Braais, Hitchhiking, and other Namibian Adventures: 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!