Training Continues

Yesterday (Sunday) we had free time in the morning so I got up early and walked downtown by myself. My destination was Christuskirche (church) which was built by the Germans 100 years ago and dominates the city scene, being built on a pretty hill above Zoo Park. The church wasn’t open yet (was only about 8 a.m.) so I didn’t see the inside, but the architecture outside is beautiful. I think it’s a Lutheran church. I also visited a monument in a nearby park which was placed by the Germans to memorialize German soldiers who died in wars in the early 20th century against the Himba and Herero tribes. I thought it was striking that the memorial (a big equestrian statue) still stood and is cared for since the Germans are long gone and so many Africans were slaughtered. I walked down Independence Avenue and also saw the Namibian National Museum (closed) and Windhoek high school…. looking quite similar to DHS.

Going the opposite way down Independence I got some shopping done at ShopRite, which is like a Big K-Mart with groceries and about anything else you might want to buy. I bought a stack of CD-Rs, two VHS tapes, a candy bar and a drink for N$67, which is about 9 bucks. I went into some posh malls that have leather stores, fur stores, book stores very similar to Walden, espresso bars, etc. and the lobby of the Kalihari Sands hotel, which has a casino. Then to the internet café to send e-mails. I cried when I read Breezy’s…. I keep questioning if my going here was a good idea…. Not that I’m expecting it to be a bad experience… but how many months more will I have the kids at home? Is this some kind of selfish joy trip (or worse yet, ego trip) that I’m taking? Sometimes during training it sounds depressing and frustrating and I begin to question if I can make a difference. And will I be appreciated? It’s wrong for me to come here expecting appreciation… it shouldn’t be about that – but will I feel unfulfilled and cheated if I’m not valued at my school? Just what were my objectives in coming here, and if I figure them out and they’re not met, how will I react? 

Upon return to the hostel, I had a Oshiwambo lesson. The language is very phonetic, but for some reason I’m not picking it up with my usual ease. I’m not going to stress about that (I hope) because when I get to Uukwiiushona I’ll have lots of nights to practice and the kids will help me learn. After the language lesson and lunch we had a rather depressing session about our role in Namibia. We had to role play situations in which the people in Namibia took advantage of us, gossiped about us, came to us with AIDS related problems, declared that Osama Bin Laden was a hero and that 9/11 was a good thing, etc. Then we were given a rather startling paper about the effects of imperialism on native cultures which basically brought into question why we would even be here and suggested that we were forcing native speakers to learn English and devaluing their own culture in so doing. I found this pretentious and disturbing. Two of the readings had to do with other countries pre-independence; the other was from a former WorldTeach volunteer who was on a white man’s guilt trip about asking students in his English class to speak English in class. The readings totally disregarded the fact that Namibians chose English as their national language when they wrote their constitution which was adopted by a democratically elected government (which, by the way, is anti-American). It also appeared to be oblivious that in foreign language classes at home students are not allowed to speak English in the class. Or that a cornerstone of American ESOL education is respect for the native culture. The over-intellectualized pre-conclusion seemed to be an assumption that we were all neocolonialists who were here to disrespect the children and their culture by pushing our imperialist language upon them. Hello? Was it not the Ministry of Education that asked us to do this? I am at a loss to explain why WorldTeach thought this literature was something we should read… I resent the assumption that I’m an ethnocentric bully with an agenda. And of course it led to a pointless discussion which grew a little uncomfortable with the Harvard kids posturing and showing off what they learned in International Relations 101 - and some of the college students who are international making some rather ignorant (OK, naïve) comments about the place of English in today’s global society (basically trashing the English language in English.. a language which, if they couldn’t speak, they wouldn’t have been in the financial or practical position to be admitted to Harvard or go on this trip. Irony?) At this point I wasn’t only wondering what I was doing here…. I was wondering what the hell they, with these attitudes, were doing here! 

The night ended on a high note as we went to a jazz club and heard some African jazz and I even danced with one of the kids for a couple minutes. Had a couple of Tafel beers and so slept well.

Today we went to the Namibian College of Teacher Education for a presentation/workshop by MultiChoice on how to integrate television into our curriculum. I’m happy (or sad) to report that workshops in Namibia can be just as pointless, ill-conducted, and boring as workshops in the U.S. The presenter wasn’t well-planned and she was arrogant. A lot of Namibian teachers had driven hundreds of miles to come to this workshop and the first three hours were just redundant brainstorming… and the Namibians were pretty ticked about the waste of time. Then she read the manual to us for a while, talked down to the volunteer kids for a while. Then she had us watch a video on math and develop a 7 step lesson plan using the video. This was a useful exercise but she chose the wrong video and a lot of the Namibian teachers were not getting the fact that you can use parts of the video and not show others and that teachers are to supplement any shortcomings of the video, which ensued in some arguments, lack of understanding of expectations, and disgust on the part of the Namibian teachers. I think there was also some tension going on there because the presenter was South African and was condescending to the Namibians, who, given the history of the two countries, were understandably resentful. So much time was wasted on this that when we finally got to the technical aspects of the equipment (the part most people wanted to know) it was hurried and people had lost interest. I met a teacher from my school – can’t pronounce his whole name but he said “Call me Saki”. He teaches geography and doesn’t speak/understand English as well as the other teachers I’ve met. He seemed very surprised that I was going to his school, which made me a little nervous, and he didn’t seem to know where I was going to live… but he was nice and said the teachers are nice. The kids, he said, can be nice or not so nice. Hmmm…. 

We left the workshop a little disgusted (the kids more so than Kaci, Katie, and myself – Kaci and Katie are the other teachers on the trip, both 33, and are used to pointless workshops). We had lasagna back in the hostel. Tomorrow is the last day of training, and then off to the schools