Moving Boxes

I’ve been at this new job around a month now. I’m still without a home, living out of a suitcase and jumping from place to place- South Africa, meetings in Mozambique, partner visits in Leshotho, Seed meetings in Joburg, an agriculture conference in Harare… But this week I will finally move to Zimbabwe. I am feeling a bit anxious about moving to Bulawayo. It doesn’t matter how many times I move, starting from scratch in a new home and new country is a daunting prospect.

It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, people (including me) have a tendency to put others in a box they understand until they get to know and understand who you are. When that box is “white missionary” you’ve got some work to do. There is such a complicated history behind those two words. How do you begin to build your own identity? To be accepted and known for who you are as a person? I do my best to break people’s expectations, to varying success. I don’t wear “missionary skirts” and I keep my many heels and sparkly shoes clean and washed. But does any distinction I feel in my mind make a difference at all in the face of the realities of Southern Africa?

I talk with people from the city and they make some comment how I must be suffering because there is no AC in the room. They don’t know I’ve spent a three years living in rural places, no electricity, no fridge, no running water, hand-washing my laundry…  Do I set the record straight every time? Or do I just suck it up- is living with those assumptions the price of the history I carry on the surface of my skin? The price of a life of privilege. 

I’m moving to Bulawayo together with my female colleague who is from Lesotho. Despite my outward appearance I am terrified of the idea of moving again. My colleague is fun and outgoing and in 3 days she’ll probably have made 10 friends who are all cooler than me! In three days I’ll probably be alone in my apartment with a cup of tea, wishing I at least had my cat to keep my company.

This song by Audrey Assad reads like a poem, a prayer, and a heartfelt cry.

   From the love of my own comfort

From the fear of having nothing

From a life of wordly passion

Deliver me o God

   From a need to be understood

From a need to be accepted

From the fear of being lonely

Deliver me o God

   From the fear of serving others

From the fear of death or trial

From the fear of humility

Deliver me o God

   And I shall not want

No I shall not want

When I taste your goodness

I shall not want

When I taste your goodness

I shall not want.

Ode to a Mango

Ten Different Ways to Eat a Mango

       I’m back in the blogging world once more dear friends, this time on the way to Zimbabwe, though I’ve only made it as far as South Africa at this time. Since I’m no longer in Machanga I’ve had to change the title of my blog once again. I thought I'd give "migration of the chickadee" a try for now… at least it is not geographically tied and sums up my current mobile state. 

       As of January 21st I have officially started my job as co-facilitator for MCC’s Southern Africa Seed program, a 2-year volunteer exchange program for young adults in the Southern Africa region, revolving around the theme of food sovereignty and conservation agriculture. But I’ll write more about that another day. It being a new job there are still too many unsolved details at this point (such as when I’ll actually move to Bulawayo and where I will be living once I get there), that I might as well wait a couple more weeks to be able to paint a fuller picture of my new life.

       So today I’ll stick to a safer subject matter, something I DO know about. Mangoes. I love mangoes. Fresh of a tree in your backyard. Juice up to your elbows. Like nothing you have every eaten before.

       Often during my travels people ask what the climate in Canada is like. I oblige them with terrifying stories of lakes frozen solid, snow up to the eyeballs, cold that beats the coldest deep-freeze you’ve ever stuck your hand inside. Then I tell them it is so cold in winter that we can’t grow mango trees. They stare at me in disbelief. No mango trees? Nope. And no papaya trees, guava trees, coconut, sugar cane, avocado, banana, jackfruit, custard apple, passion fruit… 

       When asked what I like most about living in Cambodia or Mozambique, mangos are always up there at the top. It is a fruit that must be experienced in its natural habitat. Much as a mackintosh apple picked from the orchard on a crisp New Brunswick fall day, for the proper mango eating experience you must be sitting beneath a coconut palm, the mango still warm from sun it was basking in when you pulled it from the tree not moments before. If Solomon lived in the tropics, the songs he wrote would have had a lot more mangos and a lot fewer goats.

       I used to think that mangos were just mangos. But during the course of my travels I’ve learned that the mango is a versitile and beautiful thing.

1. Eat them green (just before they are ripe, a hint of yellow in the flesh, a little crunchy and a little sour but amazingly delicious) with salt and chili pepper. 

 2. Eat big ones, small ones, red ones, yellow ones, green ones, purple ones.

 

3. Peel the very green ones and cook them in a pot until they resemble applesauce. Add some maize flour and sugar and make a porridge for breakfast.

 4. Try a potato peeler for a thin slice while still a bit green.

 

5. Eat them as a salad over grilled fish.

 6. Eat them on the side of the road sold like THIS.

 

7. Eat them in a fruit salad or a smoothie or baked oatmeal.

 

8. Eat them ripe off the tree cut in wedges.

 

9. Eat them scored in squares and turned inside out (my favourite).

 

10. Or just dig in with your teeth and spit out the peel.

Comings and Goings

There has been lots going on over the past few months; many comings and goings. To save time I thought I’d sit down and just write briefly about them all at once, with lots of pictures. 

In July I WENT on vacation.

I don’t go on vacation often; there aren’t many places to go when you are a single young lady with no travel buddy. True, the Peace Corps Volunteers always find ways to travel around, but their stories generally start with “one day I was hitch-hiking…” However, in the first week of July I had my chance. A fellow Canadian MCC worker was driving down south through Mozambique with her Mozambican colleague, and I met them on the highway near Machanga. Getting to the highway was an adventure in itself. I had to bike 40 mins to town with all my bags, leave my bike at my friend’s house, walk 30 mins to the river, cross in a tiny dug-out canoe, walk again to the town on the other side, wait an hour in the open bed of a pick-up truck “bus” for it to leave, and suffer the hour long bumpy ride to the main highway squeezed between two strangers. But I met my friends no problem and had a lovely couple days on the beach.

On one of mozambique's beautiful southern beaches in Inhambane province. It was still winter, hence the sweater, but we went for a swim nonetheless! 

The crossing to Mambone as I leave Machanga. Imagine this same boat with 5-6 passengers... thankfully the river is shallow an it is possible to walk most of the way in case the boat capsizes.

Grace CAME to visit me!

After the beach, my friend and I bused even further south, crossed into South Africa, and picked up my little sister from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. She traveled all the way to South Africa on her own to come visit me! Braver than I was at 16. We toured around Kruger National Park for a couple days. She couldn’t come all the way here and not see the animals! Also, it was a good excuse for me to get in some excellent birding.

Saddle-billed storks. Aren't those the craziest looking birds? 

Southern Yellow-billed hornbill. Credit for the bird pictures goes to Grace Standen.

Go Pirates, Go! Grace, my friend Natasha and I were invited to a soccer game by a South African woman we met in a taxi. The three of us were the only white people in the ENTIRE stadium, but the atmosphere was incredible. 

Grace and I CAME to Machanga

Grace and I then came back to Machanga together. Having people visit is so special. First of all, it gets lonely here. You can tell people all you want about Canada, about your family at home, but they feel so far away. With Grace I laughed more in a day than I do in two weeks by myself. Having a visitor also lets me see things through new eyes; Mozambican culture, my work, language, food, goats. It is refreshing and encouraging.  And finally, there is now someone at home who has a better idea of Mozambique, what my life is like here, and the work MCC does.

Grace and I hanging out on the beach in Beira, Mozambique. 

Grace at my home in Machanga learning how to grate coconut and killing it. 

We spent a lot of time during her week or so in Machanga going around visiting my students. Here she is with Isabel Armando in her vegetable garden. It was fun to show off my little sister to all my friends here. Also funny that many couldn't tell who was older because Grace is much taller than me. 

Grace WENT home and I WENT to the USA

Sadly, Grace went at the end of July, and on the same day I also went to the States to MCC US’s headquarters in Akron, PA. I attended MCC’s leadership seminar. Why was I sent to attend an MCC leadership seminar, you ask? Well, let me tell you. I’ve landed a new position with MCC starting in January 2016. I will be co-facilitator of MCC’s Seed Program in Southern Africa. MCC has a number of young adult exchange programs, and if you haven’t heard of Seed yet, you will hopefully hear more of it in the future. It started in Colombia several years ago, then Bolivia, and next year there are two new programs starting; one in the DRC and one in Southern Africa. Basically, it sprung from the idea that one year exchanges are not long enough, and there needs to be purposeful learning and reflection for the experience to be meaningful to the individual, and meaningful to MCC’s partners and program as a whole. In January I will go to Zimbabwe where I will co-facilitate the program in Southern Africa. The participants will come from all 6 countries where MCC works in Southern Africa (Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Swaziland, Lesotho, and South Africa) and one or two participants from North America. They will be working with MCC partners for two years in those same 6 countries (though not the country where they are originally from). All of the work will be focused existing conservation agriculture projects. They will also participate in extensive orientation, learning, and reflection sessions. This program combines four things I love most: learning, leadership development, agriculture, and MCC!

Also, I WENT to Colombia

As a part of my preparation for this new position, I and the other new facilitators went to Colombia to visit the existing program there. How neat is that? We were all slightly reassured when we realized that none of us really knew what we’d gotten into. Despite how over-whelming and intense the job promises to be, being at once program facilitator, mentor, administrator, friend, it also promises to be a time of learning, stretching, and hopd for MCC, me, and the participants.

Every meal in Colombia is accompanied with a glass (or in this case plastic pitcher) of fresh homemade juice. So many delicious fruits I'd never even heard of before!

Not only did we learn about the Seed program, but we got to experience a taste of MCC's work with partners in Colombia as well. Sembrando Paz works with rural communities wanting to rebuild their lives and culture after years of war and violence. We were greeted by a lovely group of girls doing a traditional dance. 

Unexpected encounters! Several years ago my grandmother Irma Penner visited Colombia as a part of a Mennonite sister church program. I was the great joy of meeting up with pastor Ricardo and his family which I was in Colombia.

The gardens WENT

During the three weeks I was away in the US and Colombia, cows came in and completely destroyed the fields where my students were working. Life is tough here, and you can’t blame it all on poverty, climate, and corruption. These cows belong to people, and people let them wander freely and jump in other people’s fenced gardens during the night. Why don’t people keep their cows somewhere else? There are laws to this effect, but they are rarely, if ever enforced. The problem is extreme this year because so little rain meant that normal pasture land in the bush has long since dried up, and the gardens are the only edible thing in sight for miles around. Goats also got into our garden behind the church that I’d been working with Amelia, the pastor’s wife. All that was left when I got back were onions and some carrots. At least I can afford to buy replacement tomatoes, kale, cabbage, and lettuce when they are available in the market. But most people in Machanga will not eat another vegetable until February after it rains.   

Grace in my students' garden in July- beautiful growth! 

The exact same garden not three weeks later. 

The last of our carrot harvest. we had been taking them out of the ground as we wanted to eat, but goats became so desperate they started digging and chomping the tops off all the carrots, as you can see in the picture above. 

My two year anniversary in Mozambique CAME and WENT last Thursday

Over two years in Mozambique gone and less than two months left.

When's the last time you washed all your shoes? This is one of the many habits I've picked up during my two years in Mozambique. 

I’M COMING HOME IN DECEMBER

Saving the best news for last. Yes, I have signed myself up for another two and a half years of this craziness with MCC, but I AM coming home for a month over Christmas. I will see you all mid-December!