A successful weekend in Vilanculos behind us, it was time to head back to Machanga Sunday morning. We won't have to make this trip many more times. We'll probably make it down to Vilanculos one more time before getting out of here.
We followed our normal getting home-routine. Around 8:45, after packing our things and saying our goodbyes, we walked toward the new market/chapa stop, making brief stops to buy a newspaper and to take money from the bank. We claimed our spots in the chapa and then I headed into the market, needing bread and hoping for avocado. It's way out of season, but since Vilanculos gets so many South Africans coming through -- and thus, so many South African imports arrive -- it wasn't entirely impossible. On this day, the dream came through. Sure the avocados were five times as expensive as they would be during Mozambican avocado season, but for a chance at delicious burritos, we couldn't say no.
The ride home was for the most part uneventful, just the way we like it. We made a couple purchases in Mambone before crossing the river.
Oh, yes. Crossing the river. Normally, we walk about a kilometer from Mambone to the river, then cross the river for ten Mets, then walk another couple of kilometers from our side of the river to our house. Richie, however, is an advocate of a "better" way and I agreed to go with him. The pros are: shorter walk to the river, shorter boat ride across the river, five Mets instead of ten to cross and possibly a shorter walk. The cons are: at least two knee-high creeks that we had to cross by foot and trudging through mud for the first five to ten minutes. Now, I'm all for saving money and saving time. But to me, it wasn't worth it to save five mets and ten minutes.
Regardless, we made it home with no problems and very dirty feet. We had a master plan for food for the next couple of days -- beans tonight (with guacamole, of course), then using some leftovers for burritos on Monday. Because we didn't soak the beans, we knew they would need a while to cook. So we lit carvao, threw a pot of water on the coals, and walked to the market to buy some tomatoes and oil.
As we walked toward Madinha's for the oil, I noticed that someone with white legs was standing outside her store. Oh no. I figured this could only be South African Greg, which meant we'd probably get roped into drinking. But as we approached, three things were very clear: 1) this muzungu wasn't Greg; 2) like Greg, this guy had a big belly and was very drunk; and 3) he brought along a whole pack of muzungus with him.
There inside Madinha's store was a group of ten Canadians, all here from Alexis's church group. They're out here building a dormitory and a school out toward the EN1, even more in the middle of nowhere than we are. We tried to make a quick hit and escape, but our new drunk buddy insisted on buying us beers and food. And who are we to say no to that?
By the time we got back from the villa, the carvao had gone out and the water wasn't anywhere close to hot. Okay, we'll start again. Eventually, the beans cooked and the guacamole made them more delicious than usual. For our entertainment, we have a new show to watch: "Modern Family". It's sick comedy, which is perfect for us. I'm sure we'll be done with it by the weekend.
Monday was a pretty quiet day here. I think a lot of people were gearing up for the party tomorrow. In the meantime, we followed our now regular Monday agenda -- check NFL scores, followed by reading whatever we can get our hands on. These days, we're reading "Best American Sports Writing" from 2008, courtesy of a Volunteer in Inhassoro.
At 12:30, I ran over to school to tell my students that anyone who hadn't taken my exam could take it this afternoon at my house. Half of the four kids showed up to take the exam and they both did okay enough. In the evening, just before dinner, I ran over to the director's office to install a printer on someone's laptop.
Then, just as it got dark, we had our glorious burrito meal. The only thing that was missing from these burritos was cheese. Even so, with filet mignon as our meat and guacamole, we were very happy. Like last night, we watched a couple episodes of "Modern Family" before going to sleep.
I know it's hard to believe, but Tuesday was yet another holiday in Mozambique. Tuesday was Teachers' Day. This is probably the single biggest party day at school. And we'd be starting early.
Around 9:00, Richie and I headed over to the town plaza. If this were any other day, I wouldn't have gone, but missing today would be like missing your own birthday. The plaza was boring as usual, but had two little twists. The first was, after the national, which maybe about three-quarters of the people know, the teachers sang their "Teachers' Hymn". The second twist was, just like last year, a march through the town. And just like last year, about a quarter of the way through the march, we peeled off to meet some teachers at a bar
And so it began at 10:00. A group of about ten of us threw down at least two cases of beer over the next couple of hours. Richie ended up going home around 1, while I scored some food and talked to the Canadians back at Madinha's. At some point, a game of slamball was played. I came home in time to make some spaghetti, then laid myself out on the patio for three hours. It was just way too hot to be inside.
I woke up around 9:15 to the sound of extraordinarily loud music. The house behind ours decided that this would be a good night to test out some new speakers. I popped in my ear plugs, took a Benadryl, and promptly fell asleep.
Everybody seemed to be up and moving pretty decently on Wednesday. People seemed to pick up where they left off on Monday, and so did I. I was awake way too early for my own well-being -- 6:15. I knew I wouldn't make it too long without food. And the bread in our house had gone stale overnight, so I made some tomato sauce and spaghetti. I know, two consecutive meals of spaghetti is pathetic, but what can I do?
I was scheduled for class late in the afternoon. All I have to do is return exams and discuss the test a bit. I'm actually going to spend a fair amount of time talking about this one. I want the students' input on the difficulty of the questions, so I'll be able to prepare them better for their exams next month.
I played the waiting game all afternoon, hoping that my students would come get me early. The only problem is that most teachers are giving their exams this week, so I'm sure there won't be many free class periods. In the meantime, I gave myself a much-needed haircut. Should be good to go for the next week or ten days
While my students may have failed me in not coming to my house to get me early, I still got a win When I went over to the school at fifth period, my scheduled teaching time, the other class didn't have a teacher. Sweet - I could hand back exams all at once, go over the test all at once, be done all at once. This makes me happy.
We did not plan our dinner out very well. Nobody in the house wanted spaghetti, we didn't have any beans, and there was no way could do potatoes two meals in a row. That pretty much left us with rice. The only problem was we didn't have much rice in the house. Nonetheless, we made stir fry. We were both starving afterward. Instead of eating more, which would have required cooking, we watched two episodes of "Modern Family".
Wednesday night was my scheduled night for Larium dreams, and like clockwork, they came in full force. I had three very distinct dreams that night, but the one that stood out was when some country -- whatever country I was in -- broke out in full-blown sectarian violence. Nice way to wake up.
We didn't want a repeat of last night's dinner fiasco, so I ran to the market to buy, among other things, a lot of rice. Five kilos of rice should be enough for us for the rest of our time here. We might need one more kilo, but we are usually good for a kilo a week.
When I came back, I found myself on computer duty for the better part of the next couple hours. First, a colleague wanted to know if he could burn CDs on his computer. He seemed to believe that his computer was not capable, but these days, almost every computer can burn CDs, even in Mozambique. The same colleague also wanted to know how to make movies using Windows Movie Maker. I had never used the program, but it was pretty easy to learn.
Computer duty continued after lunch. I was supposed to go into school to control exams, but the pedagogical director told that no one would be giving an exam today. Fine. Instead, he wanted me to try to install a printer on his laptop. I told him "No problem", words I would soon be eating. This computer gave me nothing but problems. His computer was apparently missing a couple of drivers, which I tried (and failed) to download.
Two hours of work produced nothing. Can't say I didn't try. Having run out of options, I came back home and finished reading "Best American Sports Writing 2008". Richie and I both managed to kill this book within five days of getting in. And once again, we're just about out of reading material.
After a market run for a soda, we came back to get started on beans. We still had two avocados to get through. I've been stashing them in my room so Sozinho wouldn't eat them. Lord knows he would. The only thing we were missing was cheese. If only. After eating, we finished out "Modern Family" and watched an episode of "The West Wing". I know, old school.
There are no words to describe the level boredom that Richie and I hit on Friday. Our work obligations are finished. We barely have anything left to read. And to top it off, the electricity was out for the entire morning and most of the afternoon. I really don't know how we dealt with this lack of energy for the first eighteen months. Now that we have it, we're spoiled.
I don't have much to talk about, seeing as most of the day was spent trying to figure out how to kill time. It got to the point where I started dealing games of Solitaire. It's not just that I don't have a computer on which to play. The whole shuffling and dealing took up time. So did the three pages of cryptograms that I knocked out.
Eventually, Richie and I found something productive to do. We started going through our clothing, figuring out what stuff can be brought home and what stuff we're going to give away. This killed an hour, so I guess we can call that a success.
After lunch, and time-killing naps, Richie and I headed to the market, mostly for the sake of going to the market. Sure, we needed a chicken for tonight and some tomatoes for tonight and tomorrow. But knocking an hour out of our afternoon was far more important.
While I was cooking the chicken, a teacher called me, in need of some technical assistance. He was about to buy a computer second- or possibly third-hand. He wanted me to check it out to make sure that everything was running okay. With the exception of Microsoft Office not being on the computer, everything seemed okay to me.
The energy came on just in time for us to not have a romantic candlelit dinner. I don't think we can handle any more of those. We ate our chicken and rice and watched an episode of "The West Wing" before the power went out again.
Saturday looked a lot like Friday -- utter boredom, no electricity -- except there was one big difference: the weather. The last couple weeks have been hot as hell, but out of nowhere, a nice cold front moved in. I thought we might get some rain, given the 1:30 AM wake-up I got courtesy of a pair of huge thunder cracks. The rain never came, but the clouds and wind stuck around all day, a blessing for sure.
Once again, we were on the hunt for ways to kill the day. We had one small task to accomplish -- reconstructing Richie's bed. For the last year or so, Richie has thrown his mattress on the floor. The beds we have provide almost no back support (I stole a couple planks of wood from the school to help me out); the floor, apparently, was a lot more comfortable. Putting the bed together, and them post-construction clean-up took up maybe an hour.
The rest of the day was a lot of sitting, waiting for the energy to come on, praying the energy would come on, going to the market with the hope that the energy would be on when we returned, only to return to no energy.
This no energy thing could prove hugely problematic. Tonight was a scheduled cake night for us. One month to go in Machanga, forty days until we're home. Cooking spaghetti on charcoal is no problem. Baking a cake on charcoal is a whole different kind of task. I had hoped it wouldn't come to that, but by the time the spaghetti finished, we still didn't have electricity.
Baking on charcoal requires a Dutch oven. It's pretty basic: throw on pot -- the baking dish -- inside of a closed bigger pot. In theory, it should work just like an oven. In practice, it's almost impossible to control the temperature. The cake baked, for the most part. It wasn't nice and fluffy, like it should have been, but it still tasted like cake. Of course, I would have been just as happy to just eat the batter. It's all the same to me.
At least for the next forty days.
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