Esperança

 

As a student, I never wanted summer break to end. Don’t get me wrong… I loved school and was (almost) always excited for the first day of classes. However, I never thought, “Gee, I want my summer free time to end.” I loved the seemingly endless days playing with friends and running wild around my neighborhood. Every memory I have of summer break has a shimmering glow about them.

Now, as a teacher, I can definitively say that I can’t wait for classes to get going again. The seemingly endless days have lost their glamour; I find it ironic how much my perspective has changed. I am trying my best to stay busy while I wait to receive my schedule, through hanging out with my host family, playing with the kiddos, and exercising. As fun as this is, and how nice it is to be with my community members, I am still anxious to get going on the school year.

However, due to a few predictable delays, our school hasn’t received the list of students who were accepted into the teaching training program. As such, there is yet to be a single student in sight and classes will not be starting on Monday, which was the scheduled start date. This is actually turning out to be a good thing, despite the summer-time boredom. There are a few complications with the Mozambican Ministry of Education and Peace Corps Volunteers teaching at teacher training school (i.e.: my school). Peace Corps is doing everything it can to try to allow those of us at these schools to finish the year without needing to switch to a high school. Since my town doesn’t have a high school, if the decision isn’t in our favor, my roommate and I would need to move to a new town to teach at a high school.

I have esperanꞔa, hope, that everything will work out, regardless of where I end up. If I am being honest, there isn’t much I can do at this point except to hope. I am trying to go about life in my town as if everything is normal, until I am told that I need to move (or not). I am hoping that my school gets its list of students, so that classes can get underway. I am hoping that we get a positive decision from the Ministry. I am hoping that this school year goes even better than last year. Finally, I am hoping that summer break, with all its uncertainty, ends soon.