Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The White Invasion


Grade 6 English was in full swing this morning, learning about Nelson Mandela, when all of the sudden the class went absolutely berserk over something out the window.

Three large, decked-out Land Cruisers were parked in the schoolyard, out of which several strangely dressed Afrikaaners were unloading themselves.

OH MY GOD THE WHITE PEOPLE ARE COMING. Freak out time.

Mornings in Orotjitombo are cold, and here are these burly chaps in short cargo shorts and floral t-shirts. Completely alien.

Of course, I had no idea what was going on because I’m rarely told anything. But according to my students, I should not only know why they are here, I should know their name, occupation, and favorite color, because I know every white person on the planet.

One of my more mischievous learners pipes up:

“Miss, is it your uncle?”
“No,” I answer. “Is it your uncle?”
Hysterical laughter.
“Miss, it is my brother. I sent him to get the cattle a yesterday.”
“Yes, you look like each other.”
Giggles. “Yes, this is uhh…the shoe polish,” gesturing at his face.

Absolutely bonkers, this one.
Also, impressed he knew the term shoe polish.

And so I went on to Grade 7 Science. Class was going…going…knock knock. Enter Deputy Principal Beredy. “Uhh, Miss May. Sorry to disturb. These people are doing a lesson for Upper Primary. We need the learners in the hall.”

Ah ha. Turns out our unexpected guests are mission workers from South Africa, travelling around the region teaching about the Bible to different schools. Since white people are a curiosity at Orotjitombo, even for me, I decided to check it out.

I walk into the hall and pass Mr. South Africa #1. I look at him. He looks at me. I hear him say, “Hoe gaan dit?” which I recognize as how are you.

Nope, wrong kind of white. Sorry, chief. “I don’t speak Afrikaans.” (with the exception of being able to insult your mother)
“Oh. What language do you speak?”
“English.”
“And do you speak the local language?”
“…err…no.”
“Huh.”

Meanwhile, 2 of my coworkers are conversing with Mr. South Africa #2 in fluent Afrikaans. They know 3 languages fluently. No big deal.

Where’s my Rosetta Stone for Afrikaans and Otjiherero at? Oh, they don’t have one? Shucks.

I stay for the Bible lesson, pretending that I know what is being said (in Afrikaans, translated to Otjiherero). I put a really serious look on my face and adopt a nonchalant stance. I’m very good at this by now.

One of my coworkers looks over at me and does a suppressed sort of laugh. “May…? You look as if you know what is going on.”

“Mrs. Ngunaihe, I’ve not a clue.”

Again with the sniggering.

I’m just a crack-up today.

Mrs. Afrikaaner approaches. “So, you are from the USA? It is a lot different here, isn’t it?”

I almost said Does a bear shit in the woods? Thankfully, I stopped myself before the words reached my lips. I don’t think a preacher’s wife would appreciate my humorous vulgarity.

Plus, I don’t think they have bears in Africa. So that would be culturally inappropriate.

My filter is running low on batteries today.

Lucky for me, though, our guests have caused such hullabaloo, that the rest of the school day was cut short to clean the school and hopefully work the giddiness out of the learners. Dankie, South Africans. I no longer have to worry about the involuntary sass coming out of my mouth.


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

This Post Does Not Deserve A Title


School has just ended. It has been a day that I want to move on from, and quickly. My nerves and temper are shot from maintaining a degree of professionalism for the entire school day.

Meaning not turning into a midget hulk on every single one of my learners.

Of course, I have had days like this in every job. Everyone has.

Stateside, I go home, pour myself a beverage of choice, sit on my bum, and turn on the TV as a way to decompress.

Namibia-side, when work let’s out, I go back to my room and mark papers, lesson plan, keep up with these retched files I am supposed to maintain, and try to tune out all of the noise and commotion blasting through my windows and bombarding it’s way through my door. Learners asking for things, using/breaking my cookware and lotion and shoes, snooping through every item I own, stealing things from my kitchen while my head is turned. Teachers asking to use my computer. Radio static blaring through the wall of my conjoined house. I go for a run, and people follow me. I go to the latrines, and people follow me there as well. I tell them to go away. They do not understand. I lock my door, close my curtain, and sit on my bed, and my coworkers come banging on my door asking why Americans are antisocial. Guiltily I unlock the door and have a conversation. I come back inside to discover that the learner I left washing a pan is now examining and neatly organizing my underwear, which were previously shut in my wardrobe, into seemingly nonsensical yet weirdly calculated piles onto my bed. Another girl is now taping a magazine picture onto my wall of an Indian woman next to a printer, after having just arranged a bouquet of my pens and tampons into a peanut butter jar on my desk.

I cannot describe to you how much this kind of up-in-my-junk lifestyle goes against every fiber of my being.

It’s funny, really. Most days. But today it has stopped being funny. Just like this weekend hearing the word “oshilumbu” (a slightly not nice way to say ‘white person’) shouted at me had stopped being funny.

Honestly, I’m surprised I made it 6 months before getting somewhat infuriated by a few of the cultural norms here and the lack of respect I have been receiving from my learners. In fact, I will even boast a bit and say that I have been very flexible and adaptable. And tomorrow I will continue to be so. Because I know that this happens when you are living in a foreign country. Oh, how it’s happened to me before. And you just deal with it. You realize you’re being a prick, suck it up, and move on.

Today, however, I don’t want to. All I want to do is to lock myself into the isolation cell at a mental institution with a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of Jagermeister.

Because I am this close to losing my rag.

Of course, I am not writing this to complain. No-ho! This is purely educational.
If anyone is planning to move to a hostel school in West Podunk, Africa, they need to know that some days you are going to want to gouge your eyeballs out with a pool cue.

Of course the other days make it worth it. And of course I want to stay here (past December, if possible). But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, and if one more person takes a metaphorical panga to the threads of reason keeping my sanity intact, I am hopping on the malnourished donkey outside the school gate and riding to Angola. 


Saturday, June 15, 2013

Jefrou, It Is Me!


This week in Arts we drew self-portraits. My grade 5 class was absolutely thrilled about this.

Tickled pink.

Of course, my older kids enjoyed it, too. I brought in a mirror for them to pass around, and they loved staring at themselves. Teenagers.

But my Grade 5ers. Every 10 seconds I would have another excited learner practically peeing himself, shouting “Miss! Jefrou! Look at my face! Look my beautiful hair! I draw a teeth! It is me! Ivanga, give me the blue color! BORROW ME THE BLUE COLOR!” Etcetera. Of course, I also enjoyed looking at their “beautiful hair” and “a teeth.”

So much so, that I will share a few with you.

You might think to yourself wow, that last kid went nuts with the red crayon. But a lot of my students colored their faces red.

Why?

Because most of my learners are from the Himba tribe. Which means when they aren’t in their school get-up, they are in traditional dress, which includes painting their bodies with red ochre.

They colored their faces red for the same reason that, when doing a unit on adjectives, they chose to describe their mothers as “red” rather than “tall” or “friendly.”

They are proud of their culture. And they make damn sure that I know they are Himba. They are red Himba, Miss May. Did you know that, Miss May?

I did.

Generally speaking, adults of the Himba do not speak English, and although hospitable, they are from a culture that is difficult for an outsider to understand.

This is why I love teaching their kids. It’s educational for both parties.


Anyway, self-portraits. A fun project.



Friday, June 7, 2013

Namlish 101


Welcome to 
Namibian English 101 (AKA Namlish)

You learn it fast. Usually the hard way. With lots of confusion and awkward interactions.


The Basics

I’m coming now. = I’ll be back soon. (said when leaving a room)

now = probably won’t happen for a while, if ever

now now = soon

now now now = the American version of now

Help me a pen./Borrow me a pen. = Can you lend me your pen? (You never ask if you can use something. Questions are not a big thing here.)

That side/this side (accompanied by a general and indistinct wave) = the usual way of giving directions. Could refer to any distance, i.e. “that side” of the country or “that side” of town

I will pick you. = I will pick you up. (not pick your nose or pick you from a tree)

what what = etcetera

I am suffering. = I have a slight problem.

colleagues = used to refer to friends, peers, coworkers, relatives, some bum you met on the street, and what what           

Is it? = Seriously? (A: “It rained very hard yesterday.” B: “Is it?”)

Are you there/here? = Are you OK?/Are you mentally present?/still not completely sure what this one means (said out of the blue, as you are sitting there, minding your business, and the speaker is staring at you)

I am having 4 brothers./Are you having a paper? = I have 4 brothers./Do you have this specific paper I am looking for? (present continuous. All the time.)

Mmmm…(without showing any emotion on the face) = Yes.

How is the day? = How are you doing?

No, it’s OK. (said when ending a conversation) = OK, bye./Yep, this is the end of our conversation. (doesn’t have to relate to the sentence before it at all)

You can have./Can I put? = You can have it./Can I put this here? (Direct objects are unnecessary.)

I’m going to the network. = I am going somewhere where I can get cell phone reception.

The battery is somehow flat. = My phone died.

making noise = complaining/misbehaving/not being serious (i.e. “In class, that one is just making noise.”)

The time is going/moving. = We are almost out of time.



There are so many more great ones, but I will start you off slow.  

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Half Time


Next week marks the halfway point in my contract with the Ministry of Education. Six months until I pick up my last paycheck. I feel that I should reflect on my time as a volunteer, muse about all of the things I have learned, and plan what I will do with the last half of my year. That is what rational people do, I think.

But I’m having a hard time reflecting because I have onion juice in my eye, and frankly I can’t think of a way to be insightful without sounding like a total a-hole.

So, I will ignore what rational people do. Because I do that sometimes.

I will instead enlighten you as to the contents of my wardrobe. Because that is what really matters here.

First of all, there is a dead lizard in there that I am scared to get out. It is the size of my hand. It’s been there since I got back from holiday. But let’s move on.

Hanging on the right side of my “cupboard for clothes” (the word wardrobe is not widely known here) is my school uniform—a black skirt, perpetually covered in white chalk, and a pink men’s dress shirt, 2 sizes too big for me and sporting a purple paint stain from art class.

Next is my lined jacket. Everyone thought I was an idiot to bring a jacket to Africa. Well, joke’s on you, little ice cube people. An arctic penguin could survive here in the morning. Remember, it’s winter.

A dwindling assortment of tops and bottoms, much more stiff and threadbare from hand washing than they used to be, are shoved onto the top shelf. Everything that was once white is now grayish brown. Everything that was once a vibrant color has faded in the sun. Everything is falling apart.

(Except for a new shirt that I treated myself to last weekend because I am finally getting paid.)

Below are my socks and underwear. And half of a bathing suit. The other half has probably been eaten by an unsuspecting kudu in Northern Namibia. But let’s keep this PG, ladies and gents.

On the bottom shelf, my shoes. First, the rain boots that I was told I would need and have NEVER touched since being here (My learners think they are the shoes I use for tending to my cattle. I didn’t correct them.). Next to them, my good ole running shoes that I have just begun to make use of once again. A pair of $3 faux-denim faux-Keds and two pairs of sandals, completely dilapidated from the amount of walking I do, cap off my shoe collection.

Also in my wardrobe, for safe keeping of course, I put any medicine I have at the time, an extra toothbrush, some books, and my salt. People always be tryin to steal my salt.

Looking at the wear and tear on my clothes makes me simultaneously annoyed that I will have to replace most of these clothes within the next month and amused that my clothes got the worse half of the lets-live-in-the-Namibian-boonies deal.

That’s not to say Adventure: African Bush has been a cakewalk for me. But I’ve held up more substantially than my garments.

And I can’t complain. In this place, my situation is well above average. In this place, I’m comfortable, even if I sometimes have to force myself to be. And here, it is always, always interesting.

Plus, if my clothes do all turn to scraps of useless fabric in the next week, I can always walk around naked.

At least I’ll fit in with the Himba and Zemba.

Perhaps my aspiration toward public nudity is how I’ve changed. If that’s not insight, I don’t know what is.  

I Left My Heart and Cleanliness in Southern Africa


The sun is blazing through the window, as is usual in this part of the world.

To my left is Rachel, one of my fellow WorldTeach volunteers, holding a sizeable hiking backpack on her lap. Sitting on my right knee, a Zambian gentleman with a case of narcolepsy. My feet are propped on top of several bags of the other combi riders. The radio blasts boisterous African beats. The narcoleptic’s head bobs sleepily. We have crammed ourselves into a badly aging minibus, packed tighter than a tin of sardines. Which is funny because sardine-like fish keep cascading onto my head as we bump and lurch through the streets. I pick Nemo #4 up off of my thigh and casually place it back into the overflowing canvas bag of sea life nestled in between my back and the arms of the bloke behind me. I give said bloke a thumbs-up to let him know that the safety of his dead fish is important to me. He gives me a nod, and I turn to the smudged combi window, which is somehow stitched together with string, and try to ignore whatever sharp object is digging into my right butt cheek. I look outside. Zambia looks back at me.

It’s over halfway through our month-long journey around Southern Africa. Namibia to Botswana to Zimbabwe, through Zambia to Malawi, then back to Zambia.


 
Take a look. It’s a long way.

At this point my initial amusement and tolerance of public transportation is alive only because of my iPod and a half-eaten bag of biltong.

But take this thrilling depiction of holiday life with a grain of salt.
Such onerous and odiferous modes of transport were well worth each end result. We met more amazingly helpful, kind, and entertaining people than I can count on my fingers and toes.

Except for the man that dropped us off at a bar 30 km away from the town in which we were supposed to end up. In the pitch black. With all of our bags. And blithely assured us it was our hostel before zooming off in the opposite direction.

That was less than ideal.

But my travel biddies and I encountered some unreal sights and some crazy, random, bizarre experiences. Most of which I would repeat in a hot second. A few of which I would prefer to not repeat anytime in the next 10 years.

As I cannot possibly recount (and also don’t much feel like trying) the details of a 4-week holiday, I will summarize. Which I realize is subpar. But I think you will get over it someday.

Shap. So.

The Target(s): boating and walking around the Okavango Delta, Botswana; gallivanting around Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (where we experienced a wide variety of nightlife with a group of local artists); camping in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe; eating and dancing our way through the Harare International Festival of Art in Harare, Zimbabwe; boating, snorkeling, braaiing, drinking, and lying on the beach for 3 beautiful days in Lake Malawi; and kickin’ it on the Zambian side of Victoria Falls with a mess o’ North Americans and Brits.

The Company:
The four Americanas,


An assortment of wildlife,

And the random others who we ran into along the way whom are unlikely to read this blog so they don’t get shout-outs. Sorry. But know that they made our trip infinitely better.


The Means (in order to keep true to our < $1,000 budget): public transport, subpar/often nonexistent camping equipment, grocery store meals, and a good deal of self-restraint

The Evidence:


one of our modes of transport

Our poler in the Okavango Delta
On the delta


Walking around an island in the delta

I spy elephants!

and then Rachel drove a combi around the streets of Bulawayo

Great Zimbabwe

lounging at Lake Malawi

Cape Maclear, Malawi

Victoria Falls

what happens when you walk near the falls


As much as I’m pleased as punch by my whirlwind adventure (let’s see how many shitty idioms I can cram into this sentence), I was happy to be driving through the familiar mountains and inhaling the dust of the Kunene region once again.

Hope all of you are having a lovely week, and that sunshine is radiating out of all your crevices.

I know my word choice astounds you.
Cheers.