Harvest Ahoy!

Nobody said that the job didn't have it's perks. Working at an agriculture school is treating me well. I have a gardener (yes it is a different person than my maid, that's right I have a maid) and he is going to town with my yard. He and a couple of other students hand till the entire lot and water every plant twice a day, by hand. Not only that, but they don't let the plants bear fruits more than once or twice before they let them dry up and rotate the plot of land. The sand here dries fast and has no nutrients to begin with so rotation is a must. They also fertilize the plots with manure. They do this by filling buckets and carrying them from about fifteen minutes away. It takes a while. Of course I help. By that I mean that I bought all of the seeds. Fortunately, I can comfort myself by knowing that he is receiving certification for running a plot from start to finish. Here are a couple of pictures to please the green thumb in everyone.

The garden as a whole.

Carrots and onions.

Cucumber harvest.

Tomatoes

Brandywines are going to rock Mozambiques world.

Lettuce

Zucchini round two.

My tomatoes are about to turn and I couldn't be happier. Lettuce is edible and carrots are close (however my dog has been napping in them). Eggplant is struggling but we are hopeful. And the second round of cucumbers is around the corner, accompanied by more zucchini. Tangerines are also at their peak which are treating me well.

On another note, last night I had an incredible experience with a family of one of my students. She had entered an American-Idol-modeled contest and yesterday was the final round. She was the only contestant with the slightest bit of talent and I am not alone when I say this. She continually left the judges speechless week after week. Compare that to her opponents that inspired comments like 'learn the words to the song' or 'perhaps you should practice singing'. So we were all shocked to find that she took third place. On second thought, I wasn't shocked at all. You see, the voting is not based on talent. A person can vote as many times as they would like but each vote costs two and half meticais (about 10 cents). So the girls who finished ahead of her, both of whom cannot sing worth a damn, bought their way into the position. But the point of the story is the ride home. I was in the back of a truck with her family and all of them were yelling at each other, arguing about why Zodua had lost. It went on for a little while and then a little break came at which point Zodua's mother started singing. I could immediately see where Zodua got her talent. It was a traditional song with a common style. That is that one person sings a line and the rest of the group does a variation of that line. The women were singing in a similar key and one man was harmonizing an octave lower and a couple seconds behind which left you with an echo effect. It was a beautiful song and it was clearly their way of just letting it go and being happy that Zodua had taken third place. And it worked, the rest of the night was a party and everyone forgot that she was robbed. They all danced the night away.