thats from billy madison, btw. and ps this is an excessively long-winded account....
First days of school are always funny….not to mention that you usually get a sweet pic on the morning of the first day (at least my brother and I did). Well, I wasn’t entirely sure that school was starting today. The public schools here in Mozambique were supposed to start today – but since we’re a technical school, we have a different schedule than everyone else. So when one of the Padres stopped by this weekend and told us we had a “meeting” at school on Monday – I started to think maybe this was it! When we asked what time this so-called meeting was, he just told us “morning.” Awesome, thanks for the details. When we couldn’t get any more information (do we need to bring anything? What should we wear?) we decided we would just show up dressed to teach at 7 am – which is when school normally starts. We made it out the front door at 6 am…which was the plan. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the main road where the chapas stop. So we’re strolling along to the main road – munching on a peanut butter sandwich and noticing that everyone here sleeps outside with their mosquito nets strung up on clothsline (I don’t blame them, its much cooler than inside the little ovens we call houses) and then BAM mud puddle. Awesome. I now have mud all over my birkinstocks and my feet. Hellen stopped while I pulled random leaves off of plants along the path to try and wipe off the mud…all in vain. I was just spreading the mud. Ok whatever, I’ll figure it out when we get there. If stepping in a mud puddle is the worst thing that happens today – I’m golden.
We get to the main road and a chapa pulls up right then. Score. Unfortunately the chapa is “full” … and I’m including the quotation marks because there is rarely a chapa whose driver doesn’t think he can actually squeeze a few more people in. He waves us in, and I somehow ended up in an incredibly awkward backwards facing squat where I was sitting on some mans feet and leaning on another ones knees - all while 18 people are staring right at me. No big, totally normal. We’re on the road! Then I realize that this squat-move I’ve got going on is putting my muddy feet in much closer proximity to, well, my entire body. Nothing I can do about it now…. Also, around this time, I realize there are a bunch of teenage boys on here with me and that this is most likely their first encounter with the new American teachers they’ve been hearing about. What up kids.
We finally make it to our stop and have another good 10 minute walk to our school. Now I’m seeing the effects to the traveling mud which is all over my legs (Helen points out that the mud really stands out on my white skin….sweet). Dom Bosco Escola Profesional is – in typical Mozambican fashion – running a few minutes late for this morning meeting, so I had some time to work on the mud situation. All of the students were lined up waiting for the assembly to start when Padre Pedro (the director of the school) started speaking. He talked a little about the school year and how we are going to work on punctuality (….) and whatnot. And that we’re here today to clean the school ground and meet the American teachers. We gave a quick introduction and they sent us off with the first year students to do some “work.”
Apparently, this meant that we were going to weed the entire school grounds….which were covered in thick grass up to my waist. Clearly, this is why every student came prepared with his own hoe. Why wouldn’t you show up the first day of 8th grade with a hoe? Anyways, I got stuck with the first year welding students and led off to a patch of land. They lined up and got to working, clearing all the grass and weeds. I asked if I could help and they gave me a little row with weed with my hands. Thank God the kid next to me knew that I wasn’t sure what I was doing and stopped me from pulling out some bushes (that were there on purpose) or grabbing onto thorny plants (which I inevitably did anyways a few minutes later). Then they told me we HAD to do this because there are just too many snakes out here with the grass like this. Cool, I love snakes…..absolutely not I’m terrified of snakes. After about thirty minutes we were all good and sweaty but making some good progress. About this time I started to get a lot “Teacher go to the shadows”…. Meaning they wanted me to stop working and go stand my little white-self in the shade. Which I did. And had lots of time to chat with one of the civil construction professors who is a super cool guy. I’d go back and work for as long as I thought I could get away with before they told be to return to the “shadows”.
After we had cleared our patch of land, and called roll again, I got a big “teacher you are free. See you tomorrow” (sidenote, people really want to learn English and will talk to me in English even if I ask them to speak Portuguese so I can practice….so then I just stand my ground and speak Portuguese back to their English. It seems to work actually). Apparently for the next 2 weeks, we’re just weeding and cleaning the school. So Helen and I did the 40 minute trek home in the heat of the day (sweet tan lines), rewarded ourselves with a cold coke and some Jenny cookies and then promptly passed out in our beds.
And there you have it kids. First day of school, Mozambican edition. I’ll keep you posted on when school (classes) actually start.
No comments:
Post a Comment