Darth Vader only you could be so bold

A couple weeks ago I went to this music festival in Swaziland called Bush Fire. It was a cool festival it had decent music, really good food, arts and crafts, local cultural stuff, and a social responsibility theme. A perfect place for a bunch of Peace Corps Hippies to meet for the weekend. My friend Jenna and I traveled together from Guija. She had us a free place to stay and a ride lined up from Maputo. Friday morning we left Chokwe and found a nice ride to Maputo. It is always nice to get a ride and not have to wait for and cram into buses. Anyways we met up with Vicki, a South African working in Matola about our age. After a few minutes Vicki had already told us all these crazy things about her life. How she just broke up with her boyfriend and he is also going to the same festival. Jenna’s window wouldn’t roll up or down and Vicki said she spilt beer down it the other night. She told us all her issues, there was plenty. Then I kept hearing the Dexter theme song. So finally I asked her about her Dexter ring tone. It’s her ex’s ring tone, interesting choice. We stopped for gas and Vicki goes inside to pay, Jenna and I looked at each other, laughed, and acknowledged that this would be an interesting ride and weekend. How did Jenna meet Vicki? She is a friend of Nick. Nick is a cool South African who lived in Chokwe last year. So Jenna and all the girls in Chokwe knew him. Now he is living in Swaziland and Vicki is a friend of his. She didn’t want to travel alone and we wanted a ride. An hour after finding out every private detail about Vicki we blew a tire in Swaziland. Poor Vicki would have had a hell of a time with the popped tire alone. We were stuck there on a hill and curve with a flat then with the angle of the road it was difficult to raise the jack. But finally I got the tire changed and we found a tire place to repair the popped tire shortly after. Sorry this is taking too long to explain. Anyways Vicki is quite the character. Jenna and I will be laughing about meeting her for some time to come. We have to ask permission to leave the country and are supposed to text our travel line every time we leave site. I never do. Usually because I forget but I do hate having to ask Peace Corps permission to do what I want. I understand the rules I just don’t want or think I should have to follow them. I will be happy to finish my government commitment and all the bureaucracy manure that comes with it. So I found out that our country director, Crazy Carl, was also going to this festival on Friday night. And guess who was the first person we ran into Saturday morning as we entered the festival? Yes, Crazy Carl. During our short conversation and greetings he made two jokes about having a list of people who were supposed to be there that he will be checking later then says, he was joking. But he wasn’t joking, I know what a loser. I had to sign a policy violation warning but whatever I’m not upset. I knew the rules and consequences for breaking them before I went. In my eyes I didn’t do anything wrong. My principle knew I went and Forrest covered my classes I missed. Bush Fire had some cool bands and was all about spreading social responsibility. All the proceeds from the concert went to this program to help orphans in Swaziland. Swaziland has about 1-2 million people and 11% of their population are orphans. The promoters and bands all seemed pretty passionate about the problems that most of these Southern African countries face. Three bands I liked: Jeremy Loops es this really creative one man band. Then there was Nancy G & The Human Family. Nancy is a hot reggae rock punk version of Tracy Chapman. My favorite band was this rap group called Rooted Soulz. Their energy and passion were bringin down the house. So if you’re bored check those artists out. But Vicki kind of stole the show with her drunkenness and shocking random comments. Last week Forrest and I got tricked into our first meeting of the year. Sometime last year we quit going to meetings and had no intentions on starting this year. Simple meetings in Mozambique last hours. Everyone has to speak and to make matters worse Mozambicans have a habit of introducing their selves or comments so meetings seem to drag on with all these side comments that if you’re lucky they’ll be relevant. Well we went to this one because a government official came to see the school. The meeting was scheduled for 8am. About 9:40am the meeting started and since Forrest and I were at our house we were the last to enter. I walked into the classroom and, o poop! Only the front row of chairs were available so our kindles which we had brought and planned to read were useless. I was really afraid we might have been in for a long meeting and stuck in the front. Somehow we finished in about an hour. In the meeting we found out that Mabalane is the second worst high school in Mozambique. Last year our national exams had the second lowest scores in the country. And it looks like this year we could be number one!!! I have class the first period at 7am three times a week. And I’m always the only person there on time. The rest of the country raises the flag and sings the national anthem at 6:45. But we like to raise it around 7:10ish and joke around during the anthem. Every few weeks I have to reprimand the students about being respectful. Tonight, was a standard Friday night. Forrest and I were the only teachers present. Our turd students are a direct representation of our turd teachers. Speaking of turd teachers one of them fooled me today into giving her test during one of my classes. Since my Portuguese is horrible I must of missed the slight difference between “can you” and “can I”. I thought she wanted to give her test during my lesson and we would trade. Then I heard her when she was telling the students and she said I was giving the test. Damn. Some of my students were laughing because I think they noticed I didn’t understand. It serves me right because I was just talking to my students about saying yes to everything. I often ask my students questions and they just say, yes teacher or ok teacher. Then I ask a question that should be a no response and they still answer yes teacher. So I stopped the class, made some jokes, and told them all don’t say yes if your don’t understand! They thought it was funny and even funnier when it happened to me. In my defense I thought I understood. Why do we often need something bad to happen to us or someone we know to be grateful for our situation in life. unfortunately a friend of my got some bad news recently. After talking to them about it I couldn’t help think of how grateful I am and lucky I am. Not only to be alive but healthy and so fortunate. Friends and family take some time to appreciate life and what you have. I stopped drinking about two and a half years ago, most of you probably knew that. There was only a couple times I thought about maybe drinking and I was always glad I didn’t. There are many reasons that all added up to me not drinking anymore. But to generalize I just don’t need to. I can have fun and let loose without it. But I was thinking about maybe drinking each of the Mozambican beers before leaving. But then I’m not sure. Everyone is going to want to drink a beer with me or try to get me to try this drink or drink one more. I already get people wanting to see me drunk or drink with me after telling stories from college, the military, or back home. What do you think? There is only four or five different beers here. I could space them out over a week or have one big night? But don’t expect me to start drinking again. Peace, love, and do good things Jimmy