Trainings End

I think I finished training a couple of days before anyone else did. With Lilly gone and her replacement having a hard time keeping up with the work, I found myself more of a coordinator than a participant.  The consultants now handle almost all of the games and were making the speeches about entrepreneurship better than I ever could.  I count this as a huge success. 

Still, as I went through the work of the final day I found myself being pulled back in.  Duarte and I started the day on a money run.  This is a friction point between me and Jumar.  He has no problem getting us the money that we pay the teachers as per deim for the training but he always gets it in twenties and fifties.  When I bring this up he tells me not to worry, that the teachers will have change.  They receive three dollars a day plus varying amounts of travel money based on the district they come from and whether they stayed with family or used the rooms at the training hall.  So early morning finds Duarte and I whizzing around Dilli, singing to a cassette of Bon Jovi and hitting all of the places that have big money to spare.

We start at the gas station on the main drag.  This place has ancient pumps, attendants and security.  When a vehicle pulls up money is discussed first, half the cash is handed over then the gas cap is opened.  The attendant shoves a screen or piece of porous material over the head of the nozzle and fills the tank.  While it is filling Duarte takes between 500 and 1000 dollars in hand and begins to talk his way into an exchange.  I watch his back.  We give away clean fifties and get back the dirty remaindered one dollar bills of Timor. 

Have you ever gotten change at a store and not wanted to touch it?  That happens here all the time.  The bills are crumpled and creased, smelly and stained with the red betel juice called bua that people here chew.

We return to the hall in time for coffee and I check in with my consultants and teacher trainers.  Generally they have one or two fires for me to put out.  Yesterday it was a wasps nest in the women’s quarters which the owner of the hall denied the existence of.  Today it was a case of possible dengue or malaria. Sickness is common in the teachers who came to training from over the malarial line.  These teachers live at a height that mosquitoes only proliferate once or twice a year and do not have the immunity that the people of coastal Timor do. I sort these out sending Duarte to pick up some bug spray or to take a gentleman to the hospital. I  note the possible expenses in my ledger and sit down to check the teacher payment numbers given to us by the Ministry of education. 

It’s not that they are trying to rip anyone off but sometimes the numbers do not add up the way a calculator says they should.  The teachers are very serious about their payment.  If I overpay someone from a district all of the people from that district will demand equal compensation.  If I underpay them things get ugly as well.  Just like in the United States.

Lunch time comes and I must slow down.  Lunch time is leisurely; my time to get a feel for how the training is going. I have found that people reluctant to speak about problems with me will do so if I am already speaking with them.  So I butterfly about congratulating teachers and patting trainers on the back. This is also the time when my consultants get concerned about payment.  They ask me each individually if I have the money and will be ready.  They are paid by UNIDO as well.

Eduardia glides up to me to strongly state again how uncomfortable she is that the majority of training is going on in Tetun.  I hear this every training day. It amuses me that here dedication is just as profound at the end of training as it was at the beginning. She takes one exercise a day to teach and does so in full Portuguese often taking half the time to instruct language instead of entrepreneurship.  I do not tell her that the evaluations for these exercises lack specifics, and some even have complaints about lack of understanding.  She has been a firm and loyal advocate of the curriculum and a good friend to me.  She knows one phrase in Tetun, “I like you.”  She grabs my hand and looks me in the eye to say it.  I will miss her.

We solved the language barrier problem by making a deal with our Portuguese collaborators.  The curriculum would be printed in Portuguese, but a second copy, without pictures, could be printed in Tetun so the teachers could better study their new text.  This doubled our printing costs and we made it up by using Peace Corps volunteers to assist Alphonso instead of hiring a second translator.

Afternoon came and I was done.  Problems arose and I solved them. Looking forward to the time of day I really enjoy, joining the consultants and teachers for a smoke.  I know it is horrible that everybody smokes.  I know it is terrible that I am perceived cool and I smoke.  But I am not here for that.  And as we smoke sprawled in the shade I feel more like one of them than anywhere else.

I got caught up in that feeling at the last training and let slip that I missed America to Alfonso the consultant. He would not have me sad so he told me a joke about a man and his wife.  It was long and ended with a woman, naked, holding up a statue of the Virgin Mary because she knew that her husband would not beat her so close to the religious iconography. Her husband is embarrassed because everyone has seen her naked.  It was funny because every few moments he would tell me so.

“Okay here is the part that is funny because she is naked!” he would say and I would absolutely lose it. 

Alphonso was the first consultant to accept me in the role I was comfortable taking.  He would stand up for me in the beginning when every other word was a gaff.  I will miss him.

Viriato finds me as I am finishing my calculations.  Part of his job is putting together the invitations for the teachers and helping to arrange their transportation. He knows I have been asked to check things over.  He asks if I found any problems. “No it’s all good,” I say, “Except that we pay this fellow Viriato a great deal and all he does it talk.” This is a tired joke but he laughs and punches me in the arm. He has become our peacemaker.  Sliding in and out of Portuguese when he teaches and making the curriculum easy understand.  I will miss him.

Philomeno finds me hiding from the sun on the porch during an exercise I cannot stand. I hear him coming and am sliding out a pack of cigarettes but he put his hand over it.  It is pay day and so  he slides me one of his.  I usually smoke a pipe but this is not just a cigarette.  He speaks of a cute young teacher and how he would like to have her.  Philomeno is older than the rest of my consultants and the only one who has complimented me on the job I am doing.  He alone, may understand uncertain I am moment by moment.  I will miss him.

When training ends we will let the curriculum fly.  I will visit several pilot schools out in the districts. One of the consultants will introduce the curriculum to the head of the school. I will lend legitimacy by being big and white and playing with the kids. There will be more revisions and perhaps even some district specific modifications.  I will work with all of these consultants again but not as a group.

Except that I might.  The Ministry of Education and the Portuguese delagation is so delighted by the success of these trainings and the buzz the curriculum has built that they want a second year.  Another collaborative group of lesson plans, another four trainings, more games, harder subjects. Their current schedule has it entering the school system next fall.  If this goes through my consultants might miss me as I might go to the river wait for grandfather crocodile. I might demand that he have me for lunch.  Hey you! Eat me! NEXT SUBJECT!