Biggest Accomplishment Ever

This past weekend I made the always-desired squeaking noise when I handwashed three bathtubs full of laundry!!! Only took almost a solid year. Actually I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it again, but still very proud. There’s nothing like the sight of your clothes turning the water black and hearing that magical squeak. It came after adding a TON of laundry detergent powder… so why do my clothes still not smell so clean?

On a different note… A couple things that have been going on at school -- So the Ministry of Education has a program called Window of Hope, which basically helps boost self-esteem and address the emotions of learners in the presence of HIV/AIDS. I volunteered to be one of the facilitators of this program for a group of the Grade 6s, and I have loved it so far! Some of the sessions we’ve had involved topics such as ‘why I am special,’ ‘why friends are important,’ ‘why our family is important,’ and ‘how to cope with anger.’ We did lots of talking, played games, I read some stories, and we sang awesome songs! Our Term 2 session just wrapped up yesterday with a party – and don’t forget the handing out of certificates! It is not legitimate unless you receive a certificate at the end of it = reason why I now have a certificate for skydiving in Swakopmund and going in the hot air balloon in Sosussvlei. I brought some American snacks from my secret hoard, which the kids LOVED, and they brought some traditional food and various cooldrink/lekkers. I got to try traditional owambo bread, which is made with mahangu. 

Most of my Window of Hope group at our party!

Also, the past few days I underwent the torturous process of marking the previously mentioned exams. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the essays I received. Given the prompts, many of my learners displayed really great creativity! I thought I would share with you one of the essays from one of my favorite/also smartest learners – his name is Ghiovanni and what he wrote literally made me laugh out loud, partly because it was so different from the rest of the answers to this question, but also because its hilarious! I’ve corrected most of the spelling/punctuation here it so it can be read more easily.

Prompt: The old woman has been in hospital for 2 months now. She takes her tablets three times a day. One day she refuses to drink her tablets. Write a funny story about it.

One day Grandma Phumzy striked the lottery. Guess what happened? She won 1.3 million. She was so happy she laughed and laughed and laughed. At the same time she felt a very anxious pain in the stomach. Grandma Phumzy didn’t know it was wind in her stomach that let her pain. She fell to the ground and phoned the doctor. The ambulance came in ten minutes. They hurried back to the hospital. The doctor said “Grandma Phumzy you were drinking too many fizzy drinks and the gas aimed straight at the stomach and when you laugh the gas will hurt you.” It was true she bought many fizzy drinks because she loved them. The doctor gave her tablets, she drank them three times a day and then decided she wouldn’t drink them anymore. The doctor asked why and she replied “the tablets make me puff a lot.” The doctor laughed and said “the tablets are made to make someone puff.”

*embarrassingly enough I did not realize what puffing was until a learner explained it to me using some quality gestures. This is a huge cause of disruption in my class “Miss this one is puffing!!!” is guaranteed to simultaneously start a fight, cause 10 learners to cover their faces with their shirts, and start general disorder around the room as kids start pushing chairs around to get the windows opened.

The Angriest I've Been In Peace Corps

Sooooo as I’ve mentioned, this term Grade 6 read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and most people were really into it. To wrap up our unit, I had an exam that integrated parts of the book into the mandated term exams - part 1: continuous writing and part 2: reading and directed writing. I came back from this ICT training and printed it out, went to the office and was immediately told to go staple my exams. As usual, being perpetually uninformed about everything, I stood there with my exam in hand and a puzzled look on my face, since I had not made copies yet. What??? Well, apparently I had to use the cluster exam.

Aside: In Namibia, schools from the same area sometimes get together and make plans for subjects. The goal is to work with other teachers of the same subject in coming up with a solid year plan. This works better in some regions than others – in Luderitz, for who knows what reason, our cluster was prohibited from meeting and planning together this year. Again, for some unknown reason, this somehow did not prevent cluster-designated exams. WHAT? Why is one person from these three schools writing an exam for English/Science/Math/etc? Especially if we didn’t lesson plan together, this does not accurately test what the kids learned, and how are you supposed to tell the kids to study for an exam that you didn’t yourself write or even see!?!?! Ay tog.

Back to me in the school setting. I proceed to plead with my principal to be able to use my exam. I told my kids that the exam was on the book we’ve been reading, this is ruining my credibility with them – nope not going to work. Then I look at this exam. Not only did whoever write this blatantly take one of the questions from the exam not even a year ago, but it is horribly written – I mean complete carelessness, not to mention the blandest of prompts. I go back to my principal, and continue to argue that this is not good, I want to use my exam!!!! I then tell him its poorly written – I am told that is a matter of opinion.

By the next day, flames are almost shooting out of my head after I read through this exam again. I went to each of the four sections of Grade 6 and apologized to them that they had to take this exam, and had to explain some of the questions that just didn’t make sense. I then told them to treat the questions like they treat my daily warm-ups, which involve correcting grammar in sentences. I told them to correct the improper prompts so I could see what grammar they learned, and that I would find another way for them to take my exams. As I walked out of the door to let them write these exams, one of my learners pulled me aside and pointed out one of the numerous grammatical errors – fyi, this kid literally is getting a D in English [which is a 29-45 out of 100], but was able to find the blatant errors.

I proceed to go into my classroom, take out my red pen, and go through that exam and mark every error, circling the ones that are simply unacceptable. By the end, the pages were covered in red. With my evidence, I walk to the office, but alas the principal is gone. I am instead directed to the staff room to staple part 2 of the English exams. What do I find? This exam is EVEN WORSE than the first!!!! Words don’t express my anger. I go to the computer lab to cool off so I don’t start crying in frustration [this is becoming a trend, Peace Corps is making me so emotional!]. The principal finds me there, and I show him my red-marked first exam, and point out the absurd second exam, saying how this is too embarrassing to even begin with. He sees my reason – at first I think he was annoyed because I was so persistent/this was a hassle of a problem to address/properly fix, but then he realized this was ridiculous, and said that he would call the principal from the other school and have the second exam emailed over so I could correct it, because there was too much gross negligence going on. That principal got angry as a result [duh, because it was embarrassing that his school wrote this]. But, a couple hours later I fixed it to a somewhat more presentable quality – some things were beyond simply correcting grammar.

This story still makes me angry because the point is – how are these kids supposed to take their schooling seriously if their teachers aren’t taking their teaching seriously? Honest to God whoever wrote these exams did not spend even a single minute proofreading to find the insane typos/realize this was entirely unreadable English. There have been many trying moments in this job, but this exam saga was the most upset I’ve been about incompetency in the workplace since I began Peace Corps a year ago. In my opinion, whoever wrote that exam should be fired – for embarrassing him/herself, for lowering English standards, and most importantly, for having written something that makes the 350 Grade 6 learners in Luderitz feel like their studies are a joke and they’re not worth someone spending a respectable amount of time writing a decent exam, one that reflects their hard work. #frustration

Schooling Differences

Things have just gotten so routine over here at Diaz Primary, but I thought maybe I could reflect upon some things from my schooling years that are somewhat or very different from my school here.

American Primary School	Namibian Primary School
An automated bell rings at the end of the period	The bell rings whenever the secretary/whoever is in the office gets up to ring it… sometimes it rings early, sometimes the secretary forgets about it and I end up with rowdy kids because my lesson plan is finished. Also, the bell here sounds like what I imagine an air raid siren sounded like during World War II. True story.
There is a large building on school grounds, in which you find the offices, classrooms, and other assorted important rooms to a school. Often this involves STAIRS and even better HALLWAYS.	No stairs, no central building with everything, no hallways. Unless you count the hallway being the great outdoors. Classrooms are lined up in blocks. Stairs are pretty unheard of here.
There is a librarian, and generally someone in charge of the computer lab. Learners have access to the library and the computer lab.	There is no full-time librarian/computer lab person. Currently I am librarian along with another teacher. At the start of Term 3 hopefully I will share computer lab responsibilities with an ICT committee of teachers. As of now learners are not allowed into the computer lab at my school.
There is a gym. Maybe even a field on which you can play sports.	My school’s grounds are made of sand [#desertlife]. There are three concrete platform type things where we have PE and assembly, and learners practice netball. During track season, they run outside the gates of the school on the gravel/sand/rocks barefoot.
There is a cafeteria!!!!!!!! And a different time for recess!	Learners race outside of the classroom at break time to line up and receive their food outside the soup kitchen. Havoc ensues outside with 970 learners running around for 40 minutes. There is just one break, as school ends at 1:30.
There are class sets of fiction books to use in English class. There are also textbooks, spelling books, vocabulary books.	We have a class set of English textbooks. However, I find them boring/not challenging enough, so we literally never use them. I hoarded my copy paper to make a class set of copies of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Students wear whatever they want, within reason/a dress code	Learners have a set uniform.
If you fail the grade, you repeat it, end of story.	In Namibia, you can fail and repeat a grade just once during each phase of school. At the primary school level, the phases are Grade 1-4 and Grade 5-7. This means if you fail grade 3, but you have already failed grade 2 and repeated that year, you get passed on. Once you hit Grade 5 and fail only then will you repeat that year again, but just the once.  This consequently means I have about 6 learners who are completely illiterate, even though they are in Grade 6 and about 13/14 years old. Things start to get more serious with regards to failing in secondary school.
If you get a 66 you pass the year.	If you get a 29 for the year you pass. [will have to go into the marking system at another time, it’s a whole other story]
If you are bad, you go to detention.	If you are bad, you probably get beaten. And if you are Miss Nowlin, the boys don’t care how they act towards you because you aren’t going to hit them, and they run home instead of coming to detention.
If you are a teacher and have something to do, you do it yourself	If you are a teacher and have something to do, you send a child to do it for you.
Students write however they want to, unless they have specific instructions from teachers	Learners are obsessed with ensuring that their notes are written perfectly, and take their time writing to make sure of this. They are also obsessed with drawing lines [using their oft fought over rulers] under their notes when topics are complete. In my classroom some children love asking me if they should draw a line when they’re done, because I get annoyed and another child shouts in their imitation American accent “Miss N doesn’t caaaaaaaare!!”
Handouts are common, whether as worksheets or homework assignments	Paper is a precious commodity, and has to be used sparingly --> lots of note taking from the board

Namjam of the month: this is a song that my learners got me hooked on during one of our recent Fun Friday dance parties. I actually like the version I have of them singing and dancing to it better, but I can’t seem to find the video on my computer! I BELIEVE

Feels Like Christmas in July

I’ve been a bit mia lately, sorry neh! Things have just started to pick up at a rapid pace! This term is really flying by. What’s been going on as of late in Luderitz… for the 4^th of July a guy from my group happened to be in town for a training, and I also hosted a PCV from South Africa at my house. Funnily enough an older couple from his group was also in town, and so was the other volunteer who used to live in Luderitz, so we had a big barbeque and American feast!  It’s always fun hanging out with other PCVs and hearing about how their service differs/is similar to ours, so it was a fun couple of days. Oh I also wore some neon blue pants to work with assorted red white and blue gear, and let the kids ask all the questions they wanted about America, they loved it.

Other then that, things are the same old over here. We’re reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in my English classes, which I think the kids are really enjoying – though some of them have been disappointed when they’ve asked if Willy Wonka is still alive and I have to tell them that the story is made up.  This coming week I’m heading to an ICT workshop, which will hopefully help a counterpart from my school and I in developing a curriculum for computer classes at the school, so I’m looking forward to it a lot! When I get back there will be just a week left before exams start and the term wraps up, crazy!

Also, I'm getting SO excited/anxious because the Olympics start in T-5 days!!! I'm excited because I'm slightly obsessed with the Olympics. I'm anxious because I am about 95% sure that I will not be able to watch any of it. I wish there was a sports bar or something here, or someone who also likes the Olympics who has a TV I could camp out in front of, unfortunately neither of those options exist. My colleagues have given me some semi-judgmental looks when I alerted them about how soon they start. I guess it's just not a big deal here - Namibia is sending 9 people to the Olympics. 

Finally, a few amusing interactions to share about my crazy Grade Sixes

Found this on one of my learner’s spelling quizzes:

A letter to miss Nowlin

Dear Teacher

I Helena will hereby like to inform you that

In your class I keep my mouth shut

It has started from Monday up to Friday

This week I love to listen to you Teacher

During break several weeks ago I was walking with a couple learners to buy a fat cake [they're too cheap and delicious to resist]. As I literally go to take my first bite of this fried dough, one of these learners asks 'is Miss N on a diet?' I am kind of confused at first because sarcasm is not something I experience a lot from Namibians, but I'm eating a fat cake!! Not sure whether she's insulting me [in reality I probably should be eating better these days] or what's going on, I say, 'Uhhhh no look I'm eating this fat cake here, this is not healthy! But yeah I guess I should start exercising more...' and the learner goes 'no Miss N, Miss was very fat, very very fat when she first got here, now Miss is looking nice.' I thanked her, but remain pretty confused about that whole conversation.

For one of the recent English continuous assessment marks I prompted the writing task with “What is your biggest achievement or success?” after explaining what success and achievement mean, this is all that one of my naughtiest girls wrote:

I am very good at making Miss Nowlin angry, really really angry.

A couple weeks ago I brought a salad to work for my lunch. I felt pretty accomplished/proud of myself too! Upon taking it out, a group of 6 girls approached me with looks of shock and repulsion on their faces.

Girls: MISS N, what is Miss N eating?!?!?!

Me: I have a salad, it’s delicious!

Girls: Miss N, that is NOT nice food! Why is Miss N eating that???

Me: This is a really healthy lunch to have, it’s good for you to eat vegetables girls!

Girls: NO MISS N, NO they are not even cooked! That is NOT nice!!! *cue looks of disgust and Namibian expression “ooooooh-ahh-ahh” as they walk out of the classroom*

Winter Is Coming

[this was written a month ago, totally forgot to put it up]

Well actually winter is officially here this side.  As always, the weather in Luderitz is different compared to winter of the rest of Namibia, but it is still definitely a marked change. There is A LOT of fog/mist these days, and noticeably less wind. The intensity of the fog makes me feel like I’m on the set of a bad horror movie as I walk to and from school sometimes. It’s not that it’s crazy cold, it’s just that it never gets warm. I miss heating. The past few nights I have worn socks, leggings, pants, a shirt, a sweatshirt, and been inside a sleeping bag under sheets and two comforters in order to stay warm.  Then I wake up at 3 am and am extremely hot. I swear it’s colder inside my house than it is outside, don’t really know why. But as any true Buchter will tell you about the weather here, Luderitz has 4 seasons in a day! It will be super cold in the morning, then get surprisingly nice in the early afternoon, then the fog/mist will roll in with a drop in temperatures, and then it gets cold again. Despite my best efforts at staying healthy, these rapid weather changes have finally gotten me sick along with about half my learners.

Anyway, things have really picked up here in Luderitz. I think the theme of Term 1 can be called “Survive” and now this term it is “crazy busy ahh!” I’m so glad I stuck out the challenges of last term, because while classroom management continues to be challenging, things have gotten SO much better. The first week of school this term I switched classrooms to the one right next to the office, and adopted a new classroom management strategy introduced way back in PST [at the time I thought it was completely insane and way too strict]. I don’t know if it was one of those changes or I’ve gotten better at dealing with learners being rude to me, or a combination, but the change is like night and day compared to last term. It’s AWESOME. Things are starting to fall into place and I now definitely understand why Peace Corps asks for two years. So back to what I’m up to after school these days:

-       First off, during week 1 of the term the smartest girl in Grade 7 approached my colleague and I mid-conversation and asked what we thought about starting a debate club. After meeting with her and hearing her very articulate vision for the team, now I’m heading up a debate team, and there are about 35 kids so far who are interested. We had our first meeting a couple days ago, and it was amazing. I can’t believe what a difference there is between Grade 7 and Grade 6 learners – not only are they like a foot taller, but we had a really productive conversation about topics they want to debate, one that could never have happened in any of my classes. The group is really enthusiastic about debating controversial issues in Namibia and I can’t wait to see where this goes. If any friends with debate experience are reading this I’d love input/advice!

-       Second, we officially opened the library last week! So far I’m really happy with how well the prefects are doing at running it and checking in/out books for the learners. The one thing we’re doing in the coming weeks is assigning grades particular days to go get books – the library space is WAY too small [like the size of a small college dorm room] and there is A LOT of learner interest.  The first day there was a line of 25 kids waiting to go inside, and we hadn’t even announced that we were opening it. This week the lines are going to be madness. At a school with 970 learners, this is going to cause problems in the long run, but we’re making it work for now.

-       Really sad to say that the other two volunteers in Luderitz are about to leave! One of them goes home to America at the end of this week, and the other moves up north in the middle of July. So since this is happening, they have recruited and trained several Namibians to take over and continue their projects. Yay sustainability! One of the projects is a girls’ group, and I along with two other teachers at Diaz have become facilitators. Most of the girls in the group are in Grade 6/7 at Diaz, so the group is now going to be meeting at the school once a week. I’m really looking forward to this project. After having attended a few meetings already, it brings me back to the good old days of SR.

-       After getting these three things on solid ground I’m going back to the World Map Project idea, working towards opening up the computer lab for typing/IT classes, and developing an educational community recycling project with the science teachers. So in sum, life has gotten very very busy, but in the BEST way possible. Peace Corps is definitely a roller coaster, but right now things seem to be going up in the right direction!

A Week at the Veld School

This past week I was the teacher chaperone of 30 Grade 6 learners at the Veld School in Aus, which is a tiny little town about an hour from Luderitz. This school is like a mini-outward bound for the kids. And again I was back in the world of hiking. Aus is nestled in a very hilly part of the south, and hiking is a huge component of this school. Oh also, pretty sure this little camp would definitely not be allowed in the US. Every time the kids misbehaved they either had to run up a mountain, get dropped off in the veld and have to find their way back to the hostel, or they didn’t get food at the next meal time. We had sessions on life skills topics – pollution of the body, the mind, communication skills, problem solving, and map skills. Tuesday morning we had the map skills session, and this was probably the first time these kids learned how to use a map with coordinates. Immediately following the session it was time to put these skills to use! Oh but right before leaving the kids learned about the wild animals in the veld they could encounter – cobras, puff adders, hyenas, and leopards – and they were instructed on what to do if they faced them. Although those animals really are in the area I thought this was more of a joke than anything, meant to scare the kids – that is until later when we were walking along in the veld and realized we were following massive paw prints, then it got a bit more real. Anyway, the kids were dropped off in teams, and given their current coordinates, and coordinates to Point B, where they would need to find their flag, food tickets for dinner, and the coordinates for Point C, which they needed to reach in order to meet up with everyone and get dinner before we climbed a mountain. The teachers were also dropped off in the veld with coordinates of Point A and B. This team was myself, an institutional worker from my school, and two teachers from the other primary school in Luderitz that came with us. Now I don’t consider myself very gifted in map skills, but I quickly learned that I was a bit better than my teammates in deciphering where we needed to go. Unfortunately, no one seemed to want to let me look at the map or listen to what I had to say. This resulted in some wandering, and a couple disagreements [ayyy teambuilding!!!!]. Finally I convinced the other guy from my school we needed to try heading in a different direction, and he soon found one of the flags for the learner-teams, which from our map told us we were going the right way. We then got the other two teachers to join us, and about 45 minutes later, we found our flag!

Southern Nam

Sadly the kids did not fare as well, and in fact 6 of the 7 teams basically gave up without really trying. The leader of the camp found 3 groups on the tar road waiting for him… he was not pleased. The next few hours were spent in the bakkie ushering around kids, helping them find their Point B flags and then Point C [because by this point it was dark]. I may have taken a tiny bit of pleasure at the sight of the distraught faces of the boys in Grade 6 who normally torment me daily. As we pulled away in the bakkie leaving them in the pitch dark a couple screamed “MISS N! MISS N! PLEASE MISS N!!!!” They had been dropped off around 1 in the veld, and we were supposed to get to Point C at around 5:30/6. Instead we arrived at Point C at around 9:30/10. Only one of the teams successfully found their food tickets, and only 2 others found any, so about half the group went hungry that night. And what followed has now become the scariest hour of my life thus far. We were told it was time to climb the mountain in front of us. Ok, acceptable enough. Then the leader told us to leave our torches [flashlights] behind, we would be climbing without them because it was safer. Ummm, wait what?!!?!?!? I guess sometimes this would be ok, but this particular night there was no moonlight to assist us, and I have truly terrible night vision. I literally couldn’t see ANYTHING. And I was supposed to be in front of the kids?? A few girls tried to grab onto my arm, and I quickly told them to let go unless they wanted to tumble down the mountain with me. For about a quarter of the mountain we were on all fours climbing up because it was so steep [on the way down I slid down on my butt, which entertained the girls alongside me to no end].  When we reached the top the leaders spoke about how it was a lesson in not giving up, believing in yourself etc. The PC Volunteer who works at this camp said no one has ever fallen while night climbing, which I honestly find hard to believe! I made it all the way down the mountain before falling once on the solid ground, didn’t see the hole I stepped into. At the bottom the man in charge was hiding in the bushes making scary animal noises [they were pretty convincing]. I said a quiet prayer of thanks that I made it down alive.

Last task of the obstacle course: face fear of heights

The next day those 6 of the 7 teams were dropped back out in the veld and had to do it over since they had given up the previous day. Then on the last day the kids completed an obstacle course where they had to work together to get through each task. That afternoon we had closing ceremonies, where all the teams came forward and sang a song they made up, and each learner gave a speech about what they learned throughout the week. As usual, the boys hadn’t prepared anything, and it meant trouble. The man in charge told the kids that they had all failed, and they would have to stay another 14 days, and live in the veld too far from Aus to be able to see the lights at night, with no tents or nice food, working on their map skills. These kids were so gullable! I had to cover my face because I was laughing, but I kid you not ¾ of the girls and ¼ of the boys even started crying! Some of the girls were just openly weeping, and seeing tears stream down the boys faces was something else! Good times. About 10 minutes into this spiel the leader finished the joke, saying that the place they were getting dropped too far to see Aus lights was in fact… Luderitz. Surprise! Some of the kids actually still didn’t understand and were asking me if we were going home still or staying later on.

That night we had a braai. The other female teacher and I got the roosterbrood ready, and then we went outside to start! The second biggest accomplishment of the week followed. We asked the male teacher from the other primary school if he would be in charge of braaing the meat, since obviously the kids couldn’t do it themselves [it was dark, there were 60 kids, chaos would have ensued]. Well, he replied ‘no I don’t want to braai for them, they should do it themselves.’ … to which I could only sigh in frustration. So all of a sudden I became in charge of the braai for these 60 kids, despite never having managed any kind of braai before, let alone one for a huge group of people – whenever there is a barbeque involved the guys I’m with always seem to take charge. No longer apparently! Four girls from my school volunteered to help me, and with help from my flashlight, we successfully braaied mutton, boerwors, and roosterbrood for everyone! Luckily the other guy from my school helped us too once he came outside. The girls helping me thought it was hilarious that I kept burning my fingers while turning the roosterbrood, and burst into laughter everytime I made a face or jumped in pain, but after two hours it was all done, and oh was it lekker! We were some proud people that night. After enjoying our meal we watched The Emperor’s New Groove, which I discovered went over everyones’ heads [joke-wise and also the characters just speak really fast in that movie] as soon as I realized I was the only one hysterically laughing at the jokes… anyway, the next morning we left and I can safely say the kids and I were all extremely happy to be home sweet home.

Sosussvlei

From Botswana we flew to Sosussvlei in the Namib Desert for the last leg of our adventure.

Our days started extremely early here, as in 4:30 am. The first morning we were off to go hot air ballooning at sunrise! We arrived a little early, and watched the balloon get set up. The couple that runs this experience is Belgian, and about half of the other people on the balloon with us were French, so it was a morning filled with lots of French and English conversations.  Anyway, we went up just as the sun was rising over the dunes; suffice it to say the view was incredible. We floated by the Namib-Naukluft Park to the left of us [lots of mountains/rocks] and towards the red dunes of the Namib. While we were in the air we flew over lots of springbok and then a huge group of oryx – the oryx were terrified of the sound of the hot air being released into the balloon, and they bolted in different directions when they heard it! After an hour up in the air, we landed. This landing was a bit bumpy, and we were told to squat down in the basket, which we did. As soon as we got close to the ground the other men working for this company jumped up from the ground to grab onto the basket, trying to steady it and bring it down to the earth. This was semi-successful, but then the wind picked up and we were carried into the air again. Our second landing attempt ended in the basket toppling over. It was entertaining for my family, but I’m pretty sure the group of elderly French people was just confused. After we got off we found a beautiful brunch display, quite literally waiting for us in the middle of the desert! Best brunch of my life. Our French host used this massive knife to cut open the bottles of champagne, and we feasted on crepes, croissants, cheese, and other assorted delicious treats. It was pure heaven. I also tried zebra, and it was great!

the balloon!

our landing was a little bumpy.

That afternoon we checked out Sesriem Canyon. It’s pretty small compared to Fish River [in the south of Nam closer to my site], but still imposing.

Our second and last morning in the desert was another early rising to get to the dunes for sunrise. Our guide Jonas was taking us hiking! Unfortunately for him, Jonas assumed my sisters and I were like the majority of people who he leads around the Namib, and thought we would only make it up the baby dune (Dune 45) before deciding not to climb the biggest one. When we got to that dune, my sisters shut him down – why waste our energy climbing that one when we want to tackle the big one? So onward we went. BIG DADDY: challenge accepted. Big Daddy is a massive dune, 380 meters high, which sits along the Dead Vlei. We climbed up the first part of the dune, and my mom decided that was where she would stay, but I of course got pressured into tackling all of Big Daddy, and Jonas felt it his duty to take us as far as we would go [again, he thought we were going to give up before reaching the top]. Sadly for me, once I realized the magnitude of what we were doing and wanted to turn around, it was too late, there was no turning back. Flashbacks of climbing up the sand in Swakopmund came back as we slowly made the journey uphill. Thankfully Jonas wanted to lead us, and he was slow-going. After about an hour and a half we were at the top. At the time I thought the hike was not worth it, but looking at the pictures now I take it back, the view was awesome. We made it down into the Dead Vlei Pan, which is one of the coolest things I have ever seen – it literally looks like a painting the colors are so vibrant. We sat near the on the salt pan as we emptied our shoes of the pounds of sand that had gotten into them, and made it back to the van before collapsing in the shade. Jonas was not in a great mood from exhaustion, and told us begrudgingly that we were just the second group he’s taken in a year all the way to the top, and that almost everyone gives up after trying the first small dune or getting halfway up Big Daddy. Clearly he didn’t have a good sense of the determination within my sisters. Done. Oh I also vowed never to be pressured into hiking again after this experience [this has already been broken, ay tog!]

Petrified Acacia trees. Unbelievable looking.

And so ended the big part of the trip. We headed back to Windhoek, where we lost Mimi, and then Grace and my mom made the long journey to Luderitz to see my site! I took them around the town, showed them my school, and they got to meet my host family, my awesome neighbor/adopted host dad [who notably got them to eat goat meat without realizing it – everything tastes good on a braai!], and the other volunteers here. The day before they left we went on a boat tour and saw the massive colony of penguins on Halifax Island. After a final stint at the new coffee shop in town [which is so nice it reminds me of America], they were gone. And so ended the best holiday of my life. On to Term 2!

So at the end of Maycation, the tallies rest at:

Group 34 PCVs ran into unexpectedly: 2  - one at Vic Falls, one in Luderitz with his fam!

Cultural gain: learned how to greet people in Zambia and Botswana!

Items lost v. items gained: travel towel lost, lots of weather appropriate clothes gained!

New list of things I miss: quality toilet paper, hair dryers, private cars!!!, radios playing American music, the sound of city life aka cars driving by outside, heating [winter has just now arrived!], chocolate chips, tortilla chips, and good customer service

Things renewed: the many reasons I love Africa. Thank you month-long holiday!

PS Just saw this article on CNN about Sosussvlei - it's really well written and a great read if you want to learn more about this area http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/18/travel/namibia-sossusvlei-dunes-travel/index.html