Between work and illnesses, I still manage to get in a few runs through the sandy paths around my house these days. When I arrived in Mozambique I thought this might be the perfect time to train for a marathon, but parasite and an excess of refined carbohydrates don’t exactly result in the ultimate power runner. But I do what I can.
I also thought I would become a chaco person in Mozambique. Wrong. You change a lot in Peace Corps, but chaco’s are ugly, and that is one core value in my belief system that has not been shaken. I may live in Africa, but I still have style. (FYI I just did a sassy uh-uh sister snap for emphasis. Too bad I am sitting alone in my bedroom with no one to witness it) But I digress…
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, my most apparent accomplishment has been a successful spreading of the high five in Bairro Chemanine, Chidenguele. I run through the bush, and whenever I see a child in range, I make them give me a high five. They used to be confused, and probably thought I was just going to beat them or something. But now I have got them trained, so well in fact that they chase after me holding up their little fives yelling “Bate! Bate!”, which means ‘hit’ in Portuguese.
Not only is the high five an important cultural phenomenon that I find worthy of imparting to my Mozambican community, but teaching the children “bate!” is a strategic move on my part. I have learned, that if they get all worked up for a high-five, and actually realize hand contact with the little white girl trotting past, they are too overwhelmed/confused/euphoric to chase after me for the duration of my run.
Its not like I am angrily chased by the kids, they just love to run with me. As the still unenlightened non-high-fivers see me coming in the distance they literally shriek, then begin to shout at full volume “Tia catarina! Tia catarina!” as they morph into the roadrunner and shoot at warp speed on their little 4 year old legs to meet me on the path. Then they proceed to trot just on my heals and giggle the whole time. You’d think it would get old, they would tire of heel-trot giggle sessions. Nope.
I really shouldn’t be bothered, its harmless, even healthy, fun for them. But I just can’t stand it. I try to tell myself “you are changing their lives Caitlin, you are changing their lives.” Which is probably a delusional assumption, but it temporarily stays my urge to send the little ones packing for casa.
I have tried everything to get them to go home. I say “go home… no… I don’t want to run with you… enough… go away… don’t you have work to do at home?” But I am pretty sure they don’t speak Portuguese, and I don’t know how to say any of that in Chopi. I also have tried pretending to be a hungry vampire to scare them away. Unfortunately they are smart enough to realize that I must be a phony since vampires only come out at night, because when I suddenly turn, his, bare my teeth, and pretend to make a neck-bite move, they just think it’s funny.
I had a temporary breakthrough and discovered that if I just said “tchau” or “Ta-Ta,” they would stop in their tracks, wave goodbye, and watch me jog into the distance. That worked for about two days.
It would be so easy to run along the main road (ok, it’s a major highway, but don’t picture any LA overpasses… more like the little two laner that runs through Banks Oregon. Yes, my town is like Banks with a beach). If I took my runs on the main road, people in cars would point and laugh but at least there would be fewer children. However, the road is under construction. In addition to dramatically increasing HIV transmission rates in my town, the project is making it particularly dangerous for me to trot along amongst tractors, horny little Chinese men, and precarious cement drop-offs.
Instead I have a few routine paths I like to travel. There is the ‘hilly but burner’ run – which also involves mama Magdalena if you remember the moonshine incident I wrote about many moons ago. There is the ‘short, flat, really nothing but it makes me feel like I’m not lazy and its all sand so that must be something’ run. And finally, the most traveled, ‘the little boy with the slingshot’ run.
The last is my favorite. Not too long, not too short, the distance can be adjusted according to time, energy and desired effort output (now I just sound like a lazy runner, but you have to admit you have used similar logic at one time. Also, I’m a big girl now and can no longer be Crew Caitlin who worked out about twice as much as I slept).
However, like all good things, I think my jaunts on my favorite path must come to an end because now, as you might gather from the name, there is a little boy that chases me with a slingshot.
The same little boy used to smile and wave as he rolled around in the dirt in his little tighty-not-so-whiteys. Not sure what all of a sudden changed, but one day he just began chasing me with a slingshot asking for money (still wearing only his little bikini bottoms). Little does he realize that the jingling in my shorts pocket is in fact my house keys, not money, and that the common conception among Mozambican country folk that I, as a white person, run around with millions of dollars in my pockets is not in fact a reality.
The boy isn’t really angrily, witch-hunt style chasing. Its more like he just runs after me and giggles as he waves the slingshot so I can see, then pulls back the little elastic shooter part like he is going to shoot me. However, as of yet, he has never actually loaded the slingshot. But it’s just a matter of time before he loads that baby with a rock or a mango or something. I can see it now, “American volunteer in Africa wounded in tropical fruit slinging incident”
Anyway, I think I better find a new route or teach Mr. Slingshot the high-five in hopes of pacifying the perpetually chony-clad child.
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