In Which We Accidentally the Truck

We accidentally what? The truck.

[Warning: rather long post.] Its been a flurry of activity the last two weeks here. Last week, as I mentioned, I was manning the fort as everyone else was at week-long seminars put on by various NGO's. That week went just fine. Then we pulled into a three-day weekend for Armed Forces day or something. That meant a little bit of housekeeping. I spent the whole day Saturday with the boys in the dorm as we pulled out everything for some good ol' fashioned cleaning. And when I say everything I mean everything. The girls were all watching and making fun of all the odds and ends that the boys were hoarding in there. Water bottles, toys, trinkets, bottle caps of all sorts (which are kind of used like currency around here) were found in their bunks as we cleaned out all the junk.

But the girls got their turn on the Monday holiday when Victor went through their house with them. They got the same treatment in their house while I got to do some much needed yardwork with the boys. I wanted to be there cleaning out the girls house with them, but lets face it, girls can be a little, ummm, touchy when it comes to going through their stuff. And I don't mean stuff in like all their clothes and things. I mean weird stuff. One girl was storing dozens and dozens of old toilet paper rolls. One girl had at least over a hundred pen caps that she had collected. Another yet had a backpack full of not books but pencil shavings. And those were just the girls over age 16 (seriously). The girls did not take to well to the non-stop shame and laughter that resulted from all the boys seeing tons of junk in their trunk because, well, girls.

After that, I spent about two days washing and sorting the old clothes and packaging them up do donate somewhere else (hundreds of kids just down the hill in the jungle would kill to wear good condition 3rd hand clothes). Because of those two days my house still smells “mountain fresh”, or however detergent is supposed to smell. I'm just glad that the detergent didn't smell like cake or cheeseburgers because boy would that make me hungry.

But today's post isn't about what I've been up to. Today's post is for the edification of all you out there. As one of the things I do a lot here at the orphanage is teach and give school lessons, I thought it about time a prepare a lesson for all of you faithful readers out there. This lesson addresses one of my grammatical / literary pet peeves. And I don't even like grammar, but this is still an annoyance of mine. Today, you are all going to learn about irony.

In Which Everybody Knows TJ

It turns out that not everybody is famous in a small town. I, however,am probably the exception. It is sometimes scary how popular I am. I mean, no complaints, but everybody here knows me. And when I say everybody I mean EVERYBODY. I made a list of all the some reasons why and examples of how I'm so well known.

• I'm white. Lets just face it, I'm not hard to miss in a sea of black people. And albinos. They're not hard to miss either.

• I'm tall. Even by U.S. standards I'm tall. And everybody here is much, much shorter on account of just being that way and receiving much, much worse nutrition during those first, oh, 18 years or so when nutrition is important to growing. I'm at least a head taller than everyone in our neighborhood. Combine that with the whole being white thing and it's pretty hard to miss me.

• I take the bus. Seems innocuous enough, but the only other missionaries I bump into on the bus are nuns. The others all have cars. There's about 6 termini (end-of-lines) on the loosely organized bus routs here in Nampula, and I'm about a ten minute walk away from the end of one of those lines. And often, the buses won't go all the way to the end, they'll stop short and turn around depending on how well comported the driver is. It has gotten so that---I stopped wondering a long time ago---that all the bus drivers know where I live and won't slow down to pick me up. They'll just yell out the window and shout, “We don't stop [in my neighborhood].” It's not like I live in Compton or Detroit or Mexico, some place that everybody is afraid to go. They're just being courteous of telling me to wait for a bus that will take me all the way to where I want to go.

• I'm fairly routine. I'm not nerdy or OCD, I just get habits that work. I do my grocery shopping on Fridays and stock up for the week. How consistent am I? So consistent that one week when I didn't go somebody from the small street market about a 5 minute walk from the orphanage sent somebody to see if I was alright!

• Everybody in our neighborhood knows my name. Again, I'm not sure how and I stopped wondering a long time ago. But they also think I'm Christina's brother, so they're not all-knowing or anything. I try not to say much other than greeting and niceties to most the vendors because they all want to know way too much personal information. I noticed someone building a new market stand last week and so I stopped by. It turns out it is “owned” by somebody from my church. I stopped by and started talking to him and then all the other vendors looked at us rather shocked until someone finally blurted out, “We didn't actually think you spoke anything other than English.” Now everybody want to bend my ear about everything when I pass by the market, which is every time I need to catch the bus. (The guy from our church is too much of a goof to accurately describe with a few short words. The easiest think I can say is he doesn't know that he's a goof. We was super proud to show me his fruit stand and what it's going to look like when he finishes. When I asked him what he plans on selling he responded, completely serious, “I don't know yet. I want to finish this first then I'll start planting fruit.”)

• I'll often walk the kids to school. Mainly its just fun for them to get dropped off for second grade and then wave bye to me in front of all their friends. Some of their friends will say thinks like, “Neato, isn't it just something that you've got a white guy walking you to school?!” I've been temped to respond with something like, “Golly, isn't it swell how you have parents?!” buts there's no way of doing that which doesn't make me sound like the biggest jerk this side I've the equator. Plus, it doesn't translate that well.

• Somewhat startling, and this one puzzles me more than the others, is that their teachers know me too. I went to the primary school last month to do parent-teacher conferences from the second trimester. We have 20 kids that study at the primary school, where they are with the same teacher through the whole day. Half of their teachers didn't show up for the conferences, one of them showed up drunk (at 9am) and doesn't count, but the rest of their teachers that were there that morning (and not inebriated) greeted me with, “Hi, you must be TJ.”

And thankfully none of these peoples have Facebook and want to be my friend. If they did, I'd be getting tons of updates reading, “Alguem vi o meu cabrito? Ele ja me fugio pela quinta vez este semana.” and be taggig in photo albums titled, “Aniversario de Marere – Festa no cajuelo 2011” and having five-hundred people recommend that I “like” kabanga.

In Which it's tooooo quiet...

It's been quiet around here. Almost tooo quiet. But for once in my life, I think I'll take it over the alternative. What's the alternative? Things catching fire!

Victor and the rest of the staff have been at a conference all week, thus leaving the orphanage in my very capable yet flammable hands. This means that the only responsible (haha) people at the orphanage are me and Mama Maria. She is very good at what she does (cooking all our food) but not so good at other things (example: saying, "Here, go clean this" as she gives a 3 year-old a butcher's knife). She's also very funny in a cantankerous sort of way.

With a grandmother's smile that says, "I love you," followed by, "but if you don't hold that chicken still I'm gonna cut of your head instead if his."

I like to think that we've been left in charge because we're the two most capable people here. The last line of defense, if you will. Like when President Lincoln finally sent in Gen Sherman to get the job done right. Or the Rebel Alliance sending on Luke Skywalker to take out the Death Star. Or.the Greeks calling on Archimides to invent a Death Ray.

OK, so maybe all those examples involve destroying things, but I chose them for a reason. That's because every time I'm left alone here things end up getting destroyed. More specifically, they catch on fire (Atlanta, Death Star, Roman ships). Disclaimer: Marrerre's roof burning down last week was totally coincidental because I was not left alone in charge.

So, three days into the week, things have so far been relatively peaceful. Food shortages were averted, as were power outages, wild animal attacks, and several mutinies. The animal attacks were our kids chasing  wild animals, and the munities were too poorly organized to ever gain any real traction with the rest of the proletariat the kids.

But because of that, I've been a little pressed for time. It's really just the same stuff I've always been doing, it just feels more daunting now that I'm the only one around. I'm still trying to shuffle of 40+ kids to school on time, prepping meals, doing teaching and homework help, and doing bible-study/chapel daily and nightly (and ever so rightly). And when you throw on the burden of getting a soccer game or two in during the day, oh the stress...

I worried the week was going to be bad after an ominous start after I spent last Saturday night in clinic with one of our little girls here who came down with malaria. (On a side note: it's really really hard seeing your kids suffer and be sick when there's nothing you can do for them*.) And just this morning the sound of the batukis (drums) started up next door as Marrerre was finally, officially getting recognized as the chief. I was worried that is would then morph into a raging party with enough alcohol, music, and women to make a Miami U football player jealous, but as of press time nothing has materialized.

*What every real parent already knows.

So here's hoping that your week is full of excitement and my week stays so lame that I will have no choice but to make Friday's post about all the different types of spinach we use in our spinach stew (or something totally not exciting like that).

What up, Finland?!

In a very self-reverential post, it's time to take a look at some of the oddities that are this website. Yes, the entire site is somewhat odd (I mentioned Bjork, Flounder from Animal House and Jar Jar Binks in the same article last week) but there are some other odd things to be found by digging just a little deeper.

First, I wish to apologize to the roughly 32% of people who, when clicking on the site, end up staying for over an hour. I hope that it's people actually reading and not opening a browser tab and then leaving to walk your cat. And I'm apologizing because I referenced Jar Jar Binks last week and I'm sure that's all you thought about going to sleep that night. Sorry.

Second, I want to acknowledge that ever once in a while somebody will come to the site because they are searching for something entirely unrelated. A whopping 95% of search terms that lead to the site are derivatives of [TJ Goes to Africa]. The other five percent over the last several weeks have been people looking for, “Danny Almonte”, “shopping in nampula africa kinds of stores”, “catch geese in an old mattress”, “hermie wants to be a dentist”, and my personal favorite, “in africa, what are the steps to follow when you are ritualing [sic] the sick person”.

Now, it's time for a random shout-out to new readers. These are people who have actually clicked on the site multiple times and not because they were searching for “Bjork touring dates Africa”. Folks that clicked on the site, and then decided to click back later and stay for a while. I want to send a big hello to readers from Finland, Taiwan, Norway, Australia, India, Saudi Arabia (in which I'm sure is still an accidental search, I just can't prove it) and Soviet Russia (where blog reads you).

In Which We Love Our Neighbors As Ourselves Pt II

...At this juncture it started becoming apparent why nothing had been done to stop the music. We let the raging all-night party rage right on because, heck, everybody deserves one freebie. The kids here practice music all the time and rehearse for church on Sundays---guitars, drums, the whole 9 meters. I'm sure the neighbors think we're just the equivalent of rowdy high schoolers that try to be cool and form a band in their parents garage because chicks will like them and spend the whole day practicing Green Day covers because they think Green Day is a punk band (secret: it's a pop band).

On Sunday night, the music came and went with slightly less fanfare. There was no party, and it managed to stop in the middle of the night. But come Monday morning it was back on, playing away the whole day and blending into the night. At that point, Victor went over to have a little “chat” and to “persuade” him with “an offer he couldn't refuse”. No, he actually did all those things. There was no strong-arming or intimidation at all.

When Victor arrived he asked to talk directly with Marrerre. Maybe its time you know a little bit more about him.

Prayer Requests 9/9

Lets try something new. Every other week or so I'll try to put up a list of what's happening RIGHT NOW and what could use prayer. Everything, naturally, could use prayer, but I want to give people some specifics. People ask me time to time, usually about one email a week,  how things and going and ask for some specific prayer requests.

Hopefully this will give you something a little more focused way to pray for those of you that like focus. And if you want to pray for us, really do pray for us. Don't just read this and then send a note like, "Sending good thoughts your way." Good thoughts are not really what we're going for here. Good thoughts make you feel as a better person. Good thoughts do nothing. Jesus does everything. Pray to Jesus for us and with us. Don't just think.

I will try to keep them breif and fairly comment free. But as always, there's no promises. That is unless, of course, I do promise. Then you can count on me breaking it. On to the bullet points!

• School is about 5 weeks from ending before final exams. We're currently fighting end-of-the-year burnout. Not from students, but from the teachers. Please pray that the kid's don't get disinterested either and finish strong.

• This deserves a post of its own, but many of the kids we sent to trade school from the orphanage in January are now off doing internships/job training  in various cities. We're happy for the training they received and are praying as they enter the next two rounds of their fight for life: employment, and job security.

• Just today I had a really great conversation with Marinho. He asked me a hypothetical question today about his "friend" who has two parents that are both rich and don't help and want nothing to do with his "friend". Marinho has two parents that both have jobs and drive cars (they're rich) and want nothing to do with him and left him to fend for himself. It was a really challenging conversation, the gist of which was learning to trust God's plan and know that people suck and are not perfect but God's love for us is perfect and that while his "friend" may be really angry, that is all the more reason he needs Jesus to help him love his parents. This was a horrible summary but it was a really hard, tough, spirit-filled, and edifying conversation.

• Fruit. I like eating it, and now more things are in season (orange, tangerines, bananas, papayas, lemons, and at least 3 other thinks that at first glance look poisonous but are really tasty) and so that means tons of tasty fruit to eat, all for like pennies apiece. It's tasty and good for our health. And generally, these days the kids are all eating fairly well, too. Protip: a papaya a day will not keep the doctor away as it will lead to  cramping and diarrhea. I did not try, but a kid here stole a papaya and got what was coming to her.

In Which We Love Our Neighbors As Ourselves Pt I

If this post seems fragmented, it's because its gone through about three different rewrites as the situation develops. Its kind of like how Star Wars started as “Lets rip off Flash Gordon” and morphed to, “Umm, we actually need to put at least a little thought into this to keep making movies” and then, “Lets change everything about the movies by making prequels. And Jar Jar Binks. Lets add lots of Jar Jar Binks.”

But unlike Star Wars, that is the last time I will ever mention Jarjar Binks. And unlike George Lucas, I won't try to destroy your childhood by re-editing and drastically changing the Star Wars special edition blu-ray re-release.

Think of the millions to be made marketing sweet, tasty carbonite candy bars.

Here's how the story started. about 10 days ago on Friday night our neighbors decided to destroy the neighborhood. But really, the only damage being done was psychological. There was no attempt at physical destruction (yet), As happens from time to time, people tend to make generally not smart decisions and damage their future all for a quick thrill. This is how some of you were conceived. But we're getting off track.

Our neighbors had purchased a big, shiny, brand new set of speakers. These were not just any old speakers mind you, not even a big radio. This was a state-of-the-art, hi-fidelity hut entertainment system. And since Friday nights are generally party and drink like there's no tomorrow they decided to pump the music so loud that, to paraphrase the rapper Nate Dogg, the rhythm became the bass and the bass became the treble.

And these aren't some neighbors so far down the block that we could hear rumblings. These were our proper neighbors. The speakers were blasting all of 20 yards from Victor and Christina's house and 30 yards from my house. It's close enough I can throw a rock and hit them. I thought about trying, but decided not to. The music started just around dinner on Friday night, and kept going, and kept going, and kept going. The music. Never. Stopped.