Year 1 – Week 49: Meteorological Indecisiveness

The celebratory mood from Mozambique’s epic victory against Tunisia bled over into Sunday morning. As I sat on the patio, I could hear occasional joyous yells of “Moçambique ganhou!” – “Moçambique won!” The radio kept replaying the goal. Callers into the radio made indecipherable calls. It was exciting, even for a non-Mozambican like me.

We had told our school director that we would go out with him and some teachers early in the afternoon. But when early afternoon came around, we just weren’t up for it. Two consecutive day of not-so-light drinking really put us off to drinking a third day in a row.

Plus, going out would mean having to put a shirt on. Summer is here to stay until at least March and the heat has become absolutely brutal in the last couple weeks, to the point that wearing clothes has become a task. So I’m following the lead of the little children who know best: I’m going topless. It’s far more comfortable and as an added bonus, I will have less laundry to do.

There wasn’t much going on in the afternoon, which we were happy about. We blew off the trip to the villa to drink with the director in favor of naps. It was the right decision.

In between dinner and watching “The Office”, I got a pair of family phone calls. The first from my parents was extensive as usual. We finally figured out that the problem with out connection wasn’t on my end, but on America’s end. I feel vindicated. With this information in mind, my grandfather, with whom I haven’t spoken in a while, gave a ring and we caught up. The calls behind me, Richie and I posted up to watch some “How I Met Your Mother” before bed.

The days are hot enough, but at least during the day, we can get out of the house and into the breeze. There’s no escaping at night. Even with the fans, we were left with little choice but to sweat in bed. It’s agonizing.

To make it worse, once we finally do fall asleep, it’s already time to get up. Richie was up 3:00. I made it until 5:00. This is not fun. But what choice do we have? It’s one more hot season. As our colleague told us last year during the training, the only way we know we can make it through this year is because we made it last year.

We were spared from the heat a little bit in the morning. Clouds covered nearly the entire sky and it looked primed to rain. But the rain never came in the morning. But by mid-morning, the clouds were gone. It was back into the heat.

There wasn’t much going on in the morning. There was a lot patio sitting. Richie finished off a book and then went to bed. I think he made it until 9:00. I was happy just to be in a little bit of breeze. Certainly better than being in the sweatbox that is our house.

After lunch, Richie and I headed over to the villa for shopping and sodas. We were completely out of vegetables, so the market run was necessary. And the sodas were even more necessary. By the time we got back, the clouds had started rolling in again. It looked like it was going to rain but the dark clouds yielded by a few drops. Disappointing – we are kind of ready for some rain.

I got in a good workout just before the energy came on. I have been slacking on the workouts these days. The heat has killed my drive. But with the cloud cover, I was able to actually work up a sweat instead of having one forced on me. And the cold shower that came after it was an absolute joy. No joke.

We finally got a good burst of rain once night fell, but it was not nearly enough to fill a bucket. Our day will come. The night was calm. We ate stir fry for dinner, watched a couple episodes of “House” and “The Office” and barely made it till lights out.

The clouds that had threatened rained all day finally came through on their threat. A monstrous wind joined the rain, the first sustained rain we’ve had of the season. The wind, however, was far more important. Typically, the wind blows north-south, managing to avoid all of our windows. But over the entire night, the wind blew east-west, creating a beautiful breeze through the house that made sleeping without a fan possible.

Through the morning, the clouds stuck around. On and off rain made life just miserable enough that it kept us indoors for the most part. Late in the morning, after a reasonable dry period, I decided to go to the market to buy a squeegee. Of course, as soon as I got on the road, it started to rain. I nearly fell twice on the walk over and almost lost one of my shoes in the mud. Oh, rainy season.

At least the market run was successful. I found the squeegee in the first little shop and as a bonus, I found a new pair of travel sandals. Traveling with my lovely leather Rainbows during the rainy season is not a good option. Plastic sandals work much better.

Rain and wind continued to pester us all afternoon. It pretty much paralyzed all action here. Teachers bundled themselves and their children up in jackets and pants. It’s quite the noted change from, well, yesterday. The only interesting thing to happen all afternoon was Sozinho, our long lost friend and clothes-washer, returned to Machanga today. We are very excited to see him. And maybe he’ll do our laundry while he’s here.

Of course, once the energy came on, we were forced into the house for good. Since beans take more than an hour to cook, we decided to throw on an episode of “House” before dinner.

After a couple days of terrible heat and a couple days of cold and rain, the weather gods finally got it right on Wednesday – not to hot, not too cold, no rain, and a little cloud cover. It was truly perfect weather for Mozambique. But with so few people here, and so little to do here, we couldn’t really take advantage of it. It’s not like there’s some stellar beach in Machanga.

Following an otherwise boring morning, we set out for afternoon naps. I almost made it to the hour mark when there was a knock on the door. So close. Some colleagues had a bottle of whiskey and they wanted to know if we wanted to join them. Sure, we would. And for good measure, we brought a long a half-bottle of gin. It’s the least we could do.

The dry stuff went pretty quickly, so what are we to do? Two of our colleagues wanted to go out to the villa to drink. Okay. I brought along a deck of cards so I could introduce a little drinking game.

Now, our colleagues like to drink their beer very slow. Two beers between four people can easily last thirty minutes. This is clearly not the American way. With the drinking game going, four of us killed eight beers in fifteen minutes. This and it kept going. More people joined. Before we knew it, a group of us had put down eighteen beers in about ninety minutes. I would call the game a success. Of course, as soon as the bill came, everyone scurried off, and we were left footing a 550 Met bill. It’s the best twenty-two dollars we’ve spent here.

We were done drinking so early that we still had a good hour of energy before the lights went out. I had prepared salsa earlier in the day, and with some beans from last night, we made delicious Mexican rice bowls. We finished an episode of the “Office” just before the lights went out. Excellent timing.

I woke up Thursday a little dizzy and dehydrated, but it was nothing compared to what Richie was dealing with. His head and stomach were reeling. We know we shouldn’t mix darks and lights. And we know that we shouldn’t mix beer and liquor. Clearly, though, two negatives do not make a positive: beer plus darks plus lights makes for a miserable day.

Richie was out for most of the day. I was pretty useless as well, but I was at least well enough to clean up around the house. Even so, I still spent a good portion of the morning between the porch and my bed.

I was back to a hundred percent by lunch, but Richie was still not feeling great. We returned to our respective areas, me on the patio, Richie in bed. Around 4:00, we headed over to the market to get some groceries and a soda. Sozinho joined us for the walk and carried our groceries back for us. I have to say: having help around the house is really nice. We have little that we have to do, but the things we don’t want to do are happily done by him.

Nothing of interest happened in the evening. We ate a very sad stir fry, but even a sad stir fry is pretty delicious.

Sozinho came over early Friday morning with some good news. He talked to the director at the school that is just a couple hundred yards from us and the director said that Sozinho could attend there. Which means we’re in luck. We have someone to wash our clothes next year.

If there was any downside to the whole Sozinho situation, it’s that he may live with us. We are happy to have him life with us. Yea, our house is small, but we can make it work. During the school year, we’re out of the house most of the day anyway, so it doesn’t matter. He’s going to try to live with another teacher first, but he’ll use us as a last resort. The upside is that the chance of him living here motivated to clean out our house really well.

The rain came to a halt and with that, things got even better. After an otherwise boring morning, Richie and I headed out to the villa with a couple colleagues. One of our colleagues just became a new father, so we thought we’d take him out for a couple drinks. Once again, the drinking game performed well, and we only had to fork out 200 Mets today.

The night was pretty quiet. We pretty much gave up on dinner and opened a can of corn beef. I had my doubts about it the first time around, but it was pretty good. After our not-so-terrible sandwiches, we watched a couple episodes of “House”. Kutner killing himself was sad, but we knew it was going to happen – damn you, Newsweek. And with another cool night, we slept fairly soundly.

Machanga was left grey again. I didn’t know I signed up for Peace Corps – Seattle. No matter the location, we were pretty much left to do nothing. It rained just hard enough to keep us from heading to the market and just light enough that I was able to still sit on the patio. So I sat, and Richie, as is now usual for him, was in bed for a lot of the morning. I can’t blame him: an uncomfortable bed is still better than sitting upright.

One of the worst parts of the rain is that it makes cooking nearly impossible. Regardless, it’s wet, which makes using charcoal a pain in the ass. And either one of two things happens – there’s way too much wind, which burns off the charcoal quickly; or, there is no wind and the charcoal doesn’t burn at all. Today, we had no wind, so I had to provide it myself.

The rain came and went all afternoon, but for a brief window late in the afternoon, the rained stopped. We headed over to the villa for some groceries, but more importantly, we were on a mission. We’ve been trying to find a turkey for the last couple days, but today we brought in Madinha, queen of Machanga. Within an hour, she found us a turkey. We’ll be going to Mambone sometime in the next couple days to get him.

It should be a most excellent Thanksgiving next week.