Firstly, Happy Birthday Dad! Miss you!
This week was my first week actually teaching my own classes. It went pretty well considering I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. People here assume that because I'm American and their volunteer I know how to do everything, but, for one thing my teaching experience is limited to volunteer ESL classes for day laborers, and for another thing the way things are done in this country often make no sense! Like, for example, at the end of last term all teachers were told to complete their subject plans, or yearly schedules, by the time school started last week. But they hadn't allocated the subjects yet! WHAT?? Also, there's so much paperwork and bureacracy involved in teaching here. I'm supposed to make five binders. Five! I also was assigned to teach Math, even though I have absolutely no qualification to teach Math aside from the fact that I took some Math classes sometime, I think? The last Math class I took was statistics for my psych minor in college which I'm pretty sure isn't on the syllabus. As long as I'm one step ahead of the kids I should be okay though...right?
I'm also still getting used to the Nambiguity of living here. For example, every Tuesday we have morning briefings for all members of staff, which always begin at 6:40. So last week I was getting ready for school,and at 6:25 my host mom knocked and my door and said "we're late!" So I said, no we're not late, we still have 15 minutes, and it takes about 3 minutes to walk to school. So at 6:35 we left and got to the meeting at 6:38. We walked in and my acting principal started scolding us for being late. I explained that we're not late, that the meeting was supposed to start in 2 minutes, but he said we were supposed to just know to show up early. Obviously.
Two weeks ago when I was on my way back to site after reconnect I smsed my principal to let him know that I was on my way, but would only arrive in Katima the next evening, so I would miss the first day of school. About 5 minutes later I got a phone call from a man who didn't identify himself asking me where I was. Thinking it was my principal, who never identifies himself on the phone when he calls, I replied that I was in Otavi (about halfway from Windhoek to Rundu) and reiterated what I had said in my message. "Okay, let me know when you're in Katima and I'll come pick you up." Okay, great. The next day while riding in a very slow moving lorry from Rundu to Katima I got another call from another male voice asking me where I was. Assuming it was my principal again using someone else's phone I replied that I was about 250 k from Katima. He told me to let me know when I was in town and he would drive me to KAbbe. I said okay and hung up. Once I arrived in Katima, after I finished doing my shopping for the week I called my principal and told him I was in Katima. "Oh, okay" he replied, "well I'm at school now." At school, meaning Kabbe. "Oh, okay. So you're not going to pick me up?" "Oh you need to be picked up? Okay, I'll come early in the morning." Thoroughly confused by this conversation and having no idea what "I'll pick you up and drive you to Kabbe when you arrive in Katima" means in Namblish, I crashed at Kaitlin's house, and ended up getting a ride with a PC driver doing site development in the next village the following morning. Later that afternoon, while I was sitting at my desk organizing my things for school, I got a phone call from another unidentified number. A male voice: "Hello, where are you now?" Thinking it was my principal again, I said "I'm at school," (duh). "Oh okay, have you moved into your house yet?" "No." (duh). "Why not?" "It's not ready yet..." (wtf?) "Why didn't you call me when you got in yesterday? I was waiting for your phone call." "Wait...who is this?" "It's John, from the ministry!" Argh!!!!! It was this guy from the ministry who came to measure my house, and, since I'm a white lady, is obviously trying to get me to fall in love with him by forcing me to drive to the flood plains with him (another story), and offering to give me rides places. I felt pretty dumb for asking my principal to pick me up in Katima. Damn you Namibian vagueness! Didn't you have teachers to teach you phone etiquette in school? Oh wait...
So those are my stories of Nambiguity for the week. I'm sure many more will ensue over the next two years. Looking forward to it!
Friday, January 22, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
End of holidays and first days of school
Well, it's been a little while since I've posted. Hmm let's see, I spent Christmas in Kabbe with my host family which was...interesting. Definitely not the kind of Christmas I'm used to. My host mom invited me to church for Christmas eve...then told me service starts at 1 am. Namibia has turned me into an old lady, or my dad, who goes to sleep at 8 pm every night and wakes up at 5. Seriously, I can not stay up late anymore. But I agreed to go, thinking Namibian Christmas eve mass would be some kind of cultural event I should see, and figured I could take a nap before it started. But in true nambiguous fashion, at 9 pm, when we were finishing up dinner, my host mom said she was leaving now now for church. Okay, I said, but doesn't the service start at 1? Yes. She said. But why are you leaving now? Well people are already there, singing and having baptisms. I asked when Chuma, my host sister was going to church and she said maybe at 2 am. I was starting to get a little frustrated, since I don't really like church anyway, and the services are in Silozi so usually I just sit and zone out, and I definitely didn't want to get stuck at church for 6 hours in the middle of the night. But of course I got dragged with my host mom and host sister who decided to go and leave early. 4 hours of singing and dancing ensued, and then the service finally started, at around 1:30 am, when Chuma decided to leave because her 2 year old daughter was feeling sick. So that's the story of how I almost went to Christmas eve mass in Namibia.
Christmas day was mostly uneventful, until around 3 pm when people started pouring into the village to drink and braai. Christmas in Namibia is pretty much like 4th of July or a summer barbeque. Definitely not anything like what we're used to. I did get to talk to everyone in my family and Brian's family though, which was definitely the highlight of my holiday.
I spent New Year's in Rundu with some friends after our thwarted efforts to evade Peace Corps' notice and head to Otjiwarango for New Years' with some other dirty 30ers (our moniker for Peace Corps Nam/Group 30). However, the day before New Year's eve the friend we were going to stay with had a break in, so her house was on Peace Corps radar, and being sensible folks we thought flaunting to PC that we were breaking the very strict out of site policy (not allowed to leave your region for the first 3 months after swearing in! Period.) was a little stupid. So we spent New Year's eve watching movies and playing cards (while enjoying some WIndhoek Lager of course) while trying to stay awake until midnight. We then proceeded to wake up at 5 am to hike out of Rundu to enjoy some new year's day festivities in otjiwarango. So, that's the story of how I almost celebrated New Year's eve with the dirty 30 in Otjiwarango.
I then spent a week in Windhoek for reconnect, the second part of our PC training. It was in the mountains at a beautiful "resort" as we like to call it. Actually after months of living like PCVs this place was a resort, with air conditioning, hot showers and a pool! It was also great to see the rest of my group, who truly are such wonderful people I can't stand it. We also got to drop some mad Namib dollars eating in Windhoek. Ahh Windhoek. So strange, so disconcerting and so wonderful sometimes. Mostly the food. Indian, Italian, KFC...we even found a place called Joe's beer house which has a hefeweizen! After months of drinking watery Windhoek lager or the cheaper brands that have an aftertaste of soap that cloudy wheat beer was like 500 ml of heaven.
Which brings me to the present. Well, after hiking back from Windhoek, and realizing again how effing far Caprivi is from the capital (it took me 48 hours to get back to Kabbe, overnighting in Rundu and Katima), I arrived just in time for the first day of school! Actually the 3rd day technically, since teachers were supposed to be there monday and tuesday. But in Namibia that means nothing happens except maybe stuff that was supposed to happen last term, like finishing your grade symbol distribution (I don't know why that was so important, but it was), and what what. So yesterday the learners arrived, and of course our subjects hadn't been allocated and we had no timetable, so the learners ended up doing manual labor and running around for most of the day.
Today I showed up and at our brief staff meeting was told that the pre-primary teacher wasn't there, so why didn't I just watch the pre-primary class today? Putting aside the fact that I'm actually teaching grades 7 and 8 English and Math, and would have liked to spend some time talking to and getting to know them, the pre-primary students DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH. Or Silozi. And after 3 months in the village my Subia is in a sadder state than I'd like to admit. So I walk into this class of about 12 terrified looking 5 year olds (don't forget, this is their first day of school. Ever.) And proceed to hand out construction paper and crayons that they just stare at. I take out a crayon and start coloring my paper, saying "bone!" "See!" Color! Finally the secretary came in and I asked her to translate for me which got some kids coloring. When they got bored with coloring I decided to attempt to teach them "Duck Duck Goose" using my extremely limited vocabulary. I achieved this by going around and miming what they were supposed to do then when I tapped goose, saying "Iwe!" (you!) "Mata!" (Run!) then "Kale!" (Sit!) To my surprise it actually worked, and I successfully got them to play for the rest of the period. Poor kids. First day of school and they show up to a crazy white lady who doesn't speak their language. Being an African kid is hard in so many ways.
Well, that's an abridged version of my activities for the last few weeks. Now I'm on my way back to Rundu for a PC meeting. But first I'm heading over to Kaitlin's to bake cupcakes to bring for our Friday wine day in Rundu. Hey, even PCVs get to have a little fun sometimes ;)
Christmas day was mostly uneventful, until around 3 pm when people started pouring into the village to drink and braai. Christmas in Namibia is pretty much like 4th of July or a summer barbeque. Definitely not anything like what we're used to. I did get to talk to everyone in my family and Brian's family though, which was definitely the highlight of my holiday.
I spent New Year's in Rundu with some friends after our thwarted efforts to evade Peace Corps' notice and head to Otjiwarango for New Years' with some other dirty 30ers (our moniker for Peace Corps Nam/Group 30). However, the day before New Year's eve the friend we were going to stay with had a break in, so her house was on Peace Corps radar, and being sensible folks we thought flaunting to PC that we were breaking the very strict out of site policy (not allowed to leave your region for the first 3 months after swearing in! Period.) was a little stupid. So we spent New Year's eve watching movies and playing cards (while enjoying some WIndhoek Lager of course) while trying to stay awake until midnight. We then proceeded to wake up at 5 am to hike out of Rundu to enjoy some new year's day festivities in otjiwarango. So, that's the story of how I almost celebrated New Year's eve with the dirty 30 in Otjiwarango.
I then spent a week in Windhoek for reconnect, the second part of our PC training. It was in the mountains at a beautiful "resort" as we like to call it. Actually after months of living like PCVs this place was a resort, with air conditioning, hot showers and a pool! It was also great to see the rest of my group, who truly are such wonderful people I can't stand it. We also got to drop some mad Namib dollars eating in Windhoek. Ahh Windhoek. So strange, so disconcerting and so wonderful sometimes. Mostly the food. Indian, Italian, KFC...we even found a place called Joe's beer house which has a hefeweizen! After months of drinking watery Windhoek lager or the cheaper brands that have an aftertaste of soap that cloudy wheat beer was like 500 ml of heaven.
Which brings me to the present. Well, after hiking back from Windhoek, and realizing again how effing far Caprivi is from the capital (it took me 48 hours to get back to Kabbe, overnighting in Rundu and Katima), I arrived just in time for the first day of school! Actually the 3rd day technically, since teachers were supposed to be there monday and tuesday. But in Namibia that means nothing happens except maybe stuff that was supposed to happen last term, like finishing your grade symbol distribution (I don't know why that was so important, but it was), and what what. So yesterday the learners arrived, and of course our subjects hadn't been allocated and we had no timetable, so the learners ended up doing manual labor and running around for most of the day.
Today I showed up and at our brief staff meeting was told that the pre-primary teacher wasn't there, so why didn't I just watch the pre-primary class today? Putting aside the fact that I'm actually teaching grades 7 and 8 English and Math, and would have liked to spend some time talking to and getting to know them, the pre-primary students DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH. Or Silozi. And after 3 months in the village my Subia is in a sadder state than I'd like to admit. So I walk into this class of about 12 terrified looking 5 year olds (don't forget, this is their first day of school. Ever.) And proceed to hand out construction paper and crayons that they just stare at. I take out a crayon and start coloring my paper, saying "bone!" "See!" Color! Finally the secretary came in and I asked her to translate for me which got some kids coloring. When they got bored with coloring I decided to attempt to teach them "Duck Duck Goose" using my extremely limited vocabulary. I achieved this by going around and miming what they were supposed to do then when I tapped goose, saying "Iwe!" (you!) "Mata!" (Run!) then "Kale!" (Sit!) To my surprise it actually worked, and I successfully got them to play for the rest of the period. Poor kids. First day of school and they show up to a crazy white lady who doesn't speak their language. Being an African kid is hard in so many ways.
Well, that's an abridged version of my activities for the last few weeks. Now I'm on my way back to Rundu for a PC meeting. But first I'm heading over to Kaitlin's to bake cupcakes to bring for our Friday wine day in Rundu. Hey, even PCVs get to have a little fun sometimes ;)
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