Kids Say Things Sometimes

            …and I’m not sure how to respond.

1. I was walking to the tree where I occasionally get cell reception, when I heard what appeared to be the word “Fat” called out to me. Perhaps I was mistaken. I went over to the two boys who were beckoning me over. They were a few of my learners, so I asked them how their day was. They responded by handing me 2 bags of cheese doodles. Ok, maybe they had said fat. “Oh, thank you!” I said, trying not to look perplexed, “Would you like some?” They responded, “No, no! For you because you are beautiful. Our teacher.” I awkwardly thanked them again, as a nearby girl was practically guffawing with laughter, and continued on my way.

What just happened? I will never know. But I’m not about to turn down cheese doodles.

2. In class today, I asked my 6^th grade English learners to write down something they wanted to learn in English class. For instance, slang words, things about the U.S., how to write a letter, etc. Most of the answers I received were about wanting to do more reading and writing. A few, however, were too cute not to share.

In answer to list one thing you want to learn in English class this year:

“A doctor.” (Not sure what was meant by this.)

“I want the cattle.” (This one, either.)

“I like my teacher Miss May because she is speaking nice English for me!!! Good luck Miss May!!!” (Well, shucks.)

“Miss can I have the pen.” (This one was paired with a very inquisitive stare as I collected her paper.)

Also, I have accidentally trained some first graders to ask for candy (but politely, I might add) every time they pop their little heads through my back window. Like gophers. I did not intend for that to happen.

Miss May vs. Dehydration

Good morning, class. My name is Miss May.

It is, though. For the next year.

It’s quite catchy. Especially if you think of small, adorable children repeating it back to you.

Anyway, I was surprised to find that my extreme fatigue, headache, and nausea today were not from the nerves of teaching, but from the fact that this weather encourages all moisture to leave your body. I just drank a liter of water in about 20 minutes and could probably drink another one without having to pee. I have a perpetually bloody nose from the dry heat, and last night I woke up in the middle of the night thinking that my skin was burning off from some sort of horrible, terminal rash. It wasn’t. It was just that stifling in my room. So, I guess that was good news.

Changes have been made to my schedule, and I am now teaching English grades 6 and 7, Natural Science grade 7, and Arts grades 5-7. So, I’m pretty psyched about Arts. But, as it turns out, Arts also involves singing and dancing.

Uhhh…

White girl can’t dance.

But the visual art thang I have covered. Or would, if Orotjitombo had any art supplies.

Not only does the school need art supplies for Arts, they need crayons and pencils for Pre-primary and Grade 1.

Here’s my plea for help:

Any crayons, markers, paints, paint brushes, pencils, or fun things lying around your house/place of business that are NOT being used (and are still in relatively good shape), can be sent to my address.

Mailin Plagge

Orotjitombo PS

P.O. Box 415

Opuwo, Kunene, Namibia

If you want to be a kind soul and buy a few small new boxes of crayons, that would be grand, but not needed.

I will buy some with my own money, but I’m not exactly rolling in money here. So, I’m not sure how far that will get me.

Anyway, if you think you can contribute, you da best. If you can’t, no worries, I still love you.

Thanks for keeping up with my posts! Here’s to not dying of dehydration.

(Somewhat Successfully) Getting a Grip

NOTE: This post was actually written on Sunday, January 20^th, but has been delayed until now due to the fact that I have no internet at school.

I feel like I’ve been transported back to the first day of college, except none of the sounds around me make sense, and I am sitting in a bucket of sweat.

Here I am in my new house in Orotijtombo Primary School. I live on school property, as do the rest of the teachers here. So after being introduced to my co-workers and having gone on a quest to use the bathroom—resulting in the entirety of the school learning that the American had to pee—I am now sitting in my room with the door wide open, trying to encourage interaction while I unpack. The whole emotional spectrum is whizzing through my body at the same speed and nonsensical pattern as this nasty bug that is in my room.

Honestly, I could write a saga about this weekend, but let me instead rehash in minute detail.

On the way to be dropped off at Orotjitombo, I received a call from my Field Director saying that my room (along with another volunteer’s) was not ready and that we would both be staying in Opuwo, a nearby town, for the night. Staying the night turned into staying the weekend, mix-ups happened, adventures happened, and we made many friends in Opuwo.

The town is small, but has mostly everything you need, and contains quite the array of persons. The area around Opuwo is home to the Himba people, whom you see where ever you go. Including bars. Because the Himba still live and dress in traditional ways, they attract a lot of tourists. So amidst this small African town, you will also see herds of overweight white people dressed to the nines in safari garb, clicking away on their behemoth cameras. Needless to say, the potential for people-watching here is just bananas. That said, I am also a large contributor to the people-watching eye candy. The two other volunteers and I receive quite a lot of stares, friendly greetings, proposals, and the occasional scowl.

Moving on to my apartment. The concrete building is divided into two…dwellings. Homes. Apartments. Whatever. Mine is on the left, and two other teachers live on the right. I have 3 rooms. The first room has a stove, soon to be the kitchen, and the bed is in the back room, which is already turning into a decent bedroom. The only furniture that I have so far is my bed and stove, but I am supposed to get a dresser and a fridge at some point. I also have a shower room, which is basically a small room with a grate in the floor. So, I will be a master bucket showerer in the near future. 

looking into my kitchen, bedroom to the back, shower to the left

The water pump is outside in the middle of the school grounds, as is the bathroom. 

I have to pay for my own electricity, which I do by buying it at the super market and then punching in a code to this little device in my room.

Once I get more decorations, and you know, maybe a table or something, I think it could be quite nice.

Think I’m being very calm? Good. I’m working on it. I was not this calm when we first pulled into the school driveway, however. Especially not after a weekend of wondering WHAT IS GOING ON WHY IS THE SUN SO HOT WHY IS EVERYONE PERPETUALLY ONE TO FOUR HOURS LATE, etc. Then I remembered to go with the flow, and so that’s what I’m doing. It’s helping me function. At least until the next hurdle, which will start at 6:00 am tomorrow, when I start school.

Until then, I’ll enjoy this unreal sunset and eat copious amounts of peanut butter.

Wrap-up of Orientation

My brain is having difficulty absorbing any more information.

Nearly every session of Orientation has been helpful, but at this point, my brain feels less like a sponge and more like a piece of wet cardboard at the bottom of Victoria Falls.

I know you love the similes.

 Fortunately, along with the long explanations of assessment standards, TEFL certification, year plans, and tax ID numbers, we’ve been able to meet up with representatives from USAID, the embassy, and the Department of State, and all seem more than willing to help us with what they can. Even if that’s just to hook us up with some community outreach material.

All of the meetings were informative to a degree and got the creative juices flowing for what additional projects I might want to take on for the year, once I get settled in at my school that is. At this point, it’s pretty impossible (and also silly) to think too intensely about projects for a school you’ve never been to and for people whom you’ve never met.

That doesn’t mean I don’t. Giant community mural project? Why yes, I’d love to. Library club? Abso-freaking-luely.

I hope the beginning to my teaching year goes smoothly, but I know that is not likely. I hope I have cooking utensils in my kitchen when I get there, but I know that is also unlikely. The words “learning experience” get tossed around a lot here, and I know that is probably an apt description of the next month. Or year, rather.

Another phrase that gets tossed around between the volunteers is T.I.A., this is Africa. While it’s usually in reference to neglectful leg shaving or eating something that fell on the floor (“Well, TIA. Go for it.”), it helps make light of some of the most heavy cultural adjustments that we’ll all be experiencing in the next months. Just as in any job or study abroad, humor is necessary for success.

Thankfully, I’ve got quite a bit of that.

So, with that in mind, I ship off tomorrow to meet my learners and my co-workers and to be officially employed by the Namibian Ministry of Education. 

One Step Over the Borderline

And by that I mean several kilometers over the Red Line.

For the past week of Orientation, we’ve been at Omungwelume, a village in the North of Namibia. To get there, we had to drive 8 hours and pass over the Red Line, which separates the Northern livestock (primarily cattle, I believe) from the Southern livestock, raised for exported beef. The separation is supposed to keep disease out of the whole gaggle of cattle in the South. From what I could see, though, it separates a lot more than cattle. Almost immediately after we crossed it, villages and homesteads of concrete and corrugated metal sheets started replacing the game ranches and B&B’s found throughout our drive through the south. Hand painted advertisements on the sides of small one room bars replaced the billboards. And so on. Some white Namibians have a less than chummy way of referring to the area past the Red Line. Let’s call it small town Africa. And, for the record, the people who live in Omungwelume are lovely and hospitable…and also make a mean fat cake (St. Lawrence peeps, think dessert fat bag).

Luckily, this type of scenery is what I was expecting from the get-go (unlike the lovely Windhoek with hot water, malls, and internet), so instead of peeing my pants at the stark change in lifestyle, I was almost relieved that my expectations weren’t so far off base. I mean I guess if you want to be particular, peeing your pants would be a relief too. But whatever, man.

So, we were there for four days doing our teaching practicum, i.e. teaching whatever kids showed up that morning, ranging in age from 6 months to 19 years. I team-taught with another volunteer, Erika. We had to come up with our own lesson plans and whatnot, so it was a definite learning experience, but our last day of class seemed to go really well. We did a geography activity where the learners (the Namibian word for students) had to piece together the countries of Africa like a puzzle.

Look at my little learners go.

By the end of the week, the painfully shy learners we had met on Monday were able to answer questions and ask for help without too much problem, and were quite a bit more boisterous, which was ultimately a good thing. I think.

Unfortunately, though, I learned that I will have to deal with more than a language barrier at my host school. It’s culturally accepted that young children should be more seen and less heard than say…an American child. So getting them to speak loudly, or speak at all, is difficult. Answering with whatever they think the teacher wants to hear is fairly common; so, getting them to express their own opinion is rough. To get them thinking critically? Even harder. And for someone that has only had 3 weeks of teaching practice, it’s a slightly daunting task.

That said, our trip up north got me really excited to get to my placement next week. So excited that on the ride home, as we were driving through mountains and towns and African things, I turned up the volume on Flag Wavin’ by K’naan on the ol’ iPod. I’m apparently going through my euphoric stage of cultural adjustment (there is actually a chart) because I was so amped that I stuck my arm out of the window of the van to catch the breeze. It was majestic. And then it wasn’t because a bug the size of my eyeball shot itself into my arm at about 50 mph, leaving its guts and a welt on my arm. I couldn’t find anything to wipe my arm off with, so I wiped the bug guts on the side of the window. I’m sorry, Namibia. 

In Which I Encounter Namibia

Happy New Year (a little late), everyone!

I don’t really know where to begin. I’m in Africa. It’s REAL hot. But I’m OK with that because it’s just like…yeah, Namibia. It’s awesome. It inspires awe. And also confusion.

So, a gang o’ girls from WorldTeach and I flew in from JFK a few days ago. The plane ride was about 17 hours total, and I swear my butt is still asleep from sitting down for that long. The first day we were here was New Year’s Eve, which was a struggle because me + jetlag + a day of Orientation meetings + booze - sleep = what? It equals jumping into the hostel pool with your clothes on. Why? You got me.

What does Namibia do on New Year’s Eve, you may ask. Well, they ain’t got no ball drop. In fact, I’m not sure what they had. It mainly consisted of a TV broadcast of a popular music group dancing and sweating about on stage, while girls in sports bras and biker shorts gyrated in the background and the audience stared on in silence. After the singers jumped on each other’s shoulders (forming a sort of overly excited pyramid of men) and waddled off stage, some important guy came on stage to do the count down. That’s when we ditched the TV to go outside and sip champagne like classy ladies (plus Ted, the sole male volunteer) with the hostel owner.

Since then, we’ve been in training most of the time or bopping around Windhoek. Language training is horrifying. I have no clue how I’m going to learn Otjiherero. But it just sounds so cool I want to be immediately fluent. The language has 16 noun classes. And I thought memorizing masculine and feminine nouns was rough. Ha. My Otjiherero teacher has decided that my nickname is Mwa. I have not yet gotten used to him trying to get my attention by making what sounds like a kissing noise (muah) in my general direction.

Also, I’m not sure how effective this blog will be once I’m at my host school. Hopefully, I’ll figure out a way to get decent internet, but I expect the internet speed will be pretty slow, in which case I will not be posting too often. I’ve been told by quite a few people that I am “in the bush.” So, my expectation for the interwebs is not high.

I won’t bore you quite yet with my adventures in learning to teach. You’ll get enough of that for the next year.

It’s 9:30 pm here. So, tokerwa nawa, kids. Have a good night.