Mostly JOMA

In celebration of Ile Day, which was on the 3rd, have a bad Mozambican dance song:

Joao Feliciano - Nojala

This particular song is really popular right now in Ile. Last weekend there was a rockin' party down the dirt path, and my regular old insomnia was accompanied by four hours of this song on repeat. It made insomnia more entertaining than usual. I finally fell asleep around 5 AM to dream about ice cream.

Ile Day was more of the same. JOMA presented a theater piece, so I had to stick around to make sure it went well and keep the kids motivated (I bribed them with peanuts and bananas). In the morning some guy tried to interview me and I spoke to him in English until Professor Cliff rescued me and answered the question for me. The kids were all amused, "Professora Jessica ran away from the camera". A student told me this morning that it was on TV... I feel like a victim of paparazzi.

School has been slow lately, due to the holidays, so most of my social interaction has come from JOMA meetings. While we were waiting for more members to show up for the JOMA meeting yesterday, Quadrado, Costelo, and Innocencio (JOMA members) taught me how to play a Zambezian card game that doesn't have a name, but it's sort of like Euker - a game that Paul and Eli play in Michigan. The other day I taught them how to play Uno. I hope that we continue to play cards, because it's making me feel like a real person again.

Later, when the meeting got going, Santos chided Quadrado for standing strangely. Quadrado said that one day he imitated how I stand and now he does it unconsciously. Apparently I shift my weight funnily when I stand - sometimes in a vaguely Captain Morgan-esque manner. While we were talking about it last night, some of the other kids commented that it looked like we were doing a theater piece, which is the second time I've been told that in a week. If acting and banter are the same thing, then yes. I can act. Eli says that the kids will imitate whatever I do, which is frightening.

Also, I cut my hair. I hacked 3 or so inches off... Every time a Peace Corps volunteer cuts her own hair a hair dresser botches a dye job. It's now uncontrollably wavy and it looks even worse than it did when it was long and scraggly. Luckily, I'm in Africa and people are perpetually amused by my blondish hair no matter how bad it looks. The other morning Santos came over just after I'd taken a bucket bath and said that my hair was a different color. I explained that it's darker when it's wet, which made me want to hug him. How would he know what wet blond hair looks like?