SADC Day

Has anyone heard of SADC? No one here had either until the governor of
Tete province decided to celebrate SADC day here in our town. SADC
stands for Southern African Development Community, our region's
attempt to emulate the EU. We learned all this on the first day back
in site after vacation when our school director called us to his
office to inform us he expected our youth group to perform a
SADC-themed play the next day. Considering how disorganized normal
Mozambican events are, we had even more doubts about this extra last
minute celebration. No one knew when the governor was coming so we
were told to have our theater group on call to perform at any moment.
Since none of our kids had eaten breakfast (typical), plus morning
classes were in session until the last minute before the officials
arrived, it was hard to keep our kids in one place, with some
trickling off to buy donuts, talk to their friends, prepare their
costumes or try to nab a free SADC hat or capulana cloth being
distributed. As it turned out, the governor didn't even show up and
the show went on with his representative instead. We were called to
the stage without any notice and were caught with one of our
principles at home. We were able to assemble our group within 15
minutes, but due to the cultural need to inflexibly adhere to the
order of events written in the official agenda, we weren't allowed to
squeeze in anywhere. Our kids were sad, our school was embarrassed,
and we were frustrated with how much prep we had been required to do
for a whole day celebrating something no one knew existed. Even our
Mozambican teacher colleages were complaining about how disorganized
the events were, which is really saying something. After weeks of
travel, it was a hectic welcome back to site, and we didn't even get a
SADC hat!