It has been a while since I wrote. But since I got back from South
Africa there has not been a lot going on. Here is most of it in a few sections.
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We had a Close of Service conference in Maputo. We stayed at this fancy hotel in this very rundown part of town. By fancy, I mean the rooms were standard for a nice American hotel. The food on the other hand rocked, both breakfast and lunch buffets. One lunch I had shrimp curry, grilled chicken, duck fried rice, and fish. It was the best food I ate so far in Africa. Although it was cool to hang out and see everyone, I was feeling really guilty about all the resources we were wasting. It was a three day conference that was useless. Everything we could have read in an email.
The poverty and homelessness surrounding us put my trip into perspective. Every time I left the hotel, I saw the “street kids,” groups of homeless orphans, roaming the streets at night. It was a tale of two worlds two different worlds on one block. With all those tax dollars for us to stay in one of Maputo’s finest hotels, I couldn’t stop thinking that I would have rather those kids have gotten to buy clothes, go to school, or get shelter. I wrote more about it in my journal. Of course, since it was a while ago, I already lost sight of it.
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Helen and I went down to Maputo a couple of days before the conference and we hung out just the two of us. Most of you probably already know, but Helen and I have been dating since South Africa. I like her a lot. We are going to travel for about two months before she goes home. This is our rough plan. We will spend about a month on the beach in Tofo, my favorite beach in Mozambique. Then we will meet up with Drew on our way to Tanzania. We’ll spend Xmas in Malawi on the lake. Do a week long safari in Tanzania and after Helen flies home, Drew and I are going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa.
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It finally rained two or three weekends ago so we have water here at the school for the first time since April. Forrest and I have been carrying water every other day over a half mile. Every once in awhile we would get hooked up with some water from the river. (Someone asked about drinking water: we use a filter for our drinking water.)
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Besides the usual stuff (reading, sleeping, teaching, eating, working out, and playing music), English Theater had been occupying a lot of my time. The Peace Corps sponsors an English Theater competition in every province. Last year Mabalane got scratched from the lineup, pretty standard for us. This year one of my best friends in Moz, Ali, made sure Mabalane was in it.
Where to start? Refresher, Mabalane was the second worst rated school in the entire country last year based on the national exam scores. But with the corruption in this country that is almost meaningless data. My theory is we were the second most honest; which still wouldn’t be very honest because I know lots of teachers helped the students by leaving the classrooms during testing so students could talk, copy, and cheat. So the expectations from Mabalane were low to say the least. Another fun Mabalane fact, people refer to Mabalane as, “behind the sun." To make matters worse, we started practicing late, about three weeks ago.
From talking to other volunteers, observing other classes, and meeting other students, I knew that my student's English is comparable. Because my day classes are smaller, I get to spend more time with each student. I also don’t really do anything outside of teaching so my focus is on student learning. Each class has some strong English speakers. So I knew we could put a good crew together.
First off, half my best students were not interested. Luckily for many of my students the opportunity to leave Mabalane is rare and motivation enough to participate. Still I only had about 6-7 students interested initially. The theme for this year's competition was “we are all equal”. I told them the theme and asked them to get ideas and start writing something.
The first couple practices were worthless. Day one, I explained the competition details: ten schools from the Gaza province would give 10-12 minute plays (only eight schools ended up coming). I told them to come up with ideas for the next day and we would start to write. Day two, they had no ideas. Then one student came up with this rip off idea of the Mozambican Independence. I nicely explained how that idea was not very good. Luckily I had an idea. I told them and they liked it. I thought we could write a comedy by changing and exaggerating the roles of men and women in Mozambique. The boys would take on the cooking, cleaning, getting water, raising children, and doing what the wife says. And the girls would be working, getting drunk, and hanging out with their friends. The next day they had a really horrible idea about domestic violence. Then I explained how the judges would be Americans and that we couldn’t use that idea. They were getting frustrated and wanted me to just write it for them, which a lot of volunteers end up doing. But I refused to do that.
Day four we spent about two hours writing and came up with about two minutes worth of script from the 5-6 people who showed up. Not good! I was wondering why I waited so long to get started. I gave an extra credit assignment to all my classes to write a dialogue of normal situations in Mabalane so I could get more material from students. The next couple days we wrote about 5-6 short skits. Then I took everything and tie something together. I typed up a script on my computer using my students writing. Then I found out the hard way that there is almost nowhere in Mabalane to print anything. Next practice I read the script from my computer and the students seemed to like it. The following day I printed the script and made copies for everyone. That day we assigned roles-- Sorry, this is way too boring and descriptive.
Long story short, we procrastinated big time. I wrote a script from all the skits my students wrote then we scrambled to fill the last couple roles. We didn’t have enough female students so we cancelled changing the gender roles. When we started to actually practice, it was eight or nine days before the competition. We meet every single day from there on. And when we started practicing my students started to come up with lots of excellent ideas and I had to tell them no, it’s too late now.
Daily, I showed up on time and had to call all the students to ask them why they weren’t there. We started 30-60 minutes late each day. Only two days we practiced with all the students. But the students practiced their lines and memorized them on their own. Some days the students had chores and couldn’t come. Some days they just flaked out. I wasn’t feeling good about my group. But each day things got better. We presented to the school last Thursday and that was the second time our whole crew practiced together. They performed well. The students watching were laughing and everyone seemed to enjoy it. One student taped it on his phone so I copied it to my computer and we had film practice that day. That really helped for them to see the things I was talking about changing or correcting.
That day walking home from practice one student asked me to buy him a beer. I was like, “I’m not buying you beer.” Then after joking back and forth I told them if you guys get first place I’ll buy everyone a beer. I was pretty confident that our one week of real practice would not be enough.
I was on the other hand worried about getting to the competition. It was in Macia and that is about four to five hours away. We had to be there by 9am. We met in the village around 330am everyone was there by 410am and we left Mabalane at 430am. At 830am we were the first school to arrive. Trust me, travel never goes that smoothly in Moz.
We signed up to present fourth after the first three I thought we were better than them. I gave a little pep talk for them to relax and have fun and told my students they were the best. They did great. There were a few small mistakes but no big deal. They spoke loud, used gestures, and spoke to the crowd. Their timing was perfect. We had a break and the other four schools presented. I felt my group did the best, but I knew I was bias.
I didn’t know how the judges would be scoring, so I focused a lot on speaking to the crowd and not turning their backs to the judges when during practice. No other school did that well. Other schools, the best three or four students did almost all the talking. My group was spread out well. Then some schools were really boring. Ours, not the funniest, was pretty entertaining. My student's accents sounded better too. So I knew we would be up there in the judge’s eyes.
Award time, Rita won best actress, awesome! Then third place, not us, one student went up to accept the award. Second place, I was feeling a little nervous actually; not us! One student went to accept. I knew it was us. First place, Mabalane! All my students jumped over the rail and ran up. Everyone was screaming and jumping up and down. They pulled me out there and one student picked me up. They were all so happy. We celebrated, took photos, and all the schools went for lunch.
Fidalgo, one of my best students told me he had never won first place before in anything. Most of my students probably hadn’t, and Mabalane definitely doesn't win normally. They all took turns carrying and kissing the trophy. I was really proud of my students and happy for them. Helen texted me and told me her group got second up in Tete. I congratulated her and then bragged about my students getting first.
During all this Forrest had taken Armando, I wrote about him in the past, and Tomas to the beach. Neither of them had seen the ocean. Armando had never left Mabalane. I hope Forrest writes up a blog about this because it was a very awesome day for Armando and Tomas.
(Forrest did write a new blog it is mainly complaining about stuff and it is really long. But it is all part of the Mabalane sage. http://forrestinmoz.tumblr.com/)
We met Forrest, Tomas, and Armando at the gas station in Macia to go back to Mabalane. One of the students asked about their beers. I already decided I would hold up my end of the deal.
Mozambique pretty much doesn’t have a drinking age. You’ll find little boys drunk on the beach. If there is a law it is probably 16 or 18. But anyone could go into any store or bar and buy a beer. Most women don’t drink, and the bars are always full of men. While we were waiting for Forrest, I told them all they could go and get one drink, a beer or soda whatever they wanted. Only four of the male students got beers. The female students got gum and yogurt. Two students shared a bag of apples. It was about 15 dollars, well worth it. And an experience I’ll never forget or reproduce in the states. Who takes their high school students out for beer, gum, yogurt, and apples to celebrate???
I felt like a champ, and my students, I could see, felt even better. The ride from Macia to Chokwe was full of singing, yelling, and celebrating the victory. I ended up staying in Guija with Ali so I could copy all our photos and our video.
Waiting for Ali I started thinking about how upset the other groups were, even the second and third groups wanted to win and they were bummed out to "lose." All the volunteers were saying how sad or disappointed their group was when we were cleaning. Is the sadness or sorrow from the others students and schools worth the happiness we experienced? That thought has stayed with me. That is the thing I hate about sports and competition. People put too much emphasis on winning and not on competing. Why can’t all participants get to experience the pleasure that my group did? Or why cannot all participants go home happy at least? Why is winning so much more valuable than doing your best?
Overall it was an excellent day and one of the highlights of my service. Peace, love, and do good things
Jimmy
