27/07/10

This week is school break, which means that the teachers are working from 7:30am to 4:30pm every day, writing out by hand every single grade for every single student four separate times, first in pencil and then all four times again in blue pen. It’s slightly frustrating. We work in groups/teams of five people with separate jobs, one person dictating the grades, others writing them, one doing statistics, etc. At one point one of my colleagues, and English teacher, said the number “13” the way I say it, mocking me. I know I don’t say “13” and “3” correctly, my “t” isn’t quite right and I can’t roll my “r,” I try, but there isn’t much I can do about it. Well I let it slide about 7 times until the number 13 came up and he said “anata, can you read that one?” I smiled and him and nicely said “you know, I think it’s interesting that you act like it’s such a big deal that I have an accent. Yeah, I do. It’s not like you don’t have a ridiculous accent when you speak English.” But I didn’t say this in Mozambican English, slowly and with certain vowels drawn out and enunciated. I said it in American English, so nobody understood me. There was silence until we reached the end of that line of grades and one of my colleagues said “I didn’t understand, can you repeat that in Portuguese?” When I did, my colleague who had been mocking me was completely baffled and chagrined, as if what I had said had never occurred to him. He said “you can’t be afraid, you have to at least try.” “I have to try? I teach math, so I am obviously not afraid! I know I don’t say those numbers right and I try to correct it, but that’s about all I can do.” I think my colleagues are always a little taken aback when I am straightforward like this—perhaps even confrontational in their eyes—but I think they respect me for it too.
Waiting for a chapa in another down the other day, I was standing in front of a primary school with my back to it. Some kids leaving the school saw me and started yelling, “hey hey hey!” which I ignored. “Hey hey! Hey you! You give me money!” I turned around (they were about 8 years old) and scolded them, “is that the manner in which you speak to adults? Show some respect! Don’t yell hey at me, say good morning. Don’t ask me for money, ask me how I am doing.” Their demeanor immediately changed as soon as they realized I wasn’t some foreign tourist. They did say good morning and ask how I was, and one helpfully told me that it might better to catch the chapa if I moved up the road a little.