Homestay Week 1: How To Be A Laundry Liability Without Really Trying

After a late departure from Maputo, we arrived in the countryside town of Namaacha early in the afternoon. We were greeted by song from our “maes” and “pais” – our host mothers and fathers. The plan was to call us out to meet our families one by one, but that quickly came to an end when all the maes and pais got up to meet us. I found “minha mae” – my mother – and we headed off to her house.

With all the lessons we got on how to bucket shower and how to use a “squatty potty,” I lowered my expectations of my living situation. After a fifteen or twenty minute walk, we arrived at the house…and yes, I mean a house. I couldn’t believe how big it was. With a massive garden with papaya and mango trees and flowers, it is more of an estate than a house. As we walked in, I met minha mae’s daughters – Betty, 12, e Anastasia, 15.

The room I was given is a good size. The bathroom is indoors, and although there is no running water, the bathroom does have a bath tub, a sink and a toilet. I’m pretty sure I lucked out on the housing lottery.

I settled into my new room, unpacked my suitcase, put together my water filter, set up my bed net with minha mae and we were off and running. Lunch was put on the table – beef noodle soup, chicken and rice. Being inland, there is not a lot of fish, which is very good news for me. I’ve tried to get accustomed to eating fish and it doesn’t really bother me anymore. But given the choice between chicken and beef or fish, I’ll take the frango e carne de vaca. Minha mae and I were actually able to communicate for the most part, although she tends to talk really fast. I’m picking up every couple of words, so I have a pretty good idea of what was said. Even over the course of the day, I could feel that I understood more and more. By the end of the day, though, I was so tired – both physically and mentally – that I pretty much shut down. I was asleep by 10:00.

Even though I wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and was buried in two blankets, I still woke up shivering. Being in the mountains, it doesn’t get too hot here. It’s quite beautiful during the day but the early mornings and evenings get cold. Up at 6:00, I took my shower. Luckily, minha mae wakes up at some ungodly hour and boils water for me so I can have hot showers. A cold shower on a day like today would not just be wrong – it would be borderline torturous.

Around 7:30, I left the house with one of my two irmas – sisters. Both girls are really shy around me. I’m tried to pry anything out of Anastasia, but can’t seem to get more than a “sim” out of her. I’m sure it is strange for them to have someone new, let alone a male, walk into their house for 10 weeks.

The first full day of homestay training started off a little slowly. We started with “processing,” where we were able to talk about the good things and bad things about our nights. Some people had some minor issues, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome. My only problem was the rooster that woke me up at 5:45; I’ll be doing my best to make that thing into dinner very quickly. After an hour of processing, we were greeted by some of the officials from Namaacha. They seem pretty excited to have us, but like everyone in the Peace Corps, their chief concern is our safety.

We received a brief lecture on HIV/AIDS in the country. It is amazing how AIDS has destroyed a fair amount of the population. It’s eerie thinking about the fact that 1 in 6 people in this country has AIDS. The problem is more widespread in the south than it is in the north. We learned a lot about how organizations like Center for Disease Control are helping people with AIDS.

After lunch – which minha mae had prepared for me – we a discussion about safety. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty details, but we basically learned about what to do in a disaster situation. Though most of it is basic common sense, it is rather extensive and will require some time to memorize. With a language class in the middle of the afternoon, our work day came to an end.

But the real work is at home. I have to switch my brain into full Portuguese mode – quickly deciphering what is being said, and try to respond without sounding like a three year old. I had tea with minha mae, but it’s not about having tea – it’s about conversation. We talked for a good hour with only a couple extensive awkward breaks. We discussed food, which was perfect because it allowed me to express what I like and don’t like, and learn some new vocabulary. Like me, minha mae doesn’t like fish. I was very happy to hear this.

I spent the remainder of the afternoon studying my Portuguese notecards and listening to music. After hearing Portuguese all day, I needed to get some English into my head. A quick shower, dinner and more conversation concluded my day.

I slept well Monday night and actually felt pretty good going into language at 7:30. Maybe it was the sleep or maybe it was the omelet that minha tia made. Even though I already know a lot of what is being taught, the language class gives me something of a safe place to get my mind thinking in Portuguese instead of translating in my head. It’s also nice because I am able to help others pick it up and when it comes down to it, teaching is what I like to do. After language class, we went to a session on social relationships in Mozambique. I was somewhat surprised to see that there were so many similarities in this realm between Ghana and Mozambique, so I hope that knowing what I learned in Ghana will help ease that transition.

After lunch and brief discussion, we reconvened in our language groups. We were told that we needed to introduce ourselves to three people in the area – in Portuguese, of course. I won’t say that it was easy, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. Clearly, the practice with minha mae is paying off.

As usual, I got back to minha casa pretty exhausted. I had tea with minha mae, spent some time on homework and got in a quick nap before dinner. There was nothing out of the norm, other than the first bad bout with my stomach. I’m a little surprised it took this long to have stomach issues, but I’m sure it will go away quickly. I just feel somewhat bad about using the bathroom because to flush the toilet, I need to pour water down the back of the toilet. This wouldn’t bother me normally, but there is a major water shortage in Namaacha, so I’m trying to limit my water use, and as such, my bathroom use.

I woke up Wednesday feeling just as miserable as the night before. I popped a Pepto-Bismol (best drug ever) and felt pretty good for the better part of the day. We spent a good amount of time in our language groups getting comfortable developing questions and answers. After a long lunch break – and a quick email check – we took a field trip to an escola secundaria – a high school – so we could get an idea of what to expect. This school was definitely an above average school by Mozambican standards, but compared to an American school, it was definitely bare bones. The school is big, both in terms of size and population. The student to teacher ratio is ridiculous. The library is muito pequeno, and the computer lab has 8 computers.

I returned to minha casa around 5 PM for tea. I tried to explain to minha mae how presidential elections work in the United States. It’s hard enough to try to explain the electoral system in English; in Portuguese, it was a near impossibility. But I think she understood my point after a while. I keep my dictionary and my notecards at my side when I talk to her so I can continue building my vocabulary. Even day to day, the conversation seems to get easier, I can understand more of what she is saying, and the content of our discussion becomes a little deeper with each day. At this rate, I should do just fine on the language side of things.

Thursday and Friday were both pretty uneventful. We are starting to get into a rhythm in terms of scheduling. The day-to-day stuff tends to move by a little faster because we have a general expectation of what is going to happen: things will start late, end early, and then we wait for the next portion to begin. I’ve starting carrying my Frisbee everywhere with me because we almost always have time and space to throw to kill off some time.

On Friday, we received a very general lecture on how to stay healthy in Mozambique. Most of the stuff is common sense but nonetheless important to hear. We also had our Country Director come in to talk to us about her expectations of us and what we should expect of the Peace Corps staff here in Mozambique. After what was a somewhat slow day, all of us gathered some entertainment. Each language group performed a little skit or song in Portuguese, I’m assuming to show how much we had learned over the course of the week. My group performed “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” shamelessly.

With the conclusion of our first full week in Mozambique, a vast majority of the 57 of us and one current Volunteer headed to a barraca for celebratory cerveja. I was incredibly pleased when I found a Castle Milk Stout – my beer of choice in Ghana – waiting for me. Some of the other trainees thought it was a little strange that I wasn’t drinking a Mozambican beer; then I let them try it. By the end of the day, I had converted five or six people into believers. I was very happy to pay the extra ten Metacais (1 dollar is about 23 Metacais) for a quality import.

Just because it was the weekend didn’t mean we got to relax. I was up at 6:30 to meet with our language group again. We spent the two hour session teaching each other what we had learned over the course of the week. After the session, our teacher Ludovina, told two others and I that she was going to move us into a different, faster-paced language group. I was very happy to hear this. The hours using Rosetta Stone certainly paid off, as most of the vocabulary from this week was review.

I returned from class to lunch and a nap, with every intention of doing laundry in the afternoon. Doing laundry here isn’t as easy as throwing everything into a machine, waiting 30 minutes, then throwing it in the drier. As it was in Ghana, laundry is hand-washed, which is just fine by me. I stood in front of my laundry, waiting to receive a lesson on how to wash clothing from minha mae and minha tia. The two girls watched me like I was dropped here from another planet, and couldn’t help but laugh.

I watched as minha tia washed the first piece of clothing for me, and then she gave me the soap to wash the next piece. The girls continued laughing. Without even finishing one piece of clothing, minha mae told me to stop. She pointed to the cut that was on my knuckle, but she probably just wanted to spare me from further embarrassment. I stood and watched uselessly for the next hour as minha mae and minha tia slaved over a week’s worth of laundry. If you thought Jewish guilt was bad, try African guilt on for size. In oppressive heat, I couldn’t help out at all. To make things worse, my black socks had shed onto what was my pristine white shirt. Words of advice: if you plan on coming to Africa, white is a bad choice of color for clothing.

The entire clothes-washing fiasco was just a reminder of what I should expect over the next couple of years. The going is not always going to be easy. In fact, the going is rarely going to be easy. There are always going to be challenges. They may be as minor as being awakened by a rooster 30 minutes before my alarm is set; they may be as large as having no idea what is being said because the language barrier still looms like an ocean in front of me. In the end, though, we will all get used to the changes and challenges that are in front of us.

And if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to clean my own clothes next week.