06/04/11

Today as I walked by a classroom, one of my male students leaned out the window and said, “teacher, you are dressed to kill today!” (we recently learned this saying in class). Teacher-student relations are much different here than in the states, so he wasn’t out of line in saying that, but I still found myself torn between feeling really uncomfortable and also happy that he had retained information from a lesson.
Erin, Ann and I went shopping today for all of the supplies we will need for our Women’s Day celebration tomorrow. There ended up being so much stuff that we couldn’t carry it all, so we hired a man with his square flat-bed wheelbarrow that is common here. It turned out to cost only 30 Meticais for him to take all of our stuff to Erin’s house which was wonderful, but might turn into a bad habit!
When Ann and I got back to her house she put the key in the door and turned it and turned it and turned it. The key kept turning, but it never actually caught and unlatched the deadbolt like it was supposed to. So Ann went and found two neighbor boys who have some experience in carpentry. We had pried one window open with her hoe (I am constantly amazed by how handy I have become over here), so they tried unlatching the door through the window with a long stick, but the problem was that the actual deadbolt was locked and nothing would unlock it other than the key. They boys wanted to cut out the metal grate in one of the windows so someone could climb through and unlock the door from inside, but luckily Ann had just called our safety and security officer for Peace Corps and he advised against it. Since we were being no help, Ann and I eventually went over to the shade, laid out our capulanas that we always keep on us, and ate some oranges. After about 20 minutes, the boys were able to open the door, having had unscrewed the lock and forcing in through, bending it enough that the door would open. As like in America when you lock your keys in the car and call AAA to get the door open, I was a little bothered by how quickly and with few tools they were able to open the locked the door. But then again, anyone trying to get into Ann’s house wouldn’t go through the door. They finally got the door open right at 12pm which was frustrating because all stores here close for lunch from 12pm-2pm, so Ann had to wait until 2pm to go buy another lock and find a man to install it. Never a dull moment here.