This Crazy Life I Lead!
It seems that I am falling into the classic blogging trap of having to start out each new entry apologizing for my lack of attention to my blog writing. Though I have been posting a lot of photos, relevant articles, and “one liners,” my personal writing has, very sadly been neglected. So here is a long blog post to get everyone up to speed on what I have been doing during the second term of my service here.
Term two started off without a hitch in May. It was relatively uneventful. I started by showing my students the movie Romeo and Juliet as a reward for reading half of the book in the first term. I opted for the 1960’s version that is true to the actual play as opposed to the one set in L.A. with Leonardo DiCaprio which I think would be much harder for my students to be able to understand. I wanted them to be able to view the real, intended setting for the play. From there the term continued fairly uneventfully with me spending a lot of time on grammar and sentence structure. One example of a grammar lesson I gave was the difference between “bored” and “boring.” The students in my class did not understand the difference between the two and many times tell me, “Sir, we are boring.” which would just make me laugh at them, with no effort to conceal my amusement.
Very quickly the Fourth of July was upon us. Since I am the volunteer in charge of Thanksgiving this year I used this as “dry run” in the area of preparing food for a large number of people on my Peace Corps salary. Don’t worry, everything gets paid back. In preparation for the big barbecue I had to get very organized. I made a list of everything I was going to need down to the very last gram of sugar. From there I spent a whole weekend going to every shop in Rundu to find out which stores had what items and writing down the prices. Then the Friday before the festivities I had lists for each store and dispatched a crew to each to collect the necessary ingredients. I nailed the estimate for the total cost down to within 3 Namibian dollars, or about .50 US cents, for which I was very proud. For the Fourth we were invited to Bavaria House, the lodge owned by a former PCV and his wife. We made burgers (“Sputniks” in the great Flick tradition), barbecue baked beans, grilled corn on the cob, baked potatoes, and a giant tray of apple crisp. We invited a lot of people too; not just the volunteers from Kavango and neighboring Caprivi, but also our Namibian friends, our new VSO (Volunteer Service Organization – the EU and Commonwealth’s answer to the Peace Corps) friends from Holland, England, and Australia, and our rouge German friend. The barbecue was a grand success. Grandpa would be so proud as the burgers were the hit of the night and people were insisting that I make them again soon. Since fireworks have recently been banned in the Northern part of Namibia we ended the night sitting around a very large bonfire. The multi-cultural Fourth of July was a rousing success.
With the Fourth of July over I had my first birthday in Namibia, as well as our Mid-Service Training, and the Peace Corps All Volunteer Conference rapidly coming around the corner. During this time I had to get a lot of things done; both for Peace Corps and for my students. Christina (the new volunteer here in Rundu) and I worked very hard to get the very first school newspaper out and though their has been a learning curve for all of us, The Flame was finally released in time for the Rundu Secondary School Culture and Market Day. The Culture and Market Day was a fun day in an of itself. I posted a video of my class dancing on my blog previously, but if you haven’t seen it here is a link to it. The paper’s original printing of 50 copies which we rapidly sold out prompting me to have to make a second run very quickly.
In the time before Mid Service and the AVC I also worked very hard at designing and producing the new and improved issue of Izit, the magazine made by and for the volunteers of Namibia. I would come home from school every day, do my school work, have lunch, and then work on Izit for a solid three or four hours in the time leading up to its release at the AVC. The deadline for the content was July 5th with my deadline for design being July 12th.
All of this was a lead up to my 28th birthday in Windhoek. I really didn’t think many people would would be able to come to my birthday and planned on a low-key affair where I would go to Joe’s Beer House to have a Gemsbock steak and then go see the final installment of the Harry Potter movies the next day. To my surprise I had a lot of people show up to help me celebrate and we all really had a good time. I even got to go to a new restaurant called Luigi and the Fish in Windhoek (which is really, really good), and ended my birthday weekend with drinks at the bar on top of the beautiful, brand new Hilton Windhoek watching the sun set over the city. It’s always nice when you are surprised by how much your friends care about you.
After my birthday was Group 32’s mid-service training. Mid-Service was fairly uneventful and pretty much the same as all the other conference’s we have had to attend, so there is not too much to report here.
However the All-Volunteer Conference immediately followed our Mid Service and this has been the event that everyone has been looking forward to for months now. We left the conference center where had our mid-service and were taken to a 3 to 4 star hotel called Safari Lodge. It was like coming back to America for just 3 days! We walked into the immaculate marble tiled lobby, past the tables of flower arrangements, up to the gleaming granite check-in counter and were greeted by staff all wearing suits. From there we were given our keys to paradise. Martin and I walked into our room which had two queen sized beds, a television with cable, a mini fridge, air conditioning, and a bathroom that made me want to cry. Coming from Rundu to this was like someone throwing a bucket of cool, refreshing water over you after you just mowed the lawn. The room was nice enough, but for us the most shocking thing was yet to come. We were told to go to the dining room at 6 for dinner. As we got nearer we could hear the squeals of delight emanating from the dining room, but they did little to prepare us for the splendor we were about to see: a fully loaded buffet with every single food you could imagine. I had crab salad, calamari, spring rolls, samosas, curried chicken, salads and fresh vegetables of all kinds, soup, pork chop, lamb, and real ice cream and this was only my first plate! As the dining room filled up with Peace Corps Volunteers (this is the first time in many, many years that every single volunteer has been all together) the gasps of delight rose in volume and intensity to levels that should have been very embarrassing, considering we were in public and surrounded by the other hotel guests, but not one of us cared. We were in gluttonous heaven. Side bar: if you are in between a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers and a buffet, you are in real, mortal danger.
All of this eating meant that we were really going to put on the pounds. Oh, but wait, the hotel also had an amazing gym with saunas. They really did think of everything!
The next few days were filled with conferences and celebrations; the main reason for this conference was for us to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. At the end of the first full day we went to ceremony in which each group sang traditional songs (sorry Group 30, 32 totally kicked your ass!) and were treated to talks by our Country Director, high-ranking government officials, as well as the American Ambassador for Namibia. Afterwards there was a small reception with refreshments where we all got to mix and mingle for a bit. The Namibian national news was there and I was informed that I was apparently on national TV that night.
At the end of each day all of us Volunteers would gather in the hotel beer garden to talk, party, and catch up with those we had not seen in months or years. Everyone was worried about this time given the reputation PCV’s have when we gather together. I am truly happy to say that everyone (especially the PCV’s) were surprised by our good behavior. This does not mean that we didn’t have a good time though. We specifically moved to the beer garden so that we would not disturb any of the guests staying in the hotel around us. The first night was nothing special; just hanging out and talking while imbibing in our favorite libations.
On the second day, after we had finished all of our sessions we were informed that the Ambassador herself had invited every single Peace Corps Volunteer and Staff member to her house for pizza and drinks. We all donned our best clothes and hopped aboard a bus that took all 150 of us to her house. We arrived and it really felt like we were back in America. Firstly the house is truly beautiful. We walked into the foyer and were met by really nice pieces of art and a grand staircase. We were ushered through the house to the back yard where there was a large swimming pool, wrap-around porch dotted with outdoor heaters, and a bar where we were served beer or wine. I opted for red wine and was given a glass of really delicious (and well out of my price range) wine in a very fancy glass. Everyone was mixing and mingling and enjoying where we were. Then the pizzas came. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes of amazingly delicious pizza. Everyone had agreed to only have two, or at most three pieces of pizza as this was supposed to be a fairly small affair, but they kept taking away the empty boxes and bringing two or three more to replace them. Very quickly everyone had eaten at least five slices of pizza when the staff started coming around with trays of homemade chocolate chip cookies and there was a collective gasp that rippled through the sea of volunteers.
During all of this I was able to meet and talk to Madam Ambassador for 10 or 15 minutes as well as the Deputy Ambassador for the rest of the night. We talked about working for the state department, they told very interesting stories, but they also wanted to hear about our work. At the end Ava, the Deputy Ambassador gave me her card and said I could talk to her with any questions I might have about the possibility of a career with the State Department.
After we returned from the Ambassador’s house we changed and met in the beer garden. Games of flip-cup as well as a country-wide Beer Pong tournament complete with American Solo Cups and American ping-pong balls were organized! It was very necessary to have a country-wide tournament because there has been an enormous amount of trash talking on the subject of beer pong, especially between the various groups. It was a hard-fought battle, but I am happy to introduce myself (and my beer pong partner Travis) as the number one beer pong team in the country of Namibia. I wish we had a medal or something to commemorate this. I am also happy (or should I be worried) to say that Group 32 now has the first, second, and third place teams with travis and I beating out Dan and Martin for the title. Take that, West-Coasters!
On the final day we wrapped up the conference and one of the highlights was being shown a video of every single Peace Corps PSA ever done. They started from stereotypical 1960’s government PSA’s, to the very cheesy ones made in the 70’s through the 90’s, to the very well produced ones of today. With the conference over everyone returned to their rooms to pack and get ready for the long ride back to reality the following day.
Over the next month I finished my teaching for the term, graded my kids’ exams, processed all the grades, and just last weekend had to return to Windhoek for our VAC (Volunteer Action Committee) meeting with the senior staff in the Peace Corps office. The meeting itself was uneventful except for the fact that I was elected to be senior staff of VAC. That makes it sound much more fancy than it is, we elected a new chairperson (Margie), and a new Secretary (me). These are the two office holders for VAC. I should also use the word “elected” in quotes because we were the only two that wanted to do it.
After the VAC meeting I was invited by the Deputy Ambassador to a barbecue at her house to meet, network, and pepper with questions (annoy?) the American Embassy staff. I met so many interesting people, from the woman who is in charge of awarding PEPFAR grants, to the head of security and his wife (who incidentally invited me to dinner the next time I come through Windhoek), to a former volunteer who now works as a Public Diplomacy Officer. It was very interesting and I feel like many many more opportunities and options that I have never thought about have presented themselves to me.
The next day I began to hitch-hike to the far southern end of the country where were having the first ever Peace Corps ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) conference in Lüderitz. We got to a town called Tse (pronounced Chess) and stayed the night with Barbara from our group, then Julie and I pressed on the next day to the Southern Atlantic coast of Namibia.
The second day of driving I had to continually remind myself that I was not driving to Lubbock and that I was, in fact in Africa. It is amazing how similar (and how beautiful) that drive was. Grassy plains with no trees rolling on as far as the eye can see punctuated by rock outcroppings and mesas, dotted with flocks (is that the right term?) of ostriches, as well as herds of oryx, springboks, and wild horses. As we neared the coast the rolling plains gave way to sand dunes and rock. Finally we were within site of the Southern Atlantic Ocean.
When we arrived we were invited to go to lunch with a bunch of really nice people who lived in town. They had a great little compound built that is full of bohemian charm, and as we walked in we were greeted by the smells of barbecue and the sounds of a ukulele as everyone was sitting in perfectly green grass (a rarity for me in Rundu). There was Liz, a woman who had been to Antarctica twice, as well as Greenland and virtually every place in between, and who now works at the local tourism office. And there was Silvie who had spent two years working on an island measuring less than 30 meters across with 2 other people studying the wild birds which inhabited it, and who now owns her own flower and garden shop. There were also two Dutch kids who had been volunteering and working in Africa since they were 18 (they are now 21). They were all very interesting people, the kind of people that intend to keep in touch with, which is somewhat rare considering I only just met them all five days ago.
We spent the week talking about ways to improve the ICT program in Namibia as well as visiting all sorts of labs in the area and learning about best practices, among other things.
On the second night of the conference (Tuesday) we all went to the Oyster Bar to try some of the area’s very famous oysters. Several people with us had never tried oysters before in their life, however they were in for a treat. Initially I ordered six cocktail oysters for N$4 a piece and two baked and flavored oysters for another N$8 a piece. By the end, however I had eaten 12 cocktail oysters and five baked oysters. The grand total for this luxurious meal was a whopping $12 USD. They are so good, and so cheap!
Though the conference ended, Julie and I decided to stay for an extra day so that we could explore the town. The first thing we did was go to Kolmankop, the abandoned diamond mining town just outside of Lüderitz in the “forbidden zone.” No, the “forbidden zone” isn’t just a place in Harry Potter, but also a place in Namibia where you can literally find diamonds just laying on the ground. De Beers is not keen on letting anyone into this very large swath of land in order to preserve their monopoly on the diamond industry.
The town itself is amazing as the houses look like they were abandoned not too long ago, perfectly preserved by the extreme dryness of the desert, while being totally inundated by sand dunes. There was a town hall, bowling ally, houses, shops, and even a swimming pool. It was a lot of fun to explore and take pictures of these strikingly stunning interiors.
We returned to town, Julie and I went to the store, got a bag of fruits, cheeses, and crackers and walked down to the end of Shark Island where we enjoyed lunch on the rocks by the waves. After we finished lunch we spent an hour collecting a rather large collection of sea-glass.
This brings me to this very moment when I am blowing through the bushveld in an American Diplomatic car on my way back to Windhoek where on Saturday I am going to meet some of my volunteer-friends’ families who are coming to visit and anxiously wait for my friend Jeff’s flight to arrive from America on Sunday. Jeff and I will be traveling to Rundu, then to Victoria Falls for some white water rafting, then down through Botswana to explore the Kavango River Delta (where they filmed Planet Earth), and then back to Windhoek.
Original bowling ally stencils in Kolemanskop.
Clara, our medical officer and the longest running PC Africa staff member.
Our two French couchsurfers who are biking all over Africa.
Hippo!
Kolemanskop interior
Julie in Kolmanskop
Julie again!
***MORE PICTURES TO COME SOON***
