I spent a day as a Mozambican woman. Which is to say- cooking, cooking, and cooking. My next door neighbor threw a party for her niece's 1st birthday and all the neighborhood women convened to peel vegetables, defeather chickens, fry potatoes, etc, etc.
I started off my Saturday morning at the escolhina where Ir. Monica had called a parents meeting. Not surprisingly, only 5 out of 15 parents showed up. Ir Monica eventually started the 9am meeting at 945, and then because the parents present couldn't reach a consensus about an issue she presented, she called another meeting next week, in the hopes that the other parents will deign to come. Way to reward the ones who already came the first time, who will just have to sit through it all again.
I left the meeting and found a group of neighbors (the same women I had passed by earlier each returning with 25 L jug of water on her head) sitting under the shade of my mafora tree, peeling a mountain of potatoes. I pulled up a chair to sit with them and was immediately asked where my knife was. Not super thrilled about the prospect of spending my Saturday peeling a million potatoes I probably wasn't even going to eat, I explained to them that in America, we sometimes cook and eat potatoes with the skins on. They stared at me in disbelief. 'How?' they asked. I said 'Well, the same way we are doing right now! Just without peeling the potato first. The skin is really the only part with nutrients anyway.' 'But you don't do that with this kind of potato, right?' They insisted. 'Yes, you use this kind of potato too,' I said. The women shuddered as they imagined eating french fries with the skins on.
I ended up spending the day with them, helping them cook for what seemed like 100 people. Rice, spaghetti, xima, beans, potato salad, cabbage salad, grilled chicken... The smoke from the firewood stung my eyes and made me cry so I was excused from the frying and grilling and relegated to the prep work. I learned how to fold chamosas, which are kind of like African potstickers and definitely one of my favorite foods here: Pork and onion filling inside a triangle of thin dough, deep fried, amazing with piripiri (hot sauce). It's a good thing I secretly ate a bunch off the platter while cooking, because by the time I got to them later at the party there were none left.
We also made about 5 different types of salad tossed with mayonnaise. Other than simple oil and vinegar, Mozambicans just don't use have salad dressings. The potato salad, after being tossed with mayonnaise, was then absolutely coated with a top layer of more mayonnaise, to the point where it just looked like a mound of mayo. Interesting.
At some point I noticed that someone had gone out and bought more chickens (I had witnessed one of the women slaughtering at least 10 earlier that morning), all of whom were now huddled together in a mass of fluffy white feathers. These chickens, genetically altered and sold for human consumption, look and act very different from your regular barnyard chicken. They don't have a fully developed brain (which is probably why they don't try to peck your eye out when you pick them up to slit their throat), reach full size much more quickly, and are essentially sterile- generating dependence on the companies that sell them.
'We got more chickens?' I asked. 'Yes,' an elderly lady replied slyly, 'They're for you to kill.' I knew she was teasing, and I also knew she didn't believe I would do it so I shrugged and asked for a knife.
One lady held the body and wings of the chicken while I grabbed the head and cut the throat. The knife, as I feared, was rather dull. I sawed at the neck of the chicken for a while, thinking 'Oh my God, this isn't working.....' while the other woman encouraged me to use more force. I pushed down harder and finally felt the bone give away and the head dropped to the ground, eyes closed. My partner tossed the body off to the side, where it continued to convulse and tremor. We went to work on the next chicken.
After about the 5th chicken (there were 7 in total), the sand behind us was just a battlefield of headless feathered corpses, a few still flapping wings and kicking legs. I was sawing on another neck when suddenly one of the beheaded chickens got up (not unusual, the phrase 'like a chicken with its head cut off' is accurate, but prior to this the chickens I saw who had managed to get to their feet stumbled only a couple of feet before collapsing again) and ran towards me. I was startled but couldn't stop what I was doing so I tried to sidestep the rogue zombie. I was horrified when it turned and came back towards me, jumping against my leg several times even as I danced around trying to avoid getting blood on my jeans. Finally, another lady stepped in and wrestled my attacker away, throwing it far off into the sand where it struggled a few seconds before becoming motionless. Later, I noticed that its exertions had made it the bloodiest of the bunch; while the others had bled cleanly and only around the neck area, the feathers of my nemesis had become red instead of white. And my jeans were speckled here and there with its blood. Even so, chicken later that evening never tasted better.
In the afternoon, a man stopped by the house, apparently a relative of my neighbor. He sat outside on a chair and beckoned for me to sit in the chair next to him. One of the women brought him a plate of food. As he ate, he complained (first attempting to talk to me in bad english, until I sharply told him to just speak to me in Portuguese) that he was so hungry, he hadn't eaten all day, he had been at the bar. Then he tried to show me a text message. 'They need me to go to church early tomorrow morning. How am I supposed to drink tonight,' he complained. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Wah, wah. Life is so rough for these Mozambican men.
After cooking, (or rather, after I was tired of cooking, because the other women continued long after) I excused myself to go take a bath. I smelled of smoke and sweat and oil.
I was sitting inside my house journaling when I heard the women shouting my name. 'Mana Vivienne, aren't you coming? Hurry! The car is leaving!' I grabbed my purse, feeling a little disoriented and a little panicked. It wasn't until we were driving away that I realized I had forgotten to feed my dogs, who were sitting side by side at the edge of the yard looking at me mournfully.
The car took us straight to the party in Chibuto, where they had rented a big room for the party. We were at least an hour late but still, practically nobody was there yet. Some music was playing but everyone was sitting awkwardly and silently in their chairs.
People began to drizzle in, and I noticed that they were all wearing suits, collared shirts , cocktail dresses, and heels. I had thrown on one of my capulana dresses, forgotten my earrings, and still had on bath flipflops. I'd also not brought a present for the birthday girl. Oops.
It didn't stop me from taking a plate of food and a beer. Humans of all cultures, it seems, react to buffets of food the same way: clamoring to grab a plate, utensils, (multiple even, for their friends and family), jostling each other in line for food. Our day's work vanished in about 10 minutes.
I sat behind a pregnant woman drinking a beer. She had been one of the ones cooking with us during the day. 'You shouldn't hang out with the nuns so much,' she had said. 'You should hang out with me and have real conversations. And we can go to clubs together and drink and dance.'
Now, I watch her down her second beer. I tap her and say in a friendly tone,' You're drinking while pregnant?' She nods happily and waves her beer at me. 'Um, don't you know that your baby could be born-' She cuts me off saying dismissively, 'It's not a problem.'
I sit back, unsure of what to do while she throws back her beer. After a few minutes I tell her, in a half joking tone, that her baby will be an alcoholic. She just laughs. There's nothing I can do so I drop the subject.
Meanwhile the children, all wearing those ridiculous cone party hats, are dancing to the music which, and I'm not sure if it's just the beer kicking in, seems to be getting louder and louder. One 4 or 5 year old girl wearing pink plastic sunglasses is just going all out shimmying with her hands on her hips. She's good, too, as much as I hate to admit a toddler could show me up.
Suddenly, the grown ups are on the dance floor too, having eaten and drank their share. I sip my beer, deciding I'll participate in the dancing after. Except that right as I'm ready to go, I see everyone is drifting out the doors. Just as fast as the dance floor fills, it clears, having hosted maybe 15 minutes of dancing. I guess something else is true of parties in any culture: people come mainly for the food and beverages and once the supply has been depleted, they quickly lose interest.
I stayed behind to clean up with the cooking crew. The music kept going however, and intermittently all the remaining women (and some of the remaining men, sitting around getting drunk on alcohol they had brought) would jump on the dance floor, a strange little after party.
My friend stubbed her toe, ripping the big toenail off. She said it didn't really hurt, but it looked bloody and horrific. I'd probably be crying in her situation. The only person who agreed to cut off the rest of the toenail, which was standing up at a 90 degree angle, was a drunk guy who happened to have a pair of nail clippers and would occasionally pour some beer over her toe to clean it. Note to self: don't stub toe in Africa.
The remainder of the night was spent warding off other drunk guys who either wanted my number or wanted to practice their poor English with me. I'm pretty sure every one of them told me, slurring, that he could give me a ride home. A lot of winners, that's for sure.
I'm very glad that I am American... And that Kevin is coming in less than two days.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Aimless in Africa
As I struggle to come up with interesting things to write about in this week's blog post, I am reminded that life here in Mozambique may be different but not necessarily all that exciting, especially after the novelty wears off. Erica and Alycia had a visitor last week who commented, 'I can't imagine living at the pace you guys live at.' Kind of an insult but also kind of just...truth. Our Friday night consisted of eating dinner at the one restaurant in Chimundo and having a beer. I never used to understand when Erica and Alycia complained about going a little stir crazy on the weekends, but I'm beginning to. Tonight we're making masks for tomorrow's Carnival themed party being thrown by another volunteer in the XaiXai area, and watching movie. Oh, the life I've traded.
The exciting development of this week is my canico (reed) fence in the backyard. The guys I hired did a pretty good job, except that after buying 10 bundles of canico and getting ripped off on transportation cost from Chibuto to my house, it turned out that there wasn't enough canico to complete the fence. So guess who had to go buy 5 more bundles and pay for transport again? That would be me. This time, I arranged everything and only paid 250 for transport instead of 500 (funny how that works). Just goes to show, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. If I knew how to make a canico fence, I'd do it and just know it would be fabulous. And I wouldn't have so inefficiently underestimated the amount of canico either. Apparently the same exact thing happened to Erica and Alycia when they built their canico fence... You'd think that Mozambicans would be experts by now, seeing as houses, latrines, outdoor kitchens, even chicken coops are built with canico.
Speaking of chickens, my neighbor Luisa just came over with a matted wad of feathers and told me my dogs have been eating her baby chickens. I'd deny it but I'm pretty sure it's true, having seen XimaXima gnawing on some feathers earlier in the day. But what does one say in the face of such accusations? I'm sure it's not just MY dogs. There are at least 10 other dogs in the neighborhood who roam free even at night; I'm just the only one who can be held accountable. I told her I planned to keep the dogs in the fence after it's completed, which seemed to satisfy her. She stalked away with the feathers in hand, leaving me musing about how these kind of situations are what really convince me I'm in Africa.
Aside from the anticipation of Kevin's arrival in Mozambique in two weeks, I've been feeling a bit apathetic and under the weather, possibly from not sleeping well. Earlier this week I was getting up at odd hours of the night because of the whining of the dogs, only to find puppy diarrhea on my kitchen floor. Not fun times. I discovered from cleaning up after them that they have worms (hence the diarrhea). I've been giving them medicine and their bowel movements seem more regular and controlled.
The neighbors one street over must have recently invested in a giant speaker system because all day and all night I am inundated with unnecessarily loud bad music coming through my windows. (For example, the only lyrics from one song I hear several times a day: 'If I marry you, would you marry me, my love? My love?' Repeat lyrics over and over) I walked over Monday night to ask them to please turn it down, which they seemed surprised about (I bet no one's ever told them directly that they're making a lot of noise). They turned it down, but barely.
Work at the escolhina is... Tiring, as usual. The arrival of Irma Monica signifies drastic changes for the escolhina- a good thing! Ir. Monica is younger (in comparison to the others) and studied in Portugal, giving her at a more modern mindset. She and I spend the mornings trying to get the kids to walk quietly in two gender separate lines. It sounds simple but it's quite a feat of its own. Like I've said before, waiting and standing in line is just not part of this culture. The kids look around blankly when they are ordered to form a line, then break formation the moment the line starts moving. Ir. Monica is always reminding them, 'Dont put your stomach against the other person's back. This is not the time for hugging! Everyone is to have their own personal space!' Finally, a Mozambican who understands the concept of personal space.
While Ir. Daulisa was the definition of lax, Ir. Monica may just be on the exact other end of the spectrum. I imagine it's difficult for the children to transition from an escolhina where they play all day, to an escolhina where they actually have to participate in activities or suffer the consequences.
What is my role here as a health volunteer? I am still wondering. I would hope that my contribution to Mozambique is more than just teaching one or two kids to cover their mouths when coughing, or to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom. My work is not directly related to HIV/AIDS, although the center is for OVC's. Its affiliation with the Catholic church makes the topic of HIV/AIDS a taboo subject.
I hope eventually to partner with the local hospital to maybe to do some side projects, like giving palestras (mini classes) on nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention, general health and hygiene, etc. Many PCV's work with secondary school groups like JOMA or REDES, which I am also interested in. The Moz15 Reconnect conference coming up in April means that I have to start thinking about these things, my personal and professional two year goals. Planning that far in advance is always daunting, the question of 'What do I want to accomplish in the long run?' when the immediate answer that comes to mind is 'I have no f-ing idea.'
The exciting development of this week is my canico (reed) fence in the backyard. The guys I hired did a pretty good job, except that after buying 10 bundles of canico and getting ripped off on transportation cost from Chibuto to my house, it turned out that there wasn't enough canico to complete the fence. So guess who had to go buy 5 more bundles and pay for transport again? That would be me. This time, I arranged everything and only paid 250 for transport instead of 500 (funny how that works). Just goes to show, if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. If I knew how to make a canico fence, I'd do it and just know it would be fabulous. And I wouldn't have so inefficiently underestimated the amount of canico either. Apparently the same exact thing happened to Erica and Alycia when they built their canico fence... You'd think that Mozambicans would be experts by now, seeing as houses, latrines, outdoor kitchens, even chicken coops are built with canico.
Speaking of chickens, my neighbor Luisa just came over with a matted wad of feathers and told me my dogs have been eating her baby chickens. I'd deny it but I'm pretty sure it's true, having seen XimaXima gnawing on some feathers earlier in the day. But what does one say in the face of such accusations? I'm sure it's not just MY dogs. There are at least 10 other dogs in the neighborhood who roam free even at night; I'm just the only one who can be held accountable. I told her I planned to keep the dogs in the fence after it's completed, which seemed to satisfy her. She stalked away with the feathers in hand, leaving me musing about how these kind of situations are what really convince me I'm in Africa.
Aside from the anticipation of Kevin's arrival in Mozambique in two weeks, I've been feeling a bit apathetic and under the weather, possibly from not sleeping well. Earlier this week I was getting up at odd hours of the night because of the whining of the dogs, only to find puppy diarrhea on my kitchen floor. Not fun times. I discovered from cleaning up after them that they have worms (hence the diarrhea). I've been giving them medicine and their bowel movements seem more regular and controlled.
The neighbors one street over must have recently invested in a giant speaker system because all day and all night I am inundated with unnecessarily loud bad music coming through my windows. (For example, the only lyrics from one song I hear several times a day: 'If I marry you, would you marry me, my love? My love?' Repeat lyrics over and over) I walked over Monday night to ask them to please turn it down, which they seemed surprised about (I bet no one's ever told them directly that they're making a lot of noise). They turned it down, but barely.
Work at the escolhina is... Tiring, as usual. The arrival of Irma Monica signifies drastic changes for the escolhina- a good thing! Ir. Monica is younger (in comparison to the others) and studied in Portugal, giving her at a more modern mindset. She and I spend the mornings trying to get the kids to walk quietly in two gender separate lines. It sounds simple but it's quite a feat of its own. Like I've said before, waiting and standing in line is just not part of this culture. The kids look around blankly when they are ordered to form a line, then break formation the moment the line starts moving. Ir. Monica is always reminding them, 'Dont put your stomach against the other person's back. This is not the time for hugging! Everyone is to have their own personal space!' Finally, a Mozambican who understands the concept of personal space.
While Ir. Daulisa was the definition of lax, Ir. Monica may just be on the exact other end of the spectrum. I imagine it's difficult for the children to transition from an escolhina where they play all day, to an escolhina where they actually have to participate in activities or suffer the consequences.
What is my role here as a health volunteer? I am still wondering. I would hope that my contribution to Mozambique is more than just teaching one or two kids to cover their mouths when coughing, or to wash their hands after they go to the bathroom. My work is not directly related to HIV/AIDS, although the center is for OVC's. Its affiliation with the Catholic church makes the topic of HIV/AIDS a taboo subject.
I hope eventually to partner with the local hospital to maybe to do some side projects, like giving palestras (mini classes) on nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention, general health and hygiene, etc. Many PCV's work with secondary school groups like JOMA or REDES, which I am also interested in. The Moz15 Reconnect conference coming up in April means that I have to start thinking about these things, my personal and professional two year goals. Planning that far in advance is always daunting, the question of 'What do I want to accomplish in the long run?' when the immediate answer that comes to mind is 'I have no f-ing idea.'
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The boy who cried wolf, or The dog who cried xixi
I think I'm raising a hooligan. A fluffy white hooligan named XimaXima who seems to have hit the rebellious teenage stage. Maybe it's my fault, I'm the working parent who is never home to give my child the love and attention she deserves. Well, that's not really true. I only work 7 am to 1 pm every day, rushing back to feed my kids lunch, often a specialty meal I've saved from the escolhina. The escolhina serves lunch to the students, usually rice with some sort of protein- goat, beans, chicken, fish. All these things I rarely, if ever, cook for myself at home. (My usual source of protein is eggs and canned tuna. Sometimes beans.) So of course the puppies are excited to get a special treat, a nice change from their usual dried fish cooked with flour.
They wake me up at 5 every morning. I let them out and feed them before I return to bed, even if it's just to catch an extra 30 minutes of sleep. They then spend the whole day playing outside, wrestling with each other, chasing chickens, exploring the neighbor's yards, and who knows what. Xima shows up at least three times a day at my work and each time I carry her and deposit her back in my yard, but she keeps following me. Stubborn dog.
At around 7 or 730 in the evening, when I want to round up the dogs and close the doors for the night so as not to let mosquitoes, she is nowhere to be found. Mel, the quiet mousy one, is already laying down on her towel in her corner of the kitchen looking sleepy.
I walk around the yard for a bit calling Xima's name, which she has been responding to less and less. More often than not I see a flash of white (it's like me trying to squat in a public place in the dark to do business, hoping that no one will notice. Unlike Mozambicans, I don't blend in the dark). I call Xima again, but all I get is the cheerful wave of a curly white tail as she continues to trot the other way, too busy with her adventures at the moment to bother with me, the one who feeds her three times a day and raised her from a tiny puppy, saving her from a life of reckless children who dont know the first thing about caring for dogs and who named her Dragao (Dragon) thinking the entire time she was a boy. I actually paid 100mts the other day to buy her from her 'owner,' some neighborhood kid who once again had tied her up at his house one day when he felt like having a dog for a few hours.
How ungrateful of her to turn her back on me now, I sigh. She tends to disappear right after dinner time, possibly to eat dinner
course number 2 at someone else's house, as if I don't feed her plenty. (This is possibly why she is now significantly larger than Mel, who started out only slightly smaller). The worst is when she comes home with rancid breath, having chewed on or eaten something disgusting and rotten, and licks me affectionately, leaving the smell on me.
I scoop up my little explorer, who is getting a little heavy to carry long distances, and tell her it's time for bed. She starts struggling in my arms when she sees where we're headed, lightly starts biting my arm. (I also think she may be teething.) I put her next to Mel, on her own towel inside the kitchen.
'But mooooom,' I imagine is what she's whining.
'But nothing.' I respond. 'You've been out all day. Time to go to bed. Look at Mel, she's sleeping on her towel already. Go lay down.'
Xima looks at me reproachfully with her big black button eyes. 'But Bop and Jave get to stay out ALL night.'
'Well, they're not my dogs. My house, my rules.' (I have already got this child discipline thing down pat!)
Xima whines again, lays down resentfully. I think I've won for now.
Oh, no. The moment I walk away she's up, trying to climb the boxes that fence off their area of the kitchen, boxes that do not get bigger as the dogs do. She's over in no time, wagging her tail triumphantly as she passes by my room headed for the door. She sits expectantly in front of the closed back door as I point to the kitchen and tell her, 'NO! Go lay down!'
She looks at me, wags her white tail petulantly. 'But I don't wanna.'
I pick her up and lug her back to the kitchen. She sulks a bit but never manages to look ashamed. This is another difference between the dogs: Mel looks constantly guilty, with her timid slouch, droopy tail, furrowed forehead, and tiny black eyes. Xima is the golden child everyone compliments for her great personality and good looks. Even when she's in trouble (ie. Taking a huge dump in the house) her tail is held high, wagging back and forth, and her eyes hold a look of complete innocence. I tell her she could have more shame, at least appear contrite, but it's not her style.
I put up the straw mat around the boxes so she can't see around them. She instantly starts whining and whining, a high pitched annoying kind of whine that grates on my nerves. I leave her alone, refusing to give her attention. She tries getting out again, scratching at the boxes to try to pull herself out.
She reminds me of one of the kids at the escolhina, Stelio, who cries unconsolably all day and never makes it a full day without running home. His parents are obviously less than pleased; they're paying money for him to be here but he just won't stay. They are constantly bringing him back; sometimes waving around a stick and threatening to hit him (completely acceptable here) if he keeps escaping, but he obviously would rather be beaten and scolded than stay where he's supposed to... That's how Xima is.
Finally I can't take it anymore. 'What is your problem?' I ask, turning the lights back on in the kitchen. I wonder if i'm misunderstanding something. A few times early on, I ignored the puppy cries that later resulted in me having to clean up puppy messes.
'Do you have to go xixi?' I ask. Xixi is pee, in Portuguese, fyi. Obviously I have a bilingual dog. Xima whines again and wags her tail. I decide she looks more desperate than usual. I let her out of the corner (Mel watches all this with a sleepy eye but does not get up. What an exemplary daughter) and open the back door.
Xima hesitates for a second. I urge her to go do her business, and she doesn't need to be told twice. She bounds down the stairs, heads for her chosen part of the yard and squats down. Success.
It's dark and I can't tell if she is going xixi or otherwise, but im happy it wasn't in the house. She finishes and begins sniffing around in another direction. I call her name and she ignores me. 'XIma!' I say more forcefully. She looks at me and then promptly turns and scampers off the other way, out of the yard.
Cursing, I change from my house flipflops to my outdoor flipflops and race out the door after my runaway daughter. I should be in bed by now, we should all be in bed by now, what the heck!
I walk around for a bit in the dark, but see no trace of a mischievous white and brown puppy. The stars at night are amazing in Africa. The mosquitoes, however, are not.
I return home grumpy and Xima-less. It's not dangerous for her to be out at night: there are virtually no predators in Mozambique, all exotic animal species decimated by the civil war. I just don't want her causing trouble at night and sleeping during the day.
Twenty minutes later, as I'm drifting off to sleep that's been beckoning all night, , I hear whining at the door. 'Mom! I'm locked out!' Xima says.
'No kidding!' I respond. 'I disowned you!'
Empty, empty threats. I get up to let her in and she comes bounding in, casually laying down next to my bed as if that's where she sleeps.
'Sorry kiddo but I don't trust you yet to hold your bladder.' I put her back in the kitchen for what seems the millionth time just this evening. She finally lays down and I leave for my hot date with my pillow, who has been waiting for a while now.
An hour later it's Mel stirring and whining softly about how she has to go xixi...
Oh, and I bet I know what you're thinking: it must get lonely in Africa. ;)
They wake me up at 5 every morning. I let them out and feed them before I return to bed, even if it's just to catch an extra 30 minutes of sleep. They then spend the whole day playing outside, wrestling with each other, chasing chickens, exploring the neighbor's yards, and who knows what. Xima shows up at least three times a day at my work and each time I carry her and deposit her back in my yard, but she keeps following me. Stubborn dog.
At around 7 or 730 in the evening, when I want to round up the dogs and close the doors for the night so as not to let mosquitoes, she is nowhere to be found. Mel, the quiet mousy one, is already laying down on her towel in her corner of the kitchen looking sleepy.
I walk around the yard for a bit calling Xima's name, which she has been responding to less and less. More often than not I see a flash of white (it's like me trying to squat in a public place in the dark to do business, hoping that no one will notice. Unlike Mozambicans, I don't blend in the dark). I call Xima again, but all I get is the cheerful wave of a curly white tail as she continues to trot the other way, too busy with her adventures at the moment to bother with me, the one who feeds her three times a day and raised her from a tiny puppy, saving her from a life of reckless children who dont know the first thing about caring for dogs and who named her Dragao (Dragon) thinking the entire time she was a boy. I actually paid 100mts the other day to buy her from her 'owner,' some neighborhood kid who once again had tied her up at his house one day when he felt like having a dog for a few hours.
How ungrateful of her to turn her back on me now, I sigh. She tends to disappear right after dinner time, possibly to eat dinner
course number 2 at someone else's house, as if I don't feed her plenty. (This is possibly why she is now significantly larger than Mel, who started out only slightly smaller). The worst is when she comes home with rancid breath, having chewed on or eaten something disgusting and rotten, and licks me affectionately, leaving the smell on me.
I scoop up my little explorer, who is getting a little heavy to carry long distances, and tell her it's time for bed. She starts struggling in my arms when she sees where we're headed, lightly starts biting my arm. (I also think she may be teething.) I put her next to Mel, on her own towel inside the kitchen.
'But mooooom,' I imagine is what she's whining.
'But nothing.' I respond. 'You've been out all day. Time to go to bed. Look at Mel, she's sleeping on her towel already. Go lay down.'
Xima looks at me reproachfully with her big black button eyes. 'But Bop and Jave get to stay out ALL night.'
'Well, they're not my dogs. My house, my rules.' (I have already got this child discipline thing down pat!)
Xima whines again, lays down resentfully. I think I've won for now.
Oh, no. The moment I walk away she's up, trying to climb the boxes that fence off their area of the kitchen, boxes that do not get bigger as the dogs do. She's over in no time, wagging her tail triumphantly as she passes by my room headed for the door. She sits expectantly in front of the closed back door as I point to the kitchen and tell her, 'NO! Go lay down!'
She looks at me, wags her white tail petulantly. 'But I don't wanna.'
I pick her up and lug her back to the kitchen. She sulks a bit but never manages to look ashamed. This is another difference between the dogs: Mel looks constantly guilty, with her timid slouch, droopy tail, furrowed forehead, and tiny black eyes. Xima is the golden child everyone compliments for her great personality and good looks. Even when she's in trouble (ie. Taking a huge dump in the house) her tail is held high, wagging back and forth, and her eyes hold a look of complete innocence. I tell her she could have more shame, at least appear contrite, but it's not her style.
I put up the straw mat around the boxes so she can't see around them. She instantly starts whining and whining, a high pitched annoying kind of whine that grates on my nerves. I leave her alone, refusing to give her attention. She tries getting out again, scratching at the boxes to try to pull herself out.
She reminds me of one of the kids at the escolhina, Stelio, who cries unconsolably all day and never makes it a full day without running home. His parents are obviously less than pleased; they're paying money for him to be here but he just won't stay. They are constantly bringing him back; sometimes waving around a stick and threatening to hit him (completely acceptable here) if he keeps escaping, but he obviously would rather be beaten and scolded than stay where he's supposed to... That's how Xima is.
Finally I can't take it anymore. 'What is your problem?' I ask, turning the lights back on in the kitchen. I wonder if i'm misunderstanding something. A few times early on, I ignored the puppy cries that later resulted in me having to clean up puppy messes.
'Do you have to go xixi?' I ask. Xixi is pee, in Portuguese, fyi. Obviously I have a bilingual dog. Xima whines again and wags her tail. I decide she looks more desperate than usual. I let her out of the corner (Mel watches all this with a sleepy eye but does not get up. What an exemplary daughter) and open the back door.
Xima hesitates for a second. I urge her to go do her business, and she doesn't need to be told twice. She bounds down the stairs, heads for her chosen part of the yard and squats down. Success.
It's dark and I can't tell if she is going xixi or otherwise, but im happy it wasn't in the house. She finishes and begins sniffing around in another direction. I call her name and she ignores me. 'XIma!' I say more forcefully. She looks at me and then promptly turns and scampers off the other way, out of the yard.
Cursing, I change from my house flipflops to my outdoor flipflops and race out the door after my runaway daughter. I should be in bed by now, we should all be in bed by now, what the heck!
I walk around for a bit in the dark, but see no trace of a mischievous white and brown puppy. The stars at night are amazing in Africa. The mosquitoes, however, are not.
I return home grumpy and Xima-less. It's not dangerous for her to be out at night: there are virtually no predators in Mozambique, all exotic animal species decimated by the civil war. I just don't want her causing trouble at night and sleeping during the day.
Twenty minutes later, as I'm drifting off to sleep that's been beckoning all night, , I hear whining at the door. 'Mom! I'm locked out!' Xima says.
'No kidding!' I respond. 'I disowned you!'
Empty, empty threats. I get up to let her in and she comes bounding in, casually laying down next to my bed as if that's where she sleeps.
'Sorry kiddo but I don't trust you yet to hold your bladder.' I put her back in the kitchen for what seems the millionth time just this evening. She finally lays down and I leave for my hot date with my pillow, who has been waiting for a while now.
An hour later it's Mel stirring and whining softly about how she has to go xixi...
Oh, and I bet I know what you're thinking: it must get lonely in Africa. ;)
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A word on crianzas
Sometimes I think of Africa as a great parenting social experiment. What would happen if everyone lived really close together, had multiple children, and left said children free to roam unsupervised most of the day? Ta da! Welcome to Mozambique.
On any given day you can find small groups of children foraging through the trash pits for things to play with. At least here in this neighborhood they aren't usually motivated by hunger, although they do like to thoroughly lick discarded chip bags, eat cookie crumbs from the wrapper, salvage the last drop of juice from the carton... It's not so sanitary but hey, at least they're timely garbage collectors. A plastic bag that I throw out will usually be picked apart in a day; I'll see my anti malaria medicine carton in the hands of the little neighbor girl, my empty tin can is now a drum for her older brother. The only place trash is safe from the crianzas, is down the latrine. During training we heard a story about a volunteer who found kids using her tampon applicators as whistles..... The trash of foreigners is oh so fascinating.
What the kids do with the trash ranges from annoying (make loud noises, or leave the trash all over the yard when they're done playing, which defeats the purpose of me putting trash in the trash pit in the first playing), to somewhat dangerous (ie.Tie wire around the puppies' necks for a collar or leash, or feed the dogs whatever so that they'll be coaxed to come out and play- I rescued a cough drop from Mel's mouth the other day), to disgusting (the juice I threw out a few weeks ago was spoiled and im pretty sure they still drank it), to (rarely) actually even creative. One thing I've seen that impressed me, kids running around pushing sticks attached to wire cars with soda can wheels. I was standing at the chapa stop a while ago, waiting, and an older kid ran by with his toy. 'Look, it's a chapa!' he said as he passed and I saw it indeed was, a wire pickup truck carrying a cargo of crushed soda cans. I'll have to take a picture next time I see one of those toys, because they're pretty innovative. 'Ta nice!' as they would say here, mixing some Portuguese and some English in a strange kind of slang. (Also, 'ta crazy' and 'ta soft,' the latter meaning something like 'that's good')
Back to crianzas. I say rarely creative because it's true, Mozambicans are not taught to think creatively, either in school or elsewhere. In schools you find formal education, where the professor stands at the front and lectures the whole time, and the students regurgitate the information, usually without digesting it all the way. That's why failing a grade is so common. That, and low attendance due to family, work, or financial difficulties- school is technically free, but students are still required to buy book, uniforms, supplies, etc. So if a student fails or drops out, they start again next year or when they can, where they left off. In the higher grades especially, 11 and 12 for example, it's not uncommon to have students ranging from maybe 18 to 30 years old.
The kids who don't go to school, who don't have a productive way to spend their days, are generally the ones who cause trouble, for lack of better things to do. They hang out at my front door for hours at a time (I play this secret game called How Fast Can I Bore Them So That They Go Away) and you'd think that ignoring them would do the trick but, as Erica wisely explained in response to my initial bafflement, 'You're still their only source of entertainment, so it doesn't matter if you acknowledge them or not. It's not like they'll get attention elsewhere.' If I shut the door, they sometimes come to the other side. Lately they've taken to destroying my sugar cane plants (and they're not even ready for harvesting!) and pulling down the branches of my mafora tree (mafora is a fruit the size and shape of a bright orange garlic bulb, with big seeds inside each 'clove') because well, mango season is over and they have to steal their snacks from elsewhere. No wonder kids are so malnurished. Things like mangoes, cashews, sugar cane, are dietary staples- not to mention endless amounts of xima (not my dog, who is now referred to as XimaXima), french fries, and cassava root. You can tell the malnurished ones by their bloated bellies, twig like arms, and constant runny noses. (Side note: In Portuguese, the word for congestion is constipacao, which if you didn't know better might think it meant constipation.)
The other day a group of crianzas showed up at my door (this may happen several times in one day, with different groups of crianzas but fortunately my front porch area gets hit by the midday sun, making it uncomfortable for the kids to sit and harass me for too long). I was in a good mood, so I chatted with them a bit (this group contained some older girls, who are in school and can speak Portuguese... The young young ones tend to speak Changana and only know how to ask for things). I asked the girls if they like to draw and their eyes lit up. 'YES!' They all said. But I wasn't in THAT good of a mood so I told them we could draw the next day, which they seemed satisfied with (although the next day all three showed up at different times and demanded to draw, and I declined because I was not about to give art tutoring lessons three times. And besides, I had a small group activity planned.)
The oldest girl, about 10, is obviously excited about drawing. 'I'm going to draw a house!' she tells me proudly, and beams like she expects a cookie for such a novel idea. It's too bad Mozambicans don't understand sarcasm because I would have said something along the lines of, 'Oh really? That's not predictable at all.' I give you the opportunity to draw anything you want, and the best you can come up with is a house? Her enthusiasm about drawing a house almost kind of depresses me because of the sheer amount of work ahead of me, trying to instigate some spark of creativity. Ah, the rare days I'm feeling enough patience to actually open the metal grates that separate me from all the children.
I taught a neighborhood boy to draw stars the other day, which I think was definitely the highlight of his day if not his whole week. 'Mana Vivienne,' he said, 'You're such a good teacher!' Aw, shucks. When he came by later to ask for help with his math homework, I saw he had drawn stars all over his notebook.
There is a big difference between kids just roaming around in the neighborhood and kids in an organized school environment. A lot of the preschoolers I work with are, as I've mentioned before, OVC's. I'm not sure if I've explained this, but in Mozambique a child is considered an orphan if they've lost one parent, not necessarily both. The escolhina was created with these children in mind (and to give single working mothers a place to leave their babies and children), but at this point I think we're accepting anyone else as long as they can pay.
The first day of school (Feb 1), 10 kids showed up, a good turnout considering we started late and our start day was spread by word of mouth. (Eh pa, imagine what we could do with the convenience of email and newsletters and internet!) Over the next few weeks, more children will continue to arrive and enroll. Many of them are returning from last year and already have the routine down. Others, like the kid who cried for an hour after his dad left and never let go of his Batman backpack all day, are new to the escolhina and need some time to adjust.
The first day I saw one of the boys hitting the hand of his friend so I tried to teach the kids the hand slap game, the one in which one person has their hands underneath the other person's and tries to slap while the other tries to pull away in time. None of the kids got it. One kid managed to understand half of it, but once we switched roles he still kept trying to pull his hands back. Jump rope was sort of a flop too, as the kids were more interested in hitting the cord on the ground as hard as possible than in creating a jump-able arc. Or those familiar with the concept of jump rope were not exactly familiar with the technique, jumping up and down to no rhythm at all and expecting the rope to magically fly under their feet. Well, of course, I can't jump and swing rope at the same time, unless I'm jumping rope alone. So i guess I'll have to try to teach them again later with one of my coworkers, who apparently knows how, and we will demonstrate for the kids how it's done.
The only successful game I taught them that day was Simon Says, which fit in well with our anatomy lesson. (Simon Says touch your toes!) Later on I plan to introduce Duck Duck Goose, Twister, Sharks and Minnows (or, culturally adapted Lions and Mice). If any of you have experience with pre schoolers, activity suggestions would be helpful!
Also on the first day, I had a discussion with my coworkers about the payment schedule. This year, I think the escolhina is going to try to implement a pay deadline at the end of the month, with late fees. Paying at the beginning of the month isn't viable in Mozambique, they explain, because pay day is the 20th, so parents won't have money before then. But I don't agree, because asking (in many cases, unreliable) people to pay after they've already received something is how they skip out on paying altogether. (Equals more financial trouble for the escolhina) Why don't they switch the schedule and have parents pay in advance, even if it means their kid skips just one month? When I brought up the idea of taking a deposit (to return at the end of the year) along with registration fees (because people tend to skip out on paying over the holiday season and at the end of the year), they pondered it but then said, 'People would talk about how expensive our escolhina is!' and that was the end of it.
As of now the escolhina still does not have a budget or a written schedule for employees. ('But I know everybody's schedule already!' Irma Daulisa protested when I told her we needed one. Keep in mind, I was the first one there promptly at 7 that morning and she rolled in around 930 with the keys to open the classrooms. Imagine me and six toddlers sitting on a straw mat with nothing to do for a few hours. Thank God Angelica the cook is a punctual person and helped me with the kids. I now have the classroom keys and needless to say, I'm guessing we probably won't be seeing Irma Daulisa until after 10 in the mornings.)
Another problem I've been having is being stuck between Irma Catarina and Irma Daulisa, who are two very different people with very different ideas. Catarina is the founder and is technically in charge but has passed most of the escolhina responsibilities to Daulisa this year. Although I work with Daulisa on a daily basis, Catarina still has final say on all ideas.
For example, I found a couple of coloring books at Erica/alycia's house and I wanted to make photocopies of several pages for the kids. Daulisa was very excited about the books, looking through each page and commenting on each one (In a Lisa Frank book featuring kittens, there was a page with two kittens peering into a fish bowl and, probably to take up more space on the page, random fishes around the cats. Daulisa: 'Why are the fish out of the water? Are they dead? Wait, the kittens are underwater?') I asked for 20 mets to go to the city to make photocopies; she told me she'd give it to me after checking with Irma Catarina. Irma Catarina, when I asked her about it that day, said, 'No we don't have money for that. Write a letter asking the parents to send their kid to school next week with one metical, in order for them to have a copy and be able to participate in your activity.' 'What happens when not all the parents want to pay?' I asked. 'Then the kid will cry because all the other children are coloring and next time the kid will whine until his parents do pay.' Ouch, harsh. Is that really the best way? I don't know. I guess when I was in primary school the teachers did something similar; if you don't get your permission slip signed you don't get to watch the movie. But how is a 3 or 4 year old kid going to understand that he doesn't get a picture of a puppy to color because his parent(s) decided his education wasn't worth contributing 1 more metical? I better not be the one who has to deal with that.
Enough of organizational development frustrations. How can I talk about children without mentioning my own? Mel and Xima, 'Ze poopies' as I like to call them, or 'My little ponies.' Xima is quickly losing her puppy look, which makes me kind of sad. Pretty soon I won't have puppies anymore, I will have dogs. Big ferocious dogs! Mel is still the timid one but she's now a little less skittish, a little more confident. She recognizes some of the neighbor kids and isn't afraid to approach them. I have mixed feelings when I say the puppies don't pee in the house anymore, because they've started pooping in the house at night, which is infinitely worse. You really have to go number two (and three, awful) on my clean floor at midnight, when I'm super tired and cranky? But it's not like I can just leave it there to attract roaches and stink up the house so I take out what I can and mop up the rest with the door open, thus letting in a million mosquitoes. Sigh.
This happened two nights in a row, two different dogs. The first night, I accidentally locked myself out of the house when I tried to close the door a little to avoid letting in mosquitoes and it closed all the way. (No doorknob, can only be opened from the outside with key) So, naturally, I first thoroughly washed my hands in the veranda, and then contemplated my situation. I stumbled in the dark ('please don't let me run into a clothesline') to Alycia's window and creepily whispered into her bedroom, 'Hey it's Viv. I'm so sorry but I need my spare keys...' She opened the front door, super disoriented, and gave me my keys after almost handing me her flashlight. End of 1am adventure. The next day she woke up and wondered if it had been a dream.
Puppies puppies puppies. I think the Americans have started trend... In the past week there have appeared FOUR tiny puppies in the neighborhood, all four of whom were either brought to my house or to Erica/alycia's in an attempt to get us to feed them and essentially take care of them (like I've done with XimaXima and they've done with Bop). I'm at capacity at my house (still reserving a spot for a kitty) so I turned them away rather insistently ('Aw you got a puppy? How cute. Okay you can take him now, because he can't stay here'). Erica and Alycia are not as stern but they also don't want another dog. We'll see. Because a lot of these pups are female, in a year we anticipate a neighborhood 'cheia' (full) with new puppy litters...
Well, if the puppies live that long, that is. Some of the kids who now have puppies, are in my opinion not fit to take care of another living being, being as they can't even care for non moving things like plants (same kids who destroy my landscape). The neighbor's kid accidentally dropped his puppy from the top of a small flight of steps, and now it's limping. His solution was to try to pull on the dog's leg to straighten it out. When XimaXima tried to get close to the other dog (in our own backyard), the punk smacked her. I made it very clear he is not allowed to hit other people's dogs, and then took XimaXima back inside and told her to be grateful she doesn't belong to that kid. She responded by giving me kisses.
Today a group of kids came by with a rope to 'claim' XimaXima, who stays here night and day, responds only when I call, and who I've been feeding 3x a day for the past two months. Are you kidding? What a weird time to try to assert custody rights. I didn't let them take her. 'Are you going to feed her 3x a day and take good care of her? Because if not, she should stay here and play with the other puppy and roam free and be happy. You can come here to play with her but she needs to stay here,' is what I said. I went just short of saying, ' How would YOU like it if someone came to your house and grabbed you and took you away, and then tied you up when you wanted to go home?' It worked, however. They stared at the ground and mumbled that she could stay with me and I felt triumphant, like a mama tiger protecting her cub. Or a mama chicken protecting her chicks. Or something.
It's strange to me that kids can still consider a dog theirs when someone else is feeding it and taking care of it, and has been for months. The kids who 'own' Bop tie him up in their yard occasionally, which Erica and Alycia don't mind but would drive me nuts. Why should I feed your kid? Raise your baby? Whatever, my dogs are like my daughters. Besides, the exact same kids who technically own XimaXima actually just got another tiny puppy (Why on earth would you get a second dog when you obviously can't take care of the first?) who looks just like XimaXima. It (surprise) is staying at someone else's house.
On any given day you can find small groups of children foraging through the trash pits for things to play with. At least here in this neighborhood they aren't usually motivated by hunger, although they do like to thoroughly lick discarded chip bags, eat cookie crumbs from the wrapper, salvage the last drop of juice from the carton... It's not so sanitary but hey, at least they're timely garbage collectors. A plastic bag that I throw out will usually be picked apart in a day; I'll see my anti malaria medicine carton in the hands of the little neighbor girl, my empty tin can is now a drum for her older brother. The only place trash is safe from the crianzas, is down the latrine. During training we heard a story about a volunteer who found kids using her tampon applicators as whistles..... The trash of foreigners is oh so fascinating.
What the kids do with the trash ranges from annoying (make loud noises, or leave the trash all over the yard when they're done playing, which defeats the purpose of me putting trash in the trash pit in the first playing), to somewhat dangerous (ie.Tie wire around the puppies' necks for a collar or leash, or feed the dogs whatever so that they'll be coaxed to come out and play- I rescued a cough drop from Mel's mouth the other day), to disgusting (the juice I threw out a few weeks ago was spoiled and im pretty sure they still drank it), to (rarely) actually even creative. One thing I've seen that impressed me, kids running around pushing sticks attached to wire cars with soda can wheels. I was standing at the chapa stop a while ago, waiting, and an older kid ran by with his toy. 'Look, it's a chapa!' he said as he passed and I saw it indeed was, a wire pickup truck carrying a cargo of crushed soda cans. I'll have to take a picture next time I see one of those toys, because they're pretty innovative. 'Ta nice!' as they would say here, mixing some Portuguese and some English in a strange kind of slang. (Also, 'ta crazy' and 'ta soft,' the latter meaning something like 'that's good')
Back to crianzas. I say rarely creative because it's true, Mozambicans are not taught to think creatively, either in school or elsewhere. In schools you find formal education, where the professor stands at the front and lectures the whole time, and the students regurgitate the information, usually without digesting it all the way. That's why failing a grade is so common. That, and low attendance due to family, work, or financial difficulties- school is technically free, but students are still required to buy book, uniforms, supplies, etc. So if a student fails or drops out, they start again next year or when they can, where they left off. In the higher grades especially, 11 and 12 for example, it's not uncommon to have students ranging from maybe 18 to 30 years old.
The kids who don't go to school, who don't have a productive way to spend their days, are generally the ones who cause trouble, for lack of better things to do. They hang out at my front door for hours at a time (I play this secret game called How Fast Can I Bore Them So That They Go Away) and you'd think that ignoring them would do the trick but, as Erica wisely explained in response to my initial bafflement, 'You're still their only source of entertainment, so it doesn't matter if you acknowledge them or not. It's not like they'll get attention elsewhere.' If I shut the door, they sometimes come to the other side. Lately they've taken to destroying my sugar cane plants (and they're not even ready for harvesting!) and pulling down the branches of my mafora tree (mafora is a fruit the size and shape of a bright orange garlic bulb, with big seeds inside each 'clove') because well, mango season is over and they have to steal their snacks from elsewhere. No wonder kids are so malnurished. Things like mangoes, cashews, sugar cane, are dietary staples- not to mention endless amounts of xima (not my dog, who is now referred to as XimaXima), french fries, and cassava root. You can tell the malnurished ones by their bloated bellies, twig like arms, and constant runny noses. (Side note: In Portuguese, the word for congestion is constipacao, which if you didn't know better might think it meant constipation.)
The other day a group of crianzas showed up at my door (this may happen several times in one day, with different groups of crianzas but fortunately my front porch area gets hit by the midday sun, making it uncomfortable for the kids to sit and harass me for too long). I was in a good mood, so I chatted with them a bit (this group contained some older girls, who are in school and can speak Portuguese... The young young ones tend to speak Changana and only know how to ask for things). I asked the girls if they like to draw and their eyes lit up. 'YES!' They all said. But I wasn't in THAT good of a mood so I told them we could draw the next day, which they seemed satisfied with (although the next day all three showed up at different times and demanded to draw, and I declined because I was not about to give art tutoring lessons three times. And besides, I had a small group activity planned.)
The oldest girl, about 10, is obviously excited about drawing. 'I'm going to draw a house!' she tells me proudly, and beams like she expects a cookie for such a novel idea. It's too bad Mozambicans don't understand sarcasm because I would have said something along the lines of, 'Oh really? That's not predictable at all.' I give you the opportunity to draw anything you want, and the best you can come up with is a house? Her enthusiasm about drawing a house almost kind of depresses me because of the sheer amount of work ahead of me, trying to instigate some spark of creativity. Ah, the rare days I'm feeling enough patience to actually open the metal grates that separate me from all the children.
I taught a neighborhood boy to draw stars the other day, which I think was definitely the highlight of his day if not his whole week. 'Mana Vivienne,' he said, 'You're such a good teacher!' Aw, shucks. When he came by later to ask for help with his math homework, I saw he had drawn stars all over his notebook.
There is a big difference between kids just roaming around in the neighborhood and kids in an organized school environment. A lot of the preschoolers I work with are, as I've mentioned before, OVC's. I'm not sure if I've explained this, but in Mozambique a child is considered an orphan if they've lost one parent, not necessarily both. The escolhina was created with these children in mind (and to give single working mothers a place to leave their babies and children), but at this point I think we're accepting anyone else as long as they can pay.
The first day of school (Feb 1), 10 kids showed up, a good turnout considering we started late and our start day was spread by word of mouth. (Eh pa, imagine what we could do with the convenience of email and newsletters and internet!) Over the next few weeks, more children will continue to arrive and enroll. Many of them are returning from last year and already have the routine down. Others, like the kid who cried for an hour after his dad left and never let go of his Batman backpack all day, are new to the escolhina and need some time to adjust.
The first day I saw one of the boys hitting the hand of his friend so I tried to teach the kids the hand slap game, the one in which one person has their hands underneath the other person's and tries to slap while the other tries to pull away in time. None of the kids got it. One kid managed to understand half of it, but once we switched roles he still kept trying to pull his hands back. Jump rope was sort of a flop too, as the kids were more interested in hitting the cord on the ground as hard as possible than in creating a jump-able arc. Or those familiar with the concept of jump rope were not exactly familiar with the technique, jumping up and down to no rhythm at all and expecting the rope to magically fly under their feet. Well, of course, I can't jump and swing rope at the same time, unless I'm jumping rope alone. So i guess I'll have to try to teach them again later with one of my coworkers, who apparently knows how, and we will demonstrate for the kids how it's done.
The only successful game I taught them that day was Simon Says, which fit in well with our anatomy lesson. (Simon Says touch your toes!) Later on I plan to introduce Duck Duck Goose, Twister, Sharks and Minnows (or, culturally adapted Lions and Mice). If any of you have experience with pre schoolers, activity suggestions would be helpful!
Also on the first day, I had a discussion with my coworkers about the payment schedule. This year, I think the escolhina is going to try to implement a pay deadline at the end of the month, with late fees. Paying at the beginning of the month isn't viable in Mozambique, they explain, because pay day is the 20th, so parents won't have money before then. But I don't agree, because asking (in many cases, unreliable) people to pay after they've already received something is how they skip out on paying altogether. (Equals more financial trouble for the escolhina) Why don't they switch the schedule and have parents pay in advance, even if it means their kid skips just one month? When I brought up the idea of taking a deposit (to return at the end of the year) along with registration fees (because people tend to skip out on paying over the holiday season and at the end of the year), they pondered it but then said, 'People would talk about how expensive our escolhina is!' and that was the end of it.
As of now the escolhina still does not have a budget or a written schedule for employees. ('But I know everybody's schedule already!' Irma Daulisa protested when I told her we needed one. Keep in mind, I was the first one there promptly at 7 that morning and she rolled in around 930 with the keys to open the classrooms. Imagine me and six toddlers sitting on a straw mat with nothing to do for a few hours. Thank God Angelica the cook is a punctual person and helped me with the kids. I now have the classroom keys and needless to say, I'm guessing we probably won't be seeing Irma Daulisa until after 10 in the mornings.)
Another problem I've been having is being stuck between Irma Catarina and Irma Daulisa, who are two very different people with very different ideas. Catarina is the founder and is technically in charge but has passed most of the escolhina responsibilities to Daulisa this year. Although I work with Daulisa on a daily basis, Catarina still has final say on all ideas.
For example, I found a couple of coloring books at Erica/alycia's house and I wanted to make photocopies of several pages for the kids. Daulisa was very excited about the books, looking through each page and commenting on each one (In a Lisa Frank book featuring kittens, there was a page with two kittens peering into a fish bowl and, probably to take up more space on the page, random fishes around the cats. Daulisa: 'Why are the fish out of the water? Are they dead? Wait, the kittens are underwater?') I asked for 20 mets to go to the city to make photocopies; she told me she'd give it to me after checking with Irma Catarina. Irma Catarina, when I asked her about it that day, said, 'No we don't have money for that. Write a letter asking the parents to send their kid to school next week with one metical, in order for them to have a copy and be able to participate in your activity.' 'What happens when not all the parents want to pay?' I asked. 'Then the kid will cry because all the other children are coloring and next time the kid will whine until his parents do pay.' Ouch, harsh. Is that really the best way? I don't know. I guess when I was in primary school the teachers did something similar; if you don't get your permission slip signed you don't get to watch the movie. But how is a 3 or 4 year old kid going to understand that he doesn't get a picture of a puppy to color because his parent(s) decided his education wasn't worth contributing 1 more metical? I better not be the one who has to deal with that.
Enough of organizational development frustrations. How can I talk about children without mentioning my own? Mel and Xima, 'Ze poopies' as I like to call them, or 'My little ponies.' Xima is quickly losing her puppy look, which makes me kind of sad. Pretty soon I won't have puppies anymore, I will have dogs. Big ferocious dogs! Mel is still the timid one but she's now a little less skittish, a little more confident. She recognizes some of the neighbor kids and isn't afraid to approach them. I have mixed feelings when I say the puppies don't pee in the house anymore, because they've started pooping in the house at night, which is infinitely worse. You really have to go number two (and three, awful) on my clean floor at midnight, when I'm super tired and cranky? But it's not like I can just leave it there to attract roaches and stink up the house so I take out what I can and mop up the rest with the door open, thus letting in a million mosquitoes. Sigh.
This happened two nights in a row, two different dogs. The first night, I accidentally locked myself out of the house when I tried to close the door a little to avoid letting in mosquitoes and it closed all the way. (No doorknob, can only be opened from the outside with key) So, naturally, I first thoroughly washed my hands in the veranda, and then contemplated my situation. I stumbled in the dark ('please don't let me run into a clothesline') to Alycia's window and creepily whispered into her bedroom, 'Hey it's Viv. I'm so sorry but I need my spare keys...' She opened the front door, super disoriented, and gave me my keys after almost handing me her flashlight. End of 1am adventure. The next day she woke up and wondered if it had been a dream.
Puppies puppies puppies. I think the Americans have started trend... In the past week there have appeared FOUR tiny puppies in the neighborhood, all four of whom were either brought to my house or to Erica/alycia's in an attempt to get us to feed them and essentially take care of them (like I've done with XimaXima and they've done with Bop). I'm at capacity at my house (still reserving a spot for a kitty) so I turned them away rather insistently ('Aw you got a puppy? How cute. Okay you can take him now, because he can't stay here'). Erica and Alycia are not as stern but they also don't want another dog. We'll see. Because a lot of these pups are female, in a year we anticipate a neighborhood 'cheia' (full) with new puppy litters...
Well, if the puppies live that long, that is. Some of the kids who now have puppies, are in my opinion not fit to take care of another living being, being as they can't even care for non moving things like plants (same kids who destroy my landscape). The neighbor's kid accidentally dropped his puppy from the top of a small flight of steps, and now it's limping. His solution was to try to pull on the dog's leg to straighten it out. When XimaXima tried to get close to the other dog (in our own backyard), the punk smacked her. I made it very clear he is not allowed to hit other people's dogs, and then took XimaXima back inside and told her to be grateful she doesn't belong to that kid. She responded by giving me kisses.
Today a group of kids came by with a rope to 'claim' XimaXima, who stays here night and day, responds only when I call, and who I've been feeding 3x a day for the past two months. Are you kidding? What a weird time to try to assert custody rights. I didn't let them take her. 'Are you going to feed her 3x a day and take good care of her? Because if not, she should stay here and play with the other puppy and roam free and be happy. You can come here to play with her but she needs to stay here,' is what I said. I went just short of saying, ' How would YOU like it if someone came to your house and grabbed you and took you away, and then tied you up when you wanted to go home?' It worked, however. They stared at the ground and mumbled that she could stay with me and I felt triumphant, like a mama tiger protecting her cub. Or a mama chicken protecting her chicks. Or something.
It's strange to me that kids can still consider a dog theirs when someone else is feeding it and taking care of it, and has been for months. The kids who 'own' Bop tie him up in their yard occasionally, which Erica and Alycia don't mind but would drive me nuts. Why should I feed your kid? Raise your baby? Whatever, my dogs are like my daughters. Besides, the exact same kids who technically own XimaXima actually just got another tiny puppy (Why on earth would you get a second dog when you obviously can't take care of the first?) who looks just like XimaXima. It (surprise) is staying at someone else's house.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Worth 1,000 words
Sorry it´s taken me a while to upload photos onto my blog. But if you click the following link to my Facebook you can See more photos !!!
xoxo
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