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.

First week

This week I started working at Vooruitsig (pronounced: for-ate-seg) Junior Secondary School. At the school they teach grades from preschool up to tenth grade. I’ve been working with the grade 9 math and science teachers mostly. Over the past week the students have become accustomed to my presence in their class and around the school. The importance of the learners becoming use to me cannot be understated; both as an American and a white person the learners have many misconceptions about both. It is easy to see how the Apartheid has affected many of the people in the school. I haven’t been teaching classes and most of the learners are either writing exams (taking exams) or preparing to write exams over the next few weeks. School ends the first week of December so there is very little for me to do. I spent a significant amount of time talking with my vice principal Mr. Bock (Phillip) about music. He too is a guitarist. I showed him my guitar books and let him borrow two of them. He also used to play rugby professionally and if Namibia had been an independent country he could have played for the national team. We have decided that we will get together and jam out sometime. He also showed the upright piano no one uses, that is locked away in a storage closet and mostly forgotten. I started playing around on it a little and everyone seemed pretty impressed. I now bring in my guitar books and play simple chords with my left hand and the melody with my right. I’m not very good but I haven’t played in at least 10 years and I’m definitely getting better. I also spend a lot of time with Mr. Tsumaseb, (don’t pronounce the “T”) a younger teacher who use to be very active in fundraising and community involvement until several disagreements with his supervisors discouraged him. After speaking with him I have a few ideas for secondary projects that we can work on together, like bake sales, vending machines, and other community involvement ideas. By working closely with a Namibian my projects will hopefully continue even after I leave.

This week myself, Caitlin, and Ricky walked the seven kilometers to the entrance of Lake Oanob to look at the animals. We saw a lot of zebras, springboks, ostriches, and one thing that looked like an odd cross between a donkey and a zebra. I’m not sure if a zebra and a donkey or horse can have a child, but it definitely looked liked a hybrid of the two. There will be pictures to come at some point.

Officially a Volunteer

This past Tuesday was our language proficiency test. I scored intermediate high which is a pretty good score. I’ve become a lot better at understanding Afrikaans but when I try to speak it my accent is terrible. I’m going to get a language tutor and keep working on it so I can become fluent. Friday was swearing in day and it was a lot like graduation. There were education ministers, Peace Corps directors, but the ambassador to Namibia was not able to make it though they had a representative from the ambassador’s office. There were speeches and it was a relatively uneventful ceremony. The best part was the Okahandja Children’s Choir singing. They were phenomenal. After the ceremony I said a few quick “see you laters” and left with my supervisor, who is now my new host father.

On Saturday in Rehoboth (my new city) I met up with Debbie (group 29 health volunteer) Maureen and Ricky (group 31 health volunteers) who are all stationed in Rehoboth. I also met Emily who is in the Cavongo region, another group 31 volunteer. We talked and ate most of the evening before Ricky and I walked back to block D and departed ways. In six weeks I will be leaving my second homestay in block D and moving into a two bedroom flat at the teacher resource center (TRC).

Busy Week

This week we were split into groups and sent to co-plan, and co-teach, in schools around Okahandja. I was sent with Sarah and Lauren to Aurora Primary School to assist with sixth and seventh grade natural science. On Monday I had to observe Mr. Mbanga (pronounced Bonga). He’s a pretty good teacher and has excellent classroom management without beating the learners (students) or yelling a lot. We co-planned a lesson on electricity for me to teach on Wednesday, because Tuesday was international teachers’ day and there were no classes. Wednesday Mr. Mbanga was absent so I was pawned off onto another teacher for the day. Mr. Ronnie is another good teacher and he showed me the school free lunch program and where they make the maize meal. Thursday Mr. Mbanga was dealing with administrative paperwork and asked me to teach his first and second period. I had planned for sixth graders and these were seventh grade classes. I walked in front of the classroom and started talking about electricity hoping they would know a little already and I can just supplement anything else I wanted to. It worked pretty well, though the topics were a little random and scattered. Mr. Mbanga came in for third period and we co-taught the rest of the day. He would introduce the lesson and talk to the learners, then I would have the class’s attention for how to build a circuit, then he would summarize and close. It was very effective. Friday the seventh graders were cleaning up a foot path and Mr. Mbanga went with them. I was supposed to teach sixth graders at third period but half of the staff was absent (either at the clean up or at teacher training) and I was particularly unmotivated. As I walked out of my second period class I ran into Angelika, one of the Peace Corps supervisors, and she asked if she could sit in on my class. I ended up teaching the entire lesson with Angelika and Sarah observing me. It was actually really helpful and I got some good feedback from them.

The other important event of the week was rain. It rained for the first time I’ve been here last week. There was a large lightning storm, I went outside to watch it and was instantly sand blasted. I decided to just listen to the rain on the tin roof and fall peacefully asleep. It was awesome. Oh and I weigh about 72 kilos (160lbs) now. I attribute this change to a lack of good pizza and beer. Combine that with walking multiple miles every day and it is ridiculously easy to lose weight. I will probably gain some when I go to site and start cooking for myself.

This coming Tuesday we have our language proficiency test. I think I will do pretty well, Afrikaans is a pretty easy language and very similar to English. I’ll still spend most of Sunday and Monday studying though. Next Friday is the swearing in ceremony and then it’s off to Rehoboth for the next two years. I’m really excited and want this week to go by fast.

Saturday Adventure

On Saturday I was walking with some other PCTs into town from our suburb. My tiny dog that I affectionately refer to as “shit-kicker” (real name kiff) decided it would not only be a good idea to follow the group along the highway, but it would also be a good idea to chase cars and play in the middle of the highway. As a scientist I am for natural selection, the group I was walking with was not. So after two or three close misses it is determined that I will pick up the dog and place him in my backpack Paris Hilton style. We walked to town, all around town, and back, with the dog in my backpack. Yes it was very adorable and pictures will be posted at some point. The best part of the entire journey was the reaction of the Namibians to this random white person carrying a dog in his backpack. The reactions ranged from talking about it in their mother tongue to opening pointing and laughing at me. It was a good time overall.

The human body never ceases to amaze me in its ability to adapt to a change in environment. When I first arrived in Africa, the dryness of the desert caused many problems from skin irritation to nose bleeds. Now after 6 weeks here I no longer have any of those problems that I initially had. My hands are more calloused and I walk barefoot over rocks without any real problems.