Small steps

I created a group called JUNTOS (Jovens Unidos no Trabalho para Oportunidades e Sucesso) (or in other words Youth United in the Work for Opportunity and Success) with a fellow community member in my town. We have a handful of young adults all between the ages of 18 and 21 and we get together about once a week. We like to set aside at least 30-60 minutes during each meeting in order to discuss at least one controversial topic that the members would like to learn more about. The purpose of this activity is to create a safe environment for the young adults to discuss sensitive subjects among themselves. The monitors, myself and my counterpart, are there to gear the conversations towards healthy and productive debates, and to answer any questions that we can. The goal is to open the members' horizons beyond assumed truths and falsehoods so that they in turn learn to advocate behavior change in their communities.

During one particular meeting a soft-spoken male requested the day's topic be homosexuality, which is a great subject to discuss because it fulfills the requirement of being a taboo topic that is not usually brought up in public. The discussion went very well for the first 10-15 minutes and the members of the group discussed what homosexuality is, if it's a product of society or something innate in a person, the life of a homosexual person in Mozambique, etc.

Another member of the group arrived late and joined the discussion at this point. The late-coming member is usually one of the more boisterous participants and in past discussions he would usually sway other club members towards his opinions. His “honcho” personality had never caused any problems in the past in mine and my counterpart's opinions since it always appeared that all the other club members were in fact in agreement with him.

I did not, however, realize that this member was a very staunch religious individual and that his religion was in fact one of the more vocal groups in our community against homosexuality.

When the late-comer joined in the debate I was shocked to hear his views on homosexuality and feared he might undo the progressive and open-minded attitude the debate had taken up until this point. Or worse yet, that the negative intonation of this new viewpoint might dissuade members like the soft-spoken boy who offered the topic from voicing future opinions or even attending JUNTOS meetings at all. Just as I was starting to jump into the conversation and steer it in a different direction one of the female members who barely ever talks spoke up. She proudly defended the previous viewpoint and also explained to the late-comer why the group as a whole had come to that opinion before he had arrived. The group then continued on with a very positive and productive discussion on the rights of a homosexual couple to have children or get married and how to support any friends or family members they may know who are homosexual but afraid to tell their families or community members.

Although not everyone agreed with all the subject matter posed, the group as a whole was able to respect one another's opinions and have a healthy and productive conversation about a very sensitive subject. I congratulated the members at the end of the discussion and explained that these are the exact skills they will need to carry with them out in the community if they want to accomplish real behavior change: patience, respect, understanding and courage to stand up against the status quo.

Not the way we do things in Mozambique

“No, no, no. You don't understand. Maybe that's the way you do thing in your country but here we do it this way....”

I don't think this is a characteristic exclusive to any one country, in fact I'm pretty sure that every community in every country thinks that they are in one way or another unique and special from the rest of that wide, barbarous world out there. It's not xenophobia, just an elevated self-worth which, in moderated quantities, really is quite healthy. Up to a point. For there are certain things in this world that in fact are NOT done differently in different parts of the world. Like science (the chemistry of cooking isn't dependent on your language), math (no matter where you were born, to find the percentage of a number you have to multiply by the percentage, not divide), and some universal terminology...

I had a bit of a skiff with my organization this week when we were preparing a big report of all the work they've realized since their funding in 2005. I don't know how I'd missed this up until now, but when we were gathering the data of their clients I asked them to explain to me how they came to each number for each trimester, and there arose a small hitch in their reporting techniques. They have 4 trimesters. No, not 4 quarters, but TRIMESTERS. But they never talk about the 4 trimesters out right, they only ever talk about the 1^st, the 2^nd, and “the last” (since evidently the 3^rd is just included into the last, which is another problem in of itself.) When I tried to explain that “trimester” by definition means that there are 3 equal parts of the whole they simply shook their heads and said “no, no, no Emily. Maybe where you're from trimester means 4 months but here in Mozambique a trimester means 3 months.” I drew out pie charts and tables and explained the differences between trimesters and quarters, giving different examples like the school calendar (where in fact there are 3 months periods since they only work 9 months out of the year).... nope. They all just laughed and continued with their head shakes. I called 2 fellow peace corps volunteers just to make sure I wasn't going crazy, and finally, I called in the highest hospital staff member in our hospital, university educated and all, to come over and clear the air. Well didn't I look stupid to my coworkers when he said, “of course, trimester means 3 months (tri means 3 of course) so in complete the year we have 4 of them.”

....

Ultimately, we agreed to disagree, removed all talk of trimesters from the report citing instead the yearly totals, and rain-checked the debate for a later date when there wasn't a report deadline looming above our heads. Not sure how successful I was that day in human capital and organizational development, but the argument was a reminder that even though hings aren't always as easy as I may hope I can't allow that to discourage or impede me from doing my job.

And the luta continua of trimesters vs quarters!!!