Peace Corps Skillz!

After Graduation!

Towards the end of last year, the volunteers of Peace Corps Namibia received an e-mail about a program that had been developed for PCVs to use in their communities regarding HIV Education. It had been developed in conjunction with a nonprofit organization called Grassroots Soccer by Volunteers in South Africa, where they had just finished piloting the program. The basics of the program looked similar in structure, but WAY more fun, inclusive of boys, and focused in information retention, than a program I had helped facilitate that the Ministry of Education offers in schools here [Window of Hope], so I immediately said I was interested. When I got home from America in early January a box was waiting for me with our coaches manuals and, most intriguing to the kids, a neon yellow indestructible soccer ball!

The program consists of 12 one-hour [or more like 2 our case, when dealing with lots of naughty behavior] sessions in which participants learn the key facts about HIV and how to prevent yourself from getting infected. The best part about it is that it uses soccer comparisons, drills, and various other fun activities to relay all the information. I just finished my first six-week session with the first of the four Grade 7 classes, and it was awesome! The program really reinforces about 5 key messages throughout the program. I almost thought it was too repetitive when I first read through the manual, but in the end that’s what the kids needed for the information to stick, and we found out that it really did stay with them by the time the program ended. These messages were:

• ·      The most common way HIV is spread in Africa is through unprotected sex
•      There are many risks in life that can lead to HIV including: unprotected sex, multiple sexual  partners, older partners, and mixing sex and alcohol
•      Build your team in life with strong supporters to help you abstain from sex or to practice safe sexual behaviors/stay strong in life
•      Not having sex is the safest way to avoid HIV
•      If you do choose to have sex, you can protect yourself by using condoms and having 1 mutually faithful partner that is HIV-negative

 The boys listen to the girls' views on gender roles in the "Gender Stadium"

In order to convey these messages, we did a bunch of games with the soccer ball, and made a lot of references to soccer terms. For example, when talking about a sexual network, the kids went to three different famous stadiums [which they chose the names of]. At each stadium each person had to ‘meet’ someone different. Then we chose three random kids and said they had HIV, and anyone who met them [which represented having unprotected sex] now had HIV as well, and had to come link their arms. Then anyone who met those people who met the three with HIV had to come and link up. So of course, everyone was linked by the end and had HIV. In the program we also talked about the difference between gender and sex, and the roles expected of males and females in the community.

During one of the sessions we learned about ARVs and how they help the body when it is infected with HIV. I took a video of this game because the kids got really into it and definitely understood how HIV affects the body by the end of it. In it, the person in the center is the body. The girl around him is the immune system, and the boy holding her hands behind her back is HIV. The rest of the people around those three are germs/diseases/illnesses that are trying to get into the body, represented by the ball getting thrown at the human. The immune system is trying to protect the body, but can’t because it’s occupied by HIV! See how the kids cheer when they bypass the immune system and infect the human! Eventually we added another learner, representing ARVs, who held the arms of the HIV, putting him to sleep, allowing the immune system to get back to doing its job.

Everyone was psyched about their certificates!

I loved this program because, as with all my secondary projects, it allowed me to get to know a different side of my learners – especially these kids who I don’t have to teach anymore. It’s so refreshing to get to interact with them when they are no longer trying to destroy my sanity in the classroom setting. In particular, this program had half boys and half girls by the end, which is incredible since getting boys to do lifeskills programs like this is very rare.  Over the course of the 12 sessions, three normally shy boys opened up and starting actively participating in discussions. For them alone I know that the time spent on this was worth it. I can’t wait to do this again with the next class. I’m doubling up on the sessions each meeting time now so that we can get through another rotation before the term ends. Otherwise we won’t be able to get through the 4 classes of Grade 7 by the time I leave [crazy that I can see the end from here already!], and the kids are all SO excited/anxious to be the next class to have SKILLZ. These Grade 7s are going to be stopping HIV in its tracks over here!!!

Herero Traditional Clothes

I just saw this article about an ongoing exhibit in the US about Herero traditional clothes! I posted about these clothes a long time ago [August 2011, wow I've been in Nam a long time] back when I was in training and had the chance to go to Hero's Day festivities, celebrated by Hereros who traveled from all over the country to attend. There really aren’t any Hereros at all in Luderitz, however, the town where we trained had lots of Hereros and the women really do wear these dresses every day! These are striking photographs, I wish I could see the full exhibit!

The Show-Stopping Fashion of the Herero Tribe

The Drive to Luderitz

This past weekend I left Luderitz to catch up with some friends from Group 34, since I hadn't seen anyone since early December! It was a great weekend, and I'm psyched about the last half of this term! One sketchy hike to Keetmanshoop, and a semi-sprint to the service station later, I managed to barely squeeze into the only reliable and safe combi service [in my opinion] in all of Nam - what luck! Had I arrived 3 minutes later I would have been stuck at the service station for an indefinite amount of time, crossing my fingers that another combi would be going to Luderitz, or else staying in Keetmans for the night. The Sunday combi was not Aunty Anna's normal combi, but a regular car. About an hour and a half into the journey, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to take some pictures of this crazy drive. I had a window seat, a surprisingly clean window, and didn't feel like I would get judged as a tourist because everyone in the car knew I was a teacher already! Unfortunately, the first half of the drive does have some sights - notably the edge of Fish River Canyon. But since I have only a handful of these trips left [wait whatttt?!] I'm going to share some highlights of what I managed to take. Maybe now people will better understand when I tell them I live on the moon, also known as the edge of the world. 

P.S. I hope you particularly enjoy the signs that we start to see about 30k outside of Luderitz. WIND, SAND, and ! [wish I knew what that meant!] there was also one with a hyena on it but I didn't catch it in time.

Athletics are OVER!

Thank the Lord, because 30 minute classes were killing me. Oh, also having to coach athletics [aka track and field] was not my favorite thing either. On our Inter-House Athletics days my house, Blue House, got third, out of three houses, for the second year in a row. Actually the first and second were the same too. I think the teams are stacked. But really, the team that won didn’t abide by the age restrictions, after all the fuss over them in the first place. Oh well! Normalcy is back at school instead of the early morning practices, so I’m happy!

The next two videos are a couple of the cheers we did as the blue house [or Blou Huis] attempted to get psyched.

One of my learners, Nakwila, was leading the cheers, and she plus other members of my girls group helped me write down what they were saying, since I couldn’t really decipher most of it at the time.

One of the songs was in Xhosa [South African language], and one went:

Blou Huis dekka dekka

Rooi Huis okwa luza

Dekka means winner, okwa luza means loser

In this one above you can hear some english, then

Ta! means charge/fighting words.

Ons sien vir rooi huis

Hulle sit in die tambo* huis

Hulle drink net tambo

*Tambo is an incredibly cheap and also incredibly potent homemade liquor in the Owambo culture. So that cheer is basically people chanting that the other teams are drunks – they sit in the tambo house and only drink…  I’m not remembering any kind of cheers like that from middle school!

Attempts At Creative Writing

During the beginning of the school year I had some free time, so I checked out pinterest teaching boards and found SO many awesome ideas, it was actually a little overwhelming. I decided to use one that I found as a creative writing assignment. Creative Writing in itself is difficult to explain to the learners, as using their imaginations and making things up was a hard concept for some [correction: most] of them to understand. The topic was “My Teacher’s Secret Life.” After reading through a number of their assignments, it is clear that most people did not get it, and so now I just have a lot of learners who have written what they have observed about me or what they know about our rules and procedures in class. Lots of nice things at least [one boy wrote that even though I'm very strict he knows I love their class the most, because he sees me smile when they come in haha]! This is my favorite of them - I corrected the English just so it's easier to read:

Ms. Nowlin is a very nice teacher! She gives us English and she also gives us Fun Friday. Ms Nowlin likes reading, and she has her own laptop. She gives girl’s group. I think she likes eating ice-cream! She comes from America and she likes having fun. She likes watching movies and walking! She also wants to go all over the world one day. And she likes exploring and learning new things. She like taking pictures of us or places.

For some reason, at least 4 learners so far who understood the assignment have said that my secret life is being a waitress, because I need more money to feed my children. I don’t know what I really envisioned as the result of this topic, but another one of their answers was definitely not it. Memory is the smartest learner in her class, and this is what she wrote:

“My teacher usually sneak away from school to find her evil friend. My teacher was good before but now she learned to be evil like her friends. She also have a other friend named Lucky, but he is not lucky at all. Mrs. N always follow them every where they go and they sometimes give her drugs and alcohol to drink. One day when she went to visit her friends after school, she was very terrified. They were smoking and drink alcohol and using drugs, then she joined them. Then she drank and later on she was drunk! The next day she went to a private job. She was a drug deliverer. She always acted strange when she was with people in town. So, I decided to find out about her secret life! One afternoon in town, she was so drunk and decided to cause a scene in front of a lot of people. Suddenly she decides to begin a fight with another women, but someone stopped the fight. This is my teacher secret life!”

WHOAH! I did not expect that my secret life would be an alcoholic drug dealer!!!

That was definitely one of the more creative of the pieces. It was also accompanied by a picture of me holding a bottle in front of a shebeen [informal bar]. After I saw her assignment I made more of an effort to tell the other classes to write fun and exciting stories, rather than sad ones, which are easier for the kids to come up with after all the lifeskills kinds of stories they read. 

The Bucht

View From My Backyard, After Sunset