Last Few Weeks
Uh-oh Miss Lindsey is upset… (11-11-10)
Yesterday was the first time I got really angry at any of my classes here. I was doing a lesson on HIV and AIDS with Grade 7 and the class consisted of an activity where I wrote sentences, both true and false on strips of paper about HIV/AIDS and the learners had to move to the true side of the classroom or the false side of the classroom depending if they thought the answer was true or false after a learners took turns reading the sentences. It got to the point where they were all just chatting and not participating or talking but refusing to move. I asked them repeatedly to be quiet and they would for 2 minutes before they began talking again. So after 5 times or so of requesting that the learners remain quiet and listen to their classmates read, I finally told them all to take their seat and sit down the activity was over. I told them that if they wanted to do fun things in class and have a good time they needed to be respectful of the other learners and me, their teacher. After I spoke very sternly to them I told them they may all leave my classroom because class was over. At this point they all started saying “awww nooo” and “why you gotta be like that Miss”, but I told them the bell had rung and to leave. Some of the learners remained behind to help me clean up. It was funny because I had teachers greet me this morning and ask what happened; apparently they told their homeroom teacher that I got really angry at them. Then today in Arts class they were all on perfect behavior I was so impressed, everyone did exactly what I asked from them and when I spoke they were silent. I hope this does continue, especially because I will be teaching them all in English next year!
So currently I am still living in teacher housing with the principal, but hopefully I will soon move into a homestead with a local family. In my new house I will have a host brother and host sister. My host brother is in grade 4 and he is funny because every day he comes to visit me and asks for water and to see a movie. I usually only give him water because I don’t exactly have many movies. But he is cute because he also takes it as his responsibility to take care of me so when the boys are being obnoxious he comes and pushes them away and tells them to leave me alone. That is one thing that is hard adjusting to, which is how violent the learners are. There definitely is not a zero tolerance for violence policy. Kids will just beat each other up and sometimes teachers get involved and other times they turn a blind eye. Also while they wait in line for the library it is not uncommon for them to punch or shove each other to get to the front. The library is one thing that I have control over, and I have absolutely no tolerance for that kind of behavior so when they punch or push each other they lose library privileges for the day.
Today was a pretty good day though, the learners patiently waited in line for the library, my classes have been behaving so far, and it was my mentor teacher’s birthday. I decorated her classroom door for her and made her a card. It was so sweet though because instead of receiving presents and her learners bringing her things, she brought them a cake, apples, and these chip type snacks. She had them come in and sang with them gave them their treats and I took pictures. The learners here really don’t have much, but I had learners coming to ask for paper and crayons today so that they could make her a card. The other teachers kept telling me that they cannot believe I am so much younger than the teacher who turned 26, they told me I look much older than her. I am not sure if that was a compliment or not. One mentioned one reason I might look older is because of the food I eat in the US, I don’t know if she was implying junk food, but I left it and didn’t question it. I just cannot believe people in Namibia think that I look old, especially because in the US I am carded every time I try to buy alcohol or buy super glue. I guess Namibia ages me… There was also a field trip today for the grade 8 learners to a senior secondary school where they were given a tour and we able to sit in on a class. However it was sad because not all of them were able to go. In order to go they had to pay N$20, not even US$3, but they cannot afford that and the school doesn’t have a fund to make exceptions. That is something I want to possibly do is set up some sort of fund for learners who are unable to pay to go on the trips because they are the ones who typically gain the most from these trips. The school tries to plan a trip to Etosha National Park and the Coast, so hopefully that will be able to happen next year!
In the process of developing the lesson for this week for my Life Skills classes I discovered that I am incredibly interested in HIV/AIDS. Initially when we were told about having to teach it to our classes, I was kind of dreading this because HIV/AIDS almost always inevitably leads to the birds and the bees talk and I was not looking forward to that. Surprisingly so far I have found this much less awkward than I would have expected, and they respond really well to the lessons on HIV/AIDS. For those of you who don’t know Namibia has the fifth highest percentage of their population infected with HIV. Estimates suggest that 1 out of 5 people are infected. What is interesting is that all the countries with the highest rates of infection are in southern Africa. In Swaziland one third of their population is infected. This leads me to the question why is it so high. In the early 1990’s it was only 4 or 5% who were infected, but the number has obviously since risen significantly. I have been told by other Peace Corps volunteers the reason HIV numbers are so high in Africa is that because at the time when in Western Europe and the United States when we were launching massive public service announcements about the virus and disease, Africa was in the midst of wars. But what I don’t understand, which I know is because I am ignorant on this issue, is why it is still so high in southern Africa, there were wars elsewhere in Africa, and yet their percentage of the population infected is not nearly as high. It’s also interesting to me because in African terms Namibia is fairly developed, compared to other countries like Niger, and yet the percentage of the population infected is substantially larger here in Namibia. In fact, okay let me preface this by saying I don’t know how accurate this is but I was told that the most developed/or richest country in Africa is South Africa, followed by Botswana, and then Namibia, and yet respectively they are the countries with the 6th, 2nd, and 5th highest percent of their population infected. I want to know why! It was also interesting because they don’t know nearly as much as you would think they should know on HIV/AIDS considering Namibia has launched many programs in schools to tackle HIV/AIDS.
An example of one of the sentences I wrote is, “There are more people in America with HIV/AIDS than Namibia.” The answer is true, in 2005 there were 1,200,000 people in America with HIV/AIDS and 230,000 people in Namibia. Another question was “There are medicines available only in America that cure HIV/AIDS”. The answer is false, but many thought it was true. I then asked them if this is the case why do over 1 million people in America have HIV/AIDS. The only response I got was that America just has too many beautiful girls that men can’t keep their hands off of…If I haven’t said it before their critical thinking skills aren’t the best, but the fact I actually got a response was progress, normally I get blank stares.
This leads me to one of my frustrations about my current situation, which is I don’t exactly have access to much information. When I do my research pamphlets from 2002 would be considered new. Our encyclopedias are from the early 1990’s. I know I have mentioned this before, and I am finding ways to cope, but I am not getting answers to so many of my questions. I know that talking to people is truly the best way to learn what is going on, or at least that is my opinion, but it makes it hard to learn when people just don’t know the answers either because they don’t have access to that information. My host sister in Okahandja would laugh at me because if she asked me a question that I didn’t know the answer to I would say wait while I google it, but now I barely have cell/internet service so that isn’t possible. It was funny to her to because she was okay not knowing the answer assuming eventually she would find the answer, but I had to know the answer then…I guess it is the American in me.
I am really excited about the possibility of getting more involved in HIV/AIDS education and I am looking forward to joining the Peace Corp committee! Peace Corps has a number of committees to get involved in, though we are supposed to limit it to only two committees, so right now I am leaning towards the HIV/AIDS and gender committee. I am also excited because after nearly a month I will finally see some familiar American faces. There is nothing wrong with Namibian, in fact I love all my Namibian friends, but it will be exciting to be able to talk to people who understand what I’ve gone through! Though getting to and from the town will be nerve wracking because you have to hike, which means flagging down drivers who are going between the town and village and the town and town. It will be an experience I know!
Learner Expectations (11-8-2010)
So recently a question asked to me in my Teach for America interview has been on my mind. The question was whether or not you can hold title 1 or disadvantaged children to the same standards of children who come from supportive and affluent families. I guess the reason that this comes to mind is not in the case of grades (or marks in Namibia), but right now, and for my time here I am managing our school’s library and I’ve learned that the learners don’t understand library organization what so ever. I initially started by organizing the library and placing all of the fiction books in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, only to find them disheveled and all over the place after one visit from a small group of learners. The problem extends to the point where they don’t even know how to properly place a book on the bookshelf. These are not only grade 1 learners that I am talking about, but even grades 7-8 who don’t know that the spine of a book should be facing out. After the first day I had to close the library early because I had wanted to pull out my hair, I had spent an entire day organizing for what felt like was no reason. I have had to remind myself that these learners are coming from households where they for the most part do not have bookshelves or books. Even the family I lived with in town didn’t not appear to own more than 2 or 3 books, and this is the village, where culture is even less westernized. And like I’ve said earlier there is really not much of a reading culture here in Namibia. I have decided though that even if the learners are not accustomed to how to properly shelf books it doesn’t mean that they are unable to shelf books, I just need to work on my patience and give it some time. I have decided that we are going to take baby steps in library organization. Right now I am working with them on how to place a book on the bookshelf. Eventually once they have this concept down I am going to work with the older kids on alphabetizing the books by author’s last name. For now if I can get them just to put the books on the book shelf in a somewhat orderly manner I will be happy. Right now my answer to the question is yes you can and should have similar expectations for learners in a village school as those in a city school, or learners that come from disadvantaged homes versus those who come from more supportive homes. However as a teacher I have to realize that I have to acknowledge that they are coming from a different place, so instead of yelling at them for being unable to shelf a book properly or add 2+2 or read a sentence, I need to invest additional in time aiding them to learn the right way of doing something. If I simply allowed these learners to put books on the shelf however they wanted or in no order than they would never learn the proper way of doing it or if I always cleaned up the library then I don’t even want to think about what it will look like once I leave.
On the same note of the library it has been funny because the little sounds people make when talking have been quite humorous. I always laugh when Namibians show disgust or disagreement because the sounds and facial expressions they make are different than American (not really a surprise), here they tend to make a sound similar to the tisk sound followed by a brief huff (I will work on getting a video of it, or describing it better). The kids find it funny in the library though because the sounds I make when the incorrectly shelf a book are equally as foreign to them. Typically when they are about to put a book on the shelf incorrectly I say “uh,uh,uh,uh” or something along those lines and they all giggle and try to make the same sound when someone else tries to put a book on the shelf incorrectly.
Shifting Perspective (11-7-2010)
The more I see the more perspective I gain, I guess what’s staggering is that what my perspective on what is considered big and small, what is considered comfortable, what is considered clean is being reshaped on a daily basis. When initially I arrived in Namibia I was in shock that Okahandja could be so small, an yet to be considered by Nam standards a large town, then after visiting Iilyateko, I returned to Okahandja, which seemed like the biggest city with everything that you could possibly need. Now after spending the weekend in Okatseidi I feel like Iilyateko is actually fairly large. Okatseidi is not on the electricity or water grid and the road in and out is only a single lane road, not wide enough to accommodate two cars. I actually really enjoyed myself at the farm in Okatseidi, it was quiet besides for the animals, chickens, roosters, goats, sheep, cows, and pigs, as well as I got the chance to take my first actual bucket bath, outside under the setting sun! I was a bit skeptical, but I am excited to move in with my host family and get to take bucket baths every day, there is just something liberating taking a bath outside. I think another reason that I really enjoyed my time in Okatseidi was that my principal’s dad and step mom, who we visited, were just so incredibly nice! We did not tell them that we were coming so my principal’s step mom saw my principal she was shocked, but then when she saw me she gasped, covering her mouth and fell to the ground. She was just beyond shocked to see a white person standing in her house. She kept telling me that I must learn Oshindonga, which is true, but also that I must come visit them every weekend! They slaughtered a chicken for me on Friday, and then on Saturday the Meme told me to come (ilya) and I followed her around an old broken down truck to find the Tate with a skinned goat hanging from an s-hook and they told me the goat is for me. I just kind of stood there I think staring at the goat with my mouth open because I certainly was not expecting to see a dead goat on the other side of the truck. I then watched as he cleaned the goat. It was fascinating because he knew exactly what he was doing and he cut the goat with such precision (duh, he has been doing this is whole life) but he didn’t make a single mistake, it seemed like he would cut everything exactly as far as he should not every accidently cutting too far into the goat. I was impressed and now I have a bit of goat in my freezer because they gave me some to take home, so I have to figure out a way to cook it.
When I was talking to my principal she explained to me in 1981 the South African troups came through her village and burned down her parents homestead, so they moved closer to town, until independence, when they were finally able to return to return to their home in the village. I feel like everyone you meet who is just older than me has some memory of the war and has lost something because of the war. I did however have one of my learners who told me that they hated the German’s because they were their oppressors, but that was nearly 100 years ago, I was surprised by that and encouraged him to follow Nelson Mandela’s lead a practice forgiveness for things that have happened in the past. I think though he was just trying to get a rise out of me.
So I know this is something that is obvious, but sometimes I forget that I shouldn’t let myself get too nervous and not try something new. An example of this was the other day I was going to go visit the girls who live in the hostel nearby the school, but I spent half the afternoon reading before I finally decided to run over there and when I got there I got the warmest welcome ever all the small girls came running at me screaming “Miss Lindsey, Miss Lindsey” and then all of them proceeded to jump into my arms and then we play some netball, a version of basketball that you play on a field. Here girls typically do not play soccer, but they play Netball. So they more or less taught me the basic rules, but me being confused and not exactly knowing what was going on kept tossing it to girls who were not on my team. I then talked to the girls for a while before returning home. It turned out to be one of my favorite days here, I just wish I would not have sat around for so long because I was nervous about just showing up at the hostel and having to possibly talk to the nuns in Oshiwambo. The next thing that I am going to tackle is hiking and I am going to see me friends next weekend!
I’ve had a bit of a reality check this past week with things continuing to happen at home and its forced me to realize, what I thought I understood, that things would continue to happen at home despite the fact I am not there, but now I am beginning to fully grasp that. I knew people would get married and people would get sick, but it makes it harder when these people are so close to you. Though I remind myself that even if I were in the States I probably would not be nearby and there would be nothing more that I can do to help. Surprisingly enough Homecoming wasn’t difficult to miss, I mean I would love to see my friends, but my weekend here in Namibia was pretty fantastic and I can’t imagine missing this experience just for a party. (Though I still want to hear stories, I always want to hear stories, or what people are up to because for the most part I am clueless.)
On a side note, which I feel like I have many of these, the night skies in Namibia are AMAZING! There are literally stars everywhere, and never before have I been awoken by a moon so bright!
So last week I talked to learners about Coats of Arms and we talked about the Namibian Coat of Arms and then they drew their own Coat of Arms. It was interesting because I learned that many of my Grade 7 learners like kissing and one of my learners told me that my face is the thing that makes them happiest, one also said he wanted to make the world as cool as ice. I had to laugh a little bit. The problem is they all tend to work in groups, so if one learner says they like kissing I end up with a stack of papers that all say they like kissing, though who knows maybe kissing is what makes them all happy….Nevertheless they are funny.
10/29/2010
Iilyateko Fun Day and a Namibian Wedding
Today at school we are having a Fun-Day, which is essentially like carnival day with some performances by the learners, events like an Egg Relay and bobbing for apples, and all of the learners had the opportunity to not wear uniforms and come in regular clothes or wear something funny. There will also be a crowning of Mr. and Mrs. Fun Day, which will be out of the teachers. My principal lent me a traditional dress so I am wearing that, two different pairs of shoes, my hair in pigtails, my head light, and I have a ridiculous amount of make-up on. I definitely am not the funniest though because other teachers came dressed as the opposite gender, which the learners found absolutely hysterical, and it really was pretty funny. The principal also looks hilarious, she is dressed in pants that are rolled down with her boxers hanging out and then another pair of boxers hanging out of a whole in those, then she is wearing two shirts and suspenders and her hair is crazy and she has make-up all over her face. Needless to say Meme Shemu, the principal was crowned Miss. Fun-Day.
At the end of the day I came home from the soccer game to find my soon-to-be host brother with his friends waiting outside the house. When I walked up he told me that he wanted me to show him a movie (I had showed him Up the day before) and he and his friends now wanted to watch Up. After they left Meme Shemu told me that we had a wedding to attend. I knew I was going to a wedding this weekend but for some reason, I guess because I am an American, I thought that the wedding would be Saturday, which is partially true. Here in Namibia weddings aren’t just a one day celebration. They begin the celebration the week before with the wedding announcement party, then continue the next weekend. On Friday people bring gifts to the bride or grooms house depending on what side they are on (we are on the grooms), and when I say presents I mean presents for the celebrations, so animals to be slaughtered, traditional beer, coca cola, etc. I thought it was funny because there were 6-8 goats tied up to the house and my principal told me that those were all brought as presents, I just cannot imagine my reaction if someone gave me a goat on my wedding. Another thing that my host sister in Okahandja told me is that sometimes when someone is well off gets married a poor family will give them the gift of one of their children, one to help out at the homestead of the newly married couple and two to possibly give their child a better life, she said that it doesn’t happen too much now though. While we were at the groom’s homestead I also watched a group of men essentially pull a dismembered cow out of the back of a donkey cart to be cooked for food that night. Cows are eaten only on special occasions, but typically if they slaughter an animal it will be a chicken or goat. They then proceeded to cook pieces of the cow over an open fire. I was offered pieces, so of course I ate it before my principal told me that they had used the bile of the cow for flavoring, yum! Because weddings are not simply a one day event people come with tents and camp at the homestead for the weekend, we were going to, but because we live nearby the wedding chose not to. People do this for funerals too, camping is done quite a bit is seems, you even see kukus (old men and women) camping!
I was then part of the wedding party who took a suitcase to the bride containing her wedding dress and some things to get her ready for the wedding ceremony, like a tooth brush, tooth paste, deodorant, a mirror, soap, etc. When we arrived at the house of the bride we of course honk the horns and start singing. I forgot to mention that Namibian weddings are not at all a quite event. There are lots of horns honking and singing and dancing and whistles and harmonicas. So of course when we arrived at the bride’s house we make a scene and dance for a while with the bride’s wedding party. To be honest I didn’t do much dancing, I was in a state of shock, but at one point a kuku pulled me into the circle and handed me a horses tail and wanted me to pump it into the air, shouting hiya, so I did do that. The horses’ tails are important culturally because when you are hit with them it’s a way of wishing someone good luck. There were horses’ tails in all colors black, brown, white, and even pink! After dancing for a while and singing songs we eventually earned our right to see the bride in her room. The group of us went in to deliver her dress and afterwards were fed dinner. Dinner consisted of chicken and beef and oshithima (mahangu porridge). After all of this we finally hit the road, well no exactly the road, but the Namibian bush and headed back to the groom’s house before finally heading home. It was all and all a really good day, however by the end of the day I was completely exhausted.
Saturday the festivities continued and we left for the wedding before 10 am (I think). We went to the grooms house, where everyone was preparing for the reception, part 2. Part 1 of the reception was at the bride’s house and then the entire wedding moves to the groom’s home to conclude the celebration. In preparation for the wedding they decorated the car, cooked lots of food, and pounded the mahangu. I had my first opportunity to attempt pounding, which I, as well as everyone there, found to be absolutely hilarious. I think I found it funny because I realized exactly how weak I am, the stick, or more like a trunk of a small tree, was a lot heavier than I anticipated. I think everyone else found it funny that a white person was pounding Mahangu. It was a lot of fun though, and I definitely would like to get better so that I can say that I’ve made oshithima from start to finish. I also want to learn how to make oil from pounding nuts!
I attended the wedding with the cousins of my principal, which was fun. The wedding ceremony was no different than the preparations, they were loud and all the Kukus brought their horses’ tails to the wedding. It was a lot of fun though, except at times I was scared for the couple because the minister appeared to be yelling at them, even though I know he was just passionate. Proof of this was at the end when he was leading everyone in dance. At the end of the ceremony they opened to floor to anyone who wanted to make a speech, so we had a while where various people made some speeches about the couple. Apparently one women said this couple is proof that love is blind, according to the girls I was with, and we weren’t exactly sure whether that was a compliment or not. After the ceremony which was a few hours long we headed over to the bride’s home. In typical Namibian fashion we waited for some time while preparations were finished. During this time the bride and groom were entertained by people dancing . Eventually the entire wedding party moved into the homestead and we went to a big tree where the bride and groom sat beneath and everyone lined up to give their first round of presents. Presents consist of money, baskets, or pots mainly. Once the gifts were received we went to eat. This was the part I felt the most uncomfortable because I was given the seat in the first row right before the bride and groom, who I didn’t know, and then I was one of the first people served and I was served on the nice china. There’s no real blending in because it seems at times like I am glowing in a dark room and everyone’s eyes are on me. I am flattered by their hospitality, but sometimes, well most of the time I feel undeserving of all the kindness in which everyone here bestows on me. I guess it’s better than simply being ignored though.
The wedding party, like I said, continues at the groom’s house afterwards. And more or less the same thing happens, with more or less the same group of people, give or take a handful of people. The bride and groom arrive and there is dancing, followed by gifts and then food. Keep in mind this is all within about an hour of each other, it’s not like eating lunch and then dinner, this is dinner part 1 and then dinner part 2, both consisting of complete meals. I am at the point where I feel beyond stuffed as I sit here writing this blog. I am not positive, but I think I was also fed a part of the cow’s stomach at the groom’s house. One piece that was placed on my plate was most definitely the stomach but I gave it to someone else, but I think the other pieces came from not too far away. Whatever I ate though, it wasn’t all that bad.
So briefly two things I have realized. One is that I never realized how much I relied on someone’s hair color and style to distinguish them from others. The girls here are always braiding their hair in different styles and all of the boys have short, buzzed hair. When a girl comes to school with her hair braided in a different way or without it braided I am at a loss as to who is standing before me. Then the boys I really struggle to tell them apart. I am learning new techniques for differentiating people, the boys it is typically the shape of their head, their eyes and their smiles. The girls typically have a pair of shoes or a bracelet or necklace or earrings they wear all the time and that helps me to distinguish who is who.
The second thing I find funny/interesting/maybe its just silly, but when I was in France I struggled remembering which is chaussures (shoes) and which is chaussettes (socks). (I think that is right, but to be honest off the top of my head I am not even sure now) Well anyways in Namibia the words I am continuously mixing up are goat (oshikombo) and cattle (ongombe). I just think it says something about language usage and culture. In France it wasn’t that I was always concerned with shoes, even though I did spend a substantial amount of time in shoe stores, but it was more finding ways to one keep my feet warm and two keep them dry. In Namibia shoes aren’t too much of a concern. Not all the learners have shoes, and those who do, most of them are on the verge of falling apart. However most learners do have goats and some have cattle at home, in fact we are visited by goats and cattle each day at school as they pass by as they are moving from one grazing space to the next.
Something I wanted to add to my firsts was today was the first time I opened a bottle with my teeth. I am not going to make a habit out of it, but I was so excited that I didn’t have to hand my bottle to someone else to open it for me. I was also excited because I know the first wasn’t a fluke, because I successfully opened 2 bottles with my teeth!
I know I’ve left details out, and unfortunately I don’t have pictures. Well I do have pictures, it’s just that with the current set-up for internet I am unable to upload them to the internet. If I do eventually make it into Tsandi/Outapi/Oshakati I will upload the pictures, so keep waiting and eventually there will be a flood of pictures on my blog from the past month or so.
Well that wasn’t quite what I expected… (10-27-2010)
So as I am sure you can tell from following my blog and experiences thus far there has been what seems like endless amounts of uncertainty. Joining the Peace Corps in its self is a bit crazy, and I am realizing I was a tad bit crazy telling them I had absolutely no preference on where they sent me. In a way I am glad I didn’t tell them anything about where to send me because I wouldn’t have ended up here in Namibia if I had picked my country because Namibia wasn’t even on my radar. It took me a week to actually be able to say Namibia properly, which now I am not sure why I found it so difficult, but apparently I am not the only American who has struggled with the name.
It wasn’t that long ago but I remember walking away from my parents towards the security line at Bush Intercontinental Airport thinking “What the hell have I gotten myself into?” For me to say I had no expectations would not necessarily be true but looking back on my pre-Namibian days my idea of the place I was going was an incomplete picture. I had made some generalizations about Namibian culture based off what I had read on brief internet searches and I had photographs of the Namib Desert in my head of the place where I was going. I remember trying to Google Earth the city of Windhoek, and the picture was not even close to being complete, only 20 or so pictures that people had snapped of places around the city. Before I left for study abroad I Google Earthed Nantes, France and you can actually see pretty much the entire city, even my neighborhood, which wasn’t exactly in le centre ville. Some of the ideas of Namibia that I had were that it was a country where women had few rights, German was spoken more than English (I think the stats were referring to Namibians mother-tongue language, and very, very few Namibian speak English as their mother tongue, thinking about it I can’t think of any off the top of my head that I’ve met), and I would be in a minority group of white Namibians.
Upon arriving in Namibia we were set on a bus that took us straight to Okahandja. From that point my idea of Namibia was based off my experiences in Okahandja. I knew that Namibia is a diverse country and they kept telling us that, it’s even in their National anthem “contrasting beautiful Namibia”, but I didn’t expect it to really be so starkly different in different parts of the country. For example I spent my time in Okahandja scoping out two of the four grocery stores to get an idea of what is sold here in Namibia. I then discovered upon arriving in the Omusati region that I can’t even get a fraction of what is available in Okahandja.
Though I didn’t have many expectations, there were certainly things that surprised and even shocked me about my site. Some of the things that I wasn’t quite expecting were:
- To not have internet. Okay to be honest I do kind of have internet. I have internet on my cell phone when I am standing at the right place in the village. However most of us bought USB adapters to use the cell service to provide internet on our laptops, but the cell service is not strong enough so I don’t have internet on my laptop, thus making blogging, email writing, researching, and photo sending very difficult. I think what’s most frustrating about not having internet is that I know there are so many grants out there and there is money available and resources available, especially for schools like mine, but having such limited internet access makes it incredibly difficult to actually find these grants and resources. I suppose in the future I might spend some weekends in Tsandi or Outapi and the cell phone signal is strong enough so it should work there. I went into this knowing that I might not have electricity and internet, but after living in Okahandja for 2 months having internet I think I was shocked to not have it. I also remember reading some stat like 90-95% of the country has cell service. On a side note I do have internet occasionally at site because my principal has a dial up modem connection that I can use occasionally, but it costs a fair amount of money that I just don’t have.
- That the village isn’t exactly the most peaceful place. The cuca shops keep it quite hopping, with music playing what sometime seems like 24 hours a day. I keep teasing them that the party never stops at the cuca shops (Which is like a bar and convenient store in one, basically your 1 stop village shop). I was excited to leave Okahandja where I lived beside the big Namibian highway, the B1, which is still only a one lane in each direction highway and where there were roosters crowing every morning starting at 5 o’clock down the street. Here in the village there is not the same amount of traffic passing, but in addition to roosters crowing just outside my bedroom window there are dogs, donkeys, and cows. And there are chickens squawking every time they are more or less raped by the roosters.
- I think my definition of a village was a bit skewed or I suppose Eurocentric. Before Namibia when I thought about villages I imagined tiny towns that were set apart from other towns or village, essentially like some of the French villages I visited. I pictured every village having a center that would have things like a grocery store maybe a restaurant or two and a few other small businesses. In my mind I imagined that there might be gravel, or sand in the case of Namibia, roads in a village but the main road would be paved. I guess before coming to Namibia I was pretty ignorant. There are no paved roads in my village, in fact you have to travel 15 kilometers to find a paved road (which isn’t that far, there are other people who are further into the bush), there isn’t a single restaurant only the cuca shops and shacks. Also there is a small area, less than an acre that consists of the village and from there you can see the school in the distance and the Catholic mission even further off, but not much else. I guess it makes sense that people are spread out and have lots of space in a country that is the secondly least densely populated country, but they have A LOT of space it seems. There are learners who walk 10 kilometers to school every morning and then another 10 kilometers home in the afternoon!
- To find garbage everywhere. This is more a reality check than anything else I think. I thought I had been conscious about garbage and when I would buy things I did actually think about buying things with the least amount of packing and reusing the packaging materials for other things as well, but I didn’t really thing about the small about of rubbish I threw in the garbage or recycled, it was just taken out of site but here just outside my window is a pile of glass bottles. When I asked about garbage that I have collected I was told it is typically thrown in the pit latrine at school and sometimes burned. I don’t actually know enough about waste disposal to know if one way is actually better but when you don’t have the infrastructure in place your options are limited. One thing I can say is that they do a much better job in the village about not producing waste. Many of the people a subsistence farmers and their food comes from their land or herds of animals meaning besides for bones there is little garbage.
- To be the only white person in my village. There is as I have mentioned before an albino girl, but after having lived in Okahandja where there were what seemed like a shocking number of white people in Namibia, and foolishly I expected the white population not to be concentrated in one place but more evenly distributed across the country. As I write this I realize that haven’t seen a white person or an American (which I know are not synonymous) but I haven’t seen either in almost 2 weeks. It’s funny though because everyone has to touch my hair and my skin, both boys and girls because they all want to know how it feels. They are funny about it because I guess asking to touch someone’s skin or hair is a bit of an awkward question so they try to be sly and touch it when they are in groups so I don’t know who touched my hair but then before you know it they are all grabbing at me and it turns into chaos.
- To have a woman principal. I was shocked to read my sheet of paper and see the name of my principal was a woman. We were told during training there are very few woman principals in Namibia.
- To have trees. They are actually everywhere I have been in Namibia so far. As of now they are bare because we are at the end of the dry season but I am told that they are supposed to all be green in the next couple of weeks. Sure enough one by one they are growing leaves; it’s just weird because there is no rain so I don’t know where the water is coming that is nourishing these trees.
- To experience any feeling of being cold anytime soon. I’ve been told that it does get cold in Namibia and it actually was really cold at night here when we arrived in August but recently its just been hot, while actually since I arrived in the North. But the other night I woke up because I was actually cold underneath my sheets, not cold enough to pull my sleeping bag out but I was actually cold. I normally spend my entire day dripping with sweat. I was hoping that I would eventually just adjust to the heat, but everyone suffers in the heat. Most greeting typically go,
“-Good afternoon.
-Good afternoon.
-How are you?
-I’m fine, how are you.
-I’m fine, thanks.
[pause]
-It’s too hot.
-I know!”
- I didn’t realize that I use people’s hair color and styles to differentiate them from others so much. Here where every week girls come in with their hair braided a different way and teachers are constantly getting new weaves I am in a perpetual state of confusion about who people are. I am getting better at distinguishing people from one and another by their faces or the one pair of shoes they each own.
