A few short stories from Mozambique.

The Activistas (ActiveeSHtaSH)

The organization I am working with recently started a program for home based care of HIV positive people in several districts of my province. When someone tests as HIV positive they are added to a list that the hospital keeps for people that are to receive anti retroviral medications. The activistas are health advocates of sorts. They visit the people who have tested positive and count out their pills and help them make sure that all the propor medications are being taken regularly and in addition check up on the general state of the household. For example, if there is a child that is in need of food then the activista places the child on a vulnerable child food distribution program.

Recently my organization trained a group of about 30 activistas to begin this program.  I was observing several of the days of the training so they all have gotten to know me. Now every couple weeks they hold meetings in my office to hand in paper work and organize themselves into groups. I have spent time trying to learn different Gitonga words from them and singing and dancing to Mozambiquan songs. Mozambiquans are very energetic people so on one hand when I am actively trying to talk and joke around with them they are very happy, but if I am trying to read something or I just don’t feel like talking a lot they all think I am either sick or very angry. It is a very strange situation to be I when you have a group of people telling you to immediately go to the hospital because you do not feel like dancing today. But in general I feel very happy to have gotten so integrated with this group of 30 activistas. It is with them that I hope to learn the most and achieve the most over my next 22 months (I have now completed my second month at site). My time has mostly bee spent making observations about the org and the activistas and how I may be able to contribute to their success. However I recently realized that I have not yet just sat down with a group of activistas and asked them what their greatest challenges are in trying to help the HIV positive people they work with. I felt very silly having made scores upon scores of notes about my perceptions of what the greatest challenges are but I never just sat down and asked any of the activistas. SO this is my next goal. Wish me luck.

Home

A couple weeks ago I took a 6 hour journey up the coast to Vilankulo, a beautiful beach side large town. The town is in an area of rolling dunes filled with coconut trees right up against the ocean. At low tide a very large sandbar is above the water and you can walk over a huge area as if the ocean had just dried up. It is a very surreal experience. in the close distance there are several islands that make for a pretty view. They also block the rough ocean waves making it nice and calm swimming water. Also, this gives the water a wonderful bright blue color. I was never one that yearned to be relaxing on the beach in some exotic tropical location, but I have to admit, it was pretty nice.  Then when it was time to go I took my 6 hour journey back to my home and when I got to my city and started walking around I realized that things were starting to actually feel like home here. For a while I would step out of my house and look at ll the trees and houses and people that were around me and I felt that I was in a place that was very foreign and it makes you feel kinda small. But now I feel more and more that I am at some level connected to the rest of it. Now, when I look up at the stars that are totally different from the stars back home, it just doesn’t feel that intimidating anymore.

No electricity, no water and I think I smell a rat

Last weekend the electricity went out for 42 hours and when the electricity goes out so does the water. I had a large bucket of water and that was what would last be, but of course I never knew when the electricity would come back and therefore the running water. I spent most of my time reading because there was not a whole lot else to do ad the first day all I ate was raisins peanuts and crackers. I had some shrimp in the fridge that I was worried about going bad. I had dropped a significant amount of cash for these shrimp and I wanted to make the meal worth it but by lunch time on Sunday I was just worried about getting to eat them at all. my stove is electric so the only way for me to cook them was to build a fire, so I dug a pit in my year and filled it wit the various materials of a coconut tree and the whole thing went up in flames and burned itself out really really quickly. This was disappointing for two reasons, firstly, it meant that I was going to have to collect a lot more coconut tree material and use it more carefully in order to cook my shrimp. Secondly, this was a little surprising because many many people in this area build their entire houses out of coconut leaves. So basically my whole neighborhood is a tinderbox. Eventually got a fire going and cooked my shrimp, they ended up being a little dry but they were good enough to satisfy my hunger for something that was not peanuts, raisins and crackers. Ironically about 2 hours latter the electricity came back. I was so ecstatic to just be able to take a bucket bath! I was particularly interested in just getting everything in my house clean as well. I had had a rat a few days prior and I did not want another one to come into my house, attracted by any filth that accumulated.

A few nights prior I was woken up by the sound of some silver wear falling from my table. I turned on the light and saw a small but extremely fast rat dart from my table to the wall and then out under the tin roof, all in about 1.5 seconds. I locked down anything with a food sent but I could still hear the rat enter my house as soon as I got in bed, and then as soon as I turned on the light it disappeared again. After repeating this a few times I resigned myself to just go to sleep. The next day I bought a rat trap and set it out with a piece of tomato as bait. I remembered hearing the rat enter the house that night and thinking to myself, you are sooo F*&ked. I woke up the next morning thinking to myself, that’s funny I did not hear the rat trap slap. I went over to the trap and it was exactly as I left it the evening before except for one thing. The tomato was gone. So, I experimented with setting the rat trap supper supper sensitive (almost destroying my hand at one point), until I got to the point that I could set the trap so that it would go off if I dropped a small piece of paper on it. I set it with another piece of tomato (who knew that rats love tomato so much), and the whole day I was absolutely filled with the anticipation of the kill. I wanted to get this guy so bad by now. During my lunch break I went back to my house just to check on the rat trap, no dice rats usually don’t come out in the middle of the day. Then after work I took a bucket bath and when I came back inside, there it was, the rat trap bar had hit it exactly on the neck, a perfect kill. Right or wrong, I was very satisfied.

ps when I chose this backgroud it was a little bit ironic because it was so cliche tropical, but now I look at the palm trees in the background of this blog I I say to myself, "Hey thats like my site."