Year 1 - Week 27: The White Man with the Red Pen

Taking part in all the science fair activities was like a travel a day: a lot of sitting, waiting, sitting in one place, until finally arriving. The only difference was that we didn’t have our requisite walk, thankfully. Either way, it knocked me out. In spite of a decent night’s sleep, I woke up exhausted. Luckily, there were very few things I had to do for the day.

While many of the teachers started drinking at a very early hour – nothing like boxed wine at 8:30, right? – I sat on the patio grading papers. Grading exams puts me in a terrible mood; grading this particular class was awful. This class was by far my worst class and I was especially angry with them because this was the class where I caught my cheaters. If there is one thing that they should have learned by now, it’s that you don’t piss off the white man with the red pen. By the time I got finished with that class, one in three kids had failed. Even when they cheat, they can’t pass. Ridiculous.

The afternoon was pretty calm. After clearing my mind with a couple of Kakuro puzzles, I finished grading my last set of exams. This class did much better. There were two near-perfect scores which, in my mind, justifies the difficulty of the exam. If one person can do that well, then there’s no reason – other than laziness – that others can’t.

Having worked for most of the day, I gave myself the rest of the afternoon off. I squeezed in a nap before our energy turned on. We were feeling particularly lazy, so we dug in to some of the supplies that my aunt sent me – a can of chili, which was delicious, and a can of ravioli, which was not as good, but still pretty damn good (I mean, it’s ravioli!). Just after we ate, our neighbor came over with a bottle of gin. Neither of us really wanted to drink, but we’re not going to turn down free gin. As we drank, we watched this terrible movie that he brought over. Sadly, it kept freezing on us. So eventually, we just gave up and turned to reliable episodes of “South Park” before going to sleep.

I was in a deep sleep when I woke up, refreshed, at 11:30 at night, to the sight of electricity. What happened? Now I’m just confused. I flipped the light out and went back to bed, slightly dazed. That incident in the past, I slept through the rest of the night just fine.

When I woke up, I knew I didn’t want to teach. I was still pissed off from grading, and having to give another round of exams this week, I knew I was going to be in for more crappy exams. I decided that I would give my classes busy work: they could use the practice anyway. I planned out my lesson, taken from a couple different books, and altered the exam just a bit before heading off to class.

The class that got the exam today was definitely a better class – more mature, harder working, and probably better cheaters than my Friday class. After all, I didn’t catch anyone cheating and only had to move one person and their wandering eyes. The other classes did decently with their work. They actually got done with it much faster than I expected which was good news for me. I’ll happily take the time that they give me. I got back from class with just enough sunlight left to throw around the Frisbee with Richie.

Neither of us was in the mood for spaghetti, but we didn’t really have a choice. Our tomatoes were on the brink of going bad and the bell pepper wasn’t going to last much longer. We cooked up our sauce but only a little spaghetti, instead choosing to commit the sauce to delicious soon-to-be-stale Mambone bread. It was a good call. After dining, we got the movie from yesterday to work, and watched some “Curb Your Enthusiasm” following the movie. Richie gave up shortly after and I followed suit.

Another morning, another day of grading papers. I’m very happy that I only have to do this a couple of times a year, although it sure as hell makes the morning pass by. With the little time I had left after correcting exams, I knocked out a couple of Kakuro puzzles.

The afternoon passed by quickly. I gave one quick class on prepositions to one set of twelfth graders. I gave my 11th graders the day off. After an exam and a day of tedious busy work, they earned it. Plus I’ve reached the end of my curriculum for this trimester. In order to keep a balance between the eleventh and twelfth graders, I’m almost always forced to cancel an eleventh grade class. To end the afternoon, I gave my exam to one last group of twelfth graders. Just another group to correct.

Following the exam, one of my students came over for some English help. He had a tenth grade curriculum with him. Maybe he was just practicing English – I wouldn’t be shocked, as he is one of my better students – but my guess is that he was helping out a friend. It was shocking to see what they expect the tenth graders to know. There is some vocabulary in there that definitely should not be taught.

Richie was feeling ambitious tonight. He was in no mood for spaghetti. I don’t blame him: we are getting seriously burnt out on our regular foods. We looked through our recipe book and found a recipe for vegetarian chili. Richie did most of the work while I corrected papers, and I got to eat a pretty delicious result. Of course, there was room for improvement, but for a first shot, I won’t complain. Usually, the first time we make things, they turn out awfully. This, however, we are not scared to try again. I entered my last set of grades and watched a bit of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” before going to sleep.

I had no work to do on Wednesday. No lesson to plan, no place to go, nothing to do. It was beautiful. The lesson for today was the same busy work that my eleventh graders got on Monday, so I was left to do what I do best: sit on the patio. With nothing to do, the morning proved to be amazingly long. The truth is I’d rather be busy than not, but outside of the classroom there is just not a lot to do. I figured I should make the best of my time, so I spent about an hour in a GRE book, brushing up on high school math.

The afternoon was an easy one. No real teaching to be done – just write exercises on the board and have the students practice. Lord knows that these classes need it. With my classes done on the early side, I made a late afternoon run to the market to stock up on bread and materials from cookies. We heard some utterly shocking news this afternoon that warranted making cookies: a teacher told us that even though energy would light up the entire town, it would not reach the school. Bull. Shit. We asked another teacher, and he said it would get here. So now we are just confused, but sadly, it is easier to believe the former than it is the latter. This place has a way of being upside-down sometimes. A lot of times, actually.

We went back to our regular spaghetti, although these days, it’s been more about the bread and less about the spaghetti. Richie claims he just can’t eat spaghetti anymore. Coming from an Italian family, he should be ashamed of himself. Dipping bread in our sauce, though, never gets old. Plus, tonight wasn’t about dinner: it was about wiping out the horrible news with delicious cookies. We downed half of our cookies while watching “South Park.” One step closer to diabetes, we went to bed.

With Thursday’s arrival, we got to the downside of the week. I had another easy day ahead of me. All I had to do was return exams to two classes. It’s amazing how much time gets wasted on stuff like this. Giving a test isn’t just giving a test – there’s a day to prep, a day to take the exam, and a day to go over all of the answers. That means that three weeks of every 11 week trimester are eaten up by exams. It’s kind of ridiculous, but it’s what they are used to.

The day passed by even faster than it should have. The class that I was supposed to teach during fifth and sixth period didn’t have a teacher during fourth period. I don’t ask why anymore. If there is an open class, I take it. Just as I was finishing up, the teacher showed up. And it was probably the wrong teacher to anger – one of the pedagogical directors. Oops. That’s going to require an apology for sure.

We were scheduled to have a meeting at 4:00, which everyone knew meant 5:00. So instead of showing up on time as we should have, we watched the Brazil – U.S.A. slaughtering of a soccer game. It’s awfully tough for a team to win when they only get one shot on goal. And Brazil just plays beautifully.

Two hours late, the meeting began. It wasn’t so much a meeting as it was a lecture. Our Portuguese friend was giving a talk on the history of education. It was nothing new for us, but it was probably a good lesson for the Mozambican teachers here. More important for us was the food that came after. The Brazilian Brothers from the church brought these killer egg and hot dog sandwiches and juice. Yes, I will happily take this food and juice. As delicious as it was, we were still left hungry. With most of the night – and therefore, most of our energy – taken up by the meeting, we went the lazy route and heated up some canned ravioli that tasted like dog food. We watched one episode of “South Park” before the energy closed out our day.

I had the same agenda for Friday as I had for Thursday. All I had to do was hand back exams. I was happily enjoying my book of Kakuro when a teacher came to our house. He said that the director needed to talk to me. Crap. I hate talking to the director, not because I don’t like the guy, but he is just intimidating. This is a guy with a lot of power – definitely not the type of guy to piss off. I thought he was going to give me a talking-to about his son’s English grade, which is quickly falling. Instead, he just wanted me to set up a computer. Okay, I can handle that. He was happy that it worked well. Even when he is happy, though, he looks like his eyeballs are about to pop out of his head. I did get some good news while I had the director in the room with me – he said that energy would arrive to the school. Score.

I quickly handed back my exams. Of course, no one had questions about the content. It’s always “Easy, teacher. No questions” when I go over it. With but a few questions about grades, I was off the hook early. I spent a lot of the afternoon trying to save Richie from a neighbor. This guy means no harm, but he is just annoying. First I distracted the neighbor, then I got Richie to throw around the Frisbee. But like a mosquito, this guy just kept coming back. Eventually I gave up. It’s Machanga – giving up is what we do.

Our energy came on a bit on the early side. Our neighbors said that they would cook us some food and we gladly accepted the offer. The last time they cooked for us, we got some delicious couve out of it, and we were hoping for the same time though. What arrived, though, was bitter – at least to my taste buds. Richie found it sweet. While he enjoyed, I turned to ever-reliable spaghetti. We watched an episode of “South Park” before Richie’s dad called. By the time he was off the phone, the energy was out, and the night was over.

I slept beautifully until about 3:30. I woke up for no reason other than having enough sleep, which was a bummer. Once we have energy, it won’t be a problem. With control of our own energy, we can go to bed as late as we want and we won’t be refreshed at 3:00. Regardless of feeling good, I stayed in bed – not a lot I could do about it.

There was a bit of activity going on in Machanga today. There was some ceremony – flower-laying or something – to commemorate the birthday of someone. Richie chose to go, but like the event with the governor, I opted out. I didn’t need to stand in the heat, wait, and then be disappointed by whatever was happening. Instead, I made a run to the market, where I stocked up on all the necessities plus some liquor for the night’s festivities.

With most people out and about, the day was pretty calm. It was a good day to start seriously studying for GREs. I cracked open the book and copied out word lists. Those lists will be a thorn in my side for months to come, but it’s a necessary pain. In between getting through lists, Richie and I threw the Frisbee, both by ourselves and with some kids.

The rest of the night could be calm or could get out of control. After dinner, the party will begin. Cheap whiskey is never a good idea, but we all okayed it. I expect myself to be useless for most of tomorrow.

Happy father’s day to one and all tomorrow.