street culture in grootfontein

It would be appropriate here to comment on the situation of Grootfontein’s unfortunate street youth. The phenomenon is impossible to miss: the highest concentration of these kids flock to SPAR grocery store. Alligned in packs, the kids are a very visible reminder of the challenges facing Namibia. Orphans of AIDS, run-aways or otherwise un-cared for. Visibly undernourished and quick to taunt, it hurts to see veins swelling from gaunt legs and protein deficient pot bellies. Their presence is similarly evinced by discarded milk containers removed from dust bins, torn open so the inside’s last remaining droplets can be licked. A depressing version of Lord of Flies, it is a communal scavenger lifestyle, troupes of little children set to fend for themselves. While they can. It is truly affecting to see so many without any kind of home, family or chance at anything better than what they’re doing.

Rest of Saturday and Sunday: watched the Africa’s Cup of Nations – cooked some lasagna and met up with the Principal to go back to Grootfontein. The sky was really showboating on Sunday night. After some light precipitation around six, elements of the storm commingled in the sky yielding to a purple contusions at sunset, making for an almost un-earthly drive back. In the midst of this mystic experience I made out three giraffe about 10 feet from the road – a sight so odd I would have doubted it had I not seen a lone straggler a second later. Another few km and we were encircled by a group of dikdiks (antelopes in miniature) and some tremendous lightning. I was happy at the end of our safari/commute: home in Otjituuo.

great fountain for the weekend

Knock knock. I turn around, disturbed again from neurotically trying to get any kind of connection to the internet. I will admit, I was a little gruff: “What??!” Another student trying to get their Grade 12 results?? Nope. Metha and Beth making a surprise visit at Otjituuo PS. Huddling into a Ministry vehicle we embarked on the gravel back to Grootfontein (aka Great Fountain aka G-fountain) and made a beeline for one of the quickest internet connections in the land of the brave.

I’m so used to the connection at the school, I’m used to working online at that pace – where you might type www.gmail.com, press enter – go teach grade 6 maths – then check an email or two. I actually ran out of things to do online, it’s a problem I’ve never encountered in Otjituuo. At school you furiously attempt to download your email before the rosy LEDs on the external modem, with a timing that suggests a malevolent computational sentience, commit digital seppuku.

Brock rang all up Beth’s cell phone – we did some quick shopping, picked up a power adapter for my shortwave radio and did some heavy perusing at Grootfontein’s finer retailers. Throughout these commercial endeavors we kept running into this American woman in pink. After seeing her in SPAR, the general store, and a café, we finally made our introductions. Turns out she is wrapping up a 1-and-1/2-year stint as a teacher/missionary in Grootfontein so had some tender morsels of information, including reliable cabbies’ cell phone numbers, who to trust in trips to Windhoek. Heather the old hand then ended up introducing us newbies to her American and un-American friends in Grootfontein. This quad became larger and larger throughout this process. By the conclusion of three pizzas and a movie there were fifteen people all told.

notes on the first full week

     So the first full week is almost passed – it was a doozy, new time tables, teaching for hours straight, but I think I’ve got grade 6 under control, even if they are restive and unwilling at times.
     On Tuesday I went to Grootfontein with the principal, the first time I’d left the village for almost two weeks.  The ride is about 45 minutes along a dirt road and marks the entrance to Hereroland.  Along the way there are giant ant hills, reaching seven feet and the occasional warthog (or pack thereof) which will scurry across the road.  On either side is fertile farmland, mostly owned by large commercial farmers as you get closer to Grootfontein proper.  On this particular outing you could see small prop planes based at the Grootfontein army base practicing maneuvers only a few hundred feet off the ground.  Right before the road becomes tarred, you pass the local fields of the local abattoir, called Kranzfontein, which is populated by cattle, kudu, springbok, eland and every other type of gamey antelope you might want to partake of.
     Jared, the previous volunteer, had left some money for the education and school clothes of two San learners who he developed a relationship with.  They had managed to pass their Grade 7 test and were going to the secondary school at Coblenz.  The principal took them to get clothes and essentials while I dealt with shipping our broken computer printers to Tsumeb.  Afterwards we brought in our malfunctioning copy machine and managed to sort that out.  Peace Corps had already added our monthly allowance so I was happy to check my account at First National Bank and also pick up a copy of The Namibian and some “cool drunk” aka Coke at OK Mart.  
     Before we took off for home, I stopped in at the house where the Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) was staying with her supervisor.  This turned out to be a bad idea because people like to keep dogs, especially fierce ones, to guard their property.  Well, the PCV had moved out and in pidgin Afrikaans and English I was able to communicate this to the somewhat bewildered owner of the house (the PCV stayed in the garage behind the house).  I was able to get directions and will rendezvous this weekend with Brock, the PCV from Coblenz.  That’s all for now from the Land of the Brave.

tuesday's news

Full day with the grade 6s.  Oh yeah, now I am also teaching four periods of Religious and Moral Education (RME) which I will use to instruct the kids on basic computer operation.  Unfortunately the copy machine is kaput so it’s going with the principal this afternoon to Grootfontein along with our two malfunctioning printers to hopefully be repaired.  It’ll be nice when the machine is online again and I can make copies.  Jared (the former PCV here) emailed me with some info, he also said he heard some people from my group have dropped out which is news to me.  I am still getting my bearings as to the place and it is always nice to hear from someone about Otjituuo. Also, very pleased that the internet is back, albeit sporadic (it went out four five times while I was writing this post).

namibian fm

Listening to namibian radio last night I had a weird case of cultural déjà vu.  I was mid-way through preparing dinner when I recognized the familiar chords of mariah carey’s hit “get your number” except instead of getting hit over the head with jermaine dupri’s crooning this was the original 80s song (just an illusion by imagination).  

In other news:  day 2 of teaching went a lot better.  Managed to control the class, didn’t even raise my voice or resort to aggressive clapping to get students’ attention.  Lesson learned: the games we learned need to be heavily adapted for classes with 48 kids and/or completely emended if my classes aren’t going to devolve into chaos.  I also provided the pen-less with writing implements and got kids to share paper.  When the workbooks arrive from the ministry we’ll be all set.  I am, however, going to get into the fact that the keys to the room the text books are in is locked in a safe that no one has the key to.

Managed to re-up on essentials (sugar, mince, and bread) when Otjituuo’s principal went to Grootfontein yesterday.  The way it works you send your money with someone who’s going to town and they pick up stuff for you as long as you provide a little rand as gratuity.

first day of school

today the staff of otjituuo met to go over the schedule for the coming year -- since my predecessor, jarad, was not a teacher it means there has to be some shifting of classes and whatnot. right now it looks as though i will teach grade 6 english and maths, as well as some computer classes for adults. peace corps assigned me a "reduced teaching load" so that i might do outside work like fund raising for the community garden.
i am really happy that the internet is working -- yesterday when we tried it there was no sound when the modem tried to dial out, it scared me because we had had 2 modems get killed by lighting in omaruru and i wondered if this wasn't the cause. it turned out that the phone service to otjituuo is turned off during the holiday season and today the connection has been relatively fast.
i'm pretty well moved into my room at this point -- i've painted 3/4 of the room and decorated the walls with pictures and posters so it's definitely starting to feel like home. i'm also enjoying the speakers and shortwave as well as the all the kitchenware and my french press. peace corps namibia definitely deserves its reputation as posh corps...
i went on a run last night on the dirt road out to coblenz, it was beautiful, around 7:15pm and the sun was just starting to go down. i was running along ancient cattle posts that were originally set up by german farmers with boreholes along the way that mark off the km. i'm wondering if i can pull off the training to run in the swakopmund marathon later this year, if the weather holds up then it won't be a problem but there is a spot on the road that is flooded which might prove impassable if the rains get heavier.

Luck of the ‘Bing

Phenomenal all-you-can eat buffet at the hotel followed by the swearing-in ceremony, the Otjiherero learners did a passable job at giving our pledge and Chad did well with his speech, however the Khoekhoegowab students were the stars of the show earning the collective adulation of the assembly as well as the American ambassador, Joyce Barr. There were a few speeches including a gentleman from the Namibian Ministry of Education, the Country Director Jeff Millington, Waldo Junius the APCD for Education and Tuaunda Keeja, our training facilitator.
My host family was unable to make it from Otjimbingwe but Silas and Matt’s host mothers were in attendance wearing traditional Herero clothing. We also had some amazing cultural performances whose provenance I couldn’t place, it was a troupe of young men and women doing song and dance that was African in origin but I have not seen anywhere in Namibia. Afterwards we had a brief reception and I sent my laptop off with Jason to be mailed to S. Africa for repairs. Everyone headed back to their respective rooms, packed up, said some goodbyes and then started boarding buses, Land Cruisers, and combis for their trips to site. Unfortunately there was no transport for the teachers going to Otjozondjupa region and we were able to stay another night at the hotel. It was actually a blessing in disguise allowing me to do some errands around town, do last-minute purchasing that I missed during my out-of-body shopping experience and grab an amazing dinner at Taal. It started pouring and when we finally got to the restaurant we looked like drowned rats but we were seated anyway and enjoyed ourselves very much. Since it was so far from our hotel we had the restaurant call a car for us. As is common the car made another stop to pick up passengers at another restaurant. As it happened a couple of us went into the other restaurant to go to the bathroom. When I was waiting I hear my name being called with the unmistakably pleasant voice of Richard Siriryinka. It was great to run into him and we shared some laughs before promising to meet up in Cape Town – of course this serendipitously pleasant event would only happen to the Otjimbingwe learners whose “luck of the bing” has served us well throughout training.
In the morning Brock and I headed out with Stanley for Grootfontein picking up groceries along the way and relaxing to soothing classics from the Soul Brothers and Jimmy Cliff.

Windhoek

So we left omaruru mid rosebowl 4:45am (usc was still ahead) and drove into windhoek for the swearing in ceremony. in the morning we did a brief tour of the peace corps facilities including jumping on the computer in the lounge with the fastest connection i've seen in africa. picked up some reading material (midnight's children and war & peace) to supplement what i've already got, those should last me until the m-bags start arriving. we were then instructed that N$3222.16 had been deposited in our FNB accounts and that we should probably equip ourselves for our two years, all in an hour and a half at GAME, Namibia's answer to Wal-Mart. As if it weren't already a high-octane commercial frenzy I went to check on painting supplies only to return to find my cart had been removed by an officious employee and I would need to restock myself. I am not sure what happened after that -- I attained a state of shopping that I really can't describe, it roughly translates to the feeling of "one-ness" that many athletes experience at the height of their careers. What I am able to recollect from the receipt is that at 3:14pm I checked out of GAME, my cashier was Mathilda, and I spent N$2314.20. Richard, my language and culture trainer took us out to Club Shandy that night, which was quite pleasant and Nam25 dominated the scene -- including having BALANCE played several times in a row. It started to pour later on and we were able to grab some meatish items before we returned to the Safari Hotel.

last day of training

A couple of notable events in the past few days -- we had our language proficiency test, which involved a lot of blank stares, awkward silence and my repeating "i don't understand" in Otjiherero. Today our long-lost APCD Waldo returned to reassure some of the volunteers who were anxious about the conditions at their permanent site.
I've been pretty steadily working on a DVD to send back to the states with pictures and video from training and my experience thus far. I am pretty happy with the results and I should be able to get it in the mail when we're in Windhoek tomorrow. A couple of us are planning to wake up at 3AM when the Rose Bowl will be rebroadcast here in Namibia
Our schedule for the next few days is pretty hectic -- we drive to Windhoek and the Safari Hotel, make a visit at the US Embassy and the Peace Corps office and then shop till we drop. We've been repeatedly warned about the dangers of Windhoek, "Hey, we ain't in Omaruru no mo," and we're all pretty wary of the big city.
People are already getting emotional about leaving our trainers (we're planning to take Gisella out on the town) as well as the friends they've made in the group. I'm not sure how exactly I'm going up to Otjituuo and equally unclear how I'm getting all my bags and the Peace-Corps-issued trunk/water jerry can up to site.
Also, wanted to mention that I received 3 pieces of mail, the specs on the speakers from Greg, Sylvie's X-Mas letter (mailed Dec 18th) and Camilla's Dec 21st letter. It was really nice to get mail, and I was also happy because our country director brought a bunch of issues of the NYTimes and Washington Post.