It is now one week until the first trimester is over. It feels like it has gone by fast when I think I only have 5 more until I am no longer living in Mozambique. Recently I have also had some exciting events to change things up. In May we had “In-Service Training” in Nampula city which was awesome. IST marked the first three months after arriving in site and it was great to see so many friends and share all of the crazy stories. The hotel was also… the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in… anywhere… not considering the fact that I’ve been staying in a house with no running water or AC, using a really gross outhouse, and eating boiled leaves and rice almost every night. The all-you-can-eat buffet was also… incredible. When I left the hotel and returned to my site though, I didn’t miss the luxuries of a 5 star hotel, but rather my friends and the familiarity of being with other Americans. The reunion was short but sweet. It’s a shame I won’t see some people again until mid-service in December or whenever it is.
I won’t talk about the actual conference to avoid being administratively separated.
School has been going well. In the beginning it was hard to tell if the day was going to be good or bad. Sometimes I went in feeling terrible but came out with a new optimism. Other times I went in thinking class was going to be great but ending up wanting to leave during class. Now however, things are more leveled off. My language is a lot better than when I started so that definitely helps. I think what helps most however is my increased comfort in front of the class and being relaxed about my teaching and not getting upset when things aren’t going as well as I want them to be. I have been moving pretty slow which worried me at first but now I’m more OK with it since I really want my kids to learn the material and I am determined to show them a different teaching style than what they are used to. It may turn out that I should have worried more but hey – it’s going alright for now.
One week I kind of got off on a tangent and taught my students about light and how it relates to Bohr’s model of the atom (different energy levels in the electrosphere). Instead of getting upset about not being able to teach the next topic before the test I decided to have some fun and I brought in my violin to show the class and give an analogy between vibrations on a string, sound, and light. At one point I told them I could change the wavelength of the string, changing the wavelength of the sound, and in this way I could play a song. I slowly started playing the Mozambican national anthem and when they figured out what it was they all cheered. I’m not really sure if they learned anything but at least they had fun.
When I came back from IST I had to give my second test and now I need to give the bigger test for the trimester (there are 2 “ACS’s” and 1 “ACP” per trimester. Ask me about it sometime). I will plan things a little better next trimester and I won’t have a week long meeting in Nampula to work around. When I was controlling my test Tuesday I found my first “cabula”, or cheat sheet. I’m actually surprised I haven’t seen more since cheating is so common and other volunteers have told me they find many cabulas per test. I’ve been keeping my eyes open though. I have warned them a lot about cheating (copying, cabular-ing, and talking) so I didn’t feel too bad about giving the student a zero. It didn’t feel great and I hesitated at first but once I realized what I was looking at and what needed to be done I leaned over and wrote “cabular” and a 0 on her test. She was pretty humiliated and she didn’t say a word to me when I asked her about her open notebook (pretty smooth, right?). I have to remind myself though that the students don’t really understand cheating is wrong since there is so much tolerance from their teachers (who themselves grew up in the same system).
OK it is pretty late so I’ll say good night for now.