Making somethin' out of Nothin'

I had an amazing week a few weeks ago where I really felt like I was some kind of ridiculous fairy making wonderful things appear to kids. Both of these thing I'd say may be slightly laughable out of context but to me, a world of difference in my classroom. Both of my magical feats stemmed from annoyances.

Annoyance #1: No rulers in a class (or perhaps maybe 2 out of 30), and kids need them for Geography and Math. Solution: I got kids to make their own out of old juice and milk boxes. I cut them out and made a demo and then took them to my class expecting some, but more lukewarm response. What I got was over the top craziness---the kids all had to have one---I ended up making some for each of my grade 8 classes and I saw some examples that were even better than mine. The response can be summed up by a quote from one kid in my 8c class, "Are these for free?" The amazing Oshilombo brings gifts. LOL.

Annoyance #2: There is never a class that goes by where every kid has a function pen or pencil. This one drives me nuts! How can you do a test or say "take notes" or anything, if the kid only had one pen, and it died this morning and there family won't get another one until next week. I tried a pen loaning program, which I will continue but it is a hassle and kids have stolen the ink from inside, etc. etc. One day a kid asked to buy my pen and I said no. I surveyed the kids and found out that $N2.50 is the standard going rate in town for pens. Went to town and found a nice Indian wholesale that sells cheap Chinese pens, 50 for $N20. (That's $N0.40 a pen or roughly CDN 5cents per pen). So I go back to school and charge $N1 per pen (that's ~13cents) and the kids think its a joke I'm selling them so cheap (they think that I'm getting ripped off). Yet I'm making a $N0.60 profit (that's 8cents) on each pen making mark-up a grand 250%. That may seem like pitiful pennies to you, but really it accomplishes two things--piece of mind in my classroom (or a little more at least), and allows me to do a mini-fundraiser for something small but needed at school (I'm thinking about an exam feeding program so that the kids don't have to write exams on empty stomachs), but we'll see.

Anyway, just another week in Omungwelume.

Dogs dogs dogs

Percephany, our mutt who looks more like a goat than a dog, is in heat. I have never really been around a dog that was in heat. Most pets in North America are spayed or neutered....of course, most dogs in North America have homes. Most dogs in Namibia are strays. We have learned from our weekly internet visit that Percy will be in heat for three weeks. Since we do NOT want any puppies, it is a constant battle between us and the motley crew of canine suitors that are literally crashing through our fence to make their case (or just make whoopee). Some of them whimper outside the fence, others dig holes or try to gnaw their way through the chain link fence. We have since repaired several holes and are currently without a broom or mop since they were ideal fence-mending materials. The fights between the dogs (there were ten of them outside our gate this morning) are getting louder and more brutal each day, too.The real problem is when Percy escapes from our compound. She has done this twice and it attracts every male dog in the community. Since she has no interest in returning to solitary confinement, we have to catch her. She does not have a collar or leash (both are completely unknown concepts in this country) and she's slippery. Fortunately, she stops frequently to pee on every second bush that she passed. It is during these vulnerable times that we try to grab her front paws, usually without success. Chloe caught her the first time and I managed to grab her the second time by paying lots of attention to our other dog until she got jealous and came too close. Once caught, she acts like a deadweight and we have to carry her back home (last time she'd already run several kms). The locals think we're crazy since we're the only people in town who carry a perfectly healthy dog halfway across town while a half dozen other dogs nip at our her (and our) heels.It's highly entertaining to watch the dogs try to break into the compound but at the same time, we need to be vigilant to keep them from succeeding. 10 more days and hopefully we can return to a "normal" life.

The tournament

Last weekend, our soccer, volleyball and netball (similar to basketball but for girls only) teams went to Okalongo for the regional tournament. Twenty different schools were represented there which each school spending two nights sleeping on the floor of their assigned classroom. I chose to day-trip it since it was only 50km away. The soccer tournament took two full days since they needed to play all 19 games on only one field. There was also only one netball court and one volleyball court but games were shorter and there were fewer teams represented so each team got to play multiple times.
Our teams did alright winning some and losing some. I had to argue with the volleyball umpires because I've coached our team to set from the left instead of the middle. One of the umpires didn't think this was legal but, luckily, another official had heard of other teams that did that. Apparently, it's not common in Namibia since it requires a skill level slightly higher than most highschool teams reach.
However, the highlight of the tournament for me was watching our 50+ kids travel the 50km dirt road to the tournament. The "bus" that was supposed to take them turned out to be an open-backed cattle truck. No problem. High railing ensure the safety of learners. This definitely keeps transportation costs down but I'm not sure Canadian parents would trust it on the Malahat. Check out the video!

The English Department

As Subject Head for English at my school, I am responsible for acquiring resources for our department, specifically literature that has been prescribed by the Ministry of Education as appropriate for Grade 11 and 12. A new list came out today featuring the poetry and dramatic works that are recommended this school year. I was a little surprised to see that King Lear was on the list. Remember that this is English as a Second Language. Although I like Shakespeare, I am certain that many of my students would not even recognize it as English, let alone understand any deeper meaning. I have a simplified version of Hamlet that I'm considering trying in the last term but Chloe and I are both planning to do "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" first.

Also, the first term finishes this week and exam period begins. We are one third through the school year. However, we are still short an English teacher. That means that two grade 10 and two grade 11 classes have had no English teacher so far this year. I started teaching some of the Grade 11s during my spare blocks but they've missed weeks of instruction. That doesn't mean they are excused from the exam, though. They will still write them. No one has said who will be marking the extra 160 papers but I've got a bad feeling that I already know the answer to that question.

My class was also interrupted today by a small posse of science teachers who wanted me to pronounce the word "buoyancy".

Daylight Savings

Haiku
Daylight savings is
Tomorrow and we go back
School now starts at 7.

(Our school is suspended daylight savings for 3 weeks so as to not confuse the learners....right.)

Running With the Village

A kind of tradition has developed with me and my exercise routine here in Omungwelume. Not that I run too often or do it on particular days, really, but I can count on one thing... the "village" almost always comes with me. As I exit the gates of Eegedjo, the Oshilumbu in her jogging attire is spotted. This creates an ammassing of children around me as I jog down the street--usually in short skirts and always bare feet. And they run with me- girls and boys of anywhere between 7 and 17..and amazingly enough, the almost always make it the whole distance with me..regardless of how far I go. More often the kids are younger so we do a variety of songs and games to keep them going and distracted. Its pretty typical to see us jogging along the gravel road singing "There was a great big moose" or "Bingo" or "If you're happy and you know it". Or doing races or other such things. Often our dogs accompany me as well, or find me en route, and charge after us, tripping me as I go (yesterday was dogs and kids).

Sundays sometimes I can get out without them noticing. I thought I was to have a run to myself and got almost half way when I realized the whole time, 4 girls were charging up behind me at full speed, trying to catch me. They reached me pretty exhausted and realized that they still had to run all the way back.

Either way, its great fun, and its an amusing way to take part in the life of the village.