Greetings from the Namib, Namibia. Most of Namibia is in the Khalari, but the Namib Desert runs along the coast, from 40-80 km inland. We are there, in Swakopmund, taking a tour-the-town and hang out day.
Perhaps you had my misconception: Christina actually lives in Uis, despite not living in the town. This is because “town” refers to about a fourth of Uis’ population, with straight grid streets, a supermarket, restaurants, gas station and tourist facilities. It is mostly white, but some black Africans, too. The other part of Uis is the “location”, which is >99,9% black (guess who) and separated from the “town” by a brick plant and abandoned tin mine, about 4 miles distance. The structure is an apparent remnant of apartheid which, because its so structurally ingrained, seems like it will be a long time in fading away. A lot of cities have these.
It appears that everyone knows Miss Tina. Children and others wave, and even people in town who she does not know treat her like a long-lost friend. So although not terribly inviting toward a true friendship, the community is quite friendly.
Seeing Christina’s place, as parents, we wanted to do an episode of one of those home makeover TV shows, although that, predictably, was not going to sit well with her. We did do some compromises. We bought fabric to replace the missing backs on the kitchen chairs, a bowl, (even though she insisted the deep plate worked fine for soup and cereal) and kitchen knives since food would get caught in the leatherman, We learned she’s a bit self-conscious about being perceived as rich after some kids saw into her cupboard and said “wow” at the amount of rice, oil and seasonings that were present. (We were less impressed!) Computer and iPod are kept from public view.
The school is plain, but quite nice, and we loved the library. All the books are classified as 1 thru 5, based on reading difficulty, which makes them a little easier to file. There’s nothing to sit on, so we got some pillows from the China Store as our contribution, and brought some National Geographic posters. The bookshelves need constant work. The actual shelves are only a fraction of the depth of the bookcase, so books are always falling down the back. But bottom line, its quite a cheery, inviting place.
Our travels have been without adverse incident so far, not counting Tina’s sprained ankle and wrist, sore throat and cold, food poisoning (nasty, the hotel staff wanted to get a doctor) and sunburn. Patti and I are quite pleased with things going otherwise so smoothly.
Ultimate animals:
BIGGEST: Namibian elephant, the largest strain in Africa, almost as big as the oiliphants in Lord of the Rings. I have seen elephants, but these were startling, towering about the trees and eating the tops.
Wimpiest: Anopheles mosquito, a no-show in this dry weather. We stopped our malaria prophylaxis early, a mortal sin in the annals of Infectious Diseases.
Startling: The Red Hartebeast is a creature out of mythology. It quite large, with the muscular body of a horse, a long neck, and the head of an antelope. We only saw them a few times, but they were back in the trees, the way centaurs usually are in paintings. Awesome.
Beautiful: Lavender-breasted roller. Black and a bluish aquamarine complement the purple breast when in flight.
Dumbest: the African sand grouse which will watch the tires of your Toyota truck slowly run over him unless you are careful to steer around.
Saddest: The wildebeest male, who when dethroned as leader of his harem by a younger, stronger male, is exiled from wildebeestdom. But being a social, herd animal, it will attach itself to another species herd, like a bunch of springbok, and follow them around in its retirement.
OILO (Once in a lifetime opportunity): The leopard, with blood on the chops from a baby kudu, looking you intently in the eyes from 9 feet away as your driver mistakenly gets between the leopard and what’s left of her kill.
Transparent: The rounded ears and black eyes being the only discernible features in the high grass as the cheetah looks up to see who is there.
Least responsive to negative reinforcement: That would be Patti, who could never believe in the baking desert sun of late afternoon that she would need anything warmer than short sleeves after sunset, despite the four previous nights’ experiences.
Most delicious: So far, either oryx or kudu. Each is also pretty impressive when not being eaten.
Most under appreciated: The springbok is underrated because it is so common. But it is a truly beautiful animal with an amazing vertical bounce.
Best architects: Termites. Second place, weaverbirds.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Down South
After a nine hour kombi ride to Windhoek and two days there just eating, taking care of errands, seeing a movie (in a theater!), visiting friends, and getting far too tied up in the drama of the hostel where we stayed for one of the nights, it was time to head to South Africa. Four of us took a 22 hour bus ride from Windhoek to Capetown, and it was surprisingly nice. The seats reclined to almost laying down and were incredibly comfortable, so aside from the terrible movie they showed (seriously... someone should imdb "Birdie and Bogey") we were all amazed how smoothly the trip was.
We arrived in the afternoon on saturday tired and a bit dazed from the journey but pushed through for a nice dinner and then going out on Long Street. Long Street is what I imagine New Orleans to be like-- there are bars and restaurants lining both sides of a cramped street with balconies full of people talking, laughing, and dancing. We watched one of the car guards do a great dance performance in the street, enjoyed pina coladas at a cuban place, and met julia's friends (and their entire soccer team) for dancing. It was a great welcome to Capetown.
The next day we rode the cable car up table mountain, which is just outside the city. It gives you a spectacular view of everything-- on one side the ocean and the city sprawled out (we could even see the world cup stadium!) on another side a smaller mountain poking up and to the other side the vineyards crawling inland. It was breathtaking, and we spent far more time than anticipated wandering around on top of it.
We also visited Robben island, which was interesting, but a bit bizarre because most of the time is spent on a bus or being hurried through rooms that have been made into makeshift museums (really really hurried through). The last part of the tour, however, was guided by a former inmate of the prison and it was very interesting to get to hear from him.
Right now we are in Stellenbosch, which is a smaller town right in the middle of the wine country. We did tastings yesterday and the first one was wonderful- good wine and the guy who worked there had the attitude that "you like what you like, not what you're supposed to like" which was fabulous since none of us are exactly wine experts... Then we went to the goats do roam vineyard and had amazing cheeses with the wine.
I absolutely love capetown. Maybe it's just because it's nice to be back in a real city (we all went through some culture shock) but it is clean, full of wonderful restaurants, cafes, galleries, and funky little shops. People have been nothing but friendly and with the ocean on one side and table mountain on the other, it would be easy to miss how beautiful the buildings in the city are.
The plan is to head back to capetown later today and maybe see the cape of good hope later this week, but mostly we are all enjoying relaxing, eating, and lots of good wine!
We arrived in the afternoon on saturday tired and a bit dazed from the journey but pushed through for a nice dinner and then going out on Long Street. Long Street is what I imagine New Orleans to be like-- there are bars and restaurants lining both sides of a cramped street with balconies full of people talking, laughing, and dancing. We watched one of the car guards do a great dance performance in the street, enjoyed pina coladas at a cuban place, and met julia's friends (and their entire soccer team) for dancing. It was a great welcome to Capetown.
The next day we rode the cable car up table mountain, which is just outside the city. It gives you a spectacular view of everything-- on one side the ocean and the city sprawled out (we could even see the world cup stadium!) on another side a smaller mountain poking up and to the other side the vineyards crawling inland. It was breathtaking, and we spent far more time than anticipated wandering around on top of it.
We also visited Robben island, which was interesting, but a bit bizarre because most of the time is spent on a bus or being hurried through rooms that have been made into makeshift museums (really really hurried through). The last part of the tour, however, was guided by a former inmate of the prison and it was very interesting to get to hear from him.
Right now we are in Stellenbosch, which is a smaller town right in the middle of the wine country. We did tastings yesterday and the first one was wonderful- good wine and the guy who worked there had the attitude that "you like what you like, not what you're supposed to like" which was fabulous since none of us are exactly wine experts... Then we went to the goats do roam vineyard and had amazing cheeses with the wine.
I absolutely love capetown. Maybe it's just because it's nice to be back in a real city (we all went through some culture shock) but it is clean, full of wonderful restaurants, cafes, galleries, and funky little shops. People have been nothing but friendly and with the ocean on one side and table mountain on the other, it would be easy to miss how beautiful the buildings in the city are.
The plan is to head back to capetown later today and maybe see the cape of good hope later this week, but mostly we are all enjoying relaxing, eating, and lots of good wine!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Up North
I have spent the past few days visiting the North of Namibia. I jumped around spending each night with a different volunteer and the days were spent in some of the bigger towns or just hanging out at people’s sites to see what it was like. Instead of boring you with a “first I did this, then I went here” sort of post I thought I might just talk about what in the north was different for me so here we go.
Differences between what I’m used to and Northern Namibia
1. It’s a lot greener. Uis is semi-desert but the north is full of trees, grasses, and bushes. It’s not quite tropical or jungle-y but it’s definitely more of what I imagined when I thought about going to Africa. There are little ponds/puddles (called oshanas) all over too because there is more rainfall.
2. There are shabeens everywhere. Shabeens are little bars, usually one room cement spaces but they are all up and down the roads there. The best part is some of the fabulous names they have. Some of my favorites are: water melon is life, gangster’s paradise bar, enough bar, lucky special bar, and plan b bar.
3. A lot of the towns aren’t really towns or central communities, but rather just separations of the houses and businesses along the road. It’s more of a “from here to here along the highway is ongwadiva” which has made it difficult for some of the volunteers to get involved in their communities, but also means everything feels very connected and almost more like one big town.
4. There are taxis everywhere. That’s how we traveled all over. Coming from Uis which has no taxis it was a big change.
5. The people are different. There are different tribes up north, so the people tend to be darker skinned and speak a different language. This means I couldn’t greet people like I can in Uis. They seemed incredibly friendly to me and when I accidentally got dropped off in the wrong town I made a bunch of friends and had to take my picture with some of my new “sisters” before I was allowed to get in a cab to where I needed to be.
6. The big towns: I liked Oshikango a lot, it is a border town (on the border of Angola) and is about 1/3 Namibian, 1/3 Chinese and 1/3 Portuguese so it’s a pretty interesting mix. All the shops are china shops and Portuguese markets and it almost has an industrial feel (good Chinese food though!!). Ondangwa feels really big (long) and mostly had a lot of strip malls and that sort of thing. Oshikati I didn’t spend much time in, but it seemed like there were more markets but still lots of big stores. In case you haven't noticed, all of the towns start with 'o' (the small ones are ondangwa, ongwediva, onhanu...) it gets incredibly confusing for those of us who aren't used to it!!
Differences between what I’m used to and Northern Namibia
1. It’s a lot greener. Uis is semi-desert but the north is full of trees, grasses, and bushes. It’s not quite tropical or jungle-y but it’s definitely more of what I imagined when I thought about going to Africa. There are little ponds/puddles (called oshanas) all over too because there is more rainfall.
2. There are shabeens everywhere. Shabeens are little bars, usually one room cement spaces but they are all up and down the roads there. The best part is some of the fabulous names they have. Some of my favorites are: water melon is life, gangster’s paradise bar, enough bar, lucky special bar, and plan b bar.
3. A lot of the towns aren’t really towns or central communities, but rather just separations of the houses and businesses along the road. It’s more of a “from here to here along the highway is ongwadiva” which has made it difficult for some of the volunteers to get involved in their communities, but also means everything feels very connected and almost more like one big town.
4. There are taxis everywhere. That’s how we traveled all over. Coming from Uis which has no taxis it was a big change.
5. The people are different. There are different tribes up north, so the people tend to be darker skinned and speak a different language. This means I couldn’t greet people like I can in Uis. They seemed incredibly friendly to me and when I accidentally got dropped off in the wrong town I made a bunch of friends and had to take my picture with some of my new “sisters” before I was allowed to get in a cab to where I needed to be.
6. The big towns: I liked Oshikango a lot, it is a border town (on the border of Angola) and is about 1/3 Namibian, 1/3 Chinese and 1/3 Portuguese so it’s a pretty interesting mix. All the shops are china shops and Portuguese markets and it almost has an industrial feel (good Chinese food though!!). Ondangwa feels really big (long) and mostly had a lot of strip malls and that sort of thing. Oshikati I didn’t spend much time in, but it seemed like there were more markets but still lots of big stores. In case you haven't noticed, all of the towns start with 'o' (the small ones are ondangwa, ongwediva, onhanu...) it gets incredibly confusing for those of us who aren't used to it!!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Future Travels
Hello! With my summer break about to start, I thought I would let you know what the travel plans are just because posts might be more sporadic (or more regular, who knows) and it might be trickier to get in contact with me.
April 23-26 or 28: up in Northern Namibia with some fellow vols
April 28-30: Windhoek
April 30-May 10: Capetown (my phone may not work, if you need to get a hold of me send an email, I will try to check it often)
May 10- 21: Traveling with my parents!! Yay.
May 21-25: Midservice in Windhoek
May 26: Back in Uis for the start of term 2
Hopefully I will keep you updated but just a bit of a warning!
April 23-26 or 28: up in Northern Namibia with some fellow vols
April 28-30: Windhoek
April 30-May 10: Capetown (my phone may not work, if you need to get a hold of me send an email, I will try to check it often)
May 10- 21: Traveling with my parents!! Yay.
May 21-25: Midservice in Windhoek
May 26: Back in Uis for the start of term 2
Hopefully I will keep you updated but just a bit of a warning!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Kristen and Jena
I have also had a request for a profile of some of my fellow volunteers. Since Kristen and Jena are the ones I am closest to and the ones I see most often, I figured I could tell you a little about them. Also, the three of us are the babies of the group, we are the only ones who graduated from college in 2009 and we all live in the Erongo region.
Kristen is a sassypants. She always has a sarcastic comment ready and answers any question with plenty of attitude. That being said, she has a huge heart and is actually kind of a sappy sweetheart (shh.. don’t tell her I said that). She is from Virginia and studied social work, which is what she wants to do. She always lights up when she talks about social work and has great stories from some of the things she has already done. She is also obsessed with cats (her cat radar rivals my baby radar) and loves wine. She can be pretty shy, especially around big groups, and gets really intimidated by traveling here, but once she’s comfortable with you she chatters away (especially after a glass or two of that wine she loves…). I don’t really know what else to tell you except maybe to mention that I sms (text) her somewhere between 5 and 50 times every single day.
Jena is… well.. sweet. She is kind, caring, friendly and almost never cranky. She is basically just a nice person, which (along with the fact that her kids are devil children) means she has a lot of difficulties with discipline. She’s a little hippy-ish and spent a month after graduating from college working at a children’s home in Tanzania and then spent several months backpacking around southeast asia. She already has tons of friends all over Swakopmund. She is from New Orleans and her mom is an artist, which for some reason totally helps me understand why she is the way she is. Jena is a lot of fun because she’s always up for anything. Sorry if this makes her sound like one of those people who is so nice they are boring, because that is absolutely not true about Jena, but I don’t know how else to describe her!
Kristen is a sassypants. She always has a sarcastic comment ready and answers any question with plenty of attitude. That being said, she has a huge heart and is actually kind of a sappy sweetheart (shh.. don’t tell her I said that). She is from Virginia and studied social work, which is what she wants to do. She always lights up when she talks about social work and has great stories from some of the things she has already done. She is also obsessed with cats (her cat radar rivals my baby radar) and loves wine. She can be pretty shy, especially around big groups, and gets really intimidated by traveling here, but once she’s comfortable with you she chatters away (especially after a glass or two of that wine she loves…). I don’t really know what else to tell you except maybe to mention that I sms (text) her somewhere between 5 and 50 times every single day.
Jena is… well.. sweet. She is kind, caring, friendly and almost never cranky. She is basically just a nice person, which (along with the fact that her kids are devil children) means she has a lot of difficulties with discipline. She’s a little hippy-ish and spent a month after graduating from college working at a children’s home in Tanzania and then spent several months backpacking around southeast asia. She already has tons of friends all over Swakopmund. She is from New Orleans and her mom is an artist, which for some reason totally helps me understand why she is the way she is. Jena is a lot of fun because she’s always up for anything. Sorry if this makes her sound like one of those people who is so nice they are boring, because that is absolutely not true about Jena, but I don’t know how else to describe her!
Religion
I have had a few people ask me about the religious situation here in Namibia, so I thought I would do a quick post on what I have observed. According to the CIA world factbook, Namibia is 80 to 90% Christian (50% Lutheran at least) and the remaining 10 to 20% is indigenous beliefs. This means that Christianity is everywhere. People assume you are Christian (other volunteers struggle with this) and there is absolutely NO separation of church and state. Every meeting begins with a prayer, Mondays and Fridays there is a bible reading for the whole school and there is daily prayer/reflection for the staff (all of this is at a government school).
That being said, I (and several of the other vols, including the ones who came because they felt their Christian faith compelled them) find the religious beliefs here very frustrating. This stems mostly because the main belief and the passages that are always emphasized are about how God will give you what you ask for and god is always supporting you. For example, before exams started, the kids were told to pray that they do well and God will help them. Personally, I prefer to think that God will help give you the capacity to study, people to support you, and the desire to do well but that at least some effort is required on your part.
It is also a little frustrating because since everyone is Christian, no one questions their beliefs and most of my learners have thought very little about their faith. They have rote, memorized answers to any question about Jesus or God, but don’t even conceptualize what those answers mean. Part of what I have been trying to do with my grade 7 religion class (since they’re supposed to be studying Christianity) is have them actually critically think about and assess their faith. I think Christianity can be awesome, it has wonderful messages, and it can help to make these kids better people if they can use it as a tool, but right now that doesn’t seem to be happening. Instead, it is used as an excuse to be lazy and a reason to be prejudice against people who aren’t Christian.
The last thing that I will say is that the use of the bible during our Monday and Friday assemblies can be difficult too. Aside from just being told to ask God for anything they want, teachers have also used verses from the bible to justify or explain corporal punishment, which obviously I have a problem with. I let this motivate me to actually choose and read myself during the assemblies which fall on my “on duty” week, and I try to choose passages about caring for your neighbor, justice, love, etc.
That being said, I (and several of the other vols, including the ones who came because they felt their Christian faith compelled them) find the religious beliefs here very frustrating. This stems mostly because the main belief and the passages that are always emphasized are about how God will give you what you ask for and god is always supporting you. For example, before exams started, the kids were told to pray that they do well and God will help them. Personally, I prefer to think that God will help give you the capacity to study, people to support you, and the desire to do well but that at least some effort is required on your part.
It is also a little frustrating because since everyone is Christian, no one questions their beliefs and most of my learners have thought very little about their faith. They have rote, memorized answers to any question about Jesus or God, but don’t even conceptualize what those answers mean. Part of what I have been trying to do with my grade 7 religion class (since they’re supposed to be studying Christianity) is have them actually critically think about and assess their faith. I think Christianity can be awesome, it has wonderful messages, and it can help to make these kids better people if they can use it as a tool, but right now that doesn’t seem to be happening. Instead, it is used as an excuse to be lazy and a reason to be prejudice against people who aren’t Christian.
The last thing that I will say is that the use of the bible during our Monday and Friday assemblies can be difficult too. Aside from just being told to ask God for anything they want, teachers have also used verses from the bible to justify or explain corporal punishment, which obviously I have a problem with. I let this motivate me to actually choose and read myself during the assemblies which fall on my “on duty” week, and I try to choose passages about caring for your neighbor, justice, love, etc.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Exams
Exams started this week so I thought I would give you a little breakdown of what that means for everyone involved:
For the learners: They take one exam every day from 8:30 to 10:00. This is extremely stressful for them, I had one girl actually start crying during the exam today and another who looked like she might. I actually like it because it is the best behaved I have ever seen them—they actually sit quietly and focus on a task for at least an hour. It’s baffling. It also means that they have an hour and a half of study before the exam, which is usually spent in quiet anxious reviewing, a half an hour after the exam for break, and then two hours of review before they go home. This last two hours is… less quiet.
For the teachers: This is also incredibly stressful, not because of the exams per se, but because we have to turn in all of our marks (grades) for the entire term. And we have to put them on these stupid, confusing forms, and there is a separate form for each learner for each class. Considering how many learners and classes we all have, it isn’t what I would call fun. Add to that proofreading, copying, and marking all the exams.
For me: I spend a lot of the time kind of confused because the idea that I have no idea what exams are like in Namibia is lost on the people who are supposed to help me. For example, it took me three days to figure out how much time learners got for each exam. There was a little extra confusion too because I was told that the exams for math and science that we are sent by the government would not actually be used for the marks on their grading sheets. This meant I had to write separate exams (two for math, one for science) and find time to administer them to grade 6. Writing the question papers took approximately 6 hours total, given I had to figure out what approximate length, question style, and material should be. I wrote them on time and lost a lot of my weekend, only to show up Monday morning and have the principal tell me we can just use the government exams. After reading the govt. exams over, however, and seeing how terribly confusing and beyond what my kids have learned they are, I showed her my exams and she was impressed enough to let me administer them too.
The most ridiculous part of this week has been marking for the whole term. I have been marking as I go, for the most part, but didn’t actually have a class list for grade 5 until about a week ago (so I couldn’t record their scores) and I discovered that grade 7 needed more marks, so I went back and graded some of the activities we had done. This would be fine except for all the empty spaces in my grade book. Some learners just don’t give me their work, some lost their books, and some never did it to begin with. I don’t really want to fail half of my students so I tried giving out slips of paper telling every student what they were missing. Didn’t work. Then (based on the success story of a fellow volunteer) I wrote all of the tasks we did this semester and under each one wrote the name of the learners who haven’t given it to me, and posted these lists outside the library. I had learners falling over eachother to turn things in. I have no idea why it worked, but I now have only 1 missing assignment for grade 6 and grade 7 got most of their stuff in too. Unfortunately, I think a lot of this was lost on my grade 5 (especially the boys) but they are the ones who didn’t do the work in the first place, so a zero might be an accurate reflection of the class for them.
Needless to say, this week is exhausting. I’m usually at the school, constantly busy from 6:45 until 5pm (minus the hour long lunch break). But it also means the term is almost over, and I am so excited for the holiday! I hope life is less stressful for all of you back home!
For the learners: They take one exam every day from 8:30 to 10:00. This is extremely stressful for them, I had one girl actually start crying during the exam today and another who looked like she might. I actually like it because it is the best behaved I have ever seen them—they actually sit quietly and focus on a task for at least an hour. It’s baffling. It also means that they have an hour and a half of study before the exam, which is usually spent in quiet anxious reviewing, a half an hour after the exam for break, and then two hours of review before they go home. This last two hours is… less quiet.
For the teachers: This is also incredibly stressful, not because of the exams per se, but because we have to turn in all of our marks (grades) for the entire term. And we have to put them on these stupid, confusing forms, and there is a separate form for each learner for each class. Considering how many learners and classes we all have, it isn’t what I would call fun. Add to that proofreading, copying, and marking all the exams.
For me: I spend a lot of the time kind of confused because the idea that I have no idea what exams are like in Namibia is lost on the people who are supposed to help me. For example, it took me three days to figure out how much time learners got for each exam. There was a little extra confusion too because I was told that the exams for math and science that we are sent by the government would not actually be used for the marks on their grading sheets. This meant I had to write separate exams (two for math, one for science) and find time to administer them to grade 6. Writing the question papers took approximately 6 hours total, given I had to figure out what approximate length, question style, and material should be. I wrote them on time and lost a lot of my weekend, only to show up Monday morning and have the principal tell me we can just use the government exams. After reading the govt. exams over, however, and seeing how terribly confusing and beyond what my kids have learned they are, I showed her my exams and she was impressed enough to let me administer them too.
The most ridiculous part of this week has been marking for the whole term. I have been marking as I go, for the most part, but didn’t actually have a class list for grade 5 until about a week ago (so I couldn’t record their scores) and I discovered that grade 7 needed more marks, so I went back and graded some of the activities we had done. This would be fine except for all the empty spaces in my grade book. Some learners just don’t give me their work, some lost their books, and some never did it to begin with. I don’t really want to fail half of my students so I tried giving out slips of paper telling every student what they were missing. Didn’t work. Then (based on the success story of a fellow volunteer) I wrote all of the tasks we did this semester and under each one wrote the name of the learners who haven’t given it to me, and posted these lists outside the library. I had learners falling over eachother to turn things in. I have no idea why it worked, but I now have only 1 missing assignment for grade 6 and grade 7 got most of their stuff in too. Unfortunately, I think a lot of this was lost on my grade 5 (especially the boys) but they are the ones who didn’t do the work in the first place, so a zero might be an accurate reflection of the class for them.
Needless to say, this week is exhausting. I’m usually at the school, constantly busy from 6:45 until 5pm (minus the hour long lunch break). But it also means the term is almost over, and I am so excited for the holiday! I hope life is less stressful for all of you back home!
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