The Women

With my friend Hortência (and baby Leonildo)
on a recent trip to Mozambique Island

One of my greatest desires in coming to Mozambique was to develop friendships with Mozambican women. Part of me wondered how that could be possible, considering how different our lives are from one another. First there's the language barrier, but greater than that are the cultural and socioeconomic barriers. How close could I become to women who live without Target, Starbucks, air conditioning, running water, and indoor kitchens and bathrooms? How close could they become to me, when I don't know what it's like to haul water on my head, share my husband with other wives, or watch my child suffer from malaria because I can't afford to buy medicine or take him to the hospital?

One missionary wisely told me that the keys to building friendships here are honesty and vulnerability. Let women see your struggles, and let them know when you need their help, because they want to give it. I've tried to follow her advice, and I believe it's working, little by little. My closest Mozambican friend at this point is probably my language helper, Hortência. 

Hortência showing me how to sort beans

She's opened up to me about her life, her family, and some of her struggles, and I've tried to do the same. She sometimes offers to help me with things around the house, and we talk as we work alongside one another. We laugh together, we pray together, and I enjoy her company.

Recently I've had two very different experiences with women and the culture. Two weekends ago, I attended a women's conference for all the Baptist churches in the northern region of the country. It was held in a town about eight hours away from where I live, and I rode there with a missionary colleague and her husband. My pastor's wife, Rosa, was there, and she helped me feel welcome and kept me informed about what was going on. Rosa also invited me to share a devotion with the group, and thankfully I had something already prepared that I could use, so I spoke for about fifteen minutes during the afternoon session.

The official conference sign

Sharing my devotional with the women

With my pastor's wife, Rosa, in our church's capulana (wrap)

There were three main speakers, and the topics ranged from women helping support their families by doing business in their homes to the blight of child marriage (men marrying young girls) and how to prevent it. We learned, we sang, we danced, and we ate (fish, xima, rice, and more fish, eyes and all). This was Mozambican Baptist women's culture on display, and I had a front-row seat (not literally; thankfully they allowed my colleague and me to sit in the back).

Lunch line!

My lunch, staring at me

A game/song where we all put objects on our heads
and then passed them around to one another

Women from my church performing at the conference
(sadly, no pictures of the American missionaries' performance)

Then a week ago I sat on the porch of Hortência's mud-brick house and told the story of creation to five of her friends, women who speak Makhuwa, not Portuguese, and don't know how to read. I had been practicing the story with Hortência during our language time, and she had mentioned to me that she might have some friends who would like to hear it. The next time she arrived at my house for our lesson, she asked me if we could go to her house and share the story with her friends, because she had asked them about it and they were interested. So off we went.

We arrived at Hortência's house and sat down, and one by one, her friends arrived. I told the story in Portuguese, and she translated my words into Makhuwa. The women listened, and when I asked them a few questions about the story to make sure they understood, at first they were quiet. They said that they didn't remember all of the details because it was the first time they had heard the story. (This hit me later on—they had never before heard the story of creation from God's Word. And God had brought me there to be the first to share it with them!) So we reviewed the story, and I asked them a few more questions about what they learned. One woman arrived late, and I asked one of the others to share it with her.

As we were finishing up, I asked the women if they had any questions. One began to speak in Makhuwa, so I asked Hortência what she said. She wanted to know what the fruit was on the tree that God had created and told Adam and Eve not to eat from. I told her that we don't know, because the Bible doesn't say—whether it was a mango or an apple or something else. In the end, the ladies invited me back to tell another story, so I plan to go again next week. I won't solve the mystery of the forbidden fruit, but I will teach them what Adam and Eve did with it and the consequences.

Teaching a group of women in a village across the bay last month

I have a long way to go in understanding Mozambican women—their lives and culture. I pray that slowly but surely, as I spend time with them, I'll learn about them and from them, forming deep and meaningful relationships that are rooted in the things we do have in common: love, family, and, with some of them (hopefully many of them), faith.

Here is a poem about I wrote almost thirteen years ago when I lived in Mozambique before. It describes the challenge I felt at that time to relate to women here. (I've written only a few poems in my life and never shared any publicly, but this one, I think, expresses my sentiment better than the prose of this post.)

Graceful she walks, limbs shiny long and smooth
Her head held straight for burdens borne above
Earth firm beneath her worn but dirtless feet
Baby on back, buried in cloth, tied tight
Plain and brilliant, strong and fragile she
Walks her sentence silent bound and free

Awkward my wrapped legs amble in the sand
Grit mars my pristine toes, invades the nails
Sweat glues clothes to skin and I am trapped
Spewing a pursued tongue with feeble grasps
Ever reaching, searching desperately
To know that hardened grace that isn't me

My life and hers can never intersect
Come near but with only one-way effect