I've started another diary/journal in Portuguese, so I can practice. I may or may not decide to post it - even though that might not be a good idea, because I would have to post it myself (or could someone who knows Portuguese do it?)
Anyway, a Canadian couple who also works here in C--- stopped by today. They work for an NGO in Canada, and both speak French. They are from Montreal and Ottawa and are here working with the elderly and in providing Internet access. We are having a dinner with the Canadian/American contingent this Thursday - I'll make sure to bring up Moxy Fruvous, Ashley MacIsaac, Arrogant Worms, Great Big Sea, Toronto, trying to relearn French while I'm here, and some other things. It's exciting to have North Americans so close by, and they're going to be here until 2004, like me.
I didn't invite them into the house, but it was mainly because there were too many people here already. Hopefully, I still made a good first impression!
Last night, I also gave a short physics lesson, in Portuguese, to Jorgito. We discussed work, kinetic and potential energy and gravity as it relates to density, using household examples like a ball of string, and oil in water. It was exciting to be able to teach a subject I have relatively little training in, in a language I know only fairly well. And he got it, too, which was the best part. He wants to go to college in the States, and I've already set a goal for myself to do everything I can for him and his friends who want to do the same. It may not be very realistic to expect that I can get him there, but it's worth a try because he has the desire and capacity. Of course, like everything else, I have no idea where to start, but I guess I could try to contact State universities that might be trying to attract more foreigners. Yeah. This is gonna be fun. (FROM MOM --- JOHN ASKED ME TO DO WHAT I COULD AS WELL, AND IF ANYONE HAS SUGGESTIONS OUT THERE, FEEL FREE!)
Tomorrow, I'm going to school to meet the school director and pedagogical director. Hopefully, my Portuguese has improved enough at this point so that I'll have a handle on these conversations and not f--- anything up - especially their confidence in my ability to teach in Portuguese. Also, and some would say more importantly, I get the cell phone tomorrow for the Xmas break! Yes, I get to talk to people --- on my own phone (kinda...)
If I miss people for two years, how is that going to affect me? Is that even emotionally or physically safe? I don't want to stop missing people -- and will they continue to miss me?
I have less silence in my life now because this world that I'm in is constatnly alive - not necessarily with machinery or cars or music or people - but with life in its many forms. Chickens, dogs, insects, the light of the moon. But the silence, when I do find it, is the scariest part of being here. In the silence, my mind is free to travel to all the places I've been and relive all the things I've done. And remember all the people I love. In the silence, my mind creates an alternative universe where the people I know don't change and their daily activities stay routine. America slowly becomes as unimaginably unattainable as it is for most Mozambicans - yet there is the same reservation that it could never be everything you need.
In my mind, I've resolved that it will be two years before I return, so my vision of America is simply advanced two years - what I think it should look like when I go back. So when I visit places I know in my mind, it already seems like it's been years, simply because I know not to expect it to be the same.
However, the silence hasn't poisoned me. I'm able to look back and find the qualities of my previous life that I was truly happy about, and apply those universal truths to my life here. I already know how to help people here, because I have the basic tools. I just don't yet know what to build (or how to draw the plans in Portuguese :) )
And, of course, the silence forgets all too easily how much others do think about me, and care for me, as much as I do for them. The silence can never know love, because love doesn't take a two-year break.
The silence is my friend, but only a friend. I visit every so often, and when I do, I keep a distance.
Peace
John
