I showed up at school today and spent several hours helping to make copies of students' grades - copying from the classroom lists to lists made according to how they took their exams. Hours. Gave me time to think about how ridiculous it truly is, and how amazingly simple the process would be with computers.
Then I think seriously about what would happen, automating the process,and how much free time that would give these teachers, and what I think they would do with that free time. I don't feel like they would do anything constructive. So if I decide to try and automate their grading, not only do I have to overcome old habits and mistrust of technology, but will have to confront what they can do with new free time.
Hmmm...that's something I need to think more about. Not that I haven't already.
In any case, we broke for lunch, and when I returned, I found myself alone. After an hour, I went back home.
(OK, NOW JOHN HAS GONE BACK ONCE MORE TO MY TRIP --- PREPARE TO BE DATE-CONFUSED, ESPECIALLY AS HE'S COVERED SOME OF THIS ALREADY. MOM)
Thursday, October 30th
I spent the morning at the training site, leaving in the middle of the day to get to the airport. It was quite a strange feeling to be on the chapa, knowing I was going to be seeing my mother for the first time in 13 months. But, as became apparent later, the bizarreness that I had anticipated in this ride dissipated immediately as I realized how completely I had prepared for her arrival - to a point.
I waited for a while on the top floor of the airport, watching...tarmac...because for two hours, no planes landed or took off. It was definitely the first airport experience I've had like that.
When her plane landed, I rushed down to wait at the exit and we make a quick and rushed exit for the hotel, courtesy of a very happy taxi driver.
I pointed out everything along the way, but as I later realized - and presently suspected - it was all forgotten due to the intense novelty of every little thing. We arrived at the hotel and essentially caught up before collapsing.
Friday, October 31
We got a taxi back to the airport and picked up our car, nice and early in the morning.
Starting off in the car was an ordeal and we gathered a crowd of several local employees to help mom get into gear. They were more than happy to explain, in relatively good English, the best way to get the car going in what we would later find out was 3rd gear.
Navigating confusing, backwards streets, with 3 of the 5 gears at her disposal, my mother managed to get out of Maputo on her second day in Africa. I would have fared MUCH worse, if at all.
We arrived in C---, broiled in the afternoon sun, then satisfied our hunger at a laid-back restaurant where the owner offered us amazingly prepared fish that I gobbled up despite my reluctance to eat fish and my, until recently, strict vegetarianism.
We got Mom's bed set up using 3 mattresses (JOHN USED THE WORD MATTRESS LOOSELY -- THINK THICK PAD), 2 pillows and 1 fan. All welcome additions to the humble abode. Unpacking was intimidating, to say the least, as I have become accustomed to not having a lot of "stuff" and I was - not surprisingly - showered with a lot of "stuff". I appreciated it all, but was of a split mind. There was something Mozambican inside of me that was completely and utterly overwhelmed - I could feel that it was a new part of me, and I think this, more than anything else, scared me.
We dropped off the car to be guarded at the hotel at the suggestion of one of my students. We found first gear.
Peace
John
