A few last thoughts

I'm not going to say that it's impossible to capture this whole experience/feeling in writing, but it sure as hell isn't easy.

I've been thinking a lot about the relationship between places people live and the people themselves. The past year has been a brand new place for me. I hadn't even heard the name Namibia until a few months before arriving. I've heard a lot of stereotypes about Americans while abroad, but only one really rang true for me. It was said by this young German tourist. “You guys are on your own planet,” she said in a conversation over pizza. Well Eva, if you're reading this, I know I argued with you at the time, but you were right.

Namibia. The land itself is so unique. The biggest sand dunes in the world border one of the most dangerous coasts in the world for ships passing by. Savannahs stretch hundreds of miles where there are still wild elephants. There are petrified forests, and mountains that loom over the capital skyline. And sand. So much sand.

So this place is the setting, ancient and almost unbelievable that somewhere like this still exists. What's the story? The people, who are just as diverse as the land that they inhabit. The Owambo, Herrero, Himba, Afrikaaners, Basters, Coloureds, Xhoisa, Damara, Kavango, Caprivi, Tswana just to name a few.

This is where things get tricky. When I went to Haiti, I was only there for seven days. Most days, I went out of the city to the village with a mobile medical clinic. I remember people being friendlier than I could imagine. Even the ones who couldn't communicate with me in English just seemed to be grateful of my presence. I felt like I was saving the third world all by myself.

Being here in Namibia, for nearly a year, I've been able to see the other side of the coin. Yes, people can be altruistic and welcoming. They can help you if you're lost, if you've never ridden on a kombi before, teach you words in their language and they constantly do these things. But they're people, and there's a lot of them, almost 2 million here in Namibia. Which means some of them lie, cheat, steal, rape and kill. They can be petty, more racist than you could believe, and put faith in things that are so wildly untrue it seems ridiculous (see Illuminati Conspiracy). In all of this mess, it can really screw with your head, especially if you're here doing humanitarian work in a volunteer capacity. You wonder how you're going to come out of it with any sort of positive outlook.

Some people say you have to weigh the good with the bad. How the hell do you do that? Take the number of positive experiences and subtract it by the negative ones? 1/2x times the square root of y, x being positive experiences and y being negative ones...just took the GRE.

I've had so many of both kinds, positive and negative encounters here. I've had people open my eyes and made me want to close them. But here at the end of my year, I have this overall feeling of deep satisfaction. And I can only hope that it's a sign that this was worth it. I'm sure I won't know for a very long time if that's the case. I think this satisfaction comes from the level of integration I've come to have with my school, community, and Namibia in general. I've become comfortable with this complicated relationship between the land and the people who live here.

I'm going to miss it very much.  

Chachachachachchanges

Sorry for the delay in writing. Kind of forgot I had a blog. It's been a crazy few months! What has happened? Well...

Recently I attended our end of service conference in Windhoek. This conference was the last WorldTeach requirement that I needed to complete. So after this term finishes up I'm donzo. Weird feeling.

Teaching wise, this term could not have gone any better. We're in the last week and I can really see how far some of my learners have come. I have kids who wouldn't say a word in the beginning of the year that are now difficult to get to stop talking. In English.

I finished up my syllabus a little early and had some time to do an enrichment unit on poetry. We studied poetic devices and tried to decipher the meaning behind poems like Heavenly Grass, I Measure Every Grief and a few others. The highlight of this was the assignment where I asked them to write their own poems using poetic devices. There were some good ones, and one learner (one of my favorites shhhh) wrote a poem about me leaving. Total suck up, but it's really cute.

Time Can Separate People

Days come, months pass as time goes on

Guess what I mean, time can separate people

Our American handsome teacher is going back

He is leaving us

Think it out, our international teaching organisation

Sends us a brilliant teacher

But time is money

He is going

Confident and kind he is

He don't tolerate nonsense

Guess who? Mr. Usher Jason

Time can separate people

By Fiyeikodimwe (Anna) Ndinoshinge

There's also currently a teacher strike in Namibia. A lot of kids are out of school right before examinations. Teachers are demanding higher salaries, housing allowances and...vacation time? I'm going to go with that. Anyways it's hit a few regions including Khomas, Karas, Erongo, Oshana and Omusati. I'm sure you all know where those places are. The important part is that it hasn't hit my region yet, so my learners are still going to school. But the last two regions border mine, and there was recently some marches and arrests nearby in Oshakati. I told my learners that it doesn't matter if the entire country is out of school, they'll still have class. Fortunately I heard that the teacher's union and the ministry of education are close to a deal.

My roommate Bret McSpadden just became the new field director for WorldTeach Namibia and moved down to Windhoek. I'm extremely happy for him and think he'll do a good job...except now I'm really bored living in a four bedroom house by myself. Good thing there are kids running around all the time.

Two weeks ago we had a staff end of the year party. My principal thanked me for all the work over the year and wished me well...even though I'm still here for another month and change. It was nice to feel appreciated and kind of served as validation.

I'll be coming home in December. I really don't know exactly what I'm doing...and each time anyone asks me I internally freak out. I am looking forward to seeing family and friends and enjoying a nice dark winter lager and playing some Irish music.

Ka ende po nawa (Stay well!)

Ze Germans!

So we had a few visitors here in Omungwelume from Sunday until today. A few days back a volunteer texted me and asked if a couple of German tourists who he had hitched a ride with could stay at my house for a night or two, I said sure.

Believe it or not we don't get many tourists in northern-central Namibia past Etosha. Mainly because unless you're interested in seeing a lot of livestock cross the road there really isn't a whole lot to draw people to the area. None the less these two girls showed up in Ongwediva on Sunday in a little VW polo. An hour and very bumpy ride later, we were in Omungwelume.

Eva and Lena are studying special education in Bavaria and are on holiday for a few weeks. They were interested in seeing Bret's and mine school. We had the chance to have a quick question/answer session with one of my English classes, who were really interested to meet people from Europe who have also studied English as a second language. The girls even sang a song! They also walked around the village on their own during the day, meeting people including three girls from the primary school who they taught tic-tac-toe.

It's not like we never get visitors, typically it's other volunteers living around here. But these two had only been in the country for a week and seemed like they were instantly comfortable...which certainly isn't easy. And they made pretty good crepes.

I'm at the very end of term 2 now. In a week I have 10 days off and I plan to go to the southern part of the country. Should be uber cool!

Slaterz

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Sorry it's been so long between posts. I had end of term testing at the end of April, which was challenging, then I went on vacation for a month- highlights were bungee jumping in Victoria Falls, a midnight train through Zimbabwe, hitch hiking up the Sani Pass into Lesotho, the general badass-ness that is the coast of South Africa from Durban to Cape Town. And then meeting my parents in Capetown for a week. Sweet life. No pics though.

It was nice to have a break for a while, and even more so seeing my parents but I was glad to be back in Omungwelume at the end of May. The past month has been fairly uneventful- a few new volunteers from WorldTeach are now placed near me for the next month or so and we had a fun braai last weekend.

Teaching is still going fairly well, definitely keeping me on my toes. English has been going pretty well so far but computer science has been a headache. The computer lab at my school is in disrepair with only a few functioning units left. So I've been teaching Life Skills instead or showing them movies (which they love). Up until this week I thought this was the best thing that I could do with the time I was given.

We have a group of prefects who are mostly grade 12 learners- the Head Girl is in one of my ICT courses, and on Wednesday she complained that those of them who were lucky enough to get into university were kind of screwed because they have literally no knowledge of how to use a computer. I had no idea what to say, I've tried to explain time after time about how our lab situation warrants me to find alternative uses for our time. Point is she's absolutely right and I need to find a way to get these kids time on computers, even if it's for like 15 minutes a week. A little info is better than none.

It's weird to think that I'm more than halfway done with my service here. I'm in the process of booking my flight home right now actually. Do I have any kind of solid plan for when I get back?

Nope.

Swakopmund

I don't typically write about the mini-vacations I take on the weekends, but this one was pretty special. On Wednesday I traveled to Swakopmund which is on the coast and met up with quite a few other WorldTeach volunteers. Damaris and Samiyah are placed in Swakopmund so most of us ended up staying there.

Swakopmund has some of the most interesting geography and architecture I have ever seen. It's situated right on the ocean and the Dunes of the Namib desert. Needless to say there were some pretty nice views.

Activities ranged from eating some of the best calamari in the world (allegedly), going to the beach, having my first Heifeweizen in months, putting my feet in the ocean, drinking das Boot, getting my haircut, and undoubtedly the most exciting part: SAND SKIING.

When I was still deciding if I wanted to come to Namibia back in November, I did a little research on the country. Among other things I found was a website about a German guy who takes tourists out into the steepest dunes to ski down them. Needless to say I was sold.

So on Saturday I donned my Fire on the Mountain t-shirt, grabbed some water and met Henrik outside. He drove me to his flat to get fitted for boots, we picked up his friend Wolfgang who was very interested to see people ski on sand and off we went.

Henrik is one of the most amazing individuals I've ever met. He grew up in Eastern Germany training to be an Olympic skier. Ten years after the wall went down he emigrated to Namibia with his family. A few years later he started dune skiing and since 2009 has been doing it exclusively. He also holds the world record for fastest sand skiing speed and was the one who taught Matt Lauer how to do it.

We ended up at a dune named Matterhorn. We set up a few chairs, fitted ourselves up and hiked up the dune. Six or seven runs later, I could barely move I was so tired. I won't try to describe the feeling that a ski fanatic experiences when he skis on sand for the first time. Insurmountable joy maybe. After a round of sausages and Amarula, we headed back to Swakopmund where the other volunteers and I had a delicious braii (bbq). It was a great day.

The following day we went to Dune 7, one of the highest dunes in...Africa? I don't know, but it's pretty high. Most of the volunteers went quad-biking on 4x4s while Bret and I ended up hiking up and down the dune and then having chilah time with some South Africans. 

The only disheartening part of the trip was coming back to the north, which took a little bit longer than expected. Hopefully I'll be seeing Swakopmund again soon though. If you have a chance, check out Henrik's homepage http://ski-namibia.com/. Enjoy the photos!

Henrik in his garage





Matt Lauer used these!





No brakes





FOTM in Namibia!



Tele-skiing pretty much in the dark and after I was out of energy. I was pretty happy to be out of the bindings

Return to Etosha

So I have had some pretty cool weekends the past two weeks or so. This weekend I decided to just hangout in Omungwelume and watch the grass grow. Also, there was a cultural festival at my school  where all of the classes from Eengedjo sang traditional songs and danced to drums. It was fun to see some of my learners (and teachers!) in traditional Namibian dress. I'll be sure to put up some pictures.

Two weekends ago I went back to Etosha with some other volunteers and a few new Akrikaaner friends from outside Opuwo, a town where there are a lot of Himba- I won't go into details about the Himba and will just tell you to google it. Like right now. See? So even though we spent maybe a half hour there, there was a fair amount of culture shock for me. 

Anyways, I was on the lookout for lions but unfortunately we didn't see any. We did see more elephants, lots of zebra, oryx, a rhino! And the highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the sighting of three honey badgers. If you don't know what a honey badger is, go to youtube and search it, there's a pretty hilarious video on there that accurately depicts these wonderful creatures. Unfortunately they were too quick to be very photogenic.

We were bombing around in the back of this bakkie (pickup truck) with a tarp tied down. There was also a huge storm and one of us didn't bring a rain jacket. Obviously being from New England I was prepared, but was still pretty miserable. When it rains in Namibia, it never just sprinkles, always pours. Despite the downpour, it was a really great weekend. I'd like to thank Gary, Mosie and Andre for taking me around and being so awesome.

Teaching is getting a little easier. Each day/week presents new challenges but I feel like I'm starting to roll with the punches. I've also picked up the title of school nurse and have been seeing learners when they are hurt/sick. So far we've had a few sprained ankles, a dislocated shoulder...and actually quite a few psychotic episodes. The latter is becoming more commonplace than I think is normal, even for teenagers, and I'm starting to become slightly concerned that there's something in the water that is making these kids lose their minds. Keeping an eye on it....

North By North by North

History Lesson!

For those of you who don't know, I'm in the very far north of Namibia. Like...15 km from Angola. The area is known as Owamboland- home of the Owambo people who inhabit northern Namibia and southern Angola and the most populous ethnic group in the country. From the 1960's-1980's Owamboland was the main area of the then rebel movement known as SWAPO (South West African People's Organization) and their military wing PLAN (People's Liberation Army of Namibia) formed in the mid 1960's in response to South Africa's continued (and according to the UN, illegal) possession of South West Africa (Namibia).

The South African Defense Force operated from a number of bases on the Angolan border to try and curb the influence of SWAPO and PLAN and the apartheid government cracked down on any sort of political activism from the Owambo people. It's interesting to live in an area with so much recent history.

A few weeks ago I met an Angolan in a bar. He asked me something in Portuguese and I told him in English that I didn't speak Portuguese. He then informed me that he didn't speak English. I asked if he by chance spoke Spanish, and he replied that he did. I spent the rest of the night talking with him, he was from Luanda and on vacation in Namibia.

One of my favorite parts about being here is the people that you randomly meet. I'm sure being white plays a big role but everyone is so eager to meet and talk with you. When I was in Windhoek I had the privilege to meet the first Namibian ambassador to both the UN and US. He is currently serving as the chief of mission to Tanzania. We talked about education in southern Africa for close to an hour. And I just met him one night because he asked for a light.

I think it's the same no matter where you travel, you're bound to meet some pretty cool people