Year 1 - Week 33: Executive Delay

I’ll be honest: I’m ready to get back to work. It’s been a three week layoff and goddamnit I am bored out of my mind. As this school is a boarding school, when school is out of session, most everyone -- even the teachers -- leave. Spending a little time in Beira and Vilanculos certainly helps, but being here when no one else is here is somewhat depressing. More than anything though, I feel thoroughly unproductive, or non-productive. I can’t say that I have done much of anything of significance over the past three weeks and it kind of sucks. I can’t even imagine what it will be like once school is out and everyone is gone for good.

Most of Sunday was spent sitting on the porch, staring into space or reading magazines. I am incredibly grateful for all of the magazines that came in my packages. Seems like a lot is going on in the “outside world” -- or I guess, has already happened, seeing as some of the magazines were from February or March. The whole experience of reading three-month old news is kind of like trying to tape a sports game in an effort to watch it later: inevitably, someone will say the score or send a text message and ruin the fun of watching (Kal Penn died in “House”??? What the fuck?!). I already knew most of the headlines -- the final score, per say -- but it’s nice to get the details.

It’s nice to have someone here who is equally bored and unproductive. Having Richie back in Machanga means a lot of things: there is someone else to cook, someone with whom to speak English, and someone who makes a good partner for Frisbee.

What I did after lunch looked a lot like what I did before: reading, with the occasional Kakuro and some GRE studying. My vocabulary continues to grow: I’m at about 200 new words over the course of the last four weeks. I’m hoping to nail down a couple hundred more by the end of August, then focus on the writing section in September. At least that will keep me busy in the morning when school finally does start.

We broke up the monotony of our afternoon with a solid frisbee workout. Spread about 20 yards apart, we ran up and down a soccer field while throwing and catching. It is a tragedy how out of shape I am. But now that I have dropped just about every ounce of fat off my body -- thank you, Machanga -- I am prepared to be lean and mean. Exhausted, we went with a pasta dinner with a simple sauce mix -- always nice to get away from tomato sauce. We finished the night watching “Arrested Development”, which Richie managed to get his hands on in Beira.

I woke up early, which sucks. Nothing like a six-hour long morning to kill when there is nothing to do. Monday looked a lot like Sunday -- reading, Kakuro, studying GRE vocab, napping. Nothing eventful happened, so I’m not going to waste my time (or yours) writing about it. See above. The only difference between Monday and Sunday is that I’m a lot more sore than I was on Sunday, we had pancakes for dinner instead of pasta, and instead of watching “Arrested Development”, we watched “Wind Talkers”, a terribly acted World War II movie.

I think we reached the peak of boredom on Tuesday. You know it’s bad if Richie and I decide to make a joint market run. We didn’t even need that much stuff -- it definitely could have waited until tomorrow -- but we were just in dire need of killing an hour. We ended up buying a lot more than we expected: someone started carrying Pepsi, which is nothing short of miraculous. But it was the walk that was worthwhile. Change is still a-coming to Machanga. An entire field has been cleared out, and I’m not talking about a soccer field. I’m talking about airport-sized field. The president will be arriving tomorrow and they are actually going to land a plane here. Should be awesome to see.

Our walk got us to 10:00. Ugh. Richie and I played frisbee no less than three times in the time between 10:00 and lunch time. When we weren’t playing, Richie was laid out on his bed and I could be found on the patio, of course, magazine in hand. Lunch was a good break, but by 12:30, we were back into our routine: read/rest, frisbee, rinse and repeat.

Late in the afternoon, my parents called. I had a productive talk with my dad about grad schools and got all the news from my mom’s (50th!) birthday party. And it killed a half our of my afternoon. Just before the energy came on, we played frisbee with a bunch of kids, as we had promised them yesterday.

Richie wanted to try something new for dinner tonight, although there was nothing really new about it. In Chimoio, while with some other Volunteers, he ate tomato sauce over rice. He claims it is a different tomato sauce, but really, how different could it be. Either way, it was pretty good. You can never go wrong with tomato sauce, no matter what it is on.

Excitement arrived on six helicopters on Wednesday. Finally, the president of Mozambique made his way into Machanga. Richie and I woke up early enough to watch the six helicopters and one airplane touch down on a field about half a mile from our house. I never thought I would see the day that an aircraft would land in Machanga. Six was just excessive.

After all the hoopla at the landing site -- just about everyone in the entire village showed up for his arrival -- everybody made their way over to the location of his speech, which was a couple miles away. A lot of people walked over. Hah! We got ourselves a ride with one of the shop owner’s friends. It’s nice to know people in high places.

The speech was both interesting and boring at the same time: interesting in that he went off of no notes, which was impressive; boring in that it was just a bunch of populist rhetoric which anybody could have probably done without notes. There were no shortage of chants -- Machanga! Hoyea! -- especially when he started losing the crowd. The most fascinating part of the whole thing for me was that there was a translator for the speech. Not a translator from Portuguese to English -- that would be ridiculous -- but from Portuguese to Ndau, the local dialect. Even though Portuguese is the official language, it goes to show you how sparsely spoken it is, especially here in the bush.

We ended up walking out on the speech. We finally had enough when he invited people to come up to discuss the problems they saw in Machanga. It kind of reminded me of the “Festivus” episode of Seinfeld, when the characters take part in the “Airing of Grievances”. The list could have gone on forever -- the rampant poverty, illiteracy, lack of electricity, lack of a paved road -- and we said “chega” after the first person. We wound up at the shop of the person who arranged the ride for us. We drank beers with them and our South African friend, Greg. Most importantly, I managed to get myself a ride down to Vilanculos with Greg, sparing me a chapa ride.

The rest of the afternoon was as calm as it has been. There was nobody at the school -- most people decided to stick around for the rest of the speech. We reverted back into our books and magazines before dinner. We enjoyed a bit more of “Arrested Development” before going out for a night on the town.

The hoopla that arrived on six helicopters left early Thursday morning, and just like that, everything was back to normal in Machanga. The only difference was that people would randomly say “Guebuza!” (the name of the president), which drove me only a little insane. The hoopla officially ended when the plane took off.

Richie and I, having nothing to do, made a joint market run, even though we didn’t need much of anything. I wouldn’t be around for the weekend, and knowing Richie, he wouldn’t be cooking for himself -- that’s what our neighbors are for. Either way, our market trip took out an hour before we had to prepare for lunch.

The afternoon was a carbon copy of yesterday, save for the drinking with the shop owner and friends -- a bit of reading, a bit of Kakuro and a bit of studying. We cooked up a delicious stir fry and watched a bit of “Arrested Development” before going to sleep.

After sleeping a glorious sleep, I received two unexpected phone calls. The first was from Greg, telling me that we would not be leaving today, but instead going tomorrow. It was actually a blessing: it saved me probably 500 Meticais in food and lodging for Friday. The more unexpected call came from my brother, not just because we hadn’t talked for a while, but because it was insanely late in San Francisco when he called. We talked for almost two hours, which was great.

Other than the early action in the morning, the rest of Friday was quiet. It was -- finally -- my last day off, official or not. Tomorrow and Sunday are going to be long days: on the road for a quick run to Vilanculos, then right back the next day. It’s only appropriate that I spent my last day off the way I spent my other days off: between reading magazines and doing Kakuro. I learned the most ridiculous word in one of the “Economists” I read: verisimilitude. I’m guessing that a very slim percentage of English-speakers know this word, and of course, because it is completely unnecessary for me to know, I’m stuck knowing the definition -- appearance of being real -- forever.

My afternoon was marked by an out-cold nap. It felt like a full night’s sleep, even though it was no more than 50 minutes. Of course, it will come back to bite me when I can’t sleep later.

I didn’t even bother to pack a bag for this trip. I would be gone for a total of 36 hours, and I would be coming back with a lot more than I left with. Besides my full month’s salary, I’m bringing back four laptops for teachers here. It’s exciting to see that this project -- which started just a few months ago -- is already turning into a reality.

Greg told me that I should be in Mambone by 8 AM, which was no problem for me. I beat my alarm by five minutes, brushed my teeth, and made my way across the river. I was in Mambone at 7:50, perfect timing…if this were America. My 8 AM departure time turned into 1 PM. It’s not like I could do anything about it, so I did what we do in Africa: sat and waited. It proved to be a nice opportunity to study some GRE vocab and catch up with some students who live on the Mambone side of the river. At one point, I ended up drawing a diagram in the sand, trying to explain why it’s summer in America now. It was a hell of a Portuguese challenge, but I think I held my own.

Once we got on the road, we made good time. Even with the five hour wait, I would much rather be in a private car than a chapa. It’s much easier on both my wallet and my knees. I arrived in Vilanculos around 3:00 -- not terrible -- and made my way to the house that had my four laptops. After a little reorganizing, I managed to get them into my one monster backpack. Successful -- and fuckin hungry -- I went straight to New York Pizza to indulge in a delicious pie.

For all the calories I put on in consuming the entire large pizza, I took them right off almost immediately. With 25 pounds of computer on my back, I walked the two miles from the pizza place to the volunteers’ house where I would be staying tonight. Usually I can get a ride down, but there was no luck tonight. Exhausted, I pretty much gave up as soon as I arrived at the house. But I can’t be angry -- I got my computers and I got my pizza. I can’t ask for much more than that.