Back to life, back to reality

Well, I’ve managed to make it through the holiday season and back up north. Much has happened in the last couple of weeks, very little of which has been productive, so it’s both a relief and a let-down that the festivities are over.

I spent Christmas Eve in a tent on the beach in Swakopmund, where apparently both Brangelina and Sharon Osborn were vacationing. Our campsite was beautiful, right on the beach, with hot showers and a close proximity to town. On Christmas morning we had a Secret Santa exchange, which was fairly hilarious with the china shop gems that everyone came up with.

            The rest of the week was spent sipping coffee in German cafes, playing flag football on the beach, and enjoying bonfires and dance parties on the beach. For two days, we rented two pickups, slammed 20 people into them, and traveled up to Cape Cross to see a seal colony and down to Dune 7 and Walvis Bay. Overnight, we camped on the beach next to a shipwreck, one of many that contributed to the region’s name, Skeleton Coast.

            On New Year’s Eve, the local beachside bar sponsored a giant bonfire, so we had a blast, met many South Africans, and counted down the new year. An added bonus of the trip was seeing the Capital One Bowl on New Year’s Day at a local sports bar. We ordered pizza and watched American football for the first time all season, which did a number on my homesickness. It didn’t help that Big Blue was the mascot of the year and plastered on the TV for a couple of minutes. It’s hard to imagine that the ODU and ACC basketball seasons are currently in full swing back in the states.

            Meanwhile, I am starting to sweat over the upcoming school year. This week teachers return to school and the following will bring the learners. I can’t anticipate much because I have heard that many learners don’t show up for the first couple of weeks. Some because they don’t know what day it is, others because they are still farming and the rest because they know the teachers won’t be there. It’s difficult to plan, but I plan on doing introductions for the first month to see the level of individual learners and to memorize their names, get them comfortable with my accent, etc. It’s going to be hard easing into the year as I would love to hit the ground running, and I know that the learners are extremely far behind where they are supposed to be. Not to mention, after an amazing vacation, I can’t really remember village life. Hello again roaming cattle, hippos, and baby goats!

           

"Wait for Santa to sail in with your presents in a canoe"

I love Rundu. Love love love it. Although it's blazing hot, I love walking everywhere, greeting strangers, running into colleagues, and eating fresh fruit off the tree.

I'm spending this off week in town, running errands and relaxing before a crazy festive week in Swakop, holiday capital of southern Africa.

I went to my village last week to fetch a few things for the trip and to drop off my dressier clothes from reconnect. Although I wasn't looking forward to paying for transport then spending the night in an empty house in an empty village, it turned out to be a worthwhile trip. The village was more bustling than I anticipated. Now that it's rainy season (aka harvest time!!), many of my colleagues have left to work their own farms, but at the same time, the families that stay in my village are now out and about, working and celebrating weddings and the holidays.

While over 95% of the Nam population classifies as Christian, Christmas is not so much in the air. While rich Afrikaaners in Windhoek ran about in Santa and elf costumes, up here in the north, there is hardly a sign that we are approaching the end of December. I have come to embrace this fact, because it fends off the homesickness to be hot and sweating in floral tank tops and shitenges (bright swatches of  beautifully patterned fabric that women wrap around their waists) rather than wrapping up in red sweaters that remind me how far I am from my family. But, I am told that on holidays (Xmas and New Year's Eves), the riverside beach fills up with party-goers, and in the village people will eat macaroni and rice, which is somewhat of a rare commodity for many families. When I visited site last week, there was a large yellow tent set up near the river, and my principal told me that there will be holiday celebrations there. I guess I live in a big village after all!

All-in-all, I am very happy to be here. I am saddened by the fact that I will not be with my family and friends around the holidays, but experiencing a hot Christmas void of materialistic gifts is a nice change of pace and, at the risk of sounding corny, a reminder of what is important in life. Life isn't about shiny wrapping papers and time-saving electronics. It's about greeting strangers and spending time with those who are important to us, celebrating traditions and creating new ones, reflection of past good times and anticipation of what's to come.

Happy holidays everyone!

Reconnect

This week I am at reconnect, which is supposed to be an additional training after we've been to our sites for a significant amount of time (6 weeks) and before we start full-time teaching, but it's really just an excuse for us to all party together and laugh a lot in a controlled environment.

On that note, we're staying at a conference center in the mountains outside of Windhoek, and I literally don't know if I could be happier. They were very right about the ups and downs of service-- a couple of weeks ago I was in my village all alone and crying because I was missing Thanksgiving for the first time and no one seemed to care, and now I am relishing in beautiful weather, tons of great food, hot coffee, hot showers, and spectacular views, sunrises, sunsets, and even a downpour that left a double rainbow as the sun was setting.

Saturday I went to town to do some shopping and eat some good food. It was exactly what I needed. It absolutely gave me a burst of reverse culture shock that I've been needing. The mall here is nicer than many malls in the States, and being there on a weekend of holiday shopping season was more than overwhelming after being at site for so long. There were multiple Santas that didn't pull the look off very well, not to mention slutty helper elves and SO MANY white people. I was extremely uncomfortable being a minority, mostly b/c this country has the largest income gap of any, so I knew that the packed mall was filled with the wealthy 5% of the population while something like 80% of the rural population lacks sanitary latrines and literally has to poop in the bush. It was a huge reminder as to why our work here can be so difficult to accomplish with the racial tensions that are still operating.

Anyway, highlight was a ham and cheese panini paired with a greek salad with feta (!) cheese.  Also, was able to pick up a few things that for site, and on Sunday a group went to see Harry Potter (yes, there is a movie theater in Nam...) I stayed back and nursed a cold and soaked up free internet. It was maybe one of my favorite weekends ever.

Next weekend I'm going to a diversity committee meeting in the city. The goal is to organize a nationwide tour for learners who never get to leave their villages in the bush. I'm really excited at the prospect.

More soon!

step by step, day by day

I have now been at site for two weeks. My latest mantra is, "one day at a time."

Let me take a minute to describe my site. I am in a village just south of the Okavango River, and it is beautiful. Literally one of the most aesthetically pleasing places I have ever been. Last week I watched Lion King one day and couldn’t resist finding Nam in every bit. The desert scenes remind me of my training site and the drive from that site in central Nam to my current site in the north. Windmills are scattered, along with wildlife, on the sides of the highway. The earth cracks with dryness, and as soon as you cross the green line (a mark that divides the fertile, farming land from the dust that is the rest of the country), you are immediately in a new world.

Traditional homesteads populate this region, comprised of wooden huts with thatched grass or tin roofs. Other than homes, there are literally only shebeens—bars that specialize in a local brew made of maize meal. These are usually made from mud or cement blocks. Often, these bars will also sell groceries such as maize meal, cooking oil, and soaps. Many people here are unemployed and receive a monthly pension check from the government. Many children are orphans. Many orphans are also parents. On payday or pension paydays, entire communities will convene at shebeens. The majority of these establishments take credit, so if one buys too much beer than their pension will allow, he or she will spend the first portion of the next check paying back debts.

A large problem with the education system is a lack of equality between urban and rural areas. As teachers becomes qualified, it is much more appealing to go work in a town, where they have access to amenities, can establish a nice living situation for their families, and they can continue to work on their education with postgrad certificate classes. To try and equalize the quality of education throughout the country, the government has an incentive system for rural areas. Teachers outside of the towns receive bush checks, and the amount is variable depending on the school’s situation. The idea is a good one, but the practicality of it is questionable. My school is currently overstaffed, and two teachers will have to transfer by January. An incentive to volunteer to leave is that the bush checks at the hiring schools is higher. While this move encourages qualified teachers to spread their talents into bush schools, it is a double-edged sword. As a result of it, many teachers are constantly moving or rotating schools to find better pay. Their families may live in town, or they may live in the village where the teacher grew up. Consequently, teachers are constantly leaving the school’s village to visit family and friends (every weekend, holiday, funeral, wedding, or other major event). This makes for a migratory community—full of members who migrate across the country. Unfortunately, it makes it hard to establish clubs, projects, etc. because the manpower is not only unavailable to work but also not invested in the work. When a teacher leaves his or her community to follow the bush check or available teaching position, he or she does not view the school’s community as his or her own. Instead, it is a sort of transitory place, and their homes here are temporary weekday homes. This feeling translates to the learners, who, along with the staff, come to school to work and then go home to their own families and lives. School is not their community, where resources and relationships are available but instead a group of buildings where they are lectured to and expected to pass exams as a stepping stone to a possible career. For those who wish to remain in the village after schooling, particularly young mothers, there is not much of a motive to attend classes or pass examinations, because doing so will not directly benefit them. Parents may encourage children to start a family at a young age so that they will have a generation of grandchildren to take care of them and their land on the homestead when they become elders. For those who become teachers, it is expected that their salary will help pay for the family’s food; to compensate for not being there to labor, the teacher must be there for the family economically, and visit often to help with the chores, at the church, with farming and harvesting, etc.

Back to my site. The foundation and ideals of a successful school are absolutely here. I have not seen corporal punishment, which happens with frequency throughout the country, the principal is female, and the facilities are pretty nice. Most learners have textbooks, chairs, desks, and pens, there is a computer lab with a printer and scanner, and there is a tap with running water on the school grounds. The cleaner is wonderful and maintains the grounds, and there is actually a garden and soccer field just next to the school. This winter, the combined school (grades 5-10) will begin planting maize meal, which will feed learners. The primary school’s half of the garden is already up and running. There is a netball field but it needs a lot of work, as the rims are bent and vary in height, and I can dunk on both of them.

However, all of this maintenance is operated by the personal funds of the teachers here. Every morning it seems that there is a new request for money to pay for the computer lab fee (ink and toner cartridges), copy machine contribution (they hope to purchase one next February and have been collecting all year), sport (transportation to nearby school for the occasional Wednesday soccer/netball tournament), end of the year function, etc. It is frustrating to me that the money for bush checks, often spent on alcohol or sent back to another village, but that there is no money for computer paper or a copy machine. Also, there’s a big initiative to involve technology in the classrooms, so there are nice computers, but there are no chairs in the lab, and there is no A/C unit to keep the machines cool enough to function properly. There also, obviously, is no internet in the lab.

I have many project ideas already. I’d like to work on the condition of the athletics fields and participation. I’d like to start a school newspaper club. I’d like to come up with some way to get HIV/AIDS education translate to reality for these learners. But most of all, I hope to find a community within this community that has any interest in these kinds of projects. I would like to find a way to allow the learners to have time to participate in them. They spend all day until 1:00 in classes, then walk, often significant distances, home for lunch, where they will often just get the leftover porridge, then come back from 3:00-4:30 to do large sums of homework they were assigned, and then rush back home to collect water from the river before dark, help prepare dinner and care for younger siblings in homesteads that largely have no electricity. They must arise early the next day to walk the many km back to school by 7:00. So, I wouldn’t say that it’s apathy that prevents projects and clubs from succeeding here but rather lack of time and resources and priorities that rightly lay in caring for and respecting family.

Anyway, all that aside, some are probably wondering about my living conditions. I stay in one of three teachers’ houses at the school. I share it with two female colleagues. There is the infrastructure for running water, but it doesn’t work, so we fetch water in buckets daily by turning on a tap outside the house that sends water shooting out of our kitchen wall. Consequently, that water has to flow through rusted pipes where dust and whatever else has settled, meaning that I boil my drinking water. Unfortunately that doesn’t get rid of the aluminum, but it isn’t so bad. We have a shower room, where I bucket bathe at 6:00 a.m., and we flush our indoor toilet by pouring water into the bowl. Generally, my house doesn’t smell too great. But, good news is that there is electricity, and all of the windows have burglar bars. Aside from the potential snakes and spiders, I feel overall very safe in my home. Occasionally, fishermen will walk by selling fish strung from sticks. This week I will try and cook one myself for the first time.

The rain hasn’t really started yet but we’ve gotten a couple of strong storms overnight, and today is very windy so my fingers are crossed. I run in the evenings, when I get the chance to greet others in my village, many of whom survive off maize farming. The other evening, I stopped to greet and speak with some villagers, and as I ran from the main road, their dogs scattering a bit, I heard a commotion behind me. When I turned around, one of the family’s dogs was rolling, lifeless, across the road. He was struck by a speeding vehicle and killed immediately. Last Friday, on my way into town, I found out that an eleven-year-old learner was struck similarly just ten minutes before. The weekend before, a local principal was killed in a car accident when he was driving home. He had been drinking in town and fell asleep at the wheel, his car getting lodged under a bus going the opposite direction. A big problem is that the tarred road up here is new, and in fact not even yet complete, so people are not familiar with properly crossing the road or walking on the paths to the sides of the road. Also, vehicles are often traveling long distances and the population isn’t very dense along the road, so they take advantage of the new tarred road and speed, and there is no formal traffic police system that will punish or deter drivers from drinking, speeding, or both.

All this to say, if you are in America, don’t take it for granted. Respect the establishment of a police force, even if you cannot respect some of the individuals in it. Relish the security of our schoolchildren and our transportation systems and speed limits. Feel happy that in the schools you attended, A/C and heat, as well as government feeding programs, could allow the learners to remain focused in class. And most of all, love your showers!!!

Sidenote: some have asked if there is anything I need shipped. I am pretty much ok, but I LOVE letters and cards (and they have a smaller chance of getting stolen by customs officers). I will also never turn down any flavored powders for water (Gatorade, crystal light, decent instant coffee, whatever), cheese packets from mac and cheese, or any good Newsweek/Time/Nat Geo. My new address is in Rundu, but because I will not be here for good until January, continue sending anything to the Ausspanplatz, Windhoek address for the time being, and hopefully I’ll get it in four weeks when I go there for reconnect. Hint hint: I’m not overly enthused about missing Xmas, so any Xmas cards will be most cherished!! Also, no more good packages til Jan cause apparently there’s a high rate of postal theft during the holidays, and mail takes forever to get here in Nov-Dec. boo.

Feliz Dia de los Muertos!!!

site site site

So my site was announced today, and as it turns out, I will not have running water or a flush toilet, and electricity is questionable. I’ll be in a small village on the Kovango River that separates Angola from Namibia, teaching grades 8-10.




There will be hippos. And I will have my own place, so when y’all visit, I can accommodate you!!



One thing that many people don’t realize is that the Peace Corps is everywhere, and volunteers are engaged in many different aspects of education, and community and economical development. That means that yes, many PC volunteers end up in large towns, urban areas, and now in Nam, business sectors.



But alas, I will not be one of those volunteers. In fact, I will be fulfilling almost every stereotype of the PC volunteer in Africa. At the same time, I feel as if I have already somewhat started in that role; even though my accomodations are beyond exceptional for training, many of us are bucket bathing, we do laundry outside, can’t go out past dark, deal with racism, etc. But experiencing it and feeling so natural and perhaps even more natural than I did in my role in the States continues to remind me of the whole Other ordeal. Now that I no longer can idealize Africa to be what I thought it should be, for Nam to look like what I would expect southern Africa to look like, I am no longer able to pretend that Africa is some far-off land of suffering that needs the salvation of westerners. In fact, I feel quite the opposite.



Africans welcome our skills, our willingness to provide help. They do not consistently show praise of humanitarianism, and they don’t understand volunteerism persay, but every time you greet in Afrikaans or Rukwangali, even when a trainer greets me on the street and we are overheard by a vendor, the appreciation of integrating into the culture is on their faces. It is this kind of relieving feeling that, if even I am to make no concrete and sustainable impact during service, simply by being a white person showing up and taking interest, I have already made an impact. With the effects of apartheid everywhere, literally everywhere, bridging the gaps of racism even for a minute—even for one smile, is little victory enough to feel like I have a reason to be here. Not to mention, the people I have met are awesome, and fatcakes are both delicious and ridiculously easy to make.

Peace and Love

I'd like to throw a shoutout to PC Lesotho. As some have heard, there was what seems to be an attempted robbery in Lesotho, during which an amazing volunteer was fatally shot last weekend. My heart goes out to all of the PC family in southern Africa, and worldwide, as well as to Tom's family. As I understand, Tom was an education volunteer and became very close with his community as a coach, teacher, and leader. At times like these, I fail to comprehend how or why these things happen.

I am still at training in Okahandja. It's been a long week, and I'm currently curled up in bed, trying to decide what to do this weekend. I can hear the TV in the living room playing my Grey's Anatomy DVDs that my host dad put in. He's trying to catch up with Trace so that they can watch together by Sunday. They've both watched over 16 episodes in four days.

The kids started back at school this week. They go 7-1 then come home for the day. Don't interfere with a kid's lunch (two) hour(s). Those are sacred here. Otherwise, we've had extensive language training, today we went to an International Youth Day, where we embarrassed ourselves singing the US Nat'l anthemn off key, and the rest of our sessions have been largely depressing-- concerning rape, domestic violence in Nam, and corporal punishment. So it's been a trying week, but we ended it with pizza and beer at a local lodge that was way too nice for our volunteer stipend. Tomorrow might just top the week with a goat head (smiley) or at least traditional dancing with schoolkids OR even possible rugby practice with my 18yo cousin.

I had more stories but can't think of them now. Nam is pretty sweet. I get my site placement next Friday, and I am STOKED. I have also gotten some allergy medicine, but seeing as there hasn't been rain yet (so we're still in the dry/winter season), the air is paining me. But if that's all I've got to complain about, things are good.

Natulimoneni!!

SEND ME MAIL PLS!

Hunhwa

I got blood on my Rainbows.

I’m a killer. A merciless blood hunter. A sinful, heartless murderer. Don’t read any farther if you become easily queasy.

Today, I killed a chicken.

It started out as a rumor. The Kavango kids were going to get their own chickens… but there are a couple of groups of us, plus we sometimes get mixed up with the Caprivians, and it was all speculation anyway. The chance that I’d get my hands on a chicken myself was unlikely. But rumor quickly turned into reality, and reality turned on its face and became fact. Not only were the Rukwangali students getting some chicken, but I was being called out as one of those chosen to commit the act.

I’m not one for saying no to a challenge.

They came in unassuming cardboard boxes. They didn’t make a fuss, just quietly awaited their fate in the brown shadows. First, a host country national showed us how it was done by grabbing up the first and seemingly effortlessly snubbing it. Then it was my fellow PCT Matt’s turn. Suddenly chicken squashing didn’t seem so effortless.

Apparently, in Kavango, it is considered inhumane to just chop a chicken’s head off and be done with it. No, to Okavangos, one should cut the artery and let it die before disconnecting the head.

Well, Matt got a dull knife. And he was not very efficient. Not only did it take him a while to tame the clucking chicken and position it, but he also made it look nearly impossible to get to the artery. And when he did, he couldn’t cut it. Needless to say, I became a little uneasy about being next.

But, I decided that if I was going to eat the chicken, and if I have spent all these years eating chicken, that I might as well make the effort to see how it gets to my plate. After all, someone has been doing it for me anyway all this time.

So, I stepped up to bat, grabbed the next chicken, steadied my feet on its wings and legs, and cut. And cut. And cut.

More proficient than Matt, I got to the artery fairly quickly, and I was told that I had cut it (as indicated by the great amount of blood spilling onto the sand and my feet). However, in my left hand, all of a sudden, the chicken’s head began to struggle, as if trying to swallow or cluck or maybe just get air. Now my hands were shaking, my stomach was curling, and my mind was shutting down. I snipped the artery immediately and put the bird out of its poor misery before continuing to snap off the rest of the head, place both in boiling water, defeathering, and cooking the animal.

Let’s just say it was an experience.

Other highlights of the day:
Eating a caterpillar. Ok, maybe a low of the day. It was disgusting, and I’m never doing that again. But when in Rome…
Starting the Namibian national anthem with a couple of people and having it turn into a boisterous group sing-a-long with over 60 people.
Being told multiple times that when I move to site, I’ll be living in the “real” Africa. AKA: hot, mosquitoes, hippos, hauling water from the river, etc.
Springboks vs Walabies live from South Africa at a bar with Namibian fans and a former Sharks player as a bartender.
Dancing to Katie Perry with Herero women.
Making fat cakes. Yes, they are as good as they sound.