Random Observations

Once again, I have been lax on updating—partially because work has been a bit busier, but also because a lot of things that I have observed in the past seem sort of normal to me, so I think i don't notice them anymore. For example, the other day I was riding in one of my principals' bakkie, and he was filling up the gas and suddenly the car starts moving up and down. To me, this is now standard—at filling stations people will pump their entire truck up and down to fill it up with more gas. The first time it happened though, I thought they were trying to get me out of the car.

So maybe today will just be series of random observations:

1.Today, as I was walking from an office, I saw an entirely naked baby wearing only white tennis shoes. It was bent over and screaming aaha haha. I think it was happy.

2.A teacher warned me earlier that some kids were messing up my class room. I went in, told them to get up, clean up, and get out. It was the strictest I've ever been (they had left old corn and candy wrappers on the floor, PLUS dumped all my things on the floor!). My karma it seems, came to get me, when I tried to lock the door. The lock sticks, but usually it works ok. Today however, I try to open it and suddenly the key moves smoothly—why? b/c the key broke in the lock.

3.Also, today, I went to visit a school in my cluster, about five kM from the road. There were three classrooms constructed from the normal cement, and then five zinc shack classrooms for 200 students. Its a new school, which in Namibia, means that the Ministry might not have gotten around to it? We went to two classrooms. In the first one we found some older learners who stood up when we walked in (standard). Then we went into the next class room, where there were sixty small kids in one, rather large, but not large enough, classroom. When we left that one, I looked back into the first classroom only to find the kids still standing.

4.I got bored and taught Grade 8A how to use the Internet. They were fascinated most by the pictures of lions, giraffes and elephants that they have never seen before, even though there is a game park only 17 km from Omuthiya, my site!

5.Recently attended a meeting under a tree. Quite possibly the most efficient meeting I have been to since arriving in Namibia. The group, saving to buy a tractor and use it to raise money to fund affordable housing, has collected N$41,000. The meeting took thirty minutes, and had absolutely no written or discussed agenda. This does not mean that nothing happened at the meeting, just that we didn't really spend much time talking about what was going to happen at the meeting.

6.This week, I attended a staff meeting for the school closest to my house. The teachers have taken the initiative to build a second water pipe for our school, in addition to planting a diverse variety of fruit trees all over the school, clearing and creating a new soccer field, planning a school trip to Grootfontein, organizing a HIV/AIDS awareness week march and drama competition, and painting a new school emblem over our old one.

7.Last week, I shadowed a woman who works with the World Food Programme to understand the feeding scheme and maybe talk to some of the people who do the distributing. All the people who appeared at the Feeding points were mostly old women, but they were talking and laughing as they picked up the heavy bags of maize meal. I realized that these old women weren't picking up the food for themselves, but for the Orphans and/or Vulnerable Children they had taken in. I also met a woman working for the UN. She was a Namibian who only passed Grade 12, but had found herself in a successful position as an AID worker. We visited the small village center near one of my cluster schools and ate some really good chicken that only cost $2. Not only was it covered, but it also had pepper in it! Way nicer than Omuthiya Location market. Also saw a really really hairy brown baby donkey.

8.Visited the village of a friend with no electricity and no water except a tap, but was very nice. Even though only about an hour and a half from my site, this village had an entirely different landscape. Vast savannahs (as in the Namibian national anthem) and open spaces, while here we have a lot of trees. Met two small kids with my favorite names: Ndafa (means: I am happy) and Boyki (a combination of afrikaans and english, which just means, “small boy”). Ndafa, who is also named Ndiddymeche (I think may be her real name), can compete for the prize for cutest small girl in Namibia. Also saw some really tiny baby goats, but have a feeling they won't be cute for much longer.

9.SchoolNet installed OpenLab4 on our computers. Now, we have SEVEN functional computers in our lab! (this is what allowed me to teach grade 8A, i guess). Only disadvantage is that it makes my Internet REALLY slow. Still, Ndafa!
10.Before that attended peacecorps wkshp at Red and Yellow hotel in Ongwediva. Got to see everyone, very exciting, and met our new peacecorps director, who prefers to be called Hannah. She knows one of my French teachers, Professor Drame from her time as a peace corps volunteer in Senegal!!!!!

11.Had a huge HIV/AIDS awareness day march and then drama competition later in the week. Notable Incidents:
1.A poster which said, “safe sex safes lives.”

2.Riding in my counterpart's really nice car while hundreds of kids ran behind us singing songs about HIV. I felt a little bad, but not nearly as much as I would have when i first got here. After all, I am “Miss Ami”, sometimes Oshilumbu, sometimes Oshibrowna.

3.The Police Officer chasing back Waa Pandula P.S. Learners (basically small kids), back with a stick. No one sees this as out of the ordinary. Fortunately, no one gets beaten. The police officer wants the picture I took to memorialize the event.

4.Got donations of prizes from a local grocery store. The owner had to verify that the prizes were for kids to make sure not to include alcohol.

5.During the drama, there were at least four plays about sugar daddies. One of them was named “Mr. Cash” and was on a vendetta to infect people with HIV/AIDS.

6.To simulate having HIV/AIDS in the Drama, my host sister, who was the star, borrowed my jeans (which were too big and falling off). In addition to promoting an incorrect stigma of AIDS, it made me feel kinda fat.