I LOVE CAPITALISM

There's a group of about 10 people from Vanderbilt here this week. Trying to start a new project/collaboration within FGH that involves the business school, divinity school, anthropology department, and microloans and economic development. We met with them this morning, and I can't wipe the grin off my face. I'm not quite sure how to express what I'm feeling right now about capitalism and all the good that comes with empowering people to run their own lives and have the freedom to succeed. Not the guarantee, but the possibility. That little shred of hope and optimism. I'm seriously at a loss as to how I can express my current state of elation. Maybe I'll write a poem...or do an interpretive dance...or make up a song on my harmonica.

Work your magic

Saturday I went to Inhassunge for a meeting with about 20 curanderos, the term for witchdoctors, or if you want to be p.c. "traditional healers." I totally expected a group of pierced and tattooed individuals to emerge from the fields of palm trees and mandioca and arrive at the clinic wearing traditional dress and carrying eye of newt and chicken bones. Instead, about 10 men and 10 women showed up wearing t-shirts, blue jeans, and dresses. Turns out the curanderos in Mozambique have their own formal organization and governing body, sort of like the AMA. They also have a couple branches of practice: one group focuses on praying and casting out evil spirits, the other group works with herbs and remedies. Kind of like their version of medicine and surgery.

We set up shop under a tin roof, and the meeting commenced in the usual Mozambican fashion...everyone stands up and introduces themselves, we do a little chanting and clapping, and then someone starts singing and the whole place turns into a dance party for about 5 minutes.

The point of the meeting was to discuss HIV and TB with the curanderos in the hope of forming some sort of alliance with regards to patient care. So, when people get sick here, they go see the curandero, not the doctor or nurse at the clinic. As a result, people tend to resort to western medicine only when they are deathly ill, and many cases of HIV and TB go undiagnosed until it is too late. So we discussed what causes these two diseases, how they are transmitted, what the symptoms are, and what we do to treat them. Then we asked them that if they see a person with symptoms X, Y, and Z, they need to send the person to see us.

One of the most interesting parts was when the curanderos described what they believe about these diseases. Examples:
--When someone in a household dies, the curandero goes to the house to perform some sort of rituals. If someone in the house takes one of the possessions of the deceased person before the rituals are performed, that person will get TB.
--When someone in a household dies, the members of the household or family have to wait one week before having sex. If they don't, then they'll get TB.
--HIV can be transmitted by bad spirits.
--HIV is a curable disease.

Another interesting thing: we had bottles of pop at lunch. And before the curanderos drank it, they poured a drop out on the ground "for the spirits." It reminded me of pouring a little out for our fallen comrades.

When the meeting ended, we packed in the truck and headed down the bumpy dirt road for an hour, en route to the dock. 2 in the front, 4 in the back, and about 12 in the truck bed...singing, clapping, and chanting of course. The driver stopped the truck next to a field of mandioca. I looked outside and saw a couple of the twiggly trunks rocking back and forth. Then all of a sudden I saw a little furry face pop up from the side of the road and look at us. It was a monkey! The whole field was filled with little wild monkeys! This was a real rarity, since most animals in Mozambique were killed during the civil war.

The Great Depression

There are many things about my childhood for which I am eternally grateful. One being that I was raised by parents who were brought up with a Great Depression Era mentality, which was then passed on to me. Now, years of training on how to live frugally are paying off. Since Amy and I have only a small amount of money to live off for who knows how long, we made a list of needs/not needs/rations. As we constructed this list, Amy's face began to melt and I think she may have even shed a single tear. Turns out, Amy has expensive tastes and was not raised in a household that had a bomb shelter-esque room in the basement filled with non-perishables that were bought in bulk once a year when Meijer had their huge sale.

Needs: rice, beans (dried...canned is too expensive), coconuts, bread

Not Needs: restaurants, cheese, milk, chocolate, peanut butter, nutella, instant coffee, and frivolous shopping

Rations: jelly, butter, beer, diet coke

...the adventure continues

This is what I get for reading smutty magazines

I can recall making one purchase while at Heathrow, and that was a hot off the press HELLO! magazine—England’s version of People or In Touch. Hey, I had a long flight ahead of me, and it was the Angelina Jolie baby issue. Stop judging. If you didn’t buy the magazine, you at least perused it while standing in line at the grocery checkout. Well, that little guilty pleasure has come around to bite me. Somehow, someone in England got access to my bank account and tried to drain me of my loan money this weekend. I knew that guy at the magazine kiosk looked shady! The upshot: the crapweasel tried to steel from me, but the bank saw the shifty transactions and immediately closed my account. The bad news: I have about $4 to my name and no way to get money.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Amy and I have a few assets: a house that currently has no electricity, 4 cans of warming beer, rice, a couple coconuts, and a pint of gin. We also have a pair of harmonicas and probably 50 books. And the sky is really pretty today, so that’s a bonus.

Update on Bushie's Mosquito Nets

400 insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets have been purchased and are en-route to Quelimane!!!

Lugela...my love

Let me begin by saying that I’m writing this from the confines of my room in Lugela, which consists of a bed, a mosquito net, and a lantern on a small end table. Yep, pretty much heaven. Amy and I are staying in a thatched hut tonight. We have two bedrooms, a small living room, and an outdoor bathroom. Mud walls, straw roof, a single light bulb that runs off of a generator, and two candles for when the generator não e funcionada. And the generator is turned off, so I’m typing by lantern light.

The conversation through the paper thin wall between our rooms in our thatched hut:
Amy: 10 bucks says you got malaria last night.
me: yeah, my caffeine withdrawal headache this morning was probably my malaria prodrome.
Amy: I hope you die a slow death
me: I hope the scabies burrow out of your skin tonight
Amy: I love you
me: I love you too. Goodnight

So, we made it out of Mocuba without any further incident. We packed the truck with workers heading to Lugela, and we were off. It was actually a rainy and slightly chilly day. About an hour into our trip, we drove down a dirt road with thatched huts on either side. Welcome to Lugela! No phones. No electricity. No running water. It was beautiful! Rolling hills with a misty, rainy fog. Chickens, goats and ducks a-plenty.

They dropped us off at the training session we were to attend. Basically, there is a group of HIV+ people in Lugela who are in the process of creating a formal organization of people living with HIV, with the purpose of implementing HIV education programs, promoting prevention, and assisting orphans and widows who have lost family members to HIV/AIDS. Amy and I basically observed and networked with people.

After the meeting we headed to our residence for the night. It’s beautiful! And tonight was the first time since arriving here that my body has felt warm water. The outdoor bathroom came equipped with a double bucket bath…one bucket with cold water, the other steaming hot. So I grabbed my towel, lit a candle, and walked around back to our little tiki hut-esque bathroom. It was glorious! The night was silent except for the pleasant chirping of crickets. The air was chilly. The water was warm. And when I returned, there was a plate of chicken, rice, and shima (flour boiled in water) on our table. I could get used to this.

The Incredible Hulk

First night in the districts. Amy and I got settled in at our little pensão in Mocuba. For the first time in who knows how long, we had our own rooms. When we first arrived in Quelimane, we shared a bed at Michelle’s. Then we shared a bed at Mónica’s. For a brief time we had our own rooms at our dependencia, but since we’ve been house sitting, we’ve gone back to sharing a bed. And sharing a bed is not without problems, mostly involving Amy accusing me of steeling the covers, touching her with my toes, and infringing on her personal space. No joke, it’s like the episode of Brady Bunch where they draw a line down the middle of the room because they can’t share. Amy’s totally the line drawer.

I think we were both looking forward to having our own bed to sprawl out on tonight. So we got settled in our rooms, worked on our presentation for a while, and then decided to grab some dindin at the little restaurant attached to the pensão. After dinner we went back to Amy’s room to get a bit more work done…and that’s when the fun began. She couldn’t open her door. This is nothing new for Amy. She perpetually has problems unlocking and opening doors. So naturally, I told her to step aside and let the professional have a go at it.

“You’ve just got to put your shoulder into it,” I told her, as I put all my weight into that door. And much to our surprise, I had opened it….and ripped the door off the wall. The deadbolt was still in the bolted position, and I managed to rip a large chunk of wood off the wall which contained the hole thingy where the door latches shut. We stood there in silent disbelief for a moment. Then I began hysterically laughing, partially because I thought that if I laughed, I’d have less of a chance of getting a knuckle sandwich from Amy. Luckily, she found it equally hilarious and I still have all my teeth.

What can I say? Sometimes I underestimate my own strength. Well, I call it strength. Amy calls it being stubborn. Maybe I’m a little of that too.

So here we are now, sitting Indian style on my bed, eating coconut flavored cookies and listening to “trouble” by Ray Lamontagne, and working on our presentation that we need to give this Friday.

There goes our night of sprawling out in our own beds.