Half way there

I have now been in Africa for over six months. This is the longest I’ve been away from the U.S. In my junior year of college I spent a semester in England studying abroad there. I have found that it’s one thing to study abroad; it’s a whole different ball game to live abroad. The countdown on the bad days until you go home is so much longer and harder to cope with. When everything is falling apart…as things do…you don’t have the support system you have at home. You truly are living alone and dealing with everything alone. I thought that after half a year away, things would get easier. The newness of living here wears away and I’m left with trying to stay positive and deal with every day things here. I miss having a hot shower that when I turn on the faucet I can just hop in and feel better. It is now winter time here in Namibia and it’s freezing in the mornings and evenings. Taking a bucket bath is getting harder and harder to do.

There are only so many times I can sit in my room and watch movies until I get restless and want to go somewhere. In the U.S. I would go out with my friends and catch a movie or go hang out and take a drive. I’m stuck in this village most of the time. Being far away from all of the other volunteers is not easy. Okay I’ve said enough about all of this.

Second semester teaching is interesting and I learned a lot from teaching the first semester. I know what my students are capable of now. The only problem is when I have an entire class who isn’t capable of eighth grade English and another that is fully capable. It’s hard to feel helpless as their teacher. I want them to do well but it seems impossible to get them to where I want them to be this year. I have a feeling most of the class will have to repeat eighth grade next year.

One thing that lifts my spirits every day is the little kids here. They are always excited to see me and wave at me smiling the whole time. Adjusting to life as a middle/high school teacher when I studied to be elementary is hard.

I feel as though lately it’s been hard for me to make a positive blog post which is why I’m not writing them anymore. I’m not ready to quit trying as some of my other colleagues in WorldTeach have done. Three of the original fourteen of us have gone home for their various reasons. I don’t judge them on leaving; this experience is far from easy. I think that everyone’s original thought when they come to volunteer is that they will be making a difference all the time. I know this not to be true. We are adjusting and learning every day way more than anyone else around us. We are the foreigners in this country and we are the ones who aren’t used to life here. People here are used to having nothing and living with that. The learners are used to the style of teaching that they have had their whole lives. When I walk into the classroom, everything is new to them. I don’t know how to have a whole class stare at me for 40 minutes while I lecture. This is not my teaching style or philosophy.

Another positive here is my dog Hunter. Last night when I was ready to break down and cry he had snuck into my room and was laying on my bed waiting for me. He is always so excited to see me and wags his tail like crazy. When all else fails, he is there to hang out with me and cheer me up. No wonder dogs are used in therapy. He is my personal African therapy when times get hard.

I’m ready for a change of pace in my life here. I started walking every night to the road and back for exercise. I need to find my passion for being here again. I haven’t lost it; I’ve just misplaced it somewhere along the way.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace and Love,

Chels

The bad and the ugly

So last week we had a staff meeting called and I was not sure of the topic but left my day's schedule to attend. Turns out, the meeting was literally about waste and garbage. Talk about an uncomfortable meeting to have. The principal started off by greeting us like always and then informed us that there have been some complaints. The first one is about all of the rubbish that is scattered across the teacher's living area. We have to put our garbage in a hole in the ground and burn it. Apparently, some of the things that haven't been burned have been picked through by some of the learners and they were bringing things home. So first item on the agenda, clean the area and make sure to burn our trash. Next order of business, the waste. I'm talking about outhouse waste. The next item on the docket was to talk about the outhouse that the teacher's, other than myself, are using. Apparently teachers have been jumping the fence illegally to go to the outhouse so the principal was going to take away their rights to the toilet and take away the key. So far, none of these things involved me.

This is where it got interesting. The next part of this waste talk was to mention my outhouse that I use behind my house. In front of all of my colleagues she started talking about how the only waste that should be in that toilet should be mine and everyone is forbidden to use that outhouse. However, on closer evaluation, she sees that the outhouse is quite full and others have been using it. The staff meeting then went on for another ten minutes to talk about my waste. I was beat red and trying to not look at anyone during this time. The resolution was for the other teachers to come up with money to build their own toilet to use. Phew, thank goodness that meeting was over. So I went home that day to go into my outhouse. I was surprised by a bat that flew into the toilet and I am still unsure if it flew out or not. Talk about gross and disturbing. Okay now that you are as uncomfortable as I was when we were talking about waste...let's move on.

Last night I went into the village to get some juice and was stopped by someone who had met me before. He asked me to join his friends in a chat, so I said I had a few minutes. This chat ended abruptly when he saw the picture on my license and informed me that I have gotten fat. I can't even count the number of times i've been called fat while being in Namibia. At first I thought that it was that no one knew it was a bad thing to say. For some this seems to be the case. For others, they are blatantly rude like that. I told him that where I come from, that is the worst insult you can give a woman and turned to leave. One of the other men in the shebeen was next to my grocery bag with my juice so I said "sorry" and reached behind him to grab it and book it out of there. This is when he told me that I needed to stop and put the bag back. Apparently, in this culture a woman should never reach behind a man for any reason. I was so frazzled by my previous conversation that I said, "Wait, are you seriously stopping me to put my bag back so that you can hand it to me when you just watched this other man call me fat and I just want to leave?" He then said he was joking and he was sorry. Everyone was very sorry about calling me fat and joking about the grocery bag. However, I count this as one of the times I just wasn't in good humor to find any of it funny.

You may start to be getting the reason I called this post the bad and the ugly. Sometimes being here in Namibia, I wake up and wonder what I am doing here. There seems to be good days and bad days just as anywhere I would suppose. I thought that I had adjusted to the culture here, but some days I feel like i'm back at day one. That reminds me, today when I was in a truck getting a ride with some other people to go to a conference, a man greeted me in Kwanyama. I greeted him back with enough time for a woman to start bursting out laughing at the way I pronounced the greeting. The secretary then tried to correct me saying "it's tate not tat" for man. I know all of this. It's one of the only things I can say in their language with certainty. Needless to say, this has not been my best couple of days. At least i'm trying to speak the language. Oh well.

After being at the conference for two days, I get to go back to teaching tomorrow and see my students. Crossing my fingers that things go a bit smoother.

Peace and Love,
Chels

Back to the village

It’s week one back in the village after my long vacation. I spend the remainder of my days in South Africa travelling from place to place until I reached Cape Town. My favorite place was Stellenbosch where my friends and I went on a wine tour and I learned how to taste wine properly. Yes, I can now swish and sip. I also tried Lebanese food and found out that I absolutely love it! I still think about that meal often and crave some good Lebanese.

 Cape Town is absolutely enormous. There is much to do there and much to see. I spent a lot of my time walking about the city and getting familiar. I also made a trip up to see Table Mountain. The end of my vacation was spent in Windhoek after a 22 hour bus ride. I think that any amount of travelling I do for the rest of my life will be pretty simple…after travelling many times during this trip for large amounts of time…I can handle anything.

So, here I am back at the village. We started term two this week. I’ve decided to try some new things with my teaching. In computer class, if they all behave, we watch a portion of Harry Potter at the end. They are absolutely fascinated with this movie. I am also trying to not take things so personally. Last term was an adjustment period for both myself and my learners. I realize that they are not used to my style of teaching and I need to respect that they need some time.

This week has been so crazy. The day I got back to my village I lost my dog Hunter when I went to go get groceries in Eenhana. He followed me to the road and chased after the car when I got in it and we drove away. He was lost for two days and I had all but lost hope when my principal came to the computer lab and told me that the villagers had found him wandering around there. I realized in that moment that it is going to be very difficult to let him go at the end of my volunteering. I was so happy that he was found that I can’t imagine losing him and leaving knowing this.

I have to lead the morning prayer tomorrow. This makes me so nervous. I will have to stand and address the whole school and lead the morning assembly. I find that everything I do is under a microscope anyway so what should it matter. However, the other part of me doesn’t want to be in front of the whole school where all eyes are on me. I am perfectly comfortable in a class teaching 30 learners, but don’t ask me to address everyone and feel totally fine. Ugh, problems. You would think that after travelling to Africa by myself and being here for five months I would be more brave. I guess everyone has silly things they are afraid of no matter how courageous you can be in other areas.

I will try to post more often to the blog because I have been told that more people read this than I realize. I have been having internet problems since I got back from holiday.