Wrapping Up Term 1

Today was the last day of term one. I can not believe I am already 1/3 through the year. The learners had their last exam on Friday and, this week, the teachers finished marking and compiling their grades. Today the learners came back to pick up their report cards. The teachers announced the top three learners in each class and the statistics for the term. Unfortunately, 237/237 11^th graders failed because of their English mark. In order to pass, they must receive a D in English. Out of my 81 11^th graders, I had 4 E’s, 18 F’s, 45 G’s and 14 U’s. E = 55-64%, F = 45-54%, G = 35-44%, U = 0-34%. My 12^th graders did much worse. Out of 117 learners, I had 2 E’s, 9 F’s, 39 G’s and 67 U’s.

Even though my learners performed so poorly, I have to give them credit. After having the experience of teaching for one term, giving an exam and marking, I must argue that the education system is not very fair. During the first 2/3 of the term I taught my 11^th graders grammar, reading comprehension and writing. We would do fun activities and exercises, read fun passages and play fun games. I worked really hard on preparing lessons and I think they learned a lot. When it came time for them to begin to prepare for their exam, they started asking me why we haven’t been spending time writing a formal letter, an article, a report, a diary entry and filling a form. After speaking to my colleagues and learning about these things, I realized that I was supposed to be teaching these kids how to take this test and, instead, I had been teaching them English.

After I spent a week marking all of my exams, my Head of Department had to “moderate” my marking. This means that she had to go through my exams and make sure I marked them correctly. It just so happened that I didn’t [I in no way blame my H.O.D. for what I consider ridiculous]. The Ministry of Education basically wants all of these learners to fail. The marking scheme is absurd. For example, when filling a form, many times they are asked to write in all capital letters. If they don’t write in capital letters they don’t receive any points. They even go to the extreme where if a Y goes a millimeter below the line it is considered lower case and they don’t receive any points even if the answer is correct. Also, if they write a capital “I” without the lines on top and bottom, it is considered a lower case “L” = “l” and they get the answer completely wrong. It is things like this that we are expected to spend time drilling into their heads rather than teaching them how to think, read and write. Also, when doing reading comprehension and listening comprehension, the learners are expected to give the answer that is on the answer key. If they answer the question correctly but they leave out one word that the test maker considered “important,” they would receive no credit for the answer. This is really hard especially on the listening exam. It is extremely difficult. When I gave the test, I took it with them and I did not even score 100%. Most learners scored a 5-7/30 on this part of the test. Even if we wanted to mark the learners by our standards, they would suffer in the end. We have to mark as if it was the end of 12^th grade and we were members of the ministry.

11^th and 12^th grade English is basically one class. They spend the two years preparing for their 12^th grade December exam which is marked by the Ministry of Education. At the end of each term for these two years, their exam is a mock Ministry exam. In order for the learners to be accepted into University, they must score at least a D on this exam. This term, 6 people out of about 500 learners scored a D in English. This means that, if they are able to obtain this mark in December, they will be able to attend University. Even if someone scores A in all of their subjects and a G in English, they are basically screwed. This is horrible because there are a lot of really intelligent people in my classes. Regardless of how intelligent they are, they are denied the opportunity to go to University because they are expected to do all of their schooling in a foreign language and pass a test that is made for them to fail.

When Namibia gained independence in 1990, they established English as its official language. The country than decided that people would be taught in English beginning in grade 4. This is difficult to do when the teachers don’t even speak good English. 21 years later, many teachers continue to teach in their native languages because they, themselves, are not comfortable enough with English to use it while teaching. Fortunately, this is not a huge problem at my school. During training, we were warned that many teachers are not very committed to their work and do not put much effort in teaching. Luckily, I have not had this experience. The teachers at my school are all very qualified and extremely committed to teaching. They enjoy it. After speaking to many other volunteers, this is not the case at their schools. Even last night, there were teachers in the staff room doing work until late at night and one teacher got to school at 4AM this morning to work on the report cards. Their dedication is commendable. Regardless of the quality of teachers at my school, many learners come to the Senior Secondary School (11-12) from other schools where they are not taught in English or their teachers are not as dedicated. Therefore, they are screwed because of their situation. In order to pass the 12^th grade exam, these learners are expected to learn as much English in two years that they should have since they began schooling. So many learners try so hard to improve their English, but the exam is so impossible that they end up suffering.

I want to share an experience of mine that is a good example of how the learners suffer because of English. There are many learners in my class who score very poorly on their compositions. As most teachers do, I, in my head, set my learners apart from one another based on their performance in my class. One of my classes has a free period on day 5’s after we have English and I also have that period free. I made it a routine to bring candy to class and during the free period I ask them trivia questions and those who get them correct get candy. Most of the questions I ask have to do with history, geography and politics. After asking questions for a bit, I was shocked at who knew the answers. One learner, in particular, knew practically all the answers to the geography questions and American politics (Many Namibians have not even heard of New York). This kid turned out to be extremely bright and I would have never known because his English is so bad. He ended up getting a U on his exam.

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I know I haven’t blogged in a while, so I am going to back track so that I can fill you in on what has been going on. In March, we had a long weekend, Thursday-Monday off. So, Bridge and I decided to travel to Swakopmund to visit another volunteer who is placed there. It was amazing. We had such a great time.

Swakopmund is a city on the central coast of Namibia. It is about an 11 hour car ride from Oshakati and is an old colonial German town. We were shocked when we arrived. I couldn’t believe that I was still in Namibia. It is really unique because it is on the ocean but surrounded by desert. When you are walking through the town it feels like you are in any European or American beach town. The streets are in a grid and when you look south you can see huge sand dunes in the distance. It’s bazaar that this little colonial beach town is located in a desert in Namibia. You also feel like you are taken back to the times of colonialism. The center of town predominantly consists of white, rich, old people. Most of these old people came to Namibia with their parents during colonial times. Now, their children are moving back to South Africa and Europe because there is not much of a “young white” lifestyle in Swakopmund. Outside of the town are the locations which are where most of the black Namibians live. These locations resemble towns and villages in the north. The blacks and whites are still segregated in Swakopmund. This separation is extremely noticeable in restaurants and cafes. Most of the people eating at the restaurants were old white people and the majority of the servers were black.

The town was beautiful. There are huge houses that sit on the beach with huge windows facing the ocean. We peaked in a couple of the houses and they were amazing inside. Even the apartments in the town were beautifully decorated.

Being in Swakopmund was a really nice treat because, in a way, we escaped to something a little more familiar. We had great food and got to go to so many book stores and shops. We had a lot of sea food, pastries, good bread, lattes, and wine. The food stores were huge and had food imported from all over the world. They even had Fanta Zero!

The volunteer who lives in Swakopmund, Samiyah, lives in the center of town in a nice two story apartment. She teaches at a school in one of the locations outside of town which is nice because she is able to experience both worlds. Every morning, we woke up and walked through town. We ate at nice cafes and had good breakfast: croissants, omelets, toast, cappuccinos, lattes, etc. Then we would go sit on the beach, sometimes with our breakfast, and just read or watch the waves. Two days we spent the entire day at the beach. It was very relaxing. Two nights we had great seafood, one night we had Italian and the last night we had Thai, very different from the lifestyle we are used to in the north. On the last night, after Thai, we went to the Swakopmund casino. It was a fail for everybody.

We already planned our next trip to Swakopmund for June and can’t wait!

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It rained a lot in the north while we were in Swakopmund. When we arrived much of the land was flooded and thousands of people were displaced because their homes were destroyed. The rain continued and was considered the worst floods the country has experienced in a long time. The road from Omungwelume to Oshakati was destroyed by the floods so we were stranded for about two weeks in our village. This meant we had to adapt to the culture and live off the local foods. Although the flooding was tragic, I learned a lot from the experience. At home, in America, we have expectations that things will be done or measures will be taken. If our expectations are not met, we raise hell. For a week, the majority of the school was flooded so we all had to walk through water to get from class to class. Learners who do not live at the school had to travel through waist deep water with smaller children on their shoulders in order to get to school. Many primary schools closed because some small children drowned on their way to school. The rain really affected the local people. Many crops were destroyed which will affect the food supply for an entire year. People’s home were destroyed and many are living in tents on dry land.

After the biggest rain, our village water pipe broke which left us without water. The government knew that the pipe was broken but was unable to access it because it was under flood water. Then, after the water dried up and they accessed the pipe, they realized that it was the wrong spot. Still, to this day, they have not found where the pipe is broken. The first four or five days, the government was trying to figure things out and the entire village was without water. On the fourth and the fifth days, the school’s stored water supply was used up so there was no water for the learners. For two days, the learners ate bread because the staff could not cook and they had nothing to drink. Finally, the government started supplying water to the school. They come just about every day and fill up our tanks. The water problem is still not fixed, so we are still without running water. It has been about a month. At first it was difficult but we have gotten used to walking across campus with basins to fetch water.

The couple of days before we were supplied with water, we would run outside whenever it began to rain so that we could wash ourselves and collect rain water to cook, wash the dishes and flush the toilet. If it rained during class, I would let my learners go outside and get a drink.

After experiencing the floods, I really have a lot of respect for these kids. They deal with whatever obstacle is put in front of them. Compared to people who grew up like me, they are so much stronger. After teaching these kids, I don’t think I could ever teach at a school like the ones I attended just because I couldn’t deal with students’ silly problems and parents calling with ridiculous complaints. At home, parents expect their children to be treated like kings and queens. They expect teachers to be parents to their students and are always ready to blame the school for treating their children unfairly. If only people knew the shit these kids go through over here. If only they had an idea. Many people don’t. I give these kids a lot of credit.

I will definitely miss my learners at the end of the year. I like teaching older kids because you can be real with them and you don’t have to parent them. A couple of weeks ago I was hanging out with one of my classes during study and one learner told me that in December they are going to tie me to the big tree so that I can’t leave them because they will miss me. It made me feel really good. Things like this make me happy to be here. A few times this week when I was frustrated with the marking, I questioned why I was here if I was only needed to teach my learners how to take a test that I don’t even really know how to take. I mean a lot to them though, and they mean a lot to me. I think about what this learner said a lot and it makes me want to try really hard to help them pass, even if odds are against them.

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Here are two funny things that have happened in the past month:

1. The most popular traditional food here is mahangu porridge. Everybody eats it for just about every meal. I made a few learners come over my house and teach me how to make it. It was really funny but I did a good job and have made it a couple more times since. Well, Bret, Bridget and I looked up mahangu on wikipedia a couple of nights ago to see if they have it in the states. Mahangu ends up being another name for millet which is used in America in bird seed and for feeding cattle. We started cracking up. Also, whenever we eat the porridge it always is a little grainy. We learned that in order to get the grain from the plant, they pound it on termite hills. That explained the grainy texture.

2. A few weeks ago, the school had a circumcision assembly for all of the male learners and teachers. The principal told the learners that they had to meet in the dinning hall at a certain time for an assembly but didn’t tell them what it was about. They all had no idea why only the boys had to attend. I went to the meeting with a bunch of learners and we waited for the assembly to start. Everybody was anxious and rumors were going around that they were getting castrated. Finally, one of the male H.O.D.s came in and addressed the learners. He told them that all of the learners and teachers who were not already circumcised had to get circumcised that day. At this point the hall got quiet and some of the learners looked like they were going to cry. He told them that the doctors were on their way and that, in order for him to know who was circumcised and who wasn’t, everybody needed to line up in grade order, beginning with the 8^th graders and ending with the teachers and show him their penises so that he would know that nobody was lying. At this point, the assembly went into an uproar and they started freaking out, some walked out in amazement of what was going on. Finally, the H.O.D. told them that he was just kidding but that the people from the hospital were coming to talk to them about getting circumcisions. Many were relieved and began to laugh. Some were still in shock and had no words.

When the nurses came they spoke to the learners about circumcision and how it prevents the spread of HIV. Namibia has one of the highest HIV rates in the world. In the north, where the majority of the population is, only 1% of men are circumcised. The government has been given money by the U.S. and Canada to perform as many free circumcisions from 2010-2015. Their goal is to have 80% of the men in Namibia circumcised by 2015.

This is a serious matter, but a lot of the details were quite humorous and kept the learners entertained. I will try to keep my details PG-13 but can’t promise that my standards are the same as yours. First off, the nurses had a fake erect penis that they waved around and it had a foreskin that you could push up and down and then remove it to show what its like to have a circumcision. The learners were disgusted by this yet they could not keep in their laughter every time the male nurse played with it. Also, their description of things humored the learners a lot. For example, after circumcision, you have a plaster cast on your penis that naturally falls off after a couple of days. Then, you have to wear a belt around your waist that keeps your penis pointing up for two weeks. The female nurse than told them that if they got a circumcision they could not do those things they like to do when they wake up in the morning because eruption will be bad for the surgery. In the attempt to try and convince the learners to have a circumcision they told them they were going to speak to the girls about it too. They said that they will tell the girls that if a boy asks a girl to have sex, she should ask the boy if he is circumcised. If he is not than she should tell him to come back when he is.

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Sorry for being so delayed with the blog update. I hope everybody is well at home. I miss you all and can’t wait to see you in December. Tomorrow, I am leaving for Windhoek, where we have mid-service training for the weekend. On Sunday, they are bringing us to an Easter brunch which should be nice. On Monday, five of us are going to Cape Town, South Africa for a while and then traveling to Lesotho, which is a country completely surrounded by South Africa. I am really excited and can’t wait to share my experience and post pictures on facebook!