My Other Delinquent

      "My teacher wants to talk to you."

      This year I told the kids that I do not want to talk to their teachers. There are no circumstances when I will talk to their teachers. The only exception I will make, I told them, is if the teacher requests my presence to be on the jury to determine who brought the best meal on the once-a-quarter occasion that the kids are asked to bring a dish to share with the class. I will accept food juries. Always. And now Jordao had asked me to do what I absolutely did not want to do.

      "What did I tell you?"

      "You said you don't want to talk to my teacher this year." Jordao eyed the ground sheepishly.

      "So why are you telling me this?" I pondered

      "Because my teacher wants to talk to you." Jordao was insistent

      In the states, if a kid has a problem it usually means a call home to mom or dad. I the states, a teacher saying he is giving your parents a call is followed by fear. Fear leads to racing home to delete the message on the answering machine before your parents can hear it. This is followed by the teacher assuming the child raced home and deleted the message on the answering machine. The teacher then decides to go over the student’s head and calls the parents' work number to explain that TJ and his best friend had been left behind on the field trip and the vice principal had to personally drive out and get them.

      Here in Mozambique, getting a phone call would be nice. It is nice because you can just not pick up when you really don't want to hear that your child has started a dojo and is giving karate lessons during recess. Or when you don't want to hear that your child was chasing other kids with a dead cobra. Or when you don't want to hear that your children were using bamboos as light-sabers after watching Star Wars that weekend.

      As a parent, phone calls would be nice. In Nampula the parent gets summoned to come school and have a face-to-face meeting the teacher. There is not after a phone call or several interventions prior to this. This is cultural custom, not a disciplinary procedure. Still, for being cultural, it feels very disciplinary. If you want to hash something out with somebody, you summon them, they come, and you sit down and hash. Hashing is not my favorite thing to do here.

      "So, knowing that I don't want to go school this year to talk to any teachers because my kids are being undisciplined, you come to me to say your teacher is asking me to come to school because you are being undisciplined. Is this correct?"

      "Yes." Jordao was now aware that it was my goal to make him aware that I wanted to shame him for being undisciplined. Rhetorically, and mathematically, he was now doubly aware.

      "I there food involved?" I hoped.

      "No."

      "So why are you telling me."

      "I didn't want you to think I was undisciplined."

      "So you decided to not be undisciplined by telling my you are undisciplined?" At this point my hand is massaging my supremely furrowed brow.

      "Yes, exactly." Jordao's showed that he was pleased with his reply. The pleasure quickly faded and confusing set it. "Wait...what?"

      Jordao is fifteen years old and a smart kid. There is absolutely nothing that Jordao does without having a reason for doing so. But Jordao does not do normal things like a normal person does normal things. All it takes is talking to Jordao to pry at the reason for doing such abnormal things and you will discover he has thought out every aspect of every detail all the way down to when others will undoubtedly ask him what he is doing. Jordao planted chicken bones in the garden because if you put corn in the garden, corn will grow. If you put spinach in the garden, it too will grow. So Jordao put chicken bones in the garden. No, it is not a magic garden. It is a normal garden and grows normal food. Once, Jordao got up in the middle of the night and started raking leaves. The guards told him to go back to bed. He calmly explained he was woken by the sounds of a cat and went to go see where it was coming from. Upon going outside and noticing the leaves on the ground he started raking because, as he put it, "The leaves aren't going to rake themselves." It was 2am. One we were digging ditch. There was a spot we were not supposed to dig because a water pipe had been previously laid there. Jordao, seeing a spot was undug, starting digging. After striking the pipe, water started gushing out. The pace of his digging increased as he announced, "Hey guys, I discovered a well. It's coming from with pipe."

      Despite his disadvantage, Jordao is a very reasonable person. That is why he is a smart kid. Unfortunately, though, Jordao is not a smart kid.

      After talking to him for a while longer, I discovered that Jordao was showing up to school the first several weeks to play hookey and kick the soccer ball around rather than go to class. He thought that since he was repeating third grade, he would just have to pay attention come the end of the year when things get difficult in order to move on to the next grade.

      One day, after not going to class, Jordao decided to go to class. His teacher that Jordao had been playing hookey all these weeks because Jordao is fairly well known at his school. His teacher asked him to go get his dad. Despite making a good decision to study that particular day, Jordao made a particularly bad decision by telling his teacher that his dad left for work and wasn't at home. At this, high classmates, feeling either too much or not enough sympathy for Jordao, told the teacher that Jordao doesn't have a dad and lives in the orphanage. This exacerbated his condition considerably.

      "And then he put his hands in his pockets." Jeremias reeled with laughter.

      "No he didn't!" One exclaimed.

      "You're kidding me." Another added with laughter.

      "Seriously?"

      "Honest truth, he put his hands in his pockets." Jeremias placed one hand over his heart and the other in his pocket as if to demonstrate for those that were unsure what a hand or a pocket were.

      I, having already refused to go to school for these kinds of situations, decided to send one of the older boys with him to school. This is also an acceptable practice here because so many folks are taken care of by uncles, cousins, or neighbors that really anybody could pass as being your guardian. This boy, Jeremias, is pretty good-natured, polite, and knows how to tell a funny story, so it would be better to send him for our entertainment purposes.

      Upon Jordao and Jeremias' return, we asked him how it went. Jordao refused to say. Asking Jeremias provided an answer. The two arrived after school to talk with teacher where Jeremias explained he was sent to hear Jordao's case. Heard straight from the teacher that Jordao's would dump his backpack in classroom and slightly soon thereafter, as was his habit, would announce, "I'm not really seeing anything to to here," and go play soccer with all the other delinquents who also did see anything to do there.

      Jeremias asked Jordao to apologize to his teacher that promise that he would reform and start attending class. Having been fully embarrassed at this point, he apologized and promised to reform. His teacher accepted the apology and obliged Jeremias for coming. Then Jordao decided that he would like to contribute to the discussion. Clearly, Jordao was not invited to contribute, nor had he anything to contribute, but having not yet justified his desire to skip school he decided that there is no time like the present.

      "And then he put his hands in his pockets." Jeremias reeled with laughter.

      "Jordao, did you put your hands in your pockets?" I inquired of him, stifling my own laughter.

      "No." He pleaded.

      "You didn't put your hands in your pockets?" With Jordao, the key to ascertaining information is to ask a question in as many different ways as possible.

      "No, I'm telling you the truth. Look, I did this." Jordao proceeded to put his hand in his pocket. Laughter ensued from the onlookers.

      "You put your hands in your pockets?"

      "No, I put my hand in my pocket. Only one. I'm telling the truth." Jordao is a smart kid. He was now visibly upset with the turn the mornings proceedings had taken. He certainly could not have foreseen that skipping school to play soccer, repeatedly, would have consequences. Jordao is not a smart kid.

      "Ask what he did with his other hand." Jeremias chimed in, barely able to speak in an understandable manner through fits of laughter.

      "I'm afraid to." I countered. But before I could ask Jordao he had started walking away as Jeremias continued the story. "He took his other hand and started pointing a finger at his teacher."

      "No he didn't!"

      "You're kidding me."

      "Seriously?"

      It was possible that up till now Jordao's teacher could have been understanding of the circumstances Jordao. Despite being a reasonably thinking person, he is not always the best at thinking reasonably.

      This is the person that once got up in front of a meeting of everybody at the orphanage in order to speak. His story started as, "When I came back from church I found Isac in my backpack stealing my crayons. Then Isac grabbed me—." The story also ended there because as Jordao continued talking he slapped a hand over his own mouth, mimicking the actions of this other boy that day, and continued to tell the story. Jordao mumbled through a muffled mouth for two minutes, deadly serious, while recounting this great injustice that had been done to him. Everybody lost their collective senses laughing at the scene of Jordao pantomiming and recounting the fight between them, all the while unaware that his hand was still over his mouth and rendering everything he said unintelligible.

      Jordao's teacher could have been understanding that, while Jordao is sometimes the sharpest tool in the shed, his elevator doesn't go to the top floor. His teacher could have understood that one hand in one pocket was only half as insulting as two hands in two pockets. But when Jordao started pointing to reprimand him teacher might have lost all understanding and been so insulted expel Jordao right then and there.

      Jordao had put a hand in his pocket, pointed at the teacher with the other. Thus, desiring to speak, he opened his mouth. This is a serious of bad decisions getting worse. Jordao had no sooner said, "You, look here for a minute," when Jeremias, performing his parent/guardian admirably clapped his hand over Jordao's mouth and whisked him away. "I think we're all done here, sorry again about the trouble." Jeremias shouted, by now practically carrying Jordao as they hurried off.

      "There wasn't any food, was there?"

      "No."

      "Good. Well, then it it sounds like everything turned out just fine."

My Delinquent

Well, for those that were bored we finally got the absurd potluck stuff out of the way. I figured that smaller, bite-sized portions you could read in five minutes during your coffee break was a better than dropping a six-thousand word missive that would cause from missing pretty much an hour of your life you'd never get back. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

(As an aside, I write the stories, put them online, but never actually look to see how the webpage looks. Glancing through the other day I saw that for some reason there are constant changes in font, size, and weird things like that. I'll try to get better about knowing why those things happen.)

Once again, my favorite family here has been up to their old tricks again, thus providing more fodder for ridiculous chicanery. This time it once again involves school. First, lets talk about Dorcas. Yes. Cute, adorable, lovable, huggable, squeezable Dorcas got involved in ridiculous chicanery.

Dorcas is starting first grade and is in store for what many would consider to be a rude awakening. First grade is the age here in which the children must start partaking in some of the duties around the house. There are not many tasks because we still want her to be a kid and not think that the fun died and life has started. For Dorcas, she is responsible to empty the dustbins in the girls dorm and several times a week sweep the dining hall after lunch.

When we told Dorcas she'd have to start cleaning the cafeteria, her response was a cute and bubbly, "No, I don't think I have to yet." She doesn't exactly have a diva complex, but as the youngest and cutest member of the orphanage, she is used to being the center of attention and having nothing but love showered on her. Before she came, the former youngest and cutest girl was the same way. It's a family dynamic thing.

However, after several days of this cutely refusing, it was decided to make her wait for breakfast until she emptied the dustbins. Her response was just as bubbly, "OK. I'll get my breakfast from Marta." Ahhh, the classic I'll-get-it-from-the-other-parent routine. This was going to be good. When Marta told her she could get breakfast after emptying the dustbin (which is a gallon-sized paint can, not exactly capital punishment), her reaction would be akin to if you told her Santa Claus was fake, her birthday presents all got stolen, and Buddy the family dog met a lady dog and moved away and no he isn't coming back and no you can't ever see him again. It was as if everything came crashing down all at once.

She started dumping the dustbin, but the attitude remains. And about a week ago she came to tell me that her teacher says Dorcas isn't allowed to study anymore.

Sometimes a kid will be told to not come to school until a parent can have a powwow with the teacher because of some disciplinary issues. But usually this doesn't start until a kid has reached at least fourth or fifth grade (or has an age where they can be held somewhat accountable to themselves). I started asking around, and it turns out that the teacher took attendance one day (this is not a daily thing, and certainly not with 60 kids in a classroom) and told Dorcas that her name did not appear on the chart, and therefore she must not be enrolled properly.

This confused me as I not only personally registered her, but took her to school for three days straight, found her teacher, and showed her to her classroom, a cashew tree. A cashew tree that conveniently happened to be adjacent to her older brother Jose's cashew tree.

School here starts every year with probably about half of the prospective first graders actually registered to start school. The other half show up with bewildered parents on the first day and wonder why their children—these children live in a country with no national identity database nor the ability to accurately track addresses or population levels* and where people often apply for a birth certificate only after learning one is needed to start school—a child is not automatically enrolled to start school.

*The national government contends that the population is still 22 million because five years ago in the census they counted that many people. It's probably closer to 25 million based on their own growth estimates.

This particular school also has a penchant for losing records. I went and the end of last school year to pick up transcripts for several of the kids for our records at the orphanage. I told them what class they were in and what teacher they had. When the army of office workers started looking for that particular file, they searched in vain for about five minutes before giving up and announcing that about half fifth graders had disappeared. The vice-principal then shrugged and looked at me resignedly while she said, "What are their names and what grades would you like them to have?"

So, it being entirely possible that the school had lost Dorcas papers and made a new class roster, I asked Dorcas to relate to me exactly what her teacher said. Dorcas relayed that Miss Ida had said her name is not on the class list and she wouldn't be allowed to show up because she's not registered for school. I confirmed with her that this is exactly what Miss Ida had said. She confirmed it. I then asked the other kids here which classroom Dorcas studied in. They said it was classroom A. Her school has exactly 6 classrooms, numbered 1, 2, 3, A, B, and C.

Dorcas is supposed to study under the cashew tree next to Jose and is with Miss Luisa, not Miss Ida.

I asked Dorcas, my patience long spent trying to figure out what was happening, why she is studying in Room 1 instead of her tree. She smugly stated, "I don't want to study under a tree. I want to study in a classroom, the nice one." Miss Ida, assuming that Dorcas had recently registered for school, let her stay on and then a month later, getting an updated classroom roster, discovered Dorcas was not in her class.

Dorcas is now back sitting on the dirt, getting lessons with Miss Luisa under the cashew tree adjacent to her brother Jose's cashew tree. All is right with the world.

Except for her brother Jordao...

The Absurdity of Games Part VI

Part 1: The Absurdity of Games

Part 2: Potluck with the boys

Part 3: The girls turn-Ad Victorem ire spolia

Part 4: Spoilt Spoils

Part 5: Standing still.Part 6: Finding the balance

In the final part of this series, I'll explain that life in Nampula is not always about going forward, it's about making sure your neighbor doesn't move ahead of you. It's about making sure that if you can't get an advantage you put him at a disadvantage. It's about seeing your neighbor and wondering how you get the better of him.

Both the reason and the solution for this enmity towards their fellow man are, I believe, incredibly simple and impossibly difficult. It's all about equilibrium and Jesus.

For those that saw the movie A Beautiful Mind you know all about equilibrium without actually knowing it. There is a scene in the the movie where Russel Crowe's character gets a brilliant inspiration for his career-defining idea when he is in a bar and all his buddies are hitting on the same girl. They are going after the same prize, and nobody is having any success and they are all in danger of going home alone. In a brilliant masterstroke of genius, Russel Crowe invents the concept of the wingman (and get's a Nobel Prize for it). He states that only way that everybody get's a piece of the pie is if they stop trying to prevent the others from eating the whole pie and instead cut it into pieces. His buddies decide to take one for the team and go after the girl's not-as-good-looking friends, leaving Crowe hook up with the pretty one.

The scene in the movie is ridiculous, but illustrates the problem that people face here (not competition over the pretty girl in the bar). The problem is that, in situations like the bar or living in Nampula, no one single person is able to significantly improve their situation because there will always be obstacles—corrupt teachers, cops, doctors, politicians, neighbors, or disease, famine, drought, sickness, death.

When this happens, there are only two things you can do: Cooperate, or compete. The first is working together so everybody is happy. The second is make sure you win, most often by making the other person lose.

In the bar, these solutions are pretty straight forward. You can work together, be the wingman, so everybody gets a piece of the pie.* If you don't choose to work together, your option is to make sure the other doesn't win. This is when you walk up to your friend during the middle of his conversation, and say something like, "Hey, buddy, Nancy has been trying to reach you on your phone. She wants me to tell you to remember that you need to take your herpes medication 30 minutes before eating."**

*I do not approve of doing this, but it is an incredibly ubiquitous example I know you'll all understand.

** I definitely approve of this.

My sabotaging your buddy's hook-up you don't actually win anything. You don't even come out ahead. But what you do is make sure he loses, which is basically a win in your book since every loser needs a winner.

The problem is that most everybody here in Nampula encountered the situation and has achieved equilibrium in which they can no longer move forward my any action of their own. They can't get a job, can't get healthier, can't afford better clothes, can't be happier. The only solutions then is working together (which I've already discussed ad naseum on this blog as being culturally impossible) or you decide to take your neighbor down a notch and thus feel better about your own plight.

When we go in to the water utility to complain that our neighborhood has been without water for over a year, most often the question asked is, "And what would you like me to do about?" This is not polite customer service, this is the attendant at the water utility saying that she couldn't care less about our plight. We ask for a technician to come out and figure out where the breach in the line is our why to explain a reason why our neighborhood isn't getting water. Usually they'll come back with, "I could send somebody out to look at it, but that's very hard because we're all busy. Yes, I know you're an orphanage with dozens of vulnerable children. It's just best to forget about it, there's really nothing I can do."

Does she or any of the countless other people that give us the cold shoulder on a daily basis really benefit or even suffer from our neighborhood finally getting water? Not in the slightest. But because it is seen as a winning outcome for us, she will either want to participate (get a bribe, or "a thanks", for helping) or will want to see us lose, because that way she wins.

That is why we sit at equilibrium, the point in which we are not able to improve our situation (or our collective situations) without the help or cooperation of others. The only thing you have the capability to do is effect somebody else's situation, by either harming or helping them. The difficulty is if you got everybody to work together then, duh, this would be paradise. But people are fallen.

That is why I said the second solution is Jesus. Not because then everybody would work together and nobody would be in want and we'd all sit around the campfire singing kumbaya. But the only way that people are going to avoid loosing is if they properly define what is winning.

I'm am trying for the life of me, we all are, to teach the kids that the people you see, lives surrounded by poverty and injustice and sickness and sin is not the way things were meant to be. But, unfortunately, things are the way things are. If you play by the rules of the world to get the rewards of the world then you must be prepared to also lose according to the world.

That is why these kids need to realize that despite their natural instincts, the rules of the game are completely different. If someone hits you, you don't hit them back to feel better. You turn the other cheek. In my book, that's winning, but how do you explain to a 12 year with the black eye that he is the real victor for not fighting back and puncher has lost more than just an afternoon sitting in "time out".

In our potluck examples, the kids all told me the game was wrong because they thought I won. I won because I finished with the most money. I asked why a certain person didn't win for having brought the most food to share with everybody else. "Because everybody else ate their food, what did they win?"

The idea of winning ingrained as something contrary to what we should believe. When Jesus said that blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied, it's because sometimes if you want to live righteously you are going to be hungry and thirsty because you refuse to pay bribes, you pay for your utilities, you don't give in to your teachers demands for money or sex in exchange for passing a class, you don't get a job because you apply honestly, you don't steal when nobody is looking.

We have had kids leave here that have been instructed to steal from the workplace on behalf of their superiors. How do you explain to them that facing the prospect of being fired because they wouldn't comply is nothing compared to hearing, "Well done, good and faithful servant." It is a perspective you can't ever force on a kid, or an adult for that matter.

How do you get a kid to do their homework and admit when they need help rather than decided that the way through life is to cheat on exams and copy homework from your buddies or perform favors for a teacher. How do convince them that doing the right thing is better than doing the profitable thing. How do you show them that being the good Samaritan and loving your neighbor is the commandment when it feels much better to slander your neighbor.

People like instant rewards, even here. People don't like to see that they are better off suffering and being denied water, good grades, building permits, a job opportunity. When there are many people skirting the rules and "winning" it's hard to see how that is not an immediate advantage.

And so that's where things stand here. Its a challenge, especially with the kids, to convince them of living an existential lifestyle, being one where the "rewards" are not necessarily the physical results of getting more money, food, a bigger house, a job, a diploma, friends. The challenge is convincing people it's worth it to put on the new self, live a life walking uprightly and justly and obediently, to love your neighbor instead of mistreating them or denying them the same opportunity you enjoy.

The Absurdity of Games Part V

Part 1: Theabsurdity of Games

Part 2: Potluck with the boys

Part 3: The girls turn—Ad Victoremire spolia

Part 4: Spoilt Spoils

Part 5: Standing still.

Consider the following anecdote. This anecdote has nothing to do with Mozambique, and yet this anecdote has everything to do with Mozambique.

The game show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" spawned spinoffs in countless countries all over the world. When they tried the game in Russia, observers notices something peculiar about the audience participation. If you remember, game had a feature where you could poll the audience with a "lifeline" to ask them the answer to a trivia question. In America, the audience managed to correctly answer the questions when polled over 90% of the time. In Russia, the correct response rate was abysmally low. The leading theory is not that Russians are stupid (that would be the second-leading theory). The idea is that the audience wanted to sabotage the contestant so he/she wouldn't win.

Seem far fetched? Consider that when the contestants did eventually receive their money, the same audience booed them. Seriously. Some lucky bloke wins a million rubles on a game show and is booed by the envious audience.

The same is very much true here. Although there is no game show to compare with, the idea is the same: If people can't win themselves, they desire to see their neighbors not win as well. Call it greed, jealousy, envy, any synonym you can think of. But it doesn't stop there. In many cases, the prevailing thought is "If I can't win, then he needs to lose."

The problem, to think of it scientifically, is that people are living with a zero-sum mindset in a non-zero-sum world. What that means to say is that people think that for every winner there is a loser. Therefore if the other is losing, I will be, by default, the winner.

Non-scientifically, it means people can't imagine a scenario in which they both come out the better. We refer to this as a win-win situation. If you enter a negotiation, let's say to transport some farmer's corn to the city, and you and the farmer come to agreeable terms, you will later try to change the terms and charge more. This is not necessarily to try to get more money out of the farmer, but because you think that since the farmer is so happy with the agreed-upon terms that you must have been taken for a ride and are getting swindled.

If somebody and their neighbor both have a TV and the neighbor suddenly gets a DVD player to go with his TV, this does not start a rivalry to keep up with the Joneses. It results in a vicious series of rumors and lies saying that he got the money for the DVD by stealing from his workplace, or by shipping a kid off to a relative, or his wife received it as a gift from a paramour.

I've heard from people that have saved their money responsibly for a big purchase. Word travels so fast that the next day when they show up to work they are interrogated by their colleagues as to how they got the money for a stove, or fridge, or a mattress, a motorbike. And they are interrogated with real disdain and animosity. As in people pointing fingers in their faces asking where they got the money from.

At soccer games, when a team scores a goal, there is not often cheering and clapping for the side that scored. There are instead laughs and insults and jeers directed at the team that allowed the goal. There is often a desire to, as we say here, see someone move backwards rather than see anyone move forward.

There have been several times that I have gone to get somebody outside the orphanage to come to perform a job, be it temporary as helping in the construction or even on a more permanent basis. There was one time I went to talk to a man about working as a guard for us. I stopped at his house on two separate occasions asking for him. Not being home, I left a message with his neighbors (because that's how things work here when your neighbors live 10 feet from you) to have him come to the orphanage to ask about a job.

After he didn't come the second time I gave up and figured that was his way of saing he didn't want the job. After later bumping in to him four months later I asked him why he didn't want the job. To his astonishment, he revealed that his neighbors had said I arrived accusing him of stealing from the orphanage and to stay away from it for a while. His neighbors had deliberately sabotaged him to prevent him from attaining a job with us.

As we played the potluck game with both the boys and the girls there was a recurring feeling that manifested. As you recall, I either knew how to win or skewed the rules at the last minute to ensure that I won. There was absolute anger that resulted from this. The girls gave up halfway through and quit the game. The message I wanted to get out the of the game was that is sucks being the loser. The other message was that if you hate being subjected to biased or unfair treatment, why do you then subject others to the same. This is something I'm always telling them, though. The Golden Rule, if you will.

The other idea I wanted to get the kids to understand was how to win. The kids had inferred that the person with the most money was the winner and the others were loser. They had made two errors in their assumptions. The first is that the "winner" was the person with the most money at the end of the game. The second error was in believing that in order for there to be a winner, there needs to be a loser.

So how do you fix that?

The Absurdity of Games Part IV

Part 1: The absurdity of Games

Part 2: Potluck with the boys

Part 3: The girls turn—Ad Victoremire spolia

Part 4: Spoilt Spoils

When I played the public good (potluck) game with the kids, it was designed to show them two things. While the game itself revolved around money and value and accruing it, the goal of the game was to demonstrate that A) good behavior has good rewards and B) that bad behavior has greater rewards. The concept of rewards is what is subjective to the player. Obviously, telling people they are playing a game they assume there would be winners and losers. Their idea of rewards would be reflected in what they considered to be "winning".

For most people, it seems fundamental that good behavior has good rewards. This is often very clear to some. Show up to work on time and you keep your job. Don't steal and you don't go to jail. Don't copy your homework and you actually understand the subject matter. Remain faithful and don't get an STD.

But recall that bad behavior often has greater rewards. Cheat on exams and you get a better grade. Pay a bribe and you avoid a fine. Exact bribes and get rich. Steal money from the state and buy a car. These are these are the very real situations that people deal with and face on a daily basis in Nampula.

Unfortunately, if your idea of "rewards" is based on money or salary or influence, this will drive the decisions you take to achieve your reward. If your reward is having a bigger house, you may steal money from your employer to buy said house. If your reward is a car, you may bribe an employer to get yourself a cushy state job with the perk of a car. If you reward is having lots of wives, you're going to stick it where it don't belong.

If your reward is doing the right thing, in Nampula that means losing. Losing because you won't always get into the right school, land the right job, buy the choisest piece of property, woo the right women. You lose by someone else's definition. Remember, in our potluck analogy, absolutely nobody was satisfied with being generous and having everybody else eat their steaks. They were angry and resentful.

Unfortunately for people's lives here there is a very thin line between winning and survival. Sometimes it is the difference between having a thatched roof or a tin roof, buying rice vs buying cornflower, eating beans or eating cabbage. Sometimes it is the difference between having a new car versus a used car. Having a house with a bathroom or using an outhouse. Other times it is having something or having nothing.

The point is that everybody defines the reward as having the most. Not just because they played simplistic game with me and I said so. But because absolutely everything I've seen proves it. Teachers selling (the allegedly free) grade school workbooks out of their homes. Pastors discovered to have an entire harem of women. Farmers uprooting their neighbors crops in the middle of the night.

However, you might notice that this is probably a universal trait. I could be in Mozambique or Mogadishu or Mongolia or Michigan and see people behaving and acting and coveting in the same way. The desire across the human spectrum is to have more and be more than your neighbor. In America, you'd be hard pressed to find somebody not actively involved in the grand old Pursuit of Happiness. But let me ask you, is the pursuit of happiness centered on healthy relationships with your coworkers or a healthy 401-k? Is it on watching your son's little league game or spending hundreds so that your kid is the best shortstop in the county? Is it sitting around the table with your family for dinner, or does each one grab a plate and leave to eat alone. We say it is about the pursuit of happiness and then pursue things that don't lead to real joy.

Key to understanding the pursuit is knowing what to pursuing. It is immaterial things, obedience, piety, godliness, brotherly love? Can you be rich and good at your job and still have these things? Absolutely, and as I've made clear, I'm not trying to judge Nampula as being worse because, objectively, you find this behavior all over the world. For better or for worse you can't find anybody that is not trying to improve their standard of living.

The three examples I mentioned earlier illustrate the lengths people go to in order to "win". Teachers selling (the allegedly free) grade school workbooks out of their homes. Pastors discovered to have an entire harem of women. Farmers uprooting their neighbors crops in the middle of the night. All are detestable actions, but one should stand out as a little different from the rest. Nope, not the teacher. Not even the pastor.

In Nampula, people view the idea of winning in a very binary fashion. You win, or you lose. There is no outcome where we both win. Therefore, if I can't win, I'm going to find a way for you to lose.

The Absurdity of Games Part III

Part 1: Theabsurdity of Games

Part 2: Potluck with the boys

Part 3: The girls turn—Ad Victorem ire spolia

There are several ways to exact penalties on individuals for non-compliant behavior. I know that phrase sounds weirdly apocalyptic, one-world-government-ish, and Orwellian, but stick with it. One way this often plays out is that, financially, you can place a penalty on people for illegal behavior. Speeding tickets, improper building permits, testing U.S. Military prototypes in public waters without proper consultation of the Coast Guard, blowing up a port-a-potty, treating patients in a hospital without being a licensed "doctor", and making fun of the defendant while seated in the jury pool are all things I may or may not have been threatened with a fine for doing.

Financially, stiff penalties are a way to get people to comply with the rules and not speed through a construction zone, to wear a life jacket, to dot your i's and cross your t's on all your paperwork, or to not tell the defendant during jury selection he deserves to go to jail for being too stupid enough to delete incriminating text messages on his phone.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch orphanage, after playing our imaginary potluck game with the boys, it was time to play the game again, but this time with the girls. When I played with the boys, they went and told the girls the strategy to win, and I was quietly pleased that both genders had inferred that the object of the game was to finish with the most money—that if "To the victor go the spoils" holds true, then conversely the one with the most spoils must be The Victor. This is just another absurd premise I was in the process of breaking down during that day.

The second time through the game started much like the first. I was playing along as well. Having figured out how the game was played, the first round (week one of the potluck) each of the girls secretly wrote down her contribution and turned it over to me to tally. Much to nobody's surprise, not a single person gave any amount towards our "public good". The only person to give was me. That is to say, everybody showed up to the potluck with empty hands as we divided up my chili con carne, giving each one an equal, tiny portion.

However—here is the big shocking twist that absolutely nobody saw coming—after collecting everybody's (non-existent) contributions, I announced that anybody not giving the minimum amount would be fined $20 (an amount that would not count towards the group fund). That is to say, in our church potluck example, we you charged people who brought nothing with a price well exceeding the cost of furnishing your own meal, and then the money went to the missionary relief fund to support the starving kids in Africa rather than buying more food for the potluck.

So, fancy math aside, the girls were all fined and my $10 was meted out to all the players, each of whom received a lonely dollar in return. After the first round I stood with more money in my pocket than all the other girls. Silent, stunned faces surrounded me. It literally took about four minutes for this all to sink in. "So I didn't give anything. And now you're fining me? And now I have less than when I started? And you still have more? The first game you didn't give anything. Why didn't you get fined then? What do you mean the first game was different? Can we start this game over now that we all know? Let's just do that, all start fresh brand new. Can we do that? Why are you laughing? Laughing is not an answer."

Was it unfair to not announce that there would be penalties levied on those who didn't give? Maybe. Was I skewing the game to my advantage? Maybe. Was I doing it to teach a point? Yes.

After everybody calmed down a little bit, the second round of our game found everybody writing down their contributions. To absolutely nobodies surprise, everybody gave exactly the minimum amount of $10 and therefore received an equal portion of $10 in return. Everybody, when doing this finishes right where they started and neither gain nor lose money. Because of the first round and not being penalized I had more money and was therefore deemed to still be in the lead.

At this point there was a little consternation from the players. After much head scratching, we continued with the third round of the game. All of the girls, and myself, gave their minimum contribution of $10. The money was divided and returned and everyone else found themselves exactly where they started, with less money than me. This would be like if the third week of the church potluck the theme was italian and everybody brought the identical spaghetti and meatballs and the people who didn't bring money that first week are shocked and upset to discover that all the money they coughed up the first week wouldn't be returned to them now that they were contributing.

At this point, three or so of the girls became visibly upset. They asked to stop the game and asked me point blank if there was any way for them to get more money than me. There wasn't. They began to cry foul and say I twisted the game to my advantage (not true, but not...untrue). They threw their hands up and left the game declaring if they couldn't beat me there weren't going to play.

With that, the game ended as the other players simply asked if, knowing what everyone was going to contribute the next time if they even needed to bother playing because it wouldn't change the amount each person was left with. After most of the girls left the game, several that stayed asked how they could have won.

We played a new game from scratch between the three of us just to see. As we played it and everyone gave the same, minimum amount all the players finished with the same balance and nobody had any more or any less money than anybody else. This led the girls (and several of the boys still watching) to say that there was no way to win because everyone has the same amount.

Rather than challenging them on what the objective of the game was in order for someone to have won, I asked a far more fundamental question: in order for someone to win, does another have to lose?

The Absurdity of Games Part II

Part I: Theabsurdity of Games

Part II: Potluck with the boys

I like playing games with kids that emphasize two main points. The first point is that if you do good, you will reap what you sow. Do what Jesus said: love your neighbor as yourself, know good and do it, serve others, etc. The second point I like to teach the kids is much more controversial. If the first point is that good behavior has good rewards, the second is that bad behavior has greater rewards.

Imagine your church has a potluck. Somebody brings brings homemade lasagna and another a cobb salad and anther a chocolate cake. You bring a dozen, prime, top choice steaks! I bring nothing. You spend a hundred of dollars on steaks and another hour preparing and grilling them. As you enter the line I am coming back to the front to grab another paper plate because mine is folding under the weight of you steak and the lasagna.

By the time you get through the line you get a plateful of tuna casserole, brownie crumbles, and a pat on the back from Reverend Lovejoy because you have learned that "Truly, better ye that giveth than receiveth."

Let's say now that our imaginary church potluck, and your steaks, were such a success that the Reverend decided to do the same thing the whole rest of the month. This time one person brings cocktail weenies, another brings fruit salad, and you bring mini-hamburgers. Two other people, seeing that I got through the line last time having not brought any food myself, decide to join me and become the freeloaders and bring absolutely nothing.

We fleece your fruit, burgle your ham, and polish off the polishes. You go through the line last and wind up with a scoop of smashed bananas and half of an Oscar Meyer. You sit down looking at your half-empty plate Reverend Lovejoy pulls up a chair next to you, pats you on the back and says, "Blessed be ye that hunger and thirstest for righteousness."

Imagine that by the third week of the potluckathon the other families have caught on to my secret and decide to bring nothing and only eat others' food. This time the only person that brings anything is you and your deviled eggs. Being a little wiser, you made extras and stashed them at home in the fridge so you wouldn't be completely without. Reverend Lovejoy, instead of patting you on the back, quietly nudges you and whispers, "Deviled eggs isn't exactly subtle, is it?"

For the last week of the church potluck, you are fed up with your freeloading brothers and sisters in Christ and decided to not bring anything. To no one's surprise, no food was brought at all and everybody goes home hungry. Reverend Lovejoy is booed out of the pulpit after reminding the congregation that man doesn't live on bread alone.

This imaginary potluck disaster is a parallel to a game I played with the kids called the Public Goods game. The game revolves much in the same way, except in our game everyone started with an imaginary amount of money to contribute to the common good. Much like people deciding what to bring to a potluck, each player is player is left with a decision to make on how much to contribute to the our money pool. The monies in the pool were then distributed equally among all the players.

Each player started with "100" dollars. They were told that we were playing five rounds and each kid was told to secretly write down his contribution on a scrap of paper and pass it to me. Most kids donated around 15-20 (that would be those that brought tuna casserole and lasagna), one donated half his money (you and your steaks), and I donated zero, just like in the potluck. The money was returned equally to all the players, and about half found they were left with less money than when they started. Those who gave abundantly to the pool fund (potluck) were left with little in return comparatively. Those who gave nothing (me) after the money was given back had the highest total of everybody.

The second round of the game, about half of the people, seeing that I had attained the most money by nature of not giving any away, decided to join me in being Scrooges. The rest of the people that gave contributed significantly less to the potluck, noting that most had less money to draw from after the first round. After monies were pooled and divided out amongst everybody, by this point everybody noticed that I still had the most money and—equally important for our observations—those who gave the most were left with the least in their proverbial pocket.

The third round of the game, only one person contributed to the potluck. Nobody gave anything. In his defense, the one player that gave, out of the ten boys I played with, was by far the youngest and a little slow to pick up the object. At this point, they noticed that by only one person donating to the communal fund, there was little left when divided among all the players. At the next round, number four, the game essentially ended as all the players refused to contribute.

The Public Goods game is very limited in its scope. It is meant to simulate a real world example of people contributing towards a public good (a community park, taxes to fund a municipal bus system, a public school levy, war bonds, etc). The contributions by everyone differ, but everyone receives the same compensation as the money is divided equally amongst all players. The game is extremely capitalist and anti-socialist in nature—this is true of most Western economic games because these games reduce complex economies down to singular principles, often with of absurd results.

As the game ended everyone looked at their balance sheet. Having started all with the same $100, some were now at 60, most were around 90 or 100, some a little higher, and I had the most by far having not contributed ever and only receiving the same equal portion. The ten boys I was playing with all cried foul and started saying how wrong it was that I should win with the most money when I never contributed a cent the whole game. I rigged the game and it wasn't fair.

What I found odd was that I never told them the object of the game was to have the most money...

The absurdity of Games: Part I

Part 1: The absurdity of Games

I like to play games with the kids. I also play games on the kids, but those are mostly harmless and aimed at getting Jose and Jordao to remember to water the salt and chicken bones they planted in the garden. The games I play with the kids are not just soccer and cards and board games and house (yes, I play house). I like using games that are designed to reinforce certain behaviors and/or to illustrate and elucidate others. For example, if you remember playing heads-up-seven-up in grade school, it wasn't so much as a way to spend recess when it was raining. It was a way for your teacher to figure out who the cheaters were. Bet you didn't know that, did you?

Most of the games I play with the kids are derived from economics. Economics might be the dismal science, but economic games are great at illustrating principles like altruism and trust. Altruism isn't a naïve, touchy-feely, hippy term. I've touched on this before, and it's more akin to selfishness. I like defining it better by Galatians 6:10, "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone." That's kind of a scary thought if you think about it. How many of you would have your lives turned upside-down if you followed that verse? But enough preaching...

Economic games are not like Monopoly or Shop Till You Drop, or where you have to name the right price for detergent on The Price Is Right. Most economic games are even simpler than that.

One game I played was rock paper scissors. Rock paper scissors is not an economics game, it is a children's game. That is why we played it with a twist. Everybody played against me twenty times and I only threw rock. With everyone watching, and seeing plainly that I only threw rock, the game is aimed at gauging if a person will jump in and trust that I will always throw rock, or if they will doubt me that I will play something else.

Almost half of the kids will, the first time, throw something other than paper (because paper beats my rock). Almost ALL of the kids except for three threw something other then paper within the first five turns, fearing all the while in the back of their minds that I would change my pick of rock and cut their paper with my scissors.

This game is simple and not to be taken as gospel. I'm sure if I played the game with a group of nuns there would be those that would mistrust and throw in a scissors every now and then. The fun part of the game becomes when I can single out the kid that lost to me—yes, in a game of rock-paper-scissors where I openly said I would only throw rock there was a kid that decided to throw scissors enough times to actually lose the majority of 20 matches—and ask him why he was doubting. The game becomes a microcosm for teaching other things.

The reason I like these games is that they reduce a principle I am trying to teach the kids down to an absurd level. Not absurd in the vulgar sense, like somebody eating a peanut butter and sardine sandwich, but absurd in the classical sense. If you have one beer and feel good, then two beers and feel better so you then absurdly reason that if one beer is good and two is better, then fifteen must be great. Pretty soon your liver is screaming in agony and you realize that while your logic was sound, your premise (beer=feeling good) was, at it's core, absurd.

This is how kids reason. Jose and Jordao see people put seeds in the garden and then bigger versions of those seeds sprout. This leads Jose and his brother to put chicken bones in the ground hoping that, like Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones, his chicken thigh would grown tendons and muscles and skin and feathers and grow into a chicken. His logic was sound—water it and it will grow. What was flawed was his premise—anything I put in the ground will grow.

And I'm all about breaking down the kids' absurd premises.

I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille

The rain here is pretty straightforward. It either rains or it doesn't. Sometimes there will be a very light mist in the mornings, but those are pretty much the only three options. There isn't much variety.

In Seattle, there is rain, drizzle, sprinkles, mist, showers, scattered showers, scattered thunderstorms, thunderstorms. The Eskimos have nine words for snow. Seattle has forty-six for rain. Sometimes they will forecast morning showers, turning into sprinkles later on, and scattered thunderstorms in evening with rain for everybody else. (And then you wake up the next day and it is completely sunny the whole time.)

Here, most of the time here the rain will come in the afternoon and usually there is about an hour or so of warning before it happens. The hour is about the time it takes for the clouds to appear on the horizon till they get to wherever you are. Often, because of the heat and humidity you just kind of know when it is going to rain.

Sometimes it takes you a little off guard though. If the rain comes after dark there isn't that sudden temperature drop and chill in the air that accompanies these tropical rains.

When the rain starts, it isn't always few drops here or there that progresses into a larger rainstorm. Often the very minute the rain starts it hits full power and is enough to drench you to the bone in a matter of seconds. Often because of the speed with which the rains move it comes in full force the moment it starts falling. Still, because of the daytime sky turning to night and the temperature dropping by up to ten degrees (or 6 centigrade) in a matter of minutes there is ample warning.

The other warning sign that the rain is coming is the roar that the falling rain makes at it is approaching.

The only time in my life I've felt like I was in a scene was when I was with my brothers and I was driving across North Dakota doing 110mph on the interstate in our grandma's Ford Taurus blasting heavy metal through the speakers. It felt if the Dukes of Hazard met a direct-to-DVD sequel of The Fast and The Furious.

That all changed this week, when I felt like I was in a movie for the second time in my life. You know that stereotypical scene where the character(s) stand around and all of a sudden through the silence they see or hear the impending danger. Realizing this danger results in the character(s) running for dear life. Some examples can be found in:

• The Lord of the Rings (with John Rhys-Davies) when they are in the Mines of Moria and realize the balrog (that big fiery creature) is down there with them and they have to run from it.
• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (with John Rhys-Davies and directed by Steven Spielberg) when in the very beginning Indie hears the rumble of the giant stone rolling to crush him, turns around wide-eyed, and then sprints for his life.
• Saving Private Ryan (directed by Steven Spielberg starring Tom Hanks) when they stop to help a villager in the rain and then hear the rat-a-tat of machine gun fire, panic, and scramble to take cover.
• Apollo 13 (starring Tom Hanks and BOOM KEVIN BACON!!!) when the astronauts here the warning alarms before hurrying like there's no tomorrow to put out a fire that is consuming all their oxygen.

My own movie moment was more like Honey I Shrunk the Kids when the aforementioned kids get caught in a hail of death-sized water drops when the sprinkler turns on.

It was one evening when I was sitting around with a bunch of kids discussing who-knows-what (plasma physics, probably) when we heard a rumble in the distance. This was not the kind of rumble that comes from thunder, this was more of a sustained din. After looking at one another, there was a dramatic pause (isn't there always) and somebody screamed "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!!!".

At that point, the rain started pounding on the roof of the cafeteria and everybody bolted as fast as they could to run for shelter. For the boys, they had about 10 yards to sprint till they were in their dorm. The girls, maybe about fifty yards to the front of their house. Me? A full 100 yards to make it to my house. I grabbed my courage, put my head down, and sprinted as if my life depended on it. Did it? Not in the slightest. Was my adrenalin pumping all the same? A week has gone by and I'm still amped up!

I made it to my house dry, slammed the door behind me (for dramatic effect) and collapsed out of breath onto my couch (they should have just given me an Oscar right there) as my ever stoic roommate Daniel glanced up from his book and asked, "Rain, huh?"

The Sniffles

Call me crazy, but it just takes a long time to heal in Mozambique. I got the sniffles a week ago. I still have the sniffles. I also had a fever and headaches sore throat and everything else in between, but it's been over a week.

This is all purely anecdotal but everybody I've talked to seems to confirm it. I've have scabs and scars on my hand from two months ago, the equivalent of road rash. It was two months ago. I still have them. They just won't go away. Everybody I know that gets a cut or a scrape, even a simple one, will have it for at least a month. They are the type of cuts that after a week in the US you wouldn't even know I had it.

Even simple little things that you would never notice are different. I would have never thought of it had someone else not mentioned it, but when I'm in the U.S., even for my brief visit last year, if I go two days or so without shaving people start giving me glances telling me to clean up. Here I could go for about a week without even looking like I've stopped caring. It just doesn't grow the same. The same go for healing from sickness or wounds.

It seems every time I get sick it just never goes away. There is a difference between a scratchy throat that hangs on for a week and spending three days with a splitting headache and a fever. The latter is what I did. Luckily for me, I maintain my unquenchable foolishness optimism in the face of adversity. A group of kids came to visit me one day when I was pretty much out of it. I don't remember them coming to see me. When asked how my fever was I apparently replied, "It's not so bad. In fact, I'm thinking of asking it out on a second date."

I shut myself in for three days just trying to avoid moving any part of my body, bright sunlight (is there any other kind) and getting anybody else sick along with me. So how did I pass my time? The same way I always pass my time when I'm sick: Watching Star Wars. All of them. In french. That last part is kind of new thing because the copy of Star Wars I got my hands on is only in French. "Louis, je suis ton père," needs no translation.

Now I'm pretty much left with a dripping nose and a sore throat. The only advantage is that I'm able to sing along with all my Johnny Cash records now. Even the bottom register of "I Walk The Line".