Year 2 - Week 35: Working Things Out

With our Close of Service conference behind us, all we had to do was, well, close our service. We may only have a couple more months left, but there is still plenty to be done. Richie will be out for most of the week preparing for Science Fair in Beira. In the meantime, I'm holding down the fort, keeping things in order here.

In theory, our last trimester here begins tomorrow, but we know better than that. In practice, students will begin walking back to school today, maybe arriving tomorrow, but in all likelihood, they won't be here until Tuesday or Wednesday. School won't really start until next week, which is all fine and good. If I don't have school to keep me busy, I'll find other things to occupy my time.

And there was no shortage of things to keep me busy on Sunday. There were two small pieces of electrical work that needed to be done in the house. The simpler of the two tasks was getting a new light bulb for my room. The more difficult was adding a plug to the electric wire I have going out to the patio. Until now, the wire has been going directly into the outlet. This situation was just begging for an electrocution of massive proportion. With a piece I purchased in Vilanculos, I fixed up the wire so it would be electrocution-proof.

My third task for the day involved my beleaguered pan handle. The third time was apparently not the charm for my whittled handiwork. Leave it to Sozinho, the person we so endearingly call "The Ruiner", to ruin my work. He didn't realize that since the handle was made from wood, he probably shouldn't put it directly over an open fire. Sometimes, I just have to wonder what goes on in that mind of his. I put on a new handle and Sozinho-proofed it by wrapping most of it in aluminum foil.

The last of my jobs today was to hand out a laptop to one of the teachers here. I would have done it early, but the computer needed an adapter. What good would a laptop be if you couldn't recharge it? I showed him the basics -- turning on, turning off, opening a document -- and told him to come by tomorrow a quick typing lesson. He had been anxious to receive a computer, so when it finally happened, he was very happy.

For all that hard work, I think I deserved a good dinner. Sozinho got his hands on some gazela -- bushmeat -- and we Americanized it: cut up some veggies, through some cheese on it, and made gazela sandwiches. The meat was as lean as any beef we've had, so we were pretty content. Making the night even better, we began the fifth season of "How I Met Your Mother". I don't know how many seasons there are, but we're happy that we're catching up.

Richie was right back on the road Monday morning, leaving me alone for the week. But even though he was gone, it's really hard to be alone here. People here are always coming by. The first two people came by around 8:30. They came strapped with their computers, eager for a quick typing lesson. If they can figure out how to touch-type, they'll be miles ahead of me because, despite my almost twenty years of working on a computer, I still cannot properly touch-type, and I don't think I'll be learning how any time soon. It was a little frustrating at first for them, using their hands and minds in a way that they never have, but I think they'll pick it up pretty quickly. If Mozambicans can do one thing well, it's memorization; they'll be able to put that skill to use in remembering where they keys are.

Late in the morning, I made a run to the market to buy some rice. Sozinho, naturally, plowed through all the rice we had while we were gone. I'm done buying things in bulk, because Richie and I are both sure that he gives away our food when we're gone. No normal human being can eat that much food in so little time. It's just another example of the Mozambican/African mentality discussed in the book I read a couple weeks ago. We buy things in bulk because it's convenient, because we don't want to walk to the market every day. But when Sozinho sees that we have ten kilos of rice, he thinks it gives him permission to distribute that rice as he sees fit. And that drives us crazy. He costs enough as it is.

After lunch, I started reading "The Kite Runner". Yea, I know, I'm a couple years behind on getting to this book, but better late than never. I've heard nothing but good things about it, and the first hundred or so pages certainly have lived up to expectations. Given the lack of work this week, I'm sure this book will not make it to the end of the week.

There was one last computer to be distributed after lunch. Well, at least until we leave. It looks like Richie and I are both going to leave our computers behind. Though still functional, they are not in particularly good shape. They'll be put to good use here. At least they will last long enough for someone to save up enough money for a new one. I went through the same basic lesson as I did yesterday and, once again, the recipient was elated.

I started preparing beans late in the afternoon. They had been soaking all day, meaning they should have taken less time to cook. Still, it took a solid two hours to get them cooked all the way through. They weren't the best beans I've ever cooked, but they were good enough. The saving grace was an avocado. That's right -- we managed to get our hands on a couple of avocados Vilanculos. Huge victory does not begin to describe that purchase. Avocado season should have been done a long time ago.

Following dinner, I was preparing for a night in bed with "The Kite Runner", when one of my colleagues asked me if I could go out for a couple drinks. Could I? Of course I can. The two teachers who received computers this week wanted to thank me with a couple beers. They couldn't think of a better way to thank me and, quite frankly, neither could I. We stayed out for a little bit. Strangely, I was the only one drinking beer. Everyone else was drinking Fanta. Odd. Didn't stop me from having a few before heading home.

Tuesday had the look and feel of winter. A sheet of grey clouds covered the sky, occasionally letting through pockets of bright blue. A strong wind made the trees lean to one side. It looked like it could rain at any moment. You could practically hear the dusty roads begging for some rain, but the clouds had nothing to offer.

The bells rang in school today, though I'm not really sure why. Students are still on their way back here, as are teachers for that matter. I asked Sozinho how many students were in his class today. He didn't even bother to verbalize it. He didn't have to: he just stuck a hand up with all fingers extended. Out of 55 students, literally a handful have shown up. It seems there's an unwritten contract between the teachers and students that says, "Let's push vacation on for one more week" and everyone is happy to comply. So be it.

Around 10:30, I decided it was time to work out again. I have been exceptionally lazy this year and it doesn't feel particularly good. I could feel it last week as we played ultimate frisbee in the sand. I was sore for the entire week after. The first workout after a long layoff always sucks, but I suspect the motivation will come easier after that first one.

After lunch, I kept myself busy with "The Kite Runner". My assumption that this book wouldn't last the week looked good. It was really a matter of whether it would survive the day. The only thing working against me was the lack of light. As the wind grew steady, the lights went out, leaving Machanga without electricity for the better part of the afternoon. Nobody stopped what they were doing. After all, this was the old normal. When the house became to dark to read, I lit a candle and read by candlelight.

Late in the afternoon, with the school generator pumping, I went over to the school to help one of the assistant directors in making a school form. The form he needed to make wasn't particularly difficult -- a header with a table below -- but he couldn't get the table to fit on the page. I tried to throw it in a header, but it wasn't really working. Finally, I just took out the margins and made the table fit. He asked me how I did it, so I showed him. I was about to show him how I did the table, but he interrupted me. "That part I know how to do." That's the kind of moment that can't be measured. It's a little thing that made my day. Then it only got better. "It's a lot more difficult in Microsoft 2007", he said. "In 2003, I could do it". I couldn't agree more. And couldn't stop laughing under my breath at the absurdity of it all. Last year, he didn't know how to turn on a computer. This year, he's griping about Microsoft Office 2007.

Finally, just after 6:00, the electricity came on for good. The timing was perfect. I cooked some rice, whipped up some guacamole and salsa and had some Mexican food. As the rice cooked, I finished "The Kite Runner". By the time I was finished with dinner, it was nearly bed time. I crawled into bed with a new book, "All the King's Men", and hoped that this one would last more than a day.

For the second day in a row, the electricity was not working as well as it should be. The wind has picked up a notch or two. We're not talking about a tropical breeze here. This was a seriously cold wind. And it was wreaking havoc with everything. It knocked out the electricity for most of the morning and kicked up a ton of dust. I overheard someone saying they "took refuge" in a shop for a little while to keep the dust from landing in their eyes. Everyone was decked out in their winter gear -- beanies, sweaters, pants -- except for our favorite two-year old, the famous "Bucket Girl", who was just fine running around with no pants on.

The school is still quiet. A couple more teachers have shown up and some have even tried to teach this week. I think the people who are trying are the ones who are new this year. They still haven't quite figured things out. But those of us who know what's up haven't even tried to teach. I figure as long as long as the school director and all of the assistant directors aren't teaching, I can't be accused of not doing my job.

I kept busy in the morning with a workout. I was sore all morning from yesterday's workout -- I guess I earned that for not exercising for months -- so I did some legwork. I'm sure I'll be sore again tomorrow, but hopefully my arms will have recovered.

After lunch, I snuck in a little nap. No commitments -- might as well sleep. I woke up hungry. Conveniently, I had half an avocado left over from last night. I mashed it up into guacamole and used it as a dip for bread. It hit the spot. How could it not?

I tried to do some more reading in "All the King's Men", but I'm having trouble getting into it. I should like it, being a political book and all. But unlike "The Kite Runner," the writing in this book is, I don't know, fluffy. It's very adjective-heavy, very repetitive. Oh, and the first chapter goes on for-fuckin-ever. No chapter in any book should last seventy-seven pages. Even biblical chapters don't last that long. I suffered through that chapter. I can only hope that the next chapters are shorter, but I have my doubts.

I was banking on eating spaghetti for dinner tonight. It's been a couple nights, so you know, I'm due. Sozinho wanted to eat rice and I figured that as long has he's cooking it, I might as well eat it. I pulled some chicken breast out of our friends freezer, defrosted it, and cooked it up on our stove. By the time we ate, it was already 8:00 or so. The rest of the night was quiet. I wrote out an email or two and went to sleep.

I woke up early Thursday morning to the ping-ping-ping of raindrops on our tin roof. It wasn't a heavy rainy-season rain, but still heavy enough as to not dissipate before hitting the ground. This rain wouldn't bring on any mud or fill our wells, but it will be good enough to water the lettuce and onions growing behind the houses. I looked at the clock and saw it was 5:45, laughed, and went right back to bed for a little while.

The morning was surprisingly busy. I caught up with a friend from home, then did a grocery run. Sozinho was out of the house preparing his potential science fair project, leaving me to go the market. That was fine by me -- I was happy to kill an hour or so. After the market run, I came back home for my workout. It's funny. I only took two days for me to crave that feeling again, the feeling that you need to work out. By the time I was done, it was lunch time already.

I ate my lunch and showered, with no big plans for the afternoon. One of our colleagues came over asking for information about the regional Science Fair in Beira. He'll be chaperoning the kids up to Beira, which shouldn't be too difficult. It's not going to cost him anything -- Science Fair will cover all the costs -- but in the meantime, I'm covering their food and transportation tomorrow, at a hit of 1800 Meticais, about thirty percent of my salary for the month. I'll have it back by Monday, so it's no big deal. Still, I think it pissed off Sozinho, knowing that I had that kind of cash, but am not willing to fork out for his baptism clothing. What he doesn't realize is that all that money has to last me through the month.

Late in the afternoon, two trucks rolled into the school, the big mack-type trucks that can carry fifty goats. In this case, though, the trucks weren't filled with goats but with students singing at the top of their lungs as they approached school. They've plotted their return perfectly -- show up late enough in the week that the teachers won't come to class for the remainder of the week. I still can't understand why anyone would be so excited to coming back here -- to Machanga, to school, to finding firewood so they can eat the same crappy food day in and day out. Whatever. I won't rain on their parade.

Whatever excitement existed in the school was non-existent in the teacher's bairro. My neighbor came over with his usual smile and "Boa Tarde" then told me that his brother died this morning. He said it like he was just reporting the news: it's windy and cold outside, the students have returned, and my brother died. He said that he had been "doente" -- sick -- which is kind of a code. If it were TB, he would have said TB. If it were malaria, he would have said malaria. But if it's AIDS, then he's "sick". I asked how old he was: forty. Another life ended early, even by Mozambican's standard for life expectancy.

That pretty much killed whatever good vibes I was feeling. In a lot of ways, we've become very accustomed to a lot of things. We're used to taking shitty chapas and power outages and nothing running on time. But I don't think I'll ever get used to someone telling me that their brother or cousin or daughter died because of a disease that was preventable, whether that disease be AIDS or malaria or diarrhea.

Uninspired, the night was nothing special: spaghetti and some more of "All the King's Men" before going to sleep.

The early part of Friday morning was filled with a colleague's first computer crisis. His battery had drained all the way to zero and wasn't charging. I thought he just left it on, killing it off. But when I plugged the computer in, it still wouldn't charge. Curious. I tried using a different battery and it still wouldn't charge. Even more curious. My last guess was the charger itself. Earlier in the year, I had given a non-functioning charger to another colleague; maybe this was the same one. I tried a different charger and it worked. Excellent -- problem solved.

The rest of the morning looked a lot like the mornings from the rest of the week. I ran over to the market to buy eggs, then to the other side of town to buy bread. When I got back, it was already time to cook.

I kept myself busy after lunch plotting out what these last few months will look like, both in terms of school and personal life. I drew out a little calendar, which was a shockingly visual way of how little time we have left here. We have only two complete months left -- amazing. On the travel side, I'm going to be a road a lot these last few months. Bank runs, English Theater, and good-bye parties will have us running between Chimoio, Vilanculos, and Machanga.

This last school trimester is going to be an interesting one. Taking out this week, there are only eight full weeks of school between next Monday and October 12th -- Teacher's Day, the unofficial end of the school year. I have a feeling it's going to be a confusing trimester. I'm going to be spending a lot of time on phrasal verbs. Students here are used to translating sentences word for word. With phrasal verbs, that won't work. It's going to take some getting used to; thankfully, we have eight weeks.

Mcel went down again sometime during the afternoon. I'm hoping this is just a day problem instead of a weeks long problem like last time. After repairing the network faster than expected, I'm trying to think positive

Once I finished planning, I started cooking dinner. The beans had been soaking in water all day, so they only needed about ninety minutes to cook. My beans got the approval of Sozinho, a rare occasion. I guess when I really want to, I can cook up Mozambican beans as well as any Mozambican. I spent the rest of the night getting through chapter two of "All the King's Men". As I thought, the chapters aren't getting any shorter. This second one was ninety pages. Craziness.

I lazed around Saturday morning for a good while. I kept on with the book, making it half way through chapter three before rolling out of bed. Once up and at it, I continued planning out this last trimester. I tried to decide the best the way to teach phrasal verbs -- by root verb or meaning, -- eventually deciding to keep all phrasal verbs with the same root together. For example, in one lesson, students will learn phrasal verbs with break: break in, break up, break out, break down, break something down, and so on.

Sozinho took care of cooking lunch, then found his way to Mambone for the afternoon. I stuck around the house, getting in a workout after lunch. I was on call for tech duty in the afternoon. The photocopier owned by one of the teachers hasn't been working and he wanted me to repair it. Little did I know that the copier was the least of his problems. The computer that I just gave him wasn't charging or turning on. Gotta love Dell products. The rest of my afternoon was spent trying to solve this problem.

I did a little online research, plugging in the "symptoms", and found out that the problem this computer had confused even the best fix-it geeks on the web. Some people said to take out RAM chips, others said to press F7 sand F8 together while turning the computer on, others said to pop the hard drive in and out. I tried all of these things and failed.

So I went to Plan B -- or C or D, depending on if all those "solutions" were separate plan. I had another computer just like the one he got, except the screen was completely shattered. I knew that it turned on okay, but was unusable. I jumped back onto Google -- seriously, what did we do before Google? -- and learned how to replace the monitor on this type of Dell. Once I had that, the fix was easy -- six screws out, pull a cable, six screws in. Just like that, I had a fully functional computer.

I rewarded myself by completely doing in the busted monitor. I took our broom stick and decided to beat the living hell out of the already broken screen. On the third thwack, the broom stick busted in three pieces. Lame. It's okay -- I felt better.

All that work pushed dinner back until 8:30. That's how committed I was to working this problem out. I ate my dinner, finished chapter three of "All the King's Men" and went to sleep.

I was out cold when, around midnight, I received a text message. It was from hours before, but it finally came through. Mcel was back up. I didn't even bother reading it – it will be there in morning. I rolled over and went back to sleep for good.