Year 2 - Week 16: The Source of My Headaches? Quite Possibly...

If it is possible to be noisy and quiet at the same time, this past Sunday was just that. The church was very busy today. Even Sozinho went to church. He came back with a palm leaf, so I came to reason that it was Palm Sunday. While there was plenty of noise in the church, the house that the godless hedons live in -- our house -- was nice and quiet.

With this new week, it seems that my headaches have mostly gone away. There is still some residual pain, so I considered it best to continue taking aspirin. One of the reasons I don't particularly enjoy taking pills is that most problems will go away naturally, but this headache was persistent and quite painful. The other reason I don't like taking pills is that I believe that you lose some tolerance as you take them more often. Clearly, I'm no doctor, but there have been enough people who become way addicted to pain killers that it pretty much scares me to take pain meds.

I spent most of the morning reading "Dexter in the Dark", one of the books about our favorite television character. I must say that the thing we like most about "Dexter" is the killing part. And over 302 pages, there was way too much plot and not nearly enough death. I was about half way through the book when...

After an otherwise pain-free morning, a whole new different kind of pain came over me. One of Richie's students from last year came over to get some help with English class. This is always an interesting event. Depending on the student, it could be really quick and helpful or really painful for just about everyone. And this was going to be painful. It was just a matter of how painful it would be.

This particular student is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed and he came with the task of writing a composition. Sentences are difficult enough, even for my students. A full composition -- a near impossible mission. But this was bad. He had to write a composition about two Mozambican he admires, which required the verb "to be". So we said, "Okay, let's conjugate the verb 'to be'". And I couldn't not make this up if I wanted to. Richie and I started him off. "I am. You..." and he believed that the second conjugation was "eat". I am. You eat. Of course.

This was a whole new type of pain. It was the kind of event that every Mozambican English teacher should see. This student was in 10th grade, which means that he had English for 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and part of 10th grade. That's four full years of English. We then said that the verb "to be" was from Day 1 of English. We meant it figuratively. He thought we meant it literally. So he turned to page one of his notebook and there it was: the conjugation of the verb "to be". We couldn't help but laugh. And cry.

We really couldn't deal with this. We had to get out of there, so Richie claimed that he needed to "go somewhere" and I eagerly followed along...for about 30 feet, until the student left our house. And then I returned right back into the peace and quiet of death at the hands of Dexter.

I have come to realize that the real source of my headaches was probably not dehydration or an inability to conjugate the most basic verb in the English language. It is probably just your run-of-the-mill malnutrition. It's become evident that we are not eating nearly as well we were last year. We haven't seen packages since December, which means we haven't had chicken or turkey in a long time. The only real protein we get is from our daily three eggs split between the two of us and the occasional bean night. And there's not a whole lot of fruit here and almost no vegetables. It's not healthy.

Thankfully for us, tonight was a night for beans, and if it was possible to top the beans that I cooked a couple nights ago, I did so tonight. They were even more Mozambican than the last ones. Topped off with some "How I Met Your Mother", we turned a painful afternoon into an okay night.

If there is any upside to not getting a lot of calories, it's that I've been sleeping extraordinarily well. I've been so exhausted on the whole that I've been sleeping until almost 8 every morning.

Richie had class Monday morning and we had almost food in the house, which meant that I had to go to the market. This was bad news for two reasons: one, I had almost no money so I had to spend conservatively; and two, it was fuckin hot outside. There was not a cloud in the sky and I was going to be hot and dehydrated very quickly.

I was very happy to have no obligations on Monday afternoon. Tragically, walking the two miles to and from the market pretty much did me in. I spent almost the entire afternoon laid out on the floor -- on a mat, of course. There is no exaggeration when I say that. The only times I got up were to get my "Dexter" book (which turned out okay, at best), to get a newspaper, and to get my kakuro book when I was done reading.

Just as I was getting comfortable -- which takes a while on a concrete floor -- two students came up looking for English help. As usual, I obliged, and thank goodness this kid at least knew how to conjugate the verb "to be", in both present tense and past tense. This kid had clearly paid attention at some point in the first ten years of his education. He seems to actually want to learn. So often, kids come over here once and say they want to learn English, but the entire time they are here, they speak Portuguese (and occasionally Ndau). This kid actually tries to speak English with us, so I consider him a winner.

There were no beans tonight, so it was another night of lovely carbohydrates for me. I never really thought I'd get sick of spaghetti, but I'm getting ever closer to that point. I ate my spaghetti, Richie ate tuna, and we finished season three of "How I Met Your Mother". We are moving through these DVDs way too quickly.

I was asked once again to type up a couple of exams by my mathematics counterpart. He came over with a couple of problems, one of which I just could not solve. It was some third degree polynomial equation. The only way I ever learned to do these was by grouping common terms, if it's possible. But then, my colleague blew my mind with some knowledge and I went about solving the problem. He later came over with another that he couldn't solve but I could. When he realized is misstep, he just laughed at himself. I'm always happy to help, regardless of the discipline

I felt miserable for the better part of the day. It wasn't just the headaches. In fact, for the most part, the headaches were gone and I was off Advil. My stomach was not feeling pleasant. Along with realizing that my headaches were probably from not eating, I have recognized that I am struggling to eat potatoes and eggs. I just really can't do it anymore. Maybe it is all the oil. Maybe it's the fact that we have eaten potatoes and eggs for no fewer than 300 days out of the last year. But I just can't do it.

The class I had to teach today was incredibly simple. It should have required about four seconds of explanation and then I should have received glowing examples. I taught past continuous today, as in "I was playing football". This should be simple because they already know how to do present continuous. All it requires to change present tense to past tense is changing the verb "to be" from present tense to past tense. We know this could be problematic, so I went over it with them, for the thousandth time, before getting into the actual grammar.

My hopes for dietary bliss were exponentially elevated when a truck from Beira arrived. We had heard that a car would be coming this week, and while in Beira, Richie had insisted that they go to the post office to get my packages. Putting all the math together, this would mean that I have packages. But apparently, the rules of mathematics don't apply in Mozambique. There were packages in Mozambique, but the morons in the office failed to go to the post office to pick them up. I ask so little of those people in Beira. We just want them to pick up and bring us our packages, and every now and then, we ask to stay in the guest house. How they manage to epically fail at such a simple task is shocking.

We were really banking on packages to arrive because those packages usually contain canned chicken and turkey. For a while, we were feeling cocky and thought that we could probably do without these provisions. We were wrong. We are dying without them. Aside from the variety, we need the protein. It goes without say that while we are in Vilanculos this weekend, I will be gorging myself on at least a half chicken, possibly an entire chicken. I am just hoping that I can make like a brown bear and store this food over the winter. So it was another carbalicious night of spaghetti and "How I Met Your Mother" for me.

Wednesday, as has become normal was slow. I didn't have classes until the insane hour of 4 in the afternoon. What am supposed to do until 4 o'clock" Well, I had to actually figure out what I'd be teaching. There was one more piece of past tense that I had to cover: the perfect tenses. These are tenses that are used regularly in English but are not so common in spoken Portuguese. These are compound tenses that require the verb "have" along with a participle, as in "I have learned English since 7th grade" or "He had gone to Vilanculos before going to Beira". In theory, this should be easy to teach because it is structurally the same as Portuguese. But there's always something that gets in the way.

The rules for forming participles are not exactly clean cut. The first is easy: any regular verb in past tense uses the same word for its participle. For example, the verb "cook" in past tense is "cooked" and its participle would be I have "cooked". But things get messy with irregular verbs. For example, the participle for "teach" is "taught" and the participle is also "taught". But another irregular verb like "fly" has the participle "flown". If you are confused, you can imagine how my students feel. I tried to simplify things by just giving them a list of different participles that they need to know for my class.

Along with this glorious lesson on two forms of past tense, I squeezed in a lesson on passive voice. With limited time remaining in this trimester, I'm trying to squeeze in as much as possible. I found out that my remaining week would be severely shortened by two holidays -- Good Friday and Woman's Day. That's fine. Things are just going to have to move a little faster than I would have liked. I wanted to do the lesson on passive voice because it uses the same list of participles, like "The class is taught by Mr. Lee". They seemed to understand this more than the first part of the lesson.

We were told that there would be beef in the market by late afternoon, so we sent Sozinho with a mission: find the meat or bring back something with protein. The meat was sold out, but Sozinho had the good sense to bring back some fish for Richie and a can of cooked beans for me. I can't actually say he had the good sense. I told him to do exactly that. At least he carried out this simple task well. I ate my rice and beans, Richie ate his fish, and we closed the night with more "How I Met Your Mother".

I slept until the insane hour of 8:45. I don't know how I managed to do such a thing. I think it may have to do with the fact that I had about six calories yesterday. At least it served its purpose of getting through the better part of the morning.

There wasn't much lesson planning to do today because my lesson was already planned. I went into class and banged out my lesson. Strangely, this group understood the perfect tenses but did not at all get the passive voice stuff.

After class, I got roped into helping out with some math class for my colleague. He was teaching a class on probability and wanted to demonstrate using cards. And he wanted to use me, which was fine. He wanted me to do some magic tricks and I obliged. I'm sure the kids thought that what I was doing was some April Fools Day prank, pulling up their card every single time. The cards were actually a pretty good tool. I think it's the first time I've seen a teacher here use a resource that goes beyond teaching material, so credit to him.

Oh yes, this April Fools Day thing. I was not going to let this opportunity go by unused. Before the math class began, I told the students that when he walked in that they should all stand up and turn away from him. In a country where the teacher is greeted with "Good Afternoon, teacher. How are you", this would be a big deal. My students acted excellently. We walked into the classroom, and a huge group of them stood up, turned around, and faced the other wall. The reaction I got was one of anger: "I think that I am already here. This is a lack of respect". Yes, and it's hilarious.

I wasn't able to eat until after all these classes, around 3:00. And to be honest, I wasn't even that hungry. I tried to eat, got four bites into my potatoes and eggs, and gave up. I just couldn't do it anymore. I thought eating was one of the things I did best, but now I'm second-guessing myself. Instead I went to something that I know I'm good at: lying down. And that's how I spent the better part of my late afternoon.

For a good portion of last year and even into this year, Richie went into this phase where he couldn't eat dinner. He'd get through lunch no problem, but I'd end up eating at least 60% of his dinner. I think the same is starting to happen to me, but with the opposite meals. I can't eat lunch anymore, but dinner was no problem. I ate way more than my fair share of rice and beans, to the point where I almost felt sick - the good kind of sick. We decided that watching people die would be nice, so we watched "Smokin' Aces 2". It's the kind of movie that you don't really have to pay attention because everyone is going to die in the end.

Richie and I were on the move early Friday morning with one thought on our minds: pizza. We knew that a mere five and a half hours from the time we set foot out the door, we would be enjoying delicious New York Pizza. Getting to Mambone was no problem, but then the travel gods decided to fuck with us. We sat in Mambone for nearly an hour before the car left. I don't think that it's the waiting that makes us angry. I think it's the fact that we have absolutely no control of our travel fate.

After finally leaving Mambone, we got to the EN1. Richie and I both really needed to go to the bathroom, but a car was barreling down, and I figured I should at least see where it's going. Maputo, you say? Let's go, Richie, we can hold it. This guy bombed it down the EN1 and we didn't have to pay for the ride, which made it even better.

We made it to Vil in about five hours -- not record time, but faster than usual. We actually arrived just before things shut down for lunch break, so we tried to squeeze in some shopping before eating, but the cheaper supermarket was closed. Frustrating, a little, but nothing could ruin this day. There was pizza, just right there. There was no question about what happened to be done: a large for me and a large for Richie. I'm pretty sure that this meal will be more calories than we'd had during the rest of the week. I powered through my piri-piri chicken pizza with ease and watched Richie struggle toward the end. He fell a little short and I got his last piece. I then proceeded to make fun of him about it for the rest of the day.

We checked into our regular backpackers place and found our way to the hammocks. This is exactly what I needed -- a full belly, sunshine, ocean, and a hammock. I sat in the hammock for a good couple of hours, trying to figure out why I had to torture myself with that last slice of pizza. We swam off some of the calories in a rapidly cooling ocean. For most of the year, the ocean has been a bathtub, but this was beautiful today. And because we didn't have enough to eat for lunch, we each had a chicken sandwich for dinner. We clearly got in touch with the fat kids within each of us.

Richie wanted to headed out Saturday morning, but I wasn't quite ready to go back. I was in no rush to go home. I didn't have work until Tuesday, but Richie wanted me to help him proctor and exam on Monday, so I figured Sunday would be a good day to go back. Plus, staying in Vil for another day would allow me to get a little fatter before going home. Before he headed to the chapa, we knocked out some shopping and I got my final exam photocopied. The lady initially told me that there were not photocopies today, but when I told here that I had 200 copies to make, she changed her tune. Apparently, 200 was the magic number. The funny part is some kid walked in wanting to make one copy, and she said the machine wasn't working. She managed to do this with a straight face, even though my copies were being made right then and there.

With my copies made and my shopping done, I headed over to the Vil girls' house. They graciously opened there house to me despite their absence. When I walked into the compound, I noticed a familiar white face. One of the Volunteers from close by was in town, just to unwind. Sweet. Company. I had bought a kilo of chicken breasts from one of the stores. I had planned on decimating said chicken over the course of the day, but now I had a partner in crime. And another Volunteer would be coming in a bit later, so we decided to put of lunch for a while.

Lunch was fried chicken and pasta. One of the Volunteers in town was a southerner, so I pretty much knew I couldn't compete. This wasn't going to be home-style country-fried chicken, but he was satisfied with the end result and that was good enough for me. We were all quite satisfied actually.

We mostly hung around for the day, talking about the pleasures of teaching in Mozambique. We also talked about "community integration", two of Peace Corps' favorite words. By coincidence, the three of us all had something in common: all of us work at mission schools, not standard state schools. I think there may be something about this that gets in the way of full-blown community integration. The mission, more than anything, is our community. Most people on the campus know who we are, and there are fair amount of people outside who know us also, but for the most part, our school is our community.

At some point in the afternoon, I got a call from my parents. I don't know, but it felt like it had been a while since I talked to them. It was nice to hear from them, even though there wasn't a whole lot of news to share. It's a little strange how our conversations have changed over the course of the 18 months. At first, there was so much to talk about because everything was so new. Then, most of our conversation geared toward their upcoming trip. And now, a mere seven months from going home, there has been increasing discussion about me coming home. It's kind of amazing.

Despite the big lunch, that didn't deter us from wanting to eat a huge dinner. We headed down to the market to buy some goods: grouper, which would be beer-battered and fried, some vegetables, and most importantly avocado. Oh yes, it's avocado season again, which means it's time to go crazy with guacamole. I think this is one of those things that we really don't appreciate in America. Due to the glorious weather in California and other parts of the country, we can get just about any fruit or vegetable whenever we want. That is not true here. Things have a season, and 'tis the season for avocado. It should be a beautiful couple weeks.

Dinner was delicious and the rest of the evening looked a lot like the afternoon: just catching up. By the time we looked at a clock, it was already two in the morning. Wow. Where did the time go?

I'm happy report that the headaches I'd been having are gone, for now. I still can't say if it was from a lack of ability to conjugate or a lack of food. Either way, I'm glad they're gone.