A Letter For My Cousin

A little bit ago I got a letter from my cousin as part of her grade-school homework of learning how to write letters. I figured I'd better reply before she gets an 'F' for the assignment. That would be my fault, and then I'd feel like a jerk.

Dear Cousin,

It is good to hear how you are. I was so happy to get your letter. I am doing well here at the orphanage and am always very busy with all the kids. There's over forty of them! The weather here is very hot. Right now it is the rainy season, almost the hottest time of the year. In the morning the sun shines and then later around dinner time it gets cloudy and starts to rain. The rain is good because we need it for the river for growing food and water for drinking.

You asked a lot of good questions, so I'll try to respond to all of them. I've done some traditional art that the kids have taught me. One of the favorite forms of art is to part of a soap tree, mash it up, and use it to decorate and paint our faces. I only did it once because painting the faces is only for the girls to do and they all thought it was really funny to see a boy doing it. The boys don't do much art because they are busy playing soccer all the time. There aren't any other sports here, only soccer. But if there were other sports I know the boys would love to do them. It's good to hear you are involved in so many sports and activities. They're lots of fun!

In Mozambique we don't celebrate the same holidays there are in America. A popular holiday is Children's day when we celebrate all the kids. We don't have Halloween and people don't celebrate Christmas much because many people here don't know about Jesus. For Christmas my parents sent me a box with my presents. I got a new calendar, batteries, a t-shirt, and a referee uniform to use for our soccer games. But I'm glad you mentioned Valentines Day. That is one of people's favorite holidays here. They like it so much that it's not just one day but TWO.

As for candy here, sometimes we have suckers and lollipops, but what we have a lot of is sugar cane. The sugar cane is very sweet but it is hard to chew because it has a hard cover. Only people with strong teeth can eat it. Many of the kids with their baby teeth can't. For the kids without strong teeth they can eat popcorn. We sometimes make popcorn for watching during movies. The kids like to watch movies a lot, but because most of the movies are in English they don't understand so I have to tell them what is going on.

I'm sorry for taking a long time to write back and hope your teacher doesn't get angry at me for making you wait so long. Keep studying hard and say hello to the rest of your family. I miss you all very much,

Sincerely,

TJ

Rest and Relaxation

I'm a creature of habit, as I think I've mentioned before. Part of that is we've got a pretty good set schedule at the orphanage and so I need to plan things out otherwise nothing gets done. There are normal things that just get pushed into the routine. Church is on Sundays, I do my shopping on Fridays, most days I'm teaching lessons in the afternoon, I've got my carpool, nightly bible study with the kids, Saturdays are yardwork and trashday. In the midst of all that I've got to try to find time for laundry and soccer, two things that are hard this time of year because of the frequent rain.

Things just happen. But in the middle of it all, I like to find time for a little R&R. Just something out-of-the-ordinary, unusual, surprising, refreshing is what I need to get a pick-me-up during the week. Most the time it ends up being a nap, which is neither extraordinary nor surprising, but amazingly effective. Other times it will be going into the markets to wander around and just shoot the breeze with people. Much of the time, its just going somewhere to relax and get a snack.

My new favorite spot for just getting a snack and chilling out is this place; The Hotel Milenio.

There's only like two really swanky places here in Nampula, and this has to be one of them. The newly remodeled hotel is the last place in Nampula that makes you feel like you're still in Mozambique. Let me show you.

Here's a coffe shop, cafe area where I tend to frequent every other week or so for some air-conditioning, a pop, and a choice between a good book, soccer, or cricket on the 50" flatscreen TVs.

Today was a cooking show. Ummm.... I choose BOOK!

The thing is this place is so weird and uniquely modern. I've heard it described as an up-scale cafeteria, a hospital, an up-scale hospital cafeteria, and, as Victor said, Dubai. I assume he meant the entire state. Just the whole Emirates feel, I guess.

Nothing says obscene oil-wealth like a four-storey piece of "art"...

...pictures of rocks on the wall...

 

...or whatever this is. Indoor plants inspired by "The Jetsons"?

The best thing about this place is not the overpriced food.

Watery coffee and the other half of my grilled-cheese sandwich are not what keep me coming back. The thing that keeps me coming back is the fact that they pipe in a combination of music that makes me absolutely homesick.

The first time I went was shorty after the hotel remodeled in last October. It was over a 100 degrees that day (or 38 degrees for the rest of the world) and I needed to find some AC to escape the humid torturous hell that the weather often is. After getting myself to the hotel I bumped in to Christina. (We live 15 feet apart and yet neither knew the other was going there. We have awesome communication.) The first thing I noticed and commented on was how great the music is. They were playing a shuffled mix of Dave Matthews Band.

The next time I came back, the musical awesomeness continued. The ambient music was just obviously hooked up to somebody's iPod and this day they had put U2's "The Joshua Tree" album on repeat. I listened to it two full times through. I had the almost Pavlovian response of every time it came back around to "Where the Streets Have No Name" I ordered another coke.

In subsequent trips, the music is always usually the same combination of an album or artist just repeating through. I've come back to Soundgarden, Oasis, and Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and Weezer. It's like whoever is picking the music was my musical soul-mate: from Seattle and stopped discovering new music after 1999.

When I finally asked who on earth is picking this music, they told me the manager does. The manager, as I know, is some middle-aged surly Portuguese lady that always gives me the stink eye because I only order cheap things like pops instead of paying $5 for coffee or $8 for an onion and carrot omelet.

Surly  manager or not, they have my business until they change out the playlist for something like Nickleback or American Idol Greatest Hits.

My Carpool: A Lesson In Patience

This is my school carpool and, much to my dismay, we're usually late. This is what they look like. Well, at least that's what they look like when I tried to take a picture of them.

This year we had a chance to put the kids in a school down the road a bit instead of the one right here by our house. So for the kids entering high school this year, they don't have a three minute walk to school. They have a walk over an hour! But that's not fun, so I take them to school everyday in the truck. I'm so nice I even pick them up at the end of the day.

The school we're sending them too isn't any "nicer". In fact, the one here in our neigbhorhood is arguably the nicest in the city. The problem isn't in the building. You see, at this new school the teachers are nice, they know the kids are living with us in the orphanage and have offered to give them extra help with exams at the end of the year, and they don't complicate my life as the one in charge of handling all their schooling.

The old school (where we are hoping to take the remaining kids from and transfer them to be with these others) has an administration that tell teachers that our kids have it too easy---what not having parents and all---and to never give them good grades and demand that kids contribute monthly fees for things like "electricity" and "new administrator bathrooms".

So, in other words, we found a school that treats our kids fair and sent them to it. The problem is getting them there and bringing them home. I take them for the start and pick them up at the end. And thank goodness we have the truck, that is not the problem. The problem is having patience. School technically starts for them at 12:30pm and goes till 5:30pm (and yes, these short hours are for high school). Getting them out the door is a problem, every single day.

The other problem is, well, just take a closer look a that picture...

The frown, the posture, the look of genuine dissinterest, that's no way to take a picture. She doesn't look happy to be going to school at all. Let's try this again.

If not for Victor tucking his pants in, or whatever he's doing, it would be a slight improvement. Oh well, I'm sure I can just photoshop the good parts together. And just as we got in the truck ready to go, they reminded me Nolita was not in the picture.

Nolita, holding the pink hat, gets left behind about once a week because she takes three hours to get ready and I'm not going to make everybody late for school on account of her. But this day, she finally made it on time. The only problem is, for Pete's sake, these kids can't take a decent picture. So we kept trying and came up with this.

...and then one of these

...and since I'm not going to use a picture of a girl that looks like she lost a boxing match, we kept trying.

Ronilda, how hard would it be for you to smile?

Okay, that's good. But Francisco, could you tone it down some? How do the rest of you look?

Okay, Merecido is good. Samito looks like he is passing gas.

Something is going on here, I'm not sure what...

And yes, that is the best I got a picture to turn out. And yes, they all were late to school that day.

Not much to report

Nothing much lately been going on here to report. Oh, except for the fact I JUST KILLED A SNAKE TONIGHT! BOOYAH!!! I just want you all to know how awesome and manly I feel right now. 

In the running to be my new nickname is: 

TJ "Kobra Killer" Werle,

TJ "Destroyer of Nature" Werle, or

TJ "I almost peed my pants when it came in the dining hall and was so scared I cursed but it was in English so the kid's didn't understand it and then smashed it's head with a brick" Werle

Now accepting nickname nominations.

One More (Late) Christmas Gift

Because getting the Bibles left a lot of kids gift-less, I wanted to do  something for the rest of the kids. I also wanted to do something that would last a little longer than getting them all candy bards (lifespan: 4 minutes) mirrors (by June, half were broken) or soccer balls (average lifespan: 3 weeks before popping).

In keeping with my cheesy theme, "the gift of knowledge" (which I made up just know) I spent a long day scouring the street and markets and back alleys for schoolbooks. Yes, their textbooks for school.

You see, starting in eighth grade, books aren't provided. You have to buy them yourselves. And with teachers assigning homework directly out of the book, you're pretty much screwed if you don't have a copy or know somebody who has one.

Kids in primary school (supposedly) get free books every year. Their books are more along the lines of workbooks and are provided (supposedly) free by the World Bank and UNICEF. However, what happens is books are printed every year and given out in the south of the country in and around the capitol. Then, if books are left over, they make it up here sometimes around April. I've seen kids here in three different grades and they have never received more than one subject (math, social studies, portuguese, etc.) a year.

This year, the kids in primary school have yet to receive books. And buying or selling these books is a crime. Out where we are, people pretty much don't care and police look the other way as long as you cut them in on your sales. Kids have come home to show me their homework and announcements from the teacher. Announcements include, "There are no books this year, go buy one," and, "I received your textbooks but there are only 10 so tell your parents to come to my house after work to bid on them." Undoubtedly unscrupulous, but par for the course here in Mozambique.

Since we collect and save the primary school workbooks, there's not too much of a need to go into the underbelly of Nampula to buy them. I only needed to go into the underbelly to buy the high school books.

We've never had a full set of high school books. In fact we still don't have a complete set. I decided based on availability (of the books) and cost (money people sent me around Nov/Dec/Christmas) that I would be looking for books only for 8th and 9th grade. This was also strategic, because the number of kids in those two grades are 15 and the number in the rest of high school is five scattered around grades 10-12. And this way, the older grades can also use the books as resources if they need to.

Armed with my list of school subjects (Portuguese, History, Geography, English, Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Agriculture) I went with Felex. He was usually about 25 yards ahead of me, looking in street corners, alleys, markets, anywhere there is a makeshift market and people are selling the school books. He'd usually get a ball park price and then I'd show up and the negotiations would start. One place in particulary, I bought about 8 (no one place every has a complete range of grades or subjects) or subjects and after 50 minutes of talking I finally got him down to a price I liked.

When I finished and went to call the kids, most of them did the kind of, "Oh, gee. Thanks." And rolled their eyes. But the books are kept in my house and its usually full of people coming in to do their homework or study for a test. They are getting used really heavily and are a great help to the kids.

Victor and Martinho thumbing throug the books for the first time.

Mauricio checking out the 8th grade book, wishing he had it last year.

Even with the books here, the girls still don't use them that often and, much to my dismay, still just wait for the boys to finish their homework before copying it.

Manuel after school is usually first to come by and pick up book and start on his homework.