Year 1 - Week 52: Watching the Wheels Go Round and Round

It looked like we were in for more rain again on Sunday. We got a good shower in the wee hours of the morning, but for the most part, the rain held off. Regardless, the damage was done: the road was muddied and full of puddles. I thought that I could take the bike to the market. It wasn’t the best decision I’ve made – I only had to walk it for a couple yards – but I’ve made better choices.

After the market run, the entire morning was spent chilling on the patio. Work for some of the other teachers – the people in charge – is starting to wind down, and other teachers are starting to make their way out of Machanga. Lucky souls. Our time will come soon enough.

It’s truly amazing how the combination of doing nothing plus the heat and humidity can sap the energy. Following lunch, I took a nap that absolutely knocked me out. The heat has made sleeping nearly impossible so naptime has become a necessity. The tragedy of it all is that naptime has made sleeping at night more difficult – quite a sick cycle.

We made an afternoon market run, but this market run was of particular importance. We weren’t just going to grab a soda. My shorts were finally ready to be picked up. When Madinha presented them to me, the reaction was generally positive. I, of course, loved them. Madinha thought the came out well, and it got a laugh out of a couple of people. They were cut absolutely perfectly and Madinha insisted that I wear them home. On the walk home, they got a couple looks, but nothing negative.

Just before dinner, I talked to my mom and dad. As the weeks have wasted away and they have come closer to arriving here in Mozambique, the excitement in their voices has become more apparent. Everything is prepared. All that’s left is the waiting of these last three weeks.

When the lights turned out, we thought that we would be able to go to sleep. The heat wasn’t too intolerable and even the blaring music in the background was not the worst thing in the world. Then the screaming started. “Ussene! Ussene!” We thought that this little four year old kid ran away. Then the banging on the door started. Then more screaming.

By 10:30, we just couldn’t take it anymore. We climbed out of bed to see what the commotion was all about. Ussene locked out his family and went to sleep with a candle still lit, and neither banging nor screaming could wake the little kid up. The neighbors thought about breaking in through windows, but then I remember something. The padre here has broken into his room before and I figured that I could do the same. All it took to break into the house was a screw driver and needle-nose pliers.

The music kept playing, but with the screaming and banging gone, it was peaceful enough to sleep.

I was awake, but I wasn’t well rested by any means. It’s a good thing there was nothing important to do for most of the day. As I sat on the patio, I watched other teachers clean out their yards and I thought I should do the same. Now, cutting the grass here is more than pushing a mower. It requires taking nine-iron-like hacks with a slightly angled off knife. Although it’s not the most effective mode of cutting grass, it’s pretty good exercise, and the yard does look a lot nicer now.

The rest of the morning was pretty slow. I broke out the sudoku book for a little bit before lunch. The late part of my morning was also spent trying to convince some departing friends that they should stop here for a night. By lunch time, I received a text saying they wouldn’t be stopping. It’s sad that we won’t see them again, but it’s understandable. Machanga is in the middle of fuckin nowhere and they have places to go.

There wasn’t a whole lot to do after lunch. I had the ritual nap and the now ritual box-filing and code-breaking. But other than that, nothing happened until the energy came on a full hour early.

We were particularly lazy about dinner tonight. Richie bought a ton of bread, so we thought that we would cook up sandwiches. And we still have all those cans of corned beef that I’m still a little skeptical about (even thought we’ve had it twice, and it’s good). We ate our sandwiches and watched “Match Point”, one of the more recent Woody Allen movies. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but it wasn’t terrible either.

I’m going to entirely skip over Tuesday because I did nothing on Tuesday. My entire day can be summed up with the words su doku and cryptograms.

The only thing that happened Tuesday was that just before I went to sleep, I caught view of an absolutely massive spider. This was not a tiny spider. This was something like a tarantula about the size of my palm. I tried to kill it, but the bastard got away. I then spent the next hour trying to psych myself into falling asleep. This is why we use bed nets.

I was back to being productive on Wednesday. Sozinho has once again departed, albeit temporarily this time, so we are left to our own devices to wash clothes. Once again, washing clothes is a royal pain in the ass. But these days, when there is nothing to do in Machanga, being able to kill almost two hours doing laundry is actually a good thing.

Wednesday was a most excellent day to do laundry. The sun was pounding down ridiculously hard. The news said that it was 32 degrees Celsius. That translates to roughly ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Given the choice, though, I think I’d rather take 32 Celsius. After all, my clothes won’t dry in 32 Fahrenheit.

My laundry was washed and dried before noon. We cooked up some lunch and after that, there was nothing. The heat was absolutely brutal and all we could do was sit there or lay there. But I couldn’t bring myself to nap. With all the sleeping problems I’ve had I night, I figure that I should cut down the napping.

Dinner was whatever. We made Mexican food which is always good, but it doesn’t really matter. Whatever plans we had for the night – not that we had anything of substance – were nixed by a couple colleagues who needed some computer help.

There was not a lot happening Thursday morning. We just sat on our patio, watching the wheels go round and round. Actually, the only wheels we watched go round and round were those of our bike rolling away. I guess it’s good that people are using it. As long as it’s dry, it’s all good, but once the rain is here for good, it will be put away.

Thursday afternoon, however, was quite lovely. After eating lunch, we broke out a couple boxes of terrible wine with one of our colleagues. His English is not too bad and with a little wine, it becomes better, just as our Portuguese gets better with alcohol.

Afternoon drinking turned into night drinking. With the boxes finished, the three of us and one other teacher went over to the villa. Richie and I, pathetically, lost a game of Slamball to a couple Mozambicans. It’s shocking how quickly they can drink. As more people showed up, I broke out the deck of cards and wowed people with some magic. The things that people like here crack me up sometimes.

We were back by 8:15, leaving us just enough time to make dinner and eat before the lights went out. And other than the 3:00 drunken wake-up, it was not a terrible night of sleep.

I woke up Friday feeling pretty good. I guess the advantage of afternoon drinking is that you sleep right through the hangover. It’s a nice upside. I spent a good portion of the day Friday finishing out a book of crossword puzzles. Halfway through finishing, I convinced myself that I could put together a puzzle. I failed in two attempts, but I’m still sure that I can do this. One day, I’ll get it done.

Once again, it was fuckin hot here. Richie, like I did earlier in the week, did laundry today and it, like mine, was dried by lunch. Other than the market run and finishing the crossword book, it was an otherwise useless day.

Our neighbor came over early in the afternoon to see if we had an agenda for the afternoon. Of course, we told him we had nothing planned, but we really didn’t want to drink again. Two afternoons in a row is a little excessive, even by Machanga standards.

Clouds rolled in Friday night and it looked like it was going to rain, but for the entire evening, Machanga stayed dry. Only after we had gone to sleep did it begin to rain.

The clouds seemed to leave as quickly as they came in. For a short part of Saturday morning, there was pure sunshine. The entirety of the phone call with my brother was in daylight. And as if on command, as soon as I got off the phone, the first drops came down.

And then. The deluge. The clouds moved in faster and faster until the sky from horizon to horizon. The rain came down the entire morning. At some times, it was pure downpour. At some times, it was drizzling. But it never entirely stopped. All said, we filled bucket after bucket to the tune of more than one hundred liters.

More of our colleagues left today, leaving the place even more empty, leaving us more lonely. A couple of our colleagues are stuck around and they were as lonely as we were. They replaced our colleagues a couple small flasks of whiskey and a flask of gin and we drank the rainy afternoon away.

The rain stopped for the most part after dinner and our colleagues wanted to get a couple beers. We trudged and sludged our way through the mud to the villa. I almost fell at least twice. And after our couple beers, we were done. It was not a worthwhile trip. But I guess with nothing to do, anything to pass some time until my family gets here is time well spent.