Better the Devil You Know.

This past weekend presented me with two incredibly weighty and humbling life experiences. The first: I chanced to help save my Mozambican friend’s leg (and possibly, life). The second: I spent a full day watching the great Humpback whale migration from the prow of a catamaran. And while the former reminded me of the huge power a small act of human courage can have in changing the course of another's life, the latter dwarfed any suspicion of self-importance with the feeling that with every crest and fall of ocean waves, we were a tiny spec teetering on the surface of a much greater and mysterious world below.  Least to say, it was an intense few days.

Friday afternoon I popped into the library for a quick look, and took some measurements for the mural that we’ll start painting next week. It was there I ran into Raulina, a teacher at the primary school and my new library counterpart.  As usual we chatted about the weather, our families, her chique new hair style, school gossip, and our plans for the weekend. It wasn’t until I was on my way out however that she caught me by the arm, and told me that “by the way, mana Joana is very sick” and “could we go visit her now?”

Being in a hurrying mood, I’m ashamed to say that I felt a bit annoyed. Mozambicans are always complaining dramatically of some malady or another. Teeeecha. Estou suferir. Estou com fome. Estou doente. Estou com dor de cabeça, ou barriga, ou pé. Estou com constipação. The list goes on. They’ll have a pain in their stomach and say they have cancer. If they’re sick, they say they’ve gotten it from the dust in the air, from the trash in their neighbors yard, or that a witchdoctor has cursed them. I’ve never met a nation of people so poorly educated about the transmission and general cause of disease, let alone a complete lack of taking personal responsibility for disease prevention and treatment. Even Joana, a very well educated matriarch of the primary school, had been sick for weeks already with a swollen foot… I’d seen it the month before. Yet she had just been tolerating it, expecting it to get better. Perhaps the only thing equal to Mozambicans ignorance of disease is their tolerance and patience with pain. Since I hadn’t heard anything from her, I guess I’d just figured she’d recovered and gotten busy again. Still, a little voice in the back of my head argued, you should go and see her to make sure she’s ok. Sighing I wheeled my bike back around, away from home and towards the huts behind school grounds. “Sure, Raulina. Vamos.” I said, now walking at her side. “Thanks for inviting me.”

While I’m quite conscientious about listening to my inner little voice, I’ve rarely felt more fortunate for having heeded it than I did in visiting Joana that day.

Immediately as I ducked into the darkness of her hut, I knew something was horribly wrong.  A mound of blankets erupted from the cold cement floor a foot from the doorway. I knew Joana was under that huge plaid mountain of felt, but I couldn’t see any hint of her.  “Mana Joana,” I called softly into the darkness, my eyes adjusting to the dim, my toes slowly picking their way around hidden obstacles, moving closer to where her face should be. Finally, kneeling down, I waited as her son (one of my best students) Adelson, worked to rouse her.  “Mãe, Teacher Karina and Teacher Raulina are here to visit you.” Moments pass. Again.  “MAMA. Teacher Karina e profesora Raulina estao aqui. Levanta mama!” Finally the pile began to stir and grumble and a hand reached out, grasping. So I took it. It was burning. As the blankets peeled away from the top, I finally found Joana’s face and gasped. It was a feverish face, a bleary-eyed, leathery brown face aged and etched by pain. “Joana,” I breathed, scared and shaken now. “What’s happened?” She began to cry.

The next 20 minutes were a blur, a whirling of action and response. Trying to keep my voice calm and positive, I sent Adelson and his little brother for buckets of cold water, a wet cloth on the forehead, and juice from the market. Joana was shivering uncontrollably and was so weak she couldn’t prop herself up. Meanwhile, I knew I had to take another look at that swollen foot of hers she’d told me about the month before.  What I saw when I rolled back the blankets took my breath away. The slight swelling that had been in her foot before, had spread all the way up her leg and into her groin leaving clustered, dark, almost pustule-like, spotting along her entire inner thigh.  I was looking at an elephant leg.

Part of Joana's freakishly large and swollen leg. The foot (not pictured) looked like a massive club.

Moreover, in talking to Adelson, I’d learned that Joana had already gone to two hospitals – the health clinic in Mapinhane as well as the Hospital Rural in Vilanculos. The first had turned her away with a prescription for Tylenol, while the second had prescribed her a pain killer, fever reducer, and the anti-biotic Erythromycin. The only problem was that whoever had diagnosed her at the Vilanculos hospital didn’t take the time to explain what each medicine was for. And so because Joana could only afford two of the three medicines, she bought the first two on the list and left the final prescription, Erythromyacin – the one medicine that could actually do any good – unfilled. Clearly, it wasn’t that the nurses and doctors at the Vil hospital didn’t know what they were doing… they simply just didn’t educate their patient about her own health and how to help herself heal. And now with Joana shaking and moaning under that pile of blankets with a horrible infection roaring in her body, I figured she was in a really fragile state… that she would be too far gone in another 48 hours, maybe even less, to be able to bring her back if I didn’t take action. I was really scared. But I’d already lost Hermenigilda in a way that made me feel helpless. I felt determined to do something, anything. There’s no way I was just going to stand by and watch her suffer like that, especially for something I guessed was super treatable.

So, within a few texts and graphic photos exchanged with my mom, who’s a Nurse Practitioner with nearly 40 years of experience, back home, we had a diagnosis. Because I’d first seen the swelling in her foot a few weeks before, we realized just how aggressively the infection had spread up her leg. Joana was suffering from an advanced stage of septicemia, or blood poisoning.

Doing some research on it later, septicemia is actually one of the biggest killers in the underdeveloped world. Infection and the lack of access to basic antibiotics and controlled treatment plagues the poor across the world. As WorldSepsisDay.org explains:

"Sepsis arises when the body’s response to an infection damages its own tissues and organs. It can lead to shock, multiple organ failure, and death, especially if it is not recognized early and treated promptly. Between one-third and one-half of all sepsis patients die. In developing countries, sepsis accounts for 60-80% of all deaths."

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of it is that infections like Joana’s are some of the easiest to control and treat if caught early.

Yet with the lack of education and understanding of disease transmission and control, coupled with the fact that most of the world’s poor can’t afford treatment or even have access to a medical provider, most people with very treatable injuries or diseases just sit, rest, and wait, hoping their malady will pass and thus instead allow the infection to set in and take over. They don’t even have a fighting chance.

Anyway, we finally had a diagnosis thanks to mom. So I hopped on my bike and shot out of that barrio like a bullet, pedaling for home and the extra stash of kick-ass antibiotics my mom had brought me from home a few months before (I’ve always loved being a Nurse Practitioners daughter!!). With a new flurry of texts, Mom and I settled on a 1000mg / 12 hours pusher dose of Amoxcycilin for the first 36 hours, then a switch to 500mg / 8 hours of Erithromyacin. I threw in a pack of dehydration salts and Ibuprofen for good measure. Then I hopped on my bike and shot off again through the sand and onto the main road. Fenda must have thought I’d gone crazy. His wagging tail quickly drifted back only a few steps into his pursuit.

On the bike ride back to Joana’s, I prepped myself on how I was going to explain treatment. One of the things we’ve learned through teaching about HIV and malaria prevention is that you can’t make assumptions about what people “already know” because most likely they actually don’t but say they do.  What I had going for me was that I knew Adelson, the son, was a super diligent student of mine – the rare kind of kid that copies every word on the board and asks clarifying questions in class. So I crafted a list of detailed, descriptive instructions. Pacote branco, I wrote, referring to the silver packaged Amoxcycilin, Adelson perched religiously on my shoulder. 1 pacote cada 12 horas para 2 dias. Aleve. 1 medicamento cada 6 horas quando tem febre. I had him describe back to me the treatment until he could do it from memory. Then in an attempt to push program adherence I told Adelson I’d count each empty packet he had the next day. Then I had to tell him to push fluids into his mom despite her resistance. “Have her drink 4-5 cups of water or juice every hour,” I explained him, guessing we’d be lucky if he could get even half of that. “The medicine needs fluid to work,” I clarified, giving a very abridged reference to the horrors of dehydration. I didn’t really know how to describe kidney failure.

And with that, my lesson was done, the immediate crises of deciding what course of action to take, over.  I watched Adelson administer the antibiotics and Aleve to his mom and felt really proud. But I knew we weren’t out of trouble yet. Joana now just needed time to let the antibiotics work. And while later that night I still felt really self-assured in the decisions I’d made earlier that afternoon, I couldn’t sleep. While we didn’t really talk about it, I knew that my sitemate Maria, who had done pre-med at university thought I was out of line for helping the way I did. That, for one, I was putting myself at risk with the community if Joana didn’t make it and I’d been the last person seen with her giving her mystery pills, and for two, she thought that I was in absolutely no way qualified to make the judgment calls I’d made that day, even with my Mom’s help.

Both were valid points. It’s true there could have been backlashes from Joana’s family if things had gone badly. Because I’m white. Because people don’t understand how medicine and disease work. Because I’d make a convenient scapegoat for a mourning community, and that I was trying to treat an infection that was too far along. It’s the sad side to medicine in a developing country that the odds are against you. And as to the second point, sure, I wasn’t qualified at all, but with 40 years’ experience my mom is. And with technology these days, essentially I got to present to my mom the symptoms with photos and descriptions with real time accuracy. It was truly amazing, honestly. Without the power of WhatsApp and GoogleVoice calls, my story would have been different. I would have tried to take Joana to a second rate hospital by public chapa, where we would have been forced to wait for hours to be seen by a doctor, and for what? To be told to go home again? No. Way.

Essentially to me it all came down to this: I could play it safe, stand by, do nothing but try and make her comfortable and watch Joana lose her leg or die from a treatable infection. Or I take a risk on both our parts, make my best judgment based on expertise from someone I trust, and try to save a friend’s life.

I stand by my decision to this day. I couldn’t have lived with myself or looked Adelson in the eye ever again if I’d knowingly made him and his brother orphans.

So, I let time take its course and kept myself busy. I had a new roof on my hut installed that next day. I later sent myself to Vilanculos with Maria, Sarah and Victor to relax and go whale watching for the weekend. It was splendid to have my worries juxtaposed to the magnificence of the humpback whales. Any anxiety suddenly seemed miniscule and was forgotten in the scheme of things. For nearly an hour, a pod of four young males circled our catamaran and put on a show, splashing, fluking, and diving. Dolphins played at our bow. Witnessing these creatures felt more sacred than probably anything I’ve ever experienced (besides wild elephants). They were letting us into their lives and engaging us, and when they were done, they just flipped their flukes and dove. Here we were bobbing on top, hundreds of meters above them, yet the whales came to us not because we wanted them too, but because they did. The magnificence of the whales was awe-inspiring. And it reminded me of the importance of perspective.

Yet I called and checked in on Joana twice a day, even from the boat, and we started seeing signs of progress. After the first 24 hours, Joana rated her pain level a 5, down from a 9 the day before. And it was on the third day, when I got back to Mapinhane, that we rejoiced to see that the swelling had started to finally go down too. The skin on her foot and ankle that had been once taunt and stretched to bursting had begun sloughing into flappy layers of loose skin. 

This time at my visit she had her church lady friends sitting around her bed, and Joana had propped herself up to receive them all. What made me happiest though was that Joana was once again smiling that huge, toothy grin of hers. She was herself again. “You saved my life,” she said, in front of everyone, taking my hand, hers healthfully cool again. “I only did what I knew I could do,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. “It was nothing.” I then told her she wasn’t allowed to get sick again. Right on cue, all the ladies cackled, then proceeded to overwhelm me with their own medical worries. A woman with a lump on her eye, another’s swollen foot, another complaining of chronic stomach pain. I waved them all off. “I’m not a doctor,” I said. “I’m a teacher. And anyways, mana Joana isn’t even on her feet yet.” Thankfully, they all chuckled again and I left in a wave of “obrigadas” and “gracas a deus” also escaping any further inquiries by stepping out into the winter rain.

As a kid, and still even now, my mom and I have a little thing where when I ask her how her day went after working at the clinic or  running hospital rounds, and she’ll sigh dramatically with a grin and go, “Oh you know, just saved a few lives honey. No big deal.” It’s played off as a joke. Because how else can you talk about everything inbetween the lines? The people you can help versus the people you can’t. It’s easier to have a punchline instead.

On my path to becoming a nurse, hopefully one day with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), it honestly feels like I’m doing everything out of order. I’ve had to confront and will confront a lot more of these harsh realities of third world health care next year with my volunteer position at the hospital without formal medical training or knowledge. Yet I know that the type of work M.S.F does is the type that works in similar or even worse conditions of stressful, undersupplied, impoverished, undeveloped or war-torn nations than Mozambique. I actually met an ex-M.S.F employee on the whale watching trip and he said that getting posted to Mozambique is almost like a holiday compared to the majority of other M.S.F posts.  I’d like to think that it will help me a lot in the future to be able to think back to the amazing people here in Mozambique that only needed a little education and guidance to turn a serious illness or complication like what killed Hermenigilda only a few months ago, into a survivable one like Joana’s. I expect the people we preserve in our hearts, we find again in future chapters of our lives, and what better way than to have a real skill to offer, and a real, tangible way to help.

COS & the “abnormal normal”

It is a moment every Peace Corps Volunteer anticipates with equal parts excitement, dread, and enveloping nausea – receiving our Close-of-Service (COS) dates. It is a rather arbitrary date, yet a date that marks the end of a life chapter – a 27 month saga branded by incredible freedom, personal growth, and the general sensation of having every fiber in your body set on fire by each loss, triumph, heartache, and celebration. COS also marks the beginning of a new chapter – a new chapter manifested in the return to the mundane and predictable realities and responsibilities of “real life.” As a whole, my group of PCVs (Moz 19ers) is excited about the little luxuries we’ll get to readopt. Or even adopt for the first time ever, well, just because we can. Fast internet. Netflix. Home-crafted brews. Beautifully maintained roads. So much running water we can marvel at the whoosh of a flushing toilet. Snowy Christmases. Going to the gym. Maybe even Taco Bell?? And generally, just being culturally literate and understood. Being normal. The list of things we’ve grown accustomed to living without is endless. Yet, we wonder. Will they “get me” back home?


The Public Radio series This American Life produced a piece called “Will They Know Me Back Home” that places in starker clarity, via the eyes of American soldiers who served in Iraq, what you could say is the traveler’s fear of reintegration – the fear of not fitting back into society after a life changing experience. “Will They Know Me Back Home” takes you through the stressors, awkward encounters, and reconciliations American soldiers from the 216^th platoon faced upon their return from the Iraq war. From short trips to the mall that feel like fanfares to buying their first legal six-pack of beer, these young soldiers struggle to reconcile who they were before they left and who they’ve become.  And while Peace Corps and military service host radically different missions abroad, at a second glance, in many aspects the types of sacrifices both face upon homecoming are quite similar. The fear of never truly belonging anywhere  - being too American to fit in abroad, and too deeply, permanently changed to ever see home in the same way again, especially after having witnessed and experienced things previously unimaginable. The fear of being an outsider to the life you’re supposed to be readopting, struggling to find room and acceptance for your new ways of seeing the world. And also of course, with attempts to reinsert oneself into daily routines, the weighty realization that life and loved ones back home have gone on just fine without you.  Homecoming, once fervently sought and a buoy for wavering morale , quickly transforms into a crisis of belonging. Of place. Of purpose. Of self.


Excerpted from David Finkle’s non-fiction narrative The Good Soldiers, one of the best moments of the This American Life episode was a returning soldiers’ monologue about his first few hours back on American soil. The soldier explains:

As I walked through the airport, I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. The businessmen on cellphones, the families on vacations – all of it was too strange. The “normal abnormal” Major Cummings called Iraq. But this was exactly the opposite. The “abnormal normal.” So, I kept my eyes down and made my connecting flight home to a girlfriend I wasn’t sure I even knew how to talk to anymore.

Peace Corps service in Mozambique involves few of the types of traumas and horrors experienced by our troops that were in Iraq. Yet given the adjustments I’ve made as a volunteer living more than two years abroad, Mozambique has indeed become my “normal abnormal” – every day in Mozambique pushes ones comfort zone and confronts you with all the things you’ve ever taken for granted. Things like being able to express yourself in your own language and the ease with which Americans generally forge trust and friendships, to having relatively similar cultural ideas about personal space, borrowing, and what’s “right” and “wrong.” Yet it is the abnormal that I’ve come to love. It’s the abnormal that makes me feel the most alive. I have never been more creative, resourceful, flexible, and open-minded than living with the everyday challenges of the normal abnormal. What happens when I swap it for the “abnormal normal” of the United States? I already know there will be no way around the shock of American reintegration. The strange part is to think that I’ll be leaving behind the most simple, but completely magical life I may ever have. As I stand now, I’m single, live on $200 a month, am well-educated, yet still idealistic enough to think the world is my oyster. Bring it on world.


Still, I’m already 24 and not too much of a romantic to realize that I’ll have very tangible responsibilities in a handful of years. I figure I have a year left to “play” before making some of my most serious life decisions. A year before I have to pay actual adult-like bills. A year before I take the first steps toward my career as a global health nurse and educator.  The question I’ve been wrestling with recently is – how do I want to fill that time?


Let’s start by putting off that dreaded American reintegration process a little longer, and tacking on another 6 months of service. That’s right. Next year, with or without Peace Corps (we’re still negotiating terms), I will be extending my visa to stay in Mozambique through June 2015 in order to volunteer at the Vilanculos hospital and get critical hands-on experience to make sure that global nursing is something I’m really bent on doing. By July, I’m tentatively planning on traveling for six months (to climb Kilimanjaro too!) and then am looking at jumping on board a sailboat as a crew-member and sailing from Capetown to the Caribbean. If that doesn’t work out, then I’ll just fly home after traveling Africa.

Either way, the next chapter is in sight. I’m working toward something meaningful. And, finally American reintegration is on my horizon whether I like it or not. :)

Somewhere Between Mozam-bleak and Mozam-awesome

The golden orb glowers at us, retreating to its lair beneath the sky and casting cool rays upon the chipped blackboard. It’s late afternoon on a wintery cool Friday and neither myself nor my students really feel like still being at school a second longer. Still, I have earned a new level of patience here in Mozambique, so instead of losing my cool, I gather myself, take a deep breath of fortitude, and smile. My back is to the room, yet nothing catches me off-guard. I’ve been here too many times before. I can feel the breathy onslaught of piercing barulho (noise) raking up my spine, and clawing over my shoulders – pedidos for money, snacks, my pen, excuses about not doing the homework, questions about where my boyfriend is, or could I take them to live in America? All simultaneously. All the exact same comments from the hour, day, month, or year, before. Sometimes I get the occasional compliment, of “Wow Teacher, you look beautiful today!” but more often I’ve heard the muttering of “mulungo” and following wave of tittering, giggling girls.


Ever since Cultural Week in June, when I covered the extra cost for the caplanas I purchased for them, the level of disrespect from my students has been ghastly. It’s like a bad case of the "gimmies "– you give a little charity and suddenly 200+ teenagers want something from you all the time. If you won’t give it to them, sometimes they just decide to take it. I’ve turned out enough pockets to know. That, on top of the fact that I catch kids cheating on even the most basic in-class assignments – by borrowing their friend’s notebook who has English with me earlier in the day and either copying the answers or being so bold as to hand me their friend’s notebook and claim its theirs – it’s hard to take what I do here seriously anymore.


I honestly believe too, that my friendliness with my students in an effort to build some camaraderie and meaningful mentorships has actually caused many of them to lose respect for me. That by me being too kind, they’ve lost their fear of me. Like Machiavelli’s advice to Italian lords that effective rulers are to be feared rather than loved, kindness from a position of authority here in Mozambique if often scorned as a weakness to be taken advantage of, rather than something to be respected. Kindness will make you a target. Being a female teacher in a male dominated workforce will make you the punchline.  And being the mulungo, or “outsider,” I’m constantly seen as Miss Moneybags. Thus you can see why the barrage of teenage slander is flourishing. They have a lot of material to work with.


It’s hard to explain this to anyone who’s never really been to Mozambique before. I’m sure to many of you, it may seem like I’m saying that Machiavelli was onto something. Not so at all. It’s just that sadly, all these kids have grown up with violence as a deterrent to bad behavior. As I’ve explained before corporal punishment is alive and well both at home and in the classroom. Physical violence is the only thing they fear. When a boy grows up and becomes a man, if he steals he knows he can expect the whole village to come after him and potentially maul or even kill him. A husband is completely socially allowed to punish his wife with a beating. A mother may beat her child. To us, it seems a harsh system of tribal justice. To them, it’s weird that I don’t play by the same rules.

In any case, I’m 21 months in, and I’m just about burned out.

Clearly, there are some days that I get so frustrated and fed-up with this country that I’ll leave tomorrow on the next express bus to anywhere else. Days where I want to throw my hands up, chuck my bata lab coat in the trash, and march off without ever looking back. Growing up, I remember it was as common to hear that “kids in Africa would give anything to go to school” as often as we were reminded to clean our plates “because kids in Africa are starving.” Perhaps it’s been one of the most depressing things to witness as a Peace Corps Volunteer, the lack of value most of my students place on their education. My worst teaching days bring up various versions of the same rant, “What good am I really doing here anyways?!” With the layers of corruption and systemic suffering I see on a regular basis, why should I barely make ends meet each month and feel mocked, disrespected, and belittled for having high expectations of my students when they won’t even bring their notebooks to class, receive zeroes for entire projects, and then ask me for extra credit afterwards?  You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I think the hardest thing about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is realizing that often the people you are trying to serve won’t even help themselves. That they are totally fine with selling out on the long term to get a short-term kick or gratification. The uselessness and powerlessness felt when people refuse to realize their potential is the worst experience a Volunteer teacher can have during their service.  To know that someone is better than their condition, yet see them fail themselves over and over again is just morale breaking.

You can tell that I’ve finally been in Mozambique long enough now. That the honeymoon is finally over. That it’s time to start making sense of all this so that frustration doesn’t turn to bitterness. I have to believe that what I’m doing here is worth it, even if I help just one young mind start thinking outside of the multiple “boxes” that entrap them.

There are also really good days too– days that make me want to live in this country forever. Days where I’m in love with its overwhelming optimism, the vamos ver attitude, and ability of the povos mocambicanos to live in the moment. In love with the constant smiles, clapping hands, and incessant jokes that greet friends, neighbors, and welcome complete strangers to their dinner tables. In love with the criancas at my house and on the street that grab my hands with sticky fingers, tugging me toward their new toy car made with soda cans and wire. In love with the happy calls and waving arms to Teeeecha Karrriiiinnaaaaa across corn fields, school yards, market stalls, and along the highway. In love with the full moon and starry nights under the Southern Cross listening to the witchdoctor drums beat under the ancient baobob tree.

I have been changed forever.

Somewhere between “Mozambleak” and “Mozamawesome” I’ve realized, no matter what my frustrations, no matter whether I’m here or halfway across the world, I’ll love this country forever.

It is the dilemma of the Peace Corps Volunteer.

 

The Hoogstede's Great African Roadtrip

“You know, this kinda feels like that one video game…umm, Grand Theft Auto!” my mom cackled happily from the back seat making pseudo break screeching noises. Like mother, like daughter I thought, grinning. My dad, conversely solemn and justifiably a bit stressed, was training his squinty eyes on the lanes ahead, and navigating our monster white 4x4 adventure truck through the free-for-all horde of Maputo commuter traffic - on the left hand side of the road no less. Chapas, mini buses, taxis, flashy white sedans of the rich (and infamous), swerved and honked around us. Pedestrians – women with huge baskets of fruit on their heads, men decked out in blue laborers outfits and reflective vests to a spectrum of suits and ties, and uniformed school children – took their chances needling their way through the sprawling urban badlands of a typical African city. 

Maputo, like so many other capital cities on the African continent, has grown too fast, supporting too many people with a complete lack of infrastructure and any strategic city planning or maintenance work since the Glory Days of Independence. To oversimplify the history of the last few decades, when Salazar was kicked out of his Portuguese presidential office and the government seized by the victorious communist party in the early 1970s, Mozambique was returned to its people nearly overnight. There was no transitionary government, no sharing of skills or education on proper resources regulation, budgeting, or governance. Rather, the quick transition demanded a fierce scramble between former revolutionary leaders within Mozambique for power which ultimately lead to a devastatingly destructive civil war. And Maputo, once known as the glamorous Lourenço Marques, became a hub as much for corruption and piracy as it did for enlightenment and liberation. Contemporary Maputo, nearly 40 years later, still remains an unbelievable conglomeration of striking contradictions and muddled histories. 

Paul Thoreux explains Maputo in his narrative Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown (Thoreux was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi in the 80s before becoming a journalist and author – for any of you wanting a crash course in the sights, smells, and voices of contemporary Africa, I highly recommend this book). He writes: 

“Maputo was a dreary, beat-up city of desperate people who had cowered there while war raged in the provinces for twenty-five years, destroying bridges, roads, and railways. Banks and donors and charities claimed to have had successes in Mozambique. I suspected they invented these successes to justify their existence; I saw no positive results of charitable efforts. But whenever I expressed skepticism about the economy, the unemployment, the potholes, or the petty thievery, people in Maputo said, as Africans elsewhere did, 'It was much worse before.' In many places, I knew, it was much better before. It was hard to imagine how much worse a place had to be for a broken-down city like Maputo to seem like an improvement.” 

I must admit to some degree, that after living in Mozambique nearly two years and having also traveled a bit to the central and some northern regions of this huge country, you start to get a bit desensitized to the chaos. It just is. This completely unorganized but somehow functional chaos is how Africa [insert flamboyant air quotations here] will always be. It’s dirty, fascinating, and diverse with a comic and perverse ambivalence to life-threatening everyday realities (ex. like commuting to work on public transportation – car accidents not AIDS is the number one killer in Mozambique). When Arsenio, my university-educated taxi driver friend picked me up to bring me to  the airport to meet my parents, his specific rants that morning were about the walls barricading the road to the airport from the horrible slums a stone’s throw away. “Those brightly painted walls are nothing but concrete monuments to our poverty,” he muttered resignedly as I nodded. “We’ll always be poor.” Silence. “But hey at least I have a job. And we’ll replace Guebuza with other one of his cronies soon enough.” He then showed me a photo-shopped picture on his phone of Guebuza, umm, going at it, with a donkey with a Mozambican flag draped across its flank. We laughed (sortof) then talked about the weather.

Least to say, Mozambique has the tendency to come off a little too strong.

Pop and I infront of the Samora Machel monument - Maputo, Mozambique

And so, perhaps it was unfair of me to expect my parents to just slip right into the stream of social and cultural norms with ease. I realize now I expected a lot from them – I wanted them to accept in a mere three weeks what had taken me at least a few months to acclimate to. Afterall I figured, my mom and dad are both experienced shoe-string globetrotters. My dad even had a taste of west Africa back in 1999 when he visited Guinea for a two week stint. And, they’ll have me as their translator! What could go wrong? But, from the very minute they stepped into Arsenio’s taxi, my parent were in complete shock and awe. “WOW, didya see that?!” my dad would explode, pointing in the direction with the jerk of his head toward a packed chapa bus with nearly two stories of beds, suitcases, tables, chairs, and random third world shit on top. “AND LOOK AT THAT!” as local drivers without warning turned a two-lane severely potholed road into a sketchy and dangerous three and a half lane game of chicken, going head on with an accelerating semi-truck. TIA – or This Is Africa – very quickly became part of their survival mantra. It allowed them to set aside the things they didn’t understand about this incredibly complex, confusing, overwhelming place, and just accept things as they were. No, no one is ever on time. No, orderly lines and waiting queues don’t actually exist here; you just have to elbow your way to the front like everyone else. Yes, you’re expected to barter for everything. And yes, it’s totally normal for children to act like you’ve run over their foot just to get you out of the car and ask you for money. TIA. No rules. And then of course, there are the police to deal with. Not even five minutes after we had driven out of the airport car rental lot, we were waved over to our lefthand shoulder by a cop – a typical blustering chefe with a huge belly and an eager tendency to bully his victims. As we encountered numerous times during our trip, it’s primarily the men in uniform locals fear and distrust the most here in Mozambique. Because cops aren’t paid a livable wage by the government, they habitually shake down motorists for bribes, pulling people over for whatever reason they want, justifiable or not. As most chapa drivers would attest, slip in a 200 meticais into your car papers and usually you get off without a hitch. Just don’t argue. TIA. Thankfully for us however, of the four times during our roadtrip that we were waved over, all it took was some smooth talking in Portuguese, a lot of paperwork shuffling (and once a little beer money) and we were once again on our way.

First stop? The wonderous Kruger National Park.

After clawing our way out of Maputo traffic, we crossed the SA-Mozambican border an hour and a half later at Rissano-Garcia, a border town erected to satiate the most primal of human creature comforts – food, water, shelter, sex… It was a town pumping with commerce and unapologetic hawking banditos, and brought back a memory of the time I hitchhiked to the crossroad town of Inchope in central Mozambique – the creepy guy I hitched with offhandedly mentioned (somewhat ironically) between gulps of beer that bordertowns and crossroads alike were the “armpits of the world.” Rissano-Garcia was no exception. But it was catchy. Like lions who often play with their prey before tearing them to pieces, one’s first-time African border-crossing gnaws at your nerves and makes you want to bolt. And yet, besides the guys walking around showing off their Ak-47s at the checkpoints and polishing their brass, everything went smoothly.  The minute we crossed the border into South Africa, the road hummed under our thickly treaded tires as we breathed sighs of relief, and in the blink of an eye passed from the third most undeveloped country in the world and into the relative bountiful plenty and sophistication of the Rainbow Nation.

Kruger National Park, after entering the Malelane Gate and on our way to Berg-en-Dahl Lodge for the night.

Mom and I, scouring the maps with some beers in hand at Ber-gen-Dahl rest camp.

We spent a day in Kruger Park and three more in the Timbavati Private Reserve. Driving through Kruger was much like what I would imagine driving through Yellowstone would be like except instead of buffalos, moose, and Grizzly bears, you get up-close and personal with the Big Five. Rhinos, elephants, giraffes, baboons, impala, we amazingly witnessed within our first few hours in the park. It took an additional 4 hour drive through the park and up the highway toward Hazyview and Hoedspruit to arrive the Timbavati Kambaku Lodge for our private safari. The Timbavati shoulders the Kruger to the west and is home to a concentration and unheard of abundance of not only the Big Five - lion, elephant, cape buffalo, leopard, and rhinocerous, so named for being the hardest African beasts to hunt on foot -  but also hyenas, warthogs, wild dogs, kudu, hippos, the occasional cheetah, and the last remaining pride of White Lions.

Kambaku Lodge gave us an intense but phenomenal three days.  Each day we enjoyed a sunrise and sunset drive, since dawn and dusk are the times when predator animals are especially active, and thus prey animals as well. Our Kambaku tracker team was two awesome guys named Albert and Evan, who communicated in their own “tracker” creole of Changana, English, and Afrikaans. Albert always perched himself happily on the front seat overhanging the road ahead, ensuring that he could scan for paw prints and fresh dung. Evan manned the radios, drove the LandRover and filled our heads with factoids. Albert has been tracking for decades, learning the trade as a child when he became old enough to begin guarding his family’s cattle, and Evan essentially comes from a background of formal schooling and practical field training alike.  Between the two of them, any question we had about the animals or the environment around us could be answered. It was like riding along with Steve Irwin on steroids.

There were many incredible, almost sacred moments of those drives… Seeing wild animals comfortable in their own habitat –  turning off the engine and just listening, watching, witnessing how they live and interact with each other, with their young, and what rules each species determines for their own little miniature societies… It makes you wonder why we as humans try so adamantly to purposely separate ourselves from nature. Are we all that different from the mother elephant who nurses her baby close to her heart to encourage familial bonding? Or the Bateleur Eagles who mate for life? Or the lioness that kicks her male cubs out of the pride once they’ve grown up? Or the bachelor clubs created by disillusioned impala after losing their mating battles? I often found myself giggling at the parallels between us “contemporary” humanoids and the animal kingdom at the end of each day, snuggling deep into my fleecy snuggie and looking up to the starry sky, swaying with the rhythm of the bush road as our Land Rover purred back to camp.

The GOREGOUS leopardess, Marula. She put on quite a little show for us!

Sunrise game drive with Albert, Evan, and the elephants!

Albert, in his element.

Our time at Kambaku ended too soon, but there were other pieces of the African experience I wanted my parents to enjoy. So, we headed straight back to Maputo and took a day trip to Namaacha to visit my host family. We arrived bearing gifts and were received with hugs, kisses, songs and dancing. I couldn’t stop grinning.

It was a chaotic and exhausting, yet very fulfilling day acting as translator between my two families. The process of shepherding stories, blessings, and punchlines across the linguistic lines, made my job a difficult but rewarding one. It blew me away the openness with which my Mozambican family received my American parents. And, how much kinship they felt toward me. The first thing my vovo – or Mozambican granny – said the minute she laid eyes on me when I got out of our truck was about how beautiful and gordinho I’d gotten. Surely I was turning all the men’s heads in Mapinhane. Once we were finally seated at the kitchen table, the shepherding began when sassy Mae made a joke about how I had my mother’s good looks, but she knew exactly who I’d gotten my big nose from, too. Instantly, the nearly 12 Mozambican brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and sole vovo that had packed themselves into our one roomed house erupted in laughter. Of course, my parents were shooting me curious stares so I found myself having to carefully and accurately translate the joke into English. Then when my mom and dad had their own laughs at Mae’s observation, everyone else in the room roared again. It was boisterous, chaotic, somewhat repetitive, yet… absolutely fantastic.

After gifts were exchanged, I went with Marina and Elias to the market to give Mom and Pop the big tour of our little PCV training town.  We picked up fruits, veggies, and bread to feed a small army and then made our way to the chicken vendors still parked in the same spot of shady orange soil that they were nearly two years ago. As I bartered and picked out chickens with the vendadores, Mom and Pop retreated behind me. “I hate seeing this,” I heard my dad mutter to my mom. “I know its normal, but it just sucks knowing these chickens are going to end up in my soup.” The little remark caught me off guard so I ignored it, willing them to toughen their stomachs to the reality of life here. The detachment we Americans have to our food is staggering… we are easy, happy consumers, yet if a fleck of blood makes it into our sanitized, over-processed, frozen meat packages at the super market we grimace with the reminder of where the squishy pink flesh came from. Here in Mozambique, you take ownership of your food. You know exactly where it comes from. YOU kill the chicken YOU eat. No, it’s not a nice reality, but I think if people understood better how food gets to their table, they’d be more grateful for the meat they do get, and realize how special it is. Afterall, it’s only Americans that expect meat with every meal. For the rest of the world, meat at any point during the week is a luxury. So maybe it’s hard/gross/sad taking an animal’s life – even a birdbrained relative of the dinosaur. Yet, it should be something done with respect..

In any case, we quickly dropped off the goodies and the doomed squawking galinhas with Mae, and drove off with Marina and Elias for a little hike to the Tres Fronteiras, my favorite. Mae would call us when the feast was ready, she said. And boy was it worth working up an apetite for! When we got back the table was packed with pots of matapa, grilled chicken, bean stew, sautéed pumpkin leaves, coconut rice, xima, and more. I was given the honor of serving everyone. And so, we ate and drank merrily filling our bellies till they were about to burst, laughing and chatting in such high decimals that I’m sure half of Swaziland could have chimed into our conversations.

After saying our goodbyes in Namaacha, we hit the road again, this time heading north up the coast, stopping only for a night in Xai-Xai to celebrate my parents anniversary at a local baraca where we dined on goat stew, chicken, coconut rice and cold beer. The next morning we drove on to Tofo, a spectacular beach on the Inhambane peninsula. It was there we rested for the next few days, easing the kinks in our necks earned from driving the national highway. We thankfully avoided all darting children, herds of cows, runaway goats, and stumbling drunk men along the way, but the vigilance had taken its toll on us all. And so, we checked into the Casa na Praia, a guesthouse right on the beach and proceeded to eat, drink, sunbathe, and relax in the hot, tropical rays.

One sip of Tipo Tinto, the local run, and the crazy starts coming out ;)

Looking East out over Tofinho Bay

Finally, after a few days of R'nR we made the last few hundred kilometers north to Mapinhane. In Mapinhane, my parents were welcomed as family. “She is my daughter too,” my school director said warmly as he shook my dad’s hand and waved us into his office. He proceeded to announce how big of an honor it was to host my parents, and then began to explain how thankful he was for my service, about everything wonderful I’ve done to help the school… My embarrassment in translating his incredibly kind compliments was thankfully short-lived as Chefe Samuel burst into the office, squealed like a 13-year-old girl, and proceeded to give our well-practiced great big American-style hugs to us all.  “Meester Hoogstede, I have waited my lifeeee for this moment,” beamed Chefe Samuel as he continued grasping my dad’s hand in the typical Mozambican lingering style. Oops. Yep, he's stillllll holding his hand. Should have told Pops about that, I thought. Oh well, surprise! Within minutes we set Mom and Pop up in the extra room in Chefe Samuel’s house, and invited him and the Director over for a dinner at the Hut of Pringles, beer, and spaghetti. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Bringing my two worlds together.

We only had a few short days in Mapinhane, and we packed them full.

I brought them along on my daily water carrying chore routine.

They gave Professora Angelica (best friend and mother to Junior) our old family laptop so she has it for studying at university next year!

They watched me teach.

They made friends with all my village neighbors, colleagues, and friends.

Dir. Adelaide and Dir. Marculino gave Mom and Pop a pumpkin! A very nice gift from Mapinhane :)

We also took an afternoon bush walk to Mujavange. Had dinner at the estalagem with my amazing site mates, Sarah and Maria. They checked out my almost-functional library and met mana Joana, mother of the primary school. They learned how to make coconut milk from scratch and then ate coconut bean stew for dinner under the crystal clear starry sky of the southern hemisphere. They made friends with my dog Fenda, and the local village criancas. My dad even took them with him on a beer run to the local baraca, and they loved him for it. All in all they had a great taste of village life. The sights, sounds, and smells of Mapinhane are now much more real for them. I am so so thankful that my parents are now able to personally relate to the people and places I tell them stories about.

The final stop on our grand Mozambican tour was Vilankulos and Chibuene to introduce mom and pops to Pat and Mandy Retzlaff and their beautiful horses. Our first night we were welcomed with a fantastic braii that Jay whipped up for us all on his own. The wine flowed, the stories lengthened, the laughs became contagious. The next five days were amazing: riding horses on the beach, sailing in a dhow to Margaroque Island, snorkeling, storytelling over Amarula coffees, and canoeing/birdwatching on the river. Despite the fact that some unseasonably cloudy weather that came our way, it didn't dampen our fun too much. It just gave us more time to do as the Mozambicans do. Slow down, stop keeping a to-do list, and meet the cast of characters around you. As I've learned time and time again in the last 20 months of service, it's not necessarily where you are or how you live, but rather the people you're with that make a place as special as it is.


Our Great African Roadtrip was far from perfect, and it certainly wasn't a trip destined to be relaxing. But for Africa, I'd say we did pretty damn well. I can only hope I got my parents as hooked on this beautiful region of the world as I am. I know even now, that we've barely scratched the surface.

Only the Good Die Young

Hermenigilda Esperança (Hope) Vilanculos
April 13, 1984 - March 24, 2014

Perhaps the greatest indicator of ones’ “faith in humanity” is rooted in the belief (or disbelief) that the natural laws of our world tend toward justice. That, from the headwaters of human nature comes a generous affinity for truth, optimism, and egalitarianism. It’s from the confluence of these ideals that we form an assumption: that life dishes back what we give out. That what goes around, comes around. That the universe prevents bad things from happening to good people simply because it should. After all, if we are to have a social contract, for most of us it’s in our interest that it should be at the very least, fair.

And yet, with more time and exposure to the small cruelties and everyday tragedies of life, we are stripped away of our illusions. From our very first childhood disappointments to our entrance into society as adults, we realize that our mothers were right – “Life ain’t fair.”  Bad things really do happen to good people. Deplorably, they happen all the time. The question that we then must all reconcile and crave an answer to at some point in life, is why. WHY.

I was thinking about all this while staring at the casket of my beloved friend and colleague yesterday afternoon.  Hermenigilda Esperança Vilanculos died suddenly at 7am Monday morning from complications from childbirth. She was only 30 years old and left a week-old baby, her first child, in her wake. From what I gathered, Hermenigilda essentially re-entered the hospital a few days after giving birth, hemorrhaging, and the hospital simply didn’t have any of her blood type in stock. So she bled out.

The magnitude of this tragedy is staggering, mostly because Hermenigilda’s death anywhere in the developed world would have been completely unheard of – 100% preventable. But here in Mozambique, Hermenigilda just became another statistic. A waste of a life, amongst many.

I found out Hermenigilda had died from our mutual friend Angelica. Monday afternoon after I returned home from a weekend visit to Inhassoro, Junior, Angelica’s 4 year old son, shuffled over to my hut and mumbled that his mom wanted to speak with me. I remember thinking that this was odd, as usually when any woman in the village wants to talk to the other, they just converse loudly through hut walls and across corn fields, shouting their fofoca (or gossip) house to house to save themselves the walk. Getting up wondering, I wrapped my caplana around me quickly and left, Junior pulling on my hand incessantly. I entered the neighboring house. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Angelica gestured for me to sit down. “I have some horrible horrible news, amiga.” She said quietly. “Mana Hermenigilda passed this morning.” Passou. “Passed?!” I asked sharply. What the hell was that supposed to mean? I thought, my heart jumping into my throat. “Passou. Morriu.” Died. Hearing the word aloud shocked us both into silence. “What do you mean she died, Mama?” Junior implored, looking at his feet. Junior lost his own father when he was a baby, too young to remember. Yet, his instincts were sharp. Quickly, trying to avoid any questions, Angelica pulled Junior over and explained, “Mana Hermenigilda is on a great plane, high in the sky, looking down at all of us. She’s gone on a long voyage. She’s not coming back, filho” Then the questions poured out of my mouth. “What? How? When? What happened?” OH MY GOD, NO. Angelica turned away from me, tucking her head into her far shoulder, hiding her face from Junior. Anguish. I couldn’t stop thinking, THIS MUST NOT BE TRUE. There’s no way this could be true! Maybe it was a misunderstanding. This cannot be real. I simply don’t believe it.

And then that evening we received the details from our school director for the funeral the next day. And quite acutely, the reality of our loss set in.

The funeral was beautiful, if such a thing can be said about a ceremony of mourning. Wednesday morning nearly 40 teachers and students from our school and the nearby mission school piled into two chapas and made the drive to Vilanculos. I had Prof. Adelaide, the matriarch of our school squeezed in on my left and Prof. Sergio, my gangly superhero friend who always seems to turn up when I’m in a time of need, squeezed in on my right. For the whole drive, the remaining 19 teachers of E.S. 25 de Junho spent the whole hour in song, singing for our lost sister. Hugging isn't exactly a “thing” in Mozambique, so for once I rather appreciated the closeness of bodies, and the ability to feel the rumble and breath of song in my colleagues chests and shoulders as the chapa hurtled down the national highway.

We stopped on the outskirts of Vilanculos, at the sandy intersection to Hermenigilda’s house. Pouring out of the chapa, the women stretched and readjusted their caplanas and headdresses, while the men beat out the crinkles in their pants and straightened their ties. Then we began walking, shoulder to shoulder down the long sandy road into the hot morning sun.

Arriving at the house, one side of the shady yard was already occupied by over 100 women.  In every hue of capulana and lenço (headscarf), the women were kneeling, rocking, resting, burping babies, fanning themselves in the early heat. But most remarkably, especially for Mozambican women who incessantly find something to talk about, they were somber – silent. Our rank and file of teachers and students settled on the opposing side of the yard. Men took the chairs, while women squatted and plopped their butts in the sand, feet straight out in front or cradled under them. And we waited. And sang some more.

Somehow I had the foresight to bring my portable recorder with me, and I recorded many of these songs. They’re songs that, even without understanding Xitswa, evoke emotion. You feel these songs at the most basic human level. And so, to my pleasant surprise, even though I didn’t know any of the words to these hymns, it only took a basic musician’s ear to predict the melodies and accompanying harmonies. Humming cautiously, I thus got to join in as well.

Suddenly, everyone leapt to their feet.

The truck carrying the body.

In a whirlwind of activity, the casket is off-loaded from the white truck and carried into the house where the door is shut and a private ceremony conducted for immediate family members. Hundreds of us rush behind the casket, forming a huge circle around the viewing table. I clinch a spot only two rows back from the front with Gloria, Angelica, Adelaide, and Natalia, and push one of my favorite students, Sonia, forward. I rest my hand on her shoulders.  Time slows. We sweat. We wait. I try to not lock my knees. I feel a bit nauseated.

Finally, the door to the house opens once more, and the delicately gold-inlaid casket is brought out and placed gently on the viewing table. Fake, gaudy neon roses tumble to the sand with a gust of wind. To my relief, the casket remains closed. Yet, to give the funeral its sense of finality, a framed portrait of Hermenigilda’s face is placed at the head of the casket by a hand-carved cross, her teasing gaze locked forever into our mournful ones. Gloria and Natalia burst into tears. With the conclusion hours later, 500+ people hopped into chapas and into the back of trucks, and paraded out to the cemetery in a two dozen car wake. Hermenigilda was lowered into the deep sand. A screaming, wail erupted from who I took to be Hermenigilda's brother, and two other women fainted, landing body-board stiff with a loud THWACK. The two rotund bodies of the women were casually dragged to the outer ring of the circle. The young man was escorted out of the premises to wail out of earshot. My final view and last act was laying a single stem of stunningly beautiful bouganvilla upon the top of her mounded grave. With that, I'd had enough. I took my own deep breath and retreated to the edge of the onlookers.

Hermenigilda was a natural leader, a dynamic woman in every sense – smart, opinionated, very well educated, and a role model for the many young girls at our school who needed a trailblazer to lead the way. One of my favorite memories of Hermenigilda was when at one of our horribly formal, drawn-out, bureaucratic school meetings last year, she fearlessly confronted the Director about the discriminatory forgeries and corruption practices going on in our school administration that were docking payable hours from the female professors in order to raise the payable hours for male professors – male professors that often didn't even show up. When given a dismissive wave typical of any guy at the top who doesn't want his dirty laundry to be publicly aired, Hermenigilda pressed him further, making some of us squirm in our seats breathlessly. Her pointed questions ended up making our Director so uncomfortable he walked out. I absolutely loved her for her guts and approached her the next day to become my library counterpart.

As it turns out, Hermenigilda was also an incredibly humble woman. With more than a tinge of bittersweetness, I realized at her funeral that I actually knew very little about the woman who had become one of my dearest Mozambican friends. Born in Beira, April 13, 1984, Hermenigilda spent most of her life in school, either as a student or teaching the next batch of young minds. What I didn't know however, was that when she talked about her husband, she was talking about Antonio Vilanculos, one of the primary leaders of the FRELIMO party in the area. Thus, as the funeral transitioned from religious pomp of the Methodist pastor, to the tearful personal anecdotes from family, friends, FRELIMO party members, and old students, it was very clear just how beloved and respected she had been to those that had known her for so many more years than I had. 

And so, our school community begins to adapt to Hermenigilda's absence. We are learning how to keep on, although I have sadly had less practice in dealing with death than the majority of my students and colleagues.  It was incredible to me, how, after nearly a full 8 hours of mourning and burial ceremonies, the whole ride back to Mapinhane was a cacophony of riotous bantering and joking around between my colleagues. It seemed like they had put the events of that day out of their mind completely and it was now time to celebrate being alive. Life, afterall, in Mozambique is always too short. I think a woman like Hermenigilda, so full of life and spirit herself, would have clapped her hands and loved us for it. 

Descanso em paz, mana Gilda. 

What Is An Education Worth?

“Aii, teeeechaaaaaaa! Teeeecha is hereee.”

I stride through the door and into Sala 3, Turma C - a class to rival all others. It’s also my third class and my second dupla for the afternoon, so I’ve lost the fresh optimism brought by a new day. Upon seeing my white lab coat whip into the room, dozens of students scramble back towards their desks, throwing punches, stealing notebooks, laughing.  I try to ignore the dread undulating in the pit of my stomach, quickly digging into my back-pocket for a huge grin. Students smell fear.  They exploit it unlike any other creature on the planet. Undoubtedly, the first five minutes of each class determine the trajectory of the entire period. If I get my students focused and engaged right away, I always have a wonderful day of teaching. But if the first five minutes are marked by incessant interruptions, brincar-ing, tardy arrivals, or if they’ve collectively decided that they have no interest in learning English that day, I’m in for a looooonngggg day of teaching.

Then I hear it. The rumble of hands slapping desks.

Boom, boom, CLAP!

Boom, boom, CLAP!

Boom, boom, CLAP!

Boom, boom, CLAP!

Believe it or not a beat none other than the “We Will Rock You” rumble begins emanating from my classroom (a brilliant idea I stole from my PCV friend Jamie, holla atcha girl!).

“Helllloooooo teacherrrrr, how are you?”

Sixty excited faces scream-sing at me in rhythm as I walk to the front of the classroom.

“I aaaam fineeee students, how are you?”  I sing-scream back. One voice against sixty.

Alright, so it’s fair to say that the odds aren’t exactly in my favor for about 3 hours every day.  

But then, the odds my students have in overcoming everything that is Mozambique – poverty, disease, illiteracy, a shortened life-expectancy (max 50 years), unemployment, continuing political unrest,  and the indelible mark of corruption on everything – just to name a few – are never EVER in favor of the well-being and success of my students.  There’s only luck. Chance. Coincidence. Even the hardest working, most intelligent, and promising young person can live a life of anonymity and squandered potential solely due to the numerous systemic barriers to his (esp her) mobility.

Rewind to a conversation I had with a student yesterday.

Edilson is 16 years old. He lives in a village called Murrure 6 miles away. He used to walk two hours each way to school until he recently began living with a local family in Mapinhane and working for his keep. He's a diligent student, but doesn't have the canny instinct some of his peers do with English. As such, he comes by for tutoring nearly every week. Last week, after our neighborhood water pump broke (again), I also decided to ask Edilson to start fetching water for me, and thus help him make a little extra money, money he’ll probably actually donate to his church as he’s quite pious. One particularly hot morning after Edilson returned with a brimming bucket of crystal-clear cool water and set it in my kitchen, he helped himself to a chair. This surprised me a little. Usually he has better manners. He just kind of slumped into it and looked up at me, thinking, hesitatingly.  

“Professora,” he started.

"Siiiiiiii,” I replied expectantly, smiling.

“We have a lot of indisciplinados in class. They are loud. Annoying. They have no respect.”

“I know Edilson, I am trying to do better in disciplining the trouble-makers. Did you not see them working on the school machamba (farm) last week? I sent them there.”

“Yes, I know Teacher. But you’re still too nice. I want to learn English. I don’t want to sit there and wait for people to be quiet. Yesterday I told everyone in class that they can do what they want to me, beat me up or whatever, but next time they are disrespectful to you I’m going to the Director.”

“You have a big heart Edilson, and lots of courage. But I am the one who should go to the Director. And I don’t think we are at that point yet.”

“Teacher,” Edilson interrupted impatiently. “Let me tell you why I am at school. After I finished seventh grade, my father sat me down and gave me two choices. Either I could continue going to school or start working in his shop. Either, he said, was honorable.  But, I didn’t even have to think. I told him I wanted to go to school.”

"Why was that, Edilson?”

"Because Teacher, I am the first in my family to go to school.”

“What?”

“Yes, my father – he only went to school through second grade because of the war.”

The War. He says it the way my Oma always did about World War II. How do I keep forgetting? Is it because there’s a shroud of normalcy to this place now? That there's no one who lives old enough to really keep the memory of it so vivid?

“They had to abandon their school when the war arrived in here Mapinhane. Bullets came through his school’s windows. He can read and write in Xitswa. He’s very good at that. But he doesn’t know much Portuguese. My mother never went to school either. Neither did my grandfather. I, I am truly the first!”

“What do you want to do after you finish school Edilson?”

“Teacher, I don’t know. But I will know one day, I have time.”

Whoa.

It’s easy I think, in the day-to-day bartering and negotiation that comes with being a PCV teacher – the pedaling of goals and dreams, and of ideas like volunteerism and compassion, for both our students and for ourselves – that we forget the big picture.

Yes, it angers me that when after grading a stack of 300 exams, only half my students score at or above the minimum passing score of 50%. It permits defeatist thinking (“I’m a horrible teacher”). It encourages apathy (“My students don’t care, why should I?”). It tempts one to slide on their personal convictions, no matter how resolute they started (I came here to do what exactly? So much for teaching, this is really just academic triage! Just keep your head above water!”).  It’s the little voice in the back of your mind that whispers, “Pstttt! Hey you! Yes, YOU! Honestly, WHATS THE POINT!? STOP CARING WOULDYA!! You can't help them until they take some personal responsibility and help themselves!”

And to some degree that's true - personal responsibility, that is. There are students that always do their homework and succeed in my class. And there are those who decide never turn in an assignment all year.

But then, us PCVs have to think of the echoes of history that continues to ensnare our students. Our host-communities.  Our host-country.  Fifteen+ years of war. A whole generation lost to violence. A whole generation that lost their right to education. And now that generation is parenting my students. 

It's no wonder then why my kids don't know how to study. Or do homework. Or understand the value of education. We're taught these things by our parents... and their parents were robbed.

Within this context then, the real miracle is that we even have a school at all. That despite all that has happened here (and only ended 20 years ago), we have a relatively functioning, productive educational system. That despite ALL its problems - however infinite in number they are - there are some families like Edilson's that see education as a real solution to the long-term development of Mozambique and the betterment of their lives, even if the future is uncertain.

That must be the strongest form of faith I’ve certainly ever witnessed.

And so, today I quieted the kids down as best I could. I turned back towards the board. I made them work. “Okkkk everyone, we have LOTS of Exercises today!” I announce enthusiastically, and dig my chalk deep into the chipped surface of the blackboard. It feels good.

I glance back at Edilson, who’s sitting front row now, grinning, but who refuses to meet my gaze. He instead begins scribbling away in the ratty pages of his notebook.

The rest of the class groans.

Well then. I guess I must be doing something right.

Benedita and Zulmira, two of my 9th grade English students