Mozambique Summer Camp

Some of us have stories about being dropped off at summer camp, that moment when sheer and utter loneliness hits.   I never had that experience but I now know the feeling.  Last week, a Peace Corps driver dropped me off at my new site, where I will live for the next two years.  He helped to unload my things onto the front porch.  Before I could even unlock the door, he hopped back into the car and drove away down the narrow sandy road. 

Doubt raced throughout my body; my heart racing and my bowels twisting.  I tried to pretend that this was all normal, that this was just where I wanted to be and just what I wanted to be doing.  I had lived with a host family for the eleven weeks of training and was more than ready to be on my own.  I brought my things inside my mud house and placed them in the middle of the floor.

The house had been occupied by a former Peace Corps Volunteer who had brightened up the place by painting the walls.  There was a wooden chair, table and a bedframe without a mattress.  Setting up house would require more than I had anticipated.

I had heard that “The No.1 Supermarket” was having its grand opening.  (Yes, shops here really do have these kinds of names. While  Alexander McCall Smith wrote an entertaining series, “The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency”, the title is credited more to actuality than creativity.)   My mission was to stock up on supplies.  Without refrigeration and owning only a one-unit hot plate, I had to reconfigure my diet, cooking and food storage strategies. 

List in hand I bounced out of my small rural town in the local chappa (mini vans meant for twelve to fourteen passengers that take on thirty).  Arriving to Quelimane, I hailed down a bike taxi and requested in my broken Portuguese to head directly to The No. 1 Supermarket.  Quickly we joined a parade of bike taxis, all heading to the grand opening. I knew the place at once, festooned in plastic banners and balloons.

Immediately upon entering the store I personally confirmed the store name as most appropriate.  Having not seen a store in the past three months that sold more than matches, Kotex, single packets of detergent and cans of tuna fish, I was mesmerized.  Any item ever desired was available.  I started my foraging. 

The first aisles were filled with packaged and canned Chinese food.  Curiosity got the better of me so I grabbed a few unidentifiable items. The refrigerated section was a big tease, but rather than avoiding it completely, I did a quick scan for future reference.  Next came boxed, canned and packaged foods.  Pastas, crackers, a few jars of condiments and a small can of coffee-flavored chicory beverage rounded out my food pyramid.

Stuffing Doritos and coconut cream cookies into my mouth, I rounded the corner.   My eyes glazed over at the sheer multitude of cheap plastic multi-colored Chinese-made products crammed into the shelves.   Most of these products would break at the mere thought of use and I would undoubtedly be purchasing them again in just a few months time.  Quality and safety aside, I found myself considering color schemes and which color had less toxicity.   I decided upon the earthy tones.  Plastic spoons, graters, strainers and containers were heaped atop my cart.  My longing for all things plastic sated, I moved on to small appliances.

There, mid-way down the aisle, at waist level, was the sparkling gem of my dreams: a three -burner gas stove top unit, with fake chrome trim and a lightening bolt painted across the top.   This really was the No. 1 Supermarket, I thought.  I grabbed a boxed unit dreaming of all of the future meals in my mud hut.   In total glee I skated by the fans, grabbing a standing unit with one arm.  I slid into the check-out line.  Mission accomplished.

Almost. 

 I now had to get these items back to my mud house.  No small feat but I got it done.   I hired two bike taxis.  Holding my fan in one arm, my back-pack bulging with loot, I hoped that the other taxi wouldn’t take off, absconding with my precious stove and plastic ware.  It all made it.  I made it, too and am no longer feeling like I’ve been abandoned at summer camp.

PS  It is a month after writing this story and I have yet to find and purchase a propane gas tank for my stove, but I think I am getting closer to solving this challenge!  While I can't use the stove, it looks great on my counter.

Heavy Weight Boxer

I came across a forgotten photo this morning.  A few years ago I found it near the boat ramp across from my house. I was surprised that I even noticed it as it was half-covered in a layer of sand.  There was no one to ask about it, the fishermen hours before launched on the lake.  I stood idle for a few moments, wondering if I should place the photo on someone’s windshield.   It seemed such an important item, so personal.  I slid it into the parker of my windbreaker. 

My best guess is that the photo was taken in the 1970s, judging from the shag carpeting under the man’s canvas high-top sneakers, supporting what looks to be a heavy-weight boxer.  Shirtless and in short silk running shorts, his fists closed and in position, this man is confident and intent.  A posed photo, the camera captured all of his youth and vigor. 

The photo is cut to show only the subject.  Creases in the photo tell me it was in someone’s wallet for many years. I was strangely attached to this photo and pinned it above my desk.  I coveted this bit of  borrowed personal nostalgia but I wasn’t quite sure why.  

Fingering this keepsake inside my pocket, many mornings I would slowly walk by the fisherman, ready to reveal my role of imposter, to return to the rightful owner the photo and all of the sentiment that I had created.  I wondered if the photo was the key to a storehouse of memories for someone.   I worried that by my keeping the photo, I would be guilty of initiating the loss of those memories.  But still, I kept the photo.  And, then, I packed it to accompany me in Mozambique.

I had tucked it into an Altoids tin that I had filled with paper clips to bring with me to Mozambique.  Our allowed luggage weight of 100 pounds for the two-year Peace Corps assignment was a challenge, to say the least.  In hindsight, packing office supplies seemed odd.  Including this photo, even odder.

The average life span in Mozambique is 52 years old. HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are largely accountable.  Horribly poor nutrition, economic woes and political strife add to the difficulties.  And sadly, predictions are for the life span here to decrease in the next five years, contrary to most other places on the planet. 

Having just turned 54 years old, I can’t help but to compare myself to this statistic, and to the people around me.  While I am in good health and physically fit, since my arrival I have noted that I’ve crossed into the threshold of my late mid years.  Serving with a group of volunteers in their twenties has also given me cause to observe the differences.  My confidence, sense of spirit and self has grown, traded for the endless energy of my past.  I move and think slower, which I’m actually enjoying and consider a good thing.  There is a quietness within that wasn’t there before.  And, yes, thankfully, I am healthy.

Although I didn’t understand at the time just why this photo grabbed my attention, or why I packed it, I understand it now.  The passing of time, the loss of youth, and coming to terms with aging, all things we can’t really know until we experience it. And all the things that I imagine an old fisherman was very aware of and the reasons why he kept that photo for many years. My subconscious understood it before I did, and, intrigued, began the process of preparation to enter into this next phase.

I have often wondered why I accepted the invitation to serve in Mozambique.  I know now it was to be the backdrop to enter into this new chapter.  Unlike Mozambicans, I have had the benefit of good health care and a privileged life.  And I can be pretty sure that I will continue to enjoy these benefits. 

The photo can remind me of all the yesterdays now gone by, my own and those of others.  My days in Mozambique make me acutely aware of the value and quality of life, of life right now, today and tomorrow.  Of my life and those around me.