Last of the Mozambicans?

Here’s an entry I found on my computer from back on vacation in Mozambique. Amazing what can get misplaced for 6 months. Perhaps I’m just dreaming about “the good old days” of vacation. Who knows.

In which I get my frilly Peace Corps panties in a bunch on vacation….

Now I struggle with being very careful about generalizations and stereotypes about entire groups of people. At the end of the day clichés are called that for a reason and it tends to be that there are some common characteristics about certain groups of people that tend to quite often be true. A perfect example is the cliché of Americans abroad. People tend to think we are loud, (obnoxious) occasionally overbearing, demanding, confident, inquisitive, and sometimes culturally insensitive and a host of other things my foreign friends haven’t bothered to share with me. When I’m honest with myself I can admit that I fit the bill if I’m not careful (or maybe all the time?). I can openly admit that my friends and I fit into some of these negative American stereotypes at various times while on vacation and probably on occasion through our time here.

So with generalizations. I struggle. I’m not perfect in this area. It’s a common thing here. Southern Africa tends to have a great deal of xenophobia and racism of all sorts. Perhaps there isn’t more than in other places, but here it just tends to be more out in the open as a result of their history. So generalizations are easier to fall into in a culture where they are not only prevalent, but it can be generally still acceptable, as in not politically incorrect as they might be in the States. I try to learn as much as I can about people as individuals before I put them in a box but sometimes encounters happed that don’t allow for that type of in depth investigation. This happened during several chance encounters on vacation.

The other disclaimer that I have to make is that I have many South African friends who happen to be white. I try to defend the entire group to my American friends in general, because I have had many good experiences with them. Due to the nature of our work here, the Americans I know (which are admittedly mostly Peace Corps) tend to at least try (again and again, every day, sometimes it’s hard, it’s usually a struggle of sorts) to understand and appreciate the people here, their cultural differences and tendencies that may seem backward to us or even harmful practices within their own culture (ie those that increase the transmission of HIV). I would hate to be assumed to be and associated with the type of American who fits the stereotypes of small mindedness and racism (although it has happened more than once to me here) that can exist in my culture and I try not to do it with South Africans, but the point I’m trying to make is that it can exist, and we ran into it several times on vacation.

So on with the show.

It was our second or maybe third night at the backpackers in Vilanculos. It had rained since we had been there and we were a bit cooped up and desperate. We were tired of the scene at the backpackers and wanted to go out on the town.

A, as is her tendency, can make friends with anyone, even a brick wall if it was painted in such a way that it attracted her. She had already of course made friends with a majority of the local population of Vilanculos and had met a guy who said he was a deejay and would be performing that night at a club called the “Afrobar”.

A group of the younger South Africans from our hostel who had already made it apparent to us that they were generally not interested in “our kind”: read Americans, had announced to the whole bar at the backpackers that they would be going to the Afrobar as there would be a party hosted by a major cable music network that we’ll call “Brace” (if you’re really dying to know who it is email me and of course I’ll spill) to avoid any legal troubles. As they had deemed to include us in the mass invitation we thought perhaps this was a bit of a peace offering, or at least they had overlooked the fact that we were at the bar when they mentioned it. Either way we knew they would be there. We grabbed our Mexicans (the new friends that we had made that were absolutely invaluable in translating the Portuguese of Mozambique with their flawless command of Spanish (it was, after all, their native tongue)) and were on our way.

Everyone was quite pleased to walk out of the gate at the backpackers and feel a break in the nasty rain that had been plaguing our days on vacation. We walked into Afrobar at the altogether too incredibly early A dictated time of 9PM. It seems we had forgotten about the concept of “African time” because we were on vacation. The bar was empty, and so we grabbed a seat at a prime location for scoping out any new “talent” that came through the door.

I saw him as he entered the bar, and being myself I immediately called “dibs.” From a distance he was really good looking, and as he approached the bar I learned that he was indeed, ready for his close up. As it was established amongst the girls on the trip that I got the first chance to hit on him, I began the game by promptly ignoring him.

He was one of those guys whose name is likely Brad. His capped teeth (and dare I say blonde highlights) implied that he surely hadn’t known many of the world’s tragedies personally (but then really, have I?). He was chatting with a group of his friends (which I soon learned were his coworkers) who had settled near us at the bar. They too ignored us and the two groups collectively waited for someone to make a move. This is usually my job in the group, but I’ve learned that men from places other than the States can occasionally be put off by women who approach them and so we all just kept waiting.

Eventually “Brad” placed our accents (or was it our volume?) as Americans overheard me speaking with a few of my friends and upon hearing our American accents quickly sidled up to us and began to recite his resume of people and places he knew in the States. He was gorgeous in that traditional, clean cut sort of way, and arrogant in the ways that only those who have grown up with a certain sort of privilege can be. He then went into the amazing place they were staying, the private pool overlooking the ocean, ect, ect ect,. I found out that he was from Joburg and worked for the music channel that was putting on the party (as evidenced by all the banners hanging up announcing that this party was put on by Brace as well as the fact that there were guys setting up cameras near the dance floor.) We chatted for a little while and I excused myself to go hang with my friends again.

In a few hours the music started, being played by a white deejay. The music was typical house, with really nothing about it to place it as specifically from South Africa. I don’t like house music in general, and this stuff wasn’t exemplary in any way that made me appreciate it any more, and I soon became bored.

As is typical of any bar when the music first starts and before the drinks really start flowing the dance floor was empty. I figured this deejay thing was just a temporary thing to warm up the crowd before the local guy A knew came on to perform. But the deejay continued with the lackluster music for a few hours, and eventually the people from the music channel got out on the dance floor and tried to get more people out there. I’m usually all for dancing, but the music was really not working for me. The TV crew began filming mostly themselves dancing to the South African house music. Eventually the group from the backpackers got out on the dance floor with, of all things, those crazy ropes that have fire on the end. They start showing off for the cameras and twirling them, which cleared the dance floor again. All the local people were hanging out on the sidelines.

Eventually Brad came over (it’s not his real name but I can’t remember it anyways, plus I’m beginning to enjoy this alias thing) and tried to get our group to dance. I followed him out to the floor and began to ask him what the music channel’s aim was in filming all the white tourists in a bar in Mozambique. Would it be an extension of American MTV’s “Spring Break” for Africa?

He told me that they were filming a segment in which they wanted to play South African house music as a way of exposing Mozambicans to it, and to film how much they enjoyed it for the show.

I looked at him, looked at the dance floor, looked back at him and cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “But it doesn’t look like the Mozambicans are enjoying the music at all. They’re standing on the sidelines.”

There was of course, of no concern to dear blonde Brad. He began to wax poetic with what was inevitably outtakes from the station’s illogically conceived interoffice memos about how this was such a great opportunity to show Mozambicans what good music was and get them turned onto the beats that were making an impact all over the continent. We danced for a while longer and surprisingly in relation to the alcohol being consumed beautiful Brad became a bit less attractive (we all know generally the opposite is true).

I was just making my way off the dance floor to leave Brad with the flame throwers when the music abruptly changed and all the local people started streaming towards the stage. The local guys A had talked about had begun performing and they were really good. Mozambican music has some Portuguese influence to it that leaves it sounding like a really cool unique hybrid of African and European. I turned on my heel and headed back to the dance floor where I began to dance with some of the local girls who had just come onto the dance floor and were singing along with the lyrics. The rest of my friends soon joined us and we were having a grand old time. The fire twirlers were forced off the floor and the camera crews began filming all the local people dancing. They tended to fit the stereotype of African people who are really, really good dancers. This was a proper party.

Soon the some of the women who were with the music station pushed their way up to the front of the crowd and began grinding up on each other like it was a “girls gone wild” video shoot. They pulled some of the local girls into it and soon the bright lights near the camera were redirected to them. The local chicks were soon dancing like any other group of crazy spring breakers in Cancun and many soon abandoned their own dancing style to get on camera. The local group played about four songs and then it was back to the South African deejay and music and many of the locals left the floor again.

I looked at my friends in surprise. What just happened? Everything was cool and now we’re back to this crap music!

As my friends left the dance floor I went to find my buddy Brad. He was talking to the flame dancers and they were saying they had gotten the crazy rope torches during their holiday in the Southeast Asia. As I say, the drinking had continued and Brad embraced me as though he hadn’t seen me in years. I peeled him off of me and tried to ask him what had happened with the music.

He rambled something about being able to dub the footage of the locals dancing to the local music with the South African house music. The aforementioned house music was blaring so loudly I thought I had misheard him so I leaned in closer. He repeated what he said and continued on about bringing “these people” “proper culture.”

I looked at him, leaned in even further, and yelled more loudly than necessary to my former friend Brad, “They don’t need your f-ing crap musical culture, they have their own, and it’s ten times better than this garbage. Why doesn’t your channel take this opportunity to showcase Mozambique’s cultural music to the world, rather than bringing your bullshit in here deafening us with it, and then completely misrepresenting it to the world via your station?”

Exit me stage left. Needless to say what I had originally hoped would be my torrid vacation romance with Brad ended before it began.

Of course having had a few drinks I was focused on what I had now interpreted as a gross cultural offense and the words “cultural imperialism” may have come out of my mouth along with all sorts of blathering about neocolonialism. In retrospect this may have been a slight overreaction. Because really, how is some of the work I do as a Peace Corps Volunteer much different? I’m trying to simultaneously learn about Batswana culture and expose the Batswana to American culture, and hoping they’ll pick up some of the aspects that I tend to think of as positive. Who says that’s right? Who knows?

In the end I guess we just have to keep struggling to appreciate and admire other people’s cultural differences. Culture is such a strange thing across the board, but I myself have to keep working on this, tolerance, appreciation, and gratitude for my part. Not generalizing and falling back on stereotypes. And I have to hope that I haven’t seen the last of the true Mozambicans.