Tests & Trials

The month of April was a rough month. I spent all my monthly allowance too soon, and so the rest of the month I only had a hundred meticais to get me through. A hundred meticais is equal to about three US dollars. Sadly, I’m really not exaggerating. The same thing happened with Naa. We struggled together. During that month, we really learned how to stretch a dollar and how to stay positive while doing it.

I really dislike not having the money to buy the things I want or to go places I’d like to see. I live in a beautiful region in the world, and I don’t even have the money to travel to places here that I’d like to see. Peace Corps recently gave us our W-2 for 2010, which, I believe showed that I earned less than $3,000 for all of last year. But then again, that’s not why I joined Peace Corps and I don’t really think of myself as poor. I have options, through Peace Corps and back home. I was never truly worried about what I was going to eat. I trust my neighbors wouldn’t let me go hungry, nor would my parents if it came to that. I’ve seen suffering in the eyes of patients in the hospital, children without family, people dying from AIDS. And so I know I have not truly suffered.

With that being said, being broke is not really fun. But somehow, being so broke and waiting for our next paycheck every day gave Naa and me the opportunity to be a bit dramatic and we had fun while doing it.

I talk to Naa every morning. We call each other and talk about our plans for the day and encourage each other. I called her one morning to see how she was hanging in there, because the day before she was unable to come to Xai Xai. When I called her she said she was making oatmeal for breakfast and was going to come to Xai Xai today to go to the bank. I heard her cat meowing loudly in the back ground. She was talking about something and I had to interrupt her to ask,

“OMG Naa, what is Sadie fussin over?”

“Girl, this cat is TOO much right now. She’s fussin because I gave her a little bit of oatmeal for breakfast and now she’s lookin at me like ‘You expect me to eat this? Woman where are those eggs you used to give me or that canned cat food at?’ “

Naa cracks me up. I wish I could record the things she says and put it in this blog.

In response to her cat, laughing at the same time, Naa said to her, “LOOK Sadie, we goin through HARD TIMES right now. PROLLY cause I was buyin you eggs and canned cat food in the FIRST place. I don’t know WHERE you think those things come from, cat, but those things cost money and are NOT cheap. And now part of the reason we strugglin is cause of your high cost meals so don’t you look at me like that and just EAT what is given to you!”

After laughing about that for a minute, she asked me how my puppy is doing. I said he’s ok, ridden with fleas but ok and energetic and thankfully he eats whatever I give him. He’s not picky so he’s gonna make it.

We met in the city later that afternoon. I wanted to mail a letter but couldn’t. I wanted to go to use the internet but couldn’t. I wanted to buy more credit to talk on my phone but couldn’t. So rough. We met at a gas station across the street from KFC. It still wasn’t open at that point, which is probably a good thing. Just one less temptation. We decided to go to the bank first. The bank here requires that your account always has at least 500 meticais. We went to the ATM and both of our statements were not too far from that. We decided to go inside and ask if we could withdraw a portion of the little money we had. Our game plan was to sweet talk the bank lady and butter her up so she might cut us some slack. Our game plan was to compliment her and engage in small talk. Mozambicans love small talk.
As usual, the lobby was full and lines don’t exist here so there were about fifty people crowding the counter. Naa and I pushed our way through until we were right in front of the lady we needed to talk to. We both said good afternoon. I asked her how she was doing. Naa complimented her hair. I asked her how is your work going, how is your health and family and do you like this weather outside? Naa complimented something she was wearing. After this 3 minute exchange of sucking up and using our best charm, the lady asked how could she help us today.

Naa and I looked at each other and smiled. She went on to ask her if she could withdraw money from her account. “Of course,” the lady said, and handed her a blue withdrawal slip. Naa started to fill it out. Knowing that we wouldn’t be able to withdraw the small amount we wanted, I decided to take one step forward before Naa finishes filling out that slip only for the lady to tell us it’s not possible to do so.

In Portuguese, my only chance to convince her, I said, “Ma’am, my friend and I understand that to hold an account here, you must maintain a minimum of X amount of meticais in your account. We understand that, but right now we are really without money until next month. We are requesting that we may be able to withdraw all or part of that X amount, because it’s really all we have right now and it would help us a lot.” I impressed myself after I said it. SURELY she would say yes.

She said no. She said she can’t do that. She apologized. Then Naa went on and told her how she has X amount of meticais in her account and that she would like to withdraw an X amount above the minimum X amount that has to stay in the account. The lady looked at her and said, “You really want to withdraw this X amount of meticais?” Naa said yes, and continued to fill out the blue slip. Then she looked at me with her eyebrows raised and with a joking tone in her voice, in English she said, “Did I stutter? YOU KNOW HOW MANY PIECES OF BREAD that X amount of meticais will get me?! That’s a week o’ food, girl! Actually, screw this let’s just go. We’ll figure somethin’ out.”

We thanked the lady and left. We decided to go to my house because I remembered my empregada (maid) cooked for me. The meal she made cost about 10 meticais. While we were eating we made a budget for next month and decided we must manage the little money that we earn each month better because we can’t keep struggling like this. It’s already hard enough here and even more so when you’re broke! Naa tried to make a phone call but couldn’t because she didn’t have any credit. “Man Mal, the Lord is TESTIN us right now. Girl these are hard times…I hope we get paid soon cause I been havin to go visit my neighbors more often to eat dinner with them and the lady I been buyin bread and bagias from is gettin to know me pretty well…” Bagias are fried bean patties. Mozambicans are very caring people, they always feed their visitors. One of my Mozambican friends told me it’s because they just don’t know where their visitor is coming from and whether or not they’ve eaten or what, so they must offer them food.

After we ate we decided to walk to the city from my house for Naa to catch a ride home. As we were walking we ran into one of my friends, Viegas, who was also a good friend of a former PCV. We stopped to talk to him and he told Naa he had a Portuguese Bible for her. Then he ran into his house and Naa told me she didn’t know what he was talking about, she couldn’t remember how she met him or why he wanted to give her a Bible. He soon skipped his way back to us and handed Naa a green Bible wrapped in plastic.

“Sweet, this’ll help my Portuguese…thanks!” and off we went. We walked quite a way not saying anything for a minute so I asked her if she was alright.

Grabbing her purse, she said, “Yeah I’m good it’s just that I’m tired and this Bible is kind of heavy!”

“Dang girl, it sounds like the Lord is really weighin on you right now!” I said jokingly

Her jaw dropped and we both started laughing, “True that, God is TESTIN US right now during these hard times!”

We made it through the month with as little as we had. We made a budget and have been sticking to it pretty well. Though I didn’t write specific examples, we tried to help each other out as much as we could with what we did have. Other people also helped us along the way by giving us rides and food. And so I learned: When I am going through something difficult, I just need to be patient and reach out.

Now, whenever something or somebody annoys us, or when we’re out of money, or when we’re frustrated or sad or angry, Naa and I are able to laugh and say to each other,

“GOD MUST BE TESTING ME RIGHT NOW!”