Anecdotes

The unit I’m currently on with my students is about drugs and alcohol. I wrote a text about the effects of drinking, and I mentioned that many countries prohibit selling alcohol to people under a certain age. In Mozambique, the drinking age is technically 18, but that is not enforced at all, and parents often send 10-year-olds to go buy them alcohol. The students thought it was hilarious that in the US you have to show your ID to buy alcoholic beverages. But what if you forget it? But what if you don’t have an ID? But what if you’re already really drunk and you can’t go to the store yourself, what do you mean you can’t send your kids? They thought I was lying when I said that a store will deny selling you alcohol if you don’t have an ID.

In a past unit at school, the topic was literature. I decided to teach the students about limericks and similes. It was a big hit! I gave them the assignment to write similes, and here are some of the best ones I got:
I’m black like charcoal. I’m black like the blackboard. He is bad like Bin Laden. Sambo is strong like David Beckham. (suck up!) Eduardo is smart like a computer. (written by Eduardo, a slightly egotistical student) He was as short as a chicken. This boy is as polite as Jesus.

Sambo has a really adorable neighbor who is about 2 years old. The other day his mom bought him his first pair of shoes, and it was hilarious to watch this kid try to walk in shoes for the first time in his life. Barefoot he walks normally, but with shoes he would pick his left foot up really high, and then drag the right foot. And he looked at his feet the entire time. I think he was having trouble balancing because of the toes being enclosed or something. It made me think of the servant in the movie “The Birdcage.”

In the US we often hear of the terrible working conditions and low wages in Malaysia and elsewhere. I’m sorry to report that I participate in the exploitation of poverty to get cheap labor. I have a guy here that I pay to wash clothes, wash dishes, cart water, and do various other tasks. On average, he probably spends about 1-1.5 hours working for me per day, so let’s say 40 hours per month. Each month I pay him 400 meticals, which means that he makes 10 meticals per hour, which is about 30cents per hour, and $13 per month. He has a wife and 4 kids.