i don't speak "tssss"
bullet style:
the dog got his rabies shot. it was a process to get the agriculture chefe to get out to malehice and do it, but he did. and now we don't care if the dog bites anyone.
as i was writing a test on the board for one of my turmas, the geography teacher came into the classroom and started yelling at the kids. see, m ost of the students can afford to go to the school by workign in the school machamba (farm) and so every saturday different grades come and work. they just added a new section to the farm and kids have been working on it during the week too. some kids didn't show up, so what she was yelling at the kids was that they didn't have to take the test. so i, seeing more work for me in the near future because a bunch of kids skipped their obligatory child labor, asked her what the hell she was doing. her reasoning was that since they didn't do their work, they don't have to right to take lessons or be evaluated. but see, that means ABSOLUTELY nothing. they will continue to come to class, they will go to other machamba sessions. they will get their grades at the end of the year. all that telling 55 13 years olds that they don't have to take a test right now means is that 40 13 year olds will walk out of the room today, and a week later ask me if they can make up the test later. i. was. zangada. so the next day i told that class that they can only make up the test at the end of the trimestre when i give my general recuporação. and that that test is going to be MEGA hard.
in other student news, the level of disobediance as the end of year inches closer is steadly increasing. i had to give 2 kids faulta vermelhas (in the turma from above, incidetaly). get 3 in one year and you're expelled and can't go back to school for 2 years. i've started having dreams where i'm actually hitting my students. which i have never done yet. but the desire, oh, she is there. one kid thought i was gonna hit him, and nearly fell on the ground flinching. that was fun for me. i was walking around making sure they were copying the notes. this kid wasn't, so i pointed at the board and said he had a lot of catching up to do. but my pointing at the board, as viewed by him, was the beginning of the back of my hand to his face. oh, if only i could completely assimilate.
the kids love my toothpaste penis. this unit has by far been the most fun for me. they think the bladder is where the baby grows now, but soon they will know. and that's exciting. we had a week of assistência last week, and so the director of 8th grade had to watch one of my classes. it happened to be the first day of the male reproductive unit. diagram and all. afterwards he came up to me, "bom lição, bom lição" of course, and then made a joke. a real live joke! unheard of, they don't do the joking here. he said it was a good lesson, but what can i do to have them practice the information. and then we laughed.
oh the amount of questions has increased. it makes a teacher happy. a student asked me if i've ever seen testicles contract into the body when it got cold. and other such questions. they're so precious.
one of the school's maids' family just finished building a house, and so they had a "house opening" ceremony. it was in Manjacaze, a 3 chapa, 3 hour trip from M-town. it started at 6am, but (luckily) kris was giving a practice national exam and i had to help, so we didn't leave until 9. turns out the prodigal son built this house and was returning from South Africa with his wife and two very large children. the ceremony was mostly in some south african dialect, and so someone was translating it to changana. and one of the brothers was designated as the português translator for us and another teacher. the ceremony was long. we had to do dance infront of everyone. we didn't eat until 5pm. it was goat. and then we had to pay some woman an exorbitant amount of money to drive us back to the road so that we could get home that night and not spend the night sleeping at the chefe de manjacaze's house. it was an experiance to say the least. they asked if house opening ceremonies in america were like that. yeah, we don't do that. and when we do, there's a lot more food and booze, a lto less talky talky. thanks for playing. in the back of the truck on the way to the road, it was kris, me, the other english teacher, one of kris's students and some assorted folks. as we were driving, i was pretending to be the cobrador, calling out, "malehice/chibuto" to people as we passed them. i was, in short, being hilarious. the other english teacher (doesn't speak english really well) said to me after a while, "ah, kebra, you are the...pleasant". finally, people are noticing.
oh, malehice is running out of water. this should get interesting.
there was a blood drive in the city of chibuto, at the secondary school where some volunteers teach. after taking all the blood they have to test it. yes. turns out 40% of the blood was HIV positive. but they test it well after words so they don't know who's blood is whos. i shudder to think what the percentage would be in our town, where it's much more rural and we don't have a farmacía.
we're thinking of building a library. or soemthing along the lines of a library. we have lots of text books from the government, but no where to put them. and no spare rooms to hold meeting and such. so lots of meetings and paper work and traveling to xai-xai to find brick makers and stuff like that is sure to follow. stay tuned.
oh, and on a very sad note. my cd player died. just stopped working one day. to which i said, well, that's why i have the cd player and the iPod. yes. that weekend, my iPod began to freak out. it may well die in the near future. and this week, kris's cd player started doing a bit of a skip and dance routine. which would mean that kebra might be ETing and coming back to the states :) or we listen to a lot of 'radio mozambique'. one or the other. oh sweet sweet mp3 cd's that are collecting dust. i still love you.
on that note, off to the limpopo to buy t-shirts. last time i got one that said "nyet nyet soviet" on the front and listed all the socialist satellite states on the back and the phrase "where will it end".
the dog got his rabies shot. it was a process to get the agriculture chefe to get out to malehice and do it, but he did. and now we don't care if the dog bites anyone.
as i was writing a test on the board for one of my turmas, the geography teacher came into the classroom and started yelling at the kids. see, m ost of the students can afford to go to the school by workign in the school machamba (farm) and so every saturday different grades come and work. they just added a new section to the farm and kids have been working on it during the week too. some kids didn't show up, so what she was yelling at the kids was that they didn't have to take the test. so i, seeing more work for me in the near future because a bunch of kids skipped their obligatory child labor, asked her what the hell she was doing. her reasoning was that since they didn't do their work, they don't have to right to take lessons or be evaluated. but see, that means ABSOLUTELY nothing. they will continue to come to class, they will go to other machamba sessions. they will get their grades at the end of the year. all that telling 55 13 years olds that they don't have to take a test right now means is that 40 13 year olds will walk out of the room today, and a week later ask me if they can make up the test later. i. was. zangada. so the next day i told that class that they can only make up the test at the end of the trimestre when i give my general recuporação. and that that test is going to be MEGA hard.
in other student news, the level of disobediance as the end of year inches closer is steadly increasing. i had to give 2 kids faulta vermelhas (in the turma from above, incidetaly). get 3 in one year and you're expelled and can't go back to school for 2 years. i've started having dreams where i'm actually hitting my students. which i have never done yet. but the desire, oh, she is there. one kid thought i was gonna hit him, and nearly fell on the ground flinching. that was fun for me. i was walking around making sure they were copying the notes. this kid wasn't, so i pointed at the board and said he had a lot of catching up to do. but my pointing at the board, as viewed by him, was the beginning of the back of my hand to his face. oh, if only i could completely assimilate.
the kids love my toothpaste penis. this unit has by far been the most fun for me. they think the bladder is where the baby grows now, but soon they will know. and that's exciting. we had a week of assistência last week, and so the director of 8th grade had to watch one of my classes. it happened to be the first day of the male reproductive unit. diagram and all. afterwards he came up to me, "bom lição, bom lição" of course, and then made a joke. a real live joke! unheard of, they don't do the joking here. he said it was a good lesson, but what can i do to have them practice the information. and then we laughed.
oh the amount of questions has increased. it makes a teacher happy. a student asked me if i've ever seen testicles contract into the body when it got cold. and other such questions. they're so precious.
one of the school's maids' family just finished building a house, and so they had a "house opening" ceremony. it was in Manjacaze, a 3 chapa, 3 hour trip from M-town. it started at 6am, but (luckily) kris was giving a practice national exam and i had to help, so we didn't leave until 9. turns out the prodigal son built this house and was returning from South Africa with his wife and two very large children. the ceremony was mostly in some south african dialect, and so someone was translating it to changana. and one of the brothers was designated as the português translator for us and another teacher. the ceremony was long. we had to do dance infront of everyone. we didn't eat until 5pm. it was goat. and then we had to pay some woman an exorbitant amount of money to drive us back to the road so that we could get home that night and not spend the night sleeping at the chefe de manjacaze's house. it was an experiance to say the least. they asked if house opening ceremonies in america were like that. yeah, we don't do that. and when we do, there's a lot more food and booze, a lto less talky talky. thanks for playing. in the back of the truck on the way to the road, it was kris, me, the other english teacher, one of kris's students and some assorted folks. as we were driving, i was pretending to be the cobrador, calling out, "malehice/chibuto" to people as we passed them. i was, in short, being hilarious. the other english teacher (doesn't speak english really well) said to me after a while, "ah, kebra, you are the...pleasant". finally, people are noticing.
oh, malehice is running out of water. this should get interesting.
there was a blood drive in the city of chibuto, at the secondary school where some volunteers teach. after taking all the blood they have to test it. yes. turns out 40% of the blood was HIV positive. but they test it well after words so they don't know who's blood is whos. i shudder to think what the percentage would be in our town, where it's much more rural and we don't have a farmacía.
we're thinking of building a library. or soemthing along the lines of a library. we have lots of text books from the government, but no where to put them. and no spare rooms to hold meeting and such. so lots of meetings and paper work and traveling to xai-xai to find brick makers and stuff like that is sure to follow. stay tuned.
oh, and on a very sad note. my cd player died. just stopped working one day. to which i said, well, that's why i have the cd player and the iPod. yes. that weekend, my iPod began to freak out. it may well die in the near future. and this week, kris's cd player started doing a bit of a skip and dance routine. which would mean that kebra might be ETing and coming back to the states :) or we listen to a lot of 'radio mozambique'. one or the other. oh sweet sweet mp3 cd's that are collecting dust. i still love you.
on that note, off to the limpopo to buy t-shirts. last time i got one that said "nyet nyet soviet" on the front and listed all the socialist satellite states on the back and the phrase "where will it end".