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.