06/09/10

Since the demonstrations began last Wednesday things have been a little more tense than normal here. Many government officials have spoken out against what they called riots in ways that I didn’t completely support, but I was too afraid to post anything too opinionated. I think my director put it most eloquently this morning at morning meeting. She spoke about how the way some of the demonstrators behaved was both wrong and counterproductive, such setting fire to a car or destroying a store of people who have nothing to do with the government—this does nothing to help your cause and only hurts those people whose property was destroyed. However, speaking out when you disagree with something is both a right and a duty of the people, and when people do this accurately and maturely then it is the duty of the government to respond to the appeals of the people.
There are many perks to living at school, today while I was eating lunch I saw one of my colleagues who I have been trying to track down for a couple days so I ran outside to talk to her. Of course the drawbacks: intending to go outside for only a couple minutes, I found myself sitting under a tree with three 11th grade students helping them through math exercises.
After classes I met up with the two cyclists, Tom and Pete, Steve, an Australian who they picked up along the way, Yvette and her two daughters because Tom and Pete needed a few things from here (they left some bags here while they went to the beach) and I needed a lift into town as my bike has a flat tire. Matt, who lives in Panda, two hours inland into the bush, needed some permission slips for next weekend’s provincial REDES (girls in development, education, and health) conference, but he has no internet access and his town doesn’t even have electricity. So I put the slips he needed into a large envelope labeled with his name, “voluntario do Corpo da Paz,” and his phone number on the front, and went in search of someone going to Panda. I found a guy sitting in a pickup truck and very sweetly asked if he could do me this favor. He said sure, but could I buy him a soda? I told him that once Matt had the envelope in his hands he would buy him a nice cold soda. The guy (who turns out to be Matt’s next door neighbor) was nice enough, but very adamant about his soda, so I ended up having to call Matt in front of him to confirm that he would indeed be receiving a soda when he got to Panda.
While I was in town I received a call from my director: I needed to come immediately, water was coming out from my room. I was mortified—am I that huge of an idiot that I left my room with the water running? I hurried back to the car and found Yvette and we rushed back to school. So rushing in fact that Yvette got pulled over on the way there. I stuck my head and pleaded to them “my room is overflowing water and I need to hurry back to shut it off, please, please, please let us go.” Perhaps it was because they know me or perhaps it was the panic in my voice, but they told Yvette to leave her driver’s license with them and go take care of this and then come back. When I arrived in front of my house I saw the two other Spanish volunteers who live in another room in the building sweeping tons of water out the front door—how was it possible that there was that much water?? When I unlocked my door and ran into my bathroom I was only slightly relieved to discover that I hadn’t been an idiot and left the water running, but that the hose to my toilet had broken and was shooting water all over the bathroom. I called our main maintenance guy but he was in Maputo, so I found the next best handyperson and ran up to the bakery where Pete was, who Yvette said is very good with tools. Soon Yvette (who stopped the water running for a good 15 minutes by just sticking her thumb in the hole to plug it as we tried to figure out how to turn off the water coming into my building—turns out the thing is broken. You can’t turn off the water coming into my building), Steve and Pete were all quite wet and trying to figure out how to stop the water from shooting everywhere (Yvette commented enviously on how great our water pressure is here. It’s a little easier to appreciate when it’s not flooding your bathroom though). My room, which is generally quite tidy and nobody ever enters, was quickly a flood of both water and people either trying to help or just watching. As I looked in at five people in my bathroom I looked up and saw four pairs of my underwear hanging from the drying rack, but Jade, Yvette’s daughter, quickly swooped in and got them for me to put in a less public place. Eventually Tom and Yvette’s daughter, who we had left in town in our rush, showed up and Tom started mopping up the inches of water. I kept apologizing and thanking everyone profusely and everyone so graciously acted like they were happy for a little excitement in their day. Thanks to a small lip between my bathroom and bedroom the only water that got into my room was tracked on people shoes, but it flowed freely into the room behind mine where all the medicine is kept, and from there into the hallway and out the front door. Luckily nothing was damaged by the water. The handyman and Pete eventually got a new hose with a valve on and screwed it firmly shut. So the problem is not solved, but water is not coming out anymore. Tomorrow is a national holiday so I don’t have a toilet until Wednesday, but luckily there is nobody staying in the room across the hall in my building currently, so I can use that one. Never a dull moment here.