Year 2 - Week 19: Useless in the Cold

I have had many lazy days here. I've had days where I've barely made it out of bed, days spent entirely on the patio being completely useless to the world. But Sunday might have topped all of those days. The rain from yesterday came to a halt, leaving blue sky scattered with cotton-ball clouds. The ocean was a spectacular shade of green. And the internet at the Vil girls' house was up and running.

I did manage to get some work done. Peace Corps has some online reporting that we fill out twice a year and this was my best shot to get it in. While we do have internet in Machanga (at my house and my house only), our internet is slow. Think AOL at the dawn of the internet era. I can't send attachments, which this Peace Corps work requires. So the beginning part of my morning was spent filling out some forms. But after that, it was pure internet gluttony. The truth is, I don't even know what to do when I'm online anymore. I've forgotten how to fill time. I keep reverting to the same sites -- ESPN, New York Times, Facebook -- but even the places I visit are foreign to me. I still managed to kill the vast majority of the morning on these sites and catching up with friends.

This "internet passear" lasted well passed lunch time until one of the girls proposed watching "Where the Wild Things Are". After reading the reviews for this movie in Time and Newsweek, I was really excited to watch the movie. For a children's book, the managed to add a little edge to it. More amazingly, the writers and directors managed to stretch out a 338-word book into a ninety-minute film. It was pretty good -- not worthy of another watch, but I don't feel like it was a waste of time.

By late afternoon, I was ready to make my way over to the backpackers. I didn't bother asking if I could stay the night on Sunday. I know how often that house gets visited and I feel bad staying over for more than one night. Plus, I'm pretty happy to have a night to myself. I plopped myself in a hammock, and as if on cue, my four American friends from earlier in the weekend popped up. They seemed to have pretty good trips -- two went snorkeling, two camped on one of the islands off Vilanculos. Our conversations picked up where the left off, trading stories and experiences, hardships and laughs.

I woke up Monday morning not quite ready to travel but ready to get home. I was out of clean clothes and living out of backpack is really no fun. Our house was empty on Sunday with Richie in Chimoio, Sozinho in Beira, and me in Vil. And neither would be home Monday night. That means I'd have a night to myself.

Along with the two Volunteers from Malawi, I walked down to the bus stop, hoping that the chapa would be running. Monday was a holiday in Vilanculos and I didn't know if it would affect the chapa schedule. It did, just not as I had expected. I arrived at the stand in 9:30, a full hour early, and the driver was ready to go. Luck was on my side further -- I was able to grab the front seat, which is always more comfortable than the other seats in the chapa.

The trip home was uneventful, its typical five hours. There were no problems on the chapa and I only to wait a little while to get a canoe across the river. What I came home to was beautiful. Things were quiet, as we are on school holiday. Most of the students and teachers have found their way home for the week.

More important, I had four packages waiting to be opened. I got into these like a boy on Christmas, excited to see what would come out of each box. I now have enough cake frosting to last me through my time here and I now have magazines that are actually dated 2010. You can only read the same news from seven months ago so many times. In just a few short hours, I managed to read two magazines cover to cover. Apparently, I have a problem with portion control.

This problem isn't just limited to reading. My dinner was probably enough for two people. I felt particularly lazy about dinner and opted to go with some of the food sent in one of the packages. There was a can of beef chili, which intrigued me. As I ate this meal, I realized two things. First, my chili is more delicious than canned chili. And second, my chili is a lot healthier than canned chili. I was horrified when I looked at the label and saw that I'd be gettting almost all of my daily recommended saturated fats.

Is it any wonder why Americans are obese? We have managed to take a perfectly healthy meal like chili and made it into a heart attack in a can. Well, as long as I'm going to have clogged arteries, I might as well go out in a blaze of glory. I cut up an avocado and threw it and some cheese on top. Now that's eating like an American!

There wasn't much point in watching anything. I feel bad about watching new stuff without Richie. Plus, I had a bounty of magazines to get through. This would provide plenty of entertainment for the next couple of nights.

I slept through the night, which was curious considering how hot it was as I went to bed. Before I could open my eyes, I heard the reason and then felt the reason why I slept so well. A storm blew in over night, cooling everything off. I woke up the sound of pounding rain on my roof and the feeling of a light mist blowing over my body. The rain, which usually heads north, moved south today, blowing directly into my bedroom. I was far from done in bed, so I rolled out of bed, closed the shutters, and crawled back into the discomfort of my bed for a couple hours (yea, my bed is uncomfortable, but it's better than my chairs).

Well, this day was shot. My morning was spent cooped in my house reading. The rain did not stop for the entire morning. So much for going to the market. The upside to all of this was I really needed to go to the pump to get water. Putting buckets outside my door and letting them fill naturally is always a better alternative. At some point in the morning, the winds changed, doubling back the storm. There goes sitting on the patio.

For one of my students from last year, however, it takes a lot more to make him give up. He's studying at a different school well north of here, but he had an English assignment for the holidays. I must say that it's these students that probably make me feel best -- I'm not their teacher anymore but they still come for help. This student was a good one. I spoke almost all English to him. He's the kind of student I didn't want to lose because he will probably pass the National Exam on the first shot.

By mid-afternoon, the rain had stopped and Sozinho came rolling into town. My peace of mind went as he arrived. I was pissed off at him anyway. We gave him more than enough money to get to Beira and back and he still asked for more money. As he walked up, I realized where my money went: pineapples. Don't get me wrong, I love pineapple, but I didn't ask for pineapple. There was no need to bring four of them. One of them would have sufficed. He's picking up the tab next time.

Then he dropped a bombshell on me, just the kind of thing to put a damper on a day. I did the courteous thing and asked how his trip was. As usual, he offered an ambiguous answer. "It was good. It was bad". Okay...go on. "I got the papers Richie and I needed." So that must be the good part. What's the bad part? "And I think all of my family is dead." I'll be honest: I'm not good with death (I mean, who is?) and I'm not good at consoling people in Portuguese. I didn't know what to say, so I pretty much stood there like an asshole.

The rest of the night was just awkward. I didn't feel much like talking and he didn't feel much like talking, which suited me just fine. I'm perfectly fine dining in silence. Again, I was entertainment free tonight, although I did see that Richie received "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell". I've read through the book two or three times already, so I expect it will make for good entertainment when Richie comes home.

I woke up to good news on Wednesday. My parents called shortly after I opened my eyes with news of a Sharks victory, tying the series at two. This was good news because there's no way they would win the series going down 3-1. And that, for the most part, was the peak of my day.

This day was incredibly boring and I was effectively useless to society. There are people who will say that we deserve the break. I don't know if that's true. This break is just sort of thrown on us. We can't really help it if everybody in the school, students and teachers alike, leaves for Beira for two weeks. So the day was spent on the patio -- thank goodness for clear weather. I spent most of the morning reading an Esquire magazine. I had never read Esquire before, but after reading one magazine, I can confidently say that I will be subscribing to this magazine when I get home.

Having read the Esquire cover to cover in the morning, I turned my attention to an Economist in the afternoon. When I became bored, I walked to the market to do some shopping. That's right, I walked to the market just so I could kill time. Earlier in the day, Sozinho actually made himself useful and brought shrimp home, so I knew what I had to get at the market for a decent dinner. The market run killed a good hour of my afternoon and within an hour of coming home, the energy was on. Sweet.

I had only one task to accomplish in the evening. Richie failed to print grades over the couple days I was gone, leaving me with this minor responsibility. This job shouldn't have taken more than a couple minutes, but all of the technology gods conspired against me to make this a half hour task. I guess it could have been worse -- it took away half an hour of sitting on my ass, doing nothing but playing Spider Solitaire.

For most of this week, it's been very easy to sleep. It hasn't been cold like it was for the first half of last week, but I'm not sweating anymore. I won't declare it winter yet, but there has been a definite turn in the weather. Wednesday night was no different. I slept through the entire night, no problem. Not a single wake up.

Thursday looked almost exactly the same as Wednesday, but even quieter. Some teachers were doing some work sorting out grades -- the kind of menial work that could be eliminated if the entire school got on board with using Excel. I mean, I'd love to spend my day pounding numbers into a calculator, but dragging the mouse down the page just seems to make a lot more sense.

Richie was on the road home Thursday. For most of the day, I was getting a play by play of his travel. For a while, it looked like he wasn't going to make it all the way home. It wouldn't be the first time that one of us falls short in getting home.

Late in the afternoon, I started getting antsy. Richie still wasn't home and he wasn't sending messages, and I can only sit so still for so long. I made my way to the market, thinking that Richie would be home by the time I got back. But when I walked in the house, his door was still locked. He must have gotten a really bad ride.

When he got home, he told me all about his bad rides, plural. One car badly overcharged him and didn't even make it half way home. Eventually he got into the Machanga chapa. Twelve kilometers from home, they blew a tire, swerved off the road and nearly hit a tree. Clearly, this would be a night that would end with cake. We had delicious beans for dinner -- you know they were good because Sozinho didn't continue cooking them for thirty minutes. Between beans and cake, we watched "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell". We were both left a little disappointed. We had high expectations. It wasn't nearly as raunchy as I expected and they combined way too many stories into an hour and forty five minutes. They could have done a lot more with this movie.

My Friday started with good news. The Sharks blew out the Avalanche 5-0 in Game 5 of their series. This is good news, considering the Sharks don't know how to win a Game 6. Hopefully they'll figure it out in Colorado this weekend.

The sun struggled to make its way out on Friday. Greyness enveloped the sky. Of course, we (or rather Sozinho) chose this day to wash our clothing. No less than an hour after he finished did the deluge begin. Wonderful. The chances of our clothes drying just about went out the window.

The rain stuck with us all morning, pinning us inside. We kept ourselves entertained with magazines while a strong wind pushed the rain out of town. It never got particularly sunny, but the wind stuck around. By the end of the windy afternoon, most of our clothing was dry. The sheets and jeans were still soaked, but some is better than none.

Our night was okay, no more exciting than usual. Richie wanted to watch something funny, so we watched "Pineapple Express". Every time I see a film with Seth Rogen, I think of my buddy Joe. This was especially appropriate as today is his birthday. We were done with the movie with more than an hour and half of energy ahead of us, so we returned to "Criminal Minds" for a little while.

I thought it would be a good idea to put up the line on our patio so our things could dry overnight. I wanted to use the strong wind to dry out my sheets. Sozinho thought it was going to rain, but I ignored his advice. After all, the stars were all out.

My gut proved me right. We didn't get a drop of rain all night and my sheets were perfectly dry. I'm never listening to Sozinho again. The wind remained strong all day, making us feel really cold. Yea, it was probably 60 or 65 degrees outside, but when you're coming down from 95 two weeks ago, it's a huge difference.

It was cold enough that by the time lunchtime rolled around, I was wearing a sweatshirt and Richie was in a hockey jersey. Oh winter, how we have waited for you. We weren't the only ones cold. The eight people who are still around were all balled up in pants, sweatshirts, jackets and beanies. Even though we went through this last year, I'm still shocked at how cold it can be here. I guess you just don't normally associate being cold with being in sub-Saharan Africa.

We were once again completely useless here. Nobody has returned and it looks like school won't begin next week like it should. So we sat around, thumbing through magazines, staying in bed for extending stretches, not being productive, drinking hot chocolate. It was a nice way to spend a cold day.

The wind finally settled down in the evening. We had another delicious night of Mexican food, especially since we had cheese this time around. We also had chicken, so we didn't even bother with the beans. It was delicious. We wrapped up this week by finishing up the first season of "Criminal Minds". The first season ended with the first part of a two-part episode and we don't have Season 2. We'll just have to wait till we get home to see who survives.

In the meantime, I'll just have another night of glorious, shivering in my sheets.