Year 1 - Week 46: Barbecued Deer-Rat

As I washed dishes Sunday morning, I got a couple of text messages from my brother, asking if it was a good time to call. 8:00 in the morning is fine by me, but it’s awfully late for California. The connection we had was beautiful – I actually heard most of what he said!

After washing dishes and sweeping the house, I spent a good portion of the morning preparing for classes. I know, I know. I actually have to teach some classes this week. It’s a good thing. I really need something to do. For a good hour, I wrote up some practice test questions on jumbo paper.

With my “work” done, what do I do now? I grabbed “Blessed Unrest”, a book about environmental and indigenous people protection. It started out a little slow, but it’s picked up well in the middle chapters. The author, Paul Hawken, has become more and more relentless in his defense and it’s become more enjoyable as he has picked it up.

I found the motivation to work out following lunch. As I’ve worked out more and more, the motivation to work out has been easier to find. I grabbed the semi-functional bike and went out for a warm-up spin. The patio, as always, provided safe haven from the sun. And as has become the norm, I finished my workout by pumping and carrying a couple buckets of water. Taking advantage of local resources: it’s a beautiful thing.

Working out has provided two benefits. The obvious benefit is that I’m definitely in the best shape I’ve been here. The secondary benefit is that it takes up a good portion of the afternoon. I’ll do anything to make the days pass quicker but if it benefits me in some way, it’s twice as good. The remainder of the afternoon was spent with “Blessed Unrest”.

We started cooking dinner as soon as the energy came on. Richie and I have really burnt ourselves out on potatoes. I guess eating potatoes every fuckin’ day will do that. So our meals these days have been very rice-heavy. I could probably eat rice every day, but then again, I felt the same way about potatoes and pasta, and look where I am now. After a couple of “Seinfeld” episodes, we shut the lights out and we went to bed.

Almost. My night truly ended with a brief text message exchange with my brother. The topic: which fruit juice is the best? Among other reasons, this is why I love my brother – because we have the capacity to speak about comical situations with a level of seriousness and serious situations with a level of comedy.

Just as my day ended with text messages, my Monday began with text messages as well. This time, the messages came from Anthony, a Volunteer here. “Big show, baby!” screamed the message. Anthony’s Yankees are in the World Series and needless to say, he is very excited. It’s been so nice the last week or so to be able to talk sports with someone.

I was summoned to work earlier than expected. The other teachers wanted our grades immediately. It would be nice if someone would tell us these things. Regardless, the director flipped on the energy so I could print out our grades. At least the real work – writing in the grades – was already done. The rest of the morning before was spent with “Blessed Unrest”.

The reading continued for a little after lunch until I had to head over to class. With eight pieces of monster paper to unravel and hang in an orderly manner, I went to class a little early. The benefit was not just for me: the students who arrived early got a good head start in writing everything down.

Class was slow. Very slow. These kids don’t exactly copy things very quickly, so I was left sitting there for about 40 minutes. Enough was enough. Time to get cracking on this material. The students, in spite of the difficult material, did really well.

The class ended in perfect time – filled the entire two hour period and early enough for us to run to the market for a soda. I also had to make a vital purchase – a light bulb. One night in the darkness was enough for me. I can’t believe I went for weeks without one at the beginning of my stay here.

I popped in the light bulb as soon as I got home and, once again, the timing worked out perfectly. The energy came on within moments of us arriving. While timing was on my side, luck wasn’t. The light bulb was no good. Armed with my bicycle, I booked it to the market and made it to the market just before the shops closed. And my new new light bulb worked just fine.

The night was calm. I grabbed a shower and made some sandwiches before watching “Seinfeld”. With the energy out, I lit up a candle and cracked into “The Natural”. I’m not really one for novels – I’m more of a history/biography kind of guy – but with nothing else to read, I figured what the hell?

The book was not so bad. The truth is, if I had another form of entertainment, I’d probably take it up, but for now, this will do.

Thankfully, Alexis came over to provide some interference. She wanted to go on a passear and wanted to know if Richie and I wanted to go. Passear or read: I think I’ll take the walk. We walked all the way to the river and chilled there in the sun.

We returned for a late lunch. Alexis was thrilled to have potatoes and eggs, our lunch for the last, ummm, ten months. She is fed by the place where she works. Unfortunately, her options are limited to say the least. Eggs and potatoes are a welcome change for her.

I tried to rest a little after lunch. I’ve had trouble sleeping for the last couple nights. Some of it, I think is from the heat. Some of it may be from over sleeping. But I think a lot of it is from napping in the afternoon. It’s a sick cycle: napping keeps me from sleeping, which leads me to nap more.

I managed to get in a little more reading before heading over to the market. You know, we need our sodas. And we needed some tomatoes for chili. We got home and lit up the charcoal to cook beans. We ate our dinner – not our best ever – watched “Seinfeld” and went to bed.

Wednesday was Mozambique’s big day. The presidential campaign that has been going on for forty-five days ended today with the elections. The school, quiet from the students’ departures, was noticeably quieter in the morning. Many of the teachers walked for miles to get to the polling the station. It’s cool to see that kind of commitment to democracy, especially when so many Americans are not willing to drive five minutes to a polling booth and take another ten or fifteen out of their day to vote. I would have loved to have taken some pictures, but it couldn’t be done. With everyone gone, Richie and I spent most of our morning on the porch.

After lunch, Richie was invited to the director’s house to do some drinking with the director and his sister. Strangely, I wasn’t invited, but I didn’t mind. I was close enough to finishing “The Natural” that I just wanted to get it done. Of course, as I got within thirty pages, I was invited to the house to drink. I temporarily declined the invite to finish the book.

When I arrived, Richie was feeling pretty delightful. I figured I should get in on the action, but when I arrived, there was just one beer left. Sad. All the more motivation to go to the villa for some cervejas.

And that’s when the mayhem began. After a couple starter beers, we decided that it was time for some Slamball. The Volunteers who were here before us played with some of the teachers and we thought we should continue the tradition. Before we knew it, we had a crowd around us, Richie and I were tanked, our friends were serving us shrimp, pork, and beef, I drank a plate of pepper sauce at some point, and we were happily left watching four Mozambicans playing Slamball. What a beautiful sight. We returned home, satisfied, and went to bed without dinner.

Richie and I were both up before 5 o’clock, both dehydrated. For some reason, Richie found the motivation to get moving. I, on the other hand, drank a glass of water, filled another water bottle, and crawled back into bed for a couple hours.

By the time I rolled out of bed, Alexis, unannounced, was already here. Of course, we’re happy to have company over whenever, especially in these quiet times. She and Richie went for a small walk while I took care of some school stuff.

The morning was slow. All of the teachers today seem to be gathered under a tree, listening to a radio, itching to hear election results. So as is normal, we were left on our patio, sitting, mostly in silence.

We didn’t have much to do in the afternoon. Richie, the insomniac, napped for a bit. I resisted a nap, instead choosing to do some puzzles. They held me over until around 4, when we headed over to the villa for a soda.

Richie and I sat on our patio for a little bit, waiting for the energy to come on. With the electricity on, we made our dinner, watched some “Seinfeld” and went to bed, still not knowing the results of the election.

Our Friday morning was shockingly busy. Okay, busy is clearly an overstatement, but it was busier than normal. After doing our regular sitting for a little bit, Alexis came over with her boss (whose name neither Richie nor I can remember) and her boss’s baby. Instead of sitting on our porch, we moved our sitting to the shade of a tree.

Now, having two muzungus in one place is shocking, I’m sure. Three may be overwhelming. But four – if I were I Mozambican, seeing four muzungus, when only two is the norm, I might be freaking out. Anyways, we sat under the tree and talked – in English – about nothing in particular until late morning.

I had only a little relaxing time after lunch. I actually had work to do this afternoon. One of my twelfth grade classes was due to have their prep class for their national exam. But when I showed up at 2:00, the classroom was locked and there were but a few students present. That’s not going to stop me though. What started with six turned into about fifteen, and what should have only lasted an hour turned into almost three.

The rest of the afternoon was marked by a pair of donations by one of our best friends here. The first was fairly typical: a television. Said teacher is moving into a new house with all of his new things, so he no longer needs his old little TV. We gladly took it off his hands.

The second donation was a little more, umm, unique. The teacher handed us a still bloody portion of deer-rat. I don’t know what deer-rat is. Maybe it’s half-deer, half-rat. Whatever it is, it is delicious, barbequed in a garlic-olive oil marinade.

After our delicacy meal, out of boredom, we popped in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. I believe this is the third time we’ve gone through this series. It doesn’t even matter anymore. We just need something to watch.

I don’t know if tonight was the official start of rainy season, but if it wasn’t, this was the call to make to a reservation. Whatever it was, the pitter-patter of rain on the tin roof was a much more pleasant sound than music pumping at 100 decibels.

Whatever rain came last night also passed last night. But the damage was done. It wasn’t full blown Mud City, like it will be come December, but there were no shortage of puddles.

Most of the day was pretty slow. No less than three of our friends or students came by to say “bye”. But notably, we did get to say “hello” to four packages. Cheese! Cheese has arrived, which means we can make pizza, quesadillas, bomb burritos, and cheese steaks.

With this in mind, we decided to run to the market to find some bread for pizza. But this is where things went wrong. There was no bread to be found – not in the market, not at the little bread stand close to school. Very, very sad.

Although we were breadless, the day was not lost. We had a fresh batch of magazines to read. While we sit here, the news doesn’t stop. So we may be reading the news two months late, but it’s still news to us.

Besides the magazines – and the cheese – we got a whole bunch of new media. After eating stir fry, we watched two episodes of “House” followed by an episode of “How I Met Your Mother”. I’d call that a great end to a not so bad week.