I'm here!

Greetings from Omungwelume!

I arrived here yesterday (Friday) around noon and took a small tour of Eengedjo Senior Secondary School. My principal was out at a meeting, so the head of the English department (HOD) introduced me to my fellow teachers and my two English classes- There are a lot of them- like 35 kids in each class. And on top of that I'm teaching all the grade 12 IT classes. This is going to be fairly challenging.

Madam Armas (my English HOD) told me one of the biggest challenges to the learners as far as English is concerned is grammar- specifically the use of periods at the end of every sentence and also capitalizing the first letter of a sentence. I'm wondering how much of this is reinforced by texting or talking online.

I'm living in a house on school grounds with another WorldTeach volunteer named Brett McSpadden who is beginning his second year as a WorldTeach volunteer at the other high school in town. Today we went into Oshakati, the nearest city a mere 30km away, to get groceries and other things (I bought 3G device for my computer so I can access the internet) You can really buy anything you need there.

Omungwelume is a small town that runs about a half mile down this road that heads north/northwest. It has a couple of smaller shops, shebeens (bars) and other small businesses. My Oshiwambo is coming along quite nicely, I think I have all of the greetings down for the different times of day.

Last night Brett and I spent most of the evening with Mr. George, the principal of Brett's school. Mr. George's wife is one of the head nurses at the clinic in Omungwelume. Apparently the doctor comes to the clinic once a month. I'm thinking about maybe helping out in whatever way possible there. I haven't even seen the place so no real ideas yet other than assisting the nurses.

It was surreal walking back through Omungwelume to my house, thinking “Wow I actually live here now.” This will take some getting used to. But I'm excited! Excited to be part of this community, to be trying to improve the chances of any learner getting into university.

But I'm tired now and there's a couple of steaks waiting for me. Hope everyone is well and stay tuned for further updates!

Jason

Ongwediva, Etosha, Tsumeb

What a week...I keep telling people I've only been here two weeks but it feels more like two months because the days are so full.

Last Sunday our group drove 8(ish) hours north to the city of Ongwediva, about 30 km south of my placement, where we taught classes to learners who volunteered to come during the last week of their summer break. Driven kids right? Right. It was so inspiring to see these 16 year-old kids walk hours to come to a class they didn't have to just to learn. I taught almost all grammar- anything from different pronouns and their uses to poetry. The learners were much more advanced than I was prepared for, but I think they enjoyed it none the less.

Before I left the US, a couple of people told me how great being a teacher was. I only half believed them until  I taught my first class a few days ago. It's an incredibly rewarding experience that is incredibly humbling. And I only taught four half-hour sessions. This year is going to be great.

After our four days in Ongwediva we headed south to the city of Tsumeb and went on a self guided safari in Etosha National Park. Saw so many different animals! Hope you enjoy the pictures below, in the future I'll try to put some where I'm actually in them.

On Thursday of this week I'll head north again to Omungwelume to begin teaching. Our field director told us we'd be itching to go by the end of orientation, which is certainly the case for me.

Ka nanga le po nawa!

You can find it ANYWHERE

Windhoek (A few Pictures)

Trying to get a perspective on a city in a country very foreign to you can be difficult. Most of this past week I spent at Back Packer's Unite, the hostel World Teach has been putting us up at, so there haven't been many opportunities to get out and about in Windhoek.

Until Wednesday, when we got ushered (ha) around the city in a Ministry of Education vehicle. The first place we went was a market in Katatora. Kaylan, our in country field-director, put the 14 of us into pairs, gave us a word in Oshiwambo and told us to go ask people in the market what it meant. My word was oshifima, which we found out is like porridge made from a certain type of grain. The thing that struck me most was how approachable the people are here. Having a foreigner come up to you and ask a hundred questions seems almost uninviting in the US, but here everyone was happy to educate us on their country and culture. Namibians remind me of Haitians in this sense. 

Afterwards, we drove to another neighborhood called Havana. Neighborhood may be the wrong word...maybe part of town. I say that because Havana is hundreds of tin houses that go for a couple miles off the main road. We were told that despite the shanty-like conditions, Havana functions like any normal town; it had a school, many businesses, bars, etc. We then drove to a dam in Havana, and had lunch by the reservoir. It was the first time I have seen a body of water in the Namibia that isn't a swimming pool.

The days are pretty long, mostly filled with teacher training, we've also had some sessions on culture and language instruction. I'm learning Oshikwanyama which is one of nine dialects of the Oshiwambo language, one of the most spoken in the country. I'm really excited to get north and start speaking it in my town.

On Sunday we leave for the north for a week of teaching practice and a game drive in Etosha, a pretty big game park. 

The internet situation is pretty nice here. While it isn't the fastest internet in the world, it's free and available in most of the hostel. When I move to Omungwelume this will not be the case, but we'll have to see. 

Back Packers Unite

Havana