9/6 – 9/19
Since my last update I’ve pretty much completely settled in at my home stay house and continued with PC training and Afrikaans lessons. This past week went by relatively quickly which I hope is an indication of time to come as the first few days in Namibia seemed like months. The sessions are still long and exhausting but this week we will be observing actual lessons at schools in the area. I’ll give a summary of that next week.
So probably the worst part about being in such poor communication with yall is that I forget what all has happened. I’ll try to weave together some stories and thoughts from the past few days.
As I said last time, I now have a Namibian cell phone. I believe the official make and model is a Nokia POS Some volunteers got all fancy and got phones with internet but I decided to keep it simple as all I really plan on using it for is SMSing and receiving calls from the States (Debby did call me and it worked very well – free for me but probably a pretty penny for her).
Probably some of the most interesting things I’ve done/seen happened this past Sunday, September 11th (I must say, it was a bit of a surreal way for me to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11 – I did not see a single American that day). I had known for a week or so that we were going to Catholic Mass at my host family’s parish, St. Peter Claver Church. My host mom, host sister, and I walked there for 9 AM service. As we walked up, there was singing coming from inside the church worthy of a documentary on African music. The women inside who were singing were dressed in traditional Herero garb, which is essentially big Victorian hoop dresses and headdresses that are meant to look like cattle horns. Quite a sight. Mass itself was a brief three hours with lots of singing (the coolest part about the singing was that I’d say only about half the songs are scripted or planned – whenever there is time in the mass when it’s quiet, someone would start to sing a song and everyone would follow suit and sing that song. When the priest needed to speak, for instance during the Eucharist portion, he’d make a time-out motion with his hands). I’d heard that mass was long but apparently I got lucky and happened to attend the mass where they celebrated the feast of St. Peter Claver (who, I learned, was a Spanish priest who served African slaves in Spain) and confirmed a couple teenage girls. Most of the service was in Afrikaans, including all the readings. But in his homily, the priest gives a summary of the gospel reading in English and KKG (a Namibian click language). It was a great sermon about forgiveness and stress. One interesting thing I noticed: less than half of the congregation receives communion. My host mom didn’t receive so I wasn’t about to march on up there and get some body and blood (did I mention I was the only white person?). I’ll have to ask her about that.
As I said last time, my host mom’s sister is getting married. The marriage was announced at church and immediately following mass, the female members of the groom’s family but a white veil over her face and hustled her into a car. After going home to change into more casual clothes, we met them a couple blocks from my host mom’s mother’s house. From there, the groom’s family led the bride to be to the house, singing and dancing. When we arrived at the house, the men hung up a white flag to show that this household had an upcoming wedding. Still singing, they led the bride to a room where she is supposed to stay for a week, alone. My extended host family was then responsible for feeding the groom’s family. Oddly enough, I ate first, as I guess I am always the guest of honor. The meal was chicken, pumpkin mash, and rice – all cooked in traditional pots over an open fire. It was probably the best meal I’ve had in Namibia. Almost as soon as everyone had finished eating, the groom’s family left. I was soon told that we were now going to their house. After more singing, dancing, and flag-hanging, we ate cake and drank beer at the groom’s family’s house. All in all, I was in awe of the whole day – it reflected the hospitality and family bonding that are characteristic of my Namibian life so far. The next step in the wedding process is slaughtering a cow. Yes, that happened.
All in all, it was an incredibly interesting procedure. The groom’s family gave the cow to the bride’s family as a kind of dowry and only the bride’s family is meant to eat it. When I walked up to the house and saw the cow tied to a pole in the backyard, I knew I was about to see some real African life. I’ll spare y’all the literally gory details, but suffice to say once the cow was lassoed, its life came to an end by way of several men and a surprisingly small knife. We ate the meat, cooked in the pots in a variety of ways, for the rest of the weekend.
The wedding itself was surprisingly similar to a conventional American wedding. It was at a picturesquely African hotel or lodge-type establishment. I was told that having a wedding at a place like that is more typical of white Namibians than black Namibians and this may have something to do with the fact that the groom’s father is the mayor of Okahandja. So the uniqueness of this Namibian wedding laid outside the ceremony and the reception e.g. the cow slaughtering. The next day, we returned to my host grandmother’s house where the event of the day was officially passing over the bride to the groom’s family. Everyone is ushered out of the house except for the elders of each family while they “negotiate” the terms of the marriage. I’m told this is largely a formality and there was nothing really to negotiate, rather they are just fulfilling traditional requirements. This Saturday also provided a chance for those outside the family and/or not invited to the wedding to greet the newlyweds and celebrate their marriage. Luckily for me, three other PC trainees were staying with friends of my host mom so they were able to come hang out as well. All in all, it was a fun (but tiring) weekend filled with eating and celebrating. It was quite the experience but I’m glad to be on the other side of the weekend as it was a very busy time for my host family.
On to my own news: today (the day before I send this email out), we found out our site assignment for the next two years! I am to be stationed in a relatively big town called Rehoboth in the middle of the country. It is about a three hour drive from Okahandja and even shorter from the capital city of Windhoek. There are three PCVs there now and I am slated to live with another Education Volunteer, after another six-week stay with a host family. We will be going on our site visits at the end of this week and I am of course excited to see what’s it like. My assignment is an upper primary English teacher (5-7 grades) and I’ll also probably work with computer training for teachers and hopefully coach some sports as well. I’m sure many of you will be googling/wiki’ing Rehoboth and find out more than I know now but I do know it’s significance in Namibia is that it is a hub for an ethnicity called “Basters” – coloreds (again, socially acceptable in Namibia and South Africa) who came from South Africa a couple hundred years ago.
I’ve neglected/forgot to go into detail about observing school lessons last week but I’m going to briefly summarize because I’d rather send out a truncated email than wait another week. The primary school I visited all week had surprisingly nice facilities but lacked resources as far as textbooks and teaching materials go. For example, there are about 40 learners to a class and the teachers and the books rotate classrooms. So 4 students are sharing 1 book at different times. Although we did not see it, there was certainly evidence of corporal punishment in the form of pieces of garden hose or things of that sort on desks and teachers occasionally made comments about doing or not doing such and such or the learners will be beaten. The good news is that I’ve heard when PCVs successfully implement non-violent discipline strategies at their school, corporal punishment tends to fade away. The students are incredibly respectful, probably because of the beatings, and stand and greet every time an adult enters the room. You could tell they were very excited to have American visitors. On Fridays in Namibia, teachers tend not to teach/go to their classes at all so I had a few classes where I was responsible for watching the class. In some classes, we played “hangman” as a spelling lesson and in another, a teacher actually helped me to facilitate an English lesson where learners talked about what they saw on a poster – which was awesome. In the last lesson of the day with a 6th grade class I had been with earlier in the day, I taught them the American national anthem. They ate it up. I wrote the lyrics on the board and they wrote it into their notebooks and I helped them learn the tune. It was probably the first and last time I sang the Star Spangled Banner by myself. Another PCT who was at my school told me that in one class she was supervising, the learners practically begged her to teach them something. All clichés aside, it was an eye-opening experience for the value of education.
I realize this update was all over the place but I hope at least a little of it was understandable. Sometimes time drags here yet it can also fly by. Four weeks in Namibia feels like months. All in all, I’m doing very well here. Probably not losing the weight most of y’all thought I would but I guess that’s a good thing? I really appreciate any emails and I’m sorry if I don’t respond to them now but please know how much they mean to me. Once I get settled at site or get steady internet, I will be wheeling and dealing emails. Also, finally got some snail mail so keep the letters coming.
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