Returning to the subject of eating with Africans, in the beginning we tried to make ntsima and mutapa and all those things that Africans eat. Did I say “we?” Well, I am certainly not a cook. And Hilary does a miraculous job of turning loves and fishes into feasts. But for the African dishes she would usually get the maid to prepare them or ask a neighbor for help. Even then, our Mozambican guests didn’t like our cooking. Finally, Hilary and I decided that we were going to start serving American food to our guests. It was a smash hit. They were fascinated by the food. It was a great conversation piece. Hilary served our friends tacos, and pizza and spaghetti and they just poured salt all over it until they could taste it. Inviting people to eat with us was one of the best things we ever did. Even if it’s just offering them a Coke, just let them eat what you’re eating. In Nyungwe they say, Chakubvala cin’cepa, chakudya cin’cepa lini, “you can’t share your clothes but you can always share your food.” Mozambican cooking is easy to share. It’s served on a common plate. Everyone dips their hand in the same dishes and the man of the house makes sure everything goes around. American cooking with our individual plates and measured portions can make it awkward if a guest shows up. Sometimes I took a mischievous pleasure in confounding Mozambicans with the strange food we azungus eat. At a translation workshop, the morale was pretty low, so I ran into town and picked up two 5-liter tubs of ice cream. For many of the translators it was their first time to try ice cream. My friend Bata got a good laugh out of watching some of them trying to pick up the ice cream with their fingers and keep it in their mouths long enough for it to melt.

What can we do to break down the walls between cultures? Food has to be one of the best tools. Everyone knows how to prepare a meal from their home country. And anyone you invite to eat with you is going to be grateful for your gesture. Although the common practice is to just show up at someone’s house and wait for them to feed you, this can be pretty awkward when our family of six people shows up. We have been shown hospitality so many times after church and when stuck somewhere for some reason. Only once we were invited to eat at someone’s house but when we got there they realized they had no food to share. So finally the mother of the house, very humiliated, handed Hilary a live chicken and said, “Take this home and cook it.” I know that the people in America don’t consider Africans to be real people. Otherwise why would they stand by and allow such suffering? Aren’t we all the same human race? Why do Americans spend more money on Halloween costumes for their pets than the entire national expenditure for aid in Africa. Why is the third world so prone to disaster? I remember several years back when two 7.2 earthquakes hit California and India on the same day. In California no one died and not a single building was damaged. In India hundreds died in collapsed buildings. A friend of ours was working for World Vision and she visited an area of Tete called Changara. In this particular region the soil was poor, the water supply was contaminated, and the people were dying. Although she didn’t say it out loud, she thought to herself, “You need to just live somewhere else.” I am a firm believer in the doctrine that Africa’s problems must be solved by Africans. But the endemic fatalism in African culture can make it difficult for people to create a better future. They are tradition-focused rather than innovation-focused. So they do what they do because that’s the way it’s always been done. At the same time I don’t want to see Africa buried under the materialism of the West. South Africa is an example of a country that has made the leap from cyclical subsistence living to a stressed-out, over-worked life weighed down by responsibility and debt and the desire for the good life. Step across the border into Mozambique and you find a slower, poorer, and yet richer existence. Do we really want them to “enjoy” progress? Thankfully, the choice is not ours to make. Each Mozambican is taking strides toward a future of their own making. In a postcolonial culture it will take a long time to shake off the defeatist attitudes and passivity of a people who for five hundred years were second-class citizens in their own home country. Already there is ample evidence of Mozambicans who have seen the value of hustle. They’re getting all the education they can. And investing every penny they can spare on real estate and small business.  Despite the country’s discouraging record in free trade policy, the black market is thriving and smart motivated Mozambicans are building a future of their own design, a future that is not subject to the whims of outside aid and the patronizing neo-colonial aid industry that props up the suffering even while it steals their initiative and self-respect.