Off of the coast of Mozambique where I live there occurs a yearly migration of whale sharks. They are the biggest fish in the sea, growing up to 15 meters long. There are very few in the world, and getting harder and harder to find. But you can snorkel with whale sharks right off the beach in certain areas along the coast. It was on the bucket lists of many volunteers. Though whale sharks are technically sharks they feed on krill like whales do, thus their name, and pose no danger to people.
That being said, the idea of swimming with an animal (a shark) bigger than a car and longer than a bus was terrifying to me. I had been having nightmares about hungry beasts in murky water for months in anticipation.
My friends and I met in Tofo to check off the whale shark from our bucket lists. Everyone was excited the morning of, and I acted like I was too. I’m sure that I was white as a sheet by the way my friends kept asking me if something was wrong. I said I was nervous about sea sickness.
There are no guarantees of seeing a whale shark our anything else on these “ocean safaris”. You just drive around on a boat and hope you see something. We met a group of college age guys (fooling around and giggling like kids in a ball pit) who had gone the day before for three hours and seen nothing at all.
The chance that I wouldn’t see one gave me some cowardly hope. Hope that was squelched fifteen minutes after leaving the shore when the skipper shouted, “All right get your fins on!” We scrambled to get into our fins and cram our masks onto our faces, “IT’S OVER THERE GET IN GET IN GET IN!!”
In the grip of terror I fell like a sack of potatoes into the water. I put my head under, my whole body electric with anticipation. The visibility was only a few meters, “IT’S RIGHT THERE OVER THERE LOOK!!!” The skipper screamed at us. I turned numbly in the direction he was pointing.
And out of the murkiness came the sleek, enormous head of the largest fish in the sea, coming straight for me. Every nerve in my body fired at once (no I did NOT soil myself) and I stared wide eyed and helpless. Was it going to hit me? Was it going to eat me? A childlike terror/wonder overcame me. It passed underneath, its dorsal fin cutting the water next to me.
Everyone says the same thing about seeing a whale shark. They move with an effortless grace, not seeming to rush at all as they cruise. They are majestic; despite their size they move in utter silence. I looked down at its skin—so close I could have touched it had I been capable of any motor function—which was a deep grey with white spots, which under the broken light of the surface twinkled like (give me a break here) stars.
I remember the moment when my (baseless) fear turned into wonder. As it passed I turned and swam after it. I followed as long as I could until it’s huge tail swished back and forth back out of sight.
We followed the same shark and swam with it twice more. We later saw humpback whales. Great day.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Cheaters/Team Players
It occurred to me that it’s a little late to update my blog. But my mom has asked me to, and I like the idea of having a few memories written down about the end of my service.
There are many difficult aspects of my job. I teach my students only two 45 minute periods a week, the curriculum is comically impossible to follow, the inefficiency of standard procedure is worshipped, and my students perform poorly. But perhaps the most frustrating part of my job is testing my students, not because they don’t do well, but because they cheat.
They cheat and cheat and cheat. If you look away from the class for a moment, they look at each others’ answers. They are constantly ready for any opportunity. You turn and write something on the board and you can hear their whispers behind you. You bend down to pick up a dropped pen and whip your head up and sure enough their eyes have already begun to wander. Their focus on your focus is impressive, and unwavering.
So you punish them. I have structured, unvarying means of punishing them that they know well. I don’t hesitate to punish them publically, ceremonially, to show the class that cheating has its consequences. I take tests away and kick students out in almost every test I give.
The problem isn’t in actually catching them—as far as we Peace Corps Volunteers can tell (because we ALL have this same problem in all parts of the country), that is to say I don’t think they are getting away with it under my nose. We catch them all the time. It’s easy: who is looking at you? “The test is not written on my face” I bark at them: I know you are waiting for my attention to falter, please just use your brain and suck it up and take the &^%*# test. They use what we call “cabulas”, which are like cheat sheets. Students hide them in their collars, waist lines, under their ties, and up their sleeves. But I still catch them all the time.
And when you do they never EVER admit it and apologize. It’s silly most of the time. Here’s a good example: in one of my tests a student was hiding his notebook under the desk. I caught him looking at it and took it from him, telling him (and all the class) that he would receive a zero and was hereby banished from the room. He denied that it was his. He began to raise his voice in protest at the injustice. I showed him that his name was written across the front. His denials became more impassioned. He swore it wasn’t his, that I just couldn’t give him a zero, that it was wrong and that I was cruel. I threw the notebook on the ground in front of the class. He sat in his desk and refused to leave for a few minutes. Then he got up, took the notebook and left in silence.
I get so angry after test days that I want to scream. I find myself saying they are all a bunch of unrepentant liars and cheaters.
I have a reputation in my school for enforcing cheating. I stalk the classroom in silence, waiting for someone to turn and look at me (the cheaters almost always do). I wear sunglasses so they can’t see my eyes. I bark at anyone doing anything suspicious. But when I walk into the classroom to control final exams the students whoop and shout and sometimes cheer. I never understood this, why cheer?
The answer to that question helps elucidate why they cheat so much. I believe that they cheer because I am one of the only teachers that even remotely enforces the rules on cheating during exams. If you walked classroom to classroom during final exams you would find teachers grading exams in front of their classes, paying no mind whatsoever to the students. It is just as common to see teachers outside chatting to each other, or on cell phones, maybe-sort-of-near the door to the classroom they should be controlling.
Cheating is supposed to be wrong, none of the rules in Mozambique are technically different. But it isn’t enforced at all, so in a way the words “cheating is wrong” are empty, and the honor and morality that those words defend is meaningless. But I remind them of the rules, and my zealous defense of them reinforces their sacredness—or what their sacredness would be, if I wasn’t absolutely the only teacher doing this. That isn’t to say that I am the last bastion of honor in Mozambique, but that in this one little way my behavior does preserve a moral code, or at least reminds them of it. And people like that.
But I come home fuming mad. Why? I ask myself, why do they cheat and lie? Some volunteers have teased out an answer that I think makes sense: they don’t see themselves as disobeying the sacred rules of honesty, they see themselves as helping each other. The students know that grades are important, in some ways they are more important than the material they are supposed to represent. If their friend is failing, they may try to help them. Especially if there are no consequences i.e. if their teacher is outside playing snake on their phone. The educational system here is a disaster, but graduating will at least give them some pedigree, however small. So what I see as cheating and wrong, they might simply see as a good turn. They are more community minded than Americans, they are not nearly as competitive with each other. It’s not so much “why not help a friend?” as “you have a responsibility to help a friend”.
Why they deny it afterwards is still a mystery to me, and it gets under my skin even after two years. I’ll scold them and give them zeros. But interestingly they never hold it against me. After their theatrical displays, accusing me of being unfair and callous, after they storm out of the room, they are never mad the next day. It’s a wonder about Mozambicans in general, they don’t hold grudges. It takes the edge off of everything.
I pondered this as I sat in a meeting at school. I wondered how many of the grades we give were earned with cabulas and cheating, and if any of the other teachers ever thought about it or cared. As my mind wandered I looked down at the desk I was using, a student’s desk from one of the classrooms. And there, meticulously carved into the wood were a matrix of English words, definitions and conjugations. It was all of the material for my final exam.
There are many difficult aspects of my job. I teach my students only two 45 minute periods a week, the curriculum is comically impossible to follow, the inefficiency of standard procedure is worshipped, and my students perform poorly. But perhaps the most frustrating part of my job is testing my students, not because they don’t do well, but because they cheat.
They cheat and cheat and cheat. If you look away from the class for a moment, they look at each others’ answers. They are constantly ready for any opportunity. You turn and write something on the board and you can hear their whispers behind you. You bend down to pick up a dropped pen and whip your head up and sure enough their eyes have already begun to wander. Their focus on your focus is impressive, and unwavering.
So you punish them. I have structured, unvarying means of punishing them that they know well. I don’t hesitate to punish them publically, ceremonially, to show the class that cheating has its consequences. I take tests away and kick students out in almost every test I give.
The problem isn’t in actually catching them—as far as we Peace Corps Volunteers can tell (because we ALL have this same problem in all parts of the country), that is to say I don’t think they are getting away with it under my nose. We catch them all the time. It’s easy: who is looking at you? “The test is not written on my face” I bark at them: I know you are waiting for my attention to falter, please just use your brain and suck it up and take the &^%*# test. They use what we call “cabulas”, which are like cheat sheets. Students hide them in their collars, waist lines, under their ties, and up their sleeves. But I still catch them all the time.
And when you do they never EVER admit it and apologize. It’s silly most of the time. Here’s a good example: in one of my tests a student was hiding his notebook under the desk. I caught him looking at it and took it from him, telling him (and all the class) that he would receive a zero and was hereby banished from the room. He denied that it was his. He began to raise his voice in protest at the injustice. I showed him that his name was written across the front. His denials became more impassioned. He swore it wasn’t his, that I just couldn’t give him a zero, that it was wrong and that I was cruel. I threw the notebook on the ground in front of the class. He sat in his desk and refused to leave for a few minutes. Then he got up, took the notebook and left in silence.
I get so angry after test days that I want to scream. I find myself saying they are all a bunch of unrepentant liars and cheaters.
I have a reputation in my school for enforcing cheating. I stalk the classroom in silence, waiting for someone to turn and look at me (the cheaters almost always do). I wear sunglasses so they can’t see my eyes. I bark at anyone doing anything suspicious. But when I walk into the classroom to control final exams the students whoop and shout and sometimes cheer. I never understood this, why cheer?
The answer to that question helps elucidate why they cheat so much. I believe that they cheer because I am one of the only teachers that even remotely enforces the rules on cheating during exams. If you walked classroom to classroom during final exams you would find teachers grading exams in front of their classes, paying no mind whatsoever to the students. It is just as common to see teachers outside chatting to each other, or on cell phones, maybe-sort-of-near the door to the classroom they should be controlling.
Cheating is supposed to be wrong, none of the rules in Mozambique are technically different. But it isn’t enforced at all, so in a way the words “cheating is wrong” are empty, and the honor and morality that those words defend is meaningless. But I remind them of the rules, and my zealous defense of them reinforces their sacredness—or what their sacredness would be, if I wasn’t absolutely the only teacher doing this. That isn’t to say that I am the last bastion of honor in Mozambique, but that in this one little way my behavior does preserve a moral code, or at least reminds them of it. And people like that.
But I come home fuming mad. Why? I ask myself, why do they cheat and lie? Some volunteers have teased out an answer that I think makes sense: they don’t see themselves as disobeying the sacred rules of honesty, they see themselves as helping each other. The students know that grades are important, in some ways they are more important than the material they are supposed to represent. If their friend is failing, they may try to help them. Especially if there are no consequences i.e. if their teacher is outside playing snake on their phone. The educational system here is a disaster, but graduating will at least give them some pedigree, however small. So what I see as cheating and wrong, they might simply see as a good turn. They are more community minded than Americans, they are not nearly as competitive with each other. It’s not so much “why not help a friend?” as “you have a responsibility to help a friend”.
Why they deny it afterwards is still a mystery to me, and it gets under my skin even after two years. I’ll scold them and give them zeros. But interestingly they never hold it against me. After their theatrical displays, accusing me of being unfair and callous, after they storm out of the room, they are never mad the next day. It’s a wonder about Mozambicans in general, they don’t hold grudges. It takes the edge off of everything.
I pondered this as I sat in a meeting at school. I wondered how many of the grades we give were earned with cabulas and cheating, and if any of the other teachers ever thought about it or cared. As my mind wandered I looked down at the desk I was using, a student’s desk from one of the classrooms. And there, meticulously carved into the wood were a matrix of English words, definitions and conjugations. It was all of the material for my final exam.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Matakenha numero cinco
I got another matakenha ("matah-kenya") in my foot. This is the fifth, and the first of this season. I get gauze, a clothespin, some matches, medical tape, a pair of fine tweezers, and some antiseptic ointment. I sit down on my bed and put my foot on a chair in good light.
The lesion is on the third toe of my right foot. It is swollen and purple at it's base, white towards the top with a tiny black dot at the apex of the bump. I sterilize the needle with a match, and poke into the tiny black dot. There is no feeling, there never is. I work the needle slowly under the skin, careful not to penetrate into the bump, and create pie-like slices from the tiny black dot out to the base of the bump.
After sliding the needle in and opening just two pie slices the egg sack pops neatly out, white and gooey. You can't get over excited at this point and yank on it or you can break the sack and dump dozens of little wormies all over your foot and back into the wound.
I press the skin of the bump down with the needle and squeeze out any pus and bodily liquid hanging out around the bottom of the egg sack--the part that's anchored in the wound and to my foot. With the tweezers I gingerly find the base of this little anchor and pull it out. I hold the egg sack between the tweezers and bring it away from my foot with satisfaction.
It's intact, one can almost see the miniscule eggs inside, and a huge improvement over the disaster of my last matakenha, which left my foot debilitated for days and required a thorough clean up to get all of the tiny white larvae that had exploded forth from the bursting sack. I'm proud of myself, and treat myself to a kit kat bar that my mom sent.
It's getting hot again. Ugh.
The lesion is on the third toe of my right foot. It is swollen and purple at it's base, white towards the top with a tiny black dot at the apex of the bump. I sterilize the needle with a match, and poke into the tiny black dot. There is no feeling, there never is. I work the needle slowly under the skin, careful not to penetrate into the bump, and create pie-like slices from the tiny black dot out to the base of the bump.
After sliding the needle in and opening just two pie slices the egg sack pops neatly out, white and gooey. You can't get over excited at this point and yank on it or you can break the sack and dump dozens of little wormies all over your foot and back into the wound.
I press the skin of the bump down with the needle and squeeze out any pus and bodily liquid hanging out around the bottom of the egg sack--the part that's anchored in the wound and to my foot. With the tweezers I gingerly find the base of this little anchor and pull it out. I hold the egg sack between the tweezers and bring it away from my foot with satisfaction.
It's intact, one can almost see the miniscule eggs inside, and a huge improvement over the disaster of my last matakenha, which left my foot debilitated for days and required a thorough clean up to get all of the tiny white larvae that had exploded forth from the bursting sack. I'm proud of myself, and treat myself to a kit kat bar that my mom sent.
It's getting hot again. Ugh.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I was teaching my favorite class. Because the Mozambican class system is based on grade level and profession (remember I teach at a professional school), not ability level. There are no advanced classes, a student takes all of their classes with the same class, even in the same classroom. This means that each class has just a few advanced students, far ahead of their classmates.
My favorite class is second year accounting because they just so happen to have just a few more of those super smart kids and it sets the tone for the class. I dote on them a little, and probably give them a little too much slack. They usually don’t take advantage of this (they can tell I like them), but the other day they would NOT stop complaining. Every new word on the board drew a collective groan. I told them to stop whining and they stepped it up. It became theatrical, their moans of faux agony, until I shouted over the din, “I don’t want to hear your complaining! I am NOT YOUR FATHER!!”
Typical teach rhetoric, right? The response I got blindsided me. There was an uproar of disbelief, reproach, and hurt. Some of my best students looked like I had slapped them. Dumbstruck, I said, “What? I’m not.” Class was stopped, and I was admonished for having said such a mean and thoughtless thing. They were sympathetic though, getting that I didn’t understand what I said, that it doesn’t translate in Mozambique. They explained.
I am supposed to be their father. The role of teacher is that of father and mother, it connotes their trust in me and my caring for them. Familial roles are distributed to people however they fit. People refer to their elders by familial titles, like papa, tio, or “mano” for older brother. One does not use “senhor” outside of a very professional setting. Even with people you don’t know, it’s mama, or pae, or vovo (grandma) and so on.
There is a strong respect for elders, much stronger than anything I was used to in the states. I like it. Questioning authority is important—essential—but the middle finger approach to anyone that represents it is juvenile. There are reasons why we respect our elders, and it’s not just to make them feel better, or because we owe them for taking care of us. They have more experience and often have better control over their emotions and insight into themselves and others etc. Respect for elders here is expected and normal. And maybe it’s easier to be nice to the lady when you call her grandma, and easier for her to be nice to you back.
In Moz there is no taboo about teachers touching their students. There isn’t a constant fear of predation. When I want my lazy student loitering by the door, and he ignores me, I shoo him out with an encouraging push. When a student sleeps I sneak over to their desk and scream as I shake them awake (hilarious). That isn’t to say that the system is utopian, one does here rumors of decidedly inappropriate relations between students and teachers (though I have never seen it), but it does feel more natural.
I remember in elementary school when a classmate brainfarted and accidentally called our teacher “mom”. When it happened I’ll never forget looking to the teacher to see if she was scandalized, to see how big the student’s mistake was. But she just waved it off, it happened all the time.
But calling me father is still absolutely forbidden, because it freaks me out. One of my students said, in English, “Teecha Colin is my uncle,” and I got watery eyed.
Congrats on the barmitzmah, Jonathan. I hear you did well.
Next stop: Kilimanjaro
My favorite class is second year accounting because they just so happen to have just a few more of those super smart kids and it sets the tone for the class. I dote on them a little, and probably give them a little too much slack. They usually don’t take advantage of this (they can tell I like them), but the other day they would NOT stop complaining. Every new word on the board drew a collective groan. I told them to stop whining and they stepped it up. It became theatrical, their moans of faux agony, until I shouted over the din, “I don’t want to hear your complaining! I am NOT YOUR FATHER!!”
Typical teach rhetoric, right? The response I got blindsided me. There was an uproar of disbelief, reproach, and hurt. Some of my best students looked like I had slapped them. Dumbstruck, I said, “What? I’m not.” Class was stopped, and I was admonished for having said such a mean and thoughtless thing. They were sympathetic though, getting that I didn’t understand what I said, that it doesn’t translate in Mozambique. They explained.
I am supposed to be their father. The role of teacher is that of father and mother, it connotes their trust in me and my caring for them. Familial roles are distributed to people however they fit. People refer to their elders by familial titles, like papa, tio, or “mano” for older brother. One does not use “senhor” outside of a very professional setting. Even with people you don’t know, it’s mama, or pae, or vovo (grandma) and so on.
There is a strong respect for elders, much stronger than anything I was used to in the states. I like it. Questioning authority is important—essential—but the middle finger approach to anyone that represents it is juvenile. There are reasons why we respect our elders, and it’s not just to make them feel better, or because we owe them for taking care of us. They have more experience and often have better control over their emotions and insight into themselves and others etc. Respect for elders here is expected and normal. And maybe it’s easier to be nice to the lady when you call her grandma, and easier for her to be nice to you back.
In Moz there is no taboo about teachers touching their students. There isn’t a constant fear of predation. When I want my lazy student loitering by the door, and he ignores me, I shoo him out with an encouraging push. When a student sleeps I sneak over to their desk and scream as I shake them awake (hilarious). That isn’t to say that the system is utopian, one does here rumors of decidedly inappropriate relations between students and teachers (though I have never seen it), but it does feel more natural.
I remember in elementary school when a classmate brainfarted and accidentally called our teacher “mom”. When it happened I’ll never forget looking to the teacher to see if she was scandalized, to see how big the student’s mistake was. But she just waved it off, it happened all the time.
But calling me father is still absolutely forbidden, because it freaks me out. One of my students said, in English, “Teecha Colin is my uncle,” and I got watery eyed.
Congrats on the barmitzmah, Jonathan. I hear you did well.
Next stop: Kilimanjaro
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Sick
Halfway through an impromptu meeting with my photography group this morning several awkward gazes to my waistline alerted me that my fly was down. I often arrive at school like this. Colleagues used to pull me aside and discretely tell me. It happens so frequently these days that they just point down. I hope that this isn't some kind of metaphor for my life. At 24 this is not a problem I foresaw having.
Injuries take longer to heal in Mozambique. We were told about this in training, that due to the humidity or the heat or something that wounds would persist. I have some nasty scars from infected insect bites on my legs that I didn't take care of.
Medical problems come easier too. I've had parasitic insects lay eggs in my toes (I removed them myself with a needle, as is the custom. Doesn't hurt), I have had skin problems come and go, and of course there are the toilet issues that plague everyone. Parasites, absesses, infections, blood in your stool are all maladies volunteers have had, just off the top of my head.
Suffice it to say that you can't be a hypochondriac and be here. You have to stay conscious and positive about your health. Getting sick sucks, but is all par for the course for a volunteer, what with Maputo just a day's travel away there are few maladies that are actually scary.
But imagine you are Mozambican, and you get sick. First, let me describe our health center here in town:
You enter the complex with offices on the left, the main treatment center ahead of you and to the right. You see people milling around the entrance. As you approach you begin to see the line to get into triage. It's huge, has a couple hundred people, lines the hallways and wraps around the hospital buildings. It's a lot of mothers and kids. You get charged 50 meticals just for your place in line, the locals pay 1 metical.
There are masculine and feminine wings to the hospital. There aren't enough beds so at least a few people are on the floor on straws mats. Some of the rooms are for seeing patients, others are eerily empty. The prenatal care center is the nicest part of the hospital, which is a relief. The lab where you get tests like stool samples is a treat. The front desk is covered in papers and the back table in blood.
In our entire district there is one doctor. In Mozambique, a country of about 20 million people there are less than 1,000 doctors (most are women), and the majority of those are in the capital city of Maputo, which lies at the southern tip of a 1,500 mile long country.
So imagine you are Mozambican, and you get sick. But first let's think about conception of disease.
You've never taken a biology class of any kind. You might have had some science of some kind in secondary school, such that you you may know that science exists. Now, someone tries to explain to you that a being, so small that it cannot be seen, will enter into your body and begin to replicate itself using your bodies resources and a protein manufacturing blueprint called DNA. Not only this, there are even more infentesimal beings called "viruses" that are hardly alive at all, but are similarly dangerous and hijack your own bodies DNA to replicate themselves. Would you believe them?
Note: here is the most tremendous problem with raising awareness about HIV and AIDS. Without a basic understanding of biology, without a micrscope to see cells, how could you ever believe that a DNA carrying, malignant protein was real? What would sound more realistic, or at least more resonant: some foreigner who barely speak your language explaining the tiny, evil protein, or someone from your community that blamed it on your angry ancestors (or scientology)? I remember my dead father, let's say. I remember what he was like and even now that has an effect on me. His presence in my life is real. Beings too small to be seen? DNA? Or even more basically: the word "protein". The word "cell". Jibberish.
Now imagine you are Mozambican and you are sick. Imagine how stressful and scary it would be. People get sick all the time here, and the vast majority of people die of infectious disease. Infectious disease happens fast, without treatment malaria will kill in days. People you know, family members, have died of these diseases. One day they were fine, and a few days later they were dead. Disease is an invisible, incomprehensible, murderous force. Could there be anything more terrifying than that?
Injuries take longer to heal in Mozambique. We were told about this in training, that due to the humidity or the heat or something that wounds would persist. I have some nasty scars from infected insect bites on my legs that I didn't take care of.
Medical problems come easier too. I've had parasitic insects lay eggs in my toes (I removed them myself with a needle, as is the custom. Doesn't hurt), I have had skin problems come and go, and of course there are the toilet issues that plague everyone. Parasites, absesses, infections, blood in your stool are all maladies volunteers have had, just off the top of my head.
Suffice it to say that you can't be a hypochondriac and be here. You have to stay conscious and positive about your health. Getting sick sucks, but is all par for the course for a volunteer, what with Maputo just a day's travel away there are few maladies that are actually scary.
But imagine you are Mozambican, and you get sick. First, let me describe our health center here in town:
You enter the complex with offices on the left, the main treatment center ahead of you and to the right. You see people milling around the entrance. As you approach you begin to see the line to get into triage. It's huge, has a couple hundred people, lines the hallways and wraps around the hospital buildings. It's a lot of mothers and kids. You get charged 50 meticals just for your place in line, the locals pay 1 metical.
There are masculine and feminine wings to the hospital. There aren't enough beds so at least a few people are on the floor on straws mats. Some of the rooms are for seeing patients, others are eerily empty. The prenatal care center is the nicest part of the hospital, which is a relief. The lab where you get tests like stool samples is a treat. The front desk is covered in papers and the back table in blood.
In our entire district there is one doctor. In Mozambique, a country of about 20 million people there are less than 1,000 doctors (most are women), and the majority of those are in the capital city of Maputo, which lies at the southern tip of a 1,500 mile long country.
So imagine you are Mozambican, and you get sick. But first let's think about conception of disease.
You've never taken a biology class of any kind. You might have had some science of some kind in secondary school, such that you you may know that science exists. Now, someone tries to explain to you that a being, so small that it cannot be seen, will enter into your body and begin to replicate itself using your bodies resources and a protein manufacturing blueprint called DNA. Not only this, there are even more infentesimal beings called "viruses" that are hardly alive at all, but are similarly dangerous and hijack your own bodies DNA to replicate themselves. Would you believe them?
Note: here is the most tremendous problem with raising awareness about HIV and AIDS. Without a basic understanding of biology, without a micrscope to see cells, how could you ever believe that a DNA carrying, malignant protein was real? What would sound more realistic, or at least more resonant: some foreigner who barely speak your language explaining the tiny, evil protein, or someone from your community that blamed it on your angry ancestors (or scientology)? I remember my dead father, let's say. I remember what he was like and even now that has an effect on me. His presence in my life is real. Beings too small to be seen? DNA? Or even more basically: the word "protein". The word "cell". Jibberish.
Now imagine you are Mozambican and you are sick. Imagine how stressful and scary it would be. People get sick all the time here, and the vast majority of people die of infectious disease. Infectious disease happens fast, without treatment malaria will kill in days. People you know, family members, have died of these diseases. One day they were fine, and a few days later they were dead. Disease is an invisible, incomprehensible, murderous force. Could there be anything more terrifying than that?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
As the conference approached I realized I wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to Inhambane City or Maxixe to check hotels and make reservations. Matt, the national coordinator, had offered to help and lives far closer to those cities, so I asked him to make the reservations and he accepted. He talked about several possibilities, including hotels outside of Inhambane and Maxixe.
The conference was only two weeks away. I was fielding a constant stream of phone calls from the trainers and participants. Sooner or later we would need to tell them where they would be staying. I called Matt about reservations. He talked about several possibilities, including hotels outside of Inhambane and Maxixe. Wait…had he actually gone to these hotels to inquire? He would be going the next day, he said.
Two days passed. My excuses for not telling the technical trainers where the conference would be held were becoming more and more outlandish. Matt, any progress on those reservations? Nope, bedridden. He thought that he might have caught Malaria despite taking his prophylaxis. He was running a high fever and felt like death. Oh yes, don’t worry, he would be going into the city the very next day to take care of some things. Aj recommended that we postpone the conference, it being too late to make reliable plans.
The conference was now one week away and we had no venue for participants that would be expecting food, a conference room, and beds. I called Matt, he was in Inhambane, and claimed that the hotel already had our reservation, which was hard for me to believe considering that it was impossible. Did they have food? Beds? A conference center? Yes, yes, yes, and hearing that I was satisfied. We had cut it close, but everything was going to be fine.
Just one hang-up, Matt said: JOMA had no money. Like no money? Well, the Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy said that they transferred the money on Monday. Today was Tuesday, so the money would definitely be in on Wednesday. So how did you make the reservation Matt? Well, he didn’t technically “make” the reservation, in exactly those terms. But it’d be fine, he said confidently (albeit weakly, running a high fever), no one would show up with actual money and make a reservation for that weekend and bump us. Apparently God had told him this.
Oh, and one more hang-up, Matt said: he fired the Gender Facilitator that would have run the conference. Why? She hadn’t called him back.
So if we indeed got money before Friday, if we succeeded in making a reservation, if this new hyperstrain of Malaria didn’t kill Matt, who would be leading the conference? In Portuguese? We’ll do fine, Matt said.
Wednesday came and went, and the money never showed. On Thursday I went to Inhambane.
I arrive in Inhambane to hear that Matt had been sent to Maputo. He’s fever was getting out of control and he needed blood tests to see if he might actually be dying. That left me and AJ to run the conference. Not that we aren’t handsome, rough-and-tumble badasses, but we’re also idiots. As luck would have it, a Peace Corps Volunteer named Lauryn lived in Inhambane city. She had extended her contract for an additional year and a half beyond the two years she had already served. She was experienced with facilitating presentations, her Portuguese was immaculate, and in a conference that was supposed to center on gender she filled the very needed role of educated, articulate woman. As bad luck would have it she didn’t like me.
Lauryn had no obligation to help of any kind. I’m sure she had many other important things to do. How to best convince her? I would take her and her boyfriend out to the nicest restaurant in town and grovel.
But that was later, first I had to go to the hotel and somehow make a reservation without payment of any kind. This is about as tricky as it sounds. I explained my situation to the woman behind the counter. She said that it would be impossible to make a reservation without payment. I explained my situation again, and began to plead. She got a superior. I explained my situation, pled. No dice, he said. How could we possibly be allowed to make a reservation without money?
I talked to the guy in charge of the kitchen, then his boss, the guy in charge of hotel facilities. No and no. I spoke to a man in the accounting office who flat out pretended I wasn’t on the other side of his desk, he just stared at his blank computer screen until I left. I was channeling my mother (an emasculating sentence to write), and as she does in these situations, you just keep going up the chain to find someone who has the authority or desire to help you. I went to the Director’s office. Her secretary mentioned she was out to lunch. It was two pm, the office closed at 3:30. I explained my situation to the secretary, and lo and behold, she was obliquely sympathetic.
She said that if I managed to send a fax with a receipt of transfer from the bank then everything would be kosher. Thank god! All I would need was a receipt of transfer showing that the money was being transferred to my account?
She balked. She thought the money was being transferred to their account. I didn’t have money at all? How could I expect to make a reservation without money?
At this point, with reasonable problem solving exhausted, I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out the emotional plea (again, though I hate to write it, channeling my mom). I explained the the pressure I was under. All these people would be arriving. They were expecting a conference with mattresses and sheets and food to eat and presentations from educated professionals. It was all a sham, I was just a post college bachelor idiot mouth breather. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to shower every day. I was in over my head. Please, couldn’t she find the pity, the decency, the goodwill in her heart to help me?
No, she said. But I could talk to the director when she returned.
I called AJ. He said that if I didn’t get approval by closing time at 3:30 we had no recourse in good conscience but to pull the plug and postpone. People would start their travel days at four am the following morning to get there by dinner. We had to do the right thing. And he was right, even though cancelling at that moment would still make us look like what we were: a group of headless chickens. Our organization didn’t have money.
I called Matt. He had been calling the Public Affairs Office all day (from the hospital I think). The money had been transferred, they said. They had even sent a receipt of transfer. Matt assured me that the money would definitely be in tomorrow, Friday, the day the conference was to begin.
I sat in the lobby and waited nervously for the return of this Director. Ok, groveling couldn’t be square one. Neither could open-minded problem solving, because what incentive did she have to work out a way to provide us with services without payment? That left only one thing: lying.
Well, not exactly lying. Strategic truth expansion. When she returned I was called into her office. With my shirt tucked in, my back as straight as a board and my Portuguese as sharp as I could cut it I explained to her that I was a working for the American government. My task was a nationwide organization called “JOMA”, of which I was the coordinator of all operations in southern Mozambique. Our problem was a silly one, really. The money simply had not arrived. An oversight. Some bungling intern in some office hadn’t put the paper in the right person’s inbox. Obviously as a representative of the American Government and one of the coordinators in a nationwide organization my word alone that the money would appear the following day was more than sufficient. This predicament was good for a chuckle, not a cause for worry.
And…she bought it! The Director shook my hand and said that we could proceed with the conference. My mask of professionalism cracked slightly as I gushed thank you’s all over her.
None of it was a lie, of course. It was a spin. I do represent the American government, JOMA is a nationwide organization, I am the coordinator for Southern Mozambique. She didn’t need to know that I am also the type of guy that routinely leaves his house with his fly down. The type of guy that misses patches of hair every time he shaves.
I called AJ at 3:30: we were on. And so began the most stressful weekend of my peace corps service.
I recieved my Close of Service date...December 9th 2011
The conference was only two weeks away. I was fielding a constant stream of phone calls from the trainers and participants. Sooner or later we would need to tell them where they would be staying. I called Matt about reservations. He talked about several possibilities, including hotels outside of Inhambane and Maxixe. Wait…had he actually gone to these hotels to inquire? He would be going the next day, he said.
Two days passed. My excuses for not telling the technical trainers where the conference would be held were becoming more and more outlandish. Matt, any progress on those reservations? Nope, bedridden. He thought that he might have caught Malaria despite taking his prophylaxis. He was running a high fever and felt like death. Oh yes, don’t worry, he would be going into the city the very next day to take care of some things. Aj recommended that we postpone the conference, it being too late to make reliable plans.
The conference was now one week away and we had no venue for participants that would be expecting food, a conference room, and beds. I called Matt, he was in Inhambane, and claimed that the hotel already had our reservation, which was hard for me to believe considering that it was impossible. Did they have food? Beds? A conference center? Yes, yes, yes, and hearing that I was satisfied. We had cut it close, but everything was going to be fine.
Just one hang-up, Matt said: JOMA had no money. Like no money? Well, the Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy said that they transferred the money on Monday. Today was Tuesday, so the money would definitely be in on Wednesday. So how did you make the reservation Matt? Well, he didn’t technically “make” the reservation, in exactly those terms. But it’d be fine, he said confidently (albeit weakly, running a high fever), no one would show up with actual money and make a reservation for that weekend and bump us. Apparently God had told him this.
Oh, and one more hang-up, Matt said: he fired the Gender Facilitator that would have run the conference. Why? She hadn’t called him back.
So if we indeed got money before Friday, if we succeeded in making a reservation, if this new hyperstrain of Malaria didn’t kill Matt, who would be leading the conference? In Portuguese? We’ll do fine, Matt said.
Wednesday came and went, and the money never showed. On Thursday I went to Inhambane.
I arrive in Inhambane to hear that Matt had been sent to Maputo. He’s fever was getting out of control and he needed blood tests to see if he might actually be dying. That left me and AJ to run the conference. Not that we aren’t handsome, rough-and-tumble badasses, but we’re also idiots. As luck would have it, a Peace Corps Volunteer named Lauryn lived in Inhambane city. She had extended her contract for an additional year and a half beyond the two years she had already served. She was experienced with facilitating presentations, her Portuguese was immaculate, and in a conference that was supposed to center on gender she filled the very needed role of educated, articulate woman. As bad luck would have it she didn’t like me.
Lauryn had no obligation to help of any kind. I’m sure she had many other important things to do. How to best convince her? I would take her and her boyfriend out to the nicest restaurant in town and grovel.
But that was later, first I had to go to the hotel and somehow make a reservation without payment of any kind. This is about as tricky as it sounds. I explained my situation to the woman behind the counter. She said that it would be impossible to make a reservation without payment. I explained my situation again, and began to plead. She got a superior. I explained my situation, pled. No dice, he said. How could we possibly be allowed to make a reservation without money?
I talked to the guy in charge of the kitchen, then his boss, the guy in charge of hotel facilities. No and no. I spoke to a man in the accounting office who flat out pretended I wasn’t on the other side of his desk, he just stared at his blank computer screen until I left. I was channeling my mother (an emasculating sentence to write), and as she does in these situations, you just keep going up the chain to find someone who has the authority or desire to help you. I went to the Director’s office. Her secretary mentioned she was out to lunch. It was two pm, the office closed at 3:30. I explained my situation to the secretary, and lo and behold, she was obliquely sympathetic.
She said that if I managed to send a fax with a receipt of transfer from the bank then everything would be kosher. Thank god! All I would need was a receipt of transfer showing that the money was being transferred to my account?
She balked. She thought the money was being transferred to their account. I didn’t have money at all? How could I expect to make a reservation without money?
At this point, with reasonable problem solving exhausted, I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out the emotional plea (again, though I hate to write it, channeling my mom). I explained the the pressure I was under. All these people would be arriving. They were expecting a conference with mattresses and sheets and food to eat and presentations from educated professionals. It was all a sham, I was just a post college bachelor idiot mouth breather. I didn’t even have the wherewithal to shower every day. I was in over my head. Please, couldn’t she find the pity, the decency, the goodwill in her heart to help me?
No, she said. But I could talk to the director when she returned.
I called AJ. He said that if I didn’t get approval by closing time at 3:30 we had no recourse in good conscience but to pull the plug and postpone. People would start their travel days at four am the following morning to get there by dinner. We had to do the right thing. And he was right, even though cancelling at that moment would still make us look like what we were: a group of headless chickens. Our organization didn’t have money.
I called Matt. He had been calling the Public Affairs Office all day (from the hospital I think). The money had been transferred, they said. They had even sent a receipt of transfer. Matt assured me that the money would definitely be in tomorrow, Friday, the day the conference was to begin.
I sat in the lobby and waited nervously for the return of this Director. Ok, groveling couldn’t be square one. Neither could open-minded problem solving, because what incentive did she have to work out a way to provide us with services without payment? That left only one thing: lying.
Well, not exactly lying. Strategic truth expansion. When she returned I was called into her office. With my shirt tucked in, my back as straight as a board and my Portuguese as sharp as I could cut it I explained to her that I was a working for the American government. My task was a nationwide organization called “JOMA”, of which I was the coordinator of all operations in southern Mozambique. Our problem was a silly one, really. The money simply had not arrived. An oversight. Some bungling intern in some office hadn’t put the paper in the right person’s inbox. Obviously as a representative of the American Government and one of the coordinators in a nationwide organization my word alone that the money would appear the following day was more than sufficient. This predicament was good for a chuckle, not a cause for worry.
And…she bought it! The Director shook my hand and said that we could proceed with the conference. My mask of professionalism cracked slightly as I gushed thank you’s all over her.
None of it was a lie, of course. It was a spin. I do represent the American government, JOMA is a nationwide organization, I am the coordinator for Southern Mozambique. She didn’t need to know that I am also the type of guy that routinely leaves his house with his fly down. The type of guy that misses patches of hair every time he shaves.
I called AJ at 3:30: we were on. And so began the most stressful weekend of my peace corps service.
I recieved my Close of Service date...December 9th 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Preschoolers and the Chinese
"Cacana!" The teacher calls
"CACANA!!!!" 30 preschoolers scream in unison
"Cacana!"
"CACANA!!!!"
Every tuesday night I go to sleep with the deluded idea that I will sleep in Wednesday morning. Mondays and Tuesdays have half of my hours, so Tuesday night is the celebrated halfway point of my week. And yet...
"Caranguejo!"
"CARANGUEJO!!!"
"Caranguejo!"
"CARANGUEJO!!!!"
Their united scream echoes mercilessly around my house. My roof and walls conspire to reflect the soundwaves directly into my face. It's Portuguese lessons for the preschoolers. Through repetition and exposure they soak up the language like sponges. It's to their benefit to learn the national language young while it's so easy. But I suffer. Red eyed with exhaustion laying sleepless in my bed I begin to have fantasies of putting on a mask and run screaming into their classroom.
Until I see them of course, and heart melts and burdens are forgotten etc etc
...
I was in Inhambane City having one of the most memorable and challenging weekends of my life when I decided to get something special. Tucked away in the market is a small stand with barred windows. They sell a strange collection of things; a stuffed animal chipmunk between two hamburger buns, fake coca cola cans, enormous pencils, and foreign beauty products. Sitting in the back is a soft serve ice cream machine tended by a kindly and tired Mozambican lady. Sleeping at the table (the one with the fake coke cans and oversized pencils) is a small chinese girl.
This little shop is chinese owned, explaining the bizzare selection of goods available. It is just one of many Chinese owned small businesses in Inhambane city, including a giant supermarket, and represents the larger Chinese presence throughout Mozambique.
The Estrada Nacional #1 is the largest and most important road in Mozambique, spanning the heighth of the country. It's in terrible shape, so bad that cars drive in the dirt alongside it because the road is so far beyond driveable. Or I should say that it was in bad shape. In the time that I have been here huge sections of the road have been completely repared. Along the roadside Chinese workers can be seen, overseeing the reparations.
Mozambique has a brand new soccer stadium in the capital city. It makes an impressive image just outside the city limits, huge and alone on the horizon. On a massive banner hanging from the side are Chinese characters.
As I ordered my ice cream a chinese teenager loitered next to me. The teenager heard my portuguese and in perfect portuguese of her own said, "wow, you speak portuguese very well!" I was floored, a chinese person that speaks Portuguese? The chinese nationals' lack of portuguese ability is famous. This was the first one I had met that spoke any portuguese at all. I was flabbergasted.
And she stared at me in equal disbelief. White peoples' lack of portuguese is, well, famous. This girl must see dozens of large south africans lumber through the market with nary a word of the spoken language between them. I must have been nearly the first white person she had spoken to.
And there we were, staring at each other mouths agape waiting for the punchline. I asked her where she was from, commented that it was very hot outside. Our small conversation drew the sleeping girl outside to join us. She stared up at me mystified, and I'm sure I stared down at her with the same stupid expression. What the hell were we doing there, as far from our homes as we could possibly be, speaking some strange tongue? I said goodbye and sure enough the little girl's portuguese was good too. I wish I had taken a photo.
There is a lot of vitriole towards the Chinese presence in Mozambique, from Mozambicans and Americans. Most of the Mozambican resistance manifests itself as outright and mostly clumsy racism. Americans decry China's exploitation of Africa, and that their donor money is just a lure to sink their teeth into the country's resources. In an open discussion with the American ambassador he mentioned that American aid dwarfs chinese aid in Mozambique, it's just that Chinese aid is targeted at visible, public projects.
But what does that matter to one English teacher and a small shop owner in Inhambane City? Our small exchange was awkward and fascinating to me, because it didn't make me feel like "its a small world after all". It made me feel like the world was unfathomably huge.
"CACANA!!!!" 30 preschoolers scream in unison
"Cacana!"
"CACANA!!!!"
Every tuesday night I go to sleep with the deluded idea that I will sleep in Wednesday morning. Mondays and Tuesdays have half of my hours, so Tuesday night is the celebrated halfway point of my week. And yet...
"Caranguejo!"
"CARANGUEJO!!!"
"Caranguejo!"
"CARANGUEJO!!!!"
Their united scream echoes mercilessly around my house. My roof and walls conspire to reflect the soundwaves directly into my face. It's Portuguese lessons for the preschoolers. Through repetition and exposure they soak up the language like sponges. It's to their benefit to learn the national language young while it's so easy. But I suffer. Red eyed with exhaustion laying sleepless in my bed I begin to have fantasies of putting on a mask and run screaming into their classroom.
Until I see them of course, and heart melts and burdens are forgotten etc etc
...
I was in Inhambane City having one of the most memorable and challenging weekends of my life when I decided to get something special. Tucked away in the market is a small stand with barred windows. They sell a strange collection of things; a stuffed animal chipmunk between two hamburger buns, fake coca cola cans, enormous pencils, and foreign beauty products. Sitting in the back is a soft serve ice cream machine tended by a kindly and tired Mozambican lady. Sleeping at the table (the one with the fake coke cans and oversized pencils) is a small chinese girl.
This little shop is chinese owned, explaining the bizzare selection of goods available. It is just one of many Chinese owned small businesses in Inhambane city, including a giant supermarket, and represents the larger Chinese presence throughout Mozambique.
The Estrada Nacional #1 is the largest and most important road in Mozambique, spanning the heighth of the country. It's in terrible shape, so bad that cars drive in the dirt alongside it because the road is so far beyond driveable. Or I should say that it was in bad shape. In the time that I have been here huge sections of the road have been completely repared. Along the roadside Chinese workers can be seen, overseeing the reparations.
Mozambique has a brand new soccer stadium in the capital city. It makes an impressive image just outside the city limits, huge and alone on the horizon. On a massive banner hanging from the side are Chinese characters.
As I ordered my ice cream a chinese teenager loitered next to me. The teenager heard my portuguese and in perfect portuguese of her own said, "wow, you speak portuguese very well!" I was floored, a chinese person that speaks Portuguese? The chinese nationals' lack of portuguese ability is famous. This was the first one I had met that spoke any portuguese at all. I was flabbergasted.
And she stared at me in equal disbelief. White peoples' lack of portuguese is, well, famous. This girl must see dozens of large south africans lumber through the market with nary a word of the spoken language between them. I must have been nearly the first white person she had spoken to.
And there we were, staring at each other mouths agape waiting for the punchline. I asked her where she was from, commented that it was very hot outside. Our small conversation drew the sleeping girl outside to join us. She stared up at me mystified, and I'm sure I stared down at her with the same stupid expression. What the hell were we doing there, as far from our homes as we could possibly be, speaking some strange tongue? I said goodbye and sure enough the little girl's portuguese was good too. I wish I had taken a photo.
There is a lot of vitriole towards the Chinese presence in Mozambique, from Mozambicans and Americans. Most of the Mozambican resistance manifests itself as outright and mostly clumsy racism. Americans decry China's exploitation of Africa, and that their donor money is just a lure to sink their teeth into the country's resources. In an open discussion with the American ambassador he mentioned that American aid dwarfs chinese aid in Mozambique, it's just that Chinese aid is targeted at visible, public projects.
But what does that matter to one English teacher and a small shop owner in Inhambane City? Our small exchange was awkward and fascinating to me, because it didn't make me feel like "its a small world after all". It made me feel like the world was unfathomably huge.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Classroom Kung Fu
The week I spent in America seems like a dream. Incongruous in every way, and me sick the entire time, I couldn’t wait to get back. It took a full month in Moz to get healthy again.
My first month has gone well. I am better at planning and giving lessons, and have a much better idea of what I need to do on a global level to be a good teacher. Unfortunately that involves being a little harder at the beginning of the year in terms of discipline. My third grade teacher Mrs. Davis would keep a steady rule on the class by never raising her voice, forcing us to control the noise level in the classroom to hear her. Even her scoldings were delivered in a calm and level tone. Her style was subtle and measured. This is not my style.
When a student talks I tell them to be quiet. If they talk again I TELL THEM TO BE QUIET, in something of a stage voice (full stare, let the silence hang in the air afterwards). If their misbehavior is insolent or openly disrespectful my response is immediate, my punishment public, and final. If a student complains about being there I tell them to leave. If a student cheats I give them a zero. When a student arrives late I ask why, and if I don’t like the answer (example: “I was errr….sick and errr...there were goats and ummm…) they don’t get to come in.
I respect Mrs. Davis’ style. It is perhaps more mature and maybe even more effective than mine. But it isn’t me. I’m not calm and subtle. I have found, however, no problems with behavior of any kind this year. My style isn’t all swords and shouting, but when the time comes for that I don’t hesitate. Good lesson planning is key, engaging the students is absolutely important, respecting them and their requests is necessary for a relationship. But when a student tests the boundaries I show him or her exactly where they are.
Honestly—and don’t tell anyone this—but I kind of enjoy it. No, I don’t enjoy the look of dismay in the cheater that knows they’re caught (maybe a tiny bit), or the look of shame on the good student that just can’t shut up. What I enjoy is the order. Instead of feeling insecure in front of the students I feel like I belong in this role with all of its responsibilities, and yes, its powers. I enjoy being good at it.
Who threw the paper? We are going to stay here until someone comes forward (I seem to grow taller as I walk down the aisle. I stop abruptly). Was it YOU Francisco? (the lights dim) I think it WAS you Francisco (he panics, shakes his head furiously, he looks to the exit. There is no escape). Tell me Francisco (I hold the wad of paper in front of him, my eyes fixed on his), just what should I do with you? (fade to black, blood-curdling scream)
My first month has gone well. I am better at planning and giving lessons, and have a much better idea of what I need to do on a global level to be a good teacher. Unfortunately that involves being a little harder at the beginning of the year in terms of discipline. My third grade teacher Mrs. Davis would keep a steady rule on the class by never raising her voice, forcing us to control the noise level in the classroom to hear her. Even her scoldings were delivered in a calm and level tone. Her style was subtle and measured. This is not my style.
When a student talks I tell them to be quiet. If they talk again I TELL THEM TO BE QUIET, in something of a stage voice (full stare, let the silence hang in the air afterwards). If their misbehavior is insolent or openly disrespectful my response is immediate, my punishment public, and final. If a student complains about being there I tell them to leave. If a student cheats I give them a zero. When a student arrives late I ask why, and if I don’t like the answer (example: “I was errr….sick and errr...there were goats and ummm…) they don’t get to come in.
I respect Mrs. Davis’ style. It is perhaps more mature and maybe even more effective than mine. But it isn’t me. I’m not calm and subtle. I have found, however, no problems with behavior of any kind this year. My style isn’t all swords and shouting, but when the time comes for that I don’t hesitate. Good lesson planning is key, engaging the students is absolutely important, respecting them and their requests is necessary for a relationship. But when a student tests the boundaries I show him or her exactly where they are.
Honestly—and don’t tell anyone this—but I kind of enjoy it. No, I don’t enjoy the look of dismay in the cheater that knows they’re caught (maybe a tiny bit), or the look of shame on the good student that just can’t shut up. What I enjoy is the order. Instead of feeling insecure in front of the students I feel like I belong in this role with all of its responsibilities, and yes, its powers. I enjoy being good at it.
Who threw the paper? We are going to stay here until someone comes forward (I seem to grow taller as I walk down the aisle. I stop abruptly). Was it YOU Francisco? (the lights dim) I think it WAS you Francisco (he panics, shakes his head furiously, he looks to the exit. There is no escape). Tell me Francisco (I hold the wad of paper in front of him, my eyes fixed on his), just what should I do with you? (fade to black, blood-curdling scream)
Friday, February 18, 2011
I'm still updating about family vaca. So sue me.
My family vacation took a turn in Johannesburg.
I was in the bathroom of my hotel room looking at my stubble in the mirror. I knew that it wasn’t enough for a beard…but just maybe. Various angles and five straight minutes of staring were starting to convince me that a beard was becoming a possibility, or was maybe just a few years away.
My mom came into the room. She was buzzing around the room picking things up, but we were leaving that day for Kruger Park so no surprise. She did seem a little stressed, or pale, or something like that.
“Hey mom, do you think this is enough for a beard?” I said, pointing at my sparse neck hair.
“Huh?” She replied, breathless.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, probably with the we’re-just-going-to-another-hotel-don’t-freak-out tone in my voice.
“My dad died.”
We made plans to go home. I didn’t expect to go home in my two years, and I wasn’t happy about it. I wanted two years of retreat, to grow or change or develop some enlightened perspective and then come back and give it another shot with my newfound amazingness. Not to be. Mom was initially open to discussion of the topic, but her relief when I suggested I may indeed jump the pond cemented my decision.
In the meantime we did go to Kruger for a couple of days. At first Kruger is amazing, we saw animals as we entered the park, including a giraffe (an impressively monstrous animal), right from our car!
Then Kruger seems a little touristy, like a zoo. I mean you don’t even have to leave your car to see animals? How fat and lazy have we become that we design nature’s greatest beasts to be seen from the comfort of our air conditioned asses? And the accommodations—the “camping”—was considerably nicer than my home. The hotels are expensive and all inclusive. The “Tent cabins” that we stayed in featured spacious, well lit rooms with great warm showers and tiny hotel shampoos. We saw a bull elephant, herds of zebras, wildebeest and impala from the porch. On the first afternoon. The words of caution about the dangerous animals from our guide started to feel like the words of caution from the tourguide at the beginning of disney’s jungle cruise.
Then you realize how outrageous it is that you can see elephants from your porch. We saw elephants, rhinos, hippos, huge herds of various game, enormous lizards, tarantulas (the guide found it, far from the tent cabins), and my bro’s personal favorite, the baboons. Baboons hang out in huge groups (packs? Herds? Gangs? Gaggles?), and unlike the impalas that do the same they are constantly interacting. The impalas just stand next to each other, and besides for the occasional overhyper baby impala leaping around for no reason (which is funny) they mostly just breathe on each other. The baboons play and poke and preen, they seem to laugh and they look back at you quizzically as they scoop up their babies with their humanoid hands. It was once in a lifetime: we even got to see two lions mate (which was cacophonous and lasted maybe five seconds).
Then Kruger gets boring. Another bull elephant? Another super rare something now mostly extinct found only here? Big deal I’ve already seen four of those. Kruger’s wildlife is so plentiful and accessible that you burn out on it. Absolutely worth a visit, but only for a few days.
And before I knew it I was on a plane to Heathrow, where we did get our luggage back despite British Airway’s best efforts to employ the most sparsely witted and aggressive idiots I’ve ever had the pleasure to hate. And in a blink I was on a plane to LAX.
We got off the plane like zombies, screwed up beyond jet lag and limped through customs with the bags we never got to open. Uncle John met us at the door. The airport was more crowded and noisy than I remembered it to be, and smaller too. But nothing smells like Los Angeles.
I was in the bathroom of my hotel room looking at my stubble in the mirror. I knew that it wasn’t enough for a beard…but just maybe. Various angles and five straight minutes of staring were starting to convince me that a beard was becoming a possibility, or was maybe just a few years away.
My mom came into the room. She was buzzing around the room picking things up, but we were leaving that day for Kruger Park so no surprise. She did seem a little stressed, or pale, or something like that.
“Hey mom, do you think this is enough for a beard?” I said, pointing at my sparse neck hair.
“Huh?” She replied, breathless.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, probably with the we’re-just-going-to-another-hotel-don’t-freak-out tone in my voice.
“My dad died.”
We made plans to go home. I didn’t expect to go home in my two years, and I wasn’t happy about it. I wanted two years of retreat, to grow or change or develop some enlightened perspective and then come back and give it another shot with my newfound amazingness. Not to be. Mom was initially open to discussion of the topic, but her relief when I suggested I may indeed jump the pond cemented my decision.
In the meantime we did go to Kruger for a couple of days. At first Kruger is amazing, we saw animals as we entered the park, including a giraffe (an impressively monstrous animal), right from our car!
Then Kruger seems a little touristy, like a zoo. I mean you don’t even have to leave your car to see animals? How fat and lazy have we become that we design nature’s greatest beasts to be seen from the comfort of our air conditioned asses? And the accommodations—the “camping”—was considerably nicer than my home. The hotels are expensive and all inclusive. The “Tent cabins” that we stayed in featured spacious, well lit rooms with great warm showers and tiny hotel shampoos. We saw a bull elephant, herds of zebras, wildebeest and impala from the porch. On the first afternoon. The words of caution about the dangerous animals from our guide started to feel like the words of caution from the tourguide at the beginning of disney’s jungle cruise.
Then you realize how outrageous it is that you can see elephants from your porch. We saw elephants, rhinos, hippos, huge herds of various game, enormous lizards, tarantulas (the guide found it, far from the tent cabins), and my bro’s personal favorite, the baboons. Baboons hang out in huge groups (packs? Herds? Gangs? Gaggles?), and unlike the impalas that do the same they are constantly interacting. The impalas just stand next to each other, and besides for the occasional overhyper baby impala leaping around for no reason (which is funny) they mostly just breathe on each other. The baboons play and poke and preen, they seem to laugh and they look back at you quizzically as they scoop up their babies with their humanoid hands. It was once in a lifetime: we even got to see two lions mate (which was cacophonous and lasted maybe five seconds).
Then Kruger gets boring. Another bull elephant? Another super rare something now mostly extinct found only here? Big deal I’ve already seen four of those. Kruger’s wildlife is so plentiful and accessible that you burn out on it. Absolutely worth a visit, but only for a few days.
And before I knew it I was on a plane to Heathrow, where we did get our luggage back despite British Airway’s best efforts to employ the most sparsely witted and aggressive idiots I’ve ever had the pleasure to hate. And in a blink I was on a plane to LAX.
We got off the plane like zombies, screwed up beyond jet lag and limped through customs with the bags we never got to open. Uncle John met us at the door. The airport was more crowded and noisy than I remembered it to be, and smaller too. But nothing smells like Los Angeles.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Northern Inhambane
Meeting my brother in Vilanculos was a trip. He had gotten so much larger, by something like 20 pounds. He looked like a caricature of a 10 year old him, but he’s looked that way to me since forever. We were finally reunited after 15 months. Mom cried.
And our adventure began.
The car’s air conditioning didn’t work (despite guarantees otherwise). It was also leaking oil.
The hotel’s mosquito nets didn’t cover the beds (defeating their purpose). The microwave didn’t work. The toilet didn’t flush. The shower drooled. The bathroom was in general filthy. Their was an accessible rooftop to our hideous little cottage, but it was covered in gutted, rotting fish, which tempered some of the appeal. The restaurant took over an hour to cook our fish, though they did bring it to our house which was nice.
The icing on the cake for me was returning to our house after a day out, and the hotel did not have our keys. At first I was annoyed, but after half an hour of searching the entire compound I started getting frustrated. It was eventually discovered that the woman responsible for cleaning our house had taken the keys home. Upon hearing this my frustration boiled over to anger, at which time the manager--drunk at 2 pm--tried to pick a fight with me.
The next day the woman left our house unlocked all day (defeating the purpose of having locks on the doors), of course had we wanted to lock the door we couldn’t have because she once again took our keys (and the keys to no other room) home with her.
Throughout these endeavors British Airways gave us no information regarding our baggage which they had lost during the storm at Heathrow. We checked with the Maputo airport every day. We called, emailed and submitted lost baggage claims to British Airways, to no response of any kind. My mom and dad gamely lived out of their carry-on for two weeks.
My dad said that the most important thing was that we were together. Everything else was secondary. And when I remember our vacation I remember sitting in that crummy little cottage eating peanut butter and tuna. I want those moments back. I wish I could keep them and reopen them.
We took a trip to the Bazaruto Islands, we snorkeled in the clear blue water, ate lunch on remote beaches. We went with another couple who had met in the Peace Corps and their lovely family. Pods of dolphins raced around our boat. It was everything an amazing island getaway should be.
Afterwards we stayed at the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in on the cliffs overlooking the ocean at Vilanculos. So it wasn’t all bad.
And our adventure began.
The car’s air conditioning didn’t work (despite guarantees otherwise). It was also leaking oil.
The hotel’s mosquito nets didn’t cover the beds (defeating their purpose). The microwave didn’t work. The toilet didn’t flush. The shower drooled. The bathroom was in general filthy. Their was an accessible rooftop to our hideous little cottage, but it was covered in gutted, rotting fish, which tempered some of the appeal. The restaurant took over an hour to cook our fish, though they did bring it to our house which was nice.
The icing on the cake for me was returning to our house after a day out, and the hotel did not have our keys. At first I was annoyed, but after half an hour of searching the entire compound I started getting frustrated. It was eventually discovered that the woman responsible for cleaning our house had taken the keys home. Upon hearing this my frustration boiled over to anger, at which time the manager--drunk at 2 pm--tried to pick a fight with me.
The next day the woman left our house unlocked all day (defeating the purpose of having locks on the doors), of course had we wanted to lock the door we couldn’t have because she once again took our keys (and the keys to no other room) home with her.
Throughout these endeavors British Airways gave us no information regarding our baggage which they had lost during the storm at Heathrow. We checked with the Maputo airport every day. We called, emailed and submitted lost baggage claims to British Airways, to no response of any kind. My mom and dad gamely lived out of their carry-on for two weeks.
My dad said that the most important thing was that we were together. Everything else was secondary. And when I remember our vacation I remember sitting in that crummy little cottage eating peanut butter and tuna. I want those moments back. I wish I could keep them and reopen them.
We took a trip to the Bazaruto Islands, we snorkeled in the clear blue water, ate lunch on remote beaches. We went with another couple who had met in the Peace Corps and their lovely family. Pods of dolphins raced around our boat. It was everything an amazing island getaway should be.
Afterwards we stayed at the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in on the cliffs overlooking the ocean at Vilanculos. So it wasn’t all bad.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
End of the Year
I once read a study of premeds in realtionships taking the MCATs. The study was interesting because long before they were to take the test the stress in the relationship increased, but as the MCAT approached the stress in their relationship decreased. Our professor’s analysis was that the stress decreased because both of the partners realized that it was the MCAT that was stressing them out, whereas months before the couple didn’t realize that it was the MCAT that was causing stress. The stresser wasn’t close enough for them to properly identify it.
In the two months before my family arrived I was crawling up the walls. There were so many things that I hadn’t planned ahead for, or so it seemed to me. Car rentals and hotel reservations are difficult without an internet connection, as if that would even help you in Mozambique. It didn’t help that school was out for summer, and that my computer broke (again yay!) leaving me with precious few distractions. I was travelling with my friends to kill time, and hardly enjoyed myself the entire time. I couldn’t tell if I was excited to see my parents or if I dreaded it.
Days before my house was in disarray, the hotel reservations weren’t finalized and I got sick.
I arrived in Maputo to pick up my parents and Zeus had conspired against us. They were delayed in London, with no idea of when they might escape that cursed isle. But I had fallen into some luck. A family working for the State Department had an open invitation to Peace Corps volunteers to stay in their wonderful, massive, air conditioned, well-stocked home. They offered to let me borrow their car, we watched Back to the Future (I had never seen it) on their TV, they fed me and took care of me. Their teenage daughters are well adjusted, their home is well kept, and they live a happy, adventurous life abroad together--not unlike one I may choose for myself.
Tara (the mother of the house) drove me to the airport. I was talking to my brother while I waited for mom and dad at the gate. Waiting for them to appear at any second I couldn’t stop trying to remember what they looked like. It was on the tip of my mind, but I couldn’t call it into precise detail. When I saw my dad his image filled my mind with a familiarity impossibly old. And my mom cried. And I held it in. I thought initially that I had done it for embarassment, but I think the emotions were too big to be delt any justice in an airport, over just one hug, after so long.
In the two months before my family arrived I was crawling up the walls. There were so many things that I hadn’t planned ahead for, or so it seemed to me. Car rentals and hotel reservations are difficult without an internet connection, as if that would even help you in Mozambique. It didn’t help that school was out for summer, and that my computer broke (again yay!) leaving me with precious few distractions. I was travelling with my friends to kill time, and hardly enjoyed myself the entire time. I couldn’t tell if I was excited to see my parents or if I dreaded it.
Days before my house was in disarray, the hotel reservations weren’t finalized and I got sick.
I arrived in Maputo to pick up my parents and Zeus had conspired against us. They were delayed in London, with no idea of when they might escape that cursed isle. But I had fallen into some luck. A family working for the State Department had an open invitation to Peace Corps volunteers to stay in their wonderful, massive, air conditioned, well-stocked home. They offered to let me borrow their car, we watched Back to the Future (I had never seen it) on their TV, they fed me and took care of me. Their teenage daughters are well adjusted, their home is well kept, and they live a happy, adventurous life abroad together--not unlike one I may choose for myself.
Tara (the mother of the house) drove me to the airport. I was talking to my brother while I waited for mom and dad at the gate. Waiting for them to appear at any second I couldn’t stop trying to remember what they looked like. It was on the tip of my mind, but I couldn’t call it into precise detail. When I saw my dad his image filled my mind with a familiarity impossibly old. And my mom cried. And I held it in. I thought initially that I had done it for embarassment, but I think the emotions were too big to be delt any justice in an airport, over just one hug, after so long.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Rain
And time drags on here. Without work I am a fidgety, indolent blob of flesh. School is effectively over, some minor administrative paperwork remains. All I have to do is sign gradesheets. Maybe 30 minutes of real work in a day.
So all I can say is that my life is pretty plain, so I sit around my house and pray for rain.
The hot season is also the planting season, because it is also the wet season. The wet season is erratic in Africa, one year having three times as much rainfall as the next. The rain is vital, the most common profession—or rather way of life—here in Mozambique is subsistence farming. Almost everyone has a machamba (garden/farm) to “supplement their diets” as we say, or sell some extra goods in the market. Even I have a small machamba in my front yard to get the green veggies I so dearly miss. And while I have water at the mission, the vast majority of Mozambicans rely on rainfall.
Small talk these days revolves around how hot it is and the lack of rain. It rained last night, one of the first major rains of the season. It’s a promising sign. And in Mozambique when it rains it pours.
It can start in a matter of seconds. Literally seconds: when the drops start to fall people run for cover, women with buckets full of fish on their heads, men in ties, little kids, everyone. When I first saw this I laughed, what’s the matter with a few raindrops? But moments later it started raining, I mean really raining, and I understood.
It’s severe. The rain falls in sheets, in buckets, in pools. Within moments your shirt is soaked. In two minutes your thick khakis are drenched through, like someone just pushed you into the pool on your birthday. If you’re caught in it you’re screwed.
So you walk around armed with an umbrella, always. The problem is that the rain is wholly unpredictable. Dark rain clouds will hang overhead for days, staring down at you waiting for the one time you run to the market just to pick up toilet paper, you won’t be gone more than ten minutes. You learn this lesson only once—it takes forever for your clothes to dry without direct sunlight—and you are forever after vigilant with your umbrella. But you’ll learn the hard way, arriving at your front door pitiful, relieved and sopping like a wet kitten.
The roof on my house is sheets of zinc. Every huge raindrop that smacks onto my roof echoes down into my house. When the sheets, buckets, pools fall the sound is huge, like machine-gun clad battalions firing outside my windows. You can be sitting next to someone and almost shouting just for them to hear you.
Every joint, every nail and screw-hole is an opportunity for the rain to get in. In the middle of night I awoke with my pillow soaked in the midst of the deafening rain. I arose with a start and moved my bed, only to find that the rain was leaking everywhere. I used every bucket and basin I had to collect the leaks around my house. I draped several garbage bags over my mosquito net to protect myself. My mattress was wet, so I slept on my thermarest atop my bed.
The most spectacular thing about the rainy season isn’t the rain itself. I have never seen, never imagined, lightning like I have seen in Mozambique. It cracks down from the heavens in awesome bolts, dwarfing us tiny humans below. The bolts dart sideways between clouds, and dance across the horizon. The huge spikes of electricity remind you how tall the sky is. More amazing than any fireworks I have seen.
And the thunder. The thunder is unbelievable. The rain pounding my roof is nothing compared to the boom of thunder. The sound is vast, almost painful, and as I sit alone in my house the gigantic blast fills me with an irrational, awed fear. My cat and I sit together, grateful for each other’s company, the hackles raised on our necks, on edge for the next thunder crack.
It stops just as quickly. Without warning the rain slows and stops as if some great god was simply turning off the faucet. The silence rings in your ears, and you can feel your heart beat gratefully but tentatively slowing down. After all, it could start again at any moment.
20 days until my family arrives.
So all I can say is that my life is pretty plain, so I sit around my house and pray for rain.
The hot season is also the planting season, because it is also the wet season. The wet season is erratic in Africa, one year having three times as much rainfall as the next. The rain is vital, the most common profession—or rather way of life—here in Mozambique is subsistence farming. Almost everyone has a machamba (garden/farm) to “supplement their diets” as we say, or sell some extra goods in the market. Even I have a small machamba in my front yard to get the green veggies I so dearly miss. And while I have water at the mission, the vast majority of Mozambicans rely on rainfall.
Small talk these days revolves around how hot it is and the lack of rain. It rained last night, one of the first major rains of the season. It’s a promising sign. And in Mozambique when it rains it pours.
It can start in a matter of seconds. Literally seconds: when the drops start to fall people run for cover, women with buckets full of fish on their heads, men in ties, little kids, everyone. When I first saw this I laughed, what’s the matter with a few raindrops? But moments later it started raining, I mean really raining, and I understood.
It’s severe. The rain falls in sheets, in buckets, in pools. Within moments your shirt is soaked. In two minutes your thick khakis are drenched through, like someone just pushed you into the pool on your birthday. If you’re caught in it you’re screwed.
So you walk around armed with an umbrella, always. The problem is that the rain is wholly unpredictable. Dark rain clouds will hang overhead for days, staring down at you waiting for the one time you run to the market just to pick up toilet paper, you won’t be gone more than ten minutes. You learn this lesson only once—it takes forever for your clothes to dry without direct sunlight—and you are forever after vigilant with your umbrella. But you’ll learn the hard way, arriving at your front door pitiful, relieved and sopping like a wet kitten.
The roof on my house is sheets of zinc. Every huge raindrop that smacks onto my roof echoes down into my house. When the sheets, buckets, pools fall the sound is huge, like machine-gun clad battalions firing outside my windows. You can be sitting next to someone and almost shouting just for them to hear you.
Every joint, every nail and screw-hole is an opportunity for the rain to get in. In the middle of night I awoke with my pillow soaked in the midst of the deafening rain. I arose with a start and moved my bed, only to find that the rain was leaking everywhere. I used every bucket and basin I had to collect the leaks around my house. I draped several garbage bags over my mosquito net to protect myself. My mattress was wet, so I slept on my thermarest atop my bed.
The most spectacular thing about the rainy season isn’t the rain itself. I have never seen, never imagined, lightning like I have seen in Mozambique. It cracks down from the heavens in awesome bolts, dwarfing us tiny humans below. The bolts dart sideways between clouds, and dance across the horizon. The huge spikes of electricity remind you how tall the sky is. More amazing than any fireworks I have seen.
And the thunder. The thunder is unbelievable. The rain pounding my roof is nothing compared to the boom of thunder. The sound is vast, almost painful, and as I sit alone in my house the gigantic blast fills me with an irrational, awed fear. My cat and I sit together, grateful for each other’s company, the hackles raised on our necks, on edge for the next thunder crack.
It stops just as quickly. Without warning the rain slows and stops as if some great god was simply turning off the faucet. The silence rings in your ears, and you can feel your heart beat gratefully but tentatively slowing down. After all, it could start again at any moment.
20 days until my family arrives.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Peanut butter, my lifeblood. When you don't want to cook, when you want something that reminds you of home, full of protein and fat--two nutrients not easily gotten here--peanut butter.
My town does not have peanut butter. It's my only complaint about where I live. My addiction to peanut butter drives me at least once a month to the nearby city (read "large town kind of") of Vilanculos.
The lone mode of transport is the chapa, a large grey van that seats 12 comfortably but is considered full at around 25 people (plus live goats, chickens, babies and luggage--once a live goat was strapped to the roof). It's cheap and completely unpredictable. Sometimes they leave every half hour, sometimes not for a few hours at a time. I've been in chapas that have broken down on the road many times. Once I was in a chapa whose engine was continually overheating, necessitating a stop every two miles or so to cool the engine with water fetched from a river that parallels the road. Another time the chapa came to a complete and normal stop, and the door fell off. Yet another time they couldn't get the door open, and I was stuck in that glorified RC car with 20+ sweating bodies for almost an hour without moving.
But you make it work, and you get better at accepting it. After all, there is no alternative. Mozambican patience is, generally speaking, heroic, and it figures.
Remember that almost anywhere I go in my corner of Mozabique, I cause a stir. This applies especially to chapas. I approach the chapa stop and I am bombarded with "My fren! My fren! Where you go? Where you go my fren?" I try to stay calm and explain where I am going in Portuguese. "Oh!" they say, "you speak Portuguese!" Yes, I do, and that gets me a handfull of respect, enough to ensure that they don't try to rip me off, usually.
The problem is that in chapas they do not speak Portuguese. And the stir continues when I get in. My tiny amount of Shitswa is enough for me to know when they are talking about me, that and the fact that they stare, point and laugh quite openly. Sometimes I try to respond in the little Shitswa I know, sometimes I just address them in Portuguese to break the ice. But as the jokes go on, and am I talked about more and more but personally acknowledged less I find myself paralyzed. "Why is the white man riding with us in the chapa?" "Doesn't the boss have a car?" It's the most alienating experience I have ever had.
I want to tell them not to call me "boss", first of all. But explaining to a complete stranger the racial ramifications of the word boss out of the blue is not an endeavor I would recommend. Your good intentions are hampered by language barriers, massive cultural barriers, and the simple fact that most people don't want to be burdened with that kind of stuff. I sympathize, I don't want to be burdened by it either. But when you are a racially sensitized white American surrounded by black Africans and they are calling you "boss" over and over it's hard not to feel like you are drowning in it.
It will calm down after a few minutes, because I have lived in my community for so long most of the time the chapa driver or someone on the chapa knows me, and that diffuses the situation.
I get off the chapa after 3 hours and I can't feel my feet because the chapa is so small that my knees have to be raised to fit, so only a fraction of my butt touches the seat at any one moment. But I need my damn peanut butter and I'll do whatever it takes at this point. If I thought the chapa was bad, Vilanculos proper is far worse. In the market there are men whose profession is to scam white people. As I approach they see me and pounce. They ask me if I want to change money, they ask me what I want, offering to get it for me at jacked up prices. I tell them I don't want anything, and sometimes they follow me. I ask them to leave me alone and a brave few will continue to follow, asking what I want over and over. When I threaten violence and scream at them that I am not some %$^#@ tourist they will almost always leave, laughing as they go (this is to diffuse the tension, a very common Mozambican maneuver). They may follow at a distance though, on the prowl as I look for the best prices on peanut butter.
Everywhere I go kids shout "Milungo!" at me. People call me "boss" (it sounds like "boys" when they say it. And when you ask them what it means none of them know), one time a man on the other side of the street selling phone credit shouted "sista! sista! sista!" over and over again, perhaps "sister" being the only English word the guys knows. Children ask me for money, adults ask me for money. It’s not everyone or even most people, but it feels like I am being sized up and calculated. My shirt, my bag, my sunglasses and especially my shoes give me away, let alone of course my skin and hair. Some days it feels like every friendly conversation ends with them asking me for money.
I'm on my guard, on edge, the whole time. Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you that when I travel I can be brutal, especially to people who think they can rip me off. My community isn't anything like Vilanculos. It's smaller, quieter, I'm well known, and sure I get harassed now and then but after a short conversation I can usually introduce myself and ensure that that person will never call me "boss" or "milungo" again. But Vilanculos is a hardened tourist town. White people pass through all the time and they are almost all tourists, none speaking Portuguese. I am just another white, a target for some, a novelty for others, or ignored (as I would prefer it).
I get my peanut butter and go home. Being in Vil is exhausting, riding on chapas is exhausting, and it all makes me feel like an outsider with no means of being anything but white, and that feeling is the most exhausting and hopeless feeling a volunteer can get..
Once back in town though I say thank you to the driver. I stop by the market and say hi to my friends there. I joke around with Nina who sells me tomatoes. Luisa who breast feeds her baby as she talks to me in my broken Shitswa. True story:
While buying bananas a little girl looks at me and says "milungo!" And Julia, one of the banana ladies stops her and says, "Hey, that's not a milungo, that's Colin." I thank her like an idiot ("You don't have to thank me!" she says, almost annoyed) and go home with my peanut butter tucked under my arm.
Victory.
Family t-minus one month.
My town does not have peanut butter. It's my only complaint about where I live. My addiction to peanut butter drives me at least once a month to the nearby city (read "large town kind of") of Vilanculos.
The lone mode of transport is the chapa, a large grey van that seats 12 comfortably but is considered full at around 25 people (plus live goats, chickens, babies and luggage--once a live goat was strapped to the roof). It's cheap and completely unpredictable. Sometimes they leave every half hour, sometimes not for a few hours at a time. I've been in chapas that have broken down on the road many times. Once I was in a chapa whose engine was continually overheating, necessitating a stop every two miles or so to cool the engine with water fetched from a river that parallels the road. Another time the chapa came to a complete and normal stop, and the door fell off. Yet another time they couldn't get the door open, and I was stuck in that glorified RC car with 20+ sweating bodies for almost an hour without moving.
But you make it work, and you get better at accepting it. After all, there is no alternative. Mozambican patience is, generally speaking, heroic, and it figures.
Remember that almost anywhere I go in my corner of Mozabique, I cause a stir. This applies especially to chapas. I approach the chapa stop and I am bombarded with "My fren! My fren! Where you go? Where you go my fren?" I try to stay calm and explain where I am going in Portuguese. "Oh!" they say, "you speak Portuguese!" Yes, I do, and that gets me a handfull of respect, enough to ensure that they don't try to rip me off, usually.
The problem is that in chapas they do not speak Portuguese. And the stir continues when I get in. My tiny amount of Shitswa is enough for me to know when they are talking about me, that and the fact that they stare, point and laugh quite openly. Sometimes I try to respond in the little Shitswa I know, sometimes I just address them in Portuguese to break the ice. But as the jokes go on, and am I talked about more and more but personally acknowledged less I find myself paralyzed. "Why is the white man riding with us in the chapa?" "Doesn't the boss have a car?" It's the most alienating experience I have ever had.
I want to tell them not to call me "boss", first of all. But explaining to a complete stranger the racial ramifications of the word boss out of the blue is not an endeavor I would recommend. Your good intentions are hampered by language barriers, massive cultural barriers, and the simple fact that most people don't want to be burdened with that kind of stuff. I sympathize, I don't want to be burdened by it either. But when you are a racially sensitized white American surrounded by black Africans and they are calling you "boss" over and over it's hard not to feel like you are drowning in it.
It will calm down after a few minutes, because I have lived in my community for so long most of the time the chapa driver or someone on the chapa knows me, and that diffuses the situation.
I get off the chapa after 3 hours and I can't feel my feet because the chapa is so small that my knees have to be raised to fit, so only a fraction of my butt touches the seat at any one moment. But I need my damn peanut butter and I'll do whatever it takes at this point. If I thought the chapa was bad, Vilanculos proper is far worse. In the market there are men whose profession is to scam white people. As I approach they see me and pounce. They ask me if I want to change money, they ask me what I want, offering to get it for me at jacked up prices. I tell them I don't want anything, and sometimes they follow me. I ask them to leave me alone and a brave few will continue to follow, asking what I want over and over. When I threaten violence and scream at them that I am not some %$^#@ tourist they will almost always leave, laughing as they go (this is to diffuse the tension, a very common Mozambican maneuver). They may follow at a distance though, on the prowl as I look for the best prices on peanut butter.
Everywhere I go kids shout "Milungo!" at me. People call me "boss" (it sounds like "boys" when they say it. And when you ask them what it means none of them know), one time a man on the other side of the street selling phone credit shouted "sista! sista! sista!" over and over again, perhaps "sister" being the only English word the guys knows. Children ask me for money, adults ask me for money. It’s not everyone or even most people, but it feels like I am being sized up and calculated. My shirt, my bag, my sunglasses and especially my shoes give me away, let alone of course my skin and hair. Some days it feels like every friendly conversation ends with them asking me for money.
I'm on my guard, on edge, the whole time. Ask any of my friends and they'll tell you that when I travel I can be brutal, especially to people who think they can rip me off. My community isn't anything like Vilanculos. It's smaller, quieter, I'm well known, and sure I get harassed now and then but after a short conversation I can usually introduce myself and ensure that that person will never call me "boss" or "milungo" again. But Vilanculos is a hardened tourist town. White people pass through all the time and they are almost all tourists, none speaking Portuguese. I am just another white, a target for some, a novelty for others, or ignored (as I would prefer it).
I get my peanut butter and go home. Being in Vil is exhausting, riding on chapas is exhausting, and it all makes me feel like an outsider with no means of being anything but white, and that feeling is the most exhausting and hopeless feeling a volunteer can get..
Once back in town though I say thank you to the driver. I stop by the market and say hi to my friends there. I joke around with Nina who sells me tomatoes. Luisa who breast feeds her baby as she talks to me in my broken Shitswa. True story:
While buying bananas a little girl looks at me and says "milungo!" And Julia, one of the banana ladies stops her and says, "Hey, that's not a milungo, that's Colin." I thank her like an idiot ("You don't have to thank me!" she says, almost annoyed) and go home with my peanut butter tucked under my arm.
Victory.
Family t-minus one month.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Goal Three
The Peace Corps has three goals. Very basically they are 1) to help the host country, 2) to represent America, and 3) to represent the host country to Americans.
Number one is too vague to quantify. Number 2 is pretty much a guarantee. Number three can be more complicated than it suggests. Keeping a blog, for instance, is a very simple way to give a snapshot of Mozambique, to humanize and characterize Mozambicans, and so forth. But I was speaking to a volunteer about this a few weeks ago, and a snapshot does not capture the ridiculous complexity of a society and a people.
Example:
One of the Italians at my site has a house. In front of this house is a pack of stray dogs that has accumulated over the last few months. In the beginning they seemed dangerous, and after a while they were a nuisance, but after some months my Italian friend came to grow fond of them, and especially fond of the two that spent the most time on her front steps.
One of these dogs was female, and was soon enough pregnant. As the dog grew fatter and less mobile my friend took some extra care of it. When the dog gave birth she started to make plans for the puppies.
Shortly thereafter, one of the neighbors killed the dog with a knife, and all of the puppies died.
My initial reaction was of repulsion and outrage. Killing a dog with a knife? A dog with puppies? It was difficult to think of any justification, and very easy to think of sadistic, cruel evil. I have been a dog owner my whole life, I could never imagine doing anything like that to a dog.
And if we left it at that Mozambique might seem like a cruel place, and Mozambicans a violent people.
But being culturally sensitive liberal stereotypes with our relativistic moralities we are going to try to understand this situation. Firstly: the man who killed the dogs certainly did not have any inkling that these dogs had owners. They were strays; he wasn’t overstepping his authority because no one had claimed any official ownership over them. In fact, the dog had had the puppies in front of his own house in his yard. So suddenly a random dog sat down on his lawn and popped out a bunch of puppies.
Secondly, animals rights are a luxury we have in the US that is simply not recognized here. If people aren’t getting enough to eat, don’t have proper shelter against the cold, or medical care where exactly do dogs enter as a priority? Animals are labor, food, or nuisance, the concept of a pet is not one that exists in the Mozambican countryside (nor does it likely exist anywhere outside of our Western world).
Thirdly, stray dogs can be dangerous. Just a few weeks ago a woman in my town died of rabies, which as I understand it is a downright terrifying way to die. Dogs can bite kids, steal food, attack livestock and carry diseases like rabies, scabies, etc etc. So when the mommy dog has puppies on the lawn its just a few more dangerous roaming animals in the neighborhood.
Lastly, the knife. He killed the mother dog with a knife! How grisly and awful, I though at first. But it’s not like his stabbed the dog repeatedly for the adrenaline rush or sadistic thrill. Slitting an animals throat is how animals are killed here, mostly because it is a fairly quick and therefore relatively merciful way to kill an animal.
The incident evolved in my mind from a violent murder to a practical measure. Packs of stray dogs can be a dangerous nuisance. There are no vets to give rabies shots or to “put the dog to sleep” (I wonder what dogs would think of that euphemism). The man was looking out for his house and his family.
But my friend was still sad afterwards, and angry. I don’t blame her. But I don’t blame him either.
Then I watched every superhero movie I could get my hands on to right my head. Then my computer died and I was very, very sad.
50 days until my family arrives! Way too long to start a realistic countdown!
Number one is too vague to quantify. Number 2 is pretty much a guarantee. Number three can be more complicated than it suggests. Keeping a blog, for instance, is a very simple way to give a snapshot of Mozambique, to humanize and characterize Mozambicans, and so forth. But I was speaking to a volunteer about this a few weeks ago, and a snapshot does not capture the ridiculous complexity of a society and a people.
Example:
One of the Italians at my site has a house. In front of this house is a pack of stray dogs that has accumulated over the last few months. In the beginning they seemed dangerous, and after a while they were a nuisance, but after some months my Italian friend came to grow fond of them, and especially fond of the two that spent the most time on her front steps.
One of these dogs was female, and was soon enough pregnant. As the dog grew fatter and less mobile my friend took some extra care of it. When the dog gave birth she started to make plans for the puppies.
Shortly thereafter, one of the neighbors killed the dog with a knife, and all of the puppies died.
My initial reaction was of repulsion and outrage. Killing a dog with a knife? A dog with puppies? It was difficult to think of any justification, and very easy to think of sadistic, cruel evil. I have been a dog owner my whole life, I could never imagine doing anything like that to a dog.
And if we left it at that Mozambique might seem like a cruel place, and Mozambicans a violent people.
But being culturally sensitive liberal stereotypes with our relativistic moralities we are going to try to understand this situation. Firstly: the man who killed the dogs certainly did not have any inkling that these dogs had owners. They were strays; he wasn’t overstepping his authority because no one had claimed any official ownership over them. In fact, the dog had had the puppies in front of his own house in his yard. So suddenly a random dog sat down on his lawn and popped out a bunch of puppies.
Secondly, animals rights are a luxury we have in the US that is simply not recognized here. If people aren’t getting enough to eat, don’t have proper shelter against the cold, or medical care where exactly do dogs enter as a priority? Animals are labor, food, or nuisance, the concept of a pet is not one that exists in the Mozambican countryside (nor does it likely exist anywhere outside of our Western world).
Thirdly, stray dogs can be dangerous. Just a few weeks ago a woman in my town died of rabies, which as I understand it is a downright terrifying way to die. Dogs can bite kids, steal food, attack livestock and carry diseases like rabies, scabies, etc etc. So when the mommy dog has puppies on the lawn its just a few more dangerous roaming animals in the neighborhood.
Lastly, the knife. He killed the mother dog with a knife! How grisly and awful, I though at first. But it’s not like his stabbed the dog repeatedly for the adrenaline rush or sadistic thrill. Slitting an animals throat is how animals are killed here, mostly because it is a fairly quick and therefore relatively merciful way to kill an animal.
The incident evolved in my mind from a violent murder to a practical measure. Packs of stray dogs can be a dangerous nuisance. There are no vets to give rabies shots or to “put the dog to sleep” (I wonder what dogs would think of that euphemism). The man was looking out for his house and his family.
But my friend was still sad afterwards, and angry. I don’t blame her. But I don’t blame him either.
Then I watched every superhero movie I could get my hands on to right my head. Then my computer died and I was very, very sad.
50 days until my family arrives! Way too long to start a realistic countdown!
Goal Three
The Peace Corps has three goals. Very basically they are 1) to help the host country, 2) to represent America, and 3) to represent the host country to Americans.
Number one is too vague to quantify. Number 2 is pretty much a guarantee. Number three can be more complicated than it suggests. Keeping a blog, for instance, is a very simple way to give a snapshot of Mozambique, to humanize and characterize Mozambicans, and so forth. But I was speaking to a volunteer about this a few weeks ago, and a snapshot does not capture the ridiculous complexity of a society and a people.
Example:
One of the Italians at my site has a house. In front of this house is a pack of stray dogs that has accumulated over the last few months. In the beginning they seemed dangerous, and after a while they were a nuisance, but after some months my Italian friend came to grow fond of them, and especially fond of the two that spent the most time on her front steps.
One of these dogs was female, and was soon enough pregnant. As the dog grew fatter and less mobile my friend took some extra care of it. When the dog gave birth she started to make plans for the puppies.
Shortly thereafter, one of the neighbors killed the dog with a knife, and all of the puppies died.
My initial reaction was of repulsion and outrage. Killing a dog with a knife? A dog with puppies? It was difficult to think of any justification, and very easy to think of sadistic, cruel evil. I have been a dog owner my whole life, I could never imagine doing anything like that to a dog.
And if we left it at that Mozambique might seem like a cruel place, and Mozambicans a violent people.
But being culturally sensitive liberal stereotypes with our relativistic moralities we are going to try to understand this situation. Firstly: the man who killed the dogs certainly did not have any inkling that these dogs had owners. They were strays; he wasn’t overstepping his authority because no one had claimed any official ownership over them. In fact, the dog had had the puppies in front of his own house in his yard. So suddenly a random dog sat down on his lawn and popped out a bunch of puppies.
Secondly, animals rights are a luxury we have in the US that is simply not recognized here. If people aren’t getting enough to eat, don’t have proper shelter against the cold, or medical care where exactly do dogs enter as a priority? Animals are labor, food, or nuisance, the concept of a pet is not one that exists in the Mozambican countryside (nor does it likely exist anywhere outside of our Western world).
Thirdly, stray dogs can be dangerous. Just a few weeks ago a woman in my town died of rabies, which as I understand it is a downright terrifying way to die. Dogs can bite kids, steal food, attack livestock and carry diseases like rabies, scabies, etc etc. So when the mommy dog has puppies on the lawn its just a few more dangerous roaming animals in the neighborhood.
Lastly, the knife. He killed the mother dog with a knife! How grisly and awful, I though at first. But it’s not like his stabbed the dog repeatedly for the adrenaline rush or sadistic thrill. Slitting an animals throat is how animals are killed here, mostly because it is a fairly quick and therefore relatively merciful way to kill an animal.
The incident evolved in my mind from a violent murder to a practical measure. Packs of stray dogs can be a dangerous nuisance. There are no vets to give rabies shots or to “put the dog to sleep” (I wonder what dogs would think of that euphemism). The man was looking out for his house and his family.
But my friend was still sad afterwards, and angry. I don’t blame her. But I don’t blame him either.
Then I watched every superhero movie I could get my hands on to right my head. Then my computer died and I was very, very sad.
50 days until my family arrives! Way too long to start a realistic countdown!
Number one is too vague to quantify. Number 2 is pretty much a guarantee. Number three can be more complicated than it suggests. Keeping a blog, for instance, is a very simple way to give a snapshot of Mozambique, to humanize and characterize Mozambicans, and so forth. But I was speaking to a volunteer about this a few weeks ago, and a snapshot does not capture the ridiculous complexity of a society and a people.
Example:
One of the Italians at my site has a house. In front of this house is a pack of stray dogs that has accumulated over the last few months. In the beginning they seemed dangerous, and after a while they were a nuisance, but after some months my Italian friend came to grow fond of them, and especially fond of the two that spent the most time on her front steps.
One of these dogs was female, and was soon enough pregnant. As the dog grew fatter and less mobile my friend took some extra care of it. When the dog gave birth she started to make plans for the puppies.
Shortly thereafter, one of the neighbors killed the dog with a knife, and all of the puppies died.
My initial reaction was of repulsion and outrage. Killing a dog with a knife? A dog with puppies? It was difficult to think of any justification, and very easy to think of sadistic, cruel evil. I have been a dog owner my whole life, I could never imagine doing anything like that to a dog.
And if we left it at that Mozambique might seem like a cruel place, and Mozambicans a violent people.
But being culturally sensitive liberal stereotypes with our relativistic moralities we are going to try to understand this situation. Firstly: the man who killed the dogs certainly did not have any inkling that these dogs had owners. They were strays; he wasn’t overstepping his authority because no one had claimed any official ownership over them. In fact, the dog had had the puppies in front of his own house in his yard. So suddenly a random dog sat down on his lawn and popped out a bunch of puppies.
Secondly, animals rights are a luxury we have in the US that is simply not recognized here. If people aren’t getting enough to eat, don’t have proper shelter against the cold, or medical care where exactly do dogs enter as a priority? Animals are labor, food, or nuisance, the concept of a pet is not one that exists in the Mozambican countryside (nor does it likely exist anywhere outside of our Western world).
Thirdly, stray dogs can be dangerous. Just a few weeks ago a woman in my town died of rabies, which as I understand it is a downright terrifying way to die. Dogs can bite kids, steal food, attack livestock and carry diseases like rabies, scabies, etc etc. So when the mommy dog has puppies on the lawn its just a few more dangerous roaming animals in the neighborhood.
Lastly, the knife. He killed the mother dog with a knife! How grisly and awful, I though at first. But it’s not like his stabbed the dog repeatedly for the adrenaline rush or sadistic thrill. Slitting an animals throat is how animals are killed here, mostly because it is a fairly quick and therefore relatively merciful way to kill an animal.
The incident evolved in my mind from a violent murder to a practical measure. Packs of stray dogs can be a dangerous nuisance. There are no vets to give rabies shots or to “put the dog to sleep” (I wonder what dogs would think of that euphemism). The man was looking out for his house and his family.
But my friend was still sad afterwards, and angry. I don’t blame her. But I don’t blame him either.
Then I watched every superhero movie I could get my hands on to right my head. Then my computer died and I was very, very sad.
50 days until my family arrives! Way too long to start a realistic countdown!
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Year One
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
