"The Field" 25 km north of Xai-Xai

We arrive in our peri-urban destination a half hour before preschool starts. A baby goat wanders and two children play on the playground in the open clearing that can best be described as this community's town square. Mothers are supposed to accompany their three- to six-year-olds to the preschool every morning, but most send them unattended. The animadoras (preschool teachers) should be here, but they're running behind schedule. The weather is cold and windy; it looks like it will rain. Its supposed to be the dry season, but a brief torrential downpour keeps many children and parents from coming to preschool and parenting meetings that day.

The community leader and preschool management committee President greet me and the community development assistant (CDA), a Mozambican man who speaks Changana and has developed rapport with this community over time. Yesterday, the animadoras sent six children home with notes asking caregivers to attend to escolinha (preschool) business at 9 am in addition to 12 pm for the usual parenting meeting. The community leader takes the absence of mothers as an opportunity to explain that although participation is generally good, the problem is parents who “have ears but don't hear us.” He explains that the greatest challenge his community is facing is its inability to mobilize incentivos (financial incentives) for the volunteer teachers.

Save (the Children) paid animadoras' incentivos for the preschools' first two years, but the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) communities signed stated that the latter would assume this financial responsibility within three years. The MoU also laid out other ways that parents should contribute to the preschool: construction (classroom and playground), maintenance (bringing water and cleaning) and attending monthly meetings about appropriate parenting strategies for holistic childhood development. My knowledge of international development (ID) suggests that Save's emphasis on caregiver participation is likely an appropriate means for stimulating preschool ownership, improving human development outcomes and ensuring the financial and institutional sustainability of preschools into the future. Through my summer internship and research, I hope to evaluate its cultural-appropriateness and effectiveness, offering constructive suggestions for how to facilitate more parental participation in these and other communities.

The first of the six mothers invited arrives twenty minutes behind schedule. I wonder if she is reliant on the absent sun to tell time, but later catch a glimpse of the cell phone in her lap under her capulana shawl. She is wearing a stocking cap, gold studs and flip flops; she looks at the ground or into the distance as she speaks. A single mother, R provides for her family by selling mandioca and oranges. R's mother helps with child care and preschool activities when she is unavailable. R was traveling when the community signed the MoU; no one ever communicated to her about the monthly 20 Metacais (MTn, $.60 USD) that she would be asked to contribute toward animadora incentivos. The sum is nominal (you can spend as much on a beer or a week's tomatoes) but R has only in the last several months been able to pay the sum due for this school year (which began in February).

The little paper that resulted in R's presence in front of me didn't explain what she was coming to do; I wonder if she would have sacrificed going to the machamba (agricultural plot) if she had known that her fate was to answer some young researcher's questions. Feeling guilty for using her time, I thank her for coming this morning and prioritizing the preschool in general; even in Mozambique, time is money. Two more women straggle in over the next two hours: a younger mother with tightly-curled braids and sturdy sandals and a fiesty grandmother who speaks with her hands. They both smile and look me squarely in the eyes. When I ask VoVo (grandma, as one can fondly call any old woman) what motivated her to come today, she says explains that she hopes to exchange with me; I open up the floor for her to ask me questions.

As with other informal meetings, we conclude with a long exchange of kanimambus. I thank them for sharing about their lives and teaching me about their culture. I validate their participation in preschool activities and encourage them to mobilize others in their community for all of their children's futures. The caregivers claim that my visit has reinvigorated their commitment to preschool participation and that they will long remember our conversations. Its hard to know how true that is or what to feel about being afforded that much power. Despite my coursework warning me about people telling you what you want to hear. I feel simultaneously hopeful, conflicted, inspired, grateful and acutely aware of the complex set of challenges these women and children face. Being white and educated in rural Mozambique has a strange after-taste I have yet to fully identify and articulate.


Saturday, 12 June, 2010

Although Mozambiaque's 35th independence day is approaching (June 25), my host father was quick to declare, “we are still colonized.” His evidence? In order to communicate in his own country, he speaks his second language, that of his colonizer. I would add to that his almost evangelist commitment to the Catholic faith. The first of many inevitable questions: “Do you believe in God?” I decided it prudent to say yes, but explained that I think of it differently- understanding 'god' as energy, something beyond us. This appeared to be only mildly satisfying, launching us into a discussion of the world's major religions.

“What religion are you?” he insisted. I admitted that I aligned most closely with Buddhism, a philosophy whose tenets, leadership and origin needed explanation. We had spoken about my reasons for vegetarianism before, but a light seemed to go off when I mentioned compassion for not only humans but also animals and earth. I thought we had perhaps come to a respectful understanding, but the next day: the question of my religion again. Per usual, our conversation was occurring over the nightly news; Mozambicans like to talk over the television rather than watch it. Against the blaring backdrop of World Cup updates, Dono Meque asserted that I should be Catholic and suggested I tell me mother to go back to the church as well...

In Mozambique, being mulongo (white) is notable enough, but a twenty-four-year-old, vegetarian globe-trotter that doesn't associate with any religion is almost beyond comprehension. Add to that the true but misleading answer to the question, “Do you have a husband/boyfriend?” and I am a conundrum of the highest sort. Having address these issues with my host parents, today I relived the conversations with their siblings and in-laws. No matter, Madalena's daughter-in-law proceeded to explain to me how to marinate the chicken and duck that she had just beheaded and plucked in front of my eyes. M, Dono Meque's sister and I have just covered my religion and relationship status when the family's recent death came up. Meque's brother died on May 15, leaving two wives and nine children. Every once in a while, one of the wives appears in black (as they will both dress for the next year) and speaking rarely, and then only in Copi.

Are you only wives? I ask. “Yes,” they answer, “but our husbands assuredly have amiguinhas” (a euphemism for mistresses). M (Madalena's son's wife, to whom I indirectly owe my stroke of housing luck) expounds: “The kids and I are here this weekend- you don't think my husband's home alone?” Doesn't that bother you? I probe. “What can I do?” is her answer, “Its a man's right.” My feminist is raging at the misappropriation of the word right in this context and I can't help but ask, Says who? “The Bible” comes the surprising response. Hoping M might decide its not worth the trouble to find a nice, local man for me to date, I mused aloud: I don't think I can marry a Mozambican after all. Ah, sweet sacrilege!

Sunday, 6/6/10 from “my” Xai-Xai backyard, Gaza Province, Mozambique

A large sand rectangle, the backyard is demarcated by the main house, two smaller houses, a wire fence and some cement-block walls. Two university students live in the little one-room apartments: they are in and out, alternating between studying inside, visiting with friends under the largest shade tree (under which I am also sitting) and cooking over an open fire. I hear not only their conversations but also music (likely from the nearest beauty salon) and laughter, roosters' and babies' cries and cars' horns and engines. My host family's house is situated on Estrada Nacional Numero Um; the road runs the full length, 1430 miles, of the country from South to North. Its primacy speaks nothing of its conditions: its winter (75 F during the day and 55 at night) so it has been raining and the red dirt road is riddled with little canyons (holes would be an understatement) such that drivers regularly swerve onto the shoulder as a matter of courtesy to their riders.

I live with two retired teachers, Dona Madalana and Dono Meque (or “Mack” in English, which he attempts). The house is large and luxurious by Mozambican standards; I was very lucky to find a room to rent (albeit filled with Dona Madalana's clothes and other possessions) in a family home, especially one so centrally located and affordable. My host parents are very nice, willing to share and teach; they have a large extended family in the area that often drop in unannounced. Today, for instance, Madalana's daughter, son-in-law and their six month baby dropped in just to meet me. I moved in Friday morning and that night joined my host parents, their cousins, nephews and neices in watching the news, drinking wine and chatting. That first evening, Dono Meque gave me a small book he wrote on the composition of the Vacopi family (despite his proclaimed specialization in the psychology of teaching or what I assume to be pedagogy).

Indeed, my host family is Vacopi, which means they speak a minority language (phonetically “Chopi”) within the country and province. They also speak Portuguese, but they have been quick to encourage me to learn Copi words and phrases. There is no way to distinguish the physiques of those that speak Copi and Changana, the mother tongue among almost 90 percent of Gazans. But when I accompanied Dona Madalana to the Xai-Xai market on Saturday, I discovered there may be other cues. She was on a mission to buy for a cousin in the country a specific capulana, a patterned piece of cloth most women wear as skirts; some patterns can be classified as Copi and this one was particularly hard to find. The only white person in the open-air market, I attracted the attention of men and little boys, alike- the former staring from afar and greeting me as they passed, the latter swarming around to sell me plastic bags for my vegetables.

Its remarkably easy to be a pescatarian in Mozambique. Xai-Xai is a 10 minute drive from the ocean and most people don't have the money to eat meat regularly, anyway. During their winter, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and eggplant abound. A common snack is french bread with an egg or bean cakes called badjia. Back from the market, Dona Madalana and I shared my American-style salad and her delicious local leafy green vegetable dish in a coconut and peanut sauce with rice. She laughed good-naturedly when she realized that I had included in the salad carana, an arugula-like green that they do not eat raw. After I made soup today, I have to concur: carana is better cooked.

Stay tuned... my next post will address my Save the Children internship.