This time around, all of that drinking did me some good. I slept through the night and slept soundly. All of that drinking, however, made me feel quite miserable. And there is nothing like being hung over on a travel day, when we expect to be crammed into loud chapas.
On this day, though, the transportation gods were on our side. We caught a free ride from Inhassoro to the national road and with little wait-time caught a private car to Maluvane, the crossroads for Nova Mambone. Within seconds of paying the driver, another private car and a friend of Greg pulled up. We had another free ride into town. For the entire trip, we paid 30 Meticais. Not too bad. We arrived in record time, did some shopping in the villa, and crossed back to our side of the river.
Richie and I were banking on a relaxing afternoon. All we really wanted to do was sit on our patio and maybe get a nap. Just as we settled in, our new Portuguese friends approached our house. A car still hadn’t arrived for them, poor souls. While they were here though, he had a project in mind: he wanted to repair the basketball hoops. One of the nets has been unusable for a year, according to the students. After an hour of work with nothing but their resources and some ingenuity, the net was up, barely.
And with two functioning nets, the kids wanted a game. Our Portuguese friend enjoys basketball; it is neither my game nor Richie’s, but we couldn’t say no. We shed our sandals and played barefoot on the dirt until we could no longer play and no longer see well. It was good fun – especially the trash talking in Portuguese. But I’m getting too old for this shit, especially without stretching – terrible decision. We agreed that, if possible, we would go to the villa for a drink after dinner.
After showering and eating, neither Richie nor I were up for doing much of anything. I did, however, get the opportunity to steal from new media, namely a couple of seasons of “How I Met Your Mother.” With the downloading finished, the Portuguese couple and I enjoyed each other’s company, splitting the conversation between Portuguese and English easily. It’s a very cool way to have a conversation. Sometimes, there are just better ways to say things in Portuguese or English, and all of us are comfortable enough with both languages to weave one into the other.
I woke up Monday sore. Very sore. I knew I was in for trouble. Sitting gave me pain. Standing gave me pain. Walking gave me pain. Luckily, I didn’t have to do much of anything Monday morning. I sat on the patio for most of the morning, either cleaning dishes or lesson planning. My students are going to continue learning questions and answers, this time with modal verbs. It may be a little challenging, but I think it’s a good progression from the last couple weeks. Toward the end of the morning, the Portuguese couple came by to bid us adieu. They’ll be back though: he has to conduct a few more interviews, so there will be another opportunity for beers.
The students, to my surprise, did a pretty good job with the modal verbs. I thought this would be a challenge because modal verbs don’t really exist – I mean, of course they do, but they are just much easier to deal with in Portuguese. I showed them the rules for forming questions and they picked up on everything quickly, to the point that they were actually getting ahead of themselves.
For the first time in a while, we didn’t have much opportunity to watch a show. We put on some “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” just for background noise, but I spent a lot of my time putting in grades and starting research for graduate school. It’s kind of crazy to be thinking about school, again, two years into the future. But Peace Corps affords such good opportunities with grad schools that I can’t really afford to throw that away.
I almost slept through the night, with no drugs or no pills. 4:45 is pretty close, which is just sickening. By going to sleep at 9:00, that constitutes a full night’s sleep. But what the fuck am I supposed to do at 4:45 in the morning? Nothing, except sleep, so I slept until 7:45. I thought my days of ten-hour nights of sleep were over.
Richie ran off to the market and I cleaned up around the house. I planned out another day’s lesson – a continuation from yesterday – and did some crossword puzzles while enjoying the shade of our patio. Before I knew it, it was time to cook lunch. We had our standard eggs and potato pancakes and I was off to teach.
My students did a nice job, again, with the questions with modal verbs. Having this skill is just another weapon they can use for everyday questions like “May I come in?” or “Will you help me?” After my regular classes of election, I stuck around with my twelfth graders to help with math until the sun no longer lit up the room.
Exhausted, I looked forward to a relaxing night. We cooked up some spaghetti with fake cheese sauce, watched Jerry Seinfeld’s “Bee Movie” and enjoyed our delicious cookies before going to sleep.
Wednesday was a pretty run of the mill day. I didn’t have to plan out a lesson because I taught the same lesson to the other classes on Monday, so I spent most of the morning doing crosswords.
The lesson went as smoothly as it did on Monday. As expected, one class picked it up much faster than the other class. As I taught the slower, the French teacher came in, asked for permission to speak with them, and then ripped them to shreds. It sounded like they deserved it: most of the students failed the exact same exam three times in one week. I don’t know why he would give them so many opportunities. My students know my policy: I tell you when the test is, and you show up. If you don’t show up, that’s tough.
Classes finished early. After the French teacher took a bite out of the students, they were a lost cause. I gave up on them early, knowing that I could make it up tomorrow. I came home to a sight that is becoming increasingly regular – kids playing Frisbee without us. It’s nice to see. They could stick with the normal soccer, but it’s wonderful to see them enjoying something new. Of course, I jumped in. Why wouldn’t I?
Richie and I had planned on making spaghetti. We had everything we needed for the sauce and plenty of bread. There was just one problem: we didn’t have the one ingredient needed for spaghetti – the spaghetti. Major failure. We dug into the reserves and made some rather disgusting fake rice/fake pasta mixture, which was only salvaged by the sauce, and some delicious garlic bread. Regardless, we were full by the end of the night. We sat back and enjoyed some “How I Met Your Mother” until the energy went out.
Thursday meant market run. It was cold enough to through on sleeves. I know it sounds weird to call Africa “cold,” but in reality, it has been chilly here, especially at night and early in the morning. Cold enough that we don’t need to use fans at night anymore. Cold enough that occasionally I might put on a shirt with which to sleep. Cold enough that the locals are wearing beanies and coats. It’s quite funny to see.
I had an easy lesson to plan – a lesson on prepositions. Teaching prepositions is nice because it is very visual. You can see that a ball is “on” a box or “under” a table. This isn’t our first run-in with prepositions – they are necessary to address questions with “where” and “when” – so they figured out the definitions and the sentence-writing very quickly. I taught until the blackboard was impossible to see. Of course, as I finished teaching, the energy came on. Not a problem though: all the more energy for us to enjoy.
Richie and I returned to an old favorite for dinner – French toast. We haven’t made it in weeks because we haven’t had syrup, but I took care of making syrup during lunch. By the time dinner came around, it had congealed into something looking almost like syrup. The French toast was delicious. It was lovely to get away from the foods we have been stuck on for the last few weeks.
After dinner, we watched a little bit of “How I Met Your Mother” before being interrupted by a chemistry teacher. He wanted us to type up a couple of exams. We happily do it – even though typing in Portuguese is a pain in the ass due to the accents and cedillas and circumflexes – because what takes us an hour or less will take someone here three or four or five hours to type. We are here to help, right? I finished just as the energy went out, a small victory.
Friday morning was slow. Too slow. Although the weather was absolutely perfect, there was just nothing to do. Richie and I threw around the Frisbee not once but twice, much to the delight of the construction workers right next to our house. Other than throwing around the Frisbee, I spent my morning failing miserably at the difficult level of Ken Ken. I think that game has defeated me.
My schedule for the afternoon kind of sucked. I had two classes two give three hours apart from one another. I’d much rather knock them out quickly, but I have zero control of the schedule. The time between classes, though, did not go to waste. We did what just about any other Mozambican teacher would do: sat under the trees and talked with colleagues, switching between their butchered English and our much less butchered Portuguese. We may still have problems getting some specific points made, but we can definitely communicate.
As I finished my last class, Richie was in a meeting with the rest of the teachers. We really don’t have to go to the meetings here because the decisions made by the school don’t really affect us. Richie decided to go anyway, just to get the extra Portuguese practice. I think even if I didn’t have class, I would have stayed home anyway. I returned home and threw the Frisbee around a bit with some of our neighbors before preparing dinner. We ate quickly, watched a couple more episodes of “How I Met Your Mother,” and turned in, another school week complete.
Saturday was a day that I want back. I feel like almost the entire day went to waste. We were invited to a wedding, which we were really excited about. We were grateful to receive the invitation. It gives us some idea of how we have integrated into our community. And, as it is in the United States, weddings are usually a surefire guarantee for excessive booze and delicious food. Unlike the United States, however, these ceremonies rarely, if ever, run on time. Our Peace Corps friend Greg told us that there would be a lunch at noon before the ceremony at 4:00. We figured that we would head over early, catch a beer with our South African (different) Greg, then head over to the lunch.
Things in the morning went to plan. We crossed the river to Mambone on the early en. We quickly found South African Greg with no problem and enjoyed a beer before heading over to the wedding. What happened at this house was amazing. Pot after pot had food in it, numerous animals – including at least one cow – had been slain before our arrival, and all the women were busy working while the men sat around. It seemed as if things were going like clockwork.
And then the wheels fell off the wagon. 12:00 became 2:00 with still nothing ready and few people at the house. Greg’s wife procured some food for us: some clams, which were pretty good and some meat, including the liver (side note: as it stands right now, cow liver is the worst liver I’ve had here, ranking miles behind that of goat and chicken). It’s been a while since Richie and I have eaten dead cow so we were quite satisfied, even if it was just a few bite’s worth.
By 4:30, our patience began to wear thin. Neither bride nor groom were in sight, although more people were starting to pile their way on the compound. Finally, around 5:00, the singing began. Richie and I were invited into the house to see the bride, which was a little strange, since we were the only men in the house; we escaped out the backdoor quickly to reduce the awkwardness, though we were probably the only ones to feel it. With the bride out and the groom now around, hundreds of people made their way by car and food to the mosque about a mile away.
The ceremony, with the exception of the raucous children outside, was quite and solemn. Contracts were signed, money collected, prayers said. Between the Arabic (of which I speak a total of six words) and the rambling Portuguese, we caught little of what was going on. It didn’t really matter: it’s the experience that counts. All in all, the ceremony was quick. Divided by gender within the mosque, the bride and groom were only presented together once outside the mosque.
People loaded up in cars and it appeared that we were headed back to the house for dinner. We thought we were in business for food. That is, until we turned down the main road away from the villa. We drove for maybe five miles, horns blaring, people singing, Richie and I freezing and hungry. We didn’t see much point in this. If the purpose was to parade the new couple, it failed epically: we passed less than 75 people over the course of the five miles, if you count everyone twice.
With everyone back at the compound, dinner time had arrived. But not before the presentation of the gifts. This part was even more ridiculous than the parade. People individually brought their gifts to the head table and presented them. The DJ asked for people who did not bring gifts to give money, which seemed a little bit seedy. Regardless, we threw in 100 Meticais with the hope that it would expedite the process.
The food, once it came, was delicious. The beef was not just awkwardly cut chunks of meat but actual steak, in quasi-filets. There was also no shortage of chicken, rice and potato salad. The whole thing reminded me a bit of the barbecues my family has on Sundays. It was all very homey, until the party ran out of beer, which was pretty quick. By the time we were done drinking, it was close to midnight. We headed out to the road, got a quick ride to Peace Corps Greg’s house, and slept with but a straw mat between us and the cold concrete, knowing that we would have a long walk back to Machanga tomorrow.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Year 1 - Week 23: "Milk" and Cookies
My master plan for sleeping through a night didn’t work out exactly as planned. Although I fell asleep right away, I was up within hours, once at midnight and again at 4:00 with the rooster. Sadly, it was probably the best night of sleep I’ve had over the last two weeks. I’m starting to think that I’m allergic to something, I just don’t know what. Maybe I’m allergic to Machanga.
I had the opportunity to prove this idea Sunday morning. Having not gone to Mambone on Saturday, we took the opportunity to do some shopping across the river. Of course, within minutes of setting foot on the Mambone side of the river, I stopped sneezing and my eyes stopped leaking. We shopped quickly, knowing that if we wanted to eat delicious chicken, we would have to wait a good 90 minutes for it. The wait was worthwhile (it’s always worth it) and it passed quicker than usual due to the presence of Greg, the Volunteer stationed in Mambone.
One of the nice parts about going to Mambone – aside from chicken, vegetables, cold beer, and everything else someone in Machanga would crave – is that the trip takes up most of the day. What is amazing is the fact that two towns, divided by a swimmable river, are no more than five kilometers apart. By the time we got back, we were ready to start preparing dinner. Preparing dinner took longer than usual because of a ridiculous sunset that took away our attention every few minutes.
After our regular spaghetti dinner, the calls starting coming in: first my grandmother followed by my parents and my brother. It was one of those rare days that California was hotter than Machanga. Small victories. Before going to bed, we said goodbye to Season 3 of “House.”
Another night of sleep, another set of middle of the night wake-ups. I choose to look at the bright side of it. Waking up every four hours allows me to pop more Sudafed than I would get with a regular night’s sleep. It’s like my body knows that it’s time for another pill. I think all of that “House” is starting to wear on me.
My morning was slow. I was giving a test to one class and planned to give busy work to the other classes, so there was little to prepare. With all of that time, I had plenty of opportunity to go on a cleaning binge, taking care of the kitchen, the patio, the dining area and my room, all before 9:30. Richie came back to a clean house, infuriated by the number of cheaters in class. I’ve been lucky: over my first four classes, I only caught four cheaters; Richie had five in his first class. Ouch.
I knew that teaching comparatives, superlatives, and equalities would be a multiple-day lesson. The work was surprisingly good, producing such gems as “Mambone is better than Machanga” (truer words have never been written) and “My sister is as ugly as a chameleon.” I am glad a chose not to rush through that particular lesson – teaching it over two days with a full hour of practice added on – because they would fail it miserably if I pushed it quickly.
As I started walking back from my last class, I was summoned by a teacher asking for some help. He said he needed help explaining a concept, which would be fine if I knew what the content was. He led me through it quickly, and before I knew it, I had twenty students in front of me asking for an explanation. I have no problem teaching math – in fact, I would love to teach math here. The problem is I just don’t have all the technical vocabulary, like “square root,” to teach right now. That didn’t stop me, though, on this day. I powered through it, asking for vocabulary when necessary. By the end, I think the students had a better understanding of the material. Now they want my help every week, which is fine by me. I’m happy to help where I can, and it will be a good learning opportunity for me.
The night was an atypical working night. Richie and I both had to put grades into our computers. And we had no “House” to watch. We were entertained, however, by some students dancing for some donors from Monaco who were here visiting. We improved our night noticeably with cookies and “South Park” and went to bed.
It is one thing to wake up 2 in the morning or 4 in the morning. It’s another thing to wake up at 11:48 PM! The worst part was that I felt refreshed. Terrible. I popped a Sudafed and slept for four more hours before waking up for good. It’s just depressing waking up while it’s still dark outside, knowing that there is absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Once the sun was high enough in the sky to provide light on my patio, I took my regular seat and starting correcting exams. This class did pretty well. There were a couple near-perfect scores, which was very impressive, and very few if any failures. Correcting fifty-five exams took up most of the morning. Within a minute of me finishing, Richie returned from the market. We threw around the Frisbee for a bit with a group of little kids before preparing lunch.
I had three classes to teach before giving one last exam. For the first time during this set of exams, I didn’t have to move anyone, although I did physically turn the head of one student whose eyes wandered to his neighbor’s paper. It drew a good laugh from the class.
In between coming back to the house and having the energy flipped on, Richie and I threw around the Frisbee for a little bit, without the kids this time. We ate delicious garlic bread (which our neighbor enjoyed), watched a little television, and went to sleep. With the help of a pair of Benadryl, I slept – well, through the night.
We made a joint trip to the villa Wednesday morning. It took a couple months, but we once again ran out of charcoal. With energy arriving sometime in July (if everything goes to plan), this might be the last bag of charcoal we have to buy. And we are very thankful for that. Hauling that monster bag of charcoal the few kilometers between the villa and our house is a pain in the ass.
I had an easy teaching day – easy for me and easy for the students. My students got a quick lesson on questions using “is there” and “are there.” Like many things between English and Portuguese, this translated almost word for word. It’s nice for them because it is easy to remember and it’s nice for me because I get a bit of a self-taught Portuguese lesson, as I did with comparisons, superlatives and equalities last week.
The evening was fairly uneventful, save for the energy coming on at 5:00. We cooked up stir fry and spent the better part of the evening watching “Milk,” which was a beautifully done movie.
Teaching on Thursday was even easier than Wednesday. With all the classes having taken the exam, I could start handing the exams back and going over the material. Since the students did pretty well, I didn’t need to go over much material. The only major fireworks came when I had to deal with two of the cheaters. I told each of them that they could admit that they did it and the other person would get the points. Of course, both of them denied doing it, so they both receive zeros. It’s a shame because one of them is a pretty good student and the other not so much. If I had to guess, I could pin it on one of them, but that’s not really fair.
The night was relaxing. Before the energy came on, we tossed around the Frisbee a bit. We made our regular spaghetti, watched South Park, and – exhausted after another poor night’s sleep – went to bed.
Friday finally arrived. Finally. We had plans to go to Vilanculos and Inhassoro over the weekend, but first, we had some business to take care of. As we usually do before we leave, we spent the morning cleaning up the house. I swept and mopped up the house while Richie did dishes. And then something amazing happened – another Muzungu arrived.
It’s strange to be suspicious of other white people. We thought that we were the only show in town. He introduced himself in Portuguese, and we thought we were going to be in for a long Portuguese conversation. Then something even more amazing happened – he started speaking in beautiful English. He is doing some research on the private schools in Sofala and wanted to ask us about our experiences. We told him we had time in the afternoon and he should return at 1:00.
I had to hand back two more sets of tests Friday afternoon. I went over the exam with one of the classes and just handed back the exam to the other. That class did exceptionally well so I didn’t feel obligated to go over the answers. I told them that if they had questions, they could ask me next week. I was done with my school obligations by 12:50.
At 12:58, our new Portuguese friend. How very un-Mozambican. Even he said “how do you like that timing?” Umm, we love it. Thank you so much. We each spoke with him for about 30 minutes. While one spoke, the other got to practice Portuguese with his wife. We both had no problem speaking Portuguese with actually Portuguese people. It’s Mozambican Portuguese that we continue to have our problems.
By 3:00, we were finished with our conversations, packed and ready to go. We stopped in the Mambone villa to pick up some bread for the night and the travel day and caught a chapa to Greg’s house. Greg’s girlfriend made us some delicious rice and fish. By the time we were done eating, we were ready to pass out.
Bus sleeping was just not going to happen. For one, we were essentially sleeping on concrete: all we had was a thin grass mat and blanket on which to lie. Secondly, and more annoyingly, a bar had ridiculously loud, terrible Mozambican music going all night. Between the two of us, we got about 90 minutes of sleep. As if we don’t sleep poorly enough already…
The travel day was quite terrible, as it usually is. We “woke up” at 3:30 to catch a chapa for Vilanculos. Normally, we would just leave from Machanga at a reasonable hour, but we had to get to Vilanculos, get money (hopefully), shop, send off some emails, then head to Inhassoro for a birthday party. As we thought we would be, we were on the road before noon and arrived in Inhassoro before 2:00.
We spent a lot of the afternoon relaxing. Richie napped, I laid down for a bit, but most of my relaxing was done with a knife in hand cutting vegetables, preparing for dinner. Dinner was outrageously good. We had a Mozambican make good Mozambique food, an Italian make some real, fresh pasta, and of course cake. Before dinner, we played some pretty intense volleyball with some Mozambique, beer in hand. Even though we were absolutely exhausted, we still partied hard. At least it should make for a good night’s sleep. Hopefully.
I had the opportunity to prove this idea Sunday morning. Having not gone to Mambone on Saturday, we took the opportunity to do some shopping across the river. Of course, within minutes of setting foot on the Mambone side of the river, I stopped sneezing and my eyes stopped leaking. We shopped quickly, knowing that if we wanted to eat delicious chicken, we would have to wait a good 90 minutes for it. The wait was worthwhile (it’s always worth it) and it passed quicker than usual due to the presence of Greg, the Volunteer stationed in Mambone.
One of the nice parts about going to Mambone – aside from chicken, vegetables, cold beer, and everything else someone in Machanga would crave – is that the trip takes up most of the day. What is amazing is the fact that two towns, divided by a swimmable river, are no more than five kilometers apart. By the time we got back, we were ready to start preparing dinner. Preparing dinner took longer than usual because of a ridiculous sunset that took away our attention every few minutes.
After our regular spaghetti dinner, the calls starting coming in: first my grandmother followed by my parents and my brother. It was one of those rare days that California was hotter than Machanga. Small victories. Before going to bed, we said goodbye to Season 3 of “House.”
Another night of sleep, another set of middle of the night wake-ups. I choose to look at the bright side of it. Waking up every four hours allows me to pop more Sudafed than I would get with a regular night’s sleep. It’s like my body knows that it’s time for another pill. I think all of that “House” is starting to wear on me.
My morning was slow. I was giving a test to one class and planned to give busy work to the other classes, so there was little to prepare. With all of that time, I had plenty of opportunity to go on a cleaning binge, taking care of the kitchen, the patio, the dining area and my room, all before 9:30. Richie came back to a clean house, infuriated by the number of cheaters in class. I’ve been lucky: over my first four classes, I only caught four cheaters; Richie had five in his first class. Ouch.
I knew that teaching comparatives, superlatives, and equalities would be a multiple-day lesson. The work was surprisingly good, producing such gems as “Mambone is better than Machanga” (truer words have never been written) and “My sister is as ugly as a chameleon.” I am glad a chose not to rush through that particular lesson – teaching it over two days with a full hour of practice added on – because they would fail it miserably if I pushed it quickly.
As I started walking back from my last class, I was summoned by a teacher asking for some help. He said he needed help explaining a concept, which would be fine if I knew what the content was. He led me through it quickly, and before I knew it, I had twenty students in front of me asking for an explanation. I have no problem teaching math – in fact, I would love to teach math here. The problem is I just don’t have all the technical vocabulary, like “square root,” to teach right now. That didn’t stop me, though, on this day. I powered through it, asking for vocabulary when necessary. By the end, I think the students had a better understanding of the material. Now they want my help every week, which is fine by me. I’m happy to help where I can, and it will be a good learning opportunity for me.
The night was an atypical working night. Richie and I both had to put grades into our computers. And we had no “House” to watch. We were entertained, however, by some students dancing for some donors from Monaco who were here visiting. We improved our night noticeably with cookies and “South Park” and went to bed.
It is one thing to wake up 2 in the morning or 4 in the morning. It’s another thing to wake up at 11:48 PM! The worst part was that I felt refreshed. Terrible. I popped a Sudafed and slept for four more hours before waking up for good. It’s just depressing waking up while it’s still dark outside, knowing that there is absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go.
Once the sun was high enough in the sky to provide light on my patio, I took my regular seat and starting correcting exams. This class did pretty well. There were a couple near-perfect scores, which was very impressive, and very few if any failures. Correcting fifty-five exams took up most of the morning. Within a minute of me finishing, Richie returned from the market. We threw around the Frisbee for a bit with a group of little kids before preparing lunch.
I had three classes to teach before giving one last exam. For the first time during this set of exams, I didn’t have to move anyone, although I did physically turn the head of one student whose eyes wandered to his neighbor’s paper. It drew a good laugh from the class.
In between coming back to the house and having the energy flipped on, Richie and I threw around the Frisbee for a little bit, without the kids this time. We ate delicious garlic bread (which our neighbor enjoyed), watched a little television, and went to sleep. With the help of a pair of Benadryl, I slept – well, through the night.
We made a joint trip to the villa Wednesday morning. It took a couple months, but we once again ran out of charcoal. With energy arriving sometime in July (if everything goes to plan), this might be the last bag of charcoal we have to buy. And we are very thankful for that. Hauling that monster bag of charcoal the few kilometers between the villa and our house is a pain in the ass.
I had an easy teaching day – easy for me and easy for the students. My students got a quick lesson on questions using “is there” and “are there.” Like many things between English and Portuguese, this translated almost word for word. It’s nice for them because it is easy to remember and it’s nice for me because I get a bit of a self-taught Portuguese lesson, as I did with comparisons, superlatives and equalities last week.
The evening was fairly uneventful, save for the energy coming on at 5:00. We cooked up stir fry and spent the better part of the evening watching “Milk,” which was a beautifully done movie.
Teaching on Thursday was even easier than Wednesday. With all the classes having taken the exam, I could start handing the exams back and going over the material. Since the students did pretty well, I didn’t need to go over much material. The only major fireworks came when I had to deal with two of the cheaters. I told each of them that they could admit that they did it and the other person would get the points. Of course, both of them denied doing it, so they both receive zeros. It’s a shame because one of them is a pretty good student and the other not so much. If I had to guess, I could pin it on one of them, but that’s not really fair.
The night was relaxing. Before the energy came on, we tossed around the Frisbee a bit. We made our regular spaghetti, watched South Park, and – exhausted after another poor night’s sleep – went to bed.
Friday finally arrived. Finally. We had plans to go to Vilanculos and Inhassoro over the weekend, but first, we had some business to take care of. As we usually do before we leave, we spent the morning cleaning up the house. I swept and mopped up the house while Richie did dishes. And then something amazing happened – another Muzungu arrived.
It’s strange to be suspicious of other white people. We thought that we were the only show in town. He introduced himself in Portuguese, and we thought we were going to be in for a long Portuguese conversation. Then something even more amazing happened – he started speaking in beautiful English. He is doing some research on the private schools in Sofala and wanted to ask us about our experiences. We told him we had time in the afternoon and he should return at 1:00.
I had to hand back two more sets of tests Friday afternoon. I went over the exam with one of the classes and just handed back the exam to the other. That class did exceptionally well so I didn’t feel obligated to go over the answers. I told them that if they had questions, they could ask me next week. I was done with my school obligations by 12:50.
At 12:58, our new Portuguese friend. How very un-Mozambican. Even he said “how do you like that timing?” Umm, we love it. Thank you so much. We each spoke with him for about 30 minutes. While one spoke, the other got to practice Portuguese with his wife. We both had no problem speaking Portuguese with actually Portuguese people. It’s Mozambican Portuguese that we continue to have our problems.
By 3:00, we were finished with our conversations, packed and ready to go. We stopped in the Mambone villa to pick up some bread for the night and the travel day and caught a chapa to Greg’s house. Greg’s girlfriend made us some delicious rice and fish. By the time we were done eating, we were ready to pass out.
Bus sleeping was just not going to happen. For one, we were essentially sleeping on concrete: all we had was a thin grass mat and blanket on which to lie. Secondly, and more annoyingly, a bar had ridiculously loud, terrible Mozambican music going all night. Between the two of us, we got about 90 minutes of sleep. As if we don’t sleep poorly enough already…
The travel day was quite terrible, as it usually is. We “woke up” at 3:30 to catch a chapa for Vilanculos. Normally, we would just leave from Machanga at a reasonable hour, but we had to get to Vilanculos, get money (hopefully), shop, send off some emails, then head to Inhassoro for a birthday party. As we thought we would be, we were on the road before noon and arrived in Inhassoro before 2:00.
We spent a lot of the afternoon relaxing. Richie napped, I laid down for a bit, but most of my relaxing was done with a knife in hand cutting vegetables, preparing for dinner. Dinner was outrageously good. We had a Mozambican make good Mozambique food, an Italian make some real, fresh pasta, and of course cake. Before dinner, we played some pretty intense volleyball with some Mozambique, beer in hand. Even though we were absolutely exhausted, we still partied hard. At least it should make for a good night’s sleep. Hopefully.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Year 1 - Week 22: The Case of the Never-Finished Bookshelf
In spite of the repeated early wake-ups (I don’t think I’m going to make it through a night here without waking up at least twice), I woke up on Sunday feeling good, strangely healthy and awake. Unlike Richie, who was in meetings about a secondary project, I had few obligations on Sunday. I whipped up some beer batter for onion rings and while the batter sat rising, I started reading my dad’s latest edition of “California Politics and Government.”
Our timing for the day was perfect. I finished cooking the last batch of delicious onion rings as Richie walked out of the meeting. I ate quickly and dove back into my dad’s book. I remained on the porch, doing little except reading. Within minutes of finishing the book, my parents called. How perfect. It would prove to be a busy night on the telephone.
After eating dinner, one of my best friends called for the first time in thirty-one weeks. As he predicted, we spent most of the conversation giggling like little girls, reliving inside jokes and catching up on where are lives have gone since I left California. Immediately after getting off the phone with my friend, my aunt called. By the time I got off the phone, it was 10:15, way past my regular bedtime. I flipped on a fan and went to sleep, a couple hours at a time.
My Monday morning was busy: it was made busy due to my ignorance of English grammar rules. I committed myself to teaching comparative and superlative adjectives. In Portuguese, forming comparatives and superlatives is easy. With few exceptions, it is amazingly consistent, using only one rule (“more” plus “adjective”). In English, we use five rules without even realizing it. I jumped online, did some quick research, found a tidy chart with the rules and copied it onto big paper for my classes. The better part of my morning was spent on preparation, a rarity for me.
Classes ran well. I didn’t realize how much I was going to have to teach. To form superlatives and comparatives, one needs to know how to count syllables and separate vowels from consonants. It became quickly apparent that my students didn’t know how to do any of these things. It was probably for the better: I filled the entire ninety minutes for each of my classes.
I came back from class exhausted. Teaching four and a half straight hours will do that to you, I guess. We prepared our regular pasta dinner, but topped it off with cookies. I think that the cookies have passed the brownies as our best bakery item. We ate until we were sick and appropriately watched “House” before the energy went out on another day.
Richie and I made a joint run to the market early Tuesday morning. The bookshelf that ordered was supposed to be ready. This being Mozambique, we should have expected that things would take longer. The carpenter was still cleaning up the wood when we arrived. He said it would be done later in the afternoon and we should return. We knew that was a lie just by looking at the six pieces of wood scattered about the shop. He said to return, but we told him we would just return tomorrow morning.
The market run wasn’t a complete loss. I’ll be damned if I leave the market empty-handed: we grabbed tomatoes, lettuce (the first appearance here in Machanga), green onions (also a first here), and juice. Before leaving, Richie and I grabbed a drink at a bar to celebrate Richie’s birthday. We returned home and made lunch before I ran off to class.
I continued teaching about comparatives and superlatives. While our rules are much more complex than Portuguese, the structure of the sentences are the same word for word. I briefly explained the structure, grabbed some examples (Mr. Richie is whiter than Mr. Lee), and then explained equalities, which also carry the same structure as Portuguese. It’s a lot of material, so I told them I would spare them and not put the material on the upcoming exam.
Richie was especially lazy with dinner. We “cooked” what had to be the fastest and most unhealthy, starch-heavy meal: our last box of macaroni and cheese followed by one minute instant mashed potatoes. We had to move quickly though. I had to type up some documents for a teacher and print them off. We didn’t want to lose time, so we ate quickly, I ran to the computer lab, and we still got in our two episodes of “House” before going to sleep.
We returned to the market Wednesday morning prepared to carry away our bookshelf. But guess what? It wasn’t done! “All I have to do is nail it together and paint it,” said the carpenter. So basically, all the work, right? He said that we should come back in the afternoon to pick it up.
Lo and behold, right in the middle of teaching one of my classes, I received a text message from the carpenter saying I should check out the bookshelf before taking it. No problem: Richie and I both ended classes on the early end and made our way over to the villa. When we arrived, the thing still wasn’t done. Half of the varnish was on, half wasn’t. He said that he would bring it over when it was dry, later in the evening. Within an hour of getting home, he called saying he would bring it tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it.
As I did last night, I had to help out in the computer lab with printing documents. Knowing how infected all of these computer are with viruses, I now bring my laptop into the lab instead of using a flash drive. While I printed off the documents, I helped a math teacher write equations in Word. I had no idea how to do this, so I was learning as he was learning. The difference is that I’m pre-exposed to the technology: I will never forget how to do those functions, but he will need written instructions.
Richie had already cooked dinner when I walked in the door. We ate quickly, relaxed for a little bit and then got right back into “House.” We finished a few minutes before the energy went out.
Thursday was a strictly academic day. I knew what was going to be on the students’ first midterm: I just had to write it on monster paper so I wouldn’t have to write in on the chalkboard six times. Writing on that big paper, legibly took up the better part of my morning, which was good – it made the otherwise slow morning go by quickly.
Before giving the test, I had two quick classes to teach – both test reviews for other classes. In between my second and third classes, I got a call from the carpenter. The bookshelf was done. Like, done! But he wanted more money to bring it. I yelled at him, demanding that it be dropped on my patio within an hour. As I walked home after the first round of tests, Richie was moving it into the house with another student. We did a little reorganizing before I went back to give another class the exam. This would be a job for the morning.
I was a little concerned with how the exams would turn out. The test I gave was much different than the tests I gave during the first trimester. Instead of simply responding to multiple choice questions, students would be responsible for writing full sentence answers to some questions and writing out the questions for some answers I provided. I was happily surprised as I sat on the patio and graded the exams on Friday morning. There were very few failures and a few almost perfect scores. It was evident who didn’t come to class, who sat there taking notes, and who participated.
Grading took up about half of my morning. The other half was committed to organizing – or I guess, reorganizing – our house. The bookshelf divides our dining room/kitchen area, so now we have two “rooms” – a closed off kitchen and a separate eating area. The other lovely side effect is that we know have some extra wood to make some new shelves for the walls. We just need to figure out where they will go.
I was back in the classroom giving tests for most of the afternoon. I didn’t look forward to correcting these tests later. On of these two classes is particularly lazy. I get the same people participating every class, so I already knew who would pass and who would fail. Some students took the entire 90 minutes to finish the exam. And there were no shortage of shifty eyes. I moved four people into different seats and caught one set of cheaters as I graded papers (if your going to choose a favorite profession, don’t be the only two people to choose “fireman” and have other horribly butchered answers).
The other class was a joy in comparison. The students were well spread out and I didn’t see many eyes moving around. Most of them finished quickly enough that I could correct them right away, but got lazy and chose not to. Instead, I chose to do Su Doku, relaxing after a fast week of work.
They pleasantly surprised me – not a single failure and three near-perfect scores. They are a good class, but shy to participate. They worry me, but with results like those, I shouldn’t be so concerned. I knocked out the exams and then went on to my next project – shelves. I borrowed a saw from the construction works (in the process, I learned the word for “saw” in Portuguese, a word I will probably never use again) and made an awesome spice rack conveniently next to our stovetop and oven.
The afternoon was relaxing. I sat on the patio for a little bit doing Kakuro and squeezed in a glorious nap. Neither Richie nor I have slept a full night’s sleep in two weeks, so a nap was exactly what the doctor ordered. The lucid dreams that came with it were a welcome surprise.
Richie had a legendary idea over the late afternoon – drinking in the villa. We talked to a couple of colleagues who we know like to drink. They even wanted to play “Slamball,” a game loved by Peace Corps Mozambique Volunteers. Little did they know that we were actually good at the game. Within two hours, we were all tanked. Not a bad night for twelve dollars. And maybe we will be able to get a full night of sleep.
Our timing for the day was perfect. I finished cooking the last batch of delicious onion rings as Richie walked out of the meeting. I ate quickly and dove back into my dad’s book. I remained on the porch, doing little except reading. Within minutes of finishing the book, my parents called. How perfect. It would prove to be a busy night on the telephone.
After eating dinner, one of my best friends called for the first time in thirty-one weeks. As he predicted, we spent most of the conversation giggling like little girls, reliving inside jokes and catching up on where are lives have gone since I left California. Immediately after getting off the phone with my friend, my aunt called. By the time I got off the phone, it was 10:15, way past my regular bedtime. I flipped on a fan and went to sleep, a couple hours at a time.
My Monday morning was busy: it was made busy due to my ignorance of English grammar rules. I committed myself to teaching comparative and superlative adjectives. In Portuguese, forming comparatives and superlatives is easy. With few exceptions, it is amazingly consistent, using only one rule (“more” plus “adjective”). In English, we use five rules without even realizing it. I jumped online, did some quick research, found a tidy chart with the rules and copied it onto big paper for my classes. The better part of my morning was spent on preparation, a rarity for me.
Classes ran well. I didn’t realize how much I was going to have to teach. To form superlatives and comparatives, one needs to know how to count syllables and separate vowels from consonants. It became quickly apparent that my students didn’t know how to do any of these things. It was probably for the better: I filled the entire ninety minutes for each of my classes.
I came back from class exhausted. Teaching four and a half straight hours will do that to you, I guess. We prepared our regular pasta dinner, but topped it off with cookies. I think that the cookies have passed the brownies as our best bakery item. We ate until we were sick and appropriately watched “House” before the energy went out on another day.
Richie and I made a joint run to the market early Tuesday morning. The bookshelf that ordered was supposed to be ready. This being Mozambique, we should have expected that things would take longer. The carpenter was still cleaning up the wood when we arrived. He said it would be done later in the afternoon and we should return. We knew that was a lie just by looking at the six pieces of wood scattered about the shop. He said to return, but we told him we would just return tomorrow morning.
The market run wasn’t a complete loss. I’ll be damned if I leave the market empty-handed: we grabbed tomatoes, lettuce (the first appearance here in Machanga), green onions (also a first here), and juice. Before leaving, Richie and I grabbed a drink at a bar to celebrate Richie’s birthday. We returned home and made lunch before I ran off to class.
I continued teaching about comparatives and superlatives. While our rules are much more complex than Portuguese, the structure of the sentences are the same word for word. I briefly explained the structure, grabbed some examples (Mr. Richie is whiter than Mr. Lee), and then explained equalities, which also carry the same structure as Portuguese. It’s a lot of material, so I told them I would spare them and not put the material on the upcoming exam.
Richie was especially lazy with dinner. We “cooked” what had to be the fastest and most unhealthy, starch-heavy meal: our last box of macaroni and cheese followed by one minute instant mashed potatoes. We had to move quickly though. I had to type up some documents for a teacher and print them off. We didn’t want to lose time, so we ate quickly, I ran to the computer lab, and we still got in our two episodes of “House” before going to sleep.
We returned to the market Wednesday morning prepared to carry away our bookshelf. But guess what? It wasn’t done! “All I have to do is nail it together and paint it,” said the carpenter. So basically, all the work, right? He said that we should come back in the afternoon to pick it up.
Lo and behold, right in the middle of teaching one of my classes, I received a text message from the carpenter saying I should check out the bookshelf before taking it. No problem: Richie and I both ended classes on the early end and made our way over to the villa. When we arrived, the thing still wasn’t done. Half of the varnish was on, half wasn’t. He said that he would bring it over when it was dry, later in the evening. Within an hour of getting home, he called saying he would bring it tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it.
As I did last night, I had to help out in the computer lab with printing documents. Knowing how infected all of these computer are with viruses, I now bring my laptop into the lab instead of using a flash drive. While I printed off the documents, I helped a math teacher write equations in Word. I had no idea how to do this, so I was learning as he was learning. The difference is that I’m pre-exposed to the technology: I will never forget how to do those functions, but he will need written instructions.
Richie had already cooked dinner when I walked in the door. We ate quickly, relaxed for a little bit and then got right back into “House.” We finished a few minutes before the energy went out.
Thursday was a strictly academic day. I knew what was going to be on the students’ first midterm: I just had to write it on monster paper so I wouldn’t have to write in on the chalkboard six times. Writing on that big paper, legibly took up the better part of my morning, which was good – it made the otherwise slow morning go by quickly.
Before giving the test, I had two quick classes to teach – both test reviews for other classes. In between my second and third classes, I got a call from the carpenter. The bookshelf was done. Like, done! But he wanted more money to bring it. I yelled at him, demanding that it be dropped on my patio within an hour. As I walked home after the first round of tests, Richie was moving it into the house with another student. We did a little reorganizing before I went back to give another class the exam. This would be a job for the morning.
I was a little concerned with how the exams would turn out. The test I gave was much different than the tests I gave during the first trimester. Instead of simply responding to multiple choice questions, students would be responsible for writing full sentence answers to some questions and writing out the questions for some answers I provided. I was happily surprised as I sat on the patio and graded the exams on Friday morning. There were very few failures and a few almost perfect scores. It was evident who didn’t come to class, who sat there taking notes, and who participated.
Grading took up about half of my morning. The other half was committed to organizing – or I guess, reorganizing – our house. The bookshelf divides our dining room/kitchen area, so now we have two “rooms” – a closed off kitchen and a separate eating area. The other lovely side effect is that we know have some extra wood to make some new shelves for the walls. We just need to figure out where they will go.
I was back in the classroom giving tests for most of the afternoon. I didn’t look forward to correcting these tests later. On of these two classes is particularly lazy. I get the same people participating every class, so I already knew who would pass and who would fail. Some students took the entire 90 minutes to finish the exam. And there were no shortage of shifty eyes. I moved four people into different seats and caught one set of cheaters as I graded papers (if your going to choose a favorite profession, don’t be the only two people to choose “fireman” and have other horribly butchered answers).
The other class was a joy in comparison. The students were well spread out and I didn’t see many eyes moving around. Most of them finished quickly enough that I could correct them right away, but got lazy and chose not to. Instead, I chose to do Su Doku, relaxing after a fast week of work.
They pleasantly surprised me – not a single failure and three near-perfect scores. They are a good class, but shy to participate. They worry me, but with results like those, I shouldn’t be so concerned. I knocked out the exams and then went on to my next project – shelves. I borrowed a saw from the construction works (in the process, I learned the word for “saw” in Portuguese, a word I will probably never use again) and made an awesome spice rack conveniently next to our stovetop and oven.
The afternoon was relaxing. I sat on the patio for a little bit doing Kakuro and squeezed in a glorious nap. Neither Richie nor I have slept a full night’s sleep in two weeks, so a nap was exactly what the doctor ordered. The lucid dreams that came with it were a welcome surprise.
Richie had a legendary idea over the late afternoon – drinking in the villa. We talked to a couple of colleagues who we know like to drink. They even wanted to play “Slamball,” a game loved by Peace Corps Mozambique Volunteers. Little did they know that we were actually good at the game. Within two hours, we were all tanked. Not a bad night for twelve dollars. And maybe we will be able to get a full night of sleep.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Year 1 - Week 21: If it's 3:15 AM, we must be awake
I can’t say that this weekend was a mistake or I made regrettable choices, but what I did to my body was just ridiculous. I guess this is what happens: we don’t drink when we’re in Machanga, so when we are anywhere else, that is exactly what we do.
For better or for worse, today was a travel day. Our only job was to get back to site in preparation for another week of school. Before leaving though, we had some shopping to do: buying household necessities that we can’t get in Machanga. One problem though – being Sunday, everything was closed. The stationery store, the grocery store, the hardware store all closed. Although none of the “necessities” are really needed, it would have been nice to have them around the house.
The chapa heading back to Mambone had similar problems that we had coming back from Beira the first time. Tire issues riddled the entire trip back. I don’t think we every lost a tire but we had to stop every thirty minutes to refill our back left tire with air. As we know by now, if you are going to travel, bring a book. And for this trip, I had a good book: I was able to get a copy of President (hehe) Barack Obama’s “Dreams from my Father.” I have been looking for months for someone looking to give up their copy. Along the way, I have read bits and pieces, but now I can enjoy the book in its entirety.
We arrived in Mambone later than usually, but we knew that we were in line to get some quality bread in the vila. Or not. Mambone being out of bread is a minor tragedy. It’s like taking a punch to the stomach. Breadless, we started walking back toward the river. As I walked, the sole of my right foot was killing me. I shed my shoes, hoping that the soft ground would provide some cushion. When we arrived home, I found the price I paid from the weekend: six cuts in the bottom in my foot. The fact that I don’t know when I cut my foot and that I couldn’t feel the cuts until a day later is a good barometer for the kind of weekend we had.
With proper supplies for spaghetti sauce, we made our standard spaghetti sans garlic bread. Very sad. Richie fell asleep toward the end of one episode of “House.” While he crawled into bed, my grandmother called, and as he fell asleep, my brother called. By the time my conversations were over, I too was exhausted. I stayed in bed until the energy out and fell asleep.
I woke up on this rainy Monday feeling decently. I had few obligations for the day. I spent most of my morning cleaning up around the house. Because of the holiday on Friday, which caused one set of 11th grade cancellations, I had to cancel my 11th grade classes for the day to keep the classes balanced. I only had to plan for 12th grade and I had an idea of what I was going to teach: agreeing and disagreeing.
When I got into the classroom, I realized something: teaching people how to agree and disagree is worthless if they don’t know how to form an opinion. I changed my lesson on the fly to a lesson on how to form opinions, and it went pretty well. By the end of the day, everyone was saying “I think” this and “I believe” that. It was nice to hear.
Having cancelled my other classes, I had a good chunk of the afternoon to sit back and read some more “Dreams.” It amazes me how smoothly he writes, how well he gets across his ideas. It is like he is just there talking to you.
Our energy came on at 5:30, which seems to be the new standard time for having energy. As night falls earlier and earlier, it becomes necessary to have energy on at this hour. I cooked up a delicious stir fry dinner and afterward, I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies. I looked up a recipe in our book and got baking. They weren’t exactly Tollhouse, but they did the job.
In between episodes of “House” I ran over to the computer lab to print out some résumés for some students. I asked what they were for and got an answer I expected: election season. The election is scheduled for October 28, right at the very end of the school year. We are expecting the campaign to interfere with school. After all, if my students are going to be working for a campaign, they are sure not going to be in class.
Richie ran to the market on Tuesday morning, leaving me with the dishes, which was fine. I didn’t have anything else to do. My classes for the day were already prepared, so I spent my morning with Mr. Obama.
My classes for the day were pretty run of the mill. It seems that the students are starting to figure out what is happening: I am giving them the structures that can be used for basic English conversation. If they can write in English, then they will be able to speak in English. They are realizing this and their confidence is growing, which of course is good.
Dinner was of little consequence. What was more important to me were the conversations that came after dinner: one with my parents, one with one of my best friends. I hadn’t talked to my buddy for a while so it was really nice what was going on in his life. In between conversations, we watched a couple episodes of “House” (we are now into season 3) and went to bed.
I woke up Wednesday to something I had not seen in Machanga: fog. I thought for a moment that my eyes were just blurry, victims of a second consecutive 3:15 wake-up call from the local militia of roosters. I swear that one day, one of those birds is going to meet a knife blade. The fog lingered for a couple hours before the African sun did its job and burned it off.
Before a delicious turkey sandwich (with avocado!) lunch, I started a quote board for all the ridiculous things that Richie and I say. We have a list of about 20 things that we say on a regular basis (among them: “Are we in America yet?” “My feet are dirty” “It’s hot”). We think it will be nice thing to have for the people who come in after us. Poor souls.
My students made my afternoon easier than it should have been. I was scheduled for four hours of classes – two hours with one group, two hours with another. A teacher for one of the groups wasn’t there, so they asked if they can combine classes. Absolutely. They finish faster, I finish faster. Everyone wins.
I made a rare Wednesday afternoon market run with a few specific missions in mind: buy juice, find a new light bulb and socket for my room (candlelight just isn’t cutting it anymore), and talk to the carpenter about a book shelf. The first two were a piece of cake. I found the carpenter with no problem also; it was the price he was going to give me that I was worried about. He has tried to rip me off before and I knew he would again. I knew the cost of wood – 200 Meticais per piece; it was a matter of how much he would want for labor. Richie and I didn’t want to pay more than 2000 Meticais for the entire thing. So you can imagine how shocked I was when the carpenter’s boss – the husband of one of the market mamas we like – gave us a price of 1600. I didn’t even bother bargaining: it wasn’t worth it.
I returned home, successful. I popped in the new socket and light bulb (which, by the way, worked perfectly when the energy came on). A couple of students came over to talk to me about organizing a conversation group. If they organize the people, I told them, I would be happy to facilitate. I like that kind of self-motivation. It is those students who will learn best and, in reality, it is those students who give me reason to put passion into every class.
Before dinner, Richie and I decided to get some exercise in. We went out to the field to do some sprints with the Frisbee, followed by some sit-up and push-ups. Now that I am a lean, mean 165 pounds, I figure it’s time to get ripped. We exhausted ourselves to the point that we could eat more than usual, watched a bit of “House” and called it quits.
Another day, another wake-up from that goddamn rooster. If it’s 3:15 in the morning, Lee and Richie must be awake. What shocks me more than the wake-up call is that people actually get up at that hour. I don’t know what there is to do at that hour except sleep. So I shut my eyes and enjoyed another beautiful lucid dream about, of all things, horseracing. Right when the 3, 5, and 6 horses were making a run for the finish line, I woke up to my cell phone vibrating on my stomach. I told my sister to call back in an hour, but I couldn’t get back to sleep again. It was nice to catch up with her this morning.
I did nothing of interest in the morning. I finished Part Two of “Dreams” while Richie went for a walk around the school. Around 10:30, something amazing happened: our energy came on! Our neighbor ran over to tell us that the energy was going to be on for a long time. The school is building new desks. After all, if the president of the country is going to visit (next month), the school better look damn good.
I almost didn’t know what to do with myself with the energy on. I jumped online to read and write emails. My dad, our travel agent, and I have been trying to nail down the final details of our trip, so this provided the perfect opportunity to read and respond with some rapidity. I was able to cook lunch on the stovetop instead of lighting charcoal. I plugged in ever single electronic item I could get my hands on. If the school gives me energy, I’m going to use it.
My classes in the afternoon ended early. In one class, I only had a quarter of the students, so I pushed that class to tomorrow, moved around a class to that period, and managed to be done a couple hours early. With our extra time in the afternoon, Richie and I got back to the exercise, doing some sprints on the field followed by sit-ups.
The energy stayed on through the afternoon. There are rumblings that we will have energy 24 hours a day by the year’s end. It’s a funny thing. In America, when a president goes to a town, they put up red, white and blue banners. Apparently, in Machanga, they put up light poles. And where there are light poles, there are lights, and where there are lights, there are energy. If this is what my next year is going to look like, things are looking, well, brighter.
I squeezed dinner in between a call from my dad (nailing down the last details of their trip) and my grandfather (just catching up). Richie said he was going to make banana bread, but he lost the motivation ten seconds after that promise came out of his mouth. We enjoyed the last hours of energy watching “House” before going to sleep.
I woke up Friday with one mission: get my room clean, neat, and organized. Our rooms here are so small that we can’t really afford to have things out of place. Cluttering becomes a problem quite easily and my room had become cluttered to no end. This was not helped by the fact that I was still using the boxes from when we moved in as furniture. I vowed that I would have these boxes eliminated by morning’s end.
What started in my room bled over into Richie’s. Or at least my enthusiasm did. Before I knew it, Richie was also cleaning his room. By 9:00, both of our rooms were tidy. But now we were in the spirit. So we starting going at the kitchen. And then our little dining area. By the time we were ready to eat, our kitchen was glistening and we had organized a small library of books and DVDs. We rewarded ourselves with a well-deserved lunch.
I was slated to have four hours of class in the afternoon, two with one group, and two with another group with a two hour gap in between. I used up the entire two hours with the first group, which would prove problematic if it remained true for the second group. As we move closer to winter, darkness falls earlier every day. The end of the school day now coincides with the end of sunshine. Unfortunately, we have enough daylight to see but not enough daylight to see in the classrooms. The scheduling gods, however, were on my side. The group I have at the end of the day is a group of quick learners and I was able to finish my lessons in half the necessary time.
While I prepared a very sorry looking stir fry, Richie prepared batters for two desserts – chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. At least when we drown our misery in sugar, it tastes good. As we finished dinner, a student of mine came over to speak a little bit of English. Having my students speak, in a class of 50 or 55, is so difficult, so I encourage them to visit to get personal time. The lack of speaking, not just from this year but from this year, shows. It is a struggle for them, even if they know the structures and vocabulary, to string a sentence together. It means that Richie and I have to speak and understand a “third language” – ESLese – when my students come by.
Richie and I had big plans for Saturday – the promised land of Mambone. Bread, tomatoes, cold drinks, all for the taking. Before heading to the river, we walked over to our villa to talk to the carpenter. We had half of the money for the bookshelf we requested. The carpenter said he needed a cold drink before he got started. I told him I would get him his drink when the shelves were done. He said it was a quick job – Tuesday by the latest – so I might as well get him the beer now. We bargained hard and came to this agreement: I’ll by the beer now, and if the shelves aren’t done on Tuesday, he buys me a beer. Either way I win – on Tuesday, I get my shelves or a get a beer.
We waited for a while to cross the river, but once we got to Mambone, we acted quickly. The jersey store we like to frequent disappointed, so we went straight to food items. The Mambone market – reliable for the basics – had some unique items today: bell pepper, green onion, and carrots. This bodes well for tomato sauce. We stocked up on bread, enjoyed a cold soda, and made our way back toward the river. When we arrived at the river, we were the only two people there. The canoe man would want at least four more people to take across the river, but we didn’t want to wait. So we lived by what Dr. House says: “Everyone lies.” “Senhor, we have to return quickly because we have a meeting at school.” Meeting at school? Please. But off we went.
We arrived home to a welcome site – energy. I diced up onions and tomatoes while Richie cracked eggs and we were able to cook without charcoal for another day! The rest of the afternoon was relaxing. While I finished off “Dreams from my Father,” my neighbor and two friends were singing and dancing with no reason but to sing and dance. Richie took care of some weeds outside and I cleaned dishes. As soon as we knew it, the energy was back on and we were cooking again, relaxing again, satisfied with knowing that another week had come to an end.
For better or for worse, today was a travel day. Our only job was to get back to site in preparation for another week of school. Before leaving though, we had some shopping to do: buying household necessities that we can’t get in Machanga. One problem though – being Sunday, everything was closed. The stationery store, the grocery store, the hardware store all closed. Although none of the “necessities” are really needed, it would have been nice to have them around the house.
The chapa heading back to Mambone had similar problems that we had coming back from Beira the first time. Tire issues riddled the entire trip back. I don’t think we every lost a tire but we had to stop every thirty minutes to refill our back left tire with air. As we know by now, if you are going to travel, bring a book. And for this trip, I had a good book: I was able to get a copy of President (hehe) Barack Obama’s “Dreams from my Father.” I have been looking for months for someone looking to give up their copy. Along the way, I have read bits and pieces, but now I can enjoy the book in its entirety.
We arrived in Mambone later than usually, but we knew that we were in line to get some quality bread in the vila. Or not. Mambone being out of bread is a minor tragedy. It’s like taking a punch to the stomach. Breadless, we started walking back toward the river. As I walked, the sole of my right foot was killing me. I shed my shoes, hoping that the soft ground would provide some cushion. When we arrived home, I found the price I paid from the weekend: six cuts in the bottom in my foot. The fact that I don’t know when I cut my foot and that I couldn’t feel the cuts until a day later is a good barometer for the kind of weekend we had.
With proper supplies for spaghetti sauce, we made our standard spaghetti sans garlic bread. Very sad. Richie fell asleep toward the end of one episode of “House.” While he crawled into bed, my grandmother called, and as he fell asleep, my brother called. By the time my conversations were over, I too was exhausted. I stayed in bed until the energy out and fell asleep.
I woke up on this rainy Monday feeling decently. I had few obligations for the day. I spent most of my morning cleaning up around the house. Because of the holiday on Friday, which caused one set of 11th grade cancellations, I had to cancel my 11th grade classes for the day to keep the classes balanced. I only had to plan for 12th grade and I had an idea of what I was going to teach: agreeing and disagreeing.
When I got into the classroom, I realized something: teaching people how to agree and disagree is worthless if they don’t know how to form an opinion. I changed my lesson on the fly to a lesson on how to form opinions, and it went pretty well. By the end of the day, everyone was saying “I think” this and “I believe” that. It was nice to hear.
Having cancelled my other classes, I had a good chunk of the afternoon to sit back and read some more “Dreams.” It amazes me how smoothly he writes, how well he gets across his ideas. It is like he is just there talking to you.
Our energy came on at 5:30, which seems to be the new standard time for having energy. As night falls earlier and earlier, it becomes necessary to have energy on at this hour. I cooked up a delicious stir fry dinner and afterward, I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies. I looked up a recipe in our book and got baking. They weren’t exactly Tollhouse, but they did the job.
In between episodes of “House” I ran over to the computer lab to print out some résumés for some students. I asked what they were for and got an answer I expected: election season. The election is scheduled for October 28, right at the very end of the school year. We are expecting the campaign to interfere with school. After all, if my students are going to be working for a campaign, they are sure not going to be in class.
Richie ran to the market on Tuesday morning, leaving me with the dishes, which was fine. I didn’t have anything else to do. My classes for the day were already prepared, so I spent my morning with Mr. Obama.
My classes for the day were pretty run of the mill. It seems that the students are starting to figure out what is happening: I am giving them the structures that can be used for basic English conversation. If they can write in English, then they will be able to speak in English. They are realizing this and their confidence is growing, which of course is good.
Dinner was of little consequence. What was more important to me were the conversations that came after dinner: one with my parents, one with one of my best friends. I hadn’t talked to my buddy for a while so it was really nice what was going on in his life. In between conversations, we watched a couple episodes of “House” (we are now into season 3) and went to bed.
I woke up Wednesday to something I had not seen in Machanga: fog. I thought for a moment that my eyes were just blurry, victims of a second consecutive 3:15 wake-up call from the local militia of roosters. I swear that one day, one of those birds is going to meet a knife blade. The fog lingered for a couple hours before the African sun did its job and burned it off.
Before a delicious turkey sandwich (with avocado!) lunch, I started a quote board for all the ridiculous things that Richie and I say. We have a list of about 20 things that we say on a regular basis (among them: “Are we in America yet?” “My feet are dirty” “It’s hot”). We think it will be nice thing to have for the people who come in after us. Poor souls.
My students made my afternoon easier than it should have been. I was scheduled for four hours of classes – two hours with one group, two hours with another. A teacher for one of the groups wasn’t there, so they asked if they can combine classes. Absolutely. They finish faster, I finish faster. Everyone wins.
I made a rare Wednesday afternoon market run with a few specific missions in mind: buy juice, find a new light bulb and socket for my room (candlelight just isn’t cutting it anymore), and talk to the carpenter about a book shelf. The first two were a piece of cake. I found the carpenter with no problem also; it was the price he was going to give me that I was worried about. He has tried to rip me off before and I knew he would again. I knew the cost of wood – 200 Meticais per piece; it was a matter of how much he would want for labor. Richie and I didn’t want to pay more than 2000 Meticais for the entire thing. So you can imagine how shocked I was when the carpenter’s boss – the husband of one of the market mamas we like – gave us a price of 1600. I didn’t even bother bargaining: it wasn’t worth it.
I returned home, successful. I popped in the new socket and light bulb (which, by the way, worked perfectly when the energy came on). A couple of students came over to talk to me about organizing a conversation group. If they organize the people, I told them, I would be happy to facilitate. I like that kind of self-motivation. It is those students who will learn best and, in reality, it is those students who give me reason to put passion into every class.
Before dinner, Richie and I decided to get some exercise in. We went out to the field to do some sprints with the Frisbee, followed by some sit-up and push-ups. Now that I am a lean, mean 165 pounds, I figure it’s time to get ripped. We exhausted ourselves to the point that we could eat more than usual, watched a bit of “House” and called it quits.
Another day, another wake-up from that goddamn rooster. If it’s 3:15 in the morning, Lee and Richie must be awake. What shocks me more than the wake-up call is that people actually get up at that hour. I don’t know what there is to do at that hour except sleep. So I shut my eyes and enjoyed another beautiful lucid dream about, of all things, horseracing. Right when the 3, 5, and 6 horses were making a run for the finish line, I woke up to my cell phone vibrating on my stomach. I told my sister to call back in an hour, but I couldn’t get back to sleep again. It was nice to catch up with her this morning.
I did nothing of interest in the morning. I finished Part Two of “Dreams” while Richie went for a walk around the school. Around 10:30, something amazing happened: our energy came on! Our neighbor ran over to tell us that the energy was going to be on for a long time. The school is building new desks. After all, if the president of the country is going to visit (next month), the school better look damn good.
I almost didn’t know what to do with myself with the energy on. I jumped online to read and write emails. My dad, our travel agent, and I have been trying to nail down the final details of our trip, so this provided the perfect opportunity to read and respond with some rapidity. I was able to cook lunch on the stovetop instead of lighting charcoal. I plugged in ever single electronic item I could get my hands on. If the school gives me energy, I’m going to use it.
My classes in the afternoon ended early. In one class, I only had a quarter of the students, so I pushed that class to tomorrow, moved around a class to that period, and managed to be done a couple hours early. With our extra time in the afternoon, Richie and I got back to the exercise, doing some sprints on the field followed by sit-ups.
The energy stayed on through the afternoon. There are rumblings that we will have energy 24 hours a day by the year’s end. It’s a funny thing. In America, when a president goes to a town, they put up red, white and blue banners. Apparently, in Machanga, they put up light poles. And where there are light poles, there are lights, and where there are lights, there are energy. If this is what my next year is going to look like, things are looking, well, brighter.
I squeezed dinner in between a call from my dad (nailing down the last details of their trip) and my grandfather (just catching up). Richie said he was going to make banana bread, but he lost the motivation ten seconds after that promise came out of his mouth. We enjoyed the last hours of energy watching “House” before going to sleep.
I woke up Friday with one mission: get my room clean, neat, and organized. Our rooms here are so small that we can’t really afford to have things out of place. Cluttering becomes a problem quite easily and my room had become cluttered to no end. This was not helped by the fact that I was still using the boxes from when we moved in as furniture. I vowed that I would have these boxes eliminated by morning’s end.
What started in my room bled over into Richie’s. Or at least my enthusiasm did. Before I knew it, Richie was also cleaning his room. By 9:00, both of our rooms were tidy. But now we were in the spirit. So we starting going at the kitchen. And then our little dining area. By the time we were ready to eat, our kitchen was glistening and we had organized a small library of books and DVDs. We rewarded ourselves with a well-deserved lunch.
I was slated to have four hours of class in the afternoon, two with one group, and two with another group with a two hour gap in between. I used up the entire two hours with the first group, which would prove problematic if it remained true for the second group. As we move closer to winter, darkness falls earlier every day. The end of the school day now coincides with the end of sunshine. Unfortunately, we have enough daylight to see but not enough daylight to see in the classrooms. The scheduling gods, however, were on my side. The group I have at the end of the day is a group of quick learners and I was able to finish my lessons in half the necessary time.
While I prepared a very sorry looking stir fry, Richie prepared batters for two desserts – chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. At least when we drown our misery in sugar, it tastes good. As we finished dinner, a student of mine came over to speak a little bit of English. Having my students speak, in a class of 50 or 55, is so difficult, so I encourage them to visit to get personal time. The lack of speaking, not just from this year but from this year, shows. It is a struggle for them, even if they know the structures and vocabulary, to string a sentence together. It means that Richie and I have to speak and understand a “third language” – ESLese – when my students come by.
Richie and I had big plans for Saturday – the promised land of Mambone. Bread, tomatoes, cold drinks, all for the taking. Before heading to the river, we walked over to our villa to talk to the carpenter. We had half of the money for the bookshelf we requested. The carpenter said he needed a cold drink before he got started. I told him I would get him his drink when the shelves were done. He said it was a quick job – Tuesday by the latest – so I might as well get him the beer now. We bargained hard and came to this agreement: I’ll by the beer now, and if the shelves aren’t done on Tuesday, he buys me a beer. Either way I win – on Tuesday, I get my shelves or a get a beer.
We waited for a while to cross the river, but once we got to Mambone, we acted quickly. The jersey store we like to frequent disappointed, so we went straight to food items. The Mambone market – reliable for the basics – had some unique items today: bell pepper, green onion, and carrots. This bodes well for tomato sauce. We stocked up on bread, enjoyed a cold soda, and made our way back toward the river. When we arrived at the river, we were the only two people there. The canoe man would want at least four more people to take across the river, but we didn’t want to wait. So we lived by what Dr. House says: “Everyone lies.” “Senhor, we have to return quickly because we have a meeting at school.” Meeting at school? Please. But off we went.
We arrived home to a welcome site – energy. I diced up onions and tomatoes while Richie cracked eggs and we were able to cook without charcoal for another day! The rest of the afternoon was relaxing. While I finished off “Dreams from my Father,” my neighbor and two friends were singing and dancing with no reason but to sing and dance. Richie took care of some weeds outside and I cleaned dishes. As soon as we knew it, the energy was back on and we were cooking again, relaxing again, satisfied with knowing that another week had come to an end.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Year 1 - Week 20: Math at 3:30 on Thursday
We were back in the swing of things, but not really back into the swing things, by Sunday. It appears that the students are getting back into the swing also. Most of the students have already made their way back, but there are still a few trickling in. They will probably continue to come in a few at a time for the next couple of weeks.
With Richie still bedridden for the most part, I had my run of the house. As he rested, I spent a good portion of the morning cleaning up the inside of the house as well as the patio. Even though I could still feel dirt under my feet, this was about as clean as the house could be. Satisfied, I made my way to the market to buy food.
Richie being sick has made cooking a lot more difficult. It’s not that the actual cooking is any more difficult. In terms of the work being done, the only extra work it makes is I have to prep, cook, and clean, which kind of sucks. What is difficult is finding the motivation to cook only for myself. Normally, we split the cost, prep, and responsibility of cooking the food; most importantly, we split the food itself.
For the last couple days, he hasn’t eaten much, so I have fallen into the habit of using the ready-made stuff my family and friends have sent me. On this day, though, my neighbor and I convinced Richie that he should eat something. He made it through two potato pancakes before “they came up not tasting as good.” Ouch.
Both of us relaxed in the afternoon, for different reasons. Richie was out because he didn’t want to deal with the bathroom and the people – especially our neighbors – coming to see him. I napped knowing that this was the last afternoon for a while that I could do such a thing.
My parents called as the slimmest crescent moon rose just as the sun was setting. The sliver was so small that it wouldn’t show up in a photograph. It’s the kind of moment that can’t be bottled, just remembered. Within minutes of the call ending, our energy came on. Richie declared, without me asking, that he wouldn’t be eating. Well, that put me in a bind. Laziness struck and I decided to go with the Trader Joe’s pasta meals that my best friends and their families sent me. They were delicious. We watched a couple episodes of “House” – I think Richie takes some pleasure in seeing other people suffer, even if it’s fake – and went to bed.
I awoke Monday feeling a little excited. The day had finally come where I got to do what I came here to do – teach. I spent a little time in the morning figuring out exactly what I was going to teach to my 11th graders. I am forcing myself to actually teach the curriculum that the government wants me to teach instead of teaching them just useable English.
Richie managed to get up for his morning class, but he wasn’t well in the afternoon. Before my classes started, I went into his classes to tell them their classes were cancelled. They were thrilled.
It was really nice to get back in front of the classroom today. I had three groups of students that I really enjoy seeing. In the 11th grade classes, we talked about school subjects and professions. I had students make a chart of the subjects they learn, and see what was important for the jobs they wanted. A riot almost ensued when the question of whether physics was important to be nurse arose. I let the kids have it out: I made them defend their decisions in English, which was interesting. My 12th graders learned some vocabulary concerning contradictions. I am not so worried about them: they pick things up quickly and tend to run with them.
I was once again left to cook for myself. This is starting to get old. I didn’t even have a chance to convince Richie to eat. I could barely get him to call a doctor. Laziness again struck me, so I went for the ready-made mashed potatoes that my grandparents sent me (they were amazing!) and the canned turkey my parents sent me (also amazing). My dinner tasted like Thanksgiving.
As we started watching “House,” I got called in to the computer lab, for the first time in a while, to do some work. I had the very challenging task of clearing out the list of printed documents. But it’s never just one thing: once one task is complete, there are always others that pop up. The school director asked me to burn some videos to CD. Again, not exactly the most difficult task, but it did eat into my energy time. We were able to get in one more episode of “House” and one episode of “South Park” before the power went out.
I slept amazingly well until about 3:15. I had a dream that I can’t remember, but I was out so cold that when I woke up, I sat up in bed and actually asked myself aloud “Where am I?” Larium is awesome. The answer hit me quickly when I started sweating. I flipped on a fan and went to bed for another 45 minutes, when I received a message with news I had expected. My beloved San Jose Sharks, with the best record in the NHL this year, lost their first-round playoff series to lowly Anaheim. I’m not shocked at all. I’m just glad it’s over, so they can tear that team apart and try to build a team that doesn’t choke in the playoffs. Normally, news like that would break my heart, but considering I saw exactly zero games this year, it was hard for me to even care.
Even though nobody came in the house between yesterday and today – except for Richie and me – our house was again filthy. I gave the patio a good sweeping. I even mopped the house, but not like we mop the house in the U.S. This was done Mozambique-style: ass up, hands down, scrubbing. The floor was noticeably cleaner, which tells you how dirty it actually was.
My classes were some of the best I have given all year. I started teaching one group of 12th graders basic questions words and responses (What is…? Where is…? Who is…?). The lesson went so well, I decided it would be good for my 11th graders as well. Everyone did a really nice job with it. In each of my classes, I gave my students a tongue-twister. Portuguese does not have the “th” sound that English does, so people tend to say “da” instead of “the” or “brudder” instead of brother. So I made my students say the following: “The brother, father, and mother study math at three-thirty on Thursday.” It made for a good laugh, but most students got it quickly. Now, they all think about what they are saying when they have words with “th”.
Our energy came on within an hour of me finishing classes. I cooked up the standard spaghetti and sauce, while Richie had about four bites of mashed potatoes. I can’t let food go to waste, so I finished what he started. We watched some “House” and went to sleep.
Wednesday was fairly boring. I didn’t have any lessons to prepare – new set of students, same lesson from Monday – so I relaxed. I cleaned up a little bit, but most of my morning was spent trying to conquer “KenKen,” one of the Sudoku knockoff games my parents sent. I got 55 puzzles into this second book before messing one up. Richie told me to take a lap.
Even though I gave the same lessons as I gave on Monday, they definitely were not as good. I think the responsibility sits with both me and my students. My students and I feed off of each others’ energy, both positive and negative. I try to keep them up, but every once in a while, they are too strong for me and I can’t get them back up.
I managed to get some exercise in later in the afternoon. Some kids wanted to throw around the Frisbee and I am always happy to play. Some of them can throw as far as I can, which is really impressive. Once we have enough people, they should make for a pretty good team. More than anything, though, it was really nice to run around.
Richie seems to be in better health today. He managed to eat some lunch and a more dinner than last night, which is good. We watched “House” and turned in. Pretty typical day in my life here.
I slept soundly until about three in the morning. Then the Larium hit me, again. Usually, it only hits once a week, but every once in a while, it strikes again. It hit in a bad way – my mind went racing. Sleeping was impossible. I was up until 5:15 bouncing from one thought to the next. I slept for a solid 90 minutes before being awakened by roosters. It kills me slowly every day. Out of principle and frustration, I refused to get out of bed until 7:30.
In preparation for the epic event that is the Beer Olympics this weekend, Richie went to Vilanculos to stock up on beer. Seeing as tomorrow is a national holiday, we expect everything to be closed tomorrow. And then where would we get our beer. Richie, being ahead of the game, left in the morning. For the third time, I am left here alone. It’s not a problem – I actually had stuff to do today. I planned my classes in the morning, cooked, and then it was time to teach.
The lessons I gave today were probably the best I have given all year. My second set of 12th graders got the lesson on question words that I delivered on Tuesday. My 11th graders learned all sorts of new family words. Both of those groups were great today. They were involved. They were smiling. They appeared to actually learn something. I felt satisfied.
My classes ran later than usual. I finished right around 5:00. As we get closer to June – our winter – the sun sets earlier and earlier. As I walked back from class, I watched an orange sun fall between two palm trees like a football splitting the uprights. As the sun drifted over the horizon, everything turned red.
I had the night to myself. I cooked a remaining bit of spaghetti and decided to go the lazy route and use a sauce packet instead of making sauce. Our neighbors tried to convince me to go drinking with them, but I just didn’t have it in me. Not only did I need to clean up the house, but I had plans to do plenty of drinking over the weekend. I politely declined and instead spent the evening chatting with one of my students. It was a nice way to spend the night.
My stomach growled at me as I went to sleep, but I refused to go outside at night. On top of the standard reasons for not going outside – no electricity, large spiders, mosquitoes – our school director was robbed a couple nights ago. With the house locked down, I didn’t want to open up again, even for a few minutes. My decision to stay in, though, cost me Friday morning. My stomach caused me problems before I even had the chance to get away from my house, which was probably a good thing. Amazingly, by the time I got to the other side of the river (and after a couple Pepto-Bismols), my stomach was feeling better. I am starting to think that Richie and I are actually allergic to Machanga.
It appeared that luck was on my side once I got to Mambone. There was a car that was primed to go to the crossroads – an open-back truck with half of the bed loaded with fish, the other half with people. I knew, though, that this driver was sketchy. He always thinks he’s right, always wants to cram in that extra person or extra rice sack. After two hours and ten more rice sacks filled with fish loaded into the car, we were on our way. I spent the entire trip leaning against fish. I could barely tolerate the smell of myself.
The rest of the trip down to Vilanculos was slow but steady. I got a car immediately from the crossroads to Inhassoro and then another car from Inhassoro to Vilanculos. When I arrived, there was already a huge crew of people, beachside, drinking excessively. They made me play catch-up: I drank more gin than one person should consume in a night, then more beer on top of it. I don’t know much of what happened Friday night, but it was a good time. And the real drinking wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow.
Thankfully for me, most of the people were in the same boat as I was – too hung over to drink in the morning. So I walked down to the market, bought some food to get me through to the afternoon and enjoyed breakfast. Our games – complete with a marching in of the drinkers and torch-lighting ceremony – commenced at noon. Some of the things that we did should only be left to the imagination. I will put it this way: over the course of the day, more than 300 twenty-two ounce beers were consumed. Everybody was feeling good well into the night. While some people continued until 3 or 4 in the morning, I was done by midnight. If we didn’t have to travel tomorrow, I would have rallied, but I know I will be tired enough tomorrow anyway.
More than the drinking though, it was really nice to see some long-lost souls. I had an hour-long conversation about baseball with my friend Anthony, who might be the only other serious sports-lover in a group. The conversation was like therapy for both of us. Especially being in the middle part of the country, we are so far away from anything and anyone that it is always a good time when we can see other Volunteers.
With Richie still bedridden for the most part, I had my run of the house. As he rested, I spent a good portion of the morning cleaning up the inside of the house as well as the patio. Even though I could still feel dirt under my feet, this was about as clean as the house could be. Satisfied, I made my way to the market to buy food.
Richie being sick has made cooking a lot more difficult. It’s not that the actual cooking is any more difficult. In terms of the work being done, the only extra work it makes is I have to prep, cook, and clean, which kind of sucks. What is difficult is finding the motivation to cook only for myself. Normally, we split the cost, prep, and responsibility of cooking the food; most importantly, we split the food itself.
For the last couple days, he hasn’t eaten much, so I have fallen into the habit of using the ready-made stuff my family and friends have sent me. On this day, though, my neighbor and I convinced Richie that he should eat something. He made it through two potato pancakes before “they came up not tasting as good.” Ouch.
Both of us relaxed in the afternoon, for different reasons. Richie was out because he didn’t want to deal with the bathroom and the people – especially our neighbors – coming to see him. I napped knowing that this was the last afternoon for a while that I could do such a thing.
My parents called as the slimmest crescent moon rose just as the sun was setting. The sliver was so small that it wouldn’t show up in a photograph. It’s the kind of moment that can’t be bottled, just remembered. Within minutes of the call ending, our energy came on. Richie declared, without me asking, that he wouldn’t be eating. Well, that put me in a bind. Laziness struck and I decided to go with the Trader Joe’s pasta meals that my best friends and their families sent me. They were delicious. We watched a couple episodes of “House” – I think Richie takes some pleasure in seeing other people suffer, even if it’s fake – and went to bed.
I awoke Monday feeling a little excited. The day had finally come where I got to do what I came here to do – teach. I spent a little time in the morning figuring out exactly what I was going to teach to my 11th graders. I am forcing myself to actually teach the curriculum that the government wants me to teach instead of teaching them just useable English.
Richie managed to get up for his morning class, but he wasn’t well in the afternoon. Before my classes started, I went into his classes to tell them their classes were cancelled. They were thrilled.
It was really nice to get back in front of the classroom today. I had three groups of students that I really enjoy seeing. In the 11th grade classes, we talked about school subjects and professions. I had students make a chart of the subjects they learn, and see what was important for the jobs they wanted. A riot almost ensued when the question of whether physics was important to be nurse arose. I let the kids have it out: I made them defend their decisions in English, which was interesting. My 12th graders learned some vocabulary concerning contradictions. I am not so worried about them: they pick things up quickly and tend to run with them.
I was once again left to cook for myself. This is starting to get old. I didn’t even have a chance to convince Richie to eat. I could barely get him to call a doctor. Laziness again struck me, so I went for the ready-made mashed potatoes that my grandparents sent me (they were amazing!) and the canned turkey my parents sent me (also amazing). My dinner tasted like Thanksgiving.
As we started watching “House,” I got called in to the computer lab, for the first time in a while, to do some work. I had the very challenging task of clearing out the list of printed documents. But it’s never just one thing: once one task is complete, there are always others that pop up. The school director asked me to burn some videos to CD. Again, not exactly the most difficult task, but it did eat into my energy time. We were able to get in one more episode of “House” and one episode of “South Park” before the power went out.
I slept amazingly well until about 3:15. I had a dream that I can’t remember, but I was out so cold that when I woke up, I sat up in bed and actually asked myself aloud “Where am I?” Larium is awesome. The answer hit me quickly when I started sweating. I flipped on a fan and went to bed for another 45 minutes, when I received a message with news I had expected. My beloved San Jose Sharks, with the best record in the NHL this year, lost their first-round playoff series to lowly Anaheim. I’m not shocked at all. I’m just glad it’s over, so they can tear that team apart and try to build a team that doesn’t choke in the playoffs. Normally, news like that would break my heart, but considering I saw exactly zero games this year, it was hard for me to even care.
Even though nobody came in the house between yesterday and today – except for Richie and me – our house was again filthy. I gave the patio a good sweeping. I even mopped the house, but not like we mop the house in the U.S. This was done Mozambique-style: ass up, hands down, scrubbing. The floor was noticeably cleaner, which tells you how dirty it actually was.
My classes were some of the best I have given all year. I started teaching one group of 12th graders basic questions words and responses (What is…? Where is…? Who is…?). The lesson went so well, I decided it would be good for my 11th graders as well. Everyone did a really nice job with it. In each of my classes, I gave my students a tongue-twister. Portuguese does not have the “th” sound that English does, so people tend to say “da” instead of “the” or “brudder” instead of brother. So I made my students say the following: “The brother, father, and mother study math at three-thirty on Thursday.” It made for a good laugh, but most students got it quickly. Now, they all think about what they are saying when they have words with “th”.
Our energy came on within an hour of me finishing classes. I cooked up the standard spaghetti and sauce, while Richie had about four bites of mashed potatoes. I can’t let food go to waste, so I finished what he started. We watched some “House” and went to sleep.
Wednesday was fairly boring. I didn’t have any lessons to prepare – new set of students, same lesson from Monday – so I relaxed. I cleaned up a little bit, but most of my morning was spent trying to conquer “KenKen,” one of the Sudoku knockoff games my parents sent. I got 55 puzzles into this second book before messing one up. Richie told me to take a lap.
Even though I gave the same lessons as I gave on Monday, they definitely were not as good. I think the responsibility sits with both me and my students. My students and I feed off of each others’ energy, both positive and negative. I try to keep them up, but every once in a while, they are too strong for me and I can’t get them back up.
I managed to get some exercise in later in the afternoon. Some kids wanted to throw around the Frisbee and I am always happy to play. Some of them can throw as far as I can, which is really impressive. Once we have enough people, they should make for a pretty good team. More than anything, though, it was really nice to run around.
Richie seems to be in better health today. He managed to eat some lunch and a more dinner than last night, which is good. We watched “House” and turned in. Pretty typical day in my life here.
I slept soundly until about three in the morning. Then the Larium hit me, again. Usually, it only hits once a week, but every once in a while, it strikes again. It hit in a bad way – my mind went racing. Sleeping was impossible. I was up until 5:15 bouncing from one thought to the next. I slept for a solid 90 minutes before being awakened by roosters. It kills me slowly every day. Out of principle and frustration, I refused to get out of bed until 7:30.
In preparation for the epic event that is the Beer Olympics this weekend, Richie went to Vilanculos to stock up on beer. Seeing as tomorrow is a national holiday, we expect everything to be closed tomorrow. And then where would we get our beer. Richie, being ahead of the game, left in the morning. For the third time, I am left here alone. It’s not a problem – I actually had stuff to do today. I planned my classes in the morning, cooked, and then it was time to teach.
The lessons I gave today were probably the best I have given all year. My second set of 12th graders got the lesson on question words that I delivered on Tuesday. My 11th graders learned all sorts of new family words. Both of those groups were great today. They were involved. They were smiling. They appeared to actually learn something. I felt satisfied.
My classes ran later than usual. I finished right around 5:00. As we get closer to June – our winter – the sun sets earlier and earlier. As I walked back from class, I watched an orange sun fall between two palm trees like a football splitting the uprights. As the sun drifted over the horizon, everything turned red.
I had the night to myself. I cooked a remaining bit of spaghetti and decided to go the lazy route and use a sauce packet instead of making sauce. Our neighbors tried to convince me to go drinking with them, but I just didn’t have it in me. Not only did I need to clean up the house, but I had plans to do plenty of drinking over the weekend. I politely declined and instead spent the evening chatting with one of my students. It was a nice way to spend the night.
My stomach growled at me as I went to sleep, but I refused to go outside at night. On top of the standard reasons for not going outside – no electricity, large spiders, mosquitoes – our school director was robbed a couple nights ago. With the house locked down, I didn’t want to open up again, even for a few minutes. My decision to stay in, though, cost me Friday morning. My stomach caused me problems before I even had the chance to get away from my house, which was probably a good thing. Amazingly, by the time I got to the other side of the river (and after a couple Pepto-Bismols), my stomach was feeling better. I am starting to think that Richie and I are actually allergic to Machanga.
It appeared that luck was on my side once I got to Mambone. There was a car that was primed to go to the crossroads – an open-back truck with half of the bed loaded with fish, the other half with people. I knew, though, that this driver was sketchy. He always thinks he’s right, always wants to cram in that extra person or extra rice sack. After two hours and ten more rice sacks filled with fish loaded into the car, we were on our way. I spent the entire trip leaning against fish. I could barely tolerate the smell of myself.
The rest of the trip down to Vilanculos was slow but steady. I got a car immediately from the crossroads to Inhassoro and then another car from Inhassoro to Vilanculos. When I arrived, there was already a huge crew of people, beachside, drinking excessively. They made me play catch-up: I drank more gin than one person should consume in a night, then more beer on top of it. I don’t know much of what happened Friday night, but it was a good time. And the real drinking wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow.
Thankfully for me, most of the people were in the same boat as I was – too hung over to drink in the morning. So I walked down to the market, bought some food to get me through to the afternoon and enjoyed breakfast. Our games – complete with a marching in of the drinkers and torch-lighting ceremony – commenced at noon. Some of the things that we did should only be left to the imagination. I will put it this way: over the course of the day, more than 300 twenty-two ounce beers were consumed. Everybody was feeling good well into the night. While some people continued until 3 or 4 in the morning, I was done by midnight. If we didn’t have to travel tomorrow, I would have rallied, but I know I will be tired enough tomorrow anyway.
More than the drinking though, it was really nice to see some long-lost souls. I had an hour-long conversation about baseball with my friend Anthony, who might be the only other serious sports-lover in a group. The conversation was like therapy for both of us. Especially being in the middle part of the country, we are so far away from anything and anyone that it is always a good time when we can see other Volunteers.
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