“I want your baby!”

“Muzungo! – Macuti!” (Hey white person – do you want to go to the beach?”

“Beautiful hair!”

“Good morning – I need medicine.”

So what’s it like to be a white woman in Mozambique?  Maybe a better place to start would be – what’s it like to be a woman in Mozambique?

“Hey that’s woman’s work!”  I’m beginning to realise how many contexts that can be used in.  Babies are tied to your back so that you can get on with it: fetching water, cooking, growing produce, pounding corn, manning the stall at the side of the road.  Good arm muscles are a necessity here not a fashion accessory.  (I’m working on it!)  When your burden is too heavy you enlist the help of younger sisters or daughters.  There are however, as I’m sure there are in all cultures, a few sacred spaces that are male.  Minibus drivers and their cobradors (responsible for collecting money, drumming up trade, shutting the door after 20 people have squeezed in etc.)

So maybe that begins to answer the first question too.  I’m a white woman living in a rural Mozambican community so I’m immediately different.  I have a baby ( with beautiful hair) but I let her walk around, I have time to lay with her, I have 15 boys who are helpful.  I sometimes even go out without her (although I always get asked where she is, at the local café, supermarket in Beira or walking along the street).

There are some things that are the same though and maybe that makes me more strange.  I take the bus into town, go to the local shops and even walk around without shoes on.  Even in the UK I disliked wearing shoes – it’s warm here, the local streets are sandy and I don’t get told off for not wearing shoes in December – it was inevitable really!

So what about at Kedesh?  Grace and I have encroached on a very male household.  Football is still the favourite past time of choice and there are days when I feel like I’m living on a building site – industrial gloves being used to bring food to the table – but there are ways I’m trying to bring a woman’s touch to the house.  Chocolate chip cookies and shower curtains.  Clothes peg holders and Thanksgiving pies.  I have infact joked with Dave and John that I’m a 1950’s housewife.  And then there’s the mending.  All I can say is that my mum must be glad that she only had girls.  I’ve had some challenging frayed tears already and one that I’ve been putting off for the last week.

So what’s it like to be a woman in Mozambique?  As an external observer – interesting but heartbreaking.  As a mother of 16 – hard work but great fun.  As an English woman – very hot and at times very confusing… but give me time.

Jo