Year 2 - Week 9: Reclamation

Maputo on Sunday is an interesting place. Sure, a lot of cities around the world slow down on Sundays, but I'd say that most stores are open. There is still action in the streets. This is not at all the case in Maputo. Maputo comes to a near standstill. You can count the cars on the road on one hand and even the normally-bustling Maputo Shopping Center doesn't officially open until late in morning..

It would have been nice to have the last piece of information before we made our way downtown on Sunday morning. We had a couple of things we needed to get done and we were lucky that they were all in the same general area: there was shopping to be done at Hiper Supermarket, test results to be picked up, and a bus ticket to be bought. The bus depot, supposedly open at 8:00, wasn't open when we got there at 8:30. I picked up my test results – of course they meant nothing to me – and we made our way to Maputo Shopping Center, hoping that we could get some shopping done.

We walked around Maputo, trying to find a way to kill some time, quench our thirst and sate my hunger. We stumbled across a hole in the wall with an aroma emanating from the open door. I followed my knows and came across what have to be the best french fries in all of Mozambique. If I were in a better financial situation, I would have bought a second order. In this morning of small defeats, this was a huge victory.

Maputo Shopping didn't open until 10:00, and even then, it didn't really open. Sure, the doors were open, but Hiper was closed. Conveniently, a drug store sat right next to the supermarket. It then became a three-way race of what would open first: the supermarket, the drug store, or the bus depot. The drug store opened it's doors first, but the supermarket allowed customers in first. Point goes to the supermarket.

In the holiness that is the supermarket, it would be easy to go crazy. But after blowing through thousands of Meticais this weekend on medical stuff, food, and hotel rooms, I would have to be restrained. I managed to escape just buying Listerine and garlic salt, things impossible to buy in Vilanculos.

Our slow-starting day picked up quite quickly. Right after leaving the supermarket, I dropped into the pharmacy to pick up the last of my three drugs needed to treat my malady. And before heading to pick up the bus ticket, I enjoyed a couple shwarmas. This is why I love Maputo: for the shwarma – and the other international cuisine.

The rest of the day was pretty calm. Knowing that I would be on my way out of here soon, I wanted to soak in the hotel room. It's a pretty barren room – everything you need, nothing you don't. CNN had sufficient coverage of the Super Bowl and National Geographic had a hilarious show on called “Monkey Thieves”, based in Jaipur, India. Those monkeys are hilarious.

Super Bowl Sunday doesn't really feel the same in Mozambique. There is no hype, there are no commercials and it's nearly impossible to watch the game. Due to the time difference, the game didn't come on until 1 AM. Hell, it's no longer Super Sunday – it's Super Monday, and that just doesn't sound right. Whatever – I'll wake up Monday morning, hoping to hear news of a Saints victory.

This wasn't a particularly fair Super Bowl for the Indianapolis Colts. If they were playing a team from any other city, the division amongst fans from outside the city would be a little more evenly split. But given the recent history of New Orleans, people from outside of the Midwest couldn't help but root for this team. I include myself in this group. I was thrilled to see 31-17 score on Monday morning. And as if I wasn't pissed off enough at the Chargers for consistently choking in the playoffs, I became even more pissed at them, knowing that they discarded Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees. Stupid, just stupid.

We had a very busy Monday. Peace Corps was holding this big annual internal planning meeting. There's no need to get into details, but it was fascinating to see a lot of things that us Volunteers really don't see from the outside. Although it sometimes seems like the office is out of touch with Volunteers in the field, we could tell that they were doing their best to make our lives as easy as possible. And it was really interesting to see where Peace Corps in Mozambique is heading in the next couple of years.

The meeting lasted all day, 8:30 to 5:30. As happy as I was to participate in this meeting, I was happier to get out of there. After all, Monday is two-for-one pizza night at Pirata, a restaurant one block away from our hotel. Of course the pizza was good, but this night was made by one particular event. As we sat waiting for our food, a man walked by with a huge black and white painting of the now-iconic image of Obama, looking slightly up and to the future. I had no interest in buying it, but I had to at least see the price tag.

The 700 Meticais the man wanted was laughable, so I figured I'd bargain with him, just to see how low I could go. First I played the “I live here” card: down to 600. Then I pulled the “I'm an American, this is my president” ploy: down to 500. I offered him 250, and he said 300. I told him I'd consider it. I shared the news with my colleagues, telling them that they could get it for 250. Girls definitely have an advantage in this: a man is much more likely to reduce the price for a pretty face than for a bearded mug.

I stayed up late Monday night, getting in as much internet and TV time as possible. Even though I know I have to come back to Maputo in March, knowing that I'm going to go five weeks without life's little luxuries made me want to get the most out of them. This decision – to stay up late – would come back to bite me. I was up at 4 in the morning to catch the Suicide Bus to Mambone.

Why do we call it the Suicide Bus? you ask. Because if you sat on a bus for fifteen hours and still not arrive at home, you'd want to kill yourself too. Plus, it's a piece of shit. This bus looks like it's been through a war. And yet, it still runs. This bus typically leaves at 6 in the morning, but for some reason today, it didn't leave until 7:45. Of course, this was frustrating, but it's not like I had control of the situation. I would laugh hours later when the driver got pissed off that we would arrive at night. All I could think was, “Your the asshole with the keys. You have control of this situation”.

The day was rather uneventful. The roads, save for a small, recently paved stretch north of Xai Xai, still suck. I made the huge mistake of sitting on the wrong side of the bus. That's right, the wrong side of the bus. I had the sun on my side of the bus for most of the trip. The ride sucks as it is; having the sun on your face for the entire trip only added to the pain.

We pulled into Mambone just after 9 at night. I know where Gary's house is, but he was still waiting for me on the side of the road. I should correct that last statement: I know where Gary's house WAS. His school plowed it so they could put up the teacher housing. In the meantime, Gary is living with his school director – awkward to say the least. He cooked me up for dinner and I happily slept on the floor.

The whole point of getting all the way to Mambone last night was to be able to teach on Wednesday. I still felt like shit after the fifteen-hour bus ride. Being dehydrated, even though I'm making an effort to drink more, didn't help. I knew as soon as I walked out of Gary's house that I wouldn't be teaching. My teaching schedule conveniently allowed me to cancel class without screwing everything up.

I spent the afternoon, for the most part, asleep. I was very happy, even in the horror that is my bed. When I wasn't out like a light, I was busy sweating and reading a magazine, a much better alternative to teaching.

After dinner, we decided to try something new. Of course we watched something, but we have a pretty standard viewing schedule. “Glee” would be something new. Something very, very new. I've heard that it does a decent job of mocking the “High School Musical” series, and I'm all for any show that goes after that disaster of a movie series. I must say, it's a pretty good show. The music is pretty good, it's got plenty of plot to it, and the humor is just enough to keep you interested.

There were no excuses for missing work on Thursday. Richie, on the other hand, found one. He canceled class on Wednesday because he was sick. His fever returned again on Thursday. Lucky him. In the meantime, I went about planning my eleventh grade classes. I wanted to pick up where I left off last week, continuing with present simple. I've come to realize that I like this kind of stuff a lot: the absolute basics. Teaching the more complicated concepts is interesting and all – I've learned how much English and other languages are alike in the more complex forms – but we rarely use those forms in conversation. I like the basics.

And there is definitely a connection between teaching what you like and how well the class goes. This class went beautifully. It seemed like the kids really understood what was going on. And I like these kids, which helps. Most of them seem to want to learn, and if they don't, they're doing a hell of an acting job. They also seem more prepared than last year's eleventh graders.

Classes were fine and all, but I was on a far more important mission Thursday afternoon. Sozinho had taken over a fair portion of my room. Some of it I willingly conceded. I figured if I just gave him an assigned space, he would stick to it. I was wrong. As much as he does to keep our house clean, he has limited my privacy and sense of personal space just as much. This had to change.

I have kept a school desk top under my bed as support for my back. I weighed the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that my personal space was more important than my back. The desk, put together with some nails and wire quickly became a closet for Sozinho. It took a total of one hour to get Sozinho completely out of my room. This is nothing short of a huge victory for me.

The night could only get better at this point. We made sandwiches for dinner, watched some “Glee” and I turned into my – yes, my! – room. It was at this point that I regretted my decision to get Sozinho out of my room. As I crawled into bed, I completely understood when Ron Burgundy when he says “I immediately regret this decision”. The board that became Sozinho's closet was the only thing keeping my mattress comfortable. It sagged like the economy, and probably produced more discomfort than the economy too! I wasn't able to fall asleep until 1:00.

As soon as I woke up, I sought a solution. I had one other board that I kept under my mattress, but this one ran long and skinny. I think that I managed my way onto it last night. It would be the last night that the long board stayed as one piece. I broke out a saw, cut the one board into two, and had what seemed to be better back support. Once again, a huge victory.

Classes today were okay, at best. I intended to have a conversation about celebrities in my twelfth grade class. For some insane reason, the curriculum calls for a this topic of discussion. I don't know how they expect people to talk about celebrities when they can barely say, “Hi my name is Joao”. Regardless, I went for it. And it tanked. It was an interesting study though: of the American celebrities mentioned, the first two were Barack Obama and Michael Jackson. After that came a flood of rappers, dead and alive: Tupac, DMX, Eminem, and more. This is what gets exported to Mozambique – rap music. Excellent.

I was on my own for food tonight and we had no food in the house. So I went to the reserves. Thankfully, we had just enough butter and powdered milk for me to make mac and cheese. It's been a good couple months since I've had said delicacy. It was a lovely taste of America.

I slept far batter Friday night than I did on Thursday. I actually beat my alarm to it today. I wanted to be out by 7:30 to get to Vilanculos. Yes, I was on the road again. There was a really big part of me that did not want to travel. I've been away from Machanga so much in the last couple weeks. And it's not that I miss Machanga, but it's tough not being situated. Regardless, I didn't want to miss a second party. GREs pinned me in Maputo during the Central party, and I just couldn't miss the first North Inhambane party.

The long walk to the river started exactly at 7:00. Unlike a lot of my travels from the last couple weeks, the traveling today went pretty smoothly. I didn't have to wait for a canoe at the river, and I only had to wait for one of the three cars I needed to get to Vilanculos. There were only two downsides to this trip. The first was that on the ride out of Mambone, I was pinned against a rice sack full of fish, leaving me smelling like the worst parts of then ocean. The second downside was that for the majority of the day, I was in the back of a truck, leaving me burnt to a crisp. By the end of the day, I smelled like a Red Lobster, and looked like one too.

The day in Vilanculos was largely uneventful. Of course, I got my hamburger at one of our favority hole-in-the-wall places. There was rumor that the new twelfth grade English book was around town. I failed to find it. I'll believe it when I see it. And in an effort to cool down from a 100-degree day, we went swimming in the ocean. However, the ocean was so hot that you could almost use the water for coffee or tea. It helped, but not much.

This would be an interesting party. I think us Moz13ers wanted to see how the new Moz14ers partied. It's impossible to really compare our old friends, the Moz12 group, with this group. It's a whole different dynamic, different personalities, and we just haven't had that much time with the new group. They held their own, for sure. Many games of flip-cup and beer pong were played and, all in all, it was a good time. And as is usual, our party night in Vilanculos ended at AfroBar. This was probably the only disappointing part of the evening, but hey, it can't be perfect all the time.