More Training (2-7)

This was a short week at school, as Monday and Tuesday I was sent to training for novice English teachers in the region. Wilhelmina also attended, as she is new to teaching grade 7; she may have been told to accompany me as she is my mentor, but that wasn’t mentioned. I was a little resentful about being sent to the training because we covered the topics during our WorldTeach orientation and training and because it interrupted my getting into the swing of teaching. However, it was OK. One of the trainers was a woman who Mrs. Reinhold had said would meet with us on a Saturday to provide guidance; so I don’t know if that will still be necessary. We’ll see. The other was a Peace Corps volunteer. Most of the attendees were teachers who have taught for a while but this is their first time to teach English.

I stayed overnight in a bungalow at the university with another teacher, Trinity. We chatted quite a bit while she waited for her friend to take her to dinner. This is her first year teaching, and she’s excited to finally be a teacher, her childhood dream. As a member of the younger generation, she said her friends told her to take any job but she would only go to a school that has wi-fi. After we chatted for a while, she asked if I speak Afrikaans. When I said I don’t, she asked why not. She was very surprised—and excited—to learn that I am American—her first American to have a conversation with. After she left, the Peace Corps volunteer came to lend me a pillow. He and I chatted a while about our Peace Corps experiences and about Namibia. When he apologized for the food at the workshop, he explained that teachers like to have food that they don’t have at home. Thus the Western-style food—bologna sandwiches and fried egg sandwiches for snacks, stir fried cabbage with rice and fried chicken legs with pasta (sauce on the side) for lunch. Not really very good. I enjoyed chatting with both people, and the evening passed quickly.

Wednesday I returned to school, and the rest of the week went quickly. It was good to be back. I feel comfortable and feel like I’ve been here for longer than three weeks.

Friday afternoon we had a small party for people who were leaving—two student teachers and one teacher who is moving to a school closer to her home. I helped make the salad. Although the main meat was beef, 

Wilhelmina had purchased a few chicken legs for me. They also prepared a small pot of beef for a teacher who liked it cooked differently than the big pot of beef for everyone else. Lots of special porridge was prepared. Rebekka explained that it is Nama style—with canned corn and sweetened condensed milk added. It is named for one of the tribes that eats it that way. Quite tasty.

While the food was cooking, one of the conversation topics was my hair. I was asked what I do to it. When I said I wash it every two days, they were amazed and told me how lucky I am. They like the fringe of brown at the bottom of the back of my head. Women here wear extensions or wigs. Rebekka confessed that her hair is actually the same color as mine. There are a couple teachers who I think straighten their hair, but I’d have to look very closely to see if it’s actually a wig, as I had just noticed that one person’s hair that I thought was natural and straightened actually wears a wig. When I suggested to the women that they could wear their hair short like the learners do, that idea was quickly nixed. I’ve seen only a few adult women who display their short, natural hair. One day there was a woman I didn’t know who was acting like a teacher, but I hadn’t met her. When I asked Wilhelmina who she is, I learned that she is a teacher I’d met, but her hair was now shorter. She’d changed her wig, and, since hair is such a distinguishing feature, I hadn’t recognized her until I looked very carefully.

In the evening I took a walk and enjoyed watching a thunderstorm in the distance. 

At 8:00 the electricity was turned off, and it wasn’t turned on until between 9:00 and 10:00 Saturday morning. I don’t know why it was off for such a long time. It was also off while I was at the workshop, but for a longer time, I think, as my refrigerator was warm then and was still cool after the thirteen hours.

It was turned off again Sunday morning between 8:00 and 11:00 for the third time in a week. I don’t know why, as it was not raining or windy and there was no sign of either being on the way. It wasn’t turned on again until 5:00. It’s frustrating, as on Sunday I had things I wanted to look up for materials for class. I have realized that part of the frustration is that this didn’t happen the first two weeks; thus it didn’t become part of “this is what living in the village is like.” Now I needed time to adapt to the change, and this took a while.

The clouds have produced some spectacular sunrises. 

Sunsets continue to be normal to amazing. I continue to be awed by both. And I continue to take photos even though I thought I’d taken enough.

This was a weekend at home. Saturday morning I took a walk for about 80 minutes—down a road and back. I dare not deviate too much, as I think it would be easy to get misplaced because there isn’t much variety in the scenery. 

It took fifteen minutes to get near the first homestead. From there I could see a few others in the distance. 

For the next twenty minutes there were no homesteads near the road I was on. It gave me an idea of the distances learners walk to school. The village is certainly spread out over a lot of land.

One area has a lot of ant hills. 

Bitter bush

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry and relaxing and reading in my outdoor chair. When Helena returned and came to say “hello,” I was using my fan to keep flies away. When she said, “Give me,” I almost handed it to her to look at, but I remembered that “Give me” means just that and handing it to her would have been giving her a gift. So I said I have one and it’s mine. She laughed. When she walked away, she said she likes me.

Two other requests this week: A student asked me to buy him batteries if I went to town. I explained that I can’t do that because then I’d have to buy things for everyone. The male student teacher seemed to want me to have someone buy soccer boots for him and mail them. He wants a special kind that is not sold here. Shops on the Internet charge a lot for foreign mailing. I told him it would be very expensive to buy the shoes and have them mailed and suggested that he use the money to go to Johannesburg or Windhoek. He said shoes are very expensive in Windhoek and it didn’t make sense to go to Jburg just to buy shoes. But it makes sense to have someone he doesn’t know buy them and mail them.

Wilhelmina asked if private enterprise means that everyone has a business in America. The ideas they have about the country are interesting.

One day Angel sat down and told me to tell him about September 11. It took a few seconds to realize that he meant 9-11. He wanted to know what happened and why the World Trade Center was the target because very little information was given in Namibia. He just knew that something bad had happened. I was glad he didn’t want too much information, as I’m not sure how much in depth I could have responded. I thought it was interesting that this was still on his mind after such so many years.