The Parents Meeting (aka my crazy week)

On Wednesday my Principal came into the staff room at 7:45am to announce that there will be a parents meeting tomorrow at 1pm. That means that suddenly, half of our classes will be cancelled that next day--with 1 day of notice. My week, has already been pretty crazy for my learners because I've been sick--and on Monday I missed school and there are no subs of course--so that meant my students for my 7 classes just sat alone with no class when I was supposed to teach.

Anyway--Thursday has arrived and I teach 2 classes and then at break I learn the learners will be "released" after break so that they have time to walk home and tell their parents that there is a parent's meeting (the learners seem to have no idea until this point).

And where does this great meeting take place? Why, under our large fig tree next to the staff building! (Schools here consist of a staff building and then several classroom buildings which exit into a courtyard (no halls, no multi-storey buildings--and of course no gym or meeting hall!). It is lucky it stopped raining just in time.

So here we are, sitting under the fig tree...at 1pm there was a smattering of brightly dressed ladies (imagine typical African women's clothes and you will be right on track), and a few men...it seems mostly grandmothers and grandfathers. We start on time (1:15pmish) and eventually more and more people show up till there are about 80 parents/guardians.

Of course, the whole thing is in Oshikwanyama--which is necessary for the parents but useless for me--but it is pleasant enough to sit under the tree in the middle of the afternoon. Mr. Kafidi occaisionally translates so I get the gist of what's going on and stand and introduce myself at the appropriate times of course.

The meeting starts of course by singing our school anthem, the National anthem (in English!) and then proceeds though a hymn, a prayer by a teacher and then the lengthy welcome and introductions. Then we talk about fairly normal school things for awhile (mostly finances and school fundraising, uniforms and a little bit on new curriculum this year (entrepreneurship).

Then a mid-session hymn, just for fun and some more stuff I don't understand. Then, after only 2hrs45min, we begin "question period" by the parents in which more $$ stuff is discussed. We spend an ENTIRE HOUR discussing who's goats broke into class 8E (the one with the goat-sized holes if you remember) and ATE THEIR BOOKS!! And who will be the one to pay? This is the most amazing discussion I have ever witnessed at school, and its length is also astounding. Anyway, in the end, it is decided that the goat-owner should pay, and everyone gets busy as Mr. Kafidi shows them the photos of the goats and people try to decide who's goats they are...................................

Overall, not a terrible way to spend an afternoon in Namibia, and in the end it only took 4 hours! :)

A typical day

Finds us waking to Chris' cellphone alarm at 6:00am...on Mondays, Chris needs to be at school at 6:25 for morning devotion and I have to be at school for 7:45 for assembly Monday & Fridays. We crawl out of our mosquito net & stumble around in our concrete house getting ready. Our house is fairly large for Namibia---2 bedrooms (only 1 bed), a toilet room, a shower room, a kitchen with a few cupboards and a small counter top oven & stovetop, and a "living area" which houses a bookshelf and our patio furniture table & chairs. We also have a mini-fridge...we've been promised a real fridge and a real oven & stove (the other volunteers had these things but they were removed)...but we'll let you know if that EVER happens.

Anyway, too early to eat for me, I usually start my day with some yoga, a little bit of prep work for school, and feed our two dogs, which are always super hyper at 6:30am for some reason.

Eventually I trundle off to school...a whole 12min walk, usually with the dogs tripping me as I go. Since its the rainy season, sometimes its pouring, and other times large murky puddles await me to walk through and around. Children from the Primary & my school (Junior secondary) are always around to greet me and to walk with me...occaisionally so are other teachers and memes (women).

I enter our staff room with my stuff...all teachers here have all their class stuff in the staffroom, which is invariably a clutter of tables stacked with papers, books and chalk. I have heard supposedly true rumours from the principal that some of the spaces haven't been cleaned in a long time...and last year they found a scorpion in one!

Then its off to dodge puddles and Bingo to my classes...on Monday that means 7 classes and one break of 30min plus one spare (40min).
After class, study begins for 2hours and kids usually work quietly at their desks...or sometimes play Netball or tend to their agriculture class maize crops. I've started trying to get a library program running, so last week study period meant tours of the library and interviews of potential assistants. Thursdays in study I teach the staff how to use computers (but that is a separate story).

Then I run home, die on the bed for a bit, mark, plan & perhaps wander around the village for a bit or run (another interesting story to come).

On days we go to Oshakati, this is a special adventure which usually is not an easy feat...maybe one day (yes we saw progress this weekend) the road will be paved all the way, but right now 11km or so are not. Trouble is, they are leveling it, so they put rocks on the road to avoid traffic...and cars drive in the ditch...Problem is, the ditches are full of water and so you must drive around the rocks or move them and use the road. Last Saturday was definitely the worst day...the slurry of mud-sand almost stopped our little 2WD a couple of times, and definitely caked over our headlights and splattered the windshield. Exciting, but scary, usually meaning we're hot and sweaty by the time we reach Oshakati...maybe by April this will no longer be an issue (no rain, more pavement), but perhaps it won't be a problem for future volunteers.

Back at home our evening usually means enjoying the gorgeous colourful sunsets, listening to the kids sing & finish their 7-9pm study session, watching the goats get led home, and finishing our prep. Lights out usually sometime just after 9pm so we can manage to do it all again tomorrow.

We seem to be the proud owners of, not one, but two dogs. We started with only one. His name is Bingo (the one in the water in the photo) and he came with the house. Since we are living at the school and are only 50 metres from the classrooms, all the students know him. He's only six months old but is quite well behaved. We set him free to roam the neighbourhood during the day but he sleeps at our feet for the rest of the day. He will occasionally wander into my classroom much to the delight of the students and I have to take a 2-minute break to return him home. Interestingly, the kids here have never heard of the game Bingo (which are now playing to teach the difference between the letter R and the letter L). The other dog was frequently hiding in our yard. She is very skittish and it took us several days before she would even accept food from us...but now that we're feeding her and it's a big, bad world out there, Percy sees no reason to ever leave our yard.

Taking attendance is a difficult process. I am responsible each day for taking attendance in class 10B. However, there is no actual homeroom time and I don't ever teach that class. So, at some point in the day, I need to pop my head into the class and ask if everyone is there that day. If the response is no, I ask who is away and have to determine why. Invariably, the name they give me will not be on my hand-written list for the class. After all, this is the list from last year. I asked if new lists were available yet and the response was "soon". The result is that for each of my classes, I've had to create my own list of students and hope that they give me the correct names (Bruce Lee and Pele seem like surprisingly popular names in this African country)