Drimiopsis, Harnas, Eensaamheid

Two weekends ago we went to Drimiopsis, a neighbouring school (by that I mean only 50km away) for the Omaheke Regional Culture Festival. The school at which I'm teaching is made up of about 60% San Bushmen, so the San culture group here are very good. Most of the traditional songs and dances are about ordinary parts of traditional San lifestyle - hunting, gathering food, etc. They competed in the primary school category and won first prize. We went there late morning, but the sun was unbearably hot for us white folks, so we hitch-hiked back to school in the back of an ambulance, as you do. Thank goodness we did because the children didn't get back until after dark. As usual we were stared at quite a lot, being the only white people at the event, and sometimes the stares are a bit hostile, but if you smile or say hello, almost everyone is very friendly. They also find it amusing if you greet them in their own language. This is the culture group in their traditional dress, including the unfortunate Simon, who is dressed as a springbok.

On Wednesday we went to Harnas  for the Grade 7 farewell trip. Harnas is a Wildlife Foundation which houses lions, cheetahs, leopards, wildcats, baboons, meerkats and various different antelopes. Despite loading myself with sun cream, I managed to get a slight t-shirt burn. Nothing serious, though.

Friday and Saturday night were spent at one of the teacher's farms, the one which we visited before. The farm's name is Eensaamheid, which is Afrikaans for "loneliness". A fitting name considering the farmhouse it bang in the middle of 120 square kilometers of, well, not very much really. There has been some rain recently which is good for the farmers, but it was only 8mm and it's the first in 2 years. We went on another mini safari round the farm and managed to see all of the animals again, including a giraffe pretty close up.

And here is a photo of me holding a crocodile in Otjiwarongo which I didn't manage to upload last time.

Day 60

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blog posts this month. With school finishing at 1 then maths study, library duty and computer classes, the rest of the evening is spent cooking (at which we are becoming quite the chefs), playing with the learners outside and planning lessons. That means that what little time we have left is spent on pastimes such as reading, planning holidays and mosquito hunting.
Teaching remains a challenge - keeping control of a class is hard at the best of times, let alone when there are 40 of them. However we haven't even been here for two months yet so we are still getting to know the classes, and we are learning some tricks to make things easier. And as I was told before, you just have to take the small victories to heart and over time it will come naturally
We have been doing quite a bit of travelling around Namibia with our weekends. Three weekends ago we went to Otjiwarongo to visit two Project Trust volunteers who are at another rural school. The highlight of the weekend was probably holding a baby crocodile at the nearby crocodile ranch. Either that or the crocodile fajita I had shortly afterwards.
The weekend after that we spent at Gqaina. We went into town at half past 7 on Saturday morning to get our food shopping, thinking that we would be home by lunch. But, as per African time, we arrived back at 5 in the evening. It's useless even trying to be punctual. Us and all of our shopping were in the back of an open-topped pick-up truck (or bakkie, as they're called here), so the cheese and chocolate were pretty much liquid by the time we got back.
Last weekend we went to Windhoek to see another volunteer as unfortunately her partner went home a couple of weeks ago. We met quite a few American Peace Corps volunteers who have been in Namibia for over 2 years already, and they showed us a bit of the city. We also visited the craft stalls and, despite our bartering, were almost certainly ripped off for bracelets.
On Friday we were invited to the farm of one of the teachers here, and we stayed there for a night. The two of us, along with the teacher's daughter, spent quite a lot of yesterday smoothing out the sand roads. That consisted of one person sitting on a tyre tied to the back of a truck and one of the others driving as fast as they liked. We also went on a mini safari around the farm, and we saw meerkats, oryx, kudu, zebra, and even a giraffe from far off. Apparently there are 8 giraffes so hopefully we will see more when we visit again.
Today is day 60 since leaving home. African time is usually slower than usual but the weeks are starting to fly by - it will be Christmas before we know it!
Ps there have been no photos on this blog because I seem to have misplaced my external hard drive. I'll make it up next time

One month down...

Sunday was the 29th of September, which marked one month since I left home. Compared to the first couple of weeks which seemed to last forever, days are passing much more quickly now. I have now done 4 full weeks of teaching, which is, slowly but steadily, getting easier. My day was made today when I walked in to take a Grade 3 class for arts, and some of them literally started clapping and cheering because they were so excited. Below is a photo of me teaching a Grade 5 maths study class how to add multiples of 10. They have a national test coming up and many of them are falling behind so we now do study sessions every day, with alternating halves of the class. Note the fantastic new African shirt.

Last week was the national Readathon. The school found out the theme (Read, Study and Explore the African Ecosystem) in typical Namibian fashion - the day before. All the children piled into the assembly hall and each class took it in turns to read a story, sing a song or act out a drama connected to the theme . This picture shows Ewelline from Grade 4 asking questions about the short story she had just read. The enthusiasm of the audience may partly be due to the fact that you got a sweet if you answered correctly.

At the weekend we had our first visit to a Namibian farm, owned by the principal, Carien, and her husband, John. It was nothing like farms at home. There's no grass, for a start. This can be a problem if you have 13,000 acres of land like John, but it's all sand and bushland, not ideal for herds of sheep and cows. Carien told us that it's common practice for farmers to poison their own trees so that the water is left for what little grass there is. There hasn't been any proper rainfall in this region for almost 2 years either, so the farmers need to rely on boreholes for water.

We helped John out on the farm a bit, herding cows into new grazing grounds, and chasing 2 bulls back to the kraal to be loaded on to a trailer (which they were not at all happy about), so that they could be moved into an area with 66 females, just for them.

Below is a photo of a braai, which is essentially just a barbecue, but a much more serious affair. We had pork belly, beef, and sausages made from kudu meat and sheep fat. The beef and sausages were both made from John's meat. Around 30% of John meat is exported to Europe, so if your beef packet says Namibia, it might have come from here! This grill was practically covered in meat for 4 of us.

And finally, especially for my sister Anna, this is a photo of me and adorable little Sowi, the granddaughter of one of the teachers here. My short haircut is courtesy of a lovely Herero man in Gobabis....called Mike.

Goeie Hoop

Last weekend we went with the School football team to Goeie Hoop (Good Hope) Primary School for a sports day - which, due to lack of any sort of punctuality as per African tradition, was actually a sports weekend. It was about an hour's drive away and we broke down twice - firstly because the trailer disconnected from the back of the minibus, and then because a rock bounced up from the road (a proper African road, no fancy tarmac or anything) and shattered the rear windscreen. Nevertheless, we made it there without too much fuss. This was the view along the road:

Goeie Hoop is situated in the heart of Hereroland, home of the Herero people. Many older women still wear traditional Herero dress - a long, Victorian style dress with puffed shoulders adapted from Colonial days, and a very distinctive hat which seems to mimic horns coming out of the front. Whilst Gqaina has many Herero children who travel to the school and board, most of the learners at Goeie Hoop lived locally, and many of the people we met had lived their whole lives in the region. We walked to the local shop (literally in the middle of the bush) and met a farmer who showed us round his land and was very proud of his water filtration machine, complete with motor. He said that he had never left the area his whole life.
Being so remote, many of the children had never seen a white person before, or if they had, they certainly hadn't seen many. We were watched all weekend, sometimes with suspicious stares, but mainly just intrigued looks. There were some adorable little girls who kept coming near me, but laughing and running away whenever I looked round. It is a strange feeling to know that you're the first white person that a child has ever set eyes upon, and the only one that they'll see for a long time.
Our school only had a football team playing, but there was also netball, and, bizzarely, a beauty pageant and choir contest.We kind of stood out amongst the crowd, so we ended up getting roped in to judging the choir competition. We were introduced by the speaker: "So tonight we have two young men decorating our panel. I know some of you have never seen people with soft hair before, but let's give them a big welcome".
Despite being similar to Gqaina in layout and design, Goeie Hoop is a few decades older, and therefore more run-down. We were treated very hospitably, however, and given food (mainly meat), incredibly sugary tea and even running water, when it was on.
Our team won the football tournament so there was much excitement and song on the bus home.We had slept on a mattress on a classroom floor for the weekend so I have never appreciated a shower and comfy bed so much in my life

Gqaina

We have now been at Gqaina Primary School for almost two weeks. We were picked up from Windhoek by the principal and driven for 4 hours to get here (not actually a very long journey by Namibian standards). Apparently seatbelts aren't mandatory here - they weren't even an option in our case, but we were so tightly packed in with supplies for the school - mainly toilet roll and tinned pilchards - that it didn't matter. We arrived on Sunday and school started on Tuesday. That meant that the children arrived back from holidays on Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday. Despite having volunteers at the school for years, the children still seemed fascinated by us, coming up and introducing themselves, stroking our skin and, several times, saying "Sir you are very fat, are you eating too much?".
Teaching is a lot harder than expected, and it's especially tricky to take arts lessons with no coloured pencils or PE lessons with no balls. Our imagination has certainly been put to the test, and long hours have been spent at the dining table trying to think up ideas for lessons. It is getting easier with more practice however, but it's a steep learning curve.
Days are long here, but seem to be packed with so much. We have to get up before dawn for a staff meeting at 0700 (or about 10 past by African time). The school day lasts until 1 o'clock, and we teach an average of 5 or 6 periods out of 8 each day, ranging from Grade 1 reading all the way up to grade 7 Arts. Then it is siesta/nap time, when it's too hot to go outside. The afternoons are spent doing maths study or library duty, and before long there will be computer classes too. What's left of the day is spent cooking (which takes an age, our stove is pretty basic) and going outside to play with the kids. They love football, rugby and just general messing about. Bed time is 9 o'clock at the latest.
One thing the kids really love is getting their picture taken. As soon as you take a camera out they are all crowding round wanting to pose for photos. Here are some of the best ones.

Arrival

Despite several obstacles on the way, we have found our way to Windhoek. First off, the door of our plane was broken so we had to wait on a very cramped Airbus in Heathrow for 2 hours. That meant that after minimal sleep on the plane, our connection in Johannesburg was tighter than planned. However, a lovely woman at the airport helped us, until we realised she had put us in the queue for the wrong flight, and it took a surprising amount of exasperated pointing to convince her otherwise. 

So, we had caught our flight to Namibia and the only thing left to worry about was immigration - we had been warned. But we all got through without a hitch and waited at the baggage carousel... Yeah you guessed it, no bags. We left the airport after 2 and a half hours of waiting, went to our accommodation and were reassured by our Country Representative - "Oh, Jo'burg is the worst place to lose your bags. Doesn't matter if you have padlocks, they have all sorts of dirty tricks." Comforting.

The journey from the airport to the city gave us our first glimpse of Namibia. First impressions - flat and orange. Here are my first couple of photos from Namibia - views out of the window of our minibus. 

After a journey into the city today to buy water and sim cards we arrived back at the hostel to the fantastic sight of these in the lobby. Relief.

Apparently the only dirty tricks that Jo'burg baggage handlers played were rifling through Daisy's underwear pocket and stealing Kerry's well-placed fake wallet.

We also had a nice night last night - we were taken out to a sports bar to watch the football. Who would've known that 14 people could fit in a Land Rover?

Finally, we've been learning some of the language - this is local dialect for "light switch"

So the goodbyes have been said and the packing done (albeit yesterday) and I have now started my journey to Namibia. I am currently sitting in Heathrow Terminal 5 for a few hours before our overnight flight to South Africa and arrival in Windhoek, Namibia at lunchtime tomorrow. Not much to say yet, I'll post again once we're in Namibia - if we get through Customs, that is.

A final farewell to sunny Edinburgh

 The North Face better appreciate my endorsement of their red products.