Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Logic
The other day I was in the market and I wanted to buy tomatoes. There was a pile of 10 tomatoes that cost 10 meticals. I had 9 meticals in change, or a 50 metical bill. The vendor didn’t have change. The logical solution that appeared to me was for him to take away one of the ten tomatoes, and let me pay 9 meticals for 9 tomatoes. When I suggested this he laughed and was like, “What, if you can buy 10 tomatoes for 10 mets you think you can just buy 9 tomatoes for 9 mets?” Well I thought it seemed like a logical idea, but apparently not.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Alchemist
I’ve started reading “The Alchemist,” and I’m really enjoying it. People in Nacaroa think I’m crazy for leaving the US to come here, and don’t understand at all why I like it. No matter how much I try to explain that ever since I can remember I always wanted to live in other countries and learn other languages and experience other cultures they just think I’m crazy. The main character in The Alchemist is just like me. According to this book, everyone has a Personal Legend, which is what you’ve always wanted to do and are destined to do, and the universe always conspires to help the people that try achieve their Personal Legends.
When I first got here I was constantly thinking of interesting and exciting things to write about on my blog, but I didn’t have a way to write and post stuff. Now that I have my computer, electricity, and the internet, I’m used to living here so things don’t seem so interesting and exciting anymore, they’re just normal now. It’s been almost exactly a year since I left the US.
Daycare centers and babysitters don’t really exist here, at least not in the same way that they do in the US. Women who have babies bring them to school/work with them. They also have a relative or neighbor, usually a girl 7-10 years old, come with them to help take care of the baby. As a result, the school is full of female students who are constantly coming and going from the classroom to take care of their babies, young girls who miss years of school to care for other people’s children, and teachers who breastfeed while they’re teaching. One of these teachers is a good friend of mine, and whenever I have a free period I love playing with her baby, who will be 6 months on my birthday! Anyway, one day while my friend was teaching I asked the girl who cares for her baby to help me tie her on my back with a cloth the way African women carry their children. Man, the students and teachers really got a kick out of seeing that! They all asked why I didn’t already have a baby, told me that I should have one, and that when I go back to America I should teach everyone how to carry babies in clothes on their backs.
My English Theater group performed for the school today. I was really impressed with how well they did; no one forgot their lines, and scene changes that had not always gone smoothly at rehearsals were flawless. There’s a song about HIV that’s part of the performance, and afterwards others students at the school were singing the chorus. We rehearse in a pavilion in the village, so there’s always tons of kids watching, and the kids know almost the whole song and the motions, despite not being able to understand a word of it.
Before I left the US I was thinking that I would be a teacher when I got back. Now I think I’ll be a soap opera writer. I’m pretty sure I could write a good 3 seasons not just BASED on Nacaroa, but literally EXACTLY what goes on here. Now that I’ve gotten to know people better I’m learning all sorts of secrets about who’s dating who, who’s pregnant with who’s baby, who’s cheating on who with who, and so on.
And of course, I have to write about rats. One time my parents asked me if rat poison was available and affordable here. It is. “Why don’t Mozambicans put out rat poison so they don’t have a live with rats?” they asked. I told them Mozambicans didn’t really seem to mind rats. I was at Sambo’s the other day, and the student that lives with him, Gildo, was moving around some reed mats. A rat appeared. Gildo shrieked with excitement, grabbed a shoe, and starting chasing it. It ran outside, but Gildo kept chasing, and it ended up running back inside, and then back outside, and then escaped. But Gildo was smiling the entire time, and it looked like he was having as much fun as if he were playing football. I have fortunately not had any more rats in my house.
When I first got here I was constantly thinking of interesting and exciting things to write about on my blog, but I didn’t have a way to write and post stuff. Now that I have my computer, electricity, and the internet, I’m used to living here so things don’t seem so interesting and exciting anymore, they’re just normal now. It’s been almost exactly a year since I left the US.
Daycare centers and babysitters don’t really exist here, at least not in the same way that they do in the US. Women who have babies bring them to school/work with them. They also have a relative or neighbor, usually a girl 7-10 years old, come with them to help take care of the baby. As a result, the school is full of female students who are constantly coming and going from the classroom to take care of their babies, young girls who miss years of school to care for other people’s children, and teachers who breastfeed while they’re teaching. One of these teachers is a good friend of mine, and whenever I have a free period I love playing with her baby, who will be 6 months on my birthday! Anyway, one day while my friend was teaching I asked the girl who cares for her baby to help me tie her on my back with a cloth the way African women carry their children. Man, the students and teachers really got a kick out of seeing that! They all asked why I didn’t already have a baby, told me that I should have one, and that when I go back to America I should teach everyone how to carry babies in clothes on their backs.
My English Theater group performed for the school today. I was really impressed with how well they did; no one forgot their lines, and scene changes that had not always gone smoothly at rehearsals were flawless. There’s a song about HIV that’s part of the performance, and afterwards others students at the school were singing the chorus. We rehearse in a pavilion in the village, so there’s always tons of kids watching, and the kids know almost the whole song and the motions, despite not being able to understand a word of it.
Before I left the US I was thinking that I would be a teacher when I got back. Now I think I’ll be a soap opera writer. I’m pretty sure I could write a good 3 seasons not just BASED on Nacaroa, but literally EXACTLY what goes on here. Now that I’ve gotten to know people better I’m learning all sorts of secrets about who’s dating who, who’s pregnant with who’s baby, who’s cheating on who with who, and so on.
And of course, I have to write about rats. One time my parents asked me if rat poison was available and affordable here. It is. “Why don’t Mozambicans put out rat poison so they don’t have a live with rats?” they asked. I told them Mozambicans didn’t really seem to mind rats. I was at Sambo’s the other day, and the student that lives with him, Gildo, was moving around some reed mats. A rat appeared. Gildo shrieked with excitement, grabbed a shoe, and starting chasing it. It ran outside, but Gildo kept chasing, and it ended up running back inside, and then back outside, and then escaped. But Gildo was smiling the entire time, and it looked like he was having as much fun as if he were playing football. I have fortunately not had any more rats in my house.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Governor comes to visit
Last weekend the Governor of Nampula province came to visit Nacaroa. The district superintendent of education asked Sambo (since he teaches art, kind of) to decorate the two pavilions that reception for the governor would held in. Sambo rounded up me and a few students to help him. What sort of decorations are appropriate for the Governor? Decorations similar to an end-of-year picnic for a 3rd grade class. The supplies: two boxes of brightly colored magazines (Box 1: magazines for parents about how to talk to your child about sex. Box 2: “The future begins today,” magazines for 5th and 6th graders about how to be safe, why you should study, how to resolve problems without violence, etc. Both boxes should have been delivered to an elementary school in the district, but apparently never made it.) and two staplers. BYOS. (Bring Your Own Scissors) Well we brought our own scissors, and we started cutting up those magazines, and stapling together paper rings to make chains to hang from the ceiling and wrap around the posts of the pavilions. I’m not saying it wasn’t pretty, but if I didn’t know the occasion I would have guessed a 10-year-old's birthday party.
Note that “ladder” was not included in the supplies list, so in order to hang the chains from the ceiling we got a table to stand on, which worked fine for hanging things from the edges of the pavilions. But the roofs were very slanted, so then we got a chair to put on the table to hang things closer to the center. But the chair on the table wasn’t enough to reach the roof in the center of the pavilions. So then we got an American (me) to sit on the chair on the table, and students to stand on the table, and another student to stand on the top of the back of the chair on the table, supported by the students standing on the table, to hang the garlands from the center of the pavilions. In my opinion, way too risky, but as the students explained to me, “Mozambicans are very brave.”
We were also lucky enough to have some help cutting and stapling from some very excited neighborhood kids. It wasn’t every day they got to use scissors! And staplers, they’d seen at school, but rarely had the opportunity to be allowed to use! And, to top it all off, the American was present! Now in Mozambican culture, it’s very normal and appropriate for any adult to ask any kid (who they may or may not know) to run any errand or do any favor at any time. (ex: you open your door and tell the first kid you see to go to the market and buy you bread) And man, these kids decorating the pavilion got so excited whenever I would ask them to do something. (ex: Me-“Go give this stapler to so-and-so.” Kid-“OK!!!!!” and he or she would run as fast as they could to the person, give them the stapler, run back to me as fast as they could, tell me that they had successfully completed the task, and follow me around and wait excitedly for the next order.) And at the end, we gave them each a magazine, which they were inexplicably super excited and proud to receive, despite the fact that very few of them could read.
I also gave leftover magazines to the students in my English Theater group. Despite being 11th graders instead of the 5th and 6th grade target audience, they were also inexplicably excited to have magazines that explained menstruation and wet dreams, what to do in case of emergencies, etc. And now they bring these magazines with them to all of the rehearsals, and read them while they wait for the other students to arrive. Which demonstrates that in a country where very few people have personal reading materials, people are super excited about anything they can get, weather or not the topics are particularly relevant or interesting.
Note that “ladder” was not included in the supplies list, so in order to hang the chains from the ceiling we got a table to stand on, which worked fine for hanging things from the edges of the pavilions. But the roofs were very slanted, so then we got a chair to put on the table to hang things closer to the center. But the chair on the table wasn’t enough to reach the roof in the center of the pavilions. So then we got an American (me) to sit on the chair on the table, and students to stand on the table, and another student to stand on the top of the back of the chair on the table, supported by the students standing on the table, to hang the garlands from the center of the pavilions. In my opinion, way too risky, but as the students explained to me, “Mozambicans are very brave.”
We were also lucky enough to have some help cutting and stapling from some very excited neighborhood kids. It wasn’t every day they got to use scissors! And staplers, they’d seen at school, but rarely had the opportunity to be allowed to use! And, to top it all off, the American was present! Now in Mozambican culture, it’s very normal and appropriate for any adult to ask any kid (who they may or may not know) to run any errand or do any favor at any time. (ex: you open your door and tell the first kid you see to go to the market and buy you bread) And man, these kids decorating the pavilion got so excited whenever I would ask them to do something. (ex: Me-“Go give this stapler to so-and-so.” Kid-“OK!!!!!” and he or she would run as fast as they could to the person, give them the stapler, run back to me as fast as they could, tell me that they had successfully completed the task, and follow me around and wait excitedly for the next order.) And at the end, we gave them each a magazine, which they were inexplicably super excited and proud to receive, despite the fact that very few of them could read.
I also gave leftover magazines to the students in my English Theater group. Despite being 11th graders instead of the 5th and 6th grade target audience, they were also inexplicably excited to have magazines that explained menstruation and wet dreams, what to do in case of emergencies, etc. And now they bring these magazines with them to all of the rehearsals, and read them while they wait for the other students to arrive. Which demonstrates that in a country where very few people have personal reading materials, people are super excited about anything they can get, weather or not the topics are particularly relevant or interesting.
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