When I finally made it outside of the house Sunday morning, I saw the damage that I had done to the broomstick -- destroyed in three major chunks with a bunch of little splinters strewn across the yard. I knew as soon as I saw it that it was almost salvageable. I considered super-gluing it, but realized that the first time someone would sweep, it would snap into, well, three major chunks. So I was left with the choice of buying a new broomstick or turning a thin tree branch into a new handle. Which option do you think I went with?
Of course I wasn't going to buy something that nature provides for free. It's a stick! The work wasn't that difficult: strip the branch of its bark, reduce the size on one end so the screw top would fit in, voila! New broom stick, just like that.
Normally, accomplishing a task like that would have earned me a nap, but there was much to do today. I tried to make a market run immediately afternoon. I went to buy bread, but the man who runs the bread place told me that fresh bread would be arriving in a couple hours. Fresh Mambone bread makes everyone happy, so I decided to wait. I also tried to beef in the market, but the cow hadn't been killed yet. The guy working at the butchery told me it would be killed at 4:00, which meant 5:30, so that meant no beef tonight.
Going out for two items and failing on both fronts is disappointing. A nap would certainly have resolved it, but there was more to do. I needed to get a workout in, and a workout meant a shower. Just as I was about to jump in the shower, Richie walked up to the house, exhausted from his week in Beira. He was fairly satisfied with the Science Fair in Beira and rightfully tired.
I eventually got my shower, which brought me right up to about 4:00. Time to check on bread. I don't know why I went at 4:00. That's when he told me it would be there, so why the hell would I go then. Naturally, the store was closed. I returned home and started charcoal for beans. I know, we had beans just two nights ago, but Sozinho wanted them and I'm always happy to eat.
Just as the beans were finishing, I went back to the bread place and, finally, they had bread. The wait was worth it: the bread was so soft. I came back home with nine rolls and started cooking the rice. Just about that time, Richie woke up from his nap and looked like death. He was still in bed and clearly hungry, so I threw him some bread like a SeaWorld employee throws fish to Shamu.
With the rice finished, we sat down for dinner. It was clear from the onset that Richie wasn't going to be eating much. I knew that I would be finishing his food, and it would be the vast majority of his plate. I killed off mine before he finished a quarter of his, and that's when he gave up. I knew it wasn't the beans -- they got a rave review from Sozinho -- he just wasn't hungry. Good thing I was. He went t bed and I finished his food, making me feel sick. How American.
I spent part of Monday morning trudging through another miserable chapter of "All the King's Men". It's a wonder to me how this book won a Pulitzer Prize. The entire 60-something page chapter was, thus far, completely irrelevant. I asked Richie if it came into play later in the book and he said not really. This is why literature drives me crazy.
Late in the morning, I was back on tech duty. Our photocopier-owning colleague wanted me to try to repair his copier. I've had some good luck with it prior to this, but this problem was way beyond me. I knew it was beyond my capabilities when I looked in the manual, saw the error message, and the proper course of action: call assistance. Well, that settles that. Of course, I tried to fix it, but it was not cooperating with me.
While I was in the villa, I went over to the butcher's store to buy some beef. When I showed up, all he had to say was "You came late". What? The American in me wanted to say "Uh, no, it is you who decided to kill this cow 12 hours after you said you were going to do. I was right on time, thank you very much." But that wouldn't fly, so I just said "Yea, I know". There was still some decent beef left and I wasn't going to pass it up.
This afternoon was my last day off, so I soaked it in. I spent a little more time reading "All the King's Men". I'm hoping for a decent ending because that is the only thing that can salvage this book. I ran through my now regular afternoon workout and showered shortly after. And late in the afternoon, we ran over to the villa to make some purchases -- most importantly another 10-kilo sack of rice.
Upon our return, we started cooking dinner. I wanted to learn how to cook beef the way Sozinho cooks it, except I wanted to improve it. He has not learned that glory that is seasoning. It's a pretty basic stew. It could probably use even more seasoning, but for tonight it was pretty good. After dining, we finally got back into "How I Met Your Mother". It's been a long time. Way too long. We watched two episodes before calling it a night.
Tuesday was the official start of our English Theater preparation. In the name of sustainability, I'm really hoping to pass this project off to a colleague. It's not that I don't want to do it. I'm happy to run the project, but there is going to be a day when there won't be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Machanga. It would be a shame to have a project like that go to waste. Luckily, my colleague is pretty geeked about the project. His students seem equally excited. We can bring only eight people this year, and one of them is definitely going to one of my twelfth graders. So that left seven spots for the twenty kids from tenth and eleventh grade who tried out. They ran the gamut from wonderful to miserable. By the time we got through it, we had narrowed down the list from twenty to ten.
Listening to those kids read a paragraph as a tryout took almost ninety minutes. I had but a little time between finishing the first day of English Theater and preparing for lunch.
And then after lunch, it began. School. It turns out that about half of my students have returned from holidays. Apparently, four weeks wasn't enough for some people. Those who didn't show up today were spared the first lesson of phrasal verbs. I knew this series of lessons was going to suck; I just didn't know how much. Today, I only gave four phrasal verbs, all using the verb "break": break up, break down, break in, break out. They should have known the verb "break", but when I asked, all I got were blank stares. Oh, yes, it's going to be a fun eight weeks.
The only good news that came out of the class was that it used up the entire time. It's truly amazing: teaching four verbs required 45 minutes. It's going to be like this all trimester. The rest of the afternoon, I spent trying to finish a chapter of "All the King's Men", but every time I started reading, I realized how much it sucked. Still, I'm going to power through it. I've come too far not to finish it.
I was in charge of dinner tonight. We had a little meat left over to use for stir fry. I chopped up some pineapple to sweeten it up a bit. It, along with the rice, cooked way too slowly. All said, we had the stove on for about two hours. We finally ate around 8:00, and followed our food with a pair of episodes of "How I Met Your Mother". Richie, having a 7:00 class, went right to bed. I, on the other hand, continued in the book, eventually giving up around 10:30.
The nighttime weather has been very strange the last couple of days. When we go to bed, the weather is absolutely perfect, but by 3 or 4 o'clock, it's absolutely freezing. I've been waking up shivering. And today was no different. Around 3:30, I was up, looking for sweatpants and a sweatshirt. It took a little while to warm up, but I eventually fell asleep for a couple more hours.
I lazed around in bed for a little while, finishing the seventh chapter of "All the King's Men". I can't wait to be done with this book. No matter what I read after will be better than this. Having finished the chapter, I got up and welcomed the day.
It was a particularly slow day, and I knew it would be with my only class being at 4 in the afternoon. There was some talk of school being canceled today because the the provincial government party leader came down to Machanga. At least two big truckloads of students went to greet him. It looked promising for a while, but the school bells kept ringing, so we assumed school was in.
And yet, school wasn't really happening. The students were around but a lot of teachers had to go to the meeting with the government official. The teachers' absences gave me an opening. Around 2 o'clock, a couple of my students came by to ask if I could give class early. I would love to.
After yesterday's disaster, I didn't high hopes. Today's lesson was more of the same -- phrasal verbs, this time with "fall". For some reason, this lesson clicked a lot more today. Maybe it's because so many of the phrasal verbs with "fall" actually involve falling. Whatever it was, the students were writing better sentences today, and when I asked if it was easier today, they gave me a resounding "Muito!"
With class over for the day around 3:30, I came back home to try to resolve a computer problem for a colleague. He had this really strange problem: his computer was plugged in but it wasn't charging. I did some research on the problem and as usual, there were many reasons for the problem. I tried a couple of them, but none of them worked. There wasn't a lot more I could do except tell him that he could still use his computer, but it would have to be plugged in.
The rest of the afternoon was slow for everyone. Late in the day, Richie and I started watching some episodes of "How I Met Your Mother". This led right into dinner. Sozinho cooked up couvi, a leafy green. If it's prepared right, it can be good, but Sozinho doesn't know how to cook. Even after I seasoned it, it was still bland. And by the time I found my way into bed, it wasn't settling well.
Following another 3 AM wake-up to warm up, I slept in late, lost in dreams, until I realized that I had an English Theater meeting at 9. Thank goodness for Mozambican sense of time. I showed up at 9:15 and only half of the students had arrived. By 9:30, the rest of the people were there and we were ready to get going.
The meeting last for about 90 minutes and was shockingly productive. We put together a basic plan of how the play is going to run and who will perform what rolls. There will be another meeting tomorrow to begin writing and hopefully we start reading through the play by Saturday.
I returned from the meeting right around the time we start preparing for lunch. Richie didn't want to do potatoes and eggs, complaining of their price. I don't really see why today was different than any of the other 600 days we've had potatoes and eggs, but whatever. I was happy to make my own omelet and he could figure out what he wanted later.
I had class during the first period of the day today, far more convenient than the last class of the day. I was teaching the same lesson as yesterday, but to another group of kids. Even though I was giving the same lesson, these kids just did not get it as easily. Or maybe they were just more willing to say that they weren't getting it. Either way, I tried to explain "fall down" three times and even then, they could not understand. Undeterred, I made myself fall down, dirtying myself, but it got the message across. The kids looked stunned when I fell to the ground; I don't think there is another teacher in this school that would go to that length to explain something. When I asked them "Claro?", they came back with "Claro!" Nice.
Upon returning from class, I jumped online to check email and read news. One of the stories that popped up was about twenty-somethings. I thought, "Hey, that's about me!" And after a read it, I realized, wow, it really is about me. I won't go into all the details, but it explained how there is this middle phase between adolescence and adulthood. It made mention of how many people in their twenties return home after school to live with their parents (see: future me, post-Mozambique) and how we are in this period of huge uncertainty but unlimited opportunities. I can't say I disagree with what was said.
Richie wasn't home when I came back from class, but when he returned, he came with a package in hand. Hello, beautiful. I think this is the last package I'll be getting here. Then end really is almost here. This package was full of essentials -- mac and cheese, some cans of turkey, but most importantly, it had oodles of magazines. We didn't even bother to wait until they were all out of the box. Almost immediately, we both had magazines in hand.
The night was pretty timid. After dinner, we powered through a couple episodes of "How I Met Your Mother". Richie turned in for the night and I curled up in bed with an ESPN magazine.
I woke up on Friday fifteen minutes before a scheduled English theater meeting, which is more than enough time for me to get my teeth brushed, get myself dressed, and get out of the house. I showed up to the classroom exactly at 8:30. No one was there naturally, so I waited. Within fifteen minutes, everyone else had arrived. Lovely. I'll consider that early for them.
The other English teachers and I were really hoping that we could have the script written by the end of the day. It became quickly apparent, however, that there was no way this would happen. I tried to follow last year's successful formula -- break them into small groups to write scenes -- but something wasn't coming across well. Yes, they had figured out the story, but there was no dialogue. An hour and a half later, we were no closer to having a script than we were at the beginning of the day. I guess we'll just have to try again tomorrow.
The failures from the morning didn't bleed over into the afternoon. In fact, the afternoon could easily be called a huge success. I went into school hoping to combine my classes. I knew that the school director wasn't around, which helped my cause -- not because he wouldn't permit it, but because he is supposed to teach a class before mine. When I went over, the kids were all waiting outside and confirmed that they wouldn't be having class. Beautiful.
After class, I came home with a list of things to do. I needed a workout and, more than that, I really needed to shave. Of course, my nine-month old goatee wouldn't be leaving (sorry, Sach), but everything else needed to go. And I had a new toy to help me out with this. Enclosed in the package my mom sent were a bunch of Gillette Fusion razors. I thought five-bladed razors were mythological things, like unicorns or dragons or Mozambican timeliness. I had heard of these things, but never actually had one. I was skeptical. Seriously - five blades. My head and face get plenty smooth with my Mach 3's. Of course, this was a huge step up, given my current use of disposable two-blade razors. But at the end of the day, my head wasn't any smoother. It was like upgrading from a Mustang to a Corvette. I'm still going really fast. Regardless, I was happy to have a clean-shaven dome again.
As usual, it was a quiet evening here. We had beans for dinner, watched some "How I Met Your Mother", and read a bit of "Newsweek" before heading to sleep.
The difference between yesterday's English theater session and today's was night and day. For the most part, the kids showed up on time and they figured out that they needed to use dialogue. The story started to come together. Roles became more defined. Put simply, things got done. It took nearly four hours and a bit of poking and prodding, but by 12:30, we had a script, typed and ready for editing.
Following a quick lunch break, I jumped write back into the script. If I'm that close to having something complete, there's no way I'm going to put it off until later. I cleaned up some lines, made the thing a bit more readable, and added some stage instruction. It was 4:00 by the time I finished all of that. As we had hoped, we we're good to print during the evening.
For all this success, I rewarded myself with a beer run with Richie. We walked over to the villa, had our beers, and returned in time for dinner. For the first time, the three of us had three different dinners. Sozinho wanted to eat couvi again. I wanted no part of that. Richie was eating these tiny fish that looked like anchovies. I'm still new to fish, but I'm definitely not doing anything that looks like an anchovy, especially with the heads and tails still on there.
So I went to spaghetti, as usual. While my pasta cooked, I ran over to the office to print out the play script for all of the students. The timing worked out perfectly -- as soon as I was done in the office, the pasta was ready to come off the stove. After eating, Richie and I started watching "The Blind Side". We only got half-way through it before one of my best friends from home called. Even so, two things could definitely be determined: 1) Sandra Bullock is smokin'; and 2) it's very easy to see why she won an Oscar for her role in this. I guess we'll finish it tomorrow, when a new week starts.
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