quick update from the wild coast

OK i'm safely in South Africa and had an amazing time with the parentals. They left on the 28th and I headed down to the Eastern Cape to go Hogsback for a few days by myself before meeting up with Carly. It was beautiful in the mountains with loads of waterfalls and glorious hikes and hammocks. I stayed for 3 days then convinced Carly to come up for New Years (actually I left hogsback the morning of new years eve and returned later that day). The new years celebration was a hoot!!! Carly and I dressed up as New York City. We finally left Hogsback on the 3rd and headed down to Coffee bay with two amazing girls we met at the backpackers, and now we are off to Port St. Johns. Each place is beatiful and I have met some amazing people on the trek. I don't want to leave.

Contrasting Landscapes and Farewells

So I'm sitting in the exact same internet cafe I wrote my first blog entries back in the beginning of June, except now I will be boarding a bus in 5 hours to head off to South Africa rather than grabing a ride in a truck to head up to Kavango. I am still safely in denial that I will not return to Kavango, but that doesn't change how amazing the past few months and past week have been.

I was really going to try to post one more time before I left the village, but everything was too overwhelming and I couldn't put all my thoughts into words, but I'll try now. I had a farewell party which was amazing! We slaughtered a goat and the teachers spent all day preparing. It was at the school which meant all my learners joined in for the festivities which included a full program dinner, drinks, and of course lots of dancing.

The program was very touching. My teachers sang songs and gave speeches. They told me I was magical and official a white African. It was, I think, my favorite night in the village. Hanging out with my teachers was a hoot. I got to wear my gorgeous meme dress (you'll see it in the states) and have a proper dance party. I love my colleagues so much and I already miss them so much.

After the party my last two days in the village were quite difficult. It felt like a very prolonged good-bye which are not my favorite things in the world, but Mita and I left on Friday morning with our favorite driver Manfried (a nephew of our friend Andreas) down to Windhoek. I feel as though I should note that this trip was completely on a tar road which was awesome!

Once we got to Windhoek our vacation finally began. There was a farewell party for our deputy director and we hit the road. First night was Sousesvlei, the dunes in the south. OH MAN can you say beautiful. The drive, though on a gravel road, was the most beautiful drive I have ever seen. The south is so desolate and dry compared to the green of the north. It really felt like another country. We camped in Soussesvlei one night then climbed the dunes and headed out to Swakupmound.

Swakup is a cozy beach town right next to dunes. It's very surreal looking out of the city and seeing these huge dunes right next to the ocean. It was a great place for Mita and I to relax take a break from driving and eat. We did go sand boarding, but mostly we just hung out on the beach, and then we had to get back to Windhoek.

Now I'm back in Windhoek. I just said good-bye to Mita and I am boarding the intercape sleepliner in 5 hours. Weird. I can't wait to see my parents! I'll try to keep posting while I'm traveling around Africa but it might be a little difficult. Thanks to everyone for reading the blog. Mbaazeni

6 Months

Six months ago today I left the good old US of A. I can’t really believe that it’s been six months. American life feels so far away, but it also feels like I just got to the village. I’m going to try to safe all my deep reflections for my last post in the village, but it’s going to be hard to avoid them. If there’s one thing Africa is great for, it’s reflecting, but I’ll try to keep this post on the present.

This was my last weekend in the village. Friday night I had the trifecta of inconveniences catapulting me into my inevitable moving freak out. After school let out I came home to clean and relax when I realized there was no more water. I talked to Mr. J who told me the pipe had burst Thursday night which meant that the house and the tap outside wouldn’t have any water. Then there was a rainstorm which blew out the power at the house, and then my phone died. This left me alone in the dark with just anxieties. I couldn’t clean, run or cook. So I just pored a big glass of wine and tried to chill. Luckily I found my principle who helped me get into my roommates room and reset our fuse and I was able to fill my 20L jerry can. I made myself a delicious meal of roasted potatoes and chakala, took an African shower, packed, and watched Miracle. It ended up being a rather calming evening, once I got through it.

Saturday was Mita’s farewell party. It was a good time, but I think I might have let a lot of my American friends down. In Sitopogo I have very little urge to stay up all night and party like a rock star. I would much rather curl up with a movie or a book than dance all night. Now don’t get me wrong, I still love a good dance party, but Namibian dance parties aren’t really my favorite. The music is just way to loud for my sensitive ear drums and my repeat limit is 3. I’m not kidding about the last one. I knew it was time for me to go to bed when the teachers played one song 4 times in a row. But while I was there the dancing was great! It was wonderful to see everyone letting loose and having a good time. Plus EVERYONE danced, that never happens in the States.

Yesterday I finished packing. It’s weird. It’s safe to say that I am very firmly in a state of denial. I did get choked up today when invigilating, but I keep thinking that there is more time. I fear I’m not taking enough pictures, but I also know that no matter how many pictures I take I will not be able recreate life here. I cannot take Olavi, my star math learner, with me. Life will go on here without me and my life will go on without them. I wish I could tell them I’ll be in touch, but it’s almost impossible. Only a handful of my learners have ever sat in front of a computer, so you can forget about email. But I’ll try to write them and send a few packages.

Starting to Wrap Up

This weekend was the start of my farewells with a goodbye party in mini town and thanksgiving in Rundu. All around it was a very somber weekend. I said goodbye to Jen Sunday morning who is heading to Malawi via Zimbabwe on Friday. It's very safe to say that I am fully in denial. Though I am so excited to see my parents and travel for a while in Africa, I will miss this place so much. There are certain things I have become so accustomed to and so many people who I am used to hearing from everyday, and now they'll be gone. I know I will need to SMS Jen the second I land in the States, because I have no idea how to communicate any other way. The idea of actually talking to someone is beyond me. The silver lining, however, is that there are a few people I don't have to say goodbye to. Mita and I will be traveling around Namibia together for a week in December, and then we have the entire Cincinnati gang. It makes the idea of going home much easier.

Thanksgiving in Rundu was deicious. It is very odd though to think of it as holiday season. It's wicked hot here, and I got pretty burned in my open bakki yesterday, so the idea that Black Friday is coming up at the end of the week is beyond me. It was so surreal to have huge turkey and stuffing when I was lounging in shorts and a tank top.

I'm finding the blog post really difficult to write, probably because it's so hard for me to really comprehend that I'm leaving. We've all been living each day from day to day maybe week to week, and, though I have a few more months before I finally get back to 3050, I am starting to thing of a world outside of Kavango and Namibia. This is going to be a really overwhelming and difficult few days, but one things' for sure. I will miss life on the dirt road.

Exam day (Nov 17)

Today is exam day. I can’t believe my teaching days in Sitopogo are over. It is safe to say that I am firmly in denial that I will never enter my learners’ classrooms in order to present a new lesson. This has been an amazing job, and I have learned so much about myself over the past few months.

Last Friday I had my most enjoyable moment in Namibia to date. It wasn’t anything super exciting, but maybe it’s simplicity is what made it so special. The day was a shit show at school. It was our last real structured day of school, which in Kavango means no one teaches. Many of the Junior Secondary teachers attended a “meeting” for most of the day. Meanwhile the girl learners had a sex ed talk for two hours. This consisted of all the girls in the school grades 3-9 sit around and listen to each female teacher shouting at them in Rukwangali to not fall pregnant. It’s comforting to know that open dialogue about sex education isn’t just a problem in the States. This left all of Sitopogo’s boys to run amuck for four periods.

Luckily I was able to teach my grade 9 learners and gave them two very difficult math problems that they had to do in groups. While the girls were in their “meeting” I stayed in my office to plan my final day celebration, when Joseph (my class captain) knocked on my door to ask if he could listen to music on my computer. I made a deal with him; he could come and listen to music if he brought in his math homework. So there we sat, teacher and learner, jamming to 2pac and calculating Value Added Taxes. Meanwhile other groups would come in and out of the storeroom asking for help and discovering on their own that finding the area of a pool is really the area of a circle plus the area of a rectangle. Maybe it was the music or the relaxed atmosphere or the excitement the boys got when they got an answer right on their own, but it was my favorite afternoon at Sitopogo Combined School.

Now I know I have my fair share of mistakes as a first year teacher: loosing home work, typos on my quizzes, and a register that makes Mr Julius cringe every Friday, but despite those things I love working with these kids. I still don’t think I’m cut out to be a classroom teacher. I don’t do well with formal lesson plans and the administrative parts of school, but I do know that I love working with teenagers, and I want to continue working with them in the States. Ideally I would love to do some work with international teenagers, there is an enthusiasm for learning here that is unmatched. Teaching math is the first time these learners have ever been challenged. The first time they are forced to comprehend ideas rather than regurgitate facts and bullets. And even though this causes frustration and sense of defeat for many of my learners, there are the few that rise to the challenge and seem to love discovering and solving. They show such excitement for each question they get right and when I introduced class competition some learners were literally jumping out of their seats to answer questions.

Most of them will fail their exams, even the super bright learners, but I also know that this experience, for me and for them, is much more than passing an exam. It’s even more than learning that a radius is one half of a diameter. My friends always worry that they have not made a difference in their schools, and that the learners will not remember a single thing they taught them. I really think that it’s true, the learners might not remember a single thing we teach them, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t made an impact. Most of the time our impacts cannot be measured, and even if they don’t remember me I will remember them. I like to think that if a group of people has made such a postive impact on my life than I have not completely failed.

My Year In Lists

Well it's my last week of teaching. Exams start on Tuesday (with math paper 2!!!). It's a sad time. I look back over my first few weeks in the village, and I laugh at the lesson plans I tried to pull off here. I've learned so much during the short time that I have been here, and though there are some things that still get me upset, I really do love the learners. I have more fun with them , than I have doing most things. They are funny and enthusiasti, and just all around great people. I can't believe I will be leaving them in three weeks.

With all of this reflection I have started to put together a list of things I have become accustomed to and will miss when I finally get out of life on the dirt road. Some of them are serious, some of them are funny, and some of them are sarcastic. Have fun guessing, but here is the preliminary list (in no particular order).

1) Waking up to a completely flooded house because the toilet didn’t turn off AGAIN.
2) Saying hello to the numerous roaches that crawl all over my kitchen no matter how much I clean.
3) Hakususembe’s response to every question I ask him when I walk in the house “yeah, it’s cool”
4) My favorite running buddy... "I am beer"
5) The reaction on learners’ faces when they see that I understand some Rukwangali.
6) Loud shouts of “Hawai” or “Hewa” during team competitions
7) John, my house’s “small boy”.
8) Mr Spangera sleeping through the entire day.
9) “Morning morning Ms. Rakal”
10) Dirt. Everywhere. All the time.
11) My running posse…the four or five little ones who join in my run every day.
12) Learner’s calling me Madame
13) Keeping half of my food in my room for fear of the peanut butter thief.
14) Storeroom dance parties
15) “Boker oh” (Grade 8’s full hearted attempts to say Boker Tov)


I'm sure there will be more to come!

Costumes, Curry, Dancing...HALLOWEEN!

Well last weekend was Halloween, and boy did we celebrate. After a very hot week of teaching I headed out to Rundu on Friday to meet up with Sarah and Mita to start cooking for our Curry Cook-fest Halloween. The idea started back in July when Mita and I realized that Kavango Volunteers love curry, and I love competion. Originally we were going to have a curry cook off in which volunteers paired off and made their own curry and we would judge who made the best curry. My team would have totally won, because Mita makes a mean chana massala (and I have the recipe!!). But like most things in Namibia, plans change, and we adapted. Instead of a cook-off it became a curry cook-fest in which the cooking crew cooked more curry than you could ever dream of, and man was it delish! A small number of volunteers gathered at a PCV’s house and we ate drank, and had an all around fantastic time. In honor of curry cook off Mita and I went as the “spice girls” and I was Aromat, which is basically MSG in packet. Get it? SPICE girls. Man we are punny!!! All in all the weekend was grand, and one of my last in Rundu…weird.

End of Service...already!?

So 35 days left in Sitiopogo. I can’t believe my time in Kavango is coming to a end. Even though a large part of me feels as though the time has flown by; I also feel that I have gained a lifetime of experiences within these past 5 months. I have been able to see a completely different part of the world and immerse myself as a total stranger. I still may not feel like I am part of the culture here, but I have gained so much. Being so isolated from everything has given me an insight to myself and the world that I would never be able to experience in the States.
As you can probably tell the past few weeks have been filled with lots of relfection and processing. Two weeks ago Mita, Jen, and I climbed into a van with 2 year long volunteers, a volunteer boyfriend and a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) and headed down to Ochiwarango. It was end of service for all of the WorldTeach Volunteers, both semester and year long.
The weekend had it’s ups and it’s downs, but I was again happy to get out of the village and see a different part of Namibia. I guess the hardest part was meeting all the Year Long volunteers. Us semesters volunteers had met all of the Kavangoers, but had never met any of the WT in Ovamboland or the South so it was a little awkward to meet them when we were all saying goodbye. It kind of made me feel like I was back in middle school. All the “cool kids” who had known each other all year were gathering in their little cliques while I didn’t really know where I was fitting in. I didn’t really want to hang out with all the Year Longs, because I couldn’t really relate to their experiences and the other semesters were either sick or meshing with the other volunteers. What was little old me to do?

Well don’t worry I ended up having a great time. I hung out a lot with the one semester volunteer from the south, Carrie, which was great, because I hadn’t hung out with her in months. We chatted about our sites, and just how awkward it was to be meeting and processing our experiences with all of the other volunteers we had never seen before. And Saturday night I had lot's of bonding with KJ and Jocie. Mita and I will be visiting them in Windhoek when I am finished at Sitopogo Combined School. It will be very hard to say good-bye to those two. Sunday morning we trekked back to our sites with a stop at super spar where I got cheese!! It was delicious.

Now I am back in Sitopogo and writing my entry with three amazing learners!!! Clementine, Kerthu, and Kiliki. These three girls are fantastic!!!!!!! My life will be very sad without them as well as all of my learners.

One last thing. I want to give a shout out to all of those people who have sent me something in one way or another. So many thanks to Mom, Dad, Ben, Aunt Mary, Aunt Nancy, Tal, Ariel, Eli, Nickie, Denise, and Diane. You are fabulous! A special shout out goes to Ms Cassie Cox who has called me not once, but twice. I miss you all. Till next time. Mbaa!