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.