Empirical Escapades

Onda Ku Yuulukwa Namibia!

2011-08-24T05:05:00.002+01:00

In case you missed a photograph, here is every single photo I took during my two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia.

One Hundred Book Challenge

2010-12-11T17:02:00.008+02:00

It is said that PC makes non-readers become readers, readers become writers, and writer go insane. In the States I was a mild reader, reading about one book a month. When I got to site back in 2009 I became a fanatical reader. I was on a pace of about one book per week and thought, "Hey, I could read 100 books while in PC." Well the day has come where I've finished PC and have read 100 books! Here is my list in chronological order:

1 Henry David Thoreau - Walden
2 Kalikos - Physics of Superheroes
3 Dawkins - God Delusion
4 Sagan - Pale Blue Dot
5 Hitchens - God is Not Great
6 Tolkein - The Hobbit
7 Tolkein - Lord of the Rings - Fellowship
8 Harris - End of Faith
9 Tolkein - Lord of the Rings - Two Towers
10 Tolkein - Lord of the Rings - Return of the King
11 Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation
12 Dawkins - Time to Stand Up
13 Dennett - Breaking the Spell
14 Lord of the Rings and Philosophy
15 Kafka - The Metamorphosis
16 Vonnegut - A Man Without a Country
17 Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
18 Vonnegut - Deadeye Dick
19 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov
20 Sagan - Contact
21 Sartre - Existentialism is a Humanism
22 Nietzsche - On the Genealogy of Morals
23 Plato - Eutyhphro
24 Plato - Crito
25 Plato - Phaedo
26 Harris - An Atheist Manifesto
27 Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
28 Steinbeck - Travels with Charley
29 McKittrick - To Dwell Secure: Colonialism, Christianity and Generation in Ovamboland
30 Dostoyevsky - Notes from Underground
31 Sartre - Nausea
32 Marx and Engels - The Communist Manifesto
33 Orwell - Animal Farm
34 Weinberg - The First Three Minutes
35 Sobel - Galilieo's Daughter
36 Sagan - The Dragons of Eden
37 Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
38 Nujoma - Where Others Wavered
39 Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
40 Jennifer Davis - Tales of the Caprivi
41 Goethe - Faust (translation by Fairley)
42 Paine - Rights of Man
43 Stewart - Yoga
44 Pullman - Northern Lights
45 Pullman - The Subtle Knife
46 Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching (translation by Muller)
47 I Ching (translation by Cleary)
48 Bryson - A Walk in the Woods
49 Bryson - Notes from a Big Country
50 Pullman - The Amber Spyglass
51 Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything
52 Feynman - The Meaning of it All
53 Melville - Moby Dick
54 Penrose - The Emperor's New Mind
55 Heisenberg - Physics and Philosophy
56 Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
57 Zinn - A People's History of the United States
58 Our 'Freedom' Documents

Jefferson - Declaration of Independence
Constitution of the United States of America
Lincoln - Gettysburg Address

59 Huxley - Essays of T.H. Huxley
60 Steinbeck - The Pearl
61 Steinbeck - The Moon is Down
62 Koran (English Translation by Dr. T.B.Irving)
63 Steinbeck - Cannery Row
64 Hishongwa - The Contract Labor System
65 Joyce - Dubliners
66 Diamond - Guns, Germs, and Steel
67 Kierkagaard - Fear and Trembling
68 Rushdie - The Satanic Verses
69 Schrodinger - What is Life?
70 D'Esposito - Neurological Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience
71 Mansfield - A History of the Middle East 2nd Edition
72 Dostoyevsky - Crime and Punishment
73 Singh - Fermat's Last Theorem
74 Homer - The Odyssey
75 Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin
76 Bible NAB
77 Tolstoy - Family Happiness
78 Sedaris - Me Talk Pretty One Day
79 Hessler - River Town
80 Norman - On Humanism
81 Plato - The Republic
82 DeLillo - White Noise
83 Rand - The Fountainhead
84 Joyce - Ulysses
85 Henderson - The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
86 Hemingway - For Whom the Bell Tolls
87 Tolstoy - The Death of Ivan Ilych
88 Feynman - What Do You Care What Other People Think?
89 Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
90 Dickens - A Christmas Carol
91 Dickens - The Chimes
92 Einstein - The World as I See It
93 Hofstader - Gödel, Escher, Bach, An Eternal Braid
94 Voltaire - Candide
95 Voltaire - Zadig
96 Voltaire - Micromegas
97 Shakespeare - Merchant of Venice
98 Miller - Death of a Salesman
99 Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
100 Tolstoy - War and Peace

It's mostly classics and non-fiction, as those are definitely my favorites. Some people may gripe and say that some of these are very short and should not be counted as full books. I'll counter that and say that my last book was War and Peace and that its extra length makes up for any page deficiencies found in other books. I advise current volunteers to keep track of the books they read and post their lists when they COS. I hope that when I return the States I'll keep up with my reading and not be sucked into the entertainment vortex that is America.

Officially RPCV

2010-12-11T16:53:00.002+02:00

That's right, after jumping through three days of hoops in Windhoek, I'm no longer a PCV. I'm just a happy guy vacationing in South Africa for the time being. I'll be spending some time in Cape Town with Brittany, accomplishing everything I didn't do last time I was here. I'll try to post a few updates during my travels, but don't expect too many photos.

Final Words from the Village

2010-12-03T15:23:00.003+02:00

The hostel project was wrapped up last week. I'll let the photos do the talking on this one.

Before:

After:

With the PCPP funds we built a floor, sixteen beds, a ceiling, and now the room can be recognized as an official hostel by the Ministry of Education. This means that next year the school will receive food for the students living in the hostel. This is a huge victory for the school and Okando.

The builders threw my directions to the wind and built the floor as they wanted, they ended up only using half the cement we had bought. So we used the extra cement to build an outdoor kitchen and shower area for the girls. Unfortunately, this drew funds away from purchasing mattresses. The Ministry has said they will provide mattresses for next year, let's hope they follow through on that.

For science club in term three we tried to beat the heat. Namibia is incredibly hot and dry during October, which makes it a perfect time to build an evaporative cooler. I had been selling photos for the past year in hopes of having a tour or field trip. However, every single one of my transportation requests was cancelled for some reason or other. I used the funds instead to buy a quality fan and we went to work. We used broken desks and tables to make a frame for a piece of burlap. Four two-liter bottles keep the burlap wet as hot air passes through it which evaporates the water creating a cooling effect. We've been tuning the evaporative cooler the whole term. It's able to drop the temperature by about 4ºC. However, it doesn't seem to have enough cooling power to cool the entire room. I'm very happy with how it turned out, I hope they use it next year for the science fair.

The never-ending map project finally came to a close this week. I kept adding details, tuning coastlines, creating islands, and labeling Luxembourg-sized countries. One thing I've learned here is that HIV/AIDS education can be incorporated into everything, even a world map. We painted a banner this week.

These past few months I've been applying to graduate programs in physics. This doesn't leave much time for blogging, which is why my posts have been so sparse. I have a back log of stories that I want to tell, but just don't have the time to get them out. So expect some after-the-fact blog posts sometime. There's so much to tell, my host-brother's wedding, my vacation to Katima, a weekend at a game count, and so much more.

Tomorrow I'm leaving Okando, words fail to describe how I'm feeling. I've been so busy these last few months that I haven't really thought much of my impending departure. It hit me today just how emotionally attached I've become to this place. I'm going to miss all the daily challenges that life presents. I'm going to miss how the air feels just before a thunderstorm hits and the sound of the first raindrops striking my tin roof. I'm going to miss the liberating feeling of bathing outside under the stars. I'm going to miss the crunch of the salted sand under my bare feet. But most of all I will miss everyone here; my learners who always try so hard but end up not quite reaching the mark in the end, the school staff who always manage to find the strangest topics to discuss, and my host family who have provided me with so much for the past two years.

This is me signing off from Okando for the last time. I'll try to keep you informed as I travel around Africa. I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?

Ta Ti Tye? Onda landa ohostela.

2010-11-10T22:25:00.002+02:00

Every time I come from school one of the first things I do is greet Kuku. Oshiwambo greetings are quite long and one of the inevitable questions is, "Ta ti tye?" Which means, "What are they saying?" Usually one responds, "Aa-ee ya mwena (They are quiet)."

But today I had something different to tell my kuku, "Onda landa ohostela." That's right, you guessed it, "I bought a hostel." The money from my PCPP grant came through yesterday and my well formed plan sprang into action. So I went to town this morning with my welder and we purchased all the materials to build a floor, ceiling, and bunk beds. But that statement misses all the fun that is Namibia. So here's what really happened.

The local welder disappeared a few months ago but turned up in Walvis Bay, over 1000km away, last week telling me that he won't be able to make the beds for our hostel. However, he gave me the phone number for another welder in the nearby town. This morning, I got in contact with the new guy and we set up a meeting at 10AM in the most professional of all places, a bar. I had a tough time getting a lift out of the village this morning and showed up half an hour late. But no worries, Africa-time allots at least one bonus hour to any specified meeting time. The welder showed up at 11ish and we got down to business. We discussed designs, quotations, and a work contract. When we finished, we went to Oshakati, the megalopolis of Owamboland.

It was really nice that he had his own car, Oshakati is a sprawl of unplanned buildings along a 4km stretch of highway, i.e. not very pedestrian friendly. We went to several building supply stores before settling on the best. Even though they didn't have enough cement on hand, we went with them anyway. Also, our order ended up being just over 1.5 tons so we have to pay an extra delivery fee for a bigger truck. When our shopping spree ended, I pulled out my plastic and swiped away. Big problem, First National Bank thinks spending 14 grand is an exorbitant amount. So my new friend dropped me off at the bank and wished me luck.

Banks in Namibia are black holes, you never realize you've crossed the event horizon until you've been in line for over an hour. When I finally got to the teller and asked to withdraw N$22,000, he said it was too much and I had to go to another queue. After spending another hour in a different queue, I had to explain to the teller that I don't have my passport because my visa expired, the Ministry of Home Affairs in Windhoek has it, and I won't be going to the capital until next month when I leave the country! While I waited some more, I enjoyed the AC and read some Shakespeare. AC is a rare treat here especially when it's 100°+ everyday. I guess that's why we use the metric system here, 38°C doesn't sound too bad. Around 4PM the bank locked it's doors and the cleaners came out, soon I was the only customer left in the lobby. Forty minutes later I had the biggest stack of Namibian dollars I've ever seen. The most common big bill in Namibia is N$100, so they had to give me a cloth bag to put my gobs of money in. I ran to get a taxi back to the building supply store on the opposite side of town

I got to Oshana Build It just as they were closing their doors. Thankfully, they let me in and allowed me to pay with the biggest stack of Namibian dollars the cashier had ever seen. We had to count it numerous times, it's tough to count 144 things quickly, try it sometime. I left the store and got in another taxi to return to the other side of town. I stopped by spar and bought a chocolate eclair to indulge myself a bit before heading home to my tin roof box of a room.

Looking back on this day, I can see that I've changed quite a bit over the past two years. I would like to see my old self dropped into this situation just to see how I would've reacted. It's difficult to imagine what life in America will be like, which is why I'm procrastinating in the best way possible, traveling for many months across Africa! My goal is to do a Cape Town to Cairo, but we'll see if I have the endurance to go for four months of constant adventure and excitement, or will the crushing boredom and seating arrangements of mini-buses destroy me?

Tangi Unene!

2010-11-10T22:22:00.000+02:00

I want to send a big thanks to everyone who helped out raising funds for the girls hostel at Emvula Senior Secondary. We have raised enough money to begin this project so it's time to get to work!

Help Support Girls Education in Namibia!

2010-09-26T21:24:00.001+02:00

My community and I have a new project on the Peace Corps website that needs your support. We're raising money to complete the construction of a girls hostel at our school, follow this link to donate. Here's a summary of the project posted on the PC website.

The Girls School Hostel project seeks to provide students at the local secondary school with proper accommodations. In 2010, the school began teaching its first class of students in grade 11. The new students live very far from school and sought accommodation from the school and community. Sixteen girls began living in an unfinished building that the community had started. Unfortunately, there were insufficient funds to finish construction of that building. These girls, not wanting to lose their chance at an education, have turned the unfinished building into a makeshift hostel. The girls sleep just inches above a dirt floor on old mattresses. This living situation is unhealthy and some girls have gotten sick. This project sees to ameliorate this situation by finishing the building that the community started. With Peace Corps Partnership Funds, we will create a girls’ hostel with a proper floor, ceiling, and beds. This will give these dedicated young women a chance to receive a good education.

To everyone who has already donated, thank you very much, your contribution will be put to good use and a good cause. Help spread the word to your friends, family, community organizations, and local bars.

Progress...

2010-09-22T01:31:00.003+02:00

There was a bittersweet ending to our science fair project. After taking data and writing a wonderful lab report for a week, we had one day left to make a poster for the science fair. Over the course of our last afternoon, the kids trickled away from the project until there was only one left. He was so upset everyone had abandoned him that he also decided to leave as well. Lessons in perseverance are tough to take for most learners. The next morning I woke up sick and in my absence the other science teacher stepped up. She gathered all the kids and forced them to finish the poster. They arrived at the science fair a bit late, but were able to present their project. The judges thought very highly of it, however our project came too late to register. In the end, it's comforting to know that next year there's a teacher willing to help these kids out.

A few learners from the science sleepover, they also participated in the science fair.

The world cup came and passed for the most part uneventfully in the village. The vast majority of villagers do not have electricity at home, so TVs are in short supply. One bar has a TV where people would gather to watch games. My family is fortunate enough to own a TV, so I watched most games from the luxury of my homestead. During the month of May, volunteers decided to gather at each others' homesteads to enjoy games on the weekends. We gathered at my homestead for the disappointing US vs. Ghana game. Everyone in my host family was cheering for Ghana. It was a bit awkward to be guests in someone else's home and to be cheering for the opposite team as them. Honestly, as the tournament went on I gradually lost interest and watched fewer and fewer games. I guess my Americanism shines through in due course.

The other PCVs got to meet my terrific trio though.

Last December I graciously received a large book donation that another volunteer had accrued. She unfortunately didn't have enough time during her service to start a new library and gratefully donated all the books to my school's library. One difficulty many PCVs face with libraries is a cultural challenge, many cultures don't read for enjoyment, thus making libraries unsustainable. I attended a daylong library workshop this past term with the English teacher. It was unbelievably boring for me on the whole. However, the more I thought about it, the more content I became. Most schools view a library as just a room full of books. Many times the room also doubles (or triples) as an office for the secretary or principal, sometimes it's also a store room. The whole point of the workshop was to show how the library should be the center of every school. One speaker pointed out that the top two performing schools in the region utilize their libraries across the curriculum. I became very hopeful about the work I've put into the library will be sustained after I leave by the English teacher.

Back in April, my school received a grant through the Peace Corps partnership program. The main aim of the grant was to rebuild the floor of our resource room. Some of the grant money went to purchasing paints for a mural and I asked learners to submit their ideas for it. Unfortunately, the designs I received were either so poorly drawn (is that a dog or a car?) or egotistical (no, we can not just write your nickname on the wall). I dictatorially chose to make a world map. Peace Corps has a wonderful manual online to walk anyone through how to make one of these beasts. We used the grid method to draw the map in pencil first, then painted in all the beautiful countries. It's been a lot of work, but we're finally nearing completion.

The Joys of Science

2010-07-02T01:29:00.005+01:00

I had some pie in the sky dreams about teaching in Namibia while I was still stateside. Between national exams, ridiculous syllabi, daily lesson preparation forms, and mountains of paperwork, I've lost a lot of my initial enthusiasm for teaching. There's just too much in the way of actual education. It seems that having your five teaching files and every lesson preparation form is more important than time in class because when the inspectors come that's what they look for, the paperwork that says you've been teaching.

I've been able to rekindle that small flame of excitement this term by starting a science club. I wonder why I didn't start this earlier, it's been absolutely amazing. The impetus for starting was a small telescope my parents brought back in December. During the last term I got bored one afternoon with paperwork, gathered some learners, and finally built the damn thing. It was fun to talk about lenses and light being a wave, but telescopes are meant for the night sky.

I took the top five boys and girls from my physical science class and we started meeting Mondays after school. We discussed things like earthquakes and planets. I also showed them this video and after a bit of explaining and rewinding they understood what they were seeing. Jaws dropped in disbelief. Is the universe really that big? Yes, it is really that big and we're really that small.

It took a bit of planning, but a couple of weeks ago we had our first telescope sleepover at school. It was a great night with a beautiful half moon that illuminated the first half of the night before dipping below the horizon allowing us to see the deep sky in all its power. We cooked some macaroni and fish for dinner which is considered a treat by these habitual porridge eaters. After dinner we aimed our sights at the moon. The kids responses were priceless as they peered through the eye piece for the first time; "Kalunga kange! (My God!)" and "Iyaloo! (Thank you!)" We could clearly see many features on the surface of the moon.

Then the questions started, what is the moon made out of, what are those dark spots, what makes them, who made the moon? Students' questions are what make me enjoy being a teacher. In class these kids are so tight lipped, partly it's cultural though, you can't question someone elder than you. But once you get them out of the classroom and thinking, they just won't stop. We drew lots of pictures in the sand and even made our own tiny craters.

We then took a trip to the rings of Saturn, the jewel of our solar system in my humble opinion. Again the questions came, what's Saturn made of, how far away is it, what's that ring I see, are there people on Saturn? Their unbridled energy and curiosity made me beam, I just couldn't stop smiling. We went back inside to watch Star Wars Episode V and sleep for a bit on our makeshift beds.

At 3AM my alarm went off, Jupiter was on the rise, and I went outside to set up the telescope. I returned and quietly announced that if you want to see Jupiter, you could come outside now. The whole room burst into activity, it was as if no one was sleeping to begin with. Three moons of Jupiter were visible and we could make out some details like the stripes of Jupiter. This time the questions got a bit deeper, where did the sun come from, where did all the atoms come from? I tried my best to explain the collapse of interstellar gas clouds, the big bang, and nucleosynthesis. It's all pretty heavy stuff for kids in secondary school with less than stellar English abilities. I think they got the gist of it though.

Now that the moon had set, we were free to gaze into the sky with almost no light pollution. The Milky Way really comes alive once you give your eyes twenty minutes or so to adjust. The southern sky is just so beautiful, these kids don't know how good they have it. I eventually brought out my camera and we did some astrophotography. It's amazing how stars and nebulae just pop out of dark patches of the sky. It gave the kids a real sense of just how big the universe is.

The kids were just too amped to go back to sleep so we watched Star Wars Episode VI and eventually saw the sunrise. We took a group photo before dispersing. I really want to do this again, maybe with a new group of kids though.

Next week there is a science fair in Okalongo. We had been discussing what to do since I knew this would be coming up this term. We're going to be making some batteries out of local materials. We generated 0.4V today with just coca cola, aluminum and copper. Tomorrow the real experiments begin as we try different materials and solutions. Electrochemistry is sweet, I hope the judges think so too. I'll let you know how it goes next week. Until next time, oto twii mono nale!

Village Happenings

2010-07-02T01:25:00.005+01:00

Many changes had occurred by the time I returned to the village, both at home and in the community. The first thing was the progress being made on the road. As I mentioned in a previous post, the road from Oshikuku to Okalongo is being paved. This represents quite a big step forward in development and is a quite a buzz for everyone. In the past months work was being done to raise the road up about a meter. An enormous hole was made as vast quantities of the earth were moved to complete this task. The soil in Owamboland is mostly sandy clay with layers of sandstone beneath. None of which makes for a good road. Recently trucks have been bringing in gravel from Angola to make a layer on top of the sandstone. I got a lift from one of the project engineers last month. He said that every time they start a new layer of construction they have to send crews out to clear off all the cattle, donkey, and goat droppings that have accumulated. Organic matter just doesn't make for a strong road. Anyways, tar is being laid down on certain sections and progress is coming along nicely. The date for completion lies somewhere in October. I hope to travel on the road before I leave in December, but I have my doubts.

Besides the road there were also changes on my homestead. Harvesting the mahangu had begun before I left and things were still in full swing when I returned. All the mahangu and sorghum were brought to a large fenced-in clay area in front of the homestead called oshipale. This is a place where the millet can be removed from the stalk by a long process of thrashing, pounding, and sifting. Once that has been done, it's placed in large woven baskets called oshimbale, or iimbale in plural. The iimbale are culturally very important, cattle and mahangu are signs of wealth and power. The oshimbale is the vault that contains the family savings. I helped out a few times by carrying the large woven plates, called oshiyaha, full of mahangu on my head from the oshipale to the iimbale inside the homestead.

One afternoon, I was holding Shalongo close to our iimbale. My sister, Nandjila, told me not to let Shalongo see inside. It's culturally taboo for children to see the level of mahangu inside the iimbale. My sister explained that Shalongo would tell other children and then the whole village would know how much mahangu we had. Speaking of taboos, if someone asks you what you ate for dinner last night you must respond by saying it was just oshithima, porridge, and maybe ekaka, dried spinach. Telling people the truth is impolite because they may have not eaten anything.

Here's a photo of my brother, Shikwaya, making one oshimbale. He later sold this to a villager. The frame is made of long sticks from the mopane tree. Mopane bark is woven around sage plants and then through the frame to tie it together. Clay from termite mounds is then placed inside to seal out moisture and pests, sage is also a natural insect repellent.

Here's Aune in the oshini, a room where we pound mahangu. Sunk into the floor are trunks of mopane trees that are used as the mortar while the core of a mopane trunk is used as the pestle to pound the millet into a fine powder.

It's surprisingly cold here in the mornings, here's a photo of the kids huddled around the kitchen fire.

Why not jump?

River, Delta, Plateau Part II

2010-06-24T01:32:00.002+01:00

At the end of our last episode it was May 10. In the morning we set out for Windhoek en route to Maun, Botswana. We got a late start on what would be a very long day of hitchhiking, Outapi to Windhoek is almost 1000 km. Disaster struck for me when we got to Ondangwa, maybe 120 km from Outapi. I left my cell phone in a taxi, or so I thought. After calling my phone and getting no response I walked back to the highway and just then saw the same taxi headed to the taxi rink. I set out in a full out sprint, something I haven't done in a long time. Exhausted, I caught up to the taxi, unfortunately my phone was nowhere to be found. I gave it a ring and a woman picked it up. She said she wanted N$200 for the return of my phone, what a b! My blood pressure shot up like a rocket. When she finally showed up I worked her down to N$40. For all the talk of Christianity in this country, basic moral principles, like those in the good Samaritan, are completely lost on some people.

By now it was afternoon and we still had over 800 km to travel. We made a quick stop by the PC office and discovered through google maps that we had just hiked 145 km (90 mi.), no wonder my feet were so sore! We got two quick hikes down to Tsumeb, about halfway to the capital. We headed to the gas station to try our luck finding a lift the rest of the way. The parable of the good Samaritan was not lost on our next lift; a Catholic priest and nun from Angola. We sat in the back seat of a brand new bakkie as they filled us up with food. Paka thoroughly impressed the priest with his Oshiwambo, "An American, who speaks Oshiwambo, unbelievable!" He bought us all cool drinks at the next gas station as well as some beers for himself. That's right, the priest was doing a little drinking and driving. The collar is not always a sign of good judgement, I learned. We thankfully arrived safe and sound in Windhoek and hit the hay at a backpackers.

Our next target was Ghanzi, the first big town in Botswana after the border. We got hike to Gobabis after waiting a good deal of the morning. After waiting an equal amount of time in Gobabis and a few dollars later, we had our lift to Ghanzi. We got to the border around dusk and rambled on to our destination at night. About 80 km out of Ghanzi I see sparks flying from the front left tire. I just start slowly saying, "Oh $h!t," over and over. We had lost a wheel, not just the tire, and were skidding on the braking disc. We screeched to a stop on the highway as my hands were still shaking. We helped to put on the spare with assistance from our headlamps. The driver let us stay at his house in return for helping him. Warm couches and free accommodation awaited us in Ghanzi.

Botswana has a lot of nice things going for it including a sensible transportation system. Imagine a plan where buses arrive and depart certain locations at specific times, a schedule if you will. Namibia just can't put one together. But thankfully, Botswana has one and we got a nice cheap bus to Maun and made our way to Old Bridge backpackers.

Early the next morning we boarded a boat and headed to where the mokoros and the local guides are. Mokoros are traditional canoes made from fig trees. In recent years, they have begun making them out of fiberglass from the famous Botswanan fiberglass trees.

For the next three days we journeyed into the Okavango delta. The Okavango river is unique in that it ends in the middle of Botswana, rather than a body of water. This floods a good portion of the country creating thousands of channels that can only be traversed in the mokoro. Reeds, water lilies, and grasses proliferate the water. The channels cut out thousands of mini islands which are inhabited by a variety of flora and fauna. Our first day consisted of this:

We basically sat in the mokoro as our guides propelled us through the reeds, deeper and deeper into the delta. It was quite a phase change from our last expedition. Since this involved no walking, we packed lots of great food into a cooler. We ate like kings on our trip; spicy bratwurst, steaks, and even beer!

The next morning we floated to a new island and went on a game walk. It appeared that most of the animals had headed further upstream by the time we arrived. We saw a pack of impala, plenty of birds, and footprints from every conceivable animal. We went to another island and had a fantastic lunch. Paka and I tried our hand at the mokoro during the afternoon.

During the evening game walk I let my imagination run wild since we were on the animals' home turf. I kept imagining creeping up on a lion that was feasting on a recent kill. Our eyes would lock and it would consider whether I would make a suitable dessert. It would look back down at its main course of impala and decide there wasn't enough meat on my bones to kill me. I would slowly step back while it continued to gorge. Nothing of that nature occurred on our walk, although we did see some zebra.

While we continually missed big game we did encounter a world full of small beauties.

The delta is a bird watchers paradise. I wish I had brought my big camera and telephoto lens. These were the best I could muster with my teeny camera.

Our last day in the delta was spent making our way back to civilization. On our way back we heard some hippos making a raucous although none were seen. Our guides told us that they stay in the smaller channels to avoid hippos. We went swimming in a croc/hippo-free area after lunch. After having spent the past two weeks next to bodies of water it was great to finally take a dip and practice some elementary backstroke. We returned to the backpackers before dark and cooked and amazing meal of steak, bratwurst, veggies, and rice.

The next day we squeezed two days of hitchhiking into one and made it all the way to Windhoek. For a quick recap we took a taxi, an SUV, a flatbed truck, and a lorry. In the morning we got picked up by a retired doctor who drove us to Otjiwarango in central Namibia. He talked Nate's ear off the whole way, I was thankful to sit in the back seat this time.

Ninety clicks east of Otjiwarango is the historic Waterberg plateau. This is where the Hereros made their final stand against the German Colonial forces in 1904. The Hereros retreated from the plateau and were chased into the Kalahari where many died. The plateau rises some 200m and takes a commanding view of the surrounding flat savannah. It's somewhat of a geological marvel and even has 200 million year old dinosaur tracks. During our four days of hiking, I pondered both its deep and recent histories. The 42km trail is maintained by Namibia Wildlife Resorts, which means it's extravagantly posh. There are shelters with water taps and flush toilets along the trail. That's better than what I have in the village!

We got a late start on the first day and then managed to go off on the wrong trail for a couple of hours. We eventually made it to the first campsite at dusk after regaining our bearings. Each day we hiked about 10 km which by now was a cake walk. We slept in and really enjoyed ourselves throughout the next few days.

The plateau forms a natural enclosure for wildlife, as they are not too prone for cliff jumping. There has been quite a successful rhino population growing on the plateau and we were dreaming of an encounter. However, dreams don't always come true and we were probably better off without our rhino encounter and all limbs intact. We did encounter lots of little antelope, like this little guy.

Over the next few days we encountered beautiful landscapes like these. They offered plenty of opportunities to explore and climb on all the rocks.

On our last day we heard screeches coming from just off the trail. After a little exploring we realized we were chasing a large group of bickering baboons. They always managed to stay a bit ahead of us avoiding my greedy little camera. Not far from there a stench like a three week old pastrami sandwich hit our nostrils. We had our first close encounter with some big game unfortunately, it was dead. As in he's kicked the bucket, he's shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible! This is an ex-eland!

We finished the rest of our descent from the plateau carcass free. Thus ended our journey, twas a great three weeks with two great guys and one awesome donkey. See you next time I manage to sit down and type.

River, Delta, Plateau Part I

2010-06-08T01:15:00.004+01:00

During this past school break I took a wide tour of Namibia and Botswana with two traveling companions, Nate and Paka. We hiked along the mighty Kunene river from Epupa falls to Ruacana falls, canoed in the awe-inspiring Okavango delta, and climbed the historic Waterberg plateau.

After a week of the village, I went over to Ongwediva to meet up with some volunteers for a night of burgers and beverages. In the morning, Nate, Paka, and I headed off to Oshakati to buy food and camping supplies for our weeklong-100km-dual-waterfall hike. We attracted many stares as we walked towards the hike point; three white people carrying monstrous backpacks with pots, tents, and sleeping bags hanging off in every direction. Over the next two days we hitchhiked our way to Epupa falls. In Okangwati, the last city before the falls, there were thousands, if not tens of donkeys. We struck up a conversation about how fun it would be to have a donkey for our hike. After waiting five hours we got a lift as the sun began to set. The driver was exceedingly kind and he let us camp on his homestead where we could hear the falls from our tents. I awoke in the wee hours of the morning and followed the roar of the falls to find some spectacular sights.

We spoke with our gracious host about purchasing a donkey after our jaunt around the falls. Unfortunately, his donkeys were very far and we would have to wait all morning for them to come back. So our hearts hung low and our packs heavy as we set out donkeyless. The trail is actually an old road that has deteriorated to the point where only a high clearance 4x4 could traverse its many bouldery sections. After an hour we ran into local and told him about our quest for a donkey. He told us of a small village ahead just a few kilometers off the road. After I was almost bitten by a snake, we reached the Himba village he spoke of and inquired about the purchase of a donkey. Our desire did not translate into Otjiherero that well and they thought we wanted a guide. Otjiherero and Oshiwambo are close enough linguistically that we could understand some of what they were saying. It wasn't until Paka blurted out, "Otwa hala ku landa ondongi! (We want to buy a donkey!)," that we got down to brass tacks. After a bit of bargaining and N$500($65 USD) later, we became the proud owners of Marc Olaf Granrud! What a sweet ass, eh? He lugged two of our bags along with our tents for the rest of the hike.

We moseyed on for the rest of the day until we came upon a Himba cattle post. Fortunately for us, it was the end of the rainy season, therefore the cattle post wasn't being used. We decided it would be nice not to set up our tents and just sleep inside the huts. We were instructed to tie one of Olaf's legs around a tree at night so he could graze on grass. We ate baked potatoes and then settled in for the night, cozy!

In the predawn we awoke, ate a quick breakfast, and then wrangled with Olaf until the sun rose. When we got the harness back on him, I decided to take him down to the river for a morning drink. As we stumbled through some bushes towards the river, something spooked Olaf. He took off galloping, dragging me through the thorns along with him. He eventually stopped right in front of the river but refused to drink. Just goes to show; you can lead a donkey to water but you can't make him drink.

The Kunene river is home to many crocodiles and hippos (surprising fact; hippos kill more people than any other wild animal). Along the river there are sections that a cordoned off with sticks by the cattle farmers where there are fewer crocs and hippos. At lunch we stumbled across one of these areas and were eventually joined by this guy, what's that on his hat?

Along the river, enormous palm and acacia trees flourish. In the surrounding veld, mopane, sage and other grasses dominate. The contrasting flora creates a wonderful sense of oasis as one approaches the river.

We found that it's best to have two people with the donkey, one for steering and one on the gas pedal (i.e. giving Olaf a few love taps on his rear). The third person would take the extra bag and march ahead, since Olaf could be quite lead-footed at times. In the afternoon Nate took the bag and set out at his own blistering pace (literally, you should have seen his feet at the end). Eventually the trail forked with one path going away from the river and up a hill and the other going back down towards the river. Going back towards the river made the most sense to Paka and me, the sun was sinking low and we needed water to cook. We came across a Himba man who was driving his cattle in the opposite direction. Paka asked him in Oshiwambo if he had seen a white person nearby. He explained that he saw one atop the hill we had just averted. Great, so we had overshot our companion just as it was getting dark. We quickly backtracked and met up with Nate. He explained that he never saw the fork and was waiting on top of the hill for us, doh!

The third day brought us many fantastic views as the trail headed into the hills. It's autumn here and there are gorgeous fall colors adorning the foliage.

Nestled in the above panorama is a Himba village, take a closer peek below.

We marched down into the valley and Paka struck up a conversation in Otjiherero/Oshiwambo with the locals. We eventually learned one of the women had been suffering from malaria and they were asking us for medicine. It just so happened that Nate brought some along, what a hardcore PCV. In exchange we asked if we could stay with them. I suppose that didn't translate well and they showed us a nice dry riverbed to camp at instead. On the way we met a guy riding a donkey and gave him the obligatory explanation we had been giving everyone else; that we were going to ruacana, had no car, but a donkey instead. The strange thing was, this guy spoke Oshiwambo! We were told before that there are some Owambos who live this far west. We learned from him that if your donkey gets injured in a donkey fight, you should put battery acid on the wound to cauterize it.

We asked our guide if we need to worry about crocs or hippos, in response we got a big laugh. We assumed that meant we didn't have to worry about a thing. After setting up camp and and starting dinner, I wanted to bathe so I tiptoed through some mud on my way to the river. When I was about two steps from the river there was a large splash as something submerged. It took my brain a few seconds to process, but then I was sure, it was a CROC! I slowly stepped back from the river and then ran back to our fire, close call. My traveling companions had found a much better place to bathe upstream in our riverbed that was croc free.

We started our trek again the next morning and received a nice send off from our companions. The fourth day we found ourselves going up and down in the hills. Along the way we passed many homesteads, most were empty. It's harvest season here, so most people were probably in their fields getting their mealies and mahangu.

At one of our stops by the river for drinking water, we made some friends. Paka put on a juggling show for them, which they were quite impressed with. He even gave them some lessons before we moved on.

Before leaving Ongwediva, I had printed out a satellite map from google. It proved to be invaluable on our hike, we usually had some idea where we were and how far from the river the trail was. We also knew that on the fourth day we should reach the town of Swartsbooisdrift, which we renamed smorgasbord. Around nightfall we reached a place called Otjimuhuka, which means asshole in Otjiherero. Much later we realized that it was actually Swartsbooisdrift. We bought some cool drinks for dinner and then bunkered down for the night.

The morning started off with a great sunrise on the river. It seemed like the day would be excellent, but it was not to be. Our faithful servant Olaf, in his old age, just couldn't cut the mustard that day. He fell down and was unable to rise with the bags. We became his Simon and carried the bags for the rest of the hike. At lunch it was decided Olaf was to be sold, but before that, we did this:

So it was off to find Olaf a new master, hoping for a Shelby or St. Clare rather than a Legree. We asked everyone, "Owa hala ku landa ondongi? (Do you want to buy a donkey?)" Most people just laughed or politely said no. Eventually we met a guy who said that his parents might be interested in buying a donkey and they should be coming soon. 'Soon' in Namibia means many things but it rarely means in the next few minutes. To our bewilderment, just then a bakkie came plundering down the road carrying his parents. They were teachers and owned a camp down the road. We told them our whole story and they asked us for Olaf's papers. We responded with a dumbstruck, "Uhh, papers?" Apparently, every time you sell livestock in Namibia you need a paper with signatures from buyer, seller, and village headman. So we might have bought a stolen donkey at the start of our journey! We agreed on N$200 since we had no papers and went on our way.

We eventually caught up with a Himba woman who was walking home. I just couldn't help myself and shamelessly snapped a few quickies. We pressed on until we reached a gathering of people. They were all meeting at a church for movie night and they allowed us to join them. As the sun set we awkwardly bathed in the river while some boys threw stones to scare off the crocs. Gathered under the stars, we watched an old school Jesus movie dubbed in Otjiherero. They had a film projector running on a generator in a bakkie. People sang and danced during the many intermissions as reels were changed and bugs cleared out from the projector. The whole situation struck me as incredibly odd; there we were in the middle of nowhere with a large group of Himba villagers watching pictures on a screen of white Jesus being crucified. I kept wondering if the people knew this was a theatrical movie and not a documentary.

As the sixth day dawned we set off donkeyless just like whence we came. We had no idea how much further it was to Ruacana since the map was fairly ambiguous as to how one actually gets to the falls. We were on a record pace that day since we had no Olaf to slow us down. We blistered through the morning on a steady climb uphill away from the river. Many tourists passed us by in their fancy overloaded cars and two of them gave us beer! At one point a large herd of cattle came storming down the hill, it was like running with the bulls in reverse.

By early afternoon we caught sight of the glorious falls from a ways off. However, we were in for one more killer hill before we had the sweet satisfaction of the falls. As gravel turned to pavement and the morning to afternoon, weariness started to set in. The last hill seemed as though it would never submit to my tireless tramping. When I emerged triumphant from my nemesis I turned around to take one last look at its dizzying grade.

In a few more kilometers I caught up with my compadres and we feasted on the sights and sounds of Ruacana. We hobbled our weary bodies to the base of the falls and rejuvenated ourselves in the mists. After a long dip in the rocky pools we made our way back to the top. Serendipity struck just then and a family pulled up and offered a ride back to Outapi for us. We celebrated with Pizza and beers in town before settling down in nice beds at a nearby PCV's house.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of River, Delta, Plateau.

Tension and Release

2010-05-02T01:23:00.004+01:00

Snake stories from Namibia are like excuses and that other thing, everyone has one. After spending a weekend with Parker in March, I returned home with some new batteries graciously given to me by my host. My headlamp could see about twice as far in the dark with the new juice. The next night I was performing my nightly ritual of filling up my nalgenes at the communal water tap before going to bed. My brother Titus was also outside and we talked a little bit while staring out over the homestead's brick wall. Just outside the wall is a camelthorn tree where many chickens sleep. Titus noticed something stirring in the branches. Soon I saw it to, there he was, a black snake slithering up the branches towards its oblivious prey. My headlamp cast just enough light to reflect off its slightly iridescent scales.

For the past week our homestead's chickens had been terrorized by a snake and now we had it cornered. Titus alerted the homestead and we all went into snake attack mode. Sebby started up his car and drove along outside to illuminate the camelthorn with his brights. In the meantime, Titus rushed into his room. I thought he would be grabbing a machete. I jumped over the wall and watched helplessly as it sunk its fangs into a chicken. Next thing Titus came running around the wall with a shotgun. That's right, we don't mess around when there's snakes in the vicinity. Between the carlights and my headlamp Titus approached the snake and blasted one shot into it, direct hit! He had shot the snake right through the belly, but it wasn't dead yet. It fell from the tree and was hiding underneath some scrap metal. Sebby dragged it out with a long pole and we started pummeling it with rocks. Tatekulu (Grandfather) came around and snapped some questions in Oshiwambo at us. He picked up his weapon of choice; a piece of scrap metal from the top of a car door. So with car door in hand, Tatekulu clobbered the last breath out of our chicken-murdering intruder.

Not everything on the homestead involves shotguns and bloody executions. Life is pretty laid back, I hope these photos can attest to that.

I'm going on vacation tomorrow, so get pumped for a serious photo update next month.

Youth Outreach Center III

2010-04-29T01:41:00.005+01:00

The past two months have brought the outreach center to completion and is bearing fruit so to speak. When I wrote last, the floor was still hardening and much work was still to be done. The first two weeks of March involved moving everything back into the room and restoring it to it's previous state. We were also able to move the computers back to the delight of all the learners because the computers haven't lived there since last year.

My Future My Choice was able to use the room for the remaining sessions they had together. The format of the program isn't suited for a classroom with all its rows of chairs and desks. The activities are much better suited to an open area with space to move around.

I put some book shelves together to make room for a donation of books we kindly received in December from Carly. We've been slowly adding them into circulation with the help of my learner librarians (Namlish is so very much fine).

Learners have been using the computers to type up articles for our school newspaper. I show them how to turn the computer on, log in, and start up word. Their first question is always, "Sir, how do I make the letters big?" I show them the magic of shift and then, without fail, proceed to type their whole article IN CAPS! So many kids do this and yet I continually forget to remind them that they only need to capitalize their first letter otherwise they're shouting!

Next term we'll be reviving the AIDS awareness club since My Future My Choice is over. I'll also be starting a science club, finally! When my parents visited they gave me a galileoscope, which is a small telescope to celebrate Galileo's invention in 1609. I put it together one afternoon with some learners. It was great, we talked all about concave versus convex lenses and even made some ray diagrams. However, telescopes during the day are boring. So we're planning on staying at school one night and watching the stars and planets.

Keep on cleaning on keeping on

Yay for new books!

The books of Matteus

Drop everything and...

Tondoka

2010-04-08T16:32:00.003+01:00

Something that always threw me off when I was first learning Oshiwambo was the type of questions and statements people would make. They would always state the obvious like, "You are here." The funny thing is they always expect you to respond, "I am here." You can replace here for eating, walking, running, coming, going, working, whatever they see you doing. Everyday I come home from school and my host grandmother always asks where I'm coming from. Well, I'm dressed in a collared shirt with dress pants, even if I had severe amnesia I could probably figure it out with a glance in the mirror.

I used to consider myself a part time runner but had given up the practice when I came to Namibia. I'm happy to say that I've begun a new routine of self punishment called 'the running.' Every other day I hit the sandy paths of the village and slowly jog around. Everyone I meet says, "Oto tondoka (You are running)" and I just have to respond, "Andi tondoka (I'm running)!" Maybe they just want to make sure that I know what I'm doing. Some people are completely confused by the spectacle of someone running with no livestock involved. While I was running one day, a learner asked me why I would want to be tired for no reason. He started jogging with me and I went through a laundry list of reasons why it's good to stay active. He eventually had to break off because his donkeys couldn't keep pace. So I now know that I have more endurance than a donkey, which is nice.

I'm also proud to announce that I finished another term of teaching. Learners are taking their exams for the next three weeks, why three weeks still bewilders me. I've been pounding out some kick ass spreadsheets complete with nested if statements and a graphs of what I'll do with all my extra time not planning lessons. I think I'll get back to reading the canon.

A while back I went to Okahandja to meet the new group of PC trainees. They're in the health program and all have a varied set of jobs in Namibia. I presented a session on diversity in Namibia, I think it gave them something to think about (I hope). It really took me back to when I first came here some odd months ago, honestly I lost count. It became abundantly clear I don't have that much time left. A wise man once said, "Such a long long time to be gone and short time to be here." Those words become truer everyday.

The rains haven't made up their mind if they're going to leave or stay. I adore the rain, don't get me wrong, but when can I stop bringing a rain jacket everywhere I go? At least the clouds provide something pretty to make photos of.

Our mahangu field is in its prime right now. There are spindly gourd and watermelon vines crawling throughout.

Here are some of those confused clouds, not sure if they want to make a beautiful sunset or a raucous thunderstorm.

My morning commute. Most learners have to walk about 4 or 5km to school everyday. During the rainy season that means taking off shoes and rolling up pants are part of the routine. Here are some learners in the final leg of their walk to school. They're cleaning off their feet before putting their socks and shoes on. I just wear my chacos to school during the rainy season now.

Here's Shalongo savoring every last cookie crumb. I do quite a bit of baking and usually end up giving half of it away to my host family.

Peace out...

A Mycological Delight

2010-03-01T18:16:00.006+02:00

I have a laundry list of personal goals to achieve before my PC service ends. Among them are to become a yoga master, read every book ever written that's worth reading, and become a halfway decent cook. Well, I can finally scratch one off my list, I think.

On Thursday, Elias made his obligatory morning visit to my desk. He was hauling a plastic bag stuffed with mysterious objects and said, 'Morning Sir, I'm fine. Can you keep my mushrooms until the end of the day?'
I thought, 'Woah, you brought a bag a shrooms to school?' and peered into his plastic bag as I agreed. Inside were three incredibly large mushrooms, about the size of one's head. I asked if he would sell me one.
'Two dolla,' he quickly replied.
'Elias, that's a bit low, how about five?' He agreed, so I tucked away a head-sized mushroom into my bag.

These mushrooms have an interesting story. In Oshiwambo, they're known as owowa. Owambos joke that they're really made of chicken. They do taste a bit like chicken and even have a similar meaty texture. I picked some with my sister last rainy season, they erupt from the sides of termite mounds where one can then pick them out. Since then, I have been eagerly awaiting their return.

I did some research on these wonders of nature known as termitomyces and here's what I found out. The mushroom forms a symbiotic relationship with the termites living in the mound. The termites actively harvest the spores in fungus gardens inside the colony. The fungus garden consists of a comblike structure made from partially digested woody materials. As the fungus grows it converts the cellulose into simple sugars for the termites to eat. Normally, fungi are bad news for the termites since they eat all of the termites food supplies. Termitomyces however grows slowly and is able to outcompete other fungi in the cabondioxide enriched environment.

My research however turned up no recipes for this beast. So I approached this problem as a test for my cooking abilities. I wanted to be a bit more creative than just boiling the mushroom in soup packets as my sister suggested. I cut up my mushroom into strips along the direction of its fibers. I also chopped up some garlic and onions which I then sauteed in some olive oil. I tossed in my mushroom along with some water a few minutes later.

Then came spice time. Now I'm not a big mushroom kind of guy, in fact I haven't cooked fresh mushrooms at all in this country. So I pulled a Colbert, went with my gut feeling, and started haphazardly spicing up my mushroom. I added some vegetable stock accompanied by sage, rosemary, and thyme. Sorry Simon and Garfunkel, but I had no parsley. I let the water come to a boil and threw in some diced tomatoes. After staring at my creation with puffs of steam slowly escaping from the waterlogged fungal material, I thought it was still missing something. It still had this phantasmal white color to it, as if it might turn into a zombie and never be digested by my stomach. I grabbed some turmeric and added a dash. I immediately regretted the addition, but as the mushroom took on a cheerful yellow glow, I felt better about my decision. Besides, yellow food is happy food. I drained most of the water into a second pot and moved my mushroom to the oven. I used the excess water to make some colorful rice as my mushroom got baked.

The termitomyces, this was the smallest one in Elias' bag.

Here's the end result, one of my best creations to date. I let my sisters try it out and they all agreed it was delicious. So there you have it, I'm a halfway decent cook ... I think (therefore I am).

Youth Outreach Center II

2010-02-28T18:08:00.001+02:00

A big thanks is due to all the people who donated money for the outreach center. Since PC took down the website explaining what the grant was designed for, I'll give a rehash of it here.

The Emvula Outreach Center seeks to provide students with life skills, a meeting place for HIV/AIDS clubs, and improved access to information. There are 140 students at Emvula Junior Secondary School in Okando, a rural community in Namibia. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has hit the community hard, leaving 30% of the students orphaned. The current Outreach Center at the school is quickly deteriorating due to a poorly built floor. The use of the room has become very limited because it's so dusty. The community has already made significant contributions to the project by converting an empty classroom into the current center. The future center will have computers for educational purposes, along with HIV/AIDS material for the students to read. The center will also be used for the school’s AIDS awareness club and programs like My Future My Choice and Windows of Hope, which build positive life skills.

I blogged awhile ago about how our gravel road is being paved and that Okando is the headquarters for this operation. One really nice thing is that this brings in lots of skilled labor. So two weeks ago I tracked down Tate Angula, the king of concrete. He said he could start working the following weekend and that all we had to do was remove as much of the old concrete during the week, easier said than done. I turned my BIS periods (library classes) into a chain gang and we busted the old floor apart with hoes. It was pretty hilarious since after five minutes of hammering the room became unbearably dusty. So we had to vacate and we played games under a tree until the dust settled. Then we would pound for another couple of minutes and then escape to the fresh air outside.

On Thursday of that week I went to Ongwediva with my HOD, head of department (kind of like an assistant principal). We bought concrete, shelves, and paint from Benz, which is an enormous building supply store. It has to be one of the biggest enclosed spaces in Namibia, and just like most of the country, it's almost all empty!

Paka came over that weekend and we did what all PCVs do when they get together; enjoy some great food and movies. We made spaghetti, oshikandela pancakes, thick-crust hawaiian pizza, french toast, and omelets (if you remove all the commas in that sentence it also sounds delish). For our viewing pleasure the menu consisted of Taken, Inglorious Basterds, and Eastbound and Down.

Tate Angula along with three workers (plus Paka) came over last Sunday and we poured some concrete. I told some learners that if they want to help out they were more than welcome, but only one showed up, Elias. He's an exuberant and exceedingly clever kid in my grade 9 math class. I sometimes think that if he was in America, he would be diagnosed with ADHD and put on ritalin. He's always the kid blurting out answers and making jokes during class. I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but Elias is definitely in the top three.

We finished the 50 square meter room by the early afternoon. I learned a lot about making concrete, it's some pretty amazing stuff; it actually gets stronger the older it gets! Paka and I parted ways and Elias came over to visit. I wanted to reward him, so I let him play some super nintendo games on my laptop. We ate some curried rice and lentils and watched District 9. It was interesting to watch a movie about alien apartheid in a post apartheid country. He picked up on most of the parallels to South African apartheid by himslef.

This past week we've been trying to keep the floor wet since concrete needs to stay wet for a week to reach its full strength. I joke around with Elias, saying that he's the project manager. He rounds up learners so they can gather water and pour it on the floor. Having Elias on my side really makes things a lot easier.

This coming week we're planning on moving everything back in the room. I'm hoping it will be done by Thursday, so My Future My Choice has a place to meet.

Hoo! Aah! That's the sound of the learners working on the chain ga-a-ang.

Shakeups and Surprises

2010-02-15T01:12:00.007+02:00

By mid-January I had to return to Okando, school was starting! When I returned home to the village my family had underwent a metamorphosis. Family in Owambo culture is not your nuclear family, it includes all aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. In fact there aren't words for most of those relations in Oshiwambo. Three of my siblings had moved on to hostel schools, and two siblings returned home after completing grade 12. Two of my older brothers also returned to the homestead to help with cultivating.

On my first day of school, I awoke in the predawn to a rainstorm beating on my tin roof. As I lay in bed, I asked myself, "Self, do you have to go to school today? You've never even called in sick, faking or otherwise!" I mustered enough will power to get out of bed and used extra protection for my walk; a raincoat and a poncho.

When I arrived at school it seemed just like last year, it started with a 'brief' meeting. Unfortunately the word brief just doesn't translate and the meeting dragged on and on (and on). Fortunately there were many surprises in the meeting to prevent me from taking a siesta. The biggest surprise is we're getting grade 11 at Emvula JSS. My principal explained that since our grade 10 learners performed well last year, we were to be 'rewarded' with a class of 40 grade 11 learners. I don't know if 'reward' translates that well either. The teachers were furious over this decision for many reasons. Basically they think our school's performance will nosedive because of the added load of another grade and we don't have resources for 40 more kids.

Our school was also chosen because we have more classrooms than classes, leaving some rooms empty for some periods. The principal asked if we had any ideas, literally anything. After a long silence I suggested we split up the classes we have. There are six classes with around 35 learners each, not an ideal size but we make it work. If we were to split them up, then we wouldn't have any open classrooms and they would (hopefully) receive more attention, problem solved, right? But another surprise was in store to kill my idea, according to my principal there is a minimum class size of 30 learners. That's not a typo, 30 learners is the minimum class size. Boisterous laughter ensued in my head; maximum for US, minimum for Nam, all too true.

I started the year teaching two classes of grade eight math and grade ten physical science. The grade eights seemed nice, smiles on their faces, pens busily scribbling math in their notebooks. I speak about as fast as they type, one word per minute. After a year of teaching Namibian learners, I have a good idea when kids understand something or just feign it. So just to test them, I said, "If you understand what I'm saying, raise your hand." Only three or four kids raised their hands and guess who they were, the repeaters from last year. I thought maybe that was too hard of a question so I asked, "What day is it?" This time no one answered. I tried the direct Oshiwambo translation, "How much is the day?" Their faces remained unchanged, smiles and glazed eyes. It dawned on me that last year there was a majority of repeat learners and that this year it was almost all newcomers. After a few more days I spoke to the other math teacher and we swapped classes. So the official count has me at grade nine math and grade ten physical science. These classes include all the learners I taught last year, so they understand how I pronounce the letter 'r'.

A wise mad once said, shake me up, shake me down, shakin that thing all over town. So after all that shakin it's been same old same old, I go to school everyday and try to teach some kids something.

A few kilometers from my house is a big hole in the ground. The sand was used to build the current gravel road. It's a nearly perennial source of water for the village.

This is my host-grandmother Nangombe in her Sunday best.

Cape to Vic

2010-01-30T11:24:00.003+02:00

For the last days of 2009 I found myself traveling a monstrous distance from the village to Cape Town to meet my sister for new years eve. This involved four taxis, hitchhiking, and sleeping on a bus, all interspersed with inordinate amounts of walking. The celebrations in Cape Town were marvelous, by midnight Long Street was filled with revelers lighting off fireworks and libatious festivities. We spent the next couple days enjoying the continued celebrations and exploring the city. We hit up the beach, hiked some of table mountain, and ate lots of delicious food. We also swung by McDonald's, I hadn't visited the golden arches in over year. I had a quarter pounder with cheese and freedom fries, corporate colonization never tasted so good.

The next leg of our journey took us all the way to Livingstone, Zambia. We jumped on the intercape bus and by the next morning we were in Windhoek. We spent the day enjoying the biggest city in Namibia and the fact that we were not on a bus. After meandering the city we had to get back on the intercape and finish our travels north to Livingstone. We arrived in Livingstone in the middle of a thunderstorm, our ankles were swollen, and our stomachs ready for a good meal. The next morning, we explored the mighty Victoria Falls, or Mosi-oo-tunya ("the smoke that thunders") in Kalolo-Lozi. For future reference, if a baboon charges you, hold your ground, at least it worked for us. The falls are mind boggling, in scale, force, and sheer beauty. At some point I want to go back and catch a view from Zimbabwe. We also hopped across the border to Botswana to catch a bit of Chobe national park. We saw a multitude of wildlife; giraffes, hippos, baboons, warthogs, impala, kudu, birds of all sorts, elephant, crocodiles, monitor lizards, and even a glimpse of a lioness and two cubs. But fun spelled backwards is nuf, so my sister had to go home to a place called America. It sounds like such a wonderful place, maybe I'll go someday.

I stuck around in Windhoek for a PC workshop dubbed mid-service. I found out I had a new associate peace corps director and country director, think boss and super boss. As always, it was great to meet up with all the volunteers from my group, there's only 17 of us now (with a total of 70+ PCVs in the country). I guess this means I'm officially half-way done.

New years day +1 celebrations. The city was filled with inexplicable parades and marching bands for the duration.

Table mountain as seen from The Company's garden. There was a cloudfall pouring over table mountain.

Cape Town from part way up Table Mountain.

It's next to impossible to truly capture the falls, it's the widest falls in the world and spans two countries.

Thirsty?

The mighty mighty dung beetle

Food: Enter Here

Mildly hungry hippos

Pineapple Xmas

2010-01-28T22:18:00.003+02:00

Christmas in the village was well ... interesting, it was certainly unlike any other xmas ever. My host family had mushroomed over the month of December while I was gone. Many family members who work in other parts of the country had returned home to lay claim to their vacant bedrooms.

On Christmas morning I decided to sleep in rather than wake up at 4AM to go to church, few of my family members went anyway. Church got out around 10AM and people starting returning to the homestead, except it wasn't just my family members. People from all over the village were pouring into the homestead. We were separated by sex, men were in the sitting room and women in the kitchen (how typical). My sisters were running around with plates of food trying to make sure everyone was served. The meal consisted of two pieces of goat meat, macaroni with ketchup, potato salad with extra mayo, and cabbage and carrots with no seasoning. As I was just typing that, it made me realize how far I've come because at the time I didn't expect anything else. Ham, pies, and chocolate were completely off my radar.

Since half of Christmas is spent in church and the other half with people from the community, December 26th is celebrated as family day. I made hawaiian pizza featuring fresh pineapple, as it turns out fresh is cheaper than canned. Fresh pineapples also make for more fun than canned pineapples.

Shalongo sporting some stylish headwear in her new dress

A fiery sunset with a giant termite mound

Youth Outreach Center

2009-12-28T15:50:00.001+02:00

I just want to let you all know about a grant for Emvula JSS. Some colleagues and I wrote a grant to the Peace Corps Partnership Program during this past school term. The grant has been approved and is now on the PC website. You can learn about what the grant is for and donate funds at this address. Donations are tax deductible and 100% of your donation goes towards the outreach center! We'll really appreciate any and all help. Otwa pandula unene!

Holidazed

2009-12-28T09:23:00.002+02:00

Once school ended, I went down to Windhoek because guess who is coming town. No, not Santa Claus, it's my parents! We took a two week vacation and traveled all over this beautiful country. We went to Etosha (a giant game park), my village, the cheetah conservancy, Sossusvlei (a giant sand dune park), and Lüderitz (a place with an umlaut). Highlights include seeing three whales in Lüderitz, two rhinos in Etosha, and a partridge in a pear tree. I got to drive a car on the wrong side of the road for 4000 km (2500 miles) and I hadn't even touched a steering wheel for over a year. PC doesn't allow volunteers to drive unless on official leave.

I was really surprised by our visit to my village. My host family really went all out to welcome my parents. They sang songs, slaughtered a goat, and even gave us a cooked chicken to go the next morning. I wish they had received an experience closer to my day to day life. When my host-grandmother asked if she could bring cool drinks (soft drinks) I asked her just to bring oshikundu, a traditional beverage. They ended up bringing both. My parents truly received a royal Owambo welcome.

It was great to catch up with my parents, although not that much has changed. We still laugh at the same corny jokes that no one else would understand. My dad and I still talk science non-stop while my mom just rolls her eyes. By the time my parents left, they said they had a much better idea of what I'm doing here. That's great because somedays I don't even know what I'm doing here.

Today I'm heading off to Cape Town to celebrate the new year with my sister, see you next year!

Our evening visitor at Etosha.

Another family on vacation in Etosha.

The quintessential photo of Namibia. When I first learned I was going to Namibia, this is where I thought I would be living; in a tiny shack at the bottom of an enormous dune. Boy was I wrong! I live on a beach, with no ocean in sight. Owamboland is full of white beach sand, palm and mopane trees, and lots of donkeys.

The quintessential photo of Deadvlei.

The beauty of Lüderitz.

Just outside Lüderitz is the ghost town of Kolmanskop, read more here.

The surrounding dunes are now taking the town back.

Schooldazed

2009-12-28T09:07:00.002+02:00

I apologize for leaving you hanging about the elections results; the ruling party kept its two-thirds majority and the president was re-elected. That's change you can believe in!

After the clustering, I headed back to Okando and entered into a marking(grading) frenzy. My learners had finished writing(taking) their exams by the time I returned. In the end, about half of them passed, which is what I was expecting. The grade 10 learners did exceptionally well this year, about three quarters passed!

On the last day of school, learners from grade 8 and 9 showed up to receive their certificates to learn if they passed of failed. They all huddled underneath a few trees trying to find shade. The teacher of each registered class (homeroom) called out the names of the learners, starting with those who passed. Those learners came up and received their certificates full of smiles and applause. Then the sad part began, the learners who failed were called up to receive their certificates while the other learners chided and laughed at them. It really tore me up every time a new learner walked forward under the barrage of verbal assaults.

A question I had been asking myself all year is what is the correlation between English skills and academic performance? Are the learners who have better English skills just smarter in general, or are learners able to perform better because they speak and understand English? Essentially, which is the cause and the effect? I talked this question over with other volunteers and we concluded that it's probably some mix of both factors. However, I decided to delve a little deeper. I asked the clever learners who spoke really good English if they speak it with someone on their homestead. It turns out that they all did. So this gives some credence to the latter option, that learners perform better because they have better English skills.

I think this would be a fascinating research project with lots of outlets to explore. The conclusions could really help shape education policy here. As it stands, learners are taught in their mother tongue for grades one to four. However, if English ability does leads to better academic performance then learners should really be taught in English from grade one. There's a school in the nearby town of Oshikuku that uses English as the medium of instruction from grade one. I've met some of these learners and they're some of the cleverest kids in this region.

I don't want to lead you to believe that the case for English skills and academic performance is open and shut. There are so many other variables in play. In fact, I have a brother and sister in my math class, one got an A the other got an F, same homestead, totally different English abilities, totally different academic performance. Surely, a lot of this lies in individual effort and natural abilities. It's something I'll keep pondering during my second year.

The two top learners in grade 8 with their teacher.

The huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

It's a Cluster____

2009-11-28T10:50:00.009+02:00

As I'm sure you all you know, Namibia is having national elections. This is Namibia's fourth presidential and parliamentary election since independence in 1990. I won't try to describe the entire situation here, my views are definitely biased by being a foreigner and not having lived through apartheid and and a 23 year war. Here's what the media has to say about the election.

Namibia hit by legal rows ahead of elections
Violence Rocks Outapi

PC has moved volunteers in Owamboland into clusters because of fears over political violence during the election. We are now in day two of elections and the situation has remained peaceful. I'm clustered outside outside Outapi with four other volunteers. We're not allowed to go into town, so we've been watching movies and cooking lots of tasty food. It was a pretty good way to spend Thanksgiving day.

Shalonga having a small drink.

Obi and Nandjila are pounding ash that is used for dying palms leaves black, which are then woven into baskets.

The tire swing is still here.

Oshizizi (Green)

2009-11-17T01:31:00.007+02:00

"My environment is green," my learner remarked while looking out the window. The rains have finally come back and the landscape is changing. I got a nice chance to appreciate all the changes during the first weekend of November. I hitchhiked my way to the Windhoek for a meeting with the Diversity Committee. About half the volunteers in Namibia will be leaving in December, so this meeting was a passing of the torch. I am pleased to announce that I am the new head of the photography project. The idea behind the project is to allow Namibian youths to share their vision with the world. We have several cameras that are circulating around Namibia and we're organizing some exhibitions in Windhoek to raise money for diversity tour 2010. You can check out some photos here.

As of last week, the school year has essentially ended for me . Classes are finished and learners are now in exam mode until the first week of December. Honestly, I don't think there needs to be this much testing, it takes up roughly eight weeks of school each year. In the end though it's not my decision to make, so I just go along with it. Which means I bring a book to school and invigilate (proctor) for four hours everyday. At least I can get ahead on my reading.

I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with other volunteers in Rundu this coming weekend. It will be better than last year; I was in Okando for my site visit and ate canned fish and porridge.

The weather has certainly changed for the prettier, which unfortunately also means hotter.

You can make out the kraal for cattle in the center. On the right is the pigs' home.

This area is where mahangu is stored after harvest but before it's put in omashisha, large woven baskets.

Snowplows in the Desert (Signs of Development)

2009-11-01T13:21:00.003+02:00

I used to chuckle at the sight of snowplows in this country until I realized what they were used for. The gravel roads need to be leveled and repaired from time to time. I can't honestly call them gravel roads because they're just stretches of sand with tire tracks in them. During the rainy season the 'gravel' roads turn into kilometer long murky puddles. Traveling on them is like a ride at an amusement park but instead of getting splashed with water at the end you just get a face full of mud.

Soon (in the Namibian sense of the word) there will be a tarred road connecting Oshikuku to Okalongo and continuing on to Angola. This means my village will have a tarred road connecting it to the surrounding towns. As it turns out, this is a very big deal, so big in fact the president came to Okando. That's right President Hifikepunye Pohamba came to my village. It was a gala affair two weeks ago when he swooped down from the sky via helicopter. He gave a speech to celebrate the commencement of the road construction. He was followed up by Tate Buti, an extremely popular Namibian artist, who lip-synched a couple of tracks. Food was served to everyone in attendance, about 200 people. While this isn't the best use of government funds, in an election year it happens.

We finally had our first big rainstorm, it filled the oshanas and even hailed for a minute. This was just what the landscape needed to make it green again. With the rainy season comes the clouds, with the clouds comes the beautiful sunsets, which means I need to dust off the camera and start shooting again!

Out in the mahangu field, the ground is getting ready for planting.

Joy and Pain

2009-10-14T22:11:00.002+02:00

I've been doing a lot of reflecting these past weeks and noticed I tend to only blog when I'm in a good mood. I think this tends to make my disposition appear perpetually sunny. Well it's not, unfortunately. Sometimes I feel like a plumb bob that's been cast into too deep of water. I'm constantly bobbing up and down in a large sea that's out of my control. Sometimes I can reel myself in and other times the fisherman just casts me out.

In Namibia, there are many ways to fail, their names are E F G and U. That's right, there are four different failing symbols (grades) learners can receive. In fact, some kids are content with getting an E or an F because if they can scrap together a few Ds, they can pass to the next grade. They just need the American equivalent of 1.0 GPA in six out of nine classes to pass. Unfortunately, only 11 of the 41 grade ten learners passed this past term. If I had to take a guess at reasons why it would be English and critical thinking skills. It's discouraging to see failure on this level, but we all have to deal with it.

The learners in grade ten are currently writing (taking) their final exams. The learners are really whipped up in a fury of studying. One day after school I started talking to some boys who were goofing off. I started asking them questions about the physical science they were supposedly studying. All of a sudden our roles were reversed and they were asking me all sorts of questions. Like why does the moon have phases, how did people get to the moon, what did they breathe, what's the moon made out of, what's the sun made out of, why is the sky blue, why are sunsets red, why is the moon sometimes red, what's glass made out of, are dreams real, are witches real? I was really impressed with their curiosity, I think it's something that isn't always encouraged. I felt like Carl Sagan in an episode of Cosmos, except I was drawing everything in the sand: pictures, diagrams, graphs, etc. I think I made skeptics out of some of them by the time I left.

There were quite a few good things that happened last week. Our head boy (think school president) wanted to start an AIDS awareness club and the math teacher/school counselor was helping him out. It's great to see stuff like this coming from the school, I didn't have to do anything to get this started which hopefully means it will continue after I leave. The learners, especially the boys, had so many questions to ask. Can I use a plastic bag for a condom? How about tape? We were able to erase a lot of false information and replace it with facts in just two sessions.

My favorite question was when one boy asked me what he can do if, "his penis is always hard and he has no girlfriend." I told him about masturbation, he was so surprised to hear about it. By the time I finished explaining I was surrounded by 20 boys all patiently listening. It's interesting to note how conservative some parts of Owambo culture are. Parents just don't discuss sex with their kids, period. These kids hear a lot of misinformation and just have to figure it out on their own. Which is not the ideal situation when the HIV prevalence rate is around 20% in Namibia and notably higher in this region. It feels good to finally stop dancing around the HIV/AIDS issue. I bring it up in class when I can, but it's just not the ideal situation to discuss issues like that.

My photography has stagnated as everything here is brown, dead, and cloudless. So let's reminisce about greener and cloudier days, they'll come again.

What a Long Strange Trip

2009-09-16T01:03:00.004+02:00

As soon as exams ended at my school I was off yet again, this time for the Diversity Tour. On August 25, I headed to Windhoek with 28 learners, some were attending Camp GLOW the rest were going on tour with 40 learners and 10 PCVs.

Over the next eight days we traveled all over Namibia, from the capital city, to the ocean, to Etosha, to Opuwo, and many places in between. It was a great opportunity for the learners to see all the diversity of their country, from the environment to different cultures.

As some of you know, after WWI Namibia was colonized by South Africa. The colonial government enforced a strict apartheid policy in an attempt to divide and conquer the people of Namibia. The effects of apartheid are still a hot issue in Namibia, which is the whole point of bringing together learners from all 13 regions of the country.

My favorite part of the whole tour was an activity called 'The Wall'. We had 16 small boxes wrapped in white paper. On each box was written the name of a group of people. Some boxes had the names of tribes in Namibia, like Owambo, Herero, Damara, Nama, etc. Others had people living with HIV/AIDS, non-christians, homosexuals, etc. We divided the kids into groups of ten and gave them time to write down all the stereotypes they've heard about each group on each box. We then had a wonderful discussion about tribalism, racism, sexism and every other ism you can think of. We slowly built up the wall made by the boxes and at the end of our discussion we tore down the wall (a la Pink Floyd)! It was so great to see such a diverse group of kids working through their differences respectfully.

Since the end of the tour I've been settling down into a nice routine again. I've got lots of secondary projects now to keep me busy. Our school garden is growing lots of tomatoes, hopefully soon there will be some cabbage too. Our school newspaper has been a huge success, learners are reading and writing all sorts of crazy things. I also have big project underway, but I'll save that for a future post.

Here we all are, minus me, in our natural state, airborne.

While the volunteers huddled for warmth, the learners jumped right in the frigid waters of the Atlantic.

My Darwin, what fine spots you have!

Lots more photos where those came from.

Another Term Bites the Dust

2009-08-13T01:10:00.005+01:00

After the science fair fiasco I headed down to Tsumeb for a plenary meeting for the diversity tour (Namlish side note, a tour is a field trip). At the end of August I'll be going on a tour of Namibia with 40 learners and 9 other PCVs. The goal of the tour is to promote cultural and environmental diversity in Namibia. Learners in my community rarely leave our region, or get a chance to meet people of other tribal/ethnic groups. So we've gathered learners from all over Namibia to travel around the country during the August holiday. All the messy details are still getting worked out.

I returned to Okando and entered into the last week of classes. Teaching has become very routine now. I pushed my learners really hard that week, we almost finished the syllabi for term 2! The amount of material on the syllabi is mind boggling. In the States, we would devote a whole year to geometry or algebra. But in Namibia, we cram all topics from math into one year. Each grade is then supposed to build on previous years. However, some learners just get pushed through the system and end up in my class not being able to do 8x7 without a calculator. The same is true for physical science.

As August began, I was beckoned to Windhoek for a medical and dental check up. I have a clean bill of health, no strange parasites here. It was really good to catch up with the other PCVs, I don't get out of my village enough.

It's exam time here at school, learners take exams for two or three hours each day. I can hardly imagine the mental endurance needed to take three hours exams everyday for two weeks. I'm really proud of these kids for stepping up to that challenge. It's strange to think that I don't have to teach again until the second week of September. I guess it's one perk of being a teacher.

Onto the photos!

This is downtown Windhoek, it's pretty well developed as you can see. I took these photos in May during reconnect.

Just outside Windhoek, there are many informal settlements of tin shacks. While you may not think they look great from the outside, most are fairly pleasant inside. By the way, Namibia has the most unequal distribution of wealth of any country.

PCVs often joke about silly secondary projects, mine finally became a reality last weekend. I whipped up a tire swing for the little ones on my homestead. Today there was small group of kids playing on it. I wonder how long it will last.

Here's my latest kitchen creation for you to salivate over. It's packed full of my favorite spice, cinnamon!

Blinded with Science

2009-07-28T01:04:00.002+01:00

Last week was extra hectic. I received a call on Tuesday informing me of a regional science fair that was to be held on Thursday. I could remember filling out a form the previous week and was eagerly awaiting more information. So I had three days to work with a few learners and whip up something awesome. I had bought a few supplies the previous weekend thinking we could use them to do some wave demonstrations. We made two beautiful apparatuses to show transverse, longitudinal, and torsional waves in slow motion. We connected a long series of rubber bands together with paper clips and attached coins to the paper clips. The coins increased the inertia of each segment and the rubber bands provided a weak restoring force.

I took two grade ten learners to Outapi on Thursday. We showed up exactly (what I thought was) on time, 5PM. I was informed that I was very late and the judging had already begun. I could hardly believe it, I was operating on Africa time subconsciously. However, this was only the first of a long series of surprises.

I've grown accustomed to living in a constant state of confusion. At school, I'm no longer surprised when the day is unexpectedly cut in half for school board elections or a long weekend. When I'm at home I can deal with water and electricity cutting out. But this science fair was on a whole new level incertitude.

After my learners were settled down, I walked around asking other learners questions about their projects. I wasn't too surprised to find out they had only surface knowledge of what they were doing. If the answer wasn't on their poster, most of them didn't know it. I was eventually asked to sit down and just wait for dinner. That's what I get for asking too many questions.

Just as I sat down, my two learners asked me for a pen and some papers. They explained that other learners had "portfolios," which are the Namibian equivalent of a lab notebook. Well, I had a pen but no sizable piece of paper. So we were without a portfolio, which in my mind spelled doom for our project.

During dinner I was informed that they didn't have accommodation for me at the school hostel. I was to stay at a teacher's house who lived about 30 km away on gravel roads. As dinner wrapped around 7PM I thought we would all be heading out. Nope, it was time for round two of judging! This dragged on for another four and a half hours. I started dozing off around 10PM. I felt really sorry for the primary school kids, they were also falling asleep as the judges continued to ask questions.

I asked my learners what questions the judges asked them. I was a bit shocked to find the judges spouting misinformation, like how electricity can't be a wave. I wanted to shout at them, "What the heck do you think 50Hz means, it's only written on every appliance here!" Oh well, the judging was finally over and it was about time for me to pass out.

The next morning, I was informed that some government official was going to give a speech at the awards ceremony. We had to practice singing and dancing outside in the cold (yes, it was cold that morning). It was then that I learned the Prime Minister was going to show up! The learners were singing a song that went something like, "Welcome, welcome, Mr. Prime Minister, we're so happy to have you here." When he eventually showed up, about two hours late, he waltzed in with his entourage and had a look on his face as if he were the king of Namibia. I was really put off by the whole show. He was a great speaker though, as one would expect from a politician.

So If you haven't guessed by now, my learners didn't win. However, I was so happy when they told me how much they learned. That's what really counts anyways, knowledge is the best prize a learner could have received. After the science fair I darted off to Tsumeb, about 300 km away, for the weekend. I'll have to make another post about that sometime.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera for this trip. I do have some photos for you though.

"What are you looking at baldly?"

This is Tangeni, he's also asking me, "What are you looking at baldly?"

Some cows asking me, "What are you looking at baldly?"

Even the clouds made a surprise appearance to ask, "What are you looking at baldly?"

Haircuts

2009-07-13T21:28:00.002+01:00

I’ve now had three and a half haircuts since coming to Namibia. This is about three more than I would have had if I was in the States. Unfortunately, bucket showers and long hair don’t play nice with each other, so I’ve been sticking to shorter hairdos. I find it interesting to look back on my series of haircuts and reflect on where I’ve come from and what I’ve learned.

My first haircut was on Thanksgiving during my site visit. My host brothers and I had gone to Oshikuku for the afternoon to hang out. I got my hair cut in a room that was made from two walls of plywood and shared a third with the adjacent bar, not exactly the barber shop I was used to. My new hair cut was also something I wasn’t used to either. It was damn short, shorter than I’ve ever had it. The next day, I unexpectedly ended up in the sun for a marathon ceremony. My scalp was burnt like a fried fish. Worst. Dandruff. Ever.

This episode put me off from getting my hair cut anytime soon. By April though I had to get it cut again, it was just too difficult to keep it clean. This time Paka and I were in Oshakati trying to find the hike point (a place where you can get a taxi) to Tsandi. We walked by a house that had a barbershop set up in the front yard. This time it had three walls made of corrugated tin. The barber’s cutting skills were far superior to his English skills. I had to use Paka as my translator. My haircut was better than damn good, not a single hair too long, and not a spot missed.

So two weeks ago I set out to find this magic barber again. I was armed with all the Oshiwambo vocabulary I needed to get a nice haircut. The only problem was he wasn’t there, blërg! This past Saturday I was Oshikuku and was willing to try out a new barber that was a little closer to home. I found a nice barber shop that looked legit, it had plaster walls and glass windows. Using induction, I reasoned this haircut would be the best. Boy was I wrong. I sat down in a chair and this smallboy walks in, greets me, and starts cutting with the grain. I should have told him to stop and cut my losses. I ended up with a two lane road running down the middle of my head, double blërg!

To alleviate my hairy conundrum, on Sunday I asked my colleague Peter, if he'd be willing to cut my hair. He had a nice pair of electric clippers, but no guard. I realized I wouldn't be keeping anything on my head. After he finished with me, I got to play barber and cut his hair. On my walk back to the homestead I got several priceless responses. The best was my host sister who was left almost speechless, reduced to saying just, "Oh, mem, Gerega, oh, mem, Gerega!" Rather than leave what stubble was left, I decided I would shave it all off. If I didn't shave it, it would be like road tripping to the ocean and not getting wet. So I took the plunge and am now the proud owner of a hairless head, except the eyebrows of course. And by my count that's three and a half haircuts.

Two of my host sisters, Nandjila and Aina. Yes, the world does in fact revolve around Aina.

A Solstice Celebration!

2009-06-21T20:08:00.003+01:00

Today marks the winter solstice for us in the southern hemisphere, the shortest day of the year and conversely the longest night. The days leading up to the winter solstice progressively get shorter and the sun does not reach as high in the sky. During the three days surrounding the solstice, the sun stops its descent. And on the third day, the ~~son~~ sun rises slightly higher in the sky. I completely understand why so many religions celebrate this occurrence. It really is something to honor and get excited about.

Longer days are good thing for me since I've started cooking on my own. My kitchen has no electricity (or a sink), so when the sun sets I have to rely on a dim paraffin lamp for light. Instead of porridge and dried fish every night, I've been eating a much more balanced diet.

One of my friends used to chide me for making nearly identical meals every night, he dubbed it, "the Jaehnig special." There were many Jaehnig specials, but they all relied on a just-add-water recipe. I have finally broken away from the Jaehnig specials. I'm making everything from scratch now, including bagels. That's right BAGELS. I haven't even seen a bagel for seven months, yet alone tasted one. The ingredients are so simple yet it has the most complex procedure and take two days to make. This morning I boiled and baked the bagels I started last night. Many thanks to Rashid for finding a recipe online.

Little Shalongo came to watch me make bagels.

Little Greg stared up at the sky during the longest night and this is what he saw; a view of the galactic center.

Soak up the sky, breath in the light, and know this is where you came from.

Day of the African Child

2009-06-17T19:30:00.003+01:00

I just want to say a few words about Day of the African Child, since I failed to do so in my last post. The Day of the African Child is used to commemorate the events of June 16, 1976 when thousands of black children in Soweto, South Africa protested the Apartheid educational system, specifically that they were learning through Afrikaans and not their local language. Police opened fire on the crowd and hundreds of children were shot. In the ensuing riots, hundreds of people died.

I hope my learners can appreciate the sacrifice of those children and at the same time, recognize the long road ahead in achieving quality education. In all honesty, they probably see both a lot clearer than I do or ever will.

So educate yourself and read more about it here.

Lazy Weekend

2009-06-16T11:40:00.006+01:00

Happy Day of the African Child! What, you guys in the States don't celebrate that?

So last Friday, my Principal announced that we would not be having school on Monday because Tuesday will be the Day of the African Child. "Sweet, a three day weekend," I thought.

On Sunday, I ran into some learners and as we departed I said, "Oshi wete metiyali." They all burst out laughing and I thought to myself, there's nothing wrong with that sentence, I will see you on Tuesday. They replied, "Aa-ee, oshi wete metitatu." What, see you on Wednesday! They must be mistaken I thought, how could I be left in the dark again? So I started SMSing (texting) my colleagues. It turns out, what the learners said was correct. So my relaxing three day weekend has now turned into an even more relaxing four day weekend.

So what should I do with my extra time that just fell into my lap? I don't really know, but this seems fun:

I know I know, I shouldn't make of fun the Peace Corps, but sometimes three days turn into four days and my mind wanders...

Greg Wears a Tie to School

2009-06-12T19:26:00.002+01:00

It's a bit of a shock in the morning when my foot touches the cold cement floor. Each day the weather just keeps getting colder as we approach the winter solstice. It will be a wonderful thing when the days start getting longer. Today, I decided to wear a tie since I thought it would keep me a little warmer. The responses I got from my colleagues and learners were priceless. Of course I replied with a bland Namibian response like, "Oh, why thank you." I will also include a play by play of my thoughts because I rarely get a chance to say them out loud.

P: You look smart!
Greg: Seriously, it's just a piece of fabric, but my IQ is probably ten points higher because of it.

H: Is it your birthday, is that why you are wearing a tie?
Greg: On my birthday I will be wearing my birthday suit, no tie needed.

I: Good morning Professor Greg.
Greg: Hey, that's got a nice ring to it! Can you greet me that way every morning? I'll give you sweets.

E: Now, you are a man!
Greg: Screw you kid! You may be my best learner in mathematics but this is your third time in grade eight. Okay okay, I'll let that one slide.

Holy crap Mr. Greg is wearing a tie!

Daydreams

2009-06-02T21:04:00.001+01:00

Persons of the dialogue: Greg and Amutenya
Scene: Classroom
Time: End of second period math class

Amutenya: Sir, what is the last number?
Greg: The last number?
A: Yes!
Greg writes the word infinity on the blackboard
G: We call the biggest number infinity, there's no number bigger than it.
Next to the word, Greg draws the symbol ∞.
A: Sir, that is eight sleeping.

Sometimes I daydream dialogues like this one in my head. But this one isn't a daydream, it really happened today. I was astounded at both the question and the response, inquisitive and skeptical. Well, my work is done, what more could I ask for!

I leave you with few more from Fish River.

Phunky Phresh Photos

2009-05-23T20:52:00.001+01:00

As promised, I have uploaded some more photos for your viewing pleasure. I hope they don't disappoint. I'm still sitting on a small mountain of photos, but I think I will let them linger. I spent most of the day thinking it was Friday only to learn that it's Saturday!

And I Am Taken Far Away

2009-05-21T20:37:00.001+01:00

So what have I been doing for the past month? Well I survived two weeks of PC workshops in Windhoek. The most redeeming quality of the workshop was where it located; just outside Windhoek nestled on the top of some beautiful hills. Oh the hills, in northern Namibia there are no hills, so it's very refreshing to see undulations in the landscape. My camera was also very happy about the change in scenery.

After the workshops I headed into the deep south with Paka and some other volunteers to hike Fish River Canyon, which is basically the Grand Canyon of Africa. We took our time hiking the 86 magnificent kilometers, six days in total. Again, my camera was very happy with the change in scenery. It was an absolutely spectacular experience, from sleeping under the stars to swimming in the river to just chilling on a sunny rock. Here's the sunrise from our last morning in the canyon. More photos will come, just bear with me.

I'm back in the village now and the weather is starting to get a bit chilly, believe it or not. The oshanas(ponds) are starting to dry up leaving murky pools that dot the landscape. One wonderful thing about the water drying up is that it allows for new fishing techniques. Today I went with my siblings to a nearby oshana that had shrunk to a few meters. We took conical reed baskets, slammed them into the muddy water, and trapped fish inside the baskets. Then we would just reach in and pull out a juicy catfish. We caught upwards of 40 fish! We sold ten fish so we could have a machine pound our mahangu for the nightly dish. That's village economics for you.

The second trimester starts up next Tuesday and I'm excited to get back into the groove of things. Oshilinawa aakuume!

Up or Down It's Up to You!

2009-04-24T12:01:00.004+01:00

The first term has now ended safe and sound. I can proudly say that most of my learners passed this term. So I got that going for me, which is nice. I also got some full grown mahangu, which is also nice. It's almost time to harvest, unfortunately I won't be able stick around for that. I'll be heading to the capitol city, Windhoek, on Sunday for what Peace Corps calls reconnect. Although I feel it's more of a disconnect. I have to leave the village and stay in the big city for two weeks. I don't know what I'll do without my green buckets, maybe I'll just have to take them along.

Here have some mahangu. You can cut the top of the plant off, pound it for thirty minutes with a wooden post in a wooden bowl, don't forget to mix in the sand (it's the other other white grain), throw it in a pot on an open fire, toss in some water, and stir until your arms fall off. Then you can eat some wonderful oshithima. Leave the utensils in the drawer, the only one you need is your right hand. But make sure to not start cooking until the sun goes down, it's just too damn hot to cook during the day. After you stuff yourself like a balloon, waddle back to your room and try to read a book before falling asleep.

One day during the term, the geography teacher decided it would be a good idea to have all the grade eights watch an educational movie. So the library was packed wall to wall with learners. Some learners just decided to play on the computers. I had to bust out the camera before they all left.

The Water is Falling Nice Now Now

2009-04-12T09:04:00.002+01:00

That's what my brother told me when I asked if it's a good time to visit Ruacana falls. Since it's the end of the rainy season there's tons of water flowing from Angola. Paka and I decided to use one day of our four day weekend to visit the falls. The falls are an impressive sight to see, wonderful and fearful at the same time. Paka and I cautiously climbed down a long set of slippery stairs to the base of the falls. We basked in the cool mist that was spraying all around. Watching the falls is like watching the ocean, you can do it all day long and not realize the passage of time. The best part about it was there was almost no one there!
It's terribly difficult to capture the power of the falls in a photograph, but here is my best effort.

There are so many wonderful compositions at the base of the falls, here are two of my favorites.

So I'm done teaching for the first term, when school starts back up on Tuesday there will be two weeks of exams. I'm excited to see how my learners do on their exams. I feel like a kid on summer vacation right now; I don't have any lessons to plan, or homework to grade, or tests to write. I can just bring a book to school and read all day, at least I hope.

Hope is the Way

2009-04-06T18:52:00.003+01:00

One of my favorite things that learners do is give themselves nicknames. They range from soccer players to goofy words usually ending with 'boy.' Some favorites of mine are Kaka Boy, Deco Boy, Soso Boy, Cisse, and Rooney. I usually discover these names during computer free time; letting them roam free on the computers is ecstasy to learners. They usually enjoy typing games or solitaire, but many of them stick to the classic MS paint. They spray paint their nicknames in blazing neon colors on sharply contrasting backgrounds. Today, my eye was caught by this masterpiece.

Some days can be really stressful, but there's little things that melt it all way. But I dare say this is just some 'little' thing. This nearly brought tears to my eyes, learners can be so inspirational at times. I may have been attaching too much meaning to this, so I asked him if Obama was his new nickname. "Yes," he said.
I asked, "Why did you choose Obama?"
"Because I look like him!"
"So you were imitating Obama in those photos last week?"
"Yeah"

See for yourself, a self-proclaimed Obama.

Chalkdust Torture

2009-04-02T21:18:00.001+02:00

There's only five more days of classes for this term! I am horribly behind in maths; but I take solace in knowing that some learners understand some things rather than no learners understanding anything. In physical science we're right on track, we'll finish the semester with a few days of revision (review). I set (wrote) the grade 9 physical science exam for the whole cluster (district). These learners better destroy it!

Here's a photo of a termite mound near my homestead. We collected some wonderful mushrooms from this one in February, which seems ages ago now. I'm reminded of a quote by Douglas Adams when I look at this photo:
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

In case you didn't notice, the date of the last post was April 1, ombili.

Posh Corps Here I Come

2009-04-01T17:33:00.001+02:00

In response to the unprecedented heat wave sweeping Namibia, Peace Corps has decided to take action. Volunteers face a lethal risk of heat exhaustion during the day and even through the night. To remedy this, PC has decided to install air conditioning units at all of our homesteads! So starting tomorrow, I will be living in air conditioned luxury. Goodbye stifling, smelly, sticky room, hello Posh Corps!

Above Us Only Stars

2009-03-28T11:04:00.004+02:00

Here's my classroom nice and quiet, but that's not always the case. As you may have noticed, most of the chairs don't have backs. But not to worry, when I'm teaching my learners only need the edge of their seat! Take note of the amazingly neat periodic table and multiplication table above the chalkboard drawn by yours truly. I love it when I ask a question and I see thirty pairs of eyes drift above my head.

Donkeys often show up for lessons, this one still hasn't paid his school fees. He's still a champ when it comes to maths. The door behind him is the door to my classroom.

I've taken up some astrophotography, it's as easy as point and shoot. I don't have to worry about light pollution either; I can count the number of light bulbs in my village with one hand. So here's a few jewels from the southern sky. That's the southern cross on the left, it's really more of a kite if you ask me. The Carina Nebula is the red blob on the right.

Here's a close up of the Carina Nebula. It's home to Eta Carinae, a hypergiant star about 4 million times brighter than our sun.

This is none other than the Large Magellanic Cloud! It's a mere 160,000 lightyears away, but drawing closer every moment.

There's more new photos on my flickr page than you can shake a stick at.
I'm beginning to realize this is just becoming a photo blog, I hope you don't mind.

The Village Calls You

2009-03-11T22:08:00.003+02:00

Onda nyanyukwa unene oku li megumbo natango! I am extremely happy to be home again! After spending eight days in Ongwediva, aka Diva, PC allowed us to go back to our sites. The fear was that a certain bridge would be swept away in the ensuing flood, without that bridge we would have been "cut off." PC doesn't seem to know about something called donkey carts, I'm pretty sure they could ford a river a la Oregon trail. The insane thing about this whole ordeal is that the flood never really came! My village is almost completely dry, the oshanas are anemic, the streams are desiccated, you can fly on the gravel road, and that fateful bridge is still standing.

I have to give big ups to the math and physical science teachers at my school. They stepped up and taught some of my classes during their free periods! This is very atypical behavior from what I've gleaned from other volunteers. My learners were so excited to see me, I almost want to take another evacuation vacation to receive that welcome again.

So tomorrow I happily go back to the daily grind. It's integers and chemical versus physical change in math and physical science, respectively.

I made some changes to the blog in order to share larger photos with y'all. Here's another photoshop infrared creation.
Field of Dreams...

Turn and Face the Strain

2009-03-03T18:41:00.002+02:00

Changes are underway for Greg, you may even say these are ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. I found out on Monday that I will be evacuated from my village. Peace Corps is concerned about the coming flood waters from Angola. They don't know about my elementary backstroke, it's simply superb (soldier, chicken, bird, flap!). And what ever happened to solidarity?
Anywho, I've been set up in a hotel in Ongwediva again. I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay here or where I'll be going after this. I have some new roommates and some old ones too, including Paka!
I'm pretty bummed out by the whole situation. I told my learners yesterday that I won't be able to teach them this week. One learner asked, "But sir, who will learn us maths?"
"You will just have to learn yourself," I replied. (Learn and teach get mixed up in Namlish.) I really wish I could just stay, there's not too much water here and learners are still coming to school.
I was able to start a book club last week, whereby learners who read a book and write a report get to watch a movie on Friday. Nine learners wrote reports, I am so proud of them! I bought some coca-cola, knik-knaks(cheetos), and sweets. We watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith, based on a unanimous vote. It was really great way to end my week.
I've dug through my journal and pulled out some fun dialogues I've had with my learners; so I'll end this post by sharing a few.

Me: What is this called?
Class: Computer.
Me: Good.
Learner: No, sir it is called a computer!
Everyone: Laughter.
(That's Namibian humor for you.)

Me (addressing the class): Get out your summary book and start on the warm up.
Learner: Eewa (roughly translates as of course)
Me: Let's try to use English, instead of saying eewa, say of course.
Class: OF COURSE!

Me: Do you want homework?
Class: YES!!!

I really love that last one, I say it every time I give homework now.

An Unexpected Guest

2009-02-25T20:19:00.004+02:00

"Omvula ota iiloka," is what my brother tells me and I think to myself, "Really 'the rain is raining,' I haven't noticed that I am getting completely soaked."

It's raining so much in Owamboland that some schools have had to close. At least two of those schools are where other PCVs are teaching. They've become official rain refugees and have had to seek shelter. So Parker "Paka" came over stay with me my family last week. I wonder if this village is big enough for two iilumbu (white people).

Tatekulu briefly mentioned to me that we would give Paka a goat. I didn't really understand what he meant by that at the time. When Paka and I returned home on Friday, Tatekulu's ominous words were realized: We were going to slaughter a goat. The goat put up a terrible fight, I won't forget the sounds he made any time soon. While killing chickens is one thing, killing a goat is on a whole other level. My brother did the dirty work, I held it down and managed to get blood all over my shirt and shorts.

On Saturday we journeyed to Oshakati and experienced a horrendous lactose overload. We had some ohsikandela (a delicious yogurt drink), pizza, and ice cream! Onda ehama epunda lyandje (my stomach was in pain!) My dairy intake since moving to the village has fallen exponentially to zero. Can you believe it, someone who hails from the dairy state of Wisconsin is not eating dairy; it's like Superman without the sun. No need to worry though, I haven't lost my superpowers yet, I just need my monthly dairy recharge.

However, all good things must come to an end. So today Paka left, just as unexpectedly as he came. It appears as though the water has gone down a bit and his school might open on Monday. I never managed to get a photo of us together.

I don't want to leave you empty handed, so here's two random photos I like.

This here is my truck, got about two light years of mileage on it. I still think its best days are ahead of it.

Here is little Obi demonstrating how V=ExB. He's the devilishly cute master of electrodynamics.

Pair of Silent Scenes

2009-02-17T18:48:00.001+02:00

It goes on forever and oh science, it's full of stars! (Anyone get that one, Bueller?) A summer storm approaches, swallowing up the night sky.

A false-color infrared image from our mahangu field. I took the liberty to add some color this photo while I'm waiting for my artistic license to arrive here in Namibia. However, if I hadn't taken this liberty you would just be staring at a black box, because our eyes can't see infrared light.

As for me, I'm doing quite well, or "oshi li nawa" as we say in Oshiwambo. Teaching seems to get easier each week. We're learning about Bohr diagrams in physical science and prime factoring in math. Which is all pretty enjoyable material to teach. Village life is still good, every night I eat supper with my family. Supper is very traditional, consisting of oshithima (porridge), osopa (soup/sauce), and onyama (meat). Last night, instead of meat, we had some delectable mushrooms that we picked from a termite mound! We eat the oshithima by taking a little in our hand, squishing it into a ball, and then dipping it in the soup.

A Day in the Life

2009-02-15T17:01:00.001+02:00

Woke up, got out bed,
No comb to drag across my head.
There's no downstairs,
And I drank a cup (of oshikundu),
And looking up,
I noticed I was (Namibian) late.
Found my (rain) coat,
I've no hat,
The bakkie's tires are flat.
There's no upstairs,
And nothing to smoke,
And somebody spoke,
And I went into an (Oshiwambo) dream.

Here's a view from inside the humble abode, now with fully stocked refrigerator! By fully stocked I mean, bread, eggs, jam, and lots and lots peanut butter.

It's Always Sunny in Namibia

2009-02-08T09:26:00.001+02:00

Today, I just want to share some photos with my faithful readers.

On the right is my humble abode and on the left is my even humbler shower.
Showering at night under the stars is mind-blowing. Just think, the iron racing around in your blood was once in the center of now exploded star, woah.

Here are some of my brothers and sisters. The hut on the left is part of our family kitchen. We use it when it's raining to keep the fire going.

This is the beautiful oshana in front of our homestead. I've been told to enjoy the clouds now, because in the dry season, from June to August, there won't be any. So I've been trying to get my fill of golden hours, in case you haven't noticed.

An Ode to my Green Friends

2009-02-06T09:25:00.002+02:00

When I rise, you become my sink.
Your warm water assists me in shaving the stubble that has grown in the night.
When I return home from school, you become my shower.
Your cool waters revitalize me.
When I have grimy dishes, you become my dishwasher.
One for soap, and one for rinse, you don't mind which.
When my clothes reek, you become my laundromat.
You charge no quarter, not even a penny for each use.
When it rains, you become my water tap.
Diligently hoarding water for me to drink.
Oh green buckets, where would I be without you?
America.

In Need of an Encore

2009-01-24T18:04:00.001+02:00

I'm sure everyone in the US is having a Obama overload, an Obamoverload if you will. Here in Namibia, I don't get all that much media intake. So I was very pleased to see Tuesday's paper, which I happened to get on Thursday. Can you believe it, Obama gets the whole front page of Namibia's national paper. They even put that oh-so-sweet quote from MLK, a true cherry on top.

We're starting to enter the real rainy season now. My tin roof amplifies the sound of the rain, so even when it's just a drizzle, it sounds like a downpour. I guess I'm in need of a rain to noise ratio calibration. The electricity comes and goes with the rain. As a result, my brother hooked me up with a paraffin lamp, how old school is that!
So here I am, huddled by close to my lamp, reading about that new American president; what was his name again?

Cobamalations!

2009-01-20T20:27:00.000+02:00

Or as we say in Oshiwamblish, "Congo tatula eshina!" If you say it fast enough, it kind of sounds like congratulations. If you were to directly translate it, it says, "Congo broke the machine."
Good job America, we survived eight years of the W, I knew we could do it all along. So here's to you America, may the next four years be better than the last!

Daily Meditations II

2009-01-17T19:35:00.000+02:00

"Men come tamely home at night only from the next field or street, where their household echoes haunt, and their life pines because it breathes its own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reach farther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character." - Thoreau

Trampled by goats and pecked by the doves

Happy birthday little Oby, a four year old bundle of joy

I finished the first week of school uneventfully. I'll be teaching come Monday, I promise, cross my heart and hope to die. If not, I'll just have to keep some learners after school and start on about light sabers, the fate of the universe, and Phish (thanks for the lesson plan James). Village life is treating me pretty well, lots of time to practice my Oshiwambo, think about SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1), and life in general. Oh yeah, there's less than three days until Obama is inaugurated, exciting times will be in store!

Daily Meditations

2009-01-15T19:34:00.000+02:00

"So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre."-Thoreau

Just sit under this baobab tree for a while and contemplate that one.

Welcome Home

2009-01-10T09:08:00.000+02:00

So I finally made it home on Thursday and I'm pretty sure the clouds conspired that evening to welcome me home.

I think I can get used to beautiful sunsets every night in the mahangu fields.

Phase Transition

2009-01-07T22:15:00.001+02:00

As of 11AM yesterday morning, we all became official Peace Corps volunteers. We had a lovely ceremony including singing in Rukwangali, speeches in Timbukushi, Rukwangali, Oshindonga, and Oshinkwanyama. The Namibian broadcasting company, NBC, was there along with other reporters.

Today we set off for the north. As per usual, things started slow, like a mopane worm through mud. We kept making stops at gas stations for no apparent reason. We ended up getting to Oshakati at night fall and Peace Corps policy states we cannot travel at night. So the five of us in Omusati region get to spend the night at a hotel in Ongwediva. My frustrations were held at bay by a thick coat of sarcasm.

So as of right now, I'm sitting in a terry cloth chair watching CNN world news, there's some chicken supposedly heading our way, and we're staying up real late, 10PM, to watch the news. Our swearing-in ceremony will be on the NBC news.

These past two days have been a phase transition for all of us (perhaps even second order). We were all living within a few kilometers of each other and interacting on a daily basis. Soon we will be hundreds of kilometers apart, maybe seeing each other once a month. If this analogy is to truly take hold, I think we will all be getting a lot of energy. I'm certainly feeling quite well after a hot shower.

Post Chicken Update:
The meat is tasting! I'm telling you!!!
Oh yeah, our news story was pretty good too.

Happy Solstice!

2008-12-21T20:16:00.002+02:00

Since returning from the North, we have been busy with model school for learners in Okahandja. This is basically a summer school for grades 5 to 10. We, the trainees, get some experience teaching in the Namibian school system and the learners get a preview of the material they will be learning next year. So it's a win-win situation for everyone. The learners also receive a certificate and lunch everyday, bribery at its best.

I was teaching life skills to grade 5, natural science to grade 6a and 6b, and physical science to grade 9 and 10. It was somewhat of a heavy load, about four or five different lesson plans each day. My learners were very excited about the material and seemed happy just to be in school. There's an enormous range in abilities between the learners; some are performing above their grade level, while others seemed to have been pushed through the system. For almost all the learners, English is their second, third or even fourth language. In grade 5, the language of instruction switches from the native tongue to English, this is quite a jump for some learners. On the last day, four of my learners gave me thank you cards, this really made me day.

Nate, Pandu (Nate's host brother) and I went camping in celebration of the solstice. There's a lovely mountain about an hour's hike from Okahandja. We built a fire pit, lean to, and a bench. I'm telling you, the meat was tasting (this is my favorite phrase in Namlish). Nature treated us to an excellent sunset and sunrise, the light was truly amazing.

Here are some photos from our camping trip.

We shared the mountain with some baboons, because in Africa we share.

Distant hills bathed in photons.

The sun sets and another day ends.

We have made fire!

A clear night clearly shows our place in the universe.

A cloudy night clouds our place in the universe.

Rayleigh scattering is a beautiful thing.

Stepping back into time as a new day starts.

Another view of the longest day of the year.

Time to leave our humble abode with hope of returning soon.

Phun Photos

2008-12-03T16:12:00.004+02:00

Here are some photos from our traditional cooking day. We brought our host families to the Kukuri center and cooked all morning such delicacies as mopane worms and mahangu. And yes, I killed a chicken.

All the Amenities

2008-12-01T21:40:00.007+02:00

I spent last week in the far north of Namibia visiting my permanent site, Okando. It is a small village in the Omusati region. I will be staying with a family on a traditional homestead. As my title suggests, I'll have all the amenities: water from a central tap, electricity, and cell phone service. The current volunteer Jennifer, who is leaving in December, told me I got the hook up with this family. My host family is very large and has three generations living on the homestead. The family grows most of their food in the surrounding fields. The main crop is mahangu, which is used to make a porridge called oshithima.

I will be teaching at a Emvula JSS which contains grade 8, 9, and 10. I will be teaching maths to grade 8, physical science to grade 9, and computer skills to grades 8, 9, and 10. Jennifer has done a lot for the school. My community is expecting a lot from me, hopefully I won't let them down.

This picture is of some of my brothers and sisters.

Mailing address:
Greg Jaehnig PCT
Peace Corps Office
PO Box 6862
20 Nachtigal Street
Ausspannplatz
Wndhoek, Namibia
(You might want to add Africa, you never know with the USPS)

We followed the lines going north!

2008-11-23T06:17:00.007+02:00

For the past week, I've been living with a family in Okahandja. I live with a tate (dad), a meme (mom), two brothers and a sister. I really enjoy living with my host family. My brother and sister are twins and are nine years old. My other brother is 16 and attends a secondary school in Windhoek, so I don't see him much. The house is very modern, it even has satellite TV! The photo is of my brother and sister right outside our house.

Today I'm heading north to visit my site for one week. My permanent site will be Okando Village in the Omusati region. I will be teaching at Emvula Junior Secondary School which contains grades 8 through 10. I will definitely be teaching physical science, which includes both physics and chemistry. There's also a good chance I will be teaching maths. I'll be replacing the current volunteer, Jen. I'll be living on a traditional homestead with a family, I'm not too sure what that entails.

By the way, I can connect to the internet through a bluetooth connection with my cell phone. It's the ultimate wireless connection.

That's all for now,
Greg

Ongiini from Okahandja

2008-11-12T18:02:00.008+02:00

I made my way to the local internet café today. I typed the first part of this post a while ago and then added on some more recent stuff at the end. I don't think my posts in the future will be as detailed.

November 4
I left Madison, WI at the break of dawn en route to Washington DC. I arrived in DC in the early afternoon. I met another Peace Corps Vounteer (PCV), Brittany, on the shuttle ride from the airport to our hotel. After checking in I met my roommate, Marc from Minneapolis. From 2PM to 7PM we had our staging event. There's 19 of us total, which is pretty small for a set of PCVs. Seventeen of us will be teachers and the other two will be IT volunteers. After dinner, a few of us met in the hotel bar to watch the election results come in. I described this as watching a movie you already know the end to. At 11PM, polls closed on the West Coast and Obama was declared the victor. Some Brits were in the bar with us and we all celebrated together.

November 5
We woke up early and went to clinic to get the yellow fever vaccination and malaria pills. I didn't need the vaccination because I got it when I went to Peru. In the afternoon we got on a bus and headed to Dulles International. While we were waiting for our flight to take off we spotted a rainbow in the east (good luck or just refraction and dispersion of sunlight through water?)

November 6?!? (Severe jet lag day)
So we survived the 15+ hour flight from DC to Johannesburg. We stayed at an amazingly classy hotel next to the airport in Jo'burg. We were not allowed to leave to hotel at all, oh well.

Novmber 7
We left Jo'burg and hopped on a two hour flight to Windhoek, Namibia. When we arrived in Windhoek we got our bags and were greeted by a few members of Namibia 27. We got on some vans and headed to Okahondja where will be trainees for the next two months. On our way to Okahondja, it started to rain. Eventually, the sun broke through and provided us with a nice double rainbow over the savannah. We were told these were the first rains of the season which last from now until March or April. We were greeted by the Okahondja youth choir which sang many songs for us as we entered the compound. The place were are staying is very beautiful, it's a conference center and serves many purposes.

November 8
We began our training this morning at 8AM. I haven't been able to sleep that well, they say it takes a few more days to fully adjust. We have two tea times here, 10:30AM and 3PM, it's quite nice as it also includes cookies. I also discovered that the cinnamon-esque powder is dehydrated coffee, no more tea for me! After a days worth of classes, we went with two volunteers from Nam27 on a hike. We ended up hiking by a farm and eight ten year olds joined us. They hiked with us to a peak with an amazing view. The sun was setting with rain storms on the horizon, splashing the sunlight across the landscape. A volunteer brought along a camera and was nice enough to give me this photo. Over the course of the day, a wedding reception was being planned in the main dining hall. So when we got back from our hike, loud music greeted us.

November 9-12

I've learned a few things since writing last time. My permanent site is in Owambo, this is comprised of 4 regions (equivalent of states). I will be learning the Oshindonga dialect of Oshiwambo. I had my first language lesson today, my first word in Oshindonga is "ongiini" which is an informal greeting. The pronunciation is very similar to romance languages. However, Oshindonga is from the Bantu language family. I'll be getting a cell phone when I go to Windhoek, the capital, on Sunday. We're all having a lot of fun and eating well. Namibian food is awesome. Meals consist of meat, sauce (soup), and pasta or rice. Namibians are very serious when it comes to meat, all meals are served with lots of meat. While the official language of Namibia is English, people here speak Namlish. Namlish is hard to describe and I will have to post about it later. Tomorrow, I move in with my host family. I will be staying with them until the end of training, January 6th.

I hope you're all doing well, kala po nawa (goodbye).

T-Minus One Week

2008-10-28T07:24:00.004+02:00

Welcome to my shiny new blog. As most of you know, I have accepted an invitation to serve in the Peace Corps. I will be a science teacher in Namibia for two years. I will try to post here once per month, although I make no promises.

I started this blog for several reasons. I will be using this as a personal journal and as a way to keep my friends and family up to date. I also want to use this as a reference for future Peace Corps volunteers.

I'll preemptively answer some questions I receive a lot. English is the official language of Namibia, therefore it's used in the schools. I will be learning some other language as well, I don't know which one, it depends on where I end up. I will most likely be teaching in a rural community. I may or may not have running water and/or electricity and probably no internet access. Uncertainty is something I will have to live with (just like hbar).

A few words on the title...

As a student of science, I believe that knowledge comes from experience, hence empirical. I would like to relate my experiences to you in the hope of passing on knowledge. Oh yeah, I also love alliterations, so empirical escapades it is.