Contrasting, Beautiful Namibia

Another week has passed, and I’m still learning lots from Africa. So far, I have learnt enough Afrikaans to inform everyone that I don’t actually speak Afrikaans; I have learnt how to bake muffins in tin cans; and I have learnt most of the words to the national anthem (the title is a line from the middle). This proved to be especially useful, as Thursday was Namibian Independence Day. In a historically-accurate-ish nutshell, Namibia was a German colony that was then ruled by South Africa after the collapse of imperialism at the beginning of the 20^th century. Namibia’s struggle for freedom lasted almost 30 years, but the country finally declared independent on 21^st March 1990. There was no school on the day itself, as it’s a public holiday, so the occasion was enthusiastically marked by both the primary and secondary schools on Wednesday afternoon. At Nowak, the students gathered for a celebration with speeches, songs and dancing prepared by different classes; the secondary school also put on quite a show in the courtyard between the schools, involving Danza Kaduro and boys dancing in skirts. What this has to do with political and social liberty I have no idea, but it was great fun to watch and I think the pupils really enjoyed having an afternoon of fun.

Both the lower and upper primary school students gathered for the ceremony

A group from the secondary school perform a traditional dance. At least two of them are actually boys. Highly confusing.

 On Thursday morning, Jenita was helping to run a similar talent show for the hostel kids. The learners that board in the hostel are from all over Namibia, and since each of Namibia’s peoples have a very strong sense of cultural identity, it was fascinating to watch each of the different groups perform the songs and dances of their own cultures. Plus, it’s a kids’ talent show, and thus two things are inevitable: things will go wrong, and it will still be wonderfully endearing anyway.

I’ve had some other new things happen since I last posted. I had my first African cold: it was 38 degrees outside, and I found myself sniffling whilst wearing shorts and flip-flops. All very confusing.

I saw my first African snake. Fear not, Gran, it doesn’t really count and it wasn’t exactly a thrilling wildlife experience. This snake was dead, and one particularly mischievous Grade 6 was chasing the other children around the hostel with it. When we told him to stop terrorising them, he offered to bring the snake into class for us the next morning. No thanks, kiddo. Offer kindly refused.

I got mail! Having your post held in a box 80km away is a far cry from Royal Mail, and still seems very strange, but I had a lovely surprise last week when I found that I had a parcel of goodies from Oz. Our house is now 2 magazines, 3 vegetable peelers, a packet of post-its and a packet of sweets better off than last week – thanks Mum!

Some things, however, haven’t changed– the library is progressing (so close!), we have made contact with a potential partnership school in Yorkshire through the British Council, and most importantly, our classes are as much fun as ever. Having got our classes to draw portraits of their classmates, we are thoroughly looking forward to marking the masterpieces this weekend. I don’t know how many of you remember the days of primary school portraits, but they are most entertaining /bizarre/adorable.  Getting very excited about next weekend’s trip to Luderitz, and Project Trust coming to Tses – I’m sure there will be plenty of news to share next time!

Ain't Nobody Messin' With My Click

Remember when I posted last month about the trials and tribulations of teaching Afrikaans classes when you don’t speak the language? This week has seen Lily’s Encounter With Native Language Classes Round II. Caitlin has been away on a science workshop with another teacher and 2 students, so I was holding the fort for this week. Unfortunately for me, this particular teacher teaches mostly Khoekhoegowab. It’s the native language of southern Namibia’s Nama people, and it features 4 different clicks. It’s absolutely mind-boggling. It’s unlike any language I’ve ever heard, but I’m both confused and fascinated at how even the youngest ones drop these clicking noises into the middle of sentences effortlessly. My Afrikaans is improving, but Khoekhoe is a completely different animal. I can hear the difference in the clicks, and I think I know what they look like written (one is an exclamation mark, one is a slash, one is a hashtag and one looks like a telegraph pole), but it’s so difficult to get them right. I’m aiming to learn how to say “Let’s go to dance” by August: not because I want to dance with anyone, but because it’s the ultimate sentence in Khoekhoe with all 4 clicks. Bring it on.

Lots has been happening since I last posted about school work. With a second teacher absent a week past on Friday, I got the opportunity to become a primary school English teacher for the day. Patience is not a virtue I am blessed with, but one that is required in saint-like quantities, particularly for the youngest classes. I do feel for the Grade 5s, as it’s their first year of schooling taught entirely in English, and it’s clear that some of them struggle so much more than others. You have to explain the task to the whole class 3 or 4 different ways, and then you’ll test whether they understand (often not) and then explain at least twice again, and then you’ll explain to a good few of them individually. At this point, you also realise that the answers are actually underlined for them in the comprehension, so they have a 1 in 3 chance of getting the answer right to start with. You get the idea – it’s exhausting, but highly rewarding watching them slowly get closer to the answer. What we’re also finding is that with the tougher classes, it’s easier to teach if you can identify with the characteristics of each class. The Grade 7s, for example, are completely wild, and so giving them a performance period in Arts is like opening a can of worms to the nth degree; however, if you put all your dignity aside and get them to teach you the dances to their songs, the chaos suddenly becomes a little more organised. They found it hilarious that we joined in, and I’m not sure whether they were laughing at us or with us, but I really don’t care – it was great fun, and giving their enthusiasm some focus is far more successful than trying to screech at them for 40 minutes. We spent all of last week teaching our classes “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, and we now can’t move in school without hearing “a-weeeeeeeeeee-un-bamba-wayyyy” from somewhere. I’ve also started using the word “must” in my lessons one heck of a lot, as if there’s one word these students understand, it’s “must”. “Miss, you must come to Agriculture” (I don’t teach Agriculture, and certainly don’t want to spend my free time there). “Miss, you must borrow me a pencil” (my attempts to teach them word “lend” are failing thus far). “Miss, we must sing” (a particularly frequent request). So, if you tell them that they “must” do anything in class, it tends to produce a little bit more work.  That’s the theory, anyway.

The library is also making real progress – despite how daunted we were in the beginning, we still didn’t appreciate how much work it would take to sort the library properly, and so our target of early March was a bit ambitious. However, all of the books are now separated into fiction/non-fiction, classified, labelled, organized and shelved. I’m hoping that we can open to students next week and start lending books the week afterwards. Still work to be done, but we want it to be open and working as early as possible, and there’s no reason why we can’t finish our tasks while things are up and running. Once that happens, the blog will be the first to know – I’ve been taking pictures along the way!

PS. Undoubtedly the highlight of this week was Caitlin’s return from the science workshop yesterday. Not only because I was glad to see her, but because she brought me some guava juice and a Kit Kat from Rosh Pinah. Absolute star.

The Hills Are Alive!

There’s been a little more Internet drama recently and not a lot of free time, which is a lethal combination in terms of blogging regularly. Lots to share though, starting with last weekend. On Saturday, Pia, Jenita, Caitlin and I set off to climb the mountain at Berseba, which is about an hour’s drive from Tses. In the morning sun, it got hotter and hotter as we walked, but the views from the top were simply stunning. We did have a rather tense descent to start with, where we realised that going down the rocks without a path is significantly harder than it was climbing up, and ended up having to just sit down and slide over the baking hot boulders. With blistered palms, dusty bums and many expletives along the way, we finally made it down and were rewarded with a cool drink and an excellent morning’s walking. On both Friday and Saturday night, we camped out on mattresses in the hostel’s courtyard under the stars. With vast expanses of land and zero light pollution, the stars here are unlike any I’ve ever seen. All in all, last weekend gave us the chance to take in the alien but incredible scenery that makes Karas so completely different from home.

The view from half way up the mountain

Caitlin and I before the walk

Our, ahem, graceful descent. And Jenita doing the Mobot. Not entirely sure what's going on in this photo.

Last week, we also had an excellent time with an influx of more volunteers. An elderly German couple were making their annual visit to Tses, and so have been staying in the hostel’s guest house. They didn’t speak any English and have wildly inaccurate measures of Amarula, but they were fascinating people and made excellent company , with their philosophy of “the moon is the drinking sun”. He is a retired plumber in his 80s who has spent many years coming to various places in Namibia and voluntarily fixing their plumbing systems, and now brings his partner. We also had 4 US Peace Corps volunteers here running a business workshop for the village council’s youth group. It was absolutely knackering, but it was great fun having people over every night, staying up well past our 9.30pm bedtimes with music, good conversation and Mayank’s phenomenal Indian food.  The weekends ahead are also looking promising – as well as our planned Easter trip to Swakopmund, we are off to Fish River Canyon this weekend with Pia’s visitors from Germany, and the weekend afterwards, our Desk Officer is taking us to visit the other PT volunteers in Luderitz.

Believe it or not, school is still as busy as ever in and amongst all of our adventures – there’s so much to say that I’ll post again shortly with all of our tales from the classroom!