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!