amount owed by any member who may unexpectedly die during the VICOBA year. The fixed interest rate known as surplus income in VICOBA is determined at the beginning of the year by group members with longer loans incurring a higher fixed interest rate (surplus income).

Surplus income is essentially the same thing as an interest rate with a few minor differences. The biggest difference between interest rates and surplus income is that when a loan is taken from the bank, the bank profits from the interest paid on the loan. In VICOBA, the surplus income (interest rate) is still paid but it is re-distributed among members at the end of the year. The amount each person receives from the accumulated surplus income is determined by the number of shares owned. Another difference between interest rate and surplus income is that when someone fails to pay back a loan, the issue is taken to court under the law of contract and there is never a happy ending. In VICOBA, failure to repay the loan may result in loss of membership. However, the group will evaluate the circumstances and may try to find a solution to help the individual pay back his or her loan.

In addition to buying shares, the members also contribute to a social welfare fund and pay fines each week. The social welfare fund is used to help members with issues related to health and education. The main idea is that if a person needs a loan for a health or education problem (maybe they want to send their kids to school but don’t have the money), they borrow the money from this pool and pay it back without having to pay interest. Members establish rules and regulations and if someone breaks these rules or regulations they pay a fine. The fine fund is then used to buy materials the group may need to keep the bank running such as the bank tool kit.

Banking the VICOBA way is an empowering way to do banking. People come together as a community to enable each other to create small businesses, which the members and community support. People are seen as people. If someone is having financial problems, the group intervenes and tries to help the member. The meetings also become a forum for discussing other issues in the community. Certain rules of conduct are expected from members such as no domestic violence, children should be going to school, responsible consumers of alcohol…. Members can pressure one another to uphold these values and behaviors. Often times, money comes between people, but in the VICOBA sense, it strengthens relationships between people. We should all infuse a little more VICOBA into our financial lives. Everyone, not just Africa really needs it.

After living in Cabo Delgado (the arguably neglected province of Mozambique), reading what goes on in America often seems surreal.  The most recent article that reminded me of the difference between my life here where you eat caterpillar and elephant for dinner to life on planet red, white, and blue was an article that opened with the dangers of playgrounds. Apparently there’s a lot of harmful chemicals children interact with on a daily basis in hidden places in the states.  Ok.  That is a big problem. But all I could think as I read this lamentation about playgrounds was “Wow! A play set! Imagine that! I forgot those existed.”  

What does a playground look like in Montepuez?  A tree? I wish. More like a trash pile.  Not only is it a playground, but it’s also the toy store.  A long ways off from F.A.O. Schwarz.  Although all trash pits are in my opinion sources of scary contagion, the one that is worse, is the hospital trash pit.  Where discarded lancets, bloody gloves, and used syringes lie just waiting to be discovered.  Of course these piles are eventually burned but not before the little ones have opportunity to jump and rummage through them.  Other less exciting trash pits offer rusted or not rusted tin cans and plastic gin bottles.  There are other toys too.  Tires.  Toy cars à la wire. Small rocks.

The first time I walked into Maggie and Jane’s room (the daughters of Amy and Chad, an American missionary family living here in Montepuez who happen to be my lifeline), I was five all over again.  Colors. Sizes. Shapes. Varieties. Of TOYS.  And they have no more toys than what I would imagine the average American family has.  Here a metal can is hard to come by.  Forget puzzles, legos, dolls, games, cards…. 

Maybe it’s not fair for me to compare rural Mozambique to developed America.  I constantly have to check myself and think “Ok. In an American context this argument is worth making.”  The government can always be held more accountable to regulate hazardous chemicals from entering homes and backyards in the form of toys and other household goods.  But I also think, sometimes we should take a moment to appreciate how much stuff we Americans have: equipment, furniture, machines, self-transport, energy …  And if we really don’t want the chemicals entering our homes then maybe we should stop buying so much ‘stuff.’

But even without all that ‘stuff’ in rural Mozambique the toxic industrial chemicals leak in.  I mean here, they sell powdered juice brands outlawed in the states and they use old paint cans and petrol jugs to cart water.  So no matter where you go, our cells are in trouble because we live in a global industrial age.  But after living here, I think “Geez we could be pregnant at 15, dying at 35 and have no toys.”  So just let a kid be a kid and play on a swing set without worrying about it at the cellular level.

I recently read an article with the quote “language is not a barrier.” I wish I could remember where I had read this so I could properly site it and more of what the article talked about so I could contextualize the quote a bit, but my memory often fails when it comes to cataloging information. However, the quote stuck and got me thinking about my life here in Mozambique.

For the first few months of Peace Corps, many of my frustrations boiled down to the ‘language barrier.’ They still do. There is nothing more frustrating in the world than not being able to express yourself in a moment of passion or outrage. I felt I was communicating with the verbal skills of a two year old as the thoughts of a 22 year old swirled around inside my head. Now I understand why kids break out into tantrums all the time.

Even as my Portuguese improves, I still find myself struggling with words yet people seem to understand even when the words don’t arrive. I have witnessed whole conversations happen through a series of body motions, one person inside a moving car the other 30m down the road. I have listened as older siblings form the garbled sounds of younger siblings into coherent sentences. And I’ve befriended a couple who do not share a common language, (the husband speaks Swahili and the wife Portuguese and Macua) but share a life.

So I am beginning to realize that language comes in many forms, not just words, dispelling the idea of a “language barrier.” I think it is all about slowing down and listening not just with your ears to words and tones but also with your eyes. People say a lot with their gestures and facial expressions. A concept that is acknowledged in American culture but increasingly disregarded due to the ever rising role technology plays in our daily communication.

But if you have the time and the patience, you can figure out what a person is saying without them having to vocally say anything at all. For example, many of my old macua grandmas do not speak Portuguese, but we have a blast together. My hand gestures start to get inventive and dramatic and I really learn to appreciate the universal meaning of a smile. Instead of being so focused on my words, I concentrate on translating the idea because in the end that’s all that matters.

Time in Mozambique especially at my new site, Montepuez is a loosely defined concept. To begin things are rarely measured by hours or marked by dates. People use other methods to know how time is passing. Why? Well according to one of the many PC books I was given when I started this adventure, there are two types of societies: monochronic and polychronic. Mozambique is a polychronic society meaning “time is a tool of the people and adjusted to suit the needs of the people; more time is always available.” Monochronic societies like the US view “time as the given and people as the variable, the needs of the people are adjusted to suit the demands of time.” What does this mean? In simplest terms, numerical methods of tracking time don’t carry much weight here in Montepuez.

For example, age is less meaningful. When someone forgets their age in the states, people respond with “Ah, the first signs of dementia!” because age legally and often times culturally signifies when milestones like driving, voting, drinking, marriage, child bearing and retirement occur. Here I am hard pressed to find an old person who remembers their age or month/day/year they were born. They often have to consult their registration card to know. Not just elders though, children and young adults too. People define their place in the cycle of life by the number of children or grandchildren they have, the condition of their teeth or skin… Things are less complicated. People don’t use birth control, there is no money to buy skin cream, and no dentists to treat teeth so it is easy to tell when one is young or old. And that’s just what people are- young or old.

People mark time by their physical environment too. For example, there is the time of hunger when literally there is no food (everything has been planted and nothing can be harvested). For the monochronics it is not the time of hunger, it is November to January. There is the time of rain when you can’t leave your house because it pours from sun up to sun down, which is February to March. The time of malaria, the time of money…You get the picture.

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in a polychronic society. Since people have control over the concept of time, it is always available and can be dispensed freely. There is the comfort of knowing if I don’t finish today, I have tomorrow. There is time to stop to saudar (greet) and appreciate your neighbors, families, and friends. And if something happens to someone’s family (someone dies, a house burns down, someone gives birth), everyone reconfigures their plans for the following day to support the family affected.

The downside is things are less regular. There are no schedules. No sense of urgency. If one needs fast transport, tough luck. Expect to wait about an hour and half before the driver informs you he no longer feels like going to his designated destination until tomorrow. If one wants to make a quick roadside purchase, tough luck. The kid selling you fruit will probably not have change (have to ask ten people before he finds it), converse with his neighbor, and then go searching for a plastic bag and come back with a ripped piece of paper from his school book. That quick 50 second purchase just became 20 minutes. As a born and bred monochronic, I have to say there have been moments here when I literally want to scream because I am so so frustrated that things happen at a painfully slow pace, but there are also many moments when I think…Yes! We should value our people more than we value our time!…

Transitioning into life at my new site has felt so much more natural than my first time around in Chibuto.  My org has given me a ton of responsibility so I am working all the time, everyone even the big players of MP are excited I am here, my co-workers and community have accepted me with open arms, and I live with the Sabao’s an absolutely wonderful family.  All ten of them.

Pastor Sabao is a 46 year old man whose jolly spirit and hospitable nature makes me feel right at home (almost).  Family values are very important to him (big deal here) and he takes an active role in managing his children.  I think it’s 50% the reason why his family is so strong and solid.  The other 50% is due to his wife Flora.  She’s the boss and keeps her eight children in line.  Although her job is totally demanding (she will spend from 9am to 3pm washing clothes saturated with dust and sand) and she is constantly busy (there may be four children crying at once), she keeps things running smoothly 24 hours a day and does it with a smile.  Of course, the eight children Fanito (23), Elená (16), Jonatal (13), Graça (12), Rosa (8), Louisa (6), Raquelé (4), minus Margé (9 months) all pitch in. 

I have a different relationship with all of them, but my two favorites are Elena and Raquele.  Elena is my friend, she’s sixteen and full of attitude.  We hop one flip flop on, one flip flop off to the market, eat burnt papas (aka the baby food)- her spoon always able to scrape better than mine, cook over carvao (she taught me how to not burn everything including my hands), go to the well together (as she collects water, I get impatient), and eat one too many stale biscuits that don’t come wrapped in plastic.

Raquele just turned four this past month and she’s what I look forward to when I come home in the afternoons.  No matter how exhausted or frustrated I may be, her shining spirit always breathes life back into me.  She calls me Mana Jes-ka.  I taught her to “show her hand” or wave as we say in English. Except she doesn’t just use one hand, she uses two and jumps up and down.  She always wants to know what everything is and when she plays, she loves to pretend she’s washing dishes or shifting rice. She also loves to tell me “Escova bem.” Brush my teeth good.  And she’s my partner in the mornings when I do my Julianne Michaels workout.

Every night, I sit outside with the whole family by the fire (it’s actually really cold here at night in the winter) for anywhere between 30 mins to 2 hours laughing, singing, limboing (I taught them how to do the limbo).  Pastor Sabao waits every night for me to do my nightly routine before he shuts his door. Even if I come home from one of the missionaries homes’ at 10pm (doesn’t happen often, once a week max) which is the equivalent of 12pm in the states, he will be there to open the gate, chat for a few minutes and say goodnight.  My tia, I’d be lost without her.  She tells me I need to eat better, helps me with anything related to water, and keeps me well informed about all my neighbors and the correct prices of all the food at the market.

They are my family here in Montepuez and I’m so lucky to have them.

After four weeks and two days of waiting for my house to be completed, I finally made it to Montepuez.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Mozambique, I flew more than 1000 miles to get to my new destination in the northern most province of the bique.

My life here is completely different and I love it. (more to come on that later) The biggest differences between Chibuto and Montepuez are the standard of living, the level of education, and the exposure people have to Peace Corps Volunteers/ Americans /anyone who is different (to be discussed in future blog post).

The standard of living in some parts of Montepuez is just about as low as you can go.  In the south, taking tea is a big tradition and everyday there is tomar cha time. In the north, the communities where I work along with my neighbors don’t have the money to buy sugar. 

Also people have trouble finding the money to treat their water which is problematic when you have outbreaks of cholera.  One of the projects I am supporting here is a counseling and testing program created by JHPIEGO and funded by PEPFAR. We go house to house talking about illnesses, one being diarrhea.  The biggest complaints we hear when we talk about the importance of boiling and treating water is that it costs too much to buy carvao (the fuel used to cook food and boil water) and bleach.  To boil a pot of water it costs about 5 mets or 4.8 cents.

Houses are typically made of bamboo frames and then plastered with sand or mud. The roof consists of a bamboo frame with a covering of plastic topped with capim (grass). Most homes are without windows and some are without doors.  Windows are pieces of capalanas (cloth).  Seriously problematic when you are thinking in terns of malaria. In terms of doors, I’ve seen houses with doors of cinder blocks or straw mats.

It is rare to find a Mozambican woman with a telephone here.  The head of the household usually has one, but then again it is not guaranteed.  People don’t have chairs or tables.  They use esteras (also have these in the south) and baskets turned upside down to sit on.  Only the people with money can afford plastic chairs.  Also, I’ve never realized how special it is to have a mattress.  Here beds are wooden frames with netting made of rope.  People sleep on them without sheets and blankets and it gets cold in Montepuez.  Fifty degrees Fahrenheit at night in the winter. 

The education level varies.  In terns of my community and the communities where I work, I have met very few people here who have made it to secondary school.  Most people or I should say boys stop once they make it to the 7^th grade, if they even make it that far.  It is not uncommon to find girls who never made it to school or stopped after the 3^rd grade.

The age of marriage blows my mind.  This past week, the row of houses where I was working had at least one married couple of teenagers in it.  The age of the wives were between 14-15 and the age of the husbands were 16-18.  Some of the girls were on their first or second child.  The benefit of being the crazy 23 unmarried white person is I can play the foreigner card and question behavior without upsetting anyone because they think I am just as crazy for my cultural and social life choices.

So during my month long wait for site, I happened to meet a lot of travelers who asked me a lot of questions.  One night, in Pemba, I was having beers with a Belgium, German, and American.  The American asked me what was my first “Wow, I’m in Africa moment.”  I responded to him, but I got to thinking and realized I have moments everyday where I sigh and think only in Africa…

1.) I have to pee in a bucket at night. It’s dangerous to unlock my door at night plus unlocking and relocking 3 interior locks and two padlocks takes way too long.

2.) I am the only one who is a mess after eating with my hands.  While everyone else gracefully rolls xima into round balls and dips it into the sauce, the xima forms a crust on my fingers and the sauce doesn’t make it off my plate.

3.) My mocambicana mama #2 uses a stationary rock to get the stains out of my clothes.

4.) Hotel rooms come equipped with cordless fans, pipeless sinks, and bathrooms that flood even though there is no running water.

5.) Your neighbors’ offer you pieces of rat to welcome you to the neighborhood or show up to your house at 7am selling bloody pieces of a pig.

6.) You wait two hours to withdraw money from the ATM and then the machines either go offline or run out of money two people before it’s your turn.  And you are the only person seemingly agitated by this.

7.) Sundays you don’t have energy. And you get slightly electrocuted every time you plug something into the wall.

8.) A simple task that should 10 minutes takes 2 hours.

9.) You take painfully cold ‘I think I may die’ ice baths every morning and three hours later you are being burned alive by the sun.

10.) It takes 30 minutes to walk a distance of 50 feet.  You stop to greet and chat with all your neighbors.

11.) I frequently find small cooked bugs in my bread (in Cabo Delgado).  Some bread makers purposefully don’t pick the bugs out of the dough.  Apparently they add protein.

12.) You are the only person who needs to eat immediately when you wake up.  Everyone else can do hard manual labor until 3pm without complaining of hunger.

13.) A family of six is considered small.

14.) You make at least 3 new friends a day.

15.) You have to press send ten times before a message or call will go through.  Also, if people call you, they hang up after one ring.  They want you to call them back using your money.

Running in Mozambique is my favorite activity to do in the evening.  One because it’s my escape after a hard day when all I really want to do is fly home to the ‘promiseland’.  Mainly though, it’s the friendly greetings and encouragement I receive from the people I run past that remind me, after a day of failed expression and unaccomplished goals, why I love Mozambique and what is wonderful and unique about my life here. 

Several times a week, I make the same trek to the Millenium Village Project which is approximately 6 km away from Chibuto.  And each day I repeat the phrase boa tarde/boa noite (good afternoon/ goodnight) around 50-60 times to some of the people I pass.  And to the cars, I wave or give a thumbs up.  Everyone greets each other on the sidewalks and does thumbs up when they pass each other on the roads.  It is quite normal to pick up a trail of giggling children along the way, maybe as many as 15, some who are actually able to keep up despite their small legs and flip flops.

Memorable moments that involve my runs:

1.)    Running side by side with a one eyed man without shoes, a beer in one hand a cigarette in the other for at least ten minutes

2.)    Sharing a stalk of sugarcane and watching the fiery sky become dark with a boy named Julio

3.)    Being stalked by the doctor who treated my eye infection and having him come to my house at 6am on a Sunday morning to run together.

4.)    Meeting groups of little boys coming back from the river with freshly caught sardines imitating and laughing at my sport which ends in me imitating myself and then all of us dancing

5.)    Dodging herds of cows with horns

6.)    Passing old ladies coming back with large bedongs of water on their heads who don’t speak Portuguese but laugh and give me smiles and gestures of encouragement

7.)    Passing by a well where the entire crowd of people chanted ‘Gésssica’

8.)    Having men try to grab me because they think it is a good time to tell me they love me, to ask for my number, or to simply engage in conversation

9.)    Running behind a three legged goat (the irony is the goat was faster than me)

So anyone who is my friend, my true friend, knows how much I like to take pictures of almost everything I encounter in life. Not because I have some artistic gift of taking pictures of inanimate objects or people (quite the opposite actually); rather I simply just like to remember the place and the people I was with when I bought that jar of jam, sipped that glass of wine, or shared that hotel room. But here in Mozambique, all of the meaningful moments I experience, or at least most, are impossible to capture in a photo because they are the day to day interactions I have with people and the relationships (however unlikely) I build.

The best days I have here are not a result of being productive at work (I have yet to experience productivity there); rather they are good because I have a series of positive interactions with the people in my community. Example of a really good day:

8:00- Ida, a 52 year old activista drops by my house and we walk to Ntwanano together as I learn about the origin of her name.

9:30- My colleagues speak in Portuguese (for once!), and I try to explain how many American men bottle up their emotions or go ballistic when they release one making them quite different from Mozambican men.

11:30- Teach Especiosa how to correctly position her fingers on a keyboard and help her move her fingers as she copies phrases I typed to show her how it feels to use all ten, not just TWO index fingers.

13:00- Accompany Batu to Bairro Mudada where we visit the chefe do bairro, who I do not know is the chefe do bairro until about ¾ of the way through the visit. The only reason I learn this is because I keep interrupting their conversation (happening in Chengana) to ask questions about random words, which apparently is NOT OK to do in front of chefe do bairro.

1430- Return to Ntwanano with hurry, but meet a man who works for CNCS (Conselho Nacional Combate Sida aka a big big health agency in Mozambique) discussing everything from how it’s hard for him to understand American English but not that spoken by Zimbabweans or South Africans to why I like Chibuto; all of which goes smoothly in Portuguese.

1530- Arrive at the secondary school an hour late for English lessons with Professora Erica, another Peace Corps volunteer and two star students. We discuss everything from the difference between housemate and roommate to why people keep pigeons as pets.

16:40- Walk home with Egas, one of the star students and invite myself to his house in Inhambane for a weekend in April which he eagerly agrees to despite barely knowing me. On the way, we run into my favorite bread lady, my Redes counterpart, and a few students I know.

17:30- Enter a ‘supermarket’ store where I find one of my friends from the hardware store who continues (everyday) to insist he needs to see how the paint he sold me looks on my bedroom wall. Leave and encounter Antonio who explains different events going on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. By this point, my brain is tired and unable to comprehend everything he is saying.

18:15- Greet my neighbors: our guarda (guard), my dona da casa, the empragadas (housekeepers for casa grande)

18:50- Head back to the market where I encounter three girls between the ages of 9-11 who accompany me on my errands. We walk, arms linked, to find credit and they tell me what they like to study in school.

19:30- I return home to eat a solid block of ice (not a great substitute for dinner) and watch two episodes of Mad Men before I commence this blog entry.

So this past week, has been one of my best weeks at work, maybe because I have adjusted more to the pace of life here or maybe because the week before was hell.

The activistas at Ntwanano began facilitating a new 12 week program called Tchova Tchova developed by Center for Communications at Bloomberg School of Public Health. Four localidades (no exact translation, more than a neighborhood but not considered a district) have been selected from the district of Chibuto as sites for the program.

For me, this new program means going to the ‘field’ to observe it. Visiting the rural communities is one of my favorite parts of being a Peace Corps Volunteer because even though I do not understand a word of what is said (all conversations take place in the local language), the welcome and hospitality I always, ALWAYS receive reassures me that there are still many people pure of heart with selfless motives in this world. Sometimes I think I was born on the wrong continent.

One community being served by the program is Uahamuza. My colleague, Batu and I used Ntwanano’s motorcycle to get there. An enormous grin was plastered across my face for the entire ride. The best part was riding through the sandy streets (more like paths flanked by small bushes to mark where one ‘lawn’ starts and the next begins) as children were walking to school and women were cooking over carvao, each of whom returned my wave with a smile on their face chiming ‘Bom Dia’ or ‘Lishieli’ (Good Morning)!

After a 30 minute ride, we parked and walked for 20 minutes to what I would later found out was the house of the community leader. Before arriving at destinations, I have zero idea of where I am being led, something I am now used to, because my colleagues do not respond to my questions. Maybe because I ask so many or maybe because half the time I or they need to repeat what was said.

We sat under a shady tree eating peanuts off the plant for over an hour and then walked to the meeting arriving an hour late only to find out we were the first ones there. As the women slowly trickled in, the program and its objectives were presented. When it came time for introductions, the women were told to introduce the person sitting next to them. All of the women broke out in giggles and their excitement filled the room. Each woman repeated what the woman before her had said: “X likes to go to the machamba (plot of land where vegetables grow), X likes to go to church, X likes to eat all types of food, and X has a husband.” It was positively adorable.

Each week participants watch a short video on a computer and then do an activity and have a discussion related to the video. All videos are spoken in the local dialect and show Mozambicans doing Mozambican activities. This week the video was “What can a man do?” showing that men can help women with the work they do (since women do almost all of the work here). The discussion that followed was filled with lots of laughs and from the small amount of what was translated for me, appeared to be ‘fruitful’. (Granted it might have been more fruitful if men had participated, but we can work on recruiting them). The women said they were surprised to see men accompanying women to the machamba and helping with the cooking. They said that rarely happens in their communities, but they believe this way of life is possible.

The day ended as I helped one of the facilitating activistas become more familiar with turning on/ off the laptop, locating/ opening files, and increasing/decreasing the volume. I went home with a good feeling in my soul.