So my spirits have lifted a bit since my last posting, despite now having a cold. My mother taught me that when you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. For me, when I have nothing nice to say, I say wear your headphones and listen to your iPod and then you can drown out what some people are saying. There’s nothing like cranking up some ridiculous ESPN jock jams I have on my iPod – thanks to either my dad and the music he had on the computer for playing at high school softball games or my sister and her random CDs: the jury is out on a which one I got it from. All I know is that I when people are being rude, I just crank up the volume and think “pump, pump the jam, pump it up” and all my cares just float away on a sports center cloud.
School is going well. I was at the board the other day, writing the directions for homework and one of my students said “senhora professora, is it true that there is no God?” My jaw dropped. I asked him why he was asking that and he said “because the Portuguese teacher just told us there is no God.” I told him that it depends on what a person believes and that people are free to believe whatever they want – from Christians, to Muslims, to Jehovah’s Witnesses, to all types of religions (all represented in the classroom). “Well, I am going to ask the biology teacher if you don’t know because I bet he would know.” All the other students nodded their heads in agreement. I tried to explain to them that a question like that has no definite answer and the answer will vary with each person. I am still betting that they went to find the biology teacher to ask him.
The library project is well on its way. It’s shaping up nicely. Nia’s JOMA group is painting a mural on corruption in schools and it is turning out beautifully. I made curtains for the windows and am in the process of organizing the mangled mess that is the library’s “system.” The librarian has obviously taken little care of the library in the past. All of the books are out of order. At the end of the day, after getting books for students, they are just stacked in random piles on desks. This isn’t a library like in the states. It is a single, long, bookshelf unit. Then there is a space for the librarian to walk. Then there is a long librarian’s desk. She can literally sit in the center, pick up a book with her left hand and give it to the student with her right; the space is so small. That is after she plays on her phone for five minutes while the student is standing there, waiting with his/her identification card. That’s obviously something we will need to work on.
Kara (my sister) is coming to see me on Friday! I am incredibly excited and I can’t wait to pick her up from the airport. I will give her a tour of the market and she will get to see the goat heads that are constantly on a display like a warning to all naughty goats. She’s gonna come to school with me for the last day of the trimester to distribute tests and the class prizes. I lied and told my kids that she will be here to control their last exam and I said “there will be TWO Americans controling your test” and a look of horror crossed their faces. “NO SENHORA PROFESSORA!” It will be interesting sharing a bed with her, under a mosquito net, with the dog trying to jump on the bed. She will get to take a bucket bath in our latrine. I have reassured her that my house is like “classy camping” but with numerous locks. I think the most memorable camping trip I ever had with her was when she threw up in my hair. I was like five years old, so this has got to be better. I figure we will spend about five days in Monapo, a couple of days on Ilha, and then we are going to Maputo to visit my host family, making a day trip into Swaziland (my host family lives on the border with Swaziland and I hear you can cross the entire country by car in about two hours) and then we are off to Capetown for a week to go see the penguins, Table Mountain, and Robben Island, experience an array of food and water temperature choices, and we are even getting a rental car. I think the private car might be one of the things I’m most excited about. There are no such things as crowded chapas in South Africa. I often daydream about this chapa-less country - land of milk and honey.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Roadblocks to Funkytown
I’ve had a case of the mondays for the past few weeks now. I think several things have left me in a general funk. First, there is the problem with my library project. I got the project approved in November and I received the check in March. I then went to the bank with my counterpart to open the bank account. They told my counterpart that she couldn’t open the account with me because she didn’t have documentation that had the names of her parents on it. My counterpart is in her early 40’s. Well, in order to get the documentation, she had to make three trips to the city. Finally, once she got the documents, a month later, we went to the bank and opened the account. Turns out, to my intense delight, that in order to withdraw money from an account that has both your name and your counterpart’s name on it, and even with both people present, one needs to order checks so that they can write the check out to themselves and receive cash from the bank. That’s right. In order to withdraw money, even if it is just once, you need to write a check out to yourself. It’s completely ludicrous. I’ve had it up to here (hand at my chin) with incompetent bank personnel. Well, I ordered the checks as soon as I could and went back to check to see if they had arrived yet in the 15 days they claimed it took to receive them. Each day they told me to come back the next because they hadn’t arrived yet. After about four days of this, the bank manager looks the account number up on the computer and says “oh, well, you have to order checks still.” He then informed me that I couldn’t have ordered the checks until my signature appeared on the account on the computer system. After re-ordering the checks, I walked home from the bank in the biggest display of infantile behavior I could muster. There was glowering, snapping, and angry-walk-arm-swinging. Everything but a full-on show of throwing myself in the nearest trash pile with the goats and screaming until my face turned red and I passed out. There is always something standing in the way and I’m tired of these roadblocks.
With the student who stole the money from the project I had going last year, it has been anything but roses. He came to my house last weekend to talk with his original business partner to make out a plan for paying him back. I then had him write out how much he spent and what he spent it on. I then had him sign and date it. Then they worked out a plan for him to pay back his partner. Then we all signed and dated that. Well, he comes to the house yesterday and says that he doesn’t understand why he has to lose money to pay it back. Umm…because he gave a part of it to his girlfriend, another part to starting a temporary bar, and just basically spending the other half of it. I don’t know how to spell it out for him, short of sharpening up a stubby dark magenta and stenciling it in crayon on his forehead. It’s like talking to a wall with bad acne. He wanted to go and discuss the situation with the police later in the week at 2:00. Well, I had class at 2:00. When I told the partner that got screwed over that I won’t miss class for the meeting, he just laughed like I was kidding. “No, the police will write a letter to get you out of work.” No, it’s not like high school and being excited to get out of band practice. I actually want to stay on track with my lesson plans and my classes. I’ve got something called work ethic (except when it comes to playing Funkytown on the trumpet) and there’s also a little something called a backbone. Maybe he should get one in terms of getting his former partner to pay him back so I don’t have to keep playing bad cop.
I’ve been having sewing machine issues as well. The “master” has been coming to the house to fix the machine. He keeps saying that every part of the machine isn’t the original part of the machine. He also says that if I give him the money he can go and buy the right part in Nacala or Nampula – possibilities that I ignore. Ever since the day he asked for 400 meticais to dismantle the machine, he wouldn’t exactly be on the list for my phone-a-friend on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He brings parts from his sewing machines to replace it when I don’t say anything in response. Right now, he is lending me the parts but we still have that lack of trust. He said “you don’t trust me, do you?” I told him he ruined that the day he asked for 400. I said he wouldn’t have asked anyone else for 400 in Monapo. He said that, on the contrary, he would have asked them for 700. Doubtful, seeing as that is more than most people make in a month. So, pardon me if we won’t be doing any trust falls in the near future.
It’s sad when the thing I’ve gotten the most joy out of in the past week has been throwing my Nalgene bottle against the wall to demonstrate to my students its inability to shatter. There was actually a collective gasp as I threw it and some people clapped their hands as it rolled across the floor. I felt like Houdini. Then they all wanted to throw it and I began to doubt the product’s durability and put it back in my tote bag. I wore some sandals that my feet weren’t used to and got sores that have now turned into infected, pussy, red wounds. In Africa, wounds take much longer to heal for some reason. It seems like every pair of shoes and sandals I own rubs my feet in the wrong way. My students immediately notice the foot and say “aren’t you taking any pills to make it go away?” I then try to explain in my best Dr. Quinn voice that only a topical treatment would be effective in healing the sores and that I am already doing that. But I’ve decided to just nod and say yes so they stop eying up my gangrene. And I think they may have lost some respect for me as I tried to teach them “there is” and “there are” barefoot. The concrete just felt so cool and liberating.
My students in my bad turma have been getting my bad side like no other but they still don’t seem to get it. They’re late to class? I make them crawl on all fours to their seats. They are too rowdy? I make them sit down and then announce “we are going to play a little game I like to call silence.” We then proceed to stare at each other for the last 10 minutes of class and whoever talks loses and has to leave. They’re like little 17-year old kids sitting in front of a big, shiny, red button and they have to push it. One particularly mouthy kid said he had to go to the bathroom and I watched him do his potty dance all the way out the door. He came back a few minutes later, looking quickly behind him and slamming the door. He then sat down behind some other students. I’m sure if he’d had the sports section he would have whipped it open. Bam! Bam! Bam! Knock on the door. It was a guy and his friend. “I want to talk to that boy outside. He offended me and my friend.” Part of me wanted to feed him to the wolves. The part of me that saw him try to kick my dog once. But I told them no and then informed the student that he has a big mouth and he best be careful about who he insults in the future on his potty breaks.
One of my students received a zero on a composition because two people wrote the same composition. I warn them over and over again that I will give a zero if I receive the same compositions. And yet I still receive compositions that are copied from books and from the smart kids. He got upset and started to walk out the door. I told him I didn’t give him permission to leave and if he walked out the door, he would receive a falta vermelha. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked out as I reached for my red pen. The next day I told him that I wouldn’t let him back into the classroom until he wrote me an apology letter for his little display. The next day he had written the letter but I decided to take it one step further. I told him that in order for him to stay he had to read his letter of apology in front of the class. His eyes teared up and his lips quivered. “Senhora Professora, I can’t do that.” So I told him he was too proud and had him stand next to me up front. “Everyone, Melito has something to say,” and I then proceeded to read his letter out loud while he stared at the floor. I recognize that it was slightly evil but maybe that public humiliation will tone down his sass in the future.
So hopefully this case of bitter hostility will pass. I am ready to stop feeling so cranky. I wake up and walk to the market and someone says “how are you?” in English and I want to turn to them and say “Don’t start a conversation you can’t finish, buck-o. Do I say ‘ehali?’ to you in order to give myself that false, pat-on-the-back feeling that I can speak fluent Makua just because I know a few random phrases? No. So lay off.” Until the cantankerous emotions subside, I have locked up the slingshot and every balloon to resist the temptation of those little bulls-eyes, er, children that attend the primary school next door during their daily 9:30 am bark-off with the dog. It’s the least I can do.
With the student who stole the money from the project I had going last year, it has been anything but roses. He came to my house last weekend to talk with his original business partner to make out a plan for paying him back. I then had him write out how much he spent and what he spent it on. I then had him sign and date it. Then they worked out a plan for him to pay back his partner. Then we all signed and dated that. Well, he comes to the house yesterday and says that he doesn’t understand why he has to lose money to pay it back. Umm…because he gave a part of it to his girlfriend, another part to starting a temporary bar, and just basically spending the other half of it. I don’t know how to spell it out for him, short of sharpening up a stubby dark magenta and stenciling it in crayon on his forehead. It’s like talking to a wall with bad acne. He wanted to go and discuss the situation with the police later in the week at 2:00. Well, I had class at 2:00. When I told the partner that got screwed over that I won’t miss class for the meeting, he just laughed like I was kidding. “No, the police will write a letter to get you out of work.” No, it’s not like high school and being excited to get out of band practice. I actually want to stay on track with my lesson plans and my classes. I’ve got something called work ethic (except when it comes to playing Funkytown on the trumpet) and there’s also a little something called a backbone. Maybe he should get one in terms of getting his former partner to pay him back so I don’t have to keep playing bad cop.
I’ve been having sewing machine issues as well. The “master” has been coming to the house to fix the machine. He keeps saying that every part of the machine isn’t the original part of the machine. He also says that if I give him the money he can go and buy the right part in Nacala or Nampula – possibilities that I ignore. Ever since the day he asked for 400 meticais to dismantle the machine, he wouldn’t exactly be on the list for my phone-a-friend on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He brings parts from his sewing machines to replace it when I don’t say anything in response. Right now, he is lending me the parts but we still have that lack of trust. He said “you don’t trust me, do you?” I told him he ruined that the day he asked for 400. I said he wouldn’t have asked anyone else for 400 in Monapo. He said that, on the contrary, he would have asked them for 700. Doubtful, seeing as that is more than most people make in a month. So, pardon me if we won’t be doing any trust falls in the near future.
It’s sad when the thing I’ve gotten the most joy out of in the past week has been throwing my Nalgene bottle against the wall to demonstrate to my students its inability to shatter. There was actually a collective gasp as I threw it and some people clapped their hands as it rolled across the floor. I felt like Houdini. Then they all wanted to throw it and I began to doubt the product’s durability and put it back in my tote bag. I wore some sandals that my feet weren’t used to and got sores that have now turned into infected, pussy, red wounds. In Africa, wounds take much longer to heal for some reason. It seems like every pair of shoes and sandals I own rubs my feet in the wrong way. My students immediately notice the foot and say “aren’t you taking any pills to make it go away?” I then try to explain in my best Dr. Quinn voice that only a topical treatment would be effective in healing the sores and that I am already doing that. But I’ve decided to just nod and say yes so they stop eying up my gangrene. And I think they may have lost some respect for me as I tried to teach them “there is” and “there are” barefoot. The concrete just felt so cool and liberating.
My students in my bad turma have been getting my bad side like no other but they still don’t seem to get it. They’re late to class? I make them crawl on all fours to their seats. They are too rowdy? I make them sit down and then announce “we are going to play a little game I like to call silence.” We then proceed to stare at each other for the last 10 minutes of class and whoever talks loses and has to leave. They’re like little 17-year old kids sitting in front of a big, shiny, red button and they have to push it. One particularly mouthy kid said he had to go to the bathroom and I watched him do his potty dance all the way out the door. He came back a few minutes later, looking quickly behind him and slamming the door. He then sat down behind some other students. I’m sure if he’d had the sports section he would have whipped it open. Bam! Bam! Bam! Knock on the door. It was a guy and his friend. “I want to talk to that boy outside. He offended me and my friend.” Part of me wanted to feed him to the wolves. The part of me that saw him try to kick my dog once. But I told them no and then informed the student that he has a big mouth and he best be careful about who he insults in the future on his potty breaks.
One of my students received a zero on a composition because two people wrote the same composition. I warn them over and over again that I will give a zero if I receive the same compositions. And yet I still receive compositions that are copied from books and from the smart kids. He got upset and started to walk out the door. I told him I didn’t give him permission to leave and if he walked out the door, he would receive a falta vermelha. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked out as I reached for my red pen. The next day I told him that I wouldn’t let him back into the classroom until he wrote me an apology letter for his little display. The next day he had written the letter but I decided to take it one step further. I told him that in order for him to stay he had to read his letter of apology in front of the class. His eyes teared up and his lips quivered. “Senhora Professora, I can’t do that.” So I told him he was too proud and had him stand next to me up front. “Everyone, Melito has something to say,” and I then proceeded to read his letter out loud while he stared at the floor. I recognize that it was slightly evil but maybe that public humiliation will tone down his sass in the future.
So hopefully this case of bitter hostility will pass. I am ready to stop feeling so cranky. I wake up and walk to the market and someone says “how are you?” in English and I want to turn to them and say “Don’t start a conversation you can’t finish, buck-o. Do I say ‘ehali?’ to you in order to give myself that false, pat-on-the-back feeling that I can speak fluent Makua just because I know a few random phrases? No. So lay off.” Until the cantankerous emotions subside, I have locked up the slingshot and every balloon to resist the temptation of those little bulls-eyes, er, children that attend the primary school next door during their daily 9:30 am bark-off with the dog. It’s the least I can do.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Prairie Dogs and a Breathless Lone Wolf
Yesterday, we had a “Day of Culture” in Monapo, or as I like to call it “I don’t feel like going to school or work so I officially dub thee a Day of Culture.” I walked from the school with my students to the community stage, where there was music blasting and kids in uniform as far as the eye could see. I quickly got asked to dance and my students got pretty excited when I pulled out my dance moves. It was a repeat of the rousing impromptu dance performance during physical education last year. Let’s just say, I took it to the streets for about…10 seconds. Northwestern Wisconsin streets. In a matter of seconds, I was surrounded by cheering/staring kids. They get a kick out of anything out of the ordinary my roommate or I do. Kids here are amazing dancers. You will be walking down the street and all of a sudden, with music blaring from a local store, they will pull out these sick dance moves and then continue walking as if nothing just happened. People can pop and lock it from the womb here.
For culture day, there was a presentation by local officials – a presentation that, in all honesty, no one cared about. There is a stage but it’s odd because the officials sit on the stage while people dancing or performing are on the ground with the general public. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put those people on the stage so people could see? Yes. Yes, it would. But anyways, as they were presenting on the stage, we noticed a guy had a shirt from the JOMA conference in Nampula this year. Backstory - besides REDES in Mozambique, there is also another youth group that is run by Peace Corps volunteers called JOMA (Youth for Change and Action – translated). They had their conference at the same time as ours that I made a speech at and Nia and I both have shirts. Nia had run into him earlier in the month for “Day of Workers” and he was wearing the shirt. She asked him where he got it and he leaned in really close and was like “why do you want to know so bad?” She asked him where he got the shirt from and he said it was from someone in Angoche. She then asked him who gave it to him because she probably knows them. And then he went into this ridiculous lie about how people have different names on their identification cards so he couldn’t be certain. Well, after getting home yesterday, I was curious about where my JOMA shirt was and lo and behold, it’s missing. The only explanation we can come up with is that he took it off our clothesline. What a creep. So I am determined to see him in public wearing the shirt, and then walk up behind him and do that nifty little hockey trick where they pull it over the person’s back. Followed promptly by the biggest wedgie of his life.
I have been going running every morning at 5:30 at the soccer field by our house and I’m up to 7 laps. There are always children playing soccer, so it can be annoying at times. I have to hide my heavy breathing every time I jog past. You jog past a group of people and they just stare. Stare, Stare. Stare. That’s life for us. Like a monkey in a cage. I enjoy staring back with exaggeration – my jaw hanging down. And then say something like “flies are going to enter your mouth.” Most of the time they get embarrassed and look away, but sometimes they just look confused. One day, these two little boys were sitting in the field and as I started my laps, they stood up and started jogging behind me. Every time I would go slow, they would go slow. Every time I sprinted, they would sprint. It was all quite annoying - like “I know you are but what am I?” or repeating everything someone says. Another time I had the same pace as a 12-year old girl. I tried to pass her but then she sped up. I tried to slow down and I swear she slowed her gait. I think she wanted to run with me, which is cute and everything because I’m the only other female in the field in the morning, but I can’t handle that kind of pressure. I’m the lone wolf type when it comes to exercise.
I am having issues with a turma (class) of students. I handed out a falta collectiva (marking everyone as absent) and a falta vermelha (the worst offense) one day this last week. They just get obnoxious and you have to try to put them in their place. Some teachers have changed classes in the school so they don’t have to teach certain bad turmas. It shouldn’t be like that. In my mind, there should be major punishment for that kind of behavior. For example, kicking them out of school. I become evil when I have a bad turma. I was kicking people out left and right. I made everyone who didn’t do their homework (which was about 90 percent of the class) sit on the floor between the aisles for the entire class period, which is not comfortable. A fellow teacher walked into my classroom in the middle of class to make an announcement and all my students looked up from between the desks like prairie dogs. I think I’ll have a Mozambican teacher yell at them for me. Or at least tattle on specific people to the pedagogical director. There just gets to a point where there isn’t anything you can do and you have to call in the reinforcements.
Kids at the school have been barking at the dog and standing in the cashew tree again. So I went and talked to the school and we haven’t had a problem for the rest of the week. It’s ridiculous that no one controls the kids here. No teachers show up to school so the kids just sit around and get bored, so they decide to stir up trouble. One day I was teaching at school and Nia was home. I guess a kid was throwing rocks at the dog and barking at Timba. Well, Timba has this King Kong-like ability to burst free from his restraints when he is enticed and he managed to do so. He immediately sprinted out of the gate and chased down the kid. As he was trying to flee, the kid got so scared that he fell down and Timba just stopped on a dime next to the kid and turned around as if to say “well, my work here is done.” I like to imagine he dusted his paws off. I would have given up my monthly salary and eaten just cassava for weeks to see that.
For culture day, there was a presentation by local officials – a presentation that, in all honesty, no one cared about. There is a stage but it’s odd because the officials sit on the stage while people dancing or performing are on the ground with the general public. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put those people on the stage so people could see? Yes. Yes, it would. But anyways, as they were presenting on the stage, we noticed a guy had a shirt from the JOMA conference in Nampula this year. Backstory - besides REDES in Mozambique, there is also another youth group that is run by Peace Corps volunteers called JOMA (Youth for Change and Action – translated). They had their conference at the same time as ours that I made a speech at and Nia and I both have shirts. Nia had run into him earlier in the month for “Day of Workers” and he was wearing the shirt. She asked him where he got it and he leaned in really close and was like “why do you want to know so bad?” She asked him where he got the shirt from and he said it was from someone in Angoche. She then asked him who gave it to him because she probably knows them. And then he went into this ridiculous lie about how people have different names on their identification cards so he couldn’t be certain. Well, after getting home yesterday, I was curious about where my JOMA shirt was and lo and behold, it’s missing. The only explanation we can come up with is that he took it off our clothesline. What a creep. So I am determined to see him in public wearing the shirt, and then walk up behind him and do that nifty little hockey trick where they pull it over the person’s back. Followed promptly by the biggest wedgie of his life.
I have been going running every morning at 5:30 at the soccer field by our house and I’m up to 7 laps. There are always children playing soccer, so it can be annoying at times. I have to hide my heavy breathing every time I jog past. You jog past a group of people and they just stare. Stare, Stare. Stare. That’s life for us. Like a monkey in a cage. I enjoy staring back with exaggeration – my jaw hanging down. And then say something like “flies are going to enter your mouth.” Most of the time they get embarrassed and look away, but sometimes they just look confused. One day, these two little boys were sitting in the field and as I started my laps, they stood up and started jogging behind me. Every time I would go slow, they would go slow. Every time I sprinted, they would sprint. It was all quite annoying - like “I know you are but what am I?” or repeating everything someone says. Another time I had the same pace as a 12-year old girl. I tried to pass her but then she sped up. I tried to slow down and I swear she slowed her gait. I think she wanted to run with me, which is cute and everything because I’m the only other female in the field in the morning, but I can’t handle that kind of pressure. I’m the lone wolf type when it comes to exercise.
I am having issues with a turma (class) of students. I handed out a falta collectiva (marking everyone as absent) and a falta vermelha (the worst offense) one day this last week. They just get obnoxious and you have to try to put them in their place. Some teachers have changed classes in the school so they don’t have to teach certain bad turmas. It shouldn’t be like that. In my mind, there should be major punishment for that kind of behavior. For example, kicking them out of school. I become evil when I have a bad turma. I was kicking people out left and right. I made everyone who didn’t do their homework (which was about 90 percent of the class) sit on the floor between the aisles for the entire class period, which is not comfortable. A fellow teacher walked into my classroom in the middle of class to make an announcement and all my students looked up from between the desks like prairie dogs. I think I’ll have a Mozambican teacher yell at them for me. Or at least tattle on specific people to the pedagogical director. There just gets to a point where there isn’t anything you can do and you have to call in the reinforcements.
Kids at the school have been barking at the dog and standing in the cashew tree again. So I went and talked to the school and we haven’t had a problem for the rest of the week. It’s ridiculous that no one controls the kids here. No teachers show up to school so the kids just sit around and get bored, so they decide to stir up trouble. One day I was teaching at school and Nia was home. I guess a kid was throwing rocks at the dog and barking at Timba. Well, Timba has this King Kong-like ability to burst free from his restraints when he is enticed and he managed to do so. He immediately sprinted out of the gate and chased down the kid. As he was trying to flee, the kid got so scared that he fell down and Timba just stopped on a dime next to the kid and turned around as if to say “well, my work here is done.” I like to imagine he dusted his paws off. I would have given up my monthly salary and eaten just cassava for weeks to see that.
Friday, May 15, 2009
I am Feeling Downright Collicky Today
So life has been crazy busy and internet hasn’t been working in my town…and those are my reasons for not updating this. Just think of my desire to update this often as a new years resolution – a completely breakable promise with the best intentions. The REDES conference was a success! It was in the city for four days with 47 girls, 7 Mozambican counterparts and 10 Peace Corps volunteers. Each day, they had a focus on a certain area – gender, HIV/AIDS and health, women’s rights and setting goals. Also, they had technical projects – painting a mural, sewing a capulana purse, first aid sessions, cleaning a park, and computer classes. Everything ran fairly smoothly. No one got seriously ill during the conference. One of my girls told another girl to tell me that she felt sick. I went and found her and asked her what was wrong, only to have her reply with “I feel a little colicky.” I thought that babies only got that. I just told her to drink some water and sleep, which worked like a charm. That was my response to all reported headaches and minor pains. Yeah, I know. I’m a veritable Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman. All in all, I’ve never been that tired in the span of a week. It was stressful and wonderful all wrapped into one. I definitely consider it one of my top achievements in life thus far…besides figuring out that it’s “I’m Shameless,” not “I’m Shaving,” in the hit country song by Garth Brooks.
Since the conference, I’ve had a chance to relax a bit. All of us Nampula volunteers went to Angoche the weekend after to celebrate a fellow PCV’s opening of an impressive youth center and to hang out on the beach. Then, I went to Chocas and Ilha with another volunteer and some ex-pats. It was a lot of fun, despite unnecessarily long chapa rides and a freakishly horrible display of exiting a boat. I have realized that these Wisconsin legs are meant only for land and reasonably small bodies of water. There’s a reason why the Little Mermaid had transition issues. I tried to gracefully descend from the boat, only to slide down the side and fall straight into the water, leaving three bruises (arm, leg and ego, respectively).
One might say I have an irrational fear of a boat tipping over but I think it all circles back to swimming lessons I took when I was about 7 years old. I refused to jump off the diving board until they finally convinced me that it’s not as bad if you hold onto the long metal pole. Well, those teenage swimming instructors were a bunch of Judases because it’s not. When I went to Girl Scout camp a couple years later, Camp Nawakwa, to be exact, they gave me a “yellow zone” swimming bracelet – based entirely on my inability to tread water. The yellow zone was equivalent to what I was bathed in at the age of three. So I stood there in my swimsuit and yellow bracelet, stomping through that puddle they referred to as the “yellow zone” while the other girls got to be submersed in the “orange” and cannon ball like lunatics off of the “red zone” dock. I don’t regret it though. If you think about it, if that lake were an ocean, those red zone show-offs would be the first victims of a great white and I would be the one with all my limbs intact, applying a thick layer of SPF 40 on the shore, saying “well, that sucks.” Glass half full indeed.
My REDES group is going well. We started sewing machine lessons this week. The sewing machine “master” (as he refers to himself) took apart the machine and oiled it. With the machine torn apart, screws lying everywhere, he then tried to tell me that the job would cost 400 mt to complete. I flat out refused and said 100 mt and he laughed. When people try to rip me off and then giggle, I go straight from negotiating to slinging insults. It’s a defense mechanism that doesn’t always get me what I want but it makes me feel a ton better to emotionally maim someone. I went from saying 100 mt to telling the guy that if he wants to take advantage of people and hinder development in Mozambique, he can walk out the front gate and I can get someone else to put the machine together. And then he starts talking to the girls in Macua. Which resulted in me saying “You don’t know how to speak Portuguese, huh? Do you know anything?” All of my REDES girls looked at the ground. I think I made them uncomfortable but maybe it was a lesson in not letting people walk all over you. We settled on 150 and the assurance that he would come when I call to do machine maintenance. That is a promise that might be similar to my promise to update this blog - minus the best intentions.
I am having a woman from the Women’s Club in town teach me a different skill each week that I will, in turn, teach the girls. I tried to get her to come last week. Apparently, in her world, saying to be somewhere at 8 technically falls somewhere between 9 and 9:30. It’s amazing how one can feel like a date being continuously stood up in Mozambique. It’s like Groundhog’s Day meets…Never Been Kissed? We are trying it again this week and I’m hopeful everything will run smoothly and according to plan and other cliches I cant think of at the moment. My ultimate goal though is to give them the basic sewing instructions they need in order to operate a sewing machine and they can take it from there after I leave. Before I leave Mozambique, I have to figure out a location to leave the sewing machines so that the girls can continue the project in order to make it sustainable. So far, we are learning how to work the pedal on the machine and punch holes in a piece of paper. If you are nice to me, I can stitch your name in a piece of notebook paper along with a heartwarming message. Merry Christmas.
I went to the police station next door to finally talk to them about actually sitting down and talking to this guy who stole money from a project I was working on last year. I filed a report and sat in a concrete room with three bored police officers plucking away on typewriters the size of a small SUV. I returned later in the day to walk to the guy’s house with a police officer. I wanted to do it all SWAT-like. For example, send a plain clothes police officer or just send me in first to lay down a false sense of security. But no, the officer goes with me in full policeman’s garb. Apparently subtlety is right up there with chivalry in terms of all things dead. Children in the neighborhood ran screaming when they saw the whitey and the officer. Their mothers were no help either. “Policia! Policia! Policia!” The kids then ran and grabbed guns they had fashioned out of banana leaves and bamboo and pretended to hide from the police while their mothers pretended to turn them in. Would have been cute if we weren’t trying to apprehend a perp. Turns out, this guy got a job working at a banana farm about 50 km from Monapo and is only home on the weekends. The school still won’t let him graduate because of the money he stole and all he can do now is work. If I were him, I would be doing everything I could to get this money back but his priorities seem to be about as organized as my intestinal tract.
I received my COS (close-of-service) date of November 20th. I’m pretty happy about that because it means I will be home in time for Thanksgiving. I will fly home on the 20th. There’s a lot to do before then though so I have plenty to keep myself occupied. I have the library project I’m working on at my school. My sister is coming in July to visit for a couple of weeks and then we are going to Cape Town in South Africa for a week. After that, in August, I have a close of service conference with everyone from my Peace Corps group. September and October will be busy with finishing up projects and beginning that fateful step of searching for a job in the states. I don’t want to be pulled into the black hole of watching The Price is Right and eating frozen chicken pot pies in my parents’ living room for any longer than I have to. And my spider senses tell me my parents would rather not have that black hole exist either. I am thinking I want to work in the Twin Cities for a year or two to save up money for some furthering of education. I’m not exactly sure of what that furthering of education will entail at this point but I figured that it will come to me. Maybe in a dream. Or on a piece of buttered toast in my parents’ living room.
Since the conference, I’ve had a chance to relax a bit. All of us Nampula volunteers went to Angoche the weekend after to celebrate a fellow PCV’s opening of an impressive youth center and to hang out on the beach. Then, I went to Chocas and Ilha with another volunteer and some ex-pats. It was a lot of fun, despite unnecessarily long chapa rides and a freakishly horrible display of exiting a boat. I have realized that these Wisconsin legs are meant only for land and reasonably small bodies of water. There’s a reason why the Little Mermaid had transition issues. I tried to gracefully descend from the boat, only to slide down the side and fall straight into the water, leaving three bruises (arm, leg and ego, respectively).
One might say I have an irrational fear of a boat tipping over but I think it all circles back to swimming lessons I took when I was about 7 years old. I refused to jump off the diving board until they finally convinced me that it’s not as bad if you hold onto the long metal pole. Well, those teenage swimming instructors were a bunch of Judases because it’s not. When I went to Girl Scout camp a couple years later, Camp Nawakwa, to be exact, they gave me a “yellow zone” swimming bracelet – based entirely on my inability to tread water. The yellow zone was equivalent to what I was bathed in at the age of three. So I stood there in my swimsuit and yellow bracelet, stomping through that puddle they referred to as the “yellow zone” while the other girls got to be submersed in the “orange” and cannon ball like lunatics off of the “red zone” dock. I don’t regret it though. If you think about it, if that lake were an ocean, those red zone show-offs would be the first victims of a great white and I would be the one with all my limbs intact, applying a thick layer of SPF 40 on the shore, saying “well, that sucks.” Glass half full indeed.
My REDES group is going well. We started sewing machine lessons this week. The sewing machine “master” (as he refers to himself) took apart the machine and oiled it. With the machine torn apart, screws lying everywhere, he then tried to tell me that the job would cost 400 mt to complete. I flat out refused and said 100 mt and he laughed. When people try to rip me off and then giggle, I go straight from negotiating to slinging insults. It’s a defense mechanism that doesn’t always get me what I want but it makes me feel a ton better to emotionally maim someone. I went from saying 100 mt to telling the guy that if he wants to take advantage of people and hinder development in Mozambique, he can walk out the front gate and I can get someone else to put the machine together. And then he starts talking to the girls in Macua. Which resulted in me saying “You don’t know how to speak Portuguese, huh? Do you know anything?” All of my REDES girls looked at the ground. I think I made them uncomfortable but maybe it was a lesson in not letting people walk all over you. We settled on 150 and the assurance that he would come when I call to do machine maintenance. That is a promise that might be similar to my promise to update this blog - minus the best intentions.
I am having a woman from the Women’s Club in town teach me a different skill each week that I will, in turn, teach the girls. I tried to get her to come last week. Apparently, in her world, saying to be somewhere at 8 technically falls somewhere between 9 and 9:30. It’s amazing how one can feel like a date being continuously stood up in Mozambique. It’s like Groundhog’s Day meets…Never Been Kissed? We are trying it again this week and I’m hopeful everything will run smoothly and according to plan and other cliches I cant think of at the moment. My ultimate goal though is to give them the basic sewing instructions they need in order to operate a sewing machine and they can take it from there after I leave. Before I leave Mozambique, I have to figure out a location to leave the sewing machines so that the girls can continue the project in order to make it sustainable. So far, we are learning how to work the pedal on the machine and punch holes in a piece of paper. If you are nice to me, I can stitch your name in a piece of notebook paper along with a heartwarming message. Merry Christmas.
I went to the police station next door to finally talk to them about actually sitting down and talking to this guy who stole money from a project I was working on last year. I filed a report and sat in a concrete room with three bored police officers plucking away on typewriters the size of a small SUV. I returned later in the day to walk to the guy’s house with a police officer. I wanted to do it all SWAT-like. For example, send a plain clothes police officer or just send me in first to lay down a false sense of security. But no, the officer goes with me in full policeman’s garb. Apparently subtlety is right up there with chivalry in terms of all things dead. Children in the neighborhood ran screaming when they saw the whitey and the officer. Their mothers were no help either. “Policia! Policia! Policia!” The kids then ran and grabbed guns they had fashioned out of banana leaves and bamboo and pretended to hide from the police while their mothers pretended to turn them in. Would have been cute if we weren’t trying to apprehend a perp. Turns out, this guy got a job working at a banana farm about 50 km from Monapo and is only home on the weekends. The school still won’t let him graduate because of the money he stole and all he can do now is work. If I were him, I would be doing everything I could to get this money back but his priorities seem to be about as organized as my intestinal tract.
I received my COS (close-of-service) date of November 20th. I’m pretty happy about that because it means I will be home in time for Thanksgiving. I will fly home on the 20th. There’s a lot to do before then though so I have plenty to keep myself occupied. I have the library project I’m working on at my school. My sister is coming in July to visit for a couple of weeks and then we are going to Cape Town in South Africa for a week. After that, in August, I have a close of service conference with everyone from my Peace Corps group. September and October will be busy with finishing up projects and beginning that fateful step of searching for a job in the states. I don’t want to be pulled into the black hole of watching The Price is Right and eating frozen chicken pot pies in my parents’ living room for any longer than I have to. And my spider senses tell me my parents would rather not have that black hole exist either. I am thinking I want to work in the Twin Cities for a year or two to save up money for some furthering of education. I’m not exactly sure of what that furthering of education will entail at this point but I figured that it will come to me. Maybe in a dream. Or on a piece of buttered toast in my parents’ living room.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Bend It Like Encyclopedia Brown
We just finished the week of ACP exams in Monapo and we all know what that means. We got to play a little game I like to call “close your eyes and point your finger and you’ve got yourself a cheater.” We aren’t even talking about good cheating. Slick 007 cheating. Ocean’s 11 rig-the-deck cheating. No. This is the type of cheating where they see the teacher looking at them and throw their notebook back on the floor. Or the notebook is on the floor but they page through it with their toes. There’s also my favorite: blatantly sitting on the notebook. You can always tell because they might as well have brought a blanket and picnic basket. They don’t tuck in their shirts so that the fabric will cover any corner of the notebook that is peaking out. Also, they look slightly uncomfortable when you walk past them, give you a side-glance or are sweating more than what is seasonably acceptable. When I would yank a notebook out from under a student like the golden egg from under the goose, a look of shock and horror would appear on their faces.
“Senhora Professora! I didn’t cheat! I don’t know how that got there! That’s not my notebook!”
And then I joke that they were probably sitting on the notebook so they could see the board better. They continue to argue with me and the amazing thing is that they actually seem to believe they did nothing wrong. They are just that desperate to pass without doing any work. All of the teachers control the exams of other teachers. We just pass out the tests and keep an eye on them. The teacher eventually comes in and explains everything. I can’t help but feel sheepish when the teacher comes in to explain and I’m standing on a chair, looming over the students in my dark sunglasses, red marker in hand. The teacher usually appreciates it though and backs me up when the students try to complain to them that I’m actually marking down who is cheating and talking.
The students have this trick of not telling you their name after they cheat and not writing their names on the test,so that they can go to the teacher of that discipline later and say that they were sick that day and couldn’t take the test. I have found a good way to combat this problem. I steal from the students. They don’t tell me their name or are suffering from temporary Alzheimer’s? Fine. Osvaldo doesn’t get to wear his shoes on the long walk home. It’s virtually fail proof (unless I worked in a nursing home). When they want their shoes or their random personal belongings returned, they have to go and talk to the teacher. At the end of one test, my tote bag looked like a middle school lost and found.
They take two tests each day for ACPs and one day I controlled 11th grade exams, it was bloodshed. I was handing out “cheated” on tests like a shoe salesman getting commission. After the break between tests, I walked into the room to find a message scrawled on the board.
“Erin – you can not enter this classroom anymore! We are not asking – we are ordering!”
Frankly, I was flattered that they spelled my name correctly. Now if only they would stop spelling English as “Inglesh.” I was hoping for a skull and crossbones. Or at least a Mr. Ick. But alas, we can’t have everything we want in this world.
Life has been amazingly busy between planning a conference in the city and school. I have been dealing with a man who works at a venue in the city where the REDES conference room and food will be provided. I should have known what it would be like to deal with the man from this place (I will call him “half pint”) when one of the first things he asked me when I talked to him in January was “are you married?” I have learned that I just need to lie and say yes in hopes that it will squash the possibility of future discussion of the topic. The problem is that you can tell men you are married, but that isn’t good enough. They need to see your spouse as a conjoined twin at your side, like some warped TLC special, in order to leave you alone. Half Pint attempts to flirt with me each time I go to discuss conference logistics, making me want to shove his stubby tie halfway down the paper shredder in the corner of the office so he can sit there and think about what he’s done.
I went to stay at a friend’s house the other week in an attempt to get more accomplished and in the morning, as I was walking out to the road, I flagged down a chapa to take me to the center of the city. Well, lo and behold, Half Pint was behind the wheel of an SUV directly behind the chapa. He waved for me to come so he could give me a ride. I couldn’t say “oh no, thank you. I much prefer this smelly, dilapidated excuse for public transportation.” So I hopped in with my belongings strapped to my back. The bulk of the conversation went like this.
Half Pint: “I like you a lot.”
Me: “Is that a soccer field over there?”
Half Pint: “When I think about you, I feel frightened by how much I like you.”
Me: “Sporting is a Nampula team? Or is it Benfica? Or are they both?”
Half Pint: “Fright. I don’t know why. Strange, isn’t it?”
Me: “Soccer is a good sport.”
Half Pint: “I like you a lot. We should have dinner the next time you are in the city.”
Me: “I am married.”
Half Pint: “I sense that you are bothered when I talk about how I feel for you.”
Me: “I am married.”
Half Pint: “We should have dinner.”
Me: “I eat dinner with my friends when I’m in the city.”
Half Pint: “You are bothered?”
Me: “Yes.”
Yes, Half Pint is a true Encyclopedia Brown of female emotions. I feel like the closest I could come to him understanding that I don’t like him is by punching him in the face, and outweighing him by a good 50 lbs., I am fairly certain a sneeze would suffice in steamrolling the little feller. I just have to put up with it for another month. Until then, he isn’t charging me for the use of the microphones and sound system.
Speaking of dogs, Timba got his rabies vaccination. So if he bites a thief and they start foaming at the mouth, I can wave a piece of paper in their face and say it must have been something they ate. I was relieved to find out that it wasn’t our town veterinarian but a veterinary technician who was available. The man had gin on his breath but hey, he was a dapper gentleman in comparison with the other guy. I had to pin Timba to the ground while he shot the dog up. I couldn’t plaster the little guy down the whole time and he got up, snarling at the tech. I always love getting a front row seat to Mozambican men yelping like little girls. The man picked up his feet and ran like a collegiate marching band’s half-time show to our front gate and I had to talk to him through the door to have him drop off the paperwork later. Part of the injection ended up on the ground, which the dog promptly lapped up. This is Africa. Waste not. Want not.
“Senhora Professora! I didn’t cheat! I don’t know how that got there! That’s not my notebook!”
And then I joke that they were probably sitting on the notebook so they could see the board better. They continue to argue with me and the amazing thing is that they actually seem to believe they did nothing wrong. They are just that desperate to pass without doing any work. All of the teachers control the exams of other teachers. We just pass out the tests and keep an eye on them. The teacher eventually comes in and explains everything. I can’t help but feel sheepish when the teacher comes in to explain and I’m standing on a chair, looming over the students in my dark sunglasses, red marker in hand. The teacher usually appreciates it though and backs me up when the students try to complain to them that I’m actually marking down who is cheating and talking.
The students have this trick of not telling you their name after they cheat and not writing their names on the test,so that they can go to the teacher of that discipline later and say that they were sick that day and couldn’t take the test. I have found a good way to combat this problem. I steal from the students. They don’t tell me their name or are suffering from temporary Alzheimer’s? Fine. Osvaldo doesn’t get to wear his shoes on the long walk home. It’s virtually fail proof (unless I worked in a nursing home). When they want their shoes or their random personal belongings returned, they have to go and talk to the teacher. At the end of one test, my tote bag looked like a middle school lost and found.
They take two tests each day for ACPs and one day I controlled 11th grade exams, it was bloodshed. I was handing out “cheated” on tests like a shoe salesman getting commission. After the break between tests, I walked into the room to find a message scrawled on the board.
“Erin – you can not enter this classroom anymore! We are not asking – we are ordering!”
Frankly, I was flattered that they spelled my name correctly. Now if only they would stop spelling English as “Inglesh.” I was hoping for a skull and crossbones. Or at least a Mr. Ick. But alas, we can’t have everything we want in this world.
Life has been amazingly busy between planning a conference in the city and school. I have been dealing with a man who works at a venue in the city where the REDES conference room and food will be provided. I should have known what it would be like to deal with the man from this place (I will call him “half pint”) when one of the first things he asked me when I talked to him in January was “are you married?” I have learned that I just need to lie and say yes in hopes that it will squash the possibility of future discussion of the topic. The problem is that you can tell men you are married, but that isn’t good enough. They need to see your spouse as a conjoined twin at your side, like some warped TLC special, in order to leave you alone. Half Pint attempts to flirt with me each time I go to discuss conference logistics, making me want to shove his stubby tie halfway down the paper shredder in the corner of the office so he can sit there and think about what he’s done.
I went to stay at a friend’s house the other week in an attempt to get more accomplished and in the morning, as I was walking out to the road, I flagged down a chapa to take me to the center of the city. Well, lo and behold, Half Pint was behind the wheel of an SUV directly behind the chapa. He waved for me to come so he could give me a ride. I couldn’t say “oh no, thank you. I much prefer this smelly, dilapidated excuse for public transportation.” So I hopped in with my belongings strapped to my back. The bulk of the conversation went like this.
Half Pint: “I like you a lot.”
Me: “Is that a soccer field over there?”
Half Pint: “When I think about you, I feel frightened by how much I like you.”
Me: “Sporting is a Nampula team? Or is it Benfica? Or are they both?”
Half Pint: “Fright. I don’t know why. Strange, isn’t it?”
Me: “Soccer is a good sport.”
Half Pint: “I like you a lot. We should have dinner the next time you are in the city.”
Me: “I am married.”
Half Pint: “I sense that you are bothered when I talk about how I feel for you.”
Me: “I am married.”
Half Pint: “We should have dinner.”
Me: “I eat dinner with my friends when I’m in the city.”
Half Pint: “You are bothered?”
Me: “Yes.”
Yes, Half Pint is a true Encyclopedia Brown of female emotions. I feel like the closest I could come to him understanding that I don’t like him is by punching him in the face, and outweighing him by a good 50 lbs., I am fairly certain a sneeze would suffice in steamrolling the little feller. I just have to put up with it for another month. Until then, he isn’t charging me for the use of the microphones and sound system.
Speaking of dogs, Timba got his rabies vaccination. So if he bites a thief and they start foaming at the mouth, I can wave a piece of paper in their face and say it must have been something they ate. I was relieved to find out that it wasn’t our town veterinarian but a veterinary technician who was available. The man had gin on his breath but hey, he was a dapper gentleman in comparison with the other guy. I had to pin Timba to the ground while he shot the dog up. I couldn’t plaster the little guy down the whole time and he got up, snarling at the tech. I always love getting a front row seat to Mozambican men yelping like little girls. The man picked up his feet and ran like a collegiate marching band’s half-time show to our front gate and I had to talk to him through the door to have him drop off the paperwork later. Part of the injection ended up on the ground, which the dog promptly lapped up. This is Africa. Waste not. Want not.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Hell Hath No Fury
I was sitting on my front veranda, relaxing after an afternoon of teaching, when my peaceful silence was upset by a ruckus. That's right. A ruckus. The primary school children won't give a moment's peace; particularly when Timba is outside. They tend to bark at him, throw rocks at him and generally taunt him with their presence. They yell "succa!" at him, meaning "go away," but in a rude manner, even though he is clearly in the boundaries of the fence and they would likely prefer that he stay in the fence, given their ungodly fear of all canines. Well, I looked up and saw a gaggle of children taunting him and then running back to the school. They were repeating this over and over again, like those little birds who have nothing better to do but come out of cuckoo clocks. Except these little birds were like the Pauly Shore birds of the cuckoo clock world. Don't get me wrong though. I loved Son-in-Law.
I had enough. I picked up my things, got my bag and keys and headed out the front door to the fence. I looked around in my bag for a moment, like I was prepping for a market run. My acting skills worked. I didn't look at all on a mission as I walked leisurely toward the school. I might have swung my arms more to look to be walking leisurely, now that I think about it. As I walked toward the group of children, the jig was up and they fled like Godzilla was clomping down the dirt path after them. It was that running-while-looking-over-the-shoulder-with-fear-in-your-eyes type of flight. And I'll admit - it was kind of satisfying. I tracked a couple of the fugitives to their hiding place in a classroom, where they were trying to casually blend in with the innocents. Au contraire. If you choose to harass a neighbor's dog, make sure you aren't the only ones wearing non-uniform clothing. They just sat there by their bookbags, as if they had been sitting there, casually chatting up their classmates and discussing the turning point in the economic climates of the United States and Japan.
As soon as I entered the classroom, which unsurprisingly was unchaperoned by a teacher, the kids started screaming. I am fairly certain that the two girls didn't think I would recognize them. I spotted them and grabbed their arms to take them outside. Immediately, one of the girls goes Helen Keller, pre-Ann Sullivan, on me, flipping out and crying and flailing her free arm. An almost immediate sign of guilt and angry denial. I took them outside, followed by every child in the classroom and we were quickly surrounded by what appeared to be every child in the school. There were no classes being held as a result of teachers not showing up, so I, the white girl about three feet taller than everyone within 100 meters, was the main source of entertainment. I think the girls thought I was leading them to the jail that is right next door because they started to drift in that direction. I corrected them and steered them toward the school office. For a moment though, I thought it would have been very interesting. I should make friends with a jailer and then lead the children to the jail to have them sit in a cell for ten minutes. Give them some time to think about what they've done. Deny them their one phone call.
The amazing part is that the girls actually came with me and didn't put up too big of a fight as I marched them out of their classroom and to the school office. If I were a horrible child, I would have laid down and had to have been dragged out, suffragette style. We were surrounded by a swarm of children. One little boy I know said "Irene! What did they do?" But he didn't say it in an "Ah, eegats, Senhora Professora, what did these innocent young whippersnappers do? It couldn't have possibly been that dreadful. You going to the clam bake next weekend?" kind of way. It was a teeth-gnashing, eyes red with the desire for blood kind of "sick 'em" you might see in lynch mobs. When I got to the office, it was closed and no one was there. I looked around and there was only one teacher in school and they weren't even teaching. Again, no surprise. So I turned the girls over to the proper authorities at the school, asked them to inform their students to leave our house alone, and then bid him a stern adieu. It was all very classy. Very Anne of Green Gables "your cow got loose in my pasture."
I never got so many respectful "boa tardes" in my life though as I walked past the school again on my way back from the market. There were groups of children standing around and as they saw me, pointed at me and continued talking in hushed whispers. Ah yes. All of Monapo probably knew about the episode within the hour. But at least now the children at the primary school know that if you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Or at least you run a high risk of me recognizing you and dragging you to the director's office to be given the punishment of cleaning out the school latrines. Personally, I'd much rather get the horns.
I was walking down the street the other day and a drunk man walked up to me. "Hello! You need to get your dog vaccinated! And you have to marry a Mozambican." I'm guessing in that order. This scholar and gentleman was referring to my dog's booster rabies shot. He is due for it in March. I think that the only way this man knew about my dog's vaccination history was that he is friends with the creepiest veterinarian alive. I went last year to get Timba his rabies shot and I had to talk my way out of getting beers with the vet with my own money. And that was before he called me his pita in front of a large group of people.
I will remind you, faithful readers, that a pita, here in Mozambique, is not a delicious sandwich bread that you stuff with an assortment of meats and salads. It is someone you have sex with at your leisure - a quasi-lady of the night, if you will. At that time, I just walked away quickly and ignored the comment. As of late, I have been unable to ignore this comment. Men around here just seem to think that it's a name you can shout out like Bingo on a Tuesday night. I was walking home from school the other day and a guy shouted "pita" at me as if he was calling for his lost dog. And yes, he did whistle. I wasn't appealing in any way, shape or form. I was wearing a bata, the equivalent of a white lab coat, hadn't showered in 48 hours, and was sweating so much, you could have set pots under my forehead to save water for the next dry spell. The next day, I'd had it. I walked past a carpenter's shop and a man called out the magic name. I promptly turned around and flicked him off. I have never flicked anyone off out of anger before and to be honest, it was exhilarating. There's only so much harassment one can take.
I just bought a sewing machine for my girls group and we are going to begin sewing lessons next week. I am becoming more and more busy as the year is progressing. I am starting a school newspaper and between that, juggling my girls group, planning the girls' conference in the city and my library project, I am beginning to talk to myself. That may be the first sign of insanity but hey, at least I'm never lonely. Everything moves at an anvil's pace here. For example, my counterpart for the library project has had to make three separate trips into the city to get the right documents so she can open a joint bank account with me. She had documentation before but the bank informed us that the documents were only good enough to open an individual account. This is an anvil with a heck of a lot of red tape on it. Some people get used to it. I, however, still complain bitterly about it in private every few days.
I had enough. I picked up my things, got my bag and keys and headed out the front door to the fence. I looked around in my bag for a moment, like I was prepping for a market run. My acting skills worked. I didn't look at all on a mission as I walked leisurely toward the school. I might have swung my arms more to look to be walking leisurely, now that I think about it. As I walked toward the group of children, the jig was up and they fled like Godzilla was clomping down the dirt path after them. It was that running-while-looking-over-the-shoulder-with-fear-in-your-eyes type of flight. And I'll admit - it was kind of satisfying. I tracked a couple of the fugitives to their hiding place in a classroom, where they were trying to casually blend in with the innocents. Au contraire. If you choose to harass a neighbor's dog, make sure you aren't the only ones wearing non-uniform clothing. They just sat there by their bookbags, as if they had been sitting there, casually chatting up their classmates and discussing the turning point in the economic climates of the United States and Japan.
As soon as I entered the classroom, which unsurprisingly was unchaperoned by a teacher, the kids started screaming. I am fairly certain that the two girls didn't think I would recognize them. I spotted them and grabbed their arms to take them outside. Immediately, one of the girls goes Helen Keller, pre-Ann Sullivan, on me, flipping out and crying and flailing her free arm. An almost immediate sign of guilt and angry denial. I took them outside, followed by every child in the classroom and we were quickly surrounded by what appeared to be every child in the school. There were no classes being held as a result of teachers not showing up, so I, the white girl about three feet taller than everyone within 100 meters, was the main source of entertainment. I think the girls thought I was leading them to the jail that is right next door because they started to drift in that direction. I corrected them and steered them toward the school office. For a moment though, I thought it would have been very interesting. I should make friends with a jailer and then lead the children to the jail to have them sit in a cell for ten minutes. Give them some time to think about what they've done. Deny them their one phone call.
The amazing part is that the girls actually came with me and didn't put up too big of a fight as I marched them out of their classroom and to the school office. If I were a horrible child, I would have laid down and had to have been dragged out, suffragette style. We were surrounded by a swarm of children. One little boy I know said "Irene! What did they do?" But he didn't say it in an "Ah, eegats, Senhora Professora, what did these innocent young whippersnappers do? It couldn't have possibly been that dreadful. You going to the clam bake next weekend?" kind of way. It was a teeth-gnashing, eyes red with the desire for blood kind of "sick 'em" you might see in lynch mobs. When I got to the office, it was closed and no one was there. I looked around and there was only one teacher in school and they weren't even teaching. Again, no surprise. So I turned the girls over to the proper authorities at the school, asked them to inform their students to leave our house alone, and then bid him a stern adieu. It was all very classy. Very Anne of Green Gables "your cow got loose in my pasture."
I never got so many respectful "boa tardes" in my life though as I walked past the school again on my way back from the market. There were groups of children standing around and as they saw me, pointed at me and continued talking in hushed whispers. Ah yes. All of Monapo probably knew about the episode within the hour. But at least now the children at the primary school know that if you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Or at least you run a high risk of me recognizing you and dragging you to the director's office to be given the punishment of cleaning out the school latrines. Personally, I'd much rather get the horns.
I was walking down the street the other day and a drunk man walked up to me. "Hello! You need to get your dog vaccinated! And you have to marry a Mozambican." I'm guessing in that order. This scholar and gentleman was referring to my dog's booster rabies shot. He is due for it in March. I think that the only way this man knew about my dog's vaccination history was that he is friends with the creepiest veterinarian alive. I went last year to get Timba his rabies shot and I had to talk my way out of getting beers with the vet with my own money. And that was before he called me his pita in front of a large group of people.
I will remind you, faithful readers, that a pita, here in Mozambique, is not a delicious sandwich bread that you stuff with an assortment of meats and salads. It is someone you have sex with at your leisure - a quasi-lady of the night, if you will. At that time, I just walked away quickly and ignored the comment. As of late, I have been unable to ignore this comment. Men around here just seem to think that it's a name you can shout out like Bingo on a Tuesday night. I was walking home from school the other day and a guy shouted "pita" at me as if he was calling for his lost dog. And yes, he did whistle. I wasn't appealing in any way, shape or form. I was wearing a bata, the equivalent of a white lab coat, hadn't showered in 48 hours, and was sweating so much, you could have set pots under my forehead to save water for the next dry spell. The next day, I'd had it. I walked past a carpenter's shop and a man called out the magic name. I promptly turned around and flicked him off. I have never flicked anyone off out of anger before and to be honest, it was exhilarating. There's only so much harassment one can take.
I just bought a sewing machine for my girls group and we are going to begin sewing lessons next week. I am becoming more and more busy as the year is progressing. I am starting a school newspaper and between that, juggling my girls group, planning the girls' conference in the city and my library project, I am beginning to talk to myself. That may be the first sign of insanity but hey, at least I'm never lonely. Everything moves at an anvil's pace here. For example, my counterpart for the library project has had to make three separate trips into the city to get the right documents so she can open a joint bank account with me. She had documentation before but the bank informed us that the documents were only good enough to open an individual account. This is an anvil with a heck of a lot of red tape on it. Some people get used to it. I, however, still complain bitterly about it in private every few days.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Thank you, Mr. Pasteur
We are back in Monapo, putting our nose right back to that grindstone in the state we left it in. School started the other week and I am playing fast and loose with the term "start." Technically, no one shows up for the first week of the year because the school has administrative issues to handle. Then, the second week, no one comes because let's face it, it's just not cool to show up that week. You don't want to look too eager - too overzealous cheerleader from Grease. Then, we find ourselves in the third week of the year. The trimester only has nine weeks in it. And the last two weeks are quite similar to the first few weeks. So you can just imagine how the level of productivity is nowhere close to that of the Keebler Elves. I always loved that commercial. Those little elves...working in a tree...with cookies...So easily confused with Snap, Crackle and Pop, the Rice Krispies sweatshop laborers. But I digress...
We had a new fence built, made entirely out of bamboo. The old one fell down while we were on vacation because of the torrential downpours. The only thing weaker than the structure of the fence itself was the work ethic of the students who built it for us. The fence was important for a number of reasons. We have goats that wander into our yard. Children from the school like to antagonize the dog and stand there and stare at us. It's a far more daunting task to brush your teeth in the morning when you have an audience. I struggle from performance anxiety with all the pressure and as we all know, a thorough brushing is always in order. Well, those children are a tour de force. They have been constantly throwing rocks at the dog, barking at him and stealing bamboo from our fence. Bamboozlers. If these children were in the states, they would have monkey leashes on them. Trust me. If you heard "how ah you!?" about 15 times a day and then see eyes peaking through the fence at you when you are hanging up underwear on the clothesline, you would also feel the urge to hurl a few expletives in English.
My dog is good. And by good, I mean he bit me. I was on the phone with my parents a few Sundays ago and he didn't want to come inside when I called. When I grabbed his leg, he pulled and I held on. Well, apparently it hurt him to pull away and he bit my palm, leaving a bloody puncture/gash. There were Mozambicans standing around watching and here I was, standing with blood dripping off of one hand and my phone in the other: multi-tasking at its worst. Good thing he got his rabies shot a while back. According to Ms. Manners, foaming at the mouth is not very becoming of a lady. At least seeing that the owner's dog even bites the owner is a good theft deterrent. I should have started screaming "Ele esta vicioso! Esta vicioso, eu digo!" (He is vicious! He is vicious, I say!") Then collapse to the ground in convulsions. I am just curious to see if my fifth grade forensics talent was just a fluke or if I should shirk the Peace Corps and move to L.A. My spider senses are telling me that it wouldn't be such a good idea.
My dog has gotten gigantic since I've been gone and more unruly. He is so ill-mannered that it's difficult to train him or even take him on walks. I tell him to come and he walks away. I tell him to sit and he licks himself. At least he's meeting me halfway on the sit. He has the attention span on a peanut. So far, he only knows "sit" and "act like a jerk." He broke his second choke collar. Second! I had to bribe him to come back to me by sprinkling saltines on the ground in front of me. Very Hansel and Gretel. I think he is going to grow tired of the saltines, so then I'll have to buy lemon cookies for him. And then he'll grow tired of those and I'll have to buy him hard-boiled eggs. At that point, I might as well start a college fund for him with all the money put toward bribes. I would palm him a 50 but his lack of opposable thumbs would make that transaction seem downright inhumane.
The other day, I was washing dishes in the back room of the house and I saw a little girl watching the dog through the fence. In one hand, she had her shoe, posed in prime shoe-throwing position. I called out for her to leave the dog alone because he was in the fence and wouldn't bother her. Well, who was I to know there was a hole in the fence? He ran out and misinterpreted her attention as playtime. He wasn't doing anything to her but existing and she threw her shoe at him. I walk out to the front of the house and she is standing there alone.
"He took my shoe."
Yep, she threw her shoe and Timba thought she was showering him with gifts. He picked it up, ran over to the shade of the police station bathroom and promptly began to gnaw on it. When I shook a bag of bread crumbs at him and shouted his name, he came running, leaving the little girl to hunt for her shoe for the next 15 minutes. Well, if you throw your shoe, you have to know that there is a chance you aren't going to get it back. Cause and effect, my dear.
School is going fine so far. I am teaching ninth grade this year, following most of my students from last year. I have all of my students who passed and my roommate's students who didn't pass. It's good seeing them all again after break. It's amazing how different they look. Apparently, I look different too. I was waiting for the obvious "teacher, you got fat!" and have them point out my skin's reaction to the abrupt changes in climate it has endured over the past two months. It's those everyday jabs I've grown accustomed to. However, I wasn't expecting "you got really white." I wasn't sure how to respond to that one. A short "sure did" and a shrug seemed to do the trick.
We have been helping at school a little bit. My roommate has a computer program to make schedules and is a master at it, so she did the teachers' schedules for the school with my occasional help. As a result, we had dibs on which times we'd teach at. We got out of teaching at night again. It's creepy to walk alone at night. Sure, I have an airhorn, pepperspray and a mean upper-cut thanks to my past interest in Tae Bo, but I could do without that discomfort of walking in the dark by myself.
Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's and a rip-roarin' Presidents' Day. I'm heading to the ocean later for the weekend for my birthday to hang out with friends. I promise to update this more often, Girl Scout's honor. I only made it to Junior status in the scouts until I submitted my resignation, but I like to think I can still lay claim. In all honesty, I only wanted to be a Junior so I could get that leprechaun-green vest. Juliette Low would be proud.
We had a new fence built, made entirely out of bamboo. The old one fell down while we were on vacation because of the torrential downpours. The only thing weaker than the structure of the fence itself was the work ethic of the students who built it for us. The fence was important for a number of reasons. We have goats that wander into our yard. Children from the school like to antagonize the dog and stand there and stare at us. It's a far more daunting task to brush your teeth in the morning when you have an audience. I struggle from performance anxiety with all the pressure and as we all know, a thorough brushing is always in order. Well, those children are a tour de force. They have been constantly throwing rocks at the dog, barking at him and stealing bamboo from our fence. Bamboozlers. If these children were in the states, they would have monkey leashes on them. Trust me. If you heard "how ah you!?" about 15 times a day and then see eyes peaking through the fence at you when you are hanging up underwear on the clothesline, you would also feel the urge to hurl a few expletives in English.
My dog is good. And by good, I mean he bit me. I was on the phone with my parents a few Sundays ago and he didn't want to come inside when I called. When I grabbed his leg, he pulled and I held on. Well, apparently it hurt him to pull away and he bit my palm, leaving a bloody puncture/gash. There were Mozambicans standing around watching and here I was, standing with blood dripping off of one hand and my phone in the other: multi-tasking at its worst. Good thing he got his rabies shot a while back. According to Ms. Manners, foaming at the mouth is not very becoming of a lady. At least seeing that the owner's dog even bites the owner is a good theft deterrent. I should have started screaming "Ele esta vicioso! Esta vicioso, eu digo!" (He is vicious! He is vicious, I say!") Then collapse to the ground in convulsions. I am just curious to see if my fifth grade forensics talent was just a fluke or if I should shirk the Peace Corps and move to L.A. My spider senses are telling me that it wouldn't be such a good idea.
My dog has gotten gigantic since I've been gone and more unruly. He is so ill-mannered that it's difficult to train him or even take him on walks. I tell him to come and he walks away. I tell him to sit and he licks himself. At least he's meeting me halfway on the sit. He has the attention span on a peanut. So far, he only knows "sit" and "act like a jerk." He broke his second choke collar. Second! I had to bribe him to come back to me by sprinkling saltines on the ground in front of me. Very Hansel and Gretel. I think he is going to grow tired of the saltines, so then I'll have to buy lemon cookies for him. And then he'll grow tired of those and I'll have to buy him hard-boiled eggs. At that point, I might as well start a college fund for him with all the money put toward bribes. I would palm him a 50 but his lack of opposable thumbs would make that transaction seem downright inhumane.
The other day, I was washing dishes in the back room of the house and I saw a little girl watching the dog through the fence. In one hand, she had her shoe, posed in prime shoe-throwing position. I called out for her to leave the dog alone because he was in the fence and wouldn't bother her. Well, who was I to know there was a hole in the fence? He ran out and misinterpreted her attention as playtime. He wasn't doing anything to her but existing and she threw her shoe at him. I walk out to the front of the house and she is standing there alone.
"He took my shoe."
Yep, she threw her shoe and Timba thought she was showering him with gifts. He picked it up, ran over to the shade of the police station bathroom and promptly began to gnaw on it. When I shook a bag of bread crumbs at him and shouted his name, he came running, leaving the little girl to hunt for her shoe for the next 15 minutes. Well, if you throw your shoe, you have to know that there is a chance you aren't going to get it back. Cause and effect, my dear.
School is going fine so far. I am teaching ninth grade this year, following most of my students from last year. I have all of my students who passed and my roommate's students who didn't pass. It's good seeing them all again after break. It's amazing how different they look. Apparently, I look different too. I was waiting for the obvious "teacher, you got fat!" and have them point out my skin's reaction to the abrupt changes in climate it has endured over the past two months. It's those everyday jabs I've grown accustomed to. However, I wasn't expecting "you got really white." I wasn't sure how to respond to that one. A short "sure did" and a shrug seemed to do the trick.
We have been helping at school a little bit. My roommate has a computer program to make schedules and is a master at it, so she did the teachers' schedules for the school with my occasional help. As a result, we had dibs on which times we'd teach at. We got out of teaching at night again. It's creepy to walk alone at night. Sure, I have an airhorn, pepperspray and a mean upper-cut thanks to my past interest in Tae Bo, but I could do without that discomfort of walking in the dark by myself.
Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's and a rip-roarin' Presidents' Day. I'm heading to the ocean later for the weekend for my birthday to hang out with friends. I promise to update this more often, Girl Scout's honor. I only made it to Junior status in the scouts until I submitted my resignation, but I like to think I can still lay claim. In all honesty, I only wanted to be a Junior so I could get that leprechaun-green vest. Juliette Low would be proud.
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