Year 1 - Week 30: Full, Empty, Dark, Bright

Full, Empty, Dark, Bright

There is an episode of “Seinfeld” in which Elaine is editing a book. As she stands in the elevator with the author, they are talking about coincidences. The author argues that there are just coincidences while Elaine states that “there are big coincidences and there are small coincidences.” After what happened on Sunday, I am a firm believer in Elaine. There are small coincidences and there are big coincidences, and what I experienced on Sunday might fall under a third category of “most improbable coincidences”.

The master chefs that are the Brazilian Brothers were kind enough to give a ride to a group of us, not just to the crossroads, but all the way to Muxungue, the truck stop that sits in between Beira and Vilanculos. I made a stop in the gas station shop, praying that I would find chocolate for cookies, when I noticed another muzungu sitting in the front seat of a chapa. This couldn’t be a South African – I don’t think they would be caught dead in a chapa – and I was pretty sure it wasn’t another Peace Corps Volunteer. Whatever – it wouldn’t bother me.

I joined Richie a little further down the road in hopes of catching a ride down to the crossroads for Machanga. The bus in which the other muzungu sat stopped had stopped just in front of us when I heard “Hey, San Diego!” I walked over to the bus and after one question, we were on the same page. Seth, a PhD student at Duke, had emailed me a couple of months ago about coming to Mozambique. I didn’t hear from again, until we met at the side of the road. He had planned to go to Vilanculos and we were really hoping to hit a private car to take us back, but all of us changed our plans: we got in the chapa and Seth came back to Machanga with us.

We sat at our crossroads for what felt like forever. It proved to be both a nice chance to get to know each other and for everyone to have some Portuguese practice. Seth already speaks a pretty good albeit Brazilian brand of Portuguese; with a background in Spanish and a Brazilian girlfriend in his ear, he is pretty much on par with us. Around 2:00, the chapa from Beira arrived at the crossroads. We boarded and made our way into Machanga.

While Richie went home, Seth and I knocked out some shopping for the couple days that he would be staying. I thought it would be a cold day in hell before we got visitors, but after seven months of being at site, Richie and I wouldn’t be the only people sleeping in our house. By the time we returned home, it was late enough in the day to begin preparing dinner. We treated to him to our regular spaghetti and tomato sauce. For him, it was the first tomatoes he’d eaten since arriving in country a couple weeks ago. After dinner, I got pinned helping some people in the computer lab, but for the most part, they worked independently. We spent the rest of our night swapping stories before the lights went out.

Having guests is one of the best things that has happened to us here. It’s been awesome to having another person around. As much as I enjoy living with Richie and as easy as it has been to live with him, it’s still a treat to hear another voice and see another face. Aside from the conversations, it was also nice to have someone to do to the dishes. For the first time in seven months, neither Richie nor I did the dishes, as Seth was eager to throw in a helping hand.

The three of us made a morning market run to stock up on some things, mostly for me. Seth is due to leave tomorrow and Richie has to head up to Beira to start preparing for science fair. When we got back to the house, we talked about where we had traveled and what we had done with our lives, which revealed more coincidences. Seth and I have both been to Cuba, which is rare for a couple of Americans let alone total strangers. We also discovered that both of us played tennis through high school until switching over to racquetball in college (we both like racquetball more) and that we both have 21 year old sisters. It’s kind of eerie.

There was no special treatment for lunch. Seth got the same crap that we eat every day. After lunch, Richie and I both had just a bit of work to do. Richie had to yell at his students about cheating while I had to tell mine that I couldn’t return their exams until every student had taken the exam. One student followed me back to the house to do his exam. He scored well – 17.5 out of 20 – but told me that his head was right. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me something I didn’t expect but wasn’t surprised by: it’s said that a child in Africa dies every thirty seconds from malaria, and in this case, that child was that of my student’s. It kind of shook me. And Richie. And Seth.

We got away from it from going on a walk, hoping to get to the ocean. We ran into some very drunk men who gave us conflicting information. One told us the ocean was just two kilometers away while the other just said it was “muito longe”. Fair enough. Eventually, we shook them. Along the way, Seth took a ton of pictures. Another benefit of having a guest is that while it is awkward for us to take pictures of here (as this is just life for us), it’s totally okay for him to take pictures at will.

When our energy came on, we exchanged media. I stole Seth’s pictures and in exchange burnt him a CD of whatever he wanted from my music library. Along the way, we showed each other our pictures of Cuba, his pictures of northern Mozambique and mine of Southern Mozambique. All this time, Richie was workmanlike, putting together a delicious chili. This time, with a guest here, we didn’t hold back and added the cheese sauce, which was delicious. I made cookies while we introduced Seth to “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which had us laughing until we went to bed.

Richie, to my surprise, wake up at 4:00 – again – to take the chapa up to Beira. I wasn’t traveling but it was still a travel day for me. I woke up just before 7:00, and with Seth already packed, we headed for the river. If Mambone were on the EN1, I’d be comfortable just putting him on a boat and having him catch a car. But with Seth being unfamiliar with the area, I figured it would be best if I got him set up. I crossed over with him, found a truck that was heading out to crossroads, and we said our goodbyes. I suspect that I’ll catch him on more time before he heads back stateside.

In five hour span, I went from being in a house that was perfectly loud and too small for three to a house that was hauntingly quiet and too big for just one person. Richie and I have each done at a night alone in the house, but this will be a new record: I’ll be flying solo until I leave for Beira with some students on Monday.

At least I had a lot to do in the morning. Dishes needed to be done and I wanted to rearrange my room. In college, I changed my rooms around every couple months just because I didn’t like having the same room all the time, and that habit will probably remain here. I turned around my bed, put up another shelf/desk and cleaned up decently. I like the new look. It is definitely more open than what I had. Enough space was created that I may invest in a comfortable chair for reading.

I didn’t have much lunch to speak of, for two reasons. First off, cooking for one just sucks. But more pressingly, we ran out of charcoal last night cooking the beans for chili. I enjoyed a couple loaves of bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, sufficient for getting me through the afternoon. My afternoon was surprisingly busy. I was going to hand back exams to four of my six classes, but with teachers not being around, I was able to hand out exams for everyone. All that means is I’ll have no work for the rest of this lonely week.

The busy afternoon made the day pass quickly. Before I knew it, the energy was on and I had to think about preparing dinner – spaghetti for one. Sad. After checking email, a colleague invited me over to watch something on TV: “Memorial de Michael Jackson”. I don’t know why, but Mozambicans have a serious obsession with Michael Jackson. Ten of us huddled around a television to watch performances and speeches. When Al Sharpton came on, I gave up. That was enough for me. I turned for home, light some candles just before the energy went out and read before going to bed.

I woke up to a shockingly quiet house. Normally, Richie is up before me, and although he is rarely causes me to wake up, I can usually hear him making some noise in the morning. Not on this morning though – just silence. Committed to eating a real lunch, I walked over to the market to buy a bag of charcoal. I forgot both how heavy the bag of charcoal is and how far the walk is from the market with charcoal in hand. A few people offered me help, but in reality, it’s a lot easier to carry over my shoulders than side by side with another person.

The rest of the morning past by pretty quickly. I got lost in the numbers of Kakuro and before I knew it, it was nearly noon. I fired up my freshly purchased charcoal and prepared the standard eggs and potato pancakes, albeit for one.

The afternoon picked up where the morning left off. I knocked out a couple of Kakuros – and screwed some up along the way – before diving into yet another page of GRE vocab. With no one here, this is probably the best opportunity I’ll have to work undistracted. By the end of all this studying, I hope that I can nail down somewhere between 400 and 500 new words. It should be enough to give me a decent verbal score.

With nothing better to do, I squeezed in a nap just before the energy came on. After dealing with the loneliness last night, I felt a little more prepared to deal with it tonight. What I wasn’t at all prepared for was the energy going out at 5:45. Well, fuck. I hoped for a quick return, but the energy gods would have none of it. Now I was especially happy with my decision to pick up charcoal in the morning. I once again lit carvão and cooked up stir fry. I held out for a little while, with the help of a candle and a magazine, but by 8:45, I gave up.

Going to bed so early meant an early wakeup for me on Thursday. By 4:30, I was pretty wide awake. I watched the sky change from black to blue before going back to bed until about 8:00. Once I lifted myself out of bed, I gave the house a good cleaning, including a Mozambican-style ass-up hands-down mopping of the entire house. The house was by far the cleanest it’s been since we’ve arrived, which doesn’t speak to how dirty we are (we are actually quite tidy), but to how clean the house was. I could walk around the house barefoot and not feel like I was walking on soil.

All of that cleaning got me to about, oh, 9:15. Just three hours until lunch. Three lonely hours. The morning, up until preparing for lunch, followed yesterday’s track. I spent a lot of time in the Kakuro book before quizzing myself on the GRE vocab from yesterday. On the whole, I did pretty well – forgot one out of 22, which now I will never forget.

Just like yesterday, and this morning, the afternoon was boring. Not only is the absence of Richie glaring, but there are fewer and fewer teachers, fewer and fewer students here. As the trimester break nears, this place has become more and more of a ghost town. The silence just gives me more incentive to study and read. I started reading Aristotle’s “The Art of Rhetoric”, which has a 60-page introduction by a British translator. The intro itself is dense, filled with great GRE vocab – there were three solid GRE words in one sentence. It may be judgment based very narrowly, but between reading the “Economist” and this intro, it seems that the British have such a better command of vocabulary than we Americans do.

I prepped for dinner insanely early. I did not like preparing in the dark on bit last night. I hoped that the energy would make a return, but I expect – and received – the worst: another night in the darkness. Add to it that my phone battery was on its last legs and it made for a very quiet night. I cooked dinner in near pitch darkness, aided only by a candle and the light coming off of the charcoal. The blackest of clear black skies revealed an explosion of stars, only to be wiped out by a rising full pearl-white moon. Having blown out my candle, I ate dinner in admiration of the soft yellow halo around the moon. Being bitten up by mosquitoes forced me inside, where I read some more of the intro to “Rhetoric” before going to bed on the early end.

Another early bed time, another early wakeup. Picking up where I left off last night, I dove back into “Rhetoric” for about 45 minutes before welcoming the day. On what was the hottest day in probably the last three weeks, I walked over to the market to buy groceries, hopefully for the last time until I head to Beira. I managed to buy everything in one shop before hitting the outdoor market, which had bell pepper for only the second time. The things that get me excited these days.

Day three of loneliness meant day three of spending my morning in a book. After cleaning up, my face was planted either in the Kakuro book, the vocab book, or the intro to “Rhetoric”. By late morning, I started going crazy. I needed to hear a voice other than my own, even if it wasn’t in English. But I was blessed by good fortune: I found the BBC on Richie’s short wave radio, where I heard briefly about Obama’s first trip as president to Africa – to Ghana, my first African love.

After lunch, I got a break from my now regular nothingness. The students heading up to Beira needed some help with one of the projects. I am about as helpful in the sciences as a three year-old, and in Portuguese, forget it. Nonetheless, I stuck it out for about an hour before being relieved of duty and getting back into my books.

I prepared for dinner early again. There was no sign of energy coming on anytime soon. It seems like the gods of Machanga are trying to test me. Full-time energy should be arriving any day, but before I get it, I need to endure no energy. It’s a really sick joke, but it’s a joke I’ve accepted. Just as it started to get dark, I lit up carvão, and cooked up some egg fried rice. As I took my last bites, a fanatical scream came from the dormitories: the energy was back! I fired up the computer, bumped some music and caught up on emails under my glorious 60-watt light bulb, before the energy went out at 9:30.

I had what was probably the best night of sleep I’ve had in a long time. I woke up feeling good, like I could actually do something productive today. But what was there to do? There was no market run to be made, no papers to correct, and, on this first official day of break, very little regular company to enjoy. Shockingly, though, this morning passed by faster than any other morning this week. I showed one kid a card trick and it drew a crowd of six or seven other kids. Most of the morning was spent entertaining these kids, although the most entertaining part of it for me was watching them trying – and failing – to replicate the tricks.

Lunch was standard fare, although a bit more delicious than usual with the addition of bell pepper. The afternoon that followed was pretty slow. I filled out a couple Kakuro grids, and when I thought it was about time to start thinking about dinner, I went inside to prepare. The only problem was it was 4:00. With time to spare, I went on a massive cleaning binge, sweeping and mopping the entirety of the house after doing dishes.

The night was the busiest I’ve been all week, although that is not really saying much. I prepared my grades for turning in, wrote a letter for another teacher, burned a CD for a friend and went on a successful hunt to find the transcript of Obama’s speech in Ghana. All that “work” made me pretty hungry for what I hope was my last spaghetti dinner for a while. I read both the Obama speech – amazing – and a bit more of “Rhetoric” before kissing the week goodbye.