Upon completing my first year of school I was feeling oddly…unimpressed. I had completed some of my year end goals, and in fact was still working on my last one, the school journal. But the end of the year seemed to come out of nowhere. How would I mark the occasion? I figured that a fun lesson involving the free flow of stickers would lead to some entertaining antics.
The lesson was simple: I wrote what was essentially the final exam up on the board and we would fill it in together. I would give stickers for any correct or semi-correct answer. Was their thirst for stickers was quenched I would leave a hero.
But once they realized that stickers would be happening with more or less reckless abandon their incentive to stay focused and attentive dissolved. Once the seed of chaos is sown in a room full of preteens it is all but impossible to expunge it. It spread like a flame. They were running up to the board, oblivious to my demands of quiet hand-raising, grasping for chalk to scribble some approximation of English on some random patch of blackboard to feed their addiction to stickers. Seeing order running away like a freight train I boomed for order, commanded the kids to their desks and for a moment it looked as if everything would be ok.
But Durao, the elected class leader, made a break for the board. I told him to sit down but he ignored me and started writing. The class fell quiet as they watched to see what I would do in the face of such open disobedience.
When I put Durao in a headlock the class exploded into a frenzy. All hope was lost; the students leapt from their seats, grasped the stickers from my hand and generally did whatever they wanted. Durao struggled to get free, but my godlike teacher strength held him there as the only proof of my (former) position of dominion over the class.
I don’t know where my stickers went. There is nothing more wild than the uncontrolled, sugar driven frenzy of young people, and it never ceases to entertain me. Happy one year Colin Jones.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
English Theatre
This year I had several projects that I wanted to accomplish. First was my English group for my colleagues, which I saw a natural precursor to a community English group. It failed. My colleagues failed to show up reliably, or eventually at all, and I failed to plan my lessons, hoping that I could go in shooting from the hip. I was wrong. The project sunk in about two months.
My second two projects were directed at the students in my school. I will now tell the tale of my first successful project in the Peace Corps.
English Theatre is a competition started and managed by Peace Corps Volunteers. Spread throughout the country there are three regional competitions, each with about ten groups of more or less ten students each. We heard about this in March at a conference we attended, and since then I decided that this would be perfect for me. My school is a professional school, one of those professions being Hotel and Tourism, and what could be a more useful skill than English in that industry? Mozambique is literally surrounded by English speaking countries, and you can bet with certainty that all of the tourists that come here to spend money are English speakers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, America and so forth. English Theatre would be a fantastic opportunity to practice English with a motivated group of students while doing something fun. Theatre is deeply rooted in Mozambican culture, it was a perfect match.
Now even better, a group of students approached me. Here I was thinking I would somehow have to scrounge up a group of students and one falls into my lap! They had heard about ET (English Theatre for you citizens) from the year before—the volunteer I replaced had done it as well—and decided that they wanted to do it. I accepted, certain that I had a motivated group that was anxious to get started. We celebrated by playing some Mozambican games, singing songs and dancing. It was awesome.
And I planned WAY in advance. This group was not to fail. I set two days a week to practice, and we would only speak English during practice hours. Sure, it would be hard at first, but they would be forced to learn and adapt. They would be my cadre of English speakers. Then after some practice we would write a script. Somehow.
But despite our biweekly planned meetings the students simply would not show up. About half the group would show up on any given time. I would inform them the day before, during class and every other opportunity. They would always respond, “yes teacher I will be there,” but hardly ever would be. After several absences I would ask the student if they wanted to continue in the group: “Yes, yes Teacher, I will be there tomorrow.” Then they wouldn’t be.
Now I should say that at any meeting about half the group would be there. Nadia, the queen bee, always showed up. She was the unofficial boss of our group, almost as tall as me, with a huge voice and domineering personality. She does not hesitate to criticize me in any way she sees fit and bosses everyone around, myself included. Nadia’s clique, under her constant leadership, would also always attend.
But of course they wouldn’t memorize their lines. All they wanted to do was play games, sing songs and dance. I don’t even think they really understood them for the first weeks of the process, which was strange because wouldn’t they want to know if they were spreading AIDS awareness or if I had them memorizing instruction manuals? Three weeks until the competition and they weren’t even close. Two weeks came and I was legitimately worried.
“Teacher Colin, don’t worry. The week before the competition we’ll really practice. It’s all good,” they would say again and again. But the students still weren’t coming to practice. I started feeling like I had done something wrong. Maybe it wasn’t structured enough, maybe they didn’t respect me. I had started planning so far in advance and now I was staring failure in the face, and I didn’t feel that there was anything I could do about it.
So I told them, four days from the competition when they still hadn’t come anywhere near memorizing the lines, that I didn’t know if we were going to succeed. I wasn’t angry at that them, I even told them that I liked them and wasn’t mad. Just that I was worried that if they hadn’t memorized their lines, hadn’t been showing up to practice, that maybe it was too late. It had a sobering effect, “Jeez Teacher Colin. You didn’t have to say it like that,” Nadia said to me.
But it had the desired effect, and they really started giving it serious attention. It was clear that they weren’t going to memorize their lines, so I told them to improvise. Who cares if the English is bad? Just make it work, became my new ideal. They stopped playing games and singing songs and dancing and practiced every day, and everyone finally showed up. On the last day of rehearsal they were still quite weak on their lines, but the improvement was vast. We wouldn’t be the belles of the ball, but at least they would go out there and do it, and that’s what counted.
I had arranged for a private car to take us to Massinga where the competition was to take place. It’s about a four hour drive, and we had to arrive before eight am, which means leaving at the unfortunate hour of 3:30 am.
“Don’t be late!” I lectured them, “3:30 does NOT mean you are going to leave your houses at 3:30. It means you will be there at exactly 3:30. Not 3:35, not 3:45, but 3:30. Do we understand?” They groaned, but punctuality had not been a strong suit of theirs up to that point, and this was something they couldn’t be late for.
That night before bed I was nervous and excited. I just wanted the kids to do ok. I didn’t care if all of their lines were straight, or if their pronunciation was good, I just didn’t want them to embarrass themselves. On my way to bed the bar behind my house was blasting music so I put my earplugs in. After all, I’d need my sleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night. I knew I had to get up at 3:30, so I checked my watch to see if I could squeeze in another hour or two of sleep.
3:52.
Nothing makes you feel more awake then waking up late. I leapt up with an adrenaline jolt. I scrambled for my phone and called one of the students.
“Teacher Colin, where are you?! We are all here and we are waiting for you!”
“I’m on my way! Tell the car to come to my house!”
I packed my bag as fast as I could and ran out the door, sweating and guilty. I had given them an earful about punctuality. I had put my earplugs in, what a stupid thing to do! I felt awful. The car was out front. I through my bags in and immediately started to apologize, when Nadia interrupted:
“Teacher Colin, we want to give an oration”
I use the word “oration” because she used the word “oração,” the equivalent word in Portuguese. An oration? What did she mean? Had they prepared a speech to chew me out for being late after I had given them so much heat the day before? I froze.
And then they joined hands and said the Our Father, and the Hail Mary. An oration.
Then they started singing. We pulled out of our town in the middle of the night, the students singing in chorus in languages I could never hope to understand. And call me corny, but it was joyous, and I could have listened to it the whole four hours there, I was so grateful to be with them. Thirty minutes later we were all asleep.
We bleary eyed, just one of eleven other groups flooding into the courtyard of the tiny university in Massinga. In classic fashion my group immediately formed a circle and started playing games, singing songs and dancing. They were making a ruckus, but I noticed that out of all of the groups, and the over one hundred students from different parts of the country, that my group was the only group that was playing games, singing songs and dancing. Shamelessly, almost obnoxiously they danced and sang, completely unprovoked. I even joined in, which I normally felt that I couldn’t do as the responsible adult. And it all made me love them.
We were one of the last groups to go, and as our time approached I could tell that my students were nervous. I shot down a dozen last minute panicky changes, and reassured them that they would be fine. And I really wanted them to be fine. Just to not embarrass themselves. I didn’t care that they hadn’t shown up, that they hadn’t put in the hours. I just wanted them to have some fun. As I sat there pale-faced rubbing my sweaty palms on my pants one of my buddies said that I had “stage dad” syndrome.
And they went up and performed. They did great. Yes, they forgot a lot of lines and had to limp through some scenes using faulty improvisation, but all in all it was fine. I was so relieved, and as they left the stage I ran up to them to ask how they felt.
But they didn’t feel good. I could tell they were a little shaken, and a couple students even told me that they didn’t do as well as they hoped. I was crushed. But I patted their backs and said “what’s a line here or there? The important thing is that we understood.” And the crowd had understood. It had gone fine, but I couldn’t stand the thought of them feeling like they had failed.
All of the participants got a gift bag with t shirts, English-Portuguese dictionaries and some school supplies, but there was also an awards ceremony for the top three groups, best actor overall and best actress overall. I sat with my group and I could tell they were already feeling better. We joked around and I relaxed. I loved these kids. I was pissed that it had taken me this long to appreciate it, but happy as a clam all the same.
And as the awards were announced I zoned out. So I was more than a little surprised when my group leapt up and started screaming. We had won first place. The cherry on top was our leading girl had won best actress as well. The elation is hard to describe.
If I thought they had danced and sang before it was nothing compared to after winning first place. “We told you everything was fine teacher Colin!!” Nadia screamed at me, dragging me into the group. Louder than ever they played games, sang songs at the top of their lungs and danced with every fiber of their bodies. And I did, too. Call me corny, but I felt just about as happy as I could hope to feel.
On the ride back they sang until their voices were hoarse. “Teacher Colin was worried we weren’t going to succeed” they ribbed me the whole way home. We joked and laughed and they complained about how they were hungry and I bought them all food. “Stage dad” syndrome made me feel vulnerable, and I think they knew it. They saw how nervous I was, and it brought us closer together.
Was it right that they had been so unprepared and still won? What was the life lesson being learned with this victory? I put those questions away—it was better just to enjoy it.
When I said goodbye to them I realized that at the end of the year almost all of them would be graduating. These students had been with me my whole first year, and I might not see some of them again. Thinking about how well I had gotten to know them made me realize how long I had been here, and just how far I had come in my first year as a volunteer. I told them that they were a special group, that I had had fun with them, and that I was proud of them. And I was.
My second two projects were directed at the students in my school. I will now tell the tale of my first successful project in the Peace Corps.
English Theatre is a competition started and managed by Peace Corps Volunteers. Spread throughout the country there are three regional competitions, each with about ten groups of more or less ten students each. We heard about this in March at a conference we attended, and since then I decided that this would be perfect for me. My school is a professional school, one of those professions being Hotel and Tourism, and what could be a more useful skill than English in that industry? Mozambique is literally surrounded by English speaking countries, and you can bet with certainty that all of the tourists that come here to spend money are English speakers from South Africa, Zimbabwe, America and so forth. English Theatre would be a fantastic opportunity to practice English with a motivated group of students while doing something fun. Theatre is deeply rooted in Mozambican culture, it was a perfect match.
Now even better, a group of students approached me. Here I was thinking I would somehow have to scrounge up a group of students and one falls into my lap! They had heard about ET (English Theatre for you citizens) from the year before—the volunteer I replaced had done it as well—and decided that they wanted to do it. I accepted, certain that I had a motivated group that was anxious to get started. We celebrated by playing some Mozambican games, singing songs and dancing. It was awesome.
And I planned WAY in advance. This group was not to fail. I set two days a week to practice, and we would only speak English during practice hours. Sure, it would be hard at first, but they would be forced to learn and adapt. They would be my cadre of English speakers. Then after some practice we would write a script. Somehow.
But despite our biweekly planned meetings the students simply would not show up. About half the group would show up on any given time. I would inform them the day before, during class and every other opportunity. They would always respond, “yes teacher I will be there,” but hardly ever would be. After several absences I would ask the student if they wanted to continue in the group: “Yes, yes Teacher, I will be there tomorrow.” Then they wouldn’t be.
Now I should say that at any meeting about half the group would be there. Nadia, the queen bee, always showed up. She was the unofficial boss of our group, almost as tall as me, with a huge voice and domineering personality. She does not hesitate to criticize me in any way she sees fit and bosses everyone around, myself included. Nadia’s clique, under her constant leadership, would also always attend.
But of course they wouldn’t memorize their lines. All they wanted to do was play games, sing songs and dance. I don’t even think they really understood them for the first weeks of the process, which was strange because wouldn’t they want to know if they were spreading AIDS awareness or if I had them memorizing instruction manuals? Three weeks until the competition and they weren’t even close. Two weeks came and I was legitimately worried.
“Teacher Colin, don’t worry. The week before the competition we’ll really practice. It’s all good,” they would say again and again. But the students still weren’t coming to practice. I started feeling like I had done something wrong. Maybe it wasn’t structured enough, maybe they didn’t respect me. I had started planning so far in advance and now I was staring failure in the face, and I didn’t feel that there was anything I could do about it.
So I told them, four days from the competition when they still hadn’t come anywhere near memorizing the lines, that I didn’t know if we were going to succeed. I wasn’t angry at that them, I even told them that I liked them and wasn’t mad. Just that I was worried that if they hadn’t memorized their lines, hadn’t been showing up to practice, that maybe it was too late. It had a sobering effect, “Jeez Teacher Colin. You didn’t have to say it like that,” Nadia said to me.
But it had the desired effect, and they really started giving it serious attention. It was clear that they weren’t going to memorize their lines, so I told them to improvise. Who cares if the English is bad? Just make it work, became my new ideal. They stopped playing games and singing songs and dancing and practiced every day, and everyone finally showed up. On the last day of rehearsal they were still quite weak on their lines, but the improvement was vast. We wouldn’t be the belles of the ball, but at least they would go out there and do it, and that’s what counted.
I had arranged for a private car to take us to Massinga where the competition was to take place. It’s about a four hour drive, and we had to arrive before eight am, which means leaving at the unfortunate hour of 3:30 am.
“Don’t be late!” I lectured them, “3:30 does NOT mean you are going to leave your houses at 3:30. It means you will be there at exactly 3:30. Not 3:35, not 3:45, but 3:30. Do we understand?” They groaned, but punctuality had not been a strong suit of theirs up to that point, and this was something they couldn’t be late for.
That night before bed I was nervous and excited. I just wanted the kids to do ok. I didn’t care if all of their lines were straight, or if their pronunciation was good, I just didn’t want them to embarrass themselves. On my way to bed the bar behind my house was blasting music so I put my earplugs in. After all, I’d need my sleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night. I knew I had to get up at 3:30, so I checked my watch to see if I could squeeze in another hour or two of sleep.
3:52.
Nothing makes you feel more awake then waking up late. I leapt up with an adrenaline jolt. I scrambled for my phone and called one of the students.
“Teacher Colin, where are you?! We are all here and we are waiting for you!”
“I’m on my way! Tell the car to come to my house!”
I packed my bag as fast as I could and ran out the door, sweating and guilty. I had given them an earful about punctuality. I had put my earplugs in, what a stupid thing to do! I felt awful. The car was out front. I through my bags in and immediately started to apologize, when Nadia interrupted:
“Teacher Colin, we want to give an oration”
I use the word “oration” because she used the word “oração,” the equivalent word in Portuguese. An oration? What did she mean? Had they prepared a speech to chew me out for being late after I had given them so much heat the day before? I froze.
And then they joined hands and said the Our Father, and the Hail Mary. An oration.
Then they started singing. We pulled out of our town in the middle of the night, the students singing in chorus in languages I could never hope to understand. And call me corny, but it was joyous, and I could have listened to it the whole four hours there, I was so grateful to be with them. Thirty minutes later we were all asleep.
We bleary eyed, just one of eleven other groups flooding into the courtyard of the tiny university in Massinga. In classic fashion my group immediately formed a circle and started playing games, singing songs and dancing. They were making a ruckus, but I noticed that out of all of the groups, and the over one hundred students from different parts of the country, that my group was the only group that was playing games, singing songs and dancing. Shamelessly, almost obnoxiously they danced and sang, completely unprovoked. I even joined in, which I normally felt that I couldn’t do as the responsible adult. And it all made me love them.
We were one of the last groups to go, and as our time approached I could tell that my students were nervous. I shot down a dozen last minute panicky changes, and reassured them that they would be fine. And I really wanted them to be fine. Just to not embarrass themselves. I didn’t care that they hadn’t shown up, that they hadn’t put in the hours. I just wanted them to have some fun. As I sat there pale-faced rubbing my sweaty palms on my pants one of my buddies said that I had “stage dad” syndrome.
And they went up and performed. They did great. Yes, they forgot a lot of lines and had to limp through some scenes using faulty improvisation, but all in all it was fine. I was so relieved, and as they left the stage I ran up to them to ask how they felt.
But they didn’t feel good. I could tell they were a little shaken, and a couple students even told me that they didn’t do as well as they hoped. I was crushed. But I patted their backs and said “what’s a line here or there? The important thing is that we understood.” And the crowd had understood. It had gone fine, but I couldn’t stand the thought of them feeling like they had failed.
All of the participants got a gift bag with t shirts, English-Portuguese dictionaries and some school supplies, but there was also an awards ceremony for the top three groups, best actor overall and best actress overall. I sat with my group and I could tell they were already feeling better. We joked around and I relaxed. I loved these kids. I was pissed that it had taken me this long to appreciate it, but happy as a clam all the same.
And as the awards were announced I zoned out. So I was more than a little surprised when my group leapt up and started screaming. We had won first place. The cherry on top was our leading girl had won best actress as well. The elation is hard to describe.
If I thought they had danced and sang before it was nothing compared to after winning first place. “We told you everything was fine teacher Colin!!” Nadia screamed at me, dragging me into the group. Louder than ever they played games, sang songs at the top of their lungs and danced with every fiber of their bodies. And I did, too. Call me corny, but I felt just about as happy as I could hope to feel.
On the ride back they sang until their voices were hoarse. “Teacher Colin was worried we weren’t going to succeed” they ribbed me the whole way home. We joked and laughed and they complained about how they were hungry and I bought them all food. “Stage dad” syndrome made me feel vulnerable, and I think they knew it. They saw how nervous I was, and it brought us closer together.
Was it right that they had been so unprepared and still won? What was the life lesson being learned with this victory? I put those questions away—it was better just to enjoy it.
When I said goodbye to them I realized that at the end of the year almost all of them would be graduating. These students had been with me my whole first year, and I might not see some of them again. Thinking about how well I had gotten to know them made me realize how long I had been here, and just how far I had come in my first year as a volunteer. I told them that they were a special group, that I had had fun with them, and that I was proud of them. And I was.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Brainstem's the only way to stop em
Every morning when I leave my house I am accosted by a group of about one hundred children. This is a difficult thing to describe in terms of enjoyment. That is to say, do I like being accosted by one hundred children every morning? Someone taught them all to say “ta ta!” to any white person they saw, and having one hundred small children wave frantically at you and scream “ta ta!” in unison is a heart meltingly adorable thing.
As their curiosity grew they would approach me, at first only the brash/stupid ones that Darwinian selection would get if only society were not here to stop them from poking snakes or crawling into dark caves (the ones that either die young or grow up to be Bear Grylls). When one finally got the courage to hold my hand I did what any man would do, I started roaring like a lion while picking them up and pretending to eat them. They were at first terror-stricken, but after a few thrilling moments of the white hot, blinding fear that only a child can feel they began to actually want to be picked up. A few of them developed the unfortunate tendency to try to eat me back. Since then leaving my house has become something of an issue.
Every morning I am quite literally blockading by one hundred screaming children. They lock onto my legs, weigh down my arms, climb up me like a tree—and while at first my lion gig was good enough to get rid of them they now think its rip-roaringly hilarious. My threats to kill them are lost because these children are too young to speak Portuguese, and while my shitswa is good enough to scream “go away!” at them it has no effect. So I do what any man would do, I run away.
So for the last month or so you will see me leaving my yard dressed in a button down collared shirt, slacks and dress shoes, cradling my man-purse as I run as fast as I can past a pursuing mass of crazed children. It’s a lot like 28 Days Later only I can’t shoot them.
As their curiosity grew they would approach me, at first only the brash/stupid ones that Darwinian selection would get if only society were not here to stop them from poking snakes or crawling into dark caves (the ones that either die young or grow up to be Bear Grylls). When one finally got the courage to hold my hand I did what any man would do, I started roaring like a lion while picking them up and pretending to eat them. They were at first terror-stricken, but after a few thrilling moments of the white hot, blinding fear that only a child can feel they began to actually want to be picked up. A few of them developed the unfortunate tendency to try to eat me back. Since then leaving my house has become something of an issue.
Every morning I am quite literally blockading by one hundred screaming children. They lock onto my legs, weigh down my arms, climb up me like a tree—and while at first my lion gig was good enough to get rid of them they now think its rip-roaringly hilarious. My threats to kill them are lost because these children are too young to speak Portuguese, and while my shitswa is good enough to scream “go away!” at them it has no effect. So I do what any man would do, I run away.
So for the last month or so you will see me leaving my yard dressed in a button down collared shirt, slacks and dress shoes, cradling my man-purse as I run as fast as I can past a pursuing mass of crazed children. It’s a lot like 28 Days Later only I can’t shoot them.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Riots in Maputo
The last week has seen some violence in Mozambique. Rises in the prices of basic goods in conjunction with a food shortage (due I believe to a drought in Russia or some such whatever) have caused large protests, which some crazy kids took as an opportunity to riot and loot, and unfortuntely lead some police officers to use live rounds on rioters/protesters killing between 7 and 13 people, depending on the report. The protests did spread to some other metropolitan areas of Mozambique, and in the city of Chimoio some reports said 3 more were killed.
Now despite all that my life has changed not at all. My community has not been affected in the slightest by these problems. In fact when my mother called she knew quite a bit more about it than I did. The peace corps volunteers here in Moz are in no danger of any kind, though the Peace Corps has taken precautions and restricted our travel to keep tabs on us just in case.
Reports of jeeps full of police rolling the streets of Maputo armed with AK47s calls to mind dark times in this countrys past, so worry over the violence in the international news is no surprise. It is also a tragedy that police used live rounds, or that some protesters chose to riot. That being said, the effects of all of this have been quite small. Though in the coming weeks we'll see what rising food prices does to my community.
So it's relatively all good in the hood.
Now despite all that my life has changed not at all. My community has not been affected in the slightest by these problems. In fact when my mother called she knew quite a bit more about it than I did. The peace corps volunteers here in Moz are in no danger of any kind, though the Peace Corps has taken precautions and restricted our travel to keep tabs on us just in case.
Reports of jeeps full of police rolling the streets of Maputo armed with AK47s calls to mind dark times in this countrys past, so worry over the violence in the international news is no surprise. It is also a tragedy that police used live rounds, or that some protesters chose to riot. That being said, the effects of all of this have been quite small. Though in the coming weeks we'll see what rising food prices does to my community.
So it's relatively all good in the hood.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Stupid Buzzer Guard
Last night I’m buzzing my hair. I have decided that I will never grow out my hair again, and so far it’s been a fantastic decision. I am trying to get all the hair by my ear when the guard snaps off, and there goes a chunk of hair. Now I’m bald to the scalp on a two square inch patch on the side of my head.
My guitar playing has waned. My garden barely got off the ground. I stopped playing basketball at school. I sketch far less than I used to. I haven’t updated my blog in months. I am definitely in a slump.
But why? At this point in my service I am more capable than ever, and have begun to fulfill my year end goals. I successfully started the school newspaper—though we haven’t published yet things so far are promising. I have an English theatre group, though how well we do remains to be seen. Classes are going well, far easier than before. My Portuguese is good. Life here has become normal. So what’s the deal?
Well, life here has become normal, and the challenges of normalness sort of took me by surprise. They are all familiar: boredom, lack of inspiration and motivation, getting stuck in patterns. At the beginning of my service leaving my house every day was a challenge, every interaction intimidating, so the face that life was hard wasn’t exactly a surprise. I forgave myself easily for my bad days and congratulated myself for every victory. Now my perspective has changed, gradually enough so that I didn’t notice it. And no one warned me about the doldrums of the day to day. I had been bracing myself for an acute challenge: adjust to life, and now I find myself having past it. I figured that once I got past all the craziness everything would be fine.
And everything is fine. I am healthy, I am busy. But I’m a little bored. I had lost track of the long term challenges of friendship building and integrating into the community in lieu of the more exciting ones. Making friends takes time, and through a foreign language and culture an extra effort. I have never had terrible trouble making friends, but here even sustaining conversation requires focus. Can you imagine me having trouble sustaining conversation?
It’s time to refocus and address the new challenges. I have plans to improve my house, to get some guitar songs off the internet the next time I’m there, and to restart my exercise. More than that, I want to refocus on expanding my social network. I have a lot of acquaintances, my town is small so wherever I go I see familiar faces, but what I need is a step beyond.
A recap/revision of my year end goals:
Be able to play and sing a few songs on the guitar (a few has shrunken from around 10 to around 3)
Publish the first school newspaper
Become conversation in Shitswa (i.e. redefine “conversational”)
Participate in the English Theatre competition
Scuba certification (next week?)
boring ones involving home improvement
Not lose any more weight
Oh yes, and be happy etc.
My guitar playing has waned. My garden barely got off the ground. I stopped playing basketball at school. I sketch far less than I used to. I haven’t updated my blog in months. I am definitely in a slump.
But why? At this point in my service I am more capable than ever, and have begun to fulfill my year end goals. I successfully started the school newspaper—though we haven’t published yet things so far are promising. I have an English theatre group, though how well we do remains to be seen. Classes are going well, far easier than before. My Portuguese is good. Life here has become normal. So what’s the deal?
Well, life here has become normal, and the challenges of normalness sort of took me by surprise. They are all familiar: boredom, lack of inspiration and motivation, getting stuck in patterns. At the beginning of my service leaving my house every day was a challenge, every interaction intimidating, so the face that life was hard wasn’t exactly a surprise. I forgave myself easily for my bad days and congratulated myself for every victory. Now my perspective has changed, gradually enough so that I didn’t notice it. And no one warned me about the doldrums of the day to day. I had been bracing myself for an acute challenge: adjust to life, and now I find myself having past it. I figured that once I got past all the craziness everything would be fine.
And everything is fine. I am healthy, I am busy. But I’m a little bored. I had lost track of the long term challenges of friendship building and integrating into the community in lieu of the more exciting ones. Making friends takes time, and through a foreign language and culture an extra effort. I have never had terrible trouble making friends, but here even sustaining conversation requires focus. Can you imagine me having trouble sustaining conversation?
It’s time to refocus and address the new challenges. I have plans to improve my house, to get some guitar songs off the internet the next time I’m there, and to restart my exercise. More than that, I want to refocus on expanding my social network. I have a lot of acquaintances, my town is small so wherever I go I see familiar faces, but what I need is a step beyond.
A recap/revision of my year end goals:
Be able to play and sing a few songs on the guitar (a few has shrunken from around 10 to around 3)
Publish the first school newspaper
Become conversation in Shitswa (i.e. redefine “conversational”)
Participate in the English Theatre competition
Scuba certification (next week?)
boring ones involving home improvement
Not lose any more weight
Oh yes, and be happy etc.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Heroism, adulthood
I'm in the big city (it's about the size of Westwood). The only thing I want is ice cream and I can't remember the goddamn word! It's a form of hell that is ruining my day. I decided to stop in the internet cafe to distract myself.
The other day as I was coming back from basketball a little girl bursts into tears. Usually I avoid approaching and asking what's wrong because the presence of a gigantic, sallow skinned monstrosity can invoke an adrenaline-flight response in children. But this time the cause was obvious, she had lost her goats. There are goats tied to posts everywhere in my town. Sometimes for milk, mostly for eating, their screams sound eerily like the screams of children. These two goats, envigorated by their newfound freedom bounded away from the girl...and towards a group of infants!
I leapt into action, pursued the goats and saved the kids. Though I never got above a jog and in all honesty probably just saved the goats from the merciless cruelty of the stick-wilding children, I still pretended that I was a hero and that was pretty nice for a couple of minutes. I returned the goats to the girl and promptly realized how strange this all was.
And it's stories like these that make my life sound exciting.
My English theatre group is starting, and being in charge of the creativity of a bunch of students is intimidating. I've never done anything like this before, I have no idea what activities would be good or bad, or if I have the confidence to pull it off. I've summoned a professional Photojournalist to my town as well and am responsible for making a training curriculum with him for the students at my school. I feel like I'm masquerading as a responsible adult.
The other day as I was coming back from basketball a little girl bursts into tears. Usually I avoid approaching and asking what's wrong because the presence of a gigantic, sallow skinned monstrosity can invoke an adrenaline-flight response in children. But this time the cause was obvious, she had lost her goats. There are goats tied to posts everywhere in my town. Sometimes for milk, mostly for eating, their screams sound eerily like the screams of children. These two goats, envigorated by their newfound freedom bounded away from the girl...and towards a group of infants!
I leapt into action, pursued the goats and saved the kids. Though I never got above a jog and in all honesty probably just saved the goats from the merciless cruelty of the stick-wilding children, I still pretended that I was a hero and that was pretty nice for a couple of minutes. I returned the goats to the girl and promptly realized how strange this all was.
And it's stories like these that make my life sound exciting.
My English theatre group is starting, and being in charge of the creativity of a bunch of students is intimidating. I've never done anything like this before, I have no idea what activities would be good or bad, or if I have the confidence to pull it off. I've summoned a professional Photojournalist to my town as well and am responsible for making a training curriculum with him for the students at my school. I feel like I'm masquerading as a responsible adult.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
World Cup South Africa
Game Day.
We have tickets to Portugal vs. North Korea. We couldn’t get tickets to the US game, but we get to see Portugal and we are hoping that North Korea gives them a good game. The walk to the stadium is electrifying, going from one side of Cape Town to the other, a crowd of 70,000 people. The vuvuzela, the noisy trumpet-like device is spewing its celebratory noise pollution into the air. Bands are playing, men on stilts lope by, the scent of South African sausages. Portugal fans are out in force, and their colors are everywhere. But we pass Dutch fans clad in orange, English fans in their colors, and an entire family dressed to the nines in Mexican colors with each member down to the women and children wearing fake bushy black moustaches. I am wearing my jacket, USA emblazoned across the back.
There isn’t a single North Korea fan in sight, and I didn’t see one my entire time in Cape Town.
I’m just hoping for a good game.
At half its 1-0. North Korea is being outplayed, but there’s plenty of time for a turnaround. But into the second half Portugal scores. I’m buying a hot dog at the time and run out onto a balcony. The stadium explodes. The noise from the cheers hits me like a shockwave. I run back to my seat, my skin tingling with excitement.
Two minutes later Portugal scores again. 3-0. Two minutes after that they score again. 4-0. The crowd is going ballistic. “POR TU GAL! POR TU GAL!” cheers are so loud that you can’t even shout over them. You can feel them reverberating in your seat. You can feel them reverberating in your skull. Everyone around me is freaking out, screaming and jumping. We don’t want a good game anymore, we don’t want North Korea to make a spectacular comeback. We want blood. We want slaughter. We want magnificent soccer gods to rain down their athletic dominance on their puny foes like thunderbolts, to annihilate, to demean.
The crowd refuses to sit down now. Blood is in the water and the Portuguese players know it. They are suddenly invincible, penetrating the defense with playful ease. A shot goes off the crossbar, the crowd in union shouts “Oh!” in disappointment. But minutes later they score again. And again. And again. On the final goal Cristiano Ronaldo juggles the ball off of his own back, over his shoulder, and fires into the goal—the ball never toughing the ground. 7-0. Slaughter, annihilation, everything we wanted. A spectacle. The most goals scored so far in the tournament in one game, all of them scored by one team.
“POR TU GAL! POR TU GAL! POR TU GAL!”
Cape Town was amazing. Every day we would pass groups of orange clad Dutch, heckling English, Japanese fans all in blue. We watched the US beat Algeria in a bar that was packed wall to wall with Americans. Climbed Table Mountain, went to the Cape of Good Hope (saw penguins, baboons), navigated some hangovers, ran myself to ragged. One of the best vacations I have ever had.
We have tickets to Portugal vs. North Korea. We couldn’t get tickets to the US game, but we get to see Portugal and we are hoping that North Korea gives them a good game. The walk to the stadium is electrifying, going from one side of Cape Town to the other, a crowd of 70,000 people. The vuvuzela, the noisy trumpet-like device is spewing its celebratory noise pollution into the air. Bands are playing, men on stilts lope by, the scent of South African sausages. Portugal fans are out in force, and their colors are everywhere. But we pass Dutch fans clad in orange, English fans in their colors, and an entire family dressed to the nines in Mexican colors with each member down to the women and children wearing fake bushy black moustaches. I am wearing my jacket, USA emblazoned across the back.
There isn’t a single North Korea fan in sight, and I didn’t see one my entire time in Cape Town.
I’m just hoping for a good game.
At half its 1-0. North Korea is being outplayed, but there’s plenty of time for a turnaround. But into the second half Portugal scores. I’m buying a hot dog at the time and run out onto a balcony. The stadium explodes. The noise from the cheers hits me like a shockwave. I run back to my seat, my skin tingling with excitement.
Two minutes later Portugal scores again. 3-0. Two minutes after that they score again. 4-0. The crowd is going ballistic. “POR TU GAL! POR TU GAL!” cheers are so loud that you can’t even shout over them. You can feel them reverberating in your seat. You can feel them reverberating in your skull. Everyone around me is freaking out, screaming and jumping. We don’t want a good game anymore, we don’t want North Korea to make a spectacular comeback. We want blood. We want slaughter. We want magnificent soccer gods to rain down their athletic dominance on their puny foes like thunderbolts, to annihilate, to demean.
The crowd refuses to sit down now. Blood is in the water and the Portuguese players know it. They are suddenly invincible, penetrating the defense with playful ease. A shot goes off the crossbar, the crowd in union shouts “Oh!” in disappointment. But minutes later they score again. And again. And again. On the final goal Cristiano Ronaldo juggles the ball off of his own back, over his shoulder, and fires into the goal—the ball never toughing the ground. 7-0. Slaughter, annihilation, everything we wanted. A spectacle. The most goals scored so far in the tournament in one game, all of them scored by one team.
“POR TU GAL! POR TU GAL! POR TU GAL!”
Cape Town was amazing. Every day we would pass groups of orange clad Dutch, heckling English, Japanese fans all in blue. We watched the US beat Algeria in a bar that was packed wall to wall with Americans. Climbed Table Mountain, went to the Cape of Good Hope (saw penguins, baboons), navigated some hangovers, ran myself to ragged. One of the best vacations I have ever had.
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