Dia das Mulheres Mozambicanas

JUNTOS girls on MozambicanWomen's Day

more JUNTOS kids

Domestic Violence play for Women's Day

Ngyous

Stella and Friends

Harriet and Stella come to Cateme

Olive was not a big fan of Harriet

Stella, all grown up! 

9B…. Or my little rockstars, as I like to call them…

This year, unlike last year, I am a D.T. – or Directora da Turma. For those of you who don’t speak Portuguese and/or are not familiar with the Mozambican school system (sooo everyone? I thought so…), it’s basically a homeroom teacher.  So I have my own class (9B, obviously). In addition to being their English teacher, I am their homeroom teacher as well…. Basically, I’m like their school mom. 

The other teachers told me that I was very lucky to have gotten a 9^th grade class.  The 8^th graders are clueless (adorable, but clueless) and the 10^th graders have national exams – which adds a whole other level of stress and work.  Being a DT is totally different from just being a teacher. Last year, I just kind of bopped around, graded my tests and could peace out after that. Not this year…

I have 57 students that I am completely responsible for.  If one of them acts up in another teacher’s class – I get a note about it.  If 3 of them show up late for first period – I hear about it.  And I’m expected to dole out punishments like candy… I’m still getting the hang of that part (Right now it involves me flashing my mean face and making them stay after school to clean the classroom). If a mom shows up at school with a question about her kid, she gets sent right to me. P.S., Little American girl? Not what the moms are expecting….

Some other little gems that have come up… National Statistics day. That was a blast. Basically, we spent the day in our classroom (“we” being me and my 57 kids) working through an absurd number of national statistics.  It went like this “If you are a 15 year old boy, stand up” (and then I counted and recorded the number). Side note – my 9^th graders range from 14 to 20. Then we got to some really awkward statistics… “if your Mother died, stand up.”  “If you’re an orphan, stand up.” “If you are repeating 9^th grade because you failed last year.” Are you just cringing? Political correctness has yet to arrive in Mozambique. Just wait, it gets better…. “If you have any kind of physical disability, stand up” “if you have problems hearing” (that one was ironic…it resulted in someone tapping the kid who has auditory problems and telling him to stand up). “If you are a ‘mentally slow’.”

Another one of my favorites – planting. Every Mozambican student is required to bring some kind of tree and plant it on school grounds.  This has resulted in me continually harassed my students to find and bring plants to school.  They’re sneaky though and try to sneak in just a branch they snapped off a tree. Now we (I) have to check for roots… We also have to do a lot of cleaning/hoeing/ physical labor…. Which they love. Not.

Don’t worry though! Being their DT has allowed me to get to know these kids much better than any of my other classes.  I know all of their names. I check up with their other teachers to see how they’re doing. They come to me with their random problems.  My little chefe (think, class president), Paulo, is an angel – so responsible, so kind … it literally broke my heart when he stood up for ‘orphan’ on statistics day. I kinda like that when I see them doing something good, I get to say ‘oh yeah, he’s one of my kids…they’re rockstars, I know!!’

Waiting for Guffman

So my friend Hannah told me about this movie, Waiting for Guffman, and how totally appropriate it was for our lives here. If you haven’t seen it, it’s faux-documentary about a group of people putting on a community theater piece about the history of their small town.  Basically, they are expecting some big shot from Broadway  (Mr. Guffman) to come and watch the play – and hopefully take them, and the play, to New York.  So they prepare and do all this crazy stuff waiting for this man – they give him a special reserved seat in the front row… and naturally, he never shows up. (Ps. The movie is made by the Best in Show people….so its hilarious)

Soooo that clearly has nothing to do with my life in Mozambique. But in a twisted way – it’s exactly the same.  Cateme is a pretty tiny little village. So when we hear that we’ll be receiving a visitor, it’s a big F-ing deal. Classes are cancelled so that we can clean the school and make sure everything is perfect (do you know how hard it is to clean things in Africa!? We don’t even have a paved road!! Dirt. Is. Everywhere).  The teachers’ houses are inspected. Just in case, ya know, the governor decides he wants to pop in for a cup of tea… Hours are spent practicing the dances and songs that the students will perform as the visitor arrives.  In a word – it is ridiculous. Or in my words – ri-goddamn-diculous.

Last week, we had the joy of receiving the governor of Tete Province.  Now, no one told us what time this guy was going to show up…just the day. So, we obviously cancelled all classes – just to be sure we were good and ready. Around noon, the Nyaos showed up to help us welcome the governor.  (If you’re wondering what a Nyao is…. They’re the traditional, spiritual guardians of the community: a secret society of men who, on special occasions, dress in crazy feathers and rags and do some wild dancing and wailing.  You’re supposed to run and hide from them… which to be honest, they’re usually waving and smacking people with tree branches… so hiding is a good idea.)  Conveniently, Helen and I live directly across from the school so the Nyaos chased us inside our house within seconds. The students were very amused, to say the least.  

At about 1 pm, the group of students who were singing and dancing started doing their thing – which included lots of jumping and yelling and whistle blowing.  At 2 pm, all of the teachers convened outside the school – getting ready to form a giant line of students (teachers at the end) for the governor to drive past as he approached the entrance. (Ps. this was not a cool day, by any means). So we waited. We waited. The dancing kids got tired and thirsty. Three o’clock came and went. No gov.

Then, we saw the brigade slash entourage coming.  Truck loads of policemen, SUVs… seriously about 10 or 12 cars.  Everyone lined up –so ready! And what happened? Oh he zipped right past our school and went on to visit the next village down the road.  Are you kidding me!? So finally around 5:30, the entourage reappears. At this point, a lot of kids had escaped and gone home (I don’t blame them).  We literally had to RUN to get everyone back in order, about 30 people jump out of the cars, and the governor shakes all the teachers’ hands.  Then the school director led the governor on a speed-tour of the school. I’ve never seen Mozambicans move so fast in my life. All of the teachers and entourage were expected to “accompany” this tour – but not get in the way.  This resulted in about 50 people trotting behind two guys… And just like that, in a grand total of 20 minutes, he was gone.  It was 6 o’clock! He was ready to get back to the city and onto paved roads! Meanwhile, we spend hours and hours sweeping and cleaning, waiting and organizing… BAM. Waiting for Guffman.