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.
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