End of the 1st Trimester

I'm getting to the end of the first trimester of my second year of teaching.  This year is going much better than last year.  A majority of my students are passing, I'm even having a fun time in the classroom.  I'm also starting to think a lot about what I'm going to be doing when I get out of here.  Fantasizing about hot running water and washing machines and fast food.  McDonalds, TacoBell...grocery stores with cheese.

But then Filomena comes over and reminds me how sad she will be when I leave in November.  And I'll be sad too.  I wish I could just pick these guys up and transplant them to the land of convenience food and infrastructure.


Avo and Moosey came over to visit today.  Look at Moosey's beautiful weave and hand-made school uniform.

Little Sister Grandma (Mana Avozinha) is hip.

 They colored some Mozambican flags.

The other day it rained.

This kid never stops.... 

This is probably what he's saying....

"Tio! Tio! Tio! Tio!"  

"Yes, Vito"  (That's me)

"Is this a dog?"

"Yes, Vito"

"Tio! Tio! Tio! Tio!"

"Yes, Vito"

"You have hair!"

"....yes, Vito"

..........

What I do

These days.  I'm busy and feeling uninspired by my food choices lately.

I'm teaching 8th grade Biology 12-8:30 pm two days a week. My students are much more enjoyable this year since I've learned how to manage my classroom better.  I'm also teaching an English class once a week to the three priests-in-training at Kim's mission school.

Kim and I are running a reading activity/tutoring program once a week.  We're still working the kinks out (IE:  how to avoid Book Riots)

I'm writing a grant to get the water system fixed at my school.  Right now, students have no access to bathrooms or drinking water while they're at school.  Kids who live in the dorms have to climb on top of a water tank to pull up buckets of salt water for washing and drinking.  Their bathrooms would classify as cruel and unusual treatment anywhere else...

I'm working with the Museum in the city once a week, trying to get a functional educational program started, but I'm running into all sorts of obstacles on this one.  Turns out the employees that would be running the program don't actually have a job description so we had to go back to the beginning on our training plan, and then I was sick for a while and so was my counterpart at the museum so a few meetings got cancelled, and then next thing I know I lost a whole month.  Hopefully this week we'll get moving again.

I volunteered to generate the schedule for my school (which has 43 teachers, 35 classes and 17 time periods a day--it's a triple shift school) so that I could manage my free time myself.  Turns out this was a gigantic mistake.  Each time I made a schedule I would hear countless complaints and then the Ped. Director would tell me of the three professors who couldn't teach their assigned classes because of whatever reasons.  After I made the Ped Director swear to talk to all the teachers and find out what their restrictions were I'd remake the schedule.  We'd post the new schedule and within minutes at least 6 teachers would be knocking on my door or cornering me in the teacher's lounge telling me why they couldn't work at whatever time was assigned...and so on.   I believe we're on the 5th round of this.  I think this time it's going to stick.....

I'm over Mozambican food.  I'm tired of endless days of soggy green leaves in coconut sauce over rice (which is really really good...but still....).  I'm tired of trying to be creative with the limited choices in the market (beans, chicken, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cabbages, coconuts, peanuts and green leaves).  I want fast food.  I want things in cans.  I want frozen vegetables.  I want variety.  Good news though, it's Avocado season, so I'm eating lots and lots of delicious guacamole.

I'm really getting the hang of cooking while sitting on a straw mat. You should try it, it's fun.

Top Chef Season 103, Mozambique

I spend a lot of time watching TV.  Less TV than last year as I'm 150% busier this year.  Sadly, I can only fit a 10 hour TV marathon in on the weekends now.  I still spend lots of time daydreaming about TV.

A few months ago I went on a TOP CHEF binge and since then I've been imagining what the show would look like here in Moz....

In a large outdoor space of swept dirt and a few shady trees, 16 grannys (vovos) in capulanas and headscarves (lencoes) sat on straw mats with their legs straight out in front of them.  Half dressed children ran in packs among the vovos, playing with homemade soccerballs and climbing the trees to knock down exotic fruits. In the sweltering afternoon heat a fully packed chapa pulls up and Padma, the host of Top Chef 103, Mozambique, tumbled out, looking fresh and bright in her ruffly, satin-trimmed capulana suit dress.

Padma welcomed the vovos to the competition and introduced them to the Carvao Kitchen (TM!)
 stocked with wheelbarrows full of carvao (coal) and brand new dented aluminum pots.  The Top Chef pantry (aka. the barraca across the street) was stocked with every ingredient the vovos could possibly want.  Whether the vovos needed half-rotten tomatoes, wilty onions, soggy cucumbers or bean leaves, pumpkin leaves, cabbage, sweet potato leaves, kale....they'd find it in the Top Chef Barraca. Behind the barraca there was a pasture full of goats, chickens, pigs, large rats and cows. They'd only be limited by their imaginations.  Spices?  They have them too!  Curry powder, check.  Benny's? (pure MSG) Check!  Actually, those are the only two spices vovos need.

The first challenge threw the vovos for a loop when Padma announced that the vovos had only 4 hours to prepare a pot of Sopa de Legumes (a traditional street-food that typically has pasta cooked to the point of disintegration but no legumes).  The vovos grumbled at the limited time.  "I can't possibly get my coal lit, my goat butchered and my pasta cooked in only 4 hours!"  When Padma announced "Your time starts now!" The vovos wiped their hands on their capulanas and walked slowly over to the wheelbarrows of carvao to collect their fuel. This took nearly 20 minutes because the vovos needed to stop and chat with every other vovo they passed on their way. Once they had a plastic bag full of coal they returned to their small stoves and burned their plastic bags to light their carvao before sending a small child to the barraca to collect their ingredients.  After the carvao was lit, the vovos walked a quarter mile to carry back a 25L jug of water on their heads with a baby strapped to their back.

Everything went well for the first two hours, the vovos had their carvao burning hot, they had a jug of water, their pasta and green leaves on the way to unrecognizable and the babies on their backs were asleep when Padma threw in the first twist. "Vovos, there's been a change. You are no longer allowed to use Benny's in your Sopa"  The vovos let out a collective "SHEEEEEE!" and began arguing loudly with Padma, explaining that Sopa without Benny's would not be Sopa and EVERYONE knows that.  When confronted with the overwhelming confidence of the 16 vovos speaking at least 5 different languages, Padma was forced to withdrawal the spice restriction and retreated to the corner of the Carvao Kitchen.

When Padma announced the end of the 4 hour cooking time, the vovos returned to their houses to take baths and sent the children to buy bread.  An hour later, when the food had cooled off, the vovos returned to present their dishes to the judges.

The judges, or Chefes (large men with big bellies who often wear sunglasses and play music on their telephones) sat at a plastic picnic table and waited patiently for the vovos.  The vovos arrived with a jug of water and a bowl and poured a small stream for the Chefes to wash their hands.  One by one the vovos brought a bowl of soup for the Chefes.  For each of the 16 vovos, the chefes were compelled to eat an entire bowl of soup or the vovos would look sadly at the Chefes and say "You didn't like it? Eat more"  Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, the Chefes finished eating their 16 bowls of soup.

The Chefes debated the merits of each bowl of soup at length.  "Good morning collegues, Thank you for your presence here,"  a Chefe in a shiny purple shirt began, "I enjoyed all of the soups, but I felt that Vovo Ana's soup had just the right amount of bone shards and the pasta was absolutely unrecognizable." The chefes all made a loud "uuhhmmmm" sound to indicate their agreement. The next Chefe added his input  "Good morning once again collegues, I agree that Vovo Ana's soup had bone shards and perfectly gummy pasta.  Vovo Ana Helena's soup, unfortunately had no fat floating on the top of it but I really enjoyed her use beef tripe"  ..and on and on the Chefes went, grunting and whistling and hissing their agreements or disagreements...

At 6am the Vovos returned to the Carvao Kitchen to sweep the dirt and carry more jugs of water for the second day of competition.  The chefes returned at 7am to drink cups of tea with 6 spoons of sugar each and continue the discussions from the night before.

All in all, the deliberation took nearly 7 hours since each Chefe needed to repeat what all the Chefe's before him had said.  They would have been finished after 4 hours but there was confusion about the distinction between the 9 Vovo Anas in the competition.  Once the Chefe's reached a conclusion they yelled "Padma!" at the top of their lungs until Padma crawled out of a reed-hut where she had been hiding since she had offended the Vovo's the previous afternoon and they had threatened to hit her.  Not that they actually would have hit her, "I'm going to hit you" is just the standard but Padma didn't know that.

In the end, it was Vovo Ana7's soup that won the competition, but none of the vovos cared because they were too busy in their corn fields (machambas) gathering the food for their families.

Padma packed her bags and gave up on Top Chef 103, Mozambique.

Jardim Zoological

IN Which I visit the Zoo with my Friends.

This is the Zoo!  It only costs 5mts to get in (that's ~15 cents for you folks playing along at home).

 Beyond the gate is a shady park full of crumbling buildings.  I'm using Shady here to mean both physically shady--lots of nice trees--and Totally Creepy! 

We followed some crumbling sidewalks through knee high grass. Next time I'm bringing my binoculars and a compass.

At this point one of my friends said "I wonder if we have to find the animals ourselves"  She was just joking.

When we found the first animal exhibit we were relieved.  Looks like the animals are in a place that they probably can't get out of.  This is Vervet Monkey Town!

Some more empty cages...

More monkeys!  These monkeys were throwing rocks at each other.

This is the door to their enclosure.  See, they're so happy in these rusty and droopy chain link palaces that they don't even WANT to leave!  We shut it just in case.

The big monkey picked on the baby monkey.  It threw some rocks at it and bit it's tail.  We moved on to another concrete bottom, chain link cage with a sad pacing baboon in it.  Then we realized.....

THE BABY MONKEY WAS FOLLOWING US.

Suddenly, we didn't think it was so funny to wonder if we'd have to find the animals ourselves.

We hoped desperately that there were no longer bears at the Zoo.  

There aren't, thank goodness.  

But there are baboons that will do backflips for a peanut.

We wandered through the countryside for a bit longer.  Really, this zoo is like a giant field dotted with little ponds and crumbling walls.

Here's a pond!  See that sign?



Here's a closeup.  It says.  "Hauling water from here is prohibited!!"

Here's why.  Can you spot the croc?

Here's a separate croc-pond.  This is a Chefe Croc.  That is, a morbidly obese crocodile.

This is the fence that separates the crocs from the humans.  This boy is throwing rocks at ChefeCroc to see if he will move. He didn't.  Just opened and closed his eyes a few times.

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THIS MAN IS HAULING WATER FROM A POND. Oh, but it's okay, there's no crocs here.  that I could see.  He was walking around the zoo watering baby plants.

We found the snake!  I poked it.

Then we went out to a lunch-shack and ate the best best best chicken in peanut sauce that I have ever had in my life.

THE END

Live Blog

This is what blogging looks like!

I know it's sideways.  I'm sorry.  I tried 8,000 times to fix it but.. I don't know.

Also.  NIKI lives!  I'm not going to report rumors of her death anymore...

Just in case you weren't already Jealous of my mozamlife

This is the best collection of pictures to date.  I won't even spoil the surprise...

I am still on a beach vacation.

Hi from the beach!  Keep going, this isn't even the best part yet.

We got tired of the Tacky Dolphin Beach and headed down the road a bit to this beach.

I laid in a hammock for an afternoon.  Then we packed up and headed back to my town.

 Because Sumaya was taking care of my new baby puppy.  This isn't a puppy though, this is a gazelle.  Wait for it....

THIS IS A PET MONKEY!!!!

This is even better than a beach vacation.  FEEDING A PET MONKEY A MANGO.

Then I went home to see my machamba.  Unfortunately a lot of my plants got fried in the heat while I was off on my beach vacation.

Vito told me that Niki was bitten by a cobra and died while I was away.  I haven't seen her yet... but I'm not ready to believe him yet....

Power's Out

Hay!  Power's out so here's a quick assortment of photos from last week

We decorated for Christmas!  Also we listened to the song "Do they Know It's Christmas" at least 50 times.  I can't imagine why that song never caught on... In case you're wondering about the accuracy of the the lyrics, I'll give you a quick run down.  1) Mozambicans don't have snow for Christmas because they're in the Southern Hemisphere.  2) Mozambicans definitely drink water, not bitter streams of tears. 3) Many things grow here, also there are rivers.  4) Yes, they know it's Christmas.

I made a Christmas Bush

This is where the water comes from.

On Christmas morning we got up and made Pancakes and Gingerbread cookies!  This is Kisato, she's form Japan.  They have an overseas volunteer group too!

We had a really nice Christmas. I was in Inhassoro again.  We played Yatzee and ate some sausages.  Very wholesome.

These next pictures are from my town.  We'll be spending New Years there.  

Vito LOVES this toy alligator.

This is how I get water.  This platform is about 7 feet tall, so after I haul up buckets of water and fill my jugs I have to wrestle them down off the platform.  Usually its very embarassing and I always end up with mud in my hair.

Then Vito helps me carry the water back to my house...

This is Vito's new baby sister.  She's not having a good time.