Mistakes we Make

We are foreigners here, and for us that frequently means that we make mistakes with the language, social gaffes, or misunderstand pretty much anything. Our most infamous mistakes are language ones. For example, when we lived in Portugal, Toby was enrolled at a local preschool and one day the teacher told me the kids were going on a field trip to "Quinta Amarela" or something. Now, I looked up quinta in the dictionary and it said Farm, so we spent about a week prepping Toby with all the animal names. Every afternoon, we'd look at picture books with animals and teach him the names. On the appointed day, we dressed him in his jeans and rubber boots, and sent him with a jacket and a sun hat. After we picked him up, we asked him how the farm was, and he said "We didn't go to the farm, we went to a movie!" Apparently the name of the movie house was Yellow Farm. Another time, the teacher spent some time explaining to me that Toby needed a particular thing, and I didn't know the word. Finally she wrote it down, and I went home and looked it up. A toothbrush. He needed a toothbrush (like all the other kids) at school. Sometimes we felt so dumb! She would look at me with pity because I was so stupid!

Lately, however, our knowledge of Portuguese is much better and our mistakes are funnier. Here in Mozambique we asked our guard to wash the car. We mixed up the verbs for "clean" and for "wash" and asked the guard to "wash" the inside of the truck. "Are you really sure?" he asked us about four times. We were sure. But later on, Kevin ran frantically to stop him when he saw him washing the inside of the truck with a hose! It was completely soaked. Luckily it dried out fine.

A few weeks ago Kevin was visiting the church where the boys and I regularly attend, and preached a sermon on the "peas and the goats". It had me in stitches - I could hardly manage to correct him! The others in the church were much more polite and probably would have listened to 30 minutes on how God will separate the peas from the goats, but I just had to stop him.

The social gaffes we make tend to be more serious. Unfortunately, the ones I make are the kind that start rumors. Here, suspicion of sexual promiscuity runs rampant. There are good reasons, mainly because a great many people are promiscuous. But you have to be super careful to not raise suspicions about yourself. I went over to visit my lady neighbor some months ago, and found her not at home. I was standing in the yard, about 15 feet away from her husband, chatting amicably for a few minutes for heading back home, when two men from his church came in the front gate. The looks on their faces were total shock. It was obvious that they thought something was going on, even though we were standing in an open yard. My neighbor looked very embarrassed and I went home, uncomfortable with the idea of what rumors I had just started. Another day, I invited an elderly pastor to sit on our screened-in veranda and have a cold drink and a tangerine while I did some things in the house. After about 15 minutes, I emerged and packed a box of things on the table while we chatted a bit. He looked uncomfortable and finally we decided that Kevin wasn't coming home soon, and he decided to leave. As I opened the door to let him out, I found our guard kneeling by the steps "working on some flowers" there. It was obvious to me that he was trying to keep an eye on what he thought was an inappropriate tryst going on inside the veranda. Good grief. I learned my lesson - now all visitors have to sit on a straw mat or a chair out in the garage. Better yet, make them sit in the front yard.

Of course, the situation with white men is even worse. We had a young white man staying with us and Kevin was out teaching a class. The boys and I were eating dinner with this young man, and we were talking about something funny and laughing. My guard (a different one) came to the back door for something and he looked furious, though of course he didn't say anything. Here, although I am allowed to feed my male houseguest, I mustn't enjoy his company so much. Sometimes I feel like I ought to go into purdah (isolation) and wear a burkah, but mostly I just try to follow the social rules once I am aware of them.

One mistake that I am trying very hard to remedy is an impatience on my part. Here, it is so important to greet people. You can't rush into "can you tell me what time it is?" or "How much are those carrots?". Once, I asked the teller at the Shoprite if the credit card machine was working that day and she very pointedly said "GOOD MORNING" before she answered my question. You must remember to slow down and acknowledge people before starting any business. The relationship is always more important than the task!

I have to remember, too, that people are not always trying to cheat me. I've had quite a few bad experiences in the past with vendors trying to cheat me out of a few cents or more, and quite often I jump to that conclusion when change is slow in coming, or is given in many coins, or math is done creatively. I snapped at a minibus taxi driver once when I stood for awhile waiting for my change and he seemed to be ignoring me. I felt quite chastened when he finally got change for me from the person he was talking to. Although, as foreigners, we frequently are charged higher prices or someone will try to steal something from us, in general the vendors and taxi drivers are helpful and honest with us. Of course, I may not be receiving a full two pounds of the rice I bought (because the scales have been tampered with) but I do get correct change. I just have to keep in mind that things run a lot more slowly here, sometimes people are not very good at math (when we work together to come up with the amount of change, it is always correct) and generally folks are kind and friendly. Slow down, speedy American, and remember that people are more important!

Of course, trying to be too polite can be funny as well. I always say "no, thank you" to the vendors on the street (selling oranges, perfume, shoes, you name it) and I had a group of church ladies in my car one day when I said this. They thought it was the funniest thing they ever heard and explained to me that I mustn't thank the vendors when they hadn't done anything and were in fact pestering me. So, sometimes, it is ok to be rude (in my perspective)!! - C