07/02/11

In a chapa today suddenly the driver yelled, “somebody is smoking on my bus!” He slammed on the breaks and as soon as the bus had stopped he jumped out and ran around to the window of the smoker. He proceeded to yell at this man, telling how disrespectful this was and how he show throw him out and leave him on the side of the road. I was surprised. Although not many people smoke here, I have never heard anyone be so opposed to it. Also Mozambicans tend to be fairly non-confrontational and hard to anger, so I was surprised by his explosive reaction.
I just wish I could have a single conversation with a Mozambican man that wasn’t about whether I was married yet or have a boyfriend, how I needed a Mozambican boyfriend, how I couldn’t go two years without one, and asking for my phone number.
Like I said before, three of the classrooms I teach in aren’t quite finished yet. The windows they were missing appeared one Monday morning. Another Monday we found they had been painted. Today men outside were sawing pieces of wood and nailing them together, forcing me to yell over the noise to teach.
I ran into a student from last year and he rather accusingly asked why I wasn’t his math teacher again this year, but I explained that the school needed me to teach English this year because there was nobody else for 11th grade. I asked him who his math teacher is this year and he said that he does like him and it’s going well, the only problem is that he misses a lot of classes.