17/04/10

And so begins the process of grading for the first trimester. Although most schools have at least one computer nowadays, all schools still use the traditional system of writing out all the grades in the homeroom book and on ~2x3’ sheets of paper called “pautas.” The process is incredibly tedious and time-consuming because there are so many students and every single grade is written out about 4 different times in pencil, and then afterward rewritten in blue pen.
In Mozambique the grading scale is 0-20 and 9.5-20 is passing and 0-9.4 is a negative score. At our school (and I believe this is common) the lowest grade a student can get for the first trimester is a 7. My director explained today that this is to hopefully encourage the students that if they just tried a little bit harder they would be able to pass, and then for the second two trimesters it’s up to them to make the grade. I am not sure I agree with this reasoning, but it does make sense.
My bike is a piece of shit. I wasn’t expecting to find a Specialized or anything over here, but the one I have is really pretty shitty. The back wheel wobbles and thus rubs once during every rotation, the shifting is questionable, and there is another rubbing somewhere I haven’t been able to identify. The problem is that there aren’t bike stores or anything here, my friend who has a friend who sells bikes just called me anytime one would show up in town. Today I was riding back to the mission from town when a group of four 10 year olds ran at my bike, I think trying to scare me into crashing. When this didn’t work, one ran up behind me and jumped on the back rack, breaking it and bringing me to a stop. I got off and ran after him telling him that if he came near me again I would beat him. I was a little shaken up by this, I didn’t quite know how to feel about it because nothing like that had every happened to me in Inharrime before. Most people know who I am, and most of the kids I see are respectful and my students always seem genuinely pleased to see me. But perhaps this didn’t happen because I was a foreigner, but just an easy target. I was female and alone and plus I looked really weird, I was wearing a helmet. I don’t think anyone here knows what they are, people kept politely telling me they liked my hat.