“to recognize the value of a year”
songs I listened to while typing this that you should listen to while reading it.
because they’re awesome. and you are too.:
“el scorcho” - weezer
“the concubine” - beirut
“your english is good” - tokyo police club
“sleepytime in the western world” - blitzen trapper
“the breeze” - dr. dog
“staring at the sun” - tv on the radio
“all my friends” - lcd soundsystem
“back to boston” - rosebuds
“sunday morning” - no doubt
“memories” - david guetta
“everything about it is a love song” - paul simon
“anti matter” - n.e.r.d.
“solo impala” - the fashion
“sir duke” - stevie wonder
“catastrophe and they cure” - explosions in the sky (from their album “all of a sudden I miss everyone”…how appropriate)
“buffalo soldier” - bob marley
“young pilgrims” - the shins
“horchata” - audiodax
“free fallin” - the almost
“live fast, die old” - frank turner
what.up.
Don’t feel neglected. Because you’re not the only one that I’ve forgotten to write to…I’ve forgotten myself. I haven’t really reflected on the past year as it is easier not to. It’s not that the past year has been so awful that I don’t want to think about it…it’s been the opposite actually…but thinking about how much I’ve changed, what all I have done, how I only have a year left with these beautiful people, it just gets my mind going to a place that is a good kind of scary. It’s strange how normal life has become for me here. The distinct rattle of a donkey cart approaching is no longer exotic. Namlish phrases have infiltrated my vernacular and waiting 4 hours when someone said they were coming “now” is expected. These things have become normal, so now is different from when I first started posting on this thing. Everything used be new and ridiculous, but now it’s just life. Ok, like right now I’m sitting on my back porch with two Herero girls, one is in pre-primary and the other is in grade two. As I’m sitting and typing on my computer, listening to The Fashion, they are playing next to me with buttons. Speaking a language that I used to think sounded just like The Sims, they are trading, throwing, and chewing the buttons. They hardly know any English, but they try. “Miss, the baby did go.” “Miss look.” I used to be uncomfortable with small children always visiting my house. They are cute and all, but I came as a volunteer teacher, not a volunteer babysitter. Now, I consider them company. Any time of the day when my front door is open, or there is any sign of life at my house, they’re over. If I don’t have other work to do, I’ll play with them. We color, play Memory, play made up card games (I’ve tried to teach them go fish and crazy eights, but the language barrier is quite the problem), and various versions of tag. It is only when I stop to think just how crazy it is that the crazy isn’t crazy to me anymore. Does that make sense?
Yeahhhhhhhhh… so I’ve been here a year.
That’s insane.
At the end of last term, my whole Peace Corps group travelled down to Windhoek and had a mid-service conference. At some point during the couple days we were there, someone said that now, for the rest of our lives, we’ll be able to recognize the value of a year. Truth. I mean, before I left, I had just graduated from DePauw with an English writing degree and a deep need for an adventure. I spent that summer ritualizing my good-bye, bumming around in Ohio, Indiana, and Chicago (not to mention the epic southwestern USA road trip), and spending too much money on booze and any and all food that I would have to go two years without. A year ago in August, I had no idea what I had just agreed to do. Pre-service training was full of my frustrations and stress migraines learning a click language, meeting so many new people, and trying to get all of my questions answered about this place. Every question I had was answered with “it depends.” While I hated that response, it was true.
That is how Namibia is…it depends. This place is so ambiguous and most of the time an answer that you got yesterday is different today.
Oh wow. Yeah. Eleven months. Uhh. Ok…
Let’s start with my first term of teaching. In January, I moved out of that host family household and into my own house, the one that the previous volunteer moved out of. Being on my own was so nice, and when teaching started, so necessary. My first term of teaching, so my first three months really being here, were the most stressful, emotional, aggravating, and rewarding of my life. Unless, you’ve done the Peace Corps it will be impossible to understand; however, I’ll do my best to explain.
My school is a farm school. Seventy kilometers from the nearest town (well, technically Kamanjab is a “village” and Erwee is a “settlement” but for the purpose of understand, I’ll call Kamanjab a “town” and Erwee a “village), all of the learners who attend live at the surrounding farms. Transport is a national problem in Namibia, but particularly a hinderance when it comes to getting learners to my school in time for the first day. Especially after the long December holiday. So the first couple of weeks of school are a cluster…you fill in the rest. It is impossible to teach because for the first week of school, only about a third of the learners are there. So, even if you wanted to start, you would have to repeatedly explain whatever you had covered. Ok and even if I were to start teaching the first day, I’d be the only teacher doing so. Trying to control one class while the rest of the school is running around going crazy, would not only be near impossible, but it wouldn’t be the most conducive environment for learning. So, I spent those first couple of weeks doing diagnostic tests to determine the reading levels of my learners. Having taken copious notes on all of my observations of each learner, the third week of school, when most of the learners were there, I thought I was ready. I went over classroom rules (class is R.E.A.L.ly.F.U.N! Respect, speak English, Ask to move from your seat, Listen, and have FUN) and classroom procedures.
Introducing rules and procedures was my first indication that wasn’t going to be like any teaching experience I have ever had. Read any book on teaching or ask any teacher and the most important thing they will tell you is consistency. Nothing in Namibia is consistent. Not even the grocery stores. I’ll go to SuperSpar in Otjiwarongo to do my shopping and one week they’ll have chick peas, then they won’t have them for 3 months.
The time table for my school is outlined like this:
6:50 morning staff meeting
7:00 bell rings; learners queue up for morning assembly
7:10 - 7:50 first period
7:50 - 8:30 second period
8:30 - 9:10 third period
9:10 - 9:30 tea time
9:30 - 10:10 fourth period
10:10 - 10:50 fifth period
10:50 - 11:30 sixth period
11:30 - 11:40 second break
11:40 - 12:20 seventh period
12:20 - 1:00 eight period
Please notice the extensive time alloted for passing period for the learners to walk from one class to the next. Also, before the learners enter the school gate, they must queue up silently, by grade, from shortest to tallest. Getting three hundred children to do this takes a while. So seventh period, the class after the second break is frequently cut in half. If the morning staff meeting happens, it lasts longer than ten minutes. The morning assembly is always longer than ten minutes. Between singing, singing the national anthem while finding the flag then raising the flag, praying, and morning announcements, it is not uncommon for first period to get cancelled. Tea time is rarely only twenty minutes. Instead of calling my school inconsistent, I’ll call it flexible.
The first term, the complete disregard to punctuality almost killed me. But this is the system my learners are used to. So, if I was going to have a successful classroom, I was going to have to get used to it too. Instilling my classroom rules and procedures literally took the entire term and it is still not going as smooth as I would like. But part of being here is rolling with the punches. So I do.
With all of my pre-testing, I thought that the lesson plans I had come up with for the first couple weeks of school were level-appropriate. With grade sevens, I started with writing stories based off of pictures. I gave them verbs and nouns that would presumably aid in writing their stories. After spending a week on this, a lesson which I allotted one day for, they turned them in. That weekend, as I was reading them over, I quickly realized that most of them had no idea how to write a proper sentence. Punch. Rolling. That same first week, I introduced nouns to both of my grade five classes. I teach 5a an 5b. Spending the entire week on Monday’s lesson, I realized that 6 of my 50 grade 5s can identify letters of the alphabet. Double punch. Trying to roll. Oh and of the twenty eight learners in that 5b class, three understand English. Knock out.
The backtracking to determine where is actually an appropriate place to start on top of the learner’s behavior broke me. I spent much of that first month at school clenching my teeth, holding back tears, and nursing stress headaches. I had never been that frustrated in my entire life and in turn I have never been that scared. What the what was I doing here? And for two years? I definitely thought that I had made a huge mistake. Everyone was telling me that it would get better, to which I always responded “when?” I imagine this is what Kelly Rowland and that other child thought when Destiny’s child broke up Beyonce got huge and started dating Jay-Z. I had decided to do this, had looked forward to doing this, only to have it suck so so bad.
The only recollection I had of learning the alphabet was “B” day in kindergarten with Mrs. Bingamin (or as we endearingly and creatively called her Mrs. Bingabutt). I had my mom sew buttons on a sweatshirt dress. Yes, a sweatshirt dress. Dear 1990’s, what were you thinking? Not only did I choose to publicly humiliate myself by wearing it to school, I five year old consciously decided to have it documented forever seeing as it was picture day.
As much as I have tried to repress the memory of my defunct fashion sense, that was all I could think of when I realized that I had fifty learners who did not know their alphabet.
The Ministry of Education is known for passing brilliant laws and regulations for the Namibian school system. Transferring is one of them. Transferring is the Ministry’s ingenious plan that basically stagnates the intellectual growth of the nation. That may sound a little dramatic, but I really cannot find any other logical reason why they require it by law. It says that no learner can fail more than once in a phase. Grades 1-4 are a phase, grades 5-7 are a phase, and grades 8-10 are a phase. Grades 11 and 12 are different where only learners that pass grade 11 can move on to grade 12. For example, if a learner fails grade one, where passing is 30%, they repeat it. Well, let’s say said learner fails again, welp, they get transferred to grade 2. More than likely that learner will fail grade 2 because they were unable to pass grade 1. Transferred to grade 3. Fails grade 3. Transfers to grade 4. Fails grade 4. Transfers to grade 5. Now, without having passed a single grade for 5 years, that learners ends up in my grade 5 class not knowing the alphabet, not knowing how to spell his/her name, and not knowing his/her birthday.
The alphabet is as basic as I could think. How could I teach material more remedial than the alphabet while still sticking to the syllabus which I am required to cover? Namibian schools are more concerned with bureaucracy than their learners. As a teacher in the Namibian school system, I am required to have files which are essentially binders filled with Ministry circulars and other needless paperwork. Even if it is above my learner’s levels, like even if my learner’s cannot read or write, I am required to teach what is in the syllabus and required to document it in a year plan, scheme of work, and daily lesson plans. Now, I have never taught in an American school, as I am sure in one form or another these things are required as well; however, the difference is in America (I think or I guess I hope it is this way) the priority is given to the education of the child, rather than the paperwork behind that. It is the complete opposite here.
I made the personal decision that during my time here I am going too focus on literacy and not only the skills needed but to foster a love for reading in my learners. Some of the learners do not have these basic skills. So, I’ve made it my charge that by the time I leave most of my learners will have basic reading skills. The most sustainable thing that I can do is be a positive role model and facilitate literacy. If some higher-up from the ministry wants to come into my classroom and reprimand me for not teaching what’s laid out in the syllabus, I’m ready with my rebuttal.
Between figuring out what paperwork is required, where to start with the alphabet, and how to get my learners to class on time…be glad good reader that I didn’t post anything that first term. Anything I would have posted would have made my blog go from PG to R simply with the expletives.
So I spent January to April with my grade fives on vowels and vowel sounds while I covered nouns and the basics of sentences and paragraphs with grade seven. Four months and that’s all I could accomplish. So I left Erwee for the May break extremely down and was ready to reward myself with a two and a half week vacation in Swakopmund and Cape Town.
May is fall down here, so even though the weather wasn’t ideal, the time with my friends away from school was amazing. We spent a couple of days in Swakop, simply walking around, eating good food, drinking good drinks, and toeing the ocean. From there we made our way down to Cape Town. Since it has been done by several volunteers before us, we (myself, Shannon, Liz, Vanessa, and Ashley) decided to hitch hike to CT. Like I said earlier, I was a graduate of DePauw University and the only thing I knew I wanted was an adventure. So we eventually got down to Keetmanshoop, a city way way south in Namibia. We overnighted with one of Shannon’s friends and got up really early so we could make it to the petrol station to try to catch someone going all the way down. We talk to the attendants and tell them where we are trying to go and that, if possible, we’re trying to go for free. No more than ten minutes later, one of them comes up to me, points to man inside and says, “He’s going.” I ask him if he’s going to CT, he says yes, I ask if he’d mind taking me and me friends, he says no. He’s driving a touring company van back to the headquarters and says that it’s policy that he cannot pick up hikers. Understandable. So, we head back outside and split up. Ashley and I go to sit on the side of the road while the other three sit on the curb at the petrol station. Five minutes later, Shannon is screaming “JULIE!! ASHLEY!! COME ON!” Apparently the man decided to stick it to the man and disregard policy and take us anyway…for free! Best hiking luck we could have asked for…hiking gods were definitely on our side that morning. Ten hours later, we rolled into Cape Town and I was so confused because it was a real city. I mean with people, tall buildings, and traffic! I was feeling a little overwhelmed after we checked into our hostel and decided to check out the night life. There were so many choices…choices on where to eat, on what to eat. Did we want to go somewhere else for drinks or did we want to stay? We could do either. Though Windhoek is a big city compared to the rest of Namibia, it is nothing compared CT. So having gone 9 months without having to make very many decisions like that, it took me a couple days to get used to. Oh, and there was a McDonald’s! Stateside, I wasn’t really a McDonald’s lover. I was more a Taco Bell kid. But those fries and the pump ketchup and the sesame seed bun…ooo girl, good stuff.
After that first night, we spent the next couple of days in Stellanbosch, a town just outside of Cape Town in wine country. It is known for its wineries and for the university it houses. Cute place that if it wasn’t in South Africa I would describe as Americana: brick sidewalks, sidewalk seating, parks, adorable. We signed up for a wine tour through Vinehopper. The bus picked us up at our hostel at 8:30am to take us to our first winery. We did the tour and a tasting of five wines and collectively decided that wine is a perfect breakfast time beverage. The next winery served us ten tastings. Even though a tasting isn’t more than two gulps worth, ten in one sitting made us forget about the cold, rainy weather that was making us sit inside. For the next six hours, we visited 4 more wineries. If you ever find yourself near Cape Town, a wine tour comes highly recommended. The rest of our time in Stellanbosch we ate good food (you’ll notice a theme during this ZA visit), went to thumpin clubs, and slept in real beds. It doesn’t take much to impress me anymore. If there is good food and a real bed, I’m happy.
For the next week or so we were back in Cape Town. I saw two movies in real movie theaters, ate ice cream, window shopped, sent my clothes to a laundromat, basically did all the things I miss from America.
We also took a day trip to Simon’s Town. My friend Stewart has a friend that lives in Cape Town and has a truck, so we borrowed it so we wouldn’t have to deal with the trains. It was a beautiful drive along the coast but because before we left we put unleaded petrol in it’s diesel tank, instead of going to Simon’s Town and the Cape of Good Hope, we were stranded in Vishoek while the truck got towed and only had time to visit Simon’s Town. What’s so special about Simon’s Town? Beach penguins. Yes, penguins that live on the beach. They are the cutest and funniest little things. We were pretty stressed out about the truck but an hour of googling over the penguins playing in the waves eased things up a little bit.
Shannon, Liz, and I climbed Table Mountain one afternoon. A couple of friends of ours who had climbed it few days previous told us not to take this one route because even though it is the most direct route to the top, it is by far the steepest. So, we get in a taxi at our hostel, tell him to take us to Table Mountain and we get dropped off at the entrance to one of the paths. We thought we knew what we were doing and were positive that we didn’t make the same mistake they did. Eleven minutes into climbing some of the steepest rock steps I have ever seen, we realize that we’re idiots. So, instead of turning around and finding another, less challenging path, we just decided to stick with it. Actually, I thought it wasn’t as bad as the others had made it out to be but I can’t say that Shannon or Liz felt the same. Two and a half hours later, we made it to the top. Cape Town is a beautiful city. It’s a big city. But what’s so special about it is Table Mountain. Anywhere you go you can take in the skyline but the whole city is dwarfed by this enormous mountain in the background. Mountain on one side, ocean on the other. When you get to the top, getting down, you have two options, you can take the cable car to the bottom or you can climb back down. I was too cheap to pay the eighty-five rand (=$12usd) for the cable car down, so I spent another two hours climbing down with Liz. It wasn’t so bad at the time, but the next three days were painful. If I were a learner I would say that “my legs were paining.” Our room at the hostel was on the second floor and I tried to limit my trips down the stairs to twice a day, max.
Overall the trip was really refreshing, but during the 21-hour bus ride back to Windhoek, I was dreading going back to site. I had left feeling defeated, depressed, stressed, and frustrated. Going back to teach a second term seemed impossible. But then, an unexpected thing happened.
To get back to my site from Kamanjab, you drive 70 kilometers down a gravel road. More than likely, I’m riding in the back of a bakki and while I don’t get as car nauseous as I did when I was a kid, this gravel road will do it to me. A pretty terrible end to a 7-hour trip from Windhoek. So, as I’m exhausted from the day-long bus ride and trying to keep it together while the back throws me up and down and side to side, we arrive in Erwee.
Some learners were busy moving back into the hostel and whenever any car drives by the school, all of the learners stop and watch it until it is out of site. So, when they saw me in the back of the bakki, it was a chorus of “Miss Julie! Miss Julie!” accompanied by several high pitched “Aaaaaaaaah!”s. Instead of feeling dejected and miserable, I was elated to be back. I had forgot how much I missed the sound of learners’ screaming, how much I missed my library, how much I missed my tiny bed and foam mattress, how much I missed Erwee. I wasn’t ready for that, to feel at home.
But, I am and the second term was nothing like the first. I knew what to expect the second term. I knew learner’s names and could actually pronounce them correctly (which literally took me the entire term to do for some…Tjozohongo, Iworonganisa, Muzomundu, Katunambata…see?). I was comfortable with time inconsistency and have become really laid back when things do not go as planned. Surprisingly, my learners know what to expect from my classroom and from me. Not to say I didn’t have terrible days the second term where I would lock myself in the library for a cry or when I would just leave the school because I was so frustrated I had to go home…not my proudest moments…but overall, I would wake up in the morning ready for a good day instead of expecting an awful one.
Since school was no longer draining every ounce of my energy, I felt like I could take on some secondary projects. I started reading with small groups of my grade sevens in the afternoons. We met Monday through Thursday in groups of three or four and we would read a book in that week. I would present an easy chapter book to them on Monday and say, “we are going to read this book this week.” No fail, they would always respond, “oh no miss. That book is too long.” No fail, on Thursday when we’d finish it they’d say “miss, I didn’t think we could read it.”
Most of these learners have little to no self-esteem. They entire lives at school and at home they are told over and over that they can’t. So, that’s what they have come to believe. It is so frustrating to tell them that yes they can and to have them look back at you so confused because they don’t believe you. The second term, I was no longer as concerned with the surface-level things that were frustrating me—classroom management, learners’ reading levels, discipline problems—as I was with the real life these kids live. I’ve come to care so deeply about these kids and to want to give them everything, to give them their childhoods as the carefree kids they’re supposed to be, that I am so aggravated with the things I cannot change, that I cannot control.
But I do what I can, I guess, to set them up for success rather than failure. Thanks to my dad and Angie, I have begun to do that with puzzles. My dad had sent me some puzzles in a package one time so I put them in the library on a shelf for the learners to play with if they were able to read quietly during their B.I.S. period (basic information science aka structured library time). Much like the book a week idea, the learners did not believe that they were capable of putting all of the small pieces together to make one big picture. But after some encouragement, they began to find pieces that fit together. When a learner finishes a puzzle, his/her hand shoots up as he/she yells “Miss! Miss! Finish!” They are so proud of themselves so much to say, “look at me, look at this. I did it. Not him, not her. Me. I, I did it.” Pretty awesome.
During the second term, I also started coaching netball. Netball. Think basketball, but on sand, without dribbling, and without the contact. Kind of like a mix between basketball and ultimate frisbee, if you’re familiar. Seeing as I played basketball for ten years and never mastered any sort of ball handling skill, netball is my kind of sport. It all started when I went to one practice to help out my friend Joyce, the pre-primary teacher at my school who is my age. There are some pretty particular rules about netball that took me a while to understand, but now netball practice is one of my favorite times of the day. I’ve introduced such practical training games such as capture the flag and knock out to their exercise regimen as well as the all loving punishment of suicides.
We were invited to a soccer/netball tournament in Okaukuejo so we packed the girls team into the back of one bakki and the boys soccer team into the back of another and went. Whenever I traveled to tournaments with AAU teams, it was always so much fun traveling with my friends and hanging out in between games, so I was really excited to chaperone the girls. Unlike American sports tournaments, instead of staying in a hotel, all of the teams slept on the floors of the hosting school’s classrooms. The coaches slept on the floor in the staff room and the coaches were also responsible for cooking for their teams. I had no idea how motherly I could be until I was in co-charge of 10 girls for a weekend. I made sure they were drinking enough water and staying out of the shade in between games. I helped cook their meals in huge black iron pot over a fire and spoiled them by buying them Coke and sweets. Oh, and I coached too.
When my brother and I were younger, we were really involved in sports. My mom and dad were super supporters and would sit through my brother’s 13-inning games and my insanely boring softball games. They were both really vocal, but my dad was always one who liked to be heard not only by his children but by the umpires or referees as well. This was always a little embarrassing, especially if he was asked to leave and I never understood why he would get so fired up over a game that was neither for a bowl or world championship. Until, I coached my first netball game.
The whole tournament, there was this male coach who would make a big fuss over everything. Granted, it was easy to hate him because he was the coach of the best team there, Warmquelle. Instead, of letting these girls have a good-natured tournament which for most of them would be the only time this year to play against other schools, he always made something out of nothing in the coach’s meetings and called every ref into question. Well, we didn’t have outside refs, just the coaches from other schools umpired the games. Joyce was a ref because she played netball all through secondary school and at university and was even selected to be on the Namibian national team when she was schooling.
Well, at one of the coach’s meetings, I had asked the coordinator to write up a bracket for me so I can keep track of who we would be playing over the course of the weekend. I had been filling it in throughout the course of the day and it was correct…keep this in mind. Our team won our first game, so we advanced to round two. As we got ready to start the second round, Mr. Big Mouth called all of the coaches together and announced that we were going to re-draw teams for the second round. Now, I don’t know how tournaments are run in Namibia, so I kept my mouth shut for a while to see if maybe they do in fact re-draw teams every round. As other coaches started to disagree, I realized that this is not the case. This guy was going on and on and I was already sick of him, so I took out the bracket that the host school sports coordinator drew for me.
Oh, yeah, so at this tournament, not only was I the only American there, but I was also the only white person. I got a lot of double takes. So, in this impromptu coach’s meeting, I was definitely the odd ball.
Ok, so I took out the bracket, and said “There is no need to re-draw teams because the tournament should go like this.” No one responded. They continued bickering. I don’t like being ignored, so I said again, “This is the bracket that the sports coordinator drew himself. You don’t re-draw teams mid-tournament.” Everyone stared. I began to feel like I shouldn’t have said anything. Then, Mr. Big Mouth grabbed my paper and said, “No.” Do not tell Miss Julie “no” without good reason.
I get it. I’m the outsider and Namibian men aren’t really used to being told what to do by a woman. So, I guess culturally speaking, I could see why he wouldn’t want to listen. But this is me being reflective. Instead of letting it go, I looked at him and said, “Call him over then. I guarantee he’ll say we don’t need to re-draw and he’ll draw this exact same thing.” So he did. The sports coordinator came over and drew the EXACT SAME THING THAT I HAD IN MY HAND. So, since I was feeling feisty, I took both papers, put them right next to each other and shoved them in the guy’s face. “Oh wow” I said. “Weird, isn’t what I just showed you?” To which he responded, “I wanted to hear the truth from him.” “Him” meaning that he wanted to hear the truth from a man.
This was where I finally understood how my dad had felt all of those times he had stood up in the bleachers to yell at the ref for a terrible call. I wanted to stand up for my girls, for their future. I wanted them to see that is not right for a man to talk to a woman like that. By this time, the whole ordeal had attracted a small crowd. So, in front of everyone, I yell, “Look! I was right the whole time and you just didn’t want to listen. I may not be a man and I may not be Namibian, but I do know what I’m talking about!” I got a few claps as I walked away towards my girls. When I got to my learners, they were looking at me like it was their first time seeing me. The argument and mainly my yelling became the talk of the netball team and soccer team…”And then Miss was yelling.”
I never thought getting in a public argument about a netball game would be part of my service, but Namibia can be pretty surprising.
So, towards the end of the second term, Joyce and I had gotten pretty close between coaching together and hanging out. Like most farm schools, housing for teachers is a problem in Erwee. I am lucky enough to live in a house that was built by the ministry, so it has electricity, three bedrooms, running water, and all that jazz. But other than the three other teacher houses like mine, the only other option is a stick and mud hut. Since Joyce arrived during term one, she had been staying with Sodina and Olin at their house, a teacher house near the hostel. Three people living in that house became pretty crowded, so Joyce decided that she was going to take a room at the hostel. Ok, the hostel is insane. The learners are always so crazy and loud that even I could not imagine living there. I had debated asking her to move in and weighed the options of having roommate versus living alone. During the first term I needed to live alone. There was too much crying, moping, and marathoning TV shows from my external hard drive to be social with a roommate. But since the second term had been going really well and we had become good friends, I talked to Peace Corps and they approved so I asked Joyce to move in! She did end up moving in all of her stuff until the beginning of this term so we’ve only been living together for about a week, but it has been really great. I forgot how nice it is to talk to someone about my day over dinner or to have someone to cook that dinner with. Oh, and as a housewarming present to herself, she bought a new refrigerator, a flat screen TV, and satellite. So, now I have all those things, which is definitely an improvement in my quality of life.
But before the start of the third term, we had a small holiday. My lovely group 30 had our whole group mid-service meeting, which even the name of the in-service training is mind-blowing to me. After mid-service, my friend Sarah and I went all the way down to Luderitz for a couple days. Two guys from our group live there and since it is so so so far away, we can never go there during the school term. As it so happens, the national Hero’s Day celebration was going on while we were there, so we got to see President Pohamba speak. We spent the rest of our time there eating fresh oysters and trying to infiltrate the hotel where the president was staying to meet him. We never actually found him, but we had a lot of fun trying.
After Luderitz, Sarah and I split ways. I met up with Ashley in Mariental and we headed up to Okahandja for the second week of our holiday. We were selected to be resource volunteers for the training of the new group, Group 32. So, I actually spent most of my holiday working and doing things for the Peace Corps, but it was definitely pretty fun. Sunday night before Ashley and I were supposed to begin our sessions with the new group we were laughing about as a resource volunteer, we should probably know stuff. Seeing as we had simply experienced living and working in Namibia, we knew a lot more than we thought. I forgot how much I didn’t know when I was at PST (pre-service training) and how much I felt like I needed to know everything. So pretending to be an expert on Namibia for a week was a nice legitimation of what I’m doing here and what I have done here.
Which brings me to now. It is the beginning of the third term, so nothing’s happening at school as far as teaching in the classroom is concerned. I’ve begun a reading incentive program in the library and have taught capture the flag to the rest of the school, but that’s about it from the school side (<—namphrase…can’t help it). In two weeks our school is hosting a netball and soccer tournament. Nineteen schools have been invited and so far 10 have confirmed their attendance. My school is not big. Providing accommodation for everyone is going to be interesting as well as all of the planning and work that goes into hosting a tournament. Oh, and Warmquelle is coming. Rematch with Mr. Big Mouth? Yes. Please.
The teams arrive on Friday October 1 and the games are on Saturday the second and sunday the third. Our sports coordinator has decided that we need some kind of entertainment for all of the kids Friday and Saturday nights. Joyce and I have been put in charge. So, what are we planning? I can’t believe I’m even going to say this because I’m sure 90% will laugh once I tell you that I am the official co-planner of…a beauty contest. Friday night is the beauty contest for grades one through four and Saturday night is the contest for grades five through seven. So, I’m in charge of music and teaching the girls how to walk. Do you watch “America’s Next Top Model”? If you do, just call me J. Alexander. I promise to take lots of pictures and movies because my girls are definitely going to be fierce.
Other big thing: I’m strongly considering extending another year. With the Peace Corps, you have a couple of options if you want to continue to work with the Peace Corps after your regular 27 months of service. You can apply to extend in another Peace Corps country. You can transfer and do another 27 months in another country. Or you can apply to extend in your original country of service. With the last option, you can apply to extend either at your current site or take on a new project that you design. You can also apply to be a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL). I’m planning on applying for a year extension as well as applying to be a PCVL. Being a PCVL, you spend 60% of your time on your primary project and 40% of your time working for the Peace Corps. Work for the Peace Corps would entail site development, planning and facilitating in-service trainings, and other technical stuff…real specific for you, apologies. From my involvements in the Peace Corps already as a member of the Volunteer Support Network and going to PST as a resource volunteer, I’ve not only become obsessed with the Namibians working on the Peace Corps staff, but I’ve become really interested in how the Peace Corps works as an organization. It is kind of crazy that an American organization is successful in a country so unlike it’s own.
For my primary project, I’d want to move to (get on google and pull up a map of Namibia) Rundu to work with the Ministry of Education as well as the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare to help schools identify and support orphans and vulnerable children. I could go on and on about this and maybe I will later, but if you want to know more about why I think this is such a need and why I want to spend another year away from my amazing family and kickin friends, email me (jtheib@gmail.com) or call me! (+264814698773).
Lastly, I’m not very happy with what I’m about to type as it is cliche of most Peace Corps blogs, but time is flying by and I cannot adequately put into words how I feel about it. I mean, I think I’m just doing what deep down we all want to do…do some good, learn something, and be happy. If we look to the root of the majority of our actions, it is to accomplish one or more of these goals, these ideals. And I’m trying to do all three I guess, just in Namibia.
