Festa de Sumo
Festa de Sumo
Things have been buzzing along pretty quickly these past few weeks. As per usual participant issues and a couple near deselections have kept us on our toes. All the highs and lows involved with the participants have by far made our time here seem to fly by. It seems pretty slow at times as the pace of life here is pretty slow and laid back, however, with our group there is always a bit of drama going on so things never seem to remain constant.
That aside from my perspective things have been going well and the phase has been a success on many fronts. We went to the beach for three days for our group midproject meeting. The whole weekend was completely surreal, as the group seemed to be functioning at its best and we saw near full participation by all (which is not common on our team). I am sure it helped that two participants were very close to being deselected (code name for nearly sent home), so any inappropriate behaviour or actions on their behalf could have been enough to send them home in a flash.
Last weekend I got delightful opportunity to go back to the beach again, this time with a packed van full of 18 other passengers, most of whom were 20-30 something unmarried Mozambican men (as well as a few single women) who all drank way too much beer that day! We were invited to join by Marciana's host sister and her husband, they were mostly her husband's friends, who really love to have a good time and drink a lot. It was pretty crazy, as Marciana and I didn’t know whether we would make it back alive! The chapa ride there and back were pretty intense and they made quite a scene when we got caught using the private showers at the beach lodge we stayed at the last time we were there. Nonetheless, apart from the chaos of the drunken men, the one hour journey to the beach was worth it, as we bathed in warm, greeny-blue turquoise waters and laid in the shade of the palm trees on the white sandy beach.
Last Saturday I had another adventure worth writing about. As per usual not really knowing exactly where I was going on Saturday I somehow ended up just outside of the community at a village juice party, otherwise known in Portuguese as: Festa de Sumo. A neighbour friend had offered to take me to a place just outside of the host community for juice; I thought okay sounds like a nice afternoon activity to do on my day off. So we hopped in a Chapa (public bus) headed for Maputo, we got off just 6 km outside of the community, then walked down a trail and couple other trails 'till we arrived at a village, where everyone was drinking this cider like drink, made from a fruit called "canu" which looks sort of like crab apples.
The village members that converged for the festa, approximately 50-60 young and old, sat in a semi circle in groups- with the women sitting separate from the men. I was quite a sight in the village and they all smiled as to welcome the white women to their party, and offered me some of the juice/cider. I tried a little but it had quite a strong taste so I drank a little and then offered my glass to the women next to me. I was offered fresh peanuts (not yet roasted) and caju fruit (the fruit we get our cashews from). I sat back and observed the village members and how the conducted the festivities. The women would continuously serve the men, liters upon liters of the juice in dried out gourds, which were used as cups. In the middle of the semi-circle where we sat different community members who seemed to have consumed their fair share of the juice would get up and dance to the local traditional music that was being playing on the stereo that was set up in the sand.
After a couple hours I was certain that my neighbour had had plenty to drink as the women wouldn’t stop filling their cups full and I had to be back in the community. So a friend of his offered us a ride back to town in the back of his pick-up. Luckily enough I arrived just in time to host the Bateman party some of the participants organized at my house to watch the film in my sauna of living room. Seriously the TV room is usually on par with the temperature of a typical sauna, as by half way through the film we were all dripping with sweat. The climate here hasn’t seemed to change. It was supposed to have gotten hotter here in January, however, I am not sure if I have just started to get used to it, or the temperature has remained constant, but I haven’t noticed it has gotten any worse. If it did get worse I don’t think we could handle much more!
Things have been buzzing along pretty quickly these past few weeks. As per usual participant issues and a couple near deselections have kept us on our toes. All the highs and lows involved with the participants have by far made our time here seem to fly by. It seems pretty slow at times as the pace of life here is pretty slow and laid back, however, with our group there is always a bit of drama going on so things never seem to remain constant.
That aside from my perspective things have been going well and the phase has been a success on many fronts. We went to the beach for three days for our group midproject meeting. The whole weekend was completely surreal, as the group seemed to be functioning at its best and we saw near full participation by all (which is not common on our team). I am sure it helped that two participants were very close to being deselected (code name for nearly sent home), so any inappropriate behaviour or actions on their behalf could have been enough to send them home in a flash.
Last weekend I got delightful opportunity to go back to the beach again, this time with a packed van full of 18 other passengers, most of whom were 20-30 something unmarried Mozambican men (as well as a few single women) who all drank way too much beer that day! We were invited to join by Marciana's host sister and her husband, they were mostly her husband's friends, who really love to have a good time and drink a lot. It was pretty crazy, as Marciana and I didn’t know whether we would make it back alive! The chapa ride there and back were pretty intense and they made quite a scene when we got caught using the private showers at the beach lodge we stayed at the last time we were there. Nonetheless, apart from the chaos of the drunken men, the one hour journey to the beach was worth it, as we bathed in warm, greeny-blue turquoise waters and laid in the shade of the palm trees on the white sandy beach.
Last Saturday I had another adventure worth writing about. As per usual not really knowing exactly where I was going on Saturday I somehow ended up just outside of the community at a village juice party, otherwise known in Portuguese as: Festa de Sumo. A neighbour friend had offered to take me to a place just outside of the host community for juice; I thought okay sounds like a nice afternoon activity to do on my day off. So we hopped in a Chapa (public bus) headed for Maputo, we got off just 6 km outside of the community, then walked down a trail and couple other trails 'till we arrived at a village, where everyone was drinking this cider like drink, made from a fruit called "canu" which looks sort of like crab apples.
The village members that converged for the festa, approximately 50-60 young and old, sat in a semi circle in groups- with the women sitting separate from the men. I was quite a sight in the village and they all smiled as to welcome the white women to their party, and offered me some of the juice/cider. I tried a little but it had quite a strong taste so I drank a little and then offered my glass to the women next to me. I was offered fresh peanuts (not yet roasted) and caju fruit (the fruit we get our cashews from). I sat back and observed the village members and how the conducted the festivities. The women would continuously serve the men, liters upon liters of the juice in dried out gourds, which were used as cups. In the middle of the semi-circle where we sat different community members who seemed to have consumed their fair share of the juice would get up and dance to the local traditional music that was being playing on the stereo that was set up in the sand.
After a couple hours I was certain that my neighbour had had plenty to drink as the women wouldn’t stop filling their cups full and I had to be back in the community. So a friend of his offered us a ride back to town in the back of his pick-up. Luckily enough I arrived just in time to host the Bateman party some of the participants organized at my house to watch the film in my sauna of living room. Seriously the TV room is usually on par with the temperature of a typical sauna, as by half way through the film we were all dripping with sweat. The climate here hasn’t seemed to change. It was supposed to have gotten hotter here in January, however, I am not sure if I have just started to get used to it, or the temperature has remained constant, but I haven’t noticed it has gotten any worse. If it did get worse I don’t think we could handle much more!
posted by Laura | 4:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home