Despite the fact that I’ve now been living in the bush for quite some time, I’m still not into my occasional roommates. I’ve chilled a bit on the lizards, when I see one scurry around as I come in the door I make a half hearted attempt to catch it and release it back into the wild. I’m no longer on a death mission with these guys. I don’t have the energy. I don’t send out a search and destroy mission like I used to, and I don’t really lose sleep over it anymore. I usually just inspect the seal on the duct taped protective barrier that holds the netting around my window. I verbally reiterate the agreement I thought we had, which is that I am ok living with them and cleaning up their shits so long as I don’t have to see them, and they keep the bug problem in check. I don’t think that as a landlord I’m asking too much, just some basic maintenance and discretion. They’re not holding up their end of the bargain.
But at this juncture the lizards are not the problem. Despite my best efforts to keep my place as unappealing to mice as possible (keeping two traps set at all time, keeping food in the fridge or closed cupboard) the mice have returned. I heard the little bastards the other night as I was sleeping, although at the time I convinced myself that at best it was a dream. Living in the size equivalent of a cardboard box (and a round one at that, which is a helluva thing for acoustics- you can never tell where the little bastards are hiding because the sound echoes off the round walls. I have to admit it gives him an advantage…) makes the idea of sharing it with anyone regardless of size or species unappealing.
The scurrying around had woken me several times during the night a few nights back, but in my sleepy confusion I decided it was likely just a lizard or one of those smallish (for Botswana) beetles that while small in stature can get underneath my rubbish bin (a bucket) and move the whole bloody thing. Although they can be a bit loud as you hear them scratching across the floor, we haven’t really had many troubles. The undeniable evidence that my wishful thinking that it was simply bugs or lizards was in vain was when I went to do some baking and found the mice shits in the cupboard. I’ve mentioned before, lizard shit is similar in appearance to mice shit, but has white stuff on one end. These were undeniably mice shits.
As it seems Seronga is too remote a place for Prince Charming to be dispatched to facilitate my rescue (and let me assure you, I would appreciate his presence in many more ways than one… I recently had to take apart, clean and reignite my gas refrigerator, and came to Dudu’s rescue when she left town and her sink clogged, which involved several drain-o burns and ended with me wrapping a towel around the end of her drain and blowing the clog out. Who knew I was so capable???) it seemed I was on my own.
I swore a little, cleaned the shits up, and moved the traps to what I imagined were more mice friendly trafficways. I finished my baking and went to bed.
“Now how on Earth did the mouse get into your house?” you ask.
Ah. Gentle American reader. There are some things about Botswana that will long remain a mystery, evading all hard earned wisdom and collective insight. This is why the concept of traditional medicine and a sort of black magic is so pervasive in Batswana culture, and one can find even very educated people who believe some of the stories of spirits flying around on loaves of bread at night to do their evil work. (I’m not kidding. I’ve had several nurses at my clinic tell me stories). As an American myself, I also feel that overall I should be able to walk into any unsavory situation, find the manager or person in charge (or at least the customer service hotline, generally manned by someone at a massive call center in India) and demand and explanation, an apology, and a discount on my next purchase. This doesn’t actually happen to be the way things work in Bots.. (although I did briefly consider calling the hotline that the President has set up and is manned by his personal secretary in order to field calls from any citizen in the country with a complaint about… pretty much anything. I’ve heard he speaks mostly English and I think we could probably be great friends…. But anyway).
Generally in Africa the questions of “how” or “why” are irrelevant in terms of the situation at hand, as it was with this one, and thus we must fall back on the ancient Afrikans traditional wisdom of “make a plan” as an answer to our burning moral and logistical questions. (And actually in this case, like all good murder mysteries, the mouse likely came into the house in the most logic defying and yet spine tinglingly satisfying of manners-through the front door. Since it’s been so hot I’ve taken to duct taping mosquito netting around the frame of my open door. It gets a bit sketchy around the bottom so I’ve resorted to just lining some what heavy things along the bottom of the frame- my shoes haven’t brought me this much joy and useful love since the States! Perhaps a stupid idea, but I’d love to hear yours….either way, the CSI mouse tracking light at the police station is down due to a problem with the generator, the solar panel and they have no transport to bring it here, so the true mode of entry will remain theoretical, like most things in Bots.)
Armed with the knowledge that there was indeed still likely a mouse in the house, I went to sleep. And what seemed like hours later (and in reality was closer to half and hour) I heard the tell tail ;-) scratching across the floor. I reached for my light and flashed it in what I hoped was the direction the sound was coming from. He looked at me, I looked at him, and he scurried back under the fridge. Now if you’re not familiar with the set up of my hut (please refer to pictures marked “my hut” on the picassa slideshow to the right of this page) the fridge is near the door. I again reset the mouse traps (nearly blocking the little bugger in, and pulled out the peanut butter. I placed some in the bottom of a jar in the middle of a bucket, thinking that if I could coerce him into this trap I may just release him. I put another dab of peanut butter in the direction of the traps.
Now I’m not a complete mercenary. As you can see I’ve given the little bugger options.
I turned off the light and sat on my bed (you bet your ass I was under that mosquito net) to wait for him. I watched him scurry out from under the fridge and start chewing on the netting that was now serving to keep him in my house. (Ok not such a brilliant move to keep the netting down during this process but hell, there were still mozzies and other creepy crawlers to worry about. Again, if you have any better ideas…..) I turned on the light and he started and hopped a few times and dove back under the fridge.
I decided it was time to step up my game. I found the long postal packing tube that P-funk had used to send me my kite back in September (yup, in the bush you hold onto strange things… Who am I kidding. I’m just the same pack rat I’ve always been!) I emptied a match box and put a bunch of peanut butter inside and slid it into the closed end of the tube. I thought if I could catch him going in there I could upend the tube and fling him outside.
See! At this point I was still thinking of catch and release!
It was the lizard that probably sealed the mouse’s fate in the end. As I was grabbing some duct tape for yet another convoluted plan a lizard darted out from behind the curtain. This was enough. All the animals were going to die tonight. I turned off my headlamp and waited to hear the next move from the mouse. The lizard scurried (and I hate to keep using the word “scurried” but this seems to be the only fitting description of how these little creatures move!) across all the papers and pictures I have lining my walls. I glared over at him and sent him a mental telegraph that he better not disrupt me in my hunt or he would seriously not only be evicted but also really dead. I heard the mouse in the bathroom and flicked the light on him. He started and climbed into the bottom cupboard. Which I promptly closed and locked.
I sat back again in the dark to ensure he was indeed in there, a suspicion confirmed when I heard him chewing through a plastic bag. I grabbed the duct tape and sealed him in there. Now the only thing left to do is wait. Which I’ve got plenty of time to do in Seronga.
I tried to play nice with the mouse and give him some options to get the hell out but as you can see, he just wouldn’t compromise. As I sit here writing (at 1:30 in the morning, incidentally) I bask in the glow of murderous torture. Back somewhere in the catacombs of my mind where my criminology degree resides I seem to recall that a reliable indicator for future murderer/sociopath/serial killers is taking joy in torturing and killing small animals. I wonder if being 27 I’ve outgrown the statute of limitations that says this generally begins in childhood. And then I wonder if any of the shrinks who decided this ever had to live in a round cement hut in a rural African village. In the end I figure I’ll probably be fine, as really, what the hell, the Peace Corps gave me psychological clearance to serve in this crazy place.
I can now hear him scratching increasingly desperately to get out. The only options he’s left with are poisoning himself by ingesting plastic bags, or attempting to chew through the duct tape seal (which I don’t think he can even reach with the door locked) which will certainly bugger up his tiny digestive system, starvation or suffocation.
I lay back in my bed (under the net, telepathic threats to the lizard ongoing) with the intention of deciding what spiritual path I might pursue now that Buddhism is so clearly off the table, and drift off to sleep victorious.
LATER THAT NIGHT
4:30am. Well I certainly am a smug bastard, now aren’t I? I seem to have overlooked one of the most important lessons from my last battle with mice-which is that they always come in twos. With his counterpart nestled (trapped) safely in the bottom cupboard of my cabinet, (which, it has incidentally just occurred to me, is where I have hidden my m&m’s from myself, so he’s not actually going to die of starvation unless chocolate kills mice like I’ve heard it can kill dogs… probably unlikely) the other bandit has decided to make his presence known. Wonderful. I flash the light at this one, we dance around the room trying to decide who’s going to run for safety first. I fake him out and he runs around the room, eventually setting off the trap, ensnaring his hind foot and tail. This of course sets him squealing, which sets me to squealing, so we’re squealing together in my room/house at 4:30 in the morning.
This lasts a few minutes (well I suppose it was seconds but you know how time moves slowly during these incidents) until I decide that one of us must take action to end this nightmare and it appeared with him writhing in the trap that it was gonna have to be me, as he was otherwise disposed. I stop squealing, which means I can now only hear his squealing, which is starting to turn my stomach. I’m shaking my hands around like a gay man at a fill-in-your-favorite stereotypical diva (Barbara Steisand, Madonna, Cher, Tina Turner ect) concert. (Most of which I’ve been to or would kill for tickets to- thus confirming to me that I must have been a gay man in a past life.) fanning prevent myself from heaving (ok, Sis, you win. I am not, nor shall I ever be the mighty hunter-woman-animal-killer that you are. I am the weakest link).
I grabbed for the nearest thing that falls into the “weapon” category in my overly exhausted mind, which happens to be DOOM bug killer stuff. The shit doesn’t really work on large spiders, so what I thought it was going to do to this beast is beyond me. It just caused it to scream louder. It briefly crossed my mind from my brief perusal of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” in college and extensive perusal of a Vanity Fair article on war crimes that what I was doing to this mouse probably more than constituted torture, cruel and inhumane treatment as I realized the DOOM had just covered the thing’s coat in a greasy film. I reached for the plastic dustpan and scooped him and the trap up and thrashed through the netting covering my doorway to get outside. I dumped him onto the step where he really began to thrash in earnest, and had gotten his leg free, and was now held in by just his tail.
Now I don’t know any of your feelings on retribution and karma, dear readers, but even on the few hours of sleep I had gotten I know that my aura was going to be more than mussed up if I didn’t end this thing pretty quickly. (Perhaps there are more than a few things previously dating a minister can’t clear up?) And so with that I wielded the plastic dustbin and bashed the mouse on the head. This caused him to seize and I began to gag. I won’t go into anymore detail than to say that there was blood, and that I, unlike the mouse, managed to keep my innards about me. My front step was completely gruesome.
THE NEXT MORNING
The next morning, in light of my grisly murder the night before, I couldn’t bear to deal with what was awaiting me in the cupboard. I could hear the other mouse in there crunching happily on my m&m’s and went about super cleaning the rest of my house (as any good psychopath avoiding a guilty conscience will do) so as to deter any other unwanted guests while I was away camping in the bush for the weekend.
My plan was now to wait until the 2 British guys (from Bana Ba Metsi that I had met a few weekends back) got here. We had planned to go camping at Tsodilo, but when transport fell through we decided to head out into the site where the Queen’s new backpackers will be put up (I’m not even going into the miracles of transport that did happen to get us out that side). Because a) there were two of them and b) I couldn’t handle another scene at my own hand, I decided to let the guys deal with it. With the machisimo that only 2 18 year olds can muster, they opened the door, assuring me that they dealt with such things as pythons and other beasts of the bush “all the time”. They began removing the contents of the cupboard slowly, when Drew yelped and Nick jumped out of the path of the mouse, who made a beeline under my bed.
THREE DAYS LATER
I would have to commission Drew to inform you of what the dead animals (it seems that lizard got his in the end as well) looked like at this point, but I can only tell you it was one of the worst smells I’ve encountered here or anywhere.
Until Next Time Then….. The End!
Friday, February 13, 2009
No Such Thing As A Free Ride
I had arranged to get a ride from Maun back up to a place near Seronga in my usual way, which was to see someone I knew randomly driving past Bon Arrive, running out and flagging them down, and entering myself into the logistics of their trip. As usual for my travel experiences in Botswana, it quickly became an adventure.
I had gotten from Gabs to Maun in the mindbendingly cushiony comfort of a plane (thanks again RC!) and was now about to set out for home. From Maun to Seronga is the more logistically difficult leg of the journey, as when there’s not a direct flight to hitch on, it’s a long overland (and really overseas) journey, through a land of dirt roads and pothole filled asphalt, animals sauntering across the road blocking any path for vehicles (generally not intelligent enough to move out of the way, even with the prompting of the horn- but hey I suppose they are stubborn as mules- literally) and timing for mechanically challenged ferry with a last crossing of half 6PM.
When I last left Seronga there had been rumors about and sightings of buses and combis (largish vans) running public transport on my side of the delta. My incredulity at their reliability was confirmed as I saw both a bus and a combi paused in the famous “broken down” posture far from any areas that looked like “official” (ie a tire with a sign declaring “Paradise Bus Stop”) stops.
So I was left with my other option, which is to beg, barter or stow away on some form of transport going my side of the delta. I could technically get a bus to Shakawe, but my faith in the public transport on that particular route to have my bags arrive at their destination is not very strong. I avoid it at all costs. And then I would still have to make my way the ten k’s to the ferry, as well as a lift across all the way to Seronga. In this case Steve goes within 55 k’s of Seronga, a distance with much hitching potential with people going back and forth between their cattle posts. He was the best option I’d found so I jumped at the chance. He said he had several trucks going in the morning. I met him and the entirety of the Bana Ba Metse school the next morning at 9, and the adventure back to Seronga truly began.
I rode in the front of the cab of a large truck with Steve for the first leg of the journey, from Maun to Gumare, a journey fraught with radiator problems and stops to regulate on the boys in the back. I ate my complimentary peanuts and raisons from the plane ride and read my book. We got to Gumare and the two British guys I had been speaking with back in Maun were switching around their driving/sitting arrangements as Nick was tired of being squashed in the back with the boys. He and Drew are on their gap year and are volunteering as teachers with Bana Ba Metsi. They were just arriving back for their first day on the job after a 6 week holiday traveling around southern Africa. There is no easing back into work for he and Drew, as the first day is the day they transport all the boys from Maun to Bana Ba Metsi, English translation of which is loosely “children of the water”. It’s a school for at risk boys started and run by Steve, a former Peace Corps from the neighbor to my home state, Wisconsin. It’s located about 55 k’s from Seronga and I’ve found they often have fresh eggs and chicken for sale.
So we’re at the petrol station in Gumare and I was searching the freezer for one of the elusive unmelted ice cream bars (I figured I better get this last treat before I return to the bush- I failed this mission. The thing was nearly soup straight out of the freezer). I realized I was back in completely back up in the northwestern district of Botswana when without even the politeness of a greeting a well dressed woman at the petrol station demanded that I buy her one of the two packets of fries that were on the counter in front of her. I politely declined, suggesting that perhaps she should be buying me the chips as I was a guest in her country. She said no and informed me that I was beautiful and wanted to be my best friend. I grabbed poor Nick’s arm and replied that I already had a best friend in the whole world thank you very much.
We were still laughing about it when we got out to the trucks and the guys continued their negotiations for who was going to sit where. Drew jokingly suggested it was my leg of the trip to sit with the boys and I surprised him by taking him up on it. I think his subtle British teasing was caught off guard by my blatant American stubbornness and I scrambled over to the truck, ice cream steaming down my arm in delicate green trails (hey, it was mint).
I hoisted myself over the closed tailgate of the partially covered flatbed truck that stands higher than my head at the cab. 50 heads turned in curiosity to briefly acknowledge my arrival. Then they swiveled back to shouting in various tribal languages in support of the fight that had broken out.
I lunged into the middle of it, grabbing the two limbs nearest me (and hoping they belonged to the two boys participating in the fight) and squeezed, shouting in intelligible Setswinglish. I found the back of two necks and placed a hand on each of them and in a half calming, half threatening gesture I spoke more softly and sharply-not that my initial exclamation had quieted the shouts of the masses that had been encouraging the fight.
I had now shocked the travelers in this truck thoroughly. Not only was I white, and a woman, but I now I was telling them, a bunch of men (albeit exceptionally young men in this case) what to do. I could tell they didn’t completely know which of their cultural rules to follow, the ones about respecting and not questioning their elders or the ones about men being in charge of women. The look on my face encouraged them go with the first. The fighters disengaged.
“Are you sure you want to ride back there?” Drew called from down below on the ground. “I was just kidding when I said you should ride there.”
“Course,” I muttered back, continuing to wrench the fighters apart and directing them to sit away from each other. Drew is going to have 24/7 contact with these boys starting now now and I figured it might be nice to give him a few more hours of teenage boy free time before that. My memories and skills gleaned from my time as a “youth specialist” at my job with delinquent girls after college came flooding back to me as I settled into a half squatting position amongst an absolute tangle of limbs and heads, each of us casually crushing into the next in a manner so natural and common in Africa.
I briefly had a laugh to myself at the safety measures that are taken with transporting this many children this far of a distance and think back again to my days in the states. Back home anyone would shit a brick if a child was taken in a car without a seat belt. This truck didn’t even have seats, or really, closed off walls. The wind blew directly at us, half the children were draped on top of each other like puppies trying to both sleep and avoid the direct sun that was pouring in. The luckier ones were perched on the edge of a fuel drum or the spare tires. Some kind of sketchy foamy mats and cushions have been thrown into the back for the comfort of the travelers. There are nearly fifty people crammed in what couldn’t have been much more than maybe 10 by 15 feet of flatbed.
There have been many instances of travel in Africa wherein I find myself in those situations you see in movies wherein there are 15 people hanging off the back of a pickup truck somewhere (although in the movies they generally have big semi automatic machine guns, and here they usually just have a baby strapped to their back, another child holding their hand, a chart from the clinic in their arm, perhaps a bag in their other arm and a 5 kg sack of maze balanced on their heads). This particular episode I was experiencing would have fallen into the “refugees leaving a horribly war torn country” category. And these kids were just on their way to school. I will never have the patience to listen to someone complain about paying bus fees to transport their children three miles to school again.
I watched the sky appear to chase the truck for a while as the landscape rushed by over the tailgate. Drew texts to ask if I am ok back there and I text back “of course.” I looked over at the fighters, the larger of which is clearly pouting for my benefit, and decided that this probably isn’t his first school year at Bana Ba. It was the first day of a new school year and so this one is trying to jockey for position, and establish the power structure that will likely carry them through to the next year. The smaller boy appears to be Humbugushku, an ethnic minority in the area, and based on the nervous tension cascading through his tough demeanor, appeared to be new to the whole arrangement. All this is confirmed when I interrogate the older boy in between the fighters, and whom I immediately blamed for the fight that had nothing to do with him.
“Why are you allowing these boys to fight like children when they are at school to learn to act like men? You are clearly older and should be setting a better example!” I berated him in half Setswana, half English, with my favorite statement, “O A Ultwa?” (Do you understand?) peppered emphatically throughout. He looks surprised and slinks off to the back of the truck where he is out of my line of vision. Responsibility for oneself, much less another person can be a fuzzy concept here I’ve found. He clearly had nothing to do with the fight other than cheering for it, but I’ve found discipline is often an easier thing to enforce when you put it back on those you are trying to control. This group is ripe for positive peer culture.
Another boy had brought with him from home a small toy keyboard (with batteries! Very unusual around these parts!) and was playing it for no better purpose than to annoy those around him. As I was one of those people around him, I decided that this would not do. I informed him that I would be happy to listen to him play for the next five minutes, but then did not want to hear it again until Shakawe (where I would be ending my tour of duty in the back of the truck with the kids.) He looked confused and played on as I kept track on my watch. When I held out my hand after five minutes he placed it there without hesitation. When I think of how many hours I’ve spent trying to coax girls to give me tacks, staples, needles, pen parts or other sharp objects they were holding in their mouths in a threat to shallow them I am gobsmacked at how easy this is. It seems even naughty Batswana children are more well behaved than American ones!
At this point the bigger boy from the fight decides to start talking smack to me. He gave me a long convoluted story about how the smaller boy had been trying to eat out his brains, accusations which the younger boy was observing with a scowl on his face but not attempting to refute. The bigger boy asked if I was the smaller boy’s lawyer, and tells me he will be calling his own attorney to come and hear the case of what had just happened, and this bigger boy was certain he would be vindicated.
I listened to him for a few minutes, and having become the main attraction of the small space at this point, many of the rest of the fifty boys on the truck are waiting to hear how I will reply to this damning argument after I had come onto their bus and broken up a fight. (They couldn’t really avoid overhearing as this was a damn small space within which to fit this many people, and there were no other worthwhile distractions as they were already bored of each other, after having already been in the car together for the better part of a day.) I leaned in close to the bully, looked him straight in the eye, and slowly and carefully told him what I hope will be a life lesson that is permanently impressed upon his young mind.
“When you are speaking to a female (O a ultwa?) if you want her to listen to what you are saying (O a ultwa?) you must look in her eyes, not at her chest.”
The crowd of boys went wild, (although I’m still wondering how many actually understood what I was saying in English, and how many were just laughing that I’d told their big man off) and I added, “and good luck getting your attorney to come that side.”
He scowled and went back to pouting, with no further problems for the rest of the ride.
(which was, in fact, free). I hopped in the Seronga police vehicle at the ferry at Mohembo and was home sweet home soon enough… 9 hours later.
I had gotten from Gabs to Maun in the mindbendingly cushiony comfort of a plane (thanks again RC!) and was now about to set out for home. From Maun to Seronga is the more logistically difficult leg of the journey, as when there’s not a direct flight to hitch on, it’s a long overland (and really overseas) journey, through a land of dirt roads and pothole filled asphalt, animals sauntering across the road blocking any path for vehicles (generally not intelligent enough to move out of the way, even with the prompting of the horn- but hey I suppose they are stubborn as mules- literally) and timing for mechanically challenged ferry with a last crossing of half 6PM.
When I last left Seronga there had been rumors about and sightings of buses and combis (largish vans) running public transport on my side of the delta. My incredulity at their reliability was confirmed as I saw both a bus and a combi paused in the famous “broken down” posture far from any areas that looked like “official” (ie a tire with a sign declaring “Paradise Bus Stop”) stops.
So I was left with my other option, which is to beg, barter or stow away on some form of transport going my side of the delta. I could technically get a bus to Shakawe, but my faith in the public transport on that particular route to have my bags arrive at their destination is not very strong. I avoid it at all costs. And then I would still have to make my way the ten k’s to the ferry, as well as a lift across all the way to Seronga. In this case Steve goes within 55 k’s of Seronga, a distance with much hitching potential with people going back and forth between their cattle posts. He was the best option I’d found so I jumped at the chance. He said he had several trucks going in the morning. I met him and the entirety of the Bana Ba Metse school the next morning at 9, and the adventure back to Seronga truly began.
I rode in the front of the cab of a large truck with Steve for the first leg of the journey, from Maun to Gumare, a journey fraught with radiator problems and stops to regulate on the boys in the back. I ate my complimentary peanuts and raisons from the plane ride and read my book. We got to Gumare and the two British guys I had been speaking with back in Maun were switching around their driving/sitting arrangements as Nick was tired of being squashed in the back with the boys. He and Drew are on their gap year and are volunteering as teachers with Bana Ba Metsi. They were just arriving back for their first day on the job after a 6 week holiday traveling around southern Africa. There is no easing back into work for he and Drew, as the first day is the day they transport all the boys from Maun to Bana Ba Metsi, English translation of which is loosely “children of the water”. It’s a school for at risk boys started and run by Steve, a former Peace Corps from the neighbor to my home state, Wisconsin. It’s located about 55 k’s from Seronga and I’ve found they often have fresh eggs and chicken for sale.
So we’re at the petrol station in Gumare and I was searching the freezer for one of the elusive unmelted ice cream bars (I figured I better get this last treat before I return to the bush- I failed this mission. The thing was nearly soup straight out of the freezer). I realized I was back in completely back up in the northwestern district of Botswana when without even the politeness of a greeting a well dressed woman at the petrol station demanded that I buy her one of the two packets of fries that were on the counter in front of her. I politely declined, suggesting that perhaps she should be buying me the chips as I was a guest in her country. She said no and informed me that I was beautiful and wanted to be my best friend. I grabbed poor Nick’s arm and replied that I already had a best friend in the whole world thank you very much.
We were still laughing about it when we got out to the trucks and the guys continued their negotiations for who was going to sit where. Drew jokingly suggested it was my leg of the trip to sit with the boys and I surprised him by taking him up on it. I think his subtle British teasing was caught off guard by my blatant American stubbornness and I scrambled over to the truck, ice cream steaming down my arm in delicate green trails (hey, it was mint).
I hoisted myself over the closed tailgate of the partially covered flatbed truck that stands higher than my head at the cab. 50 heads turned in curiosity to briefly acknowledge my arrival. Then they swiveled back to shouting in various tribal languages in support of the fight that had broken out.
I lunged into the middle of it, grabbing the two limbs nearest me (and hoping they belonged to the two boys participating in the fight) and squeezed, shouting in intelligible Setswinglish. I found the back of two necks and placed a hand on each of them and in a half calming, half threatening gesture I spoke more softly and sharply-not that my initial exclamation had quieted the shouts of the masses that had been encouraging the fight.
I had now shocked the travelers in this truck thoroughly. Not only was I white, and a woman, but I now I was telling them, a bunch of men (albeit exceptionally young men in this case) what to do. I could tell they didn’t completely know which of their cultural rules to follow, the ones about respecting and not questioning their elders or the ones about men being in charge of women. The look on my face encouraged them go with the first. The fighters disengaged.
“Are you sure you want to ride back there?” Drew called from down below on the ground. “I was just kidding when I said you should ride there.”
“Course,” I muttered back, continuing to wrench the fighters apart and directing them to sit away from each other. Drew is going to have 24/7 contact with these boys starting now now and I figured it might be nice to give him a few more hours of teenage boy free time before that. My memories and skills gleaned from my time as a “youth specialist” at my job with delinquent girls after college came flooding back to me as I settled into a half squatting position amongst an absolute tangle of limbs and heads, each of us casually crushing into the next in a manner so natural and common in Africa.
I briefly had a laugh to myself at the safety measures that are taken with transporting this many children this far of a distance and think back again to my days in the states. Back home anyone would shit a brick if a child was taken in a car without a seat belt. This truck didn’t even have seats, or really, closed off walls. The wind blew directly at us, half the children were draped on top of each other like puppies trying to both sleep and avoid the direct sun that was pouring in. The luckier ones were perched on the edge of a fuel drum or the spare tires. Some kind of sketchy foamy mats and cushions have been thrown into the back for the comfort of the travelers. There are nearly fifty people crammed in what couldn’t have been much more than maybe 10 by 15 feet of flatbed.
There have been many instances of travel in Africa wherein I find myself in those situations you see in movies wherein there are 15 people hanging off the back of a pickup truck somewhere (although in the movies they generally have big semi automatic machine guns, and here they usually just have a baby strapped to their back, another child holding their hand, a chart from the clinic in their arm, perhaps a bag in their other arm and a 5 kg sack of maze balanced on their heads). This particular episode I was experiencing would have fallen into the “refugees leaving a horribly war torn country” category. And these kids were just on their way to school. I will never have the patience to listen to someone complain about paying bus fees to transport their children three miles to school again.
I watched the sky appear to chase the truck for a while as the landscape rushed by over the tailgate. Drew texts to ask if I am ok back there and I text back “of course.” I looked over at the fighters, the larger of which is clearly pouting for my benefit, and decided that this probably isn’t his first school year at Bana Ba. It was the first day of a new school year and so this one is trying to jockey for position, and establish the power structure that will likely carry them through to the next year. The smaller boy appears to be Humbugushku, an ethnic minority in the area, and based on the nervous tension cascading through his tough demeanor, appeared to be new to the whole arrangement. All this is confirmed when I interrogate the older boy in between the fighters, and whom I immediately blamed for the fight that had nothing to do with him.
“Why are you allowing these boys to fight like children when they are at school to learn to act like men? You are clearly older and should be setting a better example!” I berated him in half Setswana, half English, with my favorite statement, “O A Ultwa?” (Do you understand?) peppered emphatically throughout. He looks surprised and slinks off to the back of the truck where he is out of my line of vision. Responsibility for oneself, much less another person can be a fuzzy concept here I’ve found. He clearly had nothing to do with the fight other than cheering for it, but I’ve found discipline is often an easier thing to enforce when you put it back on those you are trying to control. This group is ripe for positive peer culture.
Another boy had brought with him from home a small toy keyboard (with batteries! Very unusual around these parts!) and was playing it for no better purpose than to annoy those around him. As I was one of those people around him, I decided that this would not do. I informed him that I would be happy to listen to him play for the next five minutes, but then did not want to hear it again until Shakawe (where I would be ending my tour of duty in the back of the truck with the kids.) He looked confused and played on as I kept track on my watch. When I held out my hand after five minutes he placed it there without hesitation. When I think of how many hours I’ve spent trying to coax girls to give me tacks, staples, needles, pen parts or other sharp objects they were holding in their mouths in a threat to shallow them I am gobsmacked at how easy this is. It seems even naughty Batswana children are more well behaved than American ones!
At this point the bigger boy from the fight decides to start talking smack to me. He gave me a long convoluted story about how the smaller boy had been trying to eat out his brains, accusations which the younger boy was observing with a scowl on his face but not attempting to refute. The bigger boy asked if I was the smaller boy’s lawyer, and tells me he will be calling his own attorney to come and hear the case of what had just happened, and this bigger boy was certain he would be vindicated.
I listened to him for a few minutes, and having become the main attraction of the small space at this point, many of the rest of the fifty boys on the truck are waiting to hear how I will reply to this damning argument after I had come onto their bus and broken up a fight. (They couldn’t really avoid overhearing as this was a damn small space within which to fit this many people, and there were no other worthwhile distractions as they were already bored of each other, after having already been in the car together for the better part of a day.) I leaned in close to the bully, looked him straight in the eye, and slowly and carefully told him what I hope will be a life lesson that is permanently impressed upon his young mind.
“When you are speaking to a female (O a ultwa?) if you want her to listen to what you are saying (O a ultwa?) you must look in her eyes, not at her chest.”
The crowd of boys went wild, (although I’m still wondering how many actually understood what I was saying in English, and how many were just laughing that I’d told their big man off) and I added, “and good luck getting your attorney to come that side.”
He scowled and went back to pouting, with no further problems for the rest of the ride.
(which was, in fact, free). I hopped in the Seronga police vehicle at the ferry at Mohembo and was home sweet home soon enough… 9 hours later.
My Country Tis of Thee
A short reminder that the following opinions expressed are my own and are not representative of the Peace Corps, the American government, so on, so forth. This is a recollection of my experience as an American living abroad in response to the recent presidential inauguration, which I personally am damn happy with.
On the evening of January 20th I rushed down the road in Seronga, heading the opposite direction people would normally expect from me at that time of day, and as dusk approached, an odd time of day for me to be outside altogether. After generally busy days working the fields, people here have little to do in the evening other than relax outside their huts and track each others movements. As usual, most of my village called out to me as I speed walked down the dirt path.
“Lorato! O Ya Kae?” (where are you going?) They inquired after we went through the usual rigamarole of greeting. “Obama!” I shouted, pointing to my (or really, Brent’s, now mine through the fact that he left it in Gabs and I haven’t seen him again) “Barack Obama is my homeboy” T-shirt. “Ay-hey” they replied.
I arrived at my nurse friend’s house and called “Obama” as a greeting through the open door. He immediately changed the channel to the one that was airing the inauguration. As I watched the cameras scan the crowds on the mall in DC, tears sprung to my eyes.
Obviously, I have been here long enough that there have been plenty of things to have made me homesick. Family and friends are marrying, having children, holidays are passing, lives are changing. The daily annoyances of living in a place like Seronga have gone from making me think of home every two minutes to finally being accepted parts of daily life that rarely conjure up the thought, “Things are NOT like THIS at home.” I find I’ve generally come to miss the people from home more than the places or orchestrated holiday traditions, the pomp and circumstance of this or that uniquely American occurrence.
But as I sat down on that couch, with my coworkers, some of them slowly arriving from next door to share this moment with me, and the National Anthem played, I felt very, very sad. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled with what I was seeing, which was the inauguration of the first president I have voted to elect (the other two elections for which I’ve been eligible to vote I spent the post election weeks in deep depressions of confusion and dismay). It had been fun to show my co-workers my absentee ballot and to teach them about the American system of voting, and to assure them that despite the fact that the ballot was going through the mail it would still get to the right place and would be counted, and to reassure them of the integrity of our election process (a tougher feat in light of our last two elections).
It was powerful for me to express to them that in my mind it has never been about Obama being a black American specifically, (although I am happy for the barriers it will break both in the United States and the rest of the world’s viewpoint of us) but rather that I can honestly say that in my mind he is without question the best man for the job, a man whose energy I have long admired, and whose public presence and expressed attitudes towards issues I care about (including the Peace Corps, to which he has pledged not only his support but vowed to try to double in size) has caused me to feel a sort of hope and faith in my government I haven’t felt in years.
I was bursting with pride at being able to witness such a positive moment in US history. I have begun to identify with and proudly publicly acknowledge my American heritage for the first time in a damn long time. Every time I’ve traveled for the last 8 years in countries around the world I’ve been asked at least once to defend Bush and his administration, and more than once I have not corrected people when they wrongly assume from my grating Minnesota accent that I was Canadian. For me this is a nice switch.
Watching such an American event from Botswana was a surreal experience, and reminded me of sitting in a small hostel in Venice and watching the statue of Saddam Hussein fall in Baghdad, trying to piece together the Italian newscasts to decipher if it was Americans or Iraqis pulling it down. Or living in London sitting around the TV in the common room of an international student’s house struggling to explain Colin Powell’s presentation on the Weapons of Mass Destruction. It was really nice to be sharing an American example of us doing something positive and forward moving rather than trying to simultaneously understand and explain something the rest of the world views as harmful or wrong.
It was really moving to share with my Batswana friends their first experience of seeing an American president being inaugurated (I was told this was the first time the inauguration had been telecast in Botswana), a president they consider to be their brother or their cousin, “an AFRICAN American”, something that bonds me to them in their eyes in a new and meaningful way. Since living here I’ve learned that in traditional and patriarchic societies people often see their leaders as the “fathers” to the people. This is very true of Botswana. As consensus is also the rule of law in this land, many people from my village can’t understand how I could come from America and not agree with Bush’s policies, as he is “my father”. Due to my inability to explain this phenomenon, I was extremely relieved to put that particular argument aside for the more productive one of whether Michelle looked good in that goldish colour.
Throughout the course of the broadcast I was able to identify some of the landmarks of DC, and discuss the similarities and differences in our governments, election process, and monuments to former leaders. I explained the significance of Obama using the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln had used as he was sworn in. The inauguration opened up the door for a lot of interesting chats on American history and it’s relation to Africa that may not have come up otherwise.
Despite the fun and excitement of the night, I was incredibly homesick. I was texting with my mom, commenting on Aretha Franklin’s headpiece and the stuttering during the actual swearing in. The tears slipped down my face as Obama commented in his speech about the people watching from “a small village in Africa like the one my father was born in”. I felt lonely despite being surrounded by people, as it is weird to be so far from the States when something so significant and joyful and unifying is happening there. I have to say that it made me more homesick than I was having been away from home for Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years Eve combined. I yearned to be near someone who fully understood and appreciated the significance of the event in the way that only an American could. That being said I have enjoyed reading all the post election coverage as the magazines have rolled in through the post and am excited to be looking forward to the next few years of being an American abroad. I realize that it is the enterprising visions of the type of man we have just made our president that made this experience I am having as a Peace Corps possible for me, and I am thrilled for the prospects of the future for Americans abroad. Hell yeah USA!!!
On the evening of January 20th I rushed down the road in Seronga, heading the opposite direction people would normally expect from me at that time of day, and as dusk approached, an odd time of day for me to be outside altogether. After generally busy days working the fields, people here have little to do in the evening other than relax outside their huts and track each others movements. As usual, most of my village called out to me as I speed walked down the dirt path.
“Lorato! O Ya Kae?” (where are you going?) They inquired after we went through the usual rigamarole of greeting. “Obama!” I shouted, pointing to my (or really, Brent’s, now mine through the fact that he left it in Gabs and I haven’t seen him again) “Barack Obama is my homeboy” T-shirt. “Ay-hey” they replied.
I arrived at my nurse friend’s house and called “Obama” as a greeting through the open door. He immediately changed the channel to the one that was airing the inauguration. As I watched the cameras scan the crowds on the mall in DC, tears sprung to my eyes.
Obviously, I have been here long enough that there have been plenty of things to have made me homesick. Family and friends are marrying, having children, holidays are passing, lives are changing. The daily annoyances of living in a place like Seronga have gone from making me think of home every two minutes to finally being accepted parts of daily life that rarely conjure up the thought, “Things are NOT like THIS at home.” I find I’ve generally come to miss the people from home more than the places or orchestrated holiday traditions, the pomp and circumstance of this or that uniquely American occurrence.
But as I sat down on that couch, with my coworkers, some of them slowly arriving from next door to share this moment with me, and the National Anthem played, I felt very, very sad. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled with what I was seeing, which was the inauguration of the first president I have voted to elect (the other two elections for which I’ve been eligible to vote I spent the post election weeks in deep depressions of confusion and dismay). It had been fun to show my co-workers my absentee ballot and to teach them about the American system of voting, and to assure them that despite the fact that the ballot was going through the mail it would still get to the right place and would be counted, and to reassure them of the integrity of our election process (a tougher feat in light of our last two elections).
It was powerful for me to express to them that in my mind it has never been about Obama being a black American specifically, (although I am happy for the barriers it will break both in the United States and the rest of the world’s viewpoint of us) but rather that I can honestly say that in my mind he is without question the best man for the job, a man whose energy I have long admired, and whose public presence and expressed attitudes towards issues I care about (including the Peace Corps, to which he has pledged not only his support but vowed to try to double in size) has caused me to feel a sort of hope and faith in my government I haven’t felt in years.
I was bursting with pride at being able to witness such a positive moment in US history. I have begun to identify with and proudly publicly acknowledge my American heritage for the first time in a damn long time. Every time I’ve traveled for the last 8 years in countries around the world I’ve been asked at least once to defend Bush and his administration, and more than once I have not corrected people when they wrongly assume from my grating Minnesota accent that I was Canadian. For me this is a nice switch.
Watching such an American event from Botswana was a surreal experience, and reminded me of sitting in a small hostel in Venice and watching the statue of Saddam Hussein fall in Baghdad, trying to piece together the Italian newscasts to decipher if it was Americans or Iraqis pulling it down. Or living in London sitting around the TV in the common room of an international student’s house struggling to explain Colin Powell’s presentation on the Weapons of Mass Destruction. It was really nice to be sharing an American example of us doing something positive and forward moving rather than trying to simultaneously understand and explain something the rest of the world views as harmful or wrong.
It was really moving to share with my Batswana friends their first experience of seeing an American president being inaugurated (I was told this was the first time the inauguration had been telecast in Botswana), a president they consider to be their brother or their cousin, “an AFRICAN American”, something that bonds me to them in their eyes in a new and meaningful way. Since living here I’ve learned that in traditional and patriarchic societies people often see their leaders as the “fathers” to the people. This is very true of Botswana. As consensus is also the rule of law in this land, many people from my village can’t understand how I could come from America and not agree with Bush’s policies, as he is “my father”. Due to my inability to explain this phenomenon, I was extremely relieved to put that particular argument aside for the more productive one of whether Michelle looked good in that goldish colour.
Throughout the course of the broadcast I was able to identify some of the landmarks of DC, and discuss the similarities and differences in our governments, election process, and monuments to former leaders. I explained the significance of Obama using the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln had used as he was sworn in. The inauguration opened up the door for a lot of interesting chats on American history and it’s relation to Africa that may not have come up otherwise.
Despite the fun and excitement of the night, I was incredibly homesick. I was texting with my mom, commenting on Aretha Franklin’s headpiece and the stuttering during the actual swearing in. The tears slipped down my face as Obama commented in his speech about the people watching from “a small village in Africa like the one my father was born in”. I felt lonely despite being surrounded by people, as it is weird to be so far from the States when something so significant and joyful and unifying is happening there. I have to say that it made me more homesick than I was having been away from home for Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years Eve combined. I yearned to be near someone who fully understood and appreciated the significance of the event in the way that only an American could. That being said I have enjoyed reading all the post election coverage as the magazines have rolled in through the post and am excited to be looking forward to the next few years of being an American abroad. I realize that it is the enterprising visions of the type of man we have just made our president that made this experience I am having as a Peace Corps possible for me, and I am thrilled for the prospects of the future for Americans abroad. Hell yeah USA!!!
Listening to Portuguese, Hearing Setswana, Speaking Spanish... More tales of a Mozambican Adventure
As we drive out of the bustling capitol city of Gaborone (on the luxurious bus known as the Intercape –similar to a Greyhound- or as it will remain in my memory, “the magic bus”) on our way to Jo-burg for the first leg of our vacation, my Peace Corps buddies and I paused to reflect. We had all immediately upon meeting expunged some of what I’ve come to think of as typical “toxicity” complaining about our sites and cultural struggles. We were ready for a break. Don’t get me wrong, the people I was with love villages the way I love Seronga. If anyone talked a word of smack about any of the places we’ve come to think of as home (other than ourselves of course) we’d go rounds like the “Sharks and Jets”. Existing in a foreign culture is a constant internal fugue of a battle between indignation, acceptance, understanding, and striving for change. My friend A captured it exactly when she stated “I’m just ready to be confused and slightly offended by a new and different African culture and language for a while.” She certainly called that one.
As we crossed the border (and event marked by the introduction of a young man whom shall remain known as the Mexican Harry Potter- he turns up later in the story) for the first time in nearly 9 months to South Africa, vacation officially began. It was weird to retrace our steps from when we first got here and the people we were then. As we got nearer to Jo-Burg we noticed McDonalds and other cosmopolitan establishments, and the kind of scenery that totally resembles places in Arizona or California. You could have totally told me that’s where we were and I might have believed you. These things hadn’t struck us the first time through when we were green off the plane. Back then I was busy waxing poetic about the red dust of Africa (which incidentally is not very common in my new home of Botswana… The dirt is nearly white in Gumare but that is as close to interesting dirt as I’ve come across here…) to notice that the “villages” we were driving through would now strike me as incredibly suburban…
To be in a major (sorry Gabs) capitol city for the first time in nearly a year was incredibly weird. It was like stepping out of the life I know I live for some strange alternate reality. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, it was way easier to do than I thought it would be. We had great food in Joburg, I got my hair cut (I cannot tell you how exciting that was!! A shoulder massage by the shampoo lady! I was nearly brought to tears by the “almost Aveda” scent permeating the air…) and we were again on our way. It was strange to be able to speak English and realize everyone would automatically understand you, and I found my Setswinglish phrases hard to completely let go of. It got worse the farther from home we got.
The next day we again took another magic bus (with movies and air conditioning! What!?!) and as we crossed the border to Mozambique what began as a light drizzle became a deluge of rain shortly before we reached Maputo. The bus broke down (only for about an hour and a half) and in flooded streets we arrived at our backpackers. A was now coming a bit out of her Bendryl induced coma to enjoy the festivities. We could find nothing but soggy burgers and Fanta to compliment the diet of Fanta and bread that we had been enjoying all day to this point, but it was all still in good fun. The landscape had come to be increasingly tropical and beautiful and more closely resembling my preconceived notions of what I thought Africa would look like pre-PC. It was the next morning that we entered the hell bus portion of our journey.
The next leg of our journey is a bit traumatizing to recount and large gaps have likely been struck from the record that is my memory, but I’ll just say that it put my 14 hour overnight Semanta Santa Barcelona to Seville trip to shame. The highlights were being able to buy some fresh fruit that must be some member of the mango family from the aisle of the bus and then having standing-while-the-bus-is-moving-over-horrifying-flooded-out-ruts contests with A once the crowd thinned out after our bus change during the last four hour leg of the trip. I now realize that I am completely amiss in calling the 10.5 hour bus trip from Maun to Gabs the “dehydration express.” I have now realized that the Vilanculous Express is the rightful holder of that title as there is only 1 sanctioned potty break, and no hoof and mouth gates or ID check points on which to relieve oneself. What a new and fun learning experience!
It was once we arrived in Vilanculous that the translation fun for which this blog entry is titled occurred. The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese. Which I’ve heard resembles Spanish. When I was in Costa Rica for two weeks in high school I was dreaming in Spanish so I figured this would be easy! In my own mind I am still very able to pick up languages quite easily (with of course the exclusion of the Bantu family of languages which I’ve determined I have little hope of ever understanding). I was ready for this challenge.
Walking along the streets of Vilanculous a strange thing happened. I started hearing select words in Setswana. What??!! This is impossible. I determined that this must be the local tribal language. (Which I have since been told does not resemble Setswana in the slightest.) Oh boy. I was hearing this craziness and continuously reconfirming with C- she was having none of my delusion. Upon arriving in Moz, we would often try to speak English, or when the locals appeared to be confused by that, we would go for the ever less likely option of Setswana. In an irony befitting of these conditions I could not evoke the Spanish that danced like sugarplums in my head for all of pre service training and prohibited my intake of Setswana. By the end of the trip I was speaking a very poor combination of Setswana, English, Ubonicks and Spanish complimented by sweeping gestures that might resemble Central Asian Sign Language.
At one point I decided to delve completely into “cultural integration” and thought it would be entertaining to learn to say “two headless hammerheaded sharks” in the local language. (We had found them on the beach. It made sense at the time.) We were lucky in several instances to have with us our very own Mexicans, (it seems we again ran into our buddy the Mexican Harry Potter from Jo-Burg and adopted him and his sister into our motley crew) who in addition to providing us the idea of “an hour without a Mexican” (a play on the title of a film a few years back with great concept and crap execution) that we constantly made fun of… and to translate the Portuguese (and our crazy American demands- sometimes in places where you can walk into an actual restaurant you get crazy expectations in your head about what might be a reasonable request-no onions?) with their Spanish skillz.
One thing I unexpectedly, (but happily) got a vacation from was my status as “strange white rich person”. One of the first things I noticed as we disembarked in Vilanculous was that no one was staring at us because we are white. It took me a while to settle back into the policy of not greeting every single person that walked by me. When the Mozambicans did approach us, it was rarely to beg, more often it was to sell us something they had made or caught. I noticed that they addressed us with the inclusive salutation of “my sister” rather than the exclusive “Lekgowa” which emphasizes our differences. Several times we asked people to help us find something, which in Botswana (for me at least) can often end with a held out hand, whereas in Mozambique it was just a wave and a smile. Now I realize the grass is always greener, but I left feeling distinctly jealous of Peace Corps Vilanculous.
All this aside, I am happy to be back in Seronga. People greeted me in my village like I had been gone for decades, and immediately set about teaching me how to say in “compliments of the New Year” in Setswana. At least there are always some places one knows what to expect…
As we crossed the border (and event marked by the introduction of a young man whom shall remain known as the Mexican Harry Potter- he turns up later in the story) for the first time in nearly 9 months to South Africa, vacation officially began. It was weird to retrace our steps from when we first got here and the people we were then. As we got nearer to Jo-Burg we noticed McDonalds and other cosmopolitan establishments, and the kind of scenery that totally resembles places in Arizona or California. You could have totally told me that’s where we were and I might have believed you. These things hadn’t struck us the first time through when we were green off the plane. Back then I was busy waxing poetic about the red dust of Africa (which incidentally is not very common in my new home of Botswana… The dirt is nearly white in Gumare but that is as close to interesting dirt as I’ve come across here…) to notice that the “villages” we were driving through would now strike me as incredibly suburban…
To be in a major (sorry Gabs) capitol city for the first time in nearly a year was incredibly weird. It was like stepping out of the life I know I live for some strange alternate reality. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, it was way easier to do than I thought it would be. We had great food in Joburg, I got my hair cut (I cannot tell you how exciting that was!! A shoulder massage by the shampoo lady! I was nearly brought to tears by the “almost Aveda” scent permeating the air…) and we were again on our way. It was strange to be able to speak English and realize everyone would automatically understand you, and I found my Setswinglish phrases hard to completely let go of. It got worse the farther from home we got.
The next day we again took another magic bus (with movies and air conditioning! What!?!) and as we crossed the border to Mozambique what began as a light drizzle became a deluge of rain shortly before we reached Maputo. The bus broke down (only for about an hour and a half) and in flooded streets we arrived at our backpackers. A was now coming a bit out of her Bendryl induced coma to enjoy the festivities. We could find nothing but soggy burgers and Fanta to compliment the diet of Fanta and bread that we had been enjoying all day to this point, but it was all still in good fun. The landscape had come to be increasingly tropical and beautiful and more closely resembling my preconceived notions of what I thought Africa would look like pre-PC. It was the next morning that we entered the hell bus portion of our journey.
The next leg of our journey is a bit traumatizing to recount and large gaps have likely been struck from the record that is my memory, but I’ll just say that it put my 14 hour overnight Semanta Santa Barcelona to Seville trip to shame. The highlights were being able to buy some fresh fruit that must be some member of the mango family from the aisle of the bus and then having standing-while-the-bus-is-moving-over-horrifying-flooded-out-ruts contests with A once the crowd thinned out after our bus change during the last four hour leg of the trip. I now realize that I am completely amiss in calling the 10.5 hour bus trip from Maun to Gabs the “dehydration express.” I have now realized that the Vilanculous Express is the rightful holder of that title as there is only 1 sanctioned potty break, and no hoof and mouth gates or ID check points on which to relieve oneself. What a new and fun learning experience!
It was once we arrived in Vilanculous that the translation fun for which this blog entry is titled occurred. The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese. Which I’ve heard resembles Spanish. When I was in Costa Rica for two weeks in high school I was dreaming in Spanish so I figured this would be easy! In my own mind I am still very able to pick up languages quite easily (with of course the exclusion of the Bantu family of languages which I’ve determined I have little hope of ever understanding). I was ready for this challenge.
Walking along the streets of Vilanculous a strange thing happened. I started hearing select words in Setswana. What??!! This is impossible. I determined that this must be the local tribal language. (Which I have since been told does not resemble Setswana in the slightest.) Oh boy. I was hearing this craziness and continuously reconfirming with C- she was having none of my delusion. Upon arriving in Moz, we would often try to speak English, or when the locals appeared to be confused by that, we would go for the ever less likely option of Setswana. In an irony befitting of these conditions I could not evoke the Spanish that danced like sugarplums in my head for all of pre service training and prohibited my intake of Setswana. By the end of the trip I was speaking a very poor combination of Setswana, English, Ubonicks and Spanish complimented by sweeping gestures that might resemble Central Asian Sign Language.
At one point I decided to delve completely into “cultural integration” and thought it would be entertaining to learn to say “two headless hammerheaded sharks” in the local language. (We had found them on the beach. It made sense at the time.) We were lucky in several instances to have with us our very own Mexicans, (it seems we again ran into our buddy the Mexican Harry Potter from Jo-Burg and adopted him and his sister into our motley crew) who in addition to providing us the idea of “an hour without a Mexican” (a play on the title of a film a few years back with great concept and crap execution) that we constantly made fun of… and to translate the Portuguese (and our crazy American demands- sometimes in places where you can walk into an actual restaurant you get crazy expectations in your head about what might be a reasonable request-no onions?) with their Spanish skillz.
One thing I unexpectedly, (but happily) got a vacation from was my status as “strange white rich person”. One of the first things I noticed as we disembarked in Vilanculous was that no one was staring at us because we are white. It took me a while to settle back into the policy of not greeting every single person that walked by me. When the Mozambicans did approach us, it was rarely to beg, more often it was to sell us something they had made or caught. I noticed that they addressed us with the inclusive salutation of “my sister” rather than the exclusive “Lekgowa” which emphasizes our differences. Several times we asked people to help us find something, which in Botswana (for me at least) can often end with a held out hand, whereas in Mozambique it was just a wave and a smile. Now I realize the grass is always greener, but I left feeling distinctly jealous of Peace Corps Vilanculous.
All this aside, I am happy to be back in Seronga. People greeted me in my village like I had been gone for decades, and immediately set about teaching me how to say in “compliments of the New Year” in Setswana. At least there are always some places one knows what to expect…
Mo Mesticals, Mo Problems: Tales of a Mozambican Adventure
Mo mesticals, mo problems: Tales of a Mozambican Adventure
In retrospect, it was my own fault…..
A and C had announced their intention to do a Christmas/New Years Mozambique holiday back in September, and I was honored to be on the invite list. Along with Rainbow Brite, there were four of us, and this is, in my humble opinion, absolutely the only number of humans with which to travel. Two and you might get sick of each other, 3 you’re likely to have an odd one out, any more than 4 and there’s no chance of fitting in one room together, and finding enough bus seats is a trauma. This way we can split into twos and everyone is nearly always happy.
I told them I wouldn’t be able to really help with the planning of the vacation (what with all my copious amounts of internet time I simply cannot imagine why not) but promised to be thrilled with whatever they came up with so long as it encompassed a beach (and seafood). I let them know I trusted them completely and told them to tell me when and where to show up and who to cut a check to.
In retrospect the bright side of the needle stick incident (and let’s all remember, there’s a positive side to every situation, and I’m thankful that this one did not end in a positive HIV status!!!) is that I was able to have one of the most productive days in the last 6 months of my life while in Gabs- I got my passport visa for Mozambique (as well as my replacement mouth guard… what what!) and many other errands done. The visa business is the only reason I had any idea when we were even going to be in another country. I heard about the name of the village location I would be staying at from another PCV completely as there was another group going to Mozambique during that time and she had spoken with Rainbow Brite about our itinerary.
I’ve discovered that this is the type of traveler I occasionally like to be (Although I tend to be the tour guide Nazi with my mom and sister. I have also been blessed to find enough friends who like planning trips in my life that many times I’ve been able to just exist in a state of ignorance and show up with a smile and some sunscreen). I seem to like the element of surprise on my holidays. Just showing up and doing whatever I’m told to do and I’ve been generally thrilled with the results. This might sound lazy of me (and of that fact you would be correct…) but every ship can only have so many captains and I always thought I looked better in the Skipper’s stripes!
So what is the point of confessing my deepest darkest travel secrets to the world via this blog, besides of course providing you all with cheap laughs(?) I felt I must give you some background from which to understand what occurred on the Mozambican holiday.
So off I go, eager for my adventure to a country I knew nothing about. In my defense I did buy a travel magazine with the word Mozambique in big bold type on the cover- the pictures were beautiful- but I didn’t really get around to opening the free with purchase map or reading any of the articles until we were well into the country. I certainly wasn’t as prepared as A, who had compiled a list of useful phrases in Portuguese such as, “Am I being arrested?” and “Are you married?” She also took it upon herself to figure out the details of the currency exchange rates, and I have to tell you, by the time we crossed customs in Mozambique and were withdrawing what ended up being the fourth currency we were operating in from the cash machine (the first three were Pula, Rand, and American dollars) we were having a challenge finding the correct coins and bills to buy a drink. They had started mentioning the Mozambican money back at a bar in Jo-Burg, (I’m of the belief that they may have specifically waited for me to be a bit off my game…) and they quickly informed me (before hiding their grins behind their hands) that the currency of Mozambique was the “mestical.”
Yup that rhymes with exactly the male body part that is immediately brought to mind when the word is said out loud. (Pause for you to try it. Ok. Moving on). They let this little joke ride just long enough for actual learning to occur in my brain, and I was stuck with it for vacation. When I couldn’t manage to make my brain evoke mestical, I usually came up with metrical, madrigal, or magical. None, of course, which are correct. (the currency of Mozambique is called the meticais, although for your next Mozambican holiday I recommend using mestical for it’s hilarity inducing properties. Hell, use it for the currency for your next vacation to Mexico. It’s funny!) It became a running joke through the holiday, bartering with the locals in mesticals, (we undoubtedly got screwed left and right on this one), making bets and dares in increments of 100,000 mesticals, (the exchange rate is 24 to 1 with the American dollar) and making up rap song titles using our new beloved currency.
Now why where would we get the idea what we could use mesticals as the theme for song titles you ask? Well this stems from the incident in which I may have accidentally cut my head on the gate that stood between me and the beach at the backpackers we were staying at. It was a tricky descent to navigate when sober, in the daylight when it was dry, so it was completely understandable that the rainy and wet, dark, slightly intoxicated conditions I was operating under I may have slipped. The cut was tiny, but the next morning I made the joke that I had given myself a “Drunken Gash.” Now if this isn’t the perfect name for a band I’m not sure what is!?! I may have even seen them on MTV during my formative years of hair bands and sad country music!
The band idea was provoked by the entertainment at the bar and restaurant we stopped by after our amazing New Year’s Eve dinner (I swear I may have died and gone to heaven. Fancy, nice food, Edith Piaf on the stereo, my girls around me, it was amazing!!!) was this South African chick with fluorescent Barbie inspired extensions in her hair singing covers to bad 80’s songs to a karaoke machine. She even had wardrobe changes. We speculated that she might belong on a cruise ship somewhere and immediately decided to form our own band of us doing covers of her covers. The marketing joke for this particular idea was to give away a free bottle of Arby’s Horsy Sauce to anyone who bought a copy of our first CD, which would be recorded live at TGI Fridays. I have to say that one of the most entertaining parts of this vacation was to be able to make wildly ridiculous jokes that didn’t have to be explained through a ten minute back story. With Americans you all just “get it”. I didn’t realize how much I had missed that.
With all this hilarity, you might wonder if anything went wrong on this vacation. Up to now it sounds like all laughs sunshine. Of course we had some mishaps. There were some episodes that would have made the cut for National Lampoons African Vacation. It rained over half the time we were on holiday, but of course generally not while it would have had a lovely cooling effect while we were on any of our massively long and miserable bus rides. And the rain I speak of was not a little Botswana style afternoon shower to cool us down and then allow us back out to frolic on the beaches. It was torrential, occasionally painful or blinding downpours. There was no hot water at the backpackers we spent most of our time in Vilanculous at, or really even solid walls to provide much mosquito protection. We were all sandy, cold and wet for much of the time, as was nearly all of our stuff. I’ll let you imagine how all that began to smell. Don’t forget to add in the saltwater. The buses we had to take left us with people literally sitting in our laps and on our armrests, with small children vomiting from the sickness that comes from standing in the aisle and a straight diet of Fanta, bread and candy that appears to be a common meal on Mozambican 12 hour bus rides with loud Portuguese music and bad pop songs in English playing the entire way. There was literally so little leg room that at one point I woke up and couldn’t feel my feet. With A’s help I maneuvered them up only to be confronted by cankles and feet that resembled hooves. A and C accidentally left things at one of the hostels. My wallet was MIA for a while. Rainbow Brite got what was probably third degree sunburns on the backs of her thighs, and I cut my foot pretty badly (narrowly missing my tat… that one’s gonna leave a scar) during our snorkeling boat adventure (probably needed stitches but what can you do?). How did we make it through the vacation without killing each other you ask? How can this possibly go down in my memory as one of the most fun vacations ever?
Throughout the course of the trip we came up with a brilliant concept I plan on implementing on every trip I ever take again (consider yourself warned). This is known as the blame game. We decided early on in the trip that we would each take a day in rotation to be held responsible for anything we might be pissed off about, or that went wrong. It had the effect of making everything into a joke and preventing a lot of tension or frustration from building. An excerpt below.
Me: “Rainbow Brite, why did you make it rain on our vacation today? And why am I hungover? Why did you make me cut my foot on that coral?”
RB: “I don’t know, Jen, but I certainly am sorry. All these things certainly are my fault. I’ll work to make the sun shine tomorrow. Preferably out your ass. And that cut will certainly always remind you of what a fun time we’ve had in the rain on this vacation, won’t it?”
Cue the hysterical laughing from all involved parties and witnesses. And a great time was had by all….
In retrospect, it was my own fault…..
A and C had announced their intention to do a Christmas/New Years Mozambique holiday back in September, and I was honored to be on the invite list. Along with Rainbow Brite, there were four of us, and this is, in my humble opinion, absolutely the only number of humans with which to travel. Two and you might get sick of each other, 3 you’re likely to have an odd one out, any more than 4 and there’s no chance of fitting in one room together, and finding enough bus seats is a trauma. This way we can split into twos and everyone is nearly always happy.
I told them I wouldn’t be able to really help with the planning of the vacation (what with all my copious amounts of internet time I simply cannot imagine why not) but promised to be thrilled with whatever they came up with so long as it encompassed a beach (and seafood). I let them know I trusted them completely and told them to tell me when and where to show up and who to cut a check to.
In retrospect the bright side of the needle stick incident (and let’s all remember, there’s a positive side to every situation, and I’m thankful that this one did not end in a positive HIV status!!!) is that I was able to have one of the most productive days in the last 6 months of my life while in Gabs- I got my passport visa for Mozambique (as well as my replacement mouth guard… what what!) and many other errands done. The visa business is the only reason I had any idea when we were even going to be in another country. I heard about the name of the village location I would be staying at from another PCV completely as there was another group going to Mozambique during that time and she had spoken with Rainbow Brite about our itinerary.
I’ve discovered that this is the type of traveler I occasionally like to be (Although I tend to be the tour guide Nazi with my mom and sister. I have also been blessed to find enough friends who like planning trips in my life that many times I’ve been able to just exist in a state of ignorance and show up with a smile and some sunscreen). I seem to like the element of surprise on my holidays. Just showing up and doing whatever I’m told to do and I’ve been generally thrilled with the results. This might sound lazy of me (and of that fact you would be correct…) but every ship can only have so many captains and I always thought I looked better in the Skipper’s stripes!
So what is the point of confessing my deepest darkest travel secrets to the world via this blog, besides of course providing you all with cheap laughs(?) I felt I must give you some background from which to understand what occurred on the Mozambican holiday.
So off I go, eager for my adventure to a country I knew nothing about. In my defense I did buy a travel magazine with the word Mozambique in big bold type on the cover- the pictures were beautiful- but I didn’t really get around to opening the free with purchase map or reading any of the articles until we were well into the country. I certainly wasn’t as prepared as A, who had compiled a list of useful phrases in Portuguese such as, “Am I being arrested?” and “Are you married?” She also took it upon herself to figure out the details of the currency exchange rates, and I have to tell you, by the time we crossed customs in Mozambique and were withdrawing what ended up being the fourth currency we were operating in from the cash machine (the first three were Pula, Rand, and American dollars) we were having a challenge finding the correct coins and bills to buy a drink. They had started mentioning the Mozambican money back at a bar in Jo-Burg, (I’m of the belief that they may have specifically waited for me to be a bit off my game…) and they quickly informed me (before hiding their grins behind their hands) that the currency of Mozambique was the “mestical.”
Yup that rhymes with exactly the male body part that is immediately brought to mind when the word is said out loud. (Pause for you to try it. Ok. Moving on). They let this little joke ride just long enough for actual learning to occur in my brain, and I was stuck with it for vacation. When I couldn’t manage to make my brain evoke mestical, I usually came up with metrical, madrigal, or magical. None, of course, which are correct. (the currency of Mozambique is called the meticais, although for your next Mozambican holiday I recommend using mestical for it’s hilarity inducing properties. Hell, use it for the currency for your next vacation to Mexico. It’s funny!) It became a running joke through the holiday, bartering with the locals in mesticals, (we undoubtedly got screwed left and right on this one), making bets and dares in increments of 100,000 mesticals, (the exchange rate is 24 to 1 with the American dollar) and making up rap song titles using our new beloved currency.
Now why where would we get the idea what we could use mesticals as the theme for song titles you ask? Well this stems from the incident in which I may have accidentally cut my head on the gate that stood between me and the beach at the backpackers we were staying at. It was a tricky descent to navigate when sober, in the daylight when it was dry, so it was completely understandable that the rainy and wet, dark, slightly intoxicated conditions I was operating under I may have slipped. The cut was tiny, but the next morning I made the joke that I had given myself a “Drunken Gash.” Now if this isn’t the perfect name for a band I’m not sure what is!?! I may have even seen them on MTV during my formative years of hair bands and sad country music!
The band idea was provoked by the entertainment at the bar and restaurant we stopped by after our amazing New Year’s Eve dinner (I swear I may have died and gone to heaven. Fancy, nice food, Edith Piaf on the stereo, my girls around me, it was amazing!!!) was this South African chick with fluorescent Barbie inspired extensions in her hair singing covers to bad 80’s songs to a karaoke machine. She even had wardrobe changes. We speculated that she might belong on a cruise ship somewhere and immediately decided to form our own band of us doing covers of her covers. The marketing joke for this particular idea was to give away a free bottle of Arby’s Horsy Sauce to anyone who bought a copy of our first CD, which would be recorded live at TGI Fridays. I have to say that one of the most entertaining parts of this vacation was to be able to make wildly ridiculous jokes that didn’t have to be explained through a ten minute back story. With Americans you all just “get it”. I didn’t realize how much I had missed that.
With all this hilarity, you might wonder if anything went wrong on this vacation. Up to now it sounds like all laughs sunshine. Of course we had some mishaps. There were some episodes that would have made the cut for National Lampoons African Vacation. It rained over half the time we were on holiday, but of course generally not while it would have had a lovely cooling effect while we were on any of our massively long and miserable bus rides. And the rain I speak of was not a little Botswana style afternoon shower to cool us down and then allow us back out to frolic on the beaches. It was torrential, occasionally painful or blinding downpours. There was no hot water at the backpackers we spent most of our time in Vilanculous at, or really even solid walls to provide much mosquito protection. We were all sandy, cold and wet for much of the time, as was nearly all of our stuff. I’ll let you imagine how all that began to smell. Don’t forget to add in the saltwater. The buses we had to take left us with people literally sitting in our laps and on our armrests, with small children vomiting from the sickness that comes from standing in the aisle and a straight diet of Fanta, bread and candy that appears to be a common meal on Mozambican 12 hour bus rides with loud Portuguese music and bad pop songs in English playing the entire way. There was literally so little leg room that at one point I woke up and couldn’t feel my feet. With A’s help I maneuvered them up only to be confronted by cankles and feet that resembled hooves. A and C accidentally left things at one of the hostels. My wallet was MIA for a while. Rainbow Brite got what was probably third degree sunburns on the backs of her thighs, and I cut my foot pretty badly (narrowly missing my tat… that one’s gonna leave a scar) during our snorkeling boat adventure (probably needed stitches but what can you do?). How did we make it through the vacation without killing each other you ask? How can this possibly go down in my memory as one of the most fun vacations ever?
Throughout the course of the trip we came up with a brilliant concept I plan on implementing on every trip I ever take again (consider yourself warned). This is known as the blame game. We decided early on in the trip that we would each take a day in rotation to be held responsible for anything we might be pissed off about, or that went wrong. It had the effect of making everything into a joke and preventing a lot of tension or frustration from building. An excerpt below.
Me: “Rainbow Brite, why did you make it rain on our vacation today? And why am I hungover? Why did you make me cut my foot on that coral?”
RB: “I don’t know, Jen, but I certainly am sorry. All these things certainly are my fault. I’ll work to make the sun shine tomorrow. Preferably out your ass. And that cut will certainly always remind you of what a fun time we’ve had in the rain on this vacation, won’t it?”
Cue the hysterical laughing from all involved parties and witnesses. And a great time was had by all….
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