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.