Under the Namibian Sun!: January 2008

Hello Hello from Namibia!!

I am so sorry I have not been able to write anything for such a long time! I am in my permanent site now and I love it! We have VERY SLOW internet. I have actually been trying to get on the blog for the past week and this is the first time it has actually let me log in. Same with the e-mail account...It literally takes hours just to check my e-mail, and then it usually doesn't let me send any. It is kind of frustrating, but I guess just par for the course! So, if you sent me an e-mail, I will reply as soon as I can! I have a million e-mails and a rediculously long blog post saved to my computer and I am just waiting until the internet feels like cooperating to send them all out! Hopefully, I will have time to mess with it this weekend.

But, for a quick update, school has started and I really like teaching. I'm pretty overwhelmed and maybe a little stressed (who knew moving half way around the world, to a village where they speak in a clicking language, with unreliable water and 40+ learners in a class would be stressful?). I started off teaching grade 8 English to two grade 8 classes, BIS (Basic Info. Science--basically library class) to all classes for grade 8-10, and Life Skills to all four grade 8 classes. BIS and Life skills meet once a week and when I asked the learners what they usually did in those classes I was told they sang, prayed and slept. Haha. I really liked teaching BIS because I made it into a reading strategies class (no singing and praying, much to their dismay I'm sure). But, at any rate, the BIS and Life Skills classes have been taken away from me (and turned into prayer and singing sessions, i'm sure) and I have now been give all of grade 9 for English. It is going to be a lot more work, but I'm excited to teach grade 9!

Teaching has been interesting. I really like all my classes except for one. Class 8A (they all move around in classes here, kind of like primary grades at home) is full of little horrors. First off, it is huge--over 40 learners, which is normal in Namibia. Second, a lot of them speak very little to no English and I am beginning to discover are definetly special needs learners. Namibia has no kind of special ed program(at least not that I have seen), so they are just thrown into regular classes and really ignored and not helped. This leads them to be a nightmare for a new teacher who does not speak their language and has no idea what their skill level is. At any rate, I am working on figuring out the levels of all my learners this week so I can work on figuring out how to teach them next week. Besides 8A, I love the rest of my classes! For the most part, they are very well behaved (it only took a few lectures about respect and a couple days of detention) and fun to be around. Hopefully they continue to be good!

Living with Colleen has been wonderful! I love having a roommate! It is nice to just be able to unwind and talk to someone about how crazy our lives feel like now! The water is still unreliable here (we haven't had it for a couple of days now), but we are learning to live. Bucket baths aren't so bad and we have enough water for drinking, so all is well!

Well, I have about a 10 page single spaced blog post to post (I know, rediculously long!). Hopefully, it will be posted sometime this week. Who knows though! It talks more about my holiday, host family, and first month here at site! Get excited! Haha, I don't blame you if you don't read the whole thing, it is pretty long!

Hope all is well with you! Sorry I have not been able to e-mail! I miss and love you all a lot and your love and support means so much to me! I cannot begin to tell you what it means to have you all in my life! It really has gotten me through some of the more challenging moments here!

OK...back to teaching. I have class 8A next. Blah. The little heathens are already staying after school for 20 minutes as a class for yesterday, I am such a witch. I am surprised some of them still like me...

Hey everyone! It's Madeline again. Aly hasn't had enough time/internet to post recently, but she is working on it. In the mean time, she sent me some pictures to post (finally!). They are all from her training, in particular the month she spent with a host family. By now, Aly is officially sworn in as a PC volunteer. She will no longer be living in that village. The group is in Windhoek for a short time and should be moving to permanent sights soon. That's about all I know right now...

Don't forget to send Aly love via mail :)
-Mad

All the host mothers made the girls dresses for Christmas. So sweet!