Anna In Africa

Jake is coming tomorrow!!!!!

And I have lucked out with a ride to Windhoek this afternoon rather than the adventure of the Intercape bus overnight. So I will be able to have another evening with my Canadian friends Lauren and Janeen before they leave the continent, a good night’s sleep, and a trip to the airport so I can drive the stick shift rental 2X4 on the left side of the road so my lovely boyfriend who has travelled 36 straight hours doesn’t have to.

We will be making the rounds of Namibia–Sossevlei to see giant sand dunes, Swakopmund, Damaraland with mountains and desert elephants, Etosha Park and…dudududDAH…RUNDU.

I hope to get to Rundu in time to visit the OVC Program I am now helping with–Orphans and Vulnerable Children. Kaisosi Church, just a 10 minute walk from the college, started one and now 200 kids come twice a week for games and a meal. The missionaries I’ve become friends with asked for some advice on teaching and programming and now it’s my community project. I will have some great pictures of it soon.

SO GREAT!!!! Have a great next two weeks. Talk to you when I get back.

So I was able to enjoy a weekend with my new friend Caroline Schmidt from Luxembourg out in the bush–literally. The San People and the Makwe People are some of the few bushman left and are now supplementing their income by camping tourists who want to see how the “real Namibians” live. And I, such a tourist, went out there.

Herman (it’s his Christian name–how cute) was a great host–and we were the only two campers there that weekend. Here he is in traditional San attire: WHOA! NO CLOTHES! I have some incredible video of Herman and Johannes talking in their language–a click language!–about a medicine tree when Caroline and I went out for a bush walk. It was the real “The Gods Must be Crazy.”

That night our campsite was infiltrated with 43–Caroline counted them–San Namibians to share in our guided “Traditional dance and stories” program. Yup, just the 2 of us, 35 San kids, 1 traditional dancer, and 5 topless women singing and clapping. It was very cool.

The next day we travelled back towards Grootfontien, dropped Herman and Johannes off at a checkpoint–they wanted to use a phone–and we stopped at a “living village” of the Makwe. It was very similar, but I have to admit that it seemed at little more staged. A woman met us, we ordered the “Craft” Program, and she said to wait by the campsite for the rest of the people to come. A hoard of bare breasted women came with some jewelry and led us to a site where the men were again in loin clothes. At this point the majority of the Namibians sat around making jewelry and the men put together a bow and arrow that we could shoot. Now, all these bushman don’t hunt anymore because of conservation laws, and they get a lot of supplemental support from the government as well as hunters that pay up to $80,000 to shoot an elephant or a lion on the Bushman land. So while it was incredible to see a group of people build a fire from rubbing sticks together, and find nuts and water in the middle of what seems like nothing, they also go back to their lives in their huts much like I see in Rundu and wear their t-shirts and baseball caps. It’s a strange world.

I have no idea what my best work will be here. But I am proud of this moment. A week ago, the last week of the term, we held a workshop about the changes to the handbooks I’ve worked on as well as best practices when it comes to Action Research.

So apparently the makeover of the admin of wordpress involves a pop up screen to add media–and now my computer is too slow to upload photos.

I will try to fix it today. I have pictures of the San Bushman!

Ah. AH. It’s Tuesday night, and I have 3 days left to work before my break, but I feel like it’s already begun. If I don’t do anything else of consequence here in Namibia, I will be ok with it.

First, the strike. It lasted two days. The Ministry of Education wrote a letter to the Prime Minister asking for him to table the salary reconstruction. It’s not clear if it will be done and when, so they may strike again. I thought it maybe was today, but it turns out that it was the students at RCE who may strike–they aren’t receiving their payouts. If you refer back to a previous blog, they did that last term and did not complete their final exams.

Next, I got my quarterly report in for IFESH. I won’t go into detail, but I have learned a lot about cross-culture communication. And it’s tough being a volunteer.

After 3 postponements we finally had an All Staff meeting about team development as professional development. It was well attended (thanks to a sign up sheet that went around in the morning) and people stayed the entire time. That’s all I can really say about that one.

Lastly, today was the Action Research Workshop for all lecturers at a lodge. I would say it was a very nice day. It was also pretty well attended, people were receptive to the instruction and had positive things to say. The reason why I can’t get too enthusiastic about this or the team development is that I just don’t know what the outcomes will be a few months from now. It’s great that people say they like the ideas, but will they actually impact how people do their work? Always the question.

It’s a hard perspective as a volunteer–you want to say “Hey, things need to change and I’m the one to help you to do it” when you have people who say “Yeah, we’ve been here a while. We’ve been through this before.” The people you serve as a volunteer were not born in a closet, nor are they ignorant. They are intelligent and educated people. So why do they seem to have systemic problems–problems that seem to repeat themselves year after year? I likely won’t figure a lot of this out. I am just trying to do what is in front of me.

And what’s in front of me now is 3 WEEKS OFF. A few days here in Rundu. I’ve met a girl from Luxembourg, and we will likely visit a San camp this weekend. Then next week I am off to Windhoek to meet up with Jake (give it up for the boyfriend–WAHOO!) and we will travel around Namibia for 2 weeks–he will even get to see Rundu. I may give him some airtime on my blog to get the “seeing Rundu for the first time” perspective from someone else.

Jake has some exciting news, which means big plans for me. But some of it is stil in formation, so I will wait on it. Just know that God has shown me again that life is rarely what you think and even less how you plan. But it’s good. Very good. love you all!

A LOT OF WORK has been going on this past week–I had 120 interviews and questionnaires to grade from the students, a test to prepare and grade, and writing up more action research curriculum. I also realized that my quarterly report was due and I hadn’t finished it. We (meaning the lecturers and I) also wasted another day where a meeting was planned, had to be postponed for another meeting, and only 10 out of 30 people showed up for that one and that one was cancelled.

I had an interesting conversation with my head of department that I will withhold from the blog, but it was a uniquely different conversation that I’ve ever had with the man when it comes to Rundu College–I was very honest.

Now for the news…the full-time teacher college lecturers across the country have gone on strike. It started on Friday at 2 PM, which is not very threatening, but I’m guessing it’s to give the Ministry of Education time to respond. They have been waiting for a salary reconstructuring for 5 years, and they are taking action and they seem to mean it. So as of Monday at 7 AM, the lecturers will meet and decide what they will do. My director says don’t get involved and stay low–so this means no teaching. The lecturers will be coming to work but not teaching or doing any tasks. So that means I’m out of a job.

Actually, I don’t know what this means. I’ll be playing it by ear and seeing what my director wants me to do. I have no idea how long these teachers plan on going with this. So I’ll let you know what’s going on on Monday.

Sorry about the lack of communication. There is a lot that has happened in the last couple weeks that I need to update y’all on. I’ll also be posting some pictures I took while on a drive about 2 weeks ago–we spent about 2 hours stopping and going for just the right shots.

First, I met a woman from Luxembourg (she’s 26, which is technically a woman, but I find it weird to call a person a woman who is 5 years younger than me.) She works here in Rundu with Lux Development, a company with a contract with Namibia to assist with urban development planning. Typically, if you want to move somewhere, you build a house where you want to. Lux Development is trying to work with the Town Council of Rundu to designate plots, set up electricity, water and sanitation at all the plots, give the people there official deeds of ownership, and start charging taxes so that the town can pay for all this stuff. You would have to have a long conversation with Caroline about how complicated this all is, and I think it is fascinating, sad, and frustrating at the same time. Caroline is trying to work on the implementing the engineering plans for water sanitation, and she could tell you more about toliet facilities than I think you could ever think possible (which I think is equally fascinating. Did you know that there were eco-friendly toliets used all over Asia?) Anyway, she is very sweet and likes to see a lot of Namibia, and soon she and I are going to visit a San Tribal camp during a weekend. I can’t wait. Below is a picture of a San baby–Rachel, adpoted by a Canadian missionary family and will be leaving in a few months with this family to her new home. She just turned one!

Whoa! That picture is big–sorry. I have been BUSY at work–I teach 18 periods a week, just under a full load. I’ve also had to put together and edit 2 handbooks for the Critical Inquiry and Action Research projects for the students–handbooks that went from about 12 pages to 30 pages. I also need to get information from a variety of people, which also takes time. We are still trying to get the professional development initiatives off the ground, and my director came for a visit to see what I am doing and how the administration is doing supporting these activities. A lot of these tasks need to be done in the next few weeks before the end of this trimester, since the students and lecturers need information about critical inquiry, action research, and professional development before the next trimester when 240 students leave for student teaching. It will be interesting to see what I will be doing next semester.

One particular coup I am proud of is that I have been getting feedback from a representative from the Ministry of Education–and he is coming to our workshop for the lecturers in mid-April on Action Research. Apparently, having the Pre-Service Teaching Coordinator from NIED come to a college-specific training is unheard of. It will be good for IFESH and the college if he comes, and I hope he will come through.

OK, now for the bad news. I was hit hard last week when my last living grandmother decided enough was enough and died last week. She had been deteriorating from dementia the last two years and living in a nursing home–she was relatively stable when I left in August, and I hoped that she would stick it out till I came back, but that wasn’t the plan. She died peacefully and quickly–her vitals dropped and 24 hours later her heart stopped–and I’m glad of that, but to not be there to be a witness for someone you love when she passes away, and to miss going through the grieving with your family members when you see them so rarely anyway…

This is a picture of my cousin, brother, sister and I with Grandma last August. She was born in Poland, forced to join the German army when she was about 16, shipped to Munich in a box car after the war, met and married my Grandpa and then left for the US in 1956 with him and their 2 kids. I’ve always thought she was very brave.

I hope I never have to go through this again if I can help it. I’m doing ok, but it makes me even more homesick. I’m so thankful to have this experience, and I know these last couple months I am here has the potential for a lot of good things to happen, but just the same, I’d love to go out on a date with my boyfriend that didn’t involve a phone call, and I miss the weekends I spend at home in Chicago where my mom and have talks over cups of coffee in the morning. I want to watch a marathon of some TV show with Marlene and go to an impromtu dinner with people like Britt, Dustin, Eric, KP, Katie and Minerva at some Minneapolis restaurant. I just miss you guys.

So, anyway, I’m doing ok. God is in His place, and all be well. You just do the best you can with what you are and where you are. And right now I am here–I chose to be and I am glad I am with most of me. I am and will be proud of who I have become and what I have contributed here when it is time to go. And it will be soon. Love you all.

1) Today I asked my head of department if there really was a conflict with our Action Research Meeting and a Graduation meeting that was scheduled. He again asked me when we should schedule the meeting (…It’s NOT MY JOB!!!!)
2) Today the Lower Primary Head of Department forgot we had a meeting at breaktime.
3) Today the Graduation Meeting only had 6 people out of 35 attend, and no one in charge. My head of department was not one of those 6 people.
4) Today someone did bring the list of committees for graduation and the 6 people at the meeting had a fit because the someone just printed out last year’s list, and a large number of staff are no longer at the college.
5) Today my meeting with the Social Science and Home Ecology department was also cancelled due to said Graduation meeting.
6) Today I went to the office of the Languages Head of Department after the said Graduation meeting, and he was not there to meet with me. He also did not attend the Graduation meeting.

1) Today I started a memo about what exactly we want our administration to assist the college with regarding team building and gave it to the secretary of the committee so that she could edit and finish it herself.
2) Today I started seeing my student synthesize information when we worked on a Venn Diagram with different types of learning theories.
3) Today I talked with a very egocentric “typical” male African as a colleague about issues with college dynamics.
4) Today my students began practicing good debating techniques with the difficult subject of education and culture—they were telling me why they had a certain opinion and one even used an outside source to support it.
5) Today I was able to gather an entire department to discuss collaboration with action research topics—they were convinced it was a good idea and agreed to work with their designated lecturer within the next 2 weeks.
6) Today the Math and Science HoD was able to make 150 copies appear despite our lack of copy ink (it’s been two weeks since we received paper and ran out of ink. I’ve spent almost US$100 making copies for my kids.)
7) Today I took a taxi ride through a village looking for a “friend” of the driver. Meanwhile, the driver was proclaiming that the word fine or “nawa” is untrue and people will go to hell for it. He is not fine; he is “under better.” He also thinks the post office should be called the SMS office because we don’t send mail; we send SMS messages. Another rider asked if the driver could drop him somewhere. He answered, “I don’t drop anyone. You could get hurt and who is to blame. You will step carefully out of my car.” Today I met the Namibian Mitch Hedberg, and he drives a taxi in Rundu.
9) Today I almost bought chicken C-H-U-N-X, but decided against it because chunks is not spelled with an “X”.
10) Today I am letting the Action Research Committee flounder around without a scheduled meeting because the HoD and Coordinator need to get it together.
11) Today my boyfriend and a friend emailed with nothing grand to say, but just filled me in on their daily happenings.
12) Today I feel confident that I actually found a good “problem skin” crème that might just be even better than what I’ve used in the states.
13) Today I made sarcastic jokes with my fellow lecturers, and they thought I was funny.
14) I got home just as a thunderstorm started—thunderstorms are FEROCIOUS here. I like thunderstorms. The clouds gather and it cools off like a breezy Minnesota June evening right before it rains.
15) This, I consider a very, very good day.

I just spent the last week in Walvis Bay, just south of Swakopmund. Swakopmund is prettier, and Walvis Bay supposedly smells like fish, but I didn’t get that while I was there.

This was a conference for all teacher colleges in Namibia, and we had 8 lecturers attend as well as me and the Vice Rector. Lecturers typically like to go to conferences to get away and to eat free food, and while the food was good and the lecturers got sick from eating so much, it was truly the best conference I’ve ever been to in my life. I had heard some of the information before, but it was the first time teacher educators got to here the back story of some assessment tests and trends throughout namibian education. They would “unpack” data so that you would know that on the whole, Namibian students are improving in test scores, but what you wouldn’t know is that the Kavango region–the region of Rundu–all students fell in scores in math, english, and environmental studies. You also know on the whole that the grades D, E, and F are passing (grades here are in 7–A-G), but receiving these marks in Grade 10 likely means you will fail Grade 12. Receiving these marks in Grade 12 would not get you into any college or even a government job. That’s bad news.

Here’s my crew.
It was the first time I saw most of them have a good time, feel validated and worthy of being listened to. We spent one evening climbing up Dune 7, the largest dune in the world. It’s so big, the sand never shifts. People were cheering and encouraging one another–I was also glad to hear that the lecturers were comparing this experience to the one at our college.

They created quite a stir–out of all the types of professional development they wanted to do, they realized nothing will be successful unless people change their attitudes and work together. So they chose team development. Some people at the conference didn’t think this was professional development because we weren’t improving test score with this initiative. Others thought they were airing dirty laundry. Most people applauded us, and the higher ups affirmed our college for seeing what needs to be done first before we can come up with great and amazing schemes. I was very proud of them.

I don’t know how this will unfold at the college. Please keep Rundu College in your prayers–for wisdom, for forgiveness of each other, and for perserverence.

Here’s me licking salt near the salt mine!

So, it has been a while that I have written for 2 major reasons.

One, is that I have been very busy once the lecturers returned and school began last week. There have been meetings, rescheduled meetings, planning, replanning, and meeting my students. Getting school started at RCE is kind of like starting an old motor in Minnesota in February. It turns, it stops, it turns and seems to get going, then it stops again. Since the lecturers have returned, we have run out of ink on the only copier at the college, gotten the ink but ran out of paper, and now we have the paper but ran out of ink again. I myself spent $50 (US mind you) getting copies of papers for my class—I consider it a donation as a part of my volunteer service. But since the students only have 1 text book if that, it seems crazy to me that we can’t give them handouts of information. How else are they supposed to learn it? Telepathy? Osmosis by standing near the library?

The other reason is seeping out of my first reason—I’ve been very homesick. The weather has been changing a lot here too—it rained about all day everyday in torrential downpours for about 2 weeks—and although it has cooled off a great deal, I was getting a bit sick and seeing pictures of friends and talking with people about the goings ons in Minnesota and Chicago just made me wish I was there. This is also where the work starts getting hard. I’m encouraging people to organize at the college and I need to collaborate, not lead, since that is what I’m requested to do, and I find that I was to be the boss so bad I’d break my head of department’s leg if I knew it would get me the job. Last week I had a 6 hour meeting where the entire group was only there for the last 1 and ½ hours of it, and most of that time I spent convincing them that they had the ability to lead the lecturers with topics to teach the students for their action research projects. Let me give you a little taste of what our college students are working on:

Why the Project is Successful and Unsuccessful

“I can say my project has been successful simply because my lesson which I presented for my topic were interesting and enjoyable. I made sure to make use of the proper terms during my lessons that I have presented, so that it improves the learners understanding. I also learned that learners can only make use of this terms if they are encouraged and given the proper guidance on it. That I support the ideas of one of the psychologist Nigel Collins when he said, “Such terms or skills need to be more meaningful and effective that it should be able to make learners have the ability to work and understand things.” He further stressed by saying such skills need to be demonstrated by learners thus it opens their way to enhance in the learning process. Learners make use of such skills and even apply them in different tasks given to them. However, learners do not always success in applying such knowledge for one purpose to other tasks for which they are useful. With such approaches the wider range of such skills are made more apparent as they become more competence when it is demonstrated in given settings to prescribed standard. The teachers should be more active at such a premium so that learners should be able to apply the knowledge and adapt those circumstances to emerge the most valued use of those technical terms to improve their understanding.”

Now imagine 260 students doing research with those kind of results and writing it in that manner. That is what I’m supposed to help with this term. I have a great description of using a washing machine with vague and confusing language that you can’t even tell what it is. But I realized I can’t use that as an example because I don’t think any of these students have ever used a washing machine. No joke.

I had another interesting cultural experience a few weeks ago when I came back. Stop reading if you are faint of heart or embarrassed about S–: I went to the New Start HIV Counseling Clinic in town. Another part of my volunteer service is to put together the social service resources available in Rundu into a directory for the next volunteer in the hopes of doing more networking.

They get up to 25 people a day, mostly women, because men think they are too manly to find out if they contracted a life-threatening disease from sexual activity. I asked the counselor why, and he said he didn’t know other than the culture thing. He said it is likely they will start a clinic just for men. Good idea.

I am not afraid to announce that I am HIV negative and will likely remain that way for a long, long time. While I was there, I asked if I could be tested and go through the counseling since I wanted to know the experience and I have never been tested. I also had almost no chance of getting HIV, but you never know. I’ve heard the counseling can be brutal—they grill you about all sort of sexual activity you might have done—but I had a relatively good experience. They ask you questions so that you reveal things as you want to. For example, he asks if I can tell him the ways to contract HIV, and then he asks if I can recall ever engaging in those kinds of activities. Rather smart and nonthreatening I think.

Then once you get the results of your test, if you are negative they walk you through choices of how to remain HIV negative—including putting a condom on a wooden penis (I told you to stop reading if you get embarrassed). It seems very imposing, even extreme to need to do such a thing, but considering they are dealing with HIV as an epidemic here with a large number of uneducated people engaging in sexual activity within a small population, it seems to be absolutely necessary. And it also seems that I had a lot to learn about how those little things work. Now I am prepared. If anyone of you need advice, you can call me at 264-081-214-6678 ☺

Through them they have all sorts of contacts with other service organizations, and one of the counselors is a chairperson for Church Alliance for Vulnerable Children and Orphans. I was able to ask her about what happens when an orphan doesn’t have a birth certificate or death certificate for his or her parents—one of the barriers to getting national aid. A child in a village loses her only parent, and the family buries the parent before they can bring the body to town for the coroner to confirm the death and write up a certificate. It also costs money that they do not have. But then the child likely has no identification, no birth certificate and no death certificate for the parent. You can’t receive aid, you can’t even get into school or get a bank account. It’s a major issue here.

Next week I will be going to Walvis Bay for a conference to develop professional workshops for the lecturers. The woman in charge from our school is a go-getter, but she was already frustrated this week because a colleague that was going with us said these workshops are boring, nothing ever gets done, and she will just have fun. Please pray for me!