Did you ever watch the movie "The King and I" when the teacher Mrs. Anna shows up in Siam only to find the house which was promised to her didn't exist? Instead she had to live inside the compound of the king…. Well, this came to mind as I arrived in Uukwiyuushona to find out that they’d give my government house away to a Peace Corps volunteer. Let me explain…
After a week of tedious training in the capital, I had an 8 hour drive to Ondangwa in the far north of Namibia. As we drove down the highway we had the Kalahari desert to the east. It isn’t a desert as one normally thinks of dunes and white sands…. Rather an seemingly endless flat area which actually does receive some rainfall and thus is covered with some scrub vegetation. But I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever seen the horizon like I saw it as we drove along a plateau looking down on the Kalahari. It was getting late when I arrived at the school (I was being driven by two Ministry of Education employees who surprisingly spoke little English), only to find it deserted. Calls from my Namibian cell phone to Mr. Kalumbu, the principal, went unanswered. Suddenly a pick up truck drove up and two rather intoxicated men told me I was being taken to a family’s home where I would be staying! “No, I’m supposed to have a government house of my own”, I protested. I actually could see a house that I think was supposed to be mine next to the clinic. No one seemed to know anything other than I was supposed to go with these guys in the truck, so I went (one of them was a teacher from the school).
I was taken to a “traditional” African home, which is actually a compound where a large extended family lives together. It was about 3 miles from the school. The daughter of the house speaks beautiful English and has trained to become a teacher. She showed me to my part of the “house”. Hopefully I will be able to post pictures with this entry…. But this might become a problem because of the (lack of) electricity, which I’ll explain in a moment. The house is surrounded by a high fence made of sticks. Instead of one building, the house is a series of huts… some made of mud plaster, some of sticks, some with thatched roofs, others with corrugated iron roofs. I was shown to two adjacent rooms which have a cement floor and a thatched roof lined with corrugated iron. There was a table, two chairs, a mattress on the floor, and no electricity. “This is where you will stay”, the daughter, Elina, said. “Holy crap”, Sarah thought. I called the WorldTeach office in Windhoek, who assured me that I had been promised a house and there must be a mistake. As it was now dark, however, it was too late to do anything but make the best of it. Elina gave me a tour of the place….. a toilet and cold shower on the opposite side of the compound, huge baskets (bigger than I am) to store millet and sorghum….the huts belonging to the adult sons. There is a small kitchen with a gas stove, but the family was cooking in what they call the “traditional kitchen” outdoors. There was beef strung out between the huts to dry into “biltong” – African jerky. At the time I was pretty freaked…. My whole plan in coming alone to Africa was to spend the evenings writing – but with no electricity my laptop is useless (holds a charge for about 1 hour if I’m lucky). I’d brought French DVDs to spend the evenings on self-improvement – that’s gone down the drain - and I’d brought some movies to play on the laptop to get me through bouts of insomnia – think again, Sarah. It gets dark before 6:00 here (it’s winter). So, I called Jeff, got out my sleeping bag (by this time I’d been brought a bed frame, and lay down in my clothes… I didn’t know what I was supposed to do about eating, but luckily I had some granola bars and a bottle of water with me. Elina was very nice and after a while her mother Meme Freda (Meme – pronounced “Maymay” is the formal term for a married woman, comparable to “Mrs.”), who owns a small shop by the school, came in and introduced herself and brought me a battery powered lantern which died out after the first hour. There are two toddlers in the family (may be Elina’s kids) – one of whom is petrified of white people and starting screaming every time he saw me. Oi. I felt like crying myself.
But as I lay in the dark I started realizing how absolutely cool this was. I was in the heart of Africa, lying in a hut with nothing but my imagination for entertainment. I felt perfectly safe. I could hear the sounds of the family preparing their evening meal over the fire. I could hear them greeting the men as they came in with the cattle from the grain fields. Looking out of my window, I could see the round thatched roof huts of other family members. Gradually the family went to sleep and I could hear an occasional dog howling and the family’s poultry settling down for the night (roosters crow all night long, by the way). I began to make a plan. If only I could get my laptop to work, I could still write, practice French, and watch the occasional Cary Grant DVD at night. So, hopefully, Jeff will procure another battery for the laptop this week and get it to me ASAP. I can charge the spare battery every day, as well as the laptop at school, and have something to do in the evenings. The room itself provides privacy (the shower thing is going to be a challenge though) and I feel secure there. The only other challenge will be that this small extended family village is far from school…. two of the little boys attend the school, but they normally walk. If I can make friends with the dogs that guard the compound, I guess I can walk, too.
This morning I was awakened by the family having their morning prayer with song. They were singing in Oshiwambo, but the tune was to “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” – one of my favorite hymns! I was served tea and bread by Mme Freda, and was surprised by the father, Mister Albin, walking in in a towel after his morning shower! The Namibians are very formal and polite, and I’m trying out my rudimentary Oshiwambo – greetings are very important, almost a ritual which everyone must complete before conversation can ensue. But I skipped the traditional greeting with Mister Albin in his towel.
At school this morning I met Mr. Kalumbu, the principal, who doesn’t yet seem to know what to do with me. So I headed to the “library” to start setting up their technical equipment which was installed a month go but hasn’t been used because nobody knows what to do with it. It has taken me most of the morning to set up theTV, satellite box, and VCR and get them functioning. The computer is currently broken and has been sent out to be fixed – not really counting on ever seeing that happen, but I can train teachers who want to know Word, Powerpoint, etc. on my laptop in hopes that eventually their computer will be reinstalled. I talked to Mr. Kalumbu about setting up some staff development sessions where I can implement the plan given to me by the Ministry of Education to integrate the technology – which right now will mean the VCR. My goal is to create a video library for them by teaching them how to record educational programming off the satellite (we get Discovery, Nat’l Geographic, BBC, etc), and then using the Ministry manual to teach them how to implement videos with before, during and after viewing activities. They also need to understand that sometimes they might want to use a segment of the video to meet their objectives, and that since most of this programming is spoken in American English, they will need to stop tape frequently to monitor comprehension. Hmmmm…
The principal did seem to be interested in this and I guess I’ve already proven my value by getting the stuff to work. I think he is going to give me a 6th grade class to teach. There are 500 “learners” at this school who come from outlying areas miles around. A lot of them are AIDS orphans, but I haven’t really figured out where these kids live yet. A Peace Corps volunteer ( the one who’s in my house) came around and introduced herself. The locals call her Ombili, which means peace in Oshiwambo. She works at the clinic close to the school and does AIDS education/testing/counseling. She’s from St. Petersburg but is a native Israeli. She offered to let me use her electricity on the weekends (if I want to walk 3 miles with my laptop to the clinic).
OK, I’d better get back to my taping… I’ll report on the staff meeting later.
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