Rights of Passage

So, I have had some pretty insane experiences with public transportation in namibia... but today, I honestly think that the comvee driver I had won some kind of prize for worst driver ever. I mean... so a couple of other pcv's and myself decided to meet down south for just the weekend. Its a pretty long trip for me, so I left at 6 am this morning to get a hike from Ondangwa, which was one of my Namibian friend's idea. Clearly, she had never done this before, b/c we end up getting there at 7:30, which is fine. Then, the taxi driver takes our luggage out before we knew it and puts it on a comvee... we thought he was joking so helena asks him to open the trunk and our luggage has been deloaded on to this bus. Meanwhile, there is a police man trying to get us on this minibus, which apparently is going to leave first. Clearly, this man is confused b/c, as we found out later, none of those buses were gonna leave any time soon. So I am getting irritated and we decide to go to Shoprite and get some food for the trip, and we find another comvee driver who tells us he is leave now and isnt going to wait to fill up the entire bus... instead he promises to fill up along the way. After waiting at our comvee for about a half an hour, we decide to finally go over to the other comvee that said it was leaving soon. The guy puts down our names, and asks us to pay, and I decide, from previous experience not to pay the guy until the bus starts moving...he's like no we are leaving now! And I am like ok, I believe you, I will show you my 100, but I will not give it to you, and seriously, the man is starting me down. But at this point, I am still believing that I am gonna go this weekend, but by 9:30, i know it is going to be too late, but probably will still go anyways. Still, we have not left, so I start yelling at the guy about how he has lied to me and how this is a serious problem and we need to leave, so the comvee starts moving! yesssss! noo... wait, we are pulling up to the gas station. However, we are not filling up, we are just standing there, picking up more fares. The police man shows up and randomly shuts the door about every 15 minutes to say that no one else gets on the comvee, but clearly, he's officially proved himself to be worthless b/c no one in any of the comvees is listening to him and besides, the comvees not exactly overloaded. So i wait another half an hour...clearly at this point I am livid and literally start yelling at the driver b/c i know he's gonna stop all the time on the way. I ask him to give me my bag so I can go to OMuthiya, b/c I"ll just take a taxi back, but he says no... at some point I threatened to not pay him anything, and by the end, I was like you should just give me my bag b/c i swear you will not get a dime from me. I doubt he understood what i was talking about, but he knew what I meant when i said "no money." but back to the saga... So we move again... to the gas pump. Then, we're leaving again... getting excited! but no... we pull up to the hike point again. And 20 minutes later, we're leaving again... and no... we go back to the gas station. We do this about 3 more times until I am at the point of hysterical tears, but then, randomly, this guy on the bus starts getting pissed too, except he sounds like oscar the grouch..maybe something scarier. Everytime he talks, I can't concentrate on what is going on because its hilarious. Unfortunately, his voice does not intimidate the driver into leaving, but finally at around 11:15, we do leave, and find ourselves stopping about 5 more times on the way to omuthiya. Somewhere in there, someone on the bus gets a phone call, and starts saying in very very loud oshiwambo something about how the driver is completely dishonest and cheated them out of their money. Thank god I wasn't the only one. When I got off at Omuthiya, they were still trying to convince me to go to Windhoek and were liek I will give you a discount, but not really that much of one. Clearly, they did not realize how close they came to me biting their heads off. They were like, ah man, you are not good. I was liek did you really think you were gonna screw me over like that and still make money of me. I swear I know they're just trying to make a living, but I need some service please? Off course my morning ended with a bunch of little kids from the primary school following me and laughing. I still don't know whats behind my back, but this evokes sad memories of the 5th grade and I dont want to relive them so I leave. Ah... clearly, we had no rights of passage, but helena thought of the title, and it seemed appropriate. I hope you all have a good weekend... and that I do too :( now that the comvee driver ruined my plans.

Water Shortages motivate me to organize.

Basically, I have decided that my blog needs to make more sense. I have lots of time to do this, so I don't know why it hasn't happened yet. Honestly, I've never had this much time in my life, and until very recently, didn't exactly know what to do with myself. I'm not really sure that I do now, but I am working on it. Its kind of exciting actually, because one of the reasons why I wanted to come to the peacecorps is to do the things I've never had time to do. And help people, off course.

PHE Class

Anyways, yesterday, I had my second PHE class, it was much better than the last. 4 out of 5 of the learners seemed to understand me, and we played musical chairs, so that was great. Also, I think I am getting better a gearing the activities towards learners here—obviously, i still have a lot to learn, but I can relate to the teachers. Things you would normally expect to go wonderfully (or things that have gone really well for me before) can fall flat here... well honestly, i can't even tell if they're going well or not because the kids are so quiet. I know its cultural that the kids are so shy, but I also feel like despite culture, I don't want them to be shy around me. I don't have to deal with the same discipline issues that teachers do, because fortunately, I already have good learners.

Discipline

Speaking of discipline issues I had a conversation with some teachers on saturday about methods of punishment and not using verbally abusive language to punish learners, but i was kind of caught in my own inexperience. I guess it was obvious that I was speaking to them from the perspective of a student, just having finished being a student myself. Basically though, they had a valid complaint... people are always saying they should do things differently, but they never suggest how. I can understand that, but still have nothing to offer them. Any suggestions? I am thinking about it and realize i should ask fozia, since she is the only person i know with real training to be a teacher. If you're reading this... yeah, let me know.

Dirty Details

Outside of work, Omuthiya is fine, except there is no water for the second week in a row. Well, to be fair we had a small intermission between pipe breakings last week, but then someone accidentally hit the water pipe again saturday and the water has been out since then. Fortunately, my homestead has an outdoor tap that I can fetch water from, but I really am not enjoying doing it for extended periods of time. Plus, it does put a damper on my avoiding the pit latrine scheme, b/c a pit latrine is really the cleanest option during a water outage. I am sure you all wanted to know about that... haha, but you wanted the dirty details on Namibia, so there you go.

Chickens and Cats

So, I've grown pretty accustomed to seeing animals everywhere. Its just how it is, people let their animals roam around, and I can't really think of a problem with it, its just weird at times. For example, yesterday, I was sitting in the computer room, and a chicken walked it, and just chilled out in here for a good 15 minutes. For some reason, the contrast of me sitting online reading CNN and typing up my PHE syllabus for the afternoon while a chicken clucked around me seemed hilarious. Unfortunately, I had no camera, but one day, it will happen, and I will display it for all to see forever when I return to the states. Yesssssssssss.

Also my cat, which i am starting to hate, has started doing this creepy thing where it jumps through my window at night and tries to jump on my bed. Eeeeeeek. This morning, i seriously freaked out. It also has the effect of ruining my screens. Well, that is all for today. I realize that is more understandable, but probably more boring. Like I said, I'm working on it, I have time.

Packages are wonderful.

I got my first package from my birthday this weekend, from my parents! Did anyone else send packages? if so... I will eventually get them, PC just takes forever to got them to me. For now...I have to figure out my P.O. Box situation in Omuthiya. I had a box from the previous vol, but then, she had left all these fines on it and I thought I could just open up a new one on Feb 1st, but then there was a delay and now its March 1st. I hope that date doesn't change... if it does, i'll just give you the schools P.O. Box, b/c my friend whose box i was thinking about using actually has a bocx in Ongwediva, which is a bit far. I mean not really, but I dont wanna go up there every weekend to check my mail.

Anyways, so the last week or so has been kind of eventful... I started my peer health education program. Think kids staring at me blindly while most likely having no idea what I'm talking about. It was ok though, i think i will warm them up soon enough. We played this game where you spell your names with your hips b/c they really weren't talking. I think the next time I will have to be enthusiastic enough for all of us...they willllll talk to me! Next week, i'm going to do what some of the education volunteers did with their PE classes... play duck duck goose. ALthough, there is a fine line between enthusiastic and scary that I might cross if I'm not careful... I dont know why I feel like games will make them open up, but it seems like a good icebreaker, which we clearly needed. I also think I was aiming my curriculum for town kids... kids in Tsumeb were far more responsive to the types of activities I came up with, maybe just because they were able to express themselves better in english. Plus they've been through workshops and stuff before. Maybe it will be good... i can work out a curriculum that can be used universally for village kids. or maybe its just the fact that I dont know any Oshiwambo. AHHHHHH!.

Also, I went up to Ongwediva with Amon from the LAC on Monday, and on Tuesday we spend a couple hours going over what they want me to do, and it seems pretty exciting! They want me to hold these legal clinics where i just do intake for them... which worries me a little bit, but they said they would get someone to help me with the oshiwambo for a while so that will be nice, and I dont really have to dish out any legal advice. Although they have all these trainings they want to give to people, and I went to this meeting for community AIDS volunteers and it seems like they would be really open to it. Everyone basically wants to figure out how to make money, so information on grants and income generating projects seems like the best way to go and the LAC has some trainings on that! I mean, they need lots of things, but I can understand why their primary concern is finding employment...People have information, they just need a reason to put it into action...aka a real life with food on the table.

Well, we'll see... Gis might actually come up this weekend... a combination of things from parents meetings to broken water pipes in omuthiya have kept it from happening, but we are determined! Or at least I am. haha... ok that is all for now. Commentt pleaseee, it makes me feel good to know that ppl are still reading my blog, plus I wanna know what you think.

Pictures

Some pictures up on webshots... takes forever to load, so not really alot of them!

French Fry Sandwiches

As you may be able to tell from this heading, I discovered a new namibian delicacy this weekend. The French Fry Sandwich. Basically, you buy chips (aka fries) and you put them in bread... sometimes with vinegar or mayonnaise (the ultimate namibian condiment). Just had to write about this, b/c it reminded me of a) the atkins diet, ahahaha...... and b) sharita b/c it seems like her ideal sandwich. Anyways, thats all I have for now. just thought i'd put it in!

Meetings Meetings Meetings

So, yesterday was kind of a low point for me, b/c i came to school b/c we had a staff meeting and realized I have no real job here yet. It kind of sucks. Also, it is hard not being near to people who you can be close to. It was easier in Okahanja b/c everyone was going through the same thign so we all needed to hang out, but here everyone else has a life, so while I have made friends, its still a bit lonely. I did go over to a friends house Tuesday to watch the season finale of Paloma When you are mine, aka the namibian national obbession... she was totally into it... it was interesting in the same way a good bollywood movie is... aka bollywood could be huge here and they need to bring it here to make money except there are not really movie theaters that i know of in the north. Well apparently there used to be one in ondangwa, but now its gone. Anyways, back to the job, But i do have a job at the community center and we met the regional councilor today and apparently some of our income generating projects are possible except he didn't really give us concrete details. Hopefully that will work itself out...i mean he wont mind us bugging him b/c we definitely will! The school is even willing to share a soccer field with the community so that is also excellent. Today I have more of a job, b/c i have to write some letters and convince people to donate some stuff. Apparently ppl at the school are already doing this (asking people to donate)... another reason why I feel superfluous here, but who knows. The resources are here, whether they would be used or not I dont know. I hope so! So I totally didn't realize that my blog is amusing... or that people are reading it, so thats exciting. since people are will post more regularly!