Miss, are there tribes in America?

One thing that is so interesting is the learner’s struggles to conceptualize the United States or America.  For many of them me and other volunteers are the only thing that they know of the United States.  I am constantly struggling to explain that in America we live in a pretty diverse country with people from all over the world (I realize some communities in America are more homogenous than others, but where I am in Namibia all of the learners for the most part are Wambo).  In the city and towns people for the most part have access to television so they have an idea of what America looks like and they have an idea of what the classic American family would be, however living in a place like a village without electricity and many books they struggle to understand.  I am always getting questions from my Namibian learners about what tribes I belong to.  For me I don’t quite know how to answer it, but I tell them we don’t have many tribes in America.  I tried to explain that there are Native American tribes, like the Apaches and Cherokees, but I told them that my family comes from Europe and from many different countries and cultures including England, Sweden and Finland and then I explain to them that I don’t know much about these cultures though because they have lived in the United States for a long time, so now I am American.  It is also interesting because they’ve asked me what my mother tongue language is and when I tell them English they are shocked.  The learners, for the most part are all Owambo, however at home they speak Oshikwaluudhi and at school are taught in Oshindonga and English.  I’ve also been told that its not fair that I don’t have to learn other languages and can be taught in my mother tongue.  They were shocked to learn that ¾ (I think that’s the statistic) of Americans mother tongue is English.  Only ¼ of American learners hear another language at home.  They also are shocked to learn that it is also hot in America.  Many of the learners think that all of America is a cold country, and that is the other thing, the size of America that is so difficult for the learners and Namibians to grasp.  Every time that I meet a Namibian who has met an American they ask if I know of them.  I have to explain that there are 3 times as many people in my city in America as Namibia.  Here as I drive to the store with my principal she can identify the people in just about every car as we drive to Outapi, which is 45 km away from my village.  Not only do they know the majority of the people, but in some way they usually end up being related to one another.  You always hear “Oh this is my cousin,” however they struggle to explain the actual connection of how they are related.  It’s bizarre because even in Windhoek I have met people who have family in my village so I’ve been instructed to “greet their family when I return.”

This morning training was quite humorous because we had one volunteer who taught a mock lesson and the rest of us acted like our Namibian learners and it was hilarious because there are reoccurring behaviors the appear all across the country.  I felt bad for the guy who had to teach because we were awful, but actually all the behaviors we displayed would occur in a Namibian 40 minute class period.  Some of the things we did were when he asked a question everyone’s hands flew in the air and we were frantically snapping our fingers to get his attention.  Then once someone was called on they would either give an answer that was not at all related to the question, suddenly become shy and bury their face in their arms, stand up and start swaying as they whisper their response, just stare blankly at him in what seemed like a stare off, or ask if they can leave the room.  Then when he asked us to write some of us wrote, others just stared and some asked him to “Borrow me a pen sir” or asked permission to leave the room to borrow a pen from their friend or sibling.  My favorite was when in the middle of his lesson one volunteer stood up and walked to the front of the class and whispered a question in his ear one she got his attention.  Learners will do this all the time, and other times they will just walk out of the classroom without saying a single word to their teacher.  I was in shock the first few times I observed a Namibian class, but it is something that you adjust to and I think with time my learners will understand that it is unacceptable for them to simply walk out without asking, they will also learn that I am hard of hearing so that they will need to speak up, however I don’t think I will be able to stop the snapping.  My learners can be particularly bad about this because they will literally stand up and try to snap as close to my face as they can reach.  One major difference between the volunteers experiences in the North and South of Namibia is that the learners in the South typically have better spoken English so they are quite talkative and volunteers struggle to keep them quiet, however in the North English is something many of them struggle with, at least speaking, so my constant struggle is trying to get them to actually talk.  Another thing that I am going to struggle with is teaching them that they cannot simply copy from a book or one another.  Generating their own ideas is something that is difficult because they are taught in a way that promotes the memorization of fact and information that doesn’t promote critical thinking skills.

On a side note we went today to visit Namibia’s Habitat Research and Development Centre which was so cool and right up my alley because their goal is to combine environmentally sustainable building techniques with development in low income housing.  In Windhoek there are many unofficial settlements with shacks, so they are examining and experimenting with different techniques that rely on local materials.  One thing that sounds frustrating for the people working in this centre is that they said politically and in the general public there is little support for these eco-friendly alternatives.  The man who gave us a tour said their big push is for Windhoek to start utilizing their techniques as a city because he said Windhoek is the leader and once they do it then everyone else will.  I know he is Namibian and knows Namibia, but it seems it might be effective to work on selling or promoting their techniques in cities that are rapidly developing, for example my shopping town of Outapi I am told had very little there just five years ago, but now there are all the major banks and a few grocery stores and even a pizza place.  These places are growing fast, so why not implement these techniques in these places?  I have learned though questioning their logic seems useless because it is just a cultural difference how they approach a problem and I cannot expect them to take a more American approach.