Reconnect

This week was pretty slow. The school year ended this past Thursday for the learners but the teachers are still working on marking final exams and preparing the schedule for next year. I was delivered a package that is actually for another Peace Corps volunteer, I’m told this is fairly common in you’re in an urban area like I am. On Saturday I hiked up a hill with Ricky and Barbara. My dog followed us, I’m not sure why dogs here love me so much but they definitely follow me everywhere. The town looks completely different now that it’s been raining a bit. The trees are green and there are actual grasses instead of just sand. I forgot to mention that last weekend our group met a Polish man who biking from Cape Town back to Europe. He had already gone through Asia, made his way to Australia, biked Australia, and sailed from Australia to Cape Town. He had some great pictures of his journey.

On Thanksgiving I talked with my parents via skype. It was really good to hear their voices though I didn’t get to see them. Sunday I leave for Reconnect which is more Peace Corps training. I will meet up with all of the people from my group and discuss different aspects of teaching and Namibian culture, as well as share our experiences for the first six weeks. I am not bringing my laptop and will be out of contact for those two weeks.

Thanksgiving

I called my dad this week for his birthday and had a nice talk with my parents for about ten minutes. It also rained nearly every day past week. I miss the rain a bit but it also gets annoying when you don’t have a car and have to either bike or walk everywhere you go. Also the power goes out for a few hours when it rains. I managed go to a barber and get a haircut similar to how it was in the states instead of just shaving my head like I have been. This is a big deal because we had one guy in Okahandja get a haircut that turned into a disaster and he had to shave his head. It turned out well and I even got a free shave out of it.

I invigilated (proctored) a test this week and taught some sixth grade math. I noticed the learners I was teaching could multiply and add pretty well but had serious problems with division and subtraction. I will test these skills my first week next year to see about remediation. The learners were hesitant with me at first but quickly warmed up to me. It was nice. I also marked (graded) exams for the science classes this week. It was slow but I used to grade for a professor so it’s nothing new.

This past Friday Caitlin and I got a combie (van) ride down to Keetmansoop for “Thanksgiving.” They aren’t many volunteers in the south, and those who are there are very spread out, so we don’t get together very often. It was nice to meet people I had been texting with since coming to Namibia. It was a nice enough ride down but there is a whole lot of nothing in the south. We could see several kilometers of nothing but brown plants and sand on both sides of the van. But we made it down to Keetmansoop and ate lots of food, it was amazing.

PS if you were wondering, Movember is when you go the month of November without shaving your mustache.

Movember

This proved to be an interesting week with most of the teachers in Windhoek grading tests the teachers mostly reviewed material with the learners or the learners started exams. Once exams started there was less for me to do than usual so I played the piano every day for several hours and helped out writing memos (answer keys) and marking (grading) exams. Luckily Mr. Bock came back on Wednesday so I had my buddy back to talk about music. He is impressed with how much better I have gotten at piano. On Thursday I bought a bike and biked over to Mr. Bock’s house for “band practice.” He has a dream of getting paid to play shows, coffee houses and hotels mostly, whereas I mostly just like having someone around to jam with. It would be awesome to play shows eventually though.
On Monday a group of young adults from Cape Town came to our school to dance to Christian music and perform dramatic skits for grades 7-9. These were people from Europe and Africa, though the group was out of Cape Town. I had an interesting discussion with some colleagues about whether or not it is wise to have the learners distracted right before exams when they should be studying. Most agreed that the dance group was a bad idea but no one knew whose idea it was for them to come.
I realized how incredibly out of shape I am when I rode my bike to the Oanob dam and nearly died of exhaustion on the way up the first hill. I biked about 16km round trip in an hour and a half going up and down hills on an uneven gravel road. I will get back in shape eventually.
It rained this week for the second time since I’ve been in Africa. I miss the rain. I enjoy reading and listening to the rain, it’s very calming. This week I didn’t have any credit on my 3G (internet works similar to a go phone) so I couldn’t post this over the weekend. Next weekend I will be in Keetmansoop for “Thanksgiving”. We can’t all get together on Thanksgiving Day so most of the volunteers in the south are getting together the weekend before to hangout. It should be fun.

November 7th

This week four of the teachers were in Windhoek for marking (grading) tests from all over Namibia. In tenth grade the learners take a standardized test (similar to FCAT) and if they pass they continue to high school. If they fail they stay in tenth grade or some drop out. Consequently the standardized test is tied into funding, thus making a problem similar to Florida where the schools that do well get more money and attract better teachers whereas the schools that do poorly get less money and continue to do poorly. Schools are allowed to regulate who is in tenth grade. This means that out of the four classes of 9th graders I will get only one tenth grade class of thirty learners. The oldest learner in 9th grade is 20 and the youngest is 14. Anyhow the teachers mark tests from all over the country in Windhoek. With so many teachers gone, the ones who have remained are not teaching so much as they are monitoring six hours of study hall. This gives me very little to do during the day. The learners start taking end of the year exams this week too, which will give me plenty of time for reading and piano.

I’ve decided on Monday I’m going to go to the library and see if I can get someone to tutor me in Afrikaans. I understand Afrikaans pretty well but I have difficulty speaking it. Most of the teachers at my school are more interested in teaching me KKG than Afrikaans and no one at my house is interested in helping me out.

I went to Rehoboth spa with Ricky, Sara from Kalkran, and Sara’s afterschool project Kayec. It wasn’t a spa as much as a pool but it is where everyone around my age hangs out on Saturdays apparently. So I may be hanging out there more often.