Poetry, germs, and songs

In a land where grass swallows the trees
And beetles rattle the dogs
Coconuts fall to percussion
And wind plays the leaves

We danced in our tan lines
We kissed the silver sky
We wondered is there anything
As charming as an unexpected smile

In a land where water silently kills
And mosquitoes bring down men
Ants clear away the rubbage
And moon lights the way

We danced in our tan lines
We kissed the silver sky
We wondered is there anything
As charming as an unexpected smile

In a land where patterns fight for attention
And chickens make house calls
Babies dream in capulanas
And mangoes sweeten the tongue

We danced in our tan lines
We kissed the silver sky
We wondered is there anything
As charming as an unexpected smile

I wrote that after taking an inspiring hike to the watering hole nearby my house. I felt like Robert Frost on safari.
Currently my bedroom floor looks like those aerial shots of New York City traffic jams except it’s ants instead of cars. I think my room was built on top of an ancient ant migration path. There is a thick black line of ants that crawl up the outside of my house and into my window through a hole that they made in the screen. They crawl down my wall, spread out over the floor and walk back up the opposite wall and disappear into a hole in the ceiling. They are all carrying these little white balls, which I assume, and fear are ant eggs. No matter where I stand in my room they continue on their way even if that means racing over my feet. Sometimes they get more adventurous and continue all the way up my body and aim for my nose/mouth/ears. I keep waking up from nightmares where the ants take over my bed and eat my face.
However, I must acknowledge that it is a symbiotic relationship. It’s like having a personal staff of a million janitors following me around. If I drop a piece of food on the floor within 30 seconds the ants greedily concentrate over this food and then disperse as soon as the food is nothing more, and the floor is spotless. Sometimes I’ll drop a piece of food on purpose just to watch the race. Nowhere else is this act of consumption more grand than in the outhouse. I could watch the ants moving enormous cockroach carcasses all day long, but usually the stench gets the better of me and I have to leave and do something actually productive.
My English class is going super well. I am absolutely in love with my students. They are the most motivated, diligent, and respectful students I have ever had. On song night, I was teaching them Jon Lennon’s Imagine and it was truly magical. We analyzed the lyrics and they were saying that that was the kind of future they need to teach their students about. They got so into the song that we ended up singing it for an extra hour after the allotted time for the class. The next day I heard them teaching the song to other students in the school. So touching. In our regular classes I’ve been integrating pedagogy lessons with their English lessons. It was really hard at first because they are so used to a teacher just lecturing them in the front of the classroom and they don’t have to interact besides for answering a few questions. But now they are leading discussions and teaching review sessions and becoming so much more comfortable speaking in English.
Unfortunately, I seem to have broken the sick seal here. First everyone in the house was sick for a month because the well water had bacteria in it. Then I had a foot infection from the tiniest cut. When I was helping to repair the school’s road I dropped a rock on my foot and had a scrap about the size of a pinprick so I didn’t give it any thought. The next day it blistered up, expanded and became an open wound. As soon as it started to scab over it blistered again and got even bigger. After a few days the pinprick became the size of a silver dollar and let out a constant source of puss. Lovely, I know. One of my students took me to the hospital and told me that it was an infection of the blood and that whenever it would heal the blood clot was what was making it get really infected again. I never heard of such a thing. But it’s completely fine now. No more puss, thank god. Then I had a serious of bad headaches and sore throats and general fatigue. My director was making me go to the hospital nearly every week to get tested for malaria, but I’ve been negative every time.
Going to the hospital is like being in a zombie movie where the zombies are too tired and sick to attack you. The doctors are the most zombie-like of all. They call you in, and look at the chair to indict that you must sit down. Then they mumble, “O que é sua problema?” You give them a list of your ailments and they stare up into space thinking about whether they should have beans for dinner that night. Occasionally they perform an autonomic function such as breathing or blinking. When you are done complaining they scribbling something on a prescription pad and hand it over to you without ever making eye contact. I could have been a giraffe for all he knows. I feel like I’m entitled to at least a smile from the doctor considering I have to pay literally 40 times what the locals pay to see the doctors, but there goes my American over-blown sense of self-entitlement again. I have to keep that in check here. I suppose if the doctors spent a modicum of empathy on one forth of their patients they would die of exhaustion. They can see up to 200 patients a day.
When I went to get my prescription filled at the hospital pharmacy they only had one of the three scribbles. I asked them what it was and they showed me the bottle. It was vitamin C, so I politely turned it down considering I have about 400% of the recommended dose of vitamin C for breakfast. Then I went to the pharmacy in the city to get the other two prescriptions. They only had the amoxicillin and told me I had to go to Maixixe to get the last prescription. I had been meaning to go to Maixixe, which is a half an hour ferry ride from Inhambane, so I walked to the dock.
I gripped the shaky railing of the make shift wooden dock that went on for three hundred yards. The gaps between the wooden planks on the floor of this dock were wider than the actual planks. I could see the crashing waves 15 feet below me through these huge gaps. Even if I wasn’t sick and feverish I would have been sweating and dizzy from shear fear. However when I could work up the courage to look up I saw people scurrying by in high heals, carrying clucking chickens, buckets on heads, and the worst, people checking their text messages. I felt really lame and tried to hurry up.
Maixixe is not worth writing about, so I won’t bore you with details. When I found the pharmacy and presented my scribbles they rummaged around the backroom and brought out a dusty bag of pills. I asked what they were. It turns out that it was the active ingredient in Tylenol, which I had been taking all along. Well at least I became familiar with three different pharmacies.
Last Saturday I was so excited because I was in charge of taking 15 of the students to the city to help clean up garbage with one of our partnerships, ALMA. I was feeling sick all day, and it was so hot, but it was nice to hang out with the students outside of the school and do something productive. I guess I was exerting too much energy though. Some of my students weren’t really into it so I was running around trying to motivate them. By the time we were getting back into the chappa and saying goodbye to the guy from ALMA I was feeling really lightheaded and dizzy. Before I knew it I was on the floor and I heard voices above me. I fainted! I’ve never fainted before in my life. I thought only women in corsets faint. It was so embarrassing. I had to go to the hospital again, but I knew it was just dehydration. I felt completely fine within minutes. No permanent damage. I learned my lesson. I’m drinking tons of water, and the guy from ALMA who broke my fall when I fainted calls me everyday to make sure I’m drinking water.

Well that’s my update for now. I hope everyone is happy and healthy (or at least more healthy than me).