Year 2 - Week 46: Sub-One

(Sorry for the delay in getting this online so late. We were on the road until Tuesday. Without further ado…)

Something must have been going on. There were way too many cars here on Sunday for this to be a normal day. There were way too many people for that matter too, including the head priest for the group of mission schools. It became clear that something was going on with the church. Nobody really bothered to explain, which was just fine by me because I didn’t really care.

The only person who said anything was one of my students, who came over not to tell me what was going on, but to get help with his tie. “You’re not going to church, Mr. Lee?” Ha. Ha. No. I don’t go to church. He clearly accepted this as normal because he didn’t say anything after, like “Well, it’s a pretty special day. Some people are being christened today.”

Oh. Well, that would explain the flood of cars and the mass of people. It would also explain why someone was dressed in a red robe with a red hat and a gold staff (is there a technical term here?). And it would also explain why church ran for almost four hours this morning, into this afternoon. Just another reason I wouldn’t go to church.

I managed to keep myself busy during this time. Being Sunday, I had my own church to go to – ESPN’s College football score page. I love seeing that yet another #1 ranked team went down. Sadly, despite their massive winning streak, Boise State won’t be getting to the National Championship game, again. Playoffs?

I also spent a fair amount of time this morning sorting through my inbox, which was flooded with twenty-three emails from Facebook. Which was strange, because I don’t spend my life on Facebook. Apparently someone invited me into a group, which didn’t require me to accept the invitation, and then opted me in to receiving an email every time someone posted something. The next time I get some decent internet, I’m going on a mission to get this shit taken care of.

Once I finished with all the internet stuff, I ran over to the bread stand to pick up some fresh bread. This required me to walk right passed the open-air church. I tried to go unnoticed. Didn’t really work out. I might as well have been wearing a clown suit. I’m surprised they didn’t stop church to say “Look at the muzungu going to by bread!” accompanied by pointing and laughing.

After lunch, I was sitting around on the patio, reading, trying to not be a hermit, when the school’s assistant director came over to the house. There are only a couple reasons he ever comes over: he either needs some help with his computer or needs me to take care of something at school. So you can understand my surprise when he said “Vamos beber?” – “Let’s go drink?”

Mm, okay. I was a little suspicious. I thought this must have been some sort of ploy – get a drink in me and then ask something of me. I wouldn’t blame him for doing this because that is our approach when we need something from our school director: buy a bottle of scotch, get everyone laughing, then tell him we’re going to Malawi.

But no, this was just drinking. Well, for the men, it was just drinking. The women were all busy behind the house preparing a meal. Apparently, the assistant director’s empregada – the girl who works at his house – was one of the people christened today, an occasion worthy of food and drink for friends.

The festivities last until just about dinner time, with the eating and drinking only interrupted by a phone call from the family. The food was plenty good, but there just wasn’t enough. Richie and I returned home and promptly made spaghetti and four cheese sauce. Sufficiently full, we polished off the first season of “Modern Family”. We’re sad that it’s over.

I knew I’d sleep well Sunday night, which was good news, because sleeping has been a challenge these days. Between the nights getting hotter, the sun (and people) rising earlier, and me losing my back support (thanks to having to put together Richie’s bed), I’ve been struggling to make it through a night. I guess all the libations helped me out Sunday night.

Richie and I went through our standard Monday routine. The morning was all about football scores. I’m no longer surprised by the 49ers losing. This season, like the last couple, is a lost cause. Good thing at least one team in the bay area has figured out how to put together a decent season (and make it pay off in the playoffs). This is what I’m coming home to.

Late in the morning, I made a run to the market. We were low on food, and given that we’ll be on the road later in the week, I had to be cautious not to buy too much stuff.

After lunch, I did something that I haven’t done in ten months: I shaved my goatee. It was sad to see it go. I felt like I was losing a pet. I was scared that I was going to have an awkward tan line, given that my chin had been covered for the better part of the year, but I was surprised that everything was nice and uniform.

I looked like a different person. Richie didn’t really recognize me, although he managed to figure out that I was me. Nice being the only white people in town. Reaction otherwise was generally unanimous: “You look like a child.”

Full-blown boredom has overtaken not just our household but the rest of the teacher housing. One of our partners in crime brought out six beers and just put them on his patio. Richie, buried in a book, didn’t really want to drink, but I was bored and not preoccupied with anything so I figured what the hell.

While we drank, I fixed two tech problems. The first was a satellite issue in one house. A small image of an envelope found its way into the corner of our neighbor’s television screen. The problem required only someone who speaks English and is technologically literate. I qualify as both and within minutes I had the problem solved. The other problem was one that required a little luck. A colleague’s computer didn’t have a soundcard. I just happened to have the soundcard for that model. He was so happy to have music again that he bought me a beer.

While I drank/fixed things and Richie read, we let Sozinho cook. We knew this was going to be a bad idea because Sozinho doesn’t know how to cook. He cooked rice (which any Mozambican older than age four should be able to do) and beef curry, which isn’t really surgery. What we got was oil and MSG. It was almost inedible.

After suffering through dinner, Richie and I opened up Season 4 of “Dexter”. We were lucky to get our hands on this, especially since it just came out on DVD two months ago. The worst part about this season is we already know that one of the main characters dies. Now we’re just waiting for her to get axed.

I was back to my normal not sleeping. The first wake up was at midnight, the second at 3:30. From there, I was awake for the rest of the morning. Between the mosquitoes, the roosters, and a singing neighbor, there was no chance of me going back to sleep. I stayed in bed and continued reading “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.

Once I found the strength and energy to get up, I had Sozinho run to the market to see if Dique was killing any cows this week. When Sozinho returned, he told me that Dique would be killing on Monday. I didn’t believe him, since Dique rarely goes more than a couple days without killing a cow. Thus, I fell back on two of my rules for living here.
1) Trust nobody, especially not your idiot empregado
2) If you want something done right, do it yourself
I walked over to Dique’s, bag in hand, to ask him myself.

The only problem was Dique wasn’t there. He was out buying a cow. There was some hope: the kid holding the fort down told me that he’d be killing this week. So somebody’s lying. I’d have to go back later in the afternoon to find out who is not being honest with me.

Shortly following lunch, tropical storm-force winds took over Machanga. Sand blew all over the place. Dirt caked our house, our floor, and our faces. We ran in side and closed the windows, which kept the house cleaner but subsequently turned the house into a furnace.

And I still had to go back to the villa to find out about beef. Somehow I conned Richie into going to the villa with me. Sadly, we were disappointed with the answer. He’d be killing the cow on Saturday, which meant I couldn’t bring filet down to the Vil Girls’ going away party. I guess cake mix and funfetti frosting will suffice as our contribution.

Thanks to the crazy winds, our energy was out all evening. We lit carvao, which, with the crazy wind, took about four seconds to get going. I cooked spaghetti and sauce while Richie and Sozinho ate fish. We couldn’t watch “Dexter” because our computers were both dead, so we both ended up asleep by 9 o’clock. This is the tragedy that is my next twenty days.

I didn’t even make it to midnight Tuesday night. Gotta be impressed by that. I was up and moving at 11:48. At least I was prepared this time. I had a bottle of water in bed with me, so I didn’t have to get out of bed to rehydrate. I was up again at 3:30 until 5:30, then miraculously fell asleep until 7:15. Small victories.

Wednesday morning was shockingly busy. A colleague came over looking for just a bit of computer help. It turned into a two-hour marathon. Then I had to prepare for a prep session for the English national exam. That took my right up to lunch time.

The preparation for the national exam was pure mayhem. First off, I had 100 students packed into one classroom. As long as I was teaching one group, I figured I might as well get to the other group. Secondly, I had to get in as much material as I could squeeze into 90 minutes. How am I supposed to teach all English grammar in 90 minutes? It’s impossible, but I did my best.

Following the two hours of English terror, it was almost time to cook. We lit charcoal and got beans cooking. While we cooked, I started preparing a backpack for what could be my last trip to Vilanculos, certainly my last time seeing our lovely hostesses in Vilanculos. We ate our beans, watched some “Dexter”, and went to bed early, knowing that we had a travel day – one of the last ones – ahead of us.

Our travel day on Thursday started out so promising. We arrived at the river and people were literally waiting for us in the boat. Beautiful. The river was quite full, which was fine by us because it meant less walking on the Mambone side of the river. Once we landed on the other side, we booked it to the villa. A couple of cars turned down the main road. It’s always frustrating when that happens because those could be potential rides.

As we hit the villa, I noticed that there was a red hatchback down one of Mambone’s side-streets. I remembered a saying that my grandfather loves to repeat: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. With this in mind, I approached the car and asked, “Are you going to Vilanculos?” He said, “Yeah, but we have to squeeze four in the back.” We’re used to being squeezed four to a row, so we had no problem with this.

It was at this point that for the first time in a long time, I was accused of being fat. Mind you, it’s a compliment here, but that didn’t stop Richie from calling me a “fat fuck” for the rest of the day.

We had a game-plan for the day in Vil: bank, cell phone store, then to the house for glorious hot running-water showers. A small kink was thrown into our plans right away, when we saw how many people were in line at the bank. I’m done waiting in lines like this. And really, why wait in a line when we can wait at our favorite cheeseburger place and eat delicious food?

With our bellies slightly fuller, we continued with our plan to go to some cell phone stores. Following the protests here last months, the government decided that all cell phone numbers must be registered by November 15. I don’t know how two companies are going to manage to register four million phone numbers in one month, but ours are two that they won’t have to worry about.

The line at the bank had cleared up by the time we were finished at the cell phone stores. Perfect timing, I’d say. With all our main tasks done, we walked over to the north side of time to the teacher girls’ house. We love this house because of their hot shower and refrigeration. With three weeks to go, we found another reason: one of them received an ice cream maker. Seriously. An ice cream maker. All I can say is that this ice cream tasted like America. It was that good.

Late in the afternoon, Richie and I made our way to the other side of town to finish registering our phones and to look for food. As soon as we laid our eyes on frozen chicken breast and cheese, we knew what we were doing: chicken cheeseburgers.

We borrowed a proper barbecue from one of the neighbors of the Volunteers and grilled the chicken to perfection. All said, it was a pretty good travel day. No sense in trying to add anything to it. Shortly after dinner, we went to bed.

Friday morning picked up right where we left off Thursday night – with good food. In celebrating someone’s birthday, we went to a little place called Na Sombra. One of the Volunteers from last year claimed that Na Sombra had the best French fries in Mozambique. After trying them, I can’t disagree. The rest of their food was pretty tasty too.

From breakfast, we made our way to the south side of town to meet one of the health Volunteers. She only had to work until ten o’clock. We could have waited at the restaurant. But in two years of going down to Vilanculos, we had never seen where she worked, so we figured that we’d drop in to check it out.

Cut loose from work, the three of us made our way to the market to meet the fourth Volunteer. She needed a couple hands carrying all sorts of meat for her going-away party back to her house. Having nothing better to do, we lent her a hand – or four, I guess.

Being so close to the ocean, and being so late in the year, we prepared ourselves to take a dip into the world’s biggest bathtub. The water should be really warm this time of year. So you can imagine our shock when we started shivering as soon as we touched the water. We didn’t last more than ten minutes in the water before giving up.

The birthday celebration continues in the market, with the addition of another Volunteer from the area. Five strong now, we took up a table at a bar near the market. The party started slow, then we made Mozambican Car-bombs (Irish Car bombs, but using Amarula instead of Bailey’s and a Mozambican dark beer instead of Guinness. Delicious? Absolutely.

Somehow, we managed to get to this point in the afternoon without eating lunch. 4:30 isn’t too late for lunch, right? We made a brief stop to split a chicken before heading back to the girls’ house.

One of our missions for this trip was to try some new pizza. The place is owned by a couple of Germans, so we weren’t entirely optimistic. But much to our surprise, the pizza was pretty good – certainly better than the garbage we ate in Inhassoro last week.

After eating our own food, we dropped over to the health girls’ house to see how their party was going. We didn’t want to eat anything, just wanted to say hey. After a little bit, the party dissipated and we made our way over to a bar. The five of us were ready for a big night, but a shitty band combined with a bad crowd forced us home early.

We were all looking forward to Saturday, the day of the big Halloween party in Vilanculos. We had heard good things about last year’s party, so we had high expectations for this year.

The day on the whole was pretty quiet. In the morning, Richie and I made our way back to the north side of town to take advantage of the hot shower. The rest of the day, we mostly hung around, trying to conserve our energy for the party. There were two frozen chickens left over from the party last night, which we took advantage of. I barbecued them up and we made tasty sandwiches.

From there, we transitioned right into pre-game with cake and pizza bagels and some beers. We had a ride our to the party, which was good news because the party was at some place that was a good fifteen minute drive away down a shady road.

When we got to the party, we were a little disappointed. First of all, there were a ton of kids there, which was really disappointing. We can’t really get tanked with so many little children around. Second, we were the only adults in the only party to get dressed up. People are lame. And third, the music was absolutely terrible. It pretty much put us all to sleep. Instead of having a crazy drunken time, most of us sat around playing cards before abandoning the party.

Better to get some sleep. We had big plans for Sunday.