Feliz Dia Das Bruxas!

So today is Halloween. I remember when I was a kid, I think I’d start planning my Halloween costume right as day One of October came along. Forgive me all for writing such a banal ( I don’t know if that is the right word) blog after my last one, but I need to just look on the bright side of things. The bright side of things came in a classic African Market Tee Shirt purchase. The color of the bright side of things is powder blue with a cobalt lining. You see, all of our cast offs from America and Europe make it to the reed and palm branch central markets of African Towns – Homoine is now exception. I regularly see trucks coming in with BALES of clothes saying donated from the people of Canada, or Japan or the USA. It’s very interesting being on the other side of things, and being able to read English as well. SO the shirt was this Che Guevara shirt that you can find everywhere in the world from the streets of Camden Town to well the streets of Homoine Town. I just liked the color and it looked new (ish) so I thought since all of my clothes are taking a beating in Nature’s Laundromat, I’d buy it. I walked in with a friend of mine and looked at it. Picked it up and he said hey wait Ian, something’s wrong with the shirt. It said Gay Chevara and well, it looked like a Latino Tinky Winky was on the front. I nearly died laughing in the store. My friend, Admiro, is an English Teacher so he could read the shirt. I couldn’t buy it in front of him because well, it’s just too complicated to explain to him. Even though I did have a conversation with him about AIDS and how it first showed up in Gay men in the States. Well, one thing led to another and I found out he has no problem with homosexuality as long as they don’t hit on him. At least he admits it exists! Anyway, back to the shirt, I’m buying it in the morning and going to wear it for Halloween. I don’t care what all of you think, it makes me laugh and after these past two weeks, that’s exactly what I need to do!

PS. I met this stoner of a retiree at the beach last weekend and he paid for everything for me because he really respects and admires Peace Corps Volunteers. Then he proceeds to tell me, back in the 1980’s when everyone thought Peace Corps was going to be nixed by Regan, there were a couple sayings about us. PCVs from Latin America come back political and enraged. PCVs from Asia come back Buddha and PCVs from Africa come back laughing. Any comments?? Let me just say that statement made me laugh soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard – so I guess it’s correct.

When is cultural sensitivity bad for you?

Since I was 16 years old I’ve been doing things with my life that centers on being sensitive and understanding to other people. First it was YFU, the Friend’s World Program and now the Peace Corps here in Mozambique. Something happened to me today the 17^th of October, a day after my 25^th birthday that really hit me hard. Recently I had a falling out with the first person I met here in Mozambique. He and I just didn’t get along very well anymore so we have been respectively keeping our distances. I heard though that he had been sick. A friend of his from the states had sent me some photos for him that I dropped off maybe about a month ago. My friend here at site had just had a bad case of Malaria and was in bed. So I stopped by and gave him the pictures. He didn’t look to good, but no one really does when you get malaria. It’s all too common here in my town, but if you treat it, take care of yourself and rest, you will get over it. Anyway, last time I was in Maputo, I had got a phone call from a mutual friend that said he had been to visit Matos and he was coughing up blood. Uh oh I thought…it’s either TB or HIV. I had wanted to come and just take him straight to the hospital and get those two tests done. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to. Here in Africa, if you have white skin, most often you get to jump the line of sick and dying to get your tests done. When I had malaria and had to do some controls, I never had to wait longer than 15 minutes for the test to be done and results given back to me. A Mozambican can wait all day for that. When I finally got around visiting him I quickly realized we wouldn’t be going anywhere. Matos could barely keep his eyes open to see that I had come to visit. I just thought it all looked like HIV. I’m by no means an AIDS expert but I’ve seen so much of it in the past two years that you’d have to be blind ( or culturally blind) not to see it. This man had been a porker and now ways less than me, is covered in lesions, his lips are swollen, dried and cracked, his entire body hurts (malaria residue) and he can’t even sit up. His cousin did say to me though that my coming was good because he had sat up for 5 minutes and taken a bit of yoghurt. I’M really having trouble writing this to you guys, the fact I’m listening to RENT as I write this probably isn’t good, but I need to get it out. Matos’ family had brought him to the hospital, they won’t tell anyone what the hospital said, and obviously weren’t happy with what the hospital had to say because Matos is back at home now. He’s a shrunken talking skeleton of his former self and they are trying to get the witch doctor to cure him because they believe he’s been bewitched or cursed by someone. The person was himself because he couldn’t stop himself from sleeping around. The man is obviously in pain and yet his family will not let him take the drugs that could at least give him some relief of the pain even if he will not live. WHY IS THIS FUCKING STIGMA THERE THAT HIV/AIDS ONLY HAPPENS TO OTHERS!!!! IT DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN TO SOMEONE FAR AWAY!! People, we’ve got to talk about this disease, realize it’s not going anywhere fast and then beat the shit out of it. Please…..

Unfortunately I heard this morning that my friend did indeed die. He was 27 and left behind a wife who most likely is positive now...

Dear God, are you listening? It’s me Ian.

Sometimes I wonder if he is listening but other times I am certain of it. Right now I am praying hard that I get my money from the embassy. It’s just absurd how long it is taking. I got approved for this grant July 31^st. I remember because I thought, oh god I only have a month to put this thing together, because the original date was the first of September. Well that’s past. Now I’ve just got to get this stuff before it is time to go down. I also found out tonight that my school is having problems with its boarding house and they’ve been told to vacate the grounds, which includes my house, by the end of the month. I hope I hope I hope that doesn’t include me! I would just say screw it and ask for an earlier ticket home. We’ll see what happens. I just hope it doesn’t get too complicated. What the heck am I saying, this is Africa, and everything is complicated!

My larium dreams have been getting very weird recently. I’ve started killing people in them. Up until now I’ve only killed people once in the course of two years. Twice I got into accidents but the killing sequence was so comical I was a little confused about where that came from and not worrying about anything in the actual dream. The last two freaked me out though. It’s nice of Uncle Sam to be putting me on a psychedelic drug for two years free of charge. I like it so much I even signed up for a third year. Time to get back to my last two dreams, one of which was in Connecticut the other on the beach here in Mozambique. I was in the house of a friend of my father’s who I’ve known for my entire life. She was upstairs and I think I was waiting for a ride or something. I was sitting down to an episode of LOST that suddenly became real. The Others came into the house looking for my dad’s friend because she apparently had the key to get off the island (but we were obviously in Norwalk, as I said drugs) The people really wanted to hurt my friend so I calmly asked them to go back outside and ask for permission to come into the house first – which they did like good little larium villains. I managed to procure a snake and a machete which then both helped me kill these people. There was no blood involved but the struggle was a bit disturbing because I could physically feel them fighting back against me. After some time I woke up in a sweat with a huge headache and hurting where one of the guys had managed to punch me in the stomach. Carol had come back downstairs to see what was going on and told me that my training had proven well taught and I would make the entire council proud. I have no clue where any of this came from and a little upset by the weirdness that came with it. My second dream had to do with some of my stuff getting stolen on the beach. I had lost a capulana from Swaziland and my nalgene bottle that was sent by my dad from home. Anyway, I had caught the people in my dream, apparently I don’t think Mozambican thieves are that smart – as a matter of fact they aren’t. There is a cliff at the beach where I go with a monument left over from the socialist era here. It’s the site where the Portuguese Police would throw slaves and convicts off the cliff into a ravine with lots of rocks and sharp edges where the waves would come in and basically beat the bodies to death. The monument that’s there is a triangle with a triumphant fist breaking through chains (of slavery I think.) Well, I decided to throw the thieves off the cliff. Sharks then came and ate their bodies. I remember thinking how long the bones would last before they would wash away or would I be caught. Then I woke up.

Oh the heat of it all

So I just wiped my brow and realized summer is back! It took its sweet time coming here too. It was 35 degrees today. That is 95 degrees F. That was the temperature in the shade. Everyone is feeling it today though because yesterday it was 18 degrees Celsius. So it jumped almost 20 degrees in the course of 24 hours. Last night was the first night I had to use my fan and today is the first day that I haven’t heated my water to take a bucket bath. You notice these kinds of things coming back. We are right in the middle of our spate of 4 holidays in the course of three weeks. So school has been pointless. First we had Victory Day, September 7^th, the day Mozambique became victorious of the Portuguese imperialists, then 25^th of September, or the day the war of independence started. The 29^th of September is not an official holiday but everyone takes it off because it is Mozambican armed forces day and then this Thursday we have Dia da Paz. It’s the day that the warring factions signed the peace accords in Rome to end the 16 year civil war. Next week is the week of final exams and then the week after that is grading week. Yes it takes a week to do the grades! After that though, there is no school. No I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself for all that time off. I think I’m going to go to the beach and hell maybe I’ll travel because I am so ready to be done with teaching. 15 year old students are obnoxious the world over. I can only give the utmost respect to teachers who actually like teaching that grade.

On a side note, and a more positive one, this week is pretty big in my life too. Over the course of 2 days there are some pretty big events happening. October 3^rd, my little nephew who doesn’t know me is turning two. He’ll get to know me in time I hope. That same day is 17 years of German unification and I got an invitation to the embassy party in Maputo with a German friend of mine. She’s registered there at the embassy and got an invite that said plus one. So I am the plus one because she thought I would enjoy it the most. Danke Helen. I’m busy listening to a lot of German music and reading a book in German so I don’t completely embarrass myself when I get there and say I can speak German. There is nothing worse when you start speaking a language and then the native speaker says “let’s speak in English, it’ll be easier.” Doh! October 5^th is the 17 year Anniversary of my mom’s death. I can’t believe how fast time goes by. It’s just scary looking at the numbers and realizing that she’s been dead ten years longer than I ever knew her. Yet somehow I don’t ever think of that fact. I’ll be in Maputo on the actually anniversary so hopefully won’t be too lonely.

My theatre competition is coming up fast. I hope things go well. That’s part of the reason why I am going down to Maputo again. 2 times is one month is a bit much! The money from the embassy for the project are a little late in coming though. I hope by the time I actually post this message my bank account will be bursting with Meticais. Along the lines of theatre, I met my future Mozambican partner is crime for next year. She’s a dance teacher that lives in Maxixe and has an arts group started. She wants to get things bigger though and include acting lessons. So, we are going to work together and hopefully set up some sort of Maxixe Theatre Performing Arts Company. I just think it is funny how I’ve skipped over my own career in acting and gone straight into teaching it. Aren’t you only supposed to get to this stage when you get tired of going to the cattle calls or have been stuck auditioning for ten years and not actually working?