Saying Goodbye to Mozambique

Yesterday Abby, our cat, and I left Chibuto - we packed up our home and said goodbye to all the friends we made in the last 23 months. My last week in Chibuto was very special because I had small parties with my work colleagues and young women's empowerment group, and enjoyed a lot of last visits. We received official word that our cultural center project is fully funded, which is exciting news! (Thanks to all who donated).

My last night I visited the house of a young girl named Aissa. She has been a regular participant in my young women's empowerment group for the past 2 years but for one reason or another I never made it to her house. Perhaps because her house was on the other side of the town. More likely because I had almost written her off (as terrible as it sounds). At age 20, she is still in the ninth grade and does not seem particularly motivated in her studies. Furthermore, she is habitually late, and not just a little bit, which can be frustrating. Aissa is a tiny girl; she does not stand more than 4 feet 9 inches tall, so you would not expect her to have a child, let alone a large 3 year-old son. So right or wrong, I was inclined to invest more time and energy to the girls more dedicated to their studies and with obvious potential for brighter futures. What I had overlooked was how loving and caring she is - always greeting me with a smile and even moved to tears when I broke my nose last year because she hated to see me in pain. Although I did not feel like going to her house the last day because I knew I’d inevitably be forced to stay a long time and endure a lot of special attention, I figured it would mean a lot to the family and was the right thing to do. And boy was I glad I went – late is better than never! I showed up to her house and was offered a chair & promptly asked what my preferred soda was; the routine that had become so familiar to me during any house visit. I sat and enjoyed getting to watch the house dynamics play out while they prepared a special dinner.

I had met most of her family members in town, but never all at the same time. All 8 of them lived in a modest three-room house made of reeds, and without electricity. What was shocking is that 20-year-old Aissa’s 3-year-old baby was older than her mother’s youngest child. The mother’s youngest child was also 3 while her oldest was 28. Aissa and her mother got pregnant at almost exactly the same time and gave birth two months apart. Today the two 3-year-old boys are inseparable – a son and grandson the same age. Family planning is clearly not something Aissa learned from her mother. However, in many ways both the young children Aissa and her mother said came from unwelcome pregnancies, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The two young boys have become inseparable and it was fun to see them playing together. After a delicious dinner, I left so happy I had gone and with a much better understanding of Aissa – her humble abode was filled with loving and kindness, which are perhaps two of her best characteristics.

I also went to watch the 7th week of the 10-week talent show many of my favorite youth have been hosting. They have been putting on an American Idol like show complete with three judges and voting opportunities for the viewers. They have made it as professional as possible – arranging a sound system, microphones, and generator so the show does not get disrupted from the frequent power outages. They charge a $1 entry fee to help cover the costs. It gives the youth a chance to shine and discover their talents while also providing entertainment and a positive way for youth to spend their free time in a community lacking extracurricular activities. It was impressive to see the young people making this happen all on their own and seeing the kids performing songs, dances, and skits. The whole event was exceptionally similar to a talent show in the US minus one crucial difference. There was no one over the age of 25 in the building – no parental or teacher support. I was imagining the audience for a talent show in the States and thinking how it’d be filled with parents and grandparents snapping photos and proudly cheering on their children.

The young adults responsible for the talent show were recently elected leaders of the new cultural center we have started. The cultural center is designed for older youth and adults to teach younger kids art, dance, music, etc. so hopefully it will encourage inter-generational collaboration. It is pretty amazing what the teens do on their own but far from ideal in my opinion; so much would be gained if there was more direction and support from elders to youth. Nevertheless, watching youth in action was such a good way to go out – it gave me a positive feeling that things might be heading in that direction with the help of these young leaders in the future!

On Monday, I arrived to Namaacha to spend my last week visiting my host family brining it full-circle. It never fails to amaze me how despite their busy schedules and financial limitations, they are so generous and give me princess treatment. The children play happily and simply without thousands of toys or expensive forms of entertainment. It always reminds me of what’s most important in this life: family, how you treat others, having food on the table and shelter over your head, and loving relationships on a daily basis; take or leave the rest.

Although my Peace Corps journey is coming to a close, I will never forget how much this experience has marked and changed my life. I have so many fond memories and am so happy I had the opportunity to embark on this worthwhile sojourn.

Young Girls in Action - Lifting my Spirits

I have written far less blog entries in year two; one reason is recently I’ve been in a slump and not felt much like writing. Homesickness is setting in after 2 years of living so far from my family. I also had the privilege of having so many visitors from the States this year, and as soon as they all left in early August, my roommate Abby has also had to move from our home for work-related reasons. That meant a harsh readjustment from having constant company to being very isolated. Compounded with that, I got sick and had an overall bad week during all the strikes and rioting that recently took place in Mozambique. I was feeling really ready to go home, getting frustrated easily and just struggling to keep a positive attitude!
Luckily, last weekend we had a girls’ empowerment conference for my main secondary project called REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educação e Saúde – Girls Developing in Education and Health), and it was just what I needed to drag me out of my slump and get me in a better, more positive mindset to finish out the rest of my service!

I have written about the REDES Project before, but I’ll include a quick recap of our mission and vision statements before writing about how the conference was my saving grace.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to empower young Mozambican women through gender-awareness and skills-based activities, giving them the knowledge to make healthy decisions and build successful futures, thus reducing their vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.

Vision Statement

We envision a future in which young Mozambican women are equipped with the skills and self-confidence needed to make their own decisions about what is important to their lives and futures. We envision REDES as a national movement linking young women throughout the country and encouraging them to work together to advocate for women’s rights, learn about women’s health, and become leaders in their communities. We hope to someday soon see young women become their own best and strongest advocates.

September Gaza Provincial REDES Conference

To achieve our mission and work toward our vision, Peace Corps Volunteers and Mozambican professors and exemplary women are working together to form REDES groups in primary and secondary schools for girls between 12 and 23 years old. These REDES groups meet throughout the school year doing a variety of educational and fun activities, giving the girls a safe space to learn. Additionally, twice a year representatives from each group are selected to participate in regional and provincial conferences. I have had the honor of participating in three such conferences and they have been some of the most inspiring and most hopeful days in my whole service. And the latest provincial conference could not have come at a better time to lift my down spirits.


At the provincial conference in Gaza, we had 55 participants and our theme was “Analyzing the Roles of Women in Society.” One of the areas the REDES Project has been focusing on is to allow the Mozambican professors to take more leadership in the project, and have the Peace Corps Volunteers take more of a back seat. I had the opportunity to work with the professors from my town before the conference so that they were equipped to lead all the HIV-related sessions and activities without my help. I was so proud watching them stand in front of the girls explaining the risky behaviors associated with HIV, and helping the girls distinguish the myths from the facts. You could also tell how proud they were of themselves, and how happy they were to be making a positive difference in the lives of the young Mozambican girls.

Another highlight from the conference was watching the young girls present what they learned and practice public speaking. Often in classes, it is difficult to get the young girls to speak up and share their opinions. Many of my PCV friends have shared their frustration that when calling on a girl in the classroom, she will refuse to answer or just giggle and put her head down, even when she knows the correct response. I think one reason is because this culture places more value on the opinions and education of males, although it is beginning to change. I often see males speaking for females, and rarely hear females challenging males or strongly asserting their opinions. But the REDES Conferences provide an all-girl setting that gives the young women a chance to speak their minds and gain self-confidence, hopefully giving them courage to speak up more in their schools and communities after they leave even in mixed company.

Before the public speaking presentations, we broke the girls into four small groups giving them each the chance to discuss different roles of women in society. The youngest group discussed girls and education because it is still common to see girls drop out early to get married to older men and have babies, especially in the rural areas when their parents sometimes give them no choice. We also talked about how many of the schools have many more male teachers, and how sometimes the female teachers face discrimination. The girls are challenged to form an opinion and a plan of action on what they can do to rectify these injustices. The next group talked about girls and sports focusing on an interesting article about a group of Afghani girls who gained self-confidence and new dominion over their bodies through participating in a soccer league. Before the Afghani girls only used their arms to clean the floors and cart water, which is very similar to young women in Mozambique. When the boys saw them playing soccer, it changed their perceptions of the role of girls and helped them see girls more as their equals. The young Mozambican girls talked about how this article parallels their lives’ in many ways, and how sports can be used to empower young women. The third group spoke about women in the business world, debating if women should start businesses and why it is important to have a business skill to be able to support yourself. Too often, women turn to transactional sex or stay in abusive relationships in Mozambique because they have no means to support themselves financially. The oldest group talked about domestic violence and came up with a definition and what women should do about it. It happens very frequently here, especially because there is such inequality between the genders, and all too commonly people turn a blind eye or stay quiet, so the vicious cycle continues. The girls talked about how this is dangerous, how women (and the community) need to stand together in solidarity to denounce it, and provided information on where to go to get help.

Once the girls started presenting and speaking, the flood gates opened and we could not get them to stop! The following activity was for them to create posters with HIV messages to take back to their communities, and so we asked for a few volunteers to come forward and share. It was crazy because they all lined up with big smiles on their faces, and started sharing one right after the other when usually it is like pulling teeth to get them to open up in big crowds!

In the afternoon, we had a special treat because an exemplary Mozambican author who has challenged what the role of women should be in society was our guest speaker. We had the privilege of hearing from Paulina Chiziane, the first Mozambican woman to publish a novel. She is a 55 year-old-lady who was born in Gaza Province and her words were powerful. She has written books on topics such as polygamy, the practices of traditional healers, and her experience of living through the war for independence and the subsequent civil war (she spoke of writing one of her books holed up in her house as bombs exploded all around her, not knowing if she would live to see it published). Paulina’s story resonated with the young women because she was born in the same province as them and spoke of how she learned to write on a dirt floor using a stick as a pen because there were no proper writing utensils at her school. Only later did Paulina learn to write using a pen and notebook, something that she pointed out only totaled about one dollar in cost. Paulina pointed to her appearance; as a youngster, she did not like to spend her money on fancy clothes and hairstyles, preferring to spend them on books – something she sticks to her guns about today. I thought this was a particularly good point because many of the girls choose to spend their money on weave to make their hair long and stylish and fashionable, tight clothes to attract men (same as in the States). Paulina told them she chose reading over vanity, and it was one of the best decisions she ever made. Another interesting thing she shared was that she first wanted to be a painter, but did not have money to buy the materials so decided to instead express her thoughts through writing. Not only that, but after writing, many people discouraged her from publishing saying she could be in danger if the government or people did not like what she had to say. Her dad was not supportive of her decision to publicize at first, but Paulina is a strong woman and felt it had to be done. She drew strength internally and started publishing, and eventually gained the support of her father and many others. Being the talented writer that she is, she has become a famous author and her books are translated into many languages including English, Spanish, French, and Chinese. Paulina’s address captivated the girls as she shared these importance lessons telling the girls to speak up, think independently, read, and value education. You could tell that Paulina really made an impression on them, and I think many of them took her message to heart and will try to follow suit because the potential is there.

In the evening, we had each back home group perform in our FAMA REDES Show, giving them the opportunity to present a song, dance, or theater piece that they can share with their communities. The show started out with dancing, one thing that Mozambicans are not shy about, which was a lot of fun. Other groups created songs with messages encouraging people to get HIV tested. I think the most impressive though were the theatre presentations on domestic violence, unplanned pregnancy, and HIV. My friend Emily brought a group of girls who often do theater, and she was shocked at how well they performed during FAMA REDES because although they acted boldly and fearlessly in the environment we had created, she said they often clam up or they are overshadowed when they act in mixed company. This conference served as a learning opportunity for these girls because it gives them an opportunity to shine and see what they are capable of; I think they frequently leave happily surprised by discovering hidden gifts. Emily followed up with the girls encouraging them to continue with their gained self-confidence once back in their communities in mixed company. My group did a theater piece on unplanned pregnancy and I think all our mouths hung open when a young girl named Anatercia, a 17-year-old, ended up being the funniest one in the whole play. My group was asking her beforehand if she was going to actually talk during the theater piece because although there was a general plot, the lines were improvised. Anatercia is generally shy and unsure of herself, but as soon as they started acting she had everyone howling with laughter and we could not get her to stop talking. It really is an amazing transformation to watch, and leaves you with the best feeling.

To round it off the next day, we concluded with a game of writing compliments on the papers we had taped onto everyone’s backs. Again, we asked for volunteers to read some of the adjectives people had used to describe them and we had so many beaming girls. I heard exclamations of “Wow, she thinks I’m intelligent,” or “she thinks I really am capable of achieving my dreams,” or “she says I’m a good singer.” It was so nice to see them building one another up, and all the girls left smiling and eager to go home and share what they had learned during our conference. I left feeling rejuvenated and lucky that I was able to participate in such a special project. Not only do the girls get to travel and see different parts of their country, meet other girls, sometimes take a shower and eat with a knife and fork for the first time, but they learn so much and gain self-confidence. The conference participants and organizers both benefit from this awesome project geared at helping create brighter futures and women leaders in our world!

A Vida na Rua

I have had the pleasure of hosting 10 of my family members and friends in Chibuto this year and all of the noted one of their favorite things about being in my town was just sitting in my house or porch and listening to the many surrounding sounds. At any given moment, there will be children banging on their makeshift instruments on the dirt path right outside my front doorstep; roosters crowing at all hours (my dad learned that roosters actually love to crow in the wee hours of the morning); the rhythmic bom-bom sounds of women grinding peanuts in the mortar and pestle; the noisy chaos of the school from 6 am to 10 pm (you wonder how the students ever learn amidst all the commotion); and either waking up to the sounds of our guard sweeping out dirt yard at dawn or the neighbors’ loud eclectic American music blaring from the sound system (ranging from Celine to Michael Jackson to Avril Lavigne to Akon), that is, if we’re lucky enough to have electricity on that particular morning.

However, none of my American visitors experienced being awakened by our next-door-neighbor’s death celebration ceremony. It is customary that family members and the community hold a lively mass to honor the dead in some religious traditions here, and they often happen to kick off around midnight! I had been invited to attend a few of these masses, but always respectfully declined thinking it was better to be in the safety of my house in the middle of the night. One Friday Abby and I went to bed at 11 pm, but woke up minutes later to drum beating, rowdy cries of aye aye aye, and stomping and clapping—it was a powerful noise! Abby and I agreed that they could not possibly keep up the racket that long, but we were very wrong. After about two hours and putting the pillow over my ears, which somewhat muffled the noise, I eventually fell asleep. Poor Abby did not fair as well, light sleeper that she is! She drifted off sometime after 6:12 am (she timed it) when the music and shouting finally stopped. It was some celebration and certainly impressive endurance! It also demonstrates what a strong sense of community there is in Chibuto and what a special tradition of honoring those loved ones who have passed on that takes place!

It will be an adjustment to transition back to the States where neighborhoods and houses are more spread out and life does not happen in the streets, but rather in the big houses with white picket fences and manicured lawns. Everything appears neat and tidy; all the messy parts of life are hidden behind closed doors. Heck, even the cats and dogs are better fed and received better medical care than many of my community members. You get in the car and drive from Point A to B in the States – it is more rapid and efficient, yet very impersonal. You lose the human contact and daily greetings you exchange every time you leave the house walking from Point A to Point B - the market, school, your workplace, your friend's house, etc. Yes, this means that it’s hard to keep your business private but the other side of the coin is that you really know your neighbors and there is a sense of solidarity that, in my opinion, is missing in many neighborhoods in the States. My neighbors are always cooking together, the children roam freely from house to house, and when a large event happens everyone around is considered family. I remember how comforting it was to be on the receiving end of this support on the occasions when our house got broken into and a crazy man kept inappropriately turning up at our house. The neighborhood came together forming a strong bond—a force not be reckoned with—and helped us tremendously in resolving these problems ! Everyone literally circled the culprits; it was life happening on the streets all right.

Last week I listened to some returned Peace Corps Volunteers share their experiences about moving back to the States, and all noted how lonely it felt. People are so busy, concerned with the next step, getting ahead, and have so much stuff to entertain them (TV, internet, video games, expensive toys, iphone) that they really do not spend much time together. Part of me is really excited to get back to a faster pace of life and more comfortable lifestyle. But my time in the Peace Corps has taught me how invaluable the small daily interactions and connections are, which is something that is often lost in our own culture because of our material wealth. I am grateful that I have gotten to see the advantages of this simpler way of life in a way that I would not have otherwise.

Please donate to our cultural center!

Dear friends and family,

I have been serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Southern Africa in Mozambique as a community health promoter since October 2008. My primary assignment is being a community health promoter and I have been working towards the goal of improving the quality of life in Chibuto, where I am stationed, in various capacities. One way is through collaboration with a local group of working professionals as well as other Peace Corps Volunteers in efforts to build a cultural center.

Since April 2009, I have been working with this group to construct a cultural center for youth on the outskirts of my city. Utilizing local materials, labor and expertise, the cultural center will provide an environment where young people can productively spend their free time, thus reducing their chances of engaging in risky or unhealthy behavior.

The center will provide training and development in the areas of theater, music, visual arts, dance, sports and culinary arts. Talents in these areas will be cultivated with the help of Mozambican professionals, creating a form of expression that preserves, appreciates and celebrates Mozambican culture. In doing so, participants will also be developing their fine- tuned motor skills.

The local government has donated the land for the project just outside of the city center. The cultural center will consist of the construction of a small office and stage and eventually a kitchen/café for culinary students. A large space behind the center will be kept open for sporting events and other large gatherings. Phase one of the project will include the construction of an open-air stage, a small building to be used as an office, and a reed fence surrounding the entire property for privacy and protection.

Creating a sustainable center will be an ever-present priority in the creation of this project, its objective, and its methodology. Our request from the Partnership Program will help greatly in the initial start-up cost. It would contribute greatly toward the preservation of cultural pride and other such factors would motivate the local community to encourage healthy and creative behaviors among the younger generation.

This cultural center project is an out-of-the box method of HIV prevention for our community in Mozambique, where the HIV rate is estimated to be 29% in our province. It will also bring the community together through the events we will hold.

Please think about contributing to our cause to make our dream into a reality. If you decide to donate, you may do that through the Peace Corps Partnership Website (https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=640-020). The total amount we are raising for the project is $6,646 while our community is contributing $2,993. The good thing about this cause is that your donation merits a tax-exemption and there will be Peace Corps Volunteers overseeing the project so you can rest assured that your money will go directly to the cause and benefit our community.

Thanks so much for your help and support!
Gracey Uffman
Peace Corps Volunteer
Mozambique 2008-2010
graceyuffman@gmail.com

Gray Areas & Speaking up about Gender-Based Violence

Perhaps the project I have the most involvement in during my Peace Corps service deals with coordinating women’s empowerment girl’s clubs and conferences that are designed to educate young women about their health and human rights with the following vision. Our vision statement declares that, “We envision a future in which young Mozambican women are equipped with the skills and self-confidence needed to make their own decisions about what is important to their lives and futures. We envision REDES as a national movement linking young women throughout the country and encouraging them to work together to advocate for women’s rights, learn about women’s health, and become leaders in their communities. We hope to someday soon see young women become their own best and strongest advocates.” This REDES Project has become a huge passion of mine, and so I suppose that my friend Callie called for my advice because of my ties to this cause.

Callie began her Peace Corps service about 8 months ago and recently got involved in the REDES Project, helping a group form at her local high school after bringing some enthusiastic students to attend our regional conferences in April. At the conferences, PCVs get a chance to see girls learning and discussing many challenging issues that they face such as domestic violence and sexual abuse (especially with minors). Unfortunately domestic violence and sexual abuse are fairly common in this machismo culture coupled with the fact that much of society, particularly women, have little education and do not know their rights or are not in a position to stand up for them because they are economically dependent (although this is changing). The conference is great because the girls hear from strong, Mozambican women who started off just like the school girls—many growing up in the bush in poor families—who worked their way up to become leaders of women’s rights organizations in Mozambique and who are the exception to the rule in that they openly demand their rights. At our conference in April, two of the speakers spoke about personal experiences, which really touched all of us and served as an example of how any woman can be a victim of gender-based violence, but all of us should speak up! In this particular case, the guest speaker’s husband had tried to use a heavy hand to resolve a marital argument and as soon as he did, she screamed until everyone in the neighborhood came and so did the police. She urged the girls not to keep quiet from embarrassment or to protect the family’s reputation, because once you let gender-based violence happen once with silence then it easily slips into habit. The other guest speaker confessed that she had an abortion after an older powerful gentlemen had used force to sleep with her, and how she had ended up later having two children with another man in her life, but ultimately was raising them as a single mother. The guest speakers’ speeches hit close to home for many girls and after they finished speaking, one confessed a secret she had been harboring a long time and asked them for advice on how she could get help. I have followed up with these guest speakers since the conference and know that more conference participants also called for help with stories of gender-based violence that had happened in their lives who no longer wanted to stay quiet and needed advice on the steps to seek justice. More than anything, these women and girls just needed to know that they were not alone. They wanted to know someone supported their decision to speak up because it is not easy and takes a lot of courage.

When Callie went back to her community after the conference, Alegria, an older woman who had been her Portuguese tutor and had become Callie’s friend, informed her of a grave situation. Alegria’s 49-year-old husband was cheating on her with multiple minor-aged girls! Although sadly this information was not new to Alegria, she had just learned that her husband got a 13-year-old girl pregnant who had given premature birth to a baby boy. Callie went to visit the young girl and reported that he birth was hard on the young girl’s body, which has not yet fully developed, and consequently the girl had dropped out of school. She is an orphan, living with her grandmother, and the older man is paying their family to support the baby. The economic incentive is enough for the family to keep quiet and the girl does not realize that what the man did is even a crime—just imagine the man started having sexual relations with her when she was just 11! He is rumored to be having inappropriate relationships with other young girls in his neighborhood too.

It does not just stop there, but he is a high school teacher and it is pretty commonly known that he goes after students, but it is hard to provide concrete evidence. That is, until this evidence of a baby cropped up! Alegria confessed to Callie that she was sick of it and wanted to draw the line, go to the police and report him, and then divorce him. Callie said that she’d help Alegria, but Alegria responded that she would like to think about it some more. Alegria talked to fellow community members who advised her that the police would not really do anything and that his life was almost already over at age 49, so they should just leave it be and “let God punish him one day.”

Callie called me more and more upset by the day about what she should do in the situation because she felt it was her moral duty to go to the authorities, but also wanted to respect Alegria’s wishes. I was set to meet with the local government representative in charge of gender, Daniela, who has become a good friend of mine, so I invited Callie to come talk with Daniela so we could get some advice from a Mozambican woman that’d understand both the law and culturally-appropriate way to handle it more so than us foreigners involved in this situation. Daniela wanted to take the information to the police as a public crime and get the young girl some help from social services, but Callie wanted to clear it with Alegria first. Daniela said that we could not just sit back or else he was going to continue, and it would one more case adding to the overwhelming silence that occurs commonly when gender-based violence happens in the community.

Callie talked more with Alegria who by that point had shifted completely in favor of keeping quiet because she was worried that her life would end up worse off in the end by turning in her husband. She had decided that a divorce would not be possible or snitching on him because she is unemployed and economically dependent on him. She felt that the community would marginalize her if it became public knowledge and her husband would end up in jail. Poor Callie was torn between taking the case to the police on her own and respecting her friend’s wishes in this gray area, with no clear-cut white or black correct answer. Daniela even proposed a way that they could anonymously tell authorities. In the end, after getting more guidance from the Peace Corps, Callie decided not to go to the police although this story continues to weigh on her heart. She is devoting her energy 100% into the REDES Project, and along with Daniela, we will be holding a training in August to educate 25 local teachers about how to start REDES groups in their schools and use the curriculum. Our hope is that the REDES Project helps empower these women and put them in a position where they can and will speak up in the future, free of economic dependence and full of self-confidence! And where this vicious cycle will not continue to repeat itself.

*By chance, I just so happened to be Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl Wudunn, which is about the oppression that many women face in developing countries and what is being done about it. I highly recommend it!

*Some names changed to protect privacy

A Local Hero and My Thoughts on the Gift of Reading

It’s been forever since I’ve written and I cannot quite put my finger on why so much time has passed without a post. I think one reason is that things have gotten so normal to me in Mozambique and the other is that I have been busy with more work responsibilities and hosting visitors from the States, but with the end of my service coming in 5 months, I would like to take the opportunity to start writing more. On that note…

I have recently started helping out every once in awhile at a pre-school for underprivileged children in a far out “suburb” of Chibuto. Playing with children is one thing that I have faith will always remain pure in this crazy development culture where it often seems like people forget the primary goal in development is to help the children and not to just pocket money from identifying the children in need and forget about the help. The pre-school is an initiative of an elderly Mozambican nun named Sister Catarina and she puts 100% into helping 30 Mozambican kids age 6 and under learn how to speak Portuguese and care for themselves. She also makes sure they get at least two meals a day while they are at the pre-school.

The pre-school opened just over a year ago and although Sister Catarina has help from the Catholic church and from a Portuguese NGO, she spearheads the effort to take care of the children mainly by herself on a day-to-day basis. I am moved by how she has taken Jesus’ call to heart on “caring for the widows and the children” and how she works tirelessly.

The 30 children attend the pre-school Monday through Friday and start to arrive as early as 6 am and some do not get picked up until as late as 6 pm! Think of all the hours she is putting in with no hope of overtime pay, or much in the way of a “thanks”! During the day, the children receive breakfast, snack, lunch, and a bath. They also spend a lot of time playing in the yard, singing educational songs, and napping. It is a large undertaking and two of her main challenges are lack of manpower and finances. The caretakers and parents of the children are supposed to pay about $6 monthly for the pre-school. (Can you imagine sending your child to pre-school for just $6 a month? You can’t even hire a babysitter to watch your kid for that amount for one hour in the States!) Many times the parents either do not pay in full, pay late, or do not have money to contribute at all. Because of these financial challenges, Sister Catarina has a hard time keeping other professors on board because they earn little for a lot of work and often decide it is not worth their efforts.

In spite of all these challenges, Sister Catarina is doing impressive work and giving such a gift to the children and community. The kids are being fed and watched for hours of the day so the caretakers of the orphans or parents can work or go to school (some of the parents are single teenage moms). The children learn to speak Portuguese, which will help them so much when they start elementary school. All schooling is done in Portuguese although in many homes strictly Changana, the local language, is spoken, especially in lower educated households. This poses a great challenge when the kids start school because they have trouble understanding the teachers and the books.
The Catholic Church in Portugal and a Portuguese NGO have aided Sister Catarina immensely by providing her with resources and enough financial support to stay afloat, but there is a lot to be done to keep her project up. Sister Catarina always welcomes me when I stop by to play with the kids or bring visitors to meet them, but I have the easy job. I show up when I have time and stay for a few hours and play with the kids, but then get to go home and do things for myself. I could not help but thinking about all the traveling I have done in the past two months, and how if I had made it my life calling to do something like Sister Catarina, vacation would be nearly impossible. Sister Catarina has those children depending on her every weekday all year long—talk about exhausting!

The last few times that I have gone to the pre-school, I have checked out children’s books from our recently opened library to read to the kids. As soon as I open up the first book, the children go crazy repeating all the words from the picture books. They are hungry to learn, which is so encouraging to see! I think developing a reading culture is so important, but also recognize it is such a luxury. I think back to my childhood when my parents read me 4 books each night before bed. My grandparents used to send them as gifts all the time recognizing how important they were. I was so lucky to have two parents that had time to read to me and a family with the money to buy books. Reading opens so many fountains of knowledge and gives the possibility for us to educate ourselves and learn about anything and everything! Although reading to a few kids is just a small contribution, I still feel like it is one way I can give back while I am here. I can advocate the advantages of reading to all my Mozambican friends and form a habit of bringing books so that the children and teachers at the pre-school might see how beneficial they can be. My hope is that one day the kids grow up literate and that Sister Catarina continues to meet success and improve upon her pre-school project. Because of putting her dream into action through hard work and continued dedication, 30 children have better lives in this community!

The Luxury of Having a Great Deal of Parental Support

In the last few days, I have spent a lot of time with many of my favorite teenagers in Chibuto. What I noticed is that all of them have much less parental support than I did growing up. What impressed me is that all of them work hard to achieve their dreams in spite of the many barriers they have had to cross. What makes me sad is that the teenagers I am talking about actually have more support than most children in our area in Mozambique, although it is not much when compared to the average child or teenager in the States.

Case #1: I went to hang out with my 19-year-old friend Isabel who is in twelfth grade. I have written about her before because last year she often invited me to eat at her extended family’s house and her friendship has made quite an impression on me. Isabel has been very involved in many projects run over the years by PCVs in Mozambique such as REDES (a young women’s empowerment group), the Science Fair, and English Theater competitions. She is a bright young lady who dreams of being a nurse. It was a PCV she confided in almost 2 years ago when she thought she might be pregnant, and who supported her throughout the pregnancy.

These days Isabel rents a one-room reed hut in Chibuto so she can finish high school because there are no schools around her home village that go up to 11th and 12th grade. In addition to caring for her one-year old daughter, she attends school and takes care of all household responsibilities. This year her younger sister who studies in 11th grade also came to live in the small hut with her so she could finish high school and help out. The final person living in their humble residence is a 9-year-old who is an extended family member. This child’s parents left her in Mozambique while they went to live in South Africa, so she remained behind to serve as Isabel’s babysitter. The 9-year-old spends at least six hours a day with the one-year-old baby tied to her back, supervising, which is crazy to me because in the States I used to babysit nine-year-olds!

When I went to hang out with Isabel, she cooked rice and beans for us and offered me a big plate. She nursed her daughter as she talked about her plans of entering in nursing school next year. Isabel expressed concern over the pus-infected wounds that had recently appeared on her baby’s head, which I told her she should wash with clean water and take her baby to the hospital. A few weeks ago, Isabel’s baby was sick with diarrhea for an extended period, causing her to miss a lot of school. (We made plans to get together so I can teach her how to make a home oral-rehydration therapy to help treat her baby in the future, which is one of the roles I like best about being a PCV—the ability to help your friends in the community with the small things). As we sat there eating and chatting, I could not help but realize how lucky we are in the States to have such a high level of support from our parents. And Isabel is one of the lucky ones here in a sense because she does have a home with parents located only about an hour away; and she has a father who gives her money to pay school fees and for food. She just has a lot more responsibility and challenges to face than your average American teen.

Case #2 and #3 are my friends Eugenio and Edgardia. Both of them are smart teenagers; Edgardia just graduated from high school and Eugenio is on track to graduate in the next few years. Although having a high school degree is something to be proud of in any culture, in the States is widely taken for granted what a privilege it is to have that educational opportunity. Being a high school graduate is a huge deal in Mozambique and although more and more Mozambicans are attaining this level of education these days, most adults I know in Chibuto do not have their high school degree. What Eugenio and Edgardia have in common is that they both lost a parent and are being raised by a single parent. They both have another blessing in common, one that would be less likely to happen in our culture, which is that they have many older siblings that have stepped in to help the single parent raise the younger kids.

Case #4 is my 8th grade buddy Shelton who comes over to visit often with a huge smile and a long list of questions about how to say this and that in English. Shelton is raised solely by his mother although his father lives in the neighboring town. Shelton’s father does not play a role in his life. This is a common trend in Chibuto. Often father figures are absent in the lives of children around here. The amount of casual sex that goes on results in a lot of unplanned pregnancies; it then often falls entirely upon the woman as her responsibility to take care of the child and there is little to no social accountability for the man to accept the responsibility for the consequences of his actions. In the States, it is much more socially taboo for the man to get a woman pregnant and then not offer any support (although there are exceptions).

I have spent a good deal of time getting to know these four youth, all of which have touched me and impacted by Peace Corps service in positive way. It recently dawned on me how all of them are either growing up in single-parent families or without a high level of daily parental support, and yet all are growing up to be exceptional people. Why do I think this is, you might ask? One contributing factor that I think matters a lot is that all of these youth have a parent that values education and has done the best they can to support their kids in spite of the barriers.

I contrast that to many of the other children in my neighborhood who have already dropped out or who fail grades on a normal basis, and to my many female teenage neighbors whose early pregnancies became the decisive factor that led to them dropping out. Many of these children come from families with low education levels. They do not have the advantage of having adult role models to push them to do well in school, to help them with their homework, and to provide constructive activities for them to do doing their free time. It just puts in to perspective those moments I had and have seen many American teens have of fussing because your parents are getting on your nerves or pushing you too hard in school. But, now I see that damn were we lucky to have that luxury.

On Being Used in Ways that I Never Would Have Thought…

The Peace Corps is an experience about challenging yourself to go outside your comfort zone and then learning how to adapt, which in my opinion leads to a lot of personal growth. If anyone would have told me 5 years back that I would join the Peace Corps, or live in Africa, or be speaking Portuguese, or confidently navigating myself through the daily craziness of the market; I would not have believed any of these things that are my reality these days would have become part of my life story. However, I have always been interested in travel, languages, cultures, adventure and social justice so Peace Corps was not a completely random experience I chose; just an intense one! But if anyone had told me I would be leading an agricultural training, I surely would have laughed in their face. Agriculture has never played much of a role in my background, but I have taken a new interest in it since starting Peace Corps because it is so central to daily life in Mozambique. Around 80% of the population where I live are farmers, food security is a huge issue, and rather than eating many processed foods we buy fresh produce from the market or from or neighbors.

Last April, many of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers and I along with our Mozambican counterparts received a two-day training on the Bio-intensive Permaculture Garden because food security is such an issue here. These agricultural techniques are based on effectively managing water through creation of holes and water-directing swales, deep digging, composting, planting and management of crops to produce a high yield of food in a small space. My Mozambican co-worker thought it was interesting and so did I, and so we went home and put together a powerpoint presentation to show off what we learned and try to generate interest in putting the technique to use. Ultimately though, a permaculture project never got off the ground in our town. I was a little bummed, but my co-worker and I chose other projects to work on and I accepted that was probably the end of that.

So this year when my friend Katie asked me to come help her lead a permaculture training at her school I was excited, but nervous. I am definitely no expert, which I told her, but I was willing to study the manuals and had the overall idea in my mind from last year. We agreed to help lead students in her teacher training institute with the help of the agricultural professor at her school who had expressed interest in learning about permaculture. During the training, we started by teaching the students how to build compost piles and explaining all the benefits of the compost pile. Katie and I tried to explain all this agricultural terminology in Portuguese, which was comical because, who am I kidding, I do not even know it all in English!? However, with the knowledge and support of the Mozambican agricultural professor and because the students were engaged in the practical learning environment, they were able to fill in and add valuable information in our gaps. I showed off some pictures of gardens that had used compost in half versus no compost in the other half to show how much better the vegetables grew with compost to give a visual of the benefit.

We also measured out a good garden size and went to work digging channels and holes to direct the water, and double digging and providing soil amendments to the garden beds, all of which are important techniques for permagardening. At the end of the day, we had a very good start to the project and had generated a lot of interest and excitement in the project, although admittedly Katie and I are not the most qualified teachers. Thanks to Katie’s initiative I agreed to do the project, thanks to a passionate Returned Peace Corps Volunteer named Peter Jensen (who now works in Peace Corps staff in Tanzania and goes all over the world doing permaculture trainings) I learned about this agricultural process that can improve people’s lives, and thanks to the hard work of the students I was helping train we had something worthwhile to show for the day. It just proves that a little effort can go along way (in this case, Peter, Katie, the agricultural professor, the students, and I all had the desire to teach and learn), that with collaboration we go much further than we could ever go alone (neither Katie, nor me, nor the Mozambican professor, nor the students could have done the project alone), and that you only must be willing to go out of your comfort zone to be the difference you want to see in the world.

Robbery – Your Ticket to Nowhere

Yesterday had to be one of the most dramatic afternoons in my life thus far. The day started out like any other Thursday. I went to work at my community-based organization in the morning and came home around 1 pm for a lunch break. When I was preparing to leave to teach my English class at 2 pm, two teenage boys showed up to ask if they could borrow my guitar. A few weeks ago, one of my favorite students, a well-mannered 13-year-old boy named Shelton introduced me to his 15-year-old cousin named Alberto. Shelton has been coming to my house for months to practice his impressive English, to borrow my soccer balls, and to use a typing program I have on my laptop. So when his cousin Alberto asked to play my guitar on my porch a few weeks ago, I decided to let him sit outside my porch on a straw mat and play for a few minutes after he promised to be very careful. Since then Alberto has returned to my house a few times with different friends to ask to play my guitar, but always at inconvenient times. Alberto was polite, seemingly shy, and when I told him I was on my way out the door to go to the school, we decided he could come back over the weekend.

At 2 pm, I went two doors down to the high school and enjoyed working with two star high school students who always have a million questions about English song lyrics. I kicked those boys out of our “Youth Room” at 3 pm because our young women’s club meeting was scheduled to start. It was our first official meeting of the year and we had many new participants show up. We had just begun singing our first song about why it was important for the young women to stay in school when one of my star students interrupted. I asked him to return after our meeting to talk, but he said it was a grave matter – someone had stolen our computers and Abby and star student #2 were chasing the robber down. This news shook me up, but I went back to leading my young women’s group. I figured Abby would call if she needed me, but what was done was done, although I probably should have sprinted to my house directly.

About 10 minutes later, Abby called and confirmed that our house had been broken into and a young man had stolen our computers and torn up our house. Abby asked me to come quickly because she had no idea what to do; there was a hysterical lady crying in our living room beating a high school student who was apparently responsible for the crime while half the neighborhood had entered into our fence and were peering in through the windows. I dismissed the meeting immediately, almost as upset about having to leave the girls as I was about the robbery.

I came home to a nightmare of a scene, just as Abby had explained. I ran to my room and saw that a phone and I-pod were also missing from my room. That was distressing, but not nearly as much so as the 30 year-old woman sitting in our floor in the living room sobbing about the senselessness of the robbery. She was lamenting, “For what? I feed him everyday. He has a loving family. He has the opportunity to go to the school. Why would he rob? How could he do this to his family?”

Abby gave me a run-down of what had happened at that point. She came home after being gone less than an hour in the market. She unlocked the gate to our fence, unlocked the metal grated front door, the other front door, only to find that our back door was busted into and everything was in disarray. She immediately noticed the stolen computers and ran outside where she saw them sitting in a computer bag on top of our 6-foot fence. Just as she spotted them, a hand reached over and grabbed them so she sprinted out the front gate, eyed the teen with our computers in his hand, and started screaming, “We’ve been robbed!” The teen started running, but Abby chased after him. Enter our two star students who were leaving English class I had been teaching. They saw Abby running and were in disbelief because they exclaimed to us that they had never seen Abby run like that! So they came to help, recognized the teen, who by then had gotten scared and dropped our computers on the sandy road to escape. But not before, Amerigo, star student #1, had recognized this delinquent.
Abby recovered the computers and then Americo took Abby to the robber’s house, but he was not there. Americo then took Abby to find the guy’s sister, a very nice lady named Angelica who was distraught when she learned what had happened. Angelica went to find her brother, the alleged robber, and brought him to our house where she started throwing our furniture at him and yelling that she might have done a lot of bad things in her life, but never would she steal. When the teen continued to claim his innocence and would not give the rest of our things back, Abby told Angelica she was sorry, but she had to call the police. Angelica not only approved, but also said of course you have to call because he needs to be punished. We will all go to the police together.

I got home right before the police showed up. What was the most traumatic thing was how the police handled the situation! The first thing they did when they got there was yell at the teen and backhand him, push him onto the wall, and handcuff him! This was an Earth-to-Gracey moment because until that point, I had not realized that Alberto, my guitar-playing friend, was the one responsible for the crime! I had not pinpointed in the crowded room who was the perpetrator, and only thought he was there to be supportive—an innocent, unassuming 8th grader who is only 15 years old! Boy, did I have it wrong!

Then began the public humiliation where we started the parade to the police station. When people get arrested, they are not inconspicuously escorted in the back of a police car to the station. Instead, the suspect walks handcuffed in the front with police pushing him along with big guns (AK47s) while the victims follow behind with ever-growing crowds of onlookers. On the walk up, Alberto looks back at me—tears streaming down his face, blood dripping from his lip from his sister’s beating—pleading, “Mana Graça, nao fui eu.” It wasn’t me, using my name with a title of respect attached to it. The nerve.

In the bare police station, the female police officer told Alberto he better confess. The junior police officers made sure Alberto was low down on his knees while we sat with Angelica, his sister, and our two star students on a bench facing him. He continued to deny he was the culprit, and said that some man just gave him a bag and told him to run with it although he did not know what was in it. (Liar)! The police officers, our loyal students, and his sister had little patience with this game and they all told him if he did not confess where he hid all of our stolen belongings, he would be beaten by a crowbar-looking thing. Afterwards, Abby and I discussed how the hardest thing about the whole situation was watching all this violence, which is actually what it took to get the truth out of him. Village justice at work.

The police led him back down to the high school with his sister where he had hidden the rest of our belongings in a baggie in a field by the school. Meanwhile, Abby, our students, and I were asked if we wanted to open a lawsuit and to evaluate the worth of our stolen goods. We said no to the lawsuit and that we just wanted our things back. And they did come, about 45 minutes later, he re-emerged having made his third walk of shame that afternoon handcuffed in his school uniform! Abby and I spotted his sister walking next to him with a whole plastic bag full of our things (besides our I-pods and telephones, he had grabbed various speakers, and even items like my face wash and my make-up). To add to his embarrassment, the police looped a half-empty bottle of whiskey he had stolen from our freezer through his handcuffs. Message: say no to the bottle, kids!

After about 3 hours of this ordeal, we had miraculously recovered all our stuff and went home just after dark accompanied by our star students who walked us to the door. By that point, Alberto’s whole family had come up to the police station and were apologizing for his behavior, wondering out loud why their teen would do that to a neighbor especially when all his basic needs were met and when he had the opportunity to go to school. Apparently, Alberto had been skipping school to drink and getting into trouble at home recently. The bad decision that he made yesterday not only had immediate negative consequences such as public humiliation and being physically beaten, but will really make his future tough. There are no second chances in this culture for robbers who are caught; the school director came to the police station and expelled the boy from school. He has been living in the city with his older sister and extended family, but is now going to be sent back to the bush where he will work to help his mom. Although Abby had signed a declaration saying that we did not want the police to hold him any longer or put him in jail, as we were leaving the police said that wanted to hold him overnight. Americo and his friend told us that it was a form of corruption because the police wanted the family to pay money before getting Alberto out so they would get something out of it. From start to finish, it was just all one big mess!

Whereas Alberto’s decision to rob for some quick money, effectively bought him a ticket to nowhere, our star students were another story. They acted like heroes to us all day by walking us through the unfamiliar (and harsh) legal processes here. Moreover, while we were waiting at the police station they told Abby and I that this is exactly why they take school seriously, participate in extracurricular groups in the school, and stay away from too much alcohol. As they were explaining how often the corrupt behaviors the police were employing take place, they also talked about the ludicrousness of it. How are the police officers going to beat someone for robbing, but then turn around and rob the family of that robber to earn money, they asked. The outstanding students have a theatre group and they write plays that speak out about these injustices.

Although being robbed is awful, most of the community really came through for Abby and me big-time, which is reassuring. The adolescent’s sister, Angelica, came to check on us this morning to make sure we are doing okay, saying, “After something like this, we are family.” In spite of the awful situation, we were so lucky not only to get all of our things back, but also to have such strong community support and genuine concern. That day, the community made an example out of Alberto about how in the end it does not pay to rob, and how school, hard work, and honesty are the things that will take you far in life.

A Serious Case of Writer’s Block and Dealing with Disillusionment Before Finding My Saving Grace

When I first arrived in Mozambique, I had lots to write and share because everything was new and there were so many observations to be made. One of the reasons I have stopped updating my blog so often is because all the crazy ways of living and ludicrous scenes have become normal parts of my daily life. It has become commonplace to pass women who walk for miles balancing large loads of wood on their heads while carrying babies on their backs. I have all but forgotten that all the goats, pigs, chickens, and roosters that roam freely in the streets were ever an unusual sight to me. Bathing under the starry night sky is routine.
Another reason I have stopped writing is because I vowed to myself that I would not allow myself to get totally disillusioned with development work before I left to begin my Peace Corps service. Some of my well-meaning friends told me to think twice about going because I would surely come back completely jaded. I shrugged them off, figuring I would be able to handle the challenges, and saying the good would outweigh the bad.

But lately, I have been straining not to lose hope with development work. I have always liked to think of myself of someone with both idealistic and realistic views, heavy on the optimism. All my I’m-here-to-change-the-world hopes, have been doused with some major barriers in the past year and a half. I have been meeting many hurdles while working on my projects, and have now come to a crossroads where I have to decide how to move forward. Do I just give up on my projects and let pessimism and cynicism sink in? My heart tells me that is not the right answer. But then what is?

I have been searching for the answer to how to deal with my frustrations high and low. Most Peace Corps Volunteers experience my same frustrations and so we were given a manual with 25 Tips to refer back to when necessary.
I find it important to remember that:

•Development is disruptive. Most poor people cannot afford to change radically. It takes a huge amount of energy (physically and emotional) for average rural folk to maintain daily life, let alone try to break out of the poverty cycle.

•Do not give up and do not give in. Unfortunately, the process of development cannot be shortened. Respect that those you work with drew the short straw, appreciate that you did not. After you die, you can ask God about all this. For now, your anguish, guilt and questions about this will just from the task at hand and are really rather self indulging, if you think about it. (Peace Corps 25 Tips)

One of the challenging situations which affected me the most this week is the work my co-worker Paula and I do with a group of orphans and vulnerable children in a small community 7 kilometers outside of my town in a community called Uahamusa. The community is mostly women and children, many of the men are migrant laborers and either have left permanently or died off from HIV and AIDS related causes. Although my organization has been working with them for the past years, Paula and I only began our basic health education program last year. This was our first week re-starting the activities and it proved a difficult day for me. One of the reasons that we took a long break over the Christmas holidays is that the transport there is a huge problem. We have to cart the materials back and forth each time to Uahamusa because the unfinished community center is not yet a safe space to leave materials (the man who was supposed to finish died last week). This includes carrying heavy backpacks full of paper, pens, colored pencils, snacks, toys, and balls. It takes at least 1.5 hours to walk each way. After the hassle of toting all our materials there, we usually work with two groups of children. First we work with the children who study in the afternoon until they depart for school, and after the children who study in the morning come to the community center.

I found our work Tuesday to be particularly disheartening because Paula and I decided to do a very basic activity. We wanted to read and look at some pictures books in Portuguese that the town librarian had lent us and then allow the children to draw pictures of the objects in the books or whatever else they might like to draw. The children ranged from 7-18 years old, so I figured a picture book intended for toddlers would certainly be on their level. But Paula and I were both surprised to see how little they seemed to grasp the concept of learning, I felt like an alien (and in a sense I am, because I’m probably one of the only foreigners they met but I have worked with them for months already) when I was in front of them pointing to pictures and then reading them aloud in Portuguese. After our failure with the book, we decided to let them draw and so they drew pictures of houses and people and trees. This is good, but every time they draw, it is always the same thing – a house—and I get discouraged with how difficult it seems to get beyond that. At this point, Paula asked them in the local language how many of them still go to school. There was some arguing and lying, but the general consensus seemed to be 7 out of 16 children are still enrolled in school. The others, many of them only 7 or 8 years old, stopped attending and just stay at home or do not have anyone looking after them. I find it disheartening that these children drop out at such a young age. The other thing I find to be exasperating is that the only thing they seem to get is the snack provided at the end (although I guess that’s not much different from the States), and that my organization expects me to handle that every time, which is a whole other issue!

Compounded with the fact that it seems our progress has been minimal with these kids and that each week there is a constant struggle to find transport or walk both ways in the blazing heat without much food all day, I have been facing many other difficulties in my three other main projects. I returned feeling blue and dealing after my day in Uahamusa and was having an internal crisis about coming all this way and feeling that I have not been able to actually help that much or been that successful with our projects!

I did not realize I was even that upset until I marched over to my friend Filipe’s house where he graciously allowed me to skype my father using his Internet. Thus, begin a pour-my-heart-out to my dad conversation about how I was not feeling like I was in a good place and how I definitely was not cut out for development work long-term. First, we started with the children and my inability to get through to them and how it made me question whether it was worth the effort. My dad was great in that he challenged me to ask myself what, if any part, did my faith play in helping me determine if this was a worthwhile use of my time. Thinking back to my study of Jesus’ teachings in the Bible, and reflecting on the greatest role models I know, both famous figures (ie Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi) and people who have personally touched my lives (my parents, exceptional teachers and coaches, and Alamance Presbyterian church community members)…one of the most important lessons I have taken away is to help the poor. Jesus expressly states that extra care and attention should be given to widows and orphans, because as my dad pointed out, “Gracey, many of those orphans were never really given a fair shot at life.” I find strength in my faith to keep hoping and trying to make a difference rather than giving up despite disappointments.

We then transitioned into talking about why it might be so hard for these children to go deeper with Paula and I, past drawing pictures of houses and eating their cookies and juice at the end. “Don’t you think the children are trying to tell you something when they draw houses? Shelter is probably something that is not a guarantee in their lives, Gracey.” Good point – I guess it would be an understatement to say that their lives have not been a walk in the park. He then directed me to think about the hierarchal needs diagram I learned about in my psychology class and try and look at it from that angle. Whereas I seek to meet the needs at the very top part of the pyramid such as self-gratification, most of these kids are just trying to keep their heads above water and have their basic needs met such as shelter and food. I guess I should focus more on trying to provide simple activities consistently for the children and the fact that these programs are something out of the ordinary, and less on seeing unrealistic miraculous successes in the short time I am here. Patience never fails to be a challenge for me.

The phone conversation with my dad certainly helped, but there is no instant cure for my disillusionment with development work. Before hanging up, my dad challenged me to focus on working with the people that were motivated to work and just loving the rest for who they are and where they are at. Also, I needed reminding that these are common problems that anyone who does human development faces that exist all over the world, and they are not unique to poor countries like Mozambique. This all sounded like good advice, so I went home, mulled over it, and woke up with a fresh start the following day.

One of my other projects is running an “Extracurricular Activity Classroom” at the school with the other PCVs in my town and other high school professors that help out when they can. We open the classroom in the morning and afternoons at least 4 days a week where the youth can come to learn English, have homework help, participate in our jewelry-making project, and borrow sports balls to constructively occupy their free time. As I was teaching an English lesson and watching young women creatively design jewelry that next afternoon, I realized that the inspired, eager learners in the high school that come everyday have become my saving grace and they make this experience well worth it. I may not meet success in every project I try to help with in this community, and more often than not it seems like we have faced failures or things not working out the way we planned, but in the end I have met and been a resource to some youth that remind me of all the light and good shining through the dark in this world.

A Friday Night Out on the Town in Maputo

Although a lot of your Peace Corps experience is “roughing it,” I will not deceive you into thinking that is what it is all about. There are plenty of perks depending on your country of service. When I got my assignment to Mozambique, I remember people telling me, “You won the Peace Corps lottery.” In a lot of ways, I have found this to be true. We have beautiful beaches lining the coast, people are generally friendly; and although there is petty crime, it is pretty safe country. I would also add to this list of perks that the cultural events you can attend out on a Friday night in Maputo are unforgettable.

My friend Alexis and I arranged to have a ladies’ night out to go hear some live music last Friday. As we were driving along the coast, I marveled out loud, “Isn’t this funny? Just two young American girls out on the big town in Mozambique!” Occasionally, these thoughts still cross my mind because I never expected to join the Peace Corps or live in Africa for most of my life. Yet I have become so comfortable in Maputo, and sometimes I still cannot believe all the things that have happened along this big adventure that seems so normal now.

So on Friday: We park on the street and decide to check out the reggae festival going on at the cultural center to honor Bob Marley’s birthday. For the inexpensive entrance fee of 2 USD, we get to enjoy a great show with four reggae bands! It is a perfect summer night and we sit beneath a half-closed pavilion while the breeze floats in mixing with the pleasant music. The band on stage is full of energy jumping, dancing as if they are one with the music, singing about peace, love, and harmony. The crowd is a wonderful mix of foreigners and locals. The foreigners, a mix of expatriates and tourists, all seem enchanted by the allure of Mozambique on this Friday night. The locals are in their element, fixed below the stage rivaling the performers with their synced, fluid dance moves. It is interesting to watch the Mozambicans enter with their fashionable outfits, the girls looking so glamorous in their flowing tops, chunky jewelry, and skinny jeans. The term for skinny jeans in Mozambique, is garrafas, meaning bottle jeans. Mozambican women pull them off like I’ve never seen, and not just the thin girls; I’ve seen some curvy African mamas manage to wear them in a flattering way! Alexis leans over to me at one point, observing that she has never seen this many dreads in one room. I laugh, agreeing, of course we are at a post-humous birthday celebration for Bob Marley so it’s just to be expected! We stay until we’re tired, leaving relaxed and content.

On our short walk back to the car, Alexis and I hear another awesome-sounding band in a neighboring bar. Alexis looks over at me, catching me with a mischievous smile and says we absolutely must go check it out. I cannot resist, and although I am exhausted, I am pleased that we enter. This band of 7 members plays traditional Mozambican music. They play timbilas, xylophones made out of local materials that are very unique to Mozambique. They have all sorts of drums and guitars. I smile when I see this beautiful African woman playing the bass guitar, completely defying gender roles in this country. Progressive, I note. The band members are all dressed in traditional African clothes, wearing lots of beads, faces painted. They put on a good show, interacting with the crowd. One of my favorite parts about live music is just that – seeing how the band and the crowd interact – and I rarely am disappointed by the performances in Africa. Tonight the sexy main dancer does her moves, smiling confidently and moving effortlessly, while a local comes up and begins to dance with her. She does not mind, only turns up the intensity. An older European expatriate steps in, and then tries to out-dance this local. It is not a genuinely competitive rivalry, but more of a friendly dance-off. The woman dancer plays along for awhile. The crowd loves it, especially when she manages to outdo both of them with ease – the obvious winner. We leave after the set, thoroughly pleased with our night out. I think about how on Monday I will be back to “roughing it” in my town holed in my house after dark, but along the way all the exotic, different cultural events I have gotten to experience along the way. How much of the world I have been able to see and what an enriching journey this has been.

My Reflections on Being Halfway Home

I had the opportunity to go home and visit North Carolina for the holiday season during part of December and January. It was a month of bliss for so many reasons! I was able to reconnect with my family and many dear friends after being out of the States for almost 15 months! Although I have loved being on this great big adventure and met many wonderful people along the way, it rings true for me that there is no place like home. The separation from loved ones has been the most difficult part about this once in a lifetime adventure.

Some of my other favorite things about going home were simple things such as running water, hot showers, and familiar food. The variety of food was never-ending and I drank a whole year’s worth of Dr. Pepper and sweet tea to make up for lost time with those two true loves of mine. Fast food restaurants and delivery pizza were heaven on earth.

It was liberating to have access to a car again and so nice to be able to jet around on my own schedule to wherever I wanted whenever I wanted. My perspective on personal cars has definitely changed since living in Africa. I have a different perspective on how unique it is that many families own not just one personal car, but several! I rediscovered how costly and what a responsibility it is to drive private cars. My biggest expense while at home was gas, which adds up quickly in the sprawling state of NC. I take a car to do everything in the States – to eat at a restaurant, go shopping, go to a friend’s house, work out at the gym—which translates to multiple car trips per day. This is a stark contrast to my daily life in Mozambique where I walk everywhere including work, school, my market to buy groceries, my friends’ houses, and local restaurants. Sometimes I go weeks without riding in a car.

That got me thinking…I remember back in college when one of my professors in my Environment and Society class had us take an online quiz determining what our carbon footprint on this Earth was; I am curious to see how my carbon footprint in the States would compare to my carbon footprint in Mozambique. I would dare to guess that my carbon footprint in Mozambique for an entire year would be less than how much carbon I emit in the air in just a few weeks of my life in the States. With the smaller towns, simpler lifestyles, and the limited number of personal cars, the average Mozambican is forced to live a much different lifestyle than the average American who always on the go. While visiting the States, I really enjoyed driving but this experience has forced me to reexamine how unusual our situation is and all the pros and cons that accompany this privilege. In conversations this week, I have been throwing around the questions with my colleagues and peers: What if all 6 billion plus people in this world owned a private car? Traffic is already a great problem worldwide and only grows bigger each year. Think of how exponentially pollution would expand and what consequences this would have for our world. Driving enabled me to see lots of people and accomplish many tasks over the break, but I have become more mindful of how all the travel (done the way it’s done now) is taking its toll on our Earth.

Another refreshing thing about being home was the anonymity I enjoyed in public. Around my town in Mozambique, you draw lots of attention as a white foreigner and are constantly treated differently. When I get in a chapa, the minibuses that serve as our public transport, I am offered the mulongo seat in front next to the driver. This is the most un-cramped seat, usually the only one with a seatbelt, and it often gives the driver a chance to talk to the white person. Many of my PCV girlfriends and I are often hit on by the drivers who badger us to give them our phone numbers (this is another reason I was loving being in the driver seat of my own car back home, both figuratively and literally). After a year of constant spotlight, I welcomed blending into the crowd. I can safely say that I don’t think I would make it as a celebrity ever.

The States offers a lot more privacy in general than Mozambique. Our material wealth enables us to put up walls and spend our time holed up in big houses with huge yards separating us. Many Mozambicans do not have the choice or the luxury to this privacy both within and outside their homes. The average Mozambican household is a small cement house or a reed hut with way more people than rooms. This means no private suites, bedrooms with TVs, or even enough beds to go around. The average Mozambican family is large with all kinds of extended relatives living in the same house or compound so everyone knows everyone’s business. My roommate Abby and I have a 6 foot reed fence that does afford us some privacy, although it’s rapidly deteriorating because some unruly neighborhood children love to tear it apart. Even with the fence, it seems like our neighbors know our every move and often like to report back to us on a list of all the guests who have dropped by our house on a given day. This was to our advantage last year when we had a strange man in the community continually drop by our house because the closeness of houses and lack of privacy allowed the neighbors to be involved and send him on his way anytime he tried to bother us. One positive consequence I have noticed is that because the Mozambicans are forced to be around each other all the time, you often see them laughing, singing, and so content to be in each other’s presence. In the States, sometimes all the walls we put up have negative consequences and people end up old and lonely having spent so much time holed away in front of computers and TVs and other entertainment to ease the loneliness. It is not easy to isolate yourself in an environment like my town in Mozambique.

One of the starkest contrasts is the differences in schools between Mozambique and the States. I had the opportunity to visit both my mother’s 8th grade classes in Greensboro and my friend Sarah’s kindergarten class in Raleigh in January. When I went to the schools in the States, I had to check-in at the office where a video-camera snapped a picture of me and printed out an official visitor pass. I walked into the classrooms, which all had less than 30 kids, desks, books, computers, central heat, electricity, running water – you get my point, resources! My mom and Sarah both had volunteer helpers to assist them. The students had snack time and/or lunch time at school, which would be unheard of in Chibuto.

I visited my neighborhood primary school just yesterday in Chibuto. It was mind-blowing. There are 1800 students (approximately, they still do not have official records) and 39 professors. There was definitely no fancy office for me to check into as a visitor! In fact, there was not even a desk to speak of in the whole school. The students sat on empty sacks as their desks. This school was so overcrowded that there were not enough classrooms. When this becomes a problem in the States, it usually means that the school resorts to constructing trailers. At this primary school, their solution for not having enough classrooms was constructing makeshift tents out of empty sacks where the teachers held class for 50 students. I was escorted from tent to tent to greet the children. What surprised me even more were the classes being held under trees. During my visit, it started thundering and lightning which frightened many of the children and disrupted class completely. The other shocking thing that there were only four latrines available for students to use and they looked unsanitary. You would think that I would not just be learning this 15 months into my service, but I do most of my work at the secondary school adjacent to my house, which was recently redone by the World Bank, and out in the country where poor learning conditions are to be more expected. I was caught off guard to see all my professor friends and neighbors learning in such a poor school right in the town. Oh, how good we have it back home in the States in so many ways that we do not realize!

I found my blog title to be appropriate because my visit home marked the halfway point in my Peace Corps service, but not only am I halfway home in terms of time. I found that coming back to Mozambique and my town in Chibuto was like being halfway home. 15 months ago, sub-Saharan Africa was just a faraway land was completely foreign and slightly terrifying to me. I remember looking out the airplane window as we were landing and not believing I was about to try and make a home in Mozambique – it was not just a land I have never been to, but I did not know a soul, did not know much about the culture, and it had a language that I had never spoken. “Who was I fooling,” I thought to myself, “how will this ever be a home because it’s just so different!” Let me be clear that it did not feel like a home at the beginning – not when I was being showered by strangers, not when I was being served river fish for breakfast at 6 am, nor when I arrived to my town and had a terrible case of food poisoning in 40 degree Celsius heat. But this year, I gave a confident goodbye to my folks, and hopped onto that plane from America, feeling like I was going halfway home to Mozambique. I looked out the plane window, happy that I was going back to continue my work, to continue building friendships, keep improving my Portuguese for year two.

These first few weeks have certainly been confirmation of that feeling. Exhibition one is that I have established family in this faraway land. I went to visit my host family in the hospital because my new baby host brother, Tomas, needed to have an operation in the capitol. Tomas was born last November and my host family actually invited me to name him. When I walked into the hospital during visiting hours, Mama Adelia and Papa Isaias were telling everyone that I was their daughter, and that I had just arrived from America. Exhibition two is the warm welcome back Abby and I arrived to in Chibuto. We were greeted by a whole gaggle of children from our neighborhood and our friends all rushed over to give us hugs and kisses. We arrived exhausted, hot, and with a lot of baggage, but within the first minute, the kids had taken our baggage and relieved the burden, leading us to this home. And it might not be the real thing, but it sure feels darn close this second year, which makes this voyage one of the most worthwhile experiences of my life.

"The Sexy Jewelry Store"

There has been a big push in the recent years to help start micro-businesses and give out micro-finance loans. I have always had this idealistic dream to help start up a micro-business ever since I learned about it in college, but only recently have I actually gotten on that train, which is super exciting. However, our micro-business train is just starting to move and we have a long way until those wheels are moving efficiently and rapidly.

So what is our fine product, you may ask if the blog title has not given it away? To make fun jewelry using locally available products! The creators and entrepreneurs are young women and (brave) men (unafraid to break down gender roles) from the high school who meet in their free time to make earrings, headbands, and rings. My Mozambican counterpart and I bought materials for the girls who received our purchases and industriously began creating different earring styles.

We are using their created products to show them how a good idea put into action can be turned into a profitable initiative. We are trying to teach the young entrepreneurs good business skills such as marketing, keeping inventories and sales records, and having first-rate customer service. The young women are included in discussion on what to do with profits, which we have decided to save part, give a small subsidy to them for incentive to continue, and use the rest for our extracurricular club. The young women have plans to sell their products locally and hopefully take advantage of their connection to the States through PCVs and sell their products there in expositions. It has been awesome to see their minds start turning as they think up possible new products and think of other unrelated business opportunities such as selling popcorn at school during snack break because they are looking for demands and a way to supply those demands.

Hopefully we will get this micro-business train on the right track, one that will continue long after we have gone. Only then, will we have reached our goal. We will have equipped high school students with a skill set to ensure that they can be conductors in their future generation rather than passengers looking for a free ride, which has sadly become the case in much of Africa (and for that matter, too many people like that worldwide). The way international development has been done has left many Africans reliant on handouts when in reality it is better for both the developer and beneficiaries of the development work to work together to focus on building human capacity. In lieu of the old adage that "it is better to teach a man to fish rather than fish for him", our micro-business’ goal for the 2010 year will try to be to get all our students aboard so that new leaders are born and the very capable and intelligent Mozambican young women learn to help themselves!

P.S. I titled my blog “The Sexy Jewelry Store” because it’s a funny anecdote about the entire learning process the young women are going through. One of the instructions my Mozambican counterpart and I gave our young women to inspire creativity was to think up a name for our business. A few returned the next day with this name “Bejutaria Sexy,” and we got the biggest kick out of it. We said, “Thank you girls for the idea, and we get that our products are going to be incredibly sexy because they’re pretty and feminine. However, that’s probably not the most appropriate name because we do not want to market ourselves primarily as being sexy. This is a women’s empowerment group and there are a whole lot of other adjectives that would be a better choice for our public image – intelligent, capable, creative, and so on.” Anyway, they got that after our explanation and we decided upon a more fitting name and that’s that. Little victories.

Party Party Party in Chibuto!

When you think of party, what are the first words that come to your mind? Perhaps fun, celebration, good friends, cake, cocktails, dancing, or something of the sort. To me, all those things comprise elements of a good party. Parties are usually something out of the ordinary to look forward to, but I have to admit that I was not excited about putting on the CARE Party because I knew it would be a lot of work and would not involve a lot of those aforementioned words.

Parties are one thing, but party planning is a whole other realm which can be stressful and leave you feeling anxious about whether the party will be a success. Although party planning in the States is serious work, I’m going to say relatively you’ve got it good. Here’s one case in point. For parties in Mozambique, it is customary that all the adults get together and cook a big meal with some type of meat because it’s too expensive for many families to have in their diet often. In the States, the party planners would a) have the food catered, b) buy rotisserie chickens at the Fresh Market, or 3) buy frozen chickens at Super Target and go home and cook them in a nice big kitchen in the oven, but that’s not how it went down in Chibuto!

We were celebrating the end of our 6 week program named CARE, which Abby, our colleagues, and I designed to teach children between aged 7-15 how to care for themselves and their world. 70 orphans and vulnerable children came to participate in the festivities which meant lots of mouths to feed, so obviously cooking was a bit of an ordeal. My co-worker Lidia and I bought everything but the chickens to prep for the party days before, but had to wait until the morning of to buy the live chickens. The day of the party 12 activistas, a group of mostly HIV positive ladies who are leaders in the community and examples for how you can still live a normal life despite having HIV, volunteered to be our kitchen staff and rounded up huge pots, spoons, and plates from all over the neighborhoods. I was in charge of money so I went with 3 co-workers to buy 20 live chickens in the market. On the quarter mile walk there, I started asking how we were going to carry them all. When they told me that each of us were going to carry 5 live chickens at back at once, my eyes got huge, and I told them they had to be kidding. But, I psyched myself up to be a good sport and we entered the smelly market section with hundreds of live chickens. I paid the $4 for each live chicken, and then let my co-workers put 5 upside down squawking chickens in my hand and we were off. I got a lot of looks and smiles from the locals on the way back to the office, and I think I impressed some of the activistas. (No wonder Mozambican ladies are in such good shape – carrying 5 chickens at a time puts any dumbbell arm workout to shame!)

The women spent all morning cooking and singing together as Abby, my co-workers, some teenage children I recruited (I am Mary Helen’s daughter after all), and I led the festivities. In the morning, they were free to run around and we had sidewalk chalk, drawing stations, books for them to read in English, soccer balls, and jump ropes for the children to play with. We started with about 40 city kids, but 25 children arrived singing boisterously in an overloaded pick-up truck, which came into town from the outskirts of the city! It reminded me of so many church events I have gone to over the years – parents organizing food, kids running about having a great time with all their friends – friendly people really coming together as a community to celebrate life.

After all the guests had arrived, we started the activities, which were just basic field day activities from the States that people enjoy worldwide. The sack race was first and hilarious because so many little children jumped right out of their sacks, fell to the ground, or could have out-hopped the Easter Bunny! It was highly competitive because the winning teams got candy and kept rushing Abby, who quickly became the most popular adult at the party. We continued on to balloon relay races and limbo – everyone was smiling and laughing, even me, the girl who had been the stressed party planner.

The activistas kept coming up to Abby and me and telling us how happy they were that their kids were participating in this program, and our co-workers for the week after would not stop talking about it. It really was a wonderful ending to our first year of service, and a reminder that although Abby and I get frustrated and feel like sometimes we are not doing enough or being effective, that our efforts are appreciated and maybe we are making more strides than we think. Abby and I might have been the organizers, but I was also so thankful that the activistas had pulled together a lunch and helped us serve it without chaos (the real miracle) to all 70 children. It could not have been accomplished without them! The CARE Program and ending party formed a good base for the project we are hoping to start next year with some of the activistas, which will be a pre-school in Uahamusa, the community 7 kilometers outside the city. It will take much more work and effort than just a day to get the project off the ground, but our party was a great way to kick it off. Here’s to energy and success in the upcoming year for creating a pre-school to permanently teach children how to care for themselves and their world in the midst of a poverty-stricken town!

Dealing with Death

One of my REDES girls, Edna, called me last month with news of a family tragedy. Her sick father had passed away prematurely leaving behind a widow and 7 children. I was away from my site because it was a Mozambican holiday so I missed the funeral, but went over twice that week to pay my respects at Edna’s request. I remember thinking I needed to visit her house to show my support and because that’s what friends do, but I remember dreading it because it’s hard to know what to say or how to act in the face of death. My parents gave me good advice long ago – don’t say it’s all going to be okay, don’t try to talk reason into it saying, “God wanted it this way because…” – just be there. So remembering this advice, I went and sat with the family, meeting Edna’s mother, siblings, and out-of-town grandmother for the first time.

Most of the women were seated on straw mats covered in black fabrics, but rather than seat myself on the mats they insisted I sit in a chair. They would not let me leave until they had cooked and I had eaten. While I waited, so many neighbors passed in and out of the house, just to pay their respects and see how the family was doing. A death is something the community feels as a loss, as an extended family, rather than an event the immediate family mourns alone. While we sat, the newly widowed lady also had her toddler grandson crawling around on her and making her and everyone else in the room smile. The power of a child to bring happiness and remind us of all that is good in this world is truly amazing. I left, and promised I return to visit soon upon their urging.

A few weeks ago, Edna asked me if I would go to the “40 Days Mass,” a service that some families do here, as a way to commemorate the life of the lost loved one and another healing service that takes place a month after the funeral. Again, I was not looking forward to the service because I knew it would start early and last most of the day, be hot, and I because I was unfamiliar with the layout of the ceremony. Not to mention I would be the sole foreigner and sometimes am made to eat things I’d rather not. Even so, I knew it was important to go and reminded myself that friendships are only deepened when you share in each other’s burdens and sorrows – not just celebrations and fun.

The day before the ceremony Edna and her sisters stopped by my house and told me all the important details I’d need to know for the ceremony tomorrow. The ceremony would start between 6 and 7 am on the Saturday morning (so no hope of sleeping in). I needed to wrap a capulana around my waist and drape another over my shoulders. At 7 am we were to leave for the cemetery and then we’d come back, have the mass, and finally eat.

It had been a long week, so I rolled out of bed exhausted, wrapped two African capulanas around my body (they kept falling and I felt slightly self-conscious dressed like that, but hey, when in Rome…), arriving right at 7 am. I found all the men and boys sitting in plastic chairs and all the women sitting on straw mats while the young girls scurried around starting food preparation. I was shown to a chair because I was considered a guest of honor as a foreigner, but I insisted on sitting with the other women on straw mats. Almost immediately my neighbor noticed one of my capulanas had an oil stain (whoops, a huge faux pau) so the women took care of it by offering me another stain-free capulana.

The next announcement was a huge surprise – the truck driver that was going to take us to the cemetery stepped out and gave a short speech in the local language saying the women would wait at the house while the men went to the cemetery. This had to do with a statute of the Islamic faith from how it was explained to me. Edna’s father had been Muslim while her mother and the children practiced Catholicism. It was interesting how this family of mixed faith incorporated beliefs and traditions of both faiths throughout the day. While the men went to the cemetery, I waited with the women on the straw mats. The widow and some of the neighborhood women began crying while others sat silently helping absorb her pain through their presence.
The next part of the day was breakfast after the men had returned from the cemetery. The women persisted that I sit at the table and chat with the men, and I happily obliged because after awhile those straw mats are uncomfortable! Breakfast was welcome – not only because I was hungry, but also because I was starved for the Portuguese the men were speaking after I had spent the last few hours listening (and not understanding) the women chatter away in Changana. It was obvious that the deceased man and his family were very well established in the community because of all the prominent community guests. Over tea, I conversed with the school director, an important man in Chibuto, about my projects.

The mass following breakfast was a lot of singing and speeches in Changana by neighborhood people, while we alternated between sitting and standing. At one point, a collection plate was passed around and the community all pitched in coins to offset the cost of the food the family had bought for the “40 Days Mass”. The school director gave the only speech I could understand completely. Originally from northern Mozambique, the school director does not speak Changana, so he gave a moving speech in Portuguese about how he and the neighborhood were there until the last day accompanying this man to the hospital and hoping and praying for him. I was sitting by Edna and her younger sister for the mass, and although Edna had always asked me to be there for her after her father’s death I had never seen her in an emotional state about it, even during my visits immediately following his death. Usually Edna and her sister had been running around cooking when I visited, but this service was their one public opportunity to stop and have a good cry. Tears streamed silently down their faces for the entire mass, as they used their capulanas to wipe them away. As soon as the service was over, their tears had stopped, they recomposed themselves and they were off to continue cooking and serving the guests. I thought to myself what a healthy way of dealing with death this community has – rather than avoiding it or dealing with it holed up alone in your house, the whole community grieves, remembers and celebrates the life of the lost loved one, healing together.

Lunch was served, and boy was it a feast – goat, pork, chicken, beans, xima, and rice – that many women had worked hard to prepare. I sat in a room with Edna and all her other sisters and young relatives and shared a meal, laughing and discussing the similarities and differences between Mozambique and the States. After the mass, the mood was considerably lighter and joking had commenced. I eventually excused myself because I had to travel to a neighboring town and was exhausted, but the girls insisted on accompanying me home. I left this all-day event with 5 young women in tow who walked me to my house, and thanked me for coming. I, however, felt thankful because of all that I learned from taking part in their cultural practices and how with each experience like this I am gaining a new understanding and appreciation for humans and our fundamental similarities, although we may have been born cultures and lands apart.

* I wanted to include this passage called “The Pearls of Poverty” one of my friends shared with me months ago because at this particular event, I would dare to say I witnessed an act of the pearl of love. Although after being here a year I am not so naïve as to say these always hold true, I still see a lot of veracity in them and think the passage worth sharing.

The Pearls of Poverty

“I often say that everything good I really need to know I learned from the poor themselves, in the fields and around the campfires in Nielle (= village on the Ivory Coast where Stafford grew up with his parents who were missionaries). They taught me what matters most, and I use those values to try to shape the culture of the present.
Those precious values I have come to call the “pearls of poverty,” given to me by the peasants of West Africa. The pearl is like a jewel, like the ruby, the diamond, the sapphire. But unlike the others, a pearl comes originally from suffering. The oyster gets a grain of sand inside its shell. This is uncomfortable; it hurts the oyster. Over time, the oyster begins to protect itself from that irritant by coating it with a secretion, layer upon layer, until it becomes a smooth, brilliant, shining treasure—a pearl! Wealthy women wear strings of them around their necks and wrists, seldom remembering that some little creature suffered greatly to provide such beauty.

The lessons my village gave me were just such treasures. Many of them came from the suffering, hunger, sickness, and vulnerability of the peasant eking out a living for himself and his family in the harsh, rural African environment. Here are a few of the precious pearls I still carry in my heart today.

The pearl of love. Nothing is more powerful in the world today. It cannot be bought; in reality, it belongs to the very poor as much as to the very rich. My village taught me in so many ways that you may not have anything else to give, but you can always give love. The great mystery, of course, is that though you give it away, it never runs out.

Sometimes in the midst of famine or disease, when the villagers had virtually no money, no medicine, no answers, all we could do for one another was to give love. Nobody died alone in Nielle. As much as it broke our hearts, we would be there for each other’s final moments of life. When you hold a friend in your arms and feel that final tremble as he or she slips into the arms of the heavenly Father, you can never be the same again. You become compelled by love.

The pearl of joy. The poor comprehend that joy is not dictated by the circumstances of life. Joy is a decision, a very brave one, about how you are going to respond to life. We in the West tend to be joyful when things go our way and good things are happening in our lives. For the poor, such good fortune and good things almost never come. Yet laughter and smiles abound.

Over the years as I have hosted dozens of Compassion’s “vision trips” to the developing world, I’ve observed that Western visitors are greatly surprised by this. They simply can’t believe how much joy thrives in the midst of harsh realities. If the poor chose to respond with anger or frustration, the world would be a much more dangerous place. Since the poor make up nearly two out of every three people on earth, imagine the ramifications if they had not learned to glean joy from the harshness of their everyday lives.

The pearl of hope. This is another courageous decision. Even when life’s harshness and injustices pile up, the poor cling tenaciously to hope. They will humble you with their absolute belief in a loving God who can be trusted to sustain and bless them. We tend to be hopeful when we have more assets then liabilities. The poor always have more liabilities than assets. Yet their hope is consistently and amazingly strong.

Their prayers in times of overwhelming crisis have both humbled and strengthened me over the years. I have nothing more than to sit listening to a peasant pastor as he unpacks the Scriptures for his little congregation. He hands out nuggets of truth. The handholds for hope are there for all of us but are made plainest to those in poverty, for whom survival actually depends on hope in their God.

The pearl of perspective. The poor understand that time is to be our servant, not our master, and as a result they manage to have time for one another and what is important. The tyranny of time, I find, is a dreadful disease, especially for the wealthy; among them it is a nearly fatal condition and horribly contagious. I feel this dichotomy keenly in my frequent world travels. When I get on a plane in Paris and get off five and ½ hours later in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, I find that the obsession with time has been left somewhere up there at 35,000 feet.
Another pearl the poor have shown me is the reality that people matter; things don’t. Here in the West, the general name of the game seems to be “use people to get things.” We even have bumper stickers that are humorous but all too true to our values: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” If we stop and put the values of eternity into perspective, we realize that we take nothing with us. Our only legacy is the lives of the people we have touched in Jesus’ name.

…I will mention one more pearly of poverty: knowing how to give and receive. It has often been said, “You cannot out-give God.” That is true. And the corollary is this: “You cannot out-give the poor.” They, like God, will overwhelm you with generosity if given the choice. To give selflessly is truly one of the greatest joys in life. Unfortunately, much of our giving here in the West tends to be in the form of investment. As we write our check, we inwardly question, What’s in this for me? In contrast, the poor widow who gave her last coins that day in the temple touched Jesus’ heart, because she gave all that she had with absolutely no idea that the Lord of Glory was standing right there observing her. It would have blown her mind to be told that two thousand years later, her quiet act of giving would be used as a noble example and would underlie a common expression, “the widow’s mite.”

These pearls of poverty, taught quietly and consistently by the people of Nielle, made deep impressions in the wet cement of my spirit. You can live and succeed in the everyday whirlwind of life without them, but where they show themselves, they are recognized and still valued in our hearts. We know the kind of people we all, deep inside, want to be.” [Wess Stafford, Too Small to Ignore]