Year 2 - Week 35: Working Things Out

With our Close of Service conference behind us, all we had to do was, well, close our service. We may only have a couple more months left, but there is still plenty to be done. Richie will be out for most of the week preparing for Science Fair in Beira. In the meantime, I'm holding down the fort, keeping things in order here.

In theory, our last trimester here begins tomorrow, but we know better than that. In practice, students will begin walking back to school today, maybe arriving tomorrow, but in all likelihood, they won't be here until Tuesday or Wednesday. School won't really start until next week, which is all fine and good. If I don't have school to keep me busy, I'll find other things to occupy my time.

And there was no shortage of things to keep me busy on Sunday. There were two small pieces of electrical work that needed to be done in the house. The simpler of the two tasks was getting a new light bulb for my room. The more difficult was adding a plug to the electric wire I have going out to the patio. Until now, the wire has been going directly into the outlet. This situation was just begging for an electrocution of massive proportion. With a piece I purchased in Vilanculos, I fixed up the wire so it would be electrocution-proof.

My third task for the day involved my beleaguered pan handle. The third time was apparently not the charm for my whittled handiwork. Leave it to Sozinho, the person we so endearingly call "The Ruiner", to ruin my work. He didn't realize that since the handle was made from wood, he probably shouldn't put it directly over an open fire. Sometimes, I just have to wonder what goes on in that mind of his. I put on a new handle and Sozinho-proofed it by wrapping most of it in aluminum foil.

The last of my jobs today was to hand out a laptop to one of the teachers here. I would have done it early, but the computer needed an adapter. What good would a laptop be if you couldn't recharge it? I showed him the basics -- turning on, turning off, opening a document -- and told him to come by tomorrow a quick typing lesson. He had been anxious to receive a computer, so when it finally happened, he was very happy.

For all that hard work, I think I deserved a good dinner. Sozinho got his hands on some gazela -- bushmeat -- and we Americanized it: cut up some veggies, through some cheese on it, and made gazela sandwiches. The meat was as lean as any beef we've had, so we were pretty content. Making the night even better, we began the fifth season of "How I Met Your Mother". I don't know how many seasons there are, but we're happy that we're catching up.

Richie was right back on the road Monday morning, leaving me alone for the week. But even though he was gone, it's really hard to be alone here. People here are always coming by. The first two people came by around 8:30. They came strapped with their computers, eager for a quick typing lesson. If they can figure out how to touch-type, they'll be miles ahead of me because, despite my almost twenty years of working on a computer, I still cannot properly touch-type, and I don't think I'll be learning how any time soon. It was a little frustrating at first for them, using their hands and minds in a way that they never have, but I think they'll pick it up pretty quickly. If Mozambicans can do one thing well, it's memorization; they'll be able to put that skill to use in remembering where they keys are.

Late in the morning, I made a run to the market to buy some rice. Sozinho, naturally, plowed through all the rice we had while we were gone. I'm done buying things in bulk, because Richie and I are both sure that he gives away our food when we're gone. No normal human being can eat that much food in so little time. It's just another example of the Mozambican/African mentality discussed in the book I read a couple weeks ago. We buy things in bulk because it's convenient, because we don't want to walk to the market every day. But when Sozinho sees that we have ten kilos of rice, he thinks it gives him permission to distribute that rice as he sees fit. And that drives us crazy. He costs enough as it is.

After lunch, I started reading "The Kite Runner". Yea, I know, I'm a couple years behind on getting to this book, but better late than never. I've heard nothing but good things about it, and the first hundred or so pages certainly have lived up to expectations. Given the lack of work this week, I'm sure this book will not make it to the end of the week.

There was one last computer to be distributed after lunch. Well, at least until we leave. It looks like Richie and I are both going to leave our computers behind. Though still functional, they are not in particularly good shape. They'll be put to good use here. At least they will last long enough for someone to save up enough money for a new one. I went through the same basic lesson as I did yesterday and, once again, the recipient was elated.

I started preparing beans late in the afternoon. They had been soaking all day, meaning they should have taken less time to cook. Still, it took a solid two hours to get them cooked all the way through. They weren't the best beans I've ever cooked, but they were good enough. The saving grace was an avocado. That's right -- we managed to get our hands on a couple of avocados Vilanculos. Huge victory does not begin to describe that purchase. Avocado season should have been done a long time ago.

Following dinner, I was preparing for a night in bed with "The Kite Runner", when one of my colleagues asked me if I could go out for a couple drinks. Could I? Of course I can. The two teachers who received computers this week wanted to thank me with a couple beers. They couldn't think of a better way to thank me and, quite frankly, neither could I. We stayed out for a little bit. Strangely, I was the only one drinking beer. Everyone else was drinking Fanta. Odd. Didn't stop me from having a few before heading home.

Tuesday had the look and feel of winter. A sheet of grey clouds covered the sky, occasionally letting through pockets of bright blue. A strong wind made the trees lean to one side. It looked like it could rain at any moment. You could practically hear the dusty roads begging for some rain, but the clouds had nothing to offer.

The bells rang in school today, though I'm not really sure why. Students are still on their way back here, as are teachers for that matter. I asked Sozinho how many students were in his class today. He didn't even bother to verbalize it. He didn't have to: he just stuck a hand up with all fingers extended. Out of 55 students, literally a handful have shown up. It seems there's an unwritten contract between the teachers and students that says, "Let's push vacation on for one more week" and everyone is happy to comply. So be it.

Around 10:30, I decided it was time to work out again. I have been exceptionally lazy this year and it doesn't feel particularly good. I could feel it last week as we played ultimate frisbee in the sand. I was sore for the entire week after. The first workout after a long layoff always sucks, but I suspect the motivation will come easier after that first one.

After lunch, I kept myself busy with "The Kite Runner". My assumption that this book wouldn't last the week looked good. It was really a matter of whether it would survive the day. The only thing working against me was the lack of light. As the wind grew steady, the lights went out, leaving Machanga without electricity for the better part of the afternoon. Nobody stopped what they were doing. After all, this was the old normal. When the house became to dark to read, I lit a candle and read by candlelight.

Late in the afternoon, with the school generator pumping, I went over to the school to help one of the assistant directors in making a school form. The form he needed to make wasn't particularly difficult -- a header with a table below -- but he couldn't get the table to fit on the page. I tried to throw it in a header, but it wasn't really working. Finally, I just took out the margins and made the table fit. He asked me how I did it, so I showed him. I was about to show him how I did the table, but he interrupted me. "That part I know how to do." That's the kind of moment that can't be measured. It's a little thing that made my day. Then it only got better. "It's a lot more difficult in Microsoft 2007", he said. "In 2003, I could do it". I couldn't agree more. And couldn't stop laughing under my breath at the absurdity of it all. Last year, he didn't know how to turn on a computer. This year, he's griping about Microsoft Office 2007.

Finally, just after 6:00, the electricity came on for good. The timing was perfect. I cooked some rice, whipped up some guacamole and salsa and had some Mexican food. As the rice cooked, I finished "The Kite Runner". By the time I was finished with dinner, it was nearly bed time. I crawled into bed with a new book, "All the King's Men", and hoped that this one would last more than a day.

For the second day in a row, the electricity was not working as well as it should be. The wind has picked up a notch or two. We're not talking about a tropical breeze here. This was a seriously cold wind. And it was wreaking havoc with everything. It knocked out the electricity for most of the morning and kicked up a ton of dust. I overheard someone saying they "took refuge" in a shop for a little while to keep the dust from landing in their eyes. Everyone was decked out in their winter gear -- beanies, sweaters, pants -- except for our favorite two-year old, the famous "Bucket Girl", who was just fine running around with no pants on.

The school is still quiet. A couple more teachers have shown up and some have even tried to teach this week. I think the people who are trying are the ones who are new this year. They still haven't quite figured things out. But those of us who know what's up haven't even tried to teach. I figure as long as long as the school director and all of the assistant directors aren't teaching, I can't be accused of not doing my job.

I kept busy in the morning with a workout. I was sore all morning from yesterday's workout -- I guess I earned that for not exercising for months -- so I did some legwork. I'm sure I'll be sore again tomorrow, but hopefully my arms will have recovered.

After lunch, I snuck in a little nap. No commitments -- might as well sleep. I woke up hungry. Conveniently, I had half an avocado left over from last night. I mashed it up into guacamole and used it as a dip for bread. It hit the spot. How could it not?

I tried to do some more reading in "All the King's Men", but I'm having trouble getting into it. I should like it, being a political book and all. But unlike "The Kite Runner," the writing in this book is, I don't know, fluffy. It's very adjective-heavy, very repetitive. Oh, and the first chapter goes on for-fuckin-ever. No chapter in any book should last seventy-seven pages. Even biblical chapters don't last that long. I suffered through that chapter. I can only hope that the next chapters are shorter, but I have my doubts.

I was banking on eating spaghetti for dinner tonight. It's been a couple nights, so you know, I'm due. Sozinho wanted to eat rice and I figured that as long has he's cooking it, I might as well eat it. I pulled some chicken breast out of our friends freezer, defrosted it, and cooked it up on our stove. By the time we ate, it was already 8:00 or so. The rest of the night was quiet. I wrote out an email or two and went to sleep.

I woke up early Thursday morning to the ping-ping-ping of raindrops on our tin roof. It wasn't a heavy rainy-season rain, but still heavy enough as to not dissipate before hitting the ground. This rain wouldn't bring on any mud or fill our wells, but it will be good enough to water the lettuce and onions growing behind the houses. I looked at the clock and saw it was 5:45, laughed, and went right back to bed for a little while.

The morning was surprisingly busy. I caught up with a friend from home, then did a grocery run. Sozinho was out of the house preparing his potential science fair project, leaving me to go the market. That was fine by me -- I was happy to kill an hour or so. After the market run, I came back home for my workout. It's funny. I only took two days for me to crave that feeling again, the feeling that you need to work out. By the time I was done, it was lunch time already.

I ate my lunch and showered, with no big plans for the afternoon. One of our colleagues came over asking for information about the regional Science Fair in Beira. He'll be chaperoning the kids up to Beira, which shouldn't be too difficult. It's not going to cost him anything -- Science Fair will cover all the costs -- but in the meantime, I'm covering their food and transportation tomorrow, at a hit of 1800 Meticais, about thirty percent of my salary for the month. I'll have it back by Monday, so it's no big deal. Still, I think it pissed off Sozinho, knowing that I had that kind of cash, but am not willing to fork out for his baptism clothing. What he doesn't realize is that all that money has to last me through the month.

Late in the afternoon, two trucks rolled into the school, the big mack-type trucks that can carry fifty goats. In this case, though, the trucks weren't filled with goats but with students singing at the top of their lungs as they approached school. They've plotted their return perfectly -- show up late enough in the week that the teachers won't come to class for the remainder of the week. I still can't understand why anyone would be so excited to coming back here -- to Machanga, to school, to finding firewood so they can eat the same crappy food day in and day out. Whatever. I won't rain on their parade.

Whatever excitement existed in the school was non-existent in the teacher's bairro. My neighbor came over with his usual smile and "Boa Tarde" then told me that his brother died this morning. He said it like he was just reporting the news: it's windy and cold outside, the students have returned, and my brother died. He said that he had been "doente" -- sick -- which is kind of a code. If it were TB, he would have said TB. If it were malaria, he would have said malaria. But if it's AIDS, then he's "sick". I asked how old he was: forty. Another life ended early, even by Mozambican's standard for life expectancy.

That pretty much killed whatever good vibes I was feeling. In a lot of ways, we've become very accustomed to a lot of things. We're used to taking shitty chapas and power outages and nothing running on time. But I don't think I'll ever get used to someone telling me that their brother or cousin or daughter died because of a disease that was preventable, whether that disease be AIDS or malaria or diarrhea.

Uninspired, the night was nothing special: spaghetti and some more of "All the King's Men" before going to sleep.

The early part of Friday morning was filled with a colleague's first computer crisis. His battery had drained all the way to zero and wasn't charging. I thought he just left it on, killing it off. But when I plugged the computer in, it still wouldn't charge. Curious. I tried using a different battery and it still wouldn't charge. Even more curious. My last guess was the charger itself. Earlier in the year, I had given a non-functioning charger to another colleague; maybe this was the same one. I tried a different charger and it worked. Excellent -- problem solved.

The rest of the morning looked a lot like the mornings from the rest of the week. I ran over to the market to buy eggs, then to the other side of town to buy bread. When I got back, it was already time to cook.

I kept myself busy after lunch plotting out what these last few months will look like, both in terms of school and personal life. I drew out a little calendar, which was a shockingly visual way of how little time we have left here. We have only two complete months left -- amazing. On the travel side, I'm going to be a road a lot these last few months. Bank runs, English Theater, and good-bye parties will have us running between Chimoio, Vilanculos, and Machanga.

This last school trimester is going to be an interesting one. Taking out this week, there are only eight full weeks of school between next Monday and October 12th -- Teacher's Day, the unofficial end of the school year. I have a feeling it's going to be a confusing trimester. I'm going to be spending a lot of time on phrasal verbs. Students here are used to translating sentences word for word. With phrasal verbs, that won't work. It's going to take some getting used to; thankfully, we have eight weeks.

Mcel went down again sometime during the afternoon. I'm hoping this is just a day problem instead of a weeks long problem like last time. After repairing the network faster than expected, I'm trying to think positive

Once I finished planning, I started cooking dinner. The beans had been soaking in water all day, so they only needed about ninety minutes to cook. My beans got the approval of Sozinho, a rare occasion. I guess when I really want to, I can cook up Mozambican beans as well as any Mozambican. I spent the rest of the night getting through chapter two of "All the King's Men". As I thought, the chapters aren't getting any shorter. This second one was ninety pages. Craziness.

I lazed around Saturday morning for a good while. I kept on with the book, making it half way through chapter three before rolling out of bed. Once up and at it, I continued planning out this last trimester. I tried to decide the best the way to teach phrasal verbs -- by root verb or meaning, -- eventually deciding to keep all phrasal verbs with the same root together. For example, in one lesson, students will learn phrasal verbs with break: break in, break up, break out, break down, break something down, and so on.

Sozinho took care of cooking lunch, then found his way to Mambone for the afternoon. I stuck around the house, getting in a workout after lunch. I was on call for tech duty in the afternoon. The photocopier owned by one of the teachers hasn't been working and he wanted me to repair it. Little did I know that the copier was the least of his problems. The computer that I just gave him wasn't charging or turning on. Gotta love Dell products. The rest of my afternoon was spent trying to solve this problem.

I did a little online research, plugging in the "symptoms", and found out that the problem this computer had confused even the best fix-it geeks on the web. Some people said to take out RAM chips, others said to press F7 sand F8 together while turning the computer on, others said to pop the hard drive in and out. I tried all of these things and failed.

So I went to Plan B -- or C or D, depending on if all those "solutions" were separate plan. I had another computer just like the one he got, except the screen was completely shattered. I knew that it turned on okay, but was unusable. I jumped back onto Google -- seriously, what did we do before Google? -- and learned how to replace the monitor on this type of Dell. Once I had that, the fix was easy -- six screws out, pull a cable, six screws in. Just like that, I had a fully functional computer.

I rewarded myself by completely doing in the busted monitor. I took our broom stick and decided to beat the living hell out of the already broken screen. On the third thwack, the broom stick busted in three pieces. Lame. It's okay -- I felt better.

All that work pushed dinner back until 8:30. That's how committed I was to working this problem out. I ate my dinner, finished chapter three of "All the King's Men" and went to sleep.

I was out cold when, around midnight, I received a text message. It was from hours before, but it finally came through. Mcel was back up. I didn't even bother reading it – it will be there in morning. I rolled over and went back to sleep for good.

Year 2 - Week 34: COS Conference

We know that we're close to the end, and this week only confirmed what we already knew. The fifty-two remaining Moz 13 Volunteers convened in Inhassoro this week for our Close of Service conference. The conference had two main purposes: to give the Volunteers one last time to see everyone together; and to give us some information about our transition from Peace Corps life to normal American life.

On the second front, the conference was fairly successful. Over the course of three days in Inhassoro, we discussed resume writing, how to talk about our service, jobs and grad school, and how to leave our sites as smoothly as possible. Time was also spent describing all of the things we have to do in Mozambique before we actually leave, like closing out bank accounts, wrapping up projects, and making sure that we are healthy before leaving. A lot of the discussion was common-sense stuff, but it was still informative.

As for the first purpose conference, I have mixed thoughts. On the one hand, it was really nice to see some people who I don't normally see. There are some people, especially in the north of the country, that I would not have seen otherwise had we not had this conference. On the other hand, there were a lot of people that I could have gone without seeing and it wouldn't have made much difference to me. There are plenty of people with whom I didn't talk much during training or any other conference over the two years. And the people with whom I'm closest -- like the people in Vilanculos or some of the Volunteers in the Central region of the country -- I'll be seeing at least one or two more times before leaving.

So on the whole, it was a week of conflicting feelings. This was goodbye, but not really. This was our Close of Service conference, but we're still here for three or four more months.

Outside of the conference, things were actually pretty exciting for me. I got my hands on the book "The Blind Side", which was turned into a movie this past year. The book was written well, though it tailed off the end. I found some information about U2's tour dates for next summer. It's not a matter of whether I see them: it's a matter of how many times and where. Most exciting for me, though, was I had the opportunity to download Arcade Fire's new album. This was a rare moment where I got something here on its release date instead of months afterward.

Finally, Mcel made its valiant return to service and, as such, I have switched back to my regular number. For those of you who have been out of touch, I'm sorry if you've tried to be in touch the last couple weeks. It's always a little concerning when we lose contact, but everything is okay and back to normal now. If it's been a while, I look forward to catching up with you.

Year 2 - Week 33: The March of "Times"

By Sunday morning, just about everybody had found there way out of the school. The whole town, for that matter, was shockingly quiet. There wasn't much music blaring, no school bells ringing, no kids screaming at the top of their lungs in spite of their proximity to each other. We would make our way out soon enough too. There were some things to be done around the house before we could enjoy our last vacation here.

For one, we needed our laundry done. I can't speak for Richie, but I'm going to be gone for at least ten days, and I was running low on clean clothing. Sozinho did his work at a reasonable hour this morning, which was a welcome change from last week's disaster. I had my own clothing work to do. I came here with two pairs of jeans and each have taken a beating. It's gotten to the point that I'm now using one pair of jeans as a junkyard in an effort to salvage the other pair. The saveable pair had a Texas-sized hole in one of the knees. I cut out a slightly bigger square from the other pair and sewed it in. The way Sozinho abuses our clothes when he washes them, I'm sure they won't hold up for that long.

That little project took up most of my morning. Richie, in the meantime, went to the villa to pick up some food items for the day. He then decided that we were going to eliminate as much food as possible today. We had so many potato pancakes between us that we both felt pretty sick after finishing. Richie noted that usually our stomachs hurt from feeling hungry. This was a rare moment when we hurt from being too full.

After lunch, I went about cleaning my room. I don't mean just a casual picking up of things. This was a full on scrubbing. There are few things worse than coming home to a filthy room. I organized my things, threw out a ton of unnecessary stuff, swept and mopped. The worst part is by the time I come back from my trip, it will be blanketed in dust again. At least there won't be that much cleaning to do.

We continued our demolition of food in our house at dinner. We knocked off the last couple of chicken breasts that we bought last month in Vilanculos. Fake chicken parmesan has moved very high on the list, quite possibly to the top, of our favorite dinners. With the extra tomato sauce we made a couple Mambone bread pizzas. If nothing else, this day was a culinary victory.

Our nightly entertainment consisted of "Burn After Reading". It was a strange and strangely funny film. We both particularly enjoyed Brad Pitt's role as a gym trainer half his age. His roll was only made better when he was shot in the head by George Clooney. We did not see that coming. Within seconds of the film ending, my parents called. We talked for a little bit before I drifted off to sleep.

Richie and I were up and at it around 6:00, ready for the travel battle ahead on Monday. We left the house around 6:30 and made our way to Mambone. The day started well. We didn't have any wait time at the river or in Mambone. That was the end of our luck. The car we got to Maluvane was a pick-up drunk. Richie and I eventually made it, along with seventeen other people. Even this far into my time here, I'm still shocked at how many people can fit into the back of a truck.

I'm shocked even more by how much of that shit people are willing to tolerate. We didn't have to wait long for the next truck at Maluvane. As we waited, more and more people piled into the truck. We were packed in like goats. And as we went down the road, more people yet piled in. Fifteen minutes into the ride, Richie and I had had enough. We got out of the car and told the driver that we didn't want to die today. Another fifteen minutes passed before we got another truck, which actually was packed with goats. It was heading to the crossroads just outside of Vilanculos, the price was less than it should have been, and we felt considerably safer, so we were content with our decision to abandon the other car.

We arrived in town and fell into our normal routine. Or so we thought. As we made our way over to our regular backpackers place, a very enthusiastic Canadian told us that we should go to another place. We weren't completely convinced, until she told us that for just twenty-five more Meticais than we would have paid, we got our own room instead of a dorm and breakfast was included. I think breakfast was the main selling point. We said "what the hell" and gave it a shot.

After dropping our bags at our new place, we did all the things we usually do in Vilanculos. Our first stop was pizza. It's the first time we've had real pizza since coming down for World Cup at the beginning of June, and yes, it was just as good as we remember it. Then the great shopping fest began. We killed off a good thousand Meticais in just under an hour. And there would be more to do later. I failed to find a couple things, as did Richie. We remembered our credo "if at first you don't succeed, give up" and went back to the hotel to relax until dinner.

Dinner was way beyond our expectations. For a mere hundred Meticais, we got plate after plate of rice, chicken, beans and seafood (which I passed off to Richie). It wasn't just the quantity that did it: the quality was pretty good too. I thought I was full last night, but tonight outdid it by a landslide.

I woke up Tuesday morning still full from dinner, a truly amazing feeling. That set up a wonderfully lazy day. I went over to our regular backpackers place because the have hammocks, looking forward to a lovely day of reading "The Three Musketeers". Within thirty minutes, I was lulled to sleep, only to be awakened by a text message from Richie a couple hours later.

There was much to do in the afternoon. A had to get a shirt altered by my tailor. A couple months ago, we made me a couple shirts. I told him cut them a little big, figuring that I would fill them out when I returned to America. He clearly did not hear me say "a little" because I could fit a second me into the shirt. While he worked on the shirt, Richie and I had some business to take care of in town.

Richie was on the hunt for flashlight light bulbs for a student's science fair project. I was looking for power adapters for a couple teachers. A laptop is pretty worthless if it can't be recharged. After failing in three places yesterday, I succeeded at the first store today. That's when the fun began. The price the salesman told me was almost double what it was three months ago. I understand that the value of the Metical keeps slipping, but it's not falling that fast. This isn't Zimbabwe, where currency devalues so quickly, it has an expiration date. So I considered this price the opening salvo in a war and I was not going to lose. The man wanted 120 Mets for an adapter. I returned with an offer of 200 for three of them. He dropped his price, bit by bit, but I stuck with my offer. He finally agreed. And after the exchange of money for goods was made, he had the audacity to ask for more money. I laughed in his face and walked away. Point: Muzungu.
Year 2 - Week 33: The March of Times

That was the first of two wins on this day. The other item that we bought had a set price, but it's still a huge win for us. We purchased an electric kettle. It may seem crazy that we're buying new items with just over 100 days left to go here, but this is a worthwhile luxury. Instead of lighting up carvao or putting a kettle on our stove for ten or fifteen minutes, we can plug in our kettle and have two liters of boiling water in less than five minutes. Yes, it cost 350 Meticais, but we boil water often enough that we'll make up that money in our energy bill quite quickly. And it will be a nice thing for the next Volunteers in our house to have.

With the successful day in the market behind us, I chilled at our hotel and read "The Three Musketeers". It's not as good as "The Count of Monte Cristo", but it's still a pretty smooth read. By the end of the afternoon, I had finished about forty percent of it. I should have it knocked out in the next couple days.

Instead of sticking with good, cheap food at our hotel, we met up with some other Volunteers at a different restaurant. The food at this other place was slightly cheaper, but not nearly as good. I guess the company made up for the loss in quality. We got a ride back to the hotel from some people who had dinner with us, had a nightcap, and went to bed.

Or at least we tried. There was so much noise throughout the night that we struggled to get any sleep. Regardless, we had planned to leave anyway on Wednesday. Richie decided to head back home for a couple days before heading back to Inhassoro. I decided to stick around Vil, but save some money by staying around with a Volunteer here.

My decision to do so looked better and better by the minute. The father and sister of a Volunteer here are visiting and they brought all the same goodies my family brought in December, except more recent. They brought a hard drive full of music and a glorious bounty of magazines. There were three month's worth of Time magazines, including one from -- no joke -- July 26th. I did a double-take when I saw the date. News that was actually news? Unheard of. That was enough reason for me to stay. I spent the afternoon engrossed.

Having bypassed lunch, I decided to indulge on dinner. I went out with another Volunteer and her family. I had no issue paying -- I fully expected to, quite honestly. But then I rolled out the booze. The Volunteer's father and I split a bottle of rum. Three-quarters of the way throught the bottle, the waiter told us that we had to pay a "corkage" of 175 Meticais on my fifty Met bottle of rum. I argued my way out of that one. Another point for me. And when we knocked out that bottle, the double Captain and Cokes started coming. By the end of the night, my food and drink was covered - and the father and I were tanked.

Considering I only got four hours of sleep, I was feeling pretty good on Thursday. I was definitely not hung over, although I can't say the same for my drinking partner. He claimed to be fine when he walked out around 8 in the morning, but he promptly found his way to sleep for another couple hours.

The whole day was pretty lazy. Though I didn't go back to sleep, or even nap later in the afternoon, I did spend most of the day horizontal with a couple of Time magazines. I can't say that many of the stories stuck. I was going through the magazines so quickly that the material usually left as soon as I read it. But three articles that really stood out to me were an article on adopting Russian children; one on the fiftieth anniversary of The Pill; and the new tech-savvy generation of poker players.

In the dead heat of the afternoon, I made a run to the supermarket - yes, the supermarket - to buy some dinner. One of the Volunteers and I decided we were going to do spaghetti and meatballs. I know, spaghetti is old and boring, but meatballs are a new adventure here and I might as well take advantage of the opportunity to buy ground beef.

Just after getting back, one of the Vil Volunteers and her family decided that they were going to have pizza for dinner. They invited me along. Telling them "no, I'm committing to making spaghetti and meatballs" like a thousand stabs to the stomach. Turning down pizza for spaghetti. It makes me sick thinking about it.

When another Volunteer from close to Xai Xai came into town, us non-pizza eaters got started on dinner. We diced, chopped, boiled and baked our way to a pretty tasty dinner. The deliciousness of the meatballs helped me get past the lack of pizza. After eating, the three of us watched "Invictus". Richie and I started watching this movie a couple months ago, but the DVD we bought in Vil cut off short of the first hour. It was lovely to see the second half of the movie. Morgan Freeman did an incredible job as Mandela.

Friday would be my last day in Vilanculos. I made a couple of calls to arrange my weekend stay in Inhassoro. It was time to leave. The only thing really keeping me in Vil was the pile of Time magazines. I made myself anti-social and read for most of the morning and into the early afternoon. In three days, I think I made my way through nine Time magazines cover to cover.

By mid-afternoon, I was starting to get antsy. Thankfully, I wasn't the only one. While I was reading, other people in the house were watching "Glee" and "How I Met Your Mother". I think we all reached our breaking point around the same time. I proposed that we play Phase 10, a pretty good card game that can take up a lot of time. The game went long enough that we didn't finish it by the dinner time.

We took the cards to dinner with us and still did not finish before our food came out. The father of the Vil Volunteer treated us to burgers, which was very kind. This little restaurant opened up literally across the street from their school. Talk about convenience. And the burger was pretty tasty - definitely better than the burgers that Richie and I get on the other side of town.

Everybody was on the move Saturday morning. One of the Vil Volunteers is training for a marathon, so she went out for a three hour run. The other girl and her family were going out to the islands for snorkeling. And I was on my way to Inhassoro. I picked up some cash - always an interesting event - before heading out. People here seriously struggle to use ATMs here. I think it's a combination of the technology and a lack of Portuguese vocabulary. I had four people in front of me. In America, I would have waited, I don't know, ten minutes at most. I waited twenty-five minutes before I got to the machine. It was frustrating, sure, but I was in no rush to get to Inhassoro.

Even so, I was still in Inhassoro by 10 o'clock. The chapa that I got in never filled up completely and only stopped twice along the way. This was my kind of chapa. The Volunteer with whom I was staying wasn't at home, so I went across the street to the high-speed internet cafe to update my anti-virus, check my email, and catch up on the sports world. By 11, the Volunteer still wasn't back, so I read some "Three Musketeers" until she arrived.

She was as hungry as I when she arrived, so we headed to the market to forage for food. We bought some items for dinner and went to a little restaurant for egg sandwiches. By coincidence, the Portuguese people who came to Machanga a couple weeks ago were in Inhassoro as well. They sat with us for a little bit before we made our way back to the Volunteer's house.

The rest of the afternoon was calm. Someone came over asking for help writing a grant. The Volunteer helped this kid write it out while I messed around on the computer and read a book. By the time she was done with him, it was dinner time. It would be yet another spaghetti night. It's a good thing I like spaghetti. A third Volunteer came over with a bottle of wine. We ate, drank, and were merry, happy to be done with another week in Mozambique.

Year 2 - Week 32: Disconnected

Now that school is over for the trimester – for us, anyway – our days here have become slower than usual. We are somewhat pinned by the timing of an upcoming conference. If we leave now, there's no real sense in coming back to Machanga until the next trimester starts, but we'll blow through a ton of money. If we stay, then we sit here like idiots. We went with the latter. No school, no traveling, very little to do and – to top it off – no phone network. Mcel, the biggest phone network in the country was down, and not just for us. Apparently, it went down for a good chunk of the country. Curious.

A complete lack of talking wasn't merely limited to a phone network. We have pissed off Sozinho to the point that he chose not to talk to us for the entire day. A few weeks ago, he made a request of us to buy him white pants and a white shirt for his baptism. We told him that it was the responsibility of his godfather to buy such clothing and that he should talk to his godfather. A couple days ago, he told Richie that the the price of white cloth was 70 Meticais per meter. Richie answered with a cold and non-committing “okay”. I, however, was a little more blunt.

Sozinho approached me and told me the same information: 70 Mets for a meter of cloth. Knowing that he had not spoken to his godfather and that he had already told Richie, I became the bearer of bad news. “We're not buying them. It's your godfather's responsibility to buy your clothes for your baptism. Go talk to him.” He walked off with a smirk. The cracking of that little sarcastic smile was the last we heard from him for the rest of the day.

The quiet in the house provide me the opportunity to finish up a book that was eerily related to the incident above. The book was “African Friends and Money Matters”. This book outlines some of the economic habits of Africans. I'm always somewhat skeptical of books or people that try to throw Africa under one umbrella. In a continent of hundreds of millions of people, hundreds of tribes, ethnic groups and languages, and more than four dozen countries, declaring anything universally African is tough. I firmly believed this – until I read this book.

Most of the author's research, stories, and examples come from Senegal, with a smattering from Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon. For some perspective on how far Mozambique is from Senegal, consider this: excluding the Indian Ocean island nations (Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles) the capital city furthest from Senegal's capital of Dakar is Maputo. And yet, almost every observation made in this book frustratingly applied here. Some of them – not having loans paid back, watching food purchased in bulk rapidly “disappear”, people taking our bike without asking – I've experienced myself. Most of the lessons, I've learned the hard way.

I nearly got through the book before dinner. Sozinho cooked couvi – a leafy green that he almost knows how to prepare well. I added a couple of spices and made it a little more tolerable. After watching a couple episodes of “Spartacus”, we retired to our rooms. Richie, I'm assuming, fell asleep. I stayed up a little more to finish the book.

Monday was the beginning of our third straight day without a functioning phone network. Everybody is waiting for the flood of backed-up text messages to roll in. Sozinho smoothly moved into day two of his silence spell, only to be broken by asking for money to pay for exams. He made the not talking a lot easier by lazing in bed until 11:00. Right now, this kid is more useless to us than our phone network.

In the meantime, I had a busy morning. One of our colleagues asked if I could hook in some new light bulbs, to which I of course obliged. I asked him he had turned the energy off. He said yes, and I trusted him. That was a bad decision. Zap! Something clearly was not understood. The electrical shock actually punctured the skin of my thumb, leaving a hole about the diameter of a fork tine. Yes, the light was turned off, but the electricity in the house was not. Brilliant. I shut down all the electricity in the house, taking no chances, and went about my work.

Another colleague reminded me that I had promised to put up a closet for him. I promised him months ago, but had completely forgotten. Not a problem. While Richie prepped for lunch, I went over to his house, pounded some nails into his concrete house and the job was done.

Following lunch, I glued myself to a book, “The Unforgiving Minute”. A close friend of mine sent it a couple months ago, and I had failed to this point to pick it up. It's a memoir – so it's up my alley – about an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. For someone in the Peace Corps, I like war a lot. I don't like so much the actual fighting or some of the pathetic justifications, but I love reading about all the technology and weapons systems used in war. To this point, the book has largely been about the author's education at West Point and then Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. If nothing else, the book has given great insight into life as a cadet. It's a life I certainly would not want to lead, but you can't help but admire the people who go through it.

Richie and I ran to the market late in the afternoon. He has a lot of documents to print over the next couple of days, so his main purpose for the market run was to buy paper. Richie's downward spiral began when he tried to pay twenty-three Meticais for a thirty sheets of paper, even though each sheet only costs half a Met. From there, things only got worse for him. Since Mcel has gone down, Richie has bought some phone credit for Vodacom, the competing network here. Instead of buying a new SIM card, he's been using Sozinho's card. Earlier in the day, he put forty Mets of credit onto his card. When we came back, it was all gone. We figured this would happen, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

There was only one way to make our day better: cheese. Options abound, but we decided to go with fake chicken parmesan and spaghetti. It didn't bring back Richie's phone credit or completely alleviate his frustration, but it did make the evening a little more tolerable. The rest of the evening ran the same as last night. Richie went to bed, and I curled up with a book for a couple hours before sleeping

Tuesday picked up exactly where Monday left off: with one of us pissed off at Sozinho. I woke up – or rather, I was awakened – seven minutes before 5 o'clock. I hate waking up to the echo of Sozinho's voice from talking on the telephone in our bathroom. He thinks it minimizes the sound, but it doesn't help at all. I would rather wake up to the sound of a rooster than Sozinho's voice. I gave him a quick, bleary-eyed reprimanding: “I can hear every word. I already told you not to do this.” That pretty much marked the end of him talking to me for the day.

After a couple more hours of vivid dreams, I got back into the “The Unforgiving Minute”. While Sozinho washed dishes, in complete silence next to me, I read on the patio. I had expected Sozinho to be washing our clothing, seeing as we put it by the door last night. Our expectations of him, however, are rarely matched by reality.

Following lunch, with nothing to do, Richie and I realized that Tuesday afternoon was a perfectly reasonable time to get tanked. We headed over to the villa around 2:30 and commenced. Four hours and sixteen American-sized beers later, we were ready to go home for food. We cooked the easiest and fastest meal we could whip up – stir fry.

The rest of the evening was pretty standard. We had three episodes of “Spartacus” remaining. We really wanted to get through the remainder of the season. But after two episodes, we were both exhausted and I had a splitting headache. Sleep was the solution.

I woke up Wednesday morning without a hangover, which was a welcome surprise. This prompted Richie to propose us downing a bottle of scotch in the afternoon, to which I politely rejected. I think he was just as happy to hear my “no” answer.

Wednesday marked the fifth consecutive day that we have not had phone service. This is the longest stretch we've endured and, quite frankly, we're fuckin sick of it. Madinha had told us that it was nationwide, but she's full of shit. Maputo, Nampula, and Beira all have network. This, as far as know, is a Machanga-Mambone problem, and it's pissing us off.

By the time we got out of bed, Sozinho had already finished the laundry. He stayed up into the early hours of the morning washing instead of doing it at a regular human hour. We're done trying to understand this kid.

Most of the day was pretty slow. I made a run to the market to pick up some standard items – potatoes, garlic, toothpaste – so I can feel good about having done something. The rest of the morning, I continued in “The Unforgiving Minute”, right up until lunch.

I didn't wait long to start on dinner after finishing lunch. With the charcoal we had remaining from lunch, I lit a full stove's worth and started cooking beans. In the three hours they took, I finished my book. It was very good, well-written and fast-moving. I'd have to find something new for the rest of the week.

We ate our beans quickly and turned to the season finale of “Spartacus”. We figured that a whole bunch of people would die; this was only confirmed with an episode title of “Kill Them All”. We didn't expect everyone to die. That was one awesome episode of blood and death. We finished the episode around 8:00 and Richie was already done for the night. I stayed up for another hour or so before going to sleep.

Nobody was working on Thursday morning. I didn't hear a single school bell go off, even though school is supposed to continue through the week. Mcel wasn't working either. Day six without phone network has prompted us to buy our own Vodacom cards. We'll turn back to Mcel when it comes back, but it could be a while. We heard this morning that the there is a problem with the fiber optic cable that runs near Inhambane. There was a similar problem in the north last month, leaving them without Mcel for about a month. That's what we're preparing for now.

Also of note this week is that the temperature is starting to turn. We had a very light drizzle earlier in the week, but that was an anomaly. The days are getting hotter and hotter while the nights remain cool. The heat isn't intolerable yet, so we are soaking in these last few weeks. We know it won't be long until we'll only be sleeping with a sheet.

Considering that we're not actually “working”, I still had a fairly productive morning. I did some minor repairs around the house. Over the course of our time here, we've made some minor alterations to the house, resulting in no shortage of nail holes in our concrete house. I started to fill some of the bigger holes with twigs, a fairly effective method for filling in concrete bricks. At least it's a lot cleaner than filling them with concrete.

Richie and I were invited to a party in the afternoon, which meant it wouldn't be starting until well into the evening. Regardless, we went over to Madinha's to begin the festivities. We downed a couple beers as we watched Madinha and all the women in the family cook up a storm. Chicken after chicken was thrown onto a grill, multiple freshly killed goats were stewing on a couple fires, and the biggest pot I've ever seen was filled with an entire 25 kilo sack of rice. It reminded of a witch's cauldron. I'm pretty sure that I could balled up my body to fit inside it.

Around 7:30, we went over to the house where the party was to be held. We were celebrating the fiftieth birthday of a lady we've never met. Wherever you are, fifty is a number worth celebrating. In a country where the average life expectancy at birth is about forty, fifty deserves a huge party. The party was a surprise party, although I don't know how surprised she was. Nobody really hid. A bright moon did not help our cause. Either way, she was happy to be with her entire family and a lot of friends. We were happy because we got free dinner and beer. We stayed until around midnight before stumbling home

Before going to sleep, I told Sozinho that I wanted him to go over to Madinha's house at 5:30 in the morning. South African Greg, our long lost buddy, needed some stuff from our house and he was planning to cross the river at 6:00. In spite of my drunkenness, I made it clear that I wanted him to do this. So you can understand my frustration when I rolled out of bed to see him still asleep. I sarcastically asked him if he went, to which he said “I will”. Wrong answer. He would be in for a morning of hurt.

After talking my parents – the first time in a while because of this little phone network issue – I started ordering around Sozinho like a general. First he had to buy bread. Then wash our dishes. And finally, he had to go to Mambone to pay our energy bill and drop off the stuff for Greg. If nothing else, it meant we didn't have to see him all morning, which is a victory in itself.

The best part of the whole morning happened when Sozinho left. As he was on his way to Mambone, Greg came over with his son to pick up the package himself. I couldn't help but laugh. It's the first time he'd seen our house. He immediately noted that we lived much better than the former Volunteers in Mambone. True that.

Greg and his wife pushed back their departure time to the afternoon, so Greg stuck around a while. We eventually made our way over to the market to say goodbye. While we were there, Richie paid down a small debt and we bought potatoes. Just another exciting afternoon in Machanga.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet. I read for a little bit, cleaned up some of the electrical wiring around the house, did nothing in particular for a while. At some point, a math teacher from another school here came over for help with some problems. The problems were a little complex, but I walked him through it slow enough so he could understand.

As afternoon turned into evening, I became tired very quickly. After eating dinner, we put on “District 9”, a movie about aliens in Johannesburg. About thirty minutes into the movie, I couldn't keep my eyes open. By 8 o'clock, I was in bed, down for the count.

The exodus began early on Saturday. At least that is our assumption. A huge group of students were even louder than usual, probably excited to not be in Machanga for two or three weeks. They got out early before the sun came up, able to walk a good chuck of the day before the temperature rose.

For us, it just became all the more quiet. Some teachers had also made their way our of town, leaving very few behind. Those who stayed decided to celebrate the end of the trimester by drinking at 9 o'clock. I wasn't up for that. Plus I had a little project of my own. The handle on one of our pans broke off months ago, leaving a nearly unusable pan. I've tried to repair it twice before, but failed both times. Today, I thought a bit outside of the box and managed to whittle a functioning handle. Success!

Having done my job for the day, I could now start drinking. Richie started with the group at around 9. I jumped in around 11. A group of six of us knocked out a case pretty quickly. After a lunch break, the plan was to head out to the villa to the continue – all afternoon and well into the evening. I was tired as it was and knew if I had to be up all night, I would need a nap. I crawled into bed at 3:30 and was out cold by 3:31.

I woke up refreshed at 5 to head to the villa. I tried to play catch-up, but it's tough to make up for an hour and a half of lost time without some serious hard liquor. We stayed for a couple quiet hours, returning home briefly for dinner. Food in our bellies and slightly sobered up, we headed back out. It should have been a huge drinking night, but nobody really showed up. By 10:00, Richie was burnt out and I was over it. Clearly, no one got the message that it was supposed to be a drinking night.

Can we blame the network for that too?

Year 2 - Week 31: The Blessing of the Shitty Road

Anticipation was the word of the day on Sunday. Everybody was anxious for the grand finale of the World Cup. But being in the same time zone as the game, we would have to wait until 8:30 at night to enjoy the game.

Aside from the beating drums and chanting voices coming from the church, Sunday morning was very quiet. The energy was out for a fair portion of the morning, meaning we didn't have to hear the pounding bass of Akon songs. It was a good environment for reading. I buried myself into the “Best American Non-required Reading” anthology. Last year's edition was so good, so I had high expectations for this year's. The stories started a little slow, but they've picked up. This collection of stories has confirmed what I already knew: given the choice between fiction and non-fiction, I will always take non-fiction.

The stories kept my mind occupied for the better part of the morning. I read right up until lunch. Following lunch, one of our best friends here wanted some help typing an exam. Since distributing the computers, this has been a request I've heard very few times, which is certainly a good thing. Teachers are starting to become more and more comfortable doing it themselves, which is exactly what should happen. This exam was a piece of cake. There was nothing fancy, like graphs or fractions. The pain in the ass, being a French exam, was all the accents. The other minor obstacle was that our friend insisted on reading the exam to me. If this were Portuguese, it would have been fine. But not even the French can spell French words, so I just read along with him.

When the energy came on in the school, we went over to the school to print his exam. I also had some business to take care of in the director's office. I needed my exam photocopied for my students and the students at the secondary school. I was prepared to let my friend photocopy his first. My exam was slated for Tuesday and his for Monday, so it only seemed fair to me that he should have the first crack at it. He didn't have money to make copies though.

We must pay to make copies, even on school business, which for the most part is okay by me. I had griped about this earlier in the year, but things have actually changed a bit. On the padre's insistence, the school dropped the price from five Meticais to two, making things far easier on the students. I still feel bad about making them pay, so I pay for the midterms and have them pay for the finals. Other teachers have them pay for every exam. The way they do this, though, is interesting to me. They have the students collect the money, then pay for the copies. I, on the other hand, front the money and have the students pay me later. I think the teachers don't trust the students to pay them later. By my count, I lost a whole ten Meticais on this exam. If I can afford that hit, anyone here can afford it.

Richie and Sozinho ate fish for dinner, leaving me alone to eat spaghetti. I really didn't want to make tomato sauce for the hundredth time. It's getting a bit old. So I went a different route: pesto sauce. It's the second time I've tried to make pesto and this time was far superior. Cashews and Parmesan cheese make a huge difference. And it's so easy to make. I never have reason to by pesto sauce again.

Around 8:00, Richie and I headed over to the house with the good television. We were far from the only ones. More and more people started to pack into the house before the game started. The temperature in the house rose noticeable. Ten minutes before the game, we were packed into the house like sardines when someone had a brilliant idea: move the television outside.

A good thirty of us Spain and Holland play under the moonless sky. There are no shortage of adjectives to describe this game, but the two that stand out to me are rough and boring. Thank goodness that the people on television keep track of the yellow cards, because I lost count. Both of these teams were so good in the middle that they canceled each other out for the most part. The good chances were few and far between, but the good chances were really good. The goaltenders were the show-stoppers, in every sense of the word. It took extra time, but finally, thankfully, with four minutes left in extra time, Spain hit the back of the net. I was thrilled, not so much for the Spanish victory – I didn't care either way: I was just happy that the game didn't go to penalties. To me, ending a game in a shootout is like determining a baseball game with a home run derby or a basketball game with a three-point competition. I say play to the death. Tonight, we were lucky that we got a winner before penalties.

There seemed to be a bit of let down here on Monday following the World Cup. Even though Machanga is not all that close to South Africa, the sense that something big had ended was palpable. Nobody was really talking football anymore. The games were over. Spain had won and that was that. It was a great tournament. There was a lot of doubt about whether South Africa could pull it off, but they really did a phenomenal job.

I had a little bit of work to take care of Monday morning. A history teacher asked me to type up an exam for him. I was a little surprised because the exam only had five questions. That's the kind of exam you write on the blackboard or on giant paper. Whatever. Not my exam, not my students, not my money, not my problem. After finishing that ten minutes of work, I went right back into “Best American” until lunch.

Today was the unofficial beginning of final exams week. Finals week is scheduled for next week, but next week is when teachers will be returning exams and calculating grades. If they would get on this Excel train with me, they could cut down their work by a whole lot. Then again, there's not a whole lot to do in Machanga, so maybe the enjoy the mind-numbing activity of calculating averages.

I had some serious cleaning to do in the afternoon. I've been on the negligent side with my room this past week. I'm sure my parents aren't shocked by this, but the truth is I have to keep my room here clean. There's so little space here that every square foot is precious. Besides cleaning my room, I had to clean up myself. I was in dire need of a haircut and shave. The goatee I've been growing the entire year stayed (sorry, Sach), but everything else was nice and tidy. I felt a lot better afterward.

For the first time in a month, we didn't have a soccer game to fall back on for entertainment. After dinner, we watched “Changeling”, which was pretty good. The movie came up in the one of the stories in “Best American”, so we thought it was worth of a shot. The movie was well done. It's hard to go wrong with Clint Eastwood.

Tuesday was the big day for students of the muzungus. Richie's students began taking exams yesterday and continued this morning. It would be interesting to see how these kids do relative to yesterday's. Richie's students have a tendency to give each other the answers in between classes, but Richie, being crafty, changed some of the questions. He roped me into controlling one of his classes and to my surprise, they were actually quite good. I only had to move one kid during the test and everyone finished well before the end of the class, meaning there wasn't any cheating at the last moment, when kids normally scramble to get their papers in.

Richie dutifully started correcting papers as soon as he got home. The results showed that an exchange of information was made overnight. The kids from Monday passed at an 85% clip; the kids from today passed at a 33% rate. It's not like his questions were difficult. The kids were just lazy. They'll figure it out eventually. Maybe. Hopefully.

I finished up the “Best American” stories before lunch. It seemed like the best stories were in the back, which I found a little odd. Someone with less time than me might have given up on it.

After lunch, it was my turn to give exams. For the first time, I decided to give the exams to both classes at the same time. There would be no exchange of information, as tends to happen even with my students. Since I proctored for Richie, he proctored for me. I warned him about which students to keep an eye on, and as if on cue, he had to move one of them. Otherwise, the test went very smoothly, from my point of view anyway.

The students' feelings of the test were to be determined. Walking out, a lot of the students felt like they did okay. No one felt they did great, no one felt that the test was overwhelming. I got right to it and saw for myself. The first class was, well, dominated. Thirty-three percent passed the exam, the average score being under fifty percent. I couldn't handle doing the second class right away.

Both of us frustrated, Richie and I walked to the villa to get a soda. Since the weather turned cold, our trips to the market for a soda have been drastically reduced. We don't feel swallowed by dehydration and we've generally slept better these months. It's why we love winter here. This market run was just to clear our heads.

While at the market, we were able to buy some bell pepper, a truly vital ingredient to both our food and our happiness. Dinner followed shortly after our market run. I cooked up a pretty tasty stir fry. I used enough soy sauce to make the house smell like a Benihana. It didn't taste as good, but it was good enough. Exhausted from a frustrating day of exams, we called it a night shortly after dinner.

I woke up Wednesday slightly hopeful and pragmatic. I hoped that the other class would do better tha the first one. I figured that they couldn't do much worse. More importantly, this second group was the languages group. In theory, they should dominate the science kids, but the science group has proved me wrong time and time again. While I figured that they couldn't do much worse, I also figured that they couldn't do much better. In the end, they split the difference: the science kids had a slightly higher but not statistically relevant average score, but the letters kids had a slightly higher but passing rate. All said, the classes were even.

How well the students did depends on the scale by which they and I choose to measure. During the school year, the kids need ten out of twenty marks to pass a test or a class. By that scale, a nuclear bomb would have done less damage than this exam did. Overall, a whopping 36 percent passed. The highest score was a fifteen and the lowest was a three. Just for fun, I wanted to see how students would do if they had chosen A-B-C-D over and over again. Four of my ninety students would have improved their scores if they had done so. That fact alone made me join Richie on the search for the nearest bridge. It's a good thing that the bridge that crosses the Rio Save is three hours and sixty kilometers down a shitty dirt road.

On the other hand, students need to earn seven and a half points on the National Exam to pass. Using this scale, 75 percent of the letters students and 85 percent of the science students would have passed. If this is the silver lining to the cloud, it's a very bold lining. Compared to last year's National Exam scores, the kids are doing much better this year. Last year, 20 percent scored ten our higher and less than 50 percent passed with a 7.5. There may yet be hope for these kids.

With that piece of good news, things were a little better Wednesday afternoon. Things got even better when we received a couple of packages from home. And then, as if someone knew we were riding too high, our eleventh-grader neighbor decided to tear me down. He heard that one of the student helpers here earned a measly seven on the exam and figured he could do better. He then proceeded to take the exam. Not only did he defeat said student: he also managed to do better than all but two of my twelfth graders. He earned – and I mean earned – a fourteen. Time to find that bridge.

For a change, Richie, Sozinho, and I all agreed on our meal for the night: beans. Sozinho thinks he's special and wants to cook his own beans. I no longer take offense to this. I see it as more good beans for Richie and me. Just to spite him, I threw some chicken breast into out beans. Victories are small, even petty, here so I take them where I can get them.

While in Chimoio, Richie purchased “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” the new(ish) series on Starz. We figured that gladiators always make for good television. We watched two episodes and were split. Of course we loved the blood and guts and gratuitous female nudity, but we thought they went a little too “300” on the whole show. Way too much slow motion.

I had planned on making a run to the market on Thursday morning. But minutes before I was about to walk out the door, we got a text from Alexis. She was back in town for the day to show her bosses around and wanted to say goodbye. We didn't have the opportunity to say goodbye to her when she left for Beira a couple weeks ago, so it was nice to have this second chance. She wanted to meet around 11, which gave me a couple hours to do some reading. After months of not reading it, I jumped back into “Someone Knows My Name”. I found my place and sat on the patio glued to the book. Yes, it's a piece of fiction writing, but it's steeped in a whole lot of history, so I'm okay with it.

We spent about an hour in the villa with Alexis and her boss's two daughters. As I said a couple of weeks ago, it's a little difficult to see people leave, especially those who arrived after us. It's especially difficult in the case of Alexis because outside of her and and the Volunteers who were here before us, no one really understands this place, including the Volunteers from Mambone.

We returned home just after noon. There was no rush to jump into lunch. Neither of us had class today and we had plenty of beans left over from last night. We threw those on the stove for a couple minutes, cooked up some rice, and feasted.

One of our colleagues came over early in the afternoon with a worse-than-average box of wine. He doesn't have any classes on Thursday and Richie is normally done on Thursdays by 9:30. I would normally have class now, but since I've given my final, I'm not obligated to go into class. We sat around for a while, knocking off that box of wine. They wanted to go to the villa; I wasn't really up for it. We just came back from the villa and I didn't want to walk all the way back there just to do something I could do here. I stuck around, wanting to read and work on the electricity in our colleague's house.

A lot of the houses here have been having trouble with their lights since receiving twenty-four hour electricity. This included our house. I did a very American thing when this happened: recognized the problem, sought a solution, and fixed it. My colleagues, however, have chosen a different route: recognize the problem, do nothing about it, and light candles at night. This, to me, is kind of like doing grades by hand even though we have Excel. We have the technology, it can make life easier, but they are just a little slow to embrace technology, even if the technology is 150 years old.

As such, I have made it my mission to show them that there is a better option. I wanted to rewire my colleague's house, but there was no electricity in the afternoon. It's been touch-and-go the last week or so. We've had at least one big power outage every day and today's was the biggest of all. Power was down from around 1:00 until 7:00. All of that time with only three hours of energy per day had us well prepared for this. I sat down with my book and read until there was no more sunlight.

Richie was still in the villa around dinner time, so I went on and had dinner without him. He was planning to eat fish anyway, so I was okay cooking for myself. Having not eaten potatoes and eggs for lunch, it became my dinner. With the lights on, I continued reading until Richie came back. He returned around 9:00, drunk, ate his fish, and passed out. I stayed up reading a little more before going to sleep.

Friday morning did not treat Richie well at all. Quite frankly, he looked miserably. There was a lot of win consumed last night, apparently, and I was glad I didn't take part in it. Our colleague who went out with him looked surprisingly unfazed. For me, the morning was quiet. All of the action for me would be in the afternoon. With all my exams corrected and entered into the computer, the only things left for me to do were writing up an answer guide and handing back the exams. The first I did before lunch; the second would have to wait a little.

Before I could take care of my own stuff, one of our friends asked us to proctor an exam for him. It's not a thrilling activity, but it would take up a couple hours.

Immediately following their biology exam, I went into my classes to return my exams. The consensus was clear: the test was hard. Really hard. I didn't need them to tell me that: I could see it in the numbers. And they didn't need for me to read the numbers. They knew that they got killed. But this is their future in a mere four months and I'll be damned if I don't have them as prepared as possible.

The second class – the one I watched during the biology exam – had even more issues with me. “Controlou muito!” they said. I don't know what they were expecting. I watch them like a hawk during my exams. Did they think I would just play games on my phone for their biology test? Of course not. If anything, I almost feel obligated to watch them even closer.

After finishing up my school responsibilities, Richie and I ran to the market looking for nothing in particular. On the way, we realized we hadn't had beef in a while and should see if it was in the market. Success! With a kilo of delicious beef, we went with cheesesteaks and fries, always a winning dinner.

Nightly entertainment went later than usual for me, but not for Richie. We watched a couple episodes of “Spartacus”, which were better than the first two. For one, they cut down on the slow motion. More importantly, though, there was a ton of hand-to-hand combat in the last couple episodes, which was awesome. Richie went to bed after the two episodes. I, on the other hand, stayed up until about midnight finishing “Someone Knows My Name”. I was too close not to finish.

The other factor in keeping me awake was a strange feeling of homesickness. The last time I was homesick here was the third week of training. I remember it distinctly because it happens so rarely. I don't know why it hit tonight, but I couldn't help but think about home, my family and friends, my students in San Diego, all the people I want to see and things I want to do. For most of the night I was wrapped up in memories instead of sheets and blankets. The book proved to be a good distraction. Finally, I fell alseep.

Sozinho was gone for all of Saturday morning. We wouldn't mind this, except he failed to do any of the necessary cleaning in the house. This shit is getting old. He has so few responsibilities in this house that if he wanted to, he could be done with everything by 8:00. Instead, he chooses to be lazy or he goes off doing his own thing, and this pisses us off to no end.

There was no way I was going to do his work. And besides, I had my own work to do. My sweatpants were in dire need of some repairs. It's not that they were particularly damaged. Everything was in tact, but they were about six inches too long. I was sick and tired of dragging them in the dirt, so I spent a couple hours sewing them up. I kept the work momentum going by prepping for lunch. After that, things came to an immediate halt. I prepped, so cooking duties fell to Richie.


After lunch, I was called over by a couple colleagues to do some work in their house. They wanted me to change all the light fixtures in their house. I grabbed my Leatherman and a knife and went to work. They seemed happy to have a fully lit house. The also wanted me to fix their fridge, which was a far bigger challenge. I couldn't fix it perfectly, but what's important is that it shuts completely now. Maybe I'll get a free soda or two sometime down the road.

We made a late afternoon market run to kill some time. We didn't need anything urgently – everything could have waited until the morning – but as long as we were there, we knocked out some shopping.

Year 2 - Week 30: The Cheeseburger of My Dreams

As people started to pile back into the house after a long night of drinking, I knew I was going to be in for a long night of not sleeping. Coming off sickness and a long travel day, this wouldn't be ideal, but I had little say in the matter. I'd be okay with a night of not sleeping – there was no way I would be putting in another ten-hour travel day on Sunday – but did I really need someone coughing in my face for the better part of the night? That just seemed a little unnecessary.

Richie, having come up on Friday and pegged with teaching on Monday, made his way out just after sun-up. I got my best hours of sleep after people left. Eventually, I found the motivation to roll out of bed. Besides the fact that I didn't want to travel back-to-back days, I had some things to do in Chimoio. For one, I needed money. I arrived in town with less than two hundred Meticais, and the only reason I had that money was because of the kindness of drivers who didn't ask for money. I would have had enough to make it, but my Metical count would have been in the single digits.

Almost as importantly, Chimoio is home to these pretty cool hats that have the Mozambican flag sewn into the side. They are impossible to find in Maputo, so you can only begin to imagine trying to find them in Machanga. I spent an hour or so scouring the market for these hats as well as beanies, but the headgear was nowhere to be found. Going to market on Sunday didn't help my cause, but they have apparently been more difficult to find these days.

I did not, however, return empty-handed. I still got my cash as well as some food for the local Volunteer and myself. There are a lot of Volunteers around the Chimoio area and the Volunteer who hosted the party lived just outside of Chimoio. I jumped into a dreaded chapa (it was only a couple of kilometers) and headed back to the house.

It's a good thing that the Volunteer there was as lazy as I was feeling. After eating lunch, we plopped down on a mattress and settled in for an afternoon of movies. We went for a mindless action film in “Resident Evil”. I've never really understood movies like this. I was raised in a house without gaming consoles (my parents' call) and comic books (my own choice), so movies based on video games or comic books are usually beyond me. We were both satisfied with this, though, that we decided to crack in on the sequel.

About half way through the movie, my buddy got a call from someone who would be crashing at his house for the night. This traveler found my buddy through CouchSurfers, which is quite a brilliant website that connects people looking to crash at someone's house with people willing to host said seekers. I'll be getting on that site as soon as I get home, but with all us Peace Corps Volunteers spread out across the country, I'm sure I can travel pretty much anywhere in the country and find a Volunteer willing to put me up for a night.

This particular travel has had quite an adventure. He has been on the road for eleven months. He's covered large parts of Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. It's the kind of trip I'd love to do, but probably won't be able to do until I hit a serious midlife crisis.

By 8:00, all of us were pretty exhausted, but we couldn't bring ourselves to go to bed at 8:00. We managed to stay up for another hour or so before going to sleep.

As is usual on the nights before travel days, I didn't sleep very well. I try to get out right at sunrise. I set an alarm for 5:30, but I'm paranoid when I set an alarm. I don't trust them. I always set two alarms. I'm neurotic like that. Even that, though, is not enough. My body finds a way to wake up almost hourly. This evening, however, I was lucky that the sleep I got in those hour intervals was good sleep.

I was on the road by 6:30, and the travel day started out promising. I got a ride almost right away to Inchope, the crossroads between the EN6 and EN1. But my luck ended there. For the entire day. I was really hoping to hitch a ride with someone, but there weren't a lot of cars heading south and the ones going wouldn't stop for me. I knew that if nothing else came, I could always fall back on the chapa to Machanga. While I waited, I made friends with this Australian guy who was on the road from Malawi to Johannesburg.

By 9:30, no car had stopped for me and the Machanga chapa pulled in. Bleh. I don't want to be in a chapa, but there was no sense in trying at this point. The hour was getting late. I risked not getting home if I didn't take this chapa. At least I knew – at least I gave myself a chance – that I would get home on this chapa.

There were three things on this particular chapa that comforted me. First, I had a book – as usual. Over the course of the ride, I finished half of A.J. Jacobs' “The Year of Living Biblically”. The premise is simple: follow the Bible's rules for a year. Executing that plan, as I figured before and found out in colorful detail over the course of the book, would be a lot more difficult. I was tired, but I couldn't put it down. The second thing that made the trip was that I had one of the two front seats, which are always more comfortable than the seats in back.

The third thing – or, I should actually say, person – was this drop-dead gorgeous woman with a perfectly shaven head. She had less hair than I have. I've heard plenty of people say that bald is beautiful. I certainly don't see in the mirror every day, but god damn, this woman was living proof of it. Think Natalie Portman in “V for Vendetta”, but African. If I were a better man – or Richie – I would have hit on her, but I don't have game in English. Forget trying to spit game in Portuguese.

The chapa arrived in Machanga around 4:30 in the afternoon. What's another ten-hour travel day? I will say: I am pretty much done traveling. I'm over it. This is one of the last times I'll be on the road for more than six hours until I had to Maputo to get out of here. I'll have one more trip up to Chimoio, and maybe one to Beira, but for the most part, I'm done.

I told Richie that he was in charge of dinner – steak sandwiches and french fries. But that meal is a multi-stove multi-person operation. I cooked the french fries, a truly mindless activity, ate, and fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

A good night of sleep was what I needed and that's exactly what I got. I woke up feeling refreshed, alive, ready to tackle the week. It helps that there's not a lot to tackle this week: handing back exams, a quick lesson on computer vocabulary, and a prep session for the final exam next weekend. I'm not thrilled about giving exams just two weeks apart, but it must be done.

I kept surprisingly busy in the morning. I didn't quite finish my grading work from Friday. I had all the corrections done, but I hadn't punched the grades into the computer. The grades were pretty good by Mozambican standards: the average was 62 percent. While I was at it, I started writing up the final exam. It should be a good measuring stick for how they'll do on their national exam in November.

Class was simple enough. A lot of teachers have already left school for the trimester. Sozinho told me that I'd be the only teacher that would show up to his class today. Fine by me. I had his group join the other group, so I only had to go over the exam once. Satisfied with their grades, the kids were happy to leave after going over the exam. So was I.

I dove back into “The Year of Living Biblically”. It's such a smooth, funny read that I was able to knock it out before the beans finished cooking on the stove. The timing was actually perfect. Most of the water had burned off just as I finished the last chapter. As soon as I was done with it, Richie picked it up. He should be done with it by Thursday. I've said it a ton of times: we're not good about reading slowly.

This book was brilliantly executed and made me think about my own religious beliefs, or lack thereof. I have about as much religion in me as there is ice in the Sahara. I have a lot of issues with religion. Aside from the not believing in some higher power, which would leave me out of most religions, I just don't see the purpose of religion. I understand it can be a guide to living a good life. This book, in a lot of ways, points that out. Many of the laws and rules in the Bible are wise and caring. Some are crazy or vague or downright outdated. We get in trouble when we start cherry-picking out parts to fit our own agendas.

So I guess instead of going the Jacobs route of trying to follow all of them – recognizing the impossibility and absurdity of this – I've gone the opposite direction. That's not to say I don't follow a lot of them. “Thou shalt not murder”, among others, is a pretty solid rule for society, and I'm okay with the idea of tithing. But for the most part, the Bible plays little role as my ethical compass. I guess I try to live by the simple idea of doing good, or as Google would say, “Don't be evil”. This seems a lot more attainable.

My brother called a little bit before getting ready for dinner. It had been a good couple of weeks since we had last talked, so it was nice to catch up. The rest of the night after that was pretty quiet. A part of me wanted to watch the soccer game between Holland and Uruguay. I had no rooting interest in the game, so I instead chose for sleep. It was the right choice. For the record, Holland won. With Spain and Germany playing tomorrow, it will be an all European final.

Richie and I were both up bright and early Wednesday morning. Actually, it wasn't bright at all. It was just after 3 in the morning. This wasn't a wake-up courtesy of heat, like in January, nor was it a gastrointestinal crisis. This was all Sozinho's fault. He has decided that the middle of the night is a good time to talk on the phone with friends. He tries to be courteous by going and outside and into the bathroom, thinking that the room will contain his voice. Nope: it only exacerbates the problem. If this goes any longer, he's going to be on the wrong end of a yelling-at. He managed to stay on the phone for three hours, during which time I struggled to get a little shut-eye.

I was busy at work for most of the morning. My mission was to finish writing up the final exam for the students. This wasn't a whole lot of work, but it did keep me busy. There was no original thought going into the exam: everything was taken right out of previous National Exams. I don't sugar-coat any questions or change any words to make it friendlier. It should give the students a pretty good idea of where they stand for November. Just after finishing, the twelfth grade teacher from the secondary school came over. I told him that I'd have the test by Friday, but he knows me well. I'm not Mozambican, so when I say Friday, I really do mean Friday. He seemed happy that he wouldn't have to do any work again. I'm happy to help.

Before we could get to lunch, I had one more item of business to complete. One of the sections on the exam is very heavy in computer vocabulary. I haven't done any lessons regarding computers this year, so I figured the least I could do was prepare the students properly for this exam.

I was really hoping to knock out class right after lunch. At least I wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. Didn't happen today. I waited all afternoon for my students to swing by, but no one appeared. Sad. It wasn't a problem. I kept myself busy with a book called “African Friends and Money Matters”. This is the kind of book I wish I had during training. Although it speaks broadly about Africa – always complex, considering the number of countries and cultures – a lot of it rings true, amazing considering a lot of the author's research comes Senegal, way on the other side of the continent.

Class lasted a mere thirty minutes. There wasn't a lot of explaining to do. Copy the picture, explain the vocabulary, tell the kids they should know that it will be on the exam next week. What was amazing was how few students were there. Less than half of the kids in that class were there. They'll regret it when they don't understand a huge portion of the exam.

The featured entertainment tonight, after dinner of course, was a huge game between Spain and Germany. Spain had been bouncing along, not looking particularly threatening. Germany, on the other hand was coming of dismantlings of England and Argentina, two teams mentioned as serious contenders. On paper, Germany should have won this game. But Spain came out well. Really well. They dominated play for the entire game. Germany barely sniffed the net and Carlos Puyol's header in the second half was enough to carry Spain into the final for the first time.

Waking up this morning was probably the first time that I've really thought “it's time to get home”. I woke up from a dream about cheeseburgers. Seriously. Cheeseburgers. If that's not a sign that I've been out of America for a while, I don't know what is.

I was out of it for the entire morning. I don't know if it was being disappointed with the lack of cheeseburgers or the fact the Sozinho woke us up again, this time at 4:00 in the morning. Some of it probably had to do with some stomach issues. It was not a pleasant morning on that front, the first time in a good while that I've had any sort of stomach issue.

School has been very quiet for the entire week. A lot of teachers have already left, even though there are still a couple weeks left in the trimester. It seems the students have followed in their footsteps. Judging from the attendance I had yesterday and today, apparently the trimester is over. I had nineteen out of sixty students today. It will be interesting to see how many people actually show up for the exam next Tuesday.

I committed myself to snapping out of the drowsiness from this morning. I crashed for a nap around 1:30, and I do mean crash. I hit the pillow and was gone instantly. This nap was going along quite nicely until I got a phone call from Peace Corps. Nothing important, just some transportation stuff for our conference next month. It wasn't the worst timing. Prior to the call, I was out for a good hour and change. The only downside was I woke up drowsy, again.

It took a little while, but I eventually snapped awake. Richie decided to head to the villa. I had planned on heading out there, but I wanted to print my exam and I was hungry, two issues which are far more important than drinking. Unfortunately, the electricity wasn't working in the room with the printer, so I was out of luck on that front. Food, however, is rarely in shortage. I cooked up some rice and chicken breast, a tasty meal. Richie rolled in about when I was going to sleep. He ate, and soon after we were both asleep.

My Friday morning started the same way that any sports-loving American spent Thursday night: talking about the shit-show that was LeBron. I spent a good chunk of time on ESPN.com getting news from all sides and then discussing with other Volunteers. The consensus is thinking here is: he handled things poorly, he is now the most hated person in Cleveland, it's going to be amazing to watch the Heat play, and any of us could probably fill out that team.

I didn't see Sozinho Friday morning, which is usually a blessing. The more he is out of the house, the better. Usually, he is not out for more than an hour or so – long enough to go to the market, talk to random people, and take his sweet time back. Today, though, he was gone and nobody really knew where. Richie sent him with money to buy fish, which normally just requires a trip to the market. This was no market run.

I would welcome this kind of move, but Sozinho seemed to forget that, yes, he does have responsibilities in this house. In exchange for us giving him shelter, food, other random amenities when he asks for them, he does stuff for us. Stuff is a broad category that can be anything from going to the market to washing dishes to collecting money from people who owe me. Simply, he's responsible for the things that we don't want to do. And today, he has failed to accomplish anything.

Energy was on in the school this morning. I thought that I'd be able to print out my exam, get it photocopied at night and be able to hand out some of the copies to my secondary school counterpart by the weekend. When I went over to the school, our assistant director told me there was no paper. It's always something, isn't it? I cracked a smile, he gave a laugh, and that was that.

By 10 o'clock, I was preparing myself for two activities. The first would definitely be the easier the two. Since Sozinho didn't wash the dishes, someone had to do it. If nothing else, I certainly understand on a better level when parents say “they're not going to [insert verb here] themselves”. It's all too true.

The second task would take some seriously preparation. After four hours of being gone and having not done anything in the house, I was ready to make unleash a verbal lashing on Sozinho. Anyone who knows me knows that this is not my style. I don't yell at people. It never really does any good and my lack of experience in yelling means I'm not very good at it. Tack on the fact that I would have to do this in Portuguese, without being able to throw in “fuckin” or “goddamnit” every sixth word, and this was going to be a disaster. I started thinking up all sorts of phrases that I would use.

He was not back by the time we ate lunch, nor was he back by the time class started. His class, by the way. He missed his review session for the final and I can't really say I was sad about it. When I came back from class, he had returned. It was probably a blessing that he returned when I wasn't home. Richie, who is even more calm-headed than I am, asked where he went to buy fish. Get this: he walked nine kilometers to some place, bought fish, then walked back another nine kilometers. Eighteen kilometers. I'm not even going to do the conversion into miles; even the most ignorant American knows that eighteen kilometers is a lot of miles. Richie informed me of this and, although pissed off that he didn't do any of the things we asked him to do, I couldn't bring myself to yell at him.

After my second class of the afternoon, I decided that I was going to be productive. Our porch light has not worked for the last couple of months, which was curious since we had recently purchased a new fluorescent bulb for it. I figured it had to be the wiring. When I cracked the case open, lo and behold, one of the wires was very loosely connected. I popped the wire back in place and all was working. I tested it three or four times and it seemed to be good to go. Successful, we made a trip to the market to restock on goods.

The highlight of my day came right before we went to the market. Richie was in the bathroom, doing his thing, when all of a sudden, I hard a thud, followed by Richie saying “shit”. I know that feeling: something fell in the poophole. It was really a matter of what. I half jokingly yelled “phone?”. “Yea”. Richie's pain was my pleasure. I couldn't stop laughing. Even better, he then proceeded to reach into the poophole to rescue his poopy phone. I told him he'd be the subject of my jokes for the night. And I almost couldn't resist laughing when he shook someone's hand at the market.

All that work on the light – okay, it was only about five minutes of work – went to waste. When darkness fell – and the moonless night was dark tonight – the light would flicker then peter out, flicker then peter out. Apparently, this light bulb only works during daylight hours. It was comically frustrating, nothing really to get angry over. I'd repair it for good in the morning.

Following dinner – a stir fry with delicious, sweet pineapple, we watched “The Narrows”. It's the first time in a while that we've watched a movie and we couldn't have picked a worse movie. Yea, there were some cool scenes, but on the whole it was just weird. Unsatisfied, we went to bed.

Another day, another morning that Sozinho has failed to do anything. I'll be damned if I'm going to dishes two days in a row. I started putting all the dishes outside, making my displeasure visible, when I saw Sozinho off in the distance. It was then I did something very Mozambican: I yelled his name as loud as I could, got his attention, and just pointed at the dishes. He got the message.

I wasn't done with him. After washing the dishes, I sent him to buy bread and a couple of parts for my lighting situation. The truth is, I would have gone myself, but I didn't know the name of the part and I didn't want to play a game of “watch the muzungu try to explain what he wants in butchered Portuguese”. I usually get what I want (see last week – abraçadeiras), but I wasn't up for it today. Sozinho got the job done with little problem. Upon is return, I spent a couple minutes hooking everything up. Seems good to go. We'll see come nightfall.

Lunch was followed by an awesome nap. My dreams, for better or worse, have been really vivid the last couple nights and naps, despite the fact that I haven't popped a Larium in the last couple days. Nothing has come close to the cheeseburgers, but I've been in a hospital for someone giving birth (not a pleasant way to spend my time asleep) and rinkside seats at a hockey game (awesome, until a puck came flying toward my face). This nap was no different. I can't remember what happened, by I woke up slightly shaken.

I was on bean duty in the afternoon. I don't know if Richie went to the market or to sleep, but he was no where to be found. Since the poophole incident, his phone hasn't been working well. We put it in a small bag of rice to get out the moisture. It's a nice trick. The phone seemed to work this morning, then didn't work before lunch, then worked again after lunch.

Richie spent the afternoon in the villa, leaving while I had been asleep. He came home later than usual because he was asked by Madinha to walk Greg – our long-lost acquaintance from South Africa to the river. As Richie told it, Greg was walking a little ahead of his wife and Richie. When they caught up, they found Greg passed out in a pile of sand. I wouldn't believe it if it were anyone else. Only Greg could do this.

After eating, a couple of us went out to a bar. All I wanted was to be at a bar that had a television, which we found. We watched the last hour of the Germany-Uruguay game. I may not be religious, but I almost had to believe in karma when Uruguay, in the last moment of the game, hit the crossbar to lose by one goal. It was only fitting that Uruguay would suffer the same fate as Ghana.

With that, and a couple more beers, I was able to sleep easily.

Year 2 - Week 29: Cruelty

Another night in pain, another night without sleep. One night of this, I could handle. Two nights of this is just a little much. To this point, I've done everything that the book and our medical people told me to do, quite possibly too much. It's pretty bad when the only time you can even consider sleeping is immediately after gargling warm salt water. I felt like that's how I spent most of my day: gargling and then considering a nap.

In my mind, there could only be two diagnoses for this ailment: strep or tonsillitis. The salt water and advil should have been enough to knock out tonsillitis and the pain wasn't getting any better. In my mind, it was strep. Maybe it's because when you don't know, you tend to go to the worst case scenario, but I feel like this was reasonable. I knew it was bad when I wanted to take antibiotics to knock it out. Usually, I will put off taking pills until I'm near death. By Sunday afternoon, it got to the point that I wouldn't mind taking drugs to resolve this.

I knew I reached this point at lunch. Richie and I were eating our eggs and potatoes for quite possibly the 500th time. As usual, we split a loaf of Mambone bread, which has a slightly hardened crust. I took one bite into the bread and I couldn't swallow it without cringing. Richie, the beneficiary of my almost half of bread, laughed at my pain. If nothing else, there is no shortage of schadenfreude in this house. If he were in my position, I'd be laughing at him too.

After a third round of warm salt water, I was able to squeeze out a small nap. It took me a while to fall asleep because every time I had to swallow, I would get that much further away from crashing. That's the kind of pain I was in. Thankfully, I caught about an hour's worth of sleep. Rested, and having not done a whole lot of work the last couple of days, I felt the need to be productive. My students are scheduled to take a midterm on Friday, so I spent a couple hours in the afternoon banging out the exam. I may be sick, but I'm not going to be totally lazy.

Given that I could not even swallow bread, I figured that my dinner options were limited to pasta. Spaghetti was about the softest thing I could eat. I managed to get through my meal no problem, but after that, I was shot, wiped out. I needed a good night of sleep. I popped an ibuprofen and a sleeping pill, and within minutes, before I even had the chance to gulp, I was asleep.

Asleep I was for a solid nine hours. The night of sleep was as necessary to my health as water or sunlight. I finally woke up when I heard the door open twice within five minutes. The first time was Richie leaving for class. The second time was Richie, having canceled class, coming back in the house. Ten of his forty or so students managed to make it to class. Most of them, it appears, were still at home or heading back to school after Independence Day. With that, this one-day holiday became five days. I know things usually take longer in Mozambique, but this is getting ridiculous.

I spent the morning with salt water, with the intent of being able to eat my entire lunch. I didn't want to give Richie the pleasure of seeing me struggle to eat bread. I probably shouldn't have eaten my bread, but I did anyway. Things were a little easier today, but every bite was caused plenty of pain. At least I didn't have to teach today.

Following his morning canceled classes, Richie canceled his afternoon classes. By mid afternoon, he was getting antsy and wanted to go to the villa. I decided I should probably get my legs moving as well. When three colleagues joined us, I knew it was going to turn into a beer run. I would have to turn that down and go with a soda. On the way to the villa, our medical people called and told me I could go on antibiotics. Success!

While in the villa, a colleague and I went on the hunt for electrical wire. One of things that really bothers me is the lack of power outlets. There are only three in the entire house and none of them are on the patio, my favorite place to work. I figured if I put an outlet on the patio, I could work out there with the computer for hours on end. I had a plan in my head: since I couldn't run wire in the guts of our house, I'd run it along the walls. Electric wire between two adapters would make for a MacGuyver extension cord. It wouldn't be pretty, but it would get the job done. The wire was a lot pricier than I thought it would be, and since it's the end of the month, I'm just about out of money. This project could wait a couple days.

My parents called while Richie and I returned from the market. Most of my family was in town for a baby-naming ceremony at our house. It's one of the last major events I'll miss at home. The months are few now.

I popped my meds as soon as I finished our stir fry dinner. I've been put on ciproflaxcin. Cipro is an atomic bomb antibiotic: it apparently destroys everything in its path. I've always known cipro as the drug you take when Pepto Bismol is not doing its job. I never thought I'd be taking it for strep, but here I am, popping three cipros a day. Within hours of popping the first one and a half pills, I started to feel better. Amazing. I knew it would be a good couple days before I was back to 100%, but at least I could go to sleep without the help of a pill tonight.

Tuesday started out almost exactly the same as Monday, with the closing of a door. Richie and Sozinho went on a mission to Mambone to buy starches. I know this is going to be hard to believe, but we managed to knock out our twenty-five kilogram (that's 55 pounds for those of you in America) sack of rice. Sozinho did his part by finishing off twelve kilos of corn flour. Their mission was to find a smaller sack of rice. We know there are ten- and twelve-kilo bags, and we're banking on Mambone to have them.

While they were out, I had a mission of my own. Our neighbor came over with the electrical wire he promised, so I could get to work on putting in a new power outlet. I had all the pieces prepared; they just needed to be connected. I thought I had everything hooked up, but the outlet still wasn't working. I found out which end wasn't working the hard way: zap! A whole bunch of electricity went straight through my arm. Note: when working with electricity, turn it off or wear rubber gloves. The one -- and as it turns out, the only -- shock would not deter me. A couple minutes later, I had everything working. Sweet!

Richie and Sozinho were also successful on their mission. As they walked in, Sozinho had both the ten-kilo bag of rice and the ten-kilo bag of corn flour on his back. Richie tried to take one of them, but as Sozinho explained to us just does ago, the younger person carries the stuff. Age has its advantage. They walked up to the house just in time for lunch. Lunch was eventful for me, as I was able to get through the entire meal pain-free. This day has gone way too well.

I had a couple of classes to give Tuesday afternoon. We continued on our magical journey with the question how, surveying questions involving duration of time -- how long -- and questions of degree or size, such as "how cold" or "how big". I knew that I got through to one girl when I read her response to the question "How hot is the temperature today?" She is one of the girls who lives in a house that recently got hooked into satellite, and it's pretty clear from her answer that she's been watching the news. Her answer read "Today's temperature is 27 max, 18 min". I couldn't help but laugh.

When the energy came on late in the afternoon, I went over to the director's office to print out my exam. To save paper and money, I wanted to print two exams to a page, but for some reason, the printer was cutting off the bottom twenty percent of my exam. Frustrating, certainly, but I think I can figure out how to manipulate the copy machine to get two to a page.

I was pinned into dinner on my own tonight when Richie decided he was going to eat fish with Sozinho. I didn't want to cook anything special, so I looked at our canned food and saw I could just about put together a Thanksgiving meal. I know it's June, but who's going to stop me? I put together a can of sweet potatoes, a can of green beans, and a can of roast beef and had myself a tasty meal.

The entertainment today was a World Cup game of epic proportion. Spain was playing Portugal for the right to advance. I was counting on Spain to get me back on the winning track. I went six for six over the first three days, but Japan failed to beat Paraguay to keep me perfect. The game was as advertised. Portugal had some excellent chances but couldn't cash in. As the game went on, it became obvious that Spain was the superior time. They eventually made good on one of their chances and held on for a 1-0 win.

If nothing else, I've come to appreciate what a cruel game soccer is and what a vicious tournament the World Cup can be. Through group play, Portugal did not surrender a single goal. They tied 0-0 with both Ivory Coast and Brazil and squeezed in a thorough 7-0 dismantling of North Korea. In spite of this, they don't even win the group. Their reward for not giving up a single goal was a match with the number one ranked team in the world. They give up one goal, and their tournament is done. It's a wicked world.

By Wednesday, things should just about have returned to normal at school. One would think that six days off would be enough to celebrate Independence Day. Nope. Richie came back a failed man. Despite combining two groups of students, the classroom was still half empty. Class canceled No sense in teaching to a quarter of the students.

The bad luck, however, stopped with Richie. I made a run over to the market, where I had nothing but success. The first success was being able to make my exam fit two per page. The power of the zoom button is truly wonderful. Secondly, I found some items for beautifying the house: a new mirror for the bathroom and "abraçadeiras". I don't know what "abraçadeiras" are called in English, but they are plastic u-type nails that stick wire to wall. Someone who has worked in a Home Depot would know what to call those suckers. The third -- and quite possibly, the most important -- success was the presence of avocado in our market. What? This is excellent. A night of Mexican food would be in our future.

After lunch, I sat around hoping that someone would come get me so I could knock out my class early. Amazingly, no one came. I'm shocked that all of the teachers due to give class actually gave class. Whatever. I kept myself busy by securing the electrical wire with the "abraçadeiras". The last thing we need is to trip over electrical wire. We trip over enough shit as it is already.

Finally, my time for class came along. The length of this class depended entirely on the students. I gave my students the information about their exam on Friday. I told them the format of the exam and the topics that the exam would cover, and then opened it up to questions. "Questions or doubts? Anyone? Anyone?" Nope. A year and a half into teaching and I still don't understand this. If you have absolutely no doubts, you should be getting 100% on every exam. These students flutter around 60%. I've done what I can; the rest is in their hands.

Alexis was at the house when I got back from class. This is her last full week here. Watching people leave, especially when we've been here for longer, is painful. It's depressing to watch people come and then leave. I must give credit to Alexis though. She was dropped in Machanga with almost no training. At 19, that can be overwhelming. Hell, even with the ten weeks of training that we had, getting dropped here was overwhelming for us. I remember those days all too well. Anyways, I told Alexis that she could stay for our Mexican bounty if she wanted, but her host institution would have none of it.

Bummer for her, because this food was delicious. We went all out on this Mexican food night. We probably had enough food for three or four people, but that wasn't going to stop us from finishing it. We are so rarely full here that we take advantage of it whenever we get the opportunity. Needless to say, we went to bed very full.

I woke up Thursday morning feeling better for the most part. I would love to credit the magical healing powers of the avocado, but even I know better than that. Cipro is a wonder-drug and in three days, it had done its job almost perfectly. My throat still hurt a bit, but I'll blame dehydration for that one.

Thursday was a largely uneventful day, especially in the morning. My class for Thursday was already planned. My science-track kids would be getting a lesson they should have received last Thursday. And yes, to their dismay, they would be tested on it tomorrow. It's their own damn fault, really. If they had celebrated the holiday on its designated day instead of a day early, they wouldn't have had to worry about this class today. It was no concern to me.

That said, when the time came around for class, I made sure to spend some extra time on the lesson. While it is their responsibility to learn it, it as just as much, if not more, my responsibility to teach it well. For some reason, this group of kids really struggled with the difference between "how much" and "how many". They needed me to explain it or three times, which was slightly annoying because the other group figured it out right away. By the end of the day, I think they had it figured out. I'd find out tomorrow. So would they.

Late in the afternoon, I had to finish making photocopies for the exam tomorrow. I got two exams to fit on the page yesterday. Now, just needed to make copies for everyone. Remarkably, the school slashed it's photocopy price by 60%, meaning I wouldn't have to charge students for this exam. More importantly, I would have enough money to make photocopies and arrive in Chimoio.

The rest of the night was quiet. Richie and I made stir fry and followed that with "Dogma". "Dogma" is one of my favorite movies. It never fails to entertain.

The calm before the storm was Friday morning. The only thing I had to do Friday morning was splice my exams in half so every student would have an exam. And making sure that Sozinho didn't get his hands on an exam before the scheduled time.

If the morning was calm, the afternoon and evening were chock full of excitement. I had exams to give, which is always lovely. I didn't have any cheaters, a lovely recent development. More interesting than that, though was the school director was giving an exam at the same time as I was. This is usually unimportant and uninteresting, but this was the first time that I had seen a typed exam of his. He had sat in on my formatting lesson, and while there was certainly room for improvement, the formatting on the whole was pretty good. It definitely brought some joy to my day.

Whatever joy it brought, however, was torn down piece by piece in the hours that followed. Not wanting to grade exams in Chimoio this weekend, I spent the afternoon grading exams. On the whole the kids did well. But still, grading exams sucks. The real destruction of my happiness came at night.

A bunch of us were watching the Uruguay-Ghana game. With all of the Portuguese-speaking teams out an only one African team remaining, everybody was rooting for Ghana. The entire game can be summed up in a single moment. In the last minute of extra time, Ghana had a penalty kick to win the game. They sent this twenty year old kid -- the one who scored the game-winning goal against the U.S. -- to the line. He has the goalie beat, but he clanks it off the crossbar. You could tell the kid was wrecked. Still, when the penalty kicks started, he was the first to kick (and he scored his). But their fate was sealed. They needed a miracle to beat Uruguay, and they got it, but the crossbar robbed them of advancing. It was clear going into penalties that Uruguay would advance.

I went to bed, feeling for this poor kid. It actually kept me awake for a good hour, thinking about it. My mind is bad like that. I eventually got to sleep, but I can't imagine that this guy will be sleeping for the next little while.

I was on the road early Saturday for Chimoio. I didn't really want to travel to Chimoio, but there was a party and I'll be damned if I'm going to miss a party. I was committed to two things: not using the Machanga road and not using the chapa. The first was easy. I crossed the river and made my way to Mambone. As I walked into town, I noticed a CARE car. CARE is the organization that the Volunteers in Vilanculos work for. I've always wanted a boleia with these guys, so of course the one time I'm able to get a ride from them, I'm not going to Vilanculos. I waited around for two hours for the car to leave, which sucked, but the car went 140 kilometers per hour the entire way, getting to Maluvane in record time.

My luck didn't get much better for the rest of the trip. I sat at Maluvane for hours, waiting for a car to head north, but it seemed like everything was going south. I eventually got into a big-rig heading for Tete -- which would have dropped me exactly where I needed to go -- but for some reason, he got stopped at the bridge across the river. I got out of the truck and waited another hour until a pick-up truck finally stopped for me. The ride was great -- fast and free. The whole trip to Chimoio cost less than 50 Meticais. It made all the waiting worthwhile. But between the strep, the soccer games, and the waiting, all I could think was "man, this was kind of a cruel week."

Once I was in town, there were only three things I wanted to do: eat, drink, and be merry. Eating was easy. The Volunteers in town killed a pig, someone brought a cake, everything was delicious. Drinking was a little more difficult, but I still managed to do my part. However, all that drinking pretty much eliminated my chance at achieving goal three. I was tired as it was and the booze knocked me out. Just about everyone went out around 10:00 to continue the party, but I was finished. I crashed fast.