May 16, 2018
As the navy-to-baby blue ombré ushers away the warm pink of the setting sun, I find myself sitting on the back porch stoop with my host father. I can see the winter breeze knocking the palm fronds against one another. The wind appears to be tantalized by this game; it musters up some extra force, just to see how much it can make the leaves bend to its will. The branches, negligent in their resilience, strike a coconut with their elasticity. This coconut capitalizes on the potential energy stored in the extensions of its home and begins its descent to the ground. Upon impact with the earth, the thud is just loud enough to compete with the other sounds around.
My vision is clear, but my mind is cluttered: I can see all of these things happening, but favoring my sight only provides a brief respite from my other senses. I am carrying much ambivalent weight from the entire day. I am trying to choose one sense over the other to prevent adding to the amount to process, but it isn’t possible. Let me start at the beginning.
Today is Ramadan’s eve. As I enter the market, the positive vibes are tangible. I am sure to talk to all of my market friends about their excitement to participate in this year’s fast. I receive very genuine smiles when complimenting some young girls’ new hijabs while they are buying tomatoes at Rachmond’s stall. Next on my market visit, I enter the shop of one of my friends, Jonito. “Ramadan Mubarak,” I say. He tells me thank you. I ask if he will be eating a big dinner to prepare for his fast tomorrow. He says no to dinner, but informs me that his wife had actually prepared a huge lunch. Jonito invites me to his house for this feast of a lunch and even offers to pick me up and take me there. Of course, I accept, but first I have to visit Zakaryah.
I finish my market rounds and hastily walk to the mosque to return some books and speak with my friend. When I arrive, Zakaryah looks preoccupied. Today, his normally attentive countenance feels weighed down and distant. Eventually, it comes out, “I am going back to South Africa, John.” I am upset to hear the news, but even more heart broken to hear him tell me why. “Someone here is very jealous of my job, and has been trying since I arrived to take it from me. It’s hard for my family and I to live here.” Truthfully, as a fellow outsider to the community, I empathize with the struggle of fitting in with a hesitant to change, well-knit community. It makes me sad to see someone, who has poured a portion of his life into helping this community, feel unwelcom here. I have seen before and after photos of the mosques he has rehabilitated throughout the district; mosques where kids have learned to read, high school students have come to get help applying to university (both in Mozambique and South Africa under his guidance), and community members have pumped water from their wells for years.
The conversation ends with Zakaryah in tears. He asks me to open the Quran to a random page and read some of it to him. Though we don’t see eye to eye on this topic, his whole-hearted devotion to his religion is inspiring. Though I really wish I could, I can’t remember exactly what I read, but it seemed to me to have the sentiment of letting life flow in the way that Allah (as he calls Him) and God (as I call Him) had destined it. I don’t know much about the Quran, so I can’t comment on the frequency a passage like that appears, but I do think someone, somewhere knew that there was meaning in those words that might help Zakaryah along.
After leaving the mosque, Jonito was calling me to tell me he was in front of my house. I quickly hurried home and changed out of my walk-around clothes so I could go with him to his house. This was my first time to eat with his family, and I did not want to be underdressed, so I put on something a bit nicer. Thank goodness I did, because Jonito didn’t say anything, I repeat HE DID NOT SAY ANYTHING, about this being his WEDDING! The ceremony was small, only about 25 people in attendance. It was completely in local language, so I didn’t understand a whole lot. But, Jonito looked happy and the people surrounding him were all smiling. I did hear the officiator say “orera” – beautiful, good – consistently, and I hope that married life is indeed “beautiful” for Jonito and his wife.
In the beginning of my service, many days felt as tumultuous as today. As the end of service begins to peak over the horizon, I have become desensitized to having this emotionally charged of a day. As I alluded to earlier, my only real conclusion is that, today, I feel ambivalent: joyful and troubled; hopeful and disappointed; good and bad. Though taxing and often confusing, I am grateful for the access to the range of emotions I am experiencing. I’m learning to appreciate the beauty of both the ups and the downs and living in the moment you are in.
As my focus shifts from the view of the palm tree to the crash of its seed on the ground, my ears release their blockade and allow the discord of wailing women into my head. Two houses down, a young girl, a 10th grader, had just passed away. My host dad said the neighborhood had seen it coming; I didn’t even know she was sick…
Piercing. That is the only word I believe even begins to describe the sound from that momma. The utterance must have been formed from a place much deeper than the vocal cords. It must have begun as a grumbling whimper down in her gut as she felt her daughter’s spirit begin to fade. At the moment of her daughter’s passing, this vocalization must have taken a chilling, 2-count rest in the mother’s heart to let go of the hope held there. After her heart acknowledged the loss, this stirring must have crescendoed in her soul where its key changed to sorrow. On its way out of her body, her mind must have painted the timbre of anguish onto the full, dissonant screech of pain as it was finally released for the world to hear.
Recognizing the melody in that mother’s voice, my own host mother, instinctively, stands up. She readjusts the capulana tied around her waist. She walks to the gate, exits and turns left. I can see other community members are drawn to this music as well. Walking in unison to its rhythm, they must have realized it is their responsibility now. Not to intervene or to try to make it better, but to be there, to support, to show this mother that she isn’t alone. They are there to listen to the symphony, however sad, that this grieving mother is composing.
P.S. Bonus points if you got the Kurt Vonnegut reference in the title.
MOZ likely to sunburn 