LUDERITZ!

Apologies for not posting much, training is a whirlwind! I swear in next-thursday whooooo!!! Anyway, site reveal/visit: Monday the 19^th was the big day: Site Reveal! The trainers had us wait until the very end of the day, then brought us outside the training center to find a life-sized Namibia, country borders outlined with string, and papers representing site placements scattered within the borders. One by one each of us was given our Site Description, and with just the name of our School we searched the country to find out specific city. Waldo, my APCD helped me out by telling me to just go far down, as my site is the furthest south of all the volunteers. I’m going to Luderitz!

I am so excited about this placement! I will definitely put up a page with more of the specifics of my site, but Luderitz is an urban area and it is a town on the coast of Namibia. The only con to my site is that it is incredibly far from other volunteers – the closest person to me from Group 34 is a little over 2 hours away, and the next closest is probably 5 or 6 hours away. Lucky for me, there are a couple PCVs from the group before me in Luderitz. This town is quite isolated – you can only access it from one road into town, and there is literally nothing on that road for a solid two hours outside of town. Anyway, getting ahead of myself. It was great finally getting this news because that Friday was our departure to site visit. We met our supervisors [aka for me, my school’s principal], and had a workshop Thursday and Friday, then we were off for our week at site!

My site visit was different for reasons that aren’t super interesting so I won’t go into why, but I actually ended up in Windhoek for that weekend instead of going straight to Luda. I was with my principal and his wife, and we went Owambo wedding celebrations all weekend! It was a cool experience, but I’ll describe that another time so I can focus on describing my actual site visit. Sunday afternoon I got to Luderitz, after a fun-filled 8.5 hour car ride. I met my new host family, and I am pumped because they are the sweetest people ever. The first six weeks at site I’ll be staying with my principal’s sister, who is an HOD [head of department] at my school, and her two daughters, who are a senior and a sophomore in high school. This is great for me since I have two real-life sisters this age! I was dreading having another host family since my current situation is nottt so hot, but I am actually really happy to live with these people.

On Monday we went to school, and I observed some classes, and met the faculty and staff. Everyone is friendly, and I feel positive about my future workplace. My principal is a huge go-getter. They recently opened a bakery to provide the OVC [orphans and vulnerable children] learners with bread in addition to their daily meal at the soup kitchen, and it’s actually the only school in Namibia that has a bakery. He really seems to take advantage of resources available to them, and I’m looking forward to working with him further on more of his projects – one of which involves the library, which is awesome! Also, something unique as far as I’ve seen in schools is that the learners begin with classes in English in pre-primary [kindergarten] here, whereas most other schools teach in the mother tongue until Grade 4. This bodes well for me because my future learners will be much better at English when I get them than they would have been in other regions – I’m teaching Grade 6!

Luderitz itself is a really interesting town. While many of my friends will live in towns where everyone experiences the same relative rural poverty, Luderitz hosts a variety of lifestyles. My future house is close to the center of town, right next to the hotel that many tourists stay at when visiting. It’s an incredibly nice house, the likes of which I probably won’t be able to have in America for a very long time when I come home. This is definitely not the norm for PCVs, good karma has finally come my way and I seriously got lucky! However, my school is about 4K away from my house, and it is in a location where there is intense poverty. Appearance-wise, I think it works best to describe Luderitz as a big rock, with some sand on it at parts. My school is surrounded by a big hill, which made of rock. On top of this rock are hundreds of shacks made of corrugated metal, and that is where many of my learners live. The shacks look like they could blow away with a strong gust of wind – obviously since they are haphazardly placed on the rock, these homes do not have electricity or running water. This striking contrast of life within my town that I will see every day is going to be very interesting. 

 the view from my permanent house's driveway... yeah, i can get used to this.

 the view from the grounds of my school.

During my short visit I also had the chance to meet the Regional Councilor of the Karas region, because his office is in Luderitz, and the Mayor of Luderitz. I was so excited about this site again after talking with the Mayor, who said they are working on raising funds to build a battered women/children center in Luderitz, something that is desperately needed given the high rates of passion crimes and domestic violence in Namibia. This is literally exactly the kind of secondary project I would be interested in, especially after working with the YWCA in Nashille, so I am really looking forward to working with her and the other Health PCV in Luderitz on this! 

Wednesday early morning I began the trek back to training, and after a 5 hour combi ride [listening to loud gospel tunes the whole way], a 12 hour overnight train, a taxi ride by a man we call Mr. Smiley, and yet another taxi with other PCTs we ran into on the side of the highway, we all were happily reunited on Thursday afternoon at our favorite sketchy bar. Fun visit, and knock on wood all of us are still here, which is awesome! That's all of my epic description, have a great day friends!

Fun Facts About Life in Nam

• The black mamba I referenced in one of my first posts is a reality in my neighborhood. In case you didn’t know, it is among the deadliest snakes in Africa, and in my ‘snakes and scorpions’ book it reads under the mamba description “deserves respect.” A couple weeks ago the school I pass on my walk every morning set fire to a huge chunk of the grounds in order to get rid of a mamba. Unfortunately, the fire only killed the baby, so mama mamba is still on the loose - little too close for comfort. I try not to think about this when I cut across the fields on said walk and look wherever I step.

• There is a craze here that began with a chain e-mail (wait flashback to 5^th grade anyone??) called the Illuminati. Essentially this epic e-mail has convinced a HUGE amount of people across Namibia (including a member of my host family and a PC trainer) that Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Jay-Z, and assorted other celebrities are Satan-worshippers. This sounds ridiculous, but it is actually not a joke. In addition, wearing or making peace signs mean you’re a part of the Illuminati aka a devil worshipper as well. It’s just too bad that I still blast Gaga every morning and afternoon in my room…some things I know I can't change.

• Going off that I guess, people here are extremely religious. I went to Catholic school for 14 years and was active in Campus Ministry in high school, yet this is by far the most religion I’ve been surrounded by in my 22 years. It’s a little much. On my site visit a teacher yelled at her learners when she found out they didn’t go to church the day before (umm, they were 5 years old… it probably wasn’t their choice not to go?) Because of this intense presence, I’ve adapted and have caught myself head-bopping to some Christian pop-rock on the way to school occasionally. I’m going to be real weird after two years here.

• To say that people here are obsessed with meat would be a vast understatement. It’s actually pretty funny, except I’ve learned I really hate lamb and goat, so it’s not as funny when I have to eat those… I’ve been in the clear recently, I think my family picked up when I started raving about chicken. That, or I’ve gotten better at pretending that ambiguous colored meat is some kind of cow (except for last night, which was cow... intestines. tripe mmmm.) Seriously though, it’s almost impossible to be a vegetarian here, as chicken, pork, and goat aren’t considered real meat. Also, on my drive down to Luderitz (of which I was awake for only maybe 2ish hours) with my basic Afrikaans understanding I picked up on no fewer than 3 conversations about meat. Once again, chicken was under-appreciated – they involved beef [bees], fish [vis], and pork [vark]. 

• People here take greetings seriously, it's generally considered rude not to stop, say hi and ask how people are doing. This was one of the first things we learned from our PCVLs [Peace Corps Volunteer Leaders], so all of us promptly started greeting everyone we walked past on the street. A couple weeks later we found out that in this town you only greet people you know because it’s a relatively big place not a small village… oops. At least we were friendly!

• This country is huge. Some of my closest friends will be a 16 hour drive away from me – I’m in the southwest, they’re in the northeast. Sad day… Similarly, the diversity of lifestyles is crazy. I will live in a house in an urban setting, in a town with plenty of people and access to modern amenities.  My friends in the north and northeast will be living in huts on homesteads, some with no running water or electricity. Long post about my permanent site LUDERITZ to come!

• There is nothing that makes me appreciate life in Nam more than the sunrise or the sunset. They are gorgeous, and I have given up on adequately capturing them with a camera – you’ll just have to come visit and see yourself :) 

 woooo mountains! my town is surrounded by them

Flash Mob?

I forgot to post this a while back. The first week in country when we stayed at a training center together, we were all pretttty bored - and were around each other literally 24/7 camp-style. In order to entertain ourselves we played a heated game of assassin, countless card games, ninja, and a massive game of mafia. We also decided it'd be a great idea to do a flash mob, to the tune of "I Just Can't Wait to be King." We introduced it one day during the song portion of the morning, and the trainers seemed to really enjoy it - though at first they thought we were performing a traditional American dance for them, so they wanted us to teach it to them. This link goes to the second [slightly more unorganized] dance several days later when some of them wanted us to repeat it so they could join in! Thanks to Steven who uploaded this to youtube already!! Also, today is my one month NAMiversary, loving it so far!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NhfGEFFYVw

 

Trying Some Traditional Foods

Hoe lyk dit!

[slang for what’s up, sounds like ‘who licked it’ which is kind of weird]

Yesterday was cultural food day for all the trainees! We arrived at the center at around 7:45 am, and got to cooking for the rest of the morning. Different stations were set up around the outside of the center, each for the people from the different regions to cook their traditional cuisine. It was a really fun morning of just hanging out with trainees, trainers, host families, and the PC Namibia Country Director. By 9 everyone was getting pretty hungry, so we got a chance to try the mopane worms, a specialty from Owamboland. I have to say, they weren’t bad – the texture was kind of weird [a little gritty], but if its possible to get over the fact that they are worms, they aren’t horrible. Unfortunately, the fat cakes were being fiercely guarded from everyone until official lunchtime. Four live chickens were brought outside, and a few of the trainees chose to kill them. 

 

hope the video works! this is round one of the chickens that tried to get away, but moved a little too slow. they were tasty!

At around 1 all the tables were set up and we were ready to eat! We went down two long rows of tables and took samples from every region. I am happy to report that among what I ate includes cow stomach, something related to goat face?, an assortment of mystery meat, sour milk, and another kind of drink that I don’t know how to describe except for it tastes like yeast…

Now I'll describe Smiley! One of the few things I remember from the haze of the first day here is our country director referring to this mysterious smiley character at least 5 times. The mystery was unveiled at Hero’s Day, but all the trainees enjoyed it yesterday. “Smiley” is in  fact a goat head. Here in Namibia all parts of the goat are enjoyed, which is nice since none is wasted I suppose. Many consider the parts of the head to be the best part – Aunty Martha, my Afrikaans trainer, thinks the ears are just “baie lekker” aka very nice! The reason that the head is called smiley is that when they cook it, the lips of the goat curl upwards in the shape of a smile… yep its creepy, but I think I did manage to avoid eating the eyeballs yesterday, I just stuck with the face. All in all, it was a really fun day, though the intense variety of food was slightly overwhelming!

 looks kind of smiley actually...

 mmmm mopane worms - taste like chicken!

I’ll leave you with a sentence my class found amusing the other day – how are words this long?!?!?

Ek vil ‘n grondboontjiebotter en confyt toobroodjie

Translation: I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Doesn’t look so much like English anymore!

Ps. I find out my permanent site placement in less than 12 hours…. The suspense is killing me!!!

My Daily Life

Hoesit!

Week 2 of training is almost done wahoo! The past two days we’ve had four hour language sessions in the morning which has been ridiculous. That coupled with medical, cultural, and technical trainings in the afternoon has been SO much information I feel like my head might explode. I have no idea how I’m going to get all these manuals to my site, my bags were pretty full already when I got here. It’s all good though, because its surprising how quickly I can see the language training making a difference in terms of understanding bits and pieces of what my host family says to each other.

On that note, I moved in with a host family exactly a week ago whoa! I won’t go into details, but adjusting to a homestay has been a rather difficult transition for me. This is due to a whole host of reasons, but now that I’ve been here a week I think I’ve better adjusted my expectations of this particular experience, and I will hold off on describing too much of the dynamic here for a while. Let’s go over my day-to-day schedule instead!

6:15 I wake up (horror!)

6:45 Leave the house and walk to my neighborhood’s pick-up spot. Though getting up when it’s still dark is not my thing, watching the sunrise is pretty darn beautiful as there is an amazing view of Namibian mountains on my walk – I’m trying to get a good picture of it to show you all! Also now that school is in session lots of kids are on the way to the primary school I walk past, and seeing them reminds me why I’m here after all!

7:20 Get to the training center, chill for a bit until the person with the keys arrives

7:30 SONGS!!! This is a great part of the day, when we sing Namibian songs! Then we sing the Namibian national anthem, followed by the American anthem, which I also enjoy, though the Namibian anthem is then in my head for most of the day.

8:00 Sessions begin. Generally we have language in the morning. My trainer’s name is Aunty Martha, and she is the most adorable old woman EVER. She sometimes gets us to remember things by singing as well, for example this week we learned “it is lovely to meet you volunteer” to the tune of “She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes,” and how to greet people and say good night to that of “Oh my darling Clementine.” Awesome.

10:00 TEA BREAK. aka without a doubt my favorite part of the day

10:30 We have more sessions with a lunch break between them, and then all of a sudden it’s 5:00!

Afterwards, sometimes we will go for a “koeldrank,” and then take our 45 minute walk home, which is nice, others we just go straight back to my neighborhood in a suburb of town – suburbs here are called “locations.”

When I get home, I try to spend time with the host fam, sometimes with mixed results. At 6:30 their favorite soapie 7 de Laan comes on, and I hate to say it, but I’ve kind of gotten into it. In fact, I’m just a little sad that a birthday celebration is going to make me miss tomorrow’s episode – this Rick guy has gone seriously crazy, and just drugged his ex-girlfriend to sleep [she said she didn’t want to get back with him], and is about to set her apartment on fire!!! Luckily, I’m sure someone will be able to fill me in, phew.

9:30 Sweet bed.

Thanks to everyone who’s sent emails/messages so far, I’ve really appreciated them and love hearing from you!! I will respond eventually, I am just so so exhausted when I get back, and have been trying to conserve the megabytes (like I understand how that works) on my internet stick. When I can get the internet on my phone to start working I can’t wait to chat with everyone – obviously my phone is malfunctioning, some things will never change.

For now, I will leave you with a sentence that my class came up with after 4 hours [too many!] of Afrikaans class:

Hy sal volgende jaar mense eet.

Translation: He will eat people next year.

Somehow the food session today turned to cannibalism…  good times.

Language Time

Written 8/31

Goeienaand!

I can’t believe I’ve only been here a week! On Tuesday Group 34 had our language reveal – but only after learning how to greet people in all 6 languages that people will learn for their sites! Greeting is a really big thing here – it is offensive to people when you don’t greet them when walking down the street in your community. I have really enjoyed this custom as everyone is so friendly! The languages that Group 34 is learning are: Oshindonga, Otjiherero, Oshikwanyama, Rukwangali, Khoekhoegowab [also known as KKG and a clicking language], and Afrikaans.  We were all given a little piece of paper that had an animal on it, and we walked around the room making that noise – mine was oink, until we found our group. I will be learning Afrikaans! This is the biggest language group, 14 people, but we’ll be split up into three groups for classes. I probably got this language because in my placement interview I said I would prefer a more urban environment [of course this is relative], which is where Afrikaans is spoken. Overall I am very happy with this language, though I definitely would have enjoyed learning a Bantu language too. Here is how you greet someone in the morning:

A: Goeiemore

B: Goeiemore

A: Hoe het jy/u geslaap?

B: Ek het goed geslaap, dankie, en u?

A: Ek het ook goed geslaap

B: Totsiens

A: Ja totsiens tot later

This language is cool! It kind of throws me off though because a lot of it looks so similar to English, some of it sounds like you’re just speaking English with a German accent, but then when you hear people speaking it fluently it’s hard to understand anything. Either way, training can finally be underway!

Also, today we had a fashion show after dinner! A bunch of the girls and a couple guys dressed up in traditional clothes from the different tribes within Namibia and strutted down the catwalk (aka the dining room of our training center). It was so fun and it ended in a Namibian dance party, in which our trainers taught us the “family dance,” which we told them is in fact known as the Electric Slide in America. Clearly some cheesy dances remain the same in every country...

 Roommates from the training center in Herero, Owambo, and Kavango attire

 Everyone in our traditional clothes!

Hero's Day

Written 8/27

Hello!

Today has been a big cultural learning day! This morning we learned how to wash our clothes properly – there is a squeaking sound that is supposed to be made when hand washing clothes, but Volunteers apparently have a really hard time with it. It’s also time-consuming, so the Volunteer leaders here have mentioned that they often just let their dirty clothes sit in soapy water for a day or two and either stomp on it or stir it around and that does the job well enough. We’ll see which approach I take when I get to my host family’s house next week. We also were shown how to have a bucket bath – and this is about the time where I appreciate my new short hair, because I definitely would be incapable of doing that with long hair.

Afterwards, we went right outside town for the festival commemorating Hero’s day in Namibia. It’s actually a holiday weekend here where Namibians honor the genocide of the Herero tribe that took place by the Germans at the beginning of the 20^th century, by recognizing the day that their famous resistance leader died. It also commemorates the beginning of the War of Independence, which started in the 60s. We haven’t delved fully into our Namibian history lessons yet, but that is basically what we needed to know to understand what’s happening today and tomorrow. Also, I recently read that this genocide is what inspired Hitler, as it was the first time a nation carried out a genocide of its own people – at the end of it, estimates point that 75% of the Herero population had been killed. Anyway, for this festival Hereros come from all over the country, and dress up in their traditional costumes. The Herero tribe is split into three groups, which is signified by their separate red, green, and white colors. We took pictures (which was cool because people were taking pictures of us too), saw a blessing ceremony, some marching, and ate fat cakes! We also walked around the grounds to see a lot of families set up in tents, just like any festival in the US. They were serving and selling food and drinks and enjoying each other’s company. We talked to a lot of them, and saw the mysterious smiley finally – I’ll save this story for our upcoming traditional food day.

Women in the traditional clothes. She is being blessed by someone who represents her ancestors whom she communicates her concerns to.

Fat cakes! Fried dough that is basically a donut, yum.

Yesterday I had my site placement interview (yikes!), and although the APCDs will make the decision this weekend I won’t know where I’m going until mid-late September. I will however find out my language next week so we can get going with that training! I am really excited, and from looking at all the site descriptions I think they all will offer great and unique experiences. Hope everyone is doing well, I’ll be thinking of DC as people brace for this hurricane – since when do earthquakes and hurricanes happen there?!?