Party Time

Today I quite possibly went to the worst "party" I've ever been to! The "party" was for "teacher's day" (and that's the last time I'll use quotation marks for emphasis in this blog), a day for teachers not to teach, take time off school and to concentrate on drinking.

I have absolutely no problem with having a teacher's day in theory, but for one, should the kids really miss a day of lessons? Couldn't they just have waited until after school?

Anyway, my view on teacher’s day may have been tainted by the day’s events, particularly the evenings celebrations, which I will attempt to tell you about.

So, the day starts traditionally enough. Just like the ceremony, speeches and dignitaries under the shade of a big tree - that I mentioned in an earlier post - there was exactly the same ceremony, speeches and dignitaries to welcome in teachers day. Oh, and then, what's this? It's only the same drummers and dancers, performing the same dances they performed only a week ago. The only difference this time was location - the school. To give them their dues, the drummers and dancers were better this time that before. They'd even got out their matching orange t-shirts for this occasion. Apparently it's always the same repertoire, but I haven't heard it enough to get bored of it yet.

I'll get to the point. The day culminated in, what we understood, to be a party and something close to a banquet. We were so excited at the prospect of some good food that we didn't even shirk at the pretty pricey entrance fee of 300mts. 

The evening was due to start at 6:30, we arrived at 7 because we know the deal with timing by now. Food started to arrive at 7:45 and we were sat down by 8. Well, I say sat down, we were sat down, until we had to get back up, to get out of the room, only to be called back in from a hand-written list! The most important people were called in first, head teachers and their wives etc. They even had a top table for them.

Hand-written list done with, back at our wooden school desks, the speeches began. The speeches were long, but they seemed even longer as we watched the food in front of us get colder by the minute.

Speeches over, time for everyone to stand up and introduce himself or herself. No idea what anyone said, it seemed to be their full name, job title and a little jokey thing at the end. I managed 'professor (teacher in Portugese) Tom'.

Weird introductions over and a bit more talking done, it was food time. The top table goes first and then a mad rush for the rest of us. By this time we were pretty hungry and plates filled up pretty quickly. Back at our seats, it slowly dawned on us that; the two varieties of pork were chewy and tasteless, the chicken had some disgusting oil on it that made it inedible, the chips were undercooked and cold, the rice was watery. It turned out that the only thing edible was the potato salad, but I'm not sure you can call it that because it was just potato and mayonnaise. All in all, a thoroughly shit and cold meal. And it wasn't even my spoilt Western tastebuds, quite a few thought it was shit too. 

I do hope don't think I'm being ungrateful or negative; after all we did all pay 300 meticals! What I’m trying to say in this blog is, other than the terrible party, the food could not have cost that much. What I’m really trying to say is that I think we found another example of the everyday corruption. There were at least 30 people in that room, 30 x 300 = 9000 equal to £200. There is no way that that amount of food and 4 crates of beer (which is very cheap here) cost almost £200. Somebody pocketed quite a bit of money from his or her fellow teachers.

Here's a shot of the P.A.R.T.Y. in full swing - note the single bare light bulb, let's just say; it didn't add much ambience.

Filomena's House

Today was a reminder of exactly why I'm here. Lately I'd been questioning the charity's purpose here. I'd been expecting bigger class sizes and had expected everyone to be queueing up wanting to learn. So far, from what I've heard and seen, it's a very small minority that want to learn and a vast majority that are happy with the status quo. We've tried hard to get people to come along, they do know that it's free, but they just don't seem to see the point in bothering.

That makes me wonder what exactly I - or anyone else - can do to help Mozambicans or even Africa as a whole. I'm starting to conclude that it's only really Mozambicans that can help themselves. Maybe us volunteers can help with education and a few other small things, but they need to realise why they need it. They need to realise that it doesn't always have to be the same, they can do better if they want.

Anyway, this is just a short blog to explain that I've realised one way I/we can help. It's small, granted, and it's also short-term, but that seems to be the way in which I/we can help.

Today we went to the house of an elderly lady named Filomena. She doesn't come to the elderly classes because she can't walk. She shuffles very slowly along the dirt, using her hands only to help her along. She has a wheelchair but it's useless around the house and for tending to her crops.

We went to Filomena's house because Francis usually visits her; to see if she's ok and as he hadn't been able to do that for a while, we went along too. Filomena had quite a lot of land, she has little food and she has no money. As we arrived she was in her garden, planting what I later understood to be maize. She waits for it grow and eats it - is there a better definition of hand to mouth? She's got a daughter who lives far away, but it's Mozambican culture to not really care for the elderly. There's obviously no pension here and if you can't work, you go hungry.

Once Filomena had eventually shuffled over to us, she was lovely, I had no idea what she was saying, but she was welcoming and hugged us both. She was smiling a lot, even when she explained that she had no food. I found it very impressive and humbling to see that she's managed to cope almost entirely alone, modifying her house, garden and washing facilities once her legs stopped working. There was a washing line that looked quite high for her, but Francis said she uses a stick and when it's finished, it looks like it's been done by hand.

There isn't really a realistic long-term solution for people like Filomena, but it seems that she is one of the reasons we're here. There's no money in the charities coffers at the moment, so we went to the market to get things from our own pockets. By the evening Francis took a goody bag of vegetables, sugar, rice and a few other things. That should keep her going for a little longer.

I know that there's other people in need of help, and although Filomena is one of the more needy, I know that you can't help everyone. If there's a reason we're here, maybe it's to offer these short-term solutions until Mozambicans realise what they need to do to help themselves.

This is the lady herself with her hand-sown crops behind her.