Year 1 - Week 12: Like Fishing with Sonar and GPS

It’s hard to believe that it is March already. We are beginning our third full month at site and our sixth month overall in Mozambique. Even though days like Sunday feel like an eternity, it has been very fast in retrospect.

Even though the night was tolerable, by 7 AM it was already scorching hot.
I woke up in a dead heat. The heat plus clear skies gave me a window to do some laundry. Yes, laundry. We have started giving laundry to a kid who will do it for us for nothing, but we both feel like we can still do some ourselves, so we take care of the easy stuff like shirts, and the more personal items like underwear. It’s the least we could do.

By 8:30, after four bacias worth of laundry, I was exhausted. It is kind of ridiculous to feel like I have put in a full day’s work before 9:00, but a nap at 9:00 just wasn’t going to happen. So I replanted some flowers. My morning glories that it put in front of the house never grew well; they were either wiped out by the rain or eaten by chickens. I have this new set growing in aluminum cans, so I can transplant them when the weather dries up.

Bordem struck by 9:30. Richie and wanted to throw around the Frisbee, but we wanted to try to attract some talent, potential for an Ultimate Frisbee team. Unfortunately, the only talent we attracted was that of a couple six year olds. We’re looking for 16 year olds. It was still fun to watch little African kids throw around a plate. More boredom –

As I was preparing to cook lunch, my sister called. 11:30 AM is an odd time to receive a call from the West Coast. With the ten hour time difference, this could only be a drunk dial. And it was. Thanks, Sach – that brightened my day.

Richie and I ate our regular lunch. While relaxing outside after eating, one of my students came by for help. He is a really good student – he has come to the house many times, always asks good questions, always trying to speak English. He stayed for about an hour, asking questions on everything from verb tenses to how to read a watch.

By mid afternoon, we were bored again. But this time, our boredom was cured by the arrival of crabs. Last week, Richie met a kid who said that he would bring crabs for us on Sunday, and true to his word, the kid came through. What shocked us was that we didn’t pay a metical. This we did not expect. And it was only the beginning of the giving. A couple of kids helped us prepare the crab because Richie and I aren’t exactly seafood experts. As the crabs cooked, we threw around the Frisbee with the kids.

Between the student coming over and the crab preparation, the afternoon passed by decently. My parents gave me a ring right as I was heading to the market. Richie and I realized that we didn’t have tomato paste for sauce. I borrowed a bike and rode down a torn up road in the dark. Unbelievably, I didn’t fall. The one store that was open didn’t have tomato paste, so the mama in the store just gave us three tomatoes. We made our crab meat spaghetti sauce, which was decent, watched some “South Park” and crashed.

Monday began early; I was awakened by text messages from the United States. I hate the sound of the phone ringing in the morning, but if it is someone from the United States, it lessens the pain. My mom and my sister both sent me happy birthday text messages. It is funny that they can send text messages on March 1 for them, and I get them when it is March 2.

The morning was low key. Richie and I sat around for most of the morning on our patio: he did su doko while I did cryptograms. The birthday calls came earlier than expected. I got one from a friend here, and one from my grandfather at 4 AM his time, 11AM my time. And maybe most surprisingly, I got a call from minha mãe, my host mom in Namaacha. I don’t know how she remembered.

My birthday didn’t stop my work schedule. I still had to teach six classes. Square in the middle of those classes, I got a call from my grandmother. I stopped class for a little, chatted briefly, and then told her I was in class. And before those classes ended, it started to rain. Fuckin chuva. It seems like it’s never going to stop sometimes.

After dinner – baby formula pancakes – more phone calls came in. My brother called, quickly followed by his wife. I hadn’t spoken with either for a while, so it was good to catch up.

We were committed to getting a drink tonight. All the mud in the world was not going to stop us from getting to the bar. Fuckin matope. We trudged our way through a mile of mud, barefoot, to get a cold beer. The things we do…While we were out, one of my best friends from stateside called. As we were talking, the power went out. Terrible. We walked back – in the dark – and the mud – and crashed.

We expected our program director to visit us around 10:00. We were primed for 10, but we knew better. We figured that it would be at least the afternoon. We cooked up lunch, I took a shower, and just after noon, our guest arrived, just in time for me to start teaching. And he brought with him one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever received – thirteen letters from my students in San Diego. The letters have been sitting in Maputo for a while and this was the first time anyone has come up from Maputo. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

Our program director mostly just hung out with us, talking about our site and our experience. He sat in on my last class and he gave me pretty good reviews. He told me I should work less, which I found kind of odd. I know that when I teach, I am very active, very energetic. But that is not me working – that is me keeping my students engaged. I mean, sure I feel exhausted after the day, but it’s worth while. After a couple of hours with us, our program director was off to his next site, and we were off to cook dinner. A little spaghetti, a little South Park, and a little time to relax before heading off to bed.

In spite of the weather being on the cool side during the night, I didn’t sleep well. I was up from 3 until 5 and then up again at 6. I’m pretty sure it has cooled down for the long run which is good news. I was hoping that our school director, who was in Beira over the weekend, had packages for me. But it was not meant to be. I called the office and found out I’ll have them no later than next week, a time I will conveniently not be here.

Richie and I had another slow morning and we finally got to the point when we could prep lunch. I can’t even bring myself to describe what we ate. It was the same shit as always. Richie and I both had classes this afternoon. Of course, it rained again right in the middle of classes. I ended a little early, just so I could dodge the rain. Richie wasn’t so lucky. I walked over in my rain jacket, umbrella in hand, gave it to Richie, and he was able to stay dry.

Richie had to continue teaching later in the afternoon, so I started a new book called “Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures).” Surprisingly, 60 pages in, there has been almost no sex. Richie had to polish the book off first, so as he read, I helped another teacher with some English work and starting cooking some French toast. We ate at near-record speed and then started working on making a coffee cake. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. Good enough to kill two-thirds of it in one sitting. We watched some “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and turned in.

Thursday began with a telephone call far too early for my liking. I turned over to look at the clock on my phone. 6AM – ugh. I sounded dead, to myself, and probably even more to my parents. They called back after an hour’s sleep that felt like an eternity. Right in the middle of the conversation, the coffee cake that was so good last night punched me square in my stomach. It hit Richie an hour before. At least having terrible diarrhea early in the morning means the morning can only improve.

I was on market duty, which isn’t so bad. We didn’t need a lot, so it was a quick trip. On the way back, something big and green caught my eye. Richie and I have vowed to buy anything that even remotely looks like a fruit or vegetable, and watermelon definitely counts. For five Meticais, we can’t lose, right?

What a stupid question to ask. We hacked into something that resembled an oversized, misshapen cucumber – white on the inside with white seeds. It smelled like watermelon, but not the watermelon I’m used to seeing. We each tolerated one piece, and happily donated the remaining 90 percent to the construction workers who have returned to working on the new house. They devoured it like it was the first food they have seen in weeks.

I sat around for the better part of the morning, trying to get through “Emergency Sex.” It’s a not so subtle reminder of why I’m here – because I think that I can contribute to some cause that is greater than me. At the same time, it may be a deterrent for what they do for the better part of their youth – traipse around the world to countries like Somalia and Haiti and Cambodia, trying to feel alive and make a difference. Then again, maybe that’s what I’m living now. This isn’t my first rendezvous in Africa, and like the people in the book, I found a cause I was committed to. For them it lasted more than a decade. But with each passing day here, especially on the bad days but even on the good days, I can’t help but think this will be my last go around in Africa. I can hear my mother’s sigh of relief from thousands of miles away.

I took a break from the monotony of reading to tidy up and organized my room. I hijacked a perfectly sized piece of wood, fit for a shelf, from a classroom yesterday, and today, it went up. It hangs beautifully and evenly beneath my clothes rack, holding my t-shirts, boxers, and the cold-weather gear that so rarely gets worn. The shelf allows me to get rid of one box/clothes holder that I had been using since Day 1 here in Machanga.

We were able to enjoy lunch later than usual. I was able to cancel my first class because we were able to get their test review done yesterday. They were convinced they would all score perfectly. Stupidly convinced, I gave the okay to cancelling class. They will have their chance to prove themselves tomorrow.

My classes in the afternoon tanked. Just another part of this terrible day. I made a big leap into the world of past tense. It is easy and difficult at the same time for different reasons in different languages. In Portuguese, it is easy because it has consistent conjugations with few irregular verbs. This is also the downside – there are conjugations that need to be remembered. English has the opposite conundrum: we have no verb conjugations in the past tense (with the exception of “to be” becoming “was” and “were”), but we have so many irregular verbs that become irregular in so many inconsistent ways. I knew my lesson had tanked ten minutes in.

And the worst of it was I had to give it again to another class. I tried to get through it like I would rip off a band-aid, quick and painless. I got the quick part down, but it definitely had it pain. I watched the entire lesson as one girl in the back corner did everything but try to learn – text message, talk to her neighbor, maybe a Su Doku. I broke at the end of the lesson. I called her out, not exactly gently asking her to write a sentence, just itching to make an example of her. She tanked as hard as my lesson tanked. And then, I think I shattered. I told that class, which is usually pretty good, that if they don’t want to learn English, they can leave. It was a miserable day, and it ended pretty poorly.

After classes, I was able to let my mind venture for a little bit. Richie and I threw the Frisbee for a bit which, as always, drew the attention of people both near and fear. Stupid muzungus throwing their plate around. We were joined by some kids, some who already knew how to threw and catch, some who were knew, some who could barely stand on their own two feet. I threw it around for a bit, and then Richie and I let the kids have at it. There is something surreal about watching these kids throw the Frisbee around. We watched on as the 18-month old got tagged in the leg by incoming fire. A quick cry, nary a tear, and he ran off for mamma.

Of course, the day ended on somewhat of a down note. Our tomatoes had gone bad, as had our bread. We passed on the tomatoes, and reheated the bread back to life. I guess sometimes, you just have to concede the day to the bush.

I woke up early again Friday, without the aid of a phone call, but by the crow of a rooster. Fuckin roosters. Can’t they wait until at least 6? It was a little serendipitous. I had failed to make the beer batter for onion rings last night, so I got up, peed, and got to work. The timing worked out perfectly to start cooking at 10. As I crawled back into bed, I noticed a medium-size spider on the inside – yes, the inside – of my mosquito. Apparently mosquito nets are great for keeping out mosquitoes but not five-centimeter diameter spiders. Maybe it was that spider that was responsible for the bite that turned my left ring finger purple. He will bite no one else – it was a quick death by flip-flop. Some 24 hours this was. Hopefully, when I wake up, it will commence a better day.

How lucky I was. The beer batter looked delicious and tasted just as good as it looked. And we had almost an entire beer left over. We can’t let a good beer go to waste, even if it is warm. So Richie and I sat back around 8 and drank our beer. Tasty.

The morning was slow. I kept on reading “Emergency Sex,” committed to getting through it by day’s end. When it was time to get charcoal going, we were ominously low. We resorted to using twigs, which actually worked quite well. The onion rings – arguably the best part of our week – came out great. Just two exams to give, and I can taste the freedom of a place that is not Machanga.

Each of the classes vowed they were all going to get “vintes” – a perfect score of the 20 on the exam. Maybe they had studied extra hard. Maybe they were over confident. Maybe they had talked to the other classes to get the answers, knowing I was giving the same test. What they didn’t know was that I reordered the questions in the multiple section. These kids don’t know that I’m 23, that I wasn’t a student long ago, and yes, I know every trick in the book. For those who decided to memorize “CADABCCBDB,” they would be in for a world of trouble.

Finding the cheaters is like fishing with sonar and GPS: I can find them with no problem, it’s not even a game. I can cast my line out, look in one direction, and pull back really quick to find eyes that could roll all the way down this entire 60 kilometer dirt road. Some I reprimand, some I keep my eye on, and some I just have to let go. In the end though, all I need to do is make an example of one. And the reality is that when they both fail, or eke by with an 11, it won’t really matter. One girl who was committed to cheating just gave up, turned her paper in nearly blank. Others powered through, and those who committed most egregiously, I called out. I told them I would be separating them for the next test. No argument.

I went back in between classes to grade the first set. This is ugly – by far the highest failing rate of the turmas, and no shortage of students who had memorized “CADABCCBDB.” It’s a shame, because if they would have thought about the questions for a minute, they probably would have been able to answer them correctly.

There wasn’t as much cheating in the second class. The students were more spread out, and this is a better class anyway. They were even more confident than the other group. And, as I found out when I graded their tests, many had memorized the multiple choice answers. I was not born yesterday. And know, instead of being the student angry at the teacher, I was the teacher with whom the students were angry. Weird.

Amidst a splitting headache, I finished “Emergency Sex.” It’s nice to see that all of them go back to regular civilian lives. I popped the grades in my excel spreadsheet and waited for energy to come on. We had our baby formula pancakes. Thankfully, we have just about finished the baby formula, so we can buy some powdered milk in Maputo. Toward the end of our energy, I helped a teacher make a playlist for a festa here this weekend, a festa that we will be missing.

Richie and I were both up before 6 on Saturday. As we walked off the school grounds and toward the review, the weather was almost cold. It was great weather to walk in. Our wait at the river was minimal, maybe 20 minutes, and crossing the river was a piece of cake. Our longest wait was for a chapa heading out of Mambone. Other than that 45 minute wait, we had incredible luck. We jumped in the back of a pickup truck from the crossroads to Inhassoro, hit a chapa almost immediately from Inhassoro to Vilanculos, and then got another chapa from Vilanculos to to Maxixe. It was a long travel day, especially running on only two loaves of bread and a couple of cokes.

We ate dinner with a couple of Volunteers and another NGO worker stationed in Maxixe. I never thought that eating chicken would be considered a treat. We headed back to a Volunteers house to sleep.

Maputo, here we come!