peace corps shmeace corps

I’ve been in Namibia for a little over 2 weeks now, and things are starting to settle down into a routine. Last week I moved in with a host family in town, and they’re great. I thought living with a host family was going to be one of the most awkward things about Peace Corps, but it’s really not so bad. I have a great Ima (mom) 4 sisters and a 3 year old nephew, and I get along with everyone really well. So my schedule for training is Monday through Friday awake by 6:15, training sessions from 8 to 5, dinner around 6 followed by quality Namibian TV, and in bed by 9:30. Wild and crazy adventures? Not yet. My life here is much more comfortable than I think most PCVs brace themselves for (hot running water, electricity, toilets, TV), but I guess I’ll live it up now since once I get to my permanent site up in the Caprivi I probably won’t have any of those amenities.
TV especially is one of the funniest things about Namibia. For one thing everyone in the country LOVES soap operas, which they call soapies, and the favorite one is called “Lorenzo’s Wife” which is a Spanish soap opera dubbed really poorly into English, and broadcast on network Namibian TV. It’s so random, but it’s great in a really terrible way. Right now my host family is watching Big Brother Africa, which is the big TV event. They have 14 contestants and one is Namibian. Tonight is the first episode and the lead in to the actual episode has been going on for 4 hours. Watching TV every night is probably not one of the things I was expecting to be doing when I joined peace corps.
This weekend we had a cultural celebration at the center, and each language group cooked traditional food over open fires, and trainers wore their traditional dress. We got there at 7 am to cook before it got too hot (it gets HOT by midday and it’s not even summer yet!) and each group cooked a few dishes. We got live chickens which we slaughtered (I didn’t participate in that part, being too close to vegetarianism) and we had goat heads galore. At the Silozi table we made 5 year vegetable which are kind of like collard greens, fresh river fish from the Zambezi, traditional porridge (pretty much every ethnic group in Namibia makes it: it’s ground maize meal, kind of like cream of wheat or polenta), roasted ground nuts, which were actually just peanuts, and sweet potato. We went down a line with our plates and got food piled on from each group and by the end I had a plate piled SO high with food I could barely eat a third of what I had. Some wondrous items that made it on my plate include goat stomach, lung and intestines, 3 different kinds of porridge, lots of beans…just a whole mess of food. I also tried traditional Herero sour milk which actually wasn’t as gross as I thought it would be. My favorites were the Silozi greens and fat cakes, which are basically fried sweet rolls…so good, but you can feel the grease sitting on your stomach after you eat one. I’m excited for my Caprivi diet: it’s much more fertile in that region than the rest of Namibia, so I’ll be able to keep a garden for fresh veggies. I’m also excited to start eating a little healthier, since I’ve found that Namibians are quite fond of mayonnaise and put it on everything.
Hmm, so, more about the training schedule. We start at 8, and we have singing and dancing for the first 15 or 20 minutes which is probably my favorite part of the day. After that we have language classes from 8:30 to 1. Uggh. I’m learning Silozi, which is not going so well. Trying to learn a language enough to become conversant in it in 2 months is definitely frustrating. We’ll see how much I know when I leave in October…hopefully I’ll be able to pick up a lot in my first few weeks at site. In the afternoons we have different sessions about health and safety and cultural integration so we can stay healthy and integrate into our sites during the next 2 years. Other than that I’ve just been getting to know the other trainees and training staff which has been a lot of fun. Everyone is great and it’s nice to have other people around to soak everything in with.
On Wednesday we find out our permanent sites. I’m one of the few that’s known what region I’m ending up in, because my language group is so small, but on Wednesday I’ll finally find out which village in Caprivi I’ll be headed to. We have it narrowed down to three, so it’s just a question of which of us are going to each village. My host mom told me today that she wants me to go to Bukalo because it’s closest to Katima Mulilo, the town in Caprivi, and I might have electricity and maybe even a brick house. My host fam is shocked that they’re sending me to a village, and I’m not sure they believe in my ability to handle village life. My host mom grew up in Mpalila, which is an island in the Zambezi that touches Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia, but my sisters grew up in towns so never had to live in a village. It’s definitely going to be an adjustment at first to get used to carrying water and living in a mud hut and cooking on a fire but I think I’ll get used to it pretty quickly. A PCV in Caprivi came to our festival on Saturday and gave us some good advice about getting used to village life, such as to hang up fabric to keep worms from falling through the thatch roof in the rainy season and to be careful when running because I might startle an elephant and it’ll trample me (don’t worry about anything happening to me while running though…I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen in the next 2 years). I’m really excited to get to that part of the country though. I think it’s going to be awesome.
So all in all it’s been a pretty great 2 weeks and I’m really excited for the next two years! Exhausted, but excited. And hey, send me your address if you want postcards!
Mu siyale hande! Peace out.

Ps. So i have some really awesome pictures from our lunch the other day that I'm trying to upload but it's taking a reeeeally long time, so that might just have to wait. Sorry!