"Let's go find the world!"

After our first night in Namaacha, we had a full day of Peace Corps info sessions at the IFP campus, i.e. the local teacher-training college, which has an indoor lecture hall big enough for our whole 50+ group. One of the most memorable sessions was given by one of the medical officers on the importance of personal hygiene. In a list of the benefits of bathing, he was especially enthusiastic about the last bullet point: Bathing is fun, relaxing, and romantic! When pressed for details, he elaborated “Well, you know, you are standing in a dark space, without clothes on, and you are caressing yourself…”

The lecture hall at IFP where we go once a week for large-group info sessions. This picture is, fittingly enough, from a skit one group did on innovative solutions to the most common bucket-bath issues.

Later, during lunch, a group of volunteers stood around exchanging stories about their personal shower situation at their host-family home.

“So… my bathhouse doesn’t have a roof, what am I supposed to do if it rains?”

“Yeah, my little brothers stole my soap last night to play with and I’m not sure I wanna use it anymore…”

“The door to our bathroom is just this sheet that blows in the wind, so while taking my bath last night I kept swaying back in forth with it so it would stay in front of me…”

“My shower room has a door, but the top part is open to the street where the kids play, so like, I can see them, and um, they can see me…”

“Dude, I’m standing on a dirt floor in Africa pouring cold water over myself in the dark- that is definitely NOT romantic!”

Personally, I don’t actually have much to complain about, since my casa de banho is a totally enclosed, roofed, lighted, and lockable concrete building that even has a (sometimes) flushable toilet. Plus my house has electricity, so I can usually use the electric kettle to make hot water in a jiffy. Posh Corps for the win, yo.

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When I got home from training lectures around 5:30pm, my 8-year-old host-sister Teresa was already there (she goes to school from about noon til 5pm). I was barely able to get to my room and throw down my backpack before she grabbed my hand and dragged me outside to the backyard, chattering away. When I made it clear that I didn’t understand her, she repeated a single sentence a few times until I thought I got most of the words:

“Let’s go find the world!”

At least, that’s what I got out of it. My Portuguese was still pretty useless at that point.

“O mundo?” I asked for clarification. She nodded and continued dragging my arm along. That was the word I’d heard her use, and from Spanish I was pretty sure it meant “world”. I must have misheard though, because the phrase still made no sense. We reached the end of our yard, which looked into a neighboring one. A group of kids and toddlers were standing across the way. Teresa put both hands to her mouth (finally letting go of my own) and yelled, “MUNDO!!!”

One of the boys perked up, and started running out of the yard. Teresa led me around the side of the house, and the little boy met us there. Teresa skipped over to him, looked up at me, and said again with a grin, “Mundo!”

I walked over and pointed at the boy. “This is Mundo?” I asked.

The little boy giggled and Teresa smiled triumphantly. “Yes!”

Finally, I remembered that there had been another family member listed in the info I had received earlier about my host family. A couple more, actually- but it’s common for family members in Mozambique to move around often, so after last night I had just assumed that Chaide and Teresa were going to end up being the only ones of my host-siblings who actually still lived in the house. Teresa’s mom, for example, who was listed as my host-sister (since Teresa is technically my host-niece), actually lives in another province now. But I had completely forgotten about the other family member listed: a five-year-old cousin named Raimundo. Yep, I’m smart.

With the Mundo-mystery solved, and Teresa satisfied that we had met, Teresa and I continued to passear around the neighborhood. Passear-ing, i.e. walking around and talking to random people, is pretty much a national pastime in Mozambique, so I figured this was probably as good a time as any to start “practicing”. Teresa wanted to visit some other volunteers. Well, at that point I only knew the location of one other volunteer in the neighborhood- Dan, the volunteer who had come with Chaide and me when we’d walked to our language interviews the day before.

As we approached the gate in front of Dan’s house, I could already tell we were out of luck. The gate was locked and no one was around the front of the house. We called out a few times to see if anyone inside the house would hear, but there was no response. Oh well I thought, it’s getting dark soon anyway, and we should probably head home now. “Teresa, let’s- “

I stopped mid-sentence, because Teresa had already slipped her hand through the gate, unlocked it, and was now pushing it open and sliding through. She looked at me impatiently. “Come on!”

I hesitated. In the U.S., someone would have called the cops on us by now. But this wasn’t the U.S. Like I said, passear-ing and talking to your neighbors is one of the most important Mozambican activities- and sometimes, I guessed, it just might necessitate a little breaking-and-entering. So I stepped through the gate.

I followed Teresa up through the yard, and around the back of the house. Finally, we came to an open door leading into a dark living room area, where I could see some people sitting inside. Crap, I thought automatically, we should head back before they see us, they’re going to be furious we just opened their locked door and just walked into their house without asking and-

“Come in!” A friendly-faced woman smiled at us from just inside the door. Since I didn’t know any of these people, didn’t really speak their language, and I still half-expected them to yell at us and kick us out, I automatically waited for Teresa to take the lead. Then I realized that since I was the adult of the two of us, I should actually probably be the one to speak up.

“Uh… good afternoon!” I said. “Is, uh, is Dan here?”

“No” she responded, “He’s out walking”

“Okay,” I said, secretly slightly relieved, since it meant we could just go home now. HAHAHA THESE ARE THE NAÏVE THOUGHTS I HAVE. I opened my mouth to say goodbye.

“Sit!” she said.

“Oh no, that’s okay, we need to-“

“SIT!” she repeated.

I sat on the couch next to the tv, which was (as usual here) showing a Brazilian soap opera. Teresa sat next to me. Now that I was inside, I saw that in the armchair to my left was another person, a middle-aged guy, and in the other armchair was the most adorable little old granny- Dan’s host father (aka pai) and grandmother (vovó).

The living room of Dan's host family- though this is from a different day, with a couple other volunteers, Scott and Olivia, as well. The two kids on the right are my host-siblings Teresa and Mundo. 

I wondered what I was supposed to say, especially since I didn’t even know how to say much at all, but luckily Dan’s mãe and pai asked me a handful of questions I was pretty much able to answer, like who my host-mãe is, what kind of teacher I’m training to be for Peace Corps, and what else I like to do. When I mentioned I brought a guitar, they asked if I could sing. I made the mistake of answering,

“Oh, a little bit, not very good, but-“

and their basic response was “AH, OH WOW, SHOW US! SING SOMETHING!!!”

I spent literally at least 30 seconds of awkward silence trying to think of a song, since of course in that moment I couldn’t think of any. Finally, I sang them “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head”, since it’s a song I’ve been made to sing before and therefore was the only one I finally thought of. I didn’t know how much they actually wanted to hear, so I kept going until about halfway through the song Dan’s pai started clapping and they all started saying “Oh, wow, great, very good!” Well, I figured this was a good a time as any to stand up and make the excuse of needing to go home now for dinner. Luckily, they accepted that just fine and Teresa and I said goodbye, headed back out, re-locked the gate, and walked home, thinking.

“Let’s go find the world!”, was what I thought Teresa had said to me earlier. Even though that wasn’t what she meant, it was really sort of true after all. I’ve switched continents and hemispheres, and learning a little bit more all the time about life outside of the culture I grew up in; which, incidentally, is a lot less self-explanatory than most westerners would like to believe. So, world- consider yourself in the process of being found!