A View from the Top... actually a view between the metal bars on my veranda.
It has been so long since I filled you in on what is happening that I don't really know where to start. So, I am going to write down my impressions of my community at random and hopefully it will make sense or occur to me in some kind of order. Ready? Ok! (By the way, have I told you that ok is used here and translates to ok, but is usually accompanied by some kind of grunt?)
1)I had communicated my concerns about living with a manual-flush toilet in the house before, and I am happy to report that I had every right to be concerned. I have not one, but two manual-flush toilets which not only use a LOT of water to properly flush, but smell very bad very quickly when you do not properly flush them. A common thought in the mornings for me these days is “Where is my latrine?” If only I could build one... wait a minute...
2)I have seen a woman walking around town in a sexy witch costume that I am pretty sure I saw either at a Meijer, or in the Oriental Trading Catalogue. Either way, she was sportin it with a pretty good attitude. About thirty minutes later, I saw a man wearing what I can only assume was originally the accompanying hat. On a man. And it was sunny, so I can't imagine why he wouldn't wear it. And now we all know what happens when someone donates a Halloween costume to a clothing drive that benefits Africa. It gets sold to unsuspecting Mozambican citizens who then wear what cannot be very comfortable costuming as daily-wear.
3)My village may or may not be a glorified truckstop. Come sundown, which is at about six pm over here, and only getting earlier as the summer starts to wane, trucks pull over for the night. This means that the market has a few more choices, and the area is a little more built up, but also it means that I should be inside my house by sundown. Truckers attract a lot of, shall we say, unsavory, informal business ventures that usually involve women.
4)I have seen goats in places that one would never expect to see a goat. Tied up to the back of a bicycle. On top of a semi-truck fully loaded with lumber. And skinned, about five feet away from me in the middle of a neighborhood on the side of the path.
5)Twenty liters of water is not as heavy as it would seem to be. That is the amount the container holds that I haul my water in, and I heave that thing right on up to my head. It is all an illusion, I think, since the actual action is pretty easy, but it looks so tough. However, doing it has earned me a little street-cred with the local ladies around the pump. They laughed the first few times, and I think by now I am being accepted as just one of the gang.
6)I do not pay for the electricity used by my bathroom lights. This is a recent revelation, and an exciting one. One night I was preparing to cook some tortillas, to accompany the beans I had made that afternoon, for dinner and was foolish enough to think I could have BOTH burners of my little stove on at the same time. Silly me. Something happened and the stove made a pop and then the electricity in my house went out. The box that controls is is turned off and nothing works... excepting the bathroom lights! And since the box is how I buy my electricity (it is prepaid, like most things here, and I just buy credit and type in a code on the box and it credits my house), then the fact that the bathroom lights work means that I don't pay for it! Hello, twenty-four hour toilet illumination!
7)Fist-sized spiders DO exist! And, thanks to the genius that put in a drop ceiling in this crazy duplex in Mozambique (now we know why drop-ceilings weren't part of the traditional housing here), I have what I can only assume is a good-sized nest or infestation of them above my bed, kitchen, clothing, everything. I am almost positive they live up there, since about every other night one seems to drop down from the ceiling onto the ground, and skitter haphazardly around the room until I kill it. I think they get a bit groggy from the drop, which is why they almost drunkenly wander around from thing to thing, never climbing the walls, and it is also why I can kill them. The entire situation is pretty gross.
I take my leave with this little ruby of wisdom I saw on the t-shirt a boy was wearing:
Bangs Are Sexy
No comments:
Post a Comment