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 First Day of School

This is Jose and his family. We usually refer to it as Jose's family. He's not the oldest, but the family is his because he acts like the boss. I have written much about his family before. I could have a whole blog dedicated to the crazy things he, along with his older brother Jordao (center) and his younger sister Dorcas (right) do and say.

This year in school Jordao is in third grade. He was also in third grade last year. He failed. Jose is in second grade this year. He was in second grade last year. And the year before that, too. Jordao and Jose are mentally challenged, with Jose very much so. As long as he doesn't grow, Jose probably be in second grade until we decide to stop sending him to school.

Jose has a love hate relationship with school. He loves it, getting ready and dressed up to two hours before school actually starts, and then hates it at the end of the year when he finds out he didn't pass. This year was harder because the first two times of second grade he was with a teacher he really liked, but she isn't teaching anymore this year. For his third try at second grade he has a new teacher. Jose can't read, writes in squiggles, and the farthest I've gotten him to count on his own is six.

If Jose was not the happiest kid at the orphanage and such a goofball I would be really worried about him. But since he is the happiest kid at the orphanage I know that this is the perfect place for him. When he is in school he is known as the chief. This is because when the bell rings for recess to end and lessons resume he is passing the teachers lounge shouting at all the late teachers to do their jobs and go back and give their lessons. All the teachers play along and snap to attention and head back to their classrooms.

Jordao isn't exactly as thrilled with school. Where Jose can be described as a child with real deficiencies, Jordao is better described as having struggles. He is an incredibly hard and diligent worker, being 14 years old, but school and thinking just aren't his things. He so far has made it up to third grade in school, but just can't quite get the hang of reading or writing yet. It hasn't clicked for him. Jordao is also fun to have around a source of entertainment because he says the most ridiculous things.

This is the kid that said he wants to grow up to be an airplane.

This is the kid that came home from school early one day and said his teacher didn't show up because she was sick. I asked what was ailing her and Jordao pointed to his midsection and said, "she has a stomach ache." I had to remind Jordao that it wasn't a stomach ache, but his teacher was seven months pregnant.

This is the kid that returned from school from school one day and complained that all day they only studied math. I asked him what the lesson was. He said it was dividing words into syllables.

While Jordao and Jose each have their difficulties, their sister Dorcas seems to not have any of the same problems as her brothers. She seems to be a completely normal six year-old. Which is also hilarious, because six year-olds do some pretty hilarious things when they are not helping me with laundry.

More than any other family at the orphanage, these three really live and play and act like a family unit. Jordao is the older brother who is too-cool-for-school or for playing with dolls or racing cars across the floor. Jose and Dorcas are pretty much at the same mental level and spend all day playing with each other. They are always arguing with each other with Jose constantly reminding her that he is the older one and therefore knows better (and more) than she does. That is probably the one characteristic that is so endearing about the three, is that you can see all the kids together and automatically pick those three out as being family because the way they interact with themselves.

Schools in Mozambique are not full day, with each grade either studying at 7, 10, or 1 o'clock. This year, both Jose and Dorcas get to study at 10 o'clock and Jose is thrilled to get to accompany and protect his little sister at school. The first day of school they got ready three hours early and when we got there they were bummed to find out none of the teachers showed up and to wait one more day.

The next day I headed off with the two of them to show them where their classrooms are (read: to show them which cashew three they'll sit under). There are two paths to school. One cuts through our neighbors yard, and the other one doesn't, so I told them to always take the one that doesn't. This is the exchange that followed.

Dorcas: TJ, I don't want to take this path because there is dogs.

TJ: There are dogs. And no, there aren't dogs.

Jose: Ha. See, I told you there are no dogs.

Dorcas: No, I saw them yesterday.

Jose: Nuh-uh.

Dorcas: Yes I did.

TJ: Where did you see them.

Dorcas: Over there. They're the dogs that go "baaaaaah".

TJ:

Jose:

TJ:

Jose:

TJ and Jose: What!?!

Dorcas: You'll see...

Jose: You don't know what a dog is, do you?

Dorcas: Nuh-uh.

Jose: Uh-huh.

Dorcas: Nuh-uh.

Jose: Uh-huh.

*five minutes later after Dorcas and Jose arguing over who is smarter.

Dorcas: See, over there. TJ do you see the dogs?

TJ: The ones tied to the tree?

TJ: The ones eating grass?

TJ: The ones with the horns and that go "baaaaaaaaaaaah"?

Dorcas: I see them.

TJ: Those are goats.

Dorcas:

Dorcas:

Dorcas: That's what I said. Goats. See, I told you so.

Jose: *facepalm

So if Dorcas confusing goats for dogs wasn't enough entertainment for the day, it just continued. When we get to school everybody is greeting Jose because there is not a single person lives in our village that doesn't know Jose. Even the teachers that are leaving after giving lessons at the 7am shifts are saying hi to him. After seeing all his friends from the year before (that are now in third grade and studying in the morning) he get a dreaded looked on his face and starts tugging at my shirt, "TJ! TJ! TJ! Do you know what I just thought of?" It is hard know what Jose is thinking because A) I am not a mind reader, B) Jose is a kid, C) a kid that planted salt in the garden to see if it would grow, D) a kid that when the light bulb burned out in his room gathered his bunk-mates together to pray for the light bulb to not be sick and E), a kid that I daily see sprinting across the orphanage to the bathroom with one hand down his pants to "pinch it off". For these reasons it is a little hard to know at any given moment what is going through his mind.

Jose tells me that he just realized, after seeing all his friends, that Dorcas doesn't have any friends yet. He gives me his backpack to hold and then runs off. I choose not to follow him with my eyes thinking that sometimes it's just better not to know. Jose returns about two minutes later with a very small, very terrified looking girl and proudly declares, "Dorcas, here is your new friend." I start pondering that maybe this is how Jose makes friends, he just states that you are my friend and I am yours. I start laughing to myself while this scared little girl just stands with Dorcas wondering what is going on.

Then deciding to have a little fun with him, I tell Jose that if her new friend happens to be sick and stays home one day Dorcas will have no friends. Jose suddenly sees the problem and realizes that his sister needs one more friend, that way she won't be without a friend if one doesn't show up. He disappears again and returns in another two minutes with yet another wide-eyed, terrified looking girl and Jose proudly declares, "Here is you other friend." He then takes his backpack and then we—Dorcas, her two new friends, Jose, and myself—sit in awkward silence until the bell rings to start school.

I kept on eye on Dorcas two new "friends" and they were each in a different classroom. I got Jose off to his cashew tree and he starting meeting his new classmates. Dorcas was at this point noticeable more nervous as we walk off to her cashew tree which, fortunately, is right next to Jose's. She was there with about thirty other kids and was I standing to the side with about twenty other parents. The teacher took a moment to introduce herself to the parents and then dismissed us so she could start class for the day.

As I turned to leave to wave goodby to Dorcas she realized now that I was leaving and started to cry. Maybe crying is a strong word, but it was definitely audible whimpering. At this point I am thinking, "No no no no no. Don't start crying. Oh, great. Now she's really crying. Look at all the other kids, they aren't crying, why are you the only one. Look at all the other parents, none of their kids are crying. Why me?" I convinced her that Jose was right there the next tree over and he would take her home after school and then headed back home.

At the end of the day, the two returned smiling and beaming and Dorcas was at first happy to announce to me that tomorrow they were gonna learn how to write their names. Then she was sad to learn that tomorrow was a Saturday and there would be no school. But then happy that the next day she would go. But then sad to learn that after that is Sunday and there is no school either. But then happy to remember that Sunday is church. And then excited the next day would be school.

To Catch A Predator

One of the things that is hard, as I discovered while visiting people in America, is to make people realize how absolutely commonplace some things are. There is such a contrast between what is accepted as “normal”. One example is that, in Mozambique, littering is just what you do. That's because so little of what you consume is waste that usually what gets thrown out is a banana peel or maybe a pop can or something along those lines. When our trash heap gets full we just take it out of town and dump it wherever we want. Leaves, branches, wrappers, boxes, papers, everything. There is no such thing as separating your recycling. You are probably shaking you head saying that's ridiculous. You probably live in the Northwest where you get chastised for putting a plastic bottle in with the metal cans.

The point I'm trying to make is you see recycling as responsible and normative. Kids in Nampula see it as redundant; trash is trash. Just as you consider getting a coffee from Starbucks every morning as necessary and normal while I see it as addictive and prodigal.

I tell people different things are in Nampula and they just can't quite fathom it. I say how short life expectancy is (45) and it's shocking to them. I say how short school days are (3 or 4 hrs) and its a surprise. I say how widespread corruption is and it's alarming. I say how long people walk just to get water and it's saddening. But to me it's just the way things are and after a while I just accept it as fact. That's not to say I feel like anything is any less tragic or sad, it is just sometimes is a little lost on me because it's “normal” to life in Nampula.

But those are mostly just cold statistics. What is harder to accept sometimes is how different behaviors can be. I want to stress the idea that something can be normal without being right. If someone gets murdered in your community, it can be a real shock. If you live somewhere like Detroit, where folks are murdered daily, it can be numbing.

This year there was an incident at the high school here. Five students (NONE OF OURS, I WANT TO BE SUPER CLEAR ON THAT) came forward to say that a teacher at the school had given them HIV. A sixth girl came forward to say that she had slept with the teacher but had stopped recently and had not tested positive for the disease. Classes were canceled for the day and all the teachers were summoned for a meeting.

What was your first reaction at hearing this. If you just read through it without thinking, read it again. I'll wait for you....

Five girls got HIV after sleeping with their teacher! My first reaction was disgust at how these girls were probably pressured by the teacher in exchange for getting a passing grade. Teachers will sometime select certain people and pressure them and give them undeservedly bad results in order to exact favors from them later on. These favors are usually in the form of money or sex.

Then my second reaction was that there was no way that five and almost six girls got pressured. At least one of them would have to have stepped forward before now. How overt was this teacher, and why had nobody said anything until now. At least another teacher would be jealous or a boyfriend of these girls would have found out. I was mad and deeply saddened.

You really need to understand that is is not even 10% as shocking as it would be where you are living (assuming you don't live in sub-Saharan Africa). This probably isn't even 2% as shocking as you think it is. Troubling and deeply sad, definitely. But not shocking. The reason is, sadly to say, it happens quite a bit. These kinds of events flood the rumor mill, but hardly makes the news as a scandal.

Then as each piece of the puzzle came in, my opinion and emotions became more and more confusing and layered.

We learned that the teacher at the center of this had been kicked out of a high school across town for almost the exact same thing. I even found a few news stories online from the year before. That time he had been accused of giving 4 girls HIV in exchange for passing grades at the end of the year. Instead of being fired, he was just transferred quietly. To our school. Lucky us. This man started to seem like a predator who goes about quaerens quem devoret.

Then we learned that during the morning when all of this unfolded, there was an assembly held and the principal had all the girls come stand in front and told anybody else that had information to come forward and say it in front of the whole school. At this point any idea of privacy for these girls was gone and everybody knew their names and faces. I was horrified that these girls would be the ones vilified during the situation and made examples of in front of the class. The object was to subtly shame these girls and discourage anybody else from speaking out.

Then we started hearing from some of our kids that attend the high school. Two boys in particular that have class with all these girls and their teacher (they are all in grade 12). They say, in the case of at least four of these girls, that is probably the only way they were going to pass that year as they were mostly illiterate. But not because they were being treated unfairly or had to succumb to these means in order to pass, but basically because that was the way these girls had obtained passing grades since forever. It seems the girls went about quaerens per quem ad devoret.

You see, while some people try to get extra help from the teacher by asking if they can stay after class or come in during lunch to discuss a reading or solve some problem, these girls get extra help by on day one of the school year asking questions like “What's your phone number? What neighborhood do you live in? What hours are your wife not home?” The boys said—and while this is not exactly the expression they used it conveys the same meaning—that these girls were putting it on pretty heavily.

So here is the summary of what we have so far. Five girls get HIV from sleeping with a teacher. Abhorrent in every way. Girls appeared to be trading sex for passing grades. Not surprising in the least. The principal calls out the girls and has them show their faces to everybody. Shocking. The girls turn out to be the ones initiating with the teacher. Disgraceful.

I talked soon after with some of our girls to get their take on it. One that knows them basically had the attitude that they got what was coming to them and was glad because as girls get away with this it puts that much more pressure on the rest of the girls to do the same and almost becomes expected behavior. Others that didn't them were not surprised and say that almost from day one you can spot the girls that, as they say here, are running after teachers for some "special help".

The fallout from all of this? The story didn't even make the news. If it did, thousands of people would have been complaining wanting to know why the TV cameras and journalists never came to their school, because that stuff happens all over the place. The girls, they quietly stay put and are finishing the rest of the year. And have HIV for the rest of their lives.

The teacher, instead of being transferred, just went from teaching during the day to teaching night school. If anything, it might have been just the upgrade he wanted. He stays at the same school, and gets to teach for half the hours. People generally agree that the teacher came out a winner in this situation because they say he went from having only six girls to having at least twenty. Night school is full people that generally just pay a bribe to pass a class and is notorious for sexual promiscuity in every way shape and form. Teachers with other teachers, students with other students, and teachers with students. People will fail a grade five times in a row and keep enrolling in adult education classes not because they want to pass, but because it is the equivalent of going to a bar for a single person. If you want a hookup, and are looking for others that want the same, you go to night school.

As you wrestle with this story, keep in mind two things I said in the beginning. Being normal or a common occurrence does not make it right. What happened is wrong and sinful and detestable in every way. The second thing is to not impose your thinking or attitudes on the characters in this story. As deplorable as this situation was, the tendency would be to say this teacher is a predator and even if the girls voluntarily got involved with him, they were only giving into a sexist archetype and were victims of societal pressures. I argue that the situation is more complex than that, and I know many of you will disagree with me. But in saying that, I believe it does not make what happened any less tragic. Just know that what is normal here may not be so wherever you are reading this.

Math Camp III - Girls

Before we get back going on math camp, lets do a little review of where we've been, since it's been about a month since we started. In math camp part one we talked about the logistics of our times table competition and ended with the shocker that, with over 40 kids in the competition, only 8 of them managed to memorize their multiplication table.

In math camp part two we talked about a few reasons why nobody bothered, revolving around the main idea that people here tend to give up at everything when things turn difficult, they also think that getting 50% done is grounds for achieving a reward. I mentioned how Celso came up to me cursing because he came up one set of numbers short and that was grounds for earning the reward. The problem is also having people that a trained to seek rewards in the short term. We tell kids everyday the two things that will change their lives are Jesus, number one, and education second. I wrote that many of the kids “are looking to see if the reward is going to be worth all the effort. If they don't see it as some huge gain for them they're not going to do it. I know all these kids very, very well. For some reason there are several kids that have managed to get all the way to eighth grade being illiterate. And I don't mean functionally illiterate, I mean really illiterate. They've never seen or considered how reading will benefit them and they just learned to read until it got too difficult and quit there.”

However, those are only about half of the reasons. Actually, they're exactly 50% of the reasons. The other reasons are the girls.

Yes, the girls...

They are so complicated (understatement of a lifetime) that they get a whole post dedicated just to them. I'm constantly having to remember that we're taking a long term outlook and (barring God's grace) change in a person doesn't happen overnight all the time. Even in a matter of months, it can be hard to see somebody's change of perspective on education (or friends, or drugs, or God, or anything). People that have kids already know this. You don't just say, “You need to do better in school.” and the next day it starts happening.

Where the story of math camp continues is that after Celso left my house complaining about not getting his shorts, I encountered a cadre of girls to complain on behalf of Tercia. They were saying that Tercia (16 years old) should receive the reward also because she was the best girl to finish, having recited up until her sevens. The competition was up to 12, remember. After finally getting the girls to admit that Tercia failed and quit, they tried to reason with me (read: shout) by saying that girls just aren't as good as boys. Before I let them set a dangerous precedent I quelled their anti-feminist crusade and sent them on their way.

Oh, the girls...

While you could say they are a product of their environment and mostly have not seen great examples of education or success in their families, the thing you cannot say is that they have been given low standard. Our expectations and hopes for what the girls (and boys)can accomplish are very high. What's even more remarkable is how much of the girls here get higher grades than our boys (although that will make great sense once I explain why). Much of that though is rooted in how the system works. The girls will readily admit that they don't understand much of anything that they're learning and therefore give up more easily. In reality, often times after just one bad test or a confusing lecture they refuse to keep fighting with the subject and give up first, causing them to backslide even more.

What the girls have learned to do is skip class, avoid doing homework or required reading. All they need to do is ask to see the work of a boy or two that had done the assignment, clean it up a bit, cross their t's and dot their i's with hearts, and get a better grade. They've become so good at this that there is only one boy in the orphanage that consistently gets better grades than the girls. That would be Manuel, who finished the multiplication tables on the first day, and he gets straight A's. Manuel has decided to not give the girls his work to copy because it is unjust. It a problem that pervades the culture of much of the city, not just girls that happen to wind up here.

The girls are earning a counterfeit education.

“Wow, TJ. Don't you think you're being a little hard on the girls? They're just doing what they need to to get by.” No, I don't think I'm being too hard on them. I don't stand for any of this. The people that are doing the work for themselves don't stand for any of this. The problem is that cheating is not part of the culture here. Cheating is the culture. A few month back Victor was preaching in church and there was this exchange. It was a sermon about living as a new creation and getting rid of the old sinful things in our life.

Victor: And Jesus doesn't want us to do things that will destroy our lives.

Congregation: Amen.

Victor: Jesus doesn't want us to drink until we pass out.

Congregation: Amen!

Victor: Jesus doesn't want us to steal from our neighbors.

Congregation: Amen!

Victor: Jesus doesn't want us to fall into temptation and cheat on our husbands when they our in the field working.

Men: AMEN!

Victor: Jesus doesn't want us out until the sun comes up looking for prostitutes and abandoning our wives.

Women: AMEN!

Victor: Jesus doesn't want us to cheat in school.

Congregation: huh?

Victor: I said Jesus doesn't want us to cheat in school. Its a sin and its wrong.

Congregation: Umm...no its not.

Victor: Yes it is. You're stealing knowledge that is not your own and lying to you teacher saying it is yours.

The sermon ended pretty abruptly after that as THE CONGREGATION SHOUTED DOWN VICTOR UNTIL HE STOPPED! It was remarkable. I've never seen anything like it. The only way you could have made a group of people angrier is by showing up and your home-school co-op meeting and reading your book report on Harry Potter. It was that outrageous. People did NOT want to hear that cheating in school is a sin.

I'm not going to say the girls are the only people that cheat. There's a fair amount of cheating among the boys too, the difference is the boys will usually put in a good amount of effort exhausting themselves first before taking somebody else's answer. They at least try to get from point A to point B before copying the answers. The girls? They aren't aware that point A exists, they just want to get right to the end.

Yep, the girls...

We do study hall every night after dinner. Its mandatory. The girls (particularly anybody in 8^th grade or higher) have an extreme fear that I will see them flat out copying somebody else's work or assignment and then tear it up. One day I had a particularly tense fight with of the oldest girls here that revolved around the fact I had no right to tear up her work something-something-something and cheating is not wrong blah-blah-blah. She loudly announced to everybody that I was wrong and she was going to have the last word and copy the assignment again and was going to turn it in. Unfortunately for her, my pride, getting the better of me, wouldn't allow her to have the last word. I found her backpack before she went to school and wrote in pen across her assignment, “Dear Teacher, I want you to know that I am lying to you. This is not my work and I stole it from somebody to else. You may give me the grade I deserve. Thanks.” She didn't discover it till she got to school and returned to tell Marta, another staff member, what I had done. Once Marta stopped laughing she told the girl cheating was wrong.

Some of you are no doubt complaining that I'm really hurting the kids by not letting them turn if plagiarized work or that I'm making mountains out of molehills by making so much out of a multiplication table competition. The math camp itself, like many of my other social experiments around here, wasn't the point I was making to them. There are lots people that don't know how to multiply. Multiplying is probably not the most important skill they learn in school. My mom doesn't know how to multiply. The difference is she's a librarian and it doesn't come into play that often. She has yet to tell me a story that involves somebody walking in with a book saying, “I really like this one, but I think I'd like it twice as much if the Dewey Decimal was twice as big. Can you help me with that.” I'm sure at some point in history somebody has said that, but because my mom does not work in the same neighborhood as Jeff Foxworthy I'm sure she'll NEVER hear that.

The point is that folk here, especially the girls, have found a system that works not because it is a shortcut. It allows them to both give up when things get hard and still come close to actually succeeded by copying the work, which in their minds is the same thing as if they had actually done if for themselves. It is an uphill battle. It is an uphill battle on an icy slope with a giant cliff at the bottom that has major consequences.

What is worse is the absolute honest shock when anyone (girls or boys) fail a test or course or grade. And for the kids here that have failed, almost all the time they chalk it up to bad luck and the next year exhibit no extra effort or overwhelming desire to succeed at all costs, they just think that this year they DESERVE a passing grade after having failed the previous year. Its a big change, and some of the kids here really try hard and do an amazing job, even kids that are not as gifted at schooling or learning. But for many, when the going gets tough, they just find someone else to go in their place.

Of the girls, Tercia made it up through their sevens, and another girl made it up to here sixes. The two youngest girls in the competion, Mena and Ofeita, had a lot of fun practicing with each other and finished on their twos only after spending over a week trying to memorize their threes. The rest of them? Didn't even try. Not one of them. Didn't even approach me with a question. There was even a rumor for most of the competition that the winners would go to the coastal resort town of Pemba with me for a week. That didn't even motivate them.

At this point, at the end of our story, I usually coin some well thought out, elegant reason as to why the girls continue to display total apathy towards the system, but I don't have one. I should at least include some smart, well-crafted plan of action for how we're going to motivate the girls to get a work ethic and take the reins of their own future, but there isn't one.

Cause, you know, girls...

Math camp 2-and-a-half?

Editor's note: Just me, TJ here. I have no editor. That's partly why things here get so long. For example, the math camp posts keep expanding. It was originally one part but because I'm so stubbornly long-winded (thanks, Parishes) I can't and don't want to trim it down. That's probably why I'll never write a book. When I go to turn in my transcript to my editor he's going to quit and change professions after he sees that of the first five volumes (not chapters) three are about Ken Griffey Jr., one is about Darkwing Duck, and the fifth is pretty much a giant rant about McDonalds discontinuing 29-cent hamburger night back in the '90s.

I know that you, the reader, don't have an unlimited attention span. I know, the internet is a big place. Why spend 10 minutes reading about what Jesus is doing in Mozambique when you could be looking at last nights box score or browsing funny pictures of cats or posting on your posting on your favorite Taylor Swift message boards? (Oh hey! What's up 14-year-old girl demographic!) Heck, even my own mother will sometimes say, “I read something about that on your site and then gave up when it got too long.”

I normally try to keep the content maxed at two or three pages when I draft here on my typewriter, or about 1500 words. This second part of math camp clocked in at over 1800 words. Heck, this little side note here is an additional 331 words. That's a lot! Now it's gonna be three parts long. If it keeps growing exponentially, next time it's gonna be 7 and then after that be the running dialog into 2013 at which point the website will change from “TJ goes to Africa” to “That one time TJ did math camp and won't shut up about it”-dot-com.

Thanks for reading about us. Thanks for praying for us. Thanks for supporting us.

Math Camp Pt II- The Why

Things get hard and people quit. Its just a fact. It's why New Year's resolutions sound great in January but come February you've forgotten all about it. It's why for the smoker every other cigarette is his last and the drinker always promises himself just one more. It's why people abandon Jesus as soon as he starts to tearing away the idols in their lives. Others give up before they get started because they're afraid of encountering difficulty (or failure). It's why that test will get studied for tomorrow. It's why a workaholic dad says he'll start spending time with his kids once they're older and can appreciate it more.

There's millions of examples of why people quit or don't even get started to ever have a chance to quit. Let's not even consider prospects of failure. I'm not talking about failure. A lot of times failure would be preferred over doing nothing.

I'm done pontificating for now. Lets get back to math camp. As you'll recall, we finished our multiplication table competition with exactly 8 kids completely memorizing all their numbers. Keep in mind that there's over 40 kids here that were capable of performing this task. I figured if the kid can count to one-hundred its totally doable to take an average of two or three days to memorize a set.

And now, as promised, I'll explain why so few kids achieved this herculean feat. (A good writer should never explain when he's being sarcastic, but I'm not a good writer and that last sentence is pretty dang sarcastic.)

Yaaaaaay Math Camp!

Math camp is that magical time of year when, out of school, you go with all your friends for a week of fun and games and bonding and more mathematical formulae than you can shake a stick at. It is as much as an essential part of growing up as losing your baby teeth or taking family road trips.

What? You never went to math camp growing up? That's OK, neither did I. But our kids here have. Let me tell you about Math Camp '11.

Several months back during their school break I did math camp with the kids. It was primarily out of a desire to create a positive incentive for the kids to do something academic. The idea wasn't even to do a full-fledged summer-camp math oriented program. I wasn't going to whip out math skits or math games or math movie nights or math-themed food or anything. The weeks revolved around one very simple, simple prop. A chart.

The one where TJ reads a lot.

My first week back in Africa has seen a lot: Driving across town looking for construction contractors, riding on the back of a motorcyle heading to breakfast, eating lots of rice and beans, learning the kids’ new inside jokes, telling them all about my family and how everybody has been doing, and even some espionage…

But above all my time has included a lot of reading. There’s been tons to do and bunches of time to hang out with the kids, but when it gets to be 95° in the afternoon and I feel like crawling under the porch to die reading is an activity that involve zero energy.

So what’s been on my reading list? I’m glad you asked. First of all has been my Bible. Its super refreshing and always encouraging to me. The fact that its at the top of my list should have gone without saying. Second on the list currently is “A Strategic plan for the Development of Nampula”. One of the kids gave it to me because it’s in English (kind of) and they didn’t know what to do with it. Then again, they probably stole it from somewhere and didn’t want to caught with it, and now I have it. It looks to be some sort of intra-governmental publication probably distributed to various NGOs (non-government organizations), government offices (party bosses) and the United Nations.

Yep.

A Day In The Life

Like the sands of the hourglass, so are the days of my life. The much requested, much anticipated, and much expected post chronicling all the details of a day at the Evangafrica Orphanage. This was all recorded during one absolutely normal, nothing special, always out-of-the-ordinary day in Mozambique.

And as an added bonus, keep reading to spot the best picture in the history of the orphanage!

5:30 - My day begins when the megaphone goes off. Its literally the siren on a megaphone and its sounds like the Huskies scored a touchdown (if anyone can even remember what that sounds like). I usually shake the bugs off my net, out of my shoes, and off my clothes. After that, I sweep through the rest of my bungalow and talk with the animals, just like in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.This guy has been hiding out in the kitchen sink. Its a great place for him to hide, because my sink has neither running water or a connected drain line.

5:35am - I usually get my wits about me and head over to the watering hole. Here I get to wait in line with all the kids and collect all the water I'm gonna use for the day. My main uses are only for drinking and showering.
6:00am - After picking up breakfast, I bring it back to my house. Breakfast is rice porridge. Recently we started getting sugar in it. For the first month I was here I swear somebody confused the sugar with the salt because it was almost unbearable salty at times.
Breakfast is usually a good time for me to get my necessities out of the way. I usually sit and eat it while I'm boiling my water. It need about a gallon a day here with all the work and heat/humidity. Its also a good time for me to get some reading in and spend some good quality time with Jesus while relaxing in my easy chair.
This is my easy chair. It was just sitting around here, and nobody ever used it or wanted it. And I'm such a sucker for anything free (ask me about the other 4 pieces of free furniture I've acquired over the years).

7:00am - After finishing my water/Jesus time, I clean up a little bit, get a shave in (I'm now an expert in shaving without a mirror, by the way) and get ready to face the day.

I inspect the roof of my bungalow before heading out. It can get pretty windy here, so I just like to assess it from time to time, because it needs to hold up if it ever rains. We're in the middle of the dry season now, which only recently has been giving us trouble (stay tuned for a post about the well).
7:05am - This morning I decided to go and chat with the neighbors a little bit. I was being friendly, but I had a secret hidden agenda.

7:10am - I encounter the first neighbor. We hang out for a bit, talk about the economy, his 401k, Michael Jackson, the Mambas (nat'l soccer team). But I didn't find what I was looking for.
7:30am - I run into the second neighbor. They're an older couple. The invite me in for some coffee, he talks about the weather and what life was like back before the war while she shows me pictures of her grandkids. We have good little chat, but I still haven't found what I"m looking for. whoa-oh-oh-oh.
7:40am - I found it! If you recall an earlier story about a morning ritual in the jungle here, you'll recognize what I'm talking about. The morning practice of burning leaves and pollen to create fumes with the hint of something oh-so-slightly narcotic. I meet the neighbors to confront them with the issue at hand. We discuss the potential environmental merits of perhaps creating a compost bin, but I am quickly dismissed as outlanding and told to pack up my Western ways and go home.Here is a picture of a smaller version of the epic toke-fests that take place most mornings behind my bungalow.

8:30am - I sit in during one of Professor Tomas' lessons. Tomas is a friend of Victor who comes in usually about 4 days a week and helps the kids in primary school who are behind in reading and writing (which is just about everybody).I'm just about as far behind in the reading and writing as they are and most days, especially if we're talking about verbs or tenses, it's really helpful. Other days its not, like if we're talking about whether the snake ate it's food or if the snake ate its' food.

The lessons take place inside the dining hall. And for all my HHS alumni reading this, the Portuguese word for dining hall sounds like "cafetorium".

9:30am - After the lesson there is usually lots of work to be done. Below is an example of when the bathroom was being tiled. Victor and Christina are hard at work to get the brand/grand new boys dorm up and running. Yes, I know. Contrary to popular belief, Victor and Christina are not those do-nothing, stay at home orphange parents you all think they are.This day, however, there was not actually any work to be done. Construction stops when there is not money coming in, which is about 4 days out of 5.

So in my spare time, I will just hang around with the kids and chat, give help on homework, teach English, play games all of the above.
I made my way over to the boys "dorms" for a little while. I call it tent city, because while the boys dorm is being finished, this is where they're living. Don't be shocked, they've actually done quite well for themselves with the walls, roofs, porches, etc.

After that, I make my way over to the girls dorm. I'm enjoy checking out the "African re-bar" aka bamboo.

11:00am - The first of the days many mini-emergencies take place. On other days its driving people to the hospital, having gov't officials show up without notice (not that we're hiding anything, they just generally suck), breaking up fights between neighbor kids, the list goes on. Today, it was mechanical (hooray)! A local NGO was bringing in donations when the car bottomed out on the gate coming into the orphanage and knocked the tailpipe clean off the car. TJ to the rescue! Sorry, no pictures. I was actually working during this one and couldn't take any.

After a quick change into my work clothes I started inspecting the car. I discovered that the tailpipe didn't break when the car entered the gate, this was just the final nudge it needed to drop completely out from under the car. The tailpipe was completely rusted-out and the muffler was tied to the car with an old bicycle tire.

1:00pm - After using some scrap-iron and a dozen or machine screws I attached the muffler and tailpipe back to the car. As I was prepping the broken section of tailpipe to weld a collar I made onto it (we have welding equipment here, but just stick welding, nothing fancy) another car pulls up. This is the director of the NGO along with his favorite mechanic. The mechanic is probably the same one responsible for "fixing" the tailpipe the other two times it had rusted out. He literally drags me out from under the car and proceeds to augment (read: destroy) my mounting brackets. He throws the tailpipe in the back of the car and drives off to his shop.

The boss of the NGO talked with his associates for a few minutes, and I could hear him reprimanding them for letting an estrangiero (foreigner) work on the company car. And then as they drive away he has the nerve to ask me (in Portuguese) if the mechanic could borrow our welding machine to repair the car. I was tempted to reply to him that the welding machine is a estrangiero too so he probably wouldn't like it, but Jesus restrained me and instead I told him I didn't understand what he was saying and packed up my tools.

1:45pm - After getting my clothes changed and discovering that my lunch had been given away (shima and beans), I put on my teacher hat and start with homework. I don't think the kids here (or most people in America) fully understand the capabilities of a mechanical engineer, they just see me working on cars, a coincidence. But they do know and understand that I love math and science. I won't talk a lot about teaching, because it and the education system here are going to get their own post later. But this is most of my time until dinner.
Everybody is hard at work doing the examples on the board.

3:00pm - The afternoon today was filled with a particularly different brand of excitement. The girls apparently have an upcoming grudge match against some girls from their school and started soccer practice today.
After a few drill and exercises with a very serious Gabriel (in the yellow shirt), and not paying attention, which frustrated a very serious Gabriel (still in the yellow shirt) they started playing.

If I were them, I would opt for a medium than soccer, but none-the-less it was undoubtedly the highlight of the day as all the boys came out to watch the girls try their feet at the worlds game.


It was a source of endless amusement to myself and all the other boys, and a few of the workers even (the two guys far left) stuck around after their shift to watch the "excitement". When a goal was finally scored it resulted in all the 20+ boys watching the game to start jumping up and down and doing flips off the wall we were watching from.

The next day I didn't see a single girl who wasn't either limping or walking around as sore and as stiff as a geriatric. I made fun of a few of them by throwing their pencils on the floor and watching them pick it up (just kidding, I promise).

4:30pm - After the excitement of the girls soccer game most of them went to shower and ice down. I was held back because some of the little ones wanted me to be their choppa driver. Choppas are the little mini buses that regularly hold 20 people that dart all over the city. They wanted me to drive them to a restaurant for dinner. At the restaurant we had, you guessed it, beans and shima! I splurged and bought them for cake for desert. No big deal. After all, I had a little extra cash because it costs 5 bottle caps to ride the choppa.

When I got out of the choppa (a work bench) to get the cakes, I took what is quickly being known as the best picture in the history of the orphanage. If you click on it you can view it in full wallpaper size. And I know that all y'all are gonna eat this up and send it to all you friends and introduce them to (from left to right) Jose, Mena, Ofeita, Samito, and baby Dorcas.

5:30pm - When I first came here and didn't know the language I discovered that one of the easiest ways to serve people here was literally by serving - dinner, that is. Now they won't let me leave. Oftentimes I will be hunted down to make sure I am not running away and skirting my responsibilities just to serve dinner to everybody.

6:00pm - Dinner is served! The last few nights, thanks to a local donation, we've been getting chicken liver along with our rice instead of beans. So after I've divide up all the plates and then ring the dinner bell and get to dish them out to everybody. Usually there's about 60 plates for dinner needed to include everybody.

7:00pm - After dinner there's devotional. It consists of one-part singing and one-part of a little scripture lesson given by one of the older kids here.

7:30pm - Devotional gets finished up, which means its time to start homework. The younger kid that don't have much have gone to bed by this point, and there's anywhere from 5-15 kids that stick around that need help with English, math, chemistry, physics, history, and/or geography. The only thing I refuse to help with is biology, which I never liked and I quickly discovered is impossible to translate for.

10:00pm Usually this is when I will get time to myself to check email, listen to BBC news on the radio, brainstorm for the water supply and well, update the blog, or just crash and get some much needed sleep to get back up and try it all again tomorrow.