Thursday, March 30, 2006

warning sign

things i swerved for this past week:
*a run-away goat
*a donkey pulling a man and cart
*a man pushing a cart stacked 8 feet high with pleather stuffed furniture
*more men pushing carts precariously stacked with various items
*29,000 chapas that pulled out in front of me (one of which pulled out in front of me while on a main highway where most cars were up to speeds of 80-100 kmph, causing clemencia to grab her chest and exclaim "gracias a Deus", after i squeezed through it and the guard rail since slamming on the breaks at that point was not an option.)

unusual things i saw while waiting in the car for clemencia and isabel to finish their shopping:
*a man only wearing a shirt
*a mother spanking the child tied to her back after it peed down the back of her dress
*a small group standing a short distance away from a man collapsed at the base of a telephone poll. (not sure if he was dead or if he had just run into it too quickly and knocked himself out)
*a drunk man with the largest hands i have ever seen in my life that wanted me to give him 50.000 metecais for a 2 euro coin, i thought he could easily have strangled me with a thumb and a forefinger but i only gave him 20.000 for it.
*the woman who was the inspiration for Miss Artsy Fartsy from the movie "Robots".

Yesterday was another hectic day. Its funny how i seemed to have all this free time the first couple weeks i was here, i mean, i had enough time to count the tiles on my bathroom wall and this past week i barely get a chance to catch my breath. I gave the students their final exam. They all passed. We had a mini-ceremony for them later yesterday afternoon and i still had to get some things together and catch a chapa before it got too late. (the pleasure of driving myself comes with bringing others along and since i would be staying the night at Jair and Hanlie's i didn't think i could use that resource.) I made it to Magoanine by 6pm. On my walk there i ran into various people i know, so of course i had to stop and chat for a bit...african protocol.

It gets dark here by 6:15 these days so i knew i was already pushing it. I waited for a chapa to Museu. Apparently no chapas were going that way. Finally a big bus shows up with the destination glued to the side. When the conductor called out "Museu" he tacked something else to the end that i couldn't quite figure out. Against my better judgement i got on and decided i was going to wing it. I sat down next to a girl and asked, "Museu?". She nodded, looking slightly confused herself (not a good sign). The closer we got to town the more the bus filled with people, eventually it was standing room only. It turned down a road that recognized but i knew the museu chapas didn't usually go down. I took a deep breath and thought, if all else fails, i'll get out near a place i remotely recognize and call Jair and Hanlie. Right then, the cellphone rings. (and just in case you're wondering, what!? you have a cell phone!?, its Clemencia's, it resembles the cellphones from "night at the roxbury". she let me borrow it for times such as these, actually, she originally told me it was just so my friends back home could call me...i don't think she knew how much of a wanderer i would be when she handed it to me back in January) Ok, so back to the phone ringing: Its Jair asking where i was. I told him i wasn't sure and then he confirmed what i was already thinking; to get out somewhere safe and call him. I peered out the windows and around the bodies of the packed bus. I started to recognize some things but still couldn't figure out where i was in reference to anything. I will say this though, something about Maputo in the darkness of evening makes it more appealing, maybeit more confusing, but definately more appealing. My favorite time of day here is about 3 hours before sunset to about 2 hours after -minus fact that its mosquito feast primetime. So in the middle of trying to get myself un-lost while keeping myself from getting more lost, i thought briefly how glad i was to be there on that bus at the moment. Everyone was calm but cheerful; a group had gotten on the happily chattered amongst themselves, and the general attitude was 'life is good'. After a while, the others started to notice that i was peering out the windows a bit more than was considered normal. The conductor asked, in portuguese, where i was going. I told him in english and he called up to a buddy to translate. His buddy spoke a little, as long as i spoke slowly. Very soon i realized this bus wasn't going anywhere near where i wanted to go, at least according to the various words i was piecing together.

Remember how i mentioned in a previous post how this culture thrives on community? This is where that comes into play. Soon everyone on the entire bus is trying to help me figure out where i needed to go. I dare say there wasn't a person on there who wasn't; well, the girl next to me still looked confused. Despite the fact that they were saying i was probably going to have to catch another chapa and despite the fact that i didn't have enough change for another chapa and despite the fact that it was quite dark now and thoughts of a possible mugging were running through my mind, i was actually feeling quite special. Two guys offered to accompany me. I told them it wouldn't be necessary, i'd just hop out at the next corner that i liked and call someone. I saw one with a bakery/coffee shop on it. I told them to let me out there. I hopped off and thanked everyone. I think they were still worried. A different guy got off at that stop along with me and started walking the other direction, but not before pointing me towards where he thought i needed to go. I thanked him but thought i'd take my chances with the biscuits and cookies and the Muslims behind the counter. I went inside, found out where i was and called Jair who came and got me.

No worries mom/dad/grandma/grandpa...countdown till i leave Maputo is 46 hours; then its on to Pretoria, South Africa for another 48 before i take off for Sweet Home Colorado. I don't have a lot of time left to take off on any other crazy excursions...but who knows...adventure seems to find me.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

catch me if you can

You can't begin to understand the Mozambican culture until you've driven a day or two in it.  The Mozambican's are extremely laid back people.  If they say they will be there at noon, don't expect them to show up until 1:20pm at the earliest.  However, when a Mozambican gets behind the wheel of a car or truck or chapa (the little dangerous people packed vans), he somehow becomes alive.  (I say "he", not to be sexist, but you don't see too many women behind the wheels here.)  When you're driving on the road, its every man (or woman) for himself/herself.  
 
In order to truly drive properly here you really need 3 hands; one for the steering wheel, one for the stick shift and one for the horn, unless you are double jointed and can honk with your elbow.  I'm still working on the flexibility though and am currently grossly under par on my horn honks.  
 
Last week Eduardo had surgery.  They wouldn't tell me what for, but I have been told he can't sit down. I'm guessing it was somewhere in the region of bottom back-side area.  So yours truly has been nominated chauffer of the month.  
 
This has had its benefits; Clemencia is getting out more since she doesn't have to schedule it ahead of time with Eduardo and I am getting to know my way around the city, which I'm sure is good for some reason, its just not totally clear, since I'm leaving in a week.  (commence: mini internal celebration due the afore mentioned departure)  There have been times recently when Clemencia asked me to take her somewhere that I don't exactly know where to go.  Yesterday she asked Fernando to come along to ease the translation difficulties.  That is usually Arlindo's job but he's been sick with the flu since Saturday.  The thing with Fernando is, as much as he is learning English in class, and doing really well, he severely lacks in the way of giving directions.  For instance: I'm driving along and as I come near a place where I think they want to stop, I ask, here? Fernando just points straight ahead, saying "No", and makes the motion to keep going, so I'm briefly confused but I drive on.  Then all of a sudden he says, "aqui" (here) and I'm magically supposed to stop in the middle of the road with traffic pouring all around me and let them out.  I didn't go to chapa driving school.  He forgets that we kinda need find a parking place first and that if he had said "yes" when I asked originally we would have a beauty of a parking spot and they would have only had to walk about 25 meters to the door.  Then I realize this is Mozambique and I can pretty much park wherever I want to (not really) and that Fernando is probably used to Eduardo's driving.   He has this habit of driving Clemencia pretty much up to the door of wherever she's going to at the moment; whether that means driving on the sidewalk and parking there or not.  Eduardo is bold enough (or crazy enough) to go where no man has gone before.  They just assume I'm that way too.  See, here is the difference between when Eduardo and i drive; I learned from day one behind the african wheel that it doesn't take much for the cops to pull you over, so I try my best to follow what little traffic laws there are.  Eduardo can get away with a lot more (and tries) but he also has the habit of ticking a lot of other people off while he drives.  Which is really hard to do around here because most of the time, when you do something wrong, they'll just honk, or flash their lights (which is their way of flipping you off) and go on.  They are actually pretty cool about it.  When Eduardo drives, the other drivers usually take the time to stop, and/or block him off, so that he can enjoy a slur of angry Portuguese words, to which he flashes this huge smile and laughs, says something back to them and carries on.  (Actually, come to think of it, I could probably do that to, except for the part when he says something back to them in Portuguese so they will let him drive on)
 
Don't get me wrong though; don't think I'm this demure American girl behind the wheel of a blue boat sometimes confused as a Mitsubishi Pajero.  I can drive it like I stole it.  (or as Arlindo likes to say when we're picking up speed: Eat my dust!)  I've learned how to pass around slower trucks when another vehicle is heading straight toward me (I never thought I'd enjoy the game of chicken till now).  I've managed to squeeze between two chapas at an incredible speed with inches on either side without getting scratched by either one.  I've figured out which traffic lights the locals actually stop at and which ones they don't (same goes for stop signs)  and when you come to a busy intersection where the lights have long been broken and there isn't a traffic cop around, you just aim the car in the direction you desire and close your eyes and gun it, (just kidding, that only worked once).  No, you inch and weasel your way through like all the other cars trying to inch and weasel their way through their various chosen directions. 
 
I think the biggest dilemma in this Mozambican world, is that the cars somehow got here before the roads and rules did.  Everyone drives wherever and whenever he/she wants to and there is very little patience involved.  If someone is stopped ahead, very few will slow to stop behind that person; they instead will zip around, whether that means traversing sidewalk or shrubbery to continue on their merry way.  The plus side is: since it seems that every other driver here is in a state of lunatical madness you can get away with a lot more.  Very few take offence if you do something wrong.  This is something that we could change in the States.  We shouldn't take it so personally if someone cuts us off or passes us or etc...  I have known many a person, myself included, who will mope for hours after a road idiot crossed our path.  These Mozambicans would have to make a career out of moping if they held that attitude.  They think its better to save their time for other things, like sitting still for hours under a palm tree or re-braiding their hair 38 more times.  
 
When I get back you may not want me to get behind the wheel of a vehicle right away. I am liable to drive on the wrong side of the road or sidewalk at a not-so-slow rate thus causing all humans in the vicinity to either: A: no longer need the ex-lax they were planning on taking; B: break the 3rd commandment as well as emitting other expletives; or C: try and calm the cop down after i pass him a $20 thinking he wanted a bribe.

Monday, March 20, 2006

the lion sleeps tonite

the following will be my attempt to give you a short version of a long day since i have about 17 minutes before the mosquitoes wake up and start to swarm.
 
sunday i went with the ADRA crew to Kruger Park.  they rented a bus and driver so everyone could ride together.  we only found out, as we stopped to fill it up with gas before heading south, that the driver had never driven that bus before, didn't know where Kruger Park was, spoke very little portuguese (mostly spoke xangana) and was a nervous individual to begin with. 
 
we met at the ADRA building at 5am, waited for a few stragglers and took off at 5:40.  stopped for gas (found out the above information) and then headed to the border.  we reached the border an hour later.  i got in and out of immigration quickly.  this was routine for me.  it took a while for some of the others, the officials knew they wouldn't make any money if they let their own peeps go.  while i was in the bus, waiting with a few others for the rest to join us, i noticed a guy running towards the mozambique side.  apparently its not a good idea to run over borders.  some border police got a hold of him.  they didn't handcuff him, they only held him by the back of his trousers.  he argued with them but never physically fought them.  i wish i knew what all the fuss was about, it did make for interesting viewing though.  they escorted him towards the mozambique side, which makes me curious;  that's the direction he was running towards in the beginning.
 
i thought the next bit of excitement would be seeing the animals at the wildlife national park.  i was wrong.  everyone gets back on the bus, but not until after we step into these filthy buckets of water to supposedly clean the bottom of our shoes off, and we cross the border.  we start to pick up speed and head down the hill into south africa and some guys run out in front of the bus.  they were dressed in regular clothes (meaning no visible uniforms).  somehow they convince the driver to pull over even though darcy (the head director of ADRA mozambique) and his wife Judy, who are sitting directly behind him, are telling him not to stop.  they come up to the window and ask for papers.  they don't identify themselves, they just ask for papers.  i should mention at this point that they have blood shot eyes and breath smells like alcohol.  darcy of course notices this too and tells the driver to NOT give them anything and drive on.  the already nervous driver is caught in the middle.  the guys outside refuse to speak english even though they can.  if their hope was to confuse and make the driver more nervous, they succeeded.  finally darcy yells at the driver, "via agora!" (i think it means "i told you not to stop in the first place and now i will not pay you if you don't go now") the driver hit the gas.  we get to the bottom of the hill but the drunk and disorderly dudes were not easily dissuaded.  they hopped in their car and caught up to our rickety bus.  they blocked us off and the driver had no choice but to stop.  they stepped in front of the bus and yelled for us to turn around and go back up to the top.  darcy kept asking why.  no one would tell him.  after a couple minutes of this, he noticed one of them had a gun.  he told the driver to turn around but we didn't stop where they wanted us too.  we went all the back to the border.  darcy and john (director of logistics) convinced a border policemen to escort us.  he did.  when we got back to the point where the guys stopped us, they were now wearing plain reflective jackets.  i guess that was legit enough for the cop and i guess the cop's presence was legit enough for darcy.  he let the driver show our papers.  they saw the papers and smiled and let us go.  neither the guys nor the cop ever told us who they were even though darcy repeatedly asked, someone in the bus said something about taxes or IRS but no one was sure.
 
we head to the crocodile bridge entrance of the park.  it's closed and barricaded.  the river is high and is covering the road.  we must back-track and go another 26 minutes to the next closest entrance.  (would have been nice if they would have put a sign at the beginning of the 11km road that it was closed but these are the same intelligent people who have us get out of the bus to 'rinse' our shoes off and not taken a second glance at the wheels of the bus) 
 
we get to the other entrance and join the line of a hundred or so cars waiting to get into the park.  they are short staffed today and are only letting 20 cars in at a time.  the temp is rising and the bus is turning into an oven.  supposedly it had air conditioning but we are short on fuel so we bake for free.  most of us get out and walk around, trying to enjoy what little breeze there is.
 
its now 10:30am.  our plan was to be half way through the park by now and we haven't even gotten through the gate.
 
30 minutes later and we are finally driving through Kruger Park, expectant faces pressed against the glass, cameras ready.  by 11:45 everyone is sweating hot and dozing off.  hardly an animal in sight.  the day was not going as planned.  i began to pray that if i saw any animals i wanted to see an elephant, a giraffe and a lion.  they said i was being too hopeful to see a lion, but i asked God anyway.
 
by lunch time we had seen several impala's, 2 giraffes in the distance and a buzzard.  everyone was getting discouraged, most people would have seen an elephant or two and some zebras by now, but the park seems desolate.  we stopped for a long lunch.  the plan was to eat and start off again by 3.  maybe it would start to cool off a little and we'd see some more animals.  i emphasize that was 'the plan', but since nothing went according to plan today i'm surprised i expected anything to change.  at 14:50 (2:50 for you non-military/medical folk) john and the driver decide to put some more fuel in the bus.  they collect as much rands (south african moola) as they could and drive to the park's nearby petrol station.  i was thinking they should have put more gas in the thing when we left maputo or left earlier to fill it up now. but what do i know? i'm just an american, anxious to see some more of africa.  by 15:30 we still haven't left.  i see darcy and he shares the latest development.  they put diesel in the bus instead of unleaded.  the driver said he told the petrol people to put unleaded in it but the fact that he drove up next to the only diesel pump at the station leaves some argument.  so now john has to convince the petrol folks to share the blame 50/50 and help us siphon the diesel out and fill it with unleaded.  this is going to take a while.  about this time jair and hanlie along with hanlie's sister and brother-in-law, show back up.  they taken off after lunch in their own car to do some more exploring.  i would have volunteered to go with them earlier but thought i should stick by my comrades and wait with them.  after the diesel/gas incident i wasn't feeling so loyal.  jair told me they saw a huge family of elephants and then he said if i held isabella on my lap, i could go back to maputo with them.  i think i was in the car before he finished asking me.  (i'm such a traitor)  
 
as we headed out, i saw my elephant.  she was alone, grazing.  she sat by the side of the road for a while, just looking at us and eating.  it was awesome.  now, where was my lion?
 
it was nearly dusk as we drove the rest of the way out of the park.  we neared the gate and joined what seemed to be a traffic jam.  the guys thought maybe the folks were looking at hippos.  we looked over the bridge below to see what everyone was pointing at; two females lions.  we scrambled out of the windows to try to get a glance and a camera shot.  jair and hanlie said they hadn't seen lions in years.   the traffic started moving but we stayed glued to the spot.  all of a sudden the king comes strutting out of the tall grass.  he was amazing.  he laid down near a lioness and sprawled out on his back.  we noticed some movement by the female who at this point was also stretched out.  two cubs were playing and climbing over her stomach.  i got my lion and his family. 
 
now i'm thinking i should have made my list a bit longer.  (but now i'd just be a greedy traitor)
 
ok, so this turned into a small novel again. sorry. the mosquitoes held off longer than i thought they would.

Friday, March 17, 2006

more than words

i sat perfectly still for a moment and thought back to the last moment that i sat still and had contemplated that i was having a moment and then i thought about all the moments that had passed between the two moments and i decided that they had gone by more quickly than i thought they would and i was ok with that.

then i looked back over the above paragraph and realized that moment looked like a really funny word. i think you could pick any word and if you write it a dozen times it starts to look wrong, even if you spelled it correctly. or even if it didn't look wrong, you would start to taste the word and then it would become more interesting or more more wierd and then you would either begin to like that word or not like it all. i like the word moment. i also like the word kanimambu. its pronounced kah-nee-MAM-bow. it means "thank you" in xangana. it makes me think of dancing.

Friday, March 10, 2006

bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

thursday was visa day; the day to go to the border and convince the mozambicans that i liked their country and that they should let me stay a little longer. actually, it doesn't take any convincing as long as you have enough money.

the plan was for clemenica and i to go in hanlie's car with her and isabella so she could run some errands in nelspruit for ADRA. this meant that eduardo wouldn't be going with us, which also meant that i was going to have to drive from the school to hanlie's house early in the morning.

7am, ready or not, i was going to tackle driving in africa where everything is backwards. we get to hanlie's house without much incident, minus a few pedestrians i nearly ran over, (hey, you stay on the sidewalk, i'll stay on the road). we leave the school's car there and get in the parada's car. i get in the backseat with isabella to play the part of "nanny" for the day. we make it to the border and then on to nelspruit in good time. hanlie has to run to home affairs to get isabella's passport so clemencia and i hop out at the light (i think they call them 'robots' here) nearest the post office to get a package that i had been waiting for since before our last border run. as we are walking to the PO i turned to clemencia and say, "the key?" fully expecting her to have it. her smiling face suddenly turns to a shocked realization. it was back in the car, in Maputo. (i have recently adopted a no-worries attitude, could be the influence of the land of 'hakuna matata', or the fact that we had no other choice.) i continue marching towards the post office. we go to where box is, across the street from the PO, to confirm the number. then we go to the lower office where the package pick up is. that was a no-go. the lady said we couldn't have the package unless we had the slips from the mailbox with a tracking number. our only resort was to buy another key for 70 rand ($11-12). fine, where do we get a key? upstairs. so we trapse outside and upstairs to the main office building. the lady up there tells us that we can only get a key if we have a written consent from peter (the owner of the mailbox), it didn't matter that clemencia was his wife. this is where this system gets confusing. peter is in the states. he could write a written consent and send it to the post office box that we were trying to open in the first place. it would take 3 weeks for his letter to get here and by then we could run back to maputo and get the key and still have 2 weeks, 6 days and 17 hours to wait for his letter which we now wouldn't need since we would already had the key. i can thank my mom for this next move, i learned from her, at a very young age, the art of confident convincing, or if all else fails, just talk their ear off. i have heard it said that my mom could talk a mule out of his hind leg or sell the brooklyn bridge to a blind man. so i started by asking the lady if she was interested in buying any new york architecture. she told me to meet her at the metal window, outside. she escorted us back across the street and got the mail out herself from behind the box (ahh, so that is why the boxes don't have backs on them.) she handed us the slips and pointed us to the package department. we went and retrieved the packages.

1st victory of the day.

the rest of the day went by rather uneventfully. we ate, we shopped, etc.... even the return to the border was smooth, well, other than that one guard that i ticked off because i tried to take a picture of the 'welcome to mozambique sign'.

we made it to maputo by 7pm. it gets dark here by 6:30pm and now i was going to tackle the night driving adventure back to the school. it takes approx. 30 minutes to get from jair and hanlie's place to lifeline, depending on the traffic. we were about 8 minutes away from the school when we passed by a routine traffic stop. i should have just kept driving. i could have claimed ignorance. the cop flashed his little plastic flashlight at me and motioned me to pull over. he came up and i greeted him. i handed him the car papers and my license. (mistake.) he saw clemencia and i were white and decided this was an opportunity to make some extra cash (i'm not kidding when i say they will use ANY excuse to bribe unsuspecting suckers). he makes me get out of the vehicle to see that we are missing the light that illuminates the license plate and says something about a ticket for a couple million meticais (about $50-100), if you only knew how many cars here don't even have real license plates . i didn't understand completely since he is babbling in portugese and he wouldn't let clemencia get out of the car (which wouldn't have helped anyway since she still can't speak much english). at this point i realize that this isn't a routine traffic stop anymore and he wants money and i realize that of all things he has in his hands -my driver's liscense should not be one of them. i quickly reach out and take it back. i should have grabbed the car papers while i was at it (mistake number 2). i go back to the driver's seat and get in. he comes up and acts like he needs to write a ticket and that he needs my license back. at first i play dumb and that i can't understand portuguese. clemencia, at this point, is ready to hand over some money just so we can be on our way, i look at her and silently motion 'no'. i'm determined to win this one. she motions for me to give him my DL but i'm firm on this one too, he's not going to get it. i know he is bluffing. he knows that he has nothing valid to write me a ticket for and he is just trying to scare us into paying him off. he tells me he is going to take the car if i don't give him my license. i say ok and show him the keys. (he bluffed again.) he calls out for the other cops to come over. 3 more join him. one of them speaks english. at this point he changes his story and tells the english speaking cop that he didn't have my DL in the first place and all he wanted to do was look at and let me go. so this cop tells me to give it to him, just so he can look at it, i thought about it for a second and then remembered jair's words..."no matter what, don't give them your license." cop #2 tries to tell me that he now thinks i'm guilty since i won't give it to him and i tell him, if the guy wants to give me then write me a ticket and let me go. cop #2 says, "why do you say, write a rent?" (rent apparently means ticket) "this tells me you did something wrong" i said, "no, he wanted my license back to write me a ticket, let him just write me a ticket and let me go." he wasn't buying that the other cop had my DL in the first place and that he had acted like he was going to write me a ticket. (devious man with the plastic flashlight) cop 3 and 4 just stand there. none of them can figure out how to get me to give them my license back. i am about to spit fire. i try to tell them all that the only thing the cop really wants is a bribe. (third mistake, fortunately this isn't baseball.) in order to convey my point i finish my ranting by pointing to myself and saying, "maloongoo" (white person, foreigner) and then pointing to all of them and saying, "mulandee" (black person, native). i think they got the idea. they knew that i knew. they all looked surprised at first, like they couldn't believe i actually knew those words since they are in their mother tongue (shangana, not portuguese), but as soon as they escaped my lips i wondered if i had just given myself a free night stay in a mozambican jail cell. had i gone too far? now i was scared. after the shocked (angered?) expressions wore off, cops 3 and 4 smiled and walked away, they tell cop 1 to give me back the papers. cop 1 was now pissed and defeated. after about 6 more minutes of arguing with cop 2, cop 1 returns to try to lecture me and regain some respect, after about 3 more minutes he realizes its pointless and hands me back the papers.

victory 2 of the day. whoo hoo. i didn't lose my license, i didn't give in to a bribe, i didn't spend a night in jail, we didn't lose the car and i didn't die. i feel like i accomplished quite a lot.

now to go change into a clean pair of underwear and make sure clemencia doesn't need some oxygen to resuscitate her.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

baby, its cold outside

my last attempt to fill you in on the weather was thwarted by the electricity going out. it only shut off on the side of the house that i happened to be sitting in and typing. how convenient, right? i wrote this really great story telling you how it actually cooled off here for a few days and how interesting it was to see all the little africans running around like it was february in north dakota and how victor looked like a flashback to the eighties engulfed in his bright hot pink marshmallow of a coat and how i enjoyed not having to take a shower after a rigorous hour of sitting still but i can't tell you now because its warmed up and it just wouldn't make sense anymore.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

la cucaracha

and hanlie waged war on the cockroach.  (book of nasty creatures chapter 3 verse 85).
 
i found a home away from home; hanlie and jair parada's place (they have air conditioning).  jair is the financial director for ADRA mozambique, hanlie is his wife and they have 2 month old isabella.  shortly after i started to teach the english class for the ADRA workers, jair found out i liked to ride bikes and since he had an extra one, we started to ride in the evenings.  riding was a double benefit, exercise being the obvious one and getting to know my way around the city was the second (which came in handy, a story i'll tell you later).  after we rode i'd hang out at the house for a bit, either to check my 'real' email, burp isabella or just enjoy talking in english with them for a while.  hanlie is south african which means she has a super cool accent.  jair is originally from bolivia but has nationalized to be south african and isabella is south african all the way.  i think she is going to grow up to be either one the most intelligent kids in the world or the most confused.  jair speaks spanish to her, hanlie speaks afrikaans to her (sounds like dutch), she hears them speaking english to each other and the rest of her known world speaks portuguese.  she's quad-lingual from the get-go. 
 
their place is a couple blocks up the street from the embassy.  i needed to go to the embassy to get more pages in my passport.  the friday before last, i left from the school and took the bus into town but it took me so long that the embassy was closing as i got there.  (i didn't know they closed by 11:30am on fridays)  last friday they helped me solve that problem by letting me stay at their place so i could just walk to the embassy in the morning.  it rained all morning.  i wanted to wait till it stopped or slowed a bit but 10:15am rolled around and i thought i better get there before it closed or my trip would be in vain again.  i got there and got pages and made some friends.  while i was waiting for the pages to get sewn in i turned to the security booth and asked the marines how we did in the olympics, they pulled it up on their computer screen and turned it towards the glass so i could look at it.  we started to talk about home and where we were all from.  never thought i'd say this but hearing americans speak american english with american accents was like music to my ears.  we made plans to hang out when they got off duty at 3pm and i headed back to the parada place.  the maid still hadn't showed up.  when it rains, the buses can't go as far into the neighborhoods and i guess she didn't want to walk in it either.  hanlie got isabella to sleep and i offered to attack the mountain of dishes that had accumulated in the maids absence.  she decided a joint effort would be more efficient.  as the rain let up, the humidity increased.  hanlie turned the switch on for the a.c. unit.  it made the worst rumble.  a gigantic cockroach came crawling out.  it was like watching one of those sci-fi films as it squeezed the rest of the way through the air slats and lumbered over the knobs and dials.  i was amazed at the size of it.  (now that i think about it i have seen larger in the dorm at my college in missouri, but it was still big)  hanlie turned the a.c. off and opened the door for quick exit.  armed with a killer spray she annihilated the thing.  it took a while for the little booger to give up the ghost, (if i had had some dr. bronners with me its death might have been quicker.)  she scooped him up with a bucket and had him outside before i even realized that the turd-licker had fallen of the wall.  (i can say turd-licker because jair told me that the cockroaches crawl out of the sewage tank when it rains and since it had been raining i thought it was safe to assume where his home was) 

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

new slang

Dictionary Breakthrough.  God bless the grandparents! 
 
about a week or so ago i was sitting in my room contemplating. yes, we all know, this usually gets me in trouble, but this time i was trying to figure out why it seems that everyday i have to go over the same things and they ask me the same questions as if its brand spankin' new material; then, i figured it out.  i was stuck in a time warp, very similar to bill murray in groundhog day.  wow, this was fantastic!  now i only had to figure out how to get myself out of it, and get them to learn something before i ejected myself out of this alter reality.   
 
my grandparents sent some moola to buy dictionaries and i had them in class by last thursday.  suddenly everyone started to catch on.  (maybe this particular strain of time warp is cured by books with lots of bi-lingual words in them.)  amazingly enough classes are going better.  i'm not sure if i'm getting my point across any better or if its the sole presence of the dictionaries but these students are actually learning.  (maybe i should let them take them home and sleep on them, see if osmosis could help even more.)  i was actually thinking at first that i would give them the dictionaries to take home with them but peter called me the day i got them and told me that if i did the chances of them keeping them were slim to none and that they would most likely turn around and sell them for some personal dough.  i didn't think that wouldn't be so cool so they have been permanently added to the library here at the school to be checked out for classes and studying, not for a personal back-pocket blue-light specials.  
 
this past weekend i gave them all homework, a lot of homework.  i figured with only a month left of classes and this apparent new intellectual breakthrough i wanted to take advantage of every waking moment. and now,  with last week's insurrection of the V-man, i started to check their work a bit more tenaciously.  this morning i was pleased to discover that every student but two had completed all of it.  the two that didn't, only come for the prestige of saying they studied english from an "american" teacher anyway, so its their fault if they don't learn, not mine.  now that the students are getting the hang of sentence structures and forming conversations i have the pleasure of reading some pretty funny creations.  
 
During one exercise, i had them using adjectives, Fernando wrote: "My brother is very sad, because his wife is very fat."  (so Mr. President is also a funny man)  Another student, while using "could" in a sentence asked, "Could we eat butt later?"  I think she meant to say, "Could we eat, but later."  (we're still working on punctuation...baby steps, remember, baby steps....)  Today we had the three casanova's write their sonnets on the board when i had the students give examples using their homework: "Could you give me a kiss?" and "Could she be with me this night?"  (who is hiding the shakespeare?) and the grand finale, with an example of the use of 'should have', "I lost my heart in her, I should have tried to hide it in her blue eyes."  (thank God my eyes are green.)   
 
one of the students (one of the two that takes this class for prestige purposes) asked, "If we pass the final exam, can we keep the dictionaries?"  (Hah, nice try buddy.)  I said, "Um, probably not, but study hard anyway."   

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

what you want

i had to contemplate yesterday what exactly would happen if i threw a student out the window and into the leaf and banana peel filled pool 2 floors below. but yesterday would have been my last chance.

today they cleaned out the pool. they gathered all the 'compost' and put into the pre-dug trenches around all the trees and plants in the surrounding foliage. it rained a lot lately and water had collected in the deep end. i still wouldn't have wanted to swim in it. it was yellowish brown and smelled like rotting food. phineas and victor scooped it out with buckets. i am hoping now that if it rains again it will collect water and if it rains a lot we can go swimming...i think my hope is in vain though. they don't like to let the water sit, they say it attracts too many mosquitoes. i'm not gonna argue with that; the less mosquitoes, the better.

yesterday, the day i wanted to give one of my students flying lessons, was a trying day in english class. it took them a lot longer than i anticipated for them to learn the concept of 'should' and 'could' and i wasn't anticipating disciplinary problems from the 18 year old. i won't mention his name but it starts with a 'v' and ends with 'ictor'.

his desk is nearest the open veranda door. i started to realize only recently why he staked his claim on that desk from the very the beginning. it wasn't for the breeze. it was to catch glimpses of his friends walking below...specifically his 'girlfriend' who lives down the road from us. i don't mind his waving at her or going down to talk to her during our breaks. i really couldn't care less about his social life, but when he starts to get lazy about his english work...that's when i start to breath fire. the past week or so he started a trend of copying my examples from the board and using them as his sentences instead of coming up with new ones. i called him out on this yesterday. i had asked the class to write 3 short sentences using 'could' as a polite expression. everyone else seemed to get the concept. victor is a smart guy so i knew he understood. when class was over i asked to see his sentences. he wrote one. it was the one i had written earlier. not cool. i asked him to finish his work and give me three more. he got up and proceded to walk out. i told him he needed to finish and that i wasn't going to allow him to get away with the minimum any longer. we argued for 20 minutes, arlindo was caught in the middle trying to help with translating. i told him he couldn't eat lunch until he finished. victor said, "if i sit down and do my work, who is going to pay me." that's when i nearly lost it. (that is when i contemplated the afore mentioned flying lessons) i said, "victor, i am here teaching you english everyday and no one is paying me." he sat down and finished his sentences. he was done in 3 minutes. i told him thank you and that he could go eat now but his pride had been wounded so he decided to retreat his room, skip lunch and nurse his ego. today went a lot better. victor sat on the other side of the room.