Happy Halloween

Ricky, one of the other volunteers in Rehoboth, taught Pieter Geingob (one of the teachers at my school) a little bit of Spanish. Pieter now always greets me in Spanish and I have taught him a little bit more. One day while I was in his class he greeted me in Spanish and I replied in Spanish. One of the learners overhead this exchange and asked me “How do you say ‘tree’ in your mother tongue?” I was really confused by this question. She had to ask it two more times before it was clear that she wanted to know how to say tree in Spanish. Here English is only spoken at school or official functions and everyone speaks at least one other language. At my school their mother tongue is KKG and they all speak Afrikaans and English as second languages. It was really interesting because the learner believes that English is only spoken in schools and is not people’s mother tongue.

Starting November 12th the schools begin exams, and if there was little productive work for me to do these past two weeks, there will be nothing for me to do until November 29th when I go to reconnect. I spend most of my time playing piano and studying Afrikaans. It is a surprisingly difficult language when you’re starting to be conversational in the language. Also this week I started exercising more to try and keep from losing muscle mass. Caitlin and Barbara came into town this week. We hung out at Ricky’s apartment and just watched movies and traded funny stories from site.

Some people have asked about food so here is general diet. At 4am I get up to use the internet, around 6am I have a cup of tea with milk and sugar. At 830am I have a sandwich, usually butter and meat paste, I have a second sandwich around 10am. I eat lunch at 1pm and it’s usually some type of meat and carb, rice or more sandwiches with butter on the bread. I eat dinner around 7pm and it’s usually rice or pasta, meat, bread with butter, cool drink (soda or juice) and maybe a small dessert made of carrot slices mayonnaise and sugar. I eat all the food given and often get additional food but that is the typical diet for most people in Rehoboth.