Year 1 - Week 15: Sunsets in Technicolor

The wind stuck with us through the night, but we still haven’t seen much rain. It’s a lot of noise but that’s all. And with mostly clear skies above us, it appears to be just a cooling threat. It was cool enough that our Mozambican counterparts had to bundle themselves up in hats and jackets. Meanwhile, we sat on our patio shirtless in shorts. This weather is perfect for us. As I sat on the patio, reading a magazine, I got a call from my parents at 9 AM. Strange, I thought: with the nine hour time difference, it’s midnight in California. Oh wait, they went to Hawaii. So now it is a twelve hour difference. I think, now, we are geographically on opposite sides of the earth.

We expected guests today: Greg, our colleague in Mambone, and one of his Mozambican friends. I still don’t know why anyone would ever want to actually visit Machanga. There even less nothing here than there is in Mambone. I knew he would be in church for a while, so we started prepping for lunch. We figured if they’re hungry, we could whip something up for them. As we ate lunch, we got a call from them, saying it would be a couple hours. No problem – as long as they brought bread and tomatoes for us. If we are not going to the Promised Land, the Promised Land is going to come to us.

They arrived early afternoon. You know it’s bad when a Mozambican says, “Wow, this is even more ‘mato’ (bush) than our side.” Greg, of course, liked it. He called it “rustic,” whatever that means. I cooked up some spaghetti for them. They were blown away with the parmesan cheese I had to offer. It’s the little things in life that keep all of us going.

As we walked to the villa, the rain finally came. Timing is everything, right? We spent a little time in a baraca, enjoying a soda and just talking about our crazy lives. We walked them back toward the river and caught an excellent boleia in the back of a truck.

The night was pretty regular. We made spaghetti and our excellent tomato sauce. Greg, wisely, brought us some green peppers along with tomatoes, so our sauce was extra delicious. We watched a couple of episodes of “House,” I wrote out my test questions for tomorrow, and we crashed.

Kind of. Of course, something had to screw up my day, albeit barely. A grasshopper made it into my bed net and landed on me as I tried to sleep. There was no way I was going to sleep until that thing was out of my bed or dead. I like dead better. I killed the beast, turned on my fan, and went to bed.

I woke up feeling decent. I had some strange dreams last night that I can’t even blame on malaria drugs. One of them involved my students asking for extra credit. Maybe it was a sign of things to come.

I spent a good part of the morning writing out the exam for my students. It’s a pain in the ass to hand-write exams on big pieces of paper. It means I actually have to pay attention, write neatly, not mess up. It would be so much easier to type and photocopy, but that gets expensive for the students. They will pay up for their final exam next week.

After yet another delicious stirfry lunch, I went to the school to give the test. Each class had 90 minutes to finish the ten question exam. I knew it was too much time, but it would give me an opportunity to correct the tests immediately. The first class did really well. Everyone passed, most with great scores. The second did a little worse and I caught a cheater in that class. He will see a fat zero on his exam tomorrow. The third did even worse. About 70 percent of the class passed, which is not terrible, but not up to American standards.

We had the good fortune of having energy all day today. How glorious. It allowed me to charge up a ton of batteries for my fans, keep my computer charged, and put grades into my computer immediately.

Before cooking dinner, I helped out two people – one students and one teacher – with some English lessons. I think these are my most meaningful exchanges: the personal one-on-one conversations where I can really help someone. They are fulfilling moments.

With a bounty of tomatoes, we cooked up spaghetti again for dinner. We left the chicken out of the sauce tonight. Richie had more cheaters than I had today, and since he said the day couldn’t be salvaged, we decided to leave the chicken out. No reason to waste perfectly good chicken. We watched some “House,” drank gin to forget the day, and went to sleep.

The tasks I had in front of me on Tuesday were minimal at most. I didn’t have to lesson plan, I had already corrected all of the exams, and all I had to do was return them to the students. It’s nice to have easy days like that. I spent most of the morning working on Kakuro. I messed up one, and got another one right. 50 percent isn’t bad (remember, we’re in Mozambique, where 50 percent passes).

I hand back the exams to most of the turmas, showing them the cábula that one student stupid decided to use. He’ll enjoy that zero. I had to give the exam to one last class, and they did pretty well.

And then something very strange happened. As the twelfth graders left, a group of about 20 tenth graders walked in. Wait, you aren’t my students. Why are you here? They wanted math help. I’ve never been opposed to helping on math. The truth is, if I could teach math here, I would. I helped them with one problem, and was stumped by another, but I vowed to get them the answer by tomorrow.

It was a pretty terrible night after that. We made pancakes, but with the corn flour we accidentally bought, they tasted like xima – bleh. We also tried to make corn chowder with all of the corn we have been given, but that was pretty terrible too. The only thing that saved the night was “House.”

I fell into a deep sleep, and that proved to be problematic. I was up before four o’clock. It was pitch black outside. I went back to bed, but was up in 20 minute intervals. What happened, though, was amazing. Every time I woke up, the sky was a different color. First it was slate grey, then it changed to that bright shade of blue used in so much of our technology. The best though were the two after – bright pink followed by white. I’ve never seen anything like it before. When I finally got up for good, around 6, the sky was a perfect shade of blue.

There was no going back to bed. I was up for good. So I lay in bed and figured out the math problem that had stumped me in less than five minutes. My brain turned on, I got back to the Kakuro and had a lot of success really quickly. I knocked out one, and by morning’s end, I had another finished. That makes three in a row correct.

As I got more and more exhausted, my activities changed. We through the Frisbee around for a bit, which definitely did not help. After a while, I just settled on the patio and read a magazine. By 10, having already been awake for six hours, I was exhausted. I needed food, and fast. We waited until 11 to prep, and by then, I was all but dead. In my state, I should not have been left to work with gasoline and matches. I ended up burning myself only twice, which was pretty good.

Teaching was a struggle. I only had to teach two classes, so that was good news for me. I have decided that teaching is actually three jobs in one – part educator, part cheerleader, and part actor. I had to at least pretend that I was awake for classes.

I came back to the house to a swarm of kids and some teachers playing some Frisbee. It was pretty cool to see. We had kids of all ages, teachers who were single, married, and with children playing. Everyone should be able to act like a kid every once in a while.

As the kids and teachers played, Richie and I took a break. What we watched was incredible. A day that started with a gorgeous sunrise ended with a sunset that put the sunrise to shame. I’ve never seen so many vivid colors in one sunset.

Neither Richie nor I had it in us to cook an actually spaghetti sauce. We turned to the packets of sauce. It was perfect. We added some tomatoes and chicken and dined on a delicious spaghetti dinner. The night ended with a couple episodes of “House.”

Finally, after a couple rough nights, I slept through a night. The morning was low-key. Richie had one class, and I refused to get out of bed until he was back. It was fantastic. I spent a lot of the morning reading mornings, catching up on old news.

The afternoon was as slow as the morning. I was slated for five classes, but only needed to use three. I handed back exams to one group, and was able to combine my other two groups for a joint review session. It was nice to have a relaxing afternoon.

A couple of kids were out in front of our house again playing Frisbee. I threw around for a little bit but mostly played photographer. I snapped off a couple of awesome shots that we may be able to use for something in the future.

A slow day was followed by a slow night. Richie made French toast while I failed in helping a colleague get a document printed. Damn viruses. It’s no wonder at least five colleagues have asked for either my computer, Richie’s computer, or help with buying a computer. I’ll do my best, but there’s only so much I can do. We watched two more episodes of “House” and crashed.

Friday started off normally. I had no classes: I cancelled them on Wednesday. The students should be prepared for their exams. I planned to write out an exam by hand, type it up in the evening, and photocopy it for everyone.

Then midmorning, things changed with one text message. We were told to evacuate our site because of Cyclone Izilda. We checked out the trajectory on the internet and it looked like it was primed to hit Machanga or at least somewhere very close. Hmmm, that certainly changes my plans.

After eating lunch, we started putting our bags together. I wrote out exams on giant paper for another teacher to control, and by 4 PM, we were out the door. I don’t think we have ever moved with such urgency. We crossed the river, which had swollen to a size we hadn’t seen. We think it was mostly the work of a high tide. We bought some bread in the Mambone villa and made a gameplan: stay up drinking all night until the 2 AM bus ride to Xai Xai.

We got a restaurant recommendation from a friend and ended up in the hands of a man named Greg. He’s a South African, born in England, and living in Machanga. He was a fascinating man. He served in the war in Angola, fought for the ANC in South Africa, and after years wandering around southern Africa ended up in Mozambique. Greg laid the gas pipeline that provides our three hours of electricity, so he is our new hero. He was very well educated and maybe a little crazy, which made for interesting conversation.

By 9 PM, we were pretty exhausted and very full from our chicken dinner. We thought we would make it up all night, but we were very wrong. We tried to relax on the bus, but the mosquitoes and some unnecessarily loud conversation kept us awake.

The bus left right on time at 2 AM. Each of us rested on and off. I don’t think either of us slept for more than an hour at a time. Around 10:30, more than eight hours into our journey, we were told that we didn’t have to leave. The storm had dissipated. Awesome. We’ve come too far and we were way too tired to turn around.

We made it to Xai Xai by mid-afternoon. A couple people went to the beach, but I was too exhausted to do much of anything other than getting calories and caffeine. Around 5, we met a colleague who lives close to Xai Xai. I think we’re going to stick around here for a little bit, then put together a plan for the rest of the week.