It took nearly half a week, but by Sunday morning, Richie and I were fully recovered from our trip to South Africa. It is truly amazing how doing nothing but sitting in a bus can completely beat a person down. Of course, we were sleep-deprived and slightly malnourished, but who's counting. Even those few days in Machanga, when we did so little, were exhausting.
We were both grateful to have Sunday to relax and to be able to really appreciate the relaxation. Things were quiet Sunday morning. Church tends to keep people at the school pretty occupied. For us, our holy books are called Time, Newsweek, ESPN, and The Economist. We tear through these magazines. Richie is selective with his articles; I tend to read cover to cover, even though I really don't care about genetics or why the crime rate has fallen. Between sleeping in and reading magazines, we got through the morning rather quickly.
Once again, just as we were preparing lunch, Alexis came by our house. She has the incredible ability to get to our house right as we are putting food on the stove. It's like can smell the smoke from our stove and knows that food is on the way. Today, though, she turned down food. If I were her, I would have played by Richie's rule: if someone offers you something, take it. Especially considering that she is fed crap everyday by her host institution, our food might as well be gourmet. She says she doesn't want to take food away from us, but she knows we don't care. We may be poor, but we like to help a fellow muzungu.
Lunch, though delicious, wasn't particularly filling. Our tomatoes are quickly becoming ripe, and we have many more tomatoes than mouths to feed. If I were my sister, this would be a lot easier. I like tomatoes, but my sister is the only person I know who can sit down and eat tomatoes like they're candy. I need my tomatoes put into something, and our recipe book had something quick and easy: tomato soup. The whole thing, from prep to eating, took only an hour and for a first crack, the soup was pretty good. Plus it used up fifteen tomatoes, so that's a huge victory.
My parents called me shortly after I ate dinner. It felt like it had been a while since I had talked with them, but it was actually one of the shorter gaps I've endured. I think all of the travel made the days feel like weeks, making it feel like it had been months since we'd spoken. Toward the end of the conversation, we talked about how America was robbed of a win against Slovenia, which led to me ranting about the need for instant replay in sports.
My view on this was only justified as I watched the game between Brazil and Ivory Coast. Watching Brazil play is kind of like watching a lizard in pursuit of a insect: the lizard is going to be sneaky, patient, and strike whenever it feels like, ending in sure victory. Brazil was in complete control of the first half but never really threatened...until the decided playtime was over and it was time to put the ball in the net. Just like that, Brazil had the lead. As if Brazil isn't good enough, apparently it's okay for their players to use their hands, because their second goal was the result of not one but two hand-balls. I'm not quite sure what the referees are watching out there, but they are sure missing a whole lot.
The biggest upside to this World Cup for us is that the late game occurs right when we would normally be entertaining ourselves with our precious limited media. These games run until about ten at night, the new normal bedtime for me.
The late bedtime combined with the cold weather means that I've been sleeping very well. In the hot season – a season we're never going to have to endure again – waking up at five occurs out of necessity. The sheets are too soaked in sweat to tolerate. These days, sleeping until seven in the morning is easy. I awoke Monday morning to an empty house. Richie had class, poor kid. He went to collect work he assigned while he was gone. He returned in a rage. All of the kids had copied their work directly from a book. I would be handing out zeroes like Hershey bars on Halloween. Richie is far kinder than I am: I think he's just going to let them off the hook with a look of incredulity, a laugh, an a talk about academic integrity and plagiarism, terms these students have probably never heard before.
While Richie was in the classroom, I managed to keep myself pretty busy. When I realized we had no bread in the house, I made a run for bread. I planned out my lessons for the next couple weeks. It's truly amazing how complex the question “how” is. I knew it was difficult – it's why I haven't taught it up to this point – but this went far beyond what I ad anticipated. Just teaching this one question is going to talk a couple of weeks. I also made a run to the market in search of food. By the time I finished all those things, it was lunch time.
The afternoon was all about food. While I had the charcoal going, I wanted to cook our beans for dinner. I decided to cook these beans as Mozambican as possible. Instead of sauteing the vegetables, I just threw them into the pot. All said, cooked those suckers for nearly four hours. While they cooked, I read some magazines. People came and went. And before Richie came back from his afternoon classes, I had everything cooked and cleaned up. He says that he was out busy bringing home the bacon. That may be so, but I was the one cooking up all that bacon.
Speaking of bacon, my parents brilliant sent me a Costco-sized packet of crumbled bacon in one of their packages. Bacon has been going on or in nearly everything we've cooked up recently. I figured it couldn't be terrible in the beans. It was the one deviation I made from cooking truly Mozambican beans, and I think everyone who consumed the beans would agree it was a good addition.
The featured game of the night was between Spain and Honduras. Spain had underperformed up to this point in the tournament. David Villa hung a couple of gorgeous goals on the Honduran goalkeeper. I was exhausted two-thirds of the way through the game. To that point, Honduras still hadn't registered a shot on goal. I figured the same would hold true for the last thirty minutes of the game. I went to bed figuring Spain would be victorious.
I slept in late again on Tuesday. For the first time in weeks, I would have to actually work today. Taking a two week vacation right in the middle of the trimester sure does make the trimester fly by quickly. The morning, other than a quick run to the market on the bike, was slow. I checked email, read a magazine, and prepped for lunch.
Our charcoal was slow to light today. Finally, around noon, the fire really got going. I only had ten minutes to eat, but I still managed to cram all the food down and brush my teeth in time for class to start.
The grand adventure into the question “how” began today. I counted at least five different ways we use the question “how”, and today's lesson would be on asking for and giving instructions. The example I put on the board was “How do you cook rice?” Of course, I know how to cook rice, but I wanted my students to think about the process. In each class, the students led perfectly into my main talking point: words of sequence, such as first, next, then, and finally. At the end of class, I had the students answer the question “How do you enter credit into a cell phone?” By the end of forty-five minutes, it seemed like they actually understood. This vacation may have been as good for their heads as it was for mine.
Following a quick catnap after class, a teacher came over asking for some computer help. He just wanted to format a document. For some reason he wanted me to put lines at the end of each sentence. It took me until the very end to realize that he wanted to fill in the space on the page. I could have deleted all those lines and hit that beautiful “justified” button in the toolbar, but I was lazy and left it as it was.
Dinner was a grand production. There were so many components to dinner that I had to start early. I was going to make chicken “parmesan”. The parmesan goes in quotes because the cheese we had was gouda. Whatever. We made some garlic bread and some pasta and had ourselves a full Italian dinner. Not bad considering we live in the middle of fuckin' nowhere.
I wasn't particularly interested in the soccer games tonight. The only game of interest occurred in the afternoon. South Africa knocked off France. France should be embarrassed by its pathetic performance in this tournament – a tie to Uruguay and losses to South Africa and Mexico. Mexico, South Africa, and Uruguay all tied in points with four, but South Africa was left out based on goal differential. It would have been nice if the host nation could have advanced, but at least there was some consolation in going out on a win.
It has not been a good tournament for the African teams. Ivory Coast, statistically alive, looks to be finished after their loss to Brazil. Cameroon and South Africa have been eliminated. Nigeria, slaughtered by South Korea, was disposed of tonight. Algeria needs a win against the US and for England to lose against Slovenia, and unlikely combination. The last great hope for Africa is Ghana. They have a win and a tie so far. They should advance out of the group if they play a decent final game.
Wednesday, as usual, passed by slowly. Every Wednesday is a waiting game: I wait to see if another teacher will cancel class, allowing me to teach earlier than usual. For better or worse, this almost always happens. The morning, though, is still challenging.
Unlike other Wednesdays, this day was challenging in another way. In one of the packages from last week, I received a book of logic puzzles. These are way more complicated than Kakuro or Sudoku. These games give you limited pieces of information, and with that information, you must determine all of the other pieces of information. For example, you may have to identify the first name, last name, age, school, and major for five different people, only knowing for certain a couple pieces of information. These puzzles are so complicated that it took me a full three hours to solve one puzzle. My head hurt all morning, but I managed to finished by lunch.
Shortly after lunch, one of the students in my class told me that they didn't have class. Sweet. My class today was part two of “questions with how”. Today's topic was questions dealing with quantity. In English, we use “how many” and “how much” and this is a constant source of confusion for my students. I didn't even know the difference – I had to look it up. It's one of those things that we just take for granted as native speakers. The explanation was quick and easy – “how many” for countable items, “how much” for non-countable items – and as such, so was my class.
I was especially grateful for the early class today because the United States had a little football game against Algeria, with qualification for the knock-out round on the line. The U.S. had no shortage of chances. The could have – hell, should have – scored four or five times. But through ninety minutes, there were just a couple of zeroes. Finally, two minutes into injury time, Landon Donovan scored for the States, pushing them through to the next round as winners of Group C. England, with a win over Slovenia, also advanced.
Which country each will play depended on the games later in the night, just after dinner for us.. Any of the four teams in group D – Australia, Serbia, Ghana, or Germany – could potentially advance. I, of course, was pulling for Ghana against Germany. They played well and had some good chances, but Germany was clearly the better team, earning a one-nothing win. Thanks to Australia's win against Serbia, Ghana moves on. In a rematch from 2006, Ghana will play the United States. I am torn on this game, but I will probably root for Ghana. Whoever manages to win that game, I will root for them for the remainder of the tournament.
Besides keeping our entertainment unwatched, the biggest side effect from these World Cup games has been a later bed time. For the last week or so, I've been going to bed around 11 o'clock, meaning I can sleep in until a reasonable hour. I almost made it to nine on Thursday morning, but I was still slow to roll out of bed. I spent the rest of the morning catching up on news from the internet. Oh, how I can't wait to have cheap internet whenever I want. Five months from now, that will be a reality.
I was scheduled to teach first period Thursday afternoon, but when I went to class, I had exactly five out of sixty students. Where have all the students gone? They started walking home for Mozambican Independence Day, which is tomorrow. How nice that they've managed to stretch this one-day holiday to two (and probably three or four with the weekend). I wasn't going to teach to five students, not when this material would be on their exam next week. I pushed it off to next week.
The rest of the afternoon, with so few people around, was very quiet. I sat on the patio cooking beans and playing – I should actually say “failing at” – logic games. Richie eventually started going stir-crazy and went for a walk to the market. Having already gone earlier in the afternoon, I had no interest in going.
In the meantime, I went over to our neighbors house to watch some World Cup action. Denmark was playing Japan. And even though Denmark controlled the play, Japan still managed to earn a two-goal lead, eventually winning 3-1. Their first two goals came off of beautiful, precisely kicked set pieces from outside the penalty area, the third a bit of individual flair.
With my very amateur eye, it seems to me that a lot of World Cup teams this year have taken on the personalities of their nations. Japan tonight was precise, sturdy, with a little but of wow thrown in. Last night, Germany was absolutely mechanical and strong. The United States, in the face of adversity, found a way to finish on top. The British seemed content to follow America. And the Brazilians might as well be dancing out on the field. On the flip side, the French were pathetic, generally in retreat, protesting against their leadership. The Italians couldn't seem to keep a good thing going. And the Greeks were just a complete mess.
Since Friday was a holiday, Richie decided to head out to the the villa and I joined him after the game. I wasn't in much of a mood to drink, but I still went out to be social. I only stayed out for a couple hours. I had to be rested for Friday.
As I usually do on holidays, I stayed at home while just about everyone else headed out to the plaza for the wreath-laying. Afterward, a colleague asked me why I didn't go today, and I told him it's always the same thing. Seeing a show once is nice, two is okay if the show is good. But this performance is fuckin boring and I don't want to walk out to the plaza, burn under the sun, only to see nothing new. My colleague laughed and agreed. Richie, always the good sport, went out. He as usual represented the muzungu house.
The days was pretty quiet. We knew this was the calm before the storm. Everyone was preparing food, resting up, getting ready for a long night ahead. In the meantime, I went on a hunt. We lent a colleague a fair amount of money a couple months ago and he had not even made an effort to return the money. For some reason, today was the day I wanted to collect. It might have to do with the fact that I was running low on cash for this month and we wanted to go out later.
Things started out passively. I sent Sozinho over to his house early in the morning to ask for the money. I knew that he had been paid yesterday, so there was no reason he shouldn't be able to come up with the money. Sozinho returned with the news that our colleague would come by in the afternoon.
But by the middle of the afternoon, he had failed to show up. This is the third month in a row that I sent Sozinho over there to collect and it's the third month in a row he has failed miserably. I was done with this. I decided to go over to his house myself. I came with the assumption that he was paid and I told him I knew he had the money. He responded by telling me that he hadn't collected his money yesterday and we should talk the the school accountant tonight. Okay. Seemed plausible.
So I went to the school accountant to describe the situation. “No, no, no. He picked up his money yesterday”. Not having collected the money, I could understand. Lying to my face, I can't understand and I will not tolerate. It was time to make him suffer. When our colleague came to the school to flip on the energy for the dormitories, Richie and I were waiting for him. “Let's take a walk to the accountant's house”, I told him. He knew that I had caught him in a lie. This undoubtedly was a walk of shame.
When we got to the house, our colleague told us to wait outside. He was clearly busted and now he was scrambling. When he came out of the house, he told us to wait just a little longer. With no shortage of anger in my voice, I asked him “How many more months?”. “No, no, I'll be back to tonight.” I told him he had until 8:00.
Now, it was just a matter of from whom he was going to borrow the 500 Meticais. Shockingly, just after 7 o'clock, he showed up with 500 Meticais for us. I thanked him for the money and dismissed him from our house. Our neighbor later told us that he felt ashamed for not getting us the money in less than half a year.
In the meantime, Richie and I were thrilled – almost amazed, actually – that we managed to get our money back. This, along with the holiday, called for a celebration. Over the next couple of hours, Richie and I proceeded to demolish a bottle of scotch. We know: we have very healthy drinking habits.
By the time I returned home just after midnight, I was at that perfect stage of drunkenness – ready to sleep but not spinning. Something else managed to keep me awake. Richie has had a sore throat for the last couple of days, and since we already share most things, he decided that he would share this with me as well. Asshole. I was in enough pain that it kept me up all night. A medical book we have told us that I should gargle warm water with salt, so I started that up. Our medical people told me to do the same thing.
Richie lit up the carvao early in the morning to heat up some water from tea. He then made an executive decision that we would have beans for lunch. I'm never one to say no to beans, so I went along with it. I made a run to the market to pick up some necessary items. That was the beginning of the end for me.
I was chugging along just fine for the morning, but by the time we hit lunch, I was exhausted. I could barely get through lunch. I knew a nap of epic proportion would fill my afternoon. The truth is, I can't even call is a nap; this was sleep from last night. I was gone from 1 until almost 5. I woke up groggy and with a sore throat again, but at least felt alive.
After a night of Mexican food, it was on to our entertainment: Ghana against the USA. As I looked at the groups before the tournament, I thought it would come to this. So I went with Ghana as my team for the tournament, even though it meant I would have to root against home. I predicted a 2-1 extra time victory for the Ghanaian squad.
Ghana played fast and loose in the first half and it seemed like the U.S. was feeling the pressure of the situation. Five minutes in, Ghana had a 1-0 lead. The United States' transition defense was absolutely horrible. Ghana clearly played a better first half, but in the second half, it looked like they had the weight of a continent on their shoulders. They were just begging to hold on to that lead, but Landon Donovan changed things with a penalty kick goal.
Ninety minutes in, my prediction was still possible. Tied at one, I needed Ghana to come through. I didn't have to wait long. Three minutes in, Gyan struck a beautiful goal. 2-1 Ghana. Another 27 minutes of extra time later, the game mercifully came to an end. I could breathe again. For the second consecutive World Cup, Ghana put an end to the Americans' dreams.
For now, Ghana stays alive, and they are carrying all of Africa with them.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Year 2 - Week 27: The First of the Lasts and the Muzungu Invasion
All of the excitement from the England-United States game effectively came to an end immediately after the game. While the US fans were thrilled with the tie and the English were all pissed off with the fact that they couldn't pull out a victory, it seemed like everyone was a little disappointed that there was no winner. There was no loser. Just 90 minutes that resolved nothing really. Aside from a small fight involving a couple drunkards outside the stadium, everything remained fairly calm, probably the result of the tie.
Despite the late night -- we didn't get back to the campsite until around midnight -- we were up and moving early Sunday morning. We walked over to the main site where a television was situated. All of the talk was about the botched save of the English goalkeeper. Every time they replayed the goal, we could actually hear the English fans cringe. And every time the English fans buried their heads into their hands, us American fans just laughed a little bit.
Our glory would be short-lived. Not because the taste of victory (or not losing) would be fleeting -- no, that would remain a good while. The only thing short-lived was our time in South Africa. We had bus tickets out of Pretoria in the evening and we had no reason to stick around the campsite. We stuck around for breakfast and headed down to the minibus station.
One of the things that Richie and I have really come to like about traveling internationally is that almost nobody speaks Portuguese. If we want to discuss something secretly, we can just do it in Portuguese and nobody would know what we're talking about. It's very convenient when trying to decide how much to pay a taxi driver or how to abandon some guy annoying us. You would think that in Rustenburg, we wouldn't run into this problem.
We knew our secret language wasn't so secret when we heard a man -- literally one seat behind ours -- ask for a "Fanta Laranja" instead of a "Fanta Orange". We had to laugh. He was a Mozambican guy who has been in Rustenburg for fifteen years as a taxi driver. He still can't speak English, which is not indicative of how little he has learned, but of how unnecessary it is. He has learned other native tongues in South Africa -- Zulu and Setswana -- which apparently are more than sufficient for getting through life in Rustenburg
On extraordinarily smooth roads, we made it to Pretoria with no problem. It's a shame our bus wouldn't depart for another six hours. There wasn't much sense in trying to walk around Pretoria. We each had huge backpacks and we were both quite tired from a late night. We meandered our way into the closest bar with a television to settle in for the day's football games. There was a huge temptation to try to go the Ghana - Serbia game in Pretoria, but we would probably miss our bus back to Maputo. So, we settled for watching Ghana defeat Serbia 1-0 on a penalty kick.
The bus ride returning to Maputo was about as comfortable as the ride heading to Pretoria. If anything, it was a little easier knowing the Maputo was the final destination. On the way into Pretoria, we didn't know if Pretoria or Rustenburg was the end. That was enough to keep me up for the entire ride. On this ride, I was able to sleep a little bit.
Once we arrived in Maputo, we only had one thing on our minds: a shower. The campsite where we stayed had a running water shower, but it was cold water. Paired with the near-freezing weather, we opted for stinkiness over cleanliness. The shower at the hotel in Maputo was hot, almost to the point of discomfort. Between the two of us, we used about an hour of hot water. It made the fairly expensive price of the hotel worth it. The rest of the morning and part of the afternoon was spent in the Peace Corps office, messing around on the internet, talking to Peace Corps staff about the game.
After a later than usual delicious shwarma lunch, we headed back to the hotel to relax. We were both wiped out from thirteen hours on the bus and the knowledge that we would have about the same thing tomorrow to Vilanculos. We each indulged in another hot shower and passed out quite quickly. I was really hoping to make it to the end of Italy's opening game, but my body knew better.
We were on the move around 6:00 Tuesday morning. It was a pretty late start for trying to head to Vilanculos, but buses usually leave up until 7:30 or 8:00. We may have been lucky. The bus we got on left at 7:38. It might have been the last bus to leave for the day. If it wasn't the last bus, it was probably the slowest and certainly the smelliest. We had the good fortune of sitting next to a baby who cried for the entire trip up, probably from the ocean of diarrhea flowing from her back-end. We thought that she would eventually tire out and fall asleep. She did -- with thirty minutes to go left in the trip.
There was only one hope for saving an otherwise horrifying travel day: pizza. Exhausted, there was no way we were going to walk the couple of miles to get pizza. They would have to deliver it to us. Normally, New York Pizza delivers, but on this night, they weren't delivering. Well, this day is wrecked. We cooked up some rice and a can of beans and surrendered for the day.
Without pizza, there was only one victory to draw from the day. This trip up north, barring a major medical incident, was the last time that we would travel north up the EN1. As we begin to wind down our service -- a mere five months to go -- we're going to start doing things for the last time. It's a nice feeling.
Before heading back to Machanga on Wednesday, we had some very important shopping to do. We were on the hunt for two main items: sliced Parmalat cheese and boneless chicken breast. In one store, we found both! Yes, we spent almost a thousand Meticais for these two items, but this is an investment into our health and happiness. As an added bonus, the market also had avocado, but since they are now out of season and imported from South Africa, they cost an obscene twenty Mets. Again, happiness trumps thrift. We would have delicious Mexican food tonight.
The only trick to buying frozen food is getting it back to Machanga in a relatively frozen state. Especially with chicken, which we really can't have defrosted, we were a little concerned. Thankfully, the chicken survived the ride. It wasn't solid frozen, but it was still frozen enough. Either way, we are going to eat some of it tonight, and freeze the rest for future meals.
As if things weren't going great already, I had six packages waiting for me at home. If I had known that would have four bricks of Velveeta sent by family and friends, I wouldn't have invested a huge chunk of money into a huge chunk of cheese. We are officially stocked. Of course, we will probably have to buy cheese next month.
As expected, the Mexican food we cooked up was delicious. It was a nice way to transition back into life in Machanga. Under normal circumstances, we would entertain ourselves with a movie, but we were too tired to sit around. We crashed fast.
Even though we both slept well, there was no way that we were going to teach on Thursday. We're both mentally checked out for the week. Richie has the good fortune of missing only one day. I'd have to cancel Thursday anyway to balance out my classes, but Friday is going to be nixed also. Thirty-one hours of traveling by bus over three days will put a person out of commission for a little while. Plus I have absolutely no lesson plans. Things will get going again next week.
There was still plenty to do to keep busy. We had a ton of magazines that arrived in one of the packages. We could now catch up on news from January. Tragic. Still, it's nice to read some cogent English writing. I also started putting together a document that we need to turn in when we check out of here. The Volunteers that follow us will be handed a small report about our site. This was a document that we did not get, so we had to figure out everything for ourselves. Much like leaving the house as it is, instead of emptying it out, we want to leave the next Volunteers with enough information to make their lives a little easier.
Alexis swung by our house right around lunch time. Between her trip to Beira and our trip to South Africa, we hadn't seen each other in quite a while. It was nice to catch up with her and she was the beneficiary of our cooking. The place where she lives cooks the same crappy fish and xima everyday. She was thrilled to get some potatoes and eggs.
Late in the afternoon, we walked over to the market to pick up some bread and spaghetti. Our tomatoes are already being harvested, so we were kind of pigeon-holed into making tomato sauce. On the road from the bread place to the market, we came across three or four cars. In a town where two cars is a lot, four is downright suspicious. The muzungu invasion had begun. At least fifteen white people rolled up into Machanga. What are they doing here? Missionary work. I made the mistake of asking why they chose Machanga. They answered, quite frankly, that "God led them here". If I were them, I'd be pissed off at God for leading them here of all places. In a place that already has a Catholic mission and huge number of believers in animism or traditional religions, they will be hard-pressed to accomplish anything.
We returned home right around dinner time and promptly cooked up out spaghetti. We also made garlic bread which, topped with some tomato sauce, was delicious. I was really hoping to stay awake through the France - Mexico game, but I didn't have it in me. It was apparent that recovery would require at least one more day. I grabbed a magazine and read for a bit before crashing.
In spite of a good night of sleep, I was still not fully recovered from all of our travels early in the week. I'd like to blame this on jet lag, but there was not a single plane used in our thirty-one hours of traveling. I think we can just call this travel exhaustion. Magazines in hand, we passed the morning reading until lunch time.
Immediately after lunch, we put some beans on the stove. Whenever we cook beans, we never quite cook them all the way through, and they are never as soft as the beans Mozambicans cook. We may have learned to become patient here, but when it comes to food, we are still not nearly as patient as they are. Today, though, we were committed to cooking them to completion. We would cook them most of the way through in the afternoon and finish them off at night.
In the interim, we had a big soccer game to watch. The U.S. was matched up against Slovenia. This should have been a gimme game for the Americans, the game that would vault them into the knock-out phase of the tournament. Unfortunately, nobody told the American defense to show up for the game. By the end of the first half, Slovenia -- a nation of fewer people than San Diego -- was man-handling the Americans and holding a two goal lead. This game was effectively over.
Instead of sticking around for the second half, a few of us headed over to the villa to drink away our sorrows. By the time we got there, however, the Americans had put a goal on the board. Whatever their coach said to them at halftime was clearly effective because they were playing like a better team in the second half. Late in the game, the Americans hung a second goal on the board. They appeared to have won the game with a late goal, but a phantom foul was called. Everyone on the American side was enraged, some louder than others.
In the time the Americans complained, the television station replayed the disallowed goal at least three times. The argument that using instant replay, regardless of the sport, would add significant time to the games is a ridiculous. I would rather sit around for the extra couple of minutes, knowing that the call was correct, than have some referee or umpire fuck up the result.
In truth, though, I'm happy that the Americans didn't win the game. Yes, they worked hard in the second half, but you don't win games by only playing one half. They should have learned this in the Confederations Cup last year, when they only showed up for the first half against Brazil. No matter how good the team is, you need to play for the full time. Luckily for the Americans, the English side failed to show up against Algeria. The Americans remain in second place in the group on goal differential. The still control their own destiny, though. If they defeat Algeria in the last game of group play, they'll advance.
Machanga seemed to be dead Saturday morning, which was strange considering a final felt alive. The couple days of relaxation did me well. A few good nights of sleep finally got me up to speed, just in time for people to disappear from here. This was fine by me. Since the arrival of packages on Wednesday, we have plenty of reading material to keep our minds occupied. Finally, around lunch time, people started to come out of the woodwork.
Early in the afternoon, Richie headed to the villa to go drinking with some colleagues. My attention, however, was drawn to a football game of great interest for me: Ghana against Australia. Ghana is my team in this tournament. I have my connection to Ghana through my study abroad experience during college and I think they can make a huge splash in this World Cup. They are the youngest team in the tournament, but they have great players. I think, in all seriousness, they can go as far as the semi-finals.
I am also pulling for Ghana because they seem to go against the popular belief that every goal scored has to be a work of art. More than the ridiculous diving that occurs every game and the fact a ton of games end in boring draws, this is what drives me nuts about soccer. Players seem to want every goal to be gorgeous, even at the expense of passing up a decent shot. The Ghanaians, practical as they are, believe that the prettiest shots are the ones that go in the net. I agree with this thinking. A shot on goal from distance is a lot better than no shot on goal from ten yards away.
Ghana's goaltender, by far the weak link in the team, failed to handle a shot and Australia netted a goal to put them ahead. Ghana fought back to tie it at one, and seemed to be in control of the game, doing everything but scoring. Late in the game, Ghana's defense fell asleep and Australia had a shot from point-blank range, but the goaltender made up for his early mistake with a spectacular save. The game ended in a draw at one.
Richie came back from the villa in time for dinner. He was eating fish that Sozinho cooked, leaving me to eat some of the food that arrived in packages. He, along with a colleague, was going to head back out to the villa, and managed to rope me into it also. I didn't really want to go out. Back to back nights is a little excessive and I was feeling particularly uninspired. I still went, like a good soldier, drank my beer, and came home. It wasn't worth the while. I would have much rather been in bed, which is exactly where I ended up within minutes of arriving home.
Despite the late night -- we didn't get back to the campsite until around midnight -- we were up and moving early Sunday morning. We walked over to the main site where a television was situated. All of the talk was about the botched save of the English goalkeeper. Every time they replayed the goal, we could actually hear the English fans cringe. And every time the English fans buried their heads into their hands, us American fans just laughed a little bit.
Our glory would be short-lived. Not because the taste of victory (or not losing) would be fleeting -- no, that would remain a good while. The only thing short-lived was our time in South Africa. We had bus tickets out of Pretoria in the evening and we had no reason to stick around the campsite. We stuck around for breakfast and headed down to the minibus station.
One of the things that Richie and I have really come to like about traveling internationally is that almost nobody speaks Portuguese. If we want to discuss something secretly, we can just do it in Portuguese and nobody would know what we're talking about. It's very convenient when trying to decide how much to pay a taxi driver or how to abandon some guy annoying us. You would think that in Rustenburg, we wouldn't run into this problem.
We knew our secret language wasn't so secret when we heard a man -- literally one seat behind ours -- ask for a "Fanta Laranja" instead of a "Fanta Orange". We had to laugh. He was a Mozambican guy who has been in Rustenburg for fifteen years as a taxi driver. He still can't speak English, which is not indicative of how little he has learned, but of how unnecessary it is. He has learned other native tongues in South Africa -- Zulu and Setswana -- which apparently are more than sufficient for getting through life in Rustenburg
On extraordinarily smooth roads, we made it to Pretoria with no problem. It's a shame our bus wouldn't depart for another six hours. There wasn't much sense in trying to walk around Pretoria. We each had huge backpacks and we were both quite tired from a late night. We meandered our way into the closest bar with a television to settle in for the day's football games. There was a huge temptation to try to go the Ghana - Serbia game in Pretoria, but we would probably miss our bus back to Maputo. So, we settled for watching Ghana defeat Serbia 1-0 on a penalty kick.
The bus ride returning to Maputo was about as comfortable as the ride heading to Pretoria. If anything, it was a little easier knowing the Maputo was the final destination. On the way into Pretoria, we didn't know if Pretoria or Rustenburg was the end. That was enough to keep me up for the entire ride. On this ride, I was able to sleep a little bit.
Once we arrived in Maputo, we only had one thing on our minds: a shower. The campsite where we stayed had a running water shower, but it was cold water. Paired with the near-freezing weather, we opted for stinkiness over cleanliness. The shower at the hotel in Maputo was hot, almost to the point of discomfort. Between the two of us, we used about an hour of hot water. It made the fairly expensive price of the hotel worth it. The rest of the morning and part of the afternoon was spent in the Peace Corps office, messing around on the internet, talking to Peace Corps staff about the game.
After a later than usual delicious shwarma lunch, we headed back to the hotel to relax. We were both wiped out from thirteen hours on the bus and the knowledge that we would have about the same thing tomorrow to Vilanculos. We each indulged in another hot shower and passed out quite quickly. I was really hoping to make it to the end of Italy's opening game, but my body knew better.
We were on the move around 6:00 Tuesday morning. It was a pretty late start for trying to head to Vilanculos, but buses usually leave up until 7:30 or 8:00. We may have been lucky. The bus we got on left at 7:38. It might have been the last bus to leave for the day. If it wasn't the last bus, it was probably the slowest and certainly the smelliest. We had the good fortune of sitting next to a baby who cried for the entire trip up, probably from the ocean of diarrhea flowing from her back-end. We thought that she would eventually tire out and fall asleep. She did -- with thirty minutes to go left in the trip.
There was only one hope for saving an otherwise horrifying travel day: pizza. Exhausted, there was no way we were going to walk the couple of miles to get pizza. They would have to deliver it to us. Normally, New York Pizza delivers, but on this night, they weren't delivering. Well, this day is wrecked. We cooked up some rice and a can of beans and surrendered for the day.
Without pizza, there was only one victory to draw from the day. This trip up north, barring a major medical incident, was the last time that we would travel north up the EN1. As we begin to wind down our service -- a mere five months to go -- we're going to start doing things for the last time. It's a nice feeling.
Before heading back to Machanga on Wednesday, we had some very important shopping to do. We were on the hunt for two main items: sliced Parmalat cheese and boneless chicken breast. In one store, we found both! Yes, we spent almost a thousand Meticais for these two items, but this is an investment into our health and happiness. As an added bonus, the market also had avocado, but since they are now out of season and imported from South Africa, they cost an obscene twenty Mets. Again, happiness trumps thrift. We would have delicious Mexican food tonight.
The only trick to buying frozen food is getting it back to Machanga in a relatively frozen state. Especially with chicken, which we really can't have defrosted, we were a little concerned. Thankfully, the chicken survived the ride. It wasn't solid frozen, but it was still frozen enough. Either way, we are going to eat some of it tonight, and freeze the rest for future meals.
As if things weren't going great already, I had six packages waiting for me at home. If I had known that would have four bricks of Velveeta sent by family and friends, I wouldn't have invested a huge chunk of money into a huge chunk of cheese. We are officially stocked. Of course, we will probably have to buy cheese next month.
As expected, the Mexican food we cooked up was delicious. It was a nice way to transition back into life in Machanga. Under normal circumstances, we would entertain ourselves with a movie, but we were too tired to sit around. We crashed fast.
Even though we both slept well, there was no way that we were going to teach on Thursday. We're both mentally checked out for the week. Richie has the good fortune of missing only one day. I'd have to cancel Thursday anyway to balance out my classes, but Friday is going to be nixed also. Thirty-one hours of traveling by bus over three days will put a person out of commission for a little while. Plus I have absolutely no lesson plans. Things will get going again next week.
There was still plenty to do to keep busy. We had a ton of magazines that arrived in one of the packages. We could now catch up on news from January. Tragic. Still, it's nice to read some cogent English writing. I also started putting together a document that we need to turn in when we check out of here. The Volunteers that follow us will be handed a small report about our site. This was a document that we did not get, so we had to figure out everything for ourselves. Much like leaving the house as it is, instead of emptying it out, we want to leave the next Volunteers with enough information to make their lives a little easier.
Alexis swung by our house right around lunch time. Between her trip to Beira and our trip to South Africa, we hadn't seen each other in quite a while. It was nice to catch up with her and she was the beneficiary of our cooking. The place where she lives cooks the same crappy fish and xima everyday. She was thrilled to get some potatoes and eggs.
Late in the afternoon, we walked over to the market to pick up some bread and spaghetti. Our tomatoes are already being harvested, so we were kind of pigeon-holed into making tomato sauce. On the road from the bread place to the market, we came across three or four cars. In a town where two cars is a lot, four is downright suspicious. The muzungu invasion had begun. At least fifteen white people rolled up into Machanga. What are they doing here? Missionary work. I made the mistake of asking why they chose Machanga. They answered, quite frankly, that "God led them here". If I were them, I'd be pissed off at God for leading them here of all places. In a place that already has a Catholic mission and huge number of believers in animism or traditional religions, they will be hard-pressed to accomplish anything.
We returned home right around dinner time and promptly cooked up out spaghetti. We also made garlic bread which, topped with some tomato sauce, was delicious. I was really hoping to stay awake through the France - Mexico game, but I didn't have it in me. It was apparent that recovery would require at least one more day. I grabbed a magazine and read for a bit before crashing.
In spite of a good night of sleep, I was still not fully recovered from all of our travels early in the week. I'd like to blame this on jet lag, but there was not a single plane used in our thirty-one hours of traveling. I think we can just call this travel exhaustion. Magazines in hand, we passed the morning reading until lunch time.
Immediately after lunch, we put some beans on the stove. Whenever we cook beans, we never quite cook them all the way through, and they are never as soft as the beans Mozambicans cook. We may have learned to become patient here, but when it comes to food, we are still not nearly as patient as they are. Today, though, we were committed to cooking them to completion. We would cook them most of the way through in the afternoon and finish them off at night.
In the interim, we had a big soccer game to watch. The U.S. was matched up against Slovenia. This should have been a gimme game for the Americans, the game that would vault them into the knock-out phase of the tournament. Unfortunately, nobody told the American defense to show up for the game. By the end of the first half, Slovenia -- a nation of fewer people than San Diego -- was man-handling the Americans and holding a two goal lead. This game was effectively over.
Instead of sticking around for the second half, a few of us headed over to the villa to drink away our sorrows. By the time we got there, however, the Americans had put a goal on the board. Whatever their coach said to them at halftime was clearly effective because they were playing like a better team in the second half. Late in the game, the Americans hung a second goal on the board. They appeared to have won the game with a late goal, but a phantom foul was called. Everyone on the American side was enraged, some louder than others.
In the time the Americans complained, the television station replayed the disallowed goal at least three times. The argument that using instant replay, regardless of the sport, would add significant time to the games is a ridiculous. I would rather sit around for the extra couple of minutes, knowing that the call was correct, than have some referee or umpire fuck up the result.
In truth, though, I'm happy that the Americans didn't win the game. Yes, they worked hard in the second half, but you don't win games by only playing one half. They should have learned this in the Confederations Cup last year, when they only showed up for the first half against Brazil. No matter how good the team is, you need to play for the full time. Luckily for the Americans, the English side failed to show up against Algeria. The Americans remain in second place in the group on goal differential. The still control their own destiny, though. If they defeat Algeria in the last game of group play, they'll advance.
Machanga seemed to be dead Saturday morning, which was strange considering a final felt alive. The couple days of relaxation did me well. A few good nights of sleep finally got me up to speed, just in time for people to disappear from here. This was fine by me. Since the arrival of packages on Wednesday, we have plenty of reading material to keep our minds occupied. Finally, around lunch time, people started to come out of the woodwork.
Early in the afternoon, Richie headed to the villa to go drinking with some colleagues. My attention, however, was drawn to a football game of great interest for me: Ghana against Australia. Ghana is my team in this tournament. I have my connection to Ghana through my study abroad experience during college and I think they can make a huge splash in this World Cup. They are the youngest team in the tournament, but they have great players. I think, in all seriousness, they can go as far as the semi-finals.
I am also pulling for Ghana because they seem to go against the popular belief that every goal scored has to be a work of art. More than the ridiculous diving that occurs every game and the fact a ton of games end in boring draws, this is what drives me nuts about soccer. Players seem to want every goal to be gorgeous, even at the expense of passing up a decent shot. The Ghanaians, practical as they are, believe that the prettiest shots are the ones that go in the net. I agree with this thinking. A shot on goal from distance is a lot better than no shot on goal from ten yards away.
Ghana's goaltender, by far the weak link in the team, failed to handle a shot and Australia netted a goal to put them ahead. Ghana fought back to tie it at one, and seemed to be in control of the game, doing everything but scoring. Late in the game, Ghana's defense fell asleep and Australia had a shot from point-blank range, but the goaltender made up for his early mistake with a spectacular save. The game ended in a draw at one.
Richie came back from the villa in time for dinner. He was eating fish that Sozinho cooked, leaving me to eat some of the food that arrived in packages. He, along with a colleague, was going to head back out to the villa, and managed to rope me into it also. I didn't really want to go out. Back to back nights is a little excessive and I was feeling particularly uninspired. I still went, like a good soldier, drank my beer, and came home. It wasn't worth the while. I would have much rather been in bed, which is exactly where I ended up within minutes of arriving home.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Year 2 - Week 26: Bafana Bafana!
I'm going to do everyone a favor and skip over the vast majority of this week. From Sunday until Wednesday, I made my way down from Vilanculos to Maputo. We were scheduled to leave Maputo for Pretoria on an overnight bus. We're not really supposed to travel on the roads here at night. But given the choice between being on the roads at night or being in unfamiliar South Africa at night, we figured that driving was the better option.
For the first time since we've been here, we took a luxury bus. I must say: if I could do it all over again, I would take these buses everywhere. Yes, they are more expensive, but they are far more comfortable. People weren't crammed into every nook and cranny. Plus with the overnight hotel, we didn't have to pay for a hotel. That said, neither of us slept at all.
We arrived, red-eyed, in Pretoria around 6:30. The first thing we noticed was the Pretoria was freezing. Pretoria sits at a pretty high elevation. In the dead of winter -- as in, right now -- it gets under ten degrees Celsius. Flip flops were a bad choice. The second thing we noticed was that Pretoria is awfully dark at 6:30 in the morning, much darker than Maputo at 6:30. We thought about it for a second and it makes sense. Pretoria and Maputo, though separated by a good couple hundred miles, share a time zone. The sun makes its way up early off the Indian Ocean but doesn't rise over Pretoria until much later.
So there we were, in a city we've never been in, and it's still somewhat dark. The only thing that we really had going for us is that just about everybody in the area speaks English. Though a little tentative to stop to ask for help, we were left little choice. Everybody was extraordinarily helpful. As it turned out, we only had to walk about five minutes to get a mini-bus.
If weather and darkness were the first things we noticed, than the third thing we noticed were the roads. Or rather, we didn't notice our mini-bus shaking after every single pothole. Why? you ask. Because on the main highways, there were no potholes. The highways -- with proper overpasses and offramps and on-ramps and all -- are maintained immaculately. The ride between Pretoria and Rustenburg that should have taken an hour took...an hour. I could get used to this.
Once in town, we had three priorities: finding food, finding some American flag gear, and getting to our beds. The second of these priorities was shockingly simple. We walked passed a Chinese-run store that had American flag bandanas. Absolutely, we had to buy those. Then, miraculously, we came across a burger place called Yanky's. The place was covered in red, white, and blue, and besides wanted some delicious cheeseburgers, we felt obligated to go to a place that displayed such American pride. The burger, by the way, was phenomenal. It was ground meat and a real burger bun, two delicacies apparently foreign to Mozambique.'
The most difficult part of the trip -- of the whole trip, really -- was getting from the town to our hostel. The website said it was just one kilometer from town. Problem is, Rustenburg is not small, and there were no directions or signs on how to get there. We called the people and found a very nice taxi driver named Thuli. We put the two of them on the phone together and we got things worked out.
The place where we stayed -- Rustenburg Safari Camp -- was, I don't know, interesting. First of all, there was not a single sign for the place. It was buried way in the middle of a small-game reserve and they were extraordinarily disorganized. Instead of having a shared six-person dorm tent, we had a two-person tent with small bed mats. This was fine by us. I was just in no mood to deal with this shit, considering that I had been up for twenty-nine consecutive hours when we arrived. If I had any energy left in me, I probably would have snapped.
If we were smart, we would have napped. But Richie and I aren't very smart. Instead, we decided to rally and went down to the Fan Fare in town. Every host city in South Africa has set up an area with a monster TV and stage so people can watch games together. Also of note was a beer garden serving delicious Castle Lager.
Thousands of people clad in yellow and green showed up to watch Bafana Bafana -- South Africa's team name -- play against Mexico, a pretty good team. With the exception of the last ten minutes, Mexico absolutely dominated the first half. South Africa rode the momentum into the second half and, with a pinpoint accurate shot to the top-right corner, scored the opening goal. The place exploded. Dancing commenced. Fans blew vavaluzas (remarkably loud horns) to the point that everyone's ears hurt. But no one cared: South Africa was ahead. If only they could have held on. South Africa surrendered a goal soon after, and the game ended in a tie at one. Still, most everyone was satisfied with the tie.
Also of note during this time: being the idiots that we are, Richie and I went to the game decked out in our America gear. This drew us some fair attention. Before the game, while we were introducing ourselves to beer, a film crew wanted to ask us about the US-England game. That was cool. Then minutes later, a gorgeous woman from Al-Jazeera Americas also wanted to interview us. They managed to find the two people at this game who know almost nothing about soccer. We bullshitted our way through it.
On the way back, there was a movement to go to McDonald's. If you ask me, McDonald's is not the best fast-food. There are at least four other fast-food places that I would prefer. But here was McDonald's, and I was hungry. I once again indulged in a cheeseburger (are you noticing a theme?). If McDonald's is that good every time you go twenty months without, I think I'll wait until 2012 to go again.
To say that we slept well, inspite of the frigid conditions, would be a massive understatement. And it was a good thing. We had a huge day ahead of us on Saturday. Our first priority was to get more America gear. A simple flag bandana wouldn't cut it. I got myself one of those scarves that soccer fans always have. Richie went big and got a hat, t-shirt, and glasses. After shopping, I was hoping to get some money from the bank, but a strange thing happened: my ATM card wasn't working. I tried bank after bank but everything failed. Shitty. Thankfully, Richie pulled out a ton of money, allowing me to bum loans.
After watching the first game of the day -- a win for South Korea against Greece -- Richie and I, along with about sixty other people, started to make our way toward the stadium. It's a good thing we left when we did. The cars could only take ten people at a time and the traffic was starting to build up.
We got to the stadium around 5:30 for the 8:30 match between England and the United States. Of all the opening round games, this is probably the second best game, with only the Portugal-Brazil match out-doing it. England fans showed up in huge numbers, but the U.S. side would not go unheard. About a quarter of the 40,000 ticket holders were Americans. While we waited for the game to started, we gorged ourselves on hot dogs and Budweiser. How American.
Prior to arriving in South Africa, our friends told us that we had good seats. They were the last row of the stadium, but they were still amazing. The stadium was not huge -- 18 rows in the first bowl, 27 in the second bowl. If you're going to be in the last row of the stadium, you want that stadium to be in Rustenburg. The weather cooperated with us, not quite dipping to ten degrees. We would have to drink plenty of beer to keep us warm.
The game started right on time, and it did not start in a promising manner for the Americans. Five minutes in, the entire defense pretty much stopped playing, allowing England to score. Watching England come down the field is a little like watching the Red Wings skate up the ice or the Patriots march down toward the endzone. You feel like every time they crack midfield, they could score.
The American side appeared unfazed by the goal. If anything, they became more focused. The defense stood up nicely and they were getting plenty of chances on the offensive side. Finally, forty minutes into the game, Clint Dempsey fired a shot go from forever away. The ball hit the English goalkeeper in the hands, then trickled into the net. I don't think the ball even hit the net: the ball barely made it across the line. Either way, the game was tied at one, and it would remain there until time expired.
Under normal circumstances, most people would be unhappy with tie. The only people who were unhappy were all the English fans. They were huge favorites. No doubt, they should have won. American fans, on the other hand, were all thrilled with a tie. Of course a win would have been great -- a second half shot off the post robbed victory -- but we were thrilled that we could hang with the English.
In all, the whole World Cup experience was pretty incredible. Watching the South Africa game with South Africans actually gave me chills. It was probably the best part of the weekend for me. We met a lot of cool people from around the world, including other Peace Corps Volunteers from South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. And in general, everyone was in good spirits. I don't know if I'll ever make it to another World Cup, but I'm very happy that I made it to this one.
For the first time since we've been here, we took a luxury bus. I must say: if I could do it all over again, I would take these buses everywhere. Yes, they are more expensive, but they are far more comfortable. People weren't crammed into every nook and cranny. Plus with the overnight hotel, we didn't have to pay for a hotel. That said, neither of us slept at all.
We arrived, red-eyed, in Pretoria around 6:30. The first thing we noticed was the Pretoria was freezing. Pretoria sits at a pretty high elevation. In the dead of winter -- as in, right now -- it gets under ten degrees Celsius. Flip flops were a bad choice. The second thing we noticed was that Pretoria is awfully dark at 6:30 in the morning, much darker than Maputo at 6:30. We thought about it for a second and it makes sense. Pretoria and Maputo, though separated by a good couple hundred miles, share a time zone. The sun makes its way up early off the Indian Ocean but doesn't rise over Pretoria until much later.
So there we were, in a city we've never been in, and it's still somewhat dark. The only thing that we really had going for us is that just about everybody in the area speaks English. Though a little tentative to stop to ask for help, we were left little choice. Everybody was extraordinarily helpful. As it turned out, we only had to walk about five minutes to get a mini-bus.
If weather and darkness were the first things we noticed, than the third thing we noticed were the roads. Or rather, we didn't notice our mini-bus shaking after every single pothole. Why? you ask. Because on the main highways, there were no potholes. The highways -- with proper overpasses and offramps and on-ramps and all -- are maintained immaculately. The ride between Pretoria and Rustenburg that should have taken an hour took...an hour. I could get used to this.
Once in town, we had three priorities: finding food, finding some American flag gear, and getting to our beds. The second of these priorities was shockingly simple. We walked passed a Chinese-run store that had American flag bandanas. Absolutely, we had to buy those. Then, miraculously, we came across a burger place called Yanky's. The place was covered in red, white, and blue, and besides wanted some delicious cheeseburgers, we felt obligated to go to a place that displayed such American pride. The burger, by the way, was phenomenal. It was ground meat and a real burger bun, two delicacies apparently foreign to Mozambique.'
The most difficult part of the trip -- of the whole trip, really -- was getting from the town to our hostel. The website said it was just one kilometer from town. Problem is, Rustenburg is not small, and there were no directions or signs on how to get there. We called the people and found a very nice taxi driver named Thuli. We put the two of them on the phone together and we got things worked out.
The place where we stayed -- Rustenburg Safari Camp -- was, I don't know, interesting. First of all, there was not a single sign for the place. It was buried way in the middle of a small-game reserve and they were extraordinarily disorganized. Instead of having a shared six-person dorm tent, we had a two-person tent with small bed mats. This was fine by us. I was just in no mood to deal with this shit, considering that I had been up for twenty-nine consecutive hours when we arrived. If I had any energy left in me, I probably would have snapped.
If we were smart, we would have napped. But Richie and I aren't very smart. Instead, we decided to rally and went down to the Fan Fare in town. Every host city in South Africa has set up an area with a monster TV and stage so people can watch games together. Also of note was a beer garden serving delicious Castle Lager.
Thousands of people clad in yellow and green showed up to watch Bafana Bafana -- South Africa's team name -- play against Mexico, a pretty good team. With the exception of the last ten minutes, Mexico absolutely dominated the first half. South Africa rode the momentum into the second half and, with a pinpoint accurate shot to the top-right corner, scored the opening goal. The place exploded. Dancing commenced. Fans blew vavaluzas (remarkably loud horns) to the point that everyone's ears hurt. But no one cared: South Africa was ahead. If only they could have held on. South Africa surrendered a goal soon after, and the game ended in a tie at one. Still, most everyone was satisfied with the tie.
Also of note during this time: being the idiots that we are, Richie and I went to the game decked out in our America gear. This drew us some fair attention. Before the game, while we were introducing ourselves to beer, a film crew wanted to ask us about the US-England game. That was cool. Then minutes later, a gorgeous woman from Al-Jazeera Americas also wanted to interview us. They managed to find the two people at this game who know almost nothing about soccer. We bullshitted our way through it.
On the way back, there was a movement to go to McDonald's. If you ask me, McDonald's is not the best fast-food. There are at least four other fast-food places that I would prefer. But here was McDonald's, and I was hungry. I once again indulged in a cheeseburger (are you noticing a theme?). If McDonald's is that good every time you go twenty months without, I think I'll wait until 2012 to go again.
To say that we slept well, inspite of the frigid conditions, would be a massive understatement. And it was a good thing. We had a huge day ahead of us on Saturday. Our first priority was to get more America gear. A simple flag bandana wouldn't cut it. I got myself one of those scarves that soccer fans always have. Richie went big and got a hat, t-shirt, and glasses. After shopping, I was hoping to get some money from the bank, but a strange thing happened: my ATM card wasn't working. I tried bank after bank but everything failed. Shitty. Thankfully, Richie pulled out a ton of money, allowing me to bum loans.
After watching the first game of the day -- a win for South Korea against Greece -- Richie and I, along with about sixty other people, started to make our way toward the stadium. It's a good thing we left when we did. The cars could only take ten people at a time and the traffic was starting to build up.
We got to the stadium around 5:30 for the 8:30 match between England and the United States. Of all the opening round games, this is probably the second best game, with only the Portugal-Brazil match out-doing it. England fans showed up in huge numbers, but the U.S. side would not go unheard. About a quarter of the 40,000 ticket holders were Americans. While we waited for the game to started, we gorged ourselves on hot dogs and Budweiser. How American.
Prior to arriving in South Africa, our friends told us that we had good seats. They were the last row of the stadium, but they were still amazing. The stadium was not huge -- 18 rows in the first bowl, 27 in the second bowl. If you're going to be in the last row of the stadium, you want that stadium to be in Rustenburg. The weather cooperated with us, not quite dipping to ten degrees. We would have to drink plenty of beer to keep us warm.
The game started right on time, and it did not start in a promising manner for the Americans. Five minutes in, the entire defense pretty much stopped playing, allowing England to score. Watching England come down the field is a little like watching the Red Wings skate up the ice or the Patriots march down toward the endzone. You feel like every time they crack midfield, they could score.
The American side appeared unfazed by the goal. If anything, they became more focused. The defense stood up nicely and they were getting plenty of chances on the offensive side. Finally, forty minutes into the game, Clint Dempsey fired a shot go from forever away. The ball hit the English goalkeeper in the hands, then trickled into the net. I don't think the ball even hit the net: the ball barely made it across the line. Either way, the game was tied at one, and it would remain there until time expired.
Under normal circumstances, most people would be unhappy with tie. The only people who were unhappy were all the English fans. They were huge favorites. No doubt, they should have won. American fans, on the other hand, were all thrilled with a tie. Of course a win would have been great -- a second half shot off the post robbed victory -- but we were thrilled that we could hang with the English.
In all, the whole World Cup experience was pretty incredible. Watching the South Africa game with South Africans actually gave me chills. It was probably the best part of the weekend for me. We met a lot of cool people from around the world, including other Peace Corps Volunteers from South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. And in general, everyone was in good spirits. I don't know if I'll ever make it to another World Cup, but I'm very happy that I made it to this one.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Year 2 - Week 25: Fake Plastic Holidays
Riding on full stomachs and rum and cokes, the three of us managed to stay up until 3:30 in the morning. We probably could have willed ourselves to stay up until the sun rose over the islands, but it wasn't worth it. The other two guys had travel days albeit short ones.
Most of my plans on Sunday revolved around the computer. Given that the Vil girls have internet at their house -- and it's free -- I thought it best to take advantage of it. My computer hasn't received any Windows updates since I revived it in January. When the time came, there were twenty-four updates necessary. While I was at it, I updated my anti-virus. And just for kicks, I started looking at prices and itineraries for flights home. I know, it's still six months away. Don't judge me.
The sun never really made it out on this Sunday. Combined with the facts that we're almost in the dead of winter and there was an off-shore breeze, it was not just dark but fuckin cold. Good thing I didn't have to go anywhere in town today. Otherwise, I may have been judged rather harshly for wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. From the time I went up until the time I went to bed, this was my gear.
In the afternoon, the sweats were a luxury. In the evening, they were an absolute necessity. I sat outside with my computer catching up with people from home. One of my buddies from home, who is now a Volunteer in Cameroon, happened to be online. He's heading down to South Africa for World Cup as well, but we will be on opposite sides of the country. During a conversation with another person, I managed to score a General Admission ticket to the U2 show in Oakland sometime next spring. I've been to four U2 shows and never had floor tickets. I'll rearrange my life to get to this one. And while I was outside, my family called. They were wrapping up a glorious trip to Hawaii while I was wrapped up in cold-weather clothing. For an uneventful day, that's a lot of things to happen.
Since I got a whole four hours of sleep last night, I was banking on a good night of sleep. Those plans, however, we're scratched -- literally. Simba, the Vil girls' dog, scratched at the door every half hour, either wanting to go out or come in. Every time he scratched, I vowed I wouldn't open the door, but every time, he just kept scratching at the door. So I got up every time.
This wasn't the best way to start a travel day, but from there, things actually went almost perfectly. I cleaned up the house and headed into town to buy some things for Machanga. I was hoping to buy some meat and cheese to store in our neighbor's refrigerator, but most of the stores were closed for one reason or another. Still, I managed to buy Rice Krispies (yup) and some avocados. I paid double for those suckers, but I don't care. I feel like I'm stealing from someone getting these avocados. Then, there was a new chapa running from Vilanculos. I know I vowed off of these chapas, but I figured what the hell.
How nice was this chapa? The seats were split up two on one side, one on the other like those terrible regional jets that American Airlines flies from San Diego to San Jose. There was no fold-down middle seat, as there usually is, so I had a ton of space to myself. And apparently, the car still had its shocks because it drove remarkably smoothly. It was such a quiet ride that I was asleep for almost all of it.
Things only got better from there. I got in a canoe right away and then got a ride on an ox cart from the river to villa. With the avocados, I was hoping the town would have meat. The butcher had killed a cow right before I arrived. He didn't even have the meat in the freezer: he just went outside and cut me off half a kilo. That's what I call fresh meat.
Up until dinner, the rest of the afternoon was pretty calm. I ate a little something before preparing for dinner. Except for the tortillas (we ran out of flour), the food was delicious. At some point, one of my best friends from home unexpectedly called, so we spent a little time catching up. Other than that, our night was spent watching a couple episodes of "Chappelle's Show" and by 9:00 I was down for the count.
Whatever nap I got in the chapa did not help me catch up on sleep because I was out cold all night until 6:30 or 7 in the morning. It was a good night's sleep. Refreshed, and already with an idea for a lesson plan, I wanted to wake up my head with a couple Kakuros. Today was one of those days where the light bulb went on and everything made sense. I finished two of them in just under an hour.
I went out for a bread run mid-morning -- or rather, I tried to go on a bread run mid-morning, until I got roped into doing some tech work. One of the teachers was trying to print a document from his laptop, but it just wasn't going. I transferred everything from his laptop to another computer and everythnig worked fine. He just laughed at how quickly I worked: "You dance on the computer." Yea, I have 19 years of experience. It goes a long way. Work complete, I was able to make my bread run.
While I sat around the house, fleshing out my lesson plan, the physics teacher came over and requested to use my time slot for teaching. I initially wasn't thrilled about this, knowing that I'd have to reschedule my lesson for another time. But eventually, again, the light bulb came on: I can combine my classes not have to reschedule anything. It really doesn't matter to me if I'm teaching to 60 or 120 people at once. This is a victory.
Class went well. My work for the day was done in 45 minutes. The fact that I even had work today was kind of shocking. Today was Children's Day, whatever that means. Most holidays here are legitimate holidays. I'm fine celebrating Women's Day because women run this country. I'm fine celebrating Independence Day and Worker's Day. But Children's Day? Children's Day? What have children done to earn a holiday? This is just another excuse for the parents -- specifically the fathers -- of said children to get drunk. In spite of this "holiday", most of my students were around. They've come to realize that you are not a child if you are between the ages of 18 and 25, as most of my students are.
The hours after class were marked only by shivering. By 3:00, most people had started drinking, but we just weren't up for it. We're going big this weekend and next week, so it's probably better for us to take this one off. We got invited out, and we probably would have had a beer or two, but as usual, our colleagues couldn't get their shit together, so we just left. We made our run to the market, specifically looking for dinner food. By the time we got back to the house at 5:30, it was nearly dark. Only a small sliver of orange sky remained in the west.
Richie was not a good mood tonight and Sozinho through him into an utter rage when Sozinho tried to tell him how to fry fish. It's not difficult to fry anything: put in oil, then take out of oil. And as I've heard from Richie many times, he does not like being told how to do something. He ate his fish and shut himself off to the world. It's for the better: he probably would have gone on a killing spree had he not locked himself in his room.
By the time I was awake, Richie was back to his regular jovial self, in spite of the fact that he had seven classes on Wednesday. I, on the other hand, was only scheduled for two classes, but I knew better than that. Now that we are in the dead of winter, it is nearly impossible to teach classes on Wednesday. For one, the classrooms get too dark by the time I have to teach the last period. More critically, so many of my students have to go across the river before sunset. When you add on the 30-45 minutes it takes to get to the river, that pretty much reduces my ability to teach the at 4:45. So my new game plan is this: I'm only planning for one period on Wednesdays, which effectively means I'm only teaching one class on Thursdays also
Of course, on this day, one of my students came over to tell me that I could knock out my class early. The teacher who was supposed to use that hour wasn't around. I'm always happy to get my class done earlier. Teaching at 2:00 is a lot better than waiting all the way until 4:00. And my students are just as eager to finish classes early. If they are good at anything, it's letting me know when I can teach at an earlier hour.
Today, however, they were particularly good at another thing: participating. This year, and especially this last month or so, I've been moving away from grammar and going toward vocabulary development. I'm trying to get them to stretch their minds out, to get beyond "How are you? I am fine". I realize that this is difficult, but there are enough cognates that they should be able to pull out some vocabulary. The letters group was on their game today.
One of my questions was about different types of government. One student, by himself, pulled out the word "autocracy", which is the kind of thing he should be able to do, considering that the word in Portuguese is "autocracia". I asked him to give an explanation, and he gave one...in Portuguese. I paid close attention to the words he used, and all of them were words he should have known. I told him to think about his definition in English and I'd come back to him. A couple minutes later, he had a sufficient definition. He's going to do just fine on the National Exam in November.
That class actually left me feeling pretty good about myself. I rode that momentum into planning a computer class. There is a group of teachers here who have had computers now for about a year, so they already know most of the very basics. They know how to write, open, and save documents. They all know how to play music. But there are some very practical things that sometime require a little extra push. My job is to give that push. The lesson will be about how to format an exam. So on big paper, I wrote out a mock exam for them to type out. It will be their job, with my help, to reproduce this document.
We got cooking on the early end because we were cooking beans. Just as the beans finished cooking, around 7:00, I got called into the director's office to help print a document. The printers here have never been great, but they usually get the job done one way or the other. It seems, however, that they no longer want to print. There are plenty of things I'm good at when it comes to computers, but I'm completely in the dark with printers. There's not a lot I can do repair a printer.
Eventually, I gave up on the printers and came back home to eat. The beans, usually good anyway, were made especially delicious with the addition of some cheese and and avocado. Then again, you could put cheese and avocado on a pile of dirt and rocks, and it would probably be just as delicious. While we ate, we watched "Fearless". I'm not usually one for kung fu movies, but this was pretty cool. I did some reading and turned the lights out around 10:00. It sucks having to roll out of bed to turn out the lights. This is the price we have to pay, I guess.
Following a good night of sleep, I was mentally prepared to work Thursday morning. I gathered my teaching materials and went over to the teachers' room to set up my things. On the way, I ran into a couple of teachers who would be on the receiving end of the class. I told them yesterday the class would be at 8 n the morning. They didn't look ready to learn at 7:55, but by five minutes after eight, I had five teachers in the room. Everyone in there except for one teacher had a fair amount of experience, so I didn't need to baby them through the basics.
The task for them was simple, but it required them to know a lot of things: how to center a document, use caps lock, and numbering. What was new for them was how to maximize their space on a page. Since the 12th Grade National Exams are multiple choice, many teachers have moved to this format for their own exams. When I see their exams, I notice that they almost always use a new line for each option, even though more than one option can fit in a line. Along with the tab key -- a new phenomenon for everyone -- the formatted an exam with one answer per line, two answers per line, and four answers per line. There was one benefit of having a total newcomer: I could compare his work with theirs. Even though they've only had their computers for less than a year, their basic knowledge was evident. Now it's about how to manipulate the program to make it do what they want.
I didn't have much to do following class. My lesson -- the one that went so well yesterday -- was already planned. All I had to do for the rest of the morning was prep for lunch. We made our now regular move toward cheese omelets. We have determined that the Velveeta omelet is the superior form of egg. Until someone can prove to me otherwise, cheese omelets rule the day.
Given that my lesson went so well yesterday, I had high expectations for this class. What I received was nothing short of painful. I've dealt with dental procedures that were more comfortable. Whatever participation I had yesterday wasn't there today. In terms of being in the classroom, there are few things more frustrating than asking for participation -- and knowing they have the vocabulary to do it -- and not getting it. I'm happy to play the waiting game. I'll ask the same question over and over until I get the answers.
That class certainly made me want to hit the bottle. Good thing Richie and a colleague were in the mood to do the same. We started out with a couple little bottles of wine. By the end of the afternoon, we had shifted locations to the town. We stayed out fairly late -- just past 9:00 -- knocking off a case of beer over the couple of hours. Just another Thursday night in Machanga. We got home and with the power of 24-hour energy, we cooked up some dinner before crashing.
Things were very quiet on Friday morning. As we've come to expect, the bell was run at 7:00 to start school, then at 7:45 to mark the end of first period. But outside of that, there wasn't a lot of noise, in both the literal and figurative sense. There weren't many people taking, many students walking around, many teachers going to class. Things were just sort of not happening. It made sense: a whole group of teachers were not at school.
Now, why would twenty-some teachers randomly disappear on a regular Friday? The "Chama de Unidade", of course. The Chama de Unidade is an Olympic torch-like flame that is being brought from the north of the country to Maputo. I don't know why this flame is being busted out now, but apparently it's a big deal for people. Everyone was up early preparing to cook, preparing not to go to school.
For me, this is just another fake holiday, another reason to cancel class because it just happened to occur on a Friday, another reason for the men to get hammered while the women do the cooking. School wasn't even officially cancelled. The bell just stopped ringing about 9:00. By then, nobody was at school. Everybody had just given up.
That's fine by me. I had some things to do in the afternoon, mostly packing for our trip. We're going to be gone for a good while, so I wanted to make sure I had everything. This would not be a good trip to forget a passport or a bankcard. I know that I put everything in my bag, but I still probably checked fifteen times to make sure they hadn't wandered away.
Around 4:00, a couple colleagues wanted to go out to a town called Chinhuque, about 12 kilometers away. I really didn't want to go, but whatever, I didn't have anything else to do. I guess that's what made the afternoon so strange. He drove us out to the villa, and then we had to wait for him for an hour. It's an hour I would have spent just sitting on the patio, but instead I was sitting in a car. Instead of me wasting my time, someone else was wasting my time, and that kinda put me in a bad mood.
Then it took us almost an hour for us to cover the twelve kilometers, whcih is just absurd. Fed up, I just closed my eyes and slept for the second half of the ride. The place where they took us was what could only be described as a "business hotel". You could pay 350 Meticais to spend the night, or 150 Meticais to get some business done. Great. Skeezy. The only upside for the whole afternoon was that we didn't have to pay for beer. Our colleagues bought them for us. Small victory there.
By the time we got back, I was at a level of pissed off I haven't reached in a long time. I rarely get angry. It just doesn't happen much anymore. I feel like there's no a lot to be angry about. But the confluence of having my time being wasted, being hungry, being tired, being drunk, and coming home to an empty house with the lights on pushed me over the edge. I wanted no part of any activity or any person. Richie, recognizing that I was about to go on a killing spree, left the house quickly for the villa. I made my spaghetti, ate as quickly as possibly, and went to bed. It was 8:30. I hoped a night of sleep would do me good.
I woke up feeling refresh, alive, without a bit of anger in me. Part of it was probably the good night's sleep. Most of it, I think, was knowing that I was leaving Machanga for a good long time. We were on the road to South Africa for our World Cup game. The travel day was an average one. We got an absolutely horrible ride to Inhassoro, but after a short wait, we got a Land Cruiser to take us all the way from Inhassoro to Vilanculos.
The rest of the day was very routine, at least for Vilanculos. We caught up with colleagues, got drunk, ate pizza -- all the important things. And as has come to be the trend, three of us stayed up late into the evening, discussing all topics. It's three of us guys. Aside from Richie, they are the only guys in the area. And they have good sports knowledge, so that makes for fun evenings.
I'll be away from my computer this week, on the road to USA vs. England. I'll be back in a couple weeks.
Most of my plans on Sunday revolved around the computer. Given that the Vil girls have internet at their house -- and it's free -- I thought it best to take advantage of it. My computer hasn't received any Windows updates since I revived it in January. When the time came, there were twenty-four updates necessary. While I was at it, I updated my anti-virus. And just for kicks, I started looking at prices and itineraries for flights home. I know, it's still six months away. Don't judge me.
The sun never really made it out on this Sunday. Combined with the facts that we're almost in the dead of winter and there was an off-shore breeze, it was not just dark but fuckin cold. Good thing I didn't have to go anywhere in town today. Otherwise, I may have been judged rather harshly for wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. From the time I went up until the time I went to bed, this was my gear.
In the afternoon, the sweats were a luxury. In the evening, they were an absolute necessity. I sat outside with my computer catching up with people from home. One of my buddies from home, who is now a Volunteer in Cameroon, happened to be online. He's heading down to South Africa for World Cup as well, but we will be on opposite sides of the country. During a conversation with another person, I managed to score a General Admission ticket to the U2 show in Oakland sometime next spring. I've been to four U2 shows and never had floor tickets. I'll rearrange my life to get to this one. And while I was outside, my family called. They were wrapping up a glorious trip to Hawaii while I was wrapped up in cold-weather clothing. For an uneventful day, that's a lot of things to happen.
Since I got a whole four hours of sleep last night, I was banking on a good night of sleep. Those plans, however, we're scratched -- literally. Simba, the Vil girls' dog, scratched at the door every half hour, either wanting to go out or come in. Every time he scratched, I vowed I wouldn't open the door, but every time, he just kept scratching at the door. So I got up every time.
This wasn't the best way to start a travel day, but from there, things actually went almost perfectly. I cleaned up the house and headed into town to buy some things for Machanga. I was hoping to buy some meat and cheese to store in our neighbor's refrigerator, but most of the stores were closed for one reason or another. Still, I managed to buy Rice Krispies (yup) and some avocados. I paid double for those suckers, but I don't care. I feel like I'm stealing from someone getting these avocados. Then, there was a new chapa running from Vilanculos. I know I vowed off of these chapas, but I figured what the hell.
How nice was this chapa? The seats were split up two on one side, one on the other like those terrible regional jets that American Airlines flies from San Diego to San Jose. There was no fold-down middle seat, as there usually is, so I had a ton of space to myself. And apparently, the car still had its shocks because it drove remarkably smoothly. It was such a quiet ride that I was asleep for almost all of it.
Things only got better from there. I got in a canoe right away and then got a ride on an ox cart from the river to villa. With the avocados, I was hoping the town would have meat. The butcher had killed a cow right before I arrived. He didn't even have the meat in the freezer: he just went outside and cut me off half a kilo. That's what I call fresh meat.
Up until dinner, the rest of the afternoon was pretty calm. I ate a little something before preparing for dinner. Except for the tortillas (we ran out of flour), the food was delicious. At some point, one of my best friends from home unexpectedly called, so we spent a little time catching up. Other than that, our night was spent watching a couple episodes of "Chappelle's Show" and by 9:00 I was down for the count.
Whatever nap I got in the chapa did not help me catch up on sleep because I was out cold all night until 6:30 or 7 in the morning. It was a good night's sleep. Refreshed, and already with an idea for a lesson plan, I wanted to wake up my head with a couple Kakuros. Today was one of those days where the light bulb went on and everything made sense. I finished two of them in just under an hour.
I went out for a bread run mid-morning -- or rather, I tried to go on a bread run mid-morning, until I got roped into doing some tech work. One of the teachers was trying to print a document from his laptop, but it just wasn't going. I transferred everything from his laptop to another computer and everythnig worked fine. He just laughed at how quickly I worked: "You dance on the computer." Yea, I have 19 years of experience. It goes a long way. Work complete, I was able to make my bread run.
While I sat around the house, fleshing out my lesson plan, the physics teacher came over and requested to use my time slot for teaching. I initially wasn't thrilled about this, knowing that I'd have to reschedule my lesson for another time. But eventually, again, the light bulb came on: I can combine my classes not have to reschedule anything. It really doesn't matter to me if I'm teaching to 60 or 120 people at once. This is a victory.
Class went well. My work for the day was done in 45 minutes. The fact that I even had work today was kind of shocking. Today was Children's Day, whatever that means. Most holidays here are legitimate holidays. I'm fine celebrating Women's Day because women run this country. I'm fine celebrating Independence Day and Worker's Day. But Children's Day? Children's Day? What have children done to earn a holiday? This is just another excuse for the parents -- specifically the fathers -- of said children to get drunk. In spite of this "holiday", most of my students were around. They've come to realize that you are not a child if you are between the ages of 18 and 25, as most of my students are.
The hours after class were marked only by shivering. By 3:00, most people had started drinking, but we just weren't up for it. We're going big this weekend and next week, so it's probably better for us to take this one off. We got invited out, and we probably would have had a beer or two, but as usual, our colleagues couldn't get their shit together, so we just left. We made our run to the market, specifically looking for dinner food. By the time we got back to the house at 5:30, it was nearly dark. Only a small sliver of orange sky remained in the west.
Richie was not a good mood tonight and Sozinho through him into an utter rage when Sozinho tried to tell him how to fry fish. It's not difficult to fry anything: put in oil, then take out of oil. And as I've heard from Richie many times, he does not like being told how to do something. He ate his fish and shut himself off to the world. It's for the better: he probably would have gone on a killing spree had he not locked himself in his room.
By the time I was awake, Richie was back to his regular jovial self, in spite of the fact that he had seven classes on Wednesday. I, on the other hand, was only scheduled for two classes, but I knew better than that. Now that we are in the dead of winter, it is nearly impossible to teach classes on Wednesday. For one, the classrooms get too dark by the time I have to teach the last period. More critically, so many of my students have to go across the river before sunset. When you add on the 30-45 minutes it takes to get to the river, that pretty much reduces my ability to teach the at 4:45. So my new game plan is this: I'm only planning for one period on Wednesdays, which effectively means I'm only teaching one class on Thursdays also
Of course, on this day, one of my students came over to tell me that I could knock out my class early. The teacher who was supposed to use that hour wasn't around. I'm always happy to get my class done earlier. Teaching at 2:00 is a lot better than waiting all the way until 4:00. And my students are just as eager to finish classes early. If they are good at anything, it's letting me know when I can teach at an earlier hour.
Today, however, they were particularly good at another thing: participating. This year, and especially this last month or so, I've been moving away from grammar and going toward vocabulary development. I'm trying to get them to stretch their minds out, to get beyond "How are you? I am fine". I realize that this is difficult, but there are enough cognates that they should be able to pull out some vocabulary. The letters group was on their game today.
One of my questions was about different types of government. One student, by himself, pulled out the word "autocracy", which is the kind of thing he should be able to do, considering that the word in Portuguese is "autocracia". I asked him to give an explanation, and he gave one...in Portuguese. I paid close attention to the words he used, and all of them were words he should have known. I told him to think about his definition in English and I'd come back to him. A couple minutes later, he had a sufficient definition. He's going to do just fine on the National Exam in November.
That class actually left me feeling pretty good about myself. I rode that momentum into planning a computer class. There is a group of teachers here who have had computers now for about a year, so they already know most of the very basics. They know how to write, open, and save documents. They all know how to play music. But there are some very practical things that sometime require a little extra push. My job is to give that push. The lesson will be about how to format an exam. So on big paper, I wrote out a mock exam for them to type out. It will be their job, with my help, to reproduce this document.
We got cooking on the early end because we were cooking beans. Just as the beans finished cooking, around 7:00, I got called into the director's office to help print a document. The printers here have never been great, but they usually get the job done one way or the other. It seems, however, that they no longer want to print. There are plenty of things I'm good at when it comes to computers, but I'm completely in the dark with printers. There's not a lot I can do repair a printer.
Eventually, I gave up on the printers and came back home to eat. The beans, usually good anyway, were made especially delicious with the addition of some cheese and and avocado. Then again, you could put cheese and avocado on a pile of dirt and rocks, and it would probably be just as delicious. While we ate, we watched "Fearless". I'm not usually one for kung fu movies, but this was pretty cool. I did some reading and turned the lights out around 10:00. It sucks having to roll out of bed to turn out the lights. This is the price we have to pay, I guess.
Following a good night of sleep, I was mentally prepared to work Thursday morning. I gathered my teaching materials and went over to the teachers' room to set up my things. On the way, I ran into a couple of teachers who would be on the receiving end of the class. I told them yesterday the class would be at 8 n the morning. They didn't look ready to learn at 7:55, but by five minutes after eight, I had five teachers in the room. Everyone in there except for one teacher had a fair amount of experience, so I didn't need to baby them through the basics.
The task for them was simple, but it required them to know a lot of things: how to center a document, use caps lock, and numbering. What was new for them was how to maximize their space on a page. Since the 12th Grade National Exams are multiple choice, many teachers have moved to this format for their own exams. When I see their exams, I notice that they almost always use a new line for each option, even though more than one option can fit in a line. Along with the tab key -- a new phenomenon for everyone -- the formatted an exam with one answer per line, two answers per line, and four answers per line. There was one benefit of having a total newcomer: I could compare his work with theirs. Even though they've only had their computers for less than a year, their basic knowledge was evident. Now it's about how to manipulate the program to make it do what they want.
I didn't have much to do following class. My lesson -- the one that went so well yesterday -- was already planned. All I had to do for the rest of the morning was prep for lunch. We made our now regular move toward cheese omelets. We have determined that the Velveeta omelet is the superior form of egg. Until someone can prove to me otherwise, cheese omelets rule the day.
Given that my lesson went so well yesterday, I had high expectations for this class. What I received was nothing short of painful. I've dealt with dental procedures that were more comfortable. Whatever participation I had yesterday wasn't there today. In terms of being in the classroom, there are few things more frustrating than asking for participation -- and knowing they have the vocabulary to do it -- and not getting it. I'm happy to play the waiting game. I'll ask the same question over and over until I get the answers.
That class certainly made me want to hit the bottle. Good thing Richie and a colleague were in the mood to do the same. We started out with a couple little bottles of wine. By the end of the afternoon, we had shifted locations to the town. We stayed out fairly late -- just past 9:00 -- knocking off a case of beer over the couple of hours. Just another Thursday night in Machanga. We got home and with the power of 24-hour energy, we cooked up some dinner before crashing.
Things were very quiet on Friday morning. As we've come to expect, the bell was run at 7:00 to start school, then at 7:45 to mark the end of first period. But outside of that, there wasn't a lot of noise, in both the literal and figurative sense. There weren't many people taking, many students walking around, many teachers going to class. Things were just sort of not happening. It made sense: a whole group of teachers were not at school.
Now, why would twenty-some teachers randomly disappear on a regular Friday? The "Chama de Unidade", of course. The Chama de Unidade is an Olympic torch-like flame that is being brought from the north of the country to Maputo. I don't know why this flame is being busted out now, but apparently it's a big deal for people. Everyone was up early preparing to cook, preparing not to go to school.
For me, this is just another fake holiday, another reason to cancel class because it just happened to occur on a Friday, another reason for the men to get hammered while the women do the cooking. School wasn't even officially cancelled. The bell just stopped ringing about 9:00. By then, nobody was at school. Everybody had just given up.
That's fine by me. I had some things to do in the afternoon, mostly packing for our trip. We're going to be gone for a good while, so I wanted to make sure I had everything. This would not be a good trip to forget a passport or a bankcard. I know that I put everything in my bag, but I still probably checked fifteen times to make sure they hadn't wandered away.
Around 4:00, a couple colleagues wanted to go out to a town called Chinhuque, about 12 kilometers away. I really didn't want to go, but whatever, I didn't have anything else to do. I guess that's what made the afternoon so strange. He drove us out to the villa, and then we had to wait for him for an hour. It's an hour I would have spent just sitting on the patio, but instead I was sitting in a car. Instead of me wasting my time, someone else was wasting my time, and that kinda put me in a bad mood.
Then it took us almost an hour for us to cover the twelve kilometers, whcih is just absurd. Fed up, I just closed my eyes and slept for the second half of the ride. The place where they took us was what could only be described as a "business hotel". You could pay 350 Meticais to spend the night, or 150 Meticais to get some business done. Great. Skeezy. The only upside for the whole afternoon was that we didn't have to pay for beer. Our colleagues bought them for us. Small victory there.
By the time we got back, I was at a level of pissed off I haven't reached in a long time. I rarely get angry. It just doesn't happen much anymore. I feel like there's no a lot to be angry about. But the confluence of having my time being wasted, being hungry, being tired, being drunk, and coming home to an empty house with the lights on pushed me over the edge. I wanted no part of any activity or any person. Richie, recognizing that I was about to go on a killing spree, left the house quickly for the villa. I made my spaghetti, ate as quickly as possibly, and went to bed. It was 8:30. I hoped a night of sleep would do me good.
I woke up feeling refresh, alive, without a bit of anger in me. Part of it was probably the good night's sleep. Most of it, I think, was knowing that I was leaving Machanga for a good long time. We were on the road to South Africa for our World Cup game. The travel day was an average one. We got an absolutely horrible ride to Inhassoro, but after a short wait, we got a Land Cruiser to take us all the way from Inhassoro to Vilanculos.
The rest of the day was very routine, at least for Vilanculos. We caught up with colleagues, got drunk, ate pizza -- all the important things. And as has come to be the trend, three of us stayed up late into the evening, discussing all topics. It's three of us guys. Aside from Richie, they are the only guys in the area. And they have good sports knowledge, so that makes for fun evenings.
I'll be away from my computer this week, on the road to USA vs. England. I'll be back in a couple weeks.
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