It's finally COOLING down!

So you thought I’d say “Spring is here!”…..Well no, down here, we are just starting the cooler weather. Amen! I’ve been in hot weather since June of last year!! The hottest months here are December, January, February and then winter kicks in May. I’m still wearing my shorts and T-shirts and its usually in the comfortable 80s. They say it will get ‘real’ cold! We shall see….!

The first school term ends next week and we have been busy marking, moderating and invigilating exams. The school photocopier and printers have gone on strike and our Principal has had to appeal to the local village council to make copies of exams. My last exam is Monday and I’ll be spending next week correcting and calculating the final marks for my classes. It’s all a lot of work and number crunching and the test results REALLY matter over here. And naturally, if the results are bad, it’s the teacher’s fault and she’s not doing her job!

I am on the newspaper committee too and we have had to put together an issue before the end of this term. I’m the official photographer…Hah! Okay…stop laughing! I seem to be the only one with a camera on those occasions we need to document some event or news story. We created an interview section where we inserted pictures of the kids along their comments. Oh boy! Do they LOVE to have their photo taken! They squeal with delight and want to do it again and again! The issue is still in the making as we speak. We will have a ‘soft’ copy to present to the Principal but we can’t print yet. Hopefully, next term there won’t be so many other projects to get in the way and we’ll be able to get the paper out mid-term.

I had requested some books for our library from a US organization back in Dec and they have arrived! About 35 graded readers and story books to put on the shelves! We will have to guard them like gold as new things tend to go missing around here…..hmm. We have elected Library Prefects and they are being trained to run the library. (I have included a photo of them here...adorable and hard-working!) The idea is to have the library completely in the learners’ hands. It’s not easy to make them understand the importance of library policies and following procedures but many of the older students are keen to take on responsibility.

I want to post some photos of the school kids to give you an idea of the features of the Nama and mixed or‘coloured’ people here. They look very different from Namibians in the North. Nama people have defined, sharp facial features and eyes. They are not dark black. They are lean, strong, stoic people who don't always smile...but when they do...ooh boy! What charmers!! They originate from the San people and their languages are similar. As I’ve been taking many pictures of students, I have become fascinated with the ‘look’ of the true Nama. You will see many more photos of these people as my blog continues. I have added some pictures of my dear colleagues from the language department. What a great bunch of dedicated, hard-working young teachers! 

Next month, travels in Namibia…stick around!!

Camping the dunes!!

Time for a break!!

It is our mid-term break from school and I was invited to go camping in Sossusvlei and the Namib Naukluft Park. It was the best way to celebrate my first birthday in Africa. We spent 4 days hiking the dunes and the canyons and it was incredible! We saw many wild animals and we happened upon a newborn zebra! I got a short video clip but can assure you it did walk away after some time. It was a fabulous experience and one that I really needed to remind myself of why I’m here. I took many, many photos but have included just a few. It was hard work getting up at the crack of dawn to get the right light and catch the animals as they came out. It was well worth the lack of sleep. We had rented a 4x4 and it was ideal for the rough roads and sandy drive in the park. We even helped some stranded tourists. All was organized and arranged by Jen and Nathaniel, two Volunteers from Calif. I felt so safe and comfortable and the other two Volunteers  were great to be with and very understanding as I puffed along the 17km hike we did one day through the canyon. We packed in a lot of sights in the 5 days and I got to see Swakopmund and Walvis Bay on the return.

I look forward to my next trip in May with other friends and family!

Will post more photos soon!

Projects, committees and more!!

Now that the school term is in full swing, many projects and committees have popped up. I don’t always volunteer, but somehow I find myself helping to organize and get it going. I am part of the library committee which is probably the biggest and most daunting project as our school library has been neglected for many years, there is no shelf list of our current books, donated books remain in the back room collecting dust (and I mean A LOT of dust!) and its disappointing trying to find adults or learners who are willing to get their hands dirty and start weeding old books out, cleaning up and putting things back together. People nod their heads, “Yeah, we really need our young people to read more…improve the reading culture here.” But they don’t often follow through. You can motivate only so much.

Then there is the Wellness Committee which collects money from staff for taking care of teachers when they have personal issues like funerals, weddings or difficulties. We also have to plan end-term parties. I’m part of the newsletter committee, sports day and a reading project for learners with reading difficulties. I feel most strongly for this last project as its up my alley and there aren’t many people here who are experienced to help. We just assessed the learners and have started grouping them…once this project gets going, I’ll share and explain how I’ve set it up.

For the most part, I’m enjoying my stay here. It has been very lonely at times but I feel I deal with being alone quite well. The last few years in Italy, I was alone a lot…reflecting and planning my future. I’m doing pretty much the same here. I keep in contact with my family and kids very often and this helps. (Thank goodness for Whatsapp.) My life here revolves around the school….the school is my community. I haven’t had any language lessons and I don’t remember what I was taught during training. I occasionally go into the village…its just a store/bar and the post office….but it is still so blazing hot here that if you don’t have a good reason to be walking out in that heat, you shouldn’t be there.  Here, people speak a mix of Nama, Afrikaans and English. In one lesson, you will hear a local teacher stress the importance of only using and speaking English…. Then they will translate that for the class!!Because people here are so bi or trilingual, they don’t write accurately. Writing well is not a priority…they just don’t care….they can communicate and get by. And trying to convince 13-14 year olds that the difference between writing a sentence in the present or past is important, it just doesn’t sink in. Oh yes, I’m sure I have convinced and made it clear to a few learners, but mostly…they just respond “Yes, Miss…yes, Miss..” and then when I correct their work, I see the errors again!

After a full school day (teaching from 6.45-13.10) we have afternoon classes from 15.00-17.00 and sometimes sports practice after that! It is exhausting and sometimes ineffective…I marvel at how they think cramming lessons and information down their throats is going to motivate and help them learn. The management here only wants results…statistics, numbers…how many pass or fail…and of course, if the learner fails, the teacher is not doing their job! Oi vey! I enjoy coming back to my flat, turning on my fan and drinking a cold beer after my shower. I have come to appreciate the very basics even more. I don’t need much to be happy and to stay healthy.

Here are some photos from sports day. YES!! The learners run barefoot! And I tell you, there are a lot of thorns and stones and the heat was unbearable! It wasn’t clear what my duties were to be (as usual) so I appointed myself photographer. I proposed selling some of these photos to make money for the library…it was approved. People here are quite vain…kids and adults love their photos taken and want to see them right away. Then they tell you…”Miss, put that on Facebook!”

Let's start teaching! And those projects?!

THE SCHOOL YEAR HAS BEGUN!

Well, I have finally started the work I came here to do…TEACHING ENGLISH! The first school term started mid January and I have been spending the last 2 weeks establishing rules, distributing notebooks for the students to cover and trying to learn their names. At the moment, I have 2 grade 8 classes of English (40 students each) and 9 grades 8-10 classes of Basic Information Science. This class teaches learners about the library, finding information and using reference resources….all skills which these learners lack and don’t really care about. This class is ‘non-promotional’, meaning there is no grade for it. All the more reason for the learners not to care or pay attention. I was just getting into it and finding material for the lessons when I was told (yesterday) that I will no longer be doing the BIS classes but instead will do all 4 grade 8 English classes…Whew! I am relieved…fewer names to remember and can concentrate on what I know best.

Since the beginning of the term, I’ve been put on various committees: library, newsletter, ‘Wellness’ (collecting funds for lunches, weddings, funerals, etc  among staff members), athletics program AND a remedial reading or literacy group. Here, they just put anyone who seems willing on a committee because people don’t always volunteer. They LOVE  to set up committees, appoint people, set up ‘action plans’, make reports, write up minutes. It seems like a lot of bureaucracy in my view but hey! That’s part of the integration here, isn’t it? The projects which are most important to me and for my service are the library and the literacy group.

I felt strongly about the literacy group as there are many learners who are repeating grade 8 (about 30 out of about 160 students).I took the initiative to assess all the grade 8 learners in week 1 using the “San Diego Quick Reading Assessment” which I found on the Peace Corps Resource file. I had never used it before but it looked effective and brief. Basically, it assesses how well one can recognize and read words form a list out of context. It took more than a week to get around to all the learners and new students were still enrolling. The results were astounding! This assessment is not necessarily for ESL but it’s a good indication for learners with serious reading difficulties. There were some learners who couldn’t recognize words or letters at Primary or Grade 1…AND some had dyslexic tendencies and 2 were illiterate. I don’t know how they made it this far…they just got pushed through the system. I was told that the school is aware of these illiterate learners but they just give them remedial reading or individual tutoring (!) As can be imagined, many of the repeaters had real difficulties. The whole assessment process was familiar to me and I felt I was really using my expertise. I made up a report and gave it to the principal on the Monday. He then asked me to make an ‘Action Plan’ to get the program going…. I will update on how that project goes.

The other project is the library. Oh my! It looks nice and orderly but it is going to be a challenge! It was once the public library of Gibeon so it was properly established but then they set up a public library for the village and this became the school library. Once the Librarian left, there was no one to carry on the duties so they appointed some unwilling teachers (who were already overloaded and unqualified) and the school library fell into disrepair. It was ignored and it became a storeroom.  There was no stock control, new books were not catalogued properly and old books were not maintained. At this time, I can find no record of the books we have on the shelves. They DID try to make a record of books by recording them in a register but they left this to the learners and the adults didn’t guide them properly into maintaining a coherent catalogue. I have long lists of books, listed willy-nilly by fiction or non-fiction, in both English and Afrikaans, some in one register, some in another. There are about 15 registers, none of them complete, without dates so I can’t determine the order or how they were recorded. It’s a real headache and no wonder no one wanted to take on this project. On top of that, it was very dirty and dusty and old testing material, unused computer equipment and backed up files are stacked up in the computer room. Oh, yes! We DO have about 7 working computers, no wifi (yet) but these computers are stuffed into a small room teetering with old and newly-donated books that were never weeded out or registered.  The stickler is, there has been no electricity in the library since November so the learners that want to practice their computer skills can’t even use the computers! Not sure of the problem…fuse is blown or something but after several pleas, still no power. I will update on how the library is coming along too.

I am including some photos of some programs and my learners so you can have an idea of what I do. I feel this blog post is way too long and I need to make them brief. I am still learning…..bear with me.    

More to come…….

PS. not much progress on the language learning I'm afraid...ahem....

THESE SHOTS....learners at the library......running in the athletics program (Yes! they DO run in those plastic sandals and, damn! they are fast!)... 3 of my colleagues supervising the kids...(teachers are all young here).....my classroom and the kids waiting front the dining commons......shots of my place and some BIG African bugs making love on my doorstep...we live in peace...I try not to disturb...having my morning coffee at sunrise