Yes, it is that time of year again. That time of year when
everyone is talking about it. CALOR. THE HEAT. It’s back. Seriously. Most
conservations go as follows:
“Boa tarde, tudo bem?”
“Sim, tudo bem,
mas calor.”
“Ep pah. Calor.”
Yep. All is well, but the heat is back.
I don’t know if it is because of the heat or what, something
has been going on. I have two stories to share that I just could not not blog
about. The first is from about two weeks ago. And the other is just from this
past Wednesday.
When I first got to site over a year ago now, I went to the
Catholic Church. I just wanted to check it out. I think it might have been my
second weekend at site, and I didn’t really know anyone so I got away with just
sitting in the back trying to blend in. Key word: trying. I still got all the
stares and strange comments, but that’s normal. In working at the hospital, I
got to know one of the nurses who is also a nun, Irma Flomena. She invited me
to go back to church with her. So I did. But, this time instead of trying to
blend in, I was called up to sit next to her in the front with the group that
sings and then had to do a formal introduction at the end of mass. Since then I
have only gone back twice.
But, my neighbors are always very concerned about where I
pray. I tell them, how I was raised Catholic, but since I have been here I do a
lot of praying on my own. And usually I either have visitors or I am traveling
so it is sometimes hard to make it to church on Sundays. They continue to invite
me to attend their church; the Presbyterian, Seventh Day Adventist, or this one
church, the name escapes me, but they go on Saturday around 9 p.m. and stay til
sunrise the next morning. A few weeks ago, I finally agreed to accept my
neighbor’s invitation to go to the Presbyterian Church. She had been so
persistent. And I had run out of excuses.
So Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Lalina, her granddaughter, came
and got me and we walked to the Presbyterian Church. When Lalina and I arrived,
the mass was already in session, so we tried to sneak in and find Dona Rachel,
her grandmother. Given the circumstances, there actually wasn’t much sneaking
at all. But, we tried. Anyway, we found Dona Rachel. She happened to be sitting
next to my Portuguese/Changana tutor, Professora Teresa, and just behind my
neighbor Avo Salvador. As I sat there through the mass which was all in
Changana, I spent most of the time looking around the church realizing just how
many people I knew there: coworkers from the hospital, kids from CACHES and of
course, my neighbors. Inside the church, benches line both sides facing each
other with one main aisle in the middle, so it was a perfect set-up for my
people watching. The front of the church had a very simple altar with a few
wooden chairs.
Toward the end of the mass, there was a collection. And
quite contrary to how collections are done in the states, where a basket is
passed through the pews quite solemnly, this collection included the
parishioners being called out by each section of the church and then dancing
and singing down the main aisle to put their donation in the basket at the
front. It was then that Professora Teresa explained to me that the church was
divided into sections based on neighborhoods and there was a friendly competition
between sections. When one of the sections was called out, Avo Salvador tapped
me on the shoulder and said, “Vamos (Let’s go)”, but Dona Rachel piped up and
said that I was with her. Even though they live just blocks apart, they are
apparently in different sections. So we sat and watched the other sections
bring up their contributions. When Dona Rachel and Professora Teresa’s section
was called, Professora Teresa grabbed my hand and we started to dance down the
aisle. We hadn’t made it very far before one of my neighbors, Vovo Maria
grabbed my arm and said, “Oh no, she’s with us.” It then turned into a
tug-of-war, if you will, and I was the rope. Vovo Maria vs. Professora Teresa.
Mind you, this was all over the two meticais coin I was going to put in the
basket. I tried to explain how I could put something in both baskets, but it
was a fierce competition. Eventually, Vovo Maria won breaking free of Professora
Teresa’s grasp and she proceeded to drag me to the front of the church and then
out the door to put my two meticais coin in the basket of the section I
apparently belong to, which they had already started counting outside. Every
little bit counts right? I tried to figure out why the church is divided into
sections anyway? Doesn’t it all go to the same cause? The best I could come up
with is that it is in the spirit of a friendly competition. Who knows?
After said collection chaos, Professora
Teresa dragged me up in front of the entire congregation to introduce me. She
spoke all in Changana and then asked me to just say my name. As I did, the
whole congregation started laughing. Still not quite sure why, but so it goes…it
definitely wasn’t the first time that’s happened to me and it won’t be the
last. The pastor then spoke saying how pleased they were to have me visit and
how I am welcome back anytime as now I am part of the family. To be perfectly
honest I am a little scared to go back considering how the last time ended in a
proper human tug-of-war. But, I know my neighbors are keeping tabs. They have
asked every Sunday since if I will go back. Even complete strangers ask why I
haven’t been back. I try to explain that I just went to “conhecer” get to know
their church. But that doesn’t seem to be good enough. They even came over last
Wednesday when they usually have a neighborhood bible study to ask if they
could have it at my house next week. Unfortunately, I had to decline, but only
because that is usually when I work at CACHES, but I said we will figure out some
week to do it. I am sure they will not let me forget that I agreed to do that.
In other news, my neighbor, Filomena, approached me months
ago saying she wanted to run with me to lose weight. I explained to her that
the key to losing weight here would be portion control. I said how Mozambicans
already have a very labor-intensive lifestyle—carting water, walking everywhere
and working on their farms. They just also have a tendency to eat a heaping
bowl of xima or rice, lots of carbohydrates, which doesn’t help one’s figure.
We started running. But, pretty inconsistently and it was
more a run/walk. But, it was winter, so
it was cold and dark in the mornings. And I was traveling a lot. So inconsistent
it was. But, now as it is getting brighter earlier and warmer, we have been
keeping it up every morning Monday through Friday for the past month. We found
that my seamstress, Dona Sidalia, also works out at the school every morning.
So we decided to join forces.
Now our routine is as follows: 5 a.m. alarm, call Filomena
to wake her up and confirm we are going, run to Filomena’s house, together we
run to the secondary school and then I continue to lead about four women in
exercises for about 30 minutes and then we run home. I love it. They complain.
They gossip. They roll their eyes at me when they think the exercise is too hard.
They tell me it hurts. They criticize one another for doing it wrong or not how
I demonstrate. But, at the end of the day, they work hard.
But, just like any other all-women workout class, there is
always something to talk about. Last
Wednesday the women were abuzz. Dona Sidalia shared how her maid had called her
at 2 a.m. telling her that she had to go outside and collect cacana, a green
viney plant, and tie it around her ankles and the ankles of her children
because a sickness was coming. Excuse me, what?! They all gawked at how strange
the call was, but said how it must be true for her to call at 2 a.m. We ended
our exercises and proceeded to do some investigation into this cacana matter.
We went to one of Dona Sidalia’s neighbors, and low and
behold, she too had heard that she needed to tie cacana around her ankles. When
I asked why, she didn’t know, but she said you have to do it. I tried to play
devil’s advocate and pulled out the famous line, “Well, if everyone is going to
jump off a bridge, are you going to do it too?” I don’t think it translated the
same way. Filomena insisted that we find her son on his way to school so that
she could tie cacana around his ankle and know that he would be protected. In
our search, we encountered other kids that had been wrapped in cacana as well.
Nobody seemed to know why, they just knew they had to do it.
When I arrived at the hospital, the first thing my co-workers
asked me was if I had heard about the cacana. They at least said it was because
there had been a program on the radio that said a pangolin had come out of the
river and the cacana would protect you from a sickness it carried. When I saw
Luis, my supervisor at the hospital, he pulled cacana out of his pocket and
tied it around my wrist. When in Mozambique, do as the Mozambicans do, right? It
was not until I was working with one of my other counterparts later that day,
that she yanked the cacana from my wrist saying, “This is a myth. In Africa,
there are a lot of myths.” True. There are.
But, what I was amazed at was how this myth had spread like
wildfire. Can you imagine if we got the truth to spread like that? At that
speed with such credibility? Imagine if the Ministry of Health could send out
health messages and have them spread like that? What if everyone really
believed they had to use a condom to avoid HIV/AIDS? Or if everyone used a mosquito
net to prevent malaria? But this cacana thing was a one-day phenomenon. People
wore necklaces of cacana the size of Hawaiian leis. And some people even contemplated
income-generating projects selling cacana. My colleague later informed me that
she heard it was a television program that said there was a wind coming in that
carried yellow fever. Good thing, I got that vaccination. Well, whatever it was,
it got people talking and acting. Fast.
And just like that, the next day it was all over. Apparently
the wind had passed. Or the pangolin retreated back into the river. But the hype
over the protective powers of cacana was over.
