Back to Basics

We have already been in Namaacha two weeks. It has been a jam-packed, busy two weeks essentially learning the basics of not only daily living skills here in Namaacha, but basic Portuguese and the basics of our health technical training. At times, I feel as though I am back in preschool just learning how to make it to lunch. But, I have an awesome host family helping me every step of the way. I met minha mae (my host mom) Ecineta at the Peace Corps HUB when we arrived from Maputo. She greeted me with open arms and then grabbed my heavy backpack and we walked hand-in-hand all the way home.  

Within my first hour of being in Namaacha, minha mae demonstrated how to use our casa de banho for going to the bathroom and bathing—essential skills when it looks nothing like what we are used to in the states. The toilet is basically a cement block with a slit in the middle. Most of my friends have toilets in their houses that they then just have to pour water down to flush. A lot of the houses here in Namaacha were once owned by the Portuguese, but have since been re-appropriated to local people. Minha mae is super understanding with my lack of Portuguese, but we have definitely figured out a way to communicate. If we don’t exactly understand what the other one is saying, we kind of just look at each other, laugh and say, “Um dia” meaning that one day we will understand what the other one is saying. She is 56 years old and cares for two kids she adopted, Susete, 17, and Jose, 14.  Ecineta has 4 kids of her own, one of them, Plautilia, a teacher in Maputo, comes and stays with us on the weekends. She is super helpful in helping me learn Portuguese. She really tries to help me with my pronunciation. Often she just keeps repeating what I am trying to say the correct way each time getting louder and louder until I actually get it. While at first I didn’t know if she was yelling at me or what, I know now she is trying to help me out. We made a cake together last weekend, but unfortunately it burned and so I think she threw it away because I never saw it out of the pan. Once we mixed all the ingredients, we put it in a bundt pan with a cover and baked it on the cassava, which is like a grill with pieces of charcoal on top as well.

Before we baked the cake, she taught me how to wash my clothes. It probably took me about two hours to wash just two weeks worth of laundry. I thought I hated doing laundry in the states, but then I learned how I had to do it here in Namaacha and realized how easy we got it back home. To wash clothes here, one needs lots of water, two basins, sabon, a clothes line and muita forca. Lots of strength. Plautilia showed me how you have to start with the whites, then slowly move through on to darker colors. She finished in about half the time it took me to do mine. She has had a few years of practice.

I also went to church with Plautilia. She and minha mae belong to the Church of the Nazarene. It was not the typical church I grew up going to, but reminded me more of youth group meetings I attended during high school. When we arrived a group of teenagers were in the church singing. After that, we all sat outside in a circle and the group seemed to be debating an event they would attend. At times there seemed to be some tension in their discussion, but then one person would yell, “Alleluia” to be followed by an “Amen” and then situation seemed to diffuse. Then one teenager, took the lead and organized the group into five smaller groups and assigned Bible passages to each. After each group read the passage, they discussed it and then present it to the group. Again, the “Alleluia” and “Amen” seemed to unite the group with an occasional “I love Jesus.” We then reconvened in the church where we joined a group of women and children. We only gathered there for about 15 minutes before the service was over. Minha mae stayed later with the group of women. It was an interesting experience considering my lack of Portuguese knowledge at this point. I look forward to going again in a few weeks and hope to pick up on a little more of what’s going on.

It was nice to have the weekend to hang out with my family a bit because during the week our schedule is packed. There are two other volunteers in my language class and I think we are all at about the same level. Poco a poco, we are getting it. Paruque is our teacher and he is great. He doesn’t speak any English to us and discourages us from speaking Portuguese to each other. If we don’t get exactly what he is saying, he just tries to explain it again differently, but always in Portuguese. During one of our classes, we learned all of the parts of the family. Mae, Pae, Avo, irmao, Irma…todos. He then had us draw a family tree. Well, my family is quite large. Both of my parents are one of seven children. Let’s just say it took me a while to draw this tree and then even longer to explain it in Portuguese. I think only a couple of my friends have ever heard me explain my whole family so to explain it to my new fellow volunteers in Portuguese was quite an experience.

Also in language class, we took our first chapa ride down to the Shop-Rite. Now, a chapa is any vehicle, often in Namaacha a pickup truck with an open bed for people to ride, or if it is going further distances can be a closed 15-passenger van which packs as many people as possible in. I think it was our third day of language class, our instructor said we would be taking a chapa ride down to Shop-Rite. He made it into a human scavenger hunt because he said we couldn’t go to the same destination. So he wrote out destinations on post-it notes for us, supplied us with the necessary language and sent us on our way. At first I looked at him in disbelief. Seriously Paruque? How are we going to communicate? But, we did it. We loaded into the back of a chapa, told the driver our destination and paid our 5 metacais for the ride. It was certainly not without a few butterflies about the whole experience. The game however became, “Chapa or Nao chapa?” because it was hard to distinguish what was a chapa and what was not a chapa. A chapa, according to Paruque would have people in it already. No people, no chapa. Last Saturday we took a chapa ride to Maputo to get cell phones, but thankfully that chapa was closed and easily to distinguish as a chapa.

My family has been super helpful and understanding with my Portuguese or lack there of at this point. One thing that has been really great has been helping my irmao Jose with his English homework. And in turn, he helps me with my Portuguese homework, or TPC, trabalho para casa. When I get home, he will often be sitting on the couch watching television, usually some Brazilian telenovela, with his workbook on his lap. So far we have covered everything in English from clothes to colors to daily living skills. Then when I set up at the table with my workbook, he will often come right over and offer to help me. It’s an even exchange. One day I came home and told him how I learned the Mozambique national anthem at school. He then got out his Portuguese workbook with the words written on the back and proceeded to sing it to me. I thought he then said that he wanted me to sing our national anthem, which I got a little nervous and was furiously trying to remember the words. Once he finished his rendition, he passed me his workbook and asked me to sing the Mozambique national anthem. Needless to say, I was slightly relieved because I could just follow the words along and just a few lines in, he joined in as well. Another night, he taught me “Crianca Mozambicana” which is a song about Mozambican children. He also taught me the dance to it. When minha mae walked into the house and saw us dancing and singing she just burst out laughing. A proud mae I am sure.