these are a few of my most thankful things

I feel like any time anyone has asked me how I am lately, my response has been: “Busy.” I’ve been busy spinning my wheels in the limbo between concept papers and full plans. I’ve been busy keeping my MCC boss sane by zipping around Beira with her and ensuring she gets out of bed in the morning. I’ve been power-walking around Maputo to get all of my errands run and bills paid before the end of the work day (or 3:30; whatever comes first). I’ve been tying back my hair and tying on my capulana as I combat the ever-growing mounds of dust coating my apartment.

I’m not saying that my schedule is necessarily any busier than those of my family and friends at home, but seriously, it’s a little crazy sometimes. And in this craziness, I have a tendency to shut down and caffeine up. Some of you reading may have noticed this as you wonder why it takes me four weeks to reply to an email. I tend to emotionally collapse at the end of the day and reluctantly get up at the beginning of the day, wondering what new developmental snafus the day has in store.

As my schedule fills up and my energy drains, I find it harder than ever to find time for life-giving things like coffee with friends or quiet time alone. So I’ve coerced myself to look for the good, hopeful, and beautiful in small things, when the development things become big and scary. So here are some of the things that I have been thankful for recently:

·         hand knit socks from my dear Aunt Sal to keep my toes warm in the winter

·         the tenacity of my houseplants and how they bloom while I’m traveling

·         Internet fast enough to keep up with my addition to Pintrest

·         incredibly kind friends in Beira

·         hugs from my favorite Mozambican when I’m having a bad day

·         absolute safety amidst the rising crime rates in Maputo

·         the jokes and giggles of Mozambican teammates

·         the support of generous North American donors (even though I gripe about proposal writing and reporting)

·         hot chocolate

·         they lyrical stylings of Drake and Nicki Manaj who have initiated explanations of “The Flinstones,” "Shake n’ Bake,” and asbestos to my cross-cultural relationship

·         for the work, energy, and heart of MCC (specifically for the over-worked financial people who ensure that I can withdraw money from an ATM and for the generosity of the material resource crew who will bless us in September with more than we could ever imagine…or have room for…)

·         the joy of technology to help me talk with my best friend an ocean away

·         the huge Mozambican coast and its lovely beaches

·         childhood memories

·         the satisfaction of a home-cooked meal made from scratch

water water everywhere

Eight months. Six plumbers. Thousands of meticais (the Mozambican currency). After countless visits, drilling, breaking, bucket bathing, replacing, cold showering, leaking, hand washing, hammering, episodes of flooding, and meters of new piping, I FINALLY have adequate plumbing in my apartment.

I’ve learned a great deal throughout the process such as new Portuguese vocabulary and patience I never knew was there. I’ve realized much about Mozambican culture, work ethic, time and money management, and crisis mitigation. I’ve gotten to know my landlord and the Indian neighbors below me quite well throughout the process (and have even had a few conversations with them that don’t involve screaming about their kitchen ceiling dripping).

Now each of my fixtures has a story to tell; like how the bathroom sink has been on and off of the wall four times. And now every time I close a faucet and it stays off or every time I watch dirty water magically disappear into the wall and not the floor, I realize how truly blessed I am. I will never again take for granted the ability to wash dishes in a sink. I’ll never stop being amazed at the hot water falling from the showerhead. I’ll never forget the back-straining, knuckle-tearing hours of hand washing of clothes I endured for weeks on end, only to turn around and dump the dirty water in the toilet, because that was the only “drain” that worked.

But at least there are stories to tell and sighs of relief to be had. For those stories that words cannot capture, here are some visual highlights of my glorious plumbing process. 

  

peace

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” [Unknown]

Whew, I’ve been in quite the busy season lately. Since writing so long ago, I’ve been in over my head managing two important grant proposals, have welcomed my mom, bid farewell to teammates, hung out with other teammates beachside, hosted friends, duplicated the number of furniture in my apartment, traveled to Swaziland and South Africa, and added a new women’s Bible study to my schedule. By the end of the day, I’m usually exhausted, uninspired, and sick of looking at my computer screen, so I’ve had little motivation to update everyone on the ins and outs of my life.

It has been a challenging past few months, in which I’ve grown and learned a lot. I’ve encountered about every emotion possible, but in the midst of everything, I’ve found glimpses of peace and hope. These states of being haven’t always come easily, and have often made themselves apparent only after a deep search. But somewhere in the midst of my reading and reflection a few weeks ago, I came across the quote above. Its simple complexity struck me. And I began meditating on it as my email inbox made me want to retreat into a curled ball under my desk. I thought of it as I contrasted the turquoise glass of the ocean with the roaring motor of the boat taking us out to our snorkeling location. And I began to recognize it under the noise and energy of my vibrant church members dancing and singing on a Sunday morning.

As these seeds of growth took root, I decided to seek the joy and peace of present moments, no matter how much chaos or confusion under which they are buried. And to commemorate this process, I’m hosting a get-together in my apartment tomorrow entitled a Life Celebration Party. Maputo has such a transient community where people rush in and out of the capital for a few weeks or months at a time. Regardless of if they’re language-learning, job-hunting, retreating, or volunteering for a short time, people seem to whisk away just as we make a deeper friendship. Because of these realities, I want to celebrate the friends and community that is right here, right now. Maybe their term will be over soon, or maybe we’ve only recently become friends. Still, I want to acknowledge the joy found in being together today, regardless of what tomorrow brings. Through this, I’ve found great peace in celebrating the present.

choices

Last week, I went to a food security and value-added agriculture workshop in Maputo. Since a large part of my work revolves around promoting conservation agriculture and addressing food security in Mozambique, I was interested to learn how others were approaching on the topic or using other techniques. The workshop had representatives and speakers from the commercial and business sector, fellow NGO workers, individual consultants, and academics from local and international universities.

We discussed various aspects of food insecurity in Mozambique, focusing mostly on the challenges and how to address them. I found it interesting that we defined food security as not only having consistent food sources, but having choices or varieties in food. Food security also means having sufficient quantity and quality food and nutrition sources, but an underlying measure of security is having choices in the food one consumes.

By the third day, my head was spinning from the new information the all-day workshops gave me. In my processing of how to move forward from our discussions, I realized that there’s a gap between freedom of choices and forcing of choices in relation to food security. And as a result, the freedom of choices often leads to forcing of other choices.

For many billions of us in the world, we have the freedom of many food-related choices in our lives. In my Mozambican kitchen, I stand looking in my fridge, produce basket or cupboard every day at 5 p.m. wondering what I could make for dinner. I can choose from various starches, proteins, and vegetables and multiple combinations. When living in the United States, I can choose virtually anything to eat or find some way of accessing obscure foods.

A Mozambican friend asked me a few months ago what the staple crop of the United States is. I replied that it’s probably corn, but even then corn is not considered a staple in the same way that cassava is a staple crop in Mozambique. This is because in the United States, we produce many other crops year-round and we have the freedom of choice to eat something other than corn. We can choose from supermarkets, small grocery stores, farmers markets, or CSAs for our produce. We can choose for our foods to be organic, low fat/calorie, or gluten free.

Because of these freedoms, we’re not bound to dependency on climate or the environment, and even have choices within each season. In the spring there are leafy greens such as lettuce or kale. In the summer there are berries, and we can pick between strawberries or blackberries. The fall has squashes like pumpkins or acorn squash. And in the winter there are tubers such as potatoes and parsnips.

But many other people in the world are forced when making their food choices. Mozambique is twice the size of California, but has a fraction of the number of paved roads, so transportation and lacking infrastructure are huge problems. While in North America there’s a push for people to choose to buy locally-grown foods, in Mozambique there’s often no choice BUT to eat locally grown foods. Many farmers cannot access markets to sell their products or bring in any new products. For some people, money is so tight that if someone only has 100 meticais (a little less than $4), they will choose whatever is cheapest or will go farthest, rather than what is healthiest.

Commercial farms come into the country and dictate to local farmers what they will produce, leaving the farmers no choice but to comply. Local and regional industries may buy local produce, but they’re the ones to decide how the raw materials will be processed, so the famers have no decision-making power in the end result. Also, local cultures may mandate what crops will be grown and the manner in which they are cultivated, so social pressures force farmers to choose doing things in the same way as before.

Sometimes, one person’s freedom of food choices exacerbates another person’s forced food choices. Have you ever noticed how all the sesame seeds on a hamburger bun look identical, or how every grain of rice you consume looks exactly like all the others surrounding it? This is not natural, but selected by only top grade produce that someone else chose. These choices are made based on food grades, stipulations, or regulations. To reach a certain grade, some farmers’ produce is turned away if their millet isn’t uniform or their sorghum is red with too many tannins, leaving them no choice but to receive little to no money for their work. Our individual choice between a hamburger and a hot dog represents dozens of other choices that have been made from industries, markets, supply chains, and manufacturers, which often are all out of the decision-making reach of rural farmers.

Other times, people are forced to surrender their food choice freedoms. If everyone had the freedom to eat whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, it would be chaos. For example, it’s unfeasible for Mozambicans to demand blueberries which are indigenous to my home region in Michigan, and it’s unreasonable for Michiganders to demand groundnuts indigenous to Mozambique. In the United States, many people have had excessive freedom of choosing food, which has led to sharp rises in obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and type II diabetes. In turn, these freedoms often lead to people being forced to limited lifestyles or dependency on medicine.

In order to move forward, there must be more equality and justice in food choices. Some people must choose to responsibly use American food freedoms. This means choosing to give away choices and freedoms like my brave friend did by joining Overeaters Anonymous or my family is doing by jointly adjusting their food lifestyles.

On one hand, farmers must choose to take risks such as educating their women instead of always sending them out to the fields, or in incorporating sustainable or conservation agriculture practices that may not be commonly used in their area. But on the other hand, systems must be altered allow these farmers to make new choices. Legislation must protect rural farmers and enhance their decision-making powers. Corporations must fairly compensate the suppliers of their raw materials. Governments, businesses, and civil society must choose to work together to create innovative solutions for addressing food insecurity. And collectively, we must choose to eat in ways that dignify the producer, such as buying fairly traded goods.

I believe that global food security is possible, as long as we all make a few different choices.

january

These past 31 days have been characterized by soaring temperatures, tons of work, sporadic deluging rainfalls, and little to write about it all. Therefore, I will let pictures express a few highlights of the month.


In the first few days of the month, my MCC teammates and I met in Beira for our quarterly meetings. We had decided that we would aim for a fun day at the beach beforehand. So we packed everyone’s family and friends into our caravans and travelled out to Rio Savane. We arrived around lunchtime hot and hungry, only to discover that the lodge had no food, save for a few random bags of potato chips. A few of the adventurous among us trekked out on the scorching beach to find a fishing village about 2k north. They returned bearing not only fish, but monstrously-sized fish weighing in around 8 kilos (or 17.5 pounds). The tuna was delicious.


We celebrated the New Year (regardless of which year it actually was)!


The rains came down and the floods came up. My unpaved road turned to a river of mush, and the rooftops were such lakes that it sounded like it was raining for three days after the storm.


A surprise package arrived a little late for Christmas festivities, but that didn’t stop me from putting up its paper snowflakes on my windows to commemorate January snowshowers at home and the tradition of snowflake making parties with my college friends.


I finally replaced both my International Drivers Permit and my Mozambican residency card after the originals were stolen in September. They also continue my tradition of looking like a livid serial killer in all important photo documents.

to smell of fish and poo

Advent is a tricky thing. On one side of Advent there are the Christmas gifts to wrap and merriment to prepare. There’s a familiar old set of songs to sing and gatherings to attend. But on the other hand there’s the fact that all of these festivities are only made possible through the oppression, depravity and brokenness of humanity and the earth. If there was no underlying struggle, there wouldn’t be a need for Jesus to be born, no birthday to celebrate and therefore need to put gaudy twinkle lights on every outdoor surface of our homes.

I’ve recognized this tension as my busy December has been filled with emotionally exhausting work, extensive road travel and some serious relaxation. From American Thanksgiving through the first week of December, I worked in Beira to help make my MCC boss’ life a little more organized. While in Beira, I visited an orphanage where my afore-blogged friend Ruth works. Then on our way driving down to Maputo, a crew of fellow-MCCers and I made a quick stop in Vilanculos, a town on the Indian Ocean. It was amazingly beautiful, and Jon and I were able to dive and snorkel, swim with dolphins and sea turtles and gaze out at ridiculously turquoise water. We hurried to Maputo in time to wait in consecutive days of nine to twelve hour meetings with our CCM-ASA colleagues. We also learned that the epic grant whose decision we have been waiting for in the past nine months will in fact not come through for at least another six months, if at all. This means drastic changes in the scope of our program, personnel and budgets. To drown some sorrows, I then headed further south to the lovely Swaziland with lovely friends for a far too short vacation. And to top it all off, I’m heading back up to Beira to spend Christmas there with friends.

In all of these comings and goings, I’ve been reminded of this season’s thin line between joy and pain. It’s uncomfortable to sing oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant when visiting a country with the highest adult HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the world. It’s difficult to envision the desire of nations coming to bind all peoples in one heart and mind when you realize your culture has fundamental differences with someone else’s. It’s crazy to think of walking in a winter wonderland as dust sticks to sweaty skin when walking down a sweltering street. It’s challenging to wait for the government to be upon Jesus’ shoulders and his name to be called wonderful counselor when elections are scammed and lifelong presidents are once again sworn into office. And it’s hard to imagine fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeating the sounding joy when nothing but diplomatic rhetoric was repeated at the climate conference in Durban, and throwing money around was concluded to be the only solution to protecting the environment in developing countries.

But there is something oddly comforting in knowing that little Lord Jesus knows what it’s like to not have a crib for his bed as I’m holding an infant who was abandoned by his mother. It’s easier to hear heaven and nature singing when you’re hovering just under the surface of gently rolling ocean waves to watch an incredible coral reef burst with color and life. There’s some sort of tiding of comfort and joy when every Swazi we asked for directions gave them to us with a smile and without judgment for being tourists.

After leaving the orphanage in Beira a few weeks ago, I walked back to where I was staying on a sand road alongside of the ocean. It was such a delightfully bright and sunny day, and I felt so blessed for having such a free and lavish blessing as the ocean to view. But then I started to smell something fishy. Really fishy. I realized that the dirty diaper of the child I had been holding had accidentally left some residue on my arm. While considering this revelation, a strong sea gust hit me with an overwhelming stench of dead fish. So there I was again with all that yucky in the midst of all that beauty.

For me, the compelling and bittersweet thing about Advent is that it celebrates Jesus being born into a world of juxtaposition. The reason that the weary world is rejoicing is because of all of the pining over sin and error in which we lay. The celebration of Christ’s birth is highlighted by how much we need to be born into something new. Our spirits are cheered by they dayspring’s advent with us. We rejoice that the Emmanuel is God actually with us, born into our helplessness and with us from the heights of the Drakensburg foothills to the depths of coral reefs. We sing and smile and wrap and glow because we have the hope that a new and glorious morn will break somewhere yonder in the future. But for the time being, as we sort through the beautiful and the heartbreaking and the injustice and the rejoicing, we know that God is with us, no matter what we smell like.

malhangalene and me

A lot can happen in a month. In this month I was without Internet access, but I used most of the time setting up my new apartment, sorting out documents and fighting off a heinous cold/flu/death warmed up thing. In this month I finally fully and cathartically unpacked my suitcases for the first time in 15 months. And in this month I’ve transformed a dusty two bedroom apartment with a hole in the wall in the Maputo ghetto into a home.

A month ago, my friend William, our MCC Mozambique mechanic, and I made the 18 hour trek from Beira to Maputo in a pickup chocked full of furniture echoing with the ghosts of service workers past. We arrived to find that the previous tenants, who were supposed to vacate the premises two weeks early so the landlord could make improvements, didn’t leave until six hours before. So not only were the lease-dictated repairs not finished (such as the aforementioned hole in the bathroom wall), we showed up to discover that the previous tenants were a quite bitter upon exiting. They purposefully clogged the kitchen sink with nearly-overflowing grossness, they slashed some mosquito screening in the windows, they carved away the front door lock so it opened with a slight breeze, they tore apart the one and only outlet in the second bedroom, they ripped out a main floorboard and they ran off with the light bulbs, just for good measure. It took two good-natured men, three shipments of furniture from Beira, four visits from a carpenter, six visits from a plumber and his sidekick apprentice, two solid weeks of hard core deep cleaning, three visits from the landlord and a whole lot more patience than I was willing to give, but the apartment is finally liveable.

But there still remains one essential piece of the puzzle yet to be filled: the roommate. Using my networks, I sent out prayers and texts saying that I was looking for a friendly girl to join me in this newly renovated place. In return I received ladies from South Korea, France, the United States, Spain, Holland, Mozambique and Kenya to chat about or tour the apartment. Each person was lovely, but the conversation eventually ended with “it’s not exactly for me” in one way or another.

One girl who visited bluntly asked: “why did you choose to live in an unsafe neighborhood?” I was floored, since she had been in Malhangalene for approximately two and a half minutes, but in that time must have derived that unpaved roads plus broken down cars must equate a lack of safety. But I mustered the response of, “well, a Mozambican family lived here for six years before me, and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me.” I was quite upset by this expatriate’s assessment of her host country’s barrios, but I think it highlighted a very profound wall that I ran into.

I’ve made a commitment to live simply. A big part of this due to me joining the ranks of MCC, but the essence is that I have concluded that simple living is the best way to live as a Christian and as a person conscious of the way my actions affect my global neighbors. But in this capital city with its embassies, boutiques and posh street-side cafés, the majority of foreigners do not agree with me. Now, I do not wish to put myself on a pedestal, but rather I want to state that there is a dichotomy in standards of living. From my experience of living in Maputo, there is a tendency of expats living in Mozambique from the hours of 8-5 Monday through Friday, but returning mentally and nearly environmentally to their countries of origin the rest of the time. They tend to set up walls between where the work and where they live—both figuratively and literally—and I realized that even I cannot traverse that wall. It is much easier to talk about poverty in Mozambique than to live about it. I’m still keeping my mind open to the possibility that I will find a young lady in this city who doesn’t mind the dust, noise and occasional cockroach if it means living on the same level playing field as those who we flew thousands of miles to come serve.

My apartment has its flaws, to be sure. The electrician is still yet to grace me with his illuminated presence. The neighborhood children screaming and playing in the middle of the sweltering summer street still have yet to drive me to insanity (although they have come close). The whitewashed walls will forever hold dirt and smudges, and my parquet wooden floors will forever refuse to properly hold its wax. But it has its charms as well. I get lots of exercise and adrenaline rushes while tearing from room to room with a Chaco held high in hot pursuit of stinky cockroach invaders. I’ll never have to buy a radio since the neighborhood bars share their music quite loudly and generously each weekend. I have a space that’s uniquely mine in Mozambique, without having to share or interfere with the home of someone else. I have electricity and running water and even a wobbly ceiling fan, which the majority of Mozambicans have yet to attain. And I have two wonderful verandas where I can watch the first thunderstorms of the season unroll like an electric blanket over downtown from the ocean to the west. This past month has reminded me that in all things, no matter what, I am richly blessed.

plans

I am in a state of mourning.

I am mourning the loss of a beloved book that is strewn somewhere on the Marginal hillside. I am mourning my missing residency visa that was both ridiculously expensive and brand new. I am mourning having one less long-sleeved shirt come winter. I am mourning not having my purse or wallet which were both made by local artisans and having to live out of my pockets and makeshift bag. I am mourning my personal belongings that were cast aside because they are of no value to anyone but me. I am mourning not having my simple and ideal phone that saw me through a year of conversations in Mozambique. I am mourning the corruption of the Maputo police force whose purpose is to make money instead of serving the people. I am mourning my lack of peaceful inner calm when in shock and my quick turn to anger over forgiveness. Mostly, I am mourning the fact that I have control over nothing.

When I arrived back in Maputo a week and a half ago, everything was wonderful. Getting back to friends, work, church and the streets I’ve come to know so well was great. Even last week’s chilly storms and this week’s warm sunshine have been delightful. But sometimes things change very quickly.

This past Sunday, my church had a fabulous guest pastor from Kenya come and preach for us. He was funny and poignant, and touched on how God has plans for each of us, and how when we cling to the hope of that knowledge in dark times, it will get us through. On the way home from church, I spoke with my new Dutch friend who recently moved to Mozambique with his wife, but without any job. They both felt a calling to come here, and they have totally surrendered to God’s will for placing them where He will in the country. I commended him for what a cool, brave and slightly crazy testimony that is for living a life in God’s plans instead of our own. Then that night, a missionary working in South Africa spoke at the Sunday night fellowship I attend. He described how God has plans to use each of us, even if that means a lot of shaping and sloughing off of unhelpful parts of us.

I went into Monday so encouraged from all of the encounters I just had in various forms of church. But I suppose that all of that enthusiasm for God’s control and plans was put to the test on Monday night when my purse and all of its internal treasures were snatched away as a friend and I simply sat talking on a park bench. While my passport, work notebook and baggie of medicine came back to me, many other belongings will never be mine again. I was overcome with senses of shock, rage, despair and grief. I was so angry with non-committing police officers who demanded payment in order to be encouraged to work. I was so upset at the thought of having to go through the arduous process of getting my residency visa all over again. And I was so appalled by the injustice of having my things as casualties in a thief’s pursuit of money.

All of my worldly possessions in Mozambique fit in three suitcases. The capacity of my things could stretch across the surface of my twin sized bed and no further. Yet I lost a few beloved treasures from my simple and sparse trove without any warning or explanation. But then slowly, I began to acknowledge these they are just things. Just stuff. And maybe I somehow felt entitled to that stuff. Like it was mine or I deserved it. Somehow I must have felt justified in having domain over the few items in my room. And I think I must have stuffed myself with thinking that they were important. My purse was stolen by a hand and not a knife or gun. My friend and I were not injured in the event. And despite my major inconveniences now, I will be fine. I do not know why I fell into the plans of a bag-napper. But I do know that I always fall into God’s bigger plans. And now I will keep falling, but with a few pieces of stuff sloughed off.

everywhere

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
Psalm 139: 1-10

I love to travel. This fact is quite obvious to anyone observing this blog, but it is nonetheless true. I love seeing places, meeting people, eating food, using maps and wearing my Chacos. I have been tremendously blessed with opportunities over the past few years to not only discover different cultures and countries that are very new to me, but to also learn and grow from these experiences.

In the last few weeks I’ve been traveling quite a bit. I’ve skipped up to Beira for meetings, hiked over to Gorongosa National Park for relaxation, jumped over to Tete to visit the communities my organization is working in, gallivanted through Zambia to hang out with fellow SALTers and flew down to Maputo to carry on with my life. Some photographic evidence of said travels is as follows:







This last year of living in Mozambique has been one filled with every emotion under the sun. Anger, boredom, joy, frustration, wonder, love and sadness have all worked to morph me into a new person with every new day. I have faced extreme challenges, but have also earned extreme perseverance. I have been cut down over and over again, but have also been shown the kindness of people who have built me back up. And I have taken a broken and imperfect city and turned it into my home.

As much as I’m anxious to being back in the eyes and arms of my family and friends, I’m also feeling torn in leaving beloved friends that have become my family behind. I’m looking forward to the beach, the coffee, the food, the warmth and the conversations that await me, but it will be a whole new set of challenges to adjust back to living and working in the United States, and then adjust back to living and working in Mozambique three months later. I wish that I could be everywhere at every time.

I was dwelling on this desire last weekend when I was struck by Psalm 139 in church on Sunday. I realized that I am not able to be everywhere. And that’s okay. Because God is. He has been with me everywhere I’ve gone in and around Mozambique in this last year. He’s the one who completely knows the stumbling Portuguese words on my tongue and perceives the scattered English thoughts in my head. He’s the one who hemmed up my foot when it was nearly broken and he’s the one who put his hand on me to bring healing back to my life. And he’s the one who has settled me on one side of the ocean and will settle me on another side of a great lake. Just as I found God in Cape Town and Capinga and Choma, I’ll find him back home as well. And as I travel back and forth from one home to another, I take comfort in knowing that God is everywhere, taking care of everything and everyone, even when I’m not.

cultural conundrums

During our SALT orientation last August, we had many lectures and discussions about all of the different cultural experiences upon which we were about to embark. We were warned of the different stages and the normal stress that overseas living would entail. And sure, I’ve experienced many similar ups and downs that anyone who has had cross-cultural exchanges would face. But more often than not, my interaction with new food, clothing or languages has looked more like a colorful SALT informational brochure where everything is new and diverse and exciting and everything on the surface is great because there is harmony in diversity.

But what about when a new cultural experience leaves me with a lot more confusion than it does warm fuzzies?

What about the things that I’ve had to suppress about my “culture” in order to be here (such my former vegetarianism or frequent wear of pants)?

What about when I profoundly disagree with the culture of my host country?

What about when I tend to make friends with English-speaking Mozambicans? Is that a cop-out because they’re just a little more relatable for me?

Do these things make me a bad person? Have I extended the table just a little less? Is one side getting the cheap end of the bargain in this transaction of cultural exchange?

I have no easy or compelling answers to these or any other cultural questions. But I do have two anecdotes that recently got me thinking about these questions. First, I was talking with a male Mozambican acquaintance a while back (in English, of course, because I’m a cheater at language submersion). During the course of our conversation, he explained that he was married but was looking for a girlfriend on the side and would be delighted and honored if I would consider the position. Charming, but…no.I then explained that I would be opposed to the whole arrangement because of the whole, you know, wife on the side thing. I politely gave my reasons for why this would be an awful idea, mostly because I view his marriage as an incredibly important relationship in which I have no business in interfering. He was quite taken aback, stating that this perfect trifecta is quite common in Mozambique and that if I expect to have acceptance into the culture or have Mozambican friends, I shouldn’t be so prudish or think that my culture is better than his. After we parted and I made a mental note not to continue our acquaintanceship, I found myself pondering his point. I have plenty of Mozambican friends to nullify his argument on that account, but is there some underlying truth that I’m being too critical on the culture? Who makes the rules when it comes to morality?

Another, more lighthearted time, I was speaking with a gregarious South African lady over breakfast at the guest house. We discovered that the conference she was just returning from in the United States was held in Grand Rapids, literally right down the road from where I went to college. While we were enjoying what a crazy small world we are living in, she was explaining her impressions of being in the United States, especially as this was her first time in Western Michigan. “You see,” she told me, “Africans don’t wear watches, but we have lots of time. Americans wear watches, but you have no time.” She had marveled at how one could spend an entire day’s errands without getting out of the car. She explained that eating, washing, banking, shopping can all be done from behind the steering wheel, yet despite all of the efficiency, no one seemed to save enough time to welcome her into their home, answer her questions or get to know her background. We laughed about the silliness of it all, but I vowed to not be one of those high-strung, Energizer bunny Americans drumming around Maputo without actually interacting with people. So a few weeks later when I was heading out the door to go to work, I intentionally was late so that I could stop and talk with my friend who was really discouraged and needed someone to listen to her. I intentionally take a long walk to a market or grocery store, passing others along the way, so that I can continue building a relationship with the store owners and vendors. It’s not efficient at all, but I’m starting to like how I’ve adopted “African time.” But is that really fair to my boss and coworkers who wait for me to stroll in late because I’m yacking it up on the street corner? Have I lowered my standards of excellence because I no longer expect restaurants to be quick or church to start within 20 minutes of the set time? Am I using “African time” as an excuse to put some people before others, or am I abusing this fun little cultural nuance I’ve adopted?

As always, I have more questions than answers. I hope that in time I’ll learn more about myself, the invisible baggage I carry around with me and what I do with it once I travel into the world. I thought of this when I saw the mural below the other day on one of my long, meandering and time consuming walks around Maputo. But I guess that’s beauty in the complexity of it all.