Casual Tuesday In Peace Corps
Last night dreams were interesting and thankfully it wasn’t
all about the school and my inabilities to reach the kids but something a
little more fun. I ended up dreaming about a field trip to Egypt and having to
become Jason Bourne to save everybody. But,
as usual, I was able to wake up before the alarm; little before six. Lately I
have been starting my day along with the sun: which sneaks in through my window
and under the Russian flag that I currently use as a curtain.
Having a window in my room and a back porch of the house
that faces every sunrise every morning has been every day a nature’s present to
me. I have been trying to capture it with different cameras and settings but so
far I have done it no justice. Our house is on a slant and behind it, is nature
that is not obstructed by anything obtuse, except for our own cemented wall and
thin wire fence. About a mile down there is a little stream, so lately, when it
has been cooler, the fog has been hiding in the ridge; at times, it even seeps
up to our house and school and brings the effect like we are in the movie
Casablanca.
Today is laundry day, so I take off the shirt as I climb out
of bed and throw it in my recently acquired hamper bucket. In flip flops and
pajama pants I fill up the cattle outside from the huge rain water
collector. The fresh crispy-chill air provides
me with the feeling of a chill shower that I have not had for a few days but
probably should. I am not a morning
shower person and the light in our bathroom has not been working the whole time
we have lived here so I rarely have opportunities to take warm showers in the
afternoon and actually see the spots where I need more soap or scrub a little
harder. The warm water is provided by solar heating water system that is
mounted on the roof, probably that and the big fridge are the coolest things
about the house. Eventually, I will probably add the air conditioner to that
list but have yet to use it. The heat will probably hit sometime in
October/November, right before the big rains of December/January/February and
March.
I have started pre-soaking my clothing on advice of a smart
volunteer who had noted that it is a lot easier for hand washing if it had been
soaked for some time before the act of scrubbing. We hired Olga a few months back now; she is
our magic laundry woman. She has been very reliable and consistent with great
work and being on time. `Being on time´
has become a trait to cherish, especially in students. Most all of them know
the English phrase “Time is money” but they only remember it when somebody else
is late and not themselves.
Finding a worker like Olga is not very easy. As a visitor
here, one would find out right away the time concept is more laid back than on
the islands of Hawaii. Also, even though most everybody has cellphones, they
will still not know what time it is. Probably because the batteries are drained
or were never set correctly in the first place.
As a sight note, I have yet to see anybody selling wrist watches of any
kind outside of Maputo, and feel very safe that nobody will take my watch if I
take it off and leave it accidentally somewhere for an extended period of time.
This morning as I tried to heat the tea with the Chinese
kettle, I remembered that it tripped a fuse the day before and probably would
not work, as it didn’t. So I had to pour the water out into a metal pot and
heat it up on the electric stove that I just fixed two days before, as the
wires keep burning up. It takes 45
minutes for water to boil on the stove, which is the exact amount of time it
took me this morning to fix the Chinese electric kettle with handy
screwdrivers, vice grips and the worst electric tape I have ever had to use.
With boiled water I prepared tea for the morning and through
out the day in a liter jar. On Tuesdays, laundry day, we have Olga coming to
wash our clothes and Nelo clean our back/front yard and house. When we have
bread, which is almost every Tuesday, I would make different sandwiches out of
peanut butter, cheese, pork sausage, homemade guava jam and butter. As the
washing sink is outside and since winter is here - hot tea is much appreciated
by all and a sandwich could be the only food one has all day, which I know
quite well from experience. As today there was no bread we all enjoyed some
great biscuit cookies with the tea, which are very similar to shortbread.
Tuesday mornings I do not teach chemistry at the school but
a teacher or administrative staff would always find something else for me to do
or help with. Today, I made other plans to help close by friends who are
missionaries from Texas with their old lap top. But before I can head out to
their house I run by the school and open the computer lab for a few teachers
that need to write up Provincial Exams for the trimester that will take place
in mid-July. After a few explanations I went
back to the house.
Nelo is our guy. He does many things inside and outside the
house. He has a family and is about 33 years old. He finished tenth grade but
could not continue. His English is much better than most of the twelfth graders
at our school. He was very excited to help us around the house, and more so
with the opportunity to develop further English skills. So I have been teaching
him English and he has been teaching me Portuguese, for which Peace Corps
provide us a stipend to give to him.
The English lesson started off with why we wash our
vegetables and eggs in water mixed with a little bit of bleach. Then we
continued to setting up the computer and the reason for using a voltage
regulators to power the electronics, difference between Africa and USA
(120/220volts), and how lap top batteries, or phone batteries for that matter,
do not survive long in Africa. After the power issues I continue to explain VGA
cords and how to connect it to the projector, which I have him use to practice
computer skills and English skills.
Past Sunday, we started a lesson for him to copy text from a
book (Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton). I have him practice reading the
text out loud and then translate it into Portuguese, thus giving us both
practice to discuss the meanings of symbols and words. Paton is no Conrad but
the words still tend to be challenging, but they also repeat quite often within
the text, allowing for repetition learning. After setting him up with work to
continue to practice on his own, I went to the American couple that is about 20
minutes away by foot.
They live on a hill closer to the village of Nomba. I have
grown to enjoy our friendships; they are in their 50s who have been in Lichinga
already for about 3 year and full of interesting insights and help. This past
Sunday their house was robbed while being away. Their laptop was stolen but
earlier last week I took their old broken laptop to look at and after little
examination I figured it would be possible to restore but would need small
screw drivers. So today I went to their house to use their screw drivers to fix
the problem. I got out two hair balls from the fan, blasted air throughout the
frame and had to wiggle almost all the connections to finally get it to turn on
and more importantly stay on.
During the three hours it took me to fix the problems I
enjoyed great conversation about problems that we all face upon living here and
trying to adopt within the community. A few weeks back they gave me a few great
books to read, which I have been enjoying in some little free time I do have.
One of them is the “Cry, The Beloved Country” and another is “African Friends
and Money Matters,” which has open my mind to be more sensitive about the
differences. While reading that book I was already visioning of what I can
write about. A lot of the time it is important to talk to someone to get some
things off the chest as well as hearing other side of the arguments or possible
solutions that you could not come up on your own.
As I finished up and the laptop worked they were kind to
offer lunch but I had to rush back to school to teach Computers to twelfth graders.
Before the class started I enjoyed a couple of green oranges at about 8 cents
each, which is on the cheaper side. Mozambique is very expensive for Africa,
especially in terms of cost of food. I am actually thinking about writing a
little research essay on potential reasons behind it. Computer class yesterday
had the all-time high attendance for the trimester with over thirty students.
But, one can never predict and my attendance today was three. I had the three
practice typing skills and they each took two quizzes. I spent over two and a
half hours with one of the three students where he kept making the same
mistakes and I kept trying to have him realize that first he needs to analyze
and/or realize what he is doing wrong. Then, by correcting it he would reduce
the amount of errors and improve greatly. And this concept would not just be
true in typing. Not sure that I was able to get to him as it kept getting later
and his concentration was probably absent as a result of an empty stomach and
being tired.
As I finished up with the last student I was called in by
the Administrative Director to help her create an excel table. As I know I
would like to see sustainable work I guided her through most of the table
making, which undoubtedly took longer than if I just did it but hopefully next
table she needs, she will be able to do it herself, or at least with less help.
Thinking I was finished I headed home for some very late lunch that could be
called early dinner but short distance out of the school I was chased by
another secretary to help install the printer cartridge in the office of the
Director of Pedagogy. This has been a much awaited printer cartridge that I was
excited to install and demonstrate how to take out the old one, prepare the
cartridge and place in the new one.
Getting home about dinner time I noticed an owl atop of the
broken light post just outside our house. It was quietly looking at his pray
that I could hear to my left and my right - rustling through the grass. I was
hoping he would not try the in-between and fly at me. Upon getting home I was
not starving, as sometimes I have to prepare my own dinner, but whenever Nelo
comes by he prepares a masterpiece. And this time it was a Monet. He prepared
the Matapa, it is a traditional curry out of mustard leafs, peanut butter, oil,
tomatoes, onions, and Bennys – the secret ingredient. One would eat Matapa or
any type of curry with Xima, and the stuff he made was awesome. The best I have
had yet. It is basically corn flour mixed with water and made in patties. A
basic staple here in Mozambique and over much of the Africa. Very easy to make
it taste awful as it is somewhat blend.
With a full belly I enjoyed some surfing on the internet and
the crazy internet espionage that is going within the country of US as well as the
outside. Like a spy novel playing out in newspaper articles. Very riveting and
feels distant because I feel such conversation here is not yet possible. This could
be because there is a lack of resources or because privacy is not of value
here, which could be of benefit to society as a whole as I am beginning to see upon
spending more time here.
After little rest I went back to school work and graded
notebooks for about 3+ hours. I inputted
the weekly quizzes into the computer along with the homework grades and the
test. I provided the students with up to date grade for this trimester to
demonstrate how they are doing in class and so far am pleasantly surprised,
though they are my best disciplined kids.
I kept grading the books until about the rain arrived at about 11pm, at
which I called it quits. The rest of the grading I will finish tomorrow morning
and return the notebooks, giving them a whole day before next class. And I will
probably add extra homework for those that did not do well on the latest quiz
that they took yesterday, to improve their grade a little bit and hopefully
have more practice doing it.
Thanks for all your guys positive words of encouragement in
the previous edition. Sorry for the length but I guess I’m getting older and
have more hot air to vent out. My birthday is coming up next week and I am very
glad I will be spending it here working and hopefully improving someone else’s
life. I have lacked that in my stack-testing job. Though remember on some
occasions I did have that while I was coaching tennis at the high-school.
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