Unexpected Holiday

October 19th is not a national holiday. We even asked specifically if we would have classes on Wednesday and our acting director assured us we would. Then Radio Mozambique announced on the 18th that the following day would be a national holiday, so that’s how things work here. Luckily the last two weeks of school after finals are a joke, so we didn’t have to cancel anything too serious planned. October 19th commemorates the day in 1986 when Samora Machel, the first president of Mozambique, died in a suspicious plane crash during the tumultuous civil conflict period. We already celebrated the revolutionary figure’s death on February 3rd, Mozambican Heroes Day, but since this is the 25th anniversary of the tragic death, the entire year has been dedicated to him and the ruling party decided to make the actual day of the anniversary a holiday, albeit at the very last minute. This break makes it four weeks in a row with a school day cancelled due to a national holiday. We have serious holiday fatigue. The day off did give us a chance to settle our ongoing soccer feud with our rivals the border guards. Our last game ended in a tie two all, so they challenged us, the teachers, to one last game. The town mayor made it out for the kick off and promised a new soccer ball to the winning team. The border guards struck first, scoring off a fierce strike and they all danced in front of our students. But they celebrated too soon as we went on to score the next three goals and put the game away. Our acting principal was especially happy since he had mocked the students who had cheered for our opponents at morning assembly after our tie on Teacher’s Day.