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.