Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Focus on Focus Groups
So I’ve decided to give you a snapshot of what my work has been like. I’ve been running focus groups in different communities in an attempt to understand how communities confront HIV/AIDS, what organizations are working with communities, and who we can recruit to help get out the prevention messages as well as find and care for the sick.
This week I was in Caia, a town of about 50,000 people. Most of those people, however, don’t live in town. They live spread out in small districts throughout the hills surrounding the town. The house groupings are by family connections. They are usually square huts with thatch roof that form into lazy circles. There are small paths weaving between the house groupings and their fields. There are some great water sources around (including a giant river—Zambezi) so there is an abundance of tomatoes, potatoes, sorghum, and plenty of grass for the goats. Because it is still the end of the rainy season the trees are very green but the grass is a lovely golden. Highlighting all of that is the rich terra cotta of the earth that you see when spaces have been beaten down for houses and paths from one group of houses to another.
The town center itself is small but growing due to a huge construction project to build a bridge over the river Zambezi. There is no plumbing in Caia, all water is drawn from wells, and electricity only comes on at 6 or 7 until 10 or 11 for those lucky enough to have generators and electricity lines. The town has wide dirt streets with whitewashed middle barriers where some scraggly trees grow. The architecture is simple here, mostly adobe or concrete, although there are some colonial-like buildings for government offices. The day that I left town there was a visit from the agriculture ambassador to promote a new way of farming so the whole center of town was covered in little colored flags strung on poles and across roads.
The place where we conducted our focus groups was in a complex called Floresta that had a basic little adobe restaurant, some rooms, and a hall for meetings and a well for drawing water to takes baths and do washing. All the buildings were cement and whitewashed walls. They all had a terra cotta stripe at the bottom about 3 feet up where the packed sandy earth had blown up and stained the whitewash. My room was in a complex of about 8 rooms that all shared a porch and a bathroom. There were basic bathroom facilities with well water in a bucket for bathing and a toilet (a nice ceramic toilet) that drained into the ground. They did have a sink with a drain but there was no plumbing so the drain just dripped onto the floor. This was generally fine except for my last night there when all of the workers for the agriculture department took up the other rooms. All men. Men make such a mess of bathrooms it’s incredible.
The hall for meeting was tinned roofed, had a cement floor, and adobe walls that went up about halfway to the roof. The structure was completed with a layer of chicken wire followed by a layer of mosquito netting. You would think that this would be great—all that fresh air…but the tin roof was baking by the afternoon and the late-afternoon brought high hot winds that lanced sand at us. We would usher the groups into the hall and point them to the seats we had set in a circle. There were plastic chairs and some fancy wooden chairs with cloth seats brought from some house near by. Invariable the people that came would humbly take the plastic chairs and would seem ill at ease if there was no space left and they had to take the wooden chairs.
We would begin the meeting introducing ourselves and explaining why we were there. Most people could understand Portuguese without a problem but were either not able, or to embarrassed to speak it. My partner speaks Sena but not as well as a local AIDS care representative who joined us the whole time and who translated for me. I would ask questions in Portuguese, he would translate them into Sena and then would translate the answers back as people spoke. Meanwhile my partner took copious notes. Overall people were shy and it took a while to get the group warmed up enough to not require prodding. By the end though, I was pleased with how the groups were going. As always, with groups of people, there are those who just won’t shut up and those who nearly refuse to speak, but I think we kept the talkers at bay and the timid we got motivated to speak. We would than all file out at the end of the session and go to the little restaurant to eat lunch or a snack.
Lunch was always roasted chicken and potatoes, or stewed goat and a corn mash (xima) that is similar to grits but thicker. The first couple of meals I ate with my fork and knife trying to cut around the little bits of bone. Finally I just got sick of how much time this would take and I started to eat with my hands. WOW! I noticed right away that my partners (including another nurse from the hospital) began to eat with their hands too. Not only that but they relaxed into their meal. I felt terrible. They had been eating with forks and knifes for my benefit. Let me tell you...it is much easier to eat meals with your fingers…and much funner too. Even the xima. People pick up a bit of xima and roll it around in their hands before dipping it in sauce and popping it in their mouth. And I’m sure most of you who eat fried chicken would agree that pulling pieces of chicken off with your fingers is really the only way to do it.
After our meal together (often in near silence because of the timidity of the people in our focus groups) we would shake hands (a polite way to shake hands here is to offer your right hand to shake while placing your left hand near the elbow of your right arm) and be on our way. The two times that people wanted to kiss cheeks was with groups of HIV+ people. In both cases one person came up and timidly kissed my cheek, when it was clear that I was happy to do that everyone came up to do the same thing. They had suffered so much and so many had been on the brink of death and shunned by their families. It was all at once tragic and lovely that they were so pleased about a little physical contact and a big smile, things that I’m lucky enough to have in abundance.
This week I was in Caia, a town of about 50,000 people. Most of those people, however, don’t live in town. They live spread out in small districts throughout the hills surrounding the town. The house groupings are by family connections. They are usually square huts with thatch roof that form into lazy circles. There are small paths weaving between the house groupings and their fields. There are some great water sources around (including a giant river—Zambezi) so there is an abundance of tomatoes, potatoes, sorghum, and plenty of grass for the goats. Because it is still the end of the rainy season the trees are very green but the grass is a lovely golden. Highlighting all of that is the rich terra cotta of the earth that you see when spaces have been beaten down for houses and paths from one group of houses to another.
The town center itself is small but growing due to a huge construction project to build a bridge over the river Zambezi. There is no plumbing in Caia, all water is drawn from wells, and electricity only comes on at 6 or 7 until 10 or 11 for those lucky enough to have generators and electricity lines. The town has wide dirt streets with whitewashed middle barriers where some scraggly trees grow. The architecture is simple here, mostly adobe or concrete, although there are some colonial-like buildings for government offices. The day that I left town there was a visit from the agriculture ambassador to promote a new way of farming so the whole center of town was covered in little colored flags strung on poles and across roads.
The place where we conducted our focus groups was in a complex called Floresta that had a basic little adobe restaurant, some rooms, and a hall for meetings and a well for drawing water to takes baths and do washing. All the buildings were cement and whitewashed walls. They all had a terra cotta stripe at the bottom about 3 feet up where the packed sandy earth had blown up and stained the whitewash. My room was in a complex of about 8 rooms that all shared a porch and a bathroom. There were basic bathroom facilities with well water in a bucket for bathing and a toilet (a nice ceramic toilet) that drained into the ground. They did have a sink with a drain but there was no plumbing so the drain just dripped onto the floor. This was generally fine except for my last night there when all of the workers for the agriculture department took up the other rooms. All men. Men make such a mess of bathrooms it’s incredible.
The hall for meeting was tinned roofed, had a cement floor, and adobe walls that went up about halfway to the roof. The structure was completed with a layer of chicken wire followed by a layer of mosquito netting. You would think that this would be great—all that fresh air…but the tin roof was baking by the afternoon and the late-afternoon brought high hot winds that lanced sand at us. We would usher the groups into the hall and point them to the seats we had set in a circle. There were plastic chairs and some fancy wooden chairs with cloth seats brought from some house near by. Invariable the people that came would humbly take the plastic chairs and would seem ill at ease if there was no space left and they had to take the wooden chairs.
We would begin the meeting introducing ourselves and explaining why we were there. Most people could understand Portuguese without a problem but were either not able, or to embarrassed to speak it. My partner speaks Sena but not as well as a local AIDS care representative who joined us the whole time and who translated for me. I would ask questions in Portuguese, he would translate them into Sena and then would translate the answers back as people spoke. Meanwhile my partner took copious notes. Overall people were shy and it took a while to get the group warmed up enough to not require prodding. By the end though, I was pleased with how the groups were going. As always, with groups of people, there are those who just won’t shut up and those who nearly refuse to speak, but I think we kept the talkers at bay and the timid we got motivated to speak. We would than all file out at the end of the session and go to the little restaurant to eat lunch or a snack.
Lunch was always roasted chicken and potatoes, or stewed goat and a corn mash (xima) that is similar to grits but thicker. The first couple of meals I ate with my fork and knife trying to cut around the little bits of bone. Finally I just got sick of how much time this would take and I started to eat with my hands. WOW! I noticed right away that my partners (including another nurse from the hospital) began to eat with their hands too. Not only that but they relaxed into their meal. I felt terrible. They had been eating with forks and knifes for my benefit. Let me tell you...it is much easier to eat meals with your fingers…and much funner too. Even the xima. People pick up a bit of xima and roll it around in their hands before dipping it in sauce and popping it in their mouth. And I’m sure most of you who eat fried chicken would agree that pulling pieces of chicken off with your fingers is really the only way to do it.
After our meal together (often in near silence because of the timidity of the people in our focus groups) we would shake hands (a polite way to shake hands here is to offer your right hand to shake while placing your left hand near the elbow of your right arm) and be on our way. The two times that people wanted to kiss cheeks was with groups of HIV+ people. In both cases one person came up and timidly kissed my cheek, when it was clear that I was happy to do that everyone came up to do the same thing. They had suffered so much and so many had been on the brink of death and shunned by their families. It was all at once tragic and lovely that they were so pleased about a little physical contact and a big smile, things that I’m lucky enough to have in abundance.
My House
So I finally have a house and a roommate all rolled into one!!!! Although I balked at most of the houses I saw and was apprehensive about having a roommate, I think I found a great situation. First…my roommate…Magdalena. She’s a Bolivian doctor about the size of a pea and either sleeping or in constant motion. She pretends as if she is very serious but makes me laugh about 1,000 times a day. We are sharing the Guest House right now and I feel lucky that I didn’t have a house before she arrived. We work in different programs and so I think it would have been a while until we got to know each other had we not been staying in the same place. She loves to tease me about being forgetful and absentminded (the other day I got paper towels instead of toilet paper at the store even though it said “Paper Towels” in English on the package). I think she’s a riot! Plus her serious side will keep me on the straight and narrow!!
The house is a big colonial house that was divided into four apartments. We will have an upstairs apartment with a little garden and a garage. The garage is important because I’ll be able to take HAI cars for the weekend if I have a garage to store them in (this is assuming that I pass my driving exam given by my boss!!). You enter through the little garden and climb up one flight of steps to the front door. You enter the big living room with dark wood and magenta antique sofa and chairs which enters into the dining room with a big table and then ends in the master bedroom. To the right of the living room are two other bedrooms and a big kitchen with a little porch to hang clothes. The bathroom is between the two rooms to the right and is lovely and clean and has a hot water heater. This is luxury!!! Oh…and I forgot to mention the screened in porch off the living room! This house is so expensive for Mozambicans—no Mozambican but governors and wealthy businessmen could afford it-- and I don’t think I would have chosen it except that 1) Magdalena needed a place soon too 2) no one was showing me any other options of normal places despite my constant pleas 3) my Boss was making indications that I should get a place and free up space in the guest house. So I caved and got a nice place with crazy antique furniture and giant beds. Not only that but we have already made plans to get wireless internet. On the one hand I’m excited to live in such a beautiful place. On the other hand I’m disgusted at myself for caving in and living like a rich mazunga (foreigner). At one point someone who was working for HAI wanted hardship pay—this is the least form of hardship I’ve ever experienced!!! That person must have been nuts.
The house is a big colonial house that was divided into four apartments. We will have an upstairs apartment with a little garden and a garage. The garage is important because I’ll be able to take HAI cars for the weekend if I have a garage to store them in (this is assuming that I pass my driving exam given by my boss!!). You enter through the little garden and climb up one flight of steps to the front door. You enter the big living room with dark wood and magenta antique sofa and chairs which enters into the dining room with a big table and then ends in the master bedroom. To the right of the living room are two other bedrooms and a big kitchen with a little porch to hang clothes. The bathroom is between the two rooms to the right and is lovely and clean and has a hot water heater. This is luxury!!! Oh…and I forgot to mention the screened in porch off the living room! This house is so expensive for Mozambicans—no Mozambican but governors and wealthy businessmen could afford it-- and I don’t think I would have chosen it except that 1) Magdalena needed a place soon too 2) no one was showing me any other options of normal places despite my constant pleas 3) my Boss was making indications that I should get a place and free up space in the guest house. So I caved and got a nice place with crazy antique furniture and giant beds. Not only that but we have already made plans to get wireless internet. On the one hand I’m excited to live in such a beautiful place. On the other hand I’m disgusted at myself for caving in and living like a rich mazunga (foreigner). At one point someone who was working for HAI wanted hardship pay—this is the least form of hardship I’ve ever experienced!!! That person must have been nuts.
Friday, October 20, 2006
God is in the Bush
One of my main missions on my trip to Africa is to go to church. It’s funny because of my total revulsion to the mission of missionaries but I’m here to understand, not proselytize. There are many different churches in Mozambique but for sure the ones that seem to be springing up everywhere are the Evangelical churches that were so popular in Brazil. Here I am, in the middle of the African countryside, surrounded by savannah and pockets of small villages with grass huts and goats milling about. You don’t see many large congregations of people except under two circumstances, wells and churches. People have to walk long distances to get water and no one would disagree that this is a necessity that justifies the energy expenditure…but church? Perhaps it is just as important as water. Picture a small village of mud and grass huts with a small wooden sign balancing on a stick in the middle of the road, pointing to another mud/grass structure. This is the Universal Church of God and people seem to be dressed their best for church today.
I know many of you will be slightly repulsed by this religious fervor but it is so important to understand. If people put the search for God on par with the search for water then it is very very important indeed. This also puts pastors in particularly powerful positions. Imagine that the pastor is the one that controls the pump. His word is law and it seems that many seek his advice before any other. This has enormous implications for anyone working in health in Moz and enormous possibilities too. Imagine an army of pastors referring people to the hospital, taking care of the sick, educating people about HIV. This is happening now but it is sporadic and there is a lot of difference in the approaches that people take. One pastor will explain that this disease is something that affects the innocent and we need to do all we can to save everyone, another pastor will explain that people get HIV because they sinned and therefore it is those who don’t except the pastors message that ultimately die. If we can get these pastors together and they can teach each other I have faith (hee hee) that they will all bend more toward the thinking of the first pastor than the last. They have to meet people living with AIDS, people who have gotten better, people who can now feed their children and wash their clothes…they need to look at these people and decide whether or they should live or die and whether their children should have parents. I do have faith.
I know many of you will be slightly repulsed by this religious fervor but it is so important to understand. If people put the search for God on par with the search for water then it is very very important indeed. This also puts pastors in particularly powerful positions. Imagine that the pastor is the one that controls the pump. His word is law and it seems that many seek his advice before any other. This has enormous implications for anyone working in health in Moz and enormous possibilities too. Imagine an army of pastors referring people to the hospital, taking care of the sick, educating people about HIV. This is happening now but it is sporadic and there is a lot of difference in the approaches that people take. One pastor will explain that this disease is something that affects the innocent and we need to do all we can to save everyone, another pastor will explain that people get HIV because they sinned and therefore it is those who don’t except the pastors message that ultimately die. If we can get these pastors together and they can teach each other I have faith (hee hee) that they will all bend more toward the thinking of the first pastor than the last. They have to meet people living with AIDS, people who have gotten better, people who can now feed their children and wash their clothes…they need to look at these people and decide whether or they should live or die and whether their children should have parents. I do have faith.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
The Season of Burning Fields
12 October 2006
Thank you all for your opinions on where I should live. Unfortunately I still don’t have a place. The problem has been time. This last weekend I took a short trip to Chimoio and when I got back it was already time for me to start traveling out to the districts to participate in focus groups. I have been picked up every day this week for a drive to Dondo, as small town that is about an hour outside of Beira. The drive to this town has become very familiar to me now and it is starting to feel less and less new and more and more like home. It is almost mango season. There are mango trees everywhere and the mangos hang off of the bright green trees like little Christmas tree ornaments. The mangos are green too but they are slowly starting to turn ripen and turn red. Soon, I suspect, there will be baskets of mangos for sale everywhere. I love a juicy mango!!! It is also the season of burning fields. On the drive to Dondo there are fields (machambas) on either side that people are starting to turn over for new plantings. This process begins by burning off the bright yellow flowers that are beautiful but are weeds to the farmers. Small square sections of these fields are burned and the air is filled with smoke. The blackened fields are then slowly turned over by women and men with hoes. I haven’t seen any planting yet, just burning and hoeing.
The focus groups that we are running are very interesting. Curandieros (traditional medicine/religious practitioners), pastors, people-living-with-Aids, AIDS activists, church mothers, we spent the week sitting in groups with them and discussing HIV/AIDS, the health system, and the necessity of home-care for the sick. All of these groups want to help, want to stop the death of their community, but they don’t have any good system for finding out who needs help. It’s all haphazard. Hopefully with this work we can figure out a good system for organizing everyone, getting people on treatment, and getting the health system to respond to the communities needs. Next week I’ll be spending the week in Caia…a small town about 6 hours north of Beira…doing the same work. Then I’ll be back for the weekend and then off to Marromeu, an even smaller town a little west of Caia.
The biggest frustration is not speaking Sena. That is the most widely spoken language in the center of Mozambique. There is also about 45 other languages spoken throughout Mozambique but everyone thinks that the best one to learn is Sena. Second best would be Ndao. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn them both. The moment that I return from Caia I’m going to find someone to start to teach me Sena. It’s a beautiful language. There is lots of rolling and fluttering in the language, no clicks though. I’ve learned to say hello and no thank you, that’s all so far. The focus group with the curandeiros was almost entirely in Sena and in many of the other groups there were a considerable number of people who could understand my questions in Portuguese but preferred to answer in Sena.
Hopefully soon I will have a little time in Beira to find a place to live. I have been mostly in the Guest House but different people are always coming through and I don’t feel like I can really unpack. It will be so nice to have a place of my own, be able to unpack my bags, find a decent hammock and a nice pan to fry eggs!! Rebeca, if you are reading this, I want to thank you for convincing me to bring the little stove-top espresso pot. It has been put to much use already. Good coffee is hard to come by and a good coffee maker is even harder. The other wonderful thing has been my little bucky travel pillow. The pillows that I’ve encountered here are all about 6-inches high and hard as rocks…not good. I’ve been using my little bucky and have been so happy with it that I think I might just keep on using it as my pillow when I get back to the states too.
p.s. don’t you just hate it when you’re sitting there working and you feel a strange sensation on your leg where there is a big sore from scratching a mosquito bite, you look down and there is a baby cockroach crawling around on it
Thank you all for your opinions on where I should live. Unfortunately I still don’t have a place. The problem has been time. This last weekend I took a short trip to Chimoio and when I got back it was already time for me to start traveling out to the districts to participate in focus groups. I have been picked up every day this week for a drive to Dondo, as small town that is about an hour outside of Beira. The drive to this town has become very familiar to me now and it is starting to feel less and less new and more and more like home. It is almost mango season. There are mango trees everywhere and the mangos hang off of the bright green trees like little Christmas tree ornaments. The mangos are green too but they are slowly starting to turn ripen and turn red. Soon, I suspect, there will be baskets of mangos for sale everywhere. I love a juicy mango!!! It is also the season of burning fields. On the drive to Dondo there are fields (machambas) on either side that people are starting to turn over for new plantings. This process begins by burning off the bright yellow flowers that are beautiful but are weeds to the farmers. Small square sections of these fields are burned and the air is filled with smoke. The blackened fields are then slowly turned over by women and men with hoes. I haven’t seen any planting yet, just burning and hoeing.
The focus groups that we are running are very interesting. Curandieros (traditional medicine/religious practitioners), pastors, people-living-with-Aids, AIDS activists, church mothers, we spent the week sitting in groups with them and discussing HIV/AIDS, the health system, and the necessity of home-care for the sick. All of these groups want to help, want to stop the death of their community, but they don’t have any good system for finding out who needs help. It’s all haphazard. Hopefully with this work we can figure out a good system for organizing everyone, getting people on treatment, and getting the health system to respond to the communities needs. Next week I’ll be spending the week in Caia…a small town about 6 hours north of Beira…doing the same work. Then I’ll be back for the weekend and then off to Marromeu, an even smaller town a little west of Caia.
The biggest frustration is not speaking Sena. That is the most widely spoken language in the center of Mozambique. There is also about 45 other languages spoken throughout Mozambique but everyone thinks that the best one to learn is Sena. Second best would be Ndao. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn them both. The moment that I return from Caia I’m going to find someone to start to teach me Sena. It’s a beautiful language. There is lots of rolling and fluttering in the language, no clicks though. I’ve learned to say hello and no thank you, that’s all so far. The focus group with the curandeiros was almost entirely in Sena and in many of the other groups there were a considerable number of people who could understand my questions in Portuguese but preferred to answer in Sena.
Hopefully soon I will have a little time in Beira to find a place to live. I have been mostly in the Guest House but different people are always coming through and I don’t feel like I can really unpack. It will be so nice to have a place of my own, be able to unpack my bags, find a decent hammock and a nice pan to fry eggs!! Rebeca, if you are reading this, I want to thank you for convincing me to bring the little stove-top espresso pot. It has been put to much use already. Good coffee is hard to come by and a good coffee maker is even harder. The other wonderful thing has been my little bucky travel pillow. The pillows that I’ve encountered here are all about 6-inches high and hard as rocks…not good. I’ve been using my little bucky and have been so happy with it that I think I might just keep on using it as my pillow when I get back to the states too.
p.s. don’t you just hate it when you’re sitting there working and you feel a strange sensation on your leg where there is a big sore from scratching a mosquito bite, you look down and there is a baby cockroach crawling around on it
A Sense of Space
08 October 2006
I finally got out of the city on Thursday morning. It was great for my loneliness and even more wonderful to finally get a sense of where I was in the world. I left the city last minute with Pablo who was traveling to Chimoio (Chee-moy-oh), a small city in the mountains toward Zimbabwe. He was planning on staying there Thursday night and then returning on Friday. We had to stop by another even smaller town called Gondola first because he has to check out the new construction going on at the hospital there. The ride was wonderful. We passed out of the city and then through an area of machambas.
Machambas are small plots of land that people in the city use to grow rice, vegetables etc. It is a lot of work but absolutely necessary for life! The main preoccupation of people who are HIV+ is the inability to work in their Machambas. It becomes an awful spiral. A person is too sick to work in their machamba, they don’t produce enough food, they don’t have the energy to get better and their side effects from the drugs get worse. The World Food Program only gives out food for the first three months of HIV drugs. After that everyone is on their own unless they can hook up with another association that provides food. To make matters worse, the drugs themselves make people very hungry. It’s a vicious cycle.
The area of machambas, however, is beautiful and seems very fertile. After you pass through the machambas you get into the countryside. The road is variable. At times it is a nice paved road and at times it is a dusty dirt track with giant potholes you have to swerve to avoid. It is so bad in some places that there is a prohibition of people driving HAI cars after 6pm. The little towns that you pass are often a mishmash of different house styles. Toward the front of the road are often little stores and markets that have whitewashed walls and doors that lock. Then there are houses made in the same style that was common in Brazil. You build the walls from straight branches interwoven, then you fill in the weave with mud. The big difference is that, in Brazil, the roofs are completed with terra cotta tiles or corrugated tin, here they are often completed with thatch. The other houses that are the most common are called rondavals and are made also of stick walls filled in with mud but topped by round thatched roofs. Occasionally they are decorated with paint and sometimes they have small windows cut out of the mud walls. They are organized in big compounds that are near machambas.
The landscape is always hard to describe but it is very open from Beira to Chimoio, there are large vistas with acacia trees and other trees that I don’t know the name of. It is flat as a pancake for much of the drive and then you begin to see mountains in the distance and the elevation climbs. The mountains also look sparse, in comparison to Seattle where at least one thing is growing in every free inch of dirt. But it is beautiful in its openness. There are little markets in the small towns that sell used clothing (I think all from American used-clothing companies), tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, okra and peppers presented in lovely colorful stacks. The road is shared by many trucks making their way to and from Zimbabwe and many people walking along the road (mostly kids back from school and women carrying water). The women almost always wear colorful wrap skirts that most of you who have seen pictures of Africa can imagine. There are also many men on bicycles laden down with either sacks of charcoal (giant sacks—6ft tall) or bundled thatch.
I’ll stop with my description there because I’m sure that I’ll have much more to say later. I arrived in Chimoio and met the staff of HAI-Chimoio and worked in their office for a few hours before Pablo and I went out and had dinner. If you have the money for it, there is a surprising diversity of food here. We had really nice burritos!!! Burritos I repeat!!! And, of course, some grilled squid. For those of you who know me well…you know I have a little obsession with squid. I LOVE SQUID. How perfect, then, that you can get squid all over the place here. Really good, giant, tasty squid. Anyway, I’m off on a tangent again. Before we left for dinner Wendy, an ex-pat that works at HAI-Chimoio (a different Wendy from the one mentioned above) said that Pablo had told her that I was joining her for a HIV counselor retreat the next day. Surprise!!! I didn’t know that was in my plans but it did sound interesting. So the next day (after spending a beautiful night in the very comfortable HAI Guest House in Chimoio) I was picked up by Wendy and driven to a big resort in a little town called Inchope. Counselors from all over two provinces came to learn a little and discuss their experiences. It was really interesting to hear what they had to say and to meet the people who I’ll be working with in the small towns in these provinces. We danced at night, had some more meeting items in the morning and then all got ready to go. The car situation was a fiasco and a small group of us were waiting for a few hours. Normally this would be no big deal but it takes about 3 hours to get back to Beira, it was 3pm, and all of us knew that cars could not be on the road after 6pm. Ahhh…we all thought we would have to spend the night in one of these small little towns. But Antonio, our driver, pulled through for us and got us into the city limits (you can drive within the city limits after dark) with 10 minutes to spare.
Ok…I think that is probably enough reading for now. I was going to tell you the story of the baboon who was trying to make love to a chicken but I’ll save that for tomorrow. Cheers!!!
I finally got out of the city on Thursday morning. It was great for my loneliness and even more wonderful to finally get a sense of where I was in the world. I left the city last minute with Pablo who was traveling to Chimoio (Chee-moy-oh), a small city in the mountains toward Zimbabwe. He was planning on staying there Thursday night and then returning on Friday. We had to stop by another even smaller town called Gondola first because he has to check out the new construction going on at the hospital there. The ride was wonderful. We passed out of the city and then through an area of machambas.
Machambas are small plots of land that people in the city use to grow rice, vegetables etc. It is a lot of work but absolutely necessary for life! The main preoccupation of people who are HIV+ is the inability to work in their Machambas. It becomes an awful spiral. A person is too sick to work in their machamba, they don’t produce enough food, they don’t have the energy to get better and their side effects from the drugs get worse. The World Food Program only gives out food for the first three months of HIV drugs. After that everyone is on their own unless they can hook up with another association that provides food. To make matters worse, the drugs themselves make people very hungry. It’s a vicious cycle.
The area of machambas, however, is beautiful and seems very fertile. After you pass through the machambas you get into the countryside. The road is variable. At times it is a nice paved road and at times it is a dusty dirt track with giant potholes you have to swerve to avoid. It is so bad in some places that there is a prohibition of people driving HAI cars after 6pm. The little towns that you pass are often a mishmash of different house styles. Toward the front of the road are often little stores and markets that have whitewashed walls and doors that lock. Then there are houses made in the same style that was common in Brazil. You build the walls from straight branches interwoven, then you fill in the weave with mud. The big difference is that, in Brazil, the roofs are completed with terra cotta tiles or corrugated tin, here they are often completed with thatch. The other houses that are the most common are called rondavals and are made also of stick walls filled in with mud but topped by round thatched roofs. Occasionally they are decorated with paint and sometimes they have small windows cut out of the mud walls. They are organized in big compounds that are near machambas.
The landscape is always hard to describe but it is very open from Beira to Chimoio, there are large vistas with acacia trees and other trees that I don’t know the name of. It is flat as a pancake for much of the drive and then you begin to see mountains in the distance and the elevation climbs. The mountains also look sparse, in comparison to Seattle where at least one thing is growing in every free inch of dirt. But it is beautiful in its openness. There are little markets in the small towns that sell used clothing (I think all from American used-clothing companies), tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, okra and peppers presented in lovely colorful stacks. The road is shared by many trucks making their way to and from Zimbabwe and many people walking along the road (mostly kids back from school and women carrying water). The women almost always wear colorful wrap skirts that most of you who have seen pictures of Africa can imagine. There are also many men on bicycles laden down with either sacks of charcoal (giant sacks—6ft tall) or bundled thatch.
I’ll stop with my description there because I’m sure that I’ll have much more to say later. I arrived in Chimoio and met the staff of HAI-Chimoio and worked in their office for a few hours before Pablo and I went out and had dinner. If you have the money for it, there is a surprising diversity of food here. We had really nice burritos!!! Burritos I repeat!!! And, of course, some grilled squid. For those of you who know me well…you know I have a little obsession with squid. I LOVE SQUID. How perfect, then, that you can get squid all over the place here. Really good, giant, tasty squid. Anyway, I’m off on a tangent again. Before we left for dinner Wendy, an ex-pat that works at HAI-Chimoio (a different Wendy from the one mentioned above) said that Pablo had told her that I was joining her for a HIV counselor retreat the next day. Surprise!!! I didn’t know that was in my plans but it did sound interesting. So the next day (after spending a beautiful night in the very comfortable HAI Guest House in Chimoio) I was picked up by Wendy and driven to a big resort in a little town called Inchope. Counselors from all over two provinces came to learn a little and discuss their experiences. It was really interesting to hear what they had to say and to meet the people who I’ll be working with in the small towns in these provinces. We danced at night, had some more meeting items in the morning and then all got ready to go. The car situation was a fiasco and a small group of us were waiting for a few hours. Normally this would be no big deal but it takes about 3 hours to get back to Beira, it was 3pm, and all of us knew that cars could not be on the road after 6pm. Ahhh…we all thought we would have to spend the night in one of these small little towns. But Antonio, our driver, pulled through for us and got us into the city limits (you can drive within the city limits after dark) with 10 minutes to spare.
Ok…I think that is probably enough reading for now. I was going to tell you the story of the baboon who was trying to make love to a chicken but I’ll save that for tomorrow. Cheers!!!
The Monkey and the Chicken (not a tale for children)
12 October 2006
So I’ve decided to write to y’all about the monkey and the chicken. For those of you who are offended easily it would be best to stop reading now. For the rest of you…well…most of you…here is the tale of interspecies love.
I’ve already mentioned that I spent the weekend with HIV counselors at a retreat. The place of the retreat was a resort in the middle of nowhere but a good crossroads from all of central Mozambique. The resort had a restaurant and hotel like rooms that surrounded the center of the resort with a pool (that no one used) and cages that held: baboons (mother, father, child), turkeys, guinea hens, ducks, little monkeys, and pigeons (ok—maybe doves but they looked like pigeons). It was actually kind of a sad little scene. I must say…a baboons butt is definitely more disturbing up close than it is in a zoo or on TV…much much more disturbing. But I’m off track. There was one little adolescent male baboon that for some reason was not caged. I don’t know if he originally was caged and was rejected by the other baboons or if he had come in from the bush. (Sidenote: I’ve seen a number of baboons on the side of the road and running about…I find it kind of creepy given that they seem so human-like, or maybe we just seem so baboon like). The little baboon was a terror and would run after people, climb all over the cages, and generally riot around. We all gave the little baboon a wide berth.
At one point all the counselors broke up into groups to discuss difficult cases. I accompanied one group of counselors outside and we began to debate the cases. We were soon distracting by the little baboon who seemed to be mauling a chicken. Yeah…it wasn’t mauling. The baboon, hopped up on adolescent hormones, was trying to form an interspecies bond with the chicken. The problem was that the chicken was little and the baboon big and all the grabbing was not healthy for the little chicken. We tried to chase the baboon away but it just kept coming back. At this point however, for those of you who are horrified at the cruelty to this poor chicken, the chicken had plenty of opportunity to escape. It didn’t. It would run away when the baboon got really aggressive but then it would sit down and let the baboon approach it again. Still, it was not going to be able to take all of that lovin’. We finally called some people who worked at the resort and they took the chicken away. Those who got close to the scenes of love related that actual interspecies penetration took place. YUCK!!! To top it all off the little baboon, pissed that his chicken-lover was rudely wrenched from his grasp, ran over to our group, sat down beside us, spread his legs wide open and began to piss in our general direction.
So I’ve decided to write to y’all about the monkey and the chicken. For those of you who are offended easily it would be best to stop reading now. For the rest of you…well…most of you…here is the tale of interspecies love.
I’ve already mentioned that I spent the weekend with HIV counselors at a retreat. The place of the retreat was a resort in the middle of nowhere but a good crossroads from all of central Mozambique. The resort had a restaurant and hotel like rooms that surrounded the center of the resort with a pool (that no one used) and cages that held: baboons (mother, father, child), turkeys, guinea hens, ducks, little monkeys, and pigeons (ok—maybe doves but they looked like pigeons). It was actually kind of a sad little scene. I must say…a baboons butt is definitely more disturbing up close than it is in a zoo or on TV…much much more disturbing. But I’m off track. There was one little adolescent male baboon that for some reason was not caged. I don’t know if he originally was caged and was rejected by the other baboons or if he had come in from the bush. (Sidenote: I’ve seen a number of baboons on the side of the road and running about…I find it kind of creepy given that they seem so human-like, or maybe we just seem so baboon like). The little baboon was a terror and would run after people, climb all over the cages, and generally riot around. We all gave the little baboon a wide berth.
At one point all the counselors broke up into groups to discuss difficult cases. I accompanied one group of counselors outside and we began to debate the cases. We were soon distracting by the little baboon who seemed to be mauling a chicken. Yeah…it wasn’t mauling. The baboon, hopped up on adolescent hormones, was trying to form an interspecies bond with the chicken. The problem was that the chicken was little and the baboon big and all the grabbing was not healthy for the little chicken. We tried to chase the baboon away but it just kept coming back. At this point however, for those of you who are horrified at the cruelty to this poor chicken, the chicken had plenty of opportunity to escape. It didn’t. It would run away when the baboon got really aggressive but then it would sit down and let the baboon approach it again. Still, it was not going to be able to take all of that lovin’. We finally called some people who worked at the resort and they took the chicken away. Those who got close to the scenes of love related that actual interspecies penetration took place. YUCK!!! To top it all off the little baboon, pissed that his chicken-lover was rudely wrenched from his grasp, ran over to our group, sat down beside us, spread his legs wide open and began to piss in our general direction.
The Trials of the Shit Police
05 October 2006
So the Guest House that I’m staying in until I find a place (that apartment in the city was already rented…boohoo) is right across the street from a big open field. It is also kitty corner to what would be considered a shantytown in Brazil. The residents don’t have running water or bathrooms in their homes. So…they tend to relieve themselves in the field. It makes perfect sense to me. Where else is there to do it? I’ve made it my mission to find out. Anyway…back to the Shit Police.
Being a Shit Policeman is an actual job. It’s called a Fiscalizador. The job of this unfortunate person is to give tickets and fines to people who shit in the open field. The other day, Wendy, my colleague and roommate, was at home in the Guest House when she heard shouting right across the wall. A man was being beaten and blood was running down his face and front. He jumped over our wall to escape the group of people that were after him. Wendy, of course, was a little disturbed by this and went to ask the guy who guards the house what the deal was. It turns out that the bloody guy was a Fiscalizador but he was not giving out tickets to everyone. It was hard to tell if the group was upset that he wasn’t ticketing more people or if they were upset that he was only ticketing some people discriminately but they were obviously upset at the way he was performing his duties.
How much would this suck. Not only are you the Shit Police but if you don’t police the shit in an adequate manner you can get the shit beat out of you!!! All of this is to say that you won’t find me shitting in an open field anytime soon, at least not in the city of Beira. Who knows, perhaps in other places the Fiscalizadors do not take their shit so seriously.
So the Guest House that I’m staying in until I find a place (that apartment in the city was already rented…boohoo) is right across the street from a big open field. It is also kitty corner to what would be considered a shantytown in Brazil. The residents don’t have running water or bathrooms in their homes. So…they tend to relieve themselves in the field. It makes perfect sense to me. Where else is there to do it? I’ve made it my mission to find out. Anyway…back to the Shit Police.
Being a Shit Policeman is an actual job. It’s called a Fiscalizador. The job of this unfortunate person is to give tickets and fines to people who shit in the open field. The other day, Wendy, my colleague and roommate, was at home in the Guest House when she heard shouting right across the wall. A man was being beaten and blood was running down his face and front. He jumped over our wall to escape the group of people that were after him. Wendy, of course, was a little disturbed by this and went to ask the guy who guards the house what the deal was. It turns out that the bloody guy was a Fiscalizador but he was not giving out tickets to everyone. It was hard to tell if the group was upset that he wasn’t ticketing more people or if they were upset that he was only ticketing some people discriminately but they were obviously upset at the way he was performing his duties.
How much would this suck. Not only are you the Shit Police but if you don’t police the shit in an adequate manner you can get the shit beat out of you!!! All of this is to say that you won’t find me shitting in an open field anytime soon, at least not in the city of Beira. Who knows, perhaps in other places the Fiscalizadors do not take their shit so seriously.
Loneliness
05 October 2006
All of you who know me know that I’m a very social person. I thrive off of company. This is not to say that I don’t like to be alone but in order to feel whole I like to have good friends around me. So far being in Mozambique has been hard because there is a unspoken separation between me and my Mozambican colleagues. Part of it is that life here is very hierarchical. Being treated deferentially does not make a good environment for friendship. Granted, I’ve only been here two weeks but it is strikingly different that any other situation that I’ve lived in. I’m used to making friends easily and being equals with those friends no matter the difference in our education, income etc. but here I feel more like an outsider gazing into the world more than anywhere else.
Part of the issue is that Mark and Wendy were here and I got rides, went to dinner, and hung out with them. This was great and they are really fun, hilarious, wonderful people. But they left today. Mark went back to Seattle and Wendy went to South Africa (albeit only for the weekend). So it has really been only half a day that I’ve been rattling around in this Guest House alone. But it’s funny how loneliness hits you in the pit of the stomach like a sucking wound. I think I would take any knee injury over that feeling. Don’t worry…I’m just waxing sentimental and I’ll make friends and all of this will pass but it makes you appreciate the friendships you do have. It also makes you appreciate internet access, telephones, and all the ways that I know I could chat with people if I spent enough money and time seeking out ways to do it. I also need to get off my ass and start figuring out how to make friends here. It will be a challenge but you all know how I love challenges. So if you go out to dinner tonight raise a beer to me please and wish me luck in making friends and know that I appreciate all of you!!!
All of you who know me know that I’m a very social person. I thrive off of company. This is not to say that I don’t like to be alone but in order to feel whole I like to have good friends around me. So far being in Mozambique has been hard because there is a unspoken separation between me and my Mozambican colleagues. Part of it is that life here is very hierarchical. Being treated deferentially does not make a good environment for friendship. Granted, I’ve only been here two weeks but it is strikingly different that any other situation that I’ve lived in. I’m used to making friends easily and being equals with those friends no matter the difference in our education, income etc. but here I feel more like an outsider gazing into the world more than anywhere else.
Part of the issue is that Mark and Wendy were here and I got rides, went to dinner, and hung out with them. This was great and they are really fun, hilarious, wonderful people. But they left today. Mark went back to Seattle and Wendy went to South Africa (albeit only for the weekend). So it has really been only half a day that I’ve been rattling around in this Guest House alone. But it’s funny how loneliness hits you in the pit of the stomach like a sucking wound. I think I would take any knee injury over that feeling. Don’t worry…I’m just waxing sentimental and I’ll make friends and all of this will pass but it makes you appreciate the friendships you do have. It also makes you appreciate internet access, telephones, and all the ways that I know I could chat with people if I spent enough money and time seeking out ways to do it. I also need to get off my ass and start figuring out how to make friends here. It will be a challenge but you all know how I love challenges. So if you go out to dinner tonight raise a beer to me please and wish me luck in making friends and know that I appreciate all of you!!!
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Advice needed...where should I live?
I’m alive and well but without regular access to email . I don’t know if this will change anytime soon so these entries might be even more sporadic. Things are going well but I’m starting to feel the intensity that comes with this job. It is a lot of work and then a lot more work on top of that. Then I have to squeeze in my dissertation in the off moments as I sit around and boil in the heat.
Everyone has been asking about the food. I’m afraid that I haven’t had very little traditional food. I finally had real Mozambican food last night. I went over to Flora’s house, who is a nurse and runs many of our maternal health programs. She cooked massa, a typical Mozambican/African dish which is essentially corn flour and water mixed together to make a paste. I liked it despite hearing from many others that it was awful. I thought it was much better than rice. That was accompanied by a bean and vegetable stew and some beef with tomato sauce. It was a really good meal. Yum. I ate my food with my fork but I think next time I’m going to dig in with my fingers like my Mozambican colleagues. I love to eat with my fingers.
The coffee here really is bad. Bad bad. Luckily I did bring a couple packets of Hawaiian coffee but it is going to be a sad day when this runs out. I did finally figure out where to buy vegetables without having to go to the big South African supermarket. Wendy and I went on a search for hot peppers and realized that just around the corner from the Guest House there were many people selling all the things I love…collard greens, potatoes, carrots, onions, nuts, and yummy fried potato things.
I’m having difficulty deciding on a place to live. Right now I have three options. 1) a two-bedroom apartment above the offices in the center of town 2) a huge house by the beach 3) a room in the house of a fun bubbly woman who works at the hospital. Here are the things to consider (I would welcome thoughts on this):
-The city apartment is secure and I could have access to HAI cars because there is a place to park them. The drawback is that during the weekend the whole place is kind of a ghost town. The upside is that it doesn’t feel too big, it’s close to markets, and its close to work.
-The huge house by the beach is by the beach but I’m not really a huge beach person. I could park a car there but I would need to commute into work. Living alone in such a huge place would feel weird and lonely. It would also feel like the most imprisoned/colonial option. The upside is that I would have lots of room for visitors.
-The room in the house of Laurinda has its definite benefits. It is in a neighborhood outside of town that is a REAL neighborhood. Not like the beach house which is in a neighborhood of closed walls, lots of ex-pats and not much life on the streets. This neighborhood has people, corner bars, and lovely fruit trees. The drawbacks are that it is far from work and I would not have a space of my own. I would have to take two chapas (minivans that pack pack pack people in) to get to work. I also wouldn’t be able to use HAI cars because there is no secure place to park them. But the huge thing…I am starting to think that I really want a space of my own. It has been so long since I’ve lived by myself. It would be nice to have my own space and my own things. Laurinda lives with her 5-year old daughter and I would have my own bedroom but I would still feel like a visitor in the rest of the house.
Those are the options. If you have suggestions/opinions I would love to hear them. Now I’m off to work again. Hopefully there won’t be so many power-outages today. The battery on my laptop is not the best in the world.
Everyone has been asking about the food. I’m afraid that I haven’t had very little traditional food. I finally had real Mozambican food last night. I went over to Flora’s house, who is a nurse and runs many of our maternal health programs. She cooked massa, a typical Mozambican/African dish which is essentially corn flour and water mixed together to make a paste. I liked it despite hearing from many others that it was awful. I thought it was much better than rice. That was accompanied by a bean and vegetable stew and some beef with tomato sauce. It was a really good meal. Yum. I ate my food with my fork but I think next time I’m going to dig in with my fingers like my Mozambican colleagues. I love to eat with my fingers.
The coffee here really is bad. Bad bad. Luckily I did bring a couple packets of Hawaiian coffee but it is going to be a sad day when this runs out. I did finally figure out where to buy vegetables without having to go to the big South African supermarket. Wendy and I went on a search for hot peppers and realized that just around the corner from the Guest House there were many people selling all the things I love…collard greens, potatoes, carrots, onions, nuts, and yummy fried potato things.
I’m having difficulty deciding on a place to live. Right now I have three options. 1) a two-bedroom apartment above the offices in the center of town 2) a huge house by the beach 3) a room in the house of a fun bubbly woman who works at the hospital. Here are the things to consider (I would welcome thoughts on this):
-The city apartment is secure and I could have access to HAI cars because there is a place to park them. The drawback is that during the weekend the whole place is kind of a ghost town. The upside is that it doesn’t feel too big, it’s close to markets, and its close to work.
-The huge house by the beach is by the beach but I’m not really a huge beach person. I could park a car there but I would need to commute into work. Living alone in such a huge place would feel weird and lonely. It would also feel like the most imprisoned/colonial option. The upside is that I would have lots of room for visitors.
-The room in the house of Laurinda has its definite benefits. It is in a neighborhood outside of town that is a REAL neighborhood. Not like the beach house which is in a neighborhood of closed walls, lots of ex-pats and not much life on the streets. This neighborhood has people, corner bars, and lovely fruit trees. The drawbacks are that it is far from work and I would not have a space of my own. I would have to take two chapas (minivans that pack pack pack people in) to get to work. I also wouldn’t be able to use HAI cars because there is no secure place to park them. But the huge thing…I am starting to think that I really want a space of my own. It has been so long since I’ve lived by myself. It would be nice to have my own space and my own things. Laurinda lives with her 5-year old daughter and I would have my own bedroom but I would still feel like a visitor in the rest of the house.
Those are the options. If you have suggestions/opinions I would love to hear them. Now I’m off to work again. Hopefully there won’t be so many power-outages today. The battery on my laptop is not the best in the world.
