The Tribal Goat Meeting.

Pretty sunset in Chiguidela

Last Friday and Saturday we had a big meeting with a village called Chiguidela. This village is right next to the land that we are in the process of obtaining in order to start our crop project. We had to sit down with the village leaders to get their approval on the tribal level. We got their approval! But we had to sit through a lot of the weird Mozambican "traditions" in order to receive their approval.


Friday night, we pull up in our green Toyota 4 runner to the village. There are about 15 people sitting side by side in a line with 4 empty blue plastic chairs evenly spaced, set up directly across from them, waiting for us to arrive. We walk over to the village people and walk down the line shaking hand after hand after hand. Then we sit down across from the line looking at them. Silence. Nobody talked. People eventually started talking amongst themselves, but no one would take charge of the meeting. I was so confused. I kept asking Alex, "What is going on? What are we waiting for?" He shrugged his shoulders and said, "This is how the Mozambican culture is." So after 20 minutes of people talking amongst themselves, somebody finally took charge. (thank goodness, I was freezing to death with the wind chills!) We presented them with a (cute) goat, 4 chickens, rice, corn, and (of course) alcohol for them to prepare a meal for the next day's meeting at 10:00 am. 


The Mozambican culture has traditions that they are very strict with. For instance, we HAD to give them a goat for them to kill and cook for us to eat the next day. We HAVE to eat the food they make, or else it is bad luck. And we HAD to supply them with alcohol, they believe they use the alcohol to get in touch with their ancestors (?) Maybe its just an excuse for free booze though. Mozambicans love their alcohol!


Saturday morning rolls around, we drive up to the village at 10:00 am, empty chairs are waiting for us, once again. We go down the line shaking hands, once again. And we sit. Silence, once again. And we sit some more. 10:30 passes, 11:00, 11:30, the government officials who are part of the meeting FINALLY show up at 12:00. 2 hours late, which can be expected here, very classy.


Once the government officials show up, we sit around while things are being discussed. Everyone was speaking the dialect Machangana, so Alex was being translated to in Portugues, and I was in la-la-land watching all the ducks, chicks, chickens, goats, cow, dogs, and small children run around the village. After discussing, we got in the cars and drove to our land. (This is part of the tradition too--it was totally useless to drive around the land like we did) We drove around for an hour or so.


We arrive at the village once again; we went and sat again in the blue plastic chairs. Another hour passes of animal watching, then they finally break out the alcohol. They have 2 glass cups in the center of a circle of 20-25 people. They presented the leader of the group with the first cup of wine. She did some type of ritual with the wine where she pouring a few drops on to the dirt and everybody cheered and clapped. After the ritual, it started to rain (apparently this means the ritual was blessed) Then they all took turns with the two glasses, pouring themselves a glass, drinking the whole glass, then passing the cup to somebody else. 


Finally, it was time to eat (or pretend to eat). There was no way anyone was going to make me eat that cute goat that I saw 12 hours prior. I had already seen its skin, blood, and guts around, but I wasn't going to eat it. Sorry village people. They presented us with a huge bowl of rice, huge bowl of xima (pourage), and a huge pot of goat pieces. I took a small scoop of rice and put it on my plate and stopped. They kept offering me xima, goat, more rice, everything. Alex had to fend them off. They continued to ask us over and over again why we don't eat more, they were almost offended. (Maybe they really were offended, who knows?) Alex didn't eat any goat either- he thought it would be easier for them to understand  us not eating any goat if he said something like, "we don't eat goat in America." I only had a few bites of rice so I wouldn't cause any bad luck to come. I just kept thinking of the water the used to cook the rice. Probably straight from the river we drove by where we saw people peeing in it, swimming in it, bathing in it, washing their clothes in it. In fact, I know that's where they got the water from. 


The village leader was sitting right next to us at the feast. She ate like she hadn't eaten in months. She filled her plate so full (multiple times), and she ate with her hands (she had a fork to use). When she would turn to talk to Alex she had food pieces stuck on her nose, I had to hold back from laughing. That village probably thinks Americans are weird now, because we didn't eat hardly anything. Oh well!


After an hour of the feast, everyone started to get a little tipsy, we decided it was a good time to leave. So we did.  

The great village leaders of Chiguidela

The lady in the tan is the leader in her Mozambique uniform

The tribal meeting was a little uncomfortable, it was a little weird, it was a little long, but we survived! Phew!

(We wish we could have taken more pictures. It is hard to pull out a shiny camera in front of a bunch of people who can hardly pay for food.)