Fun day I just had. Unique experience too. But the best part wasn’t learning about culturally Islamic traditions that celebrate the dead, it was a conversation I had while attending the event where I learned about this stuff. Lucas invited me over today to celebrate with his very extensive family. Once a year, everyone gets together to celebrate the lives of all the family member’s, young and old, that they’ve lost in the past. To sit together, to feast together, to think together, and to pray together. Really was a cool event.
In the midst of using our hands to feast on a large community plate of xima, chicken caril (caril is essentially just a general term for any sauce you make to put over xima or rice…there are a million different ways to prepare it, but no matter how you do it, it’s always called the same thing), and Majimbue Matapa (Majimbue is a type of plant that produces a root you can eat, in this case though, they used the leaves to make Matapa) with the other men, I began answering the typical questions asked to me on a regular basis when I first meet someone: Who I was (Hi I’m local white guy, Teacher William, a volunteer with Corpo de Paz); Why I was there (I’m a teacher, teaching Fisica at the local escola secondaria around the corner); What I was doing (eating xima and trying to pretend like I’m Mozambican, yo…no but seriously, I’m a volunteer and I’m here for two years to school some kids); and where I was from (America…North America. Estados Unidos; do you know where that is? No? Ok, how about Obama; do you know who that is? Yeah! I’m from the same country as him; in fact, we’re kind of neighbors. I from the same city he lives in. Uh-huh, yeah, now you’ve got it!).
Well today, one of those men had some pretty interesting feedback for me concerning a few personal character traits. He wasn’t clear on the whole “Estados Unidos” thing, and I don’t really blame him for not being all that well informed about geo-political relations regarding a country he’s never been too, but he was fairly convinced that the US was where Bin Laden was from, and took a fair amount of time trying to convince his friends, as well as me, that was the case. I tried to explain, in as gentle a manner as I could, that he was gravely mistaken (and without referencing the whole thing about us spending the better part of a decade hunting him down and then killing him). Didn’t seem to work. So we moved on.
The discussion then turned to religion, and as the same man kept asking me questions, the other listened in.
“So what’s your deal? Are you Christian or are you a Muslim?” the guy asked.
“Well, funny story dude,” I responded. “I’m kind of a little bit of both. You see, I was raised Jewish. I’m Judaismo. You don’t really have many of those around these parts.”
“Oh! You’re Jewish huh. That’s neat. Didn’t you guys kill Jesus?”
**Awkward Silence**
“Oooo, that’s a bit of a loaded question there isn’t it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m pretty sure it was you guys. Hey, let me ask you…Why’d you do that?”
“Umm, you know…I’m not really sure. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that question, nor confirm that what you said actually happened. If I can’t cite Wikipedia as a viable source of information, I don’t think that a Mel Gibson film is much better. But either way, I’m only 27 years old. I think that happened like 2000 years ago man. Hard to say, I wasn’t there and I don’t know anyone who was.”
“Naw, it was definitely you guys. But no worries, I’m Muslim, I don’t even care!”
“Oh…ok. Wait, dude, are you drunk?”
“Yes. Very…Can I have ten mets for more beer?”
The impromptu session of religious persecution then opened up to the rest of the group once again and transformed into a much livelier discussion on the grammatical structure of Bantu Languages. A quick local language lesson followed, some jokes were told, I learned the word for hand in Macua (Matata), made an offhand comment about how it sounds like the Portuguese word for potato (Batata) and then got laughed for a while for having made such a comical discovery. We finished our food, our discussions, and the get-together, despedir-ed (said our goodbyes) and I went on my merry way. Good old culture.
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