01/11/10

First day back at work today after missing the last week. Turns out that my director hadn’t told anyone where I went or why (I left in a hurry Sunday morning) so everyone just thought I had gone on vacation or something. I was a little annoyed. Since I had missed the last week of classes one of the guys in the secretary’s office had collected the kids last test corrections for me. I received them this morning so I sat down and began to furiously correct them and update the grades, since this should have been finished last Friday (though to be honest only a few of my colleagues were actually finished grading). The idea of sitting and working quickly and quietly without chatting or taking breaks is a bit foreign here. my colleagues kept commenting, “wow, you are concentrating so hard!” I just smiled at them and ended up finishing my work by early afternoon.
One of our colleagues got married over the weekend. All of the faculty at the school had pitched in to buy a really nice gas four-burner stove with an oven, so today after work we all piled into two trucks to deliver it to his house. In true Mozambican fashion the stove was presented with lots of singing, clapping, and dancing. Afterwards a couple people gave small speeches and the new couple thanked up. My director thinks it’s funny to single me out to ask if I have anything to say in situations like this or morning announcements with the students, but I politely said no.
As I was writing this it sounded like all 52 of the girls from the orphanage ran by my house, I have no idea what they were doing down here at 8pm. As they ran by my window basically every single one of them yelled, “tchau Mana Anata!”
November 1st, first day of the hockey season. Good luck this season whockey, I’ll be checking your scores as often as I can. Go U Bears!