Year 1 - Week 40: The Price of Democacy

The Mozambican presidential campaign officially started on Sunday. Now, this campaign is not like our timid American campaigns, where people slap a sticker on the bumper, read the headlines on CNN, vote, and then call themselves “politically active”. No, no. The party started no later than 5 AM, when I was awakened by horns blowing and people yelling “Frelimo! Hoi-Yay!” over and over again. Lovely.

Just because they woke me up didn’t mean I had to get myself out of bed. I stayed in bed until 8, when I realized that it was a reasonable hour to get out of bed. When I stepped outside, the picture was, well, unique. Almost everyone had cleared out of the school to go to a rally. Everyone returned around 9:15, drunk, covered in tomato red and highlighter yellow Frelimo t-shirts, and – for the most part – drunk.

Of course, we couldn’t take part in any of this. Nor did we have reason to. I love me some politics, but only when I have vested interest in it. I can’t vote in this election, a change in status quo won’t affect Mozambican-American relations, and to be honest, this election can only affect me negatively. I, of course, hope that Mozambique chooses to follow in Ghana’s footsteps with peaceful elections instead of following in Kenya’s bloodied path. But if, for some reason, things go awry, it may mean our service is finished.

Other than the raucousness outside, the afternoon was quiet. By mid-afternoon, I think most everyone was burnt out and ready for a nap. I know I was. After my nap, I did a little bit of reading until the energy came on.

One of my best friends tried to get in touch with me today, but the nine hour time difference our conflicting schedules made it impossible. It left plenty of time for me to catch up with them, make cookies, and watch “Shawshank Redemption” with Richie.

I woke up at 6:45 Monday morning – on my own accord. I usually like I sleep later, but in this case, the timing could not have been more perfect. One of my best friends called me around 7:00. We caught up for a good while – enough time for me to wake up and roll out of bed.

I had a good bit of preparation to take care of on Monday. There was a double lesson to be taught to my eleventh grade students: one lesson on ordinal numbers, one lesson on how to augment one’s vocabulary. There are so many words that are almost exactly the same between Portuguese and English – organization and organização, minimize and minimizar – that improving one’s vocabulary is easy.

Before I could give my classes, I had an exam to give to one of my twelfth grade classes. It’s amazing: between Thursday and today, I heard significantly less griping about the exam from class to class. As for the classes, they went pretty well. For a change, forming ordinal numbers in English is actually easier than forming them in Portuguese. So that puts the score at English: 1 – Portuguese: 1,000.

My classes got out early, just early enough to make a run to the market with Richie. I was on the hunt for two things: ever elusive phone credit and a decent capulana. I got a couple of blocks from the construction site next to our house. Paired with a couple slats of wood, it makes for a perfect clothes dresser. The capulana – which is covered in fish – will at least make it look okay.
While chili cooked, I arranged the dresser and my clothes. My room is in much better order now. Our night was pretty standard. Food was, well, good. And “Dexter” is always good.

Boredom may have reached new heights on Tuesday morning. I had little work to do and there was no market run to be made. I figured I could at least make myself productive and clean up around the house a bit. The truth is that I had work to do. There was no shortage of papers to correct, but no pressing urgency to correct them. So they sat.

I spent a little time before class preparing. We are really winding down the year – about two weeks to go. I’ve given them just about all of the structures they can handle. Now I just want to help out their vocabulary. Along with the lesson on language parallels yesterday, adverbs are an easy way to add to vocabulary. They are as easy to form in English as they are in Portuguese. And they require no new vocabulary, just the adjectives they already know.

All in all, the class went okay, although the best part of class was being able to teach two groups of students together. With so many teachers working on the presidential campaign, a lot of classes have been cancelled. It is kind of the tragedy of this campaign. For sure, it is great that so many people – teachers and students alike – are committed to this campaign, but it comes at the cost of the students’ education.

As we move into the latter months of the year, I have expected the energy to come on closer to 6:00. Yet night in and night out, the energy has come on at 5:30. But today was an exception: the energy was on my by 5:00. The night was relatively calm. We went with a lazy pasta dinner with packet cheese sauce and watched some “30 Rock” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” before going to sleep.

My mind was racing all night. Everything that could go through my mind went through: song lyrics, sports teams, memories of my students in San Diego. There was nothing I could do to stop it. And to top it off, the Larium kicked in. For most of the night, I had no idea if I was awake or asleep.

I must have slept at some point during the night because I woke up relatively refreshed. We were fresh out of bread and it was my day to make a bread run. While I was out, Richie took in the English theatre presentation. I got to see a good chunk of it as well. The play has really come along. The students know their lines, they started putting costumes, and it comes in at about 17 minutes – could not be more perfect.

There was no need to prepare a lecture today. Wednesday is repeat day, and just my luck, the teacher teaching after me had cancelled class. For the second time in a week, I got to combine classes. For the second time in a week, those students lose out on day of French class.

It really is a beautiful thing to be done with work by 2:00. It would be better if there was actually something to do in Machanga. Instead, the rest of the afternoon was quiet, spent with cryptogams and Kakuro. With school finishing up in a couple weeks, it could be a sign of what’s ahead for the next, um, few months.

Our night was normal. You know, chicken sandwiches, a bit of “Dexter” and some “30 Rock”.

As usual, I had a busy Thursday morning. I made a run to the market to stock up on food before heading over to the school to watch English theatre practice. They have their lines down. Now they have a week to clean up pronunciation and timing. After practice ended, I corrected some abysmal papers and prepared for lunch.

Nobody is in school anymore. Teachers have almost completely stopped showing up, and as a result the students don’t have a reason to be here. The only people winning in this situation are Richie and me. We love being able to put our classes together, as I was able to do today.

Putting classes together meant I had plenty of time to myself in the afternoon. I screwed up a couple of Kakuros before starting to prep for dinner. Beans take a good two hours make, so we can’t for the energy to come on to cook; we have to use the carvão to eat at a reasonable hour.

Richie wanted to make the beans Mozambican-style. I really don’t care one way or the other. This was the first time we made beans Mozambican-style alone, and as is the norm when we cook something for the first time, we failed epically. The only good thing about these beans was we that we finished them. We salvaged the night with a couple episodes of “30 Rock”.


Friday morning looked a whole lot like Thursday morning – grading and theatre for most of the morning. But there were two difference, one small and one big: I didn’t have to make a market run and the energy was on. The Brazilian church brothers arrived and had some work to do. We know that we don’t need it, so we never really know what to do when the energy is on during the day. With temperatures rising quickly – after all, it’s almost summer here – I charged up some batteries for fans.

Whenever we do have energy during the day, we always have a game we play: can we cook lunch without having to light charcoal. On a couple of occasions, we have started cooking on the stove, only to have the energy go off half-way through cooking. Today, though, we had some good luck. Five minutes after we finished cooking, the energy went out. It’s days like today when having the electric stove is so worth it.

I was in the classroom for a grand total of 20 minutes this afternoon. All I had to do was return a set of exams and I was able to knock out two classes at once. Having the entire afternoon open gave me the opportunity to take a full practice GRE. I did pretty much as expected – killed the math, did okay on the verbal, and satisfactory with the writing section. I’d love to blame the environment – watching little kids fall over, Richie asking me to drink whisky – on my verbal score, but the truth is all the blame is on me.

Our night was okay. After eating dinner, we watched some “Dexter”. We planned on going out tonight, and we did make it to the villa, but there is just no action there. After two beers, we left. We did get some good news at the bar: the guy who runs the place is going to Mambone tomorrow to buy meat, which means we will be buying meat tomorrow also!

The Brazilian brothers arrived a week earlier than expected. It might be the only thing that has ever arrived early in Mozambique. They should have arrived next weekend, but the 25th of September is a holiday here. This is the last time they’ll be coming to Machanga for the year, which means it’s the last opportunity we’ll have to get a ride out with them. Unfortunately, we have nowhere to go – an opportunity gone to waste.

Halfway through their presentation, I took my neighbor’s bike and headed to the market on a meat run. The guy told me to come at 9:00, which I took to mean 10:00. Even showing up an hour late, the guy had not arrived. I left my number at the bar, and told them to call me when he arrived. Around lunchtime, the call came. I took the bike once again – the bike makes the market run almost pleasurable – and became the proud owner of a kilo of delicious cow.

This is the second time we have purchased meat here, and it makes us incredibly happy. We know that we have delicious meals for at least the next day. In our immediate future, we have stir fry. Even with a lack of vegetables, it was still fuckin fantastic.

I was back to the GRE grind after lunch. All my focus today went into sentence completions. Thirty minutes later, I was satisfied with my results – 28 out of 30 correct. One section mastered, three sections to go.

The rest of the afternoon was all about anticipation. Cheese steaks were in our future and that’s all that mattered. Of course, they were delicious. How could cheese and meat on Mambone bread not be delicious? And to make the night even better, we finished off the second season of “Dexter”. It was a slow season – not as good as the first – but the conclusion was fantastic.

Now if only the GRE will have such a good ending.