Year 1 - Week 36: Geek Squad

I woke up on Sunday excited. After holding on to the laptops for a couple of weeks in an effort to try to Portuguese-ize the computers, I finally gave up. I did all that I could do, for better or for worse, and today was the day that the teachers would get their computers. I packed up the computers and happily presented the computers to the teachers.

The first lesson took place underneath a couple of trees. Is there anything more Peace Corps cliché than that? The first lesson was as basic as you could imagine: how to open up the computer, how to turn the thing on, how to turn the thing off, over and over again. It’s a simple thing, but it’s absolutely necessary.

I was just as excited to get the computers off my hands as they were to take them. They’ve been taking up way too much space in my small room and now that they are with the teachers, they are no longer my responsibility. The brief, simple lesson absolutely exhausted me. The combination of their lack of computer experience and my lack of computer vocabulary in Portuguese wiped me out. There was only one reasonable solution to my tiredness: a post-lunch nap of epic proportion.

When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was for a couple of minutes. They were an awesome few minutes. But after getting myself back together, I realized, oh yes, I’m still in Machanga. Sad.

At least there was turkey chili to make the night better. Richie has been carrying more than his fair share of the cooking load and I know that with the week ahead, he’s going to have a lot of responsibility. With that in mind, I took over the cooking duties for the night. I’d say it came out pretty well. After a couple of episodes of “Arrested Development” and a bit of candle-lit reading, it was time for bed.

I’d be damned if I gave those computers out without giving the teachers proper instruction, so Monday morning, the classes began. Having a bunch of teachers lined up, laptops on table, learning to use them properly, is really a beautiful sight. I ran them through the basics of Microsoft Word. They are lessons that will have to be repeated over and over and over again, but with experience, they will be indelible. The lesson lasted for a solid hour and a half, and the teachers left eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s lesson. After the teachers left, I ran to the director’s house to install some programs for him.

The lesson was as valuable for them as it was for me. I learned more vocabulary in one day than I’ve learned in the last few months. Okay, yea, it’s really specific vocabulary that I most likely won’t use anywhere else, but for the here and now, it’s really practical.

Lunch was purely secondary today (although it was delicious). But there really was little time between finishing with the computer classes and starting the job I’m (kind of) paid for. Teaching is nice and all, but helping out with all of this computer stuff is a lot more rewarding. It feels tangible. With that in mind, I’m going to make the most of it. Once the energy came on, I started putting together a Portuguese-English dictionary of computer terms and in the long term, I’d like to put together a full curriculum for computer classes.

Tuesday was probably the most productive day I’ve had as a Volunteer. It only took nine months. The entire morning ran like clockwork. After washing dishes in the morning, I plotted out my students’ exam for the coming week. The test is going to be in the exact format that we have been practicing all week, so in theory, it should be easy. Their only real responsibility for the exam is to memorize the past tense of the list of verbs I gave them.

I finished writing up the exam within minutes of 9:30, the designated time for computer classes. Having taught some basic Microsoft Word skills yesterday, I thought it would be best to put some of those skills to use today. I had the teachers type up a roll call list. I remembered how painstaking it was to watch the students type these things up in the beginning of the year. I figured that it would be most productive for them to type up something that they will actually make in the future.

In Mozambique, typing up a class list requires a lot more than just names. There’s a whole process of identifying where the school is, what government it is under, etc. It made for a perfect header. This was matched by a footer with a place for the director’s signature. In the body, we had the names, but we alphabetized them and numbered them. These are skills that we take for granted but are completely new to them. When we were done, the director, appreciating his work, let loose a hardy laugh when he realized how easy it was (or how much extra work they did in February).

The afternoon didn’t go quite as well as the morning. After actually teaching a couple of class periods, I wanted to have some fun with my other class. I wrote out the lyrics to Jack Johnson’s “Do You Remember”. The song is full of irregular past tense verbs, so I thought it would be a good exercise for my students. After all, they only get to hear one English voice here; my music is just an extra person for them to hear. Sadly, my speakers gave out at jut the wrong time.

The truth is that was the only thing that went wrong all day. I planned out a math lesson for tomorrow before eating. We made a fake sauce packet with pasta and watched “Be Kind Rewind”, a comedy that I could best label as so-so. And just before bed, I studied some GRE vocab.

If Tuesday was the most productive day I had, Wednesday was easily the busiest day. I woke up to a terrible sound on Wednesday morning: an alarm. I told a colleague that I would cover his math classes for the day. He said that he wanted to see how I teach, and I gladly accepted it. I figured it may help him. Plus I’ve wanted to teach math since Day 1 here, but there is such a lack of English teachers that there was no way for it to happen. The only downside to it was that the classes started at the completely unreasonable hour of 7:00.

The classes all went well. By the third class, I had students almost jumping out of their chairs to volunteer to do problems on the board, a gratifying feeling to say the least. I wish my English students were so eager to participate. The three hours of math were just the beginning of an overly busy teaching day. Immediately following the math classes, I ran over to the computer lab to give some more lessons. Unfortunately, two of the teachers were not able to make it, so I had a small class of two. It was probably for the better: it was a detail-heavy lesson. But all in all, it went well.

By 11:00, I had spoken four solid hours of Portuguese and I was wiped. Lunch mostly refreshed me and lucky for me, all I had to do was give a test. I decided that it would be best to see how ridiculously moronic one of my classes is. They usually get the exam last, but this week, they will be getting it first. And it showed. One girl tried to cheat with a cell phone (I caught it) and when I graded the exams, I went between laughing and crying. The average grade was 51% and the pass rate was 44%. Stellar.

Depressed from grading 33 mostly pathetic exams, Richie and I ate a delicious chili dinner and watched a couple episodes of “Arrested Development”, a good end to a long day.

Thursday morning means market run. There was not a lot to buy but the run still needed to be made. And it needed to be made before 9:30. After all, I had a computer lesson to give. The director and assistant director, who both missed the class yesterday, took the same class today. Once we finished reproducing the “Economist” article, the director gave the same hearty laugh he gave on Tuesday.

The class finished earlier than I expected, giving me a little bit of time to correct some exams. Considering how bad the first class did, the second class couldn’t do as poorly, right? Much to my relief only 25% of this class failed the exam (as opposed to the pathetic 56% fail rate of the first class).

Having given the class to my Wednesday students first, I had no need to give classes for the rest of the week for them. I couldn’t return exams, even though I had them corrected, because I still had to give the same exam to one other class next week. Knowing how crooked that group of kids is, I’m sure they would pass their exams over to the next class so they could memorize the answers.

With one class cancelled, I was left to give one more class before two other groups took the exam. This time, I made two unique versions of the exams. I’m sure some of my students crapped themselves when they saw that the questions they had were different than the questions from yesterday. And like yesterday, I had one cheater. This time, it was a more traditional cheating job: notes in the book bag. The best one, though, was a girl who was scurrying to right a cheat sheet on her hand as I stood next to her. It was before the exam, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Right after the exam finished, I started correcting, and the exams fell into the same depressing pattern: the language track kids getting absolutely destroyed. It kind of made me sick, and once the energy came on, I knew it was time to give up on grading.

Afonso, my 12th grade student who is learning computer stuff at night, came over as arranged. After turning him down the last couple of nights, I promised him that he could come over. What we didn’t count on was another student who needed some documents typed hope. How gloriously perfect. The two of them worked together while Richie and I cooked up dinner. The rest of the night was usual. We had enough time four two episodes of “Arrested Development” before the lights went out.

I was right back to grading Friday morning. I had one and a half more classes to get through. This time, though, I knew better. I put the exam of one of my best students as the last exam, so I could at least go out on a good note. Much to Richie’s disappointment, she did not let me down: she got 100%.

The rest of my day was shockingly quiet. For the first time all week, I didn’t have a tech class to give. The teachers were in some sort of meeting, one that we of course did not participate in. So I got in some quality patio time with the Kakuro book. With classes once again cancelled, the afternoon followed suit. I did some GRE studying as well as read an “Economist” for the hundredth time.

Richie was gone for the better part of the day. He decided to go over to Mambone with one of his “girlfriends”. He regretted that decision. But while he was there, he came up clutch and found bell pepper, which would go beautifully in stir fry.

Two cars of muzungus showed up in the afternoon. It’s always suspicious when white people come here. We were expecting this group. The Brazilian church Brothers were in town to give their monthly class on something. I’ve only gone to one, mostly because it’s stuff we don’t need to know.

We had an invite to go out drinking with some teachers and of course we took it up. It wasn’t our usual get-wasted-‘til-you-can’t-drink group. Instead, Richie and I drank our two beers and walked out of the bar mostly sober.

The Brazilian Brothers gave their little talk around 8 in the morning. Richie decided to go. For me, this was a prime opportunity to get some work done. Because they like to use PowerPoint presentations, they have to use energy. And I did not want to spend my entire evening typing up an exam for one of the teachers. The timing was almost perfect. I had written 26 of the 27 questions before the energy went out.

The cars that rolled in yesterday rolled out shortly after the speech, and Richie left with them. Richie has a conference in Maputo, so once again, I’m alone for a solid week. The afternoon was pretty boring. After cooking up lunch, I split my time between Kakuro and a nap, which ended up being a bad idea. It could have been a productive afternoon of studying; instead it went to waste.

Cooking dinner for one, just as it was last time, was depressing. I don’t feel as bad, though, when I make spaghetti. Richie is still burnt out on pasta, and I think I can eat it for every meal. The rest of my night was surprisingly busy. I cleaned up the exam I typed in the morning, wrote up a couple emails to be sent later, and briefly talked with my brother, who made me plenty jealous in describing where he was: Dodger Stadium, with my dad.

The call went up until the lights went out, and mentally, I was ready to go to sleep. But my nap did me in. I was up until midnight, and the whole time, all I could think about were Dodger Dogs. I will get my brother for this…