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!