Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in carolinenamibia's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, August 30th, 2007
9:30 pm	America Night There is one exclusively white church in Aranos (of which I'm aware), and recently they launched a program to engage the apathetic youth. Every month they will select a different country as their theme and then throw a “party” based on that country's culture. Last Friday was the kick-off event, and since America was the country of focus, I was invited to attend. So what does an American themed party looked like in Namibia? Like a lot of fun! There were bushels of hay and a handful of cacti for decorations, paper cut-out flags, even a Hollywood style “walk of fame” with names like Jaimie Lynn Spears, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz, sketched into stars on the floor. Costumes included cowboy hats, bandanas, and a handful of plaid checkered shirts. All in all it was a very nice night, and the mince patty hamburgers they served with cheese slices, tomato, and lettuce really hit the spot. After dinner, it was time for the discussion. First I was invited to lead an informal Q&A with the kids about America, but since most of them were too shy to ask any questions (and probably already knew most of the things they were interested in from watching satellite TV at home), things never really seemed to take off. After that, the youth group leader took her turn. “Here are some facts about America I wanted to share,” she said, pulling out a sheet of paper, she starting to read. “In 1964 school prayer was made illegal in the United States of America. Since that time teen pregnancy has increased by 400%...” It went on and on. She mentioned skyrocketing divorce rates, increases in adultery, crime, and pornography. Sometime close to the end she quoted, “prior to 1964 the most commonly reported classroom offenses were gum chewing, wearing hats, and talking out of turn. Today, frequent school problems include rape, assault, theft, and drug use.” All because we outlawed school prayer in 1964. Of course, as a statistician I understand the difference between causation and correlation, and I also know lots about spurious association. But really it didn't seem like a very good time to get into all that there. So I just tried to be polite, sat, listened, and took it all in as it was laid out for me and the youth, in pretty clear detail, how America has just basically gone to hell in a hand basket since 1964. We ended the night with a very lengthy prayer, begging for God’s intervention with all those poor misguided sinners in America, and praising him for Christian schools where children could still pray. My eyes were closed and my head was bowed as we prayed, but I couldn't stop my mind from wandering- thinking about how many church groups in America might at that very instant be praying for the poor suffering children of Africa, some of whom live not more than a dune or two away from that church's door. What does it all mean? (4 Comments |Comment on this)
9:24 pm	Sound Bites Every few months the very good people at Newsweek International ship off a few hundred thousand of their most recent back issues Peace Corps volunteers around the world. Those of you who are familiar with Newsweek are probably also familiar with their Perspectives section containing quotes from famous and some not-so-famous personalities. Inspired by this, I decided to compile some of my own quotes, these from the not yet internationally renown Aranos community. “I am so pleased to be here today with all the beautiful female and male teachers of Aranos, to discuss the issue of under-performing, and over-performing schools in this region...” These were the opening remarks at an assembly of teachers and administrators. In his defense, the speaker did go on to say he believes there is no such thing as an “over-performing” school. “The people of Namibia are poor, but they do not want to work.” An observation by Hans, a twenty year old Namibian out-of-school youth from the Nama tribe, comparing the amount of homework American students might do with what is expected of Namibian high schoolers. Hans completed schooling up to grade 10, but like most Namibians who make it so far, he failed to pass the examination tests for entry into grade 11. There is no work for him in Aranos, and for several years now he has been slowly working towards earning the equivalent of his GED by correspondence, with the aim of possibly, eventually, attending university to become a teacher himself. He is not taking any courses this year however, because he neglected to register on time in January. “If you are drunk, then you do not feel it when someone is hurting you.” One of my seventh grade students, telling me about how he saw a former classmates (who left school in grade 5) falling down drunk outside the bottle store one weekend. “Miss, my heart is beating,” Comment which one of my seventh grade students makes to me, pretty much every time he sees me, at least once a day for almost the past year. “Somebody's Caroline” ambiguous lyrics to a song the seventh grade girls sing when they pass by my house. They have written different songs for all their teachers, though mine is the only one with any English. “You are a F***ing Grampa! Get off the field!” Jeer shouted repeatedly at a tall twelve year old soccer player on the opposing team, by several (very much inebriated) teachers from my school, during a tournament in which our under-13 boys team won the trophy for the second year running. “Peace Corps will have to give us a new one. Every school gets three.” Response of a teacher, when I asked her if she thought the school would apply for another volunteer to replace me when my service is done. Apparently there is some misunderstanding of the Peace Corps policy which stipulates that no school will be assigned more than three volunteers, and I am only the second volunteer at my school. “Ek sall trou in Januarie maand, asseblief nie sny nie,” (Translation: “I will marry in January, please don't cut.”) Me, making what I'm pretty certain is my best use of Afrikaans to date and convincing the nurse at the local clinic not to cut off the hair in the front of my head before giving me the stitches that I needed, after accidentally walking into the corner of an outward leaning window at school. “You must come and register at my office, or I will send the police to your house and put you in jail.” Instructions given to me by “the magistrate of Aranos” when I ran into him for the very first time while grocery shopping one afternoon (just this month). Later, when I did turn up at his office to “register” he told me the whole thing was a joke and asked me for my phone number. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 29th, 2007
12:42 pm	the ***BIG*** News :) Hi again from Africa!!! Probably by now many of you are wondering if I’m even still in Africa anymore--its been so incredibly long since I last posted! Was I devoured by swarms of evil cannibalistic battle bugs, you might have been wondering? Did I convert to some not yet obsolete tribal religion, eschew all modern forms of clothing, and go off to live in the desert with my skin painted in butter and clay? Maybe I got red-sand blindness, from too many walks across the dune to buy goat meat and chocolate in town, and I could no longer see the keys to correctly turn on my computer? Or maybe I just woke up one day and, realizing I’d been in Africa long enough, I snuck off home to hide in Seattle without telling anyone…and that’s why I stopped updating my blog? Well, you will (hopefully) be happy to hear that none of these things is the truth about what’s been going on in my life for the past couple months. The truth is, a lot has been going on (mostly the normal stuff, and a little bit of not-so-normal too) but even though this is my first posting in ages, I think I’ll skip over most of that (for now) and just get to the really, really BIG NEWS which a few of you, I think, already know… YES , On May 15, 2007 on the island of Isle Aux Nautes off the east coast of Madagascar, overlooking a beach at sunset, Dave Schruth handed me a beautiful coral colored seashell with a ring inside, and asked me if I would marry him. I said yes. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) …and yes, there’s a whole lot more to that story: everything from a tsunami in Reunion to fearsome finger-biting coral, my own poor underwater vision, an unfriendly case of travelers diarrhea, and a foot infection that eventually needed antibiotics. But I think if you really want to know the whole wonderful story you might just have to wait and ask one of us in person ;) Just know that, in my opinion, things really could not have been more perfect :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) And also, we’re planning the wedding for January 12,2008:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) :) :) :) :) (9 Comments |Comment on this)
12:41 pm	And Now For The Rest Ok, so aside from having the vacation of my life and spending almost seven weeks with Dave in Africa this fall/spring (depending on your hemisphere) how the heck have I been spending my time? Well, I finished up the first term of my second year as a teacher, this time teaching seventh grade Math, PE for grades five and six, and also fifth and sixth grade Library class. Looking back I have to say, it all seems to have gone much more smoothly, and with a lot more joy, than did my first term as a teacher last year. I remember when I first got to Namibia in 2005, all the departing volunteers told us newcomers that our first year would be the hardest, and our second year would be the best. Although I believed them at the time, I still managed to severely underestimate exactly how correct they would be. I think that going into my second year, something inside me that had previously been nervous and anxious was at last slowly able to relax. I felt more comfortable in my community and more familiar with, well, everything. I was less afraid of making mistakes and more resigned to the fact that, no matter what I did, I was probably going to make a lot of them. And I think I also began to realize, that while two years had originally seemed like a very long stretch of time, my time in Aranos was finite, and the start of 2006 really was, in a way, the beginning of the end. This year teaching, while still challenging, at least became more predictable, and my expectations were more well adjusted. I think the color printer/copier that my parents “donated” to my efforts when they were visiting over Christmas break (and the other cool school supplies they bought) also helped a lot, making my lesson planning about a thousand times more manageable, and giving me the flexibility to do the more creative things that can keep teaching fun. Also during this past term I seemed to gradually shed my “fear” of travel. Previously it had been mostly a dreaded necessity, something to be done only grudgingly, and which I mostly associated with unpredictable, sometimes expensive, negotiations trying to find a lift out of Aranos, long uncomfortable rides with several body parts either asleep or cramping, and awkward conversations with whoever might be kind enough to pick me up at one leg of my journey or another. But for some reason, and I’m not sure why, all these deterrents seemed to feel much less important during my second year. I just got used to them. As a result, I got to see a lot more of volunteer life in Namibia than I ever had before. There were two extended holiday weekends during the first term and I made use of the first to travel with other volunteers to the far north of Namibia and visit Patrick at his new site. We got to swim at the base of a spectacular waterfall on the Angolan border (the water was strangely hot!) and he also took us to visit one of the many Himba villages where he does his Red Cross outreach work. The Himba are one of the last tribes to still live traditionally in Namibia; if you’ve ever seen a postcard of a bare-chested woman, her hair and body glowing red because she’s covered in fat and ochre, that’s a Himba. Later, when the car we’d “rented” from someone’s Namibian friend for part of the trip broke down (apparently on account of the rain) a few of the people who came to poke around in our disagreeable engine where Himba men in traditional garb. On the second holiday weekend (over Easter) I traveled for the first time to a village just about 100k north of Aranos where two teaching volunteers are stationed. The village is called Aminuis, and I believe it is mainly the traditional land of the Herero tribe who are known best for their cultivation and love of cattle…Herero women in traditional (mostly colonial looking) dress wear cloth covered hats shaped to look like the horns of cow, and they are considered most beautiful when they walk with a slow and aimless quality, much like a cow. The reason I had never been to Aminuis before is that the road, although it exists, is not frequently traveled or very well maintained. It took me about a year to feel confident that, if I did manage to find a ride there for the holiday weekend, I would also somehow manage to find another one back. And it worked! I spent a great weekend with the three other volunteers who got together there, we hiked up a white sand dune one afternoon, and later built a celebratory campfire on the enormous signature salt flat of Aminuis, which looks cruelly similar to a large glistening lake, and is so big it takes over an hour to walk all the way across. I was also reminded to be grateful for the many niceties of Aranos, such as the very well stocked supermarket. The volunteer in Aminuis has only one small shop in which to purchase her supplies, but alcohol takes up most of the shelf space with other staple goods appearing and reappearing unpredictably. A fresh vegetable is a luxury she can only dream of . It was also interesting to witness how differently Aranos and Aminuis have been shaped by Namibian history. Because Aminuis was a designated tribal land under apartheid, there is virtually no white population there at present (aside from the handful of nuns who administer a mission school) and so the issues of racial tension and post-apartheid bitterness which have largely defined my Peace Corps experience are almost irrelevant to the Aminuis volunteers, while male-centric tribal culture, and extreme rural isolation have more sharply shaped theirs. Ok. And now one final highlight of the first term of 2007, before I wrap this up. In March, both I and the school where I teach were very, very lucky to get a visit from the Paterson family of Boxborough, MA (Karen’s aunt, uncle, and their two awesome—and very brave--kids!). They were traveling around South Africa for several weeks and included Aranos as an educational part of their travel plans. The kids here were thrilled to meet Heather and Ian, they showed no shyness in their eagerness to make friends, and we started up a pen-pal exchange with kids at the Boxborough school that will hopefully be able to continue (the Namibian postal service willing). The students in Aranos also put on a cultural performance which the Paterson’s video taped to share with their school back home (it included Namibian students counting to ten in all of the sixth languages which are spoken at my school), and the Paterson’s shared a video which they had taped of American students sending greetings and questions to the kids in Namibia- it was fantastic! (Comment on this)
12:35 pm	And the rest of the rest… Ok, so occasionally during the past five months, while I as busy doing apparently everything else under creation except updating my live journal, I did write a paragraph or two that I eventually intended to post. So, you know, just in case you’re curious, here they are… #1) Birds and Boys I was walking back across the dune from Patrick’s house and crossed paths with four small boys. They were pushing a big toy car made entirely from wire and shoe-polish tins (constructing these is a favorite past time of the kids here; that and stringing your six best friends to a long piece of twine, then chasing them down the road with a whip- it’s make-believe, donkey-cart style!). I complimented the boys on the wire truck, asked them their names and found out how old they were. I thought they looked about five or six, so as usual they turned out to be about eight—the San bushman and their descendants are tiny, and I suppose poor nutrition doesn’t help things very much. Anyway, I had a nice little conversation with the boys up there on the dune. When I asked what they were up to, one shirtless boy reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a tiny bird. They’d been hunting. He flung the bird to the ground where it hobbled around for awhile, clearly injured. It had a strange looking beak, very long and curved. After a little bit of confused Afrikaans/English/gesture conversation, one of the boys was able to make me understand that the bird was a woodpecker. Will you eat it? I asked. Of course, they answered, with bread it’s delicious. #2) Aranos International My little town on the edge of the Kalahari dessert keeps getting more and more diverse. Patrick and I were the first two outsiders, the two Americans. Then in November three German volunteers arrived. And now there are two more new-arrivals: a pair of middle aged men from China. Including Africa, that’s four continents represented, in a town of just around 5,000 people, I’m pretty impressed . But what are two guys from China doing in the-middle-of-nowhere, Namibia, you might wonder? Well, they’re running a store- a “China Shop” . From north to south, east to west, Namibia is peppered with tiny hole-in-the wall “China Shops” like this one, each selling a quite unpredictable assortment of the things. You might find hats on the shelves, or mosquito nets. Some have curtains and fingernail polish, t-shirts, mattresses, and doormats. If you’re really lucky, you could even run across a boot-legged DVD or two. These days, the Aranos China Shop is stocking a lot of backpacks, end-tables, and even a shelf full of Pantene ProV shampoo (wow!). When it first opened there was a decorative fountain for sale in one corner (complete with mist and flashing lights), but I guess that must have sold. Like most of the rest of Aranos, I was pretty thrilled to see the China Shop open its doors. It gives me one more set of bright and colorful things to look at when I go into town to buy my groceries and kill some time, and it’s always kind of fun wondering what exactly just might turn up for sale. But I do have one question for anybody out there who speaks a little Chinese…can you teach me something easy to say?  The first time I went into the store I tried to make conversation with one of the men, but he only seemed frustrated and embarrassed when he couldn’t understand my English, or my pathetic Afrikaans. He pointed me to a Namibian sales assistant, who helped me buy my shampoo. The next time I went in, I remembered my single Chinese phrase: “Nee How Mah” (which I’m pretty sure means hello). When I said it to him, his face lit up. Although I think I really, really confused the Namibian sales girl, who must have thought I was trying to speak one of the tribal languages from the North and started correcting my pronunciation (“Nawa” is their traditional greeting, which sounds vaguely like “Nee How Mah”, I suppose). Anyway, as far as I can tell, the Chinas (as the Namibians persistently refer to them) don’t seem to speak any of the languages spoken in Aranos, which must make life pretty lonely for them. I imagine they must be friends with the handful of other Chinese people living in Mariental, which has three China Shops of its own, but still I thought it would be fun if I could learn something new to say to them the next time I go in, so if you’ve got any suggestions, I’d love it. #3) And Finally: The Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Aranos 10) Running at dusk: The temperature is perfect, the shadows on the dunes are beautiful, and depending on the route I choose, I either get to wave hello to half the people in the Location, or else I’m joined at some point by a random handful of small children who’ll race me, laughing, from bush to bush. 9) You can talk to anyone, at any time, about the plot of the Mexican soap opera “When You Are Mine” and they will be able to tell you exactly what the status is of the love affair between Diego and Paloma. 8) Table etiquette: meat really does taste better when you eat it with your fingers. Especially goat. 7) Oh yeah, and porridge. It may look like a cross between cream of wheat and cement, but throw in a little butter and sugar, and wow, now I know why all my students adore it. “Yummy-in-my-tummy”, they like to say. 6) Every morning before the start of school, all the teachers shake hands, say hello, and ask each other how they’re doing. You can’t even think about starting work without that. 5) Everyday when school lets out, there are children who *BEG* me to keep the library open, because they love the books. 4) And when I walk home from school in the afternoons, dozens of “small children” shout hello to me (often from great distances away), and keep shouting until I answer. I feel like a celebrity. 3) Its not just children though, random adults may approach me at any time just to say they love me. They might not always be drunk. 2) As for the students at school, they may steal the batteries out of my calculator if I leave it unattended, but they won’t steal the calculator. And finally (drumroll please)…. 1) When you accidentally leave your ATM card behind at the grocery store, the check-out lady will chase you half way down the street in order to give it back. (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
11:03 am	Update So, in addition to the new school year starting and my medical trip to Windhoek, a few changes have taken place in the past few months that I haven’t yet reported. I have a new home. Sometime around the middle of January I packed up all my belongings and moved out of the rooms I had been living in at the girl’s hostel of the former white school, and into the location. I now live in a very spacious three bedroom house that the village council built to house Patrick, the soup kitchen he started (although its no longer hosted here) and volunteers in general. The move was a pretty big change for me, leaving the relative isolation of the hostel (which was locked behind gates inside the school grounds, making visits from anyone other than students nearly impossible). Now I live on the only main road connecting two of the locations, just across the street from an informal soccer field and the Catholic church. Some afternoons, I can hear the choir practicing from my front yard; and if I sit on the porch reading a book, I can enjoy greetings from the constant trickle of people walking past. It’s hard to feel lonely living here, and so far, I’m enjoying it a lot. I must not be a very good housemate though :) because just a few weeks after I moved in, Patrick finalized his decision to move out. It was something he’d been considering for a long time, and when Peace Corps was finally able to offer him a very good work opportunity with the Red Cross, I could hardly blame him for accepting it. He’d taken his work here in Aranos as far as it was really able to go. So, ever since last Wednesday, I’ve been the only American here in town. Patrick now lives in a village in the far north of the country (only about 100k from the site of the witching!) but he’s promised to come back and visit, and in the meantime he’s left his dog Shakka to keep me company here. And finally (something else to help me fill the quiet hours in Aranos): I have internet access here in town! The Telecom (phone company) just recently installed a computer with a dial-up connection, and anyone who buys a phone card can use it! So far I seem to be about the only costumer- which is just fine with me :). (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
11:00 am	The Witching Hi :). So I just recently got back from a four day trip to Windhoek which was fantastic for about a hundred reasons, including Indian food, movie watching, a trip to the dentist, and the chance to spend just about a whole entire month’s paycheck in under one week :). The official reason for the visit was my Peace Corps mid-term physical examination (I passed!). About two dozen of us volunteers were all called in for physicals at the same time, and while sharing a couple of flats at a local hotel we also got to exchange a lot of stories. This one, I think, was one of the best, but you can decide for yourself what to think… (**names have been changed to protect the “innocent”) Fred lives in a village far to the North, it’s pretty isolated, and has only intermittent water access. He says that when he hitchhikes into town to buy groceries every week or two, its not uncommon for him to meet bare-chested women in the supermarket, agonizing between elbow macaroni or shells. And he says that once, when he stood in line at the ATM, the man in front of him pulled a bank card out of his loin cloth. Fred’s village is one of the places in Namibia where the traditional is just meeting the modern, and they sometimes swirl together into a very interesting concoction, but I think it’s the strong influence of the traditional that really made this story possible. Late one night, Fred woke up to the sound of his front door slamming shut. He heard footsteps in his living room; then he heard his refrigerator door swing open, and shut. He called out, of course, but no one answered. Then he heard the footsteps come into his bedroom. He heard breathing, really heavy breathing. And then he saw the silhouette of a man, walking toward his bed. Fred kept asking questions but the man wouldn’t answer. And then, when the man was standing right directly beside his bed, still breathing very hard, Fred managed to find the light switch. When he turned on the light, the man was suddenly gone. Fred, not usually very superstitious, thought he’d seen a ghost, and at school the next day he told one of his co-workers about it. By mid-afternoon word was all over the school: Fred is being witched. That was the only logical explanation for a visit from a ghost. Some of the townspeople expressed some real concern, but Fred himself didn’t see any reason to worry. Then a few more things happened that made people talk even more. One afternoon, a stray dog that no one recognized wandered right into Fred’s house and went directly to his bedroom to sniff around. Another morning, Fred came to school with scratch marks on his neck from itching in his sleep. Apparently these are both two classic signs of a witching. Then one afternoon Fred noticed that his next door neighbor, another teacher from his school, had built a fire at the far corner of her yard, at the spot closest to his house. She didn’t seem to be cooking anything, or have any other discernable purpose, but the wind was just right to send the smoke blowing all over his yard and into his house. This is a great way to witch someone, Fred was told. Not too long after that the woman was called away from the village for an extended period of time. Before she left, she brought him over a plate of meat. She’d never done that before, and some of Fred’s students who were there insisted that whatever he did, he could not eat the meat. It was surely witched. They persuaded Fred to let them take it away and destroy it, which he let them do. Then after it was thoroughly disposed of, they told him that they thought it was snake meat, and even though he didn’t eat any, he still might get sick just from having touched it. Fred wasn’t too worried. But the next day, he woke up sick. Really, really sick. He decided he had to go to school, just to keep the witch talk from getting out of control, but by the end of the day, he was too sick to hide it. Eventually the illness turned into something so bad that Peace Corps thought it was malaria, and they sent an emergency driver in to pick him up. Then sometime during the 10+ hour drive from Fred’s sight to medical treatment, he mentioned the story to the driver, just in passing. Later, when the illness (which turned out to be something unfamiliar but not malaria) was over, and Fred was back in his village, he got a call from two (Namibian) Peace Corps officials who’d heard the witching story from his driver. One of them was very concerned for his safety. “I’m a born again Christian, and I don’t believe in witches,” she told him, “But Fred, you are being witched.” Still, they decided to let Fred stay at his site. Maybe mainly because the other Peace Corps official, who comes from the south of Namibia (where I’ve never yet heard mention of a witch), was more genuine in his non-belief. So how did it all end? Well, the alleged witch was gone from the village for the entire rest of the year, and Fred didn’t have any more problems that he noticed. But still, some of his co-workers and students remained uneasy, and they didn’t think the whole episode could really be put to rest until a proper witch doctor had been consulted. Eventually, they convinced Fred to let a student go and visit one in his place. I’m not sure how long it took, but the student treked to Angola and back to speak to the right person about everything that had happened. For a not insignificant fee (which I’m pretty sure Fred paid) the witchdoctor had listened to the boys story, confirmed that Fred had indeed been witched (most likely by a woman who was in love with him), and as treatment, the doctor had slashed the boy’s two butt cheeks. The boy offered to show Fred the scars. And that was the end of the witching. So far… (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, January 20th, 2007
12:21 am	How it Starts My summer vacation officially ended last Monday, but that certainly hasn’t brought an end to all the “fun”… the first week of school has definitely been an adventure… MONDAY: Teachers and staff came back from vacation to find the school completely trashed. Fifty-four windows are now broken; nearly half of the ones in my classroom are gone. Furniture is toppled over and knocked around; everything that was on the walls, on bookcases, or in cupboards, is now in piles on the floor. As a special surprise for the principal and I, urine and feces are left in our classrooms. The principal is so depressed that he tries to call his supervisor and resign but cannot, because all the regional supervisors are busy at a conference, discussing the poor academic results of the previous year. Anything that was on the schedule for the day is canceled while the classrooms are cleaned. I am grateful that scrubbing feces off the floor is apparently not considered part of my job. On a slightly lighter note, my chalkboard is (not surprisingly) covered in graffiti too. Most of it is illegible or in a language I don’t understand, but there is one phrase I can read: “use a condom or a femidom!” it says. I decide to take this as a sign that AIDS education in Namibia is really working. TUESDAY: The principle has changed his mind about resigning, and the teachers meet in the staff room to discuss who will teach which classes for the coming year. I am resolved not to be the only library teacher/administrator again this year, since someone else will need to feel comfortable taking on the job when I leave. After the first round of negotiations it looks success: I’ve been able to trade the Afrikaans teacher two of my library periods for two of her gym periods, plus one religion class per week. But when I go back to the staff room after break, the lists on the board have changed. The Afrikaans teacher has given me back my 2 library periods; but she’s letting me keep her gym and her religion, too. Hmm. When the second math teacher arrives a little later, I make him an offer: 3 of my library classes for 3 of his religion classes. He agrees! WEDNESDAY: The first day of school for students (and about two thirds of them show up). The school secretary is busy registering students while the teaching staff sort through their syllabi and get paperwork in order. The national gym syllabus makes me smile. One of the suggested activities is swimming lessons (in the pool we don’t have? Perhaps I’ll just invite the students to my home and use the bath tub); and also cricket (we have no equipment of any kind, but that’s probably the least of my problems, considering I’ve never even seen a cricket game). The other gym teacher assures me that whatever I come up with to do will be fine, as long as it vaguely relates to one of the required topic headings. That’s when I remember the gym class I watched last year—the activity for that day was pulling out weeds. The other gym teacher suggests I start my year by having the students make “soccer” balls out of plastic grocery bags. As for the “Religious and Moral Education” syllabus, it looks like the seventh graders should be talking about Christianity, while the sixth graders will tackle something called “the Ubuntu tradition”, although the school appears to have no resources on this subject. I start brainstorming ways that I can use that time to teach reading instead (literacy is a huge problem for most of the kids here). THURSDAY: In order to avoid being stuck in a classroom, trying to entertain sixty odd children for six hours while the school waits for all the other students to arrive so that teaching can begin, I volunteer to lead a cleaning crew. Me and seven boys spend most of the morning scrubbing down the walls in my classroom. By the end of the day, it looks so good that I wonder if I even need to use the paint that I picked up in Mariental. FRIDAY: The teachers at school play musical chairs with the desks; and I lose. One solitary table is left in my room, and no chairs. I donate that last desk to the class next door, deciding that it would be easier to work with no furniture, than to have just one item for everyone to fight over. Then I go hide in the library, tape up damaged books, and try not to think about how I am possibly going to teach geometry to a room full of seventh graders who are all sitting on the floor. Before noon, the principal discovers the furniture situation and manages to round up enough desks and chairs for about 12 students. Not a bad start! He also tells me that my teaching load was too high, he’s assigned all my religion classes to someone else. So much for reading lessons- but I’m not too depressed :), it feels really nice to have some one looking out for me every now and again. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 12th, 2007
11:54 pm	Tonight for Dinner: Affel The Afrikaans name for this dish is Affel, and the pronunciation, ironically, sounds a whole lot like "awful". It looks a little like sea food, I think to myself, as I spoon a polite amount of it onto my plate. Some pieces are spotted and gray, others look more white. A few have a very visible texture, something like what I would expect to find on the tentacle of an octopus. All of it looks slimy, but I tell myself that's just the broth, and I bury the whole "mess" under a heaping scoop-full of rice. I copy the woman next to me, who adds a generous dollop of peach chutney to her serving (I make my dollop even more generous). Then I try not to think too hard as I swallow the first few bites. But people want to know what I think. It's different, I tell them, it's not really like anything I've ever had before. Parts of it are kind of chewy like calamari, others are very squishy and soft. I notice, though, that mostly I'm just trying to swallow the pieces whole, to get them to pass through my mouth as quickly as I possible can. Well that's dumb, I decide, if I'm going to go through all the trouble of actually eating this, I might as well take the time to taste it, right? Ok. So the first piece that I eat, without trying to pretend that I'm not eating, is one of the chewy ones, and it doesn't taste very much like anything except for peach chutney. Its alright. My next bite, though, is squishy. It's one of the pieces that looks like it came off an octopus. When I sink my teeth in, a juicy flavor explodes. You know how the inside of a petting zoo sometimes smells? Well that's kind of what it tasted like was inside my mouth. Sheep's head. That's what we were having for dinner. First you scrub off all the hair, my host tells me, then you stick it in a pot to boil for awhile, until the meat comes off. Namibian's really enjoy this stew, and the particular Namibians I was eating with also seemed toenjoy telling me exactly what each piece of meat used to be, before it got made into stew. This was the top of the cheek. That was the tongue. That was the part above the eye. This one here, it's the stomach (yeah, some of that gets thrown in too, along with the intestine). The really flavorful, octopus-y piece? That was the inside of the mouth. I'm quite proud to say, I cleaned my plate. Mmmm, Affel. Yum. Watermelon was for dessert. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 4th, 2007
12:33 pm	Travels with Mom and Dad Wow. I’ve just returned to Aranos after an amazing, exciting, and only occasionally traumatic (no really, there was no trauma :) ) sixteen day African adventure with Mom and Dad. We left Aranos on my birthday (thanks for all the nice wishes by the way!) and headed west through Mariental for the giant dunes at Soussesvlei. After that we traveled north and eventually west, driving through the top of Namibia, across Botswana, over a ferry into Zambia, and then back into Botswana where we headed south for South Africa. I had to say goodbye to Mom and Dad just outside Jo-berg, where they departed for home, and I took an 18 hour bus ride west across South Africa and back to Mariental. It would probably take a small novel to recap all the adventures we had, but just in brief some of the highlights (in kind-of chronological order) were: · On the drive to Sousselvei, very far, far, far away from anything that could remotely be called civilization (100k at least), we crossed paths with a lone wanderer walking near the side of the road. Assuming he was looking for a ride, Dad pulled over to offer assistance, but he didn’t seem to want any, just asked if we had some water. Mom filled a bottle for him, and we drove on, wondering where he could possibly have come from, where he might be going, and why on earth he seemed to be carrying only one single thing with him in the middle of the desert: an old dingy toothbrush he was clutching in one hand. · Swakopmund: One of Namibia’s two seaside resort towns, where many Namibians are said to go and spend the sometimes-brutally hot summer months, if they possibly can (also the birthplace of Shiloh Nouvelle Jolie-Pitt). We spent two days here, enjoying the huge well-stocked supermarkets, internet access, and plentiful restaurants (we even had Chinesse food one night!). Mom thought it a cruel irony that while the rest of Namibia is sweltering hot, the temperature in Swakopmund is too cold to make swimming even a little bit tempting. Dad was the one who kept up a pattern I’ve observed on three occasions now: “Every time I go to Swakop, someone I’m with gets sick.” Poor Dad :(. · Etosha: Namibia’s very large and well-cared for wild life preserve. We camped here for another two days and were lucky enough to see elephants, giraffes, a rhino, and so many zebras that the novelty even began to wear off (there really must have been thousands!). We also enjoyed some nice views of the regal-looking oryx (a black, white, and grey antilope-type animal), the clumsy looking kudu (a camel/horse-ish antelope with curly horns), and the poor mangy wildebeest. · The World’s Largest Meteor: or so they claim. We stumbled upon it while searching the guidebook for a place to camp one afternoon, and ended up camping there. This would have been absolutely idyllic, except for all the stinging ants :). · The “North” of Namibia: this is the part of the country which was given to the tribal people of Namibia during apartheid, and continues to be the region where the majority of the population lives. The guidebook claimed that crossing the “red line” into this area was to enter into the “real Africa” of people’s imaginations, and it was correct. Here a very rural way of life is still pervasive, people live in large homesteads (clusters of clay/stick huts) with most of their extended family, and cultivate Mahangu, the native grain which is the staple of their diet. · Botswana: We were awed by the herds of elephants (and especially the elephant babies!) we saw driving across the top of the country on our way to the Zambia border crossing. Once there, we parked our car at the local police station (the rental agreement didn’t allow us to drive in Zambia), and crossed our fingers that it would still be there when we returned :). Carrying backpacks we hiked to the border crossing (go Mom and Dad!) and then joined the other foot traffic (and the one large commercial shipping truck that the ferry could hold) and entered Zambia by crossing the Zambezi River. · The Zambia border: A minor low point of our travels. Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t seem to find any way to avoid the US$100 per person entry fee which Zambia has recently started charging all US visitors. Perhaps this wouldn’t have been so frustrating except: (1) A New Zealand backpacker who we met on the ferry was charged only about $15 for his entry, it’s only US visitors who are charged so much; (2)Most US visitors avoid paying this fee by making a hotel reservation in advance, the hotel then forwards the paperwork to the border, and the fee is waived. Unfortunately, our hotel had sent the paperwork to a different border-crossing (partly our fault), but even after a call to the hotel by the border-agent confirming our reservation, the fee stayed fixed (causing us to wonder if perhaps the hotel and the border-agent might not be up to something together); and (3) the border-agent only wanted payment in cash, in US dollars, which of course we didn’t have. He made arrangements to collect the money from our hotel the next day, but when we spoke to them there, we discovered that no one seemed to know exactly how many kwasha (the Zambian currency) would be the required amount to pay the fee (and we wanted to pay in Kwasha, to avoid additional charges for converting currency). We thought it “odd” that the government had specified the fee only in a foreign denomination instead of their own, and felt that the whole experience really was not a particularly friendly way to welcome visitors to your country. Still, despite this small drama, our visit to Zambia was fantastic. · Victoria Falls: Spectacular. Hard to think of what else to say. So tall, with so much water, it made me dizzy just watching it rush down. Hopefully Mom and Dad can post some pictures maybe? It was incredible too, to be at such a breath taking spot with so few other visitors, and to find it also still so un-commercialized. · Driving south through Botswana: I was surprised to see parts of that country that look even more sparsely populated than Namibia. We stopped to camp at a wonderful lodge and enjoyed Christmas eve playing card games beside their beautiful swimming pool. I tried to cause a major disaster by locking the car keys in the trunk, but failed- a worker at the lodge got the car quickly open again with an extra-long coat hanger. Judging by the look on his face, the money Dad offered him as a thank-you gesture really, really made his Christmas. · South Africa: Not so different from home (America) in a lot of ways, or maybe it just seems that way after living “in the bush” for so long. There are certainly parts that feel comfortingly suburban. We met so many kind and friendly South Africans on our travels. One family even moved their children around on Christmas afternoon to make room for us at the lodge they were renting for the holiday. The mother refused to let us prepare our own dinner. She shared a nice platter of sandwiches with us and we enjoyed the evening chatting with her and her family. In the morning, the father and grandfather got up at 6:00am to take us on a game drive around the lands. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 15th, 2006
11:30 am	Another lost post Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (in advance) from Namibia! Here I am, finally back on the internet again with a chance at last to post all these entries that have been gathering dust on my memory stick for the past few months. Mom and Dad are here visiting until December 28th, and even though i just spent a little while writing about our adventures so far and our plans to come, that entry seems to have been lost somehwere in between my memory stick, the computer I wrote it on, and the internet *grr* (sometimes i feel like these brief wrestles with the internet are one of the most frustrating parts of my whole service :) ). Anyway, to summarize briefly: it is FANTASTIC to have Mom and Dad here visiting! We've been doing lots of camping and plan to do lots more. Its been super super hot lately (Dad and i toasted our toes trying to climb up the mamoth dunes at Soussesvlei in sandals), but now we're by the ocean in Swakopmund for a few days and its chilly enough that the thought of swiming isn't too tempting (artic currents make the water here ice cold). Next on the agenda: seeing some wildlife at the Etosha game park, and then Victoria Falls on the border of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe! With love, caroline (15 Comments |Comment on this)
11:27 am	Term 3 in Review October 31st, 2006 Ok. So if all goes well, sometime around this Saturday I should find myself in Mariental again, checking e-mail for the first time since I returned to Namibia from America. Man! What the heck have I been doing for the past two months? Well, as far as I can remember, this term I have… Celebrated World Teacher’s Day by dressing up in drag with all the other teachers at my school and putting on a traditional “Nama-Stap” dance performance (very badly). The best part, I think, was how all the male teachers not only stuffed their ‘bras’, they also stuffed their butts. Hiked to Bethanie (about 300km South of here, and another 300k West) to spend a weekend with the two volunteer teachers there. I got to watch an elementary school beauty pageant that was less than six hours long and had more than one costume change (for once). The most bizarre part: during intermission, the elementary school boys staged a “speedo contest” of their own. Spent a weekend on a farm (just like all the real Namibians do). Ate meat, saw pigs that were as big as cows, and petted the most lumpy-bumpy, big, huge, enormous bull in creation. Ate some more meat, then rode a horse and didn’t even fall off (ok, so I was only on the horse for like, ten minutes). Ate meat. Ate meat. Cruised around in the back of a pick-up truck, minus sunscreen, for three hours. Ate meat. Threw up. Threw up, threw up. (But I’d still totally do it all over again). Listened to the following conversation, which took place in a “staff meeting” one day after school: Teacher: This evaluation form says that keeping the classroom clean and tidy is my responsibility. Principal: That’s correct. Teacher: But Mr. Principal, we have custodial workers at this school. Principal: Yes. Teacher: So shouldn’t the custodial workers clean the classroom? Principal: Well, you must ask yourself, did the custodial workers make the classroom dirty? Also at that same meeting, we were informed of a new education initiative which, as far as I can understand, will increase class size to a minimum of 40 students next year, and evaluate my performance as a teacher based on factors which include whether or not I am able to find some way to repair the broken windows in my classroom (which would surely just become broken again in about ten minutes). Had a heated debate with the social studies teacher concerning the true answer to the question: “What is 8 x 0?” In the end, we agreed to disagree. Was completely, ridiculously, fanatically addicted to Grey’s Anatomy, which I saw for the first time after Jenny sent it to me on DVD (thanks Jenny!). Now can someone please tell me- who does Meredith choose?!? No wait—don’t tell! Became co-owner, with Patrick, of two cute, spunky, little puppies, one of which is still alive. The other had a parasite, we think.  Became deeply discouraged, when, during the middle of an already discouraging week, my book of 1800 stickers that I love (thanks SAFL!) was stolen from my bag during class. I was completely re-encouraged (is that even a word?) though, when another teacher made it her personal crusade to discover the culprit. She succeeded, he apologized, and I thought: wow, it’s really, really nice to have an ally. Was totally re-discouraged all over again when I discovered that all of the funds the students had mandatorily donated to the library were stolen (about $N60, or $10 US in total). The most likely culprit? My teacher friend. Learned that the shortest, most scrawniest, teeny-tiniest little kid in the whole sixth grade is actually 15 years old (?!). Drank home-made ginger beer in a corrugated metal hut with no floor, while listening to a shirtless old man explain how the Namibian government stole his magic crystal from him and sold it off for $20 million Namibian dollars. He’s submitted all the paperwork to sue, and is just waiting for a court date to be set. Celebrated with the youngest girl in the hostel (she’s six, and speaks neither Afrikaans nor English) when she lost her first tooth. Wondered if the world (or possibly just the postal service) had ended when for four weeks straight only two solitary postcards and one letter managed to arrive in our mail box in Aranos. Then I talked to the ten volunteers who share a single PO Box in Gobabis, and found out that I’d still received more mail than them. Felt very, very lucky. (And in even better news- the mail now appears to be working once again!) Still did not beat any children. And finally, got a small electric shock while taking a shower during a lightening storm last week. Apparently some of you out there already knew that this was a bad idea—why didn’t you tell me sooner?  Ok. That’s about all I can remember. I hope this update finds you all well. Next up on my horizon is a visit from Mom and Dad in December (Yay, Mom and Dad!), and the one year anniversary of my arrival here in Namibia (Nov 11th, I can hardly believe it). When I look back on this time and think about what I miss from home the most, I realize that it is the people in my life, (all of you) that I miss the most, of course. Thanks for all your love and support, sorry for being so cheesy, and sorry also for all those letters that I haven’t quite written yet, but am constantly meaning to. They’re coming soon now, very soon, I hope… With tons and tons of love. And gratitude. -Caroline (1 Comment |Comment on this)
11:25 am	My Cheesy Moment (so cheesy that I practically feel embarrassed to write about it, but here goes…) September 27th, 2006 Here in Aranos, particularly at my school, particularly in my classroom, there is phenomenon going around that has lately become a pretty big problem. It’s called fluking, and while I won’t pretend to know exactly what fluking entails (or even what language the term “fluke” is derived from), as far as I can gather, one student does it to another, and it goes about something like this: Student #1: Hey, you… Student #2: What? Student #1: Your Mom is stupid! And then one of two things usually happens. Either (A), Student #2 becomes really, really, really irate and starts bobbing up and down in his/her seat, raising his/her hands wildly in the air, and shouting up at me in the front of the room, “Miss!! Miss!! This one, has fluked my Ma! He has fluked my Ma!” Or (B) Student #2 becomes so irate that he/she cannot even bear to sit in his/her seat anymore, and so instead they go lunging across the desks, trying their best to tackle Student #1 to the ground. I’m not kidding, one kid left my classroom with bite marks in his back last week. The kids in class 6C sometimes seem to be just about the worst fluke offenders in the school, but today, I’m hoping, we might have had just a tiny little break through. It happened like this. They’d just finished taking their first Math test of the term (on decimals and place values), and I was attempting to keep them occupied for the last ten minutes of class with a multiplication quiz game while I waited for the bell to ring. Well, that worked for about two minutes, but then their attention spans started to wear out, and the fluking began. Lucky for me, it had been a pretty long day, I was worn out, and I wasn’t feeling too attached to the multiplication quiz game either. I didn’t have the energy to reprimand the flukers again, so instead I decided to try having a little “conversation” with the class, just to pass the time. And apparently it really was my lucky day, because for no reason that I can explain, most of the class decided to sit themselves down and be (relatively) quiet in order to listen. “Let’s talk about fluking,” I said, using my best Nam-lish. “When someone flukes you, that is not-nice. And it makes you angry.” “But, I want you to think about something. When this-one is fluking you, they are not just hurting your Ma, they are trying also to do something to you, something much, much, much worse…” (and it seemed at this point like a lot of the class was actually possibly paying attention) “These children who fluke you, they are trying to steal from you. They are trying to steal your learning.” (in the back of the room, one of my most well behaved students threw her arms in the air and gave a little, half-hushed, cheer: YES!, she said) “When these children fluke you, then you become angry, and you cannot learn, and they have won. “You must not let them win, you must not let them steal your learning. Next time some one flukes you, you must not let them make you angry. You must keep your learning.” Of course, that’s not exactly what I said, but it was something along those lines. And the strangest part was, after I’d been talking on like this for a couple of minutes (waiting for the bell to ring), at least a handful more of my students had all given little cheers of support. And then, when I was starting to really wind down, one of the girls who is maybe my highest-volume fluke reporter (both loudly, and frequently), she started clapping her hands. And then the other kids in her row joined in. And I’m not kidding you, when the bell finally did happen to ring about ten seconds later, it seemed like just about my whole entire class was in applause. And they left the room (I have no idea how this came about) singing. And a couple of them even stopped to say “Thank You, Miss” on their way out. So, as Aaron said (when I told him this story over the phone a couple of minutes ago), it was basically just like one of those really clichéd scenes that you see in all those cheesy made-for-TV-movies about teachers trying to motivate students. But it was my made-for-TV-moment at least,  and it felt pretty good. Whether or not it will help with the fluking problem, even the slightest, teeny-tiniest bit, well that of course remains to be seen. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 3rd, 2006
3:00 pm	Still Alive :) Well, it's been a long time since i last posted (believe it or not this is my first trip to Mariental since returning from America) and unfortunately it looks like it may even be longer still before i get to post anything substantial. Somehow i managed to get myself all the way to Mariental this afternoon *without* the livejournal entries that i'd written at home and saved: OOPS! But just to let you know, i'm doing fine and life here is going well. In just a few days i'll have been in Namibia for 1 whole year- i can hardly believe it. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
6:44 am	Some stories from second term Hello from South Africa! I’m posting this from Cape Town. Where I’ve stopped for an overnight on my way back to Aranos from…Rhode Island!! Since my last post I made plans to spend the two week August-September school holiday at home with family, friends, and Dave, who flew in from Seattle to meet me there. It was a great break, only it flew by way too fast- the whole time I was home, the task of updating my live journal somehow never made it off the top of my to-do list! Anyway, here’s a post I wrote when I was back in Aranos, before the break started. With love, Caroline August 5, 2006 By the time I post this, the second term of school will have ended and I, hopefully, will be in Mariental, about to start the first leg of my trip back to America for the school break. I never expected to make a visit home mid-service, but now that I am, I’m pretty much through-the-roof excited about it. Right now it’s still two weeks away, and already I feel kind of like a six year old on the night before Christmas. I’m even strangely excited about the 18 hour bus ride I’ll take from Mariental to Cape Town before checking in for my 20+ hours of flights. In the meantime, here are some random little anecdotes I thought I’d share, collected over the past three months of school… Who Needs a Mirror? Who needs a mirror? Not me, apparently. My students are more than happy to tell me about even the tiniest details of my appearance. Sometimes they share their observations with me in the form of questions, sometimes not. “Miss, what are those spots?” they have asked, referring to a break-out of zits, or, “Why is your nose red?” someone might comment on a very cold morning. They’ll tell me if my nose is running, my lips are chapped, or my hair is falling out of my hair clip (this apparently is so interesting that they’ll even raise their hands in the middle of lesson to let me know about it, or they’ll just plain shout out the comment without that pesky hand raising). One very observant student even commented one day that the patches of skin under my eyes were slightly purplish. “Is Miss sick?” he wanted to know. Very occasionally, their observations come in the form of complements, but usually only at the most unexpected times. Today for example, I was surprised when two separate groups of students that I ran into on the street each decided to tell me “Miss is very beautiful.” I had just finished a long-ish run at the time, and I was on my way into school to pick up some papers. When I stopped at the bathroom on my way past, I was amused by the fairly hideous reflection I saw in the mirror. Like usual after a run, my face was an almost electric shade of red, the kind of color you might expect to see on someone who’s been holding their breath for a far longer than reasonable amount of time. Beautiful, was certainly not the word I would have picked to describe it. Still, of all the comments I’ve gotten so far, my “favorites” have to do with body weight. There was one week when three separate students felt compelled to share this observation with me:“Miss, you are fat!” I’m not quite sure if this is considered a compliment or not in Namibian culture (some people say yes, others seem to think no), but I decided to take it as one, and told them “thank you”. Later I shared the story with my running buddy and she practically fell over laughing. From what I could gather, if some kid ever decides to tell her that she’s fat, thanks will be about the last response on earth that they can expect to hear. A Theft at School I think I’ve mentioned that several of the windows to my classroom at school are broken, which means that anyone who wants to can get into my classroom after hours. This has created a few problems over the course of the term: posters that I’d made suffered some vandalism, and a few student notebooks were stolen from out of my cabinet (it turned out that other students stole the books to try and use as their own, a plan which would have worked much better if they’d remembered to rip out the used up pages first). Most afternoons, I tried to remember to bring the most “valuable” items (crayons, scissors, textbooks, pens etc, and my personal things) to the library room where they would be safer, before locking up for the day, but there were some days when I forgot. On one such day I was relieved to get to school the next morning and find all of my belongings still there. Or at least, that’s what I thought at first. I noticed my Nalgene bottle, my winter scarf, even my hand cream (that wasn’t stolen for another two weeks) all still sitting on the shelf, if no one had taken those things, surely they hadn’t taken anything else, right? Wrong. I didn’t discover the missing item until later that afternoon, when I prepared to take a trip to the teacher’s bathroom-- we have a bring your own toilet paper policy, and now I discovered why. My roll was missing. At least I can hope that some one else put it to good use. The Germans Patrick and I are not always the only international volunteers in Aranos. A German girl of about our age has also “adopted” this little town, and has been working here for several years, on and off, on some projects of her own. She often comes to stay for months at a time, and has, on different occasions, brought over groups of other volunteers to do short term projects. One side effect of her presence has been that, at least at first, it was not uncommon for people here to just assume that Patrick and I are Germans too. And even now, after all these months, people will still sometimes greet me with shouts of “Morrow, Deutcher!” (Hello, German). Children especially, often ask me if I know Miss Claire (the German volunteer), or if I know where she is and when she is coming back. Sometimes they even confuse me with her, although we really don’t look much alike. All in all, this has resulted in quite a few explanatory conversations. “I’m not Miss Claire, I come from America, not Germany” I try and tell people. But, if I thought I was making any headway in fixing the whole American/German confusion situation, I realized last week that I may still have a very long way to go. One of my students asked me a question I’d never heard before:“Miss, do all Germans come from America?” he wanted to know. That Whole ‘Everybody-Knows-Everything’ Thing Speaking of German, I was practically thrilled out of my mind one afternoon last month while picking up some tea at the grocery store (flavors available include Rooibos, Rooibos, and Rooibos- good thing I really like Rooibos). There, tucked in amongst the Rooibos and instant coffee mixes was a very promising looking package, unfortunately the labeling was written entirely in German, but still, there was one word I understood just fine: Cappuccino. Patrick was at the store too, and we spent a few minutes debating what exactly this package might contain. Was it creamer? Coffee grounds? Cappuccino mix? Patrick enlisted the help of a grandfatherly looking man who seemed like he just might be familiar with such luxurious products as packages bearing the word cappuccino. Since he didn’t speak English, the language barrier was a bit of a problem, but eventually we were able to understand from him that whatever was in that package was good, and we could make it at home just by adding water. Yay! We bought some, took it home, and did just that. The old man was right- it was really good. The funny part came a few days later, when Patrick, back in town, sent me a text message. Apparently a different old man, who neither of us knew, had come chasing after him in the store, wanting to give him just a little more information on the cappuccino: make it with milk, its even better. In between laughing at the thought that half of Aranos just might know by now about Patrick and I drinking cappuccino, and thinking that it was kind of nice to live in a town where even complete strangers care enough to offer coffee making directions out of the blue, I had a shocking thought: here I am sending text messages and drinking cappuccino. At times, this is certainly not the Peace Corps I imagined. Strip Down in the Math Room About a month ago, some politicians from Windhoek stopped in Aranos as part of a national tour. The town meeting that they held at the school where I live was a pretty big deal, but unfortunately it was held during school hours, and most of the teachers that I work with were disappointed that no arrangements had been made for themselves or any of our students to attend. By the second period of the school day, a plan seemed to be underway. All members of the school choir were called out of class for practice, and when third period started they had still not returned. I was enjoying having the chance to teach my much smaller class, but then, about half-way through, a few choir members came trickling back in, followed by a few more, and then a few more. The only problem was, they weren’t going quietly to their seats like I would have liked (ha! Something like that would happen only in my dreams J). Instead, they were creeping around the room whispering to other students, and generally creating a pretty big distraction. I pressed on with the lesson anyway, but was eventually too shocked to continue when I looked to the back of the room and saw about half a dozen students standing there, all striping off their clothes. It took me a few minutes to understand what was going on. “Miss we are going to the boer school!” one of my students told me with obvious glee (“boer” is a politically-uncorrect term sometimes used to refer to white Namibians, the literal Afrikaans translation is “farmer”). The school she was talking about is the one where I live. Before independence it was the white-only school, although now only a handful of white students still attend. Still, there seems to be a class distinction between the students who attend my school and the ones who attend the former-white one (school fees at my school are much, much less), and for my students, going on a visit to “the boer school” was a pretty big deal. So big in fact, that they didn’t want to show up looking anything less than their best, and this was the reason for the strip-down-- it was actually a clothing swap. Students who had nice shoes, or shirts, or skirts and pants, were switching them with members of the school choir who did not, so that the end result was a group of seven or eight students in nearly complete, and nice looking, school uniforms (all the students are supposed to wear standard blue outfits and school shoes everyday, but most of them are missing at least a few pieces, or else the pieces they have are in pretty bad condition). When they choir finally tromped out of my classroom, full of excitement for their visit to the other school, it made my heart swell a little bit to see them all dressed up so nicely and clearly feeling so proud. But an even sweeter sight was the group of students left behind in my classroom, wearing all the worst of what everyone had brought to school that day: flip flops, and pants with holes worn through the backs, boys in girls jackets, and shirts with stains. The best part, of course, was how no one seemed to be very concerned about whether or not they’d get their own clothing back again. To them, giving the best stuff to the kids who needed it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, July 3rd, 2006
9:17 am	Do the Right Thing. Do the Wrong Thing. Do Nothing? Disclaimer: The contents of this page represent my opinions only and do not in any way reflect the opinions of the US Government or the Peace Corps Hi Friends! :) Here's a little reflection I wrote on an issue that was bothering my brain...sorry my entries kind of sort of seem to be a bit serious lately...I promise to write something fun and happy soon, because there's a fair amount of that in my life here too :) Hope you all are doing well, and having a great fourth of July!! Thanks for the posts!! with love, caroline Do the Right Thing. Do the Wrong Thing. Do Nothing? White privilege. This was not a topic I’d heard much about before for joining the Peace Corps. During my training, we new volunteers were taught that it meant being able to go into a pharmacy and find band-aids that matched your own skin color, or having the “flesh” colored crayon in the crayola box look at least approximately like your own. But of course, white privilege is certainly not restrained to such seemingly superficial issues. It encompasses all the intentional and not-so-intentional ways in which a person might receive advantaged or disadvantaged treatment as a consequence of the color of their skin. Whether or not we believed we had experienced white privilege in America, as volunteers in southern Namibia, our Peace Corps trainers assured us we would. Namibia is a country with the ghosts of apartheid still lurking in its not-so-distant past, and though reforms have been impressive and thorough, these are not issues which vanish over night. Racial divides persist. One way in which this became visible to me is with concern to transportation. Dave mentioned in his post that “hiking” (i.e. hitch hiking) is a predominant form of transportation in Namibia. In fact it is pretty much the way that everyone without a car in Namibia gets anywhere. And, while waiting by the side of the road in the shade of a sign post is possibly not the most exciting way to spend an afternoon, you can at least be pretty sure that eventually someone will come along and, possibly for a fee, take you where ever it is you want to go. Of course, there’s no guarantee that you won’t end up crammed into the back of a “buckey” (pickup truck) with maybe a dozen other people and their luggage; and also, just how long you might have to wait before that ride comes along can be a pretty big variable. As a white volunteer, I can reasonably expect to find a ride for each leg of my journey without sitting by the side of the road for more than half a day. For African-American volunteers, the situation can be considerably different-- waits can be so long that some of them do not hike at all. Patrick and I were talking about this as we sat by the side of the road just outside Mariental a few weeks ago, waiting for a hike back from the All Volunteer Conference. We were not the only ones at the “hike point” that afternoon, there was a man from Botswana with several large bags of clothing that he’d trekked in from South Africa to sell in various small towns wherever he could. He himself was not planning to go to Aranos that afternoon, but he was waiting at the hike point with a woman who was going on ahead of him with some of the stuff. The two of them had been waiting for about half an hour before Patrick and I showed up, and instinctually, it seemed to us, the woman and her bags should have first priority if a ride should show up. But Patrick had hiked this route before and was not quite as naive as me. The woman with the bags happened to be black, and there was a pretty good chance that a car might stop and specifically offer a ride to the two of us white volunteers long before someone stopped for her. What should we do in that situation? Neither of us had any delusions that taking the ride before her would be right or fair. But then, well established ways of doing things aren’t easily altered overnight. And definitely not without a lot of awkwardness. If a ride came for us first, Patrick and I decided, we’d suggest to the driver that the other woman had first priority- then let him decide. Well, that ride did not come for quite a long time. Two and a half hours later, a handful of cars had driven by and a few of those had stopped, but everyone we talked to was either not going all the way to Aranos, or did not quite look in good enough shape for us to feel comfortable hopping on in (sadly, some days it seems like drunk driving can be more the norm than the exception). We were getting tired, but there were still a few more hours of daylight before we’d need to call it quits and head back to Mariental for the night, a prospect which was not very appealing, since it meant another day by the roadside waiting for a ride, and also missing a full day of school. Then a little red sedan in very good condition, and with Aranos license plates, pulled off the main highway and onto our turn-off. Patrick and I did our usual thing: we jumped up off our dusty bags where we’d been slouching and made the funny thumb waving hitch-hiking sign. At first it looked like we weren’t going to have any luck, a college-aged guy glanced at us from the drivers seat as he drove by. But a few feet down the road, it seemed he was starting to rethink things. The car slowed down, and eventually pulled to a stop by the side of the road. Patrick and I, who had already sat down again at that point, hauled ourselves up and sprinted down the road to meet him. Yes, he was going to Aranos, the guy told us. He was a student at school in South Africa and he was driving home to spend the vacation at his family farm. He’d been on the road since 5am that morning. His car was pretty full, but if we shuffled everything around he thought there’d be room for both of us and our bags. About two minutes later, Patrick and I were out of the sun and on our way to Aranos. In a comfortable car. That was also safe. With good music playing on the radio. The black woman was still waiting by the side of the road. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything to the kid about taking her instead of us. Except at the time, it seemed kind of like it would have been the most out-of-place and slightly condescending thing to do. When the driver pulled over I was just feeling grateful that he’d stopped at all, he’d so clearly almost been intending not too. And when he drove back to the hikepoint to load our bags, Patrick and I waved goodbye to the woman and she waved back with a smile. We wished each other a good trip. She seemed to think that it was the most natural thing in the world for Patrick and I to get picked up first. So did the guy driving. Neither of them expected things to go any differently. It was just Patrick and I who felt, well, guilty. Later on we tried to rationalize it. There wasn’t room in the little sedan for that woman and all her things. If we hadn’t of take the ride, it wouldn’t have helped things, it would just have meant three more people waiting at that hike point again tomorrow, instead of one. And challenging the college kid, who was just trying to be nice and help out some volunteers with a ride, that would have been rude. I’m not trying to justify the situation. I’m just trying say what I did. What’s the point here? Well, I guess I’m just learning that things are more difficult, and complicated, than I used to think. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 5th, 2006
10:32 am	June 2006 Hi again from Namibia! Just at the moment I’m writing to you from the computer lab in Mariental where I’m stopped en route to the All Volunteer Conference in Swakop. Things have been both very busy and very wonderful since I last had a chance to update. Just after the final segment of training ended in late April, Dave came for a two and a half week visit, which was FANTASTIC! It was just exactly the kind of recuperation I needed after the previous five months of cultural adjustments and stress. We spent most of the time camping at various parks throughout Namibia. Highlights included climbing the mammoth dunes at Soussesvlei, an incredible 17k hike up a chain of waterfalls and pools in the Naukluft Park, and getting a chance to go farther up North where more traditional lifestyles are still prevalent. Even without visiting the game park at Etosha we were able to see a lot of wildlife: zebras, giraffes, baboons, ostriches, leopards, cheetahs, and yes, we even spotted Angelina Jolie  (we pitched our tent at a campground just down the beach from her resort, and when we came out for breakfast in the morning, she and her security guards were taking a stroll down the nearby dock). Even with all these spectacular adventures though, the best part of the trip by far was just getting a chance to spend some quality time with Dave again. I really cannot imagine a more renewing break. Sossusvlei Waterkloof Trail C14 to Swakup Spitzkoppe Ongongo falls Kunene Game Tsaobis Leopard Park When all our travels were finished Dave came and spent a few days with me in Aranos as the new school term was starting up. It was nice to be able to share all the day-to-day details of the life I’m experiencing here, and I really appreciated his support as I transitioned back into my volunteer life, which was definitely a little tough at first. When it was finally time for him to leave it was very, very hard for me to see him go. Now a few more weeks have passed, the second term of school is well underway, and I’m starting to settle back into my routine. Things at school are a bit different this term, the principal has returned after several months of sick leave, and that has brought an increased sense of order. Since the class schedule has not been modified from last term I really appreciate starting off each day and already knowing when to expect my classes to arrive and leave. Keeping order in my class and finding effective, non-violent, forms of discipline are still my main challenges, though there have been some improvements. I started a positive reinforcement system of rewarding good behavior with “stars” which I draw on a poster next to each student’s name in the back of the room. This has been very effective with two of my classes, sometimes when students see me in town they now ask “Miss, owe me stars!” instead of asking for money. Unfortunately one of my classes still remains very much out of control. It seems to me that five or six students in that group are just really enjoying seeing how much they can antagonize me before I finally change my policy and break down and hit them (they even brought me a stick to do the hitting with). So far I’m holding up ok, but it’s really detracting from the progress the class is able to make, and it concerns me that other students in that class are missing out on so much learning because of the mis-behavers. Still, at this point I don’t even think that hitting anyone would solve the problem-- these students have been hit so many times in their lives that they are becoming professionals at just shrugging it off and acting tough. Hopefully I’ll find a “good” solution sometime soon. The other major adjustment I’ve had to make this term concerns the weather. It seems that winter has started in full force, and, although people warned me about the cold, it is definitely not what I expected. One morning during the second week of school there was frost on the ground, and people reported the temperature had hit –4C- it was COLD! It made me really feel for my students, some of whom come to school bare-legged in uniform skirts so short they look like they were outgrown one or two years before. Others seem to fare better, bundling up in probably every item of clothing they can find. It’s not uncommon for very tough boys to show up in class with pink ruffled jackets over their school shirts, or flowery patterned hoods poking out of their collars. It’s actually a little bit adorable. Lately things have warmed up a bit again and it’s not so bad, but everyone tells me the cold will return, and I’m not exactly looking forward to it. Lucky for me Dave left some wool socks and very warm mittens which I was wearing practically non-stop for awhile, and probably will be again soon. I guess my biggest problem is bucket bathing- even with boiled water, the temperature drop made my bath routine go from inconvenient to border-line excruciating. But then, I’ve always been a wimp about the cold. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 16th, 2006
2:26 pm	Aranos Primary School Kids go Nuts in front of the Camera posted by Dave (Comment on this)
Monday, May 15th, 2006
2:43 pm	Random Pictures of Caroline in Aranos posted by Dave (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006
12:44 pm	Five Months in Namibia :) I'm back in Windhoek today, on my way to "Reconnect", the final 10 days of my Peace Corps Volunteer training. Somehow, amazingly, I've been in Namibia for over five months now and have completed my first term of school. The adjustment process has had its little bumps, to be sure, but all in all I'm surprised by exactly how at home I've begun to feel in Aranos. Some things which were difficult at first, like greeting everyone I meet whenever I go out, have actually become my more favorite rituals. Sometimes on those really tough days I've found myself unexpectedly cheered up by a quick walk to the grocery store and all the "Hello/HowAreYou?/Fine"s exchanged along the way. Especially nice is when one of my students spots me and shouts enthusiastically across the dune, the field, the road, or wherever we happen to be: "Miss Caroline! Miss Caroline!" The students have definately turned out to be one of my favorite parts of this whole experience so far. While I understand that I still have a fair amount of work to do towards earning the trust and acceptance of my coworkers, I've often been grateful for how eager the students are to just simply be around me. One day I stayed after school to give a make-up test to a few students who'd missed it during class and my room was quickly filled with about half a dozen more learners, all begging for me to give them a test too, any test at all. Something slightly harder to adjust to has been discovering that almost everything I do after leaving my front door is likely to be observed, possibly discussed, and commented on by someone else. One day I met a co-worker on the street, only to be asked about my Dr.'s visit earlier in the day, which I had not mentioned to him before. "Are you sick again?" he wanted to know. Another afternoon a student showed up outside the gate of the hostel where I live, shouting my name. When I came out to meet her, she demanded some cookies. "Miss, I saw you buy some at the store!" she said, which of course was true, although I still declined to share. I guess choosing when and how to share/not-share has been another challenging issue which I am still grappling with. Sometimes its not so difficult to straight out say no, such as when adults I've never met before stop me to ask for cash on the street (though this is happening less and less frequently as people get used to hearing Patrick and I say no). More awkward is when people I'm slightly acquainted with ask me to buy them things in town. It's sometimes difficult to explain the concept of "volunteer", when just the fact that I am working at all puts me in a fairly advantaged economic position, comparatively. And in my small town, the fact that I am occassionally seen taking out money from the ATM machine only reinforces this idea. One day last week, I found myself slightly at a lost when a woman who knew my name tried very insistently to arrange a time with me for her to come over to my house so I could give her my clothes. I tried to explain that I had only four skirts and needed them all, then realized that to her four skirts still might seem like plenty. The *most* difficult situations though, tend to arise at school. There is one fifteen minute mid-day break between classes when I usually try to grab a bite to eat to get some energy for my afternoon classes. The only problem is that if there are any students at all nearby when I pull my sandwich out of my bag, they immediately begin to plead with me to share with them. "Owe me bread Miss! Please! I am Hungry!" they shout at my while reaching their arms through the broken windows of my classroom. Usually it takes most of my will power just to continue refusing them while gulping down the sandwich. I know that if I shared with the six students at my window right then, there would soon be dozens more clammoring for a piece. And I try and remind myself that I am here as a teacher, not a food distribution agency, but that usually only makes me feel a small fraction better: How much more effective might my teaching attempts be, if the students were not so continually hungry? I hope someday I'll find a better solution, though recently the situation has improved because a government shipment of "mealie meal" (used for making porridge) arrived during the final weeks of school, so now the students are fed as well during the mid-day break. (10 Comments |Comment on this)