High-Fives for All

 I have always been a fan of a good high-five. Every sports team I was ever on growing up exchanged high-fives after each game regardless of the score. At BU, I worked at the Educational Resource Center, where High-Five Fridays were a way of life (everyone gave really enthusiastic greetings celebrating the last day of the work week). And then I worked at the Shopneck Boys and Girls Club in Brighton, Col. where high-fives were the standard form of affection between staff and members. Considering my history with high-fives, it is no surprise that one of the first things I taught my organization, Criancas Artistas Contra HIV e SIDA (CACHES), was the high-five.

When I first arrived at CACHES, the jovens (teenagers) started to give me hugs as a greeting and good-bye. I think they just assumed they would do the same with me as they do with Vivienne, the volunteer I am replacing. However, I was not so keen on this idea considering I just moved here and am starting to build relationships while Vivienne has been here for a year. Also my instincts from my experience at the Boys and Girls Club, threw up a red flag at such behavior. At the Boys and Girls Clubs we were always encouraged to give high-fives or the awkward one arm hug to avoid any accusations and potential law suits. While I do not think this is as much a concern in Mozambique, or rather a concern at all, I wasn’t quite ready to jump into the hugs myself.

On one of my first nights at CACHES when Fermino, one of the jovens, went in for a hug, I instead stuck out my hand offering a high-five. I didn’t snub him, but rather offered him a new cultural exchange. I was scared about how he would receive it, but he loved it. Now, we start every afternoon with a high-five and finish every evening with another. Sometimes he even goes for the high-ten. All of the other jovens have picked up on the high-five as well. While they continue to give Vivienne hugs, they know now to give me a high-five. I have started to teach some of the younger kids the high-five as well. Slowly they have started saying good-bye in this fashion as well. While I have seen the jovens exchange high-fives as well, I have not yet seen any kids do so, but I am sure it will come. I thought about translating it into Portuguese as we do it, “Alto Cinco,” but I think it would lose some of its appeal. All oft the jovens are working on learning English as well. In Mozambique, students start learning English in school in 8^th grade.

Already as I walk around Chicumbane, I hear criancas from their yard yelling “Mana Ca-leen.” I don’t always know who they are, but I am sure that I must have met them at CACHES. I wonder if it is only a matter of time before they are not only yelling a greeting, but then will also run up to give me a high-five. Fingers crossed, someday that will happen.I figure the high-five isn’t much, but at least I have started teaching them something in exchange for everything I have learned from them already. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?