Well Joseph is gone. The term is almost over. I killed a rat with a blow to the head. We had a couple visitors. The province gave these stupid final test. I read War and Peace. I almost burnt down the house. And played a little jam session for the students Friday.
The students finally stopped passing out and started coming back to class. There were a couple rallies, some witch doctors doing their thing, and who knows what other spiritual or magic tricks. I think most students realized that they needed to go to school or they would fail. Last week we had these province wide testing. The tests were written poorly as usual and full of stuff I didn’t teach. No one told me about these tests until a couple days before. So the students did pretty bad. And I was reminded how much the school system here frustrates me. Half the teachers let the students cheat and talk. Unfortunately most students don’t know the answers so even with all the cheating the scores were still horrible. There were no lessons te test week or the week and a half after. In Mozambique the 13 week trimester turns into 9 weeks, 7 if you have ghost.
But I have a couple more days then im taking off and going to see the largest waterfall in the world, Victoria Falls. Ill have to travel on buses for about 5 days there and back. although I think it will be worth it.
Forrest killed a rat with this metal pole a couple weeks ago. Then a few days later another was in he house. Forrest closed all the doors and trapped it in the front room. Then we chased this rat around the room like Tom and Jerry. This was a very resilient, agile, and crafty rat. I wanted to let him go after some of the acrobatic moves he pulled. But we finally trapped him into a bucket with the lid on. I told Forrest it would be easiest just to let me suffocate and he would probably die in a few hours without air. I also thought this would be less brutal and painful for the rat too. I was wrong. He quickly passed out or appeared to. Then in the morning I heard a lot of noise from around the bucket from my room and had a dream about the rat escaping. We check the bucket in the morning after 10 hours in the bucket. The rat was still breathing and bleeding from its eye balls (like he was hanging out all night with Eye Sucker inside joke for a few of my loyal readers). So the bucket is not air tight. And this little opening has completely re-energized our captive. I say lets drownd him, should be easier and more humane. Well he jumps half way out at the first sign of water, Forrest tightens the lid and the rat is flailing around trying to get away. Forrest secures the bucket upside down on the ground and I come in for the kill with the metal pole to the head. Of course I feel bad about killing the rat but Forrest would have sooner or later plus he was holding the bucket.
Two weeks in a row we had visitors, Kaitlin and Jenna. Kaitlin joined me for my Friday night class. Kaitlin is a pretty white girl with big blue eyes and she gets a lot of attention from Mozambicans. I told my students to prepare questions to ask her. So of course they ask right off the bat if she is married, has a boyfriend, and has children. Then a few of the guys start hitting on her, haha, I had to settle them down a few times. Then we took Kaitlin to eat at the restaurant Saturday evening, bad idea, lots of drunk Mozambicans out on Saturday nights. So we kept getting harassed by all local drunks. They were friendly and not wanting to cause problems but it was just a little annoying since we were hungry and sober.
Jenna’s weekend was a lot nicer, don’t tell Kaitlin! We avoided the village Saturday night. Before my class Friday I took Jenna around the town and showed her the market, train station, my workout spots, and the neighborhoods. She brought us cheese, so that night after class we cooked quesadillas in the dark because the energy was out. They were so awesome. Then Saturday we went to the river and chilled on our sandy beach.
I finally read War and Peace. It is the book you want to read but never get around to read it or make time. It is one of the longest novels ever written and considered one of the greatest books ever written. The book has 366 chapters. Reading it is a real commitment. I was.surprised how much I liked it. It really is an amazing book. I want to read it again later in life. Leo Tolstoy is great at entertaining and teaching you. It has a little of everything. History, philosophy, romance, war, and upper class society drama. I probably spent about 3-5 hours a day reading in and it took me exactly a month to finish. If you have a month off you should check it out. Tolstoy was an interesting man and I want to read more of his stuff.
The other night I almost burnt down the house. Luckily our house is cement and doesn’t catch on fire. I was making beans and got called down to the school to monitor test. So I quickly finished cleaning the beans and went to school. Well apparently the stove was too close to our box of coal, gas, fan, a bucket, and maybe a few other forgettable items. Forrest comes home to your neighbors pulling things out of our house and trying to stop this fire. We might have lost all our stuff if this house wasn’t cement, but it is and we didn’t. luckily. So if you were wondering if I’m still brain-dead? Yes I am!
I’m teaching a few of the students how to play guitar. So yesterday we jammed I played a few songs and the students kept requesting more. It was fun. And English as a foreign language students cant tell when you make a mistake, haha. We are going to work on a Mabalane song.
I think that is about it. Just reading a ton. Not the last week though because I was busy with school work. The days are shorter and much cooler. And dark times are coming soon when avocado season ends. Forrest and I eat so many avocado sandwiches. I’m too tired to re-read this. So sorry for any spelling and grammar but you should be used to it by now.
Peace love and do good things
Jimmy
The students finally stopped passing out and started coming back to class. There were a couple rallies, some witch doctors doing their thing, and who knows what other spiritual or magic tricks. I think most students realized that they needed to go to school or they would fail. Last week we had these province wide testing. The tests were written poorly as usual and full of stuff I didn’t teach. No one told me about these tests until a couple days before. So the students did pretty bad. And I was reminded how much the school system here frustrates me. Half the teachers let the students cheat and talk. Unfortunately most students don’t know the answers so even with all the cheating the scores were still horrible. There were no lessons te test week or the week and a half after. In Mozambique the 13 week trimester turns into 9 weeks, 7 if you have ghost.
But I have a couple more days then im taking off and going to see the largest waterfall in the world, Victoria Falls. Ill have to travel on buses for about 5 days there and back. although I think it will be worth it.
Forrest killed a rat with this metal pole a couple weeks ago. Then a few days later another was in he house. Forrest closed all the doors and trapped it in the front room. Then we chased this rat around the room like Tom and Jerry. This was a very resilient, agile, and crafty rat. I wanted to let him go after some of the acrobatic moves he pulled. But we finally trapped him into a bucket with the lid on. I told Forrest it would be easiest just to let me suffocate and he would probably die in a few hours without air. I also thought this would be less brutal and painful for the rat too. I was wrong. He quickly passed out or appeared to. Then in the morning I heard a lot of noise from around the bucket from my room and had a dream about the rat escaping. We check the bucket in the morning after 10 hours in the bucket. The rat was still breathing and bleeding from its eye balls (like he was hanging out all night with Eye Sucker inside joke for a few of my loyal readers). So the bucket is not air tight. And this little opening has completely re-energized our captive. I say lets drownd him, should be easier and more humane. Well he jumps half way out at the first sign of water, Forrest tightens the lid and the rat is flailing around trying to get away. Forrest secures the bucket upside down on the ground and I come in for the kill with the metal pole to the head. Of course I feel bad about killing the rat but Forrest would have sooner or later plus he was holding the bucket.
Two weeks in a row we had visitors, Kaitlin and Jenna. Kaitlin joined me for my Friday night class. Kaitlin is a pretty white girl with big blue eyes and she gets a lot of attention from Mozambicans. I told my students to prepare questions to ask her. So of course they ask right off the bat if she is married, has a boyfriend, and has children. Then a few of the guys start hitting on her, haha, I had to settle them down a few times. Then we took Kaitlin to eat at the restaurant Saturday evening, bad idea, lots of drunk Mozambicans out on Saturday nights. So we kept getting harassed by all local drunks. They were friendly and not wanting to cause problems but it was just a little annoying since we were hungry and sober.
Jenna’s weekend was a lot nicer, don’t tell Kaitlin! We avoided the village Saturday night. Before my class Friday I took Jenna around the town and showed her the market, train station, my workout spots, and the neighborhoods. She brought us cheese, so that night after class we cooked quesadillas in the dark because the energy was out. They were so awesome. Then Saturday we went to the river and chilled on our sandy beach.
I finally read War and Peace. It is the book you want to read but never get around to read it or make time. It is one of the longest novels ever written and considered one of the greatest books ever written. The book has 366 chapters. Reading it is a real commitment. I was.surprised how much I liked it. It really is an amazing book. I want to read it again later in life. Leo Tolstoy is great at entertaining and teaching you. It has a little of everything. History, philosophy, romance, war, and upper class society drama. I probably spent about 3-5 hours a day reading in and it took me exactly a month to finish. If you have a month off you should check it out. Tolstoy was an interesting man and I want to read more of his stuff.
The other night I almost burnt down the house. Luckily our house is cement and doesn’t catch on fire. I was making beans and got called down to the school to monitor test. So I quickly finished cleaning the beans and went to school. Well apparently the stove was too close to our box of coal, gas, fan, a bucket, and maybe a few other forgettable items. Forrest comes home to your neighbors pulling things out of our house and trying to stop this fire. We might have lost all our stuff if this house wasn’t cement, but it is and we didn’t. luckily. So if you were wondering if I’m still brain-dead? Yes I am!
I’m teaching a few of the students how to play guitar. So yesterday we jammed I played a few songs and the students kept requesting more. It was fun. And English as a foreign language students cant tell when you make a mistake, haha. We are going to work on a Mabalane song.
I think that is about it. Just reading a ton. Not the last week though because I was busy with school work. The days are shorter and much cooler. And dark times are coming soon when avocado season ends. Forrest and I eat so many avocado sandwiches. I’m too tired to re-read this. So sorry for any spelling and grammar but you should be used to it by now.
Peace love and do good things
Jimmy
1 comment:
Nice to get an update Glad you live in a stucco house ! !! ! Be careful traveling have a good time. 18 mos down 9 to go, then some travel time and US bound forever! ! ! ! Love Mom
Post a Comment