Wednesday, February 6, 2008

I´m going to pick your pocket now. Ya know, if that´s ok and everything.

I went to the Feira Dominical in Nampula on Sunday. The Feira is a crowded Sunday market where merchants and pickpockets line the streets, both waiting to take your money in their own ways. It was a successful trip. I bought a DVD with 16 movies on it (completely legal in terms of copyright, I´m sure) and sandals for school. There is definitely an art to bargaining for things here. A lot of the time, you can take the price they give you and cut it in half for the real price of the item. If they say no, you start to walk away and then they´re willing to negotiate more because a sale is better than no sale at all. We both got Mozambique hats, short-brimmed hats with the flag on it. Of course this hat was made in China. There is no shortage of Chinese products here.

We were walking away from the market to head back to the chapa stop, bags in hand, when something didn´t feel right. My roommate was walking ahead of me and two guys walking side-by-side split up, each to brush against her on each side as they walked past. That was strange but they didn´t take anything from her. We kept walking and I felt something going on around my pocket. I turned and saw a kid with a plastic bag over his hand trying to pick my pocket. I pushed his hand away and when he saw I noticed, he just walked away, like he thought "oh, okay. She noticed." I hope that kid goes to and stays in school because he was a lousy pickpocket. I think that I could have done a better job. If I get robbed, I want to at least be impressed by how well the operation goes down. I want to see Oliver Twist-esque action.

My friend was on her phone in Nampula one time and this guy just comes up and sticks his hand in her purse right in front of her. She looked at him and said "what the hell!" and another guy started yelling at the thief too. So the thief just walks away. He might as well have been like "Excuse me, miss. Is it all right if I just take a gander through your personal belongings?" I doubt the guy was looking for tampons or chewing gum. People are not overly fond of thieves here, despite the fact that it seems to be a popular profession. I have heard stories of Mozambicans chasing down thieves and beating them up. The next time someone tries to rip me off, I just plan to start yelling at them in English and making a scene. I don´t keep anything, valuable or not, in my pockets though. It´s too tempting for people with sticky fingers. It all goes in my money belt under my clothes and for women, it´s best to put money you´ll need quick access to in your bra.

I´ve stayed in contact with my second family, the Ndoves, in Namaacha. I hope to visit them in the future but it´s expensive. For now, weekly text messages and short phone conversations will have to suffice. Plus now that school is starting, it´ll get harder to find time to do it. I texted them the other day and apparently my sister, Aninha, who´s 13 years old, was cooking with oil and my little brother, Pedo, was with her. The searing hot oil fell onto her feet and splashed onto my brother´s face. They went to the hospital and Aninha spent a few night there but apparently they´re doing much better. They say she´ll be fine. I can´t even begin to imagine how hot that oil was so I hope she doesn´t have scarring, not to mention that it must be horribly painful to walk. She´s such a good kid too so I hope she recovers quickly with school starting. I want to go down there in April during our time off.

Nia and I have had a string of good luck in the last 24 hours. We had originally been given night classes to teach and we were none too thrilled. It´s extremely dark walking home and we would have had to walk by ourselves. So we decided to go and talk with the Pedigogical Director at the school about our problem. We even planned it all out. I was to be the confrontational one, being like "look (dramatic stamp of the foot and defiant pound of the fist), we refuse to teach at night for security purposes." We walked into his office and I launched into my speech about how we aren´t comfortable teaching at night. The Ped Director interrupted me and was like "ok. I just got someone else to teach them." I think both of our jaws dropped. And then the school fixed our front light fixture and main kitchen light fixture and outlet so we can now use these areas without a flashlight at night. We found ketchup at the local store and I made excellent french fries. Nia split a coconut perfectly in half. We are both becoming experts at splitting and eating coconuts. If I ever get stranded on a deserted island, I won´t be the fool who can´t figure out how to open a coconut.

The most amazing thing was this morning. We walked out of our house with our gas cylinder to catch a chapa to go to the gas station in Monapo Rio. We would have had to walk to the chapa stop with the heavy cylinder, wait for a chapa, load it in and wait for an hour or more for the chapa to fill up, go to the gas station and get a new cylinder, and then wash, rinse and repeat with the whole chapa situation. It´s quite the process. We had maybe walked a minute with the cylinder when we ran into the Zimbabweans who live in Monapo. They are starting up a banana operation over in Namialo and are living here for now until their living quarters are set up in Namialo. They had to get gas too so they gave us and our cylinder a ride to Monapo Rio in their car (which had electric windows - which I took full advantage of playing with. I am five years old when it comes to buttons) AND we got to talk in fluent English. It...was...awesome. We couldn´t believe our luck and were endlessly grateful to not have to chapa it. They dropped us off afterwards right in front of our house and gave us their number. They seem like really nice people. Nia and I thought that if we could buy a lottery ticket right now, we would probably win.

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