We are in the last week of our 1st trimester here
in Macomia, and my what a trimester it’s been! I’m currently sitting in the
front of a 9th grade classroom doing “vigilância” for a Physics test, which is what we would call
“proctoring,” but here really is more like “vigilance.” The kids in the first
few rows are staring at me with daggers in their eyes, waiting for me to stop
paying attention for a few precious seconds so they can try to sneak a peek at
their cabulas or cheat-sheets. That’s because they’re the same kinds I
caught with cheat-sheets during their History test on Monday, which meant I
gave them a 0 on the exam and moved them to the front today to avoid having the
same problem again. They’re not even attempting
to just do the test without the cabula,
which is incredible to me. If they spent
half the time studying as they did writing cheat-sheets, they might actually do
OK. When proctoring on Monday, I caught
a kid showing another kid his cabula
for the following test. Of course I
couldn’t give him a zero on the test I proctored because it wasn’t for that
test, but I did confiscate the cheat-sheet.
He had the gall to demand that I give it back to him! His reasoning was
that it wasn’t for the exam I was proctoring so I had no right to take it. I told him he had no right to cheat.
Today when I walked up the road to school, I saw that it was
lined with an unusual amount of trash.
It almost looked like confetti.
Upon closer examination, I realized that it was just little bits of cabulas that had been torn up and
scattered EVERYWHERE. I guess that’s how
you know exams are almost over.
These particular exams are provincial exams, meaning that
everyone in the same grade in the province takes the same exam, probably a
measure used in-part to prevent corruption in the grading systems at schools
and also to make sure all the kids are learning the material set forth in the
curricula. This week classes were
suspended so that all turmas of a given grade level can take their test at the
same time and the teachers are divided between the rooms to vigilar.
Today I walked into the classroom to a collective groan from the
students. They kept saying “Teacher, you
can’t proctor here. Go to a different classroom.” and “Estamos a pedir mudança!” meaning, “we want to change.” Well…good.
My work here is done J
Anyway, no more ranting about cheating. Life here in Macomia has been pretty good as
of late. We’ve gotten into a nice
routine and my schedule is much easier because I’m no longer teaching Biology!
I am now a professor of Noções de
Empreendedorismo, or Notions of Entrepreneurship. So basically, business! I’m not going to lie, I really miss
Biology. I was learning so much and had
gotten into a nice routine with my classes.
Plus, moving to 9th grade has been challenging. But my schedule is certainly easier and while
the students don’t take Noções very
seriously, I think it’s an important discipline, especially in this
province. Jobs are seriously lacking and
until some of this industry gets developed, entrepreneurship is a necessary
route for many Mozambicans. It’s
important that they learn some of the basic concepts. I think it will also present an interesting
opportunity to teach some other important life skills. I plan to host some sort of career fair, talk
about job applications, and even doing a personal budgeting project (a skill
lacking for even the more educated Mozambicans!). So we’ll see how all that goes.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a mess because things
just keep coming up – changing turmas and subjects, riots in the streets due to
a cholera outbreak, cleaning the airport field because the president is coming,
no class because it’s Good Friday, two weeks of classes canceled for provincial
tests, etc. In February, a bunch of the
Cabo Delgado volunteers came to our site to celebrate my birthday, which was
very fun. It’s nice to be able to share
our site with people! We’ve been to Pemba a couple of times for banking and
just to enjoy the beach, and we’ve got a pretty nice little system down for
traveling there too. It’s much less
stressful now.
Last weekend we attended a meeting for JUNTOS, a program
started by PCVs in Mozambique. It’s a
common secondary project for volunteers here.
You get a group of youths together around some sort of an
art/performance idea (dance, theater, music, journalism, etc. – even debate!)
and spread awareness and information about some of the more serious issues in
Mozambique – HIV/AIDS, sexual health, gender equality, domestic violence,
etc. Lots of the Cabo volunteers came
here to Macomia for the workshop. It was
very inspiring to participate in the sessions with the Mozambican counterparts.
Sometimes the difficulties facing this country seem so pervasive that you start
forgetting that you have to start SOMEwhere.
And it’s really nice that there are host country nationals working
towards the same goals. Eryn wants to start a group here, and I plan to help as
much as possible. My sitemate, David,
wants to start a girls’ group and I’m super down to help him with that.
Well, that’s about it for now. It’s coming up on time for me to decide
whether or not I want to extend. I
haven’t made a firm decision yet, but to be honest it’s hard for me to imagine
spending another full year so far from family.
I’ll keep you posted once the decision is made and I know my homecoming
date. Thanks for all the e-mails and
facebook comments, etc. etc. Oh, and Happy Easter!
