athletic day, uniforms for the orphans, etc.

Hello all,
This weekend was the cluster athletics in Kamanjab. I went with the kids, partly just to get out of the village for a bit. African school trips always remind me of youth group trips run by crazy people on a budget of 15 cents a day. We got there, ate our dinner (some sort of Kool-Aid served from a huge caldron, and three slices of bread with butter and a little jelly) then, after the kids played for a bit, we went to sleep on the floor of a school room (the kids slept in pairs, one blanket under and one over, but I was tightly packed between two hostel sisters on hostel mattresses.) The kids woke up before dawn at 5AM, we wached outside under the tap and then had breakfast (sweet, milky tea and three slices of bread with butter and a little jelly.)

The athletic day was far less organized than our day, but we got through it. Then I did a little grocery shopping, ate lunch (sausages, rice, and pumpkin) and all the kids crowded onto the back of a lorry that looked sort of like it was meant to hold cattle (a lorry is a truck, not a pickup, an actual open topped truck.) Then we went home, dropping kids at every farm we passed.

On Friday last week a truck with USAID on the side pulled up and a bunch of Namibian Red Cross workers got out. They unloaded 14 full school uniforms (with shirts, pants or skirts, socks, shoes, and sweaters) as well as school bags, school sets (with scissors, pencils, pens, rulers, markers, pencil sharpeners, and erasers.) They were donated by, I think, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Namibia, but they might have been supplied by the Church Alliance for Orphans or Catholic Aids Action or something. They are for the orphans, although I think that we will probably redistribute a few of them. Sometimes the orphans aren't the ones who are in the most need. For example, there's a kid who lost both parents, but he lives at the Herero shop with his grandfather and aunts. He has one of the nicest school uniforms and he is one of about three or four kids who might possibly be considered a little chubby (not by American standards, but in comparison to the other kids who all seem to look so stringy, like they're made of nothing but tendons and bone.) On the other side, there are kids who have both parents, but have no school uniforms, or only ones that are too small and too patched, no shoes, and are obviously needier. It was really wonderful to see everything getting unloaded and to see real supplies that will actually help the children themselves, instead of endless workshops or other "sustainable" projects. I know that it's not sustainable to just give kids uniforms, but sometimes I feel like it's OK that some things aren't sustainable. These are real things that will really make a big difference in the lives of real children and I think that's important too.

Anyway, that's most of my life. I've gotten over grumbling about the curriculum change and have started to rewrite and replan everything, but I'm not too happy about it. Other than that, life's going well. Hope everyone's doing fine. Enjoy the pictures

Peace

More photos from Anker

Tree Climbing

Kids in a tree

Baby Gwennie

More dancing

Athletic day, frustrations, and some Greek (email from Amy)

Kids drumming and dancing in Anker

Last week was the athletic day. It was actually a rather enjoyable day (especially since it meant that I don't have to do athletic training in the afternoon anymore.) I was one of the scorekeepers as usual (I think they only keep me around for my ability to add quickly without errors in my arithmetic.) There was lots of singing and dancing, as well as running. The kids run barefoot on a track whose lines are dug into an empty field. The long jump is simply done into a pit of dug up earth. The only equipment that they use are two metal poles for the high jump with a string held onto them by two kids and a bunch of hostel mattresses on the other side, and the javelin and shotput. Otherwise, it's just bare feet and lungs. Anyway, it was good, although it was also tiring. This week I'm going to go to supervise the kids who made it to the cluster athletics in Kamanjab (they needed a female teacher to supervise and I needed to get out of the village for a bit.) I'm hoping it will go OK.

This was my frustration for the week. On Wednesday I got a copy of the new syllabus for Natural Science and Health Education and, apparently, for the past four weeks I've been teaching what amounts to about 4 pages at the end of the one science book that I have that follows this curriculum. I am extremely frustrated. Many of the topics of the past weeks (especially weather) weren't even covered at all. Plus we haven't had our cluster meeting yet, so I don't even know if I should switch abruptly to a new topic or stick with this one and hope that no one noticed the syllabus changes. If worst comes to worst I think I'll stick with this topic and write my own final exam and refuse to give the kids the cluster exam at the end of the term.

It's really frustrating because I had this term all planned out and it means that most of my lesson plans and activities from last year will be worthless. Plus, we don't have any textbooks that fit the new curriculum and the kids haven't had the new curriculum in grade 6 or 5. Sometimes the Namibian way of doing things makes me want to rip my hair out. Especially frustrating is the fact that I asked about this last year and no one seemed at all concerned. The English syllabus has changed as well, but I never really followed that syllabus closely anyway (it suggested that I have the grade 7s read a short novel- like that would work) and the kids are really tested mostly on their comprehension of English, whereas in science they actually need to know specific facts and topics.

In other news, I've decided to take up Greek again. I've been using some stuff off the internet to revise my Greek (for those of you who don't know, I took 3 semesters in college) which has gotten unforgivably rusty. Also I'm about a quarter of the way through Anna Karinina which I started last year but never finished. I think I'll get through it this time. Other than a few frustrations life's treating me pretty well.

Hope you all are fine. Much love.

Email about stuff (email from Amy)

Hey everyone,
Funny story for the day, I think that one of my 7th grade boys (12 years old) has a crush on me. He keeps following me around and asking me questions that he already knows the answers to. It's a little cute, but mostly it's just annoying. Oh, I also told the teachers that I wasn't allowed to drink coffee when I was a kid, which they thought was ridiculously funny. I told them that American children are told that coffee will stunt their growth, which they thought was even funnier. They said it was probably because the parents wanted to save the sugar (I swear they only heat the coffee here in order to be able to dissolve more sugar into it.) They also said it was probably just a story like when parents tell their kids that babies are brought by aeroplanes. That's right, aeroplanes. I suppose our stories sound just as strange to other people, but still, aeroplanes?!?

OK, this week we have the next volume of our series "health issues you never thought you'd have to deal with." Last year it was Polio. This year it is (drumb roll please)---Cholera. That's right, a disease that I mostly associate with dark Victorian novels (ala Charles Dickens) is apparently still around and kicking here. There's been an outbreak in my region (which is not at all cool, considering, according to my copy of Where There is No Doctor, the main result of cholera is death due to dehydration when you rapidly loose all of the water in your body through "rice water diarrhea.")

Anyway, don't worry too much about me, most of the cases have been up in the Opuwo area and I am pretty isolated here, plus I practice good hygene, so I should be fine. Still, they told me that I have to boil my water in addition to the double filtering that I already do and overcook all my food. Yay, more steps to add before I can actually drink the running water in the house.

In other health news, although vastly less dangerous, this is far more annoying for me, some of my food has become infested with weavils (that's what I think they are-tiny black insects.) My mealie meal had to be thrown away because it was so badly contaminated and I have found some in my sugar and my milk powder (although I keep both of those in tight plastic containers.) Anyway, I'm hoping that it's just because of the rainy season. They invaded about a week or two ago and I did a thorough cleaning and haven't seen any in my food since then.

This year really is going so much better than last year. I have more discipline problems, but at least I know how to run the class, how to plan the lessons (I was looking back at my lesson plans from last year and I have no clue what made me think some of those things would work), and just how to teach in general. I feel like I am in control. Also, I know how to get the things I need (internet access, food, contact with other volunteers, etc.)

Other than that, not much has been happening. Tomorrow is the athletic day, so I have to be up early early early (6:30 on a Saturday- not fun) I got a new camera while I was home, and I promised people more photos, so I'm trying to send those with this email.

Oh, also, the rains last week were a fluke and they still think that it might be a drought here.

OK, that's all for now,

Much love
Amy

Photos: life in Anker

Kids
Kids buying sugar at Ronnie's store

Kids and a woman outside their house

I don't know why I like this photo, but I do

Kids fixing the windows

Kids playing