Force feeding my learners Ritlain

A long time ago my brothers and I were known as “Those damn Neiberger boys.” Like many kids there were several adjectives associated with us, the nicest of these were things like “adventurous” and “Rambunctious,” the worst (and more common) was things like “pugnacious” and “a terror in my classroom.” A friend of mine once told me, during a Boy Scout meeting, that his parents had, at one point, forbid him from playing with us on the church playground because we were too rough. Elementary school, for us, was a time of rough housing and fighting. However we were lucky enough to miss the Ritalin craze of the late 90’s and early 2000’s and just enjoy our fighting. Eventually my brothers and I all used sports as an outlet for our aggression and what a great outlet it was. Now let me tell you; there were teachers who wanted the three of us to be on ADD medication or at least mild sedation. I would love those teachers, psychiatrists, and concerned parents to look at my learners. My learners don’t often listen to me or anyone else. Some of their favorite games involve punching each other in middle of my class. Another game is slightly like dodge ball but instead of teams throwing big red balls at each other they throw anything that is available. It could be a dirty sock or it could be a rock. Whatever is available. It reminds me of a game that we use to play in our neighborhood called “Pinecone War,” where we would throw pinecones at each other as hard as we could. Although it is usually infuriating when my learners do these things while I’m teaching, I find I often have more in common with 5th and 6th grade learners than I do with many of the kids back in the states. It could be one reason why I hate kids, with the exception of my amazing niece Gabby. That kid is adorable.

Being normal is overrated

Namibian Independence Day was celebrated with a three day weekend since my last post. Myself and the other volunteers in southern Namibia (we call ourselves “southies”) got together in Mariental for good food and a few good laughs. There were about twelve of us in total but not everyone showed up. After meeting all of these people from different places in The States; I’ve come to a conclusion about Peace Corps. Every volunteer is a varying degree of insane, or at least the volunteers who make it as long as we have, the sane ones leave before being here too long. We are an unusual mosh-posh of thrill seekers, idealists, and weirdos. I have a joke here that I keep saying “In August I came to Africa with 44 of my best and only friends.” Sadly that number has dwindled because two people in our group left and there are people from my group that I won’t see until we get on a plane to go back to the states. Now I’m in Africa with about 15 of my best and only friends. Now don’t get me wrong. I am very happy here. I fit in with all the craziness. But sometimes in life you just have to sit back and laugh at the absurdity of the situation you’re in. Here I am in Rehoboth Namibia, trying to educate nearly unmanageable children whose parents are likely abusive alcoholics, I spend at least 20 minutes a day breaking up fights, I have been cursed at in multiple languages for nothing more than being white, I sleep on a bed that is likely giving me back problems, and every now and then I start randomly vomiting from food I am given that either wasn’t cooked or stored (or both) properly. Yet, I am here and perfectly happy with my life. Yeah I’m pretty sure I’m insane…

it's been a while

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written a blog post but teaching full time is exceptionally time consuming. Last week my school had control tests. A control test is when the administration forces all math, science, and English teachers to give a test at specific times. It was annoying because I had already given tests the previous week and had to write (make) new tests and grade five classes of tests this week. It was a pain but I got everything done.
This week I was in Okahandja at a Peace Corps seminar on gardening. I have never had a garden before but I managed to grow an onion by throwing rotten onion out of my kitchen window. I have a small area next to my flat that has space for my garden. It won’t be very big but I will be able to grow a few things for myself and maybe a few others. The first part of the seminar was about microgardening with hydroponics. This method is not very feasible for most of the group because it requires a lot of trips to Windhoek to get the supplies and all. The second part of the seminar had a former Peace Corps Volunteer (from Haiti in the 80’s) who explained permagardening, which is a form of permaculture. He showed us how to make these small gardens that are extremely high yield by double digging the soil and using basic rain capturing techniques. It’s pretty cool and my counterpart Dawn became more interested in doing this at the TRC where I live and at various schools and aid relief programs. I’m pretty excited about these gardens too. It’s going to be a lot of work but it would be nice to get the garden going and have a few trial runs before I attempt this at my house. Not my parents house but the someday imaginary house that I have in mind which includes a brewery in the basement and now a garden in the backyard.

Athletics

This was a pretty tough week. Since we finally have our official time table for the school year I had to adjust several lessons to classes I wasn’t expecting or completely prepared to teach. It was a headache for Monday and Tuesday but it got slightly better as the week went on. I do not care for my schedule much because it is very heavy at the beginning of the week and lighter towards the end of the week. For instance, I teach eight straight periods on Tuesday without a break, and seven on Wednesday without a break. But it is not all bad, my school finally has internet and I will start bringing my laptop on certain days so I can check my email without getting up at 4am.

This week was also hectic because of the athletics (track and field) meet that was held Friday and Saturday. I was a time keeper for the high schools and spent most about 10.5 hours taking measurements of people running various distances. It was boring as can possibly be. The exciting part was watching the learners collapse. This happened for multiple reasons. The athletes train for maybe three or four weeks before the meet and are not usually in the best of shape because several times practices are cancelled for rain or learners simply don’t show up. Also, no drinks water at the meet because “it makes them throw up”. I tried explaining simple hydration techniques but no one really listened. Several got bad cramps and had to quit competing. It’s actually pretty scary to have an athlete collapse about 10 feet from the finish line and then be carried under a tent and rubbed with a wet cloth, by the hundredth or so time though you get pretty used to it.

I’ve determined Namibia has four basic seasons: winter, summer, rainy season, and second summer. Summer is characterized by near 100 degrees temperatures everyday and nearly no cloud cover. We are now entering second summer. Most days are very hot with very very blue skies. The occasional evening or night time shower occurs but this happens rarely. The nights are getting colder and come winter (sometimes in April or May) it will be close to freezing at night and 50’s or 60’s during the day.

Finally have a timetable

This week I started a competition among my tenth graders to get them to do their homework and be good in class. They’re very excited and the reward is a movie, food, and drink at “Kayak” the after school place for the winning group. There was a massive rainstorm this week and the next morning when I went to my host family’s house for a ride to school (I can’t ride my bike when the roads are flooded) and there was a new ten foot wide river running in front of the neighborhood. After that storm it didn’t rain for two days. I like the rain better.

I started taking Afrikaans lessons again with my colleague’s thirteen year old daughter. It’s very humbling to be taught by a thirteen year old and a little annoying. I’m hoping to be fluent within a few months. We finally have a time table (schedule) that starts on Monday. My subject package includes grade 10 math and physical science, grade 8 math and physical science, grade 5-7 ICT and grade 5 religious and moral education. I’m not sure what to teach for religious education, especially to children who can’t seem to stop punching each other.

Master Chef

Three weeks into the trimester and still no complete time table (schedule). We have a MWF time table and a TR time table but our school is on a five day rotation which means there is a different schedule everyday so the learners can get to all the classes they have. For instance math is five days a week but science is only four days a week, but a learner might also take a once a week computer class. The schedule allows for more subjects to be taken but it’s not always efficient. I also found out this week that the other computer teacher teaches classes in the computer lab at the same time I teach grade five ICT, meaning that I am supposed to teach computer classes without a computer. I asked my HOD and he said I can do whatever I want with my grade fives. I am a babysitter for two classes every day. This realization originally annoyed me but I’ve found benefits in being a babysitter. One benefit is that I don’t actually have to teach so I just play games with the kids. I have them draw pictures, play heads up seven up, or let them play on the playground. It makes life easier less frustrating when I’m not teaching them.

I gave my grade eight class a math quiz and it didn’t go well. In Namibia if a learner fails a grade twice they are “transferred” to the next grade. The problem with this is you have learners in grade eight who haven’t passed a class since grade four. My school doesn’t allow learners to “transfer” after grade eight. The only way into grade nine is by passing grade eight. I helped out with Athletics (track and field) practice most of the week which was good but I couldn’t exercise by myself which is something I really enjoy doing. I learned I’m not very good with a javelin or coaching children how to throw a javelin. My bike tire got punctured by a rock, or broken glass or any number other sharp objects along the roads. I took the tube out, found the hole, and patched it up. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Now I need to find how to stop the gears from making funny noises and slipping. Lots of rain this week.

I cook a lot now and I’m determined to be an excellent chef by the time I come back to the states. Everything I make is from scratch. If I want pizza, I make the sauce, the dough, cut the toppings, cook the meat, and grate the cheese, all by myself. Not the most difficult of dishes but really tasty. I’ve started experimenting with new foods though. I never really made breakfast in the states and now I can make pancakes and omelets. We have a Peace Corps cookbook and I’ve gone through and highlighted the different foods I want to make. The only problem is that sometimes the recipes are wrong and you have to remake the food with changes to the recipe. I had a cookie disaster with my cookies I was making for my host mom’s birthday but in the end I amended the recipe to work.

I started teaching

This week I started officially teaching classes though the time table (schedule) is not completely finished even by the end of the week. My school roughly had 750 learners last year and this year we have around 650. No one is quite sure why but we think more will show up sooner or later. So far on my schedule I get to teach tenth grade physical science, eighth grade math and physical science, and grades five through seven Internet communication technologies (ICT). Here instead of being a subject teacher, everyone just teaches whatever is needed whether or not they are actually qualified for it. Because the time table isn’t finished we’ve been using the same schedule everyday and just waiting until later to use a schedule and teach real lessons.

This hasn’t been too bad except for teaching the fifth graders ICT. The normal ICT teacher is in South Africa because he daughter started school in Johannesburg. I have no syllabus (syllabi are developed by the ministry of education and given to the teachers) and no one to ask what I should teach the learners. Because of a complete lack of preparation for the learners I have not allowed them on the computers and mostly end up babysitting the most rambunctious children for two class periods every day. It is not enjoyable though my older learners are excellent and I really enjoy them. I sought advice from other teachers at school, they replied “You must get a stick and hit them,” for multiple reasons this advice was ignored. Discipline with the younger learners is difficult. They are under the impression that if I don’t hit them they are doing nothing wrong. I’ve talked to other Peace Corps Volunteers and they have given me some advice but they mostly say it will just take time for them to get use to your style. My head of department tells me that when he writes the actual schedule I will not have the fifth graders and will likely only teach grades eight and higher, until then it’s just hang on and hope for the best.

On a more positive note I had several people over this past weekend for a house warming dinner. It was a lot of fun sitting around and discussing our first two weeks of real work with some of the older volunteers who went through the same thing last year. Also the food was wonderful. I made pizzas for people and the second night Martin made tortillas and we had beef curry tortillas. It was pretty delicious. We also had scrambled eggs and pancakes Sunday morning. If you couldn’t tell getting together and eating real food is very important to the sanity of a Volunteer.