The Village

         We dressed according to the customs. Women could never have their knees showing or wear tight pants. We could wear skirts and capalonas which are African wrap around skirts you could buy locally. Anytime we wore skirts or capalonas we had to wear capris or leggings under them.  For a woman to show her knees would be very bad. We could wear real baggy loose capris and had some made there by a tailor. The girl on the far right below is wearing a capalona.

These are all the girls from my house.

                    
     It was really hot and humid. The bugs aren't bad on the base except there are some real big spiders, the size of a dinner plate, in the rafters of the church. Not as many mosquitoes as I had expected and the beds were treated so there wasn't a bed bug problem. Out in the bush there are giant centipedes, spiders, scorpions and cockroaches. There were also lizards, frogs and a giant snail.

      I went out everyday into the village. As soon as you get into the village the kids were in the streets and would run to you and hold your hand. They loved it if you had a camera but they kept wanting to see the picture so that was trouble having so many kids wanting to see it. They try to take all your stuff, take your watch off, hold your hand and steal your rings off. They ask for anything you have, even your clothes. Adults would even walk up to you and ask for your shirt or skirt. The kids would follow you wherever you went. The kids make toys out of trash. 

    They turn it into slingshots and actually kill birds and eat them. They make really good soccer balls from gloves and plastic bags and string.  Depending on where you walked the wealth would go up and down. There were different chiefs and different languages were spoken. You would walk along and the streets would be pretty clean and then suddenly there would be falling down houses and street filled with trash. This is what you would see right away when you left the Iris base to go into the village.

Village kids.

   

         The kids love to sing and dance and they loved to entertain us. They are also really good at doing gymnastics like front and back flips. They would invite us to their houses and we'd [try to] talk to them or pray for them.  Here is a picture of little boys dancing, so cute!

   A lot of students didn't go into the village since they didn't know the language. A lot of the students never left the compound but just hung out on their own porches or went to the beach and never strayed from their English speaking companions. I loved the village! I went every chance I got. It changes quickly from wide open roads and a market to narrow winding paths between houses and open fields of sugar cane and grass. It's really easy to get lost which is another reason a lot of people didn't go out. But all you have to do is ask any child Arco Iris and shrug and they point which way to go.
    At the end of the school each house parent choose one student to give an award to. They were supposed to just make up any award and pick a student to bestow it upon. I got the award; here it is.

 This is the village market; tables and booths of clothes and vegetables and random things all along a road that stretched for miles. We would buy fruit and vegetables because they don't serve them on the base except cabbage. Sometimes we would buy cookies or soda. 

Shoes

 If you look closely you will see flies on this bread. They don't cost anything extra. 

On the road in front of the beach people sell things also. 

They often sell yogurt, bread, their version of popsicles (which is a bag with frozen liquid in it tied shut), and peanuts. They also make a thin fried bread shell with something in it, chicken, potato, fish, vegetables etc. I didn't eat one but they were very popular with the students.

Catch of the day.

There are little stores called barakas that sell sugar and coffee, noodles, peanut butter etc. This is a baraka.

   Girls are not allowed to go out alone so we always had to have a guy with us.   You could take any Mozambican with you but the custom was that you had to buy them something. We usually just bought them soda or cookies.              
     When we wanted capalonas made we would go to different shops and choose the material and find out the price. There were many places to shop from so it took awhile to find the right material you wanted at the price you wanted. This is a shop selling capalonas.

Then you had to find the guy with the sewing machine to make them for you. He would measure you and scratch a few marks on the side of his concrete building. The next day you came back and your skirt or pants were ready. Here is one of the tailors.   

The village houses are small mud or cement huts with a main room and sometimes beds to sit on, and a bedroom with a bed and table. They start with bamboo poles they carry in big bundles on their head and tie together with shredded tires for strings. Here they are building a church.

                                                     Here is a house.
              

                                          They put mud between the poles.
                                

                                                  The roof is usually straw.

This is what the beds look like. The widows make the rope for them for employment at Iris.
            

                    Here is Heidi working with the ladies weaving rope for beds.