Sticking to it

27 January 2010
Today was difficult for a couple of reasons and I thought I’d dedicate this post in part to some of the hardships of being a volunteer (hardships more abstract than bucket baths and questionable goat meat). I’m sure I will discover more as my time spent here matures.
I have been in a funk since a couple days ago when I came back from Chimoio. I was visiting a couple friends there who came from Catandica and Sofala province. Every time I go back to site from visiting friends I am a little sad – I think it just has to do with feeling isolated and not being able to talk with anyone about problems I have or just life in general. This is part of the reason why I don’t like leaving site in the first place – even if I leave for one night I feel like I have to readjust when I come back.
My funk has put me in a generally unenthusiastic, unmotivated mood, which of course doesn’t mix well with having to teach classes. However I had to teach today, and I was glad to get out of the house after spending almost all of yesterday inside.
I have been holding out from teaching subject material for the first week. Part of the reason is that I wanted to try to build a relationship with the students – all part of my hopeless plan to instill developmental discipline in my classroom – however I kind of half-assed it. I did take pictures of all of my students in one class, which they actually loved and when the whole class was done one of the students took a picture of me and some students.
I felt like I had some important things to talk about before actually starting material, like how to do well in class, class activities, and motivation for studying chemistry. However these topics have made for kind of boring classes, which I think contributes to the chit-chat and some of the students’ apparent lack of interest (although I guess this is to be expected). By five minutes until the end of my first class, students were telling me that it was time to leave. I was angry that they were telling me class was over with five minutes left and I was trying to explain to them why studying chemistry was important and how many jobs require knowledge about chemistry. I could have easily left it out and moved on to subject material, but I thought they would find it interesting... by the way when I asked the class why we study chemistry no one had any idea.
My second class went pretty smooth. For my third class I didn’t realize I had a break so I walked into a classroom 50 minutes before I had to give class… I was saying hello to everyone and they asked me what discipline I teach… turns out I was not only one period early but I was in the wrong classroom entirely and the students were not mine. Oops. When I left I heard some people saying “mezungu” which is the word for rich/white person in the local language. It is not necessarily a bad name but it’s also not great, and I guess above all else it makes me feel like an outsider (which I am…).
During break a couple kids came up to me to talk. One kid said he wanted to come to my house and speak English with me, which I said he could. He also said he wanted to learn about the internet, which made me happy. A girl from my previous class came up to me with candy in her mouth and asked something. I had to ask her to repeat herself about five times before I understood. She was asking if I had CDs, I guess blank ones for music. I didn’t know what to make of it so I just said no before I walked away. It wasn’t until after that I realized she was probably just saying something to talk to me.
My third class was kind of a mess. I was about two minutes in when I saw about 5 kids from the primary school standing outside the doorway looking at me and talking. I took one step forward to talk to them and they scattered. I closed the door and kept going with the lesson but then the kids showed up on the other side of the room. They were peering in through the windows and yelling at me. I didn’t really know what to do so I told them to go away and then I pretended to throw a piece of chalk at them… probably not the best idea and it didn’t even work. I eventually asked someone nearby outside to police them. When my attention came back to the class it felt pretty disordered. There was a lot of noise – both from inside and outside the class since many of the kids I think got out of class and were going home, so it is probably something I will have to tolerate each time I have that class (the windows don’t have glass either, so it’s kind of like trying to teach on a playground). I just kept going – generally the more information I present per unit time the kids get quieter because (I hope) they are at least somewhat interested in what I have to say. It’s mostly when I have to stop, either to write on the board or to fix behavior, when the noise and chit-chat starts back up. There’s not much I can do about it: I have to choose my battles wisely.
The most frustrating moment came when I was writing on the board and I was using an incorrect word. In a previous class I told the students they could correct my Portuguese if they didn’t understand or I was using the wrong word. I was using the word “notas” to mean notes you would write in your notebook. “Notas”, however, is generally understood here as a grade you make in a class (like A+ grade), and the word I should have used was “apontamentos”. When I asked a student to spell it for me I had some trouble understanding him and then there were other students interrupting him. Of course I couldn’t understand so more kids started yelling out letters… I think I probably had half the class yelling out how to spell this word. I got pretty angry after repeatedly telling the class that only the one student could talk. Eventually I had to just give him the chalk to write the word while I attempted to diatribe the rest of the class in my shitty Portuguese. It was incredibly annoying, but I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I think many of the kids just don’t have the self control to sit there and watch me and their classmate struggle, and if someone else could yell out, why not them?
I’m definitely going to have to do something about correcting my Portuguese in the middle of class. I was told it was going to be a problem but I guess I didn’t really believe it. The easiest thing would be to designate one person to do it.
After my classes I talked to some teachers about the primary school kids distracting my class. What they suggested was so simple – that I tell them to come back after my class. They just wanted to play with me, they said. It made complete sense, and I wondered why I didn’t start off doing that but I realized that when I tried to talk to them they ran away from me.
As I was walking home I thought about how seemingly difficult the day was and how I would be living here for two years. Isolation, a sense of being drained of energy, difficulty controlling the class (and kids outside the class…), and the pain of watching myself stumble: all these things weigh against my reasons for remaining in Peace Corps. Worst of all is the feeling that I am here for no reason: I am just an outsider who was uprooted from his country and is now, strangely, living in this country. Many of the students aren’t interested in learning chemistry, and sometimes I wonder how much chemistry teaching really contributes to the development of Mozambique.
So right now I am waiting it out. I am not saying I am thinking about terminating early, but I certainly can sympathize with people who do. As for my reasons to stay: I trust that Peace Corps really does make a difference (a quixotic statement to some volunteers living here), especially when taking into consideration the hundreds of volunteers who have served here over the years. I also have hope - that I will eventually feel more comfortable living here, and my still rapidly changing schedule and the few friends I do have help to enforce this. While I was writing this entry some student friends came by and did a great job cheering me up. I learned a little about Shona and we also made some plans for making a garden behind my house. It was strange how quickly my mood improved. Before I came here I read some accounts of volunteers who said that being a PCV was like being on an emotional rollercoaster ride, but I didn’t understand. It makes more sense now: so much has changed since my life in the states, and I have so few connections here, that every little thing can have a huge impact on my disposition.
I wondered about whether I should post this in my blog because I make Peace Corps sound… unpleasant. However I have only been through 6% of my time at site so far and I’m confident that things will change and I have yet to see the real rewards of working here. I’m just trying to keep it real.