The beginning of an adventure

I arrived yesterday in Omungwelume, where I will be living for the next year. The drive took about 8 hours from Windhoek and when we arrived, my housemate, Bret, and I were greeted by our principles. We are living at my school in teacher housing. Bret’s school is about a 10 minute walk from our house. My principle, Mr. Johannes, gave me a tour of the school. When you enter the gate a security booth is on the left, our house is on the right (a short walk) and the administrative building is directly ahead. Beyond the administrative building are 2 rows of classrooms, each row having 3 buildings with 3 classrooms in each building. To the left of the classrooms is the technology and design building and beyond that are the school garden and its pig farm. Beyond the classrooms is the cafeteria and assembly hall and to the right are the hostels (the dorms for the learners). To the right of the classrooms is more teacher housing.

After the tour, Bret and I settled into our new home. The house is a good size with beds, dressers, table and chairs, a bathroom, kitchen and a living room (with no furniture). Unfortunately, though, it was extremely dirty and we spent the entire night cleaning and sanitizing and will be finishing tonight. I think I could have swept out my garage, back patio and front walkway at home and have accumulated less dirt than we did last night.

This morning I had to wake up at 5:45 to be at school for morning assembly at 6:25. The assembly lasted about three hours (1/3 of which was a religious ceremony conducted in Oshikwayama). After the assembly the teachers just sat in the staff room for the remainder of the school day while the administration put class lists together. This wasn’t so bad because we were warned during training that the Namibian schools are very unorganized and that we probably wouldn’t get much accomplished during the first week of school. At about 1 pm, one of the teachers took me into Oshikati (the larger town in my region) so that I could get my tax ID number so that I can get paid.

With a lot of time to think today my mind was going everywhere. At points I was homesick and wondering what the heck I was doing here while other times I was really excited for the year ahead. I think God heard my doubts and knew that I needed something to make my day because guess who was in Oshakati doing the same exact thing without me knowing: Bridget! That was a fantastic surprise that we both appreciated very much.

I am currently waiting for Bret to arrive home from school, so I decided to make sauce. I found canned tomatoes but they aren’t as good as at home. The entire sauce making process/dirty counters is making me homesick; I guess I’ll just have to look forward to December.

Going back to last week, the Safari at Etosha was awesome. We saw zebras (In Namibia, the e is pronounced as it is in “bed”), giraffes, springboks, wildebeests, jackals, muskrats, a lion and an elephant. We got to witness a springbok give birth which was really interesting. My favorite was seeing the lone elephant standing in the middle of a gigantic open field.

On Monday, we went back to Windhoek for our last week of training. We ate some good food and had a lot of bonding time. It was really nice to get to know the other volunteers because now we have a big support system for the rest of the year.

On Tuesday, we were given a tour of Windhoek’s neighborhoods so that we could witness the disparities between the rich and the poor. Regardless of economic situation there was much more life in the poorer neighborhoods. We went to a couple of markets and spoke to the local people.

Throughout the week we had language lessons and on Thursday, the field directors’ husbands and my language teacher prepared a traditional Namibian dinner. It consisted of two porridges, chicken and a couple different sauces to eat with the porridge. Two spinach sauces, a tomato sauce with onions and peppers and a bean sauce.

Friday night, we were treated to a really nice “African Fusion” dinner where I had a fish with coconut sauce and rice. It was very good and worth the long time it took to be prepared.

We spent Saturday doing last minute shopping and all hung out because it was our last night together.