A Few Realisations

February 25, 2011

In the past 6 months I’ve learned that there really is much that can be gained from removing oneself from their own culture, transplanting yourself in a new one and then on top of that having massive amounts of time to reflect. Recently I realized just how brainwashed I’ve been from spending the last 10 years in the suburbs. For those of you who know me well I am constantly bashing Walmart and many of these big corporations that lack personality and make suburb after suburb, and now it even seems town after town become near exact replicas of one another. Even though I am not a loyal customer to many of these stores, I did not realize the value I placed on their presence in communities across America. I would often times turn to these big corporations and stores to identify the size of a town (a town with a Walmart and a Target is much larger than a town that is simply home to a Walmart), and further I would even make judgments about the affluence of a community by the presence and condition of these Walmarts, Targets, MacDonalds, Shell, and the list can go on and on. Upon coming to Namibia I have noticed the same presence of these chain stores, we have our versions of Walmarts, HEB’s, Shaw’s, and Targets here too. As a new arrival and as I learned the lay of the land, upon arriving in a town I would immediately scope out what businesses were around. Shoprite’s (mini Super-Walmart’s) seem to be everywhere, as are Pep’s (Walmart minus the food), though Spar’s (nice grocery store) are only in the bigger towns, and Super Spars (nearly the size of a small American grocery store, but they even have a health food section, ie. Organics) are in place of money. So when I arrived in Tsandi and Onesi (the towns that I am smack dab between, 15 kilometers to either one, I of course had to identify what chain stores where there so that I could assess the town. To my surprise, there was a tiny Pep in Tsandi (the only national chain store, it’s actually South African, random piece of information, the prices are all listed in Rand, even though Namibia uses its own dollar that is actually tied to the value of the Rand, and Rand is accepted in Namibia, but the Namibia dollar is not accepted in South Africa) and in Onesi there is not a single chain store. My initial thoughts, until recently actually, where that I am in the middle of nowhere and Tsandi and Onesi aren’t even really towns, if I want to buy anything I have to go to Outapi. Outapi is bigger than Tsandi, but the only big chain grocery store there is Shoprite, and it is the smallest one I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t until recently when I realized that in America I am constantly trying to avoid doing business at these big corporate stores and turn to farmer’s markets and local business, and yet in Namibia when I move to a town where there is only one big chain retail store I complain because I don’t consider the town to have much of anything. Anyways my opinion has changed. I have given these mini-markets a chance and actually really am learning to embrace Tsandi. I will say I cannot make a shopping list when I go to Tsandi because the last few times I’ve done that I’ve only been able to find maybe, just maybe 3 of the 10 items on my list, however I am certainly able to buy a week’s worth of food there, and I’m learning what mini-markets have what. There is one I’ve found, which might become my favorite because they have cheap fruit. Even when it can be frustrating that I cannot find eggs, bread, cereal, milk, or peanut butter, it just forces me to be creative and try new things. Onesi I don’t really go to, Tsandi is bigger and there is typically more traffic going that way. I also discovered the Cuca shop has a lot of food too, so I will never starve! And when worse comes to worse I can always go to Oshakati where they have every Namibian and South African chain store it seems.

On a slightly unrelated side note, food allergies are interesting here. I find myself eating a diet of peanut butter sandwiches, macaroni, rice, and porridge, though I am fairly certain that I have an allergy to either wheat or gluten though, so I need to cut out sandwiches and macaroni, but those two are the main staples in my diet, so I am on the hunt for easy alternatives for meals, especially for breakfast and my lunch at school, when I would eat Wheatbix or oatmeal and sandwiches. I’ve learned about a breakfast porridge made from sorghum, so I’ve been eating that but it’s not my favorite. I also learned with this particular Sorghum breakfast mix you can make breakfast drinks so I’ve been doing the American thing and eating/drinking breakfast on the go in the mornings on my way to school.

February 14, 2011—Wait where do I live again?!

This past week concluded my fourth week of teaching, and I’m about to finish month number one, which is a bit crazy because I cannot believe how fast time is going! I wish there was more to say but the last week was pretty uneventful. I am running behind because of course things are taking longer than I expect in the classroom. It’s just really difficult to have a 40 minute class period and actually accomplish much productive, especially when learners don’t do their homework. They are getting better about homework, I can say that, but I still don’t have 100% doing it but I suppose that’s normal. Last Friday I was a bit terrified to go to school in the morning because ¾ of the teachers and the principal were going to workshops in Outapi, leaving just a few of us to run the school. It turned out to not be too bad though and the learners were actually fairly well behaved. I think the highlight of their day was me allowing them to watch a movie in Life Skills. I had kids trying to crawl through the windows to join my class to see the movie. It’s funny because I can set up my tiny laptop with speakers and 40+ learners will more or less silently crowd around the laptop in awe. So few of them are exposed to media so they loved it! This is a problem because as I’ve said over and over Namibia is the land of contrast, so when the people writing their exams ask them about some current event in Windhoek or progressive issue or even to write a review of a movie, but the learner has never even seen a movie or has little exposure to the news or things like vegetarianism (I haven’t explained yet to the learners that in America I don’t eat meat, but I don’t think many of them would even understand if I explained) it really isn’t fair because they’re already at a disadvantage. The Term 3 exams last year asked them to write a paper on the pros and cons of being a vegetarian. I rolled over laughing when I saw that. I showed them the beginning of The Blind Side though and they were amazed with a few things: 1. The game of football (or American football to specify); 2. The fact learners in America do not wear school uniforms; 3. The sheer size of American secondary schools; 4. The habits at an American dinner table; 5. The sizes of the houses. I know there is more but from the oooing and awwwing that is what I picked out. I then stayed after school and allowed other learners to watch Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s always funny the phrases they actually understand and it surprises me to hear them actually repeating what they hear. The boys afterwards told me they wanted more Captain Jack Sparrow and I giggled inside a bit because that is how they refer to the movie. I want to do movies once of week if they want to stay but the problem right now is there is so much work for these kids to do at home, with it being the wet season and they’re needed at their homes to cultivate a year’s worth of Mahangu. Parents have been complaining because teenagers being teenagers find every excuse to dodge manual work at home. One positive side of their willingness to dodge household chores is that attendance this time of year is really good. We even have Saturday classes for Grade 10 learners and for the most part they’ve all been coming. I don’t know if I have mentioned the importance of grade 10 in Namibia, but essentially to move on to Grade 11 you have to earn X number of points from your exams at the end of grade 10. An A is worth so many points, a B is worth fewer, and so on and so on. If you do not earn enough points then you cannot continue on in school. They do allow learners to repeat Grade 10 once, but that is something new. The other option is to do NamCol which offers remedial classes to those learners unable to score high enough on their grade 10 exams. One problem is NamCol is in only so many locations, cost money (so does school, but many parents refuse to pay for NamCol), and there is a bit of a stigma about attending NamCol it seems, so many learners from my school don’t take that path, but stop their education at grade 10. It is a joke among many educators I’ve learners to call a second helping of food “going for NamCol”.

So this past weekend I spent the night in Outapi with other volunteers. It was nice to go into town for some time, be able to do my shopping and have an American dinner of tacos. It was rather interesting though because I learned that there are very few places to use the internet or make copies and they are in places that you wouldn’t expect, like hair salons. We also discovered there are very few places just to hang out in Outapi. We spent the majority of the day going up and down the main road peaking into stores and getting sunburn. We did stop for pizza and ice cream! It’s funny because the ice cream was a drumstick that had melted and frozen again in some weird shape and it was a bit soggy, but seeing we haven’t had ice cream or chocolate in so long it tasted pretty yummy! Oh the things I find edible here that I would simply throw away in America. And in general the things I keep around and repair instead of throwing away always surprises me. Many of my skirts are developing holes and I find myself attempting to mend them or in some cases just leaving the holes because they aren’t too visible. I noticed my leggings today have a fairly large tear in them and in the US they would just hit the garbage and I would go buy a pair of $5 leggings but here I’ve set them aside and will attempt to mend them. It’s not that I can’t afford new leggings either, but your perspective changes when you see the school uniforms that are in shreds because they are going through their 5th or 7th child in the family, then a small hole or tear no longer seems like such a huge problem.

Just a bit of a side note. It’s interesting because each month brings the harvest of a new fruit, vegetable or grain. When I first came to the North it was the palm fruit (the driest fruit you’ll ever taste), then mangos, spinach, and now guavas. A fresh guava makes my day because you’ll find them around the village for only N$0.50, quite a bargain!

So many of you have asked me what I want. Honestly I don’t need much. Two ideas of things to send though are craft kits, I have lots of spare time and for those of you who know me I love being crafty, I even bought knitting needles in Swakopmund; or simply a good book or two.