The Manchurian Candidate

My friends and I here in the area share our DVDs. It's a guilty pleasure that all of us indulge in. Denzel Washington's greatest hits... it's an 8 in 1 that they sell pirated here in Maxixe, showed up on my PCV netflix list. One of the films is the Manchurian Candidate.

I know the original is touted as better, but it has to do with Communists so the audience of 2004 (when the movie was made) wouldn't have related. We are supposed to be afraid of Corporations and Islamists... communists, who are they? I remember when I was very young and learning about the Red Scare. I asked my dad if he were really upset about the possibility of the Communists would invade America. I think this was during the whole duck and cover era in America. Anyway, his answer shocked me, he said yes! I think I laughed because I just couldn't imagine it happening. The only thing I could imagine would be the other way around. What got me thinking in this movie is how from 1962 (Communists) the antagonist could be easily moved to corporations and even Islamists. I think we should be afraid of the extremists on all sides (in a casa branca) and not just believe what's thrown at us. What's next? Should we be afraid of Polar Bears so we can feel less guilty when they are extinct?

?????

Happiness is infectious…

So I had the weirdest night last night. I went home and finally found the missing disc of 90210 that I had watched a couple of months back. I had a mind numbing day of sorting out depressing statistics from the last year of AIDS work. My job was to take 12 months of monthly reports on the HIV/AIDS awareness statistics and try and sort them into age brackets for 42 elementary schools and 17 associations. By the end of the day yesterday, when I closed my eyes, I saw an excel spreadsheet. Needless to say I was tired. So, when in Africa, I went home to escapist DVDs. I couldn’t move off of my couch. I fell asleep with my door wide open (not a good idea) and my dog very confused (which she is most of the time.) I struggle up to try and take a bath. Summer has finally come during the days, but at night it still gets down in the low 60’s (which is cold when you live in a concrete shack!) I’ll stop the parenthetical comments – my English teachers would hate me. But after the mind fluff of 90210 I wanted to watch another movie. My friend Shaun just gave me an 8 in 1 of Denzel Washington Movies. I watched this movie called John Q. Oh my God is all I have to say, well not really because if I did, the blog entry would be over here.

The movie is about this working class family in the age of high gas prices and wonky mortgages (now, {oh damn it!}) The son of the family has a heart defect that puts him into heart failure. He needs a new heart. The father says that’s fine, he has insurance. But he only works about 25-30 hours so he only qualified for tier 2 catastrophic insurance ie up to 20,000 dollars. Even writing about this now is making my blood boil. The guy starts selling of his house, he tries everything and this is where the movie gets interesting. He takes the heart surgeon and some people in the Emergency Room hostage. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, just wants a new heart for his son. Is that too much to ask? The majority of the movie takes place within the Emergency Room so it’s not packed with action, but all the while I couldn’t help cheering this guy on. He wasn’t taking no for an answer from the monolithic, money-hunger bureaucracy that is the American Health Care System. Truth be told, it wasn’t that well made of a movie, but it got me thinking. Who is in the wrong here? Any thoughts?

PS. My dog jumped onto the couch with me to hang out and then she suddenly decided that on top of the couch would be a more comfortable spot. Kinda like a cat. I've not laughed so hard in a really long time and I think that is what put me in such a good mood.

At war....

So as you know, I'm drugged out of my mind to fight against lariam by dear old Uncle Sam. The dreams that come out are crazy. Unfortunately now the other side effects of lariam are coming up, namely anxiety. I woke up this morning to one BAD case of anxiety because of my dream.

I was here in Mozambique in my dream, but watching TV. Apparently America had been bombing Moscow because of the Georgia problem. I thought, no problem! Maybe I was wrong though. Georgia was our friend, my friend Rhett lived there. Georgia the state, not Georgia the country. It gets worse though. In my dream Washington sent us all letters saying that because of the stupidity of the previous government, (whose?) they didn't have enough soldiers to fight Moscow. So therefore, DC was drafting all PCVs because they already did a background check on us. Saving money as always! I woke up this morning and ran for the radio thinking America can't bomb Moscow, America can't bomb Moscow, they are just not that stupid!!!!!! I then went onto my phone looking for prices for Maputo-Moscow flights.

Time to get off this medication?? I think so. ONLY 21 more pills to go.

My name is Ian...

and I'm your friendly neighborhood Staples Center. I swear if someone steals another pen, I'm going to use it to poke out someone's eyes. I keep one or two pens in a little plastic holder on my desk. I like having them there because well, pens come in quite useful in an office atmosphere don't you think. Yesterday I heard the BOSS say that I had a nice marker on my desk (hi lighter) and sent his secretary to ask me for it. That just made me laugh so hard when I got home that he has the exact same thing I do, but because it's mine it's better. So Staples has officially shut down and I'm going to keep everything in my bag... hidden well under my desk right next to my smelly feeet.


:OP

I think in Song. (warning, written out of bordom)

I remember when I was little I used to think how wonderful it would be to be able to just break out in song while walking down the street - ya know kind of like the old MGM musicals of the 1940's. But my brother always said how stupid that would be. I always hoped it would be true and now here in Mozambique, it is true...almost to the point of eerie. Mozambicans are ALWAYS breaking out into song. The sing and dance at the drop of the hat and I LOVE IT! Unfortunately they don't have the patients to teach my gangling mulungo body how to adapt to their rhythm so I just make it up as I go along... much to their amusement. The scary part though is when some new song comes out or a television jingle comes out EVERYBODY is singing it. It's absolutely astounding how many people can whistle the mCel tune. All I can think about is Big Brother from 1984. The reason I started thinking about this today is because of a couple of situations that happened today. Three friends came in to work. They needed to get stuff done from buying a phone to registering for the GRE. Somehow all was accomplished. As everybody left, so I could relax and surf the internet like a good PCV, I just heard the song from Hello Dolly creep into my head.

Now I'm going to ease on down the path to my house. Done for the day I hope!

Topics of office convos

Life around the world is suprisingly similar to life back in the States. I'm putting two conversations up on this blog just in case the writers of either the American or UK versions of the office are bored and looking for topics.

D or d

In Mozambique, I'm know as doctor Ian or Marcus. It doesn't matter that I've only been to undergrad. They still want to acknowledge the fact that I have studied past twelfth grade. After you do a Master's degree, you get a big D Doctor title. I appreciate the sentiment, but it makes for some interesting conversations - like what follows. One of our youth activists has recently been hired full time as the receptionist. She heard some one call me doctor Ian and started talking about how she wants that title too. She's currently doing 8th grade night school so therefore can't have the title. I was busy filing some work I did this morning and was hearing all this going on. The person who shares my office with me was talking about how a doctora has to present herself well to the world. This girl looks a hell of a lot better than I do in sneakers and a 3 day old beard. I said that and we moved on to the next topic.
My facial hair. Everyone! Absolutely EVERYONE had an opinion on what I should do with my beard. It's kind of funny. :) Even the 15 year old. So, they decided I should basically do a Puerto Rican jaw line thingy. No such luck, but I can take a hint. Now I'm off to shave.

:O)

Score one for Ian

So last week, you may remember a blog about my having to make a bank transfer for 10,500 Meticais and how I wished I had a rubber stamp? Well I had to go back and make a further deposit of 7,500 Meticais for the certificates I had printed out. Hopefully everything will get here in one piece! But, I came with all my papers CORRECTLY ordered out. The letter was signed by IAN HEFELE, I was attended right away. The receipt from last week's transfer was given to me along with the receipt for today's transfer and I was told to have a nice day.

Weird...........

A legacy

85 days and counting until we can vote out history's garbage. I'm holding my breath and hope to God that all Americans abroad have registered and will get their absentee ballots in time. (Including me!) But something happened to me the other day that just made me cry. I was out doing some shopping and passed by the local Indian Store to buy some of the dry goods I needed. There was a mother in there who wanted to buy her monthly sack of rice. 525 Meticais, or about $25. She was arguing that the price was going up too high and that last month it was 450 Meticais. Totally true, but the Indian shop owner couldn't budge because he would be losing money. The woman wanted to pay the 75 mets difference over the course of the next month. The shopkeeper couldn't except. The shopkeeper was explaining that because of oil prices, gasoline was expensive and the transport of his products was too expensive. Wasn't the invasion of Iraq supposed to insure low oil prices? I just got home and cried. I hope George Bush is proud of himself. This woman just wants the simple pleasure of being able to feed her family for the month. It got me mad that in 162 days Bush will leave to a comfortable retirement where he won't have to worry about $3 price difference in food to survive, he won't have to worry about $4 a gallon gas...


Some say that history will be the ultimate judge of this presidency. After seeing this woman in a shop in Maxixe, on the other side of the world from this man, I don't think we have to wait that long.

VOTE!

Why do we do this?

I'm just filling space, because so many of my friends have posted 200-500 posts and I'm at a paltry 160 +- posts. But I still wonder why I am doing this. Am I this interesting? Or is it just a lazy form of keeping in contact with everybody?

However, jealousy is a sin isn't it?

To stamp or not to Stamp

A while back, I heard a report on my favorite BBC podcast From Our Own Correspondent. It was a report from Belgrade, Serbia. This was within the last year so it was long after Communism collapsed in the former Yugoslavia. But the correspondent had some issues. She had to get her residency, no wait, she wanted to activate a land line... something very petty and simple or so you would think. Basically the moral of the story is she recommended anybody that anybody who moves to a socialist or former socialist country to invest in some rubber stamps. She couldn't get the phone line up and running until she had a stamped piece of paper from her local council saying she lived there, which in turn would send her to a court attesting to the fact that the council says the lady lives in Belgrade and thus issuing her with another stamped piece of paper. With these two pieces of paper, the phone line finally worked.

I had a similar experience today. I needed to do a money transfer to Maputo for a t shirt order I made in Maputo. I made SURE I had all the numbers, my passport, the amount AND a pen. I thought I was all set. I go in and the man at the first level of Dante's Socialist Inferno told me that I had to make the transfer "por escrito." "written" so I asked for the form. He said I could use a regular word document! I nearly died laughing. This is in Barclay's Bank! So I ran to my office and typed up the paper. It was along the rough English translation of this.

I IanHefele of the American Passport $%^&*^%^^ issued in Washington DC....



You get the picture. :) Anyway, Mozambique is very particular about their names. Everything official in this country tends to have me named as IAN PAUL HEFELE. Everywhere but Barclay's Bank that is. So I get there having flourished my signature over a piece of paper that just looked so....wrong. I got back and was told to sit. That I can do. Ivan Heefel was called many many times and I finally realized that was me. So apparently Ian PAUL Hefele doesn't exist. However seeing as I was already in the bank and already signed the paper, I wasn't going to do it again. The clerk was going to make me write it all again and come back later. All because of PAUL. (Thanks Dad!) I got a little snarky at him and asked for white out. He didn't understand. I told him I didn't have all day to play around in the bank, printing it out one more time would waste trees and NO I just wasn't going to do that. So, he told me to sign UNDER the dotted line and all would be well.

The moral of my story is if I had the rubber stamp saying ANYTHING in English, I could've stamped out the Paul part and saved the poor clerk some snark.

Happy Weekend

Are you Jon?

So I have taken roughly 135 pills of Larium. (I will admit I've maybe missed a couple here and there) and I have 21 left to do. That's okay, because I haven't been hit too hard with the side effects of it. Malaria is bad enough while taking the pills, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I didn't take the pills. It's surprising how many PCVs around here don't though. Basically everyone who hears that we are supposed to take it for our entire time here flip out and call us every name in the book to insult our intelligence. It basically makes people crazy and is only 90 % effective. As many of you know I've got malaria multiple times and still take the pills. But dreams like last night make it totally worth it.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

My friend Anne's brother Jon was back for a visit from the States. However, he was visiting us all in Homoine, not Maxixe. He was back though looking for recruits for the ultimate battle against the Galactic Empire! He was desperate for us to join up with him because "we were strong in the ways..." What ways I don't know! That's all he would say. I agreed with him, as well as most of my friends. Then we went into the back room of one of the Indian run shops here. We were brought into a secret room of a secret room of "one of ours." This Indian guy was a trusted member of the Rebellion and transported new recruits to and from the Space Stations for training. Just as I was about to step into my transport, I started YELLING at Anne asking why she didn't tell me her brother was Luke Skywalker.

I woke up mad... weird.

The latest and greatest

Here in the fair city of Maxixe, you don't get much in the way of excitement - especially when anything and everything you and your circle of friends do is viewed as the excitement. But ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that the central market has a special. This weeks special is eggplant/aubergine for 20 meticais. I go to my local lady "Big Mama" who gives me good deal so the global price hike doesn't pinch my metical too much. Anyway, I made something absolutely awesome last night. I wish I had taken some pictures of it because it was so good. But hey, I can't be THAT tech savvy here in Africa now can I?

So I bought the eggplant, some tomatoes, onions, LOTS of garlic and some peppers. I basically put it all together and fried the hell out of it for almost an hour meanwhile adding tumeric, tandoori spice, ginger, more garlic, cumin, more garlic, salt and pepper. MY GOD was it good. I made some pooris along with it and it was amazing. But man was it spicey. I brought the left overs into work today for lunch and could barely stomach them because of the spice. They had been in the fridge over night too!

A friend of mine had been over to my house to type up some things on my computer. I agreed to help him do some translations as well. Instead of just staring at him as he cooked though, I decided to bake. Noel and Sam can tell you I cook over two flames basically. But I baked my kitchen clean of plates. I think my housekeeper HATED me this morning because the sink was FULL of plates. I think I only had one mug left over for my regulatory cup of PG TIPS (a hang over from the UK)! I made apple crisp and some butterscotch blondies with fresh cashew nuts in them.

Maybe I should change the title to something to do with food.

YUM!

A job interview is not always a job interview

I’m watching the funniest thing right now. My work is running a job search. It’s a good thing that they are hiring. It’ll assuage my fears that they are going out of business. But this is one of the funniest job interviews I’ve ever witnessed in my life! The first candidate has been here for 15 minutes already and they are only getting to his work related attributes now. The first questions were from the accountant here at ADECI and it was almost like a proof of identity quiz. The accountant was holding the applicants CV and asking him questions like “what’s your full name?” “Luis Ernesto Diego da Conceição” “What are the names of your family?”, was question two, I want to know what that has to do with anything. Maybe it’s some sort of background check. The questions are continuing. “You drink beer since how long?” “I don’t drink.” “Why not, we all like to drink here?” “Why did you give it up” “What church are you?” “When did you start praying there?” “When did you stop smoking?” “So you don’t smoke, you don’t drink, are you sure you are a man?” “Do you have the sickness of following skirts?” “You don’t?!?!?! You must be dead!” Seriously man, these are some of the questions that are coming up. I can’t wait until the next candidate comes in. I’m wondering though if all these random questions are some sort of background check. I mean, everyone knows everyone here and they don’t want any old random person working for us. I think they want to make sure a fellow from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ would apply. Oh my, now they are pounding into this guy. They told him even before he left that he didn’t get the job. I think they are telling him that just to see his reaction. 
The second guy is older and it’s hysterical. The first question out was if he knew where he was applying to. He didn’t know the name of the institution. Both guys were asked how much they wanted to receive per month. They are both applying for a guard job. Minimum wage is 1,678 MT a month or about $67. But it might be more money since I work for a bigger company I mean hell, I make 5,050 MT a month. That’s Peace Corps paying me though and not ADECI. Holy God, they were just talking about the war time. Apparently this guy was in the armed forces and fought against the rebels in Sofala and Manica provinces. The accountant is from up there and lost some family during the war… so he accused the applicant of killing his family! He said all this without a hint of irony. I don’t get the humor. There is a fear that they feel needs to be instilled in their subordinents that I don’t get. They almost had the poor guy in tears here saying he was in FRELIMO and not with the rebels.
Another interesting question is whether these guys know the difference between a state run business and a private business. I don’t know the importance of this question, but I can guess. Most things are part state owned here. Most companies have a shareholder system (score one for capitalism) but the biggest shareholder is someone who is with FRELIMO or FRELIMO itself (score one for communism.) The president of the company that I work for right now is Graça Machel who is currently the wife of Nelson Mandela, but was the Minister of Education here in Mozambique for YEARS and a champion of FRELIMO. This second guy just admitted he is HIV positive! He responded that he’s stopped smoking and drinking since he did the “teste da minha saúde.” The third guy is acting like an idiot. He is taking the thing to count to 3 before you answer to the nth degree. He hasn’t said anything for a what seems like a couple minutes. He’s not going to get the job and my colleagues are making fun of this lisp he has. However, he is acting like a student in my classes in Homoine. Instead of saying he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll stay silent. WHY?

Just thought you guys would enjoy hearing about run of the mill things. There were 3 applicants, lets see who gets it. I’ll keep you updated!

Oh it's good to be smart

Many people know that I'm trying to apply to school to start in the fall of 2009. Well, part of the application is for me to make a recording of where I am in the various languages I speak. They introduced me to this program called audacity. Well, part of this conference I've been at since the 21st of July is a Gospel Choir. But not in the African sense of the term - more in the middle aged white woman warbling away in church to something that was written in 0001. Yet somehow a group of Mozambicans can even make that sound amazing and amazingly spiritual.

So I schlepped my trusty computer to the coast to try and get some of these songs recorded. IT WORKED!!!! Considering I was recording in an old dank church built in 1890, I thought it came out ok. Everyone in the group says it has too much echo. I tell them it doesn't have too much echo because if I (the mulungo) can understand the Portuguese and the Xitswa being sung THERE IS NOT TOO MUCH ECHO. :) That and I didn't want to burn another 16 CDS. It's a rather boring task to do. But I got there and recorded some vocal exercises and 6 songs that they were singing. My favorite song has to be Hi ta Famba. We are marching in the light of God. I'll see if I can get it up onto here one day. Noel, Liz? Any suggestions? You two are good at this stuff.

The next morning, I spent all morning drinking chai and editing the audio much to the amusement of my maid. I don't think she's ever seen a computer before. So the fact that I could record my voice into the computer and play it back to her was just astounding. I really enjoyed it and hope I can edit my voice in German, Spanish and Portuguese so I sound like a native speaker!

New Theme Song

Anyone who has paid attention to this blog in the last 6 months will know that I've just been having a hard time dealing with the constant "being treated as a freak" way of life I live still. Well my dad was able to give me a new "I don't Care" song to help me keep my sanity while I let my freak flag fly throughout the rest of my time here.

So my dad just sent me a package which had a CD in it from someone I’ve long since forgotten about. It’s called Broadway My Way by Linda Eder. I saw her on Broadway a LONG time ago in Jekyll & Hyde and then actually met her at Sam’s Restaurant right around the corner. It was really cool but apparently not cool enough for me not to bury it in the back of my brain. J But, she sings really well. She takes the old Broadway classics and through a new spin on it. The first track is her rendition of a classic from the French Bird Cage. I am What I am. It's kind of making me happy to write this because I'm getting a wonderful mental picture of myself skipping around my palm tree lined neighborhood singing this and having a bright orange (don't know why) flag while Mozambicans who are watching just spontaneously combust because they can't process what they are seeing. What ever makes me happy right? Anyone care to artistically render that image for me??

:)

Back from the dead

Sorry for the lagging in blogs. I've recently found out a lot more people are reading this than I thought were. I basically thought it was a convenient way to communicate with my family back home. I just wanted to say I am back and better than ever now. I was away translating for Christ at a Methodist Church retreat for ten days. It's really nice to not be there anymore. But I gotta think of things to say to you all about that now.

More soon

I didn't even know

Coming to Africa, I've finally started gaining some pride in America. Seeing so many injustices happen to obtain a "democracy" that can only be labeled as farcical has made me start to appreciate what I've had at my disposal in America. I've defended American ness to South Africans, explained American ness to Mozambicans and pleaded American ness to visiting Europeans. Most of it is done with my tongue firmly in my cheek.

However, I stumbled across some news today that has made me very upset. The USA had a travel ban for HIV positive foreigners in the country. That means anyone with HIV who wasn't a citizen couldn't enter or leave the US without a waiver from the government. The other countries in the world that have a ban are Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Lybia, Brunei, China, South Korea and Iraq. This is crazy. I think it's even crazier that I didn't know about this. But the good news is that as of July 16th 2008, the ban is no more. China repealed it earlier this year as well.

Maybe things really can change?

Freak Flag

So thanks to my brother and his wonderful computer, I've been watching WEEDS on these cold winter nights. The episode I watched yesterday was precious. There was this scene between the main kid Shane and his mother's friend Celia. Shane said he didn't like being a freak and hates to think about what other people think. Celia's parental advice was basically " fuck em, let your freak flag fly." I had heard this from someone who has been to visit from the States but you all know, I'm a little out of the loop. But how right was this character Celia. I'm going to let my freak flag fly because honestly I've tried to "find myself" so heard I've created a collage of facets of me that will most likely be a freak anywhere.

So here's to letting your freak flag fly!

Queues

This is something that's been bugging me recently. MOZAMBICANS CAN'T EFFIN QUEUE. Even at the hospital the other day, the queue wasn't so much a line as an amalgamation of people that never spoke to each other yet somehow knew what was going on and who came before whom. I haven't really paid attention to the line lethargy though because it's a losing battle. That is until recently. It's still a horribly losing battle, but I just can't take the GIMME GIMME GIMME atmosphere that this country seems to operate on. I understand it though. Nobody had anything for such a long time and now that materials have come they've got the gimmes. But I went to go get bread the other day. I was waiting in my spot at the counter and literally got pushed out of the way by this woman who wanted two breads. Later on as I was in this store we all call COSTCO buying some things, another woman came running in yelling HOW MUCH IS A CARTON OF SODA! The guy at the counter ignored her, rightly so. But then she reached over me and slapped down the money pushing me out of the way.

Having lived in the UK for two years, this is hard to stomach. I joked to my friend the other day about how wonderful it would have been if the British colonized Mozambique, there'd be lines. He got the joke and said that its not what the British could have taught the Mozambicans its what the Portuguese didn't teach.... thoughts

On the lighter side,

My maid thinks I wear woman's clothes. She thinks I'm a drag queen. :) In her sense of the term, I guess I am. I wear undershirts - wife beater, a shirt, vest, tank top, singlet whatever you want to call it style. Those are apparently viewed as a woman's shirt here. I have this one I think I got as a set in the Chinese Wal Mart they have in Maputo, so I'll leave what it looks like to the imagination. But, while Noel was here, he left this really cool button down short sleeve number. It has a little fancy embroidery on it but would totally be classified as metro in America and Europe... this whole concept hasn't reached Mozambique yet. I told Raquia that it was part of a style that hasn't made it into Maxixe. She bought it, I saved face and we are all happy!