Pictures!

Hey everyone!

It's Madeline again. Aly sent some PICTURES my way to post. The captions are from her. Enjoy :)


amazing double rainbow over our house!!


our house!


my room…messy as per usual!


our kitchen


our bathroom—I know gross! But at least its pink!


the school is made up of five block buildings—four with classrooms and one for administration…this is a view of the grade 10 block…my library is on that block


my classroom!


more classroom….the desks are usually in a “u” shape but someone came in and moved everything around.


my library…do you see the books on the top shelf on the far left…those are our fiction books…yes…only that little row! Granted a lot are checked out, but even if they are all in they only take up a couple of shelves!


the view from my library…the pictures do not nearly do it justice, it is a gorgeous view!!


look at the sky!! And this isn’t even on one of the pretty nights!


at swearing in…we actually look like humans because we put on make up and showered!


Mr. Block! Haha…the little one in the silver two piece number is the winner…Marti…he is one of m favorite little ones!


More Mr. Block…the one with the crown was last years winner!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

I hope you had a wonderful V-Day! It was an eventful day in the Bing—the learners were able to “dress down” as we would say in the States and wear red and white. We spent the first 40 minutes of the day at assembly where the members of the LRC (think student council) handed out valentines that the learners had put into the special valentine box. I received a few from some learners, which was sweet.

Well, it has been a challenging past couple of weeks here. I actually got a difficult phone call last Tuesday telling me my Grandma was in the hospital and had only a couple of hours to live. I was able to talk to my family and my mom put the phone up to Grandma’s ear so I could say goodbye. It was really really hard to be away from my family and not be there to physically say goodbye, but I think that I was in the best situation possible for something like this to happen (if there is such a thing). I absolutely love my site and have a great roommate. Colleen was there when I got the news and was very supportive. She actually had to go Swakop (where Bradgelina had the love child) the next day for a couple day conference, but it was nice to have some time on my own to just cry and be sad. I talked to my family a lot, cried a ton, and spent a lot of time at school. Spending time with the learners was exactly what I needed. They are always good at making me laugh and were really supportive. The internet actually worked (it never works, but surprisingly worked when I really needed it to!) and when I was sending an e-mail to my mom to read to my family at home a couple of learners were looking over my shoulder and found out my Grandma died. They could not have been more supportive about it. They shared what it was like to have their grandparents die and how sorry they were for me. One of my favorite learners, Kennedy, said he couldn’t believe that I was so happy with them when something like this happened. I told him that I smiled around the school, but every free period I came into my library or computer lab and cried—which was pretty accurate. He just laughed! But between the support I had from my learners, Colleen and everyone at home, I felt very loved and was able to get through this! Thank you so much for everyone that was praying and thinking about my family, it really means the world to me and was very comforting during a really difficult time.

My family told me the funeral was beautiful. I am very sad that I was not home to be with my family during this time, but I know that I am in the right place. I am in love with my Namibian life! I am very busy, very stressed and I don’t ever have a really clear idea of what I am doing or if I am doing anything right, but I just love being here! It has been extremely challenging, but when I am helping a learner with their English homework, or hanging out in the library with a group of kids, I realize how lucky I am to be here. I know I am going to face many many more challenges while I am here, but I also know that this is going to continue to be an amazing two year experience!

Well, I am kind of starting to fall into a routine here. I think my teaching schedule is finally finalized (or so they say!). I am only teaching grade 9 English now and grade 8-10 BIS (library class). This has been my first week teaching grade 9 English and I love it! I like it sooooo much better than grade 8! My daily schedule looks something like this:

5:55—wake up!
6:40—walk over to school for our teacher meeting
7:10—school starts
I teach anywhere from 1-7 periods in a day. Random, I know. Everyday has a different teaching schedule because this is Namibia and nothing makes sense! Haha! I teach a little over half of the time. Peace Corps asks us that we only teach 70% of the time max so that we can adjust and work on our secondary projects. I think the other teachers see this as lazy as they teach 99% of the time...but I honestly cannot imagine teaching more classes than I do now!
1:00—school is over and I walk home for lunch and sometimes a little nap
2:30—back to school for afternoon study. The learners have afternoon study from 3-5pm and the teachers come to teach extra classes and help learners who need help.
5:00-6ish—still at school to open the library, computer lab or talk with learners
6-7:30—home for dinner with Colleen
7:30-9ish—back at school for the hostel learners (the learners who live at school) evening study. I just kind of sit in my classroom and learners come who need help with English or who just need to talk.
9:00—home for a cold shower (we’ve had water lately, so no bucket baths!), some reading and chatting with Miss Colleen

I have about a million programs and projects I want to start at the school, but I have realized that I have to take it slow. I really want to start extra reading and writing classes during the studies for learners and I hope to start those fairly soon. My other big secondary project will be starting a grieving center for learners who have had someone important in their life die (basically an Erin’s House in Namibia!). Colleen and I talked about doing a grieving center focusing on those affected by HIV, but I talked with my learners and they told me if you used the words HIV nobody would come because of the stigma of knowing or being related to someone who has HIV or has died of HIV. But, they all LOVED the idea of starting a group for learners who have had someone die. Every since we talked about it, they are constantly asking me when I am going to start it! I am so happy that they are so enthusiastic about it! I am going to start to gather resources (basically have my mom send me every Erin’s House resource possible), apply for some grants and get the ball rolling. I’m really really excited about starting this project!

Death is a huge part of life here. Just recently I have heard a few of my learners’ stories about how their siblings and parents have died. I just sat there and listened to their stories and cried with them. It is so hard to think about what these learners have gone through in their lives.
Well, enough sad stuff…here are a couple of funny things that have happened in my recent Namibian life….

I was looking through one of my learner’s exercise books and marking a listening comprehension activity I had them do the day before. Well, I have a lot of really low learners and one such learner got a little confused about the listening comprehension assignment. Instead answering the listening comprehension questions about the teacher in the story I made up and read to the class, he answered the questions about me. One of the questions was to write three physical descriptors of the teacher. He wrote: Miss Martin is having white skin, white eyes, white teeth and is looking like Jesus Christ! I nearly peed my pants when I read that…I am looking like Jesus Christ? One of the funniest things I have ever read in my entire life!

A little over half of my learners live at the school in the hostel. They hostel sometimes has little events they put on to keep the kids busy (there is literally nothing to do in this tiny little village!). Well, one of the events is “Mr. Block”, a compulsory male learner drag show that all new male learners to the hostel must participate in. I was privileged with the honor of being a judge and it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my entire life! There were about 35 boys dressed in skanky girl clothes, strutting their stuff down the runway in the hostel cafeteria. First off, this is an intense competition. There were six rounds, including an evening wear competition. The boys are absolutely hysterical; they pose as if Mr. Jay from America’s Next Top Model had coached them. It also lasted close to 5 hours—mostly because it started on “Africa time” aka really late and we had about six intermissions for dancing. I just love watching them dance! They are truly amazing and talented. But I laughed so hard watching these boys come out dressed in these hoochie mama dresses with their boobs stuffed with socks as they strutted and posed for the judges. My favorite little grade 8 learner won. He is adorable and although he is grade 8, he looks like he is grade 3. Last year’s Mr. Block crowned him king in true Miss America fashion.

The last funny story is about the bugs here. Apparently, last year the Bing did not see a drop of rain. These past two weeks it has rained almost every night. We can literally see the mountains and the area around us turn green and it is truly beautiful! We are definitely leaving Scar’s Africa and moving into Simba’s homeland! But with the rain, comes the bugs. The biggest bugs you will ever see in your entire life. They are as big as your hand and are creepy creepy creepy! One such bug flew into our house while Colleen and I were watching a movie. We paused the movie because we thought someone had opened our front door. We nervously looked out the bedroom door to see as giant flying cockroach creature in our kitchen making enough noise that we thought we had a human intruder. We screamed (of course) through a pot over the beast and kicked the pot out to our front porch. I flung the pot off the bug and Colleen assassinated it with her hiking boot. We both shrieked as yellow maggot looking creatures spilled out of its guts. So gross. Don’t worry, I captured it all on film on my camera! We hope to post it on YouTube in the near future!

Well, that is all for now! I miss you all a lot and want to thank you again for all the love and support you have given me…especially in these last couple of weeks! It really does mean a lot and has helped me through some of these hard times! You all are always in my thoughts and prayers!

Finally...an update!

HEre is the promised unbelievably long blog post. Don't worry, I won't be sad if you don't read it all!! Haha! Miss you lots and lots!
December 31, 2007

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone has had a great holiday season wherever you are!

We have just arrived back from the month living with host families. We split into groups and sent to six or seven different villages and towns throughout Namibia to live with host families, teach in a Model/Holiday school or practice giving health seminars, and practice our target language. I was placed in a rural Damara village with five other girls. It was a challenging site because it was very rural, but I absolutely loved the five other girls. I could not have asked for better people to go through community based training with!!

It is hard for me to even begin to explain what this past month has been like here! Living with a host family has been one of the most challenging experiences I have faced. While I had experienced a little culture shock before moving in with the host fam, there is no culture shock like living with a Namibian family! Everything is different and nothing makes sense in the beginning, but, as the month goes on, you learn to adjust.

The family I was first supposed to live with did not work out for various reasons, and I was moved a couple of hours after I had completely unpacked all of my belongings and set up my mosquito net (if you know me…you know this is very uncharacteristic for me to actually unpack). So, I packed everything up and quickly made my awkward exit and was moved into a new home for my first night of community based training.

I actually moved into the home of the teacher PC hired to help out at our model school. So, it was nice that our two language trainers (our direct supervisors and connection to PC in this tiny remote little village) already had a relationship with her. My host family was Stella and her two sons Habasen (grade 1) and Axel (grade 3). Lulu, the grade three daughter of one of our language trainers, also lived with us and the cute little neighbor girl Goldie also practically lived with us. I lived in a small house, but I had my own room with a wardrobe, so that was really nice. We did not have a stove or a refrigerator and about a week into the homestay, we had no water. So, cooking, eating, bathing and going to the bathroom was a bit of a challenge. We did have this bizarre little electronic wok to boil water and cook some things on. In the beginning, I really did not eat anything except peanut butter, bread and apples, but toward the end, we got an oven and the language trainers told her she had to cook with me, so I actually started to eat real meals. It was just an awkward odd situation—I never knew if/when they ate and how to cook anything.

So, my typical day for the past month went something like this. I would wake up at about 6:15 am, brush my teeth with water from the Nalgene (no water in the morning), grab and apple for breakfast and walk with Stella and Lulu to model school. Lulu is one of the language trainers grade 3 daughter that lived with us (why she did not live her dad I never did quite figure out); she was adorable and probably one of the main reasons I survived living with Stella!

We would arrive at school around 7 am and I would go to my classroom for a bit to get ready for the day. Then, all six of us volunteers, the two teachers that PC hired to help, four IT PC volunteers who came to teach computer classes from a town an hour away everyday, a teacher resource center PC volunteer who came from the same town and our two language trainers would gather for a staff meeting where we would accomplish nothing. School then began at 8 am. I taught grade 5/6 English and Math, grade 8 English and grade 10 English. Then school ended around 12:30 pm and we would gather again for another staff meeting where we would debrief about the day. The people who just came for the day would leave around 1, and the six of us would eat lunch until our 2 o’clock language lessons. We would have language for a couple of hours and then would start lesson planning for the next day.

We usually left the school around 6 or 7 pm for home. When I got home, I usually played with Lulu and Goldie (the cutest little girl who practically lived at our house—more stories about her to come). I would also talk to our three legged dog Whitey. Sometimes I would then come in and eat dinner and sometimes I would just eat some pb in my room. I usually stayed up and talked to Stella until about 9 pm. I would then fill a bucket up with a little water, and take my lovely bucket bath (of course keeping all the water in the bucket so I could then pour the dirty water from the bucket bath into the back of the toilet so the toilet would be able to flush at least once a day. Remember, no water means no flushing toilet). Then I would go to my room to work on some more lesson plans until I fell asleep.

It was a pretty busy month! It was really hard because the goal is to split your time evenly between model school, host families and language. That is impossible. Lesson planning was so time consuming and definitely took up most of our time. I had a really hard time teaching grade 5 English and Math. It really made me realize why I am not an elementary school teacher! First, grade 5/6 was an extremely multi-level class—learners from grade 3 to grade 6 some who spoke English and some who did not speak a word. It was also the largest class with the most discipline problems. Lucky me, I had them twice a day! It was pretty difficult at the beginning, but towards the end I actually enjoyed teaching them and learned a lot about how to teach learners who are at such different levels.

Living with my host family was another big challenge. Stella was very nice, but also very ditzy. She would talk and you would just look at her and have no idea what she had said, why she said it or if she even knew what she was trying to say. While I have a million stories about how awkward living there and living without water and a stove was, I also have a million funny stories about my new Namibian life.

So Goldie is the grade 1 neighbor girl who practically lived at our house. She ate all her meals with us and sometimes slept over. Why, I do not know. You learn to not ask a lot of questions here about why people live where and how they are related to people because you will never get a straight answer. So, when I first met Goldie, her black hair stood straight up in the orange haired 80’s troll doll type of way. Her protruding stomach always peeped out of her one size too small dingy shirt and her knobby legs were covered by a faded ruffled purple skirt. Her hands were planted on her hips as she clicked and babbled to me in Khoekhoe revealing the fact that she had recently lost both her front teeth. She was one of my favorite parts of host family living. She was always by my side, touching my hair and dancing.

For some reason, Goldie and Lulu were obsessed with a lovely South African cover Neil Diamond CD. They loved the duet love song…I can’t think of the name, but it was even more cheesy than it would normally be because it was not even Neil singing. The girls would do these hilarious interpretive dances, much like the dances Madeline, Nicole and I would do when we were little to Mariah Carrey and Meatloaf. It was this hilarious combination of ballerina twirls, traditional Namibian dance moves with a little bit of trashy American grinding. They were truly my main form of entertainment I had in that small little village!

There was really nothing for us to do in our free time in the village. We found ourselves hiding in the school or this lovely little abandoned house we found near the school. The abandoned house, which we so fondly named the “poop shack,” had three rooms. The two small rooms were covered in animal and human feces, the large one was fairly poop free and had two large “bay windows” (or just a large opening on each side). That is how desperate we were to have a free moment away from children screaming “one dollar, miss. Give me sweets”, our awkward host families and the watchful eye of the entire village. We were forced to hide in a shack full of poop. Haha! The thing about living in a village is, everything you do is watched and reported on.

I also spent a lot of time with one of our trainer’s daughters that stayed with us, Lulu. She was adorable. She spoke English and Afrikaans and understood Khoekhoe, so she would translate what people were asking me. Lulu was staying with her father in the village for the holiday break and was also away from her home (she lived in Mariental and her father lived in Windhoek, so I am thinking it is the Namibian version of the every other weekend divorce thing? I don’t know, families are complicated here). At any rate, she was really homesick and missing her mom and grandmother, so we really bonded over being away for the holidays!

Christmas was pretty uneventful in the village. We woke up, went to Church, I left after an hour (their services are over four hours long—it takes a lot of patience to sit through a four hour service not in your language), my family stayed for the four hours, so it was nice that I was able to go home and just be by myself for a couple of hours. We then packed up a picnic lunch and went down to the riverbed (where the river would be if there was any rain). It was a lot of fun, I gave my family their gifts and they were a real hit. Stella loved her new Vera Bradley bag (yes, I brought the Vera to Africa) and the kids loved the toys. I also received a gorgeously frumpy traditional Damara dress handmade by Stella. It was really sweet and she was so happy to give it to me! It actually looks like a colonial dress…it is mint green, has a matching head scarf and is just plain hot. All six of us got dresses from host mothers and we all wore them to the host family appreciation party we planned for them…they loved it! Haha…we all felt ugly, but it was fun. We took a lot of pictures; maybe I will have my real family post them when I send pictures to the States. Not sure though, it may make you all jealous that you too cannot wear a gorgeous Damara dress. Don’t worry, I did tell Sara that I would bring home the dress for her wedding in August so she could have seven more made and all the bridesmaids can wear it in the wedding!

Overall, my host family experience was good. It was challenging in parts, but I really did learn a lot and learned how to adapt. It was funny, there were times when I was counting down the hours until I was going to move out of the crazy house, but at the end I was sad to leave and even shed a couple of tears. It was really the last week that I felt at home and got used to coming home and seeing half of a fully intact skinned sheep on the counter with a goat jaw chilling next to it. It became part of my daily routine to avoid being run over by a donkey cart (main form of transportation in the village), jump over the raw sewage that ran through the path (and dodged the children playing in the sewage river), and take marbles, needles and dirty latex gloves out of the mouths of three-year-olds. While I am very happy to have my own space and running water, I do miss the cute little ones and crazy Stella .

I am now back with the big group (69 of us now…we lost one person today ). We are here for some more training for a week, then we will swear in and move off to our separate corners of Namibia! I am really going to miss everyone here, I love our Nam 27 group—so many amazing people, but I am also really really ready to settle down and unpack! I think I am going to LOVE my permanent site, and I’m just ready to be done with all this training! We swear in on January 9th…so think of me on that special day! I will officially be a Peace Corps Volunteer!

Well, I am sure there is a lot of stuff I am leaving out…sorry this is such a long random little blog! I’m a little sleep deprived! Please e-mail me if you have any further questions about life in the Nam!

Oh, and I really want to thank everyone for all of their love sent my way! The e-mails, cards and packages have been wonderful and have really made my day! You should see us when we get mail around here; we go crazy! But I feel that I have received everything at the perfect times—the times that I really needed the most support! So thank you all! I am in the process of writing a thousand letters right now and should be sending them out shortly. The village I was in did not have reliable mail systems, but now that I am in a town, I can send more letters!!

Again, thank you so much for all of the letters, packages, prayers and phone calls! They mean so much to me! I love hearing about everything at home! Please know that I think of you all often and miss you a lot. While I am very happy here and know that this is the right place for me to be, I still miss everyone at home!! Hopefully now that I am moving to my permanent site I will have more frequent access to computers and internet and more communication with you all! Have a great day and I miss you dearly!


January 5, 2008
So. I went to the internet café today with my little flash drive in hand to send e-mails and post this blog entry and guess what I forgot to put on the flash drive?!?! The blog entry along with a couple of e-mails! So, I guess I will just give you another little update before I figure out when I can go to the internet café next!

Today, I had my LPI (my big end of the training language exam)! I was pretty nervous about it and was not feeling so confident in my Khoekhoe skills, but it went better than expected. It is basically just a long conversation/interview and at the end I was told that I had improved! I was pretty happy about that and hope to perfect my mad clicking skills once I get to site!

Tomorrow, we will be going to Windhoek for a day of shopping on the town! I am pretty excited! I guess they have a store that is kind of like an overpriced Walmart. Who knew that I would be Walmarting it up in Africa? The roomie and I will be purchasing some essential housewarming items for a new little home. Sheets, a blanket, a kitchen knife and a new (or used) book are on my shopping list!

Then, on Wednesday, we will all be sworn in as official volunteers and move to our permanent sites! I am pretty excited!

Well, that is basically my life right now. Pretty bland actually. Sorry these are all so long! I don’t blame you if you do not actually read all of this! But if you want to, it’s all here for you to read!

12 January 2008

Well, I am not really sure when I will get to post any of these updates…because I am at my permanent site in the middle of nowhere! I moved in a couple of days ago and Colleen and I are just trying to make it more “homey”. I finished setting up my room today. I have put pictures of you all on my walls! I have pictures of family and friends and letters and cards I have been sent covering my walls. It is amazing how happy looking at pictures makes me. I find myself just staring at the same pictures over and over again…I miss you all dearly!

Site is pretty good so far! We start school Monday. It will only be teachers for the first two days and then the learners supposedly start rolling in on Wednesday. From what I have heard, learners just trickle in for the first two weeks of school making it impossible to really start teaching for awhile. Everyday, I am reminded that we are on Africa time…meaning nothing starts when it is supposed to and nothing goes as you expect it to go. Did I tell you how we were invited to a wedding reception when we were living with our host family and the bride was two hours late for her own wedding and the reception started 8 hours late?!?!? Apparently, that is normal here!

I think Colleen and I are really going to love it here. It is beautiful! I have decided that we live in Scar’s Africa (think Lion King). It is not the lush green Africa in the beginning of the movie, but the dry desert Africa. Although it is extremely dry and hot, it is beautiful. We are surrounded by mountains and the sunsets are breathtaking. The people here make it even more gorgeous. They are wonderful and friendly. While there are a couple of drunk creepers roaming around (Namibia has some serious alcohol problems), I feel very safe and extremely welcomed in my village!

I think I have written about my house here, but I will just tell you a little more about it. We have running cold water (it works for a half of the day), a refrigerator (right now it does not work, but we have been promised it will be fixed sometime soon), a stove (2 out of 4 burners work), a shower and a toilet. So it is pretty nice compared to what I was expecting coming here! Once we get our refrigerator working, it will be pretty amazing! Our house is right across the street from my school and about a ten minute walk to Colleen’s school. We live in a ministry house, so all of our neighbors are also apart of the ministry of education. Basically, the only real houses here are owned by the ministry. The rest of the village is comprised of little tin shacks. There is also a hostel attached to my school where about half of the learners in my school live. Learners usually do not school in the same place as their family lives for a variety of reasons.

In Peace Corps, you have a primary project (the project you are assigned when you receive your invitation) and then you create a secondary project based on what you see as a community need. I have about a hundred secondary projects I would like to start! There are so many needs here: HIV/AIDS work (we have the 3rd highest rate in the world), female empowerment, nutrition awareness and building industry are just a few of the needs. I hope to tackle these issues in my two years here. I would like to start an HIV/AIDS support group (think Erin’s House African style for those of you Fort Wayners), a girls club, a nutrition/cooking classes (I think I want to teach about nutrition in the beginning of the class and then cooking over a fire—how the community cooks because they have no electricity/stoves) and maybe start a solar oven project here. Solar ovens are these bizarre looking boxes that you put in the sun and they cook your food! It would be a great project to start here because no one outside of the ministry has electricity/stoves and it is a better economically and environmentally choice than making a wood fire. At any rate, if you buy enough solar ovens they will teach you how to make them and then you can sell them. It would be great to start an income generating project for this community!

Well, there are bugs crawling all over me right now; I think that means I have to go to bed so I can sleep and pretend I am not sharing my bed and house with a thousand bugs! Thanks for all the love and support you all have been giving me; it means the world!

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I AM AN OFFICIAL PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEER!! Yay yay yay! I am excited! And I passed my language exam! I got intermediate low (the target level) and jumped 2 levels! I was pretty happy! I will be a clicking pro by the time I come home in two years! I am sure Khoekhoe will really come in handy when I get back to the States too…I mean I am sure I can find a few Damara/Nama communities to practice the clicks with!!

January 18, 2008

This blog post is getting ridiculously long. Not sure if anyone will really be reading to this point! Haha!

Well, I just finished my first week of school here! Monday was the teacher start day and was basically miserably boring and hot. We sat outside and “registered learners” all day Monday and Tuesday. Basically, all I did was sit at a desk and right the names, birthdates, mother tongue and grade of all of 10 learners…in two full days! Learners were supposed to come and register, but very few actually showed up, which I guess is typical. Oh well, I am getting used to the slow paced and inefficient ways of Namibia. Although, my greatest fear is to come home to America without my sense of urgency, critical thinking skills, social etiquette and ability to speak Standard American English.

On Wednesday, learners came, but I actually did not teach them. The time table (teaching schedule) was still not set up (and still is not), so the learners just went to their register class (homeroom) and sat there/roamed around the school grounds all day. I do not have a register class, so I hid in the library (officially my room) and organized the books there. We have the most random books in the library. A great deal of the books are books that no one in this village will ever read. One of the books I sorted through was The Confederate Papers! Not sure that will be a hit with learners. I did find a David Sedaris book and have been rereading my favorite short stories from it every time I go in there! Not sure if the sarcastic humor of David will go over well with the Namibians, but I sure do enjoy reading it! We do have some Harry Potter books though, and apparently the kids just love them. So I am excited to do a lot with them. I know people have been asking what my school needs here, and I think books would be a GREAT thing to send! Any kind of books (used, old, torn, whatever) would be greatly appreciated! I think lower level young adult literature would be best. Maybe at the 6-8th grade reading level (maybe even lower). I will have a better idea of the reading levels of the learners once I really start teaching and can give more specifics on books to send. I was thinking that Freak the Mighty might be a great book to get several copies of. From what I remember, it is at a pretty low reading level, but a really great book. For all my teacher friends—what books would you recommend for older low level readers?

Yesterday (Thursday) was my first real day with the learners. It was pretty chaotic and I had to a lot of impromptu teaching because I did not know what classes I would be teaching before I got to school in the morning and I had absolutely no teaching supplies—the kids didn’t even have paper to write with and not a piece of chalk was to be found. I introduced myself to the classes and then had them introduce each other to the class. It worked out pretty well and it was nice to be able to gauge what the learners’ speaking skills are at. The only problem I ran into was that I had to teach the same class twice and had nothing prepared for them to second time around. So, I decided to teach reading skills thanks to the Tovani I Read It but I Just Don’t Get It we read junior year for methods class. I started talking about what good readers do and pulled out the Harry Potter book I am reading right now and had them predict what the book might be about based on the cover, title, etc. Then I started reading the book aloud and stopping to ask the learners to predict what would happen next, define difficult words and make inferences. Haha! I could not believe how I pulled that one off! Thank God I paid attention in Frager’s Reading Methods class junior year and practically memorized that Tovani book! It actually went over quite well and next week have I planned all my lessons to be about basic reading skills. I plan on doing a lot of read alouds and modeling good reading skills. I think it will be fun!

Today, was basically the same as yesterday—semi-organized chaos. The real time table is still not ready so you just go to some random classes and teach whatever you can. It’s bizarre and hard to explain their logic behind the whole process. Apparently, a lot of learners are still not here and by the end of next week they should all arrive. Oh and I also do not have a classroom and I have no idea where I will teach next week. I guess I am just supposed to walk around each period and find a classroom that is not being used and have class there. I will have to do that everyday because each days schedule is different, so the open classrooms will change day to day. The Namibian education system makes the No Child Left Behind and the American schools seem pretty damn close to perfect! Haha!

I am just so excited to start teaching! I love my school, principal and my colleagues. They are all so nice! I feel so lucky to have a wonderful principal; I guess most of them kind of suck. Mine is dedicated and truly cares about the learners. He also really cares about me and making sure my stay here is great. All of the other teachers are nice and there are a few that I really love. While I really like the teachers, a lot of them beat the learners, and that is hard to think about. Luckily, I have not seen it yet, although I have heard them talking about it and seen their beating sticks (they seriously find sticks to beat them with!).

One of the tings I am most excited about is one of the textbooks I received yesterday. It is amazing! It is a Namibian English anthology made for grades 8 and 9. I guess the school has had it for awhile but none of the teachers wanted to use them so they have not been touched. But they are great! As soon as I saw the cover and read the title, I knew I would love it! It is called “Chewing the Bones” and is just wonderful. It has great short stories, poems and student centered activities. Everything I read in it I love and would teach in my classroom here or the States! I feel like such a nerd, but I absolutely love it! And, to make it even better, my Peace Corps direct supervisor (he supervises all the education volunteers) is the first person thanked in the acknowledgements! How cool is that! I can’t wait to see him to ask him more about this fabulous book. One of the author’s name seems quite American, I am wondering if it is an old PCV who collaborated with a colleague to write the book. Who knows though. All I know is that this book has become my best Namibian friend!

31 January 2008

Wow. This is getting ridiculous. Not only do I ramble, but I ramble for 8 single spaced pages. I am fairly certain this will be sent out tomorrow though. We shall see!

Well, I just finished up my first three weeks for school! Pretty exciting! I start teaching grade 9 next week, and I am pretty psyched! They are a cool grade. I really like the learners here. Most PC volunteers talk about how the learners become their best friends here, and I can totally see why now. It’s funny, because we would call that “inappropriate” in the States! Haha!

Speaking of inappropriate, I am still getting used to what is culturally appropriate and what is not. Colleen and I receive “love notes” from our learners. Well, we get them from her learners (she is teaching primary). OK, they are not really love notes, but they feel like they are. They are letters, decorated with hearts proclaiming their love for us, and then asking us to be their mothers. Yes, they want us to be their mothers. Sometimes, when I am walking down the street, I will have four or five little girls screaming, “I love you! You are my motha’!” I usually have no clue who the little girls are and am not particularly interested in adopting them as children. Colleen and I have been asking around, and apparently asking for someone to be your mother is a compliment and says that you want to be a very close friend. So, I guess I am officially a mother to a village of little girls. Who knew? I guess I shouldn’t tell PC since adopting children while a volunteer is against the rules.

It is so unbelievably hot and dry here. I have never been so hot in my entire life. And I’m pretty sure the Bing (my village) is one of the hottest places in Nam. We also very rarely get rain. When it does rain, I refuse to actually call it a rain because tiny droplets of water fall from the sky for about 3-5 minutes. Then it is sunny (usually with a gorgeous rainbow…prettiest rainbows I have ever seen) and hot and dry again. But, the other day, we had a real rain! We were at track practice (compulsory for all learners and teacher and basically hell…it’s so hot, unorganized and boring) and the teacher in charge of the practice has the learners all running around the dirt field and all the other teachers are crowding under a sparse tree that we are pretending is shading us from the blazing sun.
And then, huge rain drops start falling. I am thinking, “Score! No more sucky practice!”. But, the teacher in charge doesn’t skip a beat. He has then queuing up in four straight lines to do more drills. He is yelling and shouting about running and straight lines while it begins to pour. At this point, the rain is coming down so hard it stings when it hits your skin, and yet he is still making them run. So, the rest of the teachers decide to run to one of the little tin shacks near the field, so we are still technically at practice but not in the down pour. So we crowd under this tarp thing near the shack when one of the teachers decides this is ridiculous and we just need to go home. We all begin to run for our houses while the learners are still running laps around the field. At this point, you can barely see what is ahead of you and have to run in this crazy sideways manner so the rain doesn’t pelt you in your eyes. I got to my house and I was completely sopping wet from head to toe. Luckily, I was in a grey dress—not in the least bit see through, because I looked like I had just jumped into a lake. As soon as I got home, it stopped raining and within 20 minutes, everything was dry and there was no sign that it had rained. Don’t worry, the learners eventually stopped running when it started to really pour, but were back to running as soon as the rain stopped.

One of the things that amazes me about Namibia is the fact that the children do all of these things that we would think so dangerous in America, and nothing ever happens. Today, I watched a baby under the age of one with a whole plastic bag in his mouth while sitting on his mom’s lap. When I was with my host family, I took away a dirty needle, latex glove and marble from a four-year-old who was putting them in his mouth. I also took away the biggest knife I have ever seen from two little girls who were 6 and 9 because they were swinging it at each other and then thought it would be funny to chase me with it. I mean, can you imagine if we saw that happen at home? Child Protective Services would be called in a heartbeat. And yet, nothing happens. Most people do have a lot of scars though…must be from those samurai swords they were given to play with as children…

OK…well I think I’m going to go to bed now. We don’t have school tomorrow (Friday) because of the track meet. I am actually not going to be able to go to the track meet (truly breaks my heart) because I am going with my principal to a town with an amazing grocery store and an overpriced internet café to go grocery shopping! So excited! So that is where I am hoping to post this obese blog entry. I doubt many people have made it this far in reading it, but if you have, thanks! I really should reread/edit this, but I’m lazy. So I apologize for the run-ons, poor grammar, and rambling. I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to send some individual e-mails shortly! I miss and love you all a lot!