Até Duas Semanas! (Taking a Break!)

Well, I usually try to post something at least once a week on this blog, but I can't promise anything for a while. I have another engagement. No biggie, but...

I'M GOING TO AMERICA!

That's right, I'm going to be in the land of cheesecakes, honey butter chicken biscuits, and sandwiches for two whole weeks to attend a wedding and see friends.

And with that, I leave you with this adorable photograph of me and Laura doing prom-pose in matching T-Shirts:

 See you on the flipside!

Having Fun Isn't Hard When You've Got a Library Card!

Arthur said it best -- reading is fun, and the kids of Mavudzi-Ponte have been discovering that for themselves recently. I've been talking about this community library project for a long time, but keep running into roadblocks -- "Sorry, you need somebody's signature/stamp/name written in blood on this document to continue." Stuff like that.

So recently, Laura and I have taken a different approach. Just sit on the porch, take out some books, and see if anyone shows up.

The first day we had two kids. The next day, a few more. And, before we knew it...

A herd of crianças!

So many kids interested in reading! This is really exciting, and now that everyone can see how successful the project can be, I hope that turning this into a real library experience (i.e.... actually taking place in the school's library) will become much easier.

The nice thing is, they changed our schedules recently, and now the only day I teach in the afternoons is Monday -- all other days are night school days. So that means that I can have "office hours" in the library three to four times a week! I'm hoping to start with that as soon as I get back from my trip home.

This library is quickly becoming the project I care about most.

A Day in the Life (Part 2: In Pictures!)

A small sample of photos that speak to what life in Mavudzi-Ponte is like.

"Amiga!"

Kitty sitting in her favorite place.

Simba helps Laura mop the floor.

Quizito plays guitar for the neighborhood kids.

Time to burn some trash!

Typical houses.

Morais, the Celine Dion lover.

Noah teaches his daughter the vowels.

Our water boys and their friends read.

The Wheelbarrow Gang going to get water.

Some colleagues chilling in the shade on a hot day.

Soares cooks dinner while Simba watches hungrily.

Raul and Marco play with Simba.

The river.

A Day in the Life

Back in January 2013, when I had just moved to Mavudzi, I wrote a post about an average day in my life. It's Peace Corps Week this week, and we're supposed share our experiences here with Americans back home. I thought it was time for an updated version of what what my days are like.

 
I wake up to the sounds of empty plastic jugs being jostled around. Izaquel and his cousin Carlos are here to fill our water – they come even when we tell them we don't need any water, always quiet and always polite -- and Laura's up and about, a capulana tied around her waist as she makes her morning coffee. She's already swept the floor and is in full productivity mode.

“Morning,” I say sleepily as I emerge from my room like a bear just awoken from hibernation. Laura and I mix up some powdered milk into two bowls, pour cornflakes on top of them, and munch contentedly as we sit at the table.

The silence is broken by Márcia, our friend Conceição's two year old, tottering by. She's not wearing pants, as usual, “Amiga!” she shouts as she wanders by our door. This is literally the only thing she says to us, but she says it every time she sees one of us. We wave. “Amiga!” she continues to shout. “Amiga! AMIGA! AMIIIIIIIGA!”

She gets distracted by the arrival of Edivalda, her three-year-old friend. “Edi!” she shouts now. “Edi! Edi! Ediiiiiiiiii!” We tend to refer to Edi as Duckpuncher (that's a story for another time) and we're not super fond of her. She tends to repeat your name over and over and over again until you finally ask “WHAT!?” at which point she'll stop and think, clearly having not had anything important to say at all, and then come out with something stupid like “There's some soap over there. Do you see it? The soap? It's over there.”

Eventually Márcia and Duckpuncher find their third compadre, a bald little girl named Vánia that we call Doorstop. (We have nicknames for all the neighborhood children.) The three of them run away to play in the dirt, giggling and screaming the whole way.

Laura and I retire to our beds for some mid-morning reading. We've taken to reading the same books so we can talk about them later, like a two-person book club. Last week we read The Grapes of Wrath, this week it's Hemingway. As soon as I lay down to read, the cat silently jumps up and curls herself up in my lap, collapsing into the hammock of my skirt and purring happily. I read a few pages, and then inevitably doze off, but I pick it right back up again twenty minutes later. Our noses are still buried in our kindles as we eat lunch, and our neighbors must think that we do nothing but read all day.

After lunch, I see Laura off to school, wearing her white professor's bata, and I have the house to myself for a little while. I put some things together for the community library, and then spend a little while writing application essays for various post-Peace-Corps endeavors.

“Sensa?” A small voice breaks my concentration. 11-year-old Castelo is at the door, and he wants to borrow my soccer ball to play with his best friend. They take the ball to go play, and as they walk to the field other boys appear out of nowhere until a full game is in progress. It's like they have sixth sense. ("There's soccer nearby. I feel it!") I can still hear them screaming and laughing as I put on my own bata and head to school for my favorite time of the week – lessons with my tenth graders.

My tenth graders are what I look forward to all week – they're the most well-behaved, the most studious, and the most fun classes to teach. They look forward to me, too, since I'm one of their only teachers that doesn't just make them copy dictation the whole day – so we're all excited to be there, which makes for a wonderful learning atmosphere. All too soon – bong, bong, bongggggg – a double period is over, and Laura and I go home.

Laura's exhausted from teaching, but her puppy Simba is ever-so-energetic. She looks down at him – he's drooling on her bata – and then looks back up at me. “River beer?” she asks, and I respond “Of course!” as I always do.

We start walking in the direction of the river with the dog running happily alongside us. As we wander through the village, we saudar everyone – the boa tarde's and como esta's and mashoma tani's never stop. There's Laurita, who catered our REDES conference and makes the absolute best Mozambican beans ever. There's Julita, the sassy student in my class who is too cool to answer questions but is secretly knows all the answers. There's Alcídio, the art teacher, who more than anything wants to be a photographer.

On the way to the river, we stop by Vasco's store to buy two ice-cold Manicas. Vasco is a night student of mine – chefe de turma (class president) and very smart. His girlfriend, Crimilda, with golden hair weaved into her own, is in my daytime class and is the smartest in her class. A crowd of children is sitting cross-legged in the sand in front of the banca, watching a novela. Vasco gives us our beers, and we walk on the cowpath through the tall grass down to the river.
The Mavudzi river is at full force right now, due to the rains, and the rushing can be heard from afar. We sit on giant boulders on the river's edge while Simba plays in the shallow pools that have formed around the rocks. To our left, children take their evening bath in the river, thrashing around nakedly in the water and dunking each other. To our right, an old man tends the crops in his machamba on the riverbank. We sip our beers and soak in everything around us.

As the large orange sun slowly sinks to the horizon, we wander home, lazily placing one foot in front of the other until we arrive at our doorstep. The colors in the sky are so breathtaking that we stop and sit on our veranda to watch the last sliver of orange disappear behind the mountains.

It's the animals, of course, that break us out of our sunset-induced reverie. Simba's hungry, and so is Kitty, who has woken up and is being very vocal about her desire for food. So we cook, both for our animals and for ourselves. Tonight it's stir-fry – spicy, just how we like it – and served over steaming rice. (The animals get fish boiled in xima.) While we eat, we swap classroom stories and gossip about our students.

As the last delicious bites disappear from our plates, we hear voices outside – our next door neighbors – and go out to join them. Fanilio and Quizito are sitting out, enjoying the cool night air, and chatting. Fanilio is the Questionmaster – he always has a million and one questions for you, each response leading into another question. Quizito is... well, he's the Perfect Mozambican Man. He's smart, he's compassionate, he plays guitar, and everything he says is insightful. Laura and I sit down and join their conversation. As they chat quietly, I stare up at the sky, where I can see the Milky Way stretching across the immensity of the Mozambican sky. I disengage from the conversation and lose myself in my thoughts for a minute. Just look at those stars! Imagine how--

“A NEW DAY! AAAAAH, AAAAH!”

My train of thought derails, as I'm drawn back to the here-and-now by the voice of Celine Dion.

“LET THE RAIN COME DOWN AND WASH AWAY MY TEARS!”

Morais, the Third Musketeer of the bachelor pad next door, has arrived. Morais is one of the loudest people I've ever met, but is always good for a laugh. He loves to crack jokes, he loves to do silly impressions, and most of all, he loves Celine Dion.

“LET IT FILL MY SOUL AND DROWN MY TEARS!”

The quiet, gemütlich atmosphere is gone, but Morais is on a roll, so we're too entertained to notice. One time, he couldn't stop talking about how much he loved beans (“I love beans! I LOVE beans! I love BEANS!”) but today, he's getting ready to take a bath and is trying out his English on us.

“I am... dirty. Dirty! I want to bath. I want to... wash my... bod. I WANT TO WASH MY BOD!”

He keeps shouting “I want to wash my bod!” as he gets ready for his bath, his voice battling with Celine's for volume. (“LET IT SHATTER THE WALLS FOR A NEW SUN!”) As Morais leaves to 'wash his bod', Laura and I say goodnight and go home, still hearing the muffled sounds “A New Day” through our shared wall.

We toss the animals out for the night, and Laura flops on the couch to read a few last chapters. I make us delicious hot chocolate topped off with Amarula, which I sip while picking out weak chords on my guitar. I'm really not very good at the guitar, but Laura says the sound relaxes her, and playing guitar makes me miss music (and musicals) less.

Soon, though, we're both too tired to keep our eyes open and we get ready for bed. We turn off the lights, lock the doors, say goodnight, and crawl under our respective mosquito nets, feeling the safety that comes from knowing you're out of reach for camel spiders, snakes, and giant grasshoppers. Laura falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, but I read for another half hour, and then I close my eyes and think.

How did I get so lucky? How will I ever be able to leave this place in nine months?

I drift off to sleep, dreaming of Duckpuncher and Celine Dion and the rushing waters of the Mavudzi river. 

Tomorrow is a new day.