Small Victories

            It is all too easy to get stuck in a rut here because the honest truth is, while two years seems like a long time, we are  not here long enough to make any sort of dent in the problems we become so acutely aware of during our service.  So why are we all still here? (A little bragging is in order, here.  Out of our unprecidentedly large training group of 67 volunteers, none have thrown in the towel and gone home.  Someone tell me, is that some kind of Peace Corps record?)

            I won’t speak for the others, but sometimes, it’s sheer stubborness that gets me out of bed and makes me walk around before I can get back into bed and wait for it to start all over again.  However, most of the time my engine runs on small victories.  Tiny events that produce a “high on life” feeling that hopefully doesn’t wear off until you encounter the next.

A small collection of small victories and moments that made my day:

            I never thought that my first house would be the left half of a concrete duplex without running water in Eastern Africa.  Technically it is not my house (it is owned by the school I work for) but I will live in this house longer than any other house outside of my family home.  Nothing makes a house feel more like home than buying your first piece of furniture.  Mine happened to be a 12-hook wooden wall rack purchased at a whopping 100 mets (about $3 dollars).  The moment I hung up my capulanas and my bata (the white lab coat worn by teachers) was the moment that room became MY ROOM.  Since then, I have suspended a bamboo rod from the ceiling for clothing on hangers and sewn my own curtains.  While I seem to have taken a break from furnishing my room, Will is dissatisfied with my continued use of my suitcases as furniture.  Apparently it’s not acceptable to live out of your suitcase for 6 months… A bamboo dresser is in my future.

            I have one of my 12^th grade turmas during the first period on Wednesdays.  The class starts at 6:30 but kids roll in as late as 7:30, if they roll in at all.  One particular student of mine can be a bit of a handful so the other day when he suantered into class about 45 min late, I was fed up with his disrespect for me and his classmates so I made him come straight up to the board to solve a chemical equilibrium problem I had just written.  I knew he couldn’t solve it by himself but I’d be damned if I was going to let him sit down before solving the problem even if I had to tell him every single step.  Ten minutes later, he had an answer on the board and I saw the lightbulb go on in his head.  He hadn’t just robotically written what I had told him, he had solved a problem (almost) by himself.  While he still doesn’t always show up to class on time, he is now actually paying attention in class, participating, and LEARNING the material instead of just copying it down.  Now if only I could afford the time to be that stubborn with every single student…

            Our neighbor, Rodasa, is just over a year old and just learning to talk.  My name is now Na-Na and Mireya, Eeyayah. 

            Rodasa’s cousin, Suel, is about 2 and a half and in the prime of her terrible twos.  She is very good and getting in your way in EVERY way possible, for example, helping you do laundry/dishes by taking things out of the rinse bucket and throwing them back in the soapy bucket.  One particularly charming habit is trying to steal whatever treat might be on the table.  She has a weakness for juice and cookies and if she can reach it, it’s gone before you know she’s in the house.  I was in the middle of trying to build a baking soda/vinegar volcano or bottle rocket and the last thing I wanted was Suel coming into the house and making more of a mess of things than I already was.  Of course, her timing is always impecable, and there she was when I turned around, downing the glass of vinegar and baking soda colored with a little red kool-aid.  DEFINITELY NOT JUICE.  She looks up at me with a red stained mouth and a horrified look and sqeaks out, “agua?”  Nope, no water for you, you can savor that bad taste of taking things without permission. 

            It can be very difficult as a female volunteer to make male friends in the community.  99.9% of the time, your relationship reaches an awkward impass of “no, I will not date you and take you home to the US.”  One of my first “friends” outside of my school community was a guy selling mangos in the market.  He was the only one who didn’t try to overcharge Will and me those first few times we shopped for groceries and he has never once harassed me (more than I can say about nearly everyone else in the market).  I wave hi if I don’t stop to buy something and he waves back and usually that’s the end of our interaction.  The other day as I was walking by, I waved and instead of waving back, he shouted “Anda ‘ca!” (Come here!) and signaled for me to come over.  No good conversation has ever come from me responding to a guy in Mozambique telling me to come over and talk.  I thought for sure this was the end of my nice, not-creepy mango guy.  He stands up as I walk over and pulls something out of his pocket – a 5 Euro note.  He just wanted to know if it was real.  I have no idea how he got 5 Euros (or what the current Euro looks like, so I couldn’t really answer his question) but more importantly, I don’t know how I managed to find who seems to be one of the only genuinely friendly guys in the market.

            Sometimes getting our REDES girls to take ownership of the group activities can be more painful than pulling teeth.  We had decided to raise money to have a little party for Mozambican Women’s Day by selling the purses they had made last year and banana bread on the side.  So the day before we were supposed to go sell bags and bread, I whipped up 30 pretty little banana bread cupcakes in our charcoal Dutch oven.  The next morning, NO ONE shows up to help us sell so we didn’t raise a single metical.  Not exactly a victory, but when Mireya and I recognized the ridiculousness of trying to hold a bake sale in Mozambique, we laughed uncontrollably until our stomachs hurt.  Or maybe our stomachs hurt because we had so much banana bread to get rid of, who knows.

            I’ve always hated missing class.  For me, it’s always more of a pain to make up work or catch up.  However, there is a difference between having a cold and listening to someone talk to you and having a cold and being the one to do all the talking.  I had a cold and lost my voice the other week and so decided not to go to class.  I dutifully had Mireya tell my classes that I would not be in that day.  When my students heard I was sick, they used that free period when they should have had chemistry to visit me at home.  So much for resting my voice.  Not actually getting to take a sick day was worth knowing that my students cared enough to come check up on me.  I also managed to win Mozambican brownie points with my students by answering the door in a capulana.

Final “small victory” for the post is one word:  Cheese.