I'm currently reading Michener's "Space", a weird semi-fiction of the early mission to discover space and much more of his characters who are involved in this adventure.
The neighbors baked a cake and biscuits today for Nanosh's arrival. We made a couple of banners for him, and the plan tomorrow is to buy a chicken and do some old-fashioned cookin'!
After the girls were done making biscuits, they meticulously cleaned the reed mat and floor around where they were cooking, only after doing all the dishes. I said that they really didn't have to, but knew insisting was useless. And, really, I understand why now.
People around here have enough to live, and little else. Their leisure is occupied with being with other people, sometimes doing something, but mostly just being there. And so when there's an opportunity to do something ritualistic, like cooking, it brings forth the ritual of cleaning, rituals because they are so necessary.
I actually felt embarrassed about how much dirt ended up coming up off the floor. I've got too much stuff to occupy me, so I don't clean as often as I should.
In any case, the point is that the world many Mozambicans know is a world with lines and limits. They are masters of what is inside those borders, and very curious, if not ignorant, of what is outside. This, of course, exists in any poorer, rural setting in the world. But when a university-educated American comes in and doesn't have a good grasp of what's inside Mozambican borders, but an understanding of what's outside - it's necessarily alienating. It seems to be a truism that how you deal with that gap marks how well you will integrate into a community.
My mind is quite often sailing off into space, as it did tonight. Michener's words put me into a trance as I stared up at the stars. I sped my mind up to be out there, millions of miles away, in the middle of nowhere, just to realize that I was still very close to hime. And I looked at home with the same eye, and saw myself walking very slowly over a small spherical object with millions of other people, inconsequentially.
I've gone along this line of thinking hundreds of times before, from a pretty early age, to no good conclusions. The problem is that I can visualize the vastness and I can reason about it, but not at the same time. My very finite mind can only handle one infinite thing at a time.
And so now I'm thinking that this very spiritual idea of the incomprehensibility of our very surroundings is very much within the borders of a Mozambican. I think they have come to peace with it, before I started thinking seriously about it. But that doesn't mean I can't refuse to make peace with something so unknown. It's a very pleasant thorn in my side.
Peace
John
