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Published: September 21st 2013
Hello, Everyone,
Thank you so much for all the comments. I love getting little messages. It feels like college when the mail came and I would actually get a letter!
I have a couple of fun things to tell you, but mostly we are busy planning, teaching and marking. They were right when they told us third term would be the shortest. We started teaching the 3rd and already it is the 19th. It is kind of like after spring break at Bartlett, we just zoomed to the end. Anyway, my co-teacher Lucia goes on maternity leave next week. Next Thursday is her last day. I haven't actually been told yet, but I'm going to be teaching my favorite 11th grade class, my 8th grade, and it has been jokingly suggested I take over her "Religious and Moral Education" classes. She occasionally asks me questions and guess what they study in 8th grade! Islam! All I know, really, is what I had to learn to teach it in World History. About morality, who knows? I'm torn. And it doesn't mean anything that they haven't told me, because they don't give people much notice on things. I think she was told about a day ahead herself.
I finally went in to Rundu last Saturday. Mr. Subeb was going to go in, so I thought I'd have a nice ride, but Friday night he told me he wasn't going to go. He's been sick off and on and has been out all this week in Katima (the large town in the eastern direction, but it is 300 km.) His wife is from there, so someone may have died, but he also has diabetes, so it may be that.
Ooops, I digress! Because he wasn't driving in, I had to take the kombi. I figured out this time on the kombi (van) that they pull over about 10 miles out of Rundu to allow those who need or want, to run into the bushes. This was nice because I had been wondering if I'd make it to my little cafe. Almost everyone got off and I went into the brush with three other women. I was just about to drop my drawers when this other woman gave a squeal and ran out from her bush. I just ran after her and finally asked, "What?" And she said, "Snake!" So then I was very cautious. Walking back to the kombi, she showed us the snake which was stretched out around a bush, totally ignoring us. It was black with whitish yellow stripes which Lucia tells me is harmless. So a fun adventure. I toyed with telling you it hurled itself at us and we had to run for our lives! But it was uninterested. It was nice to know that people who live here all the time are also scared of snakes. As we were walking back to the kombi, I noticed that three other kombis had pulled over too, so I think they are public bushes.
We have started rehearsals for the school play. It is a Namibian play by a first time author. It is a little depressing, but one character does well. I am being the stage manager, but I have two student stage managers that I am supposed to be teaching. The problem is that the stage is a raised area in the dining hall and there is no back stage, so to go off stage you have to go down two stairs, across part of the audience and out a door to the back court of the dining hall. A little farther are locker rooms that can be dressing rooms. There is a light switch at the side of the stage so lights can be off or on, but one of us has to go up the two steps and a little way on the stage to turn off lights. The only gradation is black out.
There are a couple of kids who are quite good. The girl playing the mother (the main character) and the girl playing the troubled daughter are very good, if they can learn the lines. The mother has a lot. The other daughter is pretty good, too, so hopefully it will go well. We are having a student director, as well, but Rachel is running the whole show. We'll do one performance for the school and one or two where we invite the general public or other schools. We can't charge, but it will be good community building.
It is now officially HOT! I sweat from about 10:00 a.m. until I crawl into bed and put the fan aiming right at me. I am planning to go to the shop at 8:00 Saturday morning because it will be not so hot. It isn't really cooling off at night until maybe 4:00 a.m. and we haven't had a breeze for days! The whole place is just brown. There has been absolutely no precipitation since March, and apparently the amount we got in the rainy season (about Dec. - March) was much less than they needed. People's crops just turned yellow and then brown. I will take a picture out my back balcony and you can see. Just outside the school there is a soccer field that goes with the public school (Divundu Secondary School). I watch the kids playing soccer--bare feet and deep, deep dust. In my comments this time there was a short note from Dr. Persons, who was my former doctor until she retired and is Michele Whaley's mom. I think, from her email that they may have moved to Bend. Anyway, I was thinking that I would never want to got live in a desert area again, then just had a huge pang and thought, "Oh, I can't leave here." I am conflicted. I skyped with my granddaughter Mia on her birthday (the 16th she turned 4). She was a little chatterbox, and I do want to be around as she grows up, but, oh, I will miss Namibia. There is also the very unromantic, mundane question of the cost of insurance if I were to stay. I could be insured or I could eat! Anyway, I am coming home, but it will be hard. We have an in-service at the end of October about that very thing.
We are trying to start a peer tutoring program (I hope we'll get volunteers). One of the LRC is helping me, and he thought kids might not volunteer to tutor. So we decided I'm going to ask the teachers for names of good students, then ask those students. We'll see how it goes. He thought the ones who need help might ask, but I guess "volunteering" is not a big thing. Not that they are selfish, very much the opposite, but it is just what you do, not anything special called "volunteering." So we will see.
It's getting late, and I want to get up early to make sure I get a shower with warm water. I really appreciate that many of you make comments. I love reading them. More later.
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Paneer
non-member comment
Dear Wendy - such great blogs and pictures. I am going to miss them! You seem to have done a great job of entering into life there and embracing it in all its complexities and frustrations as well as its wonders. Good luck in your transition back to Anchorage. I was there for Connie's service (it was glorious despite our sadness - and standing room only.). I saw Tennie and we both commented on how happy we are for you. Hope the breezes or rains come soon. Do you still have a refrigerator!? Love, Paneen