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.