Ngepi Camp

You swim in this cage to keep you

separated from the crocodiles and hippos!!!

Morning fog

Boiling water over the campfire to sanitize it...not very tasty at all.

Driving in the back of a pickup over flooding...eek...a little scary!

Food - per request

Remaining vegetarian has been no problem at all. I eat pretty typical foods, just very simple.

Breakfast options: oatmeal; bread/peanut butter/banana; yogurt; fruit (I usually buy apples, bananas, peaches, sometimes oranges, sometimes mangos which are indescribably delicious here, wow)
Lunch/Dinner options: bread/cheese; hard-boiled egg; rice/lentils; beans; frozen veggies; pasta

There is actually a good amount of food available, but I am on a very tight budget, and limited in my transportation. One of our volunteers even has access to soy milk and veggie burgers in her town! I’m pretty sure when I go back to the U.S. I will be staying far away from oatmeal for a while…and frozen vegetables…I eat them twice a day and it’s getting OLD!

I already have a mental list of the foods I am dying to eat once I’m home. Lasagna, pierogi, falafel, saganaki, Mexican, Thai, pizza…

I’ll write about traditional foods once I note down what they’re actually called (as opposed to “that sandy bread”) and how to spell them.

Typical Day - per request

6:15 – wake up, eat, get dressed in whichever colors are that day’s chosen colors for the teachers to coordinate :) It really makes things quite easy. I wear the same 5 outfits week after week.

7:15 – on Mondays and Fridays we have school-wide assembly, which consists of the kids reciting the pledge, anthem, prayers, etc, and announcements. Other days, they do it in class.

7:30(ish) – 1:30 – classes are held. I teach three English classes a day, one to each of grades 5-7.

1:30 – 3:00 – lunch and rest for the learners.

3:00 – 5:00 – afternoon study. I spend this time in my room, marking and planning and helping the kids who come with questions.

5:30 – I leave for a run. I usually have a crew of kids with me, which is super cute and fun, not to mention motivating…man, they can RUN. The sun is going down at this point so it’s the coolest time of day to go – I mean that in terms of temperature. The sunsets are so vivid. It’s completely dark by 6:30. We run through the farms and fields of the village. It’s so amazing to have a giggling crew of kids speeding through the sand paths, bare feet leaving prints beside the cow and donkey prints, memes waving as they walk to their huts with baskets on their heads, herds of animals being tended by children with tall sticks in their hands, some of whom join the running crew (the kids…not the animals), all the while the sun setting behind the palm trees and leaving the most amazing colors streaking across the sky…whew. But it is EXHAUSTING! It is HOT and running through sand is TOUGH!

6:15(ish) – return to the school, stretch while the kids either laugh or try to imitate. Then shower, eat dinner, do remaining marking and planning, read if I have time. I do NOT have much free time, I work my butt off planning. Next term will probably be a little easier.

10:00 – SLEEEEEP

End-of-term English Exams

Each school in the area belongs to a cluster, which is just like American schools being part of a district. The exams are set and distributed by the cluster, but our school chose to create our own, which was a lot of work but I was happy with because the cluster tests just do not cover what I’d like them to. For the mid-term exams, I was there to help set them, and a group of teachers just sat in a room, found whatever books and newspapers were laying around, and photocopied articles from them to use in the test. Then made up a few questions for each. So it didn’t apply to the topics we cover, such as Population Education or HIV/AIDS. Thus I was happy to create my own test, using relevant articles and reading material for the learners to respond to.

Today our school received a copy of the exam the cluster made, and wooooo…here is my favorite question:

“Quote from the passage an adverb which can not the same par 6.”

Which is not to say I did the greatest job on my own. One task of the exam is to choose from a selection of topics and write an essay. One of the topics I offered was to write a letter to a pen pal in America, telling them about Lano Primary School. Some learners had asked me if they’d be getting pen pals, so I (wrongfully) assumed they all knew what a pen pal was. Two lovely essays:

Tobias: “Dear: My Frind. Firt of all I just what to great yurl.” (greet you: most Namibians say this, and most Namibians spell greet ‘great’) “Me I am very well how are you. I just what to tell you that I buy a new pen my pen is blue it use to wirte if the pen write it us to put stars in the worlds and it is very very good. I was just want to tell you thant is was very very good. Your friend. Tobias.”

Petrus: “One day I was going to school with out a pen. My mother go to Ondangwa and there is no pen and she go at Windhoek there is no pen. My mother here that the pen a only at America. In Namibia there is no pen. She go at Swakopmund and she go in the bout” (boat) “and she travery with a bout at America and the one say we are rich now gow” (go) “in America and he pal a new pen and she go in the bout and she never at home and she give me a new pen from America.”

Oops?

PHOTOS

Petrus

With my Peace Corps volunteer, Brittany, and a beautiful sunset


The twins! Super cute!

DOUBLE RAINBOW, oh my goodness, it was incredible

The bug ones for my sisters...

Can you see me??? This is a baobab tree and is thousands of years old. And ENORMOUS

Hi Mom! See, I AM alive

the village of Mangetti

Getting my hair did. "So soft Miss!"

END OF TERM 1

We are currently in the final days of the first term. Learners are taking their end-of-term exams, which was an INTERESTING experience the first time around. It feels great to have one term conquered; I feel much more prepared for the next two. The 29th is the teachers’ last day; from there I will spend a few days with other volunteers at one of their sites, then on to a week of camping. We’ll be at Chobe National Park in Botswana for a few days, and then Victoria Falls, which we have timed to coincide with the full moon because it creates a rainbow over the falls!

I have been learning some more phrases in Oshindonga; the kids LOVE teaching it to me and even created a little test! It’s not easy though, let me tell you, especially because I am not learning it as you’d typically learn a language, like subject/verb agreement and verb tenses and so on; I’m learning to say phrases. AND there are so many languages in this country! I go a few hours away and they speak a different language!

Oshili nawa! (Have a good day!)