E Mulungo

After a long process of setting up meetings and having them canceled, making arrangements for going to the field, buying equipment and supplies, etc. I finally started my interviews and mapping.


Sergio Julane (geography) and Angelo Francisco (ecology/botany) (L to R in photo), 2 undergrads at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, came out to Madladlane with me for a week of meeting with traditional leaders, community mapping, and interviews. Madladlane, is a small farming community, located along the banks of the Rio Futi, adjacent to the Reserva Especial de Maputo. We stayed at REM and walked across a footbridge everyday to meet and talk with community residents.

Community residents were surprised to see a branca (white woman) walking from home to home, field to field, and certainly from the reserve to the community. E mulungo is what the very smallest children shouted when they saw me, adults were far more circumspect. A mulungo is a foreigner, particularly a white person. I usually shouted it back, in a silly voice, causing all sorts of giggling from both children and adults. After all, I am now the official village idiot.

These little girls were giggling just a moment before the picture was taken. Their mom got 2 of the 3 sisters to change into their best dresses for the picture.

These are just a few of the images from my past week in the field.

Sunrise

Elephant feet or patas. They come from 2 older elephants that were harassing the community and had to be killed. The guards at the reserve had tried herding the animals back behind the fence several times, but the elephants kept escaping to eat crops and attack residents.

One of 2 main roads in Madladlane. The other is a hard dirt road that will probably be paved in the next few years.

Local primary school

A pretty barboleta (butterfly) that decided to hitchhike a ride on my arm. The IUCN is working with the local community to get ecotourists to visit to check out the high diversity of birds, butterflies, and plants.

Terminalia sericea, also known as Conono locally, is used for construction and charcoal production. It is a typical wooded savanna tree species.

Abandoned store in Salamanga, a nearby town.

Mamana Amelia was one of several women farmers I interviewed this past week. She got a kick out of me pronouncing local names for plants and learning a little isiZulu from her during our interview - probably because the new words involved clicking and hlth sounds. I also probably made some funny faces trying to twist my tongue around the new words.

Sr. Olesene, me, Sr. Daniel Mathe, Sergio Julane. Sr. Olesene is a reserve guard and farmer, and acted as our translator this past week. Sr. Mathe is a traditional leader in Madladlane and provided a great summary of the history of the community.

Tenho saudade

Sometimes being apart from people and places puts things into better perspective. Over the past month, I've been on the road in Botswana and South Africa with my husband Chris. It was fantastic to see him and just be with him. I hadn't realized just how deeply I missed him until I saw him walk through the doors at Johannesburg's airport. We had many an adventure on our road trip through Botswana and I will post more pictures and text over the few days.

After he left for home in the States, via a brief stopover in northern Spain, I traveled down to Port Elizabeth, South Africa for the 2007 Society for Conservation Biology meetings. I gave 2 presentations, both of which seemed well received. Again, I will post more about that in the days to come. There is a small, but interesting, development regarding my talk about the historic wildlife trade in this region, but that is all I want to say for now. I'm not gonna count my chickens yet...

When the conference finished, I headed back to Maputo. I had to pick up a new set of keys, which then proceeded not to work. My keys were stolen in Botswana (more to come on that particular adventure). So, I called my building supervisor, Sr. Zimba (cool name, huh?). He got a locksmith out to drill out the padlock that closes the rebar door. All houses seem to have 2 doors here. The wooden one and the rebar door with a padlock. Double the protection, but a pain if you don't have the right keys. Anyway, for $6 he drilled out my lock using a hand drill that matches the one I inherited from my Grandpa Shaffer. Now I have another use for the drill. Woohoo!

After that, I walked over to my favorite neighborhood grocer, stopping to greet people along the way. My apartment guards, the shoe repair/shine man that sits under the tree by the cafe, the young man who sells phone calls on a little table outside my door, the little kids that play in the parking lot behind my apartment, the ladies that sell vegetables and fruits to me from the sidewalk... even the grocer asked where I'd been and how I was doing. Just today, I dropped into the archives to get a paper and the archivists not only remembered me after a 3 month absence, we had a really interesting conversation about why I was replacing that particular paper and the economic conditions in southern Africa in general.

Then there was just the comfort of a familiar setting too. My things, my bed, no living out of a bag or the back of a small car, the warm temperatures, the sound of Portuguese and Rhonga/Changaan, the constant stream of greetings and well wishing, the bumpty-bump of a chapa ride accompanied by loud music (Ridin' Dirty is a great chapa song), my hot shower, the rolling electrical blackouts... Okay, so I wasn't so nostalgic for the electricity thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that some part of me really missed Mozambique - the place, the people, the atmosphere. I have to say that I was more than a bit surprised. I still miss my husband, Chris, lots, and certainly miss my parents, my brother, my in-laws, and my friends because I love them all. I don't know if I would go as far to say I missed my family and Mozambique for the same reasons. But I think that there is a certain element of longing in each of the cases.

Perhaps this is what the Portuguese speakers mean when they talk about Tenho saudade. Lusophones say that saudade is not definable in the English language. From what I can gather, it includes ideas of longing, love, nostalgia, pining, missing, and some indefinable aspect that I'm told you know it when you experience it. At any rate, I'm going to use it to cover both my feelings for my family and Mozambique - even if the feelings are slightly different.

Cracking the Code

It’s 10 pm. The electricity is out in the Coop neighborhood, so I am writing this armed with a 3-hour laptop battery and Petzl headlamp. Despite the darkness, I’ve finally cracked a code that has been teasing me for almost 2 years. A code that with some better language skills, I might not have had to figure out on my own. This "code" of Portuguese weights and measures was used by alfândega (customs) record keepers in Mozambique in the 19th century. Not terribly exciting for most people, but it means that I can now analyze some of the effects of historic wildlife trade on the landscape surrounding Delagoa Bay.

This symbol (above), as well as the @ symbol cover the pages of a notebook I carried daily during my visit to Lisbon, Portugal in the summer of 2005. I was there on a small research grant collecting data on historic wildlife exports from Delagoa Bay and its hinterland. Delagoa Bay is the old name for Maputo Bay.

Tonight, I finally figured out that the symbol is shorthand for libra (pound). Now that I know what the symbol stands for, it seems so obvious. The @ symbol refers to arrobas. What are libras and arrobas? And all the rest of the archaic weights I found?

1 bar/baar/bare = 229 kg
1 arroba = 14.9 kg = 32.41 lb
1 faraçola = 12.4 kg
1 mane = 0.95665 kg
1 arrátel = 0.459375 kg
1 libra = 0.4536 kg
1 marco = 0.2368 kg
1 onça = 0.02835 kg
1 matical = 0.00441346 kg
1 oitava = 0.0037 kg
1 panja = 5.175 to 5.52 L
1 panella = 8.4 L

These values varied depending on the port. A bar in Sofala was not the exact same weight as a bar in Ilha de Moçambique. I translated everything into kilograms because commie units, I mean SI metrics, are used for science. (BTW in doing all these weight and measure searches I learned that only 3 countries in the world do not use metrics – Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States. Interesting). I'm posting them in case someone else ever needs to track this all down. I've done many searches on the web but found nothing.

These values came from the following 2 major sources (again, just in case you ever need to cite them):

Alpers, Edward A.. 1975. Ivory and Slaves: Changing Pattern of International Trade in East Central Africa to the Later Nineteenth Century. University of California Press: Berkeley.

Nunez, Antonio. 1868 [1554]. O livro dos peços, medidas e moedas. In de Lima Felner, Roderigo J., ed. Collecção de Monumentos Ineditos Para a Historia das Conquistas dos Portuguezes em Africa, Asia e America. Tomo V. Serie 1. Historia da Asia. Typographia da Academia Real das Sciencias: Lisboa.

A big thanks go to Dr. Antonio Sopa of the UEM Archivo Histórico de Moçambique for directing me to the Nunez document.

Now, anyone know what species of southern African cat was called a "tigre" in the late 1800s in Portuguese East Africa?

5/9/07 - I discovered this morning that a "tigre" is a Large spotted genet (Genetta tigrina). The tails and skins were used as part of Tsonga and Zulu soldiers (impis) uniforms.

Diz Óla

I get a real kick out of funny signs, brandnames, and directions. TDM, Telecomunicações de Moçambique, has added appropriate labeling to their public phones since I was here in 2004. Yadda, yadda, yadda does translate into Portuguese - blá, blá if you are having trouble reading and don't want to blow the picture up.

Every time I pass one it makes me smile.

Adventures in Portuguese: The Medical Clinic

Recently Maputo has had a lot of rain and wind. The rain is good. The wind not so good, because the city is built on sand.

Between the sand and my allergies to dust, my eyes are red by the end of the day. Last night, I was sitting in Changaan class and couldn't figure out why my right eye felt like someone had punched it. When I got home I noticed that the eyelid was swollen but I chalked it up to a developing stye. This morning when I woke up, I could barely get my eye open the lid was so puffy. At this point, lacking a stye, I was thinking pink eye. Fun times.

I walked over to the Sommershield Clinic, about 3/4's of a mile from my apartment. Its a very good private medical clinic that most foreigners use if they have medical issues (emergency or otherwise). I was hesitant to go because (1)I hate going to the doctors, and (2)I wasn't sure that my Portuguese was up to it.

Why do I hate going to the doctors? I don't hate doctors, its just that going usually means I'm sick and I really hate being sick. Hospitals are even worse - because if I'm not sick, someone I probably care about is. As a result, I don't go to hospitals to visit a friend unless they are really in a bad way or just had a baby (which could be considered in a bad way ;-P). Anyway, I got to reception and was immediately confronted with my dearth of advanced Portuguese. In Portuguese a 5 year old would use, I explained that I believed I had conjunctivitis and said I didn't have an appointment in Portuguese. The receptionist handed me a form in English and Afrikaans, all the while speaking to me in Portuguese. I understood her. So far, so good.

After filling out the form, I waited about 40 minutes before being sent back to an office. I sat down, took off my glasses, pointed at my swollen eye and got out about 2 Portuguese sentences out explaining what I thought was going on before the doctor asked if I wanted to speak English. The doctor flashed a light in both eyes looking for dirt and infection. Then he asked, "Have you eaten anything strange recently?"

Well, hmmmm... Define strange. Define recently. I can think of a lots of strange food I've eaten in the past month - just because I've moved to another continent. The only thing I can think of was the mafurra fruit (Trichilia emetica) I bought on Tuesday and ate a little of on Friday. I only ate about 5 pieces before deciding that it was a little too bland and mealy. The picture shows the fruit in pods which contain several pieces.

I really can't think of any other strange thing that I have eaten recently. Of course, T. emetica bark is used as fish poison and oil from the seeds is both eaten and used as soap. Personally given my allergies to dust and mold, I think that the dust blowing around the past week is the culprit.

Anyway, the doctor perscribed Loratadine and an eye ointment containing tetracycline (just in case). I told him that I had a supply of Loratadine that I brought with me from the States. He seemed surprised that I could get it at the grocery store. Then I had to pay and get my perscription for the ointment. Another round of negotiations in Portuguese (no wonder 5 year olds aren't considered capable of looking after their own health), I got my perscription and headed home with only a few linguistic bruises and a puffy eye.

Hoyohoyo Tijondzweni ta Xichangani!

I just came back from my first Changaan class. It was pretty intense. Tatana Mukhavele is not going to cut us any slack. There are many new sounds and lots of verb prefixes and suffixes.

Some of the new sounds include a whistle (svi), a click (q), and another sound that gets made at the back and roof of your mouth (hlw). I knew there was a reason that I annoyed my mom making all those weird mouth noises as a kid. (Did you ever notice though that boys make more strange mouth noises than girls? What is up with that?)

Here are a few things I learned so that if you ever find yourself in a Changaan speaking area you can have a very simple conversation. You never know when this will come in handy - traveling in Kruger NP, dinner at the Mozambican embassy in DC, downtown Atlanta, the final round of Jeopardy.

Lixile (lee-she-lay) - Good day.
Lipelile (lee-pay-lee-lay) - Good evening.
Khanimambu (ka-nee-mam-boo) - Thank you.
Himina... (hee-mee-na) - My name is...
Wena ke? (way-na key) - And you?
Wahanya? (wah-han-nya) - How are you?
Nahanya. (nah-han-nya) - I'm fine.
Tatana (tah-tah-nah) - Mr.
Mamana (mah-mah-nah) - Ms.
Se yichahile! (say yee-cha-hee-lay) - See you later!
Fambani khwatsi. (fam-bah-nee kwat-see) - Go well.

I should point out that for many words, the penultimate syllable is stretched out. So Lixile sounds like lee - sheeee - lay. The way that words get said reminds me of summer days when it is too hot to do anything or scuffing my flip-flops along a sidewalk. Synesthesia?

Also, this won't get you very far. Mozambique uses Portuguese as its official language because over 43 indigenous languages are spoken throughout the country. Changaan, and similar languages like Ronga, are spoken in the south of Mozambique to as far north as the Rio Save. You might also hear a little Changaan spoken near the border in KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga (South Africa) and Zimbabwe.

Changaan verbs, with all their prefixes indicating numbers of actors and suffixes telling whether it is a command or the sentence continues, make learning verbs in Romance languages look easy.

Hoyohoyo Tijondzweni ta Xichangani!
(hoy-oh-hoy-oh tee-zhon-dz-we-nee tah she-chon-gah-nee)
Welcome to Changaan class!