Seals on a Boat!

Along the Atlantic coastline of Namibia, two vastly different ecosystems live side by side. In the ocean, frigid currents from Antarctica create fog and nutrient-rich waters that give life to numerous fish, seals, whales and dolphins. Journey inland, by less than a mile, and you land in the midst of the vast Namib desert, which runs the length of the coastline and can stretch up to 100 miles inland. In other words, the Namib desert is a giant beach, 30-100 miles deep.

My girlfriend Carolyn and I arrived at Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, the largest towns on the coast and just 30 kilometres (about 20 miles) apart from each other. We stayed in Swakopmund, a touristy town, noted for its Germanic architecture. Walvis Bay, by contrast, is an important industrial town and houses a deep-water commercial port. The first morning, we left our shabby backpackers lodge headed to Walvis for a harbor cruise.

We cruised out of the Walvis Bay Yacht Club in a motorized catamaran that could accommodate 30-40 people. Our captain was Archie, a grizzled Namibian sailor. His first mate Jackson, who was from a town not far from where I had done my teaching. Jackson was surprised to chat with me in Oshiwambo as we tooled around the harbour!
Just a few minutes out of the dock, Jackson opened a box of fish to entice the seals. Several swam in the wake of the boat as you can see in the video below. Although these Cape Fur Seals weigh between 250-500 lbs, they can swim amazingly fast through the water. Next, one of the seals decided that he wanted a closer look at his fellow mammals on the boat. He launched himself from the water onto a small platform on the rear deck of the boat. From there, he hoisted himself up on his giant front flippers, put the flippers on the edge of the boat deck, and then clambered into the main cabin!



Three different seals came on deck during the tour, and while they were indeed looking for fish, they were also curious about the humans on the boat. They allowed us to touch and pet them, and seemed almost as interested in us as we were in them.

I felt a much greater connection to these seals than to any other type of aquatic life that I’ve seen before. Nor was I the only one. There was a young boy on our tour, who was at least 25 years younger than everyone else on board. He seemed bored, but when the seals arrived he petted them constantly and rested his head on theirs, sort of like an Eskimo kiss. This young boy might have just had his first inkling to become a marine biologist! The seals also enjoyed the attention, having evolved the intelligence and sensitivity of mammals rather than mindless instinct of mere fish.

We saw several other critters during the tour. As the boat motored through the harbor towards a small seal colony, we were flocked by small seagulls and giant pelicans who flew alongside the boat, looking for handouts. The pelicans would make great wide receivers in the NFL, able to fly alongside the boat at 20-30 knots and catch every fish thrown their way, as you can see in the video below.



Moving away from the shoreline, we passed dozens of container ships which had dropped anchor in the harbor. These ships were huge! Look at the picture that I’ve included here. You might need to click it to see the full-sized image. Do you see the small yellow thing on top of the containers on the left-hand side? That’s a full-sized school bus, though it looks no bigger than a toy! Walvis Bay is the main port, not only for Namibia but for much of southwestern Africa. When I was living here in 2007, I met a trucker who made a living on the Walvis Bay—Congo route, carrying frozen chickens to the Congo. Goods from Walvis travel on the two-lane paved roads to Botswana, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We motored across the Walvis’ large natural harbor towards Pelican Point, a sandy spit of land which houses a small seal colony. On the way, Benguela dolphins swam in front of the boat, darting back and forth in front of the twin bows of the catamaran. The dolphins were playing and rolled onto their backs as they swam, giving us a good view of their bellies. We also briefly saw two humpbacked whales breach the water, though the pictures just didn’t come out.

When we arrived at Pelican Point, we saw several large groups of seals on the beach, each with hundreds of adults and pups. According to Captain Archie, seal mums know their pups by their cry, which means that the beach was a cacophony of wailing animals. Our captain told us that because seals breed so quickly, they often outstrip the environment’s ability to feed them all. As a result, he claimed that Namibia’s annual seal culls were justified. I don’t know about that, but I do know that the seals make a bloody racket.



By then it was time to turn back towards the dock. On the way, we passed several commercial oyster farms, which from the top of the water are just 55-gallon drums floating in formation. Tied to the drums, and floating underwater, small metal cages house the oysters which feed in the nutrient-rich waters. As we watched a small boat harvest some oysters, Jackson sneakily shucked a couple of dozen fresh oysters and put out some champagne – a great way to end a great harbor tour. Driving back to Swakopmund, we looked forward to the next tour when we would see the animals that were able to thrive in the sands of the Namib desert.

How Rose Coloured are My Glasses?

On my computer at work, in the budget office of Chicago Public Schools, my screensaver has a dozen of my favorite pictures from Namibia on it. A stunning Namibian sun sets over the semi-arid savanna. One of my favorite students, who taught my Oshivambo, looks up smiling from a test that he made me take. My portly principal watches a volleyball game, shading himself under a parasol while wearing a Chicago Cubs t-shirt.

I've been looking longingly at these pictures for the past two years, particularly after a snowy year in Chicago crunching out a budget with a $370m deficit. But it makes me wonder -- was my experience there as great as I remembered?

Earlier this week, I was chatting with my neighbor Katie Green, a returned Peace Corps volunteer from Cameroon. She told me that her group of volunteers recently had a reunion, and they looked at old slideshows of their years in Africa. "If Cameroon was really like the pictures we had," Katie observed, "then it was awesome. But you know, while you remember the market fondly, you forget how it was full of mud, and crappy food, and poor, desperate kids." As the years go by, it's only too easy to remember the good experiences and minimize the bad ones

Later that week while walking down the street in the midst of a hot spell, the pungent odor of summer garbage wafted by. Usually, this would remind me of why I don't like big cities. This time, however, it reminded me of a low patch of ground in Outapi where the rains collected, garbage stewed, and insects swarmed. And that whiff then reminded me of lonely hours alone in my room, a deep longing for friends and family, and stultifying heat in the summer. Were my glasses not a faint rose, but a ruby red?

I suppose I'll find out tomorrow, when I fly from Johannesburg to Windhoek. My girlfriend Carolyn and I will land mid-afternoon, after having spent two good days in Jo'burg with my friend Steve. We'll first spend a couple of days in the capital, catching up with old friends and former students. Then we'll have a week as tourists. We'll visit the coast, followed by a long hard drive to see some ancient cave paintings, and a visit to the Himba, Namibia's most remote people. Finally we'll end up back at Canisianum, where I'll visit with old students and colleagues and set up the Canisianum Scholarship fund.

I'm excited, but also nervous: Was Namibia as wonderful as I remember? Have I changed to a point where I may not fit in anymore? Nothing will remain exactly as it was several years ago, so will these changes be for the better or for the worse?

I'll find out tomorrow.

I'm Famous! My 15 Minutes in the Blogosphere

Today, a strange thing happened. White people came into the library where I work. And not just one, but five. Up in the north where I live, there are less than a dozen whites in a town of over 7,000 people. Seven live at the hospital, including my friend Ant, two German doctors at the hospital and their two children, and a Russian doctor and her obnoxious American husband who calls himself “Indy”, as in “Indiana Jones.” Dr. Jones he is not. More like Dr. Whine. Then there’s my neighbor Carly, an Afrikaner couple who just opened a butchery and restaurant, and one lady who works at the bank but lives far from town. With the exception of the Afrikaners and the bank lady, all of us are only here temporarily as volunteers. It’s so unusual to see white people in town that if one happens to stroll through the open market, or sit outside a bar having a drink, I too will stare at them. Who is this white person in my town, I wonder? Often it’s a volunteer from deeper in the bush, one who I’ve met at a party somewhere, so I’ll go over to say hello.

But the other day, as I looked up from work in the library, I saw five eager, rosy-cheeked college students from the U.K., minded by a Namibian guide. The students were in Namibia as part of a course they were taking on international development at their university, and their two-week visit to Namibia was the ‘experiential’ part of their course. They started asking questions about the education system and religion in Namibia, and before I knew it I was a teacher again -- explaining everything that I knew about the place to an eager audience. It was clear that I had a need to talk about it, and they wanted to learn. So, we made plans to meet up for drinks later the next evening.

As it turned out, a couple of volunteers from nearby villages were coming to stay with me overnight, and my friend Ant also came out with us. So at the bar, we were a combined total of nine white people sitting around a table. It might have felt comfortable to the five students, but to us volunteers it just felt completely weird. There’s so many white people here, we all thought. For the most part, black Namibians ignored us until the night wore on, when several drunkards came by to insinuate themselves into the conversation, as Namibians are wont to do. The five college students were a little freaked out so my friend Jocie, who knew the owner of the bar, asked for the security guys to move the interlopers on.

The highlight of the evening was when two of the students started whispering to each other while glancing at me furtively. Finally, one of them shyly asked me, “Do you write a blog?”

“Yes, I do,” I replied, surprised that someone outside my circle of friends had read it. “Have you read it?”

“Just a little bit. We found it before we left, and really just looked at the pictures of the flooding.”

Surprised as I was that they had found the blog, I was a little disappointed that they had only glanced at it. Later, however, Jocie told me that they had asked her a whole series of questions about me to determine if I was indeed the blogger they read: was I a runner? Did I visit South Africa during my time? Did I teach at a Catholic school? They had read the whole darn thing! For a day or two I walked on air, excited that people beyond my circle of friends were reading the blog and that it was useful for them. Since then, I’ve actually had several other people contact me via the blog, usually researchers or volunteers who are interested in Outapi. And each time I get such an email, a silly smile spreads across my face. So, if you’re one of those people, let me know!

Road Rules

Compared to most other countries in Africa, Namibia has an amazing road system. Why? Well, for one, there actually are roads between all the major towns. Secondly, these roads are, for most part, paved. If they’re not paved, the major towns are at least linked by what in Namibia we would call ‘good gravel’ roads, which are wide, graded gravel tracks that cars can comfortably drive along at 50mph. Compared to countries like the Congo, which is larger than Texas yet has only 200 miles of paved highway, Namibia is doing quite well.

Nonetheless, there are a few quirks about driving in Namibia. Probably the biggest one is the animals. Once you cross the ‘Red Line’, which divides the privately owned-land in the south from the communal farming areas in the north, there are animals everywhere. Literally. The single biggest danger on Namibian roads are the donkeys, cows, and goats that use the road as their personal bedroom, bathroom, and grooming area. There are no fences to keep the animals in designated pastures. As a result, they wander everywhere, and drivers are constantly weaving back and forth to avoid animals.

There is a clear hierarchy to the road-going animals. Donkeys are the kings of the road, and they will NEVER move out of the way for a car. Not even, as occasionally happens, the car runs right into them. All Namibian drivers are afraid of donkeys. Rumor has it that the donkey’s black eyes make them invisible on the road at night. Next in the hierarchy are cows, who might move off the road if a driver beeps long and loud enough. They’ll not do it quickly, however, raising their heads to look placidly at the car, consider it, and then, perhaps, decided to slow amble out of the way. Last come the goats, who like to sleep together on the roads during the rainy season because the roads remain dry. The goats are the most skittish, and drivers barely slow down when they see goats on the road. Instead, they lay into their horn and the goats usually bolt out of the way.

Usually, but not always. Last year I gave my students a creative writing assignment, and one of their options was to write about a time that their father hit a goat in the road. Almost all of the kids chose this option, so I think it probably was a pretty common experience. The stories were remarkably similar, too. Driver hits goat. Shepherd wanders over and yells at driver. Driver and shepherd argue over the value of the goat, then finally agree on a price and the driver pays off the shepherd. Driver throws goat into the bed of his pickup truck, and the family has an unplanned feast.

Animals on the road are so common that one of my students last year related a ‘modern folktale’ to explain their behavior. The story went like this: There was once a pair of dogs who wanted to go town so they could do some shopping and see the sights. They talked to their friends, the donkeys, the cows, the goats, and the chickens. The cows were interested in going, just to see what was new in town. The goats were ready to go into town and blow all their money partying. The chickens had many little chicks, and little money, but needed to go into town for supplies. The donkeys were kind of dull, but they followed everyone else’s lead.

The next morning, this motley crew headed off down the path toward town. It was a long, long walk, and after awhile a farmer in a truck came along. “Please, sir, can we ride with you into town?” Dog asked. The farmer agreed. They chatted during the trip, and farmer told the animals that we was returning the same way that evening. He offered to take them back that night. They all agreed, and him that they would pay him for both rides on the return trip.

When the animals got to town, they split up to explore. The cows slowly wandered all through the town, chewing cud and gazing at all the sights, but not spending any of their money. The dogs played with their friends in town and had a couple of beers, but they made sure to save some for the ride home. The goats, however, just got drunk and partied and spent all their cash. The chickens, who were very poor, spent all their money on food their little ones. And the donkeys were too stupid to spend any of their money.

In the evening, as arranged, the farmer picked up the group and drove them many miles back to their home. When they arrived, the cows and the donkeys, having saved their money in town, paid exactly what they owed. The chickens, who knew they didn’t have the money to pay, jumped off the truck and pretended to drop their money in the dust, and then started pecking around as if to find it. The goats, who had blown their whole wad, jumped off the back of the truck and ran away. And the dogs, who didn’t have any small bills, gave the driver a $100 note. The driver took the money but didn’t give the dogs change, because the other animals had stiffed him.

That story explains how the animals behave today. The donkeys and the cows can stand in the road, knowing that they paid the driver the amount they were supposed to. The chickens are always pecking on the ground, pretending to look for their money. The goats run away whenever a car comes near, because they are afraid the driver will ask them for payment. And the dogs will chase any car they see, because they still want to get their money back.

And that’s how it is on the roads of northern Namibia today.

The Sixth-Grade Slut

When I arrived back in Namibia at the beginning of the year, my first job was to help conduct the teacher training for the incoming group of volunteers. There were just under 20 new volunteers, and all but two had no experience whatsoever with teaching. My task was to try to get them ready to teach in just three weeks. We began with basic pedagogy, and ended with the Grade Six Slut.

While at first this would seem to be a ridiculous job, on reflection they received far more teacher training than I ever did. Most teachers in the United States go through a formal teacher-training program, but I began teaching as an “Emergency Certified” teacher in New York City during a severe teacher shortage towards the end of the internet bubble. In those days, anyone with fiscal sensibility jumped on the internet bandwagon, and as a result schools were having a very hard time getting staff. As a result, the certification process back then involved finding a pulse and checking to see if the applicant was breathing. As I qualified on both scores, I was immediately hired.

The training process for emergency certified teachers was just as rigorous as the interview process. My supervisor, the Assistant Principal for English, came to my apartment about a week before I started. She gave me a box of books, some sample end-of-year exams, and a key. “You can teach any of these books you like,” she said. “Get the kids ready for this exam. Oh, and here’s your room key. Good luck!” That was it.

Compared to such a brief orientation, the three weeks of training for World Teach volunteers seems length! It does raise the question of how valuable and necessary teacher training is, however. In what other profession would governments hire unqualified, unlicensed people for professional positions. Can you imagine hiring someone as a doctor just because he took biology in college? What about hiring someone to build a bridge because she liked to build with lego when she was a child? It does say something about the relative worth that our society places on education.

Those concerns aside, we began our teacher training in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, with a week of classes on classroom management, writing lesson plans, educational theory, and so forth. For me, the training went much, much better than last year. The group of volunteers was very eager and attentive. I was much more confident, having already taught this curruciulum before. But the biggest reason was that I had a year’s worth of teaching in Namibia under my belt, so I could speak with some authority about issues of critical importance in schools here, like whether or not school policy allowed girls to wear hair extensions. The answer varies with each school, but for most the answer is no, because principals believe it will cause conflict between those who are rich enough to afford extensions and those cannot.

After just a week dealing with thorny educational issues like this one, the whole group traveled up to Omungwelume, a small village about 30km down a gravel road from Oshakati, the biggest city in Ovamboland. Last year, two of my closest friends, Dan Bartha and Jennica Planisek, lived there. This year, another married couple, Dan & Kathryn, are there. It’s a really nice village of perhaps 2,000 people. It’s just the right size – you don’t feel isolated, but there’s no feeling it being a city either. As an outsider, people are curious about you but you don’t have to worry much about theft or other hassles.





For the new volunteers, this was their first time in the North, what I would consider the ‘real’ Namibia. Gone were nicely paved streets, replaced instead with dusty and hot dirt roads through the town and the surrounding bush. Gone were chain stores from South Africa with wide ranges comfort foods. Instead, there are a half of a dozen cuca shops and shebeens, and two general dealers that stock basics such as flour, onions, sugar, oil, and canned goods. But in contrast to the image that many people have of Africa, the small village also sports a clinic, a post office, several schools, and a police station. Most people live in simple houses made of concrete bricks, topped with a zinc roof which is defeaning when it rains. Most of the children are healthy and have enough to eat. It’s poor, but it’s not a dysfunctional, crumbling society. It’s working quite well, in fact.

One challenge was to convince the kids in town to come to our ‘School’ for a week, because this was at the tail end of their summer break. We did have several things gong for us, however. First, there really isn’t much to do in Omungwelume, so school with a bunch of iilumbu (white people) seemed pretty interesting. Second, we gave out snacks at the break and promised a certificate at the end of the week. Namibians are mad for certificates, for reasons that I have never been able to figure out. Finally, I help in the marketing department. The first day in town, I had made friends with several kids when I went out for a run. The next day, I loaded them into our field director’s car and we drove all around the village, spreading the word. I would first explain in my halting Oshiwambo, “Okuya osikola nena! Oto li unene.” (Go to school. You are eating a lot). Then my helpers would explain, fluently, that kids should come to the school because there would be snacks and certificates.

For the new volunteers, working with real kids was invaluable, as was having a chance to see what the north was all about. Even though they were just team-teaching two hours a day, many found the work tiring, because managing 20-40 hyper kids is hard! After a week of ‘classes’, we briefly met with the King of Ndonga, one of the Ovambo tribes, and then took a well-deserved rest in Etosha National Park, Namibia’s biggest game reserve. Every visit to one of these places is different. Last year I visited visited three different game parks but never once did I see a lion. But this time, we saw a lion just ten minutes into the park! We also saw an ostrich run in front of our bus for a kilometer or so, loads of kudus, impalas, and springboks, and two adult elephants mourning a dead juvenile elephant.





After the break of Etosha, we had a few more days training in Windhoek, and I tried something new. Although the practice teaching was useful, most kids who came to our ‘school’ were younger than the kids volunteers would be teaching during the school year. Also, they were generally really good kids, and I didn’t feel the volunteers had much exposure to some of the classroom management problems that can happen. The volunteers broke into two groups, one for grades 5-7, and one for grades 8-12. In each group, volunteers had to present a lesson that was specific to their content level, while the other volunteers pretended to be students. For each lesson, I gave one of the volunteers a slip of paper detailing a behavioral problem they should have during the lesson. I tried to choose the most common classroom management problems: students coming late, being talkative, refusing to work in groups, falling asleep in class, and so on. Though I was worried the volunteers would think this exercise a bit stupid, it turned out that everyone was always waiting to see what the ‘problem’ would be each time, and that volunteers really loved playing the ‘bad’ student.

The best ‘problem’ that happened in class was in the grade 5-7 group. That group of volunteers played their roles as learners to the hilt by talking in high, squeaky voices, stealing each other’s pencils (sometimes unprompted), even pretending to pick their noses in class. One time, I pulled aside Kathryn (Dan’s wife) and Weslie, and asked them if they could ‘pretend’ to get into a fight during the next lesson. They agreed, and I awaited the next lesson eagerly.

During that lesson, I had my back turned when suddenly I heard the fifth-grade Kathryn shout at the sixth-grade Weslie, “You SLUT!! How could you? You slept with Dan!?! That’s my husband.” Kathryn lunged across the table at Weslie. Weslie picked up the first thing she saw, a glass full of Sprite, and dumped on Kathryn’s head. Katrina, the poor volunteer who was teaching at the time, was taken completely by surprise but still managed to separate them. When we all finished laughing and Katrina finished shaking, we debriefed how to handle a situation like this one in the classroom. It doesn’t happen often, but still, it’s good to know what to do when it does. Educational theory says that active learning is far more effective than passive learning, and I bet those volunteers will remember just what to do when a sixth-grade slut steals someone else’s boyfriend!

Walking around the Mission

If you don’t mind the conceit, I’m going to take you on a little walking tour of the mission today, courtesy of Google Earth and my camera. It turns out Google Earth has some pretty decent satellite pictures of Namibia. Before I had even come here, I checked out Outapi, and I knew where the main roads and the hospital were before I got here. The last time I had a good internet connection (Cape Town), I was able to download this satellite imagery of my home, the Anamulenge mission. Let’s take a little look. I’ve saved the file at a fairly large resolution, so if you hold down the CTRL button and click on it, it should open in another window and be a bit easier to see.


A – This is main entrance to the mission grounds. There’s a gate for cars to drive through on a gravel road. Just above and to the left of the ‘A’ is a watering hole used by local livestock, and children sometimes fish in it too. At this time of year it still has some water, but it is drying up rapidly.

B – The mission’s church. From the air, it looks like a cross. It’s actually a rather pretty building, though I’ve only been in it half a dozen times. The church is the only two-story structure on the mission and thus a good landmark. Although the kids go to church 10 times each week, I have never been pressured to go. Sometimes they will ask me, “Why aren’t you going to Church?” I politely respond, “Because I’m not Christian,” which shocks them. Although they have read about other religions in their religious studies class, many have never met someone who is not Christian.



C – This is the computer lab for the mission, which is sadly underutilized. If our internet service ever starts working again, I’ll probably be posting this entry from this little white building.

D – This is the main hall, where all the parent meetings and large assemblies take place. On regular days, however, it is used by the girl’s hostel as a recreation area. They have a TV/DVD/VCR inside, so the girls get to watch movies on the weekend if they have any. The boys aren’t so lucky; they have a TV but no DVD or VCR. Just the other day I was talking with some of the boys in my room about movies, and they noted how unfair it was that the girls have a DVD player. I responded, “You know, if each boy put in just N$5, you could buy a DVD player.”
Samson responded, “Yes, Mister Josh, but it would cause too many problems. There would be too many arguments about what video to play.”
“So, you’d rather stare at the walls than find a way to share the DVD player?” I countered.
“Yes.”
What more could I say?


E – This area is the girls’ hostel compound. It gets locked every night to keep the girls in and the boys out. The bluish building that looks like an “H” from above is where the Ovambo nuns live.

F – This compound is for the Indian sisters on the mission. The ‘L’ shaped building is their home. They have a small, lush garden in the shade of their house and a few tall trees. The other small building is used to prepare food for the Indian priest. In the picture, I’m standing with the sisters and Johanna, one of the cooks, in front of the sisters’ house.



G – This is the main dining hall.

H – Here’s main school area. The two buildings with red roofs house four classrooms, the staffroom, the secretary’s office and the principal’s office. It seems Google Earth doesn’t update its satellite imagery very frequently, because there are two new classroom blocks, dedicated in early 2006, which do not appear in the photo. These are the library and the classrooms for grades 11 & 12.




I – This small building holds grades 9A, 9B, and 8B. I think the kids like being far away from the principal.

J – The Priest, Father Joe, lives here. He has a pretty nice pad. He’s got loads of room and a large 30+inch television hooked up to a satellite dish. The first time I visited him, he invited me in, gave me some nice wine from a box, and we watched CNN. I think he’s kind of lonely sometimes, because he can’t really ‘hang out’ and watch sports with the nuns. He also let me stay overnight in his house at the beginning of the year so that I could stay up all night and watched the Bears get their butts kicked in the Superbowl—live.

K – This is the boys’ hostel compound, which is also where I live. There are about 80 boys who share two large hostel rooms and a small shower block. Fortunately, I do have my own shower!

L – This little house, technically within the boys’ hostel compound, is where Robin and Nicola live. It has almost all of the comforts of home: a couch, a kitchen, three bedrooms, a brai pit that Robin built, and a bathroom. Ok, so they haven’t had hot water for three months, but otherwise it’s a nice place and it’s where I was supposed to live. However, the clergy who run the mission kept saying that it would be ‘too crowded’ for three people to live in three separate bedrooms. What they meant, of course, is that they didn’t want a man living with two women. At the beginning of the year, I seriously considered a “Three’s Company” approach to the problem, pretending to be gay so that I could live there. Fortunately, Robin talked me out of it.

M – Behind the mission is a cemetery. When my Dad was here, we took a slow walk through the cemetery and I was surprised to see how many headstones were from very young people. Although there are some in the cemetery who died in their eighties, most people were under 50 when they died. This is unfortunately a recent phenomenon. AIDS has hit southern Africa so hard that despite advances in nutrition and basic health care, the life expectancy has dropped to below 50 years. More frustrating, no one acknowledges deaths from AIDS. Although going to funerals is a common occurrence here in Namibia, I have never heard anyone say, "She died because she had HIV." There is such a strong taboo against the illness here that people will simply say that someone ‘got sick’ and then leave it at that. It’s frustrating! If only some HIV-positive Namibians would come forward, the disease would start to lose its pseudo-invisible status. Then, people here might start taking safe sex or abstinence much more seriously.


Well, that’s the end of my tour of the mission grounds. Ending with the cemetery was a bit of a bummer, so perhaps we should continue walking north. Just 300 metres past the cemetery is a small collection of shebeens called Ohamutsi, and we can relax there with a cold Tafel or Windhoek Lager. Let’s go!

Teacher Talk 1

Two of my best friends back in NYC, Ronnie & Leslie, are a couple. Leslie works in an office for a mysterious Asian man named Fred. Ronnie is a teacher in the Bronx. When we three got together back home for drinks or more likely for food, Ronnie and I would start often discussing our schools, our students, the idiocy of Department of Education, etc. Hours might pass without us noticing that the rest of the dinner party was thoroughly uninterested. Leslie politely termed this practice “Teacher Talk” and ruled, quite correctly, that it should take place in very limited amounts when non-teachers are present. With that warning, I’m going to begin the first of several Teacher Talk installments about school life in Namibia. I'll start off with the physical school itself, which may only be interesting to us teachers. I won't feel hurt if you decide to have another piece of garlic bread and read a blog about, say, Big Brother Africa 2 (which aired this Sunday).

Schools in Namibia look nearly identical, as if the same architect designed one school and then that design was copied for hundreds more. The schools generally consist of several long, narrow one-story buildings. Each building consists usually of 2-4 classrooms. In addition to the classrooms, there is usually one separate building that contains the principal’s office (sometimes, but not always, with electricity), a staff room for the teachers which is piled high with exercise books to mark, and a library. Outside the staff room at our school, we have several indigenous 'chalk' trees whose trunks are covered with dust from our erasers.


Each classroom has many windows on each side. At my school the windows are in good condition, but at some government schools many of the panes are broken. On the inside, most classrooms are terribly plain. Teachers rarely have their own classroom here in Namibia, so there is little motivation for them to decorate it with posters, displays of schoolwork, etc. White walls remain unadorned, and a large chalk board hangs at the front of the room. Desks are always arranged in rows; in overcrowded classrooms, sometimes learners must share desks and even chairs.

At some short distance from the school there is a toilet block consisting of a row of aerated pit latrines. If it is a hostel school, long, low hostel blocks will lie a short distance from the classrooms as well. Usually, one or two dilapidated looking buildings stand off to the side where the school custodian keeps his tools, provides a home for broken desks, extra wooden doors, etc. There is usually at least one good shade tree for outdoor assemblies, and some schools may have small agriculture projects going on their grounds – a few scraggly bushes being grown, two rows of mahangu, etc. The grounds are enclosed in a low fence.


Just outside the official grounds there is the ubiquitous soccer field and perhaps a netball court, both signified by goals standing opposite each other across a dusty field. Some schools have real soccer goal posts made of metal, but many just have two poles, across which a wire with aluminum cans has been strung.

Canisianum, being a fancy-pants semi-private school, has a few things that are beyond the norm. Our school secretary has her own, albeit small, office space. Our library is the size of regular classroom, not a closet. We have laboratory that all the science classes share, and we have a sadly under-utilized computer lab. We also have a main hall that is large enough for the entire school to gather in, which is very handy for assemblies, parent meetings, etc.

Compared to other schools in Namibia, mine is medium in size. We have 362 learners—they’re not called students here, though I don’t know why—spanning grades 8-12. There is a staff of 18: one principal, a school secretary, a custodian, and fifteen teachers. Our teaching staff is remarkably diverse, and that diversity has helped create a hard-working culture in the school: of our fifteen teachers, eight are Owambos (the majority tribe in Namibia and in my region), two are Caprivian (a much smaller tribe), there’s me, and then there are four nuns from India. Nearly half the staff are not from this area, and we all bring different perspectives and subject knowledge to the school.

Thanks to the higher school fees at this school, and to the generosity of the Archbishop in Windhoek, the school is exceedingly well-equipped in terms of supplies and technology. For example, my English students were each issued three books per student: a textbook, a reading book (either short stories or a novel), and the fantastic Cambridge Learners Dictionary. At many schools, two, three or even five children must share one textbook, and in the worst cases the only textbook is for the teacher to use. Funds for books are clearly not allocated evenly in the Namibian school system.

Our technology here is also quite good. We have workign electricity in every classroom, and occasionally I bring in a tape player or my laptop to play an listening passage for the kids. We also have both a photocopier and a Risograph, or Riso for short. The Riso is a machine for making large batches of copies, kind of like the old ditto machines, except that the ink isn’t blue and one isn’t inclined to whiff the ink fumes. These are better ratios than at my school in NYC, where a staff of over 200 teachers shared about four copiers and four Risos.

We have a computer lab donated to the school by the Archbishop, and three modern computers in the library, laboratory, and secretary’s office. I’m quite proud of the computer in the library, because at the beginning of the year, we had nothing there. For the first four three months of the school year, a brand-new computer sat in the principal’s office. It was used only by the school secretary to play gospel DVDs. I wrote a letter to the principal explaining how a computer could be effectively used in the library. Just hours later, the library staff rushed up to tell me that we had the principal’s computer!

Of course, all the technology in the world won't help if teachers aren't good and students aren't motivated. Fortunately at my school, both sides of the equation are working fulltime. The school isn't good because of the technology, but the extra tech sure helps.

If this short article has been anything like the ‘Teacher Talk’ that Ronnie and I have rudely engaged in, then by now I have bored away everyone who isn’t a teacher. What can I say? You were warned!! Later installments will focus on discipline, school organization, meetings, and more. If there are any questions you have in particular about the schools here, please post them on the blog or send me an email and I’ll try to get the answers up there for y

Gated Community

The mission where I live is, in many senses, a gated community in Namibia. Seriously. It’s not easy to get in here at night, as I have found out when trying to sneak back in ‘after hours,’ and people here are very fond of locking up everything behind closed doors.

I first realized just how ‘gated’ this place is when I came back from a brai (barbecue) the second week of school. We had been out rather late and I arrived back at the mission around 10:30, half an hour after the kids’ bedtime. My friend Jona dropped me off on the gravel road that was the entrance to the mission. The gate for the road was locked up, so I had to climb it to get onto the mission grounds. No big deal; the gate is only four feet high and it has been climbed so many times that the footholds are obvious.

After jumping the front gate, I walked in the dark to the boys hostel, which is enclosed in an 8-foot tall mesh fence. Both the boys and the girls hostel areas have tall fences around them, and they are locked at night, presumably to prevent boys and girls from sneaking out at night to fornicate. Anyway, I had to climb this fence too. Once I was perched at the top and ready to jump down, one of the hostel dogs woke up and sat herself right on my landing point. We stared at each other for a good ten minutes until she got bored and walked away, giving me a chance to jump down. The next day, I made sure to get a key for the boys’ compound!

The obsession with security and keys is, unfortunately, probably quite well founded. Two volunteers I know have had their houses broken into, and there has been a spate of computer thefts from government offices around the country. Even on the mission, Robin and Nicola noticed one boy, whom they invited into their home to listen to music, stealing small items like soap and lotion. As a result, there are keys for everything, and any room with something valuable in it has both a metal door with a regular lock and a door made of thick steel bars which is secured with a padlock. The mission has a security guard at night as well, armed with a bow and arrow. In the early evenings, I usually see him in the boys’ hall, watching television. In the early mornings when I go running, sometimes I see him huddled over a small fire in the center of the mission. I always wave so he knows I’m a teacher, not a thief.

The problem with the keys is that there is usually just one key for any given room, even though many people need to use it legitimately. The room where I keep my food, for example, is locked and the key hangs on a wall near my bedroom door. That room also stores snacks for the disabled children’s home, so sometimes Gotard takes the key to feed the kids and forgets to put it back. I end up wandering around looking for Gotard when I want to eat, and he apologizes profusely for forgetting to return the key. I myself have walked away with it on several occasions too! Likewise, learners are frequently sent to track down keys for the laboratory, computer lab, secretary’s office, library, etc.

Living in such a community has advantages and disadvantages. I feel very safe here at the mission (knock wood). Nothing has been stolen (again, knock wood). Now, after getting to know the students, I feel comfortable inviting some of them into my room even though there is a wide array of tasty goodies to steal (iPod, computer, camera, flashlight, etc.). On the other hand, there is a sense that I’m not living in the ‘real’ Namibia. The kids at the mission are mostly all middle-class, and free from serious want. What would it be like, I wonder, to live in a poorer community, where my food, my blankets, and my clothes would be more coveted by learners? What would it be like to have to worry about security a bit? It’s not that I want to have those concerns, but I would like to know what it’s like to live in a typical Namibian community, not a gated one.

Damn, It's Cold Here!

I wouldn’t have thought that the words cold and Africa would ever go together, but I was wrong. I just left the library, where I was working on my Oshiwambo while ‘monitoring study hall,’ and I’m wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater, a fleece jacket and a hat. Mind you, it’s only 8pm, so the weather will get colder yet through the night.

The last few days, the weather has definitely taken a turn to the cool side. The temperature hasn’t dropped below freezing, but at night it can get down as low as about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That may not sound like much to you Chicagoans and New Yorkers who suffer through winters where temperatures regular dive to the teens. However, you have one advantage that we in Namibia do not have: heat in your homes. Here, none of the buildings on the mission have any sort of heat whatsoever. None in my dorm, none in the dining hall, and none in the classrooms. The buildings retain a little more heat than the outside air, so they are usually 5-10 degrees warmer. Still, it can be pretty freakin’ cold.

Watching people deal with the cold is interesting. My favorite nun, Sister Khotaram, wears a sleeveless black jacket over her habit, giving her a military look. Sister Francis, the slightest of the nuns, wears a jacket, gloves, and a humongous white scarf wrapped around her head. It looks like a cross between a turban and the gauze bandage that people wrap around the top of their head and their chin to hold a hot water bottle in place. This morning, I had to bang my hands together for a few minutes before I could start marking papers.


The kids have it worse than all the staff, however. The principal won’t allow them to wear anything besides their school uniform, which consists of a short-sleeve button-down shirt and a very thin sweater. The students made a formal request at assembly on Monday to be allowed to wear jackets over their uniforms, and he turned them down flat. One student, who has a note from her doctor, is allowed to wear a coat. I’m considering asking one of the doctors in town to sign notes for ALL the kids and then see what the principal does. Ha ha ha!

By the way, I know that some of my dearest friends are now thinking, “Aha! Let’s send Josh a hat/sweater/long underwear.” Thank you very much, but really it’s not necessary. They sell all the warm clothes I need here. Besides, by the time it actually arrived, it would be hot again! Thanks for the thought, however! Cheers, and enjoy the warmth of the northern hemisphere.

Heading South for the Holidays

At the end of the first term, we had a three week holiday from school. My friend Lynn and I planned to meet in Cape Town, South Africa. Even though she was coming from New York and I was just coming from Namibia, it took me longer to get there. First, I had to get from Outapi to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, 500 miles away.

To begin, I took a shared taxi from Outapi to Oshakati, the major city in the north. From Oshakati it is possible to hitchhike for free, but that's more successful if you're a pretty female volunteer which, alas, I am not. The other way is to take a combi (a passenger van, usually made by VW, seating about 14-18) or small minibus (seating 20-30).

Finding a minibus or combi is easy, but getting the vehicle to leave the hike point is hard. When I arrived, about a dozen men surrounded me shouting, “Windhoek? Walvis? Tsumeb?” Each of these guys was working for a different minibus. You can haggle with these guys a little bit, but price is less important than getting a good look inside the van to see how full it is. See, the buses only leave when they are full. Once you are sitting in a combi, it might be an hour or three before it actually leaves. One friend got in a combi at 8:30am and didn’t leave until 12:30pm. Sometimes, the combi drivers even pay people to sit inside to make it look full!

In my case, I was pretty lucky. We drove around the hike point for awhile, collecting a few more passengers. One guy kept jumping out to buy things at the nearby open market. After only an hour, our driver decided it was time to go, and we were not overcrowded like usual. Then we headed south on the one tar road toward Windhoek. You can see the route on the map below.


Heading south, what I was surprised by how ‘big’ the towns of Tsumeb, Otavi, and Otjiwarongo were. When we first drove north after training, they seemed like small towns, the sort that make you slow down for two minutes when driving on a two-lane country road. Compared to the north, however, these towns were well-developed metropolitan areas with large stores, paved side streets, and irrigated crops in the surrounding countryside. Unlike the cement box houses of the north, there were a few buildings with interesting architectural elements, like curves or arches. Another thing that surprised me was how, between the towns, there was nothing. Nada. Shrubs, small trees, & fences. Once or twice, we drove for 30 or 40 minutes without passing any small villages. In the north, there are small clusters of cuca shops and houses dotting the landscape. During a 10 mile run, I can pass by four different villages.

From Windhoek, I caught a ride all the way to Cape Town with a Peace Corps friend and his colleague, Mr. Galand. Mr. Galand is a non-white South African who teaches with Jason. During our drive, he showed a characteristic African endurance of discomfort and hunger. On the second day of our drive, he drove for 12 hours straight on a packet of crackers.

The road south from Windhoek was nearly 1,000 miles straight to Cape Town. South of Windhoek, the landscape turned bleaker. Grasses and small trees gave way to sparse, scrubby bushes on a wide, flat plain. Sun-baked hills rose in the distance. The few towns were based around natural springs, because there is never enough rain to have permanent rivers. Physically, this area looked as desolate and arid as southern Utah or Nevada.


The towns were different than those in the north, because the southern part of Namibia more fully experienced the ravages of apartheid. Each city that we passed had both a “town” and a “location.” These euphemisms refer to white and non-white areas, respectively. Often, the main road divided the two. The towns were situated on the better land with more trees, and there were paved roads, many shops, and nice houses. The locations were just the opposite: few trees to provide shade from unrelenting sun, sand roads, and houses that were small boxes made from cement bricks or cobbled together with pieces of corrugated metal. Seeing the stark divisions between rich and poor in the areas affected by apartheid, I appreciated Ovamboland much more.


Once we crossed the border, the first several hundred miles of South Africa looked just Namibia: dry, mountainous, and desolate, with little human or animal habitation. Then, as we neared a perennial river in a mountain valley, suddenly there was green everywhere! Using irrigation, the Afrikaners have grown a wealth of fruits and other crops. This shock of green freshened our eyes and the air after 1000 miles of arid, scrubby pastureland. Officially, the southeastern edge of South Africa has what is called a “Mediterranean climate.” It’s not lush like a rain forest, but it has enough rainfall to create rivers and irrigate crops. As a result, citrus farming and wine cultivation are both huge industries. For me, however, just seeing all the green made me feel at ease!

Carnivorous Doubts

Warning: The pictures in this post are graphic and may be unsuitable for children.

People in Ovamboland eat meat, and a lot of it. They eat chicken, goat, lamb, cow, pig, dog, fish, and frogs, and they don’t seem to care if they are eating flesh or bones. The only readily available meat that they don’t eat is donkey. Because most Ovambos keep animals, they do not need to go to the store to get dinner. Instead, they catch one of the chickens that is running around the homestead, or take one of goats from the kraal. They kill it, skin it, and cook it right away. When I went to visit Meme Monica (see earlier post), she honored me by killing a goat and roasting it for supper.

I began to wonder, “Could I do that? Could I kill my own meat?” If not, then I had no right to eat meat at all. Eating meat means killing animals, even if your source of meat is Jewel or Stop ‘n’ Shop. Could I do it, I wondered? Ten days ago, I had my chance to find out. My Peace Corps friend, Robin, bought a goat, and I asked if I could be present when it was slaughtered. As it turned out, I not only watched but helped.

Shikuma and Susanna, Robin’s Ovambo friends, arrived around 6pm with a medium-sized, brownish goat which cost about N$500, or US$70. Shikuma walked the goat into Robin’s yard, and we sat it down at the base of a tree while we gathered the knives and bowls we would need. Then he tied the hind legs together, and hoisted the goat upside down over a tree branch, so the blood would drain out quickly. He told us that there were two common ways to kill a goat: you could slice its throat or suffocate it. I asked which one was more humane, and he said the goat felt less pain from the cutting, so we decided to do that one.

Before we killed the goat, I asked if it was customary to say a short prayer first. That seemed logical to me, given all the praying that happens down here. They pray over everything. The kids have to go to church 10 times a week. The school week begins and ends with a prayer. When I went to a professional development workshop on debate, the we prayed. What could be more sacred than the taking of a life to give life? The Ovambos saw things differently. They roared with laughter at the idea of praying for the goat, so I said a little Jewish/Deistic prayer to myself, and then we got started.

With the goat hanging upside down from the tree, Susanna held the forelegs while I gripped the horns tightly in both hands. Shikuma took out the sharpest knife in Robin’s kitchen, which was a chef’s knife. He asked me if I was ready, counted to there, then sliced the neck. It was a clean cut, and within seconds the poor creature’s blood was draining quickly into a bowl we had placed under the tree. The little goat’s body twitched and spasmed several times, but it was all over in a minute’s time. I felt like I was on automatic pilot, holding tightly onto the horns and not feeling much of anything at the time. In fact, I felt some exhilaration that it wasn’t as bad as I had expected.

After about five minutes, when most of the blood had drained, Shikuma showed us how to skin the goat and then cut it into pieces. The killing done, this part of the work was oddly fascinating. The skinning process was pretty straightforward. He began with one long, very shallow cut down the belly, and then slowly worked the skin off as you go around the body. We held the edge of the skin in one hand and curled my other hand into a fist, working it between the flesh and the skin. That felt a little creepy – the body was still quite warm as I pulled the skin from the abdomen and back. Because many of the Ovambos use the skin to make shoes, Shikuma taught us that it was very important not to rip or cut the skin as we went.

Once the skin was off, it was time to cut off the meat and the organs. We started by hacking off the forelegs with a panga, a thick traditional knife approximately 1.5 feet long. Next we cut through the rib cage, and out popped all the innards. It was fascinating how quickly I could identify the various parts: the stomach, large and small intestines looked just like they do in biology textbooks. Shikuma taught us that in the old days, different parts of the goat were reserved for different people. For example, the neighbors got part of the chest, friends get a leg, and so forth. Now, however, those traditions are falling by the wayside.

When we were finished cutting the meat, Shikuma took the head, hooves, stomach and intestines, all parts that Robin didn’t want. We cooked up the liver and the kidneys immediately by pan-frying them with spices, tomato and onion. They were absolutely delicious, and I remember walking away feeling rather pleased that I had been able to help. Ah, I thought fondly, there are some good meat-eating days ahead of me.

The next night, my mother phoned.

I told her proudly about slaughtering the goat. She said that she could never do that, that she could never kill an animal.

“But Mom, I didn’t actually kill it. That is a different thing. I don’t know if I can do that. I only held the horns.”

Dryly, she replied, “Yes, that’s what the Germans were saying in 1945.”

Leave it to a Jewish mother to conflate eating meat with organized genocide. Nonetheless, over the next few days I kept looking at the pictures I took from that night. One in particular troubles me. It is the picture of the goat tied up to the tree and struggling. In the next picture, I’ve zoomed in on the goat’s face. He’s clearly terrified. It’s not clear whether he is merely in pain or if he knows what will happen next. But either way, the look in his eyes is hard to forget.

I’m curious to hear what readers’ thoughts are, especially because I know there are some vegetarians out there. Does this story confirm everything you feel is wrong with eating meat? What about the people here in Ovamboland, who subsist on meat because there isn’t enough rainfall to grow crops regularly? Is it ok for them, but not for those with a choice? My dear dedicated carnivores, have you ever killed your food? If so, how did you feel? If not, could you?

Ten days later, I haven’t become a vegetarian. Some days meat is completely unappetizing, but over the weekend I went to another brai and devoured several slices of beef. I’m still thinking about this whole event, and have come to no conclusions yet. Although I doubt that I'll give up meat, for now I’m really happy when the hostel serves butternut squash instead of fish or beef.

Miss Valentine's Pageant

Just a few weeks ago, many of my friends in States settled in to watch the Academy Awards, a spectacle of glitz and glam. A month earlier, the students of Canisianum also produced a spectacle of glitz and glam, the Miss Valentine’s Pageant. It’s taken me awhile to write about this event, because I was at a low point when it happened, and I viewed it in the worst light, as evidence of Ovambos rejecting their culture in favor of a western style. Now, while western styles are part of the pageant, I realize there are some uniquely Namibian elements to it as well.



Beauty pageants are a big deal here, probably since the Miss World (or Universe, I don’t know which) pageant was held here shortly after independence. The Miss Valentine’s Pageant at Canisianum lasted nearly four hours for a competition involving only seven contestants. Like the Oscars, it involved a variety of costume changes, strange musical performances, and waiting around for something to happen. Most of Canisianum’s 362 students, the teachers, nuns, Father Joe, and many community members came out to watch. There were a couple of students who were talented dancers, and a rap quintet that bravely carried on even when the sound system went dead.

But like the Oscars, the highlight was the fashion. Each of the contestants appeared in at least four outfits. The first outfit seemed to be an ‘urban hip’ look, which was frighteningly similar to U.S. fashion. Then there was Canisianum’s version of lingerie competition, with many of the girls wearing their bras on stage. Next was a ‘traditional’ look, featuring one or two girls in full traditional garb but most wearing a short skirt in a traditional print. Finally, there was an evening wear section. These girls must have spent considerable cash on their outfits, at least the gowns. The evening wear looked similar to what U.S. students would wear to prom. Because I know many of you probably care more about the fashion than I do, I’ll leave space here for large pictures of some of the more interesting outfits.





Beyond the outfits, there was a very minimal talent portion of the competition. Each of the girls came up to the stage and were asked one question, such as “What is the message that is most important for the people?” Yeah, the questions didn’t make sense half of the time. One of the brightest students in the school was the emcee. Her eyes rolled everytime an idiotic question was put to the students. Regardless of the actual question, if a contestant smiled and gave a confident-sounding answer in English, she earned points. Then again, I had been here only a month, and I was still having trouble understanding what my students said. So perhaps it was my comprehension, and not the contestants’ English, that was mangled.




One of the things which I found fascinating and disheartening was the prevalence of Western fashions. One of the boys was wearing his long leather trenchcoat. I think it makes him look like one of the students from the Columbine massacre, but he loves it. He even wears it with his school uniform! In the second picture, take a look at the five ninth graders. Although they are a little smaller than ninth grade African-Americans, in other respects they look just like my students back home.

When I attended the pageant, I was strongly disappointed that things were not more ‘different’ than back home. But looking at the pictures again, I can see how proud the kids are to compete, and how over two hundred people crowded into our hall to watch the spectacle. For the most part, the kids just had a lot of fun, cheering for their friends, ogling the fashions, and enjoying the performances (including an impromptu one by their teachers). And one of my students, a ninth grader named Anna Henok, won!





In many ways the pageant is indeed western in style, but that is only one aspect of Ovambo culture. There are indeed many examples of a headlong rush to modernize in this country. Hopefully, over time, the modern influences will meld with traditional Ovambo culture to create something new and wonderful.

Daily Life

I’ve had several entries in my head that I want to write, but they are both of the “look how weird things are here” variety, and I’m kind of tired of those. Perhaps you are too. Instead, as I’m starting to finally settle into living here, a routine has taken shape and that’s what I want to share.

School takes up a good portion of my day. I’m usually up around 6:30 a.m. Depending on the status of our water supply, I might take a shower. This week, the water wasn’t working so well so I skipped it until today. When I woke up today, there was a hard rain and I put out a bucket to collect the water coming off the roof, then had a bracingly crisp bucket shower. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I stand a better chance of being able to shower, because the hostel students go to church at 6:30 a.m. By 7:15, sometimes there’s enough pressure for a shower, and then I have a very Western breakfast of granola and milk. Well, at least it’s long-life milk.

School officially starts at 8:00, but teachers are supposed to be there by 7:30. For the first couple of weeks, I sat in the staff room at 7:30, often alone, occasionally fuming that no one else was there. Now I make the 60 second walk to school around 7:50. Twice a week we have to be a little early for the morning assembly, which has a prayer, a hymn, a bunch of announcements, and the singing of the school and national anthems. The school anthem cracks me up every time I hear it, because for the first three weeks I thought they were singing, “Canisium, [my school] the best education. We learn thing [sic] and prosper.” Then I just now found out the line is “We learn, think, and prosper.” Well, beam me up, Scotty. That sounds much better.

My official school day is actually not very demanding, at least not yet. The school holds classes from 8:00 to 1:40, with only a twenty minute break. Then comes lunchtime, followed by afternoon classes and/or study hall, depending on the grade. I teach three classes, two ninth different ninth-grade classes and one eleventh grade class. The class schedule is quite varied however. For example, one day I may have class 9A period one, class 9B period 3, and then class 11C for periods 6 and 7. The next day, I might teach 9B period one, 9A period 6, and 11C period 8. If that’s confusing to you, then you know why I don’t have my schedule memorized after a month of school. Because of the weird schedule and extra classes in the afternoons, I actually teach my 11th graders for four periods on Tuesdays!

Three or four days a week, I also work in the library with my newly-chosen library staff. Our library is open 12 hours weekly, during lunch time and after study hall. I’m pretty impressed with the collection for a small school in a developing country. We’ve got over 1,500 volumes for a school of nearly 400 students. The students use the library frequently, and my staff so far seems great. I have many hopes for improving both the collection and the organization, and possibly trying to develop the libraries of some of the nearby schools as well.

In the late afternoons, I often go for a run through the fields and villages (see earlier post), then get my dinner from the hostel kitchen. It’s usually oshifima with tinned fish or pasta with butternut squash or wieners and ketchup. The latter is by far my least favorite, but still it’s better than cooking on my own. I know, I can hear my friend Ronnie groan as I write this, but hey, it saves me 45 minutes of cooking while surrounded by kids, and it only costs me about US $0.45 per meal.

Once a week, I head over to the house of Robin, the Peace Corps Volunteer who lives on the mission. We’ve been trying to get me into that house, but it seems the Catholic mission has some issues with unmarried people living under the same roof. As a result, she’s got a three bedroom house to herself and I have a dorm room. Not that I’m bitter. Really!

Anyway, once a week we get together to hang out, eat, and watch tv. She works as health extension worker doing HIV/AIDS awareness, and so I get to hear her stories of driving into the bush to do outreach or helping out at the hospital. She’s a better cook than I am too, aided partly by the goat which is in her freezer. A few months back she bought a whole goat through one of her Ovambo coworkers, and is only just now finishing it off. After we eat, talk, complain, and sometimes have a beer, we settle in for a little TV, American style. We set up her laptop on the living room table and watch one episode of the old medical show, St. Elsewhere, which just came out on DVD. It’s a fantastic show, and it has some many great guest stars that it feels like watching the old episodes of Mash. In the first six episodes, we’ve seen guest appearances by Tim Robbins, Ally Sheedy, Christopher Guest, and the mother from Everybody Loves Raymond.

Twice a week I have to monitor evening study, which is one of my least favorite tasks. I come on for the 7-8 time slot, replacing one of the Indian nuns. They kids are golden for the nuns, who are scarier than I am. After study hall, a student named Sakaria teaches me Oshivambo twice a week. He’s an excellent teacher, especially for a student. He’s patient and has a good grasp of the grammatical structures of his own language. Tonight, he surprised me by giving me homework! It only took five minutes to finish, but I was touched.

The only part of life that I haven’t really figured out yet is a social life. It’s difficult to meet people who are neither teenagers nor Indian nuns, neither of whom I particularly want to have a drink with after work. So that’s what I’m working on now – figuring out how to meet people, Oshivambo-style.