So it’s Friday at the end of the school week and I’m about to embark on yet another one of my weekend trips. This weekend is when I get my new puppy and as I have mentioned before, I am SO excited. It is also the weekend that I will have a new housemate move in with me. She is a newly hired teacher and needed somewhere to go. I hope she’s okay with having dogs. This culture isn’t as wild about dogs as Americans are. I have been told multiple times that they eat dog meat. I have also seen how some of the stray dogs here are treated. Not so well. I think a lot of the teachers think I’m odd for wanting a dog and they say I am going to treat it like a baby. This is entirely true because he is my new baby!
I think these days I’ve been going back and forth on the culture shock curve. We were told during orientation about culture shock and that it is something we must all go through. The best way I’ve found to get over some of this shock is to keep my sense of humor. This is my best weapon for everything lately. When people are laughing at me for trying to speak in Oshikwanyama or when they are talking about “oshilumbu” (white person) I try to just smile and wave. It won’t help anything to get upset over the differences. I am trying my hardest to adapt to their culture and I know that a lot of the people appreciate this. The only thing about this culture shock is that it’s like riding a roller coaster constantly. Very exhausting. Some of my teacher friends here at the school have quoted me from a few weeks back “Since I’ve come to Africa I’ve been tired all the time”. They find this really funny and ask if I will be tired all year. I sure hope not.
My classes have been going well and I have gotten into a routine of trying to play games with them on Fridays. We have made a deal in my English classes to work with me half the class on English and then the other half is games. In my computer classes I’m having a hard time getting them to listen to me when I say not to click around on the computers because they will change things that I don’t know how to fix. I understand that they are all excited about “clicking” on the computer as they call it but I’m getting really frustrated. One of the learners snapped at me to come over and I saw that his entire screen was turned sideways. I didn’t even know that was possible on a computer. Who would ever do that on purpose? As for the snapping thing, it’s part of their culture to snap at people. I have gotten used to it now but at first I was very offended when people were snapping at me to come over to them.
I think that culture shock works both ways. The people are still getting used to how I act and deal with situations. I also found out the other day that what we would call a truck in the U.S. is not what they call it here. Jerry (one of the teachers) was pointing to a truck and saying he wanted one of them and I said “oh you mean that truck over there?” and he stared at me funny saying “that’s a bocky (sp?) not a truck” Apparently they call shipping trucks a truck and everything else has another name. Who knew?
One thing I am SO grateful for is that I made some good teacher friends pretty fast. During orientation our field director warned us that it isn’t easy to make friends here especially with the women. I have made good relationships with some of the younger teachers here and it makes this transition a hundred times better.
Before we all left for our sites we talked about orientation and apparently clips from this video will be going up on the WorldTeach Namibia page so when that comes I’ll be sure to share so people can see what I said. The field director said I was very good. We shall see if that’s the case!
That’s all for now. Endoponawa!
Peace and Love,
Chels
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