HIV/AIDS Awareness Week

By last Thursday, I was not only out of groceries but also completely out of electricity. The lack of groceries wasn't so bad as I've discovered that certain women in the village will come to the schools around 2 to sell fat cakes. Fat cakes are fantastic oily, doughy balls of goodness that will actually fill you up for a while AND only cost about .12 in US. Brilliant. The electricity part was a bit more complicated. I figured I must just need to pay the bill and all would be resolved! I thought wrong. Apparently the electricity meter in my house has a serial number that I have to take to a gas station to purchase more electricity from them, and they give you a ticket with the code to type into your meter when you get home. Who would've thought you'd buy electricity from a gas station? Totally bizarre, and super complicated for me since there aren't any around here. Thankfully, I was already planning to meet up with some fellow volunteers, Michael, Lisa, and Richard, in town on Friday anyways. But what should have been a simple hike into town turned into an ordeal as my friend Anna and I waited to get a ride into town. Normally, I'd be able to hitch a ride with one of the teachers around 2, giving plenty of time for travel before dark. However, this time we ended up waiting till after 5 and hitched a ride with some Germans that happened to show up randomly in our village to do a water presentation at the school. We finally got into town and had an amazing (relatively speaking) dinner at a very nice hotel in town. We then met up with my friends at a crazy place down the road called Bennie's. It's pretty much the strangest place you can find around here. It's basically a jungle resort in the middle of the desert with a huge pool, peacocks, and meerkats roaming around the hotel grounds. We all hung out there for a bit then Anna and I went back to her apartment for the night at the University of Namibia Engineering Campus. The next day we walked to a fellow volunteer's school and caught up with him for a bit then met up with Steve for a while as well. We then all parted ways and I took a taxi to meet with the teacher that was supposed to give me a ride back to Enguwantale. After waiting with him in several different bars and three hours later (for what should have been a 40 min trip), I was finally back home. Apparently drinking excessively before driving home is typical around here. Yes, I was scared, and yes I offered to drive us home myself!


In other news, this week was HIV/AIDS awareness week at my school. I was really excited to get involved and do as much as I could with the learners since I'm now also teaching them about HIV/AIDS in my life skills courses. I worked with the principal and arranged to make the red awareness ribbons for everyone in the school to wear this week. I thought it should be easy enough, but of course that was wishful thinking. He did buy some really nice red ribbon, but no safety pins. So, I was then given a bottle of wood glue to glue the ribbons together...how they were supposed to then put them on their clothes still baffles me. Wood glue was also a failure, so I just started stapling them together. Finally, I convinced him to send someone to a china shop to buy safety pins. Success. Ms. Iita and I worked for two days making ribbons, and I'm proud to say that everyone had a ribbon by Thursday! I also worked with the grade 10 learners doing research online for information on HIV/AIDS then had them make posters to hang up around the school for the official ceremony. We had anonymous boxes set up in each classroom in which students could place their questions to be read aloud and answered at the ceremony held on Thursday. The questions were priceless. Obviously, a lot of the students didn't take it seriously and asked silly questions, but even some of the ones that I think were supposed to be serious were too funny. They had all of the teachers laughing hysterically in the staff room. But overall, I think it was a huge success. The question and answer session was really informative for the learners, and the posters got the normally rebellious grade 10 learners really excited and involved. Heading to Epupa Falls this weekend with some other volunteers, new post to follow!

Meme Iita giving out awareness ribbons

Learners waiting for the ceremony to begin

Sunsets and dancing

Beautiful sunset in my backyard

Rebekka

Terrifying, almost always out of control donkey carts

Beata

Makgona-Ngwao Cultural Group in Windhoek

The reason I volunteered

The past few days have brought a lot of changes. The first week or so in my village I became a bit frustrated that I wasn’t able or allowed to do much of anything around the school. It seemed as if everyone wanted and expected me to be superwoman, but at the same time would not fit me in the timetable to do so. Honestly, I was overwhelmed and felt as if my presence was in vain when I physically could do nothing but continue to ask my principal to fit me into the schedule. The issue wasn’t that they weren’t trying, the principal had to meet with two other teachers to decide which classes I could replace with my computer/Life Skills class. One day the principal would be here, but the other two were not and vice versa.

Finally, this Wednesday afternoon the committee fit me into the timetable by replacing several Basic Information Sciences courses and a few Religion classes. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere after idly making lesson plans for a week. The funny part is that I went from doing that, to having an insane schedule in the matter of a day! I came in this morning an hour before school started to discover that I had too many learners per class to fit them all in the computer lab on our main desktops. So, I had to download the typing software I wanted to use with the learners I had been teaching informally all week onto about forty small laptops…one at a time…before my classes started. Then I had the secretary need help fixing her laptop at the same time, and another teacher bring in a massive stack of notebooks that she needed help grading for her English class. Craziness. Everything eventually calmed down again, until the science teacher took the projector I needed for my class two minutes before the class started. Solution: some serious improvisation! I know you’re thinking “wow poor first world girl without a projector…deal!” But I also don’t have any type of chalkboard to write on in the classroom and was teaching grade 5 learners that have one year of English. I’ve found that communication without any visuals is only successful with lots of crazy hand motions and an endless supply of patience. Thankfully, I’ve got a good bit to spare!

Overall, it was pretty successful. One moment in the day stood out to me more than any other though. I was working with the grade 5 and had two learners per computer. Two of the girls in the class were exceptionally bright and picked up on everything so quickly, but one was using her left hand on the mouse. We’ve been trying to get all of the learners to use their right hands so the backwards button confusion doesn’t throw them off too much. So, I asked the girl if she thought she could try to use her right hand instead of her left. She paused a moment then put her right hand on the mouse. I wanted to break down and cry. She had been using her left hand because her right hand is severely deformed, and here I was telling her that using her right hand is better. How could I not have noticed? I certainly wasn’t going to tell her then that she couldn’t use her right hand. If she was confident enough to try, I had to be confident enough to teach her. We figured out a way for it to work and I felt a new confidence arise in her when she conquered using the mouse with a hand that everyone told her was no good. That moment made everything worth it. It was by far the happiest moment I’ve had since I’ve been here. This is why I volunteered.

Learners singing at morning devotion, just click the link below!

Beautiful video of the learners and Meme Juliah singing at morning devotion

Some of my wonderful Grade 9 and 10 learners with their crazy cow drawings :)

From never sitting in front of a computer, to mastering Paint!

Beautiful sunset in front of my house :)

Another sunset at Meme's homestead

Beautiful little Magano

Wa tokelwa po?

Finished out my first week of school on Friday! Most of the teachers and principal were back from their workshops on Thursday so my classes got put on hold until they are officially put into our timetable. So, I spent most of the last two days of class helping Anna move bricks to the school’s biogas digester that is currently being built. I had no idea what that was until extensive explanation from the engineer so don’t feel bad if you don’t either! Apparently the Ministry of Education provides the school with some type of grain to cook and serve to the learners, but Enguwantale has no means to cook it for all of them. Thus, we are building some type of brick and cement hole in the ground that will be filled with cow manure that the learners have been bringing in every day. The manure will then produce methane to use to cook the grain. Hope that’s the right way to explain that…pretty cool project, and I’m glad it’s actually taking off. Grant tried to get a garden going with an HIV/AIDS women’s group, but has had a lot of trouble keeping it together so I hope to help him get that going again. One of the memes that was involved with the garden passed away last week, and I think it would really help the women grieve and feel empowered to get that garden going again in her memory.

Speaking of the ever-present HIV/AIDS dilemma, Mr. Katshinatsha, my principal, has also asked me to start teaching the Life Skills course. I’ve never actually had a Life Skills class, and the classes I was originally supposed to teach aren’t even on the school schedule yet so I’m not really sure how that’s going to work out, but I hope that it does! Right now, there aren’t any free periods in the day that the learners could take computer classes during so I might be booting out their Basic Information Sciences class and maybe some Religion classes, but they only have those once a week. The Life Skills course seems to be really important though since it focuses on disease prevention, how to handle teen pregnancy safely, alcoholism, and many other issues that really plague this country right now so I’m hoping to just combine both of those classes into one. Maybe have them do research on these issues using the internet (once we get there, getting them to put their hands on their mouse is priority number one right now) or showing them powerpoint presentations. Please let me know if you have any suggestions!

Hmm what else has happened…

Grant and I also hiked into town after school on Friday to get some groceries and supplies for the school tuck shop (sells odd things to the learners at break like seafood and pickle flavored chip/cheeto hybrids). By “hike,” I mean hitch hike with whoever is willing to drive down the insane road leading to our village. Everyone just walks down the road in the direction they want to go, and anyone driving will usually pull over and pick you up. Normally a mass amount of people just loads into the back of pick up trucks (bakkies) and holds on for dear life as you plummet through the sandy hills while dodging cattle and goat herds. Its quite the adventure…We did our shopping as quickly as possible so we could get a ride back before nightfall, then went to the local pick up spot for cars traveling out of town. We then piled into the bed of someone’s car with 6 other people and started the trip back to Enguwantale. Imagine six people laying/sitting in the back of one covered truck flying through the desert. I have no words for that one other than bone-rattling insanity. We didn’t even make it all the way back to our village before our driver decided he wanted to stop by his house to “prepare some things then head out again soon.” Soon is a terrible word to hear here like now, it means the exact opposite of soon. We sat there for almost an hour waiting for who knows what before the sun started setting. Neither of us wanted to be on the road after dark so we were about to walk all the way back to the village with our stuff when he finally decided we could go. After unloading groceries, I went over to Grant’s homestead to play with the kids and have dinner there. That was thankfully uneventful until I had to walk home afterwards…in the dark. Grant offered to walk me back but it’s pretty far and I decided I needed to man up and get back on my own! So, armed with my knife (thanks Jonathan!) and my headlamp, I started my trek through the sand and brush back to my house (essentially walking from one middle of nowhere to the next middle of nowhere). I was super brave until I looked around and saw a bunch of glowing eyes around me! Probably nothing but the rabid dogs and the occasional goat but I was pretty sure I was going to die out there haha No worries though, I obviously made it back alright! I guess that’s all for now, but I’m sure I’ll have a bit more once classes start up again tomorrow!

First day of class

We had our first day of class on Monday, and I have to say it was the most bizarre first day of school that I think I've ever had. I woke up around 5 to eat and watch the sunrise then headed over to school around seven to finish up some lesson planning. At around 7:45 some of our grade 7 learners (students is used for college level only) rang the bell to tell everyone to move quickly to the schoolyard. At around 8 someone sounds the most shocking school bell in existence. It literally sounds like an air raid alarm. Absolutely terrifying and it happens twice a day.

We then had morning assembly in which the principal or one of the other teachers leads the learners in song and prayer then makes announcements while the teachers stand in front of them in the schoolyard. It is FRIGID. The wind is insane in the mornings and often causes small sandstorms, but none of that mattered to anyone because they were too busy gawking at me the entire time. Thus, I've also learned to live with feeling like a bit of a circus freak. People want to stare at everything I do. I can't eat lunch outside anymore or none of learners will remember to eat their own food. Too funny. I've also learned to deal with an absence of teachers. My principal and about half of our teachers are gone for the entire week to go to workshops. Absent teachers is more of the norm than present ones, or at least that's the impression I've gotten so far. Substitute teachers are unheard of so we just have classrooms full of kids with no one watching them. Since my classes haven't been worked into the school timetable yet (and may never be), I've just been pulling interested learners out of the classes missing teachers. The learners are so respectful and can't wait to hear whatever it is that you have to say which makes the rough times much easier to cope with. 
 

Sweet kids at the Genade children's home :)

First week!

Sorry for the long delay in getting this up! The internet in Windhoek was pretty unreliable and I’m only able to access internet at my village school.  But after a 15 hour flight, several hours in the Johannesburg airport, then another flight to Windhoek, we finally arrived at our hostel on June 2^nd. Windhoek is very very different from what I expected. It is extremely German/European influenced and didn’t feel all that much different from being home. Their malls are actually probably nicer than ours but any line you stand in you must be prepared to wait there for an ungodly amount of time. One Namibian nuance for you: “now” means maybe within the next few days or maybe never, “now now” means soonish, and “now now now” means actually right now (which is also probably half an hour to an hour later than now in our sense of the word. We spent the whole week going through orientation and really getting to know the other volunteers as well as our Field Director and Summer Coordinators Kaylan and Rachel. Getting to know them and all of our volunteers has been such an amazing experience in itself. Everyone here is so different and brings something special to the table in every situation. All have the biggest and kindest hearts and I couldn’t ask for a better support system while I am here. 

I was extremely happy that we had training in lesson planning, classroom management, and all of those other things that I have no clue about since I don’t have a formal teaching background. We also had language lessons according to which regions we would be staying in so I began to learn the Oshindonga dialect of Oshiwambo. Pretty difficult but a lot of the words are fun to say. Like omafufu, meaning hair and the response to all greetings, EEEEHHHHH (picture a very loud inquisitive sound that isn’t actually asking a question at all).

We visited Klein Windhoek, one of the more prominent areas of Windhoek then traveled to Babylon, an informal settlement of aluminum scrap shacks. Seeing the difference was incredible and the informal settlements like Katatura (sp?) are far more prevalent. We then went to an open market in the settlement where we ate fat cakes (a type of doughy goodness) and kapana (grilled and heavily spiced meat). One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned while here is to not ask questions when food is involved. It’s typically never refrigerated and “fresh” can mean anything from “I just axed it in the sand over there” to “It was killed fresh two weeks ago and I’m just going to go get it out of my car.” Hmm sticking to being vegetarian looks better and better the longer I’m here… Though I have to say braai spiced meat is delicious and I haven’t gotten sick off of anything yet. Hopefully it will stay that way! We also drink the water here straight out of the tap which was a big surprise. It tastes a lot like chlorine but its bearable and actually tastes much better up in the North.

Our last night in Windhoek Friday, June 8^th, we went to a local Herrero restaurant that Andrew Zimmerman has apparently also been to…the potatoes were good…everything else scared me. But everyone should be proud that I ate beef liver (one of those things where I just didn’t ask questions until later…). Later Paul, my phenomenal friend from the UK, convinced us all to go to a club after that even though most of us had to be up at 530 the next morning to get lifts from the Ministry of Education into the North. It was definitely an experience. It was fun to go out and dance and finally let loose a bit after being cooped up in the hostel all week. (General Namibian Rule #1: NEVER go out after dark. Even in groups.) We all had some close run-ins with locals getting a bit friendly, but of course Paul and Benedict always came to my rescue. Steve, one of our oldest but most spirited volunteers, came along as well and danced better than any of us! I was also told I was “very beautiful like a chicken” by a guy in the club…I was curious what the heck that meant so I asked around and found out…if you’d like to know shoot me an email, its quite entertaining or you can just leave that one up to your own imagination.

The next day we all left for our villages. Roger, Steve, Alida, Richard and I all took one combi (van-type thing) up to the North together since we were all going to the Oshana region, though in different villages. The drive was about eight hours and involved gospel, Prince, and Blondie on repeat for hours while avoiding wart hogs. Good times.

We then had some confusion with principals so I ended up waiting at a bar with Alida and her principal for mine to come pick me up. He was so kind and told us about his childhood when the war was still occurring. It was sad to hear that the heaviest fighting was around here and that everyone could constantly hear gunfire around them until it was over. Freedom is something you don’t take for granted here. My principal eventually showed up and we piled all of my stuff into the back of his truck and proceeded down the “treacherous” road leading to my village. I think I live the farthest out of town from any of our volunteers and the road is immensely bumpy and in the middle of a whole lot of nothing but it is absolutely beautiful. It is incredibly peaceful with nothing but grass and semi-desert for miles around me. Grant, a peace corps volunteer in my village, was extremely generous and helped me get settled into my house then invited me back to his homestead, the only one I can even see from where I live and where the school is located, to eat dinner with the kids he lives with (their meme is out of town for a week or so). I tried the local brew, some kind of fermented grainy thing, and mopani worms. Yep, that happened. They’re actually fat caterpillars cooked up in butter from the forest farther out from our village in the bush. Interesting. Not bad though, just kind of salty.

The sunrises, sunsets, and night sky here are incredible. Incredible is an understatement. The sheer amount of stars you can see is amazing and the milky way is beautiful. You can actually see a very clear and large milky way. Don’t think Ill ever get used to that one.

I start my first day tomorrow and hopefully the power will be back on by then!

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not represent the opinions of WorldTeach, the Namibian Ministry of Education, or the United States.