The Holiday

The first week of term two is almost over and I have already been confronted with obstacles to get through, though I have yet to let myself get overwhelmed.

Upon returning from an amazing holiday which I will tell you about later in this post, I was welcomed with empty taps and wall spiders back to my Namibian home. The surprises came when I went into the bathroom and I found a three week old poop in the toilet. I fetched water in order to flush the toilet and, when I did so, little bugs flew out. Bret and I had a lot of cleaning to do.

At school, on Monday, we were told that a new English teacher had been hired but our Head of Department is going to be out for the entire term on maternity leave. This meant that I no longer had to teach the grade 12s but I had to take on three of my H.O.D.’s classes. I really like one of the grade 12s, though, so I insisted that I keep that class and then only take on two of my H.O.D.’s grade 11s. Then, the new teacher would take three classes of his own and then cover for her other two classes. This was agreed on and I was given the task to make a completely new time table for the school. I spent the entire day Tuesday working on this project and completed it for Wednesday. Then, on Wednesday, the principal told us that the ministry just put out a rule that teachers can not transfer during the school year and that it was in affect now, which meant that we wouldn’t get the new teacher and the four classes would be left without one. This was ridiculous because we would not be getting the teacher back who transferred in the middle of last term. Today, we received word that there is negotiating going on so, now, we have no idea what is going to happen. I have only been teaching three classes that I know will definitely be mine. Otherwise, I have no idea who I will be teaching this term. I guess we will hear word tomorrow.

Despite the confusion, I have maintained a positive attitude. I am excited and motivated to really get my learners to work hard so they can improve their scores in August. I put together a good routine lesson plan, which is what I wanted, and I am excited to see how it goes.

On Monday, I had my learners write me letters telling and asking me whatever they wanted. I have been reading them throughout the week and writing responses. Most of them tell me about their holidays and a lot tell me how they were disappointed that they failed (everybody failed) and that they want to work hard so that they can pass. Many asked me to help them with specific things and asked me my opinion on what they have to do to improve. Today, I read three letters that kind of disappointed me. Two of them were from my brightest learners.

This is one of the letters I received:

Dear Mr. Bernie

I guess you are fine. I too am fine...I’m requesting you to help us, sir, because you, yourself, know what happened. So, I think you would actually change this 2nd term if you guys don’t want failure and disappointment at the end of the day.

I’m really happy about my performance because I gave it everything I got. So, I guess we all need to change. The fact that we failed does not mean that the failure we had would repeat itself. No! The learners feel that it’s the teachers’ fault. Just to ask them...no answer! We learners feel that teachers really have some explanations to give to learners. That’s why my questions is, what’s your excuse, Mr. Bernie?

Yours
X

Feeling the way I do about that test and the education system, it is hard to get a letter like this from a learner who you respect and have high expectations of. The hardest part about receiving this letter is that I have to respond to it. How am I supposed to do that when I feel the way I feel? What I really want to do is say, yes! It is your teacher’s fault, your teachers who still use Oshikwayama even though they are supposed to teach you in English. Or, your teachers who did a horrible job giving you a foundation in English. I want to tell them that the education system is against them and that they are getting their way by having all these learners fail. How would they respond if I told them that they are meant to fail? That the majority of them are done after they fail their grade twelve exam? I envision this motivating them. I know that if my teacher told me that, I would work as hard as I possibly could to prove them wrong. And I think that some of them would feel that way and that they would try ten times harder then they already are. But I can’t go against the education system. I have to say: “Dear X, Nobody is responsible for your mark but you.” [when, in fact, this learner was passing until my H.O.D. remarked his exam so that he was a few points short of doing so]. Being a teacher, I am a representative of this crooked system. I guess there are things to say that will motivate but, I want to say so much more, how it annoys the heck out of me that they associate me as one of them, part of the system. The only thing I can do to prove everybody wrong is get them to pass. I will probably end up saying something along the lines of: “Dear X, Things in life are unfair. You can not blame others for your misfortunes. The only thing you can do is work that much harder to prove to yourself that you can do it. I believe that, if we work together as a class, we can improve our marks a lot. It will take dedication but, if you are motivated, I think we can do it.” Wish me luck.

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The Holiday

My holiday was great. It will be really difficult for me to bring you through it completely so I will talk about some of the highlights. The first two nights we spent in Windhoek because we had mid-service training. It was really nice to see all the other volunteers and talk about our experiences. It is amazing how we all are having very different experiences. On Easter Sunday, our field director and her husband prepared a big brunch for us. There was a lot of fruit, cup cakes, mimosas and omelets. That night we went to a restaurant where we had awesome burgers and German beer. As an appetizer, Bridget, Bret, Hannah and I shared a game platter. We had kudu, zebra, alligator and ostrich. The zebra was really good and ostrich was the second best. On Monday, we went to the movies and saw Water for Elephants. It was good. That night we took the Intercape bus to Cape Town. It was really cool because it was two stories and we were on the top floor. It was a sleep liner which meant there was a lot of leg room, a leg rest and the seat reclined far back. The trip took 22 hours.

Cape Town is beautiful. Imagine New York City on a California beach and at the foot of a beautiful mountain. Our hostel was really nice and had a great view of the mountain. We ate a lot of good food while we were there. We had Mexican, Ethiopian, Chinese, Indian, Turkish, South African, Italian, McDonalds and Subway!!! A couple nights we cooked at the hostel and played cards which was nice and relaxing. We went to the District 6 Museum, the Slave Lodge Museum, the Jewish and Holocaust Museum and the National Library. We also saw parliament and an old fort. Our hostel was near a street that was kind of like their “Greenwich Village.” There were really nice cafes and restaurants and awesome book stores. One day, we took a trip to the University of Cape Town. It is on the other side of Table Mountain. It is beautiful. There are three campuses, all different levels on the mountain. We visited different areas in Cape Town like Bo Kaap which is the Muslim section and it is really pretty. The houses are all different colors. It is the only section of Cape Town that people were not evicted during apartheid. We also went to the bay where all the surfers are and I saw the Indian Ocean for the first time. We saw an independent film at an artsie theater called Labia. The craziest thing we did was we went paragliding off of a mountain called Lion’s Head. It was crazy, very scary when we had to run off the mountain but relaxing once we were in flight. We flew over the really rich area on the coast and over the ocean and landed on a soccer field.

One day, we went on a bicycle tour of the vineyards in Stellenbosch. We did wine tasting at two vineyards and one brandy distillery. We tasted different aged brandy and it was amazing how easy it was to tell the difference. The town was beautiful and we even stopped at a cheetah sanctuary. Ironically, there was a couple on our tour from Long Island and the wife was a Fordham Law graduate.

After Cape Town, we went to Bloemfontein and stayed at this really nice and comfortable self catering bed and breakfast. It was run by a really nice South African family and was about a half an hour out of the town on a farm. It was the family’s home and they were really accommodating. We arrived at 8 AM when check in was at 1 PM. We lied in bed all day and watched tv. It was great because they had DSTV so we got to watch American tv and movies.

The next day we left for Lesotho. When we got to the border we were stamped out of South Africa and had to walk across a bridge of “nowhere land” to Lesotho. We got a taxi to take us to the lodge which was about a two hour drive through mountains and dirt roads. Lesotho is called “Kingdom in the Sky” because it is entirely mountains. The lodge was very nice but not busy at all because it was the start of the winter season. Our nights there were freezing cold. We slept with six blankets. The food was really good. For breakfast, they made eggs, bacon and toast and we could have cereal, granola, yoghurt, fruit, coffee and tea. We skipped lunch because we were always too full and then dinner was amazing. It was a bunch of Besotho (Lesotho people) women who worked all day preparing dinner. It was all you can eat but it was like home cooked comfort food. One night we had pea soup in big mugs, lamb stew, yellow rice, butternut squash, spinach and apple pie with warm custard for dessert. That’s how we ate for three nights. On our first full day in Lesotho, we went on a six hour horseback ride through the mountains. At the lodge they said it was ok for beginners to do the trek, but I wonder if a similar establishment in the US would agree. I am afraid of heights and we had to horse back ride on cliffs that I would not normally climb myself. The mountain scenery was absolutely breath taking, though, and we saw a waterfall and 27,000 year old bush paintings. The adventure started getting really scary because our horses were not getting along. If one would try to pass another they would bite each other, barely missing our knees. At one point, my horse and Bridge’s horse went the wrong way and got stuck on a small cliff. They were fighting to turn around and eventually mine just spun around and threw me off and I tumbled off the cliff. It was really scary and I was kind of confused by what was going. I popped right up when I stopped tumbling because I was afraid the horse was going to fall on me. I ended up being ok, with just a few cuts and a bruised wrist which lasted a few days. The worst part about the entire experience was that the Besotho man who was guiding us made me get right back on the horse. When we got back we visited a Besotho shaman who told us our fortunes by throwing bones on the floor. That was kind of cool. The next day it rained all day. We took a walk and had a traditional lunch in some old man’s house. It was really nice. He showed us around his compound.

After the third night, we went back to Bloemfontein to spend the last two nights of our holiday. It was extremely relaxing and the perfect way to finish the holiday before coming back to the north. Our bathroom had a huge bathtub so I got to take two bathes. We just ate and watched tv all day. We watched shows like Modern Family, the Middle, Desperate Housewives and saw the South African version of Survivor. They were down to the final four at the end of the episode. We also watched a lot of good American movies.

It took us two whole days to travel from Bloemfontein to the north of Namibia and we were really tired when we returned. It was quite an adventure. Now, its back to work and lets hope for a great term.