Category: Peace Corps-year1

Friday marked six months since Group 48 arrived in Namibia. My service is almost ¼ complete. I still have to pinch myself to believe I am actually here as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  This day, this hour, life is good.

When I returned from Reconnect, there was a new timetable waiting for me. I knew this might happen while I was away, but I did not receive it until I returned. I had no idea what classes I would teach on Monday, my first day back. Teaching in Namibia is not recommended for anyone who needs to be in control and know everything ahead of time. Hopefully this will be the last change to the timetable, but I am quite certain there will be one-time schedule changes. For example, 4^th period and 6^th period may flipflop on a day or the morning assembly may go long so classes start at 7:45 instead of 7:37 and each of the 8 periods ends a minute earlier. I can handle it but not without some confusion. My learners find my confusion funny and I laugh with them.

I was kind of dreading my return, but the learners were happy to see me, and it felt good. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that they actually completed the work I left for them.

A couple girls in my Math 11 class tested me with talking and disruptive behavior. These girls are funny and liked by their peers, I like them too but not that day. I put them both in a classroom ‘timeout’, making them sit on hard stools in opposite corners of the classroom. They were insulted and upset but they were good the rest of the week. One entered the room the next day saying “Miss, I will be quiet today”. A small victory!

Unfortunately, I have not slept well this week. I fall asleep easily but wake up at 3 or 4 and struggle to fall back asleep. I am most vulnerable at these times. My mind races with insecurity about teaching, I miss Steve and wonder if I will ever be as happy as I was with him, I miss my family and friends. I stopped taking my siesta after school and I take a long walk in hopes that will break the cycle. When it happens, I use my mindful breathing, meditation techniques, prayer and reading to fall back to sleep. Last night was better. I woke up at 4 but I quickly fell back to sleep until 7:30 which is sleeping-in for me.

All for now with all my love

This week I was back at our training center in Okahandja with the rest of Group48. We arrived in Namibia with 55 and are now down to 50. It is not unusual for 10-20% of a group to not complete the two years of service for a variety of reasons. It is always sad for our Peace Corps Namily to see them go but they remain in our hearts and minds. Reconnect is a time for groups to get back together after being at site for a couple months. Besides hanging out and catching up with each other, we shared our challenges and successes, we got more training on how Peace Corps can support us and how we can support each other, and we also learned how to create and submit required reports. While not necessarily fun, these reports are critical in monitoring and evaluating Peace Corps’ work to ensure continued funding. The training was necessary and informative while the after-hours were entertaining. We had a volleyball tournament including players of all skill levels, spike ball, an impromptu slip and slide after a rainstorm, yoga, running, walking, hiking, and an assortment of games such as Gin Rummy, Phase 10, Hearts, Magic, and more. There was also time to just chill and hang out under a lapa, talking and listening to music. Our group has its sub-groups, but I hung out with different folks every day and observed many others doing the same. We seem to be a pretty open, inclusive, and caring group of PCVs. As I have expressed before, sometimes I feel good about the progress I am making as a teacher, connecting with my learners and integrating into my community. Other times, I just think teaching is hard, I feel inadequate, and I want to do better for my learners. Apparently, this is a common theme for many PCVs (and probably most teachers) and a good bit of training time was learning strategies to cope with this ambiguity and practical ways to support each other.

All for now with all my love

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This week my school had Interhouse Athletics, the rough equivalent of Field Day in American schools, but more. The school population, learners, teachers, staff are randomly divided into the Red, Yellow, and Green teams. Throughout January and into February, there are multiple activities and events to generate points such as participation in a fun run (more points if you place), donating blood, and of course the Interhouse Athletics. Points can also be reduced by poor behavior that results in detention. We had no classes on Wednesday, so everyone could participate in the events at the nearby sports park. My team, the Green team, is in the lead but there are more events culminating in a learner concert this week.

Unfortunately, I will be away for the final tally, attending Reconnect training with the rest of Group48. In addition to teaching my classes and helping with the Interhouse, this week was spent preparing worksheets and activities for my learners while I am away. They are basically on their own in my absence, but I am hopeful they will complete the assignments I prepared for them. Wishful thinking??

Friday finally came and a couple volunteers from the North spent the night with me. Another two were also in town on their way to reconnect so we all had dinner together at my place-chicken and dumplings and brownies for dessert. It was a fun evening and I learn so much when I hang out with the younger volunteers. They have more challenges, not just because some of them have very primitive living conditions, but because they have more pressure from locals. Some locals challenge the men to drink more than they should, sometimes they give unwanted and unpleasant attention to the female volunteers, and of course they encourage them to drink as well. This is not true of all locals, most of the volunteers are developing strong relationships within their community, but I don’t have this pressure at all. There are advantages to being an older volunteer.

All for now with all my love

Teaching is tough. I spent more than a few hours on Saturday and Sunday preparing lesson plans. I am attending a mandatory Peace Corps training next week, so I must prepare work for the learners during my absence. We don’t have substitute teachers. Someone will check on them and give them assignments, but no one will be teaching them. Ugh, I don’t know how much learning will happen.

I was not happy with my classroom management so last week I implemented some changes. The classes are not out of control but they are noisier and more chaotic than I want. At the suggestion of others, I changed to assigned seating. Now I have a seating chart inside one of those sheet protectors and I can write on the sheet protector with a dry erase marker. If a learner is talking or misbehaving, I don’t disrupt the class, I just walk to the learner, show them their name on the seating chart and mark their behavior. If they get 2 strikes (not 3) in a 7day cycle then they get detention. So far no one has gotten 2 strikes, but the change is still new.

As I am feeling better about classroom management, the learners just don’t seem to understand much of what I am teaching. They say they do but when I ask for answers or for someone to demonstrate an answer, they don’t understand.  Another benefit of the seating chart is that I can use my it to cold call learners, especially the disruptive ones, if no one volunteers. None of this is necessarily surprising but teaching is tough.

On another note, one of the male learners said to me “you call us nigger in America, don’t you?” It was a question, not necessarily aggressive, but kind of passive, aggressive. It felt like a challenge. I said it was very disrespectful to use that word. It is not part of my vocabulary and I never say it. He said others do. I said some do but most don’t. My friends and family do not and then I asked another math question. The next day he came to me and apologized. He said he was being disrespectful and trying to upset me. I admire the care and character he showed in apologizing to me.

“No brainer” has entered the vocabulary of my learners, along with ‘oopsie’ (shout out to Susie P for making that part of my vocabulary). I had them skip a section because I knew they understood it already. When they asked why we were skipping it, I said it’s a no-brainer for this class. They asked if it meant ‘easy’ and I said yes. They got a kick out of that.

I took a short video of my classroom but I can’t seem to include it. I will include photos another day.

My school is on a 7-day cycle not a 5-day cycle. This means that last week was days 1-5 and Monday, Tuesday of this week are days 6 and 7. Learners may be absent several days, usually Fridays and/or Mondays for weddings, funerals, and other family events. With a 5-day cycle they would miss the same day 5 (Friday) classes (or day 1 Mondays) more often. With a 7-day cycle, the missed days are more evenly distributed. Our first cycle was on a provisional timetable and we start a new timetable tomorrow, day 1. It makes sense when it is explained but it is difficult keeping track of the teaching day and class schedules.

Besides trying to learn over 200 learners’ names, I am not exaggerating since there are 35-40 learners in each class and I have four 8^th grade classes (A, B, C, D), one 9^th grade, and one 11^th grade, I am trying to get ahead on lesson plans and fine tune classroom management. I am mostly satisfied with my progress, but it is a steep learning curve. As far as learner names, I have a little advantage because I teach Physical Science to the 8C and 8D classes, then I have the same learners again for Art (only once a week) and then I have some from 8C and 8D for the Computer Studies class. There are 2 days in the cycle when I see those 8^th graders three times in one day. I hope I can keep their interest.

The learners seem to understand me better than I understand them. Unovina says I can call her Uno and Katjikonde says I can call her KK. One young man was trying to tell me a method of recording data. Some had already said “tally sheet”, “filling in a pre-made chart”, “taking photos or video”. All I could understand him saying was something like “raw nose”. After trying over and over, I asked him to write it for me – rough notes. Ah ha! I felt like such an idiot, but they were happy I finally understood.

Today is my last born’s birthday. I cannot believe it has been 37 years since I first saw his smiling face. Happy birthday, Sal!

Here are a couple photos from the Sotte Sokkie, roughly translates as the Fool’s Sock Hop. The video wouldn’t download so this is all I have.

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School officially started for teachers last Monday, January 7 and for learners the following day. However, there was no real teaching last week. Registration with the learners and their parents were completed the first couple days with many trying to get a place for their child. My school always has a long waiting list, but it is in demand even more this year due to major changes in the national curriculum. Without going into much detail schools that used to cater to grades 0-10, will cater only to grades 0-9, forcing 10th graders to find another school. The increased enrollments for grade 10, along with additional subject changes, is wreaking havoc on scheduling for all the secondary schools.

By the end of the week, we received our provisional timetables to get our classes started on Monday, January 14. My schedule had the expected Physical Science (PS) for grades 8C, 8D, and 9D, Mathematics for grade 11B, and Computer Studies (CS) for grade 8B. Art for grades 8A-D was an unexpected addition. When I went to verify the addition, my principal said it was a natural addition since I am so crafty. His wife had showed him the pictures of my homemade Christmas tree and decorations. I think it will be fun and I am looking forward to it even though my schedule is getting full. In addition to the scheduled classes, I will teach a remedial reading class starting in February and co-lead the Girls’ Club. Thankfully, they are on the verge of hiring another Physical Science teacher so some of those classes will shift to the new hire.

My next challenge was realizing that there were conflicts with my classrooms. I had the expectation to teach my PS, Math, and CS classes in my counterparts’ rooms. I knew I might have to find a ‘free’ room for one or two classes since the previous PCV had to do this when her class conflicted with her counterpart’s class. However, I was not expecting the responsibility of finding available rooms for all my classes. The HOD (head of department) for CS came to my rescue. I am now, temporarily, using the e-learning center for all my classes, including art. She has great influence at the school and when she explained how this could work for the time being, the principal agreed. It’s great for me since I can use a computer to show science videos, power point demonstrations, etc. The center is under-utilized because most teachers here are intimidated by the technology. I have offered to help teachers and I can move to their classroom if they want to schedule time in the center for their class.

I finally met my first learners yesterday. After going over a few procedures and brief introduction of the class and myself, I had them list at least 3 favorite things or things they like because I wanted to know more about them. This also allowed me to check how well they could follow instructions and assess their writing skills. I went on to explain that I would use this data to analyze the class. In all the classes I described how I am using concepts from the scientific process- identifying a question/problem, collecting data to investigate it, and then analyzing the data to hopefully answer the question. I connected the activity to the scientific process in all the classes because it relates to PS, as well as Math and CS. So far, so good but the learners don’t have textbooks yet, so it is still going slow. They should have them by the end of this week.

The Peace Corps director of Namibia, Kevin Fleming, did a listening tour of the Otjozondjupa Region last week. On Thursday, after visiting the 4 PCVs in Otjiwarongo (OTT) at our homes and work, he took us to dinner. The next day he went north visiting PCVs in the rural villages. He brought some of them back to OTT on Saturday for a bigger group discussion and dinner for eleven. It was great seeing PCVs from my group and meeting some new PCVs from earlier groups.

All for now with all my love

NOTE: Sorry, my photos and videos are out of order. The Ani bugs are from H’s Aunt and Uncle’s house. The flag and video of M (H’s baby) learning to crawl are at her cousin s house. I will post photo of the tower garden another time.

Part 1. I’ve been pondering creating a vegetable/herb garden and composting. I finally found an idea that I acted upon, a Bottle Tower Garden by Willem Van Cotthem (check it out on YouTube). I talked to H (matrone) about it and she helped me figure out a good place. Initially I thought to use the fence by my house, but it is near a sidewalk outside the property and H said, “People can be so naughty”, meaning they would steal my produce. H suggested the fence we share with the primary school hostel so that’s where I put it. H helped me collect more ‘cool drink’ (soda) plastic bottles, showed me the hostel’s manure pile, and the lawn tools I could borrow. She may be a little doubtful that there will be a harvest, but she is extremely supportive! By the end of the week I had soil prepped, 2 columns of bottles with irrigation funnels, and some seedlings and seeds planted. I planted cucumber, bell pepper, and green beans. I will buy more seeds and set up more towers.

Part 2. H said we had to vacate our houses for 6 hours the next day after the exterminators treated our houses and the hostel. She invited me to come meet her family in the location. When I met her the next day, she handed me a plastic grocery bag, saying we would cook these at her aunt and uncle’s house. I looked in the bag and it was filled with live flying insects! She called them ani bugs. The wings get pulled off, they are cooked with a little water in a cast iron kettle over an open fire, then spread out on paper to cool off. They are ‘cleaned’ again to get any wing remnants off and then set out to dry for several hours. Finally, they are seasoned with salt and eaten. They were crispy and tasty, a nice little snack.

While the ani were drying, we went to H’s cousin’s house. She died the day after Christmas after suffering with cancer. The funeral will be January 12 and this period is like a long wake with lots of family and friends coming and going. It is not morbid and depressing but simply hanging out, telling stories, children playing, and lots of food. I was embraced as one of the family since I was with H and felt very welcomed. I did not understand too much because they are Damara and speak one of the ‘click’ languages, Khoekhoegowab. H pointed out the white flag on the house which indicates a death in the family. I saw this during my site-based training in Omaruru along with the bones that get hung after a wedding. I asked if they also had bones from weddings and she was so excited that I knew about that. They have them too.

I hope you can get a feel of the day with my photos.

All for now with all my love

New Year’s Eve was low key. Sam made us a yummy Thai curry and then I prepared calzones for dinner the next day with PCV Jake from our Group48. He was stopping in Otjiwarongo on his way to Windhoek. We had plans to visit the Cheetah Conservancy Fund (CCF), a non-profit organization dedicated to saving cheetahs around the world, so I wanted something we could quickly prepare when we got home. Sam and Sara headed back to their place just as the sun was setting and I was in bed, reading by 9:30.

I talked to most of my family around 7am on New Year’s Day to wish them Happy New Year since it was midnight EST. Then our plans for the day started disintegrating. The arranged driver was backing out, so we started looking for other drivers. As this was happening, Jake was having trouble getting a ride out of his town. We finally found a driver willing to take us the 45km to the CCF and come back to get us when we were ready, round trip, for a reasonable rate.

We were at the CCF by 11am. They have a nice museum with a film, they have enclosed areas where you can observe cheetahs up close and watch them at feeding time. They also offer a ‘safari’ ride to their larger enclosed area where the cheetahs are somewhat free range. The cheetahs in the closeup area and the ‘safari’ ride area will not be released. These are animals that are too old or have been raised in captivity by humans. They would not survive in the wild. However, what we don’t see are the acres of land, also enclosed, with cheetahs that will be released. These animals are recovering from injuries or caught and delivered to the center for relocation. These animals are not on display for humans because they do not want them accustomed to humans.

By American standards, the visit was not that expensive. However, it was the most money that I have spent in one day on my PCV allowance, especially when our driver said the rate was for one way, not the round trip! I showed him the text where I verified the rate with him and unfortunately, I could see the misunderstanding. I don’t think he was just trying to cheat us. He offered a compromise which was still more than expected, but we took it.

We arranged that we would call when we were ready. We called about 3, thinking it would be 4 before he could pick us up. He was not expecting a call so early and was taking a customer to another town. Long story, short, he picked us up about 5:15. Ah, Africa time.

Jake was having his own troubles but finally got out of town with an estimated arrival time of 8pm. This was too late to have dinner with him, but I sent a calzone to him via Sam and Sara. We all had lunch together
the following day which was great.

Here are some more PCV lessons learned. At least double any travel time whether it’s an hour or a day’s trip, that goes for you or your expected visitor, be very explicit in negotiations even if it seems obvious, time
is different in Africa so just except it.

All for now with all my love

Mira in her makeshift laundry basket swing on Christmas day.

Another busy week with people coming and going. I spent Christmas Eve with my school colleague, Claudia, and her family. One thing I hesitate to share is that I tried one of Henry’s hand-rolled, with a filter, cigarettes. I enjoyed it so much that I must be careful not to take up the habit again!

Christmas Day was an all-day braai with H, the matrone, her family, Sam, Sara, and me. It was fun and casual. My contribution to the meal was lasagna. I learned to make ricotta cheese from the Mali Peace Corps cookbook, found on an online resource that PC provides. It was easy to make, very good, and the lasagna was well received by all.

The surprise for this week was receiving a package on Christmas Eve from an RTI colleague, Vanessa. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) who served in Namibia years ago. RTI has many RPCVs cheering me on and supporting me but none more than Vanessa. This package included difficult-to-find spices for me, a “can” robot model kit to make with my learners, spice bread mix and herbal tea to share with my housemates, and a bag of cars for Blessing. I made the bread, served the tea and Ester could not believe that my friend in America would think of them and was very grateful.

Oh, we had another surprise. On Thursday evening, two of our Group48 volunteers, Nikki and Dionte, came to town unexpectedly on their way to Okahandja. They came for dinner with Sam, Sara, and me. It was such a treat to see these friends/Namily that we haven’t seen since swearing-in in October. Sara decided to join Nikki and Dionte to Okahandja to visit some other PCVs that are there, so it will be their turn for impromptu guests.

If nothing else, PCVs learn to take advantage of opportunities, welcome fellow PCVs with open arms, and make our food stretch! That’s why we call it Namily.

All for now with all my love