Reflecting, Reconciling, and Remembering

This week, our first back at school, I started the term by asking each of my students to write about one interesting or weird thing that happened to them during the May holiday. I got what you might expect a typical teenager response: travel to neighbouring villages, Angola, some who's highlight was eating at KFC or going to the pool in Oshakati or getting new clothes.

But what I didn't expect were the stories of tragedy. About 6 students reported a death in their family of either their mother or father, some of several relatives including cousins and grandparents. One of my top grade 8 students lost 5 family members in 2 weeks! It is overwhelming to comprehend what these kids are dealing with and I feel powerless as their teacher to not be able to offer more than my condolences. I even have a new student who has moved here because his last parent died in the village he was in and he has moved to live with other relatives. :(

The tragedy facing these kids brings to the forefront the loss that my family was dealt over the May holiday when we heard my little cousin Keely Jayde Faught Bruinsma, who was nearly 2, passed away in Vancouver from Meningitis. My condolences go out to Emily, Kody, Jaiden, Ray & Megan. I wish I could be home and give you all a big hug.

It seems that life these days is out to test many of my family members as much as it is testing the strength and endurance of my learners. I wish you all much love. Please take care of yourselves. Chloe

Ideal Prize

By the way, I entered a fundraising draw today. First prize is a goat! Keep your fingers crossed!

Pass or Fail

Term 2 started this week. We had a great break in May and now it's back to work.
On the last day before break, learners (the Namibian word for students) came in to pick up their report cards. I had just finished putting in two grueling days in the computer lab where I used spreadsheets and a mail merge to print off 700 report cards. At first, it looked like a simple task since the mail merge had already been created by a volunteer last year. What I didn't realize is that it had not actually been used. Through trial and error, I discovered that every course was using a different grading scheme (for example, in Grade 11 English classes, even a score of 100% will only earn you a C!)

The real difficulty came with a box called Pass/Fail where I was to indicate whether or not the learner was currently in a passing or failing position. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, every teacher had a different definition of what was required for a Pass. Despite the fact that Pass/Fail statistics are gathered each term and used to compare schools within the country, there is not a standard method of evaluation. After several spontaneous staff meetings and support from my department head, I implemented a common system for the school. Apparently my requirements were a lot stricter than previously. Both teachers and learners were shocked to discover that obtaining an E in every course (that's generally 40-50%) would be considered a fail. When implemented school wide, our pass rate dropped from 75% to 52%. It's important to note here that this statistic has no actual value since we still have two more terms this year. Hopefully, our learners will consider this a kick in the butt and they'll work harder next term.

I'm happy that we're raising the bar a little. We've attached a letter along with our statistics so that the Ministry of Education will understand why our school seems to have performed so terribly this term. I hope we don't get intimidated into dropping our standards back to improve the perceived results.

Sleeping With Elephants

We've just returned from a 3 day Mokoro safari inot the Okavango Deelta in NW Botswana. The delta- a huge inland one that never flows to the sea-is the result of the pristine Kavango River which starts in Angola, flows through Namibia and into Botswana where it meets the Kalahari Desert and spreads out creating a lush wetland. Although we could not go to "really see the delta" (aka a bush plane over to a luxury lodge) we opted to boat in by makoro- a canoe like dugout which is poled up rivers and channels by guides- and camp for a few nights nights. Although sadly most of the delta is not protected (Namibia and Angola see it as wasted water which they would like to have) it is not developed and is a wilderness of abundant wildlife which moves freely without fencing. A place where elephants, giraffe, hyaena's, jackals and potentially even lions and leopareds roam while campers sleep :).

To get there, we had a 45min trip up river to Boro village where the poling station is and the guides and makoro's await you. Then you sit royally as our two polers Jo and Ratsini poled us for 2hrs. to our campsite. We had 3 guided walks while we were there, the first which revealed an elephant only a few hundred metres from our camp!

That night, we built up a huge fire and nodded off. I was awakened in the night by many sounds - jackals barking, several hyaena's near by yipping and most alarming, a loud splashing and chewing coming from the river which went on for about 3 hours. This could only mean one thing to me - elephants. You would be surprised to know that one of the sounds an elephants makes sounds alarmingly like the low growl of a lion! Definitely a hair-raising night in which mom interupted Dad's constant and louder-than-elephant snoring to tell him, "Brian, something's out there!" In which my dad replied "That's nice" and promptly fell back to sleep.

The next day my night sound interpretation was verified when two bull elephants walked within 100m of camp and trumpteted, drank and ate grass. When asked to go see the elephants my mom replied "I have seen enough elephants. They are too big and are no longer my favourite animal." The guides reassured us that no animals like fire and elephants don't want to come near you unless provoked.

We put that theory to the test the next night as the elephants arrived to splash about while we were still sitting around the campfire. And while I truly and logically belived they wouldn't come near us, it is another thing to hear the thrashing of a 6000kg or so beast a few metres away but be unable to see it! However, it is also a fantastic adrenalin rush and hugely satisfying to know that it is still possible to spend time in Africa in a way people have lived for 1000's of years-- with respect and caution for the natural world. Botswana it seems, has done a decent job, more than other southern African countries, at protecting wildlife, as it has protected the savannah and limited fences, That being said, recent years have led to cattle land expansion and fencing which killed ~99% of the Wildebeest and Zebra populations from dehydration because they could no longer migrate during droughts.

Botswana has been an overland safari dream but my heart still lies in Namibia.

The Lunar Rainbow

We have been travelling with my parents for a week and a half now, hitting up a number of southern countries including Zambia and Botswana. Last night, we went to Victoria falls at night to see the lunar rainbow...an amazing event that happens once a month when the full moon is bright enough to cause a rainbow to go over the falls. From one angle the rainbow starts at the top of the falls and plumets all the way down to the river bottom. Or, as in this picture we have, it goes sideways and crosses over a bridge. This picture was taken at night with a 15second exposure. Don't believe me? Look at our headlamps and the star in the upper left hand side. It was an amazing experience, and so is the falls by day right now with record high water it is extremely powerful. Matched with some amazing elephant and rhino displays in some national parks and its been a pretty amazing holiday thus far.

tomorrow we head off to the Kalahari through Botswana to see what's out there!