All Mixed Up

It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you.

Ivan Illich,
"To Hell With Good Intentions" Speech, 1968

When we first arrived in Mozambique, we sat at a restaurant and did our best pointing job to order a great meal. When it came time for dessert, Laura asked the waiter to describe the ice cream dish (a bold move, given the few words of Portuguese we could understand at the time). He said that it contained maça. Apple. Sounds good, Laura thought, and ordered it.

Except that he didn't say maça. He said massa. Spaghetti.

Strange. Even stranger that it's on the menu at all. We've seen it at several restaurants since, though we haven't been able to find a single Mozambican who confesses to eating the stuff.

Not long after Laura's spaghetti incident, I was helping out at the seminary construction project. Geraldo asked me for some massa. This time, I was on the ball. I knew he didn't want an apple. But did he want me to buy him a plate of spaghetti?

Turns out that massa -- which literally means 'mixture' -- is also mortar for bricks.

For better or for worse, I'll never know all the mistakes that I've made trying to speak Portuguese. Once in a while the confusion is unearthed and corrected. One of the most memorable occasions happened while having a conversation with Jeronimo, a non-Christian. Wanting to learn more about me, he asked a simple question: "Why is it that you are a missionary, but don't attend church?"

"I don't attend church?" I asked, confused. How would he have that impression?

"You told me a couple of weeks ago that you don't attend church."

Why would I tell him that? Surely I didn't. Or maybe I had meant to tell him that I didn't attend church that particular Sunday.

And as simple as that, an innocuous (though significant) misunderstanding takes root, merely because I apparently used the wrong verb tense in a long-forgotten conversation.

Ivan Illich was a combative social thinker who was infamous for his biting critiques of missionaries and other "dogooders ... pretentiously imposing" ourselves on foreign cultures. His critiques are most painful when he succeeds at digging his teeth a little too close to the truth. The truth is, we have often felt linguistically deaf and dumb this year. The truth is, our lack of fluency has stunted the growth of our relationships both in depth and breadth.

Language is a barrier that has prevented us from getting to know more than a handful of Mozambicans really well.

Unlike Mr Illich, I don't think that linguistic and cultural barriers are insurmountable. I don't think that missionaries are necessarily living in their adopted countries as invasive salesmen and unwelcome propagators of Western culture.

Some are, sure. But not all. I've witnessed some good examples of "my-way-or-the-highway" theology, but I've also witnessed some better examples of people who love the sick, who love the forgotten, who love the poor. People who spend their time learning about their Mozambican neighbours, sharing meals with them and tears with them, learning from them and only when necessary teaching them. Like a friend, a nurse, who helped a mother through toxemia and taught her to feed her pre-mature child when the hospital couldn't provide adequate care.

We can't love our neighbours without knowing our neighbours, and we can't know our neighbours without learning to talk to them. But the very act of learning their language builds bonds of trust.

Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it takes time. Yes, we'll look foolish at times. We might even bring construction workers a surprise (but welcomed) plate of spaghetti once or twice. If that's the price of friendship, let me look foolish.

Os Emprestimos

When I started learning Portuguese, I learned the word for "loan." Emprestimo. I thought that it would be a useful word to know when dealing with microcredit and business development.

I didn't realize how often I would hear it from individuals asking me for a loan. Queria um emprestimo, por favor.

Of course, the request is never that direct. Not in Africa.

We've been asked for many loans or gifts (the lines are rarely so clear) over the past months. This week, it was our empregada who asked for a loan. The conversation went something like this:

"Good morning, patron. How are you?"

"Good morning, Alzira. I'm doing fine, thanks. How are you doing today?"

"I'm fine as well. Laura is at school today?"

"Yes, she's at school."

"My mother is sick right now, but she's in Chokwe and I don't have enough money to visit her."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

(Notice my Western-style response: directly responding to the explicit statement. I didn't detect a request for a loan buried in there!)

I had inadvertently forced her to ask more directly:

"Could I have a loan for two hundred so that I can travel there this weekend?"

Even here, when my ignorance has forced her to be more direct, she avoids using the key words that I would understand: dineiro or meticais. Money or dollars. I almost missed the question. Then I realized that I had heard the key word: emprestimo. Still, I wanted to clarify:

"Two hundred meticais?"

She looked embarrassed, perhaps because I made the request more direct by using the word meticais. Or perhaps because she was asking for a loan in the first place.

Some people have advised us against lending money to Mozambicans. Their reasons vary.

Some people think that when Africans ask for a loan, they really have little intention of repaying it. In this case, if she had've asked for the $8 outright to visit her sick mother in a different province, I probably would have obliged.

Some people argue that we're not doing anyone any favours by helping them to live above their means. I'm sympathetic to this point, but I'm also sympathetic to her sick mother. And I would rather let her make a bad decision about her life than force my own decisions onto her.

In a perfect world, Africans would save their money so that they had some left over for a rainy day (or perhaps a more apt metaphor would be for a drought). In a perfect world, they would have enough to eat every day as well.

I can give her a loan because I can secure it against her future wages -- after all, those wages come from my wallet. But that's not the point. The point is that we have a cultural bias towards savings, in part stemming from the comfort that comes from a stable political and economic climate.

Africans have had too turbulent a history to be able to count on their savings having any value tomorrow.

Instead, African culture permits the borrower, not the lender, to determine the level and legitimacy of their request. In some ways, that's a freeing thought. At least this time, I won't worry about whether or not I'm helping or hurting.

Homes and Cell Phones

I've been meeting with a young man named Mario twice a week to practice speaking Portuguese. I've been paying him for his services because it's truly been helpful, and because, at 24 years old, he's trying to finish school and look after his younger brother at the same time. He's looking for work as a translator at embassies, or as a chef. He loves to cook.

I met Mario at a local church that I attend more frequently than any other right now -- perhaps once every second week. He took the initiative to approach me for a job, and takes his commitment seriously.

Mario just showed me his new cell phone. It cost him $80, which I loaned him as an advance on his salary, to be paid back over two months.

The ubiquitous cell phone is a major asset in Mozambique. Just yesterday I heard about someone who is in hospital suffering stab wounds from a screwdriver. The thief coveted her cell phone.

By contrast, Mario is also paying a mortgage on the house he lives in. Because banks in Mozambique aren't interested in such small loans (and may not consider his meagre structure to be suitable for a mortgage anyway), the home's previous owner holds the mortgage (and title to the house, until Mario has completed his payments). Mario pays whenever he can put together some savings. He's not expected to pay monthly.

The house will cost roughly 20,000 meticais nova familia -- or about $800.

In other words, I just lent him 10% of the value of his house to buy a telephone. I was shocked. Surely that's an obscene amount of money for a phone.

Laura and I dropped him off at his house recently, in a subdivision of Maputo called "Polana Caniço." The house has three rooms, but it's only half-built: only one of the rooms has a roof, which consists of corrugated steel sheets set across the tops of the walls. There are holes where windows, or at least iron grates, might eventually go.

Some common features of homes in Canada are unnecessary and unheard of here. You have a heater in your home? Everybody does? Most Mozambicans don't understand the Canadian climate, and don't care to.

And other common features are luxurious. Like running water, which Mario doesn't have.

He doesn't have electricity either, because he can neither afford to hook it up nor afford to pay the bills. It's all too easy to forget the luxury that we are enjoying in Maputo: our electricity costs about $40 a month, purchased in advance on a pre-paid card. By contrast, the minimum wage in Mozambique, for those fortunate enough to have full employment, is US$58 a month.

(And even still, I don't know how common adherence to that official statistic is. A news service recently reported that soldiers in the army will receive raises to boost their salaries above $38 per month. Not even government employees receive minimum wage, it would appear.)

Cell phones are as expensive here as they are in Canada, which make them exceedingly expensive for the average Mozambican. They're also extremely important: potential employers need to know how to reach him.

Fala portuguêse, por favor!

There are a lot of difficult things about engaging a new culture, but perhaps none so difficult and confidence-testing as learning a foreign language.

Laura and I have been working hard to learn Portuguese. For me, it's a part of my daily routine. I am attending one-on-one classes three days a week, and spending two days a week conversing with Mario, a Mozambican national, for practice.

I also try watching the news, though I pick up little of what is said, and attend meetings in Portuguese for practice. I have a grade four history reader that I am working through, which has provided good cultural learning as well as language learning.

I can understand a handful of words, and can speak even fewer.

I sometimes wish that I had have spent more time learning Portuguese before I came here, and other times wish that I could just "download" the new language, Matrix-style.

Laura has been very busy at her English-language high school, but has found two hours a week to meet with a woman who is teaching her as well.

Language learning is certainly tough slogging. It may very well be one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.

Of course, I'm making progress. Last week, I successfully went to a photocopier store on my own and asked how much it would cost to photocopy an entire spiral-bound notebook, and then proceeded to ask the clerk to do so. All in Portuguese. A small victory.

It takes much time and energy to learn a language, and I've been trained to expect immediate results. Why am I not fluent in just five weeks? The truth is, I should be happy to be conversant in a couple of months.

I have sat in on several classes offered by the local Maputo City Church to teach English to Mozambican nationals. I have heard the people in that class labour over the pronunciation of words, seen them scratch their heads in search of their meanings, wrestle with verb conjugation, and struggle to express themselves in a brand new language. They see great opportunity in learning English, and are extremely motivated learners. I rarely hear a word of Portuguese in those classes.

What an example they set for me as I learn Portuguese!

I have also come to realize that learning Portuguese is an exercise that pays dividends far beyond the direct benefit of being able to speak with people in their language. Mozambicans respect us for taking an interest in their culture, and for investing the time needed to develop language skills.

The bridge that is built through this learning experience is a healthy one: Mozambicans have the opportunity of seeing us in a position of weakness relative to themselves. They get to see the wealthy foreigner struggle.

The relationships that will blossom as a result of this struggle will be well worth the effort, I trust.

Culture Shock: Part II

I've often been warned of the onset of culture shock, but even as I had travelled abroad previously, I've always understood it to be primarily an intellectual experience -- a sort of "isn't that wierd" inconvenience, like the lack of sub sauce in Washington (see Culture Shock: Part I).

Though I don't profess to know the depth and breadth of culture shock yet, I now understand it to be less about inconveniences, and more a full frontal attack on one's sense of competence.

At home, we derive our confidence and comfort from a sense of competence -- a sense that, if I want to do something, I have the ability to go and do it -- and the independence that results from that competence. In a new culture, that sense of competence quickly dwindles.

At home, I was a fully-functioning, independent adult. By contrast, in Mozambique I have the competence of a young child. In the past couple of days:

• I needed assistance from my new friend, Glenn, to speak with a store clerk to purchase my own (fill in the blank: groceries, telephone, ...). Moreover, I needed his help to navigate government bureaucracy to complete our resident permit applications.

• I have met several Mozambicans -- Raul, Timoteo, Samuel, Juka, Ricardo -- but I can't move a conversation beyond basic pleasantries ("bon dia" and "obrigado") to get to know them, except with those who can speak broken English with me.

• Our laptop batteries died, but I couldn't recharge them since I didn't have an adapter to plug a North American plug into a Mozambican wall (a problem since resolved).

• I was dependent upon others for rides until yesterday, when I borrowed a car that wasn't being used -- and even now, I feel like I'm a new driver in the right-hand-drive car on roads where obeying rules is the exception and potholes are the rule.

Most of all, and perhaps punctuating my newly-perceived lack of competence that marks the onset of culture shock, is that my days aren't yet full, and I haven't even completely mapped out a game plan for the next year. Laura is at school right now in teacher training, where she probably has too much to do, and I'm feeling guilty for not being busy mid-way through our first week on the ground.

The truth is that I have quite purposefully declined several requests of my time (including successfully turning down the opportunity to teach at school, as reported in Jill-Of-All-Trades). I want to go slowly at first to make sure my time is targetted in the most effective direction, rather than filling up with good things that aren't my passion.

One chunk of my time will be devoted to language study. The past couple of days have reinforced the need for me to speak and understand a basic level of Portuguese in order to be as effective as possible in helping Mozambicans, and to rebuild the competence necessary to ward away culture shock. The challenge of learning a new language is somewhat lessened by the realization that, for most people here, Portuguese is a second language as well. Most Mozambicans first learned to speak a tribal language at home (Shangaan is popular in Maputo province), and only learned Portuguese as the "trade language" of Mozambique while in school. That experience makes them very patient and gracious teachers of language, thankfully.