Homestay Week 8: The BIG Week

To call this past Sunday strange would be a huge understatement. For starters, minha mae used her Catholic guilt powers to get me to go to church. She had told me last week that she was doing a reading and she wanted to me to go. And I felt like I owed her one: I had to miss my host sister’s first communion because I was on site visit. I think it would have been a more enjoyable service if I could understand what was happening. But it was still a very interesting experience – very musical, a lot of dancing.

With that experience behind me, I had planned to get back on to my normal Sunday normal schedule. I caught up on news and emails at the internet café and returned home as lunch was being put on the table. Just after lunch, I received a text from a couple other Trainees who planned on going for a “walk”. I thought that meant that we were just going to stroll around for a bit; we ended up scaling what I think was the steepest hill in Namaacha. By the end of it, we were all in dire need of cold water. Water in hand, we made our way to a barraca to meet the Volunteers for the week. My conversation with them was happily interrupted by a phone call from my grandparents.

I had planned on returning home to iron my clothes in preparation for the week ahead, but minha mae had other plans for me. She called to tell me that there was a church function going on, but I didn’t understand where she wanted me to go. Once again, my Portuguese had left me. She had to come “rescue” me even though I was only three blocks away. It was quite the event. I don’t know if drinking whiskey is typical for Mozambican church parties, but that’s pretty much what happened. I don’t drink whiskey much in the United States, but I knew enough to know that this was really bad whiskey. Still did the job though: by the end of the night, I was quite buzzed. Of course, my Portuguese came back to me when I was drunk; it always seems to happen that way. As I stumbled my way through the night, my parents called. Good to catch up after a good week.

The ridiculous amount of drinking, paired with a rat-killing in the middle of the night (not by me, by minha mae) and crazy malaria drug-induced dreams made for a fantastic Monday morning. My head hurt and since I had to wake up at 5:45 in preparation for Model School, I was barely functioning. I walked over to the escola secundaria with the two boys living in the house. They seemed to be excited for the classes, especially the English lessons.

I was scheduled to teach third out of the four people in the group, which was a blessing. I watched the first two classes, anxiously awaiting my turn. I have really missed being in front of a group of kids eager to learn. And it was such a good feeling to have back. My lesson focused on conjugating verbs in the present indicative. As tenth graders, these thirty kids probably already knew some of what I was teaching, but it was good to see how quickly they picked up on the pattern. I was especially encouraged by the amount of participation in the classroom. After my class, I had one more to watch, but for the sake of saving time, I multi-tasked and planned Tuesday’s lesson during the session. Following the last class, the four of us met with one of the language teachers to discuss how teaching went. All of the teachers also met to discuss some of the challenges, as well as ways to assess our learners.

I spent the rest of the afternoon just killing time with a couple of Trainees. I returned home to ironed clothes – thank you, minha mae – and a chapter of my dad’s book to read. The night was nothing special, with the exception of a phone call from my brother.

Tuesday started just as early as a Monday, but I didn’t have the benefit of teaching and thus having extra time to wake up. The lesson – on “like” and “don’t like” went very smoothly. The students were very receptive to the lesson and seemed to pick it up quickly. As the class ended, I had to take roll, but I really didn’t want to. It just takes a lot of time – time that takes away from teaching. So I appointed a “chefe” – a boss of the class – who would take roll for me. A broad-shouldered boy wanted to be chefe, but he showed up 20 minutes late, so that wasn’t going to work for me. I went the completely opposite way: my chefe is the smallest girl in the class. The rest of the morning was spent watching the other teachers in my group, who took some good strides forward.

Our sessions got scrapped for the rest of the afternoon. How convenient, since I told minha mae that I couldn’t return home for lunch due to my afternoon sessions – whatever. I ate lunch at a friends house, and then crashed a session that the teacher trainers were attending at the school where we have Hub Days. It was very interesting to watch. What was most interesting to me was the English capability of the professor and the “moral authority” that he had as the class discussed the topic. The other thing of interest was how the class of about 20 had almost the exact same opinion on the issues. There was no argument.

Thanksgiving celebration, which is scheduled for tomorrow, started early. We headed to a barraca, with a lot of talk revolving around site placement, which is also scheduled for tomorrow. By the end of the night, my Euchre group was playing cards. As we played well into the night, my partner and I avenged our losses from last week. I actually had to text message minha mae to tell her to eat dinner without me. I went to bed, somewhat late, knowing that I could sleep in.

Finally, the day that all of us had been waiting for arrived. I wanted to sleep in, but my body wouldn’t let me. I was up at 6:00, but refused to get out of bed until 7:30, even if I couldn’t fall back asleep. The entire group made its way to a restaurant with our site placements and a good meal ahead of us. But before we learned anything, Peace Corps decided to torture us with a two-hour session on safety and security. So frustrating. We just wanted to know where we were going.

Everybody has been somewhat on the edge of our seats in anticipation for site placement. We all tried to figure out where we were going – some of us hit it on the head, others could not have been more wrong. I was almost positive that I was going to be staying in Maputo Province; not so much. I’m heading to the southern part of Sofala, which is toward the center of the country. And I’m actually really excited about it. I have a good sitemate and were pretty close to the ocean and the river. After site placement, we all had lunch together to celebrate Thanksgiving and talk about our sites.

Then the mayhem began. Almost all of us made our way to the local barraca where we enjoyed more than our fair share of drinks. The night did not end up very pretty.

And it bled over into the morning. I woke up bright and early at 5:30 with a massive hangover. And oh, yea, I had to teach. I was barely functioning. Minha mae asked how I was doing, and all I could say was “Nao estou bem” – I am not well. I struggled through the morning. I was lucky to teach third in the group of four, so I had some time to get some water in me. It wasn’t the best lesson – although the Mozambican teacher who was watching it thought it was really good.

We powered through a couple of sessions that were of little consequence. I had expected them to go longer, in the afternoon, so I had told minha mae that I needed to carry lunch with me again. I took a short walk and ate my lunch under some shade. I returned home and planned my lesson for Friday. It should definitely be better than the disaster that ensued today.

Feeling better by the afternoon, I decided that it was time to start drinking again, albeit much more conservatively. I limited myself to two games of Beer Pong – yes, Beer Pong has landed Namaacha. The rest of the day, I just drank sodas. I got home at a reasonable hour; minha mae griped that I hadn’t been home to have tea with her at all this week. At least she had something delicious to offer today – mangoes. Mangoes and litchi fruit have come into season here, and I don’t know which one is better. I guess I’ll just have to keep eating both.

The night was a little out of the ordinary. Half way through dinner, the phone calls started coming in: first my grandfather, then my sister and dad, then my brother, one right after the after. It was good to catch up with everyone on Thanksgiving. The calls kept me up “late” into the night – and by late, I mean a couple minutes after 10:00 – but it’s time well spent.

I woke up feeling good about lesson plan, although not really wanting to give it. Most of the lesson was spent on artwork, which is fine and all, but I don’t think it’s the best way to learn. Especially since it was group work, which meant they would probably be speaking Portuguese, I didn’t think it was the most effective way to learn something. But it was awfully interesting to see the artwork that was produced. For most of these kids, this was something out of the ordinary: I don’t think a lot of teachers use art as a teaching method, so the skills in the art department were lacking a little bit.

We were scheduled for a session on the history of Mozambique. I stuck around the school for lunch with a couple of Trainees – finally, bringing lunch with me actually made sense. I didn’t feel so good during the afternoon; it was oppressively hot today. Toward the end of the break, I bought a monster bottle of water, but it wasn’t enough. I felt pretty dehydrated as I sat and listened to the somewhat boring lecture. I thought that maybe it was just me, but everyone looked pretty exhausted and bored.

I had a quick couple of sodas at the barraca, hoping that it would raise my energy level to something human. The cup of coffee that followed at home certainly did the job. I continued with my dad’s chapter. It’s really hard to edit when I don’t have a pen in my hand and have to make track changes, but it’s better than nothing. As I read, my aunt called. We hadn’t talked in some time, so it was god to catch up.

Tomorrow, we have no major obligations, so I’m hoping to sleep in past 7:00. Just a note – that last sentence sickens me. “Sleep in past 7:00.” What have I become? Sleeping in should mean 10:00, not sunrise. This is the life I lead.

I made it to 5:45. Ridiculous. I refused to get out of bed until at least 7:00 and actually managed to fall asleep for some of it. I was awakened by a text message of little importance around 7:45. I felt like that was a reasonable hour to start moving.

I had planned an ambitious day: room cleaning in the morning, cleaning clothes late morning into the early afternoon, followed by movie-watching with two of my favorite people here. Two out of three happened, so I’d say that was pretty good. I managed to get my room clean, but just didn’t have it in me to wash clothes today. It was really hot today and having the sun beat on me for hours on end just didn’t sound like a good idea. So for the better part of the morning, I read – US News, Time, my dad’s chapter, pretty much anything I could get my hands on.

By mid-afternoon, I was ready to escape the house. I hadn’t been out all day and it was starting to drive me crazy. I escaped to a friend’s house to watch “Juno.” Half way through the movie her bed gave out – maybe having three of us sitting on a shoddy bed wasn’t the smartest of plans. It was a good laugh for all of us, although I did cut up my back pretty well. The rest of the night was pretty standard – shower, dinner bed.

In local insect news, we have been joined here in Namaacha by two lovely friends: mosquitoes and cockroaches. Minha mae said that the head has brought on these lovely creatures, so for the last week or so, I’ve been going on a killing spree. It should be a fun couple of weeks.

Speaking of “couple of weeks,” that’s literally what we have left here in Namaacha – two weeks. I think most of us are ready to high-tail it out of Namaacha. It’s not that we don’t like the place; it’s just that our minds are already on our new locations. I know I’m ready to get to my site, figure out what’s going, and get accustomed to my new surroundings. It’s all very exciting, but it might be a torturous few weeks here.