Year 2 - Week 39: Sprawl (Flatland)

Buzzing, warm, and flat. Machanga is taking its sweet time transitioning to the hot season, and I couldn't be happier about it. The days have been noticeably warmer, but the nights are perfect for sleeping. The only thing impeding me from a perfect night's sleep -- other than my sad excuses for a mattress -- is the buzzing of mosquitoes. This isn't small thing. The mosquitoes have invaded and they love to make plenty of noise. Something had to be done about this.

I walked over to the market before the sun got too high overhead to buy some bug spray. As I walked over, I couldn't help but notice how flat Machanga has become over the last couple of weeks. The soil has yielded everything it can for this growing season. Now, everyone is preparing for the next rainy season. That means controlled burns and sending the animals out to the fields. Goats and cows are fattening themselves up on dying corn stalks. (they're happy now. If only they knew their final destination...). Nebraska-on-Rio-Save is rapidly being reduced into a sprawl of dirt paths.

While at the market, I bought a toothbrush for the first time in two years. That's not to say that I haven't been changing my brushes on a regular basis. I came here armed with ten brushes, using one every ten weeks. Now, 100 weeks in, I was out of toothbrushes. This is the first and only toothbrush I'll buy here.

Before I could commence the mosquito genocide, I cleaned up my room. The last thing I need is a pile dead mosquitoes on top of my shoes and laundry bag. With a nice graveyard prepared, I shut the door and went crazy. The bug spray smells awful -- I may have increased my chances at some sort of cancer -- but man, it does the job.

Spraying was just the first of three phases in the mosquito slaughter. The second and more important of this task required a needle and thread. The mesh covering my windows has been badly torn. The opening provided a perfect entry-point/getaway for those bloodsucking creatures. Using a piece of my mosquito net and a piece of capulana, Richie and I began patching up the window. I don't know how effective it will be, but it can't be worse than what has been.

We managed to finish about half the job when we realized that it was already 1 o'clock. Damn. We lit carvao and got some lunch in.

Richie disappeared for a little in the afternoon. I think he ran to the market, but I'm never sure where he vanishes to when he decides to walk around. I roped Sozinho into helping me out with the second half of my window. The job was finished around 3 o'clock.

On a normal day, all of this progress would have earned me a nap, but there was still more to do. Around 4:30, I lit carvao once again to make beans. I failed on this front today -- completely forgot to add garlic, a truly vital ingredient. After eating we watched "She's Out of Your League". We had slightly elevated hopes for this movie -- we figured there had to be a hot girl in it -- but it was a pretty shitty film. I ended my night with a bit of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius".

I definitely slept better Sunday night. Maybe that had to do with the death of 100 or so mosquitoes. I woke up refreshed, motivated, ready for work. Unfortunately, the work that I had to do would be utterly depressing. Another stack of exams sat waiting for my red pen. After two hours of work, the results were clear: the science students, as usual, dominated the languages students. They scored about 4% higher than the languages kids and had a passing rate that was doubly better. Still, less than half the kids passed. This is going to require a speech later in the week.

The price of bread went up today, from 5 Mets per roll to 6. It's not a huge hit for us. The truth is, we'll probably just eat less bread. But coupled with other price increases, it's going to be a huge hit for a lot of Mozambicans. I don't know how they're going to handle it.

Because of a holiday tomorrow, Richie was able to cancel class this morning, but he couldn't avoid class in the afternoon. While he was in class, I kept myself busy with some small tasks. I had to punch grades into a spreadsheet and I also fixed up another window that had some holes. Satisfied with my work, I settled back into "A.H.W.O.S.G" (the title is just way too long to type out every time).

When Richie came back from the market, we did our regular "what should we do for dinner" dance. We were hoping for beef in the market, and decided on chicken as a back-up. The only problem: there was neither beef nor chicken in the market. Thank goodness we still had frozen chicken breast in our neighbor's freezer. We defrosted the chicken, through it in tomato sauce for pasta and had a tasty dinner. While watching "Shutter Island" -- which was one fucked up movie -- we made a cake, a celebration for not having to work tomorrow.

Tuesday was a national holiday in Mozambique: Lusaka Accord Day. For some reason, I decided to go to the town plaza for the ceremony. About half way through, I remembered why I never come to these things – they're always exactly the same. After the ceremony a government official gave a speech. I'm convinced that it's a standard speech with the date and holiday name changed. Following the speech was some dancing by the same groups that always danced. Ten minutes into the dancing, Richie and I had had enough.

On the way back to the house, something incredible happened. My glorious Rainbow sandals broke. In six years of wearing Rainbows, I have never had a sandal break. Sure, they get worn down, but the strap on these actually snapped. It was amazing. And depressing. My day is ruined. Only a post-lunch nap could make me feel better.

After my nap, I went over to the market to buy a new pair of sandals. These sandals are definitely not as comfortable as my Rainbows (R.I.P), and they are certainly not appropriate for the classroom. Still, I refuse to wear socks in this country and thankfully, I have another pair of sandals that are classroom appropriate. While at the market, I also bought some chicken cocktail sausages to be used for dinner.

Once I got back, Richie declared that he wanted fish together. Looks like I'm on my own with those chicken sausages. I made some rice, stir-fried some veggies and had a delicious dinner. After dinner, we watched “Up in the Air”, the best movie we've seen this week.

I had an English theater meeting on Wednesday morning. It's official: I should never show up on time for these meetings. I was there at 8:30 as usual, but none of my students were there. I came back to the house to pick up some work and went back. By that time, two students had arrived. We didn't get going until 9:30.

It's a good thing the kids have pretty much nailed their lines because I would have gone nuts otherwise. The timing of the play is also perfect. Now we just have to put together the proper clothing and we'll be good to go for next weekend.

When I came back from theater, I decided to prepare a lesson for class in the afternoon. I still wasn't sure if I was going to actually give the lesson. It depends on how long test correction takes and how demoralized the students are.

Shortly after lunch, a students came by my house to ask me to give class early. Naturally I said okay. I went over to the room and posted the answers on the blackboard. The kids were a little confused that I had posted for answer sheets. Then they realized that there were four different exams. Oops. They were probably wondering why I was so lax on wandering eyes. Now they knew.

It took an hour to go over the exam, and then I gave my spiel. I asked how many of them studied for the exam; no hands went up. Nice. Maybe that has something to do with everyone failing. They were defeated. They had mentally checked out for the day. A lesson would be of no use.

I came back from class at the perfect time to cook beans. I salvaged a bit of carvao from lunch to restart carvao. These beans were much better than Sunday's edition. Small victories. For our entertainment, we watched “The invention of Lying”. Back to shitty movies. I saved the night with a bit of “A.H.W.O.S.G”.

For most of the week, I haven't been able to sleep through the night. I've been waking up at 2:00 or so, dehydrated. Tonight was no different. Up at 2:08 AM. Lovely. I threw down a glass of water and slept until 7:30, with a brief wake-up around 5:00. It's not a sustainable schedule.

While I sat around the house in the morning, my phone rang. It was a strange hour for a phone call: 9:30. It was especially strange since that call was coming from California, just past midnight there. On the other end of the line were my brother and sister, fumbling around on speaker phone. I don't know how much ground we covered over the course of the conversation, but I do know that I probably remember the conversation a little more clearly than they do.

I spent the rest of the morning doing some English theater work. Signs needed to be designed and colored in. Richie said I was just bored. This was somewhat true. But it also had to be done. It kept me busy until lunch time.

I was scheduled for class right after lunch, at 12:30. I had the same gameplan as yesterday: just returning exams. I know these kids are going to be to frustrated by their grades to power through with a lesson. I gave the same speech as I did yesterday? “Who studied? More than 15 minutes? More than 30 minutes?” There was no need to go beyond that; nobody studied more than a half-hour for my exam. And they wonder why they failed.

After class, Richie and I headed to the market to make some dinner purchases. Word had gone around town that a cow would be slaughtered at some point in the afternoon. When we got there, the cow was all cut up, decapitated, meat sitting on it's hide. Yummy. It looked like there was a lot of good beef left so I asked for two kilos instead of our standard one. Ah, the power of having access to a freezer.

When I got home, I got to work on the meat, cutting it up into meal-sized chunks. The meat cut like butter, a good sign. There was no sense in discussing what we would do with this beef. Invariably, we just dance around the subject, leaving it to the other person to decide. I made the executive decision tonight: stir fry.

The beef was absolutely delicious. Tender, easy to chew, went down easy. It's the first time in a while that we've had a good cut of beef. I was especially happy with my decision to buy two kilos. We didn't want to wreck this night with a shitty movie. We looked through the reviews of the movies we had and found a movie with a good review – “Defendor”. We were skeptical, but it was actually pretty good.

Friday morning meant English theater practice. As usual, I showed up right on time at 8:30. Of course, no one was a round. At least I came prepared: I brought a book with me this time. We didn't get started until almost 10:00. This is getting frustrating, especially since we only have a week until the competition.

While I was at theater practice, Richie was on the road to Inhassoro. He was all but out of money. And with me going to Chimoio next weekend, he definitely would not have survived until our next payday.

The only upside to starting practice so late was that we finished right in time to make lunch. I had a full afternoon in front of me after lunch. Four classes, one right after the other. Or so they were scheduled to be that way. The first two went off as scheduled, but my when I went in for my third hour, another teacher was giving a test. And after that, another teacher wanted to give a lesson. Fine, whatever. I told a student to come get me when they were ready.

It was almost 4 o'clock by the time they came to get me. Apparently, plenty of students thought Friday meant weekend. Of the fifty students that were supposed to be in that class, exactly fifteen stuck around for English. I say again: and they wonder why they fail my exams. I had to reward these students. I gave each of them an extra ten percent on their exams. For at least five of them, this was the difference between failing and passing.

Richie was back at home by the time I got out of class around 5:15. He was tired, sunburnt, and covered in dirt. I knew I would be in charge of dinner tonight. We dug into our neighbor's freezer and pulled out some of our remaining beef. He needed a victory. I needed a victory. We went with cheese steaks. Victory! After dinner tonight, we watched “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”. It wasn't terrible, but there are certainly better movies out, I'm sure (I hope...).

Another night, another 2 AM wake-up. I'm over this.

We were supposed to have English theater practice this morning at 8:30, but I had forgotten about some teachers meeting at 8. Of course, this meant 8:40, and naturally, I wouldn't be attending the meeting. But it did mean English theater practice would have to be pushed to the afternoon.

I kept myself busy making some props for the play. In the play, there are a couple of scenes with some miners. To make it look good, we wanted to give them some tools. As such, my morning was spent with a Leatherman (way better than a Swiss Army Knife) making some mining tools. Considering the complete lack of resources, I think they came out well.

We rescheduled practice for 1:30 which in all likelihood meant 2 o'clock. This gave me plenty of time to eat lunch before heading over to the school – book in hand – at 1:30.

Then the waiting began. I waited. A couple more students arrived. We waited. A few more arrived. We waited. By 2:30, seven out of eight students were there. It took the last student another hour to get there. New record for tardiness.

The worst of it was, once everyone was there, they weren't taking it seriously. This with six days until we had to Chimoio. My counterpart on eye let them know our displeasure. We gave some directions on how we wanted things and they eventually got it together.

The evening was quieter than usual. Richie was locked away in his room well past our normal dinner time. I figured I was on my own for dinner. I didn't want to put together anything special, so I used one of my boxes of Mac and Cheese. Always good to have something easy on reserve. A bit later, a colleague came over wanting some information on physics. He didn't realize that the internet doesn't just give answers to problems. Yes, the internet may have tons of information, but it's not a substitute for thinking.

By 9 o'clock he was gone, just in time for me to go to bed.