Three nights in a row, I have slept well. The weather gods have graced us with wind once again, making my hours in bed actually enjoyable. I woke up refreshed, but with little to do and few people with whom to talk. This place is awfully lonely without my roommate. But he should be back by the end of the day, depending on how lucky he is getting a chapa.
I spent the morning tidying up the house. I organized the kitchen, swept, and mopped the place down for the first time. The place was clean. And then thirty seconds after I finished mopping, it was dirty again. Tis is life in Machanga.
One advantage of being alone is I have complete control over the food. This also can be a massive disadvantage, as it proved to be last night, which resulted in unspeakable things coming out of my back end. But today, it proved to be advantageous. I didn’t want scrambled eggs and potato pancakes again, so I changed it up: I made an omelet and French fries. Don’t mock me, this is considered a change. And it was good.
The rest of the afternoon was spent reading, waiting for Richie to come home. There are times when I’m reading here that I think I’m living in a universe two months behind the rest of the world. In November, after Barack Obama had won the election, we were reading magazines talking about October surprises. Now in February, we are reading about the type of team President-elect Obama will put together. Come April, we will finally get to read about President Obama.
Richie came home just before 4:30. We were supposed to go to a meeting. I had vowed that I wouldn’t go to another staff meeting, and for this week, I stayed true to my word. But I can’t take credit for it; one of the assistant directors told me it wasn’t important and we wouldn’t need to attend. Glorious. Richie would not have gone anyway, as he was exhausted from his travel.
With Richie asleep, I took care of dinner. Because Richie came through Mambone, he was able to pick up among other wonderful items tomatoes. I made my delicious tomato sauce. We dined, watched “House,” and passed out, ready for another week of school.
Monday morning was slow. Richie had a class in the morning – poor soul: one class – so I went to the market. Our new regular bakery had no bread, so we had to go back to the old one. At least the bread was fresh today.
The afternoon was polar opposite to the morning: busy, fast-paced, and encouraging. I had six class periods – three double sessions – consecutively. But I was encouraged by what I saw. I taught my 12th graders “should” and “ought,” and following the curriculum given to me, we actually had some discussion about children’s rights. My 11th graders quickly picked up on how to use “like,” “don’t like,” and “favorite.”
Of course, in any ESL class, there will be errors, some funnier than others. One student wrote on the board “My favorite beer is water.” This made me sad, but not for the grammatical incorrectness. Another student asked me, with a straight face, “What is the difference between ‘put yo hands up’ and ‘raise your hand?’” I actually needed to take a minute to think how to explain this one. But on the whole, the students did very well. They seem to be adapting to my style.
The good part of teaching so late into the day is the energy comes on quickly. With our fresh bread, we made French toast, watched “House” and turned in.
I woke up from awesome dreams. This is the upside of Larium: every once in a while, instead of completely fucking with your head, it gives you a sense of pleasure. In the first dream, I was eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. But it wasn’t just any chicken. This chicken was hand-delivered to me by the Colonel himself. I couldn’t make that up if I tried. The second dream was just as, if not more pleasurable. It involved two girls in bikinis, both of whom I knew, neither of whom know the other. We were in the pool at my house, which is strange since neither of them had ever been there before. Larium is a great drug sometimes.
That was the beginning to what would prove to be an exhausting day. I had eight classes to teach – three in the morning, five in the afternoon. Tuesdays and Thursdays are awfully long days, but this is the price I pay to have Fridays off. The morning classes went well. I have a couple of very small boys in the class. They certainly don’t look like tenth graders. They were so eager to participate, but every time they wrote something on the board, they made a small mistake. This isn’t the big deal. What is the big deal is that every time, we corrected it, they made note of it, and they were back participating during the next activity. They both left with smiles on their faces, satisfied with their work. That, I think, is the biggest deal of all.
I rushed home for lunch, which Richie had dutifully prepared. It must be very hard to fill them time, seeing as he has zero classes on Tuesdays. Right after lunch, I was back to work. My first set of twelfth graders did a nice job learning “may” and “might.” And then the collapse began. My next two lessons – on how to use “I think” and “I believe” – tanked. Hard. I knew it was going to be a brutal lesson. After all, I was essentially teaching subjunctive, and that’s just not fair considering what we had done before that. Thankfully, I was spared by my second set of twelfth graders, who needed to learn “should” and “ought to,” which was followed by a discussion on children’s rights, albeit not as compelling or well thought out as the other class yesterday.
Exhausted, I returned home to finish a book, “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” I recalled my brother reading this book years ago, and when I found it, I snatched it up. It’s a nice read, and I related to the main character on a superficial level – his love of prime numbers and order, his tendency to ramble, and the simplicity of his sentences. I am glad, however, that I don’t have the medical issues that he had. And I don’t mind the colors brown or yellow, which I guess is also good.
The night was pretty normal, with few exceptions. Somebody came to our house to put light bulbs in our bedrooms. So for the first time in nine weeks here, there are light bulbs in all three rooms in the house. It’s almost cause for a celebration. Now if we could only get the other power outlets working, because one out of three just isn’t cutting it right now.
We ate our regular spaghetti dinner, although we had a new bread from a bakery we had not yet been to. One of my students, out of the clear blue, asked me this morning where I bought my bread. He told me that there was another place closer than the market. The bread wasn’t terrible, probably ranking second out of the four we have had. It is definitely more convenient to buy this bread than the other bread, so it may become our favorite quickly.
Wednesday was low-key. I only teach in the mornings on Wednesdays, and the students were mostly on their game. I was teaching this group of tenth graders how to use “like” and “don’t like.” Most of the sentences were good. Some needed some correction. And some were grammatically good, but still needed correction. In one case, a girl wrote “She didn’t like to eat her family.” I just sort of stared at the board as the students soaked it in, and all of us started laughing. The girl changed the sentence to “She didn’t like to eat fish.” That’s better.
Having classes only in the morning allowed me to help out Richie with lunch. I feel a little guilty not being able to help out as much around the house. At the same time, I’m sure he does not feel guilty about teaching a third of the hours that I teach, so I really shouldn’t feel bad.
The afternoon was relaxing. Having finished one book, I started up on another: Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat.” Everybody and their mother love to cite this book, so I figure I should at least know what I’m reading. Lost in all of that relaxing, the book, and a photo-worthy sunset, both Richie and I failed to realize that we were just about out of food. Oops. We had to dig into the American-sent reserves. The food wasn’t bad – the simple fact is that it gets us to the next meal.
Between dinner, and watching the last couple episodes of “House,” my brother called for the first time in a while. It was good to catch up with him, hear about what’s going on his world and the world at large.
I was in for another long day on Thursday, and with it being the end of my work week, I just wanted to get through it. I was scheduled for three classes in the morning, but after I finished my second class, one of the students approached me. He said that his class had already received the three lessons for the week. Really? He explained that two of the classes had switched classrooms and that we were caught up. Either he was a magnificent liar or he was paying closer attention than I was. I let them go, and as relieved as the students were for not having class, I was relieved for having a little more of a break for lunch.
Even though I have the same number of classes on Thursdays as I do on Tuesdays, Thursdays are easier days. I have a two-hour break for lunch instead of 25 minutes. I can actually relax, help with lunch, whatever. In this case, I contributed to the throwing out of rotten eggs. We expect a bad egg now and then, but when eight of the 12 are bad, that’s just not acceptable.
The afternoon schedule was planned for five classes, but due to students’ good work, I was able to cut it to four. My last two classes of the day are with the same group of kids, so I told them that if we move quickly – meaning, if the students volunteer quickly – we can probably get done in less than the two class periods. It is the end of my day, and it is the end of their day too, so we were equally motivated to finish. With this group, I was teaching “would like.” When one of the students wrote on the board “The students would like to leave class early today,” I knew they understood. Class dismissed, thirty minutes early.
Soon after I got home, I got a call from my parents. For the second night in a row, the connection was good. Something must be going on. Richie and I are figuring it will all come crashing down soon. Between their call and my brother’s call last night, I feel like I am almost well informed.
As the afternoon turned to night, Richie and I knew we were in for a treat. On his quest to the market earlier in the morning, Richie bought baby formula mix instead of powdered milk. This should be interesting. We figured if it’s good for babies, it probably won’t kill us. And that is how we ended up with baby formula pancakes for dinner. Amazingly, they were probably the best pancakes we had made to date. Richie credits the baby formula; I remain skeptical, but willing to withhold judgment for now. Fairly content with dinner, with watched a couple episodes of “Seinfeld,” and as the power went out, we crashed.
Friday was domestic day. I hadn’t done laundry in weeks. I pumped two buckets of water from the well and got cleaning. I hate doing laundry, but it’s a necessary evil. It’s a lot of work, and the clothes are never really clean. But we have been in country for almost five months now and we have learned to accept dirtiness.
Just as I finished washing, Richie and I started prepping lunch. With no eggs, we decided to try something totally different – rice and beans. It was filling, but all in all, quite terrible. As Richie went to the bakery, he said “make that lunch disappear”; I knew he wasn’t asking me to eat all of it. Now, I am no fan of wasting food, given where we are and how little we eat, but this just needed to go. We won’t be trying rice and beans again until we have sufficient tomatoes for salsa and good avocados for guacamole.
Our afternoon was calm. With a nice breeze blowing, we sat on the patio, drank some coffee and read books. I figure that I should have “The World is Flat” polished off by the weekend. Richie and I braced ourselves for dinner. With few ingredients to work with – or at least few that we are willing to work with – it was a solid dinner of potato pancakes and bread. It will get us to tomorrow.
I had trouble sleeping for two reasons. For one, my head was racing. I kept thinking about what I would be teaching for the next couple of weeks, even though I had it all written down. But more interesting, I had trouble sleeping because of a sensation I hadn’t felt in a while: coldness. Coldness to the point of shivering. Coldness to the point of requiring more than a pillowcase and a bottom sheet. By 4 AM, I had enough. I wrote down my thoughts, threw on a shirt, grabbed another sheet, and slept for a couple hours.
We had planned on going to Mambone to get some vegetables, but the weather nixed that plan. It seems like every time we want to travel, the weather has to say something about it. It was a cold, slow and steady rain. I had to dig into the winter clothes to pull out sweatpants and a long-sleeve shirt. Once the rain slowed, I ran to the market. While shopping, I saw three of my students, all of whom spoke English to me, one of whom called me “Mr. Lee” instead of the standard “teacher.”
Upon my return, we made lunch. There is not a lot to do here on the weekends, so most of our day was spent reading. I had a student come by to pick up a magazine, which was good. I’m glad that students are willing to take some of their own time to learn.
Then the bombshell was dropped on me. One of the assistant directors told me that the split up the 11th grade classes, from two into four. This is not good. It’s not that it’s any more students. It’s more hours of teaching, hours that can’t fit into my Monday to Thursday schedule. I haven’t seen the new schedule, but I suspect they are going to be dropping Friday classes on me. If that is the case, I’m going to have a word with the assistant directors.
We had our regular spaghetti dinner, followed by a couple episodes of “Scrubs.” As seems to be the case, it got hotter when the sun went down. Luckily, it wasn’t too hot, and since I hadn’t slept the night before, I should be out like a light tonight.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Year 1 - Week 8: First Week of School
Traveling sucks. It’s never easy and rarely fun. But that doesn’t mean that one doesn’t see interesting things while traveling. On our way up to Beira a couple weekends ago, we saw one man selling chickens, and a man next to him who appeared to be selling a baby. On the ride up north this past weekend, it was more of a safari. A pack of monkeys passed in front of our car and we saw a hawk picking up a five foot long snake. Awesome, right?
The trip north was an overall success. We picked up some more things for the house, saw some long-lost colleagues, and drank cold beer. I think those three things equal success. Even two of those would have been fine.
The trip back down, though, sucked. On four hours of sleep, we actually got a late start heading back to Machanga. We got a chapa to the main crossroads right away and the ride was decent. A woman who spoke perfect English thought we were going to Maputo, and later Vilanculos. When I told here we were heading to Machanga, she said “Oh, I’ve never met anyone going there.” One can only wonder why.
Then things got worse. We waited for 45 minutes in a car heading south, then were told to switch cars, and waited another 45 minutes. I should have started drinking like the person who was sitting next to me. The ride was slow, but we eventually made it to Muxungue. There by 2:00 we knew it was going to be a close call getting back to site in daylight. We had to wait to get a car, and then paid too much for it, but it didn’t matter; we were back on the road. As sunset approached, we decided it would be best to go the Mambone crossroads instead of the Machanga crossroads.
And then we waitied more. Another two hours. Just as we were about to leave, and still collecting more people, the money collector started saying “tempo é dinheiro” – time is money. Bullshit, time is money. I gave him a smartass response and he replied with a chuckle. Getting home was officially ruled out: the water taxis stop at sunset out of fear of the hippo. Luckily, our colleague from Mambone took us in for the night. On the ride over – 30 people packed into the back of a pick-up truck, I spoke with a man who thought I was from Brazil (my Portuguese can’t be that good) and was sure I wasn’t 22 years old. Then I realized he was hammered and it all made sense.
We arrived in Mambone in pitch black. Their power was out, which we are used to. Indebted to our colleague for taking us in, we cooked him dinner and at the same time spared ourselves from a fish stew that probably would have probably turned out empty stomachs over. Then again, going on little more than a pack of crackers for the day, we probably would have eaten anything with a smile on our faces.
Richie and I passed out quickly, exhausted from our 12 hour, foodless day. And another long day was ahead. We set an alarm for 3:45, preparing ourselves for the seven kilometer walk to the vila, hoping for a car.
Of course, we did not see a single car pass our way, just a couple going the opposite direction to Vilanculos. The walk wasn’t terrible. We had food in our stomachs, we weren’t hung over like last time, and we both had our Ipods going. Walking to music definitely made the walk easier. You find the beat and stride to it. We made it to the river in good time, and we were back in Machanga by 6:30. At least we made it home in less than 24 hours.
I passed out as soon as I hit the bed. Richie wasn’t so fortunate. He thought he was teaching at 7:30, so he was prepared. But his class wasn’t until 8:30 – oops. He was back quickly and I was awake upon his return
By 11:30, I started preparing myself for my own classes – six 45-minute periods given to three classes. My first group was a set of 12th graders. Given that they have the most schooling behind them, I expected them to know a little bit, but was disappointed. They were limited, to say the least. At least I know where to start with them.
My 11th grade classers, to my amazement, were significantly easier. I had good participation, and good questions were asked in between the periods: the difference between “raise” and “rise,” and “look” and “see.” I was also happy by the fact that I overheard a student saying the class was easy to understand. I hope that after the two years, those 11th graders will speak good English.
The day, in spite of or maybe because of the full teaching load, went by quickly. It was almost time for the power to come on by the time I was finished. And it couldn’t come quick enough. After eating an early lunch, Richie and were both hungry. We cooked up some pancakes, which were decent, watched the South Park movie and went to bed.
We were awakened early to the sound of a hammer on metal, certainly a pleasant alarm. But after that, things went surprisingly smoothly. I put my sheet out on the line to dry – I could not believe how wet it got just from sweating – and cleaned up while Richie went to the market. Richie was told by one of the market mamas that our baskets that we were waiting for would be in during the afternoon. We were willing to wait to get them tomorrow.
In the meantime, we decided to spruce the place up a bit. With a couple of capulanas in hand, we but up some dividers between the kitchen and where we eat (I can’t really call it a dining room). It looked good. It looked like it was becoming our home.
After lunch, Christmas arrived in Machanga. Three packages – two from my parents and one from my aunt – got dropped off. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have protein back in our diets now. I am pretty sure that we have enough food to open our own World Food Programme tent. We are very happy to have these goodies. If a famine were to hit Machanga, I am pretty sure we would survive it now.
And the hits kept coming. The baskets we were waiting for were delivered to our door via motorcycle. I spent the rest of the afternoon creating a storage space for food. It hangs beautifully over our prep table. We are hoping that it holds up.
Dinner was good. The only bad part was as we were cooking, our outlet fell apart. I tried to fix it and, in doing so, slightly electrocuted myself. Still not a bad day. Actually, it was a pretty good day.
Wednesday meant back to work, not that we were gone from it for that long. I had a somewhat late morning start, eager to see what my 10th graders could offer. They could definitely use some molding. I’ll have two years to spend with them, so the ones who are committed will learn well.
By the afternoon, with no classes to teach, I was ready to do something. I headed to the market in the heat of the noon sun. On my way there, before I could reach the gate, an 11th grade student who works at the house across from mine stopped me. We had a brief conversation where he told me he was going to come over to study. I told him I would be around during the afternoon.
It was an interesting market day. For one, there was a new barraca open. I was intrigued by the large refrigerator, so I went to get a coke. The soda was not really cold and they charged more than my regular “cold” coke place. Unless they get it down to frosty, I won’t be going back there again. Also of note was that our original bakery – the one with terrible bread – no had bread, and it was delicious. We eagerly awaited our French toast dinner.
True to his word, the student from across the way came after I returned from the market, and he brought a friend with him. In fifteen minutes, I think I was able to get more across than I was in 90 minutes of class. And I think they learned more too.
Considering that our outlet had been burned, probably from the explosion a couple weeks ago, dinner had to be cooked in my room. The French toast was amazing. We were muito satisfeito. Usually, supper for breakfast is Richie’s job, but Richie was not feeling great, so I took over. After dinner, we moved toward our kitchen to catch the cross-breeze and watch “House.”
Just as I was about to fall asleep, my sister called. I mumbled to her that she should call back later. She called me back in the morning Machanga time. It’s funny when you can wake up the next day in Machanga and it is still the same day in California.
In between, it wasn’t a terrible night. There was a hard wind blowing through, which in spite of the lack of cross-breeze in the rooms kept us cool. I kept watching to see what the moon was doing – disappearing and reappearing from the clouds. I figured we would get some rain, and for ten solid minutes, we got a good downpour.
Thursday was a long day, by far the longest day I have had this week. I was slated for 8 classes – three in the morning and five in the afternoon. My tenth grade classes in the morning were better today. They give me hope. After lunch, I dreaded having to teach my other twelfth grade class. The first one was a disappointment. But to my surprise, this class was on top of it. They took a quick liking to me, to the point that one of the students asked me to be “Director of Turma,” essentially the person responsible for the class if anything goes wrong. I was honored, but told him I had to think about it.
The eleventh graders also did a nice job. I started pushing them into the past tense of basic verbs and they seemed to pick it up nicely. I had a double session with one class, followed by a single with another. During a break in the double session, I walked around the class to see how some of the students were doing. I would say it was a mixed bag. Some got it perfectly; others just needed a little guidance. But it was this moment that made the difference for a lot of kids. It seems like other teachers here might not give the one-on-one extra help, and that is my strength.
We broke from the break, and I asked the students who I worked with to write some sentences on the board. And they wouldn’t stop writing. As I watched this, I recalled a couple of lessons from Colin Powell’s autobiography, which I have been reading recently in my spare time. Don’t stop someone’s enthusiasm and give everyone a chance to be a winner. I felt like for those couple of minutes, those kids were enthusiastic and felt like winners.
I was scheduled for a double class instead of the single class, but the director wiped out the rest of the afternoon so we could have a staff meeting. Richie and I understood very little. We are never going to staff meetings again. Upon return, I showed one of the assistant directors how we could use Microsoft Excel for grades. I think he really liked the idea, as did a 9th grade Portuguese teacher, for whom I set up grade sheets.
As I set up his grade sheets, Richie cooked our spaghetti dinner. We ate quickly and continued on with “House.” The breeze continued for the better part of the night.
And thankfully so. Last night might have been the best night of sleep I have had here. I did not struggle to fall asleep, I did not wake up multiple times during the night, and I didn’t wake up in a pool of my own sweat. It’s nice to have a break from reality. It makes me look forward to the winter months all the more.
I do not have to teach on Fridays, so I have made Fridays available for my students to come to my house – “Casa dos Muzungus” – to receive extra help. I told them that it is not limited to what we learn in class; if they want to practice speaking or have other questions, I am happy to help them. By 9:15, I had three students at my porch, eager to receive some help. I happily put down my book and worked with them for the next hour. It is that kind of commitment – coming to me on their own time – that is going to separate those students from others.
The rest of the morning was usual, other than the continuing wind. For a change of pace, Richie and I swapped our regular kitchen roles – I prepped and he cooked. I was happy not to deal with the oil burns. After lunch, with clouds closing in, Richie decided to make a dash south for a birthday party. I, financially strapped and not able to hit a bank for a couple more weeks, decided to stick in Machanga.
I immediately realized why Peace Corps puts two people here. This place is lonely. And boring. If nothing else, Richie and I manage to keep each other entertained, threatening to leave early over little things like dropping a piece of potato, or stating the obvious like “It’s hot” or “You are cooking” as we have found Mozambicans tend to do. So I continued marching through the Powell autobiography. I am committed to finishing it by week’s end.
I guess one benefit of being here alone is I get to eat food for two. I made our standard amount of French toast, and managed to eat all of it in the same amount of time I would have eaten my regular amount with Richie. I watched a couple of episodes of “House,” with the last episode ending just as the power went out. With the breeze blowing hard, I went to sleep again without trouble.
I woke up once in the middle of the night when the rain began. I considered putting the buckets outside to collect water, but was too lazy and too comfortable to get out of bed. I could always pump water during the day – I didn’t have any commitments for the day.
When I awoke for good, amazingly at 8:00, it was still raining, and it looked like it had been raining for the better part of the night. I put the buckets out and they filled up quickly. I filled the water filters and put the buckets back out, and once again the filled up quickly. Given that it is a pain in the ass to pump and haul water, I decided to start filling anything that could hold water – buckets, bacias, tupperware, pots. I considered trying to fill a colander until I realized it had a few too many holes to hold anything.
Lunch was standard fare, and it took a while to get done. With Richie gone, I had to prep, light, cook, and clean alone. Put together the fact that our charcoal stove had been soaked with rain, lighting the thing was a bit of challenge, but nothing that a little petroleum can’t solve. But even the petroleum wasn’t working alone. As I blew on the coals to get them hot, a piece chipped off and hit me on both my upper and lower left eyelids, leaving a nice little burn mark. Painful, yes, but also fortunate that the coal didn’t catch my eye.
Along with regular food, I decided to make a can of American soup. It was just cool enough – I wouldn’t dare say cold – to warrant something hot. I’m sure it will cause my digestive system to do tricks.
The afternoon was spent with Colin Powell. And by the end of the afternoon, the rain had finally stopped, although the patches of blue sky were still limited. There may be some more rain in the immediate future. As afternoon turned to evening, I peeled some garlic – an always exciting activity – in preparation for dinner.
We made it through the first week of school physically unscathed, although our hopes may have taken a slight beating, for different reasons: mine for my expectations of my students’ English skills, Richie for his Portuguese skills. He definitely has a more challenging job having to teach in Portuguese. Soon enough his students will understand him easily and the teaching will come easily. I hope the same will be true for my students and me.
The trip north was an overall success. We picked up some more things for the house, saw some long-lost colleagues, and drank cold beer. I think those three things equal success. Even two of those would have been fine.
The trip back down, though, sucked. On four hours of sleep, we actually got a late start heading back to Machanga. We got a chapa to the main crossroads right away and the ride was decent. A woman who spoke perfect English thought we were going to Maputo, and later Vilanculos. When I told here we were heading to Machanga, she said “Oh, I’ve never met anyone going there.” One can only wonder why.
Then things got worse. We waited for 45 minutes in a car heading south, then were told to switch cars, and waited another 45 minutes. I should have started drinking like the person who was sitting next to me. The ride was slow, but we eventually made it to Muxungue. There by 2:00 we knew it was going to be a close call getting back to site in daylight. We had to wait to get a car, and then paid too much for it, but it didn’t matter; we were back on the road. As sunset approached, we decided it would be best to go the Mambone crossroads instead of the Machanga crossroads.
And then we waitied more. Another two hours. Just as we were about to leave, and still collecting more people, the money collector started saying “tempo é dinheiro” – time is money. Bullshit, time is money. I gave him a smartass response and he replied with a chuckle. Getting home was officially ruled out: the water taxis stop at sunset out of fear of the hippo. Luckily, our colleague from Mambone took us in for the night. On the ride over – 30 people packed into the back of a pick-up truck, I spoke with a man who thought I was from Brazil (my Portuguese can’t be that good) and was sure I wasn’t 22 years old. Then I realized he was hammered and it all made sense.
We arrived in Mambone in pitch black. Their power was out, which we are used to. Indebted to our colleague for taking us in, we cooked him dinner and at the same time spared ourselves from a fish stew that probably would have probably turned out empty stomachs over. Then again, going on little more than a pack of crackers for the day, we probably would have eaten anything with a smile on our faces.
Richie and I passed out quickly, exhausted from our 12 hour, foodless day. And another long day was ahead. We set an alarm for 3:45, preparing ourselves for the seven kilometer walk to the vila, hoping for a car.
Of course, we did not see a single car pass our way, just a couple going the opposite direction to Vilanculos. The walk wasn’t terrible. We had food in our stomachs, we weren’t hung over like last time, and we both had our Ipods going. Walking to music definitely made the walk easier. You find the beat and stride to it. We made it to the river in good time, and we were back in Machanga by 6:30. At least we made it home in less than 24 hours.
I passed out as soon as I hit the bed. Richie wasn’t so fortunate. He thought he was teaching at 7:30, so he was prepared. But his class wasn’t until 8:30 – oops. He was back quickly and I was awake upon his return
By 11:30, I started preparing myself for my own classes – six 45-minute periods given to three classes. My first group was a set of 12th graders. Given that they have the most schooling behind them, I expected them to know a little bit, but was disappointed. They were limited, to say the least. At least I know where to start with them.
My 11th grade classers, to my amazement, were significantly easier. I had good participation, and good questions were asked in between the periods: the difference between “raise” and “rise,” and “look” and “see.” I was also happy by the fact that I overheard a student saying the class was easy to understand. I hope that after the two years, those 11th graders will speak good English.
The day, in spite of or maybe because of the full teaching load, went by quickly. It was almost time for the power to come on by the time I was finished. And it couldn’t come quick enough. After eating an early lunch, Richie and were both hungry. We cooked up some pancakes, which were decent, watched the South Park movie and went to bed.
We were awakened early to the sound of a hammer on metal, certainly a pleasant alarm. But after that, things went surprisingly smoothly. I put my sheet out on the line to dry – I could not believe how wet it got just from sweating – and cleaned up while Richie went to the market. Richie was told by one of the market mamas that our baskets that we were waiting for would be in during the afternoon. We were willing to wait to get them tomorrow.
In the meantime, we decided to spruce the place up a bit. With a couple of capulanas in hand, we but up some dividers between the kitchen and where we eat (I can’t really call it a dining room). It looked good. It looked like it was becoming our home.
After lunch, Christmas arrived in Machanga. Three packages – two from my parents and one from my aunt – got dropped off. I can’t tell you how excited we are to have protein back in our diets now. I am pretty sure that we have enough food to open our own World Food Programme tent. We are very happy to have these goodies. If a famine were to hit Machanga, I am pretty sure we would survive it now.
And the hits kept coming. The baskets we were waiting for were delivered to our door via motorcycle. I spent the rest of the afternoon creating a storage space for food. It hangs beautifully over our prep table. We are hoping that it holds up.
Dinner was good. The only bad part was as we were cooking, our outlet fell apart. I tried to fix it and, in doing so, slightly electrocuted myself. Still not a bad day. Actually, it was a pretty good day.
Wednesday meant back to work, not that we were gone from it for that long. I had a somewhat late morning start, eager to see what my 10th graders could offer. They could definitely use some molding. I’ll have two years to spend with them, so the ones who are committed will learn well.
By the afternoon, with no classes to teach, I was ready to do something. I headed to the market in the heat of the noon sun. On my way there, before I could reach the gate, an 11th grade student who works at the house across from mine stopped me. We had a brief conversation where he told me he was going to come over to study. I told him I would be around during the afternoon.
It was an interesting market day. For one, there was a new barraca open. I was intrigued by the large refrigerator, so I went to get a coke. The soda was not really cold and they charged more than my regular “cold” coke place. Unless they get it down to frosty, I won’t be going back there again. Also of note was that our original bakery – the one with terrible bread – no had bread, and it was delicious. We eagerly awaited our French toast dinner.
True to his word, the student from across the way came after I returned from the market, and he brought a friend with him. In fifteen minutes, I think I was able to get more across than I was in 90 minutes of class. And I think they learned more too.
Considering that our outlet had been burned, probably from the explosion a couple weeks ago, dinner had to be cooked in my room. The French toast was amazing. We were muito satisfeito. Usually, supper for breakfast is Richie’s job, but Richie was not feeling great, so I took over. After dinner, we moved toward our kitchen to catch the cross-breeze and watch “House.”
Just as I was about to fall asleep, my sister called. I mumbled to her that she should call back later. She called me back in the morning Machanga time. It’s funny when you can wake up the next day in Machanga and it is still the same day in California.
In between, it wasn’t a terrible night. There was a hard wind blowing through, which in spite of the lack of cross-breeze in the rooms kept us cool. I kept watching to see what the moon was doing – disappearing and reappearing from the clouds. I figured we would get some rain, and for ten solid minutes, we got a good downpour.
Thursday was a long day, by far the longest day I have had this week. I was slated for 8 classes – three in the morning and five in the afternoon. My tenth grade classes in the morning were better today. They give me hope. After lunch, I dreaded having to teach my other twelfth grade class. The first one was a disappointment. But to my surprise, this class was on top of it. They took a quick liking to me, to the point that one of the students asked me to be “Director of Turma,” essentially the person responsible for the class if anything goes wrong. I was honored, but told him I had to think about it.
The eleventh graders also did a nice job. I started pushing them into the past tense of basic verbs and they seemed to pick it up nicely. I had a double session with one class, followed by a single with another. During a break in the double session, I walked around the class to see how some of the students were doing. I would say it was a mixed bag. Some got it perfectly; others just needed a little guidance. But it was this moment that made the difference for a lot of kids. It seems like other teachers here might not give the one-on-one extra help, and that is my strength.
We broke from the break, and I asked the students who I worked with to write some sentences on the board. And they wouldn’t stop writing. As I watched this, I recalled a couple of lessons from Colin Powell’s autobiography, which I have been reading recently in my spare time. Don’t stop someone’s enthusiasm and give everyone a chance to be a winner. I felt like for those couple of minutes, those kids were enthusiastic and felt like winners.
I was scheduled for a double class instead of the single class, but the director wiped out the rest of the afternoon so we could have a staff meeting. Richie and I understood very little. We are never going to staff meetings again. Upon return, I showed one of the assistant directors how we could use Microsoft Excel for grades. I think he really liked the idea, as did a 9th grade Portuguese teacher, for whom I set up grade sheets.
As I set up his grade sheets, Richie cooked our spaghetti dinner. We ate quickly and continued on with “House.” The breeze continued for the better part of the night.
And thankfully so. Last night might have been the best night of sleep I have had here. I did not struggle to fall asleep, I did not wake up multiple times during the night, and I didn’t wake up in a pool of my own sweat. It’s nice to have a break from reality. It makes me look forward to the winter months all the more.
I do not have to teach on Fridays, so I have made Fridays available for my students to come to my house – “Casa dos Muzungus” – to receive extra help. I told them that it is not limited to what we learn in class; if they want to practice speaking or have other questions, I am happy to help them. By 9:15, I had three students at my porch, eager to receive some help. I happily put down my book and worked with them for the next hour. It is that kind of commitment – coming to me on their own time – that is going to separate those students from others.
The rest of the morning was usual, other than the continuing wind. For a change of pace, Richie and I swapped our regular kitchen roles – I prepped and he cooked. I was happy not to deal with the oil burns. After lunch, with clouds closing in, Richie decided to make a dash south for a birthday party. I, financially strapped and not able to hit a bank for a couple more weeks, decided to stick in Machanga.
I immediately realized why Peace Corps puts two people here. This place is lonely. And boring. If nothing else, Richie and I manage to keep each other entertained, threatening to leave early over little things like dropping a piece of potato, or stating the obvious like “It’s hot” or “You are cooking” as we have found Mozambicans tend to do. So I continued marching through the Powell autobiography. I am committed to finishing it by week’s end.
I guess one benefit of being here alone is I get to eat food for two. I made our standard amount of French toast, and managed to eat all of it in the same amount of time I would have eaten my regular amount with Richie. I watched a couple of episodes of “House,” with the last episode ending just as the power went out. With the breeze blowing hard, I went to sleep again without trouble.
I woke up once in the middle of the night when the rain began. I considered putting the buckets outside to collect water, but was too lazy and too comfortable to get out of bed. I could always pump water during the day – I didn’t have any commitments for the day.
When I awoke for good, amazingly at 8:00, it was still raining, and it looked like it had been raining for the better part of the night. I put the buckets out and they filled up quickly. I filled the water filters and put the buckets back out, and once again the filled up quickly. Given that it is a pain in the ass to pump and haul water, I decided to start filling anything that could hold water – buckets, bacias, tupperware, pots. I considered trying to fill a colander until I realized it had a few too many holes to hold anything.
Lunch was standard fare, and it took a while to get done. With Richie gone, I had to prep, light, cook, and clean alone. Put together the fact that our charcoal stove had been soaked with rain, lighting the thing was a bit of challenge, but nothing that a little petroleum can’t solve. But even the petroleum wasn’t working alone. As I blew on the coals to get them hot, a piece chipped off and hit me on both my upper and lower left eyelids, leaving a nice little burn mark. Painful, yes, but also fortunate that the coal didn’t catch my eye.
Along with regular food, I decided to make a can of American soup. It was just cool enough – I wouldn’t dare say cold – to warrant something hot. I’m sure it will cause my digestive system to do tricks.
The afternoon was spent with Colin Powell. And by the end of the afternoon, the rain had finally stopped, although the patches of blue sky were still limited. There may be some more rain in the immediate future. As afternoon turned to evening, I peeled some garlic – an always exciting activity – in preparation for dinner.
We made it through the first week of school physically unscathed, although our hopes may have taken a slight beating, for different reasons: mine for my expectations of my students’ English skills, Richie for his Portuguese skills. He definitely has a more challenging job having to teach in Portuguese. Soon enough his students will understand him easily and the teaching will come easily. I hope the same will be true for my students and me.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Year 1 - Week 7: 'Long walks' are relative
Richie and I awoke Sunday with the promise of reaching the promised land: Mambone. Mambone has everything that Machanga should have but, for some reason I can’t even make up, doesn’t: cold drinks (i.e. beer), full time electricity, and vegetables. And probably a lot more general happiness too. I don’t really understand how two cities, merely separated by a currently walkable river, can be so different.
We made our way to the river, forked over the 10 Meticais each for the canoe ride, and walked another couple of kilometers into Mambone’s vila. Already sweating bullets, we split a bottle of water. Then Richie came to his senses: “Shouldn’t we be drinking beers?” Of course we should be. Who cares that it’s 10:15?! There are glorious, cold beers just sitting there, waiting for us.
By the time we finished our first beers, four other Volunteers showed up in the vila. Apparently, they were on the same drinking cycle as us, so we got our second. And our third. Within two hours, we had consumed more beer in Mambone than we had in six weeks in Machanga. This was especially noted by two of the market mamas who were doing their shopping in Mambone. What wise women they are. They also informed us that had cold beer, but I’m sure it won’t taste as good – or be as cold – on our side of the river.
While we finished our beers, one of the Volunteers went on the hunt for chicken, but chicken was difficult to acquire, and what was available looked sorry and was too expensive. Chickenless, the six of us boarded a chapa and headed to our colleague’s house.
Our neighbor across the river was celebrating his birthday, which as the reason for our presence. He was very excited at the prospect of eating goat for dinner. We were not so excited when we were greeted by the two decapitated heads of said goats. But at this point, with no reliable source of meat in Machanga available to us, we are not above eating anything.
That includes goat liver. It looked kind of like dog food. And it was delicious. Seriously, it was. In fact, I would argue that the liver was better than the goat meat we ate for dinner that night. And after sobering up during the afternoon, all of us came to our senses and started drinking again by the late afternoon.
With the canoes halted for the night, and lacking a plan or the capability to go anywhere else, Richie and I ended up staying at our colleague’s house. I “slept” in tent: the rocks at my hips and my back prevented me from getting more than three hours of sleep, but I did get to witness a beautiful sunrise.
By 7:15, with pounding headaches and little sleep, we started to make our back to Machanga. We hoped to catch a car heading to the vila, seven kilometers away. We decided to start walking, mostly because we had nothing better to do. We didn’t think that we would end up covering five of the seven kilometers. At one point, Richie said “Are you feeling African yet?” At least we didn’t have to carry water on our heads. And thankfully, we had a good amount of cloud cover to keep us warm instead of the regular hot. A chapa took us in the remaining two kilometers – timing is everything, right? – where we found some glorious food items: carrots and green bell peppers. How nice to be able to eat something green! After walking another couple of kilometers to the river, we made our way across.
It was a windy morning, and with the clouds above, it threatened to rain. But the wind also allowed for some African innovation on the part of the canoe paddlers. A couple of the boats – hollowed out tree trunks – now had sails. And although the sail wasn’t employed on the trip heading north into Machanga, we did see one of the paddlers enjoying a nice, easy, wind-powered ride heading back toward Mambone.
The ride was more eventful than usual. Our ears perked up when heard the word “energia.” The talk centered on the possibility of getting fulltime energy in Machanga by the end of the year. Considering that it is an election year, I wouldn’t be surprised. In America, we get promises of universal healthcare; here, we get promises of electricity. At this point, Richie and I could probably use both.
With the Mambone-Machanga 10K completed, Richie and I both passed out. How nice it is to be laying on a bed in a pool of sweat again. We both slept until lunch, and immediately after eating, slept until about 5:00 – just enough time to prepare for dinner.
With green bell pepper and carrots in hand, we were able to add two more ingredients to our already delicious tomato sauce. What we made with these extra ingredients was nothing short of restaurant quality. We fought through the pain of a second plate of spaghetti and made sure that no sauce went to waste. Exhausted from a long day, we fell asleep after watching a few episodes of “The Office.”
I slept heavily, but Richie and I were both up at 5:00, clearly an acceptable hour for people to be talking outside of our open windows. I closed the shutters, though it was still far from soundproof, and slept until 8:30. By the time I actually rolled out of bed, Richie was returning from the market.
The morning was productive, and uplifting. We both received our teaching schedules. Richie teaches eight classes spread over two mornings. I teach eight classes on Tuesday alone. And another 17 class periods over the course of the rest of the week. I was slated to teach one class on a Monday morning, and I decided to take a stand. If I am going to be teaching this many hours per week, the least they could do for me was give me a four day work week. And it was granted. I also felt a little better knowing that there were only two classes of 11th grade instead of the four I had expected.
After lunch, I spent a good part of the afternoon reorganizing my 12th grade class. We are scheduled to meet three days a week instead of the four I was originally told, which is good news. As we inched closer to energy coming on, we started to prepare for dinner. It felt more like breakfast: pancakes, which were good; and muffins, which have room for improvement.
The night was ridiculously hot. We are really getting tired of not being able to sleep through a night. The terrible night of sleep was worsened when people started talking outside of our window, again, at 5:00. My eyes were dumbbells, heavy with frustration and tiredness.
I made my way to the market, although we didn’t need a whole lot. We still have most of the supplies from Mambone. We had hoped that there would be some sort of meat in the market today, but there was no luck. On my way back from the market, an 11th grade student stopped me to ask if he could live with us. In exchange, he would do our housework. We declined. I spent the rest of the morning typing up some class lists for a colleague. It’s something I can do many times faster, so I figure I should help out a bit.
Lunch was standard and delicious. We were both exhausted. Two bad nights of sleep in a row will do that I guess. I tried to nap in the afternoon, both inside and outside, but it was just too hot. So we did what we normally do: throw around the Frisbee, do a little class planning, stare into the sky and wonder what we are doing. We also spent a little time talking with colleagues. One of them said that Richie looks like Justin Timberlake. I see no such resemblance.
As we sat, students started walking through the gates. It was definitely more students than a chapa could hold. I asked how they arrived, and the director said by foot. For 50 to 60 kilometers. Richie and I felt like assholes complaining about our 8 to 10 kilometer walk.
Our power came on early again and once again, my IT “skills” were requested. One of the computers wasn’t able to start up. It required a disc which of course was lost. Such are the problems here. I continued helping type lists. Other than helping out, it also helps put us into the good graces of the administration and other colleagues. While I worked, Richie cooked up dinner.
We also ran into a little bit of fortune. There is an organization car here from Mangunde, one of our sister schools. We are going to take the opportunity this weekend to head north to stock up on school supplies and money before the school year starts.
We made our way to the river, forked over the 10 Meticais each for the canoe ride, and walked another couple of kilometers into Mambone’s vila. Already sweating bullets, we split a bottle of water. Then Richie came to his senses: “Shouldn’t we be drinking beers?” Of course we should be. Who cares that it’s 10:15?! There are glorious, cold beers just sitting there, waiting for us.
By the time we finished our first beers, four other Volunteers showed up in the vila. Apparently, they were on the same drinking cycle as us, so we got our second. And our third. Within two hours, we had consumed more beer in Mambone than we had in six weeks in Machanga. This was especially noted by two of the market mamas who were doing their shopping in Mambone. What wise women they are. They also informed us that had cold beer, but I’m sure it won’t taste as good – or be as cold – on our side of the river.
While we finished our beers, one of the Volunteers went on the hunt for chicken, but chicken was difficult to acquire, and what was available looked sorry and was too expensive. Chickenless, the six of us boarded a chapa and headed to our colleague’s house.
Our neighbor across the river was celebrating his birthday, which as the reason for our presence. He was very excited at the prospect of eating goat for dinner. We were not so excited when we were greeted by the two decapitated heads of said goats. But at this point, with no reliable source of meat in Machanga available to us, we are not above eating anything.
That includes goat liver. It looked kind of like dog food. And it was delicious. Seriously, it was. In fact, I would argue that the liver was better than the goat meat we ate for dinner that night. And after sobering up during the afternoon, all of us came to our senses and started drinking again by the late afternoon.
With the canoes halted for the night, and lacking a plan or the capability to go anywhere else, Richie and I ended up staying at our colleague’s house. I “slept” in tent: the rocks at my hips and my back prevented me from getting more than three hours of sleep, but I did get to witness a beautiful sunrise.
By 7:15, with pounding headaches and little sleep, we started to make our back to Machanga. We hoped to catch a car heading to the vila, seven kilometers away. We decided to start walking, mostly because we had nothing better to do. We didn’t think that we would end up covering five of the seven kilometers. At one point, Richie said “Are you feeling African yet?” At least we didn’t have to carry water on our heads. And thankfully, we had a good amount of cloud cover to keep us warm instead of the regular hot. A chapa took us in the remaining two kilometers – timing is everything, right? – where we found some glorious food items: carrots and green bell peppers. How nice to be able to eat something green! After walking another couple of kilometers to the river, we made our way across.
It was a windy morning, and with the clouds above, it threatened to rain. But the wind also allowed for some African innovation on the part of the canoe paddlers. A couple of the boats – hollowed out tree trunks – now had sails. And although the sail wasn’t employed on the trip heading north into Machanga, we did see one of the paddlers enjoying a nice, easy, wind-powered ride heading back toward Mambone.
The ride was more eventful than usual. Our ears perked up when heard the word “energia.” The talk centered on the possibility of getting fulltime energy in Machanga by the end of the year. Considering that it is an election year, I wouldn’t be surprised. In America, we get promises of universal healthcare; here, we get promises of electricity. At this point, Richie and I could probably use both.
With the Mambone-Machanga 10K completed, Richie and I both passed out. How nice it is to be laying on a bed in a pool of sweat again. We both slept until lunch, and immediately after eating, slept until about 5:00 – just enough time to prepare for dinner.
With green bell pepper and carrots in hand, we were able to add two more ingredients to our already delicious tomato sauce. What we made with these extra ingredients was nothing short of restaurant quality. We fought through the pain of a second plate of spaghetti and made sure that no sauce went to waste. Exhausted from a long day, we fell asleep after watching a few episodes of “The Office.”
I slept heavily, but Richie and I were both up at 5:00, clearly an acceptable hour for people to be talking outside of our open windows. I closed the shutters, though it was still far from soundproof, and slept until 8:30. By the time I actually rolled out of bed, Richie was returning from the market.
The morning was productive, and uplifting. We both received our teaching schedules. Richie teaches eight classes spread over two mornings. I teach eight classes on Tuesday alone. And another 17 class periods over the course of the rest of the week. I was slated to teach one class on a Monday morning, and I decided to take a stand. If I am going to be teaching this many hours per week, the least they could do for me was give me a four day work week. And it was granted. I also felt a little better knowing that there were only two classes of 11th grade instead of the four I had expected.
After lunch, I spent a good part of the afternoon reorganizing my 12th grade class. We are scheduled to meet three days a week instead of the four I was originally told, which is good news. As we inched closer to energy coming on, we started to prepare for dinner. It felt more like breakfast: pancakes, which were good; and muffins, which have room for improvement.
The night was ridiculously hot. We are really getting tired of not being able to sleep through a night. The terrible night of sleep was worsened when people started talking outside of our window, again, at 5:00. My eyes were dumbbells, heavy with frustration and tiredness.
I made my way to the market, although we didn’t need a whole lot. We still have most of the supplies from Mambone. We had hoped that there would be some sort of meat in the market today, but there was no luck. On my way back from the market, an 11th grade student stopped me to ask if he could live with us. In exchange, he would do our housework. We declined. I spent the rest of the morning typing up some class lists for a colleague. It’s something I can do many times faster, so I figure I should help out a bit.
Lunch was standard and delicious. We were both exhausted. Two bad nights of sleep in a row will do that I guess. I tried to nap in the afternoon, both inside and outside, but it was just too hot. So we did what we normally do: throw around the Frisbee, do a little class planning, stare into the sky and wonder what we are doing. We also spent a little time talking with colleagues. One of them said that Richie looks like Justin Timberlake. I see no such resemblance.
As we sat, students started walking through the gates. It was definitely more students than a chapa could hold. I asked how they arrived, and the director said by foot. For 50 to 60 kilometers. Richie and I felt like assholes complaining about our 8 to 10 kilometer walk.
Our power came on early again and once again, my IT “skills” were requested. One of the computers wasn’t able to start up. It required a disc which of course was lost. Such are the problems here. I continued helping type lists. Other than helping out, it also helps put us into the good graces of the administration and other colleagues. While I worked, Richie cooked up dinner.
We also ran into a little bit of fortune. There is an organization car here from Mangunde, one of our sister schools. We are going to take the opportunity this weekend to head north to stock up on school supplies and money before the school year starts.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Year 1 - Week 6: Winning Half the Battle
Pain and Frustration: these two words don’t adequately describe our Sunday. We were up at 3:45 to get the direct chapa back to Machanga. Armed with our bags of food, oven, and – for the first time in weeks – clean feet, we squeezed onto the chapa. We started with 24 people and it only got worse from there.
The first part of the ride was relatively smooth. We made it to Inchope, the main crossroads connected Beira to Maputo, with no problems – just a little discomfort. Then our hell day began. The front right tire blew out, not uncommon considering the road conditions. And it was a relatively quick fix. And then it blew again, this time with a significantly louder pop and longer delay to fix it.
Now, one time you can attribute to bad roads, and two times you can attribute to bad luck, but blowing the same tire three times in two hours can only be blamed on the driver. Our third delay, in Muxungue (Muh-shun-gweh) was hours long. Richie and I enjoyed our breakfast of a loaf of bread and a Coke – all a part of a very healthy diet.
Finally back on the road, and with another three people, we made our way down to Machanga. We made it to the crossroads, although considerably slower than we should have been going, and picked up another two people. That made 29. Twenty-nine people in one van.
Three hours, and too many stops to count later, we were back in Machanga. We got dropped pretty much at our door, which was the only good part of the trip, at 6:30 PM, 14 full hours after our trip began. The energy came on just about as we walked in the door. We cooked our dinner, watched some of “The Office” and gave out. Probably the best night of sleep we’ve had here.
As poorly as Sunday went, Monday went just as well. While Richie went to the market, I washed dishes and started arranging our new kitchen. By the time Richie returned – with all the food we usually enjoy – everything was set up: utensils hanging, oven sitting proudly and prominently on top of a small table, spice rack assembled. For the first time, this house started to feel like a home.
We walked around in the afternoon, trying to figure out what classes we were teaching and where we could get materials, but we were informed to wait until tomorrow – not a problem at all.
The afternoon was unproductive as always. We mostly just reveled in our new kitchen and waited for the energy to come on. In the last hour before energy came on, I started prepping frosting and cake batter, hoping that our oven wouldn’t blow out.
Richie finished cooking up French toast and the cake went in while we ate. We ate way to fast, as we had to wait a solid 40 minutes for the cake to cook. It wasn’t even that delicious, and at the same time it was so good. The frosting was too sugary and it gave both of us massive headaches, sugar highs, and then we burned out hard. Another nice night of sleep though. Richie and I both acknowledged that we had peaked. So for the next 23 months, it’s all downhill.
And the downhill slide started promptly Tuesday morning. We went to meet with the pedagogical directors of the school to receive our materials. Richie will be teaching 9th grade biology. I will be teaching 10th grade English. And 11th grade English. And 12th grade English. 35 class periods per week. Overwhelmed is the appropriate word. I am the only English teacher for 10th through 12th grades. At least I don’t need to plan my classes with anyone.
The downhill slide continued in the afternoon. I went to the market, and got nearly everything, but Machanga is once again out of tomatoes. I bought credit for my phone, hoping that I could connect to the internet with my new ridiculously expensive gadget. But I had no luck. None at all. If it doesn’t work, it is a lot of money gone to waste.
For the better part of the afternoon, I spent time reviewing the curricula for 11th and 12th grades. In spite of the obvious spelling and grammatical errors, I think I can make something out of it. We tried throwing the Frisbee around, but with unusually massive winds, it was near impossible. It was then that we received a text message from a friend saying that there was a cyclone brewing in the Channel of Mozambique. This is all very exciting.
Dinner was our regular spaghetti dinner, but for the first time, we were able to add some additional spices purchased in Beira. It was sweeter than usual, but still pretty good. And now that we have an oven, we were able to make garlic bread, which was delicious. Small victories.
Just as we finished dinner, a colleague told us that Barack Obama was on television. We were excited to watch him swear in and give what I’m sure was a fantastic speech. I mean, the speech we didn’t get to see, because just as he was about to walk out of the Capitol building, the cable went out. Just our luck tonight. And of course, after trying many times over, my internet connection failed to work. Point: Machanga.
After a rollercoaster couple of days, Wednesday was decent but not great. We didn’t do a whole lot in the morning, and each of us spent a good amount of time preparing for the upcoming school year. In spite of the curricula that I have to work with, I am starting to feel like I can make something out of this. The nice thing is since I am the only English teacher for all of 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, I don’t have to work with someone to develop lesson plans. I can plan on my time, on my own schedule, where I want.
The latter part of the afternoon ran rather smoothly. In need of calories (and something sweet) I whipped up a cake batter. While I did that, Richie made pancake better. We both acknowledged that our second attempts at these items were significantly better than the first tries. More small victories.
The small victories turned into significantly bigger victories Thursday morning. The market, although lacking tomatoes, had everything else. And we have talked with one of the store owners about securing some baskets that we will make into hanging food storage.
Upon return from the market, and with a full computer, I decided that it was worth trying to log onto the internet again. And success! We are officially running wirelessly in Machanga. Yes, that little modem was expensive, but I see it as a 30 cent per day investment on my sanity for the next two years. Richie and I both checked our email and basked in the glory of a now somewhat bearable living condition. Now if we could just get energy 24 hours a day…
The successes continued into lunch. We decided to mix things up and make potato pancakes instead of French fries. It doesn’t matter that it’s not Hanukkah; we wanted potato pancakes. And we wanted to use our new vegetable grater. It’s a small variation, but we used one less potato and it looked like twice as much food. Sometimes, just appearing to have more food is winning half the battle. And they were delicious and filling! That’s the other half of the battle that we won. We will definitely be working potato pancakes into the regular rotation.
The afternoon was a little slow. We threw around the Frisbee twice. And I took a cold bath that felt amazing in this heat. It’s nice to see the regular color of my feet, even if it is just for a couple of dirtless moments. Toward the end of the afternoon, we got bored to the point that we started exchanging riddles with another Volunteer.
And then something happened that hadn’t happened until now, and probably won’t happen again: energy at 5:30. What a gift. We started cooking early – spaghetti and a mushroom sauce that we bought in Beira. The sauce wasn’t great – definitely not as good as the homemade tomato sauce – so we just went with olive oil and spices instead. Not a major setback by any means. And oh yea, we had garlic bread again, because we could. The joys of having an oven.
Friday started out rough for Richie. He literally got kicked in the ass. By a bull. I cleaned up while Richie was at the market. The good news for Richie was that when you get your ass kicked by a bull at 8:30 in the morning, it can only get better from there.
And it did, for the most part. I’ve felt sick the last couple days, so I tried to get some rest in. I napped, for the first time, after lunch, which was glorious. But I still didn’t feel much better.
It was a typically slow afternoon. Slower than usual actually. We threw the Frisbee around three times instead our typical two. I know, very exciting. Well, one of the teachers did try to throw it around with us. She is a phys-ed teacher. She failed utterly at first, but seemed to come around toward the end. Everyone found her effort quite funny.
As we waited for our energy, we prepared our French toast. 6:00 passed. Then so did 6:30. And 7:00. By 7:00, we fired up the charcoal and prepared to cook our French toast over charcoal. Nothing like cooking American breakfast food for dinner on charcoal in Mozambique.
By 7:30, we still did not have power. By this time, I let out a not so quiet “Fuck you, Machanga.” And some people heard me. And some people understood me. Oops. My bad. This garnered the response “Machanga is nice place” from one teacher, and plenty of laughs from others.
Finally, at 7:40, our power came on. Sigh. We continued cooking the French toast over charcoal and at the same time, put some brownies in the oven. Because we could. And because we need the calories.
I had trouble falling asleep, and when I did fall asleep. I had terrible dreams. I killed someone. In the house. With my Swiss army knife. Thank you, Larium. I spent the remainder of the early morning paranoid that somebody would seek revenge.
Not a good way to start the day. My morning was surprisingly busy. And productive.
I went to the market and actually had some decent success. We planned to make brownies again, this time for our colleague’s birthday. Upon returning, I did laundry for the first time in weeks. It’s not even about getting clothes clean anymore; it’s just about not smelling and looking like an ass.
We reverted to our typical French fries for lunch, and we decided that we probably shouldn’t make them again. We use more potatoes, it looks like food, and that’s losing the entire battle. The eggs turned out well though.
The afternoon was slow. I tried to nap again, but it was a lost cause. It’s just too hot.
We prepped for dinner – I have mastered garlic bread – and our brownies. But our colleague wanted to cook a cake, so we let her. It took forever though. So we watched television while we waited.
All in all, it’s been a decent week. A lot of highs and lows, but not a bad week. It was productive. And we had brownies. I’d call that winning half the battle.
The first part of the ride was relatively smooth. We made it to Inchope, the main crossroads connected Beira to Maputo, with no problems – just a little discomfort. Then our hell day began. The front right tire blew out, not uncommon considering the road conditions. And it was a relatively quick fix. And then it blew again, this time with a significantly louder pop and longer delay to fix it.
Now, one time you can attribute to bad roads, and two times you can attribute to bad luck, but blowing the same tire three times in two hours can only be blamed on the driver. Our third delay, in Muxungue (Muh-shun-gweh) was hours long. Richie and I enjoyed our breakfast of a loaf of bread and a Coke – all a part of a very healthy diet.
Finally back on the road, and with another three people, we made our way down to Machanga. We made it to the crossroads, although considerably slower than we should have been going, and picked up another two people. That made 29. Twenty-nine people in one van.
Three hours, and too many stops to count later, we were back in Machanga. We got dropped pretty much at our door, which was the only good part of the trip, at 6:30 PM, 14 full hours after our trip began. The energy came on just about as we walked in the door. We cooked our dinner, watched some of “The Office” and gave out. Probably the best night of sleep we’ve had here.
As poorly as Sunday went, Monday went just as well. While Richie went to the market, I washed dishes and started arranging our new kitchen. By the time Richie returned – with all the food we usually enjoy – everything was set up: utensils hanging, oven sitting proudly and prominently on top of a small table, spice rack assembled. For the first time, this house started to feel like a home.
We walked around in the afternoon, trying to figure out what classes we were teaching and where we could get materials, but we were informed to wait until tomorrow – not a problem at all.
The afternoon was unproductive as always. We mostly just reveled in our new kitchen and waited for the energy to come on. In the last hour before energy came on, I started prepping frosting and cake batter, hoping that our oven wouldn’t blow out.
Richie finished cooking up French toast and the cake went in while we ate. We ate way to fast, as we had to wait a solid 40 minutes for the cake to cook. It wasn’t even that delicious, and at the same time it was so good. The frosting was too sugary and it gave both of us massive headaches, sugar highs, and then we burned out hard. Another nice night of sleep though. Richie and I both acknowledged that we had peaked. So for the next 23 months, it’s all downhill.
And the downhill slide started promptly Tuesday morning. We went to meet with the pedagogical directors of the school to receive our materials. Richie will be teaching 9th grade biology. I will be teaching 10th grade English. And 11th grade English. And 12th grade English. 35 class periods per week. Overwhelmed is the appropriate word. I am the only English teacher for 10th through 12th grades. At least I don’t need to plan my classes with anyone.
The downhill slide continued in the afternoon. I went to the market, and got nearly everything, but Machanga is once again out of tomatoes. I bought credit for my phone, hoping that I could connect to the internet with my new ridiculously expensive gadget. But I had no luck. None at all. If it doesn’t work, it is a lot of money gone to waste.
For the better part of the afternoon, I spent time reviewing the curricula for 11th and 12th grades. In spite of the obvious spelling and grammatical errors, I think I can make something out of it. We tried throwing the Frisbee around, but with unusually massive winds, it was near impossible. It was then that we received a text message from a friend saying that there was a cyclone brewing in the Channel of Mozambique. This is all very exciting.
Dinner was our regular spaghetti dinner, but for the first time, we were able to add some additional spices purchased in Beira. It was sweeter than usual, but still pretty good. And now that we have an oven, we were able to make garlic bread, which was delicious. Small victories.
Just as we finished dinner, a colleague told us that Barack Obama was on television. We were excited to watch him swear in and give what I’m sure was a fantastic speech. I mean, the speech we didn’t get to see, because just as he was about to walk out of the Capitol building, the cable went out. Just our luck tonight. And of course, after trying many times over, my internet connection failed to work. Point: Machanga.
After a rollercoaster couple of days, Wednesday was decent but not great. We didn’t do a whole lot in the morning, and each of us spent a good amount of time preparing for the upcoming school year. In spite of the curricula that I have to work with, I am starting to feel like I can make something out of this. The nice thing is since I am the only English teacher for all of 10th, 11th, and 12th grades, I don’t have to work with someone to develop lesson plans. I can plan on my time, on my own schedule, where I want.
The latter part of the afternoon ran rather smoothly. In need of calories (and something sweet) I whipped up a cake batter. While I did that, Richie made pancake better. We both acknowledged that our second attempts at these items were significantly better than the first tries. More small victories.
The small victories turned into significantly bigger victories Thursday morning. The market, although lacking tomatoes, had everything else. And we have talked with one of the store owners about securing some baskets that we will make into hanging food storage.
Upon return from the market, and with a full computer, I decided that it was worth trying to log onto the internet again. And success! We are officially running wirelessly in Machanga. Yes, that little modem was expensive, but I see it as a 30 cent per day investment on my sanity for the next two years. Richie and I both checked our email and basked in the glory of a now somewhat bearable living condition. Now if we could just get energy 24 hours a day…
The successes continued into lunch. We decided to mix things up and make potato pancakes instead of French fries. It doesn’t matter that it’s not Hanukkah; we wanted potato pancakes. And we wanted to use our new vegetable grater. It’s a small variation, but we used one less potato and it looked like twice as much food. Sometimes, just appearing to have more food is winning half the battle. And they were delicious and filling! That’s the other half of the battle that we won. We will definitely be working potato pancakes into the regular rotation.
The afternoon was a little slow. We threw around the Frisbee twice. And I took a cold bath that felt amazing in this heat. It’s nice to see the regular color of my feet, even if it is just for a couple of dirtless moments. Toward the end of the afternoon, we got bored to the point that we started exchanging riddles with another Volunteer.
And then something happened that hadn’t happened until now, and probably won’t happen again: energy at 5:30. What a gift. We started cooking early – spaghetti and a mushroom sauce that we bought in Beira. The sauce wasn’t great – definitely not as good as the homemade tomato sauce – so we just went with olive oil and spices instead. Not a major setback by any means. And oh yea, we had garlic bread again, because we could. The joys of having an oven.
Friday started out rough for Richie. He literally got kicked in the ass. By a bull. I cleaned up while Richie was at the market. The good news for Richie was that when you get your ass kicked by a bull at 8:30 in the morning, it can only get better from there.
And it did, for the most part. I’ve felt sick the last couple days, so I tried to get some rest in. I napped, for the first time, after lunch, which was glorious. But I still didn’t feel much better.
It was a typically slow afternoon. Slower than usual actually. We threw the Frisbee around three times instead our typical two. I know, very exciting. Well, one of the teachers did try to throw it around with us. She is a phys-ed teacher. She failed utterly at first, but seemed to come around toward the end. Everyone found her effort quite funny.
As we waited for our energy, we prepared our French toast. 6:00 passed. Then so did 6:30. And 7:00. By 7:00, we fired up the charcoal and prepared to cook our French toast over charcoal. Nothing like cooking American breakfast food for dinner on charcoal in Mozambique.
By 7:30, we still did not have power. By this time, I let out a not so quiet “Fuck you, Machanga.” And some people heard me. And some people understood me. Oops. My bad. This garnered the response “Machanga is nice place” from one teacher, and plenty of laughs from others.
Finally, at 7:40, our power came on. Sigh. We continued cooking the French toast over charcoal and at the same time, put some brownies in the oven. Because we could. And because we need the calories.
I had trouble falling asleep, and when I did fall asleep. I had terrible dreams. I killed someone. In the house. With my Swiss army knife. Thank you, Larium. I spent the remainder of the early morning paranoid that somebody would seek revenge.
Not a good way to start the day. My morning was surprisingly busy. And productive.
I went to the market and actually had some decent success. We planned to make brownies again, this time for our colleague’s birthday. Upon returning, I did laundry for the first time in weeks. It’s not even about getting clothes clean anymore; it’s just about not smelling and looking like an ass.
We reverted to our typical French fries for lunch, and we decided that we probably shouldn’t make them again. We use more potatoes, it looks like food, and that’s losing the entire battle. The eggs turned out well though.
The afternoon was slow. I tried to nap again, but it was a lost cause. It’s just too hot.
We prepped for dinner – I have mastered garlic bread – and our brownies. But our colleague wanted to cook a cake, so we let her. It took forever though. So we watched television while we waited.
All in all, it’s been a decent week. A lot of highs and lows, but not a bad week. It was productive. And we had brownies. I’d call that winning half the battle.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Year 1 – Week 5: The Poop Hole Ate My Soap
(Note: I posted Week 4 and Week 5 at the same time, so if you haven't read the prior post, you will be missing a week. -LDG)
It would appear that things actually seem to be improving in Machanga for this week. The rain has pretty much come to a halt, although that just means we have to haul water more often. We seem to be finding our groove here, but at the same time, we are also scheming on how to get out again, if only for a little bit of time, before school starts. Our days here before school starts are pretty repetitive, so getting out for a few days could help break the monotony.
The week started well for us. Sunday morning moved typically slowly. I got Richie into Su Doku, so now when it looks like we’re reading, we’re really just doing nothing but keeping our minds active. Just before making lunch, and before it got too hot, we threw the Frisbee around for a bit. The challenge is to stay in the limited amount of shade that some trees provide because once out in the open, it is way too hot.
Our standard egg and potato lunch was followed by something complete non-standard. We spent the afternoon playing cards with colleagues. Richie and I tried to teach Euchre to a couple of people. I wouldn’t call it a complete success – it’s really hard to explain in Portuguese, as I found out – but it was a good opportunity to interact with colleagues. Following Euchre, we asked them to teach us a game. And we ended up playing until the energy came on. Not a bad way to kill the afternoon.
The evening only got better. With our hands on tomatoes and tomato paste, we were able to make an absolutely delicious tomato sauce. We cooked a ton of spaghetti and by the end of the meal, we were both muito satisfeito! Once the power went out, I went outside to talk with colleagues. It is much cooler outside than it is inside, and it was just another opportunity to work on Portuguese. I get the feeling that once school starts, I will be speaking mostly English, so this is my prime opportunity to work on my language skills.
Monday picked up where Sunday left off – with some actual successes. Per the usual, most of the morning was spent playing Su Doku. While Richie ran to market, I put a call into our school office in Beira. We get free accommodation when we go to the school office, which is very convenient for us poor Peace Corps Volunteers. We’ll have the opportunity to set up mail boxes with the office, buy some things that we couldn’t get in Vilanculos, and charge up our batteries before we start planning for school.
The afternoon was pretty regular. Regular lunch, regular Frisbee playing. It always seems to attract a couple pairs of eyes. Why are these two crazy white people throwing a plate back and forth to each other? The monotony of the afternoon was broken up with two small things: firstly, I shaved for the first time in a month. I know, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but wow, I almost forgot what my face looked like. Secondly, Richie and I filled out some Safety and Security forms for Peace Corps. We’ll be able to fax them off from the office in Beira, which is just one more reason to go.
Just as it was last night, dinner killed. We broke away from the regular spaghetti dinner and made French Toast. With a reliable source of good bread, and all the other materials on hand, we figured a change would do us good. It wasn’t just good – it was nothing short of great. Cinnamon-sugary deliciousness! Thoroughly satisfied with dinner, we watched “Borat” – after all, dinner was a “great success!” Once the power went out, I went back outside to try to talk to colleagues, but they were way over my head. I wasn’t able to contribute a single word, and most of what they were saying was way too fast for me. Minor failure, but better than lying in bed sweating.
Tuesday is barely worth writing about. The big item of note is that I got away from Su Doku and started doing cryptograms (I know, stop the press!). I can’t handle numbers anymore, so it was a good change. We had our regular lunch and our regular Frisbee throwing session in the afternoon.
The evening was when things got interesting. We prepped dinner in anticipation of our energy coming on. And it did come on. And then it went off. And then it came on. And then back off again. Finally, after thirty minutes, the people stopped trying to make it work and we were left in the dark for the night. Richie and I had a very romantic candle-lit spaghetti dinner.
The lack of energy did have its upside though. One of the nice parts about having no electricity is that on a clear night, we can see every star in the sky. And tonight was especially cool because the near-full moon rose right in front of us. It was pretty awesome to go from being able to see every star to being able to see almost none, just because of the moonlight.
Wednesday seemed to be going like the early part of Tuesday – not a lot to do. And to make it worse, Richie and I were both up early, which meant we had more hours to wait until lunch. I went to the market to buy food for the rest of the week and to find out when and from where the chapa leaves for Beira. Unfortunately, I was back by 9:00. We can’t even begin thinking about prepping for lunch until 11:30. So we sat.
Around 10:30, one of our colleagues asked us if we wanted to see the house where the previous Volunteers were. We figured what the heck, but after being here for a month, we were pretty sure that we would be staying put. The house was definitely bigger than ours, but it was disgusting. It looked like it was straight out of Hurricane Katrina – flooded, moldy, and full of spiders. Fortunately, the Volunteers had left a bunch of books and some shelving units, which we took for ourselves.
By the time we were through with the house, it was already noon. Success: lunch time! Lunch was particularly good today. It’s difficult when cooking over charcoal because we have absolutely no control of the heat. But today, the eggs were fluffy and not a single potato burned.
The afternoon wasn’t too bad. Due for a shower, I took a bucket of water and let it sit in the sun. After a couple hours of sitting in the sun, the water was warm enough for a shower. Now that is solar power! The shower felt pretty good, but I had one major problem – the poop hole ate my soap.
Allow me to paint the picture. Our bathroom is a 4 by 6 foot closet. On the right side, there is a sink that has no faucets (why would there be? There is no running water). On the left side is a 9 by 18 inch porcelain inlay (a “squatty potty”) where a toilet would normally be. This is where Richie and I poop, pee, shower, and vomit if necessary. We have become fairly comfortable using it; unfortunately, it is not very forgiving when dropping items. It is a black hole. That soap is gone forever, but maybe our bathroom will smell decently now.
Our energy struggled to come on, but we eventually got it. We had our spaghetti dinner and made a return to the delicious tomato sauce from earlier in the week. After dinner, we watched “40 Year Old Virgin” and watched the moonrise again. Pretty cool.
Thursday seemed to be no different than the rest of the week. A long morning, with colleagues occupied with work they should have done last month, left us sitting alone on the porch. We got a bit of rain last night, and the lingering clouds are actually keeping this place somewhat tolerable.
Throughout the afternoon, our energy kept going on an off. Maybe they are making up the lost time from a couple nights ago. We barely knew what to do with ourselves. Of course, it’s not like we have internet access or a television, so we stuck with to the normal routine (albeit we were able to charge phones, laptops, batteries, etc.). Richie and I each spent the afternoon reading. I picked up a book called “Dear Exile,” a series of letters between Kate Montgomery, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya in 1999, and her friend Hilary Liftin. I don’t think I have ever read a book that I could relate to so much. There were parts where as I read, all I could think is “This is my life,” especially this particular section:
“Oh, January 10th, you think, Kate and Dave (her husband) have probably started their teaching! And oh how we’ve started. Oh, how. I am currently sitting in a virtually empty staff room in a virtually empty school. Wind is blowing through the palm trees (…) Dave and I have been sitting in this staff room now for a total of twenty-seven hours over the last three days. Waiting for school to start (…) We are sitting, looking at walls. Sweating. Basically melting away.”
This is my life.
As I continued to read in the breeze, I looked up every once in a while to a sky that was like nothing I had seen before: to the east and west was a typically blue sky with white puffy clouds, the kind of sky one could expect to see on just about any spring day; to the south was a slate grey-blue with patches of lighter grey clouds; to the north, a light aquamarine, the kind of color expecting parents would paint a room if they didn’t know if they had a boy or a girl on the way. It was stunning. And with the palm trees and thatched-roof houses sitting around the school, my thought of “This is my life” was amended slightly to “this is my life in Africa.”
I spent the afternoon finishing off the book. A quick 200 pages that I highly recommend. It will show that I’m not entirely crazy when I describe some of these things. While Machanga certainly is a difficult site, it is not the most difficult by any stretch, and can certainly be compared to other experiences. As I finished reading, we encountered what was probably the most beautiful sunset I have seen. It was picture-worthy, and yet I know the pictures I took wouldn’t capture it well enough. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pallet of colors – pinks, oranges, purples, and reds – in one sunset. The clouds added some extra effects that were just spectacular. We couldn’t help but stand and watch it.
Richie and I were due for a 3:30 AM wake up to get the 5:00 AM chapa to Beira to take care of some business, but that planned when a massive thunderstorm struck at 3:00. There was no sleeping through it, so we threw our hands up and just gave up. We waited for the rain to stop and then made our way over to the chapa stop. On the way, I almost lost both my sandals, so I shed them and walked barefoot (Mozambican style) to the stop. What made the morning even better was Richie almost bailing into the mud, then claiming he was about to E.T. (early terminate) and then eating it less than 5 steps later. Pretty much made my morning.
The ride to Beira is long and boring, but beautiful. Once we got off the dirt road that connects the main drag to Machanga, it was smooth sailing. I had a pretty comfortable seat; Richie had one butt cheek each on two different seats – not so comfortable. We left around 5:30 and were at the school offices by 2:00. A long journey for sure.
When we arrived, we had one thing of our mind: meat, of the chicken or cow variety. We walked into town, and split up 6 delicious pieces of fried chicken. Oh meat, how I miss thee! We later bought a stove and a ridiculous amount of materials, both edible and non, for what will be our fantastic new kitchen.
We will be in Beira until Sunday. I’m hoping to buy a wireless internet USB drive this weekend, which will at least bring some sense of connectedness from the outside world to Machanga.
It would appear that things actually seem to be improving in Machanga for this week. The rain has pretty much come to a halt, although that just means we have to haul water more often. We seem to be finding our groove here, but at the same time, we are also scheming on how to get out again, if only for a little bit of time, before school starts. Our days here before school starts are pretty repetitive, so getting out for a few days could help break the monotony.
The week started well for us. Sunday morning moved typically slowly. I got Richie into Su Doku, so now when it looks like we’re reading, we’re really just doing nothing but keeping our minds active. Just before making lunch, and before it got too hot, we threw the Frisbee around for a bit. The challenge is to stay in the limited amount of shade that some trees provide because once out in the open, it is way too hot.
Our standard egg and potato lunch was followed by something complete non-standard. We spent the afternoon playing cards with colleagues. Richie and I tried to teach Euchre to a couple of people. I wouldn’t call it a complete success – it’s really hard to explain in Portuguese, as I found out – but it was a good opportunity to interact with colleagues. Following Euchre, we asked them to teach us a game. And we ended up playing until the energy came on. Not a bad way to kill the afternoon.
The evening only got better. With our hands on tomatoes and tomato paste, we were able to make an absolutely delicious tomato sauce. We cooked a ton of spaghetti and by the end of the meal, we were both muito satisfeito! Once the power went out, I went outside to talk with colleagues. It is much cooler outside than it is inside, and it was just another opportunity to work on Portuguese. I get the feeling that once school starts, I will be speaking mostly English, so this is my prime opportunity to work on my language skills.
Monday picked up where Sunday left off – with some actual successes. Per the usual, most of the morning was spent playing Su Doku. While Richie ran to market, I put a call into our school office in Beira. We get free accommodation when we go to the school office, which is very convenient for us poor Peace Corps Volunteers. We’ll have the opportunity to set up mail boxes with the office, buy some things that we couldn’t get in Vilanculos, and charge up our batteries before we start planning for school.
The afternoon was pretty regular. Regular lunch, regular Frisbee playing. It always seems to attract a couple pairs of eyes. Why are these two crazy white people throwing a plate back and forth to each other? The monotony of the afternoon was broken up with two small things: firstly, I shaved for the first time in a month. I know, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but wow, I almost forgot what my face looked like. Secondly, Richie and I filled out some Safety and Security forms for Peace Corps. We’ll be able to fax them off from the office in Beira, which is just one more reason to go.
Just as it was last night, dinner killed. We broke away from the regular spaghetti dinner and made French Toast. With a reliable source of good bread, and all the other materials on hand, we figured a change would do us good. It wasn’t just good – it was nothing short of great. Cinnamon-sugary deliciousness! Thoroughly satisfied with dinner, we watched “Borat” – after all, dinner was a “great success!” Once the power went out, I went back outside to try to talk to colleagues, but they were way over my head. I wasn’t able to contribute a single word, and most of what they were saying was way too fast for me. Minor failure, but better than lying in bed sweating.
Tuesday is barely worth writing about. The big item of note is that I got away from Su Doku and started doing cryptograms (I know, stop the press!). I can’t handle numbers anymore, so it was a good change. We had our regular lunch and our regular Frisbee throwing session in the afternoon.
The evening was when things got interesting. We prepped dinner in anticipation of our energy coming on. And it did come on. And then it went off. And then it came on. And then back off again. Finally, after thirty minutes, the people stopped trying to make it work and we were left in the dark for the night. Richie and I had a very romantic candle-lit spaghetti dinner.
The lack of energy did have its upside though. One of the nice parts about having no electricity is that on a clear night, we can see every star in the sky. And tonight was especially cool because the near-full moon rose right in front of us. It was pretty awesome to go from being able to see every star to being able to see almost none, just because of the moonlight.
Wednesday seemed to be going like the early part of Tuesday – not a lot to do. And to make it worse, Richie and I were both up early, which meant we had more hours to wait until lunch. I went to the market to buy food for the rest of the week and to find out when and from where the chapa leaves for Beira. Unfortunately, I was back by 9:00. We can’t even begin thinking about prepping for lunch until 11:30. So we sat.
Around 10:30, one of our colleagues asked us if we wanted to see the house where the previous Volunteers were. We figured what the heck, but after being here for a month, we were pretty sure that we would be staying put. The house was definitely bigger than ours, but it was disgusting. It looked like it was straight out of Hurricane Katrina – flooded, moldy, and full of spiders. Fortunately, the Volunteers had left a bunch of books and some shelving units, which we took for ourselves.
By the time we were through with the house, it was already noon. Success: lunch time! Lunch was particularly good today. It’s difficult when cooking over charcoal because we have absolutely no control of the heat. But today, the eggs were fluffy and not a single potato burned.
The afternoon wasn’t too bad. Due for a shower, I took a bucket of water and let it sit in the sun. After a couple hours of sitting in the sun, the water was warm enough for a shower. Now that is solar power! The shower felt pretty good, but I had one major problem – the poop hole ate my soap.
Allow me to paint the picture. Our bathroom is a 4 by 6 foot closet. On the right side, there is a sink that has no faucets (why would there be? There is no running water). On the left side is a 9 by 18 inch porcelain inlay (a “squatty potty”) where a toilet would normally be. This is where Richie and I poop, pee, shower, and vomit if necessary. We have become fairly comfortable using it; unfortunately, it is not very forgiving when dropping items. It is a black hole. That soap is gone forever, but maybe our bathroom will smell decently now.
Our energy struggled to come on, but we eventually got it. We had our spaghetti dinner and made a return to the delicious tomato sauce from earlier in the week. After dinner, we watched “40 Year Old Virgin” and watched the moonrise again. Pretty cool.
Thursday seemed to be no different than the rest of the week. A long morning, with colleagues occupied with work they should have done last month, left us sitting alone on the porch. We got a bit of rain last night, and the lingering clouds are actually keeping this place somewhat tolerable.
Throughout the afternoon, our energy kept going on an off. Maybe they are making up the lost time from a couple nights ago. We barely knew what to do with ourselves. Of course, it’s not like we have internet access or a television, so we stuck with to the normal routine (albeit we were able to charge phones, laptops, batteries, etc.). Richie and I each spent the afternoon reading. I picked up a book called “Dear Exile,” a series of letters between Kate Montgomery, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya in 1999, and her friend Hilary Liftin. I don’t think I have ever read a book that I could relate to so much. There were parts where as I read, all I could think is “This is my life,” especially this particular section:
“Oh, January 10th, you think, Kate and Dave (her husband) have probably started their teaching! And oh how we’ve started. Oh, how. I am currently sitting in a virtually empty staff room in a virtually empty school. Wind is blowing through the palm trees (…) Dave and I have been sitting in this staff room now for a total of twenty-seven hours over the last three days. Waiting for school to start (…) We are sitting, looking at walls. Sweating. Basically melting away.”
This is my life.
As I continued to read in the breeze, I looked up every once in a while to a sky that was like nothing I had seen before: to the east and west was a typically blue sky with white puffy clouds, the kind of sky one could expect to see on just about any spring day; to the south was a slate grey-blue with patches of lighter grey clouds; to the north, a light aquamarine, the kind of color expecting parents would paint a room if they didn’t know if they had a boy or a girl on the way. It was stunning. And with the palm trees and thatched-roof houses sitting around the school, my thought of “This is my life” was amended slightly to “this is my life in Africa.”
I spent the afternoon finishing off the book. A quick 200 pages that I highly recommend. It will show that I’m not entirely crazy when I describe some of these things. While Machanga certainly is a difficult site, it is not the most difficult by any stretch, and can certainly be compared to other experiences. As I finished reading, we encountered what was probably the most beautiful sunset I have seen. It was picture-worthy, and yet I know the pictures I took wouldn’t capture it well enough. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a pallet of colors – pinks, oranges, purples, and reds – in one sunset. The clouds added some extra effects that were just spectacular. We couldn’t help but stand and watch it.
Richie and I were due for a 3:30 AM wake up to get the 5:00 AM chapa to Beira to take care of some business, but that planned when a massive thunderstorm struck at 3:00. There was no sleeping through it, so we threw our hands up and just gave up. We waited for the rain to stop and then made our way over to the chapa stop. On the way, I almost lost both my sandals, so I shed them and walked barefoot (Mozambican style) to the stop. What made the morning even better was Richie almost bailing into the mud, then claiming he was about to E.T. (early terminate) and then eating it less than 5 steps later. Pretty much made my morning.
The ride to Beira is long and boring, but beautiful. Once we got off the dirt road that connects the main drag to Machanga, it was smooth sailing. I had a pretty comfortable seat; Richie had one butt cheek each on two different seats – not so comfortable. We left around 5:30 and were at the school offices by 2:00. A long journey for sure.
When we arrived, we had one thing of our mind: meat, of the chicken or cow variety. We walked into town, and split up 6 delicious pieces of fried chicken. Oh meat, how I miss thee! We later bought a stove and a ridiculous amount of materials, both edible and non, for what will be our fantastic new kitchen.
We will be in Beira until Sunday. I’m hoping to buy a wireless internet USB drive this weekend, which will at least bring some sense of connectedness from the outside world to Machanga.
Year 1 – Week 4: Surviving Machanga from Meal to Meal, Minute to Minute
With a good New Years behind us, we had high hopes for getting out of Vilanculos. Richie and I woke up on the early side figuring we would give ourselves a good chance of getting out. Of course, as we walked down to the villa, it started raining. Hard. This was not good news for anyone. Once we got into town, we came across a rather large group of white people, including some Volunteers, all looking to head toward Beira. This was good news for us. The other Volunteers tried to negotiate a price, but it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.
Richie and I didn’t want to wait, so we headed out. We caught a ride to the crossroads – from a Namibian man now living in Vilanculos – where we ran into our friends from Peace Corps Zambia. They had been waiting all morning trying to get a ride north. Richie and I joined them, but there weren’t many cars passing and the ones that were didn’t stop. About 20 minutes after we got to the crossroads, a chapa stopped, and who is in it but the group of white people from earlier. We jumped in the chapa, and we were off and running.
No more than forty five minutes into the ride did we hit a massive pothole and blow a wheel bearing. We had hoped it was something less serious and reparable, but it didn’t look promising. Richie and I decided that we were going to get in the first car that stopped for us, regardless of direction: either we were heading north toward Machanga or back south to Vilanculos. It took a half an hour, but a car stopped and took us all the way back to the villa. We paid the man generously.
I walked back to the room where we had been staying, hoping that our friends were still there. The door was open and all of their stuff was there – minor victory? I knocked on the door, and our friend replied “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t even form a response. All I could do was laugh like a psychopath. And then she joined in on the laughing. We decided that we should try to catch the bus heading to Beira the next day and then go from there. The bus left at 4:30 AM, so we pretty much slept the rest of the day, until waking up at 2:30 AM to get to the villa.
Of course, it was raining as we walked down to the bus stop. The bus was empty – very good news. We got on the bus and found some decent seats. And after the thing was push started, we were told to get off the bus. Apparently, you needed a ticket to be on the bus. No one clued us in on this little detail. Defeated, but not totally hopeless, we got off the bus. We knew that a chapa left for Mambone – the city across the river from us – sometime during the morning. We waited for its arrival at around 7:30, but we figured we would be waiting – I mean, how many people want to go to Mambone?
We sat in that forsaken van for three hours as people eked their way into the car. Before leaving, a couple young girls walked up to the chapa trying to sell us onions. The only words they said in English – to Richie – were “Where do you touch me?” Strange sentence to know. Meanwhile, they were sure that we spoke English – until I told them that we were from Russia and couldn’t understand English. This put aside any efforts by them to speak English, plus it helped me work on my Portuguese.
Finally, at 10:31 on a miserably grey Saturday morning, we were off and running to Mambone. We didn’t want to say anything on ride up about having good luck or whatever because if we said anything, it would surely screw everything up. But all in all, we made it to Mambone pretty quickly. We crossed the river in a canoe with eight other people; I thought we were going to sink. Finally, we finished our trip with a walk through the bush to our school, complete with snake sighting. I never thought I’d write these words, but I can actually say I was happy to be back.
We spent our afternoon relaxing, mostly waiting for the electricity to come on. The high point of our afternoon was shaving – what sad lives we lead. And it was all down hill from there. As I was prepping for dinner, I sliced open my thumb. It bled enough for me to donate what I had lost to the Red Cross – almost. When the energy came on, we plugged in our newly-acquired stove into our newly-acquired power strip. It seemed to be working fine, until it started to smoke and then explode. Shit. Wisely, Richie tried to unplug the power strip, but exposed his hand to open wires, electrocuting himself. This was a bad day for hands. We ate our spaghetti dinner – that’s right, back to basics for us – watched some episodes of “The Office” and went to bed as the electricity went out.
I woke up at 7:30 – after nine solid hours of sleep – thinking I could get a good jump on the day. I had written out a list of five things I wanted to get done, and then I remembered that this was Africa, and accomplishing just one of those would make for a good day. But instead of starting on that list, I stayed in bed for another two hours. Now 9:30, I was ready to get on with my day. I went to the well to pump some water so I could do laundry. It has been so long since I have done laundry that I almost forgot how to do it. As I finished hanging my laundry, it started to rain. Why, god, do you torture me like this?
As I did laundry, Richie went to the market to buy our standard items – potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, and bread. But for some reason, many of the stores were closed, so Richie came back with potatoes and tomato paste. That meant lunch was French fries – very healthy lunch. After lunch, we went back to the well to pump water. I am convinced that one can get in a full arm workout just by pumping water. Of course, we probably didn’t need to pump water, as it started to rain again shortly after.
With a lot of potatoes and nothing but time on my hands, I thought I would be ambitious and try to make gnocchi. I found the recipe in our handy cookbook, but could not get the right consistency after mixing in the flour. I figured how bad could it be – it’s just flour and potatoes.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty standard. I accomplished one of the things on my list – creating a “closet,” which means a stick where I can put hangers – and starting drawing out a building plan for a kitchen. This, of course, requires materials, which we don’t have. One can dream, right?
As the electricity came on, we fired up the stove and put the “gnocchi” up. Remember how I said “how bad could it be – it’s just flour and potatoes”: it was bad enough that I had to put the word “gnocchi” in quotes because what we ate definitely did not qualify as gnocchi. I may have insulted all Italians with this disaster. It tasted like xima (SHE-mah), a Mozambican staple food made purely of corn flour and water. It was bad enough that neither Richie nor I could finish our food, and that never happens. This is what I get for being ambitious – epic failure. Maybe it’s better just to “aim medium,” as a family friend would say. We decided that we should stop trying and just stick to our standard food for a while.
With that nightmare and this long day behind us, we needed to laugh. We watched a couple episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” until the power went out. At least there was no bleeding and no electrocution today.
After last night, it could only get better. The gnocchi gave didn’t give us any stomach problems – in fact, it may have actually helped. I woke up late and headed to the market; it was my day to go. I can’t really call the market trip successful, but it wasn’t a gnocchi-sized failure – they were falta tomatoes and potatoes and some child followed me the entire way home. I yelled at him twice. And then somebody told me “Ele nao e bom na cabeza” – “He is not right in the head.” On the positive side, I got a cold – yes, cold! – Coca-Cola and we bought a small storage unit.
Vowing not to let the gnocchi failure deter me – and since there were no potatoes – I was forced to stray into a new food realm: rice. With some fried egg, garlic, onions, and soy sauce, Richie and I enjoyed what was possibly or best meal here.
We did almost nothing in the afternoon. We talked with some colleagues, did some Su Doku, stared blankly at walls, pondering “what are we doing with our lives?” Our energy came on late, as has been the norm recently. We don’t like this very much. With no potatoes, and not wanting pasta, we turned to Betty Crocker. We cracked one of the two boxes of instant potatoes my aunt sent me, cooked some eggs, and had a decent meal. We closed the night watching “Knocked Up,” a quality movie.
I had trouble sleeping, and it wasn’t helped by a 2 AM sports report text message from another Volunteer. We woke up to a monsoon-like downpour. And by “we,” I mean “I,” because Richie was bed-ridden for the entire day. He was supposed to go to the market today, but he couldn’t even make it to the front door. So I made my way over and – hello! – I fond delicious bread. This is good news. I also came across red onion for the first time and just for good measure, I got another cold Coca-Cola. To top it off, no one followed me home today.
I returned home and Richie was exactly where he was when I left – curled up in bed. Richie didn’t want to eat, so I made rice for one, and it was pretty good again. I killed off the afternoon playing Su Doku and learning a new game similar to checkers. I got slaughtered in every game, but it’s okay. It was a good opportunity to bond with co-workers and work on some Portuguese.
As the afternoon wound down, and it cooled off a bit, I started clearing out the land behind our house. Once the rain stops, I’ll be able to plant some crops. I’m sick of walking to that market, and it will be so much more convenient to walk to the backyard to get tomatoes. After a long afternoon’s work of throwing a hoe, I relaxed, made the standard spaghetti for dinner (which Richie actually ate), and called it a night.
I had trouble sleeping again, another night ruined by Larium. Richie went to the market early, early enough to return before I rolled out of bed. It looked like a decent day, so I finished up some laundry. Finally, all of my clothes were clean. Clothes washed, I went back into the yard to continue tilling the land. We made rice and eggs, again, lunch. It’s good, but it’s already getting old.
The afternoon started as usual – heat, Su Doku, doing nothing. Of course, I chose the hottest part of the day to continue working on the garden. I also started on the front of the house. It’s nothing but a layer of sand over dirt, and some flowers would add some decent color to this otherwise hideous yellowish-reddish house. Richie and I also spent part of the afternoon talking to colleagues about nothing in particular. Post-game, we vented about how much Portuguese we still don’t understand. In time, I hope, we will get it. I think once school starts and all of our colleagues are here, it will flourish.
With the power on earlier than the now usual 6:30, but still later than when it supposed to come on, we ate our spaghetti and watched “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In all, this was the fastest day I’ve had in Machanga. Keeping busy helps a lot. And with a lot of work to do behind the house, I should be able to keep busy up until school begins.
Thursday marked a second consecutive “fast day.” I had trouble sleeping again, this time from a combination of the heat and hearing bugs all around my bed. I slept until about 9:00 and headed to the market. All of our standard items were still missing, which is starting to become problematic, but they did have pineapple for the first time in a while. There was also some improvement with the mentally challenged boy following me. He asked me for money three times and I just ignored him. As I walked away from the market, he stopped, picked up a rock, and threw it at me. And the little bastard actually hit me. I turned around, and just laughed. There was no point in going back there to deal with him. He would just follow me around more.
By the time I got back from the market, it was just about time to start preparing for lunch. I lit up the charcoal while Richie prepped the food, and by noon we were cooking our now standard lunch: rice and eggs. This time, though, we grilled up some pineapple and threw it in the rice, and it actually made for a tasty meal.
The afternoon went by faster than the morning. Richie and I did a lot of work behind the house, flipping over another 150 or so square feet of land. It should be enough for a decent garden. It was strangely quiet around the school today, so the garden kept us busy. Also of note is that I made a small shelf (although the word “shelf” might be generous) using a piece of cardboard, duct tape and cardboard. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
As fast as the last couple days have been, things have really decelerated the last couple of days. We have been expecting more people to arrive, but it hasn’t been much more than a trickle. There are definitely more teachers here, but it’s still just a couple more than the usual.
With not a lot to do, we stuck to our same general routine these days. Richie went to the market while I did the dishes from the night before. Thankfully, today marked a return of the long-lost potato. I have never been so happy to take on oil burns. Then again, I wasn’t expecting the kind of oil burns that I took on. In between frying the potatoes and putting the eggs in the pan, the entire pan of oil set on fire. Oops – my bad. Apparently, vegetable oil does set on fire. Lesson learned.
We lazed around for the better part of the afternoon. We threw around the Frisbee for a while, which not only attracted children, but also some adults. The game came to an abrupt end when I threw the Frisbee on the roof of our house. Once again, oops, my bad. Toward the end of the afternoon, I made a spice rack using four soda cans and cardboard. It isn’t pretty, but it’s holding our spices, so I’m satisfied.
Having not learned the lesson of trying to make new foods, Richie was feeling ambitious and decided it would be a good night for pancakes. This was a good idea in theory, but as with the gnocchi, there was too much flour, and it just tasted like xima. It didn’t really matter. We were full by the end of the meal. Once again, we just need to stick with the basics. We capped the night by watching “Juno”
As this week came to a close, we had what might have been our best day here. I went to the market and they had two items that made me very happy: tomatoes, for the first time in a while; and olive oil, for the first time, period. This should help with the tomato sauce we make. Our scrambled eggs and French fries were particularly good today, maybe because they tasted like victory.
It seems like when something goes well in the morning, it inevitably goes wrong in the afternoon. So not wanting to ruin the great day, Richie and I did absolutely nothing for the rest of the afternoon. I got on a good roll of Su Doku, Richie finished off a book, and we both took hours-long naps. I would call that a successful afternoon.
The night was pretty standard. Spaghetti with amazing tomato sauce, a little bit of “The Office”, and an obnoxious amount of sweating. I spent a little time talking with colleagues after the power went out. Pretty good day for Machanaga.
All that really matters is that we survived. Another minute. Another meal. Another day. Another week.
Richie and I didn’t want to wait, so we headed out. We caught a ride to the crossroads – from a Namibian man now living in Vilanculos – where we ran into our friends from Peace Corps Zambia. They had been waiting all morning trying to get a ride north. Richie and I joined them, but there weren’t many cars passing and the ones that were didn’t stop. About 20 minutes after we got to the crossroads, a chapa stopped, and who is in it but the group of white people from earlier. We jumped in the chapa, and we were off and running.
No more than forty five minutes into the ride did we hit a massive pothole and blow a wheel bearing. We had hoped it was something less serious and reparable, but it didn’t look promising. Richie and I decided that we were going to get in the first car that stopped for us, regardless of direction: either we were heading north toward Machanga or back south to Vilanculos. It took a half an hour, but a car stopped and took us all the way back to the villa. We paid the man generously.
I walked back to the room where we had been staying, hoping that our friends were still there. The door was open and all of their stuff was there – minor victory? I knocked on the door, and our friend replied “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t even form a response. All I could do was laugh like a psychopath. And then she joined in on the laughing. We decided that we should try to catch the bus heading to Beira the next day and then go from there. The bus left at 4:30 AM, so we pretty much slept the rest of the day, until waking up at 2:30 AM to get to the villa.
Of course, it was raining as we walked down to the bus stop. The bus was empty – very good news. We got on the bus and found some decent seats. And after the thing was push started, we were told to get off the bus. Apparently, you needed a ticket to be on the bus. No one clued us in on this little detail. Defeated, but not totally hopeless, we got off the bus. We knew that a chapa left for Mambone – the city across the river from us – sometime during the morning. We waited for its arrival at around 7:30, but we figured we would be waiting – I mean, how many people want to go to Mambone?
We sat in that forsaken van for three hours as people eked their way into the car. Before leaving, a couple young girls walked up to the chapa trying to sell us onions. The only words they said in English – to Richie – were “Where do you touch me?” Strange sentence to know. Meanwhile, they were sure that we spoke English – until I told them that we were from Russia and couldn’t understand English. This put aside any efforts by them to speak English, plus it helped me work on my Portuguese.
Finally, at 10:31 on a miserably grey Saturday morning, we were off and running to Mambone. We didn’t want to say anything on ride up about having good luck or whatever because if we said anything, it would surely screw everything up. But all in all, we made it to Mambone pretty quickly. We crossed the river in a canoe with eight other people; I thought we were going to sink. Finally, we finished our trip with a walk through the bush to our school, complete with snake sighting. I never thought I’d write these words, but I can actually say I was happy to be back.
We spent our afternoon relaxing, mostly waiting for the electricity to come on. The high point of our afternoon was shaving – what sad lives we lead. And it was all down hill from there. As I was prepping for dinner, I sliced open my thumb. It bled enough for me to donate what I had lost to the Red Cross – almost. When the energy came on, we plugged in our newly-acquired stove into our newly-acquired power strip. It seemed to be working fine, until it started to smoke and then explode. Shit. Wisely, Richie tried to unplug the power strip, but exposed his hand to open wires, electrocuting himself. This was a bad day for hands. We ate our spaghetti dinner – that’s right, back to basics for us – watched some episodes of “The Office” and went to bed as the electricity went out.
I woke up at 7:30 – after nine solid hours of sleep – thinking I could get a good jump on the day. I had written out a list of five things I wanted to get done, and then I remembered that this was Africa, and accomplishing just one of those would make for a good day. But instead of starting on that list, I stayed in bed for another two hours. Now 9:30, I was ready to get on with my day. I went to the well to pump some water so I could do laundry. It has been so long since I have done laundry that I almost forgot how to do it. As I finished hanging my laundry, it started to rain. Why, god, do you torture me like this?
As I did laundry, Richie went to the market to buy our standard items – potatoes, tomatoes, eggs, and bread. But for some reason, many of the stores were closed, so Richie came back with potatoes and tomato paste. That meant lunch was French fries – very healthy lunch. After lunch, we went back to the well to pump water. I am convinced that one can get in a full arm workout just by pumping water. Of course, we probably didn’t need to pump water, as it started to rain again shortly after.
With a lot of potatoes and nothing but time on my hands, I thought I would be ambitious and try to make gnocchi. I found the recipe in our handy cookbook, but could not get the right consistency after mixing in the flour. I figured how bad could it be – it’s just flour and potatoes.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty standard. I accomplished one of the things on my list – creating a “closet,” which means a stick where I can put hangers – and starting drawing out a building plan for a kitchen. This, of course, requires materials, which we don’t have. One can dream, right?
As the electricity came on, we fired up the stove and put the “gnocchi” up. Remember how I said “how bad could it be – it’s just flour and potatoes”: it was bad enough that I had to put the word “gnocchi” in quotes because what we ate definitely did not qualify as gnocchi. I may have insulted all Italians with this disaster. It tasted like xima (SHE-mah), a Mozambican staple food made purely of corn flour and water. It was bad enough that neither Richie nor I could finish our food, and that never happens. This is what I get for being ambitious – epic failure. Maybe it’s better just to “aim medium,” as a family friend would say. We decided that we should stop trying and just stick to our standard food for a while.
With that nightmare and this long day behind us, we needed to laugh. We watched a couple episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” until the power went out. At least there was no bleeding and no electrocution today.
After last night, it could only get better. The gnocchi gave didn’t give us any stomach problems – in fact, it may have actually helped. I woke up late and headed to the market; it was my day to go. I can’t really call the market trip successful, but it wasn’t a gnocchi-sized failure – they were falta tomatoes and potatoes and some child followed me the entire way home. I yelled at him twice. And then somebody told me “Ele nao e bom na cabeza” – “He is not right in the head.” On the positive side, I got a cold – yes, cold! – Coca-Cola and we bought a small storage unit.
Vowing not to let the gnocchi failure deter me – and since there were no potatoes – I was forced to stray into a new food realm: rice. With some fried egg, garlic, onions, and soy sauce, Richie and I enjoyed what was possibly or best meal here.
We did almost nothing in the afternoon. We talked with some colleagues, did some Su Doku, stared blankly at walls, pondering “what are we doing with our lives?” Our energy came on late, as has been the norm recently. We don’t like this very much. With no potatoes, and not wanting pasta, we turned to Betty Crocker. We cracked one of the two boxes of instant potatoes my aunt sent me, cooked some eggs, and had a decent meal. We closed the night watching “Knocked Up,” a quality movie.
I had trouble sleeping, and it wasn’t helped by a 2 AM sports report text message from another Volunteer. We woke up to a monsoon-like downpour. And by “we,” I mean “I,” because Richie was bed-ridden for the entire day. He was supposed to go to the market today, but he couldn’t even make it to the front door. So I made my way over and – hello! – I fond delicious bread. This is good news. I also came across red onion for the first time and just for good measure, I got another cold Coca-Cola. To top it off, no one followed me home today.
I returned home and Richie was exactly where he was when I left – curled up in bed. Richie didn’t want to eat, so I made rice for one, and it was pretty good again. I killed off the afternoon playing Su Doku and learning a new game similar to checkers. I got slaughtered in every game, but it’s okay. It was a good opportunity to bond with co-workers and work on some Portuguese.
As the afternoon wound down, and it cooled off a bit, I started clearing out the land behind our house. Once the rain stops, I’ll be able to plant some crops. I’m sick of walking to that market, and it will be so much more convenient to walk to the backyard to get tomatoes. After a long afternoon’s work of throwing a hoe, I relaxed, made the standard spaghetti for dinner (which Richie actually ate), and called it a night.
I had trouble sleeping again, another night ruined by Larium. Richie went to the market early, early enough to return before I rolled out of bed. It looked like a decent day, so I finished up some laundry. Finally, all of my clothes were clean. Clothes washed, I went back into the yard to continue tilling the land. We made rice and eggs, again, lunch. It’s good, but it’s already getting old.
The afternoon started as usual – heat, Su Doku, doing nothing. Of course, I chose the hottest part of the day to continue working on the garden. I also started on the front of the house. It’s nothing but a layer of sand over dirt, and some flowers would add some decent color to this otherwise hideous yellowish-reddish house. Richie and I also spent part of the afternoon talking to colleagues about nothing in particular. Post-game, we vented about how much Portuguese we still don’t understand. In time, I hope, we will get it. I think once school starts and all of our colleagues are here, it will flourish.
With the power on earlier than the now usual 6:30, but still later than when it supposed to come on, we ate our spaghetti and watched “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In all, this was the fastest day I’ve had in Machanga. Keeping busy helps a lot. And with a lot of work to do behind the house, I should be able to keep busy up until school begins.
Thursday marked a second consecutive “fast day.” I had trouble sleeping again, this time from a combination of the heat and hearing bugs all around my bed. I slept until about 9:00 and headed to the market. All of our standard items were still missing, which is starting to become problematic, but they did have pineapple for the first time in a while. There was also some improvement with the mentally challenged boy following me. He asked me for money three times and I just ignored him. As I walked away from the market, he stopped, picked up a rock, and threw it at me. And the little bastard actually hit me. I turned around, and just laughed. There was no point in going back there to deal with him. He would just follow me around more.
By the time I got back from the market, it was just about time to start preparing for lunch. I lit up the charcoal while Richie prepped the food, and by noon we were cooking our now standard lunch: rice and eggs. This time, though, we grilled up some pineapple and threw it in the rice, and it actually made for a tasty meal.
The afternoon went by faster than the morning. Richie and I did a lot of work behind the house, flipping over another 150 or so square feet of land. It should be enough for a decent garden. It was strangely quiet around the school today, so the garden kept us busy. Also of note is that I made a small shelf (although the word “shelf” might be generous) using a piece of cardboard, duct tape and cardboard. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
As fast as the last couple days have been, things have really decelerated the last couple of days. We have been expecting more people to arrive, but it hasn’t been much more than a trickle. There are definitely more teachers here, but it’s still just a couple more than the usual.
With not a lot to do, we stuck to our same general routine these days. Richie went to the market while I did the dishes from the night before. Thankfully, today marked a return of the long-lost potato. I have never been so happy to take on oil burns. Then again, I wasn’t expecting the kind of oil burns that I took on. In between frying the potatoes and putting the eggs in the pan, the entire pan of oil set on fire. Oops – my bad. Apparently, vegetable oil does set on fire. Lesson learned.
We lazed around for the better part of the afternoon. We threw around the Frisbee for a while, which not only attracted children, but also some adults. The game came to an abrupt end when I threw the Frisbee on the roof of our house. Once again, oops, my bad. Toward the end of the afternoon, I made a spice rack using four soda cans and cardboard. It isn’t pretty, but it’s holding our spices, so I’m satisfied.
Having not learned the lesson of trying to make new foods, Richie was feeling ambitious and decided it would be a good night for pancakes. This was a good idea in theory, but as with the gnocchi, there was too much flour, and it just tasted like xima. It didn’t really matter. We were full by the end of the meal. Once again, we just need to stick with the basics. We capped the night by watching “Juno”
As this week came to a close, we had what might have been our best day here. I went to the market and they had two items that made me very happy: tomatoes, for the first time in a while; and olive oil, for the first time, period. This should help with the tomato sauce we make. Our scrambled eggs and French fries were particularly good today, maybe because they tasted like victory.
It seems like when something goes well in the morning, it inevitably goes wrong in the afternoon. So not wanting to ruin the great day, Richie and I did absolutely nothing for the rest of the afternoon. I got on a good roll of Su Doku, Richie finished off a book, and we both took hours-long naps. I would call that a successful afternoon.
The night was pretty standard. Spaghetti with amazing tomato sauce, a little bit of “The Office”, and an obnoxious amount of sweating. I spent a little time talking with colleagues after the power went out. Pretty good day for Machanaga.
All that really matters is that we survived. Another minute. Another meal. Another day. Another week.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Year 1 - Week 3: The Failed Escape
We had originally planned to leave Saturday morning, so I went to bed on the early side on Friday, thinking I had a long day ahead of me. When I woke up at 4:30 for some ungodly reason, I noticed that Richie still hadn’t returned to the room. This was not promising. At some point, he made it back to the room. He woke up around 7:30 and uttered the words “I feel like death.” My hopes for getting home shrunk considerably. As if that wasn’t clear enough, by 9:30 he said “I don’t think I’m going to make it.” That was the final dagger in our effort to get home.
So I went with it. There was no point in being angry; after all, if you are going to be stuck in a place, Vilanculos is a nice place to be stuck. And it proved to be a blessing in disguise: we got rain for the better part of the morning into the afternoon. It would not have been a pleasant ride back to Machanga.
I spent most of the morning with some new friends from Peace Corps South Africa. They have an interesting group and all of them are very kind. We spent most of the morning playing a game called Skip-Bo. It was a good time-killer and it got us to lunch.
Seeing as we had planned to go back to Machanga, I did not expect to have to spend a lot of money on food. I figured since we would leave now on Saturday, I would buy one meal in a restaurant and try to eat locally for one. So I went into town and bought some bread and vegetables to make veggie sandwiches. I was very pleased to be able to get some vitamins in me. We just don’t get that kind of variety in Machanga. Of course, as I got into the town, it started to downpour so I bought a much needed umbrella. I did not want to walk back to the hostel in the pouring rain.
The afternoon was spent the same way the morning was – playing cards. This time, we played Euchre. It was pretty nice to have some Midwesterners around because they already knew the game. We played three games for a couple hours on end – just enough to get us toward dinner.
As Richie was still in a state, I went to dinner with the South Africa crew. Thinking this was my last decent meal for a while, we went for pizza, where we also indulged in milkshakes. I came back, and Richie was semi-conscious, so we made a plan to get back to Machanga for Sunday – out by 9:00.
We woke up around 8:30, once again to rain. We packed our bags and made our way out. We stopped at the bank to stock up on money for the next couple of months – this is the closest bank to us – and we were on our way. Luckily, we got a chapa and not a truck because it started to downpour just as we got going. Things were looking good: Richie was awake, we had a chapa to the crossroads. The only thing we needed was a little luck getting a ride north.
And this is where the fortune ended. After 10 minutes of waiting, a car pulled up to stop near where we were. I asked if we could get a ride heading toward Beira. The man replied, in English, that there was no transport heading north because the bridge collapsed. Well, we didn’t have much choice but to turn around and head back into Vilanculos. We tried to contact Peace Corps of our plans, and thankfully – finally – our text message went through. Between the service being terrible and the spotty weather, it’s been a tough go using cell phones recently.
We came back to the house where we had stayed for the first couple nights. Most of Sunday was a lazy day. We stuck around the house. By the afternoon, the town was hot and dry so I did some much needed laundry. For dinner, we ate a fantastic and very summer camp-like meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup.
I woke up Monday on the early end. My index finger on my left hand was inflamed, destroyed by bites of some kind. My hand looked like a Braille book. Richie and I ate breakfast at the Volunteer’s house where we had stayed, then made our way back to the hostel where we had spent some of our time. The beach was a lot more accessible there and there were more people there too. It seemed to make sense to spend the day there. On the way over, I bought some vegetables for lunch.
The day, much like yesterday, was lazy. I spent some quality time in a hammock. The ocean was warm as always, but was shallow and had a strong undertow. My card-playing Peace Corps South Africa friends were on a little day trip to the islands, so I made some new friends with some Peace Corps Zambia people. Mozambique is clearly the place to be during the holidays.
We had something of a unique – and cheap – dinner: gazelle meat sandwiches. They were delicious! I could eat those everyday…oh, wait, we don’t get that in Machanga. I spent the rest of the night hanging with the Peace Corps Zambia crew until heading back to the Volunteer’s house to sleep.
Tuesday went pretty much like Monday. But that’s the way vacation is supposed to be, right – just doing a lot of nothing. I woke up at the Volunteer’s house, made my way over to the hostel, and just hung out for the day. I committed to buying only one meal at the hostel to keep my food costs down. I figured that I’m not paying for room and board so I can splurge a little on food everyday. So I have been taking advantage of foods that are just not available to me in Machanga – cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, pizza, etc.
Wednesday was probably the laziest day I’ve had here. I woke up late after sleeping amazingly. There was a storm that blew in right as I was falling asleep, so the weather stayed nice and cool. Richie came over, but strangely, he didn’t take a shower like he had been doing. His reasoning was that it was so frickin’ hot that the moment he stepped outside, he would just be sweating again – perfectly good logic. We made pancakes and some delicious syrup, and were on our way for the day.
I spent hours on end in a hammock under some coconut trees doing absolutely nothing. Not thinking, not eating, not drinking, not anything. Even if nothing was exactly what I’d be doing in Machanga right now – especially since all of the teachers are in Beira – this nothing is a lot better than that nothing.
Finally hungry, I got some food – gazelle skewers and enough bread to give me a good base for the upcoming night. The party started somewhat late for new years. The hostel had a decent live band going and the weather was decent for most of the night. The rain starting coming just after the clock hit midnight, but that didn’t stop the party. By the end of the night – and I mean the end of the night – we were on the beach, hoping to catch sunrise over the Indian Ocean. But the cloud cover was too heavy and we it just got progressively less dark. By 6 AM, I was done.
Rain brought in the New Year. Sure, this place needs it, but this could once again put a damper on travel plans. Hopefully the roads will be drivable and we will be able to get back to Machanga. We will be around Vilanculos today and will be out of here, hopefully, tomorrow. I don’t know if we can afford another failed escape.
So I went with it. There was no point in being angry; after all, if you are going to be stuck in a place, Vilanculos is a nice place to be stuck. And it proved to be a blessing in disguise: we got rain for the better part of the morning into the afternoon. It would not have been a pleasant ride back to Machanga.
I spent most of the morning with some new friends from Peace Corps South Africa. They have an interesting group and all of them are very kind. We spent most of the morning playing a game called Skip-Bo. It was a good time-killer and it got us to lunch.
Seeing as we had planned to go back to Machanga, I did not expect to have to spend a lot of money on food. I figured since we would leave now on Saturday, I would buy one meal in a restaurant and try to eat locally for one. So I went into town and bought some bread and vegetables to make veggie sandwiches. I was very pleased to be able to get some vitamins in me. We just don’t get that kind of variety in Machanga. Of course, as I got into the town, it started to downpour so I bought a much needed umbrella. I did not want to walk back to the hostel in the pouring rain.
The afternoon was spent the same way the morning was – playing cards. This time, we played Euchre. It was pretty nice to have some Midwesterners around because they already knew the game. We played three games for a couple hours on end – just enough to get us toward dinner.
As Richie was still in a state, I went to dinner with the South Africa crew. Thinking this was my last decent meal for a while, we went for pizza, where we also indulged in milkshakes. I came back, and Richie was semi-conscious, so we made a plan to get back to Machanga for Sunday – out by 9:00.
We woke up around 8:30, once again to rain. We packed our bags and made our way out. We stopped at the bank to stock up on money for the next couple of months – this is the closest bank to us – and we were on our way. Luckily, we got a chapa and not a truck because it started to downpour just as we got going. Things were looking good: Richie was awake, we had a chapa to the crossroads. The only thing we needed was a little luck getting a ride north.
And this is where the fortune ended. After 10 minutes of waiting, a car pulled up to stop near where we were. I asked if we could get a ride heading toward Beira. The man replied, in English, that there was no transport heading north because the bridge collapsed. Well, we didn’t have much choice but to turn around and head back into Vilanculos. We tried to contact Peace Corps of our plans, and thankfully – finally – our text message went through. Between the service being terrible and the spotty weather, it’s been a tough go using cell phones recently.
We came back to the house where we had stayed for the first couple nights. Most of Sunday was a lazy day. We stuck around the house. By the afternoon, the town was hot and dry so I did some much needed laundry. For dinner, we ate a fantastic and very summer camp-like meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup.
I woke up Monday on the early end. My index finger on my left hand was inflamed, destroyed by bites of some kind. My hand looked like a Braille book. Richie and I ate breakfast at the Volunteer’s house where we had stayed, then made our way back to the hostel where we had spent some of our time. The beach was a lot more accessible there and there were more people there too. It seemed to make sense to spend the day there. On the way over, I bought some vegetables for lunch.
The day, much like yesterday, was lazy. I spent some quality time in a hammock. The ocean was warm as always, but was shallow and had a strong undertow. My card-playing Peace Corps South Africa friends were on a little day trip to the islands, so I made some new friends with some Peace Corps Zambia people. Mozambique is clearly the place to be during the holidays.
We had something of a unique – and cheap – dinner: gazelle meat sandwiches. They were delicious! I could eat those everyday…oh, wait, we don’t get that in Machanga. I spent the rest of the night hanging with the Peace Corps Zambia crew until heading back to the Volunteer’s house to sleep.
Tuesday went pretty much like Monday. But that’s the way vacation is supposed to be, right – just doing a lot of nothing. I woke up at the Volunteer’s house, made my way over to the hostel, and just hung out for the day. I committed to buying only one meal at the hostel to keep my food costs down. I figured that I’m not paying for room and board so I can splurge a little on food everyday. So I have been taking advantage of foods that are just not available to me in Machanga – cheeseburgers, grilled cheese, pizza, etc.
Wednesday was probably the laziest day I’ve had here. I woke up late after sleeping amazingly. There was a storm that blew in right as I was falling asleep, so the weather stayed nice and cool. Richie came over, but strangely, he didn’t take a shower like he had been doing. His reasoning was that it was so frickin’ hot that the moment he stepped outside, he would just be sweating again – perfectly good logic. We made pancakes and some delicious syrup, and were on our way for the day.
I spent hours on end in a hammock under some coconut trees doing absolutely nothing. Not thinking, not eating, not drinking, not anything. Even if nothing was exactly what I’d be doing in Machanga right now – especially since all of the teachers are in Beira – this nothing is a lot better than that nothing.
Finally hungry, I got some food – gazelle skewers and enough bread to give me a good base for the upcoming night. The party started somewhat late for new years. The hostel had a decent live band going and the weather was decent for most of the night. The rain starting coming just after the clock hit midnight, but that didn’t stop the party. By the end of the night – and I mean the end of the night – we were on the beach, hoping to catch sunrise over the Indian Ocean. But the cloud cover was too heavy and we it just got progressively less dark. By 6 AM, I was done.
Rain brought in the New Year. Sure, this place needs it, but this could once again put a damper on travel plans. Hopefully the roads will be drivable and we will be able to get back to Machanga. We will be around Vilanculos today and will be out of here, hopefully, tomorrow. I don’t know if we can afford another failed escape.
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