it's not always sunny in Moz

The plan was to arrive in Sanhote at 8am, mobilize the community into a central location, have the theater group perform two skits on malaria and HIV, then facilitate a community debate on these issues.  The debate was to be recorded by a journalist from the Community Radio of Monapo and then played over the air during our normal time slot for community debates, Mondays at 7pm.  However, like so many things in Moz, our day did not go as planned.  Instead, what resulted is a day I like to think of as “my worst day in Moz.”

I arrived at the office at 7:30am in order to have a brief meeting with the theater group before departure for Sanhote. I wanted to discuss the objectives for the day and highlight key points for the debate which was scheduled to follow the theater pieces. Shortly after 8am I called SCIP Monapo’s driver to see where she was  and let her know that we were ready to leave and waiting for her at the office.  She informed me that she was in Nampula city. It was an emergency.  But, fortunately, she just needed to stop by the SCIP office in Nampula and then she would be on her way back to Monapo. I figured it would be 2 hours, since Monapo is about 1 ½ hours from Nampula (and Mozambicans tend to underestimate when it comes to time…”oh, your food will only be another 10 minutes!” “We’ll have the report finished by the end of the week”). Before you know it, its 10am and we (the theater group and I) are still sitting outside of the office, under a big cashew tree. I call the driver again to find out where she is. “Estou a vir,” I’m coming, was her reply and also one of the most annoying phrases in Portuguese (because it can mean I’m coming in 3 minutes or 3 hours).  I kept apologizing to the kids in the theater group, feeling bad because most of them had arrived at the office at 6:30am that morning (apparently, the 7:30am meeting time wasn’t effectively transmitted from the President to the rest of the group…) But I was now frustrated, too, sitting in the grass hot and hungry. But what could I do? I suggested the girls braid my hair. What a great idea! They loved the opportunity to make me look more Mozambican and I loved the distraction it provided. But, after an hour (and a whole lot of pain!), we were once again sitting and staring at each other and wondering where the car was. It was 12:30pm. I called the driver. She says she is in Namialo, about 20 minutes outside of Monapo. I let the kids know she is close because they have started asking if they can go home. I call the journalist at the radio to let him know we will be leaving within the hour. And the car does arrive within the hour, but the driver has a small errand to run before taking us to Sanhote. I knew it was too good to be true. Eventually, we pile into the car and swing by the Community Radio to pick up the journalist. It’s 2:30pm.

We arrive to Sanhote a little after 3pm.  I am yelling orders, since we only have 2 good hours to work before it starts getting dark. So while the majority of the group begins setting up, I head off towards the house of a midwife and SCIP Community Health Worker.  I get to Celestina’s house to find her and her husband shelling peanuts. They provide a stool for me to sit on and give me atas (a strange Mozambican fruit, we have nothing like it in the US, but they’re delicious) and raw peanuts. I sit and eat and talk. Celestina explains that she worked with the leaders of Sanhote to organize the community at 7am in preparation for our visit. And I apologize and explain all of the problems that we encountered with transport and ask if it’s not too late to hold the event today. Well, many people have gone to their gardens now, since they were away from them this morning. But we can try.

I returned to the theater group to find them setting up and community members already starting to gather around for the performance. A man I met once before approaches me and asks if we spoke to the community leaders about hosting this event today. I explain that Celestina likely spoke with the leaders. He says it is better to go directly to the leader’s house and speak with him, just to be sure. So he points us in the direction of the leader’s house and we drive there to speak with him. Abdul, the Vice President of SCIP’s theater group is with me. He presents the theater group’s credentials to the leader and explains our plan for the afternoon. I’m sitting there trying to not look anxious (at this point we have a little more than an hour before its dark) and not understanding a thing as the conversation is in local language, Makua. But some things are easy to pick up on, due to body language and tone. And soon I realize this leader is arguing with Abdul. Abdul stops to translate- the leader is denying our presence in the community of Sanhote. He said last year a group came to do a theatrical piece on cholera, a diarrheal disease that kills hundreds of children every year in Monapo district. A few weeks after the group performed, cholera hit the community and people blamed the theater group, believing that the outsiders brought cholera into their community to kill people. The community became furious with the leader and even dropped a child’s corpse in front of his house. Literally putting the deaths of the children on the leader for allowing this outside group into the community.

So what choice did we have but to pack up and leave? Freedom of speech doesn’t exist in a community where the leader’s word is the law. So unfortunate, since this community clearly needs to have more activities  and opportunities to learn about disease prevention and treatment in their community. As we prepare to leave the leader’s house, a woman walks up to me with a small bundle of cloth in her arms. She’s pleading with me and clearly asking for help but I cannot understand a thing since she is speaking Makua. Then, she opens the cloth bundle and I see what she’s holding inside- a skeleton of a baby.  The eyes are bulging, huge and bug-like on her abnormally large alien head.  But everything else is so stunted and shriveled I can’t tell if her head is really that big or if it just appears that way because the rest of her is so small. If you Google ‘malnourished baby,’ you will see what I saw.  I have seen my fair share of babies, both here in Mozambique and in Ecuador-but I have never seen anything like this. This child was clearly so far gone, I don’t think any amount of treatment would save it. I’m positive that as I write this, it is no longer alive.

So now I’m in the car bawling from the sight and more importantly, knowing there isn’t anything I, or anyone else, can do for this mother and her dying child. At this point, I could care less about the malaria and HIV skit and community debate and the stupid leader of Sanhote. We go back to meet the rest of the group who has now attracted quite a large crowd and is beginning their performance by dancing. Abdul explains to them what happened at the leader’s house and that we need to pack up, there won’t be a performance today. They don’t understand why I’m so upset. The journalist explains that working with the community is difficult- politics get involved and complicate our work. I shouldn’t take it personally. I say that’s not why I’m upset, but rather for the sight of a dying child. Now they really don’t understand. I can hear the others asking Abdul- What happened? What did she see? Well, what was wrong with it?  Oh, just a baby? For them, this is so common and unemotional. Just a fact of life, hardly something to get so upset over.

As we drive back to Monapo the others are discussing what we will do now for the debate. Since we weren’t able to record a debate among the community of Sanhote, the theater group will perform their malaria skit live over the radio during our normal time slot. It’s about 5pm at this point. They arrived at the office at 6:30am that morning and still have not had anything to eat. The group agrees to meet at the radio at 6:30pm to be prepared to go live at 7pm. Surprisingly, they are all at the radio by the time I show up at 6:45pm. I cannot believe the dedication these kids have shown throughout the day. They get a small monthly allowance from SCIP, but otherwise receive no pay for their hard work. It’s people like them that can bring a slight smile at the end of an impossibly long day such as this.