Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Tsumeb Final Update + beggining of last two weeks

ok so this first part is a couple days old, i just couldn't post it until now, from Tsumeb, which i miss dearly:

so to update my blog, it has been an interesting couple of days. my host sister left and now rika, my host sisters best friend is staying with me and she is hilarious, but also really honest with me so i end up having semi serious conversations with her about stuff i should know about all the time. also i've started watching this hilarious mexican soap opera that everyone is obbsessed with here.... Paloma when you are mine. its melodramatic and possibly has more close up face shots than your average 90s bollywood film. The story line is about Diego and Paloma and their love, except diego is dumb and gentle and has been framed by his cousin fabien who wants to own the family business at the expense of everything. diego makes me want to get some tp. (side note on toilet paper... people here reference everything to it, but mostly they talk abuot hanging themselves with tp. not serious, its like when i say shoot me now. but i think it has more serious undertones b/c pppl have a more fatalistic attitude here, but its hilarious when rika says it, so now i say it all the time now). back to paloma, people are always crying in hilarious scenes where they also look like they are constipated... apparently the two stars came to namibia last year (they are more famous here than in mexico i am so sure) but they couldn't speak english except to say "I love Namibia." oh yes, and after paloma yest, i was brushing my teach and heard a loud, waterfall like gushing sound in the kitchen... it was in fact my tap exploding and water was pretty much shooting up like a geyser all over the kitchen floor. it was pretty funny and there was nothing that the three of us (me, my host mom, and rika) could do, so we pretty much just started cracking up. then this morning just when i wanted to take a shower there was no running water, so i took a sketchy sketchy bucket bath. fun stuff... but also the highlight of my day. my friend megan has the best host family ever... well no mine is better... just kidding. haha. but anyways, they are hilarious also... all of the host families here have been trying to make us get fatter, b/c apparently thats a good thing here, and megan was wearing tight jeans or something and her oma (afrikaans for grandmother) was like "yayyy! you are getting fatter!" and her host aunt goes, "oooo... no more sexy body." hahahaha. ok sorry it was really funny while i was sitting there.
the music here is also interesting... have i already written about gazza and the dogg? they are the two msot famous mucisians in namibia, and i didn't realize how big a deal it was until i started hearing ppl yelling gnp and mshashu being yelled by random bored kids. really they don't sound all that different to me but ppl seem to know them. i have to get their cds for my host siblings, fun fun.
sorry... trying to address everything... oh yes so, in work news, this week as i said earlier, we planned a youth work shop for the kids, which actually was GREAT. 62 kids showed, and we got great feedback, and i was actually pretty proud of what we put together... i think most of the kids left learning something, even though i was definitely in the least technical sessions (condom negotiation, stigma, at risk groups/risk factors)and we didn't actually change behavior , but i think they turned out well. ok, cbt is coming to an end so i will probably have less internet access, but that is no excuse to stop emailing me. dddddddddddooooooooooo it. i miss you alll! amiiii
oh yeah... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALA! (no clue if you will ever read this... but its the best i can do)

soo.. it is dec. 27, now and unfortunately i found out that manoj kaka died, so that was pretty terrible. I am glad everyone was together and was really sad that I couldn't make it for anything...

Christmas was not bad here they had a braai/barbecue for us which basically kept us occupied and its nice to see all the people from education that we were seperated from during community based training, but i miss the intimacy of CBT. now that we are back in okahanja, we're planning an HIV/AIDS workshop for the education volunteers... it is a little weird b/c we have to make it relevant to their lesson plans and sometimes i feel like i know more about what they need to know than they do when in fact i probably don't. we'll see... its starting tommorow and i'm doing the session on stigma and gender. I hope they like it! We also have our language assessments so I have been frantically studying for those even though i dont feel like i dont know anything... it'll be fun. also my language instructor teaches me one new destructive phrase everyday... today it was otandi kuu dhipaga (sp?) which means I will kill you, now. i love saying it to people, i guess i've developed a morbid sense of humor here, but my lang trainer also finds it to be hilarious, so at least i've bonded with a namibian (well i have bonded with other namibians, rika sends me texts and i love her! new goal in life, to make sure she goes to college, which she probably will b/c she's pretty smart). Besides that I'm mentally prepping myself for permanent site and becoming increasingly attached to the people i know and love here, so I will be visiting them often, especially since most of my site work initially may be needs assesment. who knows. ok, well people are waiting for the internet, so sorry for the short update but once again, little is happening here. inda po nawa!

Monday, December 18, 2006

...still here

.... still here.

wow, it feels like we've been in Tsumeb foreeeeeeeeeeever ever. it is really nice here as i said, and my host family is pretty sweet too. I have also gotten the chance to get close some people in my group and to miss people properly, but the training here is... interesting. I'm not entirely sure we're getting everything we need here, but we have had some interesting speakers from the legal assistance centre, windows of hope (of unicef), nawalife (the johns hopkins program in namibia), and now we're planning a workshop for the youth in Tsumeb. we initially went out into the community to interview people for needs assessment since we could'nt do the proper 3 month long integrating into the community required for needs assessment... people were pretty interested. its always refreshing to know how much people want to know here... not just about general things but like hte specifics of the biology of HIV/AIDS... something i didn't know at all before i came here (and to be honest don't really know all that much about now). some heads butted when we were trying to plan it, apparently they were annoyed at the inefficiency... but today the workshop turned out allright. tommorow i'm doing the condom demonstration from PHE where we make the kids turn in a circle so they're dizzy while putting a condom on, b/c apparently alcohol is a big problem here. it'll be fun!!! besides that, i'm really really glad i will not have to work with 20 others on site even though i will miss (most of) them. we've been learning oshiwambo daily too, althouhg i don't know ANYTHING except ee-e, and greetings, (ee-e means yes, its pronounced eayyeeeeee, yes drag it out). i had a small crisis the other day when i realized my host family communicates with me even less than i thouhgt b/c of the oshiwambo tendancy to say ee-e to everything. i mean everything, so, they respond to everything they don't understand in english as yes. well my host sister deos even though she does know some english to her credit. the other day we had a picnic for our host families and it was cute. i hitnk my host mom likes me, but honestly i won't know b/c she doesn't speak english. or afrikaans, not that i really know how to speak that at all. so yeahh.. my life at their house.. we pretty much eat mahangu + chicken everyday, but it tastes allright so i can't say that i mind... often i find myself waiting for the dinner b/c i am starving all the time here. the other day i made them chicken curry (i tried making it for one of my trainers, gisella first, although it may have turned out better the first time.), and i think they like it but once again will never know. they did say they were gonna save up and make it, although i had tried to make something that had cheaper ingredients incase they liked it! they are pretty damn good cooks. anyways., sorry this is once again a pretty boring blog entry. the only thing worth writing about that is happening besides the stifling heat and bugs everywhere (EVERYWHERE AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH) is the sunset here. the sensets are GORGEOUS, everyday. i have like 500 pictures of them, will send them home on a cd. anyways, reposting windhoek address, b/c some ppl could'nt find it! let me know how things are going with you all.


ps. have no idea who the guy who transferred is.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Tsumeb

Hi everyone! I'm in Tsumeb, which is definitely the most beautiful city I have seen in Namibia so far (granted my total is only like 4 towns). Its supposed to be the copper center of Namibia, but really it is known for being green all year round, which is refreshing after Omuthiya, which has greenery, but it comes up later in the year. We are doing our community based training here which means that we are staying with a local family who will practice our language with us. I have a really cool family, and a great combination of running water, electricity and tradition (yess... i love running water and electricity, i have realized). So far we have just been walking around town, but its cool b/c all 22 health vols are in town so we see each other all the time. The only thing that is weird here is that ppl are really shocked by the fact that I am indian... in a good way, sometimes too good. I mean at least everyone thinks I am beautiful, but um... i dont know. But anyways, we stayed at this hotel the first night the hotel malakani which was really nice and then we went to this never ending world aids day parade in a neighboring town, which literally took forever. I was in a really bad mood until I got to my CBT house. We went grocery shopping together... I feel like I finally have a permanent place after being in transit for like 3 weeks. I unpacked... bought cereal and sandwich stuff (as yo ucan see food is a dominant theme in all my entries, but I am totally gonna lose weight b/c I walk everywhere). It was nice, and alos my host mom cooks me food which is also great b/c for three days in omuthiya i was a bit lost... even thouhg I could cook here b/c i have elec! But i think I will be able to post pictures from here, so I will try to post as many as possible. Oh yes, list of things to send me: burn mp3s (not wav files) on cds and send to me. Also pictures! Yesssssss. Althouhg the last couple days have also been a little bit crazy b/c people are eting (early termination), and sadly its three people I'm very close to. Its kind of upsetting and it made me make sure I want to be here too, but i didn't have to think much to realize that this is really where I want to be. really really want to be. I can't explain it b/c there are plenty of uncomfortable moments and also plenty of ppl that I miss very much, but there's something that feels right about my experience here. Maybe better next time. Ok, well I better go now, but here is a pic of Tsumeb (not one of mine). oh yeah ps. can you guys post the pictures from that saturday when you guys had the dinner party for me?! Thankssss! AMI