Life as a Transplant Namibian

Wow! This is going to be a long blog post. I haven't blogged in a little over a month and SO much has happened in that single month. How is it we've been here for two months?! I feel like we just arrived here and yet we've lived here a lifetime. But we only have about two and a half months left. Time is seriously going way too fast. Namibia has already stolen my heart and I can't wait to continue this incredible adventure.

                            

School at UNAM and Teaching at Windhoek Pre-Primary

The first day of school is always an interesting event, but this first day was definitely the most interesting and worst day ever. Although it started badly, it thankfully ended on a great note while celebrating with friends. In this first day, we all woke up to find no running water whatsoever in our hostel, I went to my class--and got lost along the way--to find that there was no class at all (it was really a second semester class), and we stood in line for ID cards and to finish registering for two hours and left with no cards because they had the wrong ID card machine. Looking back, it doesn't sound like such a bad day, but when it was happening, it seemed like nothing was going right. The night became much better because it was Drayton's birthday! So to celebrate, we had him over to our dorm for dinner while Eslie, Kalie, and I went to his room to Post-It note and One Direction-ify his door. It looked pretty awesome, and the weird looks we got from his hallmates were hilarious. His face when he saw our handywork seriously made my night and we all had a great night.

We're such great--and weird--friends <3

Classes at UNAM are certainly different than what I am used to at PLU. It is making me learn to go with the flow more often since many classes here get cancelled or change venues on a whim and no one really knows until we come to class to find an empty classroom. For this semester, along with practicum teaching at Windhoek Pre-Primary, I am taking four classes: Inclusive education, Environmental education, Classroom Management/Hub2, and a Literacy/Reading course. My classroom management and literacy classes are being taught one-on-one for me which is pretty helpful. Jan is teaching my Hub 2 class and we talk a lot about my teaching at the Pre-Primary. It is great to debrief with her about things that happen at school and she gives plenty of constructive advice on what I can do to improve. UNAM has a separate campus for education so I have to commute each day to class. I originally wasn't too happy about that, but now I find it as a blessing in disguise. Instead of possibly getting stir crazy at the main campus, I get to go around Windhoek in taxis, learn more about this wonderful city from different taxi drivers, and get off campus to explore the city. I'm actually quite enjoying it now. The two UNAM courses I am taking are definitely a stretch for me, but my environmental education class is growing on me. The professor is very approachable, the students are fun to be around and want to learn, and I'm learning about different development theories and the way kids think. I, unfortunately, cannot say the same about my inclusive education class. The class is huge (probably double the size of any of my education classes at PLU) and many students are disrespectful of the special education topic and of the professor. What is interesting, though, about this class is that Namibia includes many categories in "inclusive education," not just special needs. However, the explanation of the differences could be made clearer since, on the first day of class, my professor said that LGBT people were special needs… Anyway, I will be starting a new inclusive education next week (this was the plan from the beginning) so hopefully that class will be better!

For practicum teaching, I am at Windhoek Pre-Primary in the Green class which is one of five Senior (kindergarten) classes. There are 125 senior students and about 100 junior (preschool) students. Education and teaching here are very different so it was a big shift for me to get used to. One main difference is that for most, if not all, students, English is their second or third language so the language barrier can sometimes be a challenge. The majority of the languages spoken are tribal and the teacher is able to speak them. This year, however, we have a Spanish-speaking boy from Cuba in our class. No one knows Spanish except for me (and I only know a little), so I get to speak to him to Spanish and make sure he understands what he is learning. Now I know why I took Spanish for so many years in high school!

The Green Class!

Some of my students

Another main difference is the discipline and teaching style: teachers can be "very harsh" according to American standards. When I first got to school, I was a bit uncomfortable with the discipline styles, but now that I've been teaching/observing for about a month, I now know that these teachers are not being mean or harsh, they are simply teaching in a culturally acceptable way. And don't get me wrong, these teachers absolutely love their students and each classroom has their own community of compassionate, fun, and excited students ready to learn. Since these students are used to this style, I need to adapt to teach this way which is helping me establish my own inner authority as a teacher and keep a well-behaved, managed classroom while also keeping my sweet and compassionate side. A little victory happened today with one of my boys during recess and after school. My student has always been a bit rowdy and tests my limits every chance he gets. Last week we had a little incident, but today he was much better during recess. I pulled his aside after recess (he thought he was in trouble haha) and I told him how proud I was of him and that he did a good job today. He smiled really big, we high-fived, and then he ran back to the class to go home. It was a great day at school. All the classrooms have a heavy literacy influence seen all over the classroom. Everything is labeled to show its name, each student has his or her own symbol to help with identification (if they don't know their name), and each classroom has color-coded wrist bands to help students stay with their specific class during recess or other outdoor activities. I absolutely love all the literary influences in the classrooms and how many symbols are used to communicate with all learners. I will most definitely use many of these concepts in my future classroom.

Meeting New Friends

Now that we've been here for a little over two months, we've started making some amazing new friends. These people have shown us hidden parts of Windhoek and beyond that we never would have known about. I've been lucky enough to meet great people in my education classes who have taken me under their wings and shown me the ropes of education at UNAM. If I miss a class, I can be sure I'll get about five texts from people asking if I'm okay and letting me know what I missed. Yesterday, I was talking to my friend Amelia about leaving school in May to go back to the States and she said that she would miss me a lot because she thought I was staying the whole year. Everyone I have met so far here has been fantastic and has helped make my experiences here even better. Some of our friends at UNAM have their own fitness/bootcamp business so many of our girls have enrolled in their program. We work out three times a week from 5:30-6:30am (I know, it's so early…) to basically do CrossFit. We all complain a ton to our trainer, Simba, but we still have so much fun and know that we are getting healthier one work out at a time.

One of our good friends, Sven, has introduced us to many of his friends so we've been able to meet tons of new people, eat capana (street meet in Katatura which is delicious!), experience night life with the locals, ride in the back of many bakkies (pickup trucks), and most recently go to a rugby game (although Sven wouldn't consider that a rugby game since Namibia lost so badly to South Africa…53-3). To get capana, you go to a big tent thing in Katatura where different vendors are cutting meat everywhere, making salad (kind of like salsa), and where you can buy fat cakes (fried bread). It would never pass health code in the States (there were tons of flies and we saw some mice scurry around), but it was so good we didn't even care. The Fab4 has also gone to different bars/clubs like Chill Out (more of a locals bar), London (more American), Dillon's (KARAOKE!!) and Vibe (very dance-y). It's so much fun to go dance, hang out, and make hilarious memories with everyone we meet. For Valentine's Day, our whole group went out to London to celebrate (Valentine's Day is very big here). We all dressed up in Valentine's colors, danced a ton with all the girls, and experienced our first Namibian holiday.

Our first "rugby" game!

We've also been lucky to meet incredible people at Emona, our hostel at UNAM. Some of them we met in January before school started, and many are from when everyone moved in for school. Our floormates are some of the best women ever and they have made us feel welcome since day one. We have a great community on our floor and many of our friends can be found hanging out on our floor even if they don't live there. This past Sunday, we all had a potluck where our whole floor was invited, plus some of our other friends around Emona. It was great seeing everyone come together, bring and eat delicious food, and hang out for a couple hours. I feel so lucky to have these people in my life and I can't wait to get to know them even more in our last two months here.

The best floor of friends at Emona

Okay, that was insanely long, but I mean, I didn't blog for a month… Anyway, I am having so much fun here and while there will always be struggles and hurdles to jump over, it simply makes this experience even more memorable and special. 

Study Tour to Northern Namibia!

For the last week of January, our group went on a study tour around northern Namibia. We visited Otjiwarango, Oujo, Opuwo, Epupa Falls, Etosha (Dolomite, Okaukeujo, and Halali), and Kourixas. It was a ton of driving, but well worth it because we saw so much of Namibia and had unimaginable experiences. Otjiwarango was our first stop of the trip where we were able to visit the Cheetah Conservation Fund. CCF is an organization that helps educate Namibian farmers on safe farming practices in relation to cheetahs and other big cats, nurses injured cheetahs back to health, breeds farming dogs that protect herds from predators, and is home to about 12 cheetahs. While there we got a tour of the grounds and saw some of the cheetahs during their feeding time. They were so fast! They can go eight meters in ONE second. After seeing the cheetahs, we got to see some of the farming dogs. These dogs are HUGE. CCF breeds and sells them to farmers to protect their herds from cheetahs and other animals. The dog is very protective and typically can simply scare off the predator with noise. We got to meet a little puppy who had a leg abnormality which means he has to stay at CCF. He was teething so of course I had to let him nibble my hand and get all slobbery. Sorry parents haha We also met Dr. Laurie Walker who is the founder of CCF. In fact, she's giving a talk at the Santa Barbara Zoo on April 16 about cheetah conservation and sustainability if anyone is interested! One of our girls, Carly, is interning at CCF from June to August so it was nice seeing where she would be staying for those months. I'm very jealous! After our tour, Laurie and a couple other workers brought two cheetahs out for us to take a picture with. Unfortunately, we could not pet them because it is illegal to touch big cats in Namibia, but I did get a pretty awesome selfie with one of them. J

Our next stop was at Opuwo where we stayed for three nights and saw so many incredible things: Epupa Falls, a mobile school filled with children grades 1 through 4, a traditional homestead, and many sweet Himba/Thimba women. Epupa Falls lines the border of Namibia and Angola so we got to see Angola. I really wanted to swim across the Falls to reach the other side so I could say I've been to Angola, but it was crocodile season… Not a good idea. We did, however, go in some little pools by the Falls. It was super hot so the water was absolutely perfect. The next day we visited a mobile school and our driver, Uanee's, homestead. The mobile school was nothing I ever expected. We had to drive off-road in mopani tree fields for about half an hour over bumpy, rocky terrain (we thought we were going to murder our van…) until we finally reached the school site. There were three large tents for grades 1-3 and one large one-room school building for grade 4. A little ways away were small hut houses for the teachers to live in. These schools were set up to cater to village children who do not have access to city schools, be it because of distance or tradition (for example, Himba women/girls are traditionally topless so it goes against tradition to dress in a school uniform). We first visited the grade 1 classroom which had children ranging from 6 years to 12 years. Students have to pass a test each year to enter the next grade so if they don't pass, they have to repeat the grade which explains the difference in age. In the grade 3 and 4 classrooms, they sang a song for us and we sang one back. It was breathtaking to hear such wonderful music filled with harmony and joy coming from these kids. Definitely made me (and some other girls) cry. After they sang for us, we taught each classroom the hokie pokie! They laughed so hard and had lots of fun watching us look like weirdos. We were able to visit with the children for a while after visiting the classrooms. Even though they can't speak English, we were able to communicate through pictures and gestures. They LOVED taking selfies with us and then seeing the pictures afterward. Leaving them was so hard. I really hope I can come back one day.

The Grade 1 classroom

After leaving Opuwo we entered Etosha National Park, one of the largest game reserves in Namibia. Let's see, we saw loads of giraffes, kudu, zebra, springbok, wildebeest, ostrich, three or four elephants, four or five rhinos, two lions, and many more! We went on an twilight game drive where we got a flat tire. One of Etosha's rules is that all cars need to be back to resorts by sunset or else guests may get fined and no guests may get out of cars for safety reasons. Because of our flat tire, we got to stand around the road waiting (thank God there were no lions around! Lol) and were behind schedule and had to race back to Dolomite. We thankfully got back in time which made for a great adventure and night. Dolomite was absolutely gorgeous! Each room was a large tent-like structure and we had balconies looking out onto Etosha. We could see zebras from our hotel room! The next day, we went on another game drive and then spent the rest of the day at the pool. It's an infinity pool overlooking the plains so we had a view of everything, including some giraffes. I could have stayed in that pool all day long looking at Etosha's vast beauty. At Halali, our next stop in Etosha, we went on a night game drive where we saw a good amount of animals. It was gorgeous to be out at night in the wild looking at the bright stars and hidden animals. As we left Halali and Etosha the next day, we finally saw what we had been looking for during the entire trip…LIONS! We saw two lions hanging out by some trees and bushes and they were mating. Lions mate for about 24 hours so we could watch them for quite some time. It was pretty awesome to watch them in the wild.

Our view from our hotel room

Our last stop of the study tour was our two-night rural homestay outside of Kourixas. I had been looking forward to this for the entire study tour and was so excited to visit our families and live with them for a few days. When we drove up to the village, I was a bit taken aback because these houses were 2-3 rooms made out of dung, mud, and water. After seeing where we would be staying, I started looking at the people hosting us. They seemed to be so excited to have us staying with them and their excitement instantly made us feel more comfortable and ready to have fun. I roomed with Kerry for the homestay and our family was second to last on the drop-off so we were able to see many of the other houses where our girls would be staying. As we drove up to our house, we saw two little children curiously look out at us and then run back to the house. These two kids were so much fun. Hope was 3 years old and Ricardino was 4 years old. After we met our family, said to goodbye to Jan and the others, and unpacked our things, all the families met up to play games, get to know each other, and watch a hilariously cheesy telenovela (which our host families took very serious). Our hosts sang us the Namibian national anthem and we sang them ours, we both taught each other different games, and many of the girls played and spoiled the little kids with us. When we went back to our house, our Oumas (grandmas) finished our dinner (bread and peanut butter) and our family ate around the fire as we talked about our lives and looked at the incredibly bright stars. After dinner was finished, Kerry and I went to get our gifts for the family. We got gifts for both the kids and the adults: a puzzle and playing cards for the adults; and cute sunglasses, markers, and glow sticks for the kids. My church also donated ten Unite to Light solar lights for me to give while in Namibia, so each pair of students was able to give a light to their host family. When we gave our Ouma her solar light, her reaction was priceless. It was a mix of disbelief, pure joy, thankfulness, and something I can't even describe. The next day we got to herd the goats, milk cows/goats, have freshly killed chicken for lunch (which I helped gut!), play more hilarious games, make fresh bread, re-plaster a wall with dung, and bond even more with these incredible new family members. Oh! I also got to take my first bucket bath and become an expert at going to the bathroom behind a tree since there was no running water. haha That night we talked more with Mutago (the Oumas' niece) and the Oumas about their lives and where Mutago lives, but we were so tired from the long day that we cut it short to sleep. The next morning was so hard to say goodbye to our hosts because even in such a short time, we bonded with them so much and had so much fun. Leaving the kids was the hardest part for me (of course lol), but I'll always remember them! We drove about four hours home to Windhoek and then unpacked to get ready for our first day of school at UNAM.

Our fantastic host family minus Mutago (who took the picture)