women | existabovethenoise

mozambique is much like other countries in this region – there is rhetoric about strong women behind powerful men, with disparities and conundrums in the fore. women are perhaps the hardest working people in any society but often the least educated and the most vulnerable. in just the last 25 years, advances in mozambican development spouted gender equity in all sectors but the reality lags behind. i wont go into the details that can be found in texts by more learned scholars. stephanie urdang`s `and still they dance` tells most of the tale, and when paired with `s is for samora` by sarah lefanu, it says it all. what ive seen is my own glimpse into a more complex microcosm of the present.

being new here is a gendered experience. my male friends have a tendency to fit right in with a harem of the curious and available. i, on the other hand, have been made to silently compete with shapely women who adeptly tiptoe on cracking sidewalks in 3 inch heels. a little femme competition keeps us all young, but my experience has been made only more confusing by being the newest woman to join a family of territorial and outspoken mozambican women. their sense of conviction in rightness, traditions, unspoken family secrets are all traded as membership currency. in time ive learned to appreciate the fissures and to recognize the `in crowd.`

for the first time in my life i have sisters. i have obligations to people i havent chosen to let into my life. and some of them can relate to my feelings of being an outcast in a group i didnt choose. there are those who married into the family and their husbands have died, leaving them to deal with these battle axes alone. there are the daughters of men who never married their mothers. they, like me, have various levels of membership in this club and varying levels of interest in membership. nevertheless, we`re altogether and we`re all we`ve got at the moment. all told, being part of this new sorority has been a learning experience. just taking a step outside of the microcosm and it seems that our internal squabbles pale in comparison to what the average mozambican woman suffers in a less metropolitan, less modern, mozambique.

a ven diagram perhaps seemed to open up this weekend, with our lil microcosm overlapping with the women in a new settlement in chibuene. it has no paved roads, no sewage lines (but there is a well), no electricity yet, but many families have bought land to build, in the hopes that in ten years this area will become something more than overgrown sandy forest an hour outside of the capital. as our family went to bless new land, neighbors came to play their role and thats where the following photos brought home the reality of the ladies of this land. not the ones who flounce around frelimo headquarters or in the halls of foreign cultural centers -us members of the squabble clan. here is what we are supposed to look like, when tradition calls for it and when it is convenient for the men in our lives. this is perhaps what has made these strong women so strong since a tender age in girlhood – they work harder, they live harder and they try their best to stand tall, even when sitting on the ground in their fresh capulana cloth. Life is a gendered experience and this is what it looks like when no one is looking.

When people talk about Mozambique, they often say positive things like “The people are really friendly,” and “The seafood is really great.” Both are true, but they only take you so far. When you stick around for longer than a holiday weekend, reality starts to set in and this ole’ girl called Maputo starts to show her crow’s feet. She’s not an impressive city in comparison to neighboring Joburg, but she has charm and class. And the people are friendly, but with a healthy dose of sass and wit. Let’s just say that there are a lot of things I had to discover on my own. Here are the top 5 things that nobody ever told me about Maputo:

5- The seafood is good, but it gets boring. Most Mozambican meals boast 4 main ingredients: oil, onion, tomato and salt. Put it on meat. Put it on fish. Marinate it all day. It’s going to taste like a slight variation on the same thing every time. And most of the vegetable sides are potato, chima, and/or salad with white lettuce. I love the flavors (even when they are doused in MSG powder), but after having such culinary variety in the U.S. and India my tongue is bored.

4- Mozambican women are BAD! So…I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this and not get my “heterosexual card” pulled, but really these women are effortlessly pretty. They are all well proportioned. Most work out actively. They have kids and still look good in bathing suits. They actually have lovely skin and awesome cheekbones. And, well, it’s all-natural (ish). People don’t believe in the botox or the injections, though they do have an affinity for new weaves/wigs every weekend. But what’s a little fake hair when your butt is real? Fair trade.

3- Nobody actually gets in the water. The drive along the Marginal every day really reminds why the hell I put myself through the torture of 9 hour workdays. But, nobody tells you that you can’t actually get in the water. It’s just decoration. It contains lots of gross matter that no one should have on their bodies, because it only recently came out of someone else’s body. The Indian Ocean looks so tempting you just might be tricked into wanting to dip a toe in on a romantic stroll on a hot summer’s day, but that would be a fool’s errand. Look, but don’t touch!

2-Maputo is everywhere you want to be. The city is only a three-hour drive to Swaziland and South Africa. Sure the roads are kinda unmarked and poorly lit, but those are no match for people with an adventurous spirit in need of widely spoken English interaction and South African supermarket products. I always thought it was the scarcity of consumer goods that drove people over the border, but it’s more than that. The grass isn’t always greener, but it’s definitely more orderly. And South African magazines like Bona and True Love are my new favorite addiction.

1-Mozambicans are the biggest haters on earth. This is a real photo, from a real wall, on a real street in Maputo. No lie! I have never in my life met people who celebrate with suspicion, instinctively. Tell someone that you graduated from college or that you got a new job! It is not met with unfettered happiness and congratulations. It is met with a slow and deliberate questioning of just how you did it. Somebody must have helped you. You could have paid somebody a bribe. The very last thing that will come to people’s minds is that they should be happy for and with you. Actually, it’s as if most people don’t even think ‘positivity’ is an acceptable reaction. I chalk it up to the country’s socialist history, where having more than the next person made you the brunt of suspicion, not the example of accomplishment. The sentiment lingers on well into the present and today I wouldn’t call it socialism. I just call it hate.

Well, you’ll have to come and see for yourself all the good and bad things Maputo has in store, including the exclusive beaches and resorts throughout the rest of the country. There you can get in the water and the women are still drop dead gorgeous. It hasn’t been determined if the hater quotient is still a national phenomenon or a localized epidemic. Be suspicious ya’ll, be very suspicious.