18 April 2008

Hi! How is everything at home? I hear its starting get warm in the States…I’m so jealous because it’s starting to get cold here! My kids have informed that I will want to die with the cold desert winter that is coming our way. It’s hard to imagine that the hottest village in Nam can also be the coldest…but that is what it sounds like!

I have just officially finished my first term of teaching! We handed out progress reports to the few parents that cared enough to come and see how their kids did and now have the next three weeks off of school! I am really going to miss my learners and teaching, but I am definitely ready for a break.

Overall, I think I had a pretty good term. I’m still just getting used to the Namibian school system which really just doesn’t make much sense. A lot of the learners fail all of their subjects here and if you pass too many learners it’s a bad thing. Well, of course no one informed me of this little peril of wisdom, so when I wrote my final exams for my learners I made it a test I knew they could achieve and do well on. Big mistake. I still think my exam was pretty good…I had a low “C” average (a Namib “C” is a 60% by the way…). Well, a “C” is way too high and most of my other teachers had an average around 30%, which I guess is normal…whoops! My test was actually moderated and reviewed by the head of the English department and she approved it, so I guess they really couldn’t be too mad at me. They did make me remark the essays the kids wrote three times. Let’s just say it was a stressful couple weeks of marking!

I still love my school, learners and village though! I just could be happier to be here. I knew I would love my life in the Peace Corps, but I really thought I would hate the first three months (by the way, did I tell you I have officially survived my first three months as site?! They say if you make it this far you are most likely going to complete the 2 years). I thought I would be sobbing all the time and homesick and just miserable. I don’t know why, but that’s just the impression I had of your first three months at your site. It’s not that I haven’t been really stressed out and had some tough times, but I just love everything about the Bing, my school and my life here. I am so happy here. Anytime I feel a little stressed or overwhelmed at how much I have/could/should do, the kids do something that makes me laugh and know that everything I have/could/should do is worth it.

So, what have I been doing with my life here for the past month…let’s see…I have started running again (an off-and-on endeavor on my part…mostly because of my lack of free time…next term I have recruited a few teachers and learners to run with me, so hopefully that will make me a little more accountable!), shown a few movies on my laptop to my learners, marked a thousand papers and exams, and just had fun with the kids.

Our lives here are so bizarre. It’s hard to even put into words what I experience on a daily basis. For example, Colleen came running into my classroom the other day saying I had to come home immediately. So I quickly ran home with her to find that a group of children had gone through a few weeks worth of our trash, emptied it in our backyard and had made a “shop” with all of our discarded waste. They had chopped up the cucumber we found in the refrigerator drawer we never use that would have probably been considered rotten a couple weeks ago. They took the chopped cucumber delicacy and put it on an rusted lid of a tin can as if it were a cake on display. They had all of our old oats boxes, pasta bags and any kind of packaging we had used in the past month set on their two inch “counter”. We found the little residue from our crystal light packets (of course sent in one of the marvelous care-packages from home ) had stained water they had found in little makeshift glass. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen in my life. Colleen and I just stood their in awe and embarrassment. She had scared the kids away when she came home ten minutes earlier to find this little spectacle and wanted to go find them to clean up the mess they made. I just stood there laughing—all of our trash from the past few weeks maybe even a month was organized and laid out in our backyard. And let me tell you, we had a lot of trash. The best part was that when Col first showed up and broke up the trash party, a little boy was having the time of his life playing with one of our tampon applicators. If that’s not the grossest thing you have ever heard I’m not sure what is. Needless to say, we threw away their “shop”, burned our trash (no trash pick-up in the Bing) and have not let trash sit our canister without burning it again.

It’s the things like the trash shop that really get you through the more difficult days here. My learners are always making me laugh. The other day I was told that standing with me was like standing next to Angelina Jolie (such little suck-ups) and then informed that Britney Spears had been witched by someone who was thinking bad things about her. They were certain that it was “the white guy with the hair”—Justin Timberlake?—and it wasn’t really her fault she had gone crazy. A few minutes later I was being serenaded with “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” and told how true the lyrics were.

I have also experienced some different cultural ceremonies (for lack of a better word) lately. There are a few women who people say are “mad” (they are a little crazy, but in reality I think they are HIV positive) that hang around the school. They beg for food and sometimes the hostel will give them bread. Well, one of the women died. My school raised some money for food for the family and my staff was informed that we would go to the memorial service together while our choir sang. My principal promised we would be there for 20-30 minutes tops. So, around 8pm on a Friday night I go to my school to walk with the choir to go to the service at the home of the woman who has died. Of course, I am one of three teachers who actually showed up (from a staff of 16). We walked with the choir through the tall grass to the home about a half hour away. I’m slightly (or completely) obsessed with our choir, so of course I was in heaven listening to them sing and joking around with the kids. It was a gorgeous night, the moon was not out so the stars were unbelievably bright and the kids make me laugh for the whole walk.

We arrive at the house and there are people just sobbing and wailing. It was unlike anything I have ever seen. Colleen and I sit with the couple of teachers that did show up (the principal didn’t even come!) and listen to the choir sing a few songs. Then, I think we will be leaving. But no, we are there for 4 hours! That is so Namibia though…telling you after 30 minutes you will leave and staying for 4 hours. But, it was really cool to see how the Damara (the tribe of the woman who died) mourn and the traditions they have when someone dies. All of the family and friends stay at the house and wait for the body to arrive. Once the body is delivered (in a casket), they stay up all night and sing, dance, cry and pray with the body. Although we were exhausted when we got home (we didn’t get back until after midnight), it was a really great experience and I am glad I went.

Well, I will be posting this blog entry when I am in the Peace Corps office in Windhoek (the capital). I am spending my first few days of the holiday there. We will be observing/helping with a camp PCVs put on for learners across the country called Camp GLOW. Its goal is to work with youth and raise gender awareness. Hopefully, next year I will be involved in planning it! Then, I will leave Windhoek and hike up to the north to visit another PCV who lives in a village near Angola. Then we will go down to Swakop for a couple of days and then head back to Windhoek for Reconnect. Reconnect is when Peace Corps brings our whole group together again to chat about how our first three months at site has gone. I am sooooo excited to see everyone again! It will be one of the three times our whole group comes together in two years. 68 of my closest PCV friends, a free place to stay, free food and hot showers…what more could you ask for?!?! I think it will be nice way to end our school holiday. And I know I will love having the next three weeks off, but also know I will be more than ready to come back and start teaching again. I will miss my learners and teachers too much!

Well, I will have e-mail on my phone and some sort of internet access for the next couple of weeks. I should get to an internet café at least one more time before I go back to the village for the next term. So send me e-mails and I will try to respond to all of them! I miss you all a lot! Thanks so much for all of your support! Next term at this time I will be on a plane heading home getting ready for Sarebear’s wedding! I’m so excited! I can’t remember the exact dates of when I will be home, but it will be the last two weeks of August. So clear those calendars!

I hope you have a great day! I miss and love you!

Love always,
Aly

P.S. My kitten Crunch is sooooo cute! I am sending my fam pics so they can put them up. He loves to cuddle and Colleen and I have fallen in love with him. He is curled up next to me as I type this. I’m not sure if I wrote about his name or not, but we named him after our favorite food in Nam—Honey Crunch Yum Yum peanut butter. It’s this amazing peanut butter from South Africa that we are basically obsessed with. I will bring home a few jars when I am home in August!

P.S.S. My address for all letters and packages has officially changed to:
Sister Aly Martin
Private Bag 1007
Karibib
Namibia
Keep writing those lovely Bible quotes and wrapping the boxes in tons and tons of clear tape! That seems to be the key in getting everything here in one piece!

P.S.S.S. I am sending out another large batch of letters this break…so look for them in the mail! It seems that about ¾ of my letters make it back to the States…the NamPost is not very reliable…but I will mail them from the capital this time so maybe they will have a better chance of making it to the States! And I love all the letters you all have been sending me! You should see me when I get them. One of school matrons usually delivers them to me when I am teaching and I get so excited I can barely teach the rest of the class without a ripping all of them open. My kids think it’s hysterical because I can’t stop smiling!