Bits and Pieces (2-21)

Saturday I went to the mall in Ongwediva to look around. I took my bank papers for opening an account with the idea that, if the line wasn’t too long, I would do that. Since there were only a few people in the line I needed, I sat down and joined them. While we were waiting, a small boy—about 2 years old—was opening a zipper on his mother’s pouch and handing out coins. He gave several to the man next to me but looked at me warily. I held out my hand and asked if he had any for me. After a few moments, he gave me one very small coin. Then the man handed back his coins; so I did the same. The boy put them in the pouch and zipped it. Then he unzipped it and handed out coins again. On the third round, he gave me a big coin. I guess he’d decided that I was OK. As time went on, I received many coins as did the man. It was fun entertainment. Although the line was short, everyone needed a lot of time. I couldn’t complain as I knew my transaction would also take a long time. I waited for 45 minutes, and opening the account took 45 minutes. But it got done, and I didn’t need to have someone else spending that amount of time at the bank with me. When I left, I texted Wilhelmina to tell her I’d opened the account. She responded that she was coming to meet me.

While I was waiting, I noticed that a store had watches and thought it might have an alarm clock. It did. So now I don’t need to be concerned about waking up if the power goes off in the evening and doesn’t return before I go to sleep.

Wilhelmina arrived with Queenie, her friend and sister-in-law. Since Friday was pay day for them (My salary hasn’t been processed yet.), they wanted to buy me lunch, which was quite nice. We went to a fast food place that specializes in fish and had an enjoyable time eating and chatting. Since Wilhelmina bought my lunch, Queenie bought a take out for my dinner.

Queenie asked about my religion, and I learned that, although she was raised Catholic, she, like Wilhelmina, has many questions. I also learned that she spent a month on vacation in Spain where she learned that not all white people are like the ones here, which was an eye-opening experience for her. White people there worked even when they were old, and they took care of their children and took care of their house. Whereas white people here have black people who do the work around the house and take care of the children and would not know what to do if they had to do these things themselves. That may be an over-generalization, but it’s how she sees the situation. It reminded me of the transition of plantation owners in the U.S. after slavery was abolished. Namibia has been independent from the Germany for only 25 years, and these changes take time. Rachel had told us that many while people are still very racist.

Since Wilhelmina was going to her farm, she drove me home. All in all, I felt very lucky that everything worked out so well that day.

Sunday morning I put old calendar photos on the walls. Now I have some pretty pictures to enjoy. That was the last of my settling in things to do.

Some learners are getting comfortable with me and my teaching style. More are raising their hands to volunteer to answer or to write answers on the board. One day a few girls came to tell me they didn’t understand their writing assignment; so I went to study time to explain more clearly. I was pleased that they had told me they didn’t understand. On the way out, one girl wanted a high five. Another day several girls came to ask me the differences between “this” and “these” and between “where” and “were.” I was pleased that they are comfortable enough to ask such questions now. Quite a few have started giving me a thumbs up.

Mandatory after school study time started two weeks ago. Learners go to their homerooms and do their homework Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 2:15-4:00. Wednesday is sports day, and they go to the “field” to play soccer. For the most part, they are unsupervised. Two or three teachers are on duty each day and walk around sporadically, but most of the time they are in the staff room or their classroom. Learners have been told that they are to be quiet while they do their homework, and, for the most part, they are.

On Monday and Friday, the school day is to begin with a morning assembly at 7:45. A learner says a prayer and a religious song is sung. Then the national anthem is sung while the flag is raised. The principal usually says something to the group. This has often been cancelled due to learners—and most teachers—not arriving early for the assembly on those days. When we have the assembly, it always starts late and runs into the first class time; so that class is always at least ten minutes short. On Friday, Mrs. Reinhold told learners they will be punished if they are late for assembly in the future.

Now that mornings are cooler, learners are arriving at school later, and the first class is often 10-15 minutes shorter, making it 25-30 minutes instead of 40. Can’t get much done in such a short time. And it’s not really cold yet.

The school board had their first meeting a few weeks ago. I was asked to go in to meet them. The chair’s comment was that he anticipates much better results this year since I’m here. I keep hearing that, which is typical in foreign countries. At the Friday morning assembly the principal announced that the board set a goal of 80% or higher for all learners, no 70%s, which seems pretty unrealistic for any school.

The board met again to interview the selected two candidates to replace the teacher who left. Afterwards they chose the one they would like to hire. Their selection has to be sent to the regional office for approval before they can make an offer to the applicant.

I’m making a little progress on my effort to learn learners’ names. My class seating charts help, but it is still a struggle. One problem, of course, is that I’ve never been good at memorizing names. With the seating chart, when they are in class, I know some of them by where they sit. Out of class they look familiar, but the names don’t come most of the time.

Another problem is that the learners all have the same hairstyle at this school, which means that many of their faces, especially those of the younger learners, don’t give a clue to their gender. At the Oshikunde school where we did our practicum, girls have longer hair but it must be braided. At least this enables easy distinguishing between boys and girls. Some of the older boys have a bit of facial hair and look more mature in general, which is a clue. And some of the older girls have distinguishing female features. However, even more than the Chinese girls, they looked the same to me for a few weeks, reminding me how much Western hair variety—long, short, straight, curly, blond, brown, etc.—helps distinguish people easily. It took a while to look past the learners’ hair to notice the differences in their faces. 

Since learners wear uniforms that may be the same for both genders, sometimes boys and girls look the same. Both wear gray pants and a white shirt. Girls, however, sometimes wear a maroon skirt and/or vest. (Yes, they sometimes wear a vest in this hot weather.) I also learned to look at shoes, as the styles are different for boys and girls. And a few of the girls have pierced ears. With time, their faces do look different, and I now recognize many faces of those who participate a lot and/or talk to me outside class.

An additional challenge with learning names is that they write their names differently. The typical way to write one’s name in Namibia is surname and then first name. Some learners do that, but some write their name in the Western style—first name followed by surname. This becomes a challenge because some of the first names and surnames are the same. So, I can have Naftal Tomas and Iithete Naftal; Festus Aina and Simeon Festus; and Johannes David and David Lemisia. As a result, for a while, I wasn’t sure which name to call the learner when I read names on their notebooks. I now recognize the names they are called my most of the time.

Additionally, some names are pronounced the Namibian way and some the Western way. Thus “Simon” is “Seemone” and “Jeremia” is “Jeremiah,” as we pronounce it. I had to ask about both of those several times before remembering which pronunciation to use. “E” at the end of a name is pronounced; so “Leonore” is “Lay o nor uh.” And there are a few Namibian names, such as “Ndasilohenda,” which was the most challenging for me. In the early weeks, when I came to her name on a paper and paused, others knew which name I was looking at and a few helped me out. She smiles now when I say it quickly and correctly.

Some of the grade 10 girls are starting to bond with me. A group of them—and a couple boys— came to chat on Wednesday before sports while one of their classmates swept the floor. They had many questions about America—What is the land like? Are there palm trees? What fruits do we have? Do I have a house/car? Are their black people in America?

Learners in the classes are of very mixed ages. Grade 8 learners range from 15-20 in one class and from 13-18 in the other, grade 9 ranges from 13-21, and grade 10 ranges from 15-19. Two learners who I know are siblings are two years apart in age, but the older is in grade 9 and the younger is in grade 10. Some started school later than others. Some have failed a level or grade and have or are repeating. Grade 9 has 32 learners, but I noticed that last year there were two classes of grade 8 with a total of over 50 learners.  Wilhelmina explained that one class this year is mostly learners who are repeating; the other is mostly learners who were in grade 7 last year.

I have noticed that Namibians do not squat like Asians. Instead they bend over from the waist to wash their clothes and do chores on the ground.

A few weeks ago I noticed that if I look at msn.com after closing my email, it has the temperature for Oshakati. Then, and earlier, it was in the high 90s and low 100s with lows in the low 70s. Now the temperatures have decreased to the low 90s. People still say it’s very hot every day, but I think the scorching hot days are over.

It rained during the night for about an hour a couple times. Otherwise, the rain seems to be going elsewhere. We can see it in the distance, but it’s not coming here. Some mornings it smells like rain, but none has come. The wind blows like a storm is coming, but it doesn’t. Saturday we finally had some rain. When Wilhelmina and I returned from town, there was water along the road in places, but it stopped before our village. 

That night there it was stormy and everyone was waiting for the rain to start. It finally did, but I don’t think it amounted to much in total.

The electricity has been on most of the time for over a week. It went off for about 1.5 hours one evening and has blinked off for a few minutes during strong winds, but otherwise it’s been working. One of my favorite sounds is the humming of the fridge.

In the last couple weeks ant hills have been popping up all over. I don’t know where they were before then. One group is in my washing room beneath a crack and small hole in the floor, and I have to sweep the floor of their sand balls every morning; they are active at night.

The dog is now used to me and hardly pays attention to me most of the time.

Sunset