Kanimambo!

This musical word means “thank you” in Shangani. Whenever one of us would say “Kanimambo!” lingering long on ‘ooooo’, builders and villagers alike joyfully chant the word as a refrain. The people speak both a local dialect of Shangani and Portuguese and we search our rudimentary Spanish to find similar words to communicate with. Sometimes we are successful, but “Kanimambo” is the only Shangani word I’ve retained. It makes me smile. It sums up the gratitude I feel.

With natural rooster alarm clocks, waking up for a 6:30 breakfast is not a problem. There are two bathrooms to share between 16 people and without going into too much detail; we know each other intimately. It’s easier to brush our teeth on the boundaries of the garlic fields that the small mission has planted as part of their garden. The silken red earth gets into our nails under our skin and in our ears and the cracks in our feet. There are no mirrors and for the next two weeks I’m sure that we are never quite clean.

The women set out deep fried eggs, individually wrapped slices of American cheese, and hot rolls supplied by the nearby baker. We have our own way of passing the condiments: condensed milk (sugar milk), jam (pink stuff), butter product, (yellow stuff), tea and instant coffee (Ricoffy).

As different from Massaca is from Maputo, so is Mahanyani. It's hard to gauge how large the village is. Straddling the boundary is a bus stop where women sell vegetables and a large South African plantation advertising its wares as “Bananalandia”. It is a beautiful stretch of hundreds and thousands of banana trees and the contrast between the bounty of the dripping trees and the meager stalls is staggering.

The rickety bus we huddle into drops us at a central meeting point where the school and Habitat office are and we head out on foot to each new location we will be working at with one of our master builders. Over the course of 10 days, we will complete 16 homes. Here there is no grid system. People arrive out of nowhere and disappear from our sites with the same ghostly vapor. In this rural place, you are reminded to be present.

Wells and water taps are spread throughout the acreage. Dirt roads ramble and randomly lead to these meeting points. These outlets are the community newsstands, where inhabitants learn of clinic programs, school hours, and gossip.

I’ve counted three shops that sell cold drinks, bubble gum and other small items. One day, we buy our gang cokes after lunch and this simple transaction empties the cooler.

I am assigned to carry water one day, and when you have to stop every few steps while lugging a 5-gallon petrol container while women haul twice as much on their heads, the task is quite humbling. I can’t imagine doing it every day. But indoor plumbing is not an option, so trips to the well are frequent.

One of the women in our group carried water to her Alaskan cabin many years ago. When I ask her about the experience, her frank response was, “At first you think what an adventure! Then it’s work and then you are just plain angry about it”.
I wonder if these women feel the same.

At 11 AM, someone appears on a bike with a basket containing two thermoses of hot water, a tin of Recoffy, a Nestle product of chicory and coffee soluble mix, which I became quite cavalier with, tea bags, and cookies. I look forward to this break time and appreciate the effort made by the Habitat staff member to provide such a luxury for us.

We are building as part of the OVC program, which I will write about later. There is an abundance of orphaned children in Mahanyani. One of the volunteers has brought inflatable beach balls and during recess, the ball sends 50 plus kids running, kicking up clouds of dust and screams of laughter as the multicolored orb flies through the air. The children make toys with whatever they find. Mostly, it’s with old tires and the wheels of old bicycles. They run alongside the trucks and through the fields. Or they pound cassava root into a top and whip into circles with twigs. These simple pleasures give them such happiness. Anything that can be kicked attracts a huge crowd, however, a Nerf football left them totally confounded.

If the nights are loud, the days are filled with the peep peep peep of chicks and ducks a-scurry. Here, electricity is even more rare than Massaca, although everyone has cell phones and the beeping of dying batteries is prevalent.

Cabbage, cassava, tomatoes, potatoes, mango trees and apples, corn grow haphazardly, without order and women pick their way through their lots to feed the household that day. It is not only the way we connect with each other during this build. It’s the community and the getting a glimpse, if only for two weeks, of the women waking up early to gather water, find food, grind the shima, gather more water, do the washing. These everyday acts that complete a life.



I’ve fallen in love as well. A 10 year old with a bright smile and quick to learn, Francisco has captured my heart. On the last day, his mother sings her appreciation to the group and pleads with the builders to let Francisco work with them so he can learn a trade. I tell her how much I love him and in her blue dress and soulful face she is the most beautiful woman. When she embraces me, I feel a part of her soul enter me.

I’ve been writing back and forth with other team members this past week, all of us heartbroken over leaving “The Dark Continent”, but Africa is anything but that. We wonder why we feel so attached to Africa – is it because it’s the cradle of man, the continent we all broke off from so many years ago – it’s where our roots are, regardless of color, where nature still is on equal footing with the humans?

How do I describe my Africa? Can I wrap you up in words and bring you back with me if I palpably illustrate a rusty red earth that saturates the soul, an abundant turquoise sky backlit by an impossibly bright sun star radiating its glow on the green leaves of mango and banana trees and casting a line of gold on the river that runs through Mahanyani? Or will it be the soft whistling wind and musical sing song of women’s voices returning from the washing with kids dancing around them? With these images, will you yearn as I do to explore more of this incredible world?