Oh, I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

How time flies when you’re having fun! It’s been two weeks since my last entry, and as a result of my tardiness, there’s now a lot to say for the past fortnight.

The big news last week was the annual visit of John Fraser from Project Trust - Overseas Director, Desk Officer for Namibia and general PT legend. We were desperately keen to impress, particularly as it’s a new project. Sadly, living in Africa hasn’t quite cured my mildly obsessive habits or my Oh-Heavens-I’m-Turning-Into-My-Mother Syndrome yet, and so I spent most of last week flapping about cleaning Volunteer Towers. I’m sure that after 30 years with PT, he will have come across greater problems with volunteers’ accommodation than a streaky bathroom mirror, but come hell or high water, I was determined to attack that thing with the vinegar until it sparkled. Both Caitlin and I were surprised at how nervous we found ourselves as we waited for his arrival: what if we’ve missed something? What if he thinks we’re the worst volunteers ever? Will he really bring us the Creme Egg promised to us on Training? Silly us – his visit was absolutely fine. He seems really happy with the project, with us as volunteers, and it looks like Nowak is set to receive more PT volunteers in August. The bathroom mirror received no criticism, and after a quick tour and a chance to drop off the Dairy Milk in the fridge (woohoo!), we set off to visit the other volunteers in Luderitz, Creme Eggs in tow (extra woohoo!).

Luderitz is a small city on the Atlantic coast, about 300km west of Keetmanshoop and thus a few hours’ drive away from us. The two girls there produce a monthly newspaper, and work part-time at 2 pre-schools during the week. With only two pairs in the south, John decided that he would visit Tses, and then take us with him to visit them. I assume that for him, it means a better and more efficient use of his allocated time; for us, it meant a free trip to civilisation for the Easter weekend!

Luderitz most definitely felt like a holiday; I couldn’t imagined a place so different from Tses could exist in Namibia. Even Windhoek has a distinctly African feel to it – Luderitz is far more mixed, with strong German and South African influences. John found it very entertaining how surprised I was by the different in culture, but we’ve become so used to our rural community and its many quirks that ordinary Western habits were something of a novelty. We had a great time exploring Agate Beach, Diaz Point, Shark Island and Felsenkirche, as well as having our first proper braai by the seaside and visiting the renowned Barrels pub with the girls’ friends. We were spoilt rotten in terms of food– gone were the days of lentils and rice as we devoured fresh oysters, lattes and dried cranberries. Not all in the same meal, of course (that’s not exciting, that’s just revolting), but all of the above are pretty much impossible to track down in a 100km radius of Tses and are a very, very rare treat. A treat, however, I feel these things ought to remain. As much as I really enjoyed our trip to Luderitz, returning to Tses was a pleasant reminder of what we have here and how well it fits with what I wanted from a project and from an experience. Upon our return, we went back to simply sitting on our front step, sharing a tub of yogurt that we’d frozen, and just watching the world go by and enjoying a peaceful afternoon in the sun. Living in the middle of nowhere, holidaying in civilisation for (comparatively) luxurious weekends – an ideal combination.

And so Tses it is! I feel like a broken record as I write this, but school really is busy this week. It’s the start of exams, the classes’ marks from their continuous assessment sheets are due, and with the Easter weekend, we had last Thursday as a Friday, and no Monday this week but two Thursdays. Confused? I am.  Setting the tasks, marking them and having to submit the grades has been an eye-opener, as it’s given us our first real chance to pull together all of the marks for all of our students, and take a proper look at what we’re dealing with here.  I look at these CA sheets with mixed feelings – there are still some Es in each class, we have to chase at least 30 learners to actually hand in their books (really, really difficult with some of our students and immensely frustrating), but I’m really glad that there are some As and strong Bs in every class and some kids that I know will be chuffed to get a bit of a boost. In all the mania of this week, we’ve been given a bit of a boost too, as we’ve discovered that the only thing more entertaining than primary school portraits are primary school letters. As part of our efforts with the Connecting Classrooms partnership we’re setting up, the students have had to write letters to the British school in our classes. So far, our learners have told the British pupils that they love them, that a pink My Little Pony pegasus counts as part of daily life in Tses  and that they can all come to one boy’s house if they want (apparently his mother gives her full permission). Utterly baffling, but wonderful. More stories soon!