I drove into Manjacaze with Ofelio, the dearest of Peace Corps staff who always seems to get stuck doing things that I highly doubt were in his job description. We had been driving for two days, all the way south from Chimoio, through Inhambane province, into Gaza until we reached the turn off to Manjacaze.
Coming from the north, the road into Manj left me happy Peace Corps invested in 4-wheel drive vehicles. After about 45 minutes on the bumpy dirt road, we passed a sign indicating we had reached the “Municipio de Manjacaze.” “You are going to live in a municipality!” Ofelio told me. “This is a big place!” Unsure that “big” was the word Ofelio meant, we road into town to wait for Gerhad (Geraldo) at the gas station. The center of Manjacaze had a single gas pump, a market, and a post office. Ofelio and I drove around a bit before meeting Geraldo and saw that the town was also equipped with a bank and another gas station (this one with more than one pump and a convenience store), a bakery, a variety of small shops, and an old train station. We waited for Geraldo under a big cashew tree and lamented about how much hotter Gaza was than Chimoio.
From the shady cashew tree, we followed Geraldo to his house. He had warned me that a group of South Africans were with him on a mission trip for the week, but to not be overwhelmed. I got out of the car to be greeted by 25 excited volunteers, just back from a morning of digging a well in one of Mozaic’s beneficiary’s houses.
The following week flew by. I was kept busy by the visiting group, and any spare moment I tried to talk with Geraldo about Mozaic and what it is he wanted me to work on in the coming months. The visiting group worked in a number of beneficiaries houses, planting different plants, erecting fences, and working on a well. Unfortunately, the drill bit for the well got lodged in the sand and the group spent a lot of time trying to just get the drill bit back out of the sand. Unsuccessful, the borehole debacle became somewhat of the joke of the week.
But the failed well did not keep the group from having a great time. We visited a pre-school in the nearby town of Chokwe (“nearby”, read: two hours drive). We helped the pre-school by laying out a vegetable garden that the kids can get food from year round. We also played with the kids and tried to teach them a little about nutrition. As I helped translate for the group, I was so excited to feel needed, even just for translating. Though I had only been in Manjacaze a few days, I was being utilized. I was not just sitting beneath a mango tree (though don’t get me wrong, some of my fondest Dondo moments were beneath that tree), but I was talking with kids about nutrition, I was helping a group of volunteers with their work, I was getting my hands dirty planting perennials that will feed people in this sandy region all year round. The more I worked, the more I was excited to be in Manj, the more excited I was to be able to work with this organization and in this communitiy.
The week ended with an exciting futbol game, which we obviously lost, but not for lack of trying. The "South Africans" (in quotes because I was also part of the team!) lost 0-4 to the Mozambicans. Important note: I do not think anyone on the Mozambican team was over 16 years old, we should have gotten some kind of handicap.
Throughout the week, I was luckily able to learn a bit more about what Mozaic does. Mozaic works in Manjacaze as well as some other rural communities in the areas of agriculture/conservation farming, nutrition, and health. While the agriculture project is well established in the community, Geraldo hopes to build the nutrition project to get people more excited and committed to using the nutritious plants he has helped them cultivate. He has identified a number of important plants, especially perennial varieties that are packed with nutrition and are easy to use. Now it is just a matter of getting people to use them.
In the next coming weeks I will focus on learning about what Mozaic has done in Manjacaze and the other communities in which we work. I will be working closely with a few volunteers from the local church (Mozaic partners with local churches to carry out its work) who act as activistas in the community. I am really excited to work with the volunteers and even more excited to be working with Mozaic. We are going to try to put together weekly seminars on different plants and agriculture techniques, and eventually I also want to start up cooking classes. There is so much potential for growth with Mozaic and the whole team is excited to support new projects.
People say everything happens for a reason. I think I was meant to be here in Manjacaze. Despite the stress of the last couple weeks, I feel like there is good work for me to do here with Mozaic and I am excited to explore what that work will look like and figure out ways that I can help Mozaic’s mission.
As an added bonus, the town of Manjacaze just received an ice cream machine. What more can I ask for?
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