• You can eat too much peanut butter
• Mosquitoes annoy me
• Stepping on a glass bottle is not that big of a deal
• Water is crucial to one's health
• Diarrhea is part of life in Namibia
• The standard size of a beer bottle should be 750ml
• People are people, no matter where you go
• Teaching is not easy
• Teaching in Namibia is really not easy
• Africa is a huge continent
• Kids too often fail once and instantly give up. The possibility of them failing another time is just too much to bear... It is a huge moment in one's life when s/he realizes that the possibility of succeeding once is worth so much more than the possibility of failing twice
• "Thought is free"
• There is a remarkable sense of African unity
• Everyone changes the world, whether they like it or not
• Time doesn't move forward or backward, fast or slow, it just is
• Dogs are edible
• We are works in progress
• Beware: do not eat a loaf of brown bread within 12 hours
• Uniqueness is engrained in each of us, but creativity is not; people sometimes need a kick-start in the art of harnessing uniqueness in order to use it constructively
• A really low population density yields a collection of attention-deprived people
• "Teach a man to fish..."
• Sitting in the back of a pickup truck going 80 mph is not as scary as you might think... It's actually pretty comfortable if you have a few bags to lay on
• Too much sand is a bad thing
• "People are just about as happy as they make their minds up to be"
• Africans like Justin Bieber more than Americans
• Hitch-hiking is kinda fun
• Speaking another language is difficult… I can't hate on those kids who cannot tell the difference between an 'l' and an 'r'
• A bull is worth as much as N$ 100 000 and it's also a collector's item!
• Ketchup + some Italian seasons ≈ tomato sauce
• Radio > TV
• I probably have numerous parasites currently living inside me and that fact doesn't really bother me
• "Oshifima makes you strong"
• ...but it makes you shit bricks
• It's cool knowing that every one of my elders in northern Namibia is either my father or mother (tate or meme)
• 90 degrees is not hot
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Epic Hiatus
You may or may not have noticed that the last post on here was spam. It turns out that while I was away on holiday somewhere in east-central Africa, my GMail (and subsequently, my Blogger) account was hacked. You may have also received a spam e-mail from me. If you were in any way adversely affected by this spam, I apologize for the guy (or girl) who insists on causing undue harm to people s/he has never met.
Anyway, I'm not sure why it has taken so long for me to write this update since I've regained my account about two months ago. Actually, I do know why.. I don't really like writing blog entries. They're require too much time and effort to write and too much time and bandwidth to upload. I definitely toyed with the idea to remove the blog on several occasions, but as you can now see, I've left it open for future posts because I know a few people would like to get an insider's look at a region they will never get a chance to experience first-hand.
Although my Blogger account remains open, don't expect many future posts; I think Facebook is a much better way of sharing the type of information I want to share with you all, so find me on Facebook.
Mombili,
Joe
_
Anyway, I'm not sure why it has taken so long for me to write this update since I've regained my account about two months ago. Actually, I do know why.. I don't really like writing blog entries. They're require too much time and effort to write and too much time and bandwidth to upload. I definitely toyed with the idea to remove the blog on several occasions, but as you can now see, I've left it open for future posts because I know a few people would like to get an insider's look at a region they will never get a chance to experience first-hand.
Although my Blogger account remains open, don't expect many future posts; I think Facebook is a much better way of sharing the type of information I want to share with you all, so find me on Facebook.
Mombili,
Joe
_
Monday, March 14, 2011
Good Morning!
“Wa lele po meme/tate?” “Nawa tuu?” [Direct translation: Have you laid down, mother/father? Rather well?] I hear these words and speak them about 20 times each day. If you know your interlocutor well, the greetings will go far beyond the aforementioned two phrases and will many times include, “Opo ou li?” and “Ou li nawa?” [Direct translation: You are there? You are well?]. Since learning this lingo during language training in Okahandja, I scarcely go a day without uttering these words and it’s safe to say I will never get used to it!
In America, we can so easily walk past someone without saying a word, but that act in Namibia is surprising disrespectful. Some regard greeting someone as acknowledging their presence, so walking by without saying hello essentially means you don’t see them as a person. It’s a totally different dynamic and one that is particularly difficult for someone like me (who goes out of his way to avoid empty conversation) to live in accordance with. But no matter how uncomfortable greeting makes me, I put a smile on my face and chant those magic words each morning. Why? Well, because I’d hate to not acknowledge someone as a person, but also because I recognize the clear link between greeting and community here.
Community means something entirely different in Namibia. If you live in a village and interact appropriately with everyone in the village, you are essentially family members. That’s why every woman is “meme” [mother] and every man is “tate” [father]. Not greeting would mean you are not part of the community and hence not part of the family, making you an outcast. And no one wants to be an outcast, so we greet and greet and greet and greet.
That’s just life in Namibia…
_
In America, we can so easily walk past someone without saying a word, but that act in Namibia is surprising disrespectful. Some regard greeting someone as acknowledging their presence, so walking by without saying hello essentially means you don’t see them as a person. It’s a totally different dynamic and one that is particularly difficult for someone like me (who goes out of his way to avoid empty conversation) to live in accordance with. But no matter how uncomfortable greeting makes me, I put a smile on my face and chant those magic words each morning. Why? Well, because I’d hate to not acknowledge someone as a person, but also because I recognize the clear link between greeting and community here.
Community means something entirely different in Namibia. If you live in a village and interact appropriately with everyone in the village, you are essentially family members. That’s why every woman is “meme” [mother] and every man is “tate” [father]. Not greeting would mean you are not part of the community and hence not part of the family, making you an outcast. And no one wants to be an outcast, so we greet and greet and greet and greet.
That’s just life in Namibia…
_
Flipping the Script
If you have been following along with this blog from the start, you likely have a good idea what my life entails these days. I work at school during the week, basically living like a teacher in the U.S. and on the weekends I tend to leave the village and head to town to get food and hang out with friends. Pretty boring, right? Don’t get me wrong, I still wake up most days knowing that something crazy will ensue before the sun sets, but truth be told not much surprises me these days. After living in Namibia for awhile, I have finally gotten used to some of the (from an American point of view) odd events that occur in my life and what seemed so strange when I hopped off that plane way back in August of last year are really not so weird anymore. Things that I’ve written about once (riding for hours in the back of a pickup truck or cab of an 18-wheeler for free, wading through waist-deep water, eating random bugs or body parts) occur quite often and are really just parts of life here in Namibia. With that said I have decided to flip the script on my blog posts and no longer offer lengthy descriptions of what has happened in my life and focus the entries exclusively on some the elements of life in Namibia that make it unique. Unless something really ridiculous happens, future posts will only be about life in Namibia and not about me. And these posts will be shhhhoorrrrt… Hopefully that’ll encourage me to write more frequently.
I really have no clue how I let nearly a month go by without posting. Time really does fly…
Now, what makes Namibia special??
_
I really have no clue how I let nearly a month go by without posting. Time really does fly…
Now, what makes Namibia special??
_
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Calm Before the Storm...
Rainy season is really supposed to be picking up around this time of year, but Mother Nature seems to be holding off so far. Maybe not for long. Although it has not rained much over the past few months many say this year will yield plentiful rains for all of northern Namibia.
But actually, this entry is not about Namibian weather at all. Rather, it’s about some of the recent events in my life and the many experiences that will be coming my way in the next two months.
Not much has occurred in the past few weeks (hence no blog post), but I have a feeling things are going to get interesting fairly soon. Teaching has become just like a normal job now that I am (generally) not considered the oshilumbu and now seen as just another teacher by most of the students. Home is generally good, but certainly not like the US. And some random events have kept me busy, but not as busy as I’ll be come March and April…
The first five weeks of the school year are complete and the days are really flying by now. The first week or two went kind of slowly as I was feeling out the learners trying to see how much they know, what pace I should teach at, and if they could actually understand me. After much careful examination I think I have a good idea about how to approach the task of teaching these kids and they are also beginning to become acquainted with how I do things so the lessons are going much more smoothly. Math in both 8th and 9th grade have really been a pleasant surprise. I am going through the material fairly quickly and it seems as if the kids understand most of what we have done so far in both classes. Physical science is the complete opposite. They know very little, we are going slower than we should be going, and the kids are very rambunctious (I yell at them every day for at least a few minutes). BIS provides a fun break from promotional classes. The kids have enjoyed most of the fun activities I have prepared for them so far and once the computer lab is back in action (more on that later), I’m sure they will be even more enthusiastic about this class.
Outside of school, everything in Ohalushu is nawa. Let me just redact some of the statements I made about home in the last post. When I was writing the entry, I was recovering from an awful illness and all I could think about was how rough the last few days had been. Sure the puppy barks a lot and the kids like to play around and yell at each other but puppies bark and little kids play. That’s just what they do. Life at the homestead really is good in general and the comments I made in the last post were almost entirely illness-induced. One other note about home: I still don’t have a refrigerator in my room. Surprisingly, living sans refrigeration has presented very little problems for me and I don’t think it would be an issue if I went the rest of my service here in Namibia without a refrigerator.
Beyond school and home, a few events/noteworthy thoughts have come up recently:
First off, I have officially been living in Africa for 6 months now. Not sure how big of an accomplishment that is, but judging by all of the Facebook updates I saw from fellow Group 32 PCVs here in Namibia, it holds some kind of significance. Plus, the new group is now in country, meaning we are no longer Freshmen.
I wrote in the past about the computer lab and its ups and downs. They continue to this day… The current project I am working on is setting up the server with Windows Server 2003 and then I will deploy Windows XP Embedded images to each of the thin clients. This has involved a lot of reading and even more time downloading things. Hopefully the conversion will be beneficial to the kids as Windows is much more frequently used throughout the world than Edubuntu and the skills they learn within the Windows XP framework should be better suited to how they might operate a computer in their future endeavors.
We recently had an athletics competition for the cluster (nearby group of schools). The event was held near Ongha and took the entire Saturday. Events included: running, running, and more running. The kids ran 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, and 3km, and 5km races and there were many heats for each age group and each race. Two kids represented our school and they both did remarkably well, moving on to the next competition. If they move on this weekend, they will go to Oshakati and represent the Region. And if they continue, it’s on to Windhoek. The winners from Windhoek then go to Johannesburg, South Africa. Although our kids will likely not make it to South Africa and end up International athletes, it was nice to see them having fun and not worrying about plowing the mahangu or sitting in class all day enduring a relentless onslaught of facts and figures being force-fed to them in their second or third language.
My hair has not been cut in 5 months. I must say, it is pretty weird having a lot of hair and there are both benefits and detriments to owning some lengthy locks. The positives: not having to cut my hair every few weeks is freaking awesome, being respected by people in the community just because I have many white hairs (a sign of wisdom to the Owambos), and some people think my afro-esque hair looks cool. The negatives: long hair doesn’t allow for adequate release of head heat (a big problem in the sweltering African summer), some people (including meme) here in Namibia think that guys should have a shaved head and that my having hair makes me girlish.
Okay, enough of what has already happened and onto what’s in store for the next few weeks:
So my APCD (basically Peace Corps boss who helps make sure everything is going well at my site) is going to be visiting my village, school, and homestead sometime this coming week. The visit is just to check up on things early on in the school year to make sure there are no major problems that the PCV was not aware of. I expect the visit to go fairly smoothly. My APCD will meet with my principal, then with me, and then with my family to talk about how things are going thus far. It’ll be nice to have her give me some feedback about how I’m doing, but I am kind of anxious about the visit as I hope I am on schedule in terms of doing all that I should be doing here. We only have 2 years and the time goes quicker than one might expect. Without proper planning and organization, PCVs can quickly lose track of their primary goals and end up accomplishing fairly little in their time at site. That’s what I am trying to avoid and hopefully I am doing well so far. I guess we’ll see next week…
On Friday I am headed to Windhoek (oh yeah! the big city – or should I say only city) to attend a benefit concert headlined by UB40. The event was scheduled for December but was cancelled and ticket holders were not given a refund. Fortunately, the event was rescheduled and it should be even better than expected because the once several hour event is now an all-weekend event with many other bands and our tickets get us access to all of the festivities for the whole weekend. Several other PCVs are going and we are bound to have a really good time. It’s always nice getting out of the village for a little while to meet up with friends in town, but Windhoek is another story; that’s like a once- or twice-a-year kind of thing!
In early March I will be attending a workshop in Ondangwa about food security. The workshop will (among other things) teach my fellow colleagues, my counterpart (another math teacher at my school), and I “key Permaculture and Bio-Intensive Gardening techniques to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS and help families & PLWHA to increase their food and nutritional security in Namibia.” After attending the workshop, we will bring our skills back to the village and set up a demonstration garden in the community to help introduce the concept to families in Ohalushu ways to improve their diets to best combat the effects of HIV/AIDS. I know very little about gardening, but if I ever were to spend several days learning about gardening and missing school for it, this would be the reason.
And the events don’t stop… The following week includes Namibia’s Independence Day (school holiday = long weekend = PCVs having a good ole time). The extended weekend coupled with some friends’ birthdays should ensure that this weekend will be a blast. I’ve heard Benny’s (waterpark in Ongwediva – yes you read correctly, the one and only waterpark in Namibia is only like 20km away from me) is the place to be and I think there will be many oilumbu paying the N$20 entrance fee over Independence weekend.
In mid-April I will be attending yet another workshop. This one will be held in Windhoek and will be all about creating feasible secondary projects in our communities. I have decided that one of the first and easiest to implement secondary projects is making the computer lab at school a resource that anyone in the community can benefit from. Computers are generally not something people have access to in the village (many elders have never even seen a computer) and I want to utilise to the fullest extent the resources we have at the school to allow as many people as possible to become acquainted with the new-age technology. This will certainly require some planning and the PDM workshop should be the perfect platform for discussing with my colleagues and PC staff what is the best way to move forward with the project.
Soon after the PDM workshop, the first term of the school year will come to a close. The end of the term will likely be hectic. Just coming back from the workshop in Windhoek with like a week of school remaining will be difficult, but hopefully I can prepare the kids for the end of term examinations and they will all do well. Marking will also be crazy during this time as all of the teachers will be spending copious hours filling in grade sheets and making sure all of the administrative paperwork is in order.
After that, it’s vacation time… I’m not 100% sure, but I should be going to Victoria Falls and/or Zanzibar for roughly two weeks in late April and early May. Should be nuts!
So although not much has happened in the past few weeks, you can see how the rest of the term looks to be rather eventful with something going on seemingly every week for the next two months or so.
Haha, a few minutes ago I began to hear thunder from afar. Now it’s pouring and for the first time ever my tin roof is actually leaking water due to the intensity of the rain. I guess the storm has officially begun…
_
But actually, this entry is not about Namibian weather at all. Rather, it’s about some of the recent events in my life and the many experiences that will be coming my way in the next two months.
Not much has occurred in the past few weeks (hence no blog post), but I have a feeling things are going to get interesting fairly soon. Teaching has become just like a normal job now that I am (generally) not considered the oshilumbu and now seen as just another teacher by most of the students. Home is generally good, but certainly not like the US. And some random events have kept me busy, but not as busy as I’ll be come March and April…
The first five weeks of the school year are complete and the days are really flying by now. The first week or two went kind of slowly as I was feeling out the learners trying to see how much they know, what pace I should teach at, and if they could actually understand me. After much careful examination I think I have a good idea about how to approach the task of teaching these kids and they are also beginning to become acquainted with how I do things so the lessons are going much more smoothly. Math in both 8th and 9th grade have really been a pleasant surprise. I am going through the material fairly quickly and it seems as if the kids understand most of what we have done so far in both classes. Physical science is the complete opposite. They know very little, we are going slower than we should be going, and the kids are very rambunctious (I yell at them every day for at least a few minutes). BIS provides a fun break from promotional classes. The kids have enjoyed most of the fun activities I have prepared for them so far and once the computer lab is back in action (more on that later), I’m sure they will be even more enthusiastic about this class.
Outside of school, everything in Ohalushu is nawa. Let me just redact some of the statements I made about home in the last post. When I was writing the entry, I was recovering from an awful illness and all I could think about was how rough the last few days had been. Sure the puppy barks a lot and the kids like to play around and yell at each other but puppies bark and little kids play. That’s just what they do. Life at the homestead really is good in general and the comments I made in the last post were almost entirely illness-induced. One other note about home: I still don’t have a refrigerator in my room. Surprisingly, living sans refrigeration has presented very little problems for me and I don’t think it would be an issue if I went the rest of my service here in Namibia without a refrigerator.
Beyond school and home, a few events/noteworthy thoughts have come up recently:
First off, I have officially been living in Africa for 6 months now. Not sure how big of an accomplishment that is, but judging by all of the Facebook updates I saw from fellow Group 32 PCVs here in Namibia, it holds some kind of significance. Plus, the new group is now in country, meaning we are no longer Freshmen.
I wrote in the past about the computer lab and its ups and downs. They continue to this day… The current project I am working on is setting up the server with Windows Server 2003 and then I will deploy Windows XP Embedded images to each of the thin clients. This has involved a lot of reading and even more time downloading things. Hopefully the conversion will be beneficial to the kids as Windows is much more frequently used throughout the world than Edubuntu and the skills they learn within the Windows XP framework should be better suited to how they might operate a computer in their future endeavors.
We recently had an athletics competition for the cluster (nearby group of schools). The event was held near Ongha and took the entire Saturday. Events included: running, running, and more running. The kids ran 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, and 3km, and 5km races and there were many heats for each age group and each race. Two kids represented our school and they both did remarkably well, moving on to the next competition. If they move on this weekend, they will go to Oshakati and represent the Region. And if they continue, it’s on to Windhoek. The winners from Windhoek then go to Johannesburg, South Africa. Although our kids will likely not make it to South Africa and end up International athletes, it was nice to see them having fun and not worrying about plowing the mahangu or sitting in class all day enduring a relentless onslaught of facts and figures being force-fed to them in their second or third language.
My hair has not been cut in 5 months. I must say, it is pretty weird having a lot of hair and there are both benefits and detriments to owning some lengthy locks. The positives: not having to cut my hair every few weeks is freaking awesome, being respected by people in the community just because I have many white hairs (a sign of wisdom to the Owambos), and some people think my afro-esque hair looks cool. The negatives: long hair doesn’t allow for adequate release of head heat (a big problem in the sweltering African summer), some people (including meme) here in Namibia think that guys should have a shaved head and that my having hair makes me girlish.
Okay, enough of what has already happened and onto what’s in store for the next few weeks:
So my APCD (basically Peace Corps boss who helps make sure everything is going well at my site) is going to be visiting my village, school, and homestead sometime this coming week. The visit is just to check up on things early on in the school year to make sure there are no major problems that the PCV was not aware of. I expect the visit to go fairly smoothly. My APCD will meet with my principal, then with me, and then with my family to talk about how things are going thus far. It’ll be nice to have her give me some feedback about how I’m doing, but I am kind of anxious about the visit as I hope I am on schedule in terms of doing all that I should be doing here. We only have 2 years and the time goes quicker than one might expect. Without proper planning and organization, PCVs can quickly lose track of their primary goals and end up accomplishing fairly little in their time at site. That’s what I am trying to avoid and hopefully I am doing well so far. I guess we’ll see next week…
On Friday I am headed to Windhoek (oh yeah! the big city – or should I say only city) to attend a benefit concert headlined by UB40. The event was scheduled for December but was cancelled and ticket holders were not given a refund. Fortunately, the event was rescheduled and it should be even better than expected because the once several hour event is now an all-weekend event with many other bands and our tickets get us access to all of the festivities for the whole weekend. Several other PCVs are going and we are bound to have a really good time. It’s always nice getting out of the village for a little while to meet up with friends in town, but Windhoek is another story; that’s like a once- or twice-a-year kind of thing!
In early March I will be attending a workshop in Ondangwa about food security. The workshop will (among other things) teach my fellow colleagues, my counterpart (another math teacher at my school), and I “key Permaculture and Bio-Intensive Gardening techniques to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS and help families & PLWHA to increase their food and nutritional security in Namibia.” After attending the workshop, we will bring our skills back to the village and set up a demonstration garden in the community to help introduce the concept to families in Ohalushu ways to improve their diets to best combat the effects of HIV/AIDS. I know very little about gardening, but if I ever were to spend several days learning about gardening and missing school for it, this would be the reason.
And the events don’t stop… The following week includes Namibia’s Independence Day (school holiday = long weekend = PCVs having a good ole time). The extended weekend coupled with some friends’ birthdays should ensure that this weekend will be a blast. I’ve heard Benny’s (waterpark in Ongwediva – yes you read correctly, the one and only waterpark in Namibia is only like 20km away from me) is the place to be and I think there will be many oilumbu paying the N$20 entrance fee over Independence weekend.
In mid-April I will be attending yet another workshop. This one will be held in Windhoek and will be all about creating feasible secondary projects in our communities. I have decided that one of the first and easiest to implement secondary projects is making the computer lab at school a resource that anyone in the community can benefit from. Computers are generally not something people have access to in the village (many elders have never even seen a computer) and I want to utilise to the fullest extent the resources we have at the school to allow as many people as possible to become acquainted with the new-age technology. This will certainly require some planning and the PDM workshop should be the perfect platform for discussing with my colleagues and PC staff what is the best way to move forward with the project.
Soon after the PDM workshop, the first term of the school year will come to a close. The end of the term will likely be hectic. Just coming back from the workshop in Windhoek with like a week of school remaining will be difficult, but hopefully I can prepare the kids for the end of term examinations and they will all do well. Marking will also be crazy during this time as all of the teachers will be spending copious hours filling in grade sheets and making sure all of the administrative paperwork is in order.
After that, it’s vacation time… I’m not 100% sure, but I should be going to Victoria Falls and/or Zanzibar for roughly two weeks in late April and early May. Should be nuts!
So although not much has happened in the past few weeks, you can see how the rest of the term looks to be rather eventful with something going on seemingly every week for the next two months or so.
Haha, a few minutes ago I began to hear thunder from afar. Now it’s pouring and for the first time ever my tin roof is actually leaking water due to the intensity of the rain. I guess the storm has officially begun…
_
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Back to Work
Two weeks in the bag. What can I say??
After reading through some of my fellow PCVs' blogs, I have been doing a whole lot of teaching compared to the norm. It's quite common here in Namibia for schools to take one to three weeks before all the kids begin showing up and all of the teachers have their timetables (schedules) for the year. Result: no teaching for quite some time. But I actually had the opportunity to begin teaching on Day 1 of the school year and I didn't pass it up. These kids need as much time as possible to get used to me as their teacher and also to learn things they probably should have learned like three or four years ago. So, we started with multivariate calculus in 8th grade math, group theory in 9th grade math, and physical chemistry in 8th grade physical science. </joke> ßNerd!
Now about the teaching itself... Although I never taught a class in the States, I actually got to teach a bunch of lessons during the final term of last school year so I was able to acclimate myself to the situation a bit. With that said, I wasn't too nervous about how things would go during the first week. I think that made things easier too. Although I didn’t know exactly what to expect, I had a decent idea of how much material could be covered in one class period so I was able to prepare a few reasonable lesson plans for each class. And the lesson plans helped a lot! One of the things that I found difficult in my brief teaching stint during the end of last year was determining what to present in the next class and I’ve since found that looking ahead and preparing a progression of related lessons works wonders. Kinda makes sense, right? Plan ahead and have future lessons be related to recent lessons if possible.
I think the learners are getting used to me as well. I can pretty easily identify when the whole class is clueless and when just a few are confused and the latter occurs way more than the former. The big problem in my school (and probably many other secondary schools throughout the country) is the 8th grade learners are not adequately prepared to perform at the secondary school level. The kids know very little English and too frequently suffer from incomplete training in almost every promotional (important) class. With that said, we teachers have to teach a whole lot of make-up material in addition to the topics included in the syllabus for each class. This presents many issues. Right now, my approach is to teach close to what the syllabus suggests for each class and work on incorporating basic competencies from past years whenever I see a good opportunity. We’ll see how this strategy pans out when the end of year examinations come. Ahh!
Yeah, so the beginning of my first full school year has been pretty good so far. More than I could have hoped for given all of the horror stories I have heard over the past few months from other PCVs. But not everything is perfect in Ohalushu… Here’s some of the bad:
The computer lab. Oh, the computer lab. The eighteen 1990s processor/case combos with monitors on top and the one decent server with horribly outdated Edubuntu software regularly ensure that I leave school with a headache. Sometimes we have internet access, sometimes we don’t. I am currently in the process of upgrading the software on the server so maybe things will soon get easier. Personally, I am not a fan of trying to do a sweeping overhaul of a server’s functionality through the terminal (command line) and new graphics-based software should help make the upgrades easier to incorporate. I’ll let you know how things progress with this project. As it stands, I now completely control the computer lab so I get all of the acclaim for things that work (totally don’t care about this), but I also get blamed for anything that becomes broken (kinda care about this).
Sometimes it’s good being the only person that knows how to do something. With enough time and resources, the knower can teach the non-knowers the desired information and everyone wins. The non-knowers now know and the knower gets satisfaction knowing that his/her knowledge was put to good use. Problems occur when there are too many non-knowers and too few knowers or if there are not enough resources or if there is not enough time for the knower to train the non-knowers. A perfect storm occurred recently when everyone and their mother asked me to create their timetable. I simply don’t have the time and energy to take the several hours to create teacher, class, and master timetables for each school in the region. This has been a big annoyance so far as the school year has begun and teachers like me should be focused on teaching. Something preparatory like a creating a timetable should have been done before the school year began. I would have been glad to help out during my exceedingly long summer break, but now that it’s over I want to do the job that I am employed to do and not some administrative garbage for another school.
So even with these last few drawbacks, I can say confidently that the start of the school year has been a positive rather than a negative experience. Hopefully I just never have to open that dreaded timetable-generating software again!
Oh yeah, I was really sick last week. It began on Sunday with a sore throat (remember I said I was coming down with something, mom). On Tuesday afternoon, after back-to-back days of post-schoolday headaches, I gathered that hearing myself speak too much gives me headaches. [If you know me well, you probably know I tend to enjoy pristinely quiet environments and say less than 100 words per day unless forced to do otherwise.] I now believe this supposition to be incorrect and the headaches to be the rumblings of thunder before the vicious 4-day storm hit me from Wednesday to Saturday. On Wednesday and Thursday I suffered from 102- and 103 degree fevers, respectively. Additionally, the minor after-school headaches that I experienced on Monday and Tuesday had become far more intense and really quite debilitating. I began to develop acute muscle fatigue throughout the majority of my body and found it difficult just to get out of bed in the morning. And I completely lost my appetite. I forced myself to eat about 500 calories of rice per day from Wednesday to Saturday so I didn’t die. Lastly, when I didn't have a fever or a headache I was literally covered in sweat. I don’t know how my body produced so much sweat… Maybe it found some secret reserves that are to be used only during times of considerable illness. So in a word the illness was nasty, but I made it through the storm and am now in full health (or very close) once again. I didn't even miss a day of school (or even a lesson) throughout the hellish week. In fact, I spent my entire Saturday at the school trying to work on the wretched computer lab. I saw the week as an opportunity to show the kids that sometimes we must work through adversity to accomplish a task.
I’ll end with a brief update about the homestead. I don’t think I mentioned this yet on the blog so I’ll say something quick about the eating situation. I used to eat oshifima and meat/soup with the family but now I cook for myself. It sort of sucks (no working refrigerator yet so the options are limited), but there are some positives too. I eat a whole lot of bread, peanut butter, and rice which means my diet is not good but I also don’t have to buy food for the big family anymore so I save a lot of money. Also, I stated earlier how important silence is to me and it’s been everything but silent around here recently. Since the beginning of the school year, we have obtained two more sub-5-year-old children on the homestead and they are quite naughty. I think one of the new kids taught my young cousin how to cry for attention and she has been bawling ferociously for the past two weeks for at least an aggregate of 30 minutes per evening. The kids also run around yelling and playing which is fine if there are a few kids and they do it every once in awhile, but there are like ten kids and they are constantly running around and yelling at each other. My final gripe is about the puppy. This thing could be the most obnoxious animal ever but I think it has brain damage (meme has hit it with the truck at least once [her driving is scary – she almost plowed into one of the huts this morning when she forgot the car was in gear]). Anyway, the dog barks incessantly. Every single noise it hears sets off a trigger in its mind to unleash a sadistic assault on any ear within a 5 mile radius. I once timed a barking spree that went on for 18 minutes! Really, okambwena? Really?
Okay, that’s enough for now. I have to go to sleep. I hope you enjoyed reading and hope you are doing well wherever you are!
-J
_
After reading through some of my fellow PCVs' blogs, I have been doing a whole lot of teaching compared to the norm. It's quite common here in Namibia for schools to take one to three weeks before all the kids begin showing up and all of the teachers have their timetables (schedules) for the year. Result: no teaching for quite some time. But I actually had the opportunity to begin teaching on Day 1 of the school year and I didn't pass it up. These kids need as much time as possible to get used to me as their teacher and also to learn things they probably should have learned like three or four years ago. So, we started with multivariate calculus in 8th grade math, group theory in 9th grade math, and physical chemistry in 8th grade physical science. </joke> ßNerd!
Now about the teaching itself... Although I never taught a class in the States, I actually got to teach a bunch of lessons during the final term of last school year so I was able to acclimate myself to the situation a bit. With that said, I wasn't too nervous about how things would go during the first week. I think that made things easier too. Although I didn’t know exactly what to expect, I had a decent idea of how much material could be covered in one class period so I was able to prepare a few reasonable lesson plans for each class. And the lesson plans helped a lot! One of the things that I found difficult in my brief teaching stint during the end of last year was determining what to present in the next class and I’ve since found that looking ahead and preparing a progression of related lessons works wonders. Kinda makes sense, right? Plan ahead and have future lessons be related to recent lessons if possible.
I think the learners are getting used to me as well. I can pretty easily identify when the whole class is clueless and when just a few are confused and the latter occurs way more than the former. The big problem in my school (and probably many other secondary schools throughout the country) is the 8th grade learners are not adequately prepared to perform at the secondary school level. The kids know very little English and too frequently suffer from incomplete training in almost every promotional (important) class. With that said, we teachers have to teach a whole lot of make-up material in addition to the topics included in the syllabus for each class. This presents many issues. Right now, my approach is to teach close to what the syllabus suggests for each class and work on incorporating basic competencies from past years whenever I see a good opportunity. We’ll see how this strategy pans out when the end of year examinations come. Ahh!
Yeah, so the beginning of my first full school year has been pretty good so far. More than I could have hoped for given all of the horror stories I have heard over the past few months from other PCVs. But not everything is perfect in Ohalushu… Here’s some of the bad:
- My principal was offered a position in Oshakati and he has since transferred
- The computer lab is still not fully functional
- Every school in the region wants me to make their timetable (exaggeration)
The computer lab. Oh, the computer lab. The eighteen 1990s processor/case combos with monitors on top and the one decent server with horribly outdated Edubuntu software regularly ensure that I leave school with a headache. Sometimes we have internet access, sometimes we don’t. I am currently in the process of upgrading the software on the server so maybe things will soon get easier. Personally, I am not a fan of trying to do a sweeping overhaul of a server’s functionality through the terminal (command line) and new graphics-based software should help make the upgrades easier to incorporate. I’ll let you know how things progress with this project. As it stands, I now completely control the computer lab so I get all of the acclaim for things that work (totally don’t care about this), but I also get blamed for anything that becomes broken (kinda care about this).
Sometimes it’s good being the only person that knows how to do something. With enough time and resources, the knower can teach the non-knowers the desired information and everyone wins. The non-knowers now know and the knower gets satisfaction knowing that his/her knowledge was put to good use. Problems occur when there are too many non-knowers and too few knowers or if there are not enough resources or if there is not enough time for the knower to train the non-knowers. A perfect storm occurred recently when everyone and their mother asked me to create their timetable. I simply don’t have the time and energy to take the several hours to create teacher, class, and master timetables for each school in the region. This has been a big annoyance so far as the school year has begun and teachers like me should be focused on teaching. Something preparatory like a creating a timetable should have been done before the school year began. I would have been glad to help out during my exceedingly long summer break, but now that it’s over I want to do the job that I am employed to do and not some administrative garbage for another school.
So even with these last few drawbacks, I can say confidently that the start of the school year has been a positive rather than a negative experience. Hopefully I just never have to open that dreaded timetable-generating software again!
Oh yeah, I was really sick last week. It began on Sunday with a sore throat (remember I said I was coming down with something, mom). On Tuesday afternoon, after back-to-back days of post-schoolday headaches, I gathered that hearing myself speak too much gives me headaches. [If you know me well, you probably know I tend to enjoy pristinely quiet environments and say less than 100 words per day unless forced to do otherwise.] I now believe this supposition to be incorrect and the headaches to be the rumblings of thunder before the vicious 4-day storm hit me from Wednesday to Saturday. On Wednesday and Thursday I suffered from 102- and 103 degree fevers, respectively. Additionally, the minor after-school headaches that I experienced on Monday and Tuesday had become far more intense and really quite debilitating. I began to develop acute muscle fatigue throughout the majority of my body and found it difficult just to get out of bed in the morning. And I completely lost my appetite. I forced myself to eat about 500 calories of rice per day from Wednesday to Saturday so I didn’t die. Lastly, when I didn't have a fever or a headache I was literally covered in sweat. I don’t know how my body produced so much sweat… Maybe it found some secret reserves that are to be used only during times of considerable illness. So in a word the illness was nasty, but I made it through the storm and am now in full health (or very close) once again. I didn't even miss a day of school (or even a lesson) throughout the hellish week. In fact, I spent my entire Saturday at the school trying to work on the wretched computer lab. I saw the week as an opportunity to show the kids that sometimes we must work through adversity to accomplish a task.
I’ll end with a brief update about the homestead. I don’t think I mentioned this yet on the blog so I’ll say something quick about the eating situation. I used to eat oshifima and meat/soup with the family but now I cook for myself. It sort of sucks (no working refrigerator yet so the options are limited), but there are some positives too. I eat a whole lot of bread, peanut butter, and rice which means my diet is not good but I also don’t have to buy food for the big family anymore so I save a lot of money. Also, I stated earlier how important silence is to me and it’s been everything but silent around here recently. Since the beginning of the school year, we have obtained two more sub-5-year-old children on the homestead and they are quite naughty. I think one of the new kids taught my young cousin how to cry for attention and she has been bawling ferociously for the past two weeks for at least an aggregate of 30 minutes per evening. The kids also run around yelling and playing which is fine if there are a few kids and they do it every once in awhile, but there are like ten kids and they are constantly running around and yelling at each other. My final gripe is about the puppy. This thing could be the most obnoxious animal ever but I think it has brain damage (meme has hit it with the truck at least once [her driving is scary – she almost plowed into one of the huts this morning when she forgot the car was in gear]). Anyway, the dog barks incessantly. Every single noise it hears sets off a trigger in its mind to unleash a sadistic assault on any ear within a 5 mile radius. I once timed a barking spree that went on for 18 minutes! Really, okambwena? Really?
Okay, that’s enough for now. I have to go to sleep. I hope you enjoyed reading and hope you are doing well wherever you are!
-J
_
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Vacation Along the Coast
Wow, it’s been a really long time since I last updated this thing…
I’m not entirely sure where the story left off – and I don’t want to waste the Tango to go online and check – but if I recall correctly, my last post was about Reconnect. With that said, I have a jam-packed month of events to recount in this post. Hmmm, where to start…
After Reconnect I returned to my site in Ohalushu for some simplicity on the homestead. That lasted a whole two days! Before long, friends began collaborating and devising a plan to best utilise (British English, that’s right!) our time off. The overwhelming majority of people had an acute desire to explore coastal Namibia, namely Swakopmund (where I’ve heard Brangelina and Sharon Osbourne frequent), the Skeleton Coast, and Walvis Bay. So to the coast we went.
What’s the best way to get to the coast? Pay several hundred nollars (how we PCVs differentiate between Namibian and American dollars) and ride in a fairly safe, but overloaded and stinky combi or free ride south out of Owamboland in the back of a bakkie and then get on an overnight train headed straight for the holiday party capital of Namibia? That’s right, option 2. The train was awesome! Our small group of eight definitely had the best pre-coast journey, celebrating the night away and arriving at sunrise a day before everyone else showed up.
By December 24th, all ~30 of us were in Swakopmund, camping roughly 100 yards from both the beach and Tiger Reef (the tiki bar where many of us spent entirely too much time at during of our stay).
Swakop is a really cool place. There’s plenty of high quality non-oshifimic nourishment available, the sights are awesome with beautiful sunsets and views of the dunes and ocean, a vast and interesting assortment of people pack the small town for the holiday, and there are many extreme sports for those who want to push life to the limit.
I was one of the aforementioned people who spent way too much time laying around and chilling at the bar. Other than time, I managed to spend a remarkable amount of money on good food and N$15 ($2 USD)/bottle wine. Additionally, I played some beach football with friends, attempted and failed to sandboard down the nearby dunes, and did a bit of reading.
On Christmas, we had a Secret Springbok (Secret Santa) which was pretty hilarious. There are some really creative people in our group, so it was funny to see what they did with the N$40 limit. Other than that, the day was very non-Christmasy. At least it wasn’t 110°F along the coast like it is up north.
It even rained moderately for about 10 minutes on one of the days. A complete shock seeing as Swakopmund receives like 1cm of rain per year.
By the 28th, around 20 of the campers expressed desire to travel along the coast so we rented two trucks and hit the road. Highlights include:
Dune 7 is one of the tallest dunes in the world. Its enormity is pretty startling and climbing it was quite the experience. The dune’s height pales in comparison to many mountains even within the country but the baking sun and the quicksand-esque nature of the sand makes the climb all the more difficult. Doing it barefoot is nearly impossible due to the heat of the sand. Needless to say, I left all of my socks in the village and attempted the climb with flip-flops and bare feet. About halfway up I realized that the flip-flops were causing more harm than good and I converted to straight-up barefoot. As I approached the top, I could feel my feet boiling and I was beginning to wonder if I would incur long-term damage from this afternoon jaunt up a hill of sand. Luckily, Ryan, who had reached the top long ago, tossed his socks down, allowing me to reach the summit alive. The experience was overall a positive, but the second degree burns on my feet kinda sucked.
Cape Cross is a little peninsula not far north of Dune 7. The Cape’s stake to famous is the remarkable collection of 200,000+ seals which call it home. The sight got mixed reviews from fellow PCVs. Certainly it’s cool to see a region so densely populated with seals especially with the large collection of young’ns that were born in early December. But with that many animals in a one place, some of them have to die. Dead ones riddled the cape and really gave the place a weird feel. There were no mixed feelings about the smell of the Cape… It was grotesque! Since returning to the village, I have read that Cape Cross has been rated one of the worst smelling places in the world.
The Skeleton Coast is an intense place. Not many animals are able to subsist along there, hence the name. Apparently not even ships can stay afloat in this spooky desert/ocean mishmash world and many litter the coast. We were lucky enough to spot one and spend an evening camping out and partying nearby it. Definitely a good time!
Walvis Bay was the last stop on our journey along the coast. Home to a huge port, Walvis is the second largest town in Namibia, behind just Windhoek. I would have never guessed it had I not known beforehand. Some of the best and cheapest seafood in the world is available here and we enjoyed our fair share of it. But mollusks run the place… There is very little to do here outside of the seafood industry and our visit was short-lived for this very reason.
We returned to Swakopmund on the 30th just in time for the big New Year’s celebration. There was a huge bonfire at Tiger Reef and hundreds of people attended. The event was, for me, the best part of our trip. Everyone had a great time until the tides came in around midnight and numerous cell phones, cameras, and shoes were lost. Luckily I left all of my valuable stuff at the campsite and only lost my flip-flops which a trip to a China Shop in Ondangwa quickly rectified.
Ten days was all we had scheduled for our campground in Swakopmund and by January 2 everyone had dispersed from the site. On my way back home, I stayed two days with my host family from Okahandja. It was really nice to see everyone at my old home in Veddersdal for the first time since swearing-in in October and it made the journey back to Owamboland a bit easier. Plus, Ouma (grandma) did my laundry which saved me a day of hand-washing back in the village. Baie dankie, Ouma!
The finale was the trek back up to my village in the north. I was really lucky to get a free ride out of Okahandja all the way to Ondangwa. When I got to Ondangwa it was clear that rainy season was in full effect. Torrential downpours basically flash flooded the town, making walking, biking, or driving very difficult. I managed to get to the Peace Corps Office in town to chill for a bit while the town dried out. By 6:00pm it was time to leave. I hopped in a cab with a few of my friends that happened to also be in the PC Office when I showed up and we headed north. I guess the storm had moved north because now it was pouring in the village. I had no power for two days, but I was home and I spent a total of about $2 USD to get from Swakopmund back to my village. Vacation was finally over.
That’s all that I can recall – or that I’m will to share in this public forum – from the past month. I know I said I’d have pictures but truthfully I didn’t take many and it is such a time- and energy-consuming process to upload photos with this 2G internet connection. With that said, maybe I’ll upload some once school re-opens and I have access to a faster internet connection, but until then maybe take a look at some of the pictures posted by my friends on Facebook (not many) or better yet check out other PCVs’ blogs here.
Now it’s time for school. Teachers start this Thursday so I have to revamp my mindset and prepare to work again. I feel like it has been so long since I did anything of value and it will definitely be nice to get back in the classroom and start teaching.
_
I’m not entirely sure where the story left off – and I don’t want to waste the Tango to go online and check – but if I recall correctly, my last post was about Reconnect. With that said, I have a jam-packed month of events to recount in this post. Hmmm, where to start…
After Reconnect I returned to my site in Ohalushu for some simplicity on the homestead. That lasted a whole two days! Before long, friends began collaborating and devising a plan to best utilise (British English, that’s right!) our time off. The overwhelming majority of people had an acute desire to explore coastal Namibia, namely Swakopmund (where I’ve heard Brangelina and Sharon Osbourne frequent), the Skeleton Coast, and Walvis Bay. So to the coast we went.
What’s the best way to get to the coast? Pay several hundred nollars (how we PCVs differentiate between Namibian and American dollars) and ride in a fairly safe, but overloaded and stinky combi or free ride south out of Owamboland in the back of a bakkie and then get on an overnight train headed straight for the holiday party capital of Namibia? That’s right, option 2. The train was awesome! Our small group of eight definitely had the best pre-coast journey, celebrating the night away and arriving at sunrise a day before everyone else showed up.
By December 24th, all ~30 of us were in Swakopmund, camping roughly 100 yards from both the beach and Tiger Reef (the tiki bar where many of us spent entirely too much time at during of our stay).
Swakop is a really cool place. There’s plenty of high quality non-oshifimic nourishment available, the sights are awesome with beautiful sunsets and views of the dunes and ocean, a vast and interesting assortment of people pack the small town for the holiday, and there are many extreme sports for those who want to push life to the limit.
I was one of the aforementioned people who spent way too much time laying around and chilling at the bar. Other than time, I managed to spend a remarkable amount of money on good food and N$15 ($2 USD)/bottle wine. Additionally, I played some beach football with friends, attempted and failed to sandboard down the nearby dunes, and did a bit of reading.
On Christmas, we had a Secret Springbok (Secret Santa) which was pretty hilarious. There are some really creative people in our group, so it was funny to see what they did with the N$40 limit. Other than that, the day was very non-Christmasy. At least it wasn’t 110°F along the coast like it is up north.
It even rained moderately for about 10 minutes on one of the days. A complete shock seeing as Swakopmund receives like 1cm of rain per year.
By the 28th, around 20 of the campers expressed desire to travel along the coast so we rented two trucks and hit the road. Highlights include:
- Dune 7
- Cape Cross
- Camping along the beach near a sunken ship
- Walvis Bay
Dune 7 is one of the tallest dunes in the world. Its enormity is pretty startling and climbing it was quite the experience. The dune’s height pales in comparison to many mountains even within the country but the baking sun and the quicksand-esque nature of the sand makes the climb all the more difficult. Doing it barefoot is nearly impossible due to the heat of the sand. Needless to say, I left all of my socks in the village and attempted the climb with flip-flops and bare feet. About halfway up I realized that the flip-flops were causing more harm than good and I converted to straight-up barefoot. As I approached the top, I could feel my feet boiling and I was beginning to wonder if I would incur long-term damage from this afternoon jaunt up a hill of sand. Luckily, Ryan, who had reached the top long ago, tossed his socks down, allowing me to reach the summit alive. The experience was overall a positive, but the second degree burns on my feet kinda sucked.
Cape Cross is a little peninsula not far north of Dune 7. The Cape’s stake to famous is the remarkable collection of 200,000+ seals which call it home. The sight got mixed reviews from fellow PCVs. Certainly it’s cool to see a region so densely populated with seals especially with the large collection of young’ns that were born in early December. But with that many animals in a one place, some of them have to die. Dead ones riddled the cape and really gave the place a weird feel. There were no mixed feelings about the smell of the Cape… It was grotesque! Since returning to the village, I have read that Cape Cross has been rated one of the worst smelling places in the world.
The Skeleton Coast is an intense place. Not many animals are able to subsist along there, hence the name. Apparently not even ships can stay afloat in this spooky desert/ocean mishmash world and many litter the coast. We were lucky enough to spot one and spend an evening camping out and partying nearby it. Definitely a good time!
Walvis Bay was the last stop on our journey along the coast. Home to a huge port, Walvis is the second largest town in Namibia, behind just Windhoek. I would have never guessed it had I not known beforehand. Some of the best and cheapest seafood in the world is available here and we enjoyed our fair share of it. But mollusks run the place… There is very little to do here outside of the seafood industry and our visit was short-lived for this very reason.
We returned to Swakopmund on the 30th just in time for the big New Year’s celebration. There was a huge bonfire at Tiger Reef and hundreds of people attended. The event was, for me, the best part of our trip. Everyone had a great time until the tides came in around midnight and numerous cell phones, cameras, and shoes were lost. Luckily I left all of my valuable stuff at the campsite and only lost my flip-flops which a trip to a China Shop in Ondangwa quickly rectified.
Ten days was all we had scheduled for our campground in Swakopmund and by January 2 everyone had dispersed from the site. On my way back home, I stayed two days with my host family from Okahandja. It was really nice to see everyone at my old home in Veddersdal for the first time since swearing-in in October and it made the journey back to Owamboland a bit easier. Plus, Ouma (grandma) did my laundry which saved me a day of hand-washing back in the village. Baie dankie, Ouma!
The finale was the trek back up to my village in the north. I was really lucky to get a free ride out of Okahandja all the way to Ondangwa. When I got to Ondangwa it was clear that rainy season was in full effect. Torrential downpours basically flash flooded the town, making walking, biking, or driving very difficult. I managed to get to the Peace Corps Office in town to chill for a bit while the town dried out. By 6:00pm it was time to leave. I hopped in a cab with a few of my friends that happened to also be in the PC Office when I showed up and we headed north. I guess the storm had moved north because now it was pouring in the village. I had no power for two days, but I was home and I spent a total of about $2 USD to get from Swakopmund back to my village. Vacation was finally over.
That’s all that I can recall – or that I’m will to share in this public forum – from the past month. I know I said I’d have pictures but truthfully I didn’t take many and it is such a time- and energy-consuming process to upload photos with this 2G internet connection. With that said, maybe I’ll upload some once school re-opens and I have access to a faster internet connection, but until then maybe take a look at some of the pictures posted by my friends on Facebook (not many) or better yet check out other PCVs’ blogs here.
Now it’s time for school. Teachers start this Thursday so I have to revamp my mindset and prepare to work again. I feel like it has been so long since I did anything of value and it will definitely be nice to get back in the classroom and start teaching.
_
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