On Holiday!!

Happy End of the Term for Me!!!

We just ended the first term here in Nam-land. Oh it was a long/short term. At times, the first term feels like it drags, but it also goes by really fast. The first month is usually filled with unorganized chaos. I don’t think we taught at our school for the first month, let alone knew what classes we were actually teaching.

I am planning on leaving in a couple of days to go to Windhoek and help out with Reconnect—a PC training for the volunteers who swore-in in January. I will be working with the same volunteers I helped during training in November and seeing how their first few months of service has gone. I am looking forward to seeing them again and hearing how everything has gone.

After Reconnect, I will head down south to Fish River Canyon. I will be hiking the canyon for 5 days with some other PCVs. I am really excited! I hear the hike can be a little intense at times, but I think we will have a lot of fun. I am hiking with a fun group and will promise to post pictures of everything when I can.

Other than that, I don’t have much going on to report about for the holiday. It should be a pretty low key holiday where I can hopefully save some money. I would like to be able to save as much money as possible so I can have more money to travel after I COS (end my service). I should have about a month to run around Africa and see as much as possible before I have to jet home to be there in time for Christmas (as promised to my mother).

OK…I am going to write a couple of funny/exciting little stories about what is going on here…

Chanda’s Secrets Next Term

As I think I have written, my mom has been able to put me in contact with the author of the novel, Allan Stratton (by the way, he actually commented on one of the pictures I posted of the kids holding the novel…my kids feel very famous (as do I) that their picture is not only on the internet, but also that the author saw it!). Next term, I hope to have my learners write letters to send his way asking questions about the novel and explaining how it is similar/different to their lives and stories here.

I have a lot of ideas of what I want to do with the novel next term, but it’s hard to be able to stuff it all into the term and balance it with exam prep that I really don’t want to do but have to so they can pass these dreaded exams in October. One of the things we will definitely be working on is different creative projects to show and share our culture with the two schools (there are now 2 different schools we are working with!) in America. I really want my learners to be able to help the learners in America understand the culture behind HIV/AIDS, poverty and life in Africa. My learners feel that it is important for them to know that we don’t all live in huts and do wear clothes and listen to Rihanna. And I think it’s important for my learners and school to feel that they are able to help someone else. I think we see people donating and sending aid to Africa, which is great (sometimes). But I also think it is important for Africans to feel empowered and that they can do something for someone else instead of always being helped. Hopefully this all works out.

HIV Testing Day

One of my major goals of being here is to help my learners understand the importance of being tested. They are all petrified of going in to be tested. We are constantly talking about, seeing dramas about it and hearing the reasons why we should go, but most people will never walk through the doors of a clinic or a free testing center to get tested.

We have talked about this a lot when discussing Chanda’s Secrets and I understand why it is so scary. I think about the dread that comes over me every time I go to the dentist just over a cavity and it is only the fear of a dead tooth. My learners are afraid of learning that they have a disease that will kill them one day, just like it has killed others they love. And that is something to be afraid of. But, what I want to do is to prepare them for what it will be like to be tested and, most importantly, what will happen to them after if they are positive or negative. I think the major fear of going in for testing is the unknown of what will happen after the results are read by the nurse.

One of the problems in our village is that there is no testing center here, which is another excuse not to get tested. What I would like to do is bring a testing day here to the village. I talked to a woman from one of the ministries about it and she has agreed to help me plan it. I am really excited (and am hoping the ministry will be able to help me make it happen), but am also faced with a great challenge then getting the ministry to come out here and test my school/the village. I will be faced with the challenge of getting my learners/the village to actually be tested.

So, my plan is to meet with some learners who are passionate about being tested and work with them in developing a campaign for our school and the village to educate people about testing. We shall see how all of this works out. I know it is going to be a lot of work, and, to be honest, I’m not quite sure I have the time to throw this into my mix of activities, but I feel so passionately about it. I think it needs to be a priority for our school to do this. I can probably count on two hands the number of learners and teachers who know their status.

“Neither. Forget about them Miss Aly…did you know that I have a brother?”

The other day my teachers and I were sitting around the staff room talking when the topic of marriage came up. Two of our teachers were married over the Christmas holiday and they passed on the marriage bug to our secretary who was a married a couple of months ago. Now, another one of my friends I teach with is getting married in September (she thinks—it’s a traditional wedding so nothing is set in stone). So, the talk of the staff room is which one of us is next. My staff is pretty young and there are a lot of us who are “SBA” (single but available…as opposed to “MBA”, married but available) and one of us must follow Ms.Garoes in our stroll to the traditional marriage altar.

We were guessing who will be next when one of my teachers looks at me and says, “You know I have a nice brother for you.” She is telling me a bit about him when another teacher across the room shouts that he is too ugly for me and I could not marry him. Someone else accuses her of only saying this because she wants me to marry Johnny, her brother who is out of school but stays with her in the village. Then, Mr. Ndimu, another teacher, walks in and someone asks him which of the brothers I should marry. He looks at me and says, “Neither. Forget about them both Miss Aly…did I tell you that I have a brother?” The staff room broke out in laughter and I was left to ponder this big life decision…which one to take as my husband...