Shifting focus.

I wake up to an aching jaw and realize I've been clenching my teeth in my sleep again. Generally not a good sign because it usually means one of two things: I'm either stressed or angry. Considering that I have completed all of my work for this term and I am struggling to find ways to fill up my days, I am not stressed. After reflecting over this I think I've come to realize why I'm having such a difficult time sharing.

Since the arrival of another volunteer, my focus has shifted away from my projects, possible things I could do, and all the ways in which I am growing and changing and what I'm experiencing to a focus on: there is an invader in my space. (And yes, none of this is her fault I realize that. She didn't choose to come to a site with another volunteer, just like I didn't ask another volunteer to come.) So, my previous experiences as a volunteer has been focused on me, my learners, projects, contemplating life, getting excited about reuniting with other Peace Corps Volunteers when we have those chances, etc. And now it's about whether I have to share my class room, answering questions, avoiding being perceived as a racist (spending too much time with the only other white person can do that), frustration with her age, figuring out how to live in the same space in a civil way, and this entirely new interaction that I wasn't prepared for. I guess I am having trouble articulating this as properly as I had hoped. It's just a huge change in focus. I wish I could just block her out of my vision and carry on like before. Next year I have a few projects in mind that I would like to start now that I'm finally more comfortable in this new place....but is she going to be present? Is she going to want a say in them and want to help facilitate? She is much more interested in spending time with other volunteers and feels more isolated than I do. I'm not interested in spending time with her. I'm interested in spending time with Namibians and my learners on my own. (And when I do spend time with other volunteers, it's those rare occasions when members of the beloved Dirty 30 can come together.) She always seems to have to ask me what I'm doing and where I'm going. Is it always necessary for her to know? I know this may seem rude or childish, but I don't always want her in my business.

Ups and Downs

Term 3 is winding down. I have only three days left of actual teaching. Tomorrow is our school's prize giving ceremony, which has basically taken up all of the classes this week with teachers preparing certificates and prizes instead of teaching classes. Because of course you can't do any of that preparation in the afternoon after school is out. But I am glad for the ceremony. Actually rewarding kids for their acheivements is not always very common here.

While for the majority of the term I was a little ball of anger, I think I finally got that out of me and feel more relaxed, less stressed, and just relieved for the term to be over. An invasion of space has been my biggest struggle this term. I wasn't exactly prepared to share my school, or my house, with another volunteer. I'm not entirely sure that a school needs two volunteers, especially when my goal for my work here at this school mostly involves making this school less dependent upon volunteers. Being the third Peace Corps volunteer at this school and seeing that some members of the staff still don't know how to turn on a computer is kind of disheartening. I understand computers can be hard to use if you've never used one in your life...but it's one button. One. Turn it on by yourself please.

So here I was. Enjoying my privacy. My space. And being the only volunteer. And in walks a fresh out of high school girl who needs my fridge, my stove, my shower, my dishes, my pots and pans, my classroom, and my village friends (or...friend really...this village is pretty tiny) who I spent time getting to know on my own. I was just not in a place to want to be any kind of mentor or friend ready to support someone who has moved away from home for the first time. If I wanted to be a new volunteer mentor I would have signed up to do that with my own organization. I think also having no say in the fact that this volunteer was here and going to be in my classroom also got on my nerves.

Luckily, I think things have smoothed out a bit. She finally has more work at school to do and so spends less time in my class. I've also gotten less snappy with her. And it's almost December holiday which certainly has brightened my spirits.

The unfortunate happenings lately: While I'm becoming more and more cheerful this term, the school staff seems to be more and more comfortable doing horrific things in front of me. Naturally I've adjusted to things that shocked me when I first arrived in country, but I will never adjust to corporal punishment. When teachers do it in front of me I freeze. And when they leave I have to go compose myself. A teacher walks in to my classroom the moment before I start teaching. Marches up to a boy of about 12, and starts shoving him, pulling him out of his chair by his ears, pushing him back into his chair, clapping him across the face, punching him. She yells damn it! and storms out of the room. Poor Mbavazamba starts crying and his classmates comfort him while I take a moment to go cry outside. I get all worked up, and I'm ready to make an announcement about corporal punishment in the morning briefing...and that teacher is absent. It'll have to wait for another day...

Another afternoon a young girl is crying. A boy in a grade above her beat her. Naturally the punishment should be a staff member whipping him with a piece of garden hose, slapping him across the face, and allowing the young girl to do the same.

Not okay.

Fortunately I feel more comfortable with my staff, and before the end of the year (as in the beginning of next week), this issue will be discussed with the entire staff. And my goal is to hold an alternative to corporal punishment workshop with the teachers next year.

Privilege.

I think I should admit, for those of you who don’t know or suspect, that I knowingly use my white privilege (and foreign privilege) to hike free rides in this country.  The white folks that stop would probably never stop for a person of color.  The black folks who stop would probably expect me to at least pay a little were it not for my white/American/volunteer status.  Do I feel guilty about this? Of course I do.  I’m taking advantage of privileges I did not earn.  Privileges that I was simply born in to.  But then I look at my watch, realize I’ve been standing on the side of the road for three hours with no hope of any public transport (combis) leaving soon, and flag down the car driven by the Afrikaaner/German/Portuguese/Foreign/White couple.

Ever since I started hitch hiking in this country I’ve thought about how blatant that privilege is  and that I am using it knowingly.

Yesterday, it felt as though someone gave me a big slap in the face. I’ve taken courses, spent hours studying and contemplating injustices in this world, both to do with race and other minorities, and I don’t think that information was really sealed until walking into the public hospital in Katima Mulilo. And all the while I’ve been thinking about how guilty I feel while hitch hiking. Ridiculous.

Health care is not something I generally have to think about.  I’ve only had to deal with minor health problems throughout my life. I’ve never had to worry about whether or not I could be treated by competent doctors.  Health insurance.  That helps.  But then something happens.  You start to realize just what it means when you see the inability of others to be treated by well trained doctors in clean facilities.  Our world has come so far in medicine and yet the treatment, the facilities, the doctors that are so easily sought after by some are simply unreachable by the majority of the world.  We have the technology, the power, to treat the sick and alleviate pain and yet all of that is given to a privileged few…and I am one of those few.

A dear friend of mine is in the hospital.  I hadn’t seen her for three months, and our reunion took place in ward 5 of Katima Mulilo’s hospital.  I walk in to a room of 20 beds.  Each one a metal frame and thin foam mattress.   Posters in Silozi reminding patients about sleeping under mosquito nets are torn and taped on the walls.  There are chips in the concrete and dirty fans hanging from the ceiling. A cockroach runs by on the floor and it’s been two hours since the patient in the next bed over left and the nurses still haven’t removed the soiled bed.  Patients have to be sure to protect their wounds from the flies that have let themselves in.  A single toilet and shower for these patients. My friend was promised they would change her bandage today, but seeing that it was already after 5pm it’s doubtful that it will happen. Maybe tomorrow.  Not only that, she told me the doctor who performed the surgery did not do it well.  Cut something he wasn’t supposed to cut which has made the bleeding worse and perhaps is contributing to a longer stay.  All of this and it was only a few weeks ago that I experienced a hospital in Windhoek for a weekend.  Was treated by doctors who weren’t overloaded with patients.  Received timely treatment and was constantly assured my needs would be tended to promptly. A private bathroom. Cockroaches? Not a chance.  Because being me, being white and American and of a comfortable monetary background, I somehow deserve this.  I somehow deserve the guarantee that my pain is more legitimate, more important, more painful, and so I should get the beds that are controlled by a remote, that have nurse call buttons attached to them, and beds that have their sheets changed every day whether or not they are soiled.

And for everyone else who does not fit into this deserving category as I do….you’ll just have to wait.

goals, goals, goals

Well it’s official.  I’m no longer in the “almost a year” phase.  I have been in Namibia for a year.  Our group is doing our final in-service training workshop before our COS (Completion of Service) Conference next year.  (While it will be nice to not have Peace Corps hijacking our school holidays anymore, we won’t all be together as a group until July of next year which is a bummer.)  This training is all about focusing on our last year (and a few months) of service.  Where are we now and where do we want to be when we COS.  Sarah made some goals.  Have a look see:

- put a greater effort into learning Otjiherero

- spend more time outside of school

- conduct computer  lab/library workshops with the other teachers so that they don’t stop using their resources like they did when the previous volunteer left

- figure out plans for after Peace Corps

- continue to keep contact with friends in Caprivi

- visit the four O’s

- see Victoria Falls

- get healthier

- write in my journal more often

- take more pictures

 

And for those of you reading who like to send me packages, I am reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with some of my grade 7 learners.  For those that finish the book with me, I am going to throw a small party.  We will watch the movie(s) and eat lots of chocolate.  If you want to send any scrumptious American chocolate my way, feel free! P.O. Box 1198 Otjiwarongo, Namibia.  We will finish the book next term and hopefully the party will be in November.

A year?!

I've been here for almost a year. At times it seems hard to believe. Has anything really happened in that amount of time? And then I think back to myself a year ago and it feels like everything has happened.

Beginning with an anxious, slightly self-conscious, eager, excited, twenty-two year old recent college graduate. Memories of my thought processes are fuzzy. But remembering the nervousness makes me laugh. Expectations? I should have written those down.

And then off to Caprivi. What other volunteers joke is actually Peace Corps Zambia. So far from other volunteers. Caprivi accounts for much of Namibia's statistical exceptions. Caprivi provided some of the hardest and yet some of the best times in Namibia so far. All of my major adjustments took place while residing there. Pile up all the shocks that resulted from problems existing within the education system with the absence of indoor plumbing, the need to fetch water, bathing with a bucket, washing clothes by hand, and not understanding the language made way for some rough days. But then you fall in love with bathing under the stars and being able to reduce your water usage and cooking outside and enjoying an open fire every single day, walking through maize fields, eating pumpkin and malaka, watching the kids dance and sing, and suddenly finding yourself to be accepted completely into a family.

And then a few mistakes were made and it's off to Herero land. Term two is over and I'm feeling good. I spend more time at school in the new location. Days can be long and exhausting but what makes everything great at the end of my day: I love my learners. They can misbehave and drive me crazy in classes, visit me non-stop at my home after school and on the weekends so much that I want to crawl in a hole and hide, they can refuse to listen, be terrible at English, constantly ask me to watch DVDs, but I still love them, even those whose names I don't know (come on, give me a break, I have hundreds of new learners, many names I can't pronounce, and some I only have class with once a week...).

So as the days of this term wind down, I'm preparing myself for a lovely (and hopefully stress free) short break, involving books and reunions and travel.

Then I think back to what started this post. A year. In Namibia. And I still have a year and 4 months to go.

Managing

Classroom management.  That is tricky.  Of course on the days when I’ve planned better lessons it’s easier, but even on those days it’s a struggle.

I think I scared grade 5A today.  Threatening to send the next person who talks to the principal, and then actually marching them to the principal’s door really shut them up. Granted there was only about 10 minutes left of class, but I hope they keep that in mind.

All of this makes me try to recall how I was in school.  I feel bad for my teachers.  Vivid first grade memory: would not shut up.  Got my desk moved to the front of the classroom next to the chalk board.  Vivid seventh grade memory: my English class made our substitute teacher cry. Vivid memory all throughout school: passing notes like nobody’s business. Vivid elementary school memory: not following along with the reading and counting the paragraphs so I would know where I had to start when it came my turn to read.  Yes I’ve cheated. Yes I’ve avoided homework.  Yes I’ve said I did the reading when, in fact, I did not. Yes I’ve skipped class.

So while I was a pretty good student for the majority of the time, I wasn’t entirely innocent. I just have to remind myself these kids are kids, plus they don’t speak English.  So it’s going to take a lot of work.

Now the real question is…how do I go about teaching these grade 5 learners (that are obviously a bit old to be in grade 5) how to read? I guess we have to start with square one: the alphabet.

Thanks for the Birthday Party, America!

4th of July weekend was incredibly enjoyable! I was given permission to be absent on Friday, and hitch hiked up to Rundu.  Friday night included reunions with friends and drinking and sleeping upright in an armchair which turned out to be more comfortable than I expected.

Saturday morning: cafe + coffee + omelet + hilarious conversations including unconditional love and a debate on whether or not it’s possible to label a two year old an “asshole.”  The purchase of a case of Heineken was made, along with the staple drunk snack for Sarah B: Nik Naks, which are basically MSG infused African Cheetos. Delicious. The day proceeded with red, white, and blue and drinking and frisbee and music and laughing.  And ended with fireworks. Or really cheap sparklers.

Sunday we hitch hiked back.  Despite hanging out on the side of the road for hours, I actually really enjoy that activity and wish it was acceptable and safe in all parts of the world.  Building small piles out of rocks and really thinking about exactly where I am at this point in time is a fun game. Straight A student goes on to overly expensive, easy to get accepted into, private university. Has some life changing experiences. Graduates with honors. And now finds herself sitting on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, Africa, playing with rocks. And enjoying it immensely.