Licenca?

“Licenca?”

The meek voice apologized in the asking.   I snarled, mostly to myself, but just enough to put a whiff of loathing into the air.  A kinder and gentler me would have awoken instantly, bounced off my daybed with a wide smile, greeting one of any of my neighbors with arms open wide, willing to bestow upon them whatever it was that they were about to request.  But today wasn’t that day.  The last five months at site hadn’t, in fact, been that day.

Any other Peace Corps Volunteer would be at the ready with cardboard cutouts and “papel grande”for an impromptu English lesson.  Possibly popcorn was already popping.  Likely banana bread or cookies were almost ready to come out of a Dutch Oven, warmed over a wood or coal fire that had taken the volunteer hours to light, the sand within the pot heating to bake a near perfect confection.  Or at least a Peace Corps version of one.

I blindly reach for my eyeglasses, patting the cheap foam mattress, reaching into the sinkhole that is in the outline of my body; my interrupted nap looking like a crime scene.  Finding my handkerchief, I first wipe the sweat from my face and mop up the drool on my chin.  Sitting upright, I slip into my flip-flops, left in their constant emergency “get up and go” position and mumble, “Moment”, in a voice as sweet as I could muster.

“Licenca” meant one thing, and one thing only.  Someone wanted something from me.  It might be flour or sugar, the amounts never stated, or a needle, Band-Aids, shampoo or medicines.  It might, in fact, be a request for an English lesson, or to do someone’s homework.  When I first arrived, the requests were for money, straight- forward, unabashed requests for cash.  Upon my third or fourth declination, explaining that I did not have enough resources for everyone in the neighborhood that was in need and that Peace Corps is not here to distribute funds, the terms changed to request a loan.  Attempting to use problem-solving skills, I asked what they did prior to my arrival.  They looked at me directly and simply told me they asked the previous volunteers. 

And, of course, according to them,  all of those volunteers gave gifts of money, made loans, brought  them presents from their travels, and baked cakes and cookies.  Little did I know when I joined the Peace Corps I had become a member of Bakers Without Borders. 

It’s actually a strategy that works well for lots of volunteers, all over the world.  It is a great in-road to making friends in the community and sharing the American culture, the third goal of the Peace Corps.  And, honestly, I’d like to be able to say I can bake a cake over an open fire or in a Dutch Oven filled with sand and stones.  And, who better to teach me than my neighbors?

But, I resist the opportunity to bake for, or with, my neighbors and I am not sure exactly why.  Maybe their relentless requests has me on the offensive, my thin-skin bruised that what I take to be overtures of friendship are actually disguised appeals.  Or, as is my preference, I like to do things in my own way and time frame. I’ve never been much good about fulfilling a prescribed role of any kind. 

Baking with my neighbors would also have me once again under the scrutiny of many eyes.  Control plays a part in my response too.  I can’t actually figure out how to bake for the herds of children that inhabit my neighborhood.  And, at the very least, how does one keep those tiny hands from grabbing everything in site?  My private space, of which there is very little, is also not available for sharing.  On that, I am clear.

Simple and probably over thought, it is actually a perfect Peace Corps experience.  Accepting my hesitation and incompetence at these simple tasks is all a part of living in a very different culture.  And, of course, finding one’s place in a community, as the perpetual outsider, is at the heart of everyday life.  I won’t be the person who doles out money and supplies to my neighbors, but I don’t want to be totally off-limits either.

I might just have to become comfortable with the fact that maybe I don’t want to bake and I’ll integrate with the neighbors through other means; the hula hoops, chalk drawings, yoga and English classes.  But, I do have a small container of sand and three small bricks in my kitchen that I gathered in the yard just this afternoon.  Who knows? Maybe the neighbors will catch a whiff of Upside Down Pineapple Cake in the air tonight.

Do I hear, “Licenca”?

Multi- Tasking: Gardening and Trash Picking

Gardening takes on a different form in Mozambique.   Our Peace Corps training involved Perma-Gardening,  a technique to get the best yield.   Upon arriving to my site, it was immediately clear that people here knew how to garden.  In fact, they were pretty much experts, this region known for its fertile farmland and abundance of produce. 

The land surrounding the residential and market center of the town stretches out, as far as the eye can see, lush fields of rice, cassava, pineapples and more. Most of the land is rich soil with water sources intact.  People leave their homes early each day to work in their plots.   In single file, the women walk,  balancing their hoes on their heads.  Children of all sizes follow behind, carrying plastic buckets containing pots of chima, a mashed corn meal, that they will eat mid-day. 

The land around the houses is another thing entirely.  Here the soil is hard packed sand, baked in the sun to the consistency of cement.  Not having a plot outside of town, gardening in my yard did not seem like an option.  And, anyway, there was nothing I could teach my neighbors about agriculture.  I started to look elsewhere for projects, possibly something to do with caring for and cleaning up the environment or personal healthcare.  Ideas came and went.

One day, I found myself buying seeds and looking for a small hand shovel.  I found a torn mosquito net at a friend’s place and took that home, stashing it for later use.  Slowly but surely, without really planning to do so, I was preparing for a garden.  Once my landlord fenced in the back of the house, I decided to give it a go.  While a neighborhood kid labored with the double digging, I sat contentedly on my porch, reading my gardening manuals.  I envisioned picking fresh lettuce and slicing beautiful red tomatoes.   A row of cilantro would also offer desperately needed flavor to my meals.  Peppers, the crowning touch, would add delight to breakfast and dinner. 

As I salivated over my future meals, the young boy, covered in dirt, came to me with some bad news.  The ground just below the top layer of soil was full of garbage.  My entire back yard was a garbage pit.  Not surprising, really, as most of the land here is covered in piles of refuse as there is no municipal system for garbage disposal.  But my landlord had told me how great the soil was behind the house.  Seriously?

We decided to remove what we could and continue with the project.  “We” actually meant the two of us.  I left my comfortable perch on the porch and donned the pair of gardening gloves that I had brought from home.  We dug up torn plastic bags of things I didn’t even want to imagine, bottles, bits of plastic and wood.  I then started my seedbed, just as instructed in our training.  Next to it I created the world’s smallest compost pile.  “Everything in progress”, I kept telling myself.  After all of the hard work, I returned to sit on my front porch, feeling like a contented sharecropper, even though my “garden” was no bigger than a blanket.

It has been two weeks and the soil has been baked back to a cement consistency.  I’ve turned it over twice, and will continue to do so once a week.  When my seedlings are ready for transplant, the soil should be as well, as I’ll add the composted materials.  I’ve garnered some street cred with my neighbors, explaining that I like to garden and wanted to see if I could do so here, in these very different conditions.

Sadly, though, I need to remove litter almost daily.  My neighbors have tossed over plastic and glass bottles, mango pits and just tonight, I found a three- legged plastic chair.  I called the kids over and asked them to please not throw their garbage in the garden, even though it doesn’t look like much quite yet.   One of the men came over and claimed responsibility.  I handed the broken chair back to the man.  I can’t even begin to make sense of that one. Maybe the next project should be about the environment.

I’m not sure if any produce will ever come out of this garden, and if it does, if I really want to eat it.  But somehow the task of gardening, or trying to garden, forgive the pun, gives me roots.   And, yeah, I am digging it!

So, What Do I Actually Do Here?

There is a simple yet deep satisfaction that comes from achieving a daily routine here in Nicoadala.  Each morning I empty the tea kettle of cooled water that I’ve boiled the night before into my water filter, ensuring a fresh supply of drinking water.  I boil another kettle to wash and make a cup of coffee.  I dress for work in one of the five or six outfits available to me.  My breakfast is usually simple; fruits or an egg, yogurt when it is available and I am living large.  I’ve gathered water from the well the night before and know I will do so again in the early evening, when it is cooler.

My walk to work involves greeting the same people each morning, the same people who are doing the same activities every day.  The small children are playing around the carpentry shop, seeking out bits of wood and wood shavings to turn into their toys.  Their plastic cups, empty now of their porridge, sit in the dirt.  The cups will still be there when I return after lunch. The women are moving to and from the well, large basins of water balanced on their heads.  I shudder to think how the nerves in their neck are being compressed.  The men sit in the carpentry shop, an open- air structure with only one power saw.  The remaining work is done with hand tools, used to make furniture and doors.  The men sit and talk, preparing for their day.

I leave my dirt street, just behind the bus stop, and enter into a world that has been awake for hours.  Busses are being loaded with everything imaginable, looking as if they will topple over.  Young barefooted men stand atop the bus hoisting up the items from below.  Women crowd around, in their brightly colored cloth wraps, waiting for the bus departure, while keeping an eye on their worldly possessions above.  Vendors hawk fried bread, packages of cookies, dried fish, phone credit, and wooden trinkets.  Small mountains of fruit line the street, as do the skins and shells from the discarded pineapples, bananas, mangos and coconuts.  Our area is known for its fruit.  The smell of dried fish and garbage permeate the air.

The lines of bicycle taxis stand at the ready.  Daily they try to convince me to use their services.  I decline, explaining that I like to walk, that it is good for one’s health.  They laugh and turn to one another, confirming that the white woman chooses to walk.  It is obviously a topic of interest and surprise.  Their doubt does not subside though we have this exchange each and every morning.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I greet the waiting patients in the local language.  They are always surprised and most of them smile.  The hospital has open air corridors of cement, built to serve as the waiting room.  Due to the proliferation of air-borne diseases like tuberculosis, the architecture is intended.  It is also a very cost-effective measure to gain more square footage.  Unfortunately, the rain and direct sun dictate that the patients move to the cement floor to wait for their consults. The wait could be hours, sometimes all day. 

I step over the patients and make my way to the reception office.  As there is no computer system, and some patients come without their medical cards and file numbers, the first few hours of the morning are spent searching for the patient files.  Once the files are found, they are sent to the appropriate office.  The patients are called, one by one, when the clinician is ready to serve them.  Later in the morning I work in the counseling office where the patients are sent directly after receiving a positive HIV test.  Here they receive counseling to ensure they understand the nature of this disease and their next steps.  Not all patients will begin treatment.  Their CD 4 level must be 250 or lower before they are eligible for the free medications given by the government.  What this means is there is no treatment, except for pregnant and lactating women, until they are exhibiting signs of illness.

The other units, Maternity, Childcare and Nutrition, Dental, Pharmacy, Emergency and the Lab, do their part to serve the crowds of people each day.  There is an open-air kitchen in the back of the hospital, near the morgue, where food for the inpatients is prepared daily.  Two cooks light fires with stacks of wood that they’ve gathered that morning, cooking in pots that look like witch’s cauldrons.  Patients eat porridge and bits of fish or meat with a tomato sauce.  Having helped in the store- room of the hospital, I know that the food given daily to the cook is meager, at best.  One can of tomato paste feeds 40 people.  Add this to a kettle full of water and that is a meal with a stamp of approval from Ronald Regan.  And the unwrapped fish and meat is stored together, in a freezer with intermittent electricity.  A stack of onions sits in the corner of the store-room on the floor.  Bugs scurry out from underneath when the cook reaches for the one kilo allowed daily, which I confirm on the scale.

The hospital has two doctors who also serve 14 area clinics. Medical staff are government clinicians, trained with a year or two of general medical study.   Bachelor degree recipients, of which there are very few, are referred to as Doctor. This includes the counselors and psychiatrists, who dispense medicine.  Running water is only available in a few of the wards and offices.  Staff dressed in blue lab coats fill large garbage barrels of water each morning in the offices and in the two bathrooms with western dump-flush toilets.  Uniforms are important here.  They protect one’s precious clothing and more importantly, signify status.   Staff in blue coats pump water from the well and clean the hospital.  They also carry files to and from offices.  Staff in white coats administer health care.

Two days a week I work in the nutrition program, helping to measure and weigh the babies and children.  Vaccines and Vitamin A is dispensed. We offer short workshops, instructing new mothers to breast feed only for the first six months.  When introducing foods to the babies, we educate them of the risks of disease from dirty water.  We suggest they use the same bowl each day to monitor the food intake of the children, hoping to detect change in diet and early signs of sickness.  Often we cook porridge and show the mothers how they can add green leaves or fruits to augment the nutritional value of the foods.

Porch area of hospital kitchen

And in every office there are reports and forms.  Hospital workers spend most of their time completing forms, registering notes in large hard covered books; information that doesn’t seem to be used or referred to.  The concept is that these registers ensure documentation to avoid pilfering, in the case of the store- room, for instance, and to report to the government for funding.  The reporting is laborious and time consuming, and mostly inaccurate.

Indoor hospital
 kitchen cooking area

Our work as Peace Corps Volunteers is to assist with capacity building, improving the systems, the monitoring and evaluation, the patient flow, general care and the organization process.  Along the way, we offer education about HIV and nutrition and malaria.   But, it is not something we can do upon our arrival.  To be effective we must first understand just how things actually work here, logistically and culturally.  We must first learn, ourselves, about the medical issues. 

Baby being weighed

And, along the way we build trust and relationships.  We role model professional behavior, including showing up to work regularly, setting goals, encouraging collegiality, treating others in a respectful manner.  In the communities we interact with our neighbors, slowly forming friendships and demonstrating our commitment.  Our neighbors are our colleagues and patients and our integration at home contributes greatly to our professional and program success.  It all sounds so simple and that the inadequacies would be easy to remedy.  It is anything but.

For the volunteer, for me at least, it is a constant battle to clarify and lower my expectations.  I am not here to find a cure for HIV or Aids.  I am not going to change the economic system of the country.  I do not have the answers or training or resources to eradicate malaria.   I am not going to do big and great things.  But, I can offer, in small ways, my interest, motivation, commitment, and the experience that I do have.  And, meanwhile, the experiences and training that I am acquiring outweigh what I can offer.  Corny but true, Peace Corps is as much, or more, about my personal growth than it is the community impact.

Mothers lining up with their children for weighing, measuring and vitamins

And, while I struggle with the heat, the frustration with the language and whine on social media about the lack of privacy and the less than ideal hygienic living conditions, there is something that keeps me here.   Maybe not forever, but for now, the simple satisfaction of accomplishing daily routines, of noting small impact on co-workers and neighbors, of seeing smiles and affirmation in the eyes of patients, this can be enough. 

Even the difficult moments leave me with lessons and deepen my personal experience.  Though I’ve lived in other countries, I haven’t had to integrate into a community and culture in the same manner that the Peace Corps experience demands.  It is said that Peace Corps Volunteers are planting seeds for trees whose shade we will never enjoy.  I think this is true and I try to remember this in the most exasperating moments.   It hasn’t been easy and yes, I will continue to struggle and experience the highs and lows, riding the roller coaster that is the Peace Corps experience.  But so far, I’m in for the ride!

Nutrition Talk to the mothers 

The Bridge Is Out

 This past week the city and surrounding area of Mocuba suffered severe flooding.  The Licungo River was at its highest level since 1971.  The level couldn’t actually be measured as the calculation equipment was submerged. The bridge, the only access in and out of the northern region, washed away.  The Peace Corps Volunteers in that section of the country have been without electricity and cell phone coverage for five days and still counting.

Meanwhile, I was dealing with my own challenges.  A very leaky roof left me in a perpetually damp house, small puddles pooling on my cement floor.  The rain also brought a plague of insects into my home, from which there was no escape.  When wiping down a wall to try to rid myself of the cobwebs that seemed to be forming by the hour, large pieces of the wall crumbled inward.  I had been warned my house would melt in the rain and now it was coming to fruition.  Challenges presented themselves daily and I wondered if I could survive another six weeks of rainy season.

Then, today, I travelled forty- five minutes to the nearest city.  When I had first arrived and saw this stretch of land between Quelimane and Nicoadala, I felt like I was on a movie set.    Fields of rice and vivid green vegetation stretched as far as the eye could see, outlined by tall palm trees.  Squat and lush banana trees shaded winding and worn dirt paths that disappeared into the tall grasses leading to picturesque mud and straw homes with thatched roofs.  Idyllic Africa.   Peering out of the dirty window of the public mini-bus, I couldn’t help but to imagine the daily life within as we passed by.

After a week of torrential downpours, this land was now a small lake.  Any houses that still remained were surrounded by, and partially submerged, under water.  Mostly there were just thatched roofs visible here and there and small piles of mud.  The straw buildings, most of which housed livestock or stored grains, listed dangerously to the side, just a few breezes away from toppling over.  And the fields of newly planted rice were nowhere to be seen.  Now I don’t know much about growing rice other than that they thrive in very wet conditions.  This was beyond wet.   I was told all the crops had been washed away and the people would be hungry in the coming months.

 What few personal belongings people had were now drying out, littered along the roadside.  A few pieces of fabric and clothes clung to trees, brooms and hoes standing upright, the poles rooted into the mud. People waded waist high in the water, travelling from their homes to the tarmac.  While I would like to think these were second homes to these families, inhabited only for the growing season, that is wishful thinking.  Most of the families have now left these homes and their crops and livestock, the past week of rain plunging them further into poverty.  Most likely they fled to live with relatives and will burden already financially strained households.

Those families hanging on, now living near and in the stagnant waters, are at a high risk of contracting malaria.  Preparing, storing and cooking food must be next to impossible.  In this part of the country, meals are prepared on outdoor fires.  Not only are the fuel sources now unavailable, but the very limited patches of land still existing are bogs, land unable to support a fire.  Living in a mud soaked house, with children and babies, seems impossible.  As our mini-bus passed by today, everyone was completely silent.  The desperation in those waters, once an abundant and fertile farmland, was palpable.  When we could stand to look no more, we turned our heads to look out the other side of the bus windows, as if the problem would go away.   We saw only more of the same.

Heavy rain is predicted this coming week.  And if that isn’t enough, a cyclone is headed to our region.  Peace Corps Volunteers have an organization supporting us, ready to evacuate and house us elsewhere, if needed.  To us, this is mostly adventure, an event to be remembered in our lives.  For the people here, and those that live in the flooded fields, this event is their life, a life changing event from which they may never recover.