Thursday, June 21, 2007

The White Girl Sits Alone

Some days I feel like I am playing the children’s game “Duck, Duck, Goose”. Only I am always the goose and no matter how hard I run I can never catch the person. Sometimes I am sitting in the middle of the circle, not knowing how I got here. Living here in Mozambique is like trying to figure out the rules of the game “Duck, Duck, Goose”. I desperately want to play the game, so I sit in the circle and I watch how people run around after tagging someone. Then someone tags me and suddenly I’m running how I’ve seen others run but for some reason I end up being put in the center without understanding why.

So, once again, I spent an afternoon sitting on the mound of dirt next to the door of the church. By this time, as many times as I’ve sat here on Thursday afternoons, I should have worn a butt mark in the mound or memorized which letters are missing from the letters of the name of the church on the door. I don’t have either done. Instead, I sit, waiting, half hoping no one comes so I can go home, but always glad when someone does arrive. I have learned to bring a book or a magazine with me. Sometimes the neighbor kids come up to me, to look at the pictures in Newsweek. The neighbors have become accustomed to me sitting here each Thursday afternoon. But passer-byers still “whisper” to each other mzungu (white person) when they see me. Depending on my mood, I will greet them with a Boa tarde! (Portuguese) or Maskati (Shiutewe) for good afternoon. Today I made people laugh by saying Maskati and knowing the proper responses afterwards.

I am an anomaly here. I’m still a girl in many people’s eyes here. I am two and half months shy of my 30th birthday but because I do not have children, I am still a child. Though, ironically, I am called mae (mother—used to address all women childbearing age and older) in the market. Sometimes I want to ask the speaker if they see any children with me and why they used “mother” to address me. I guess the common assumption is that all women have children, women being defined as age 14 and older. I’m asked if I have finished decima secunda (tenth second) the equivalent to 12th grade. It is a major accomplishment here for someone to finish decima segunda. How do I even begin to explain that most people in the United States have finished high school? I try to, I try to explain that because we haven’t had war in our country for years, most people have finished high school, but it is such a different concept to them that it almost doesn’t make sense to them. I don’t even begin to explain higher education.

I frequently do not know what to do. The only thing I know to do is show up. I am realizing that my Mennonite upbringing, thanks to my parents who at times dragged my brother and I to church every time there was a meeting, instilled that in me. I imagine that someday I will do that to my kids. So I go. Joél and I go to church when we do not feel like it; when we know that we will be sitting outside the locked church looking silly waiting for people to arrive. But we go because all we know to do is to show up. We wait a lot, once again trying to understand how we got to be sitting in the middle of the “Duck, Duck, Goose” game circle. Mozambican time is different. It’s never on time, though they desperately want to be on time. It seems like it is generally at least a half hour to an hour late and then they surprise us by showing up a half hour early randomly. Whoever arrives first (after we’ve been there since on time) complains how everyone else is late, with no apology for how late they are.

I wait for the women of the church to come. But today they don’t. I’ve sat on this red earth in three different positions for over an hour and I have lost feeling in my feet. No one is coming today. It’s after 3:30. Women’s Meeting didn’t happen today. I am the goose sitting in the center of the circle but all have left before we even got to play. I’m going home and will show up next week to play again. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to play the game.