Every Wednesday and Saturday in Namaacha is “shoprite” day. Now there are stores called ShopRite in bigger towns that are similar to a Mozambican Kroger. They are large, air conditioned, and have all the great foods you could want, like Doritos, Fritos, and everything to make burritos. Unfortunately, this is not the same as Namaacha shoprite. Namaacha shoprite is more like a larger market with lots of clothing and more food variety than what is found in the normal market here. Being Saturday, a group of us decided to go explore shoprite. While there wasn’t anything too exciting there it was nice to get out and passear(walk around). On the way back we stop by the gas station, which I have never actually seen anyone get gas at, and bought some snack food. We relaxed, watched a futebol match, and enjoyed not having to worry about doing a million and half things. I headed back home a little before dinner time, getting home around 17:45. To my surprise there was a group of people at the house and music blaring. As I walked in the door, it was quite obvious that everyone had been drinking quite a bit, and drunken Portuguese is hard to understand when I don’t really understand sober Portuguese well. My brother, Tony, from Maputo was in town with one of his friends, Playboy Blaze, yes that is the actually name I was told, and one other friend. Then there was a neighbor lady with her infant child, Mama Celeste, Junior, and one of Junior’s friends. I took a seat in the living room and had dinner since it was ready, just rice and beans. Of course I didn’t really understand what was going on since there was a mix of drunken Portuguese and drunken Changana, with the occasional broken English thrown in. The neighbor lady was in town because she had just completed her training at the police academy and was going to become a police officer very soon, so I figured that’s what all the partying was about. After a few hours Mama Celeste finally passed out in a chair and the others just kept on partying. The neighbor lady at this point was dancing and her baby was screaming his head off, unhappy with it being awake at 10 pm. She decided that it was time to give her baby a little TLC, so she tied him in front of her using a capulana. People here tie their babies to them in a sling using a capulana, in the front if they are trying to comfort the child or in the back if they are just going places with them. After several minutes comforting the baby calmed down. With the mother having done her job she moves her baby to her back and goes back to dancing; yes, she was dancing with a baby tied to her back. Shortly after this Mama Celeste woke up, looked around and grabbed a bottle of wine. She proceeded to throw back about a quarter of the bottle and then went outside. Everyone had moved outside in front of the house so they could dance and listen to music that was blaring from Playboy Blaze’s car. It was around 11 pm and I was exhausted and I was just observing everything, I didn’t have a single drink even with the persistence of my host family and friends. I told Mama Celeste that I was tired and going to bed, of course this didn’t give her the idea that maybe she should have everyone turn it down a little and let me try to get some sleep. I sat in bed trying to sleep and finally around 12-12:30 am, Playboy Blaze and the rest of them took off.

Just like any good Buckeye would, I woke up at 4 am to check the score of one of the biggest games OSU football was going to have all season, against Wisconsin. We need not discuss the outcome but there was a sad Buckeye in Moçambique.

The next morning I got up around 8 am and as you could imagine no one else was up and the place was still messy. There were three boxes and one bottle of wine sitting empty on the table in the corner of the room. I moved the sofa chair out from in front of the door and went outside to get some fresh air. After a little while Mama Celeste and Junior woke up and joined me outside. I reminded Mama Celeste I needed to do my laundry so we all made a trip to go fetch water. After finishing my laundry I was starving, but there wasn’t any food in the house. Without being allowed to tomar banho (take a bath), we headed off to the mercado. Mama Celeste was clearly trying to make up for the night before and was buying everything to make couve, along with buying lots of fresh fruits, usually a rarity. Since she had to buy coco, she had the vendor crack it open right there in the mercado and let me drink the water inside, which tasted great and was really refreshing. On the way back we stopped by CDD to get some sausage for lunch, which was really good. After lunch, Mama Celeste started working on the couve for dinner. I spent the afternoon studying since there was a Portuguese test the next day. I enjoyed the delicious couve dinner then Mama Celeste said we were going for a passear, which is very unusual for her to say something like that but seemed like a great thing. We went out to the main road and walked about 200 meters to the nearest bar, CDD. Mama Celeste ordered a bottle of wine while Junior and I just had some refrescos, and Tony and Playboy Blaze showed up to drink with Mama Celeste. After sitting around for about an hour and half I started to work on making my exit, telling Mama Celeste that I needed to go home and study for my test the next day. Mama Celeste told me that I didn’t need to go home, I needed to stay there and drink with them. Junior was just quietly sitting there with a look like this was a common occurrence, which I really felt bad that he is stuck in that kind of situation. Finally I just told Mama Celeste I was going home and headed out, unfortunately I couldn’t talk her into letting Junior come with me. After getting home I just took care of all my laundry from earlier in the day. Then I received a phone call from my parents and it was great talking to them! Junior came home later, without Mama Celeste and I headed to bed.

Monday rolled around with my fun Portuguese test which left me brain-fried for the rest of the day. When I went home for lunch, Mama Celeste just gave me leftovers from the night before, which I didn’t mind but she didn’t even bother to heat it up. She was falling asleep at the table, clearly hungover, and I asked her if she was tired. She responded by saying that wine isn’t good and that she was only going to be drinking refrescos from now on. Then in the evening was the first chefe(leader/boss) meeting for PCTs. We meet at Casa Grande, which was a huge house on a really nice property, and was really far from my house. The meeting is just for the Training Manager, TM, to update us with all the scheduling changes, any issues PC needs us PCTs to know, and it gives us PCTs a chance to let PC know if there are issues we are having. After the meeting I talked with the TM about what happened over the weekend. Mainly I was doing this since the stories I had heard from the previous PCVs that lived with Mama Celeste were along the lines of her having problems of adequately taking care of them and her drinking being an issue. Ultimately, I wanted to let PC know that the problems were still persisting and there are probably better host families that could be used in the future instead of Mama Celeste. The TM gave me the option to move, but I declined and thought that even if it were going to be a difficult living situation with Mama Celeste, maybe I could have a positive influence on Junior. When I got home Mama Celeste was sitting on the couch with a beer in hand, so while she wrote off wine, I guess since beer comes in bottles closer to the size of refrescos, it was okay.

Tuesday morning I woke up and got ready. Mama Celeste was glad that I got up and did everything on my own, except for the food part. I had to wake her up about 15 min before I had to walk out the door to remind her that I needed something for lunch to take with me, not to mention I needed something to eat for breakfast. At the end of the day, the TM pulled me aside, told me that she had brought up my issues with the other Admin people and it was decided that I had to be moved to a new host family. The TM said that I needed to go home, act like I didn’t know anything was going to happen and pack up all my stuff later in the night so it would be ready the next morning. PC was busy moving two other PCTs at the same time so I was in the queue. I went home and tried to act as normal as possible but the second I walked in the door it seemed weird, but then again I could just be acting paranoid. Then Mama Celeste just started yelling a million miles an hour in either Portuguese or Changana, couldn’t really tell. Luckily, Tony was there so he had Mama Celeste calm down and then between his broken English and my dictionary I figured out why Mama Celeste was upset. They said that PC came to the house and talked to them about having issues, and I’m not sure what was said. Glad I have to act like nothing is going on so to not let them know I’ve talked to PC and make things awkward at home. Mama Celeste told me to just talk to her about any issues that I have, don’t talk to PC about them, and she said she would stop drinking. She even had beginner Portuguese books she used for her informal teaching she wanted to sit down with me and work on my Portuguese. I let the TM know that Mama Celeste seemed to want to make an effort to change. I told her that I would prefer to stay with Mama Celeste and Junior, especially if that meant her sobering up. Even if it were a temporary sobering up it would probably be a good thing for Junior to experience the love of his mother after she had been sober for more than just a couple days. I was really hoping that I could make a positive influence on my host family and help everyone in the family. The TM said it was not her decision to be made and she would discuss it with the other Admin people and let me know in the morning but just prepare as planned.

Morning came and so did the phone call from the TM. She said the call came from the chefe that it was time to get me out of Mama Celeste’s house and into a new home. I made sure I finished packing up the last few things before going to language class, which just so happened to be at my neighbor’s house where the other PCT is living. PC said they would talk to Mama Celeste, then I would just go over there load my stuff into the PC truck and move. Not only was all this excitement going on right next to language class, but language classes were just shuffled around and I was with a new teacher. PC came by and talked to Mama Celeste around the end of morning language class, so when class was over I just went back home grabbed my stuff and off I went.