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