Waterberg

Last weekend was Independance Day and we had our first long weekend of the year. We took off right after school and met up with our friend Aleks and a couple of Peace Corps volunteers who live near him. Then we drove a few hours down to Otjiwarongo. After a night of camping in a caravan park, we discovered that there was our camp site was only metres away from a construction site. The amazing part is that work continued on the holiday and began at around 6:30 AM. On most days, almost nothing gets done, but on this particular day (a holiday!) they decided to start work before dawn.
We spent half the day at the Cheetah Conservation Fund, an organization which raises awareness about cheetahs and takes in orphaned animals. Since I have yet to see a cheetah in the wild, we decided to come and see them here. The animals that we saw are used to humans and can't be released but they have another 30 or so cheetahs out of side that will be released. They have some sort of program for teaching them to hunt (which I think is incredible!) and have successfully released some back into the wild.

From here, it was off to the post office! Chloe's English classes had written 120 pen pal letters which we were sending to Adria and Jessie back in Canada. The first post office wouldn't send them, the second post office quoted us about 750 Namibian dollars ($90 Canadian - it's only a couple envelopes filled with paper) but the third one send them for only 360 Namibian dollars which I considered a bargain by this point. Unfortunately, the largest stamp available is only 4 Namibian dollars. Since we now had 7 packages (don't ask), getting the right postage on each package required about 130 stamps.

Next destination: Waterberg National Park. The camping and hiking here were a good break from our routines and allowed to see hills again. We live in the middle of a small prairie so this was quite exciting for me! We stopped for a night in Tsumeb on our way home to visit with some other WorldTeach volunteers and then made it back home to Omungwelume in time for dinner. A fast-paced weekend but a great change of pace and scenery!
This afternoon, I'm off to a large sports tournament which includes soccer, volleyball and netball (a form of basketball for girls). Our volleyball team has been training every day (except for the few days when the ball was missing) and I'm excited to see how they will perform against another school.

The Computer Lab

I ran into an interesting situation today though. One of our school computers kept restarting and I suspected another power supply problem. When I opened up the case, I found something unexpected..... a nest. It does not seem to be occupied anymore but it was probably the home of a family of mud wasps or something similar. It is cemented to the network card which suggests to me that they were trying to access the internet. Please excuse the puns, but this was definitely a system bug and it's been a while since I've seen a computer with a bee drive!

I have been spending an increasing amount of time in the computer lab recently. Since I have very few actual classes in there, I open it up in the afternoons to anyone who wants to come in. I'm starting to recognize the faces of the regulars now, and they are helpful because during regular classes, they can use their increased mouse and keyboard skills to help out other kids (for example, the kid who can't double click or otherwise struggles with the mouse). Although I have components for 12 complete computers, I only have enough working parts for 9. We seem to have a problem with blowing out CRT monitors and I suspect the inconsistent electricity might have something to do with it. Two of my machines have blown power supplies. Last year we had a dial-up internet connection but it's not currently working since the school has 0.5 phone lines, meaning that we can receive calls but not make any of our own.

We are running a form of Linux on our computers and I'm quite impressed by it. StarOffice (free!) seems as good as Microsoft Office. There is also a basic paint program, typing tutors, and lots of small games. These are particularly good for developing mouse/keyboard skills in the kids. Many of the kids are using a computer for the first time, so my lessons are painfully slow. In 40 minutes, on 9 computers, with up to 42 kids who have never used a computer, creating a folder or saving a file is a lesson plan for me. Most of them can now navigate the menu system which means I can give them verbal instructions rather than physically moving their hand on the mouse.

Teacher or Social Worker?

Some of the duties associated with having a registered (home room) class seem a little unusual. Last week, we were asked to determine how many of our students are orphans or have only one living parent. Later that day, I was horrified during my one of my math classes when their registered teacher popped in and surveyed the class. "Stand up if both your parents are dead. Now what are your names?" I tried to be a little subtle about my attempts for personal information. I collected secret survey responses with such questions as "A)What is your name? B)What is your favourite subject? C)What is your favourite sport? D)How many living parents do you have?" One student was away that day, but the following day, he showed up at my desk with his survey responses: "A)Ndamonoghenda Ndalikuvala B)Biology C)Soccer D)One"

This week, a new procedure was implemented. If any of our registered class students wants to drop out of school, they must find us and we will complete the paperwork with them. Teachers are to ask why they wish to drop out. Seems logical...but here's the kicker: if a girl is dropping out due to pregnancy, we are required to determine who the father is and bring them both to the principal (even if the father is not a student at our school). One would think that these tasks would be better left to a social worker rather than to me. The problem, though, is the extreme shortage of social workers in Namibia. In fact, last night I met the ONLY social worker in our region of 100,000 people. Ironically, she is a VSO volunteer from Victoria, BC.

By the way, here are some of my students with their Science textbooks from Stelly's and Parkland.

Flooding

The Efundja

This week was one of disaster & amazement for several regions in the North of Namibia....and our little village managed to make headlines for NBC (Namibian Broadcasting Corp) on Tuesday. The reason was the rain and the efundja. On Monday night we barely slept as the rain pounded our little home, the wind beat the trees & the lightning and thunder crashed & banged. Honestly, living in Victoria you usually don't even see rain like this...rivers and lakes (or Oshana's as you call them here) formed overnight and the rising waters beside our village tumbled and turned into a raging river---right through 1/2 the town and over our main exit route to the glimmer of the big city of Oshakati.

Tuesday morning found me fully clothed in plastic, and wading through rivers and Oshanas with frogs & fish! Just to get to school...and my walk is only 10 minutes from home. Needless to say, many learners were late---we only learned later that many are now homeless or have their homes surrounded by water. About half our stores in the village had to evacuate their wares and our road was essentially cut off for several days. Over 119 schools closed that day, some for several weeks, although all those in Omungwelume remained resolutely open with regular hours, study periods, etc. It was quite a spectacle after school to go wade through the streets and watch fish & other creatures scurry past---for more photos go to our flickr page!

The Efundja isn't really just the rain...its the flooding that occurs from Angola every year as rivers in the north overflow and flood our flat land...as mentioned in one description "The north of Namibia would be a big murky swamp if it wasn't a desert climate." So the waters flow in & stay for awhile and the local rain augments the flooding.

Most years aren't, of course, like this...however last years flooding was as bad (or worse depending) and this one has turned out to be as predicted. Exciting for us, although devestating for some families & it makes for 2 very stinky dogs in our house & a LOT of mosquitoes. But such is how things go. Think of us fording our river to leave town in our little VW!

---and an update: So Wednesday this week, a week after the flood a helicopter landed in our village---with the President of Namibia! He had come to see how the flooding damage really was. This caused absolute chaos in our village--all the kids and most teachers took off towards his helicopter in a mad dash--many of them had never seen a helicopter let alone the president! Several classes were spontaneously cancelled for this educational experience. Ah, Namibia!