So you know how our family is doomed to suffer the weirdest and worst things when we travel because somehow it makes a great story later? Well lo-and-behold Melissa's African Adventure has taken place. Thought I'd drop a line about it cause I think its pretty funny in retrospect and I'm sure you've heard about the results from Mom. And I'm terrible at keeping in touch.
So the reason I'm even near a computer right now and not off having fun African adventures in Etoshia National Park with the rest of the group. What's that? You think something went wrong with my collarbone? OF COURSE something went wrong with my collarbone! Lets go back shall we?
So for part of our time here we do a rural homestay in northern Namibia. The whole no electricity, running water, terra cotta huts work on their farm gambit (which actually I was really pumped for. So I get on my homestay and I'm having an amazing time. Other than having to milk goats and cows for the two hours before sunrise, build fires every morning at dawn that would last the whole day, kill and de-feather three chickens, help slaughter a goat, didnt have a shower for six days and the average temperature from sunrise to sunset was 94 to 100 degrees...I really enjoyed myself. Seriously I did, I loved the people who lived on the farm and the work was oddly liberating. But oh how these things change. Im not sure when exactly but my collarbone ruptured again. But I left it b/c I didnt want to worry my family/my Damara-Nama only works with me if your talking about farm stuff or pleasantries. But by mid-afternoon, it was making me really sick and someone finally noticed it under my shirt. So now the whole farm is involved and they've stopped work for the day to take care of this. They call in the only two donkey carts they have and put me in one and send the other to the next farm to see if they have a cell phone so they could call the program coordinators. Now I get to ride in the donkey cart, while getting sick over the side, at high noon so you know its as hot as can be and the only breeze is the smell of donkey butt wafting back to me. Dont worry, its only 11 kilometers to the nearest hospital. We finally get there after the bumpiest ride you could imagine and arrive at a place that is exactly what you would picture a rural hospital in Africa to look like. We get in there and they take me to the "operating room" and tell me (I think) That it is severely infected and they need to drain it and then open it to clean it from the inside. The call in the doctor and I am enormously relieved to find that he speaks perfect English, was Nigerian, and studied Medicine in Europe. But Im still in full on panic mode right now and do my best to explain that i at least want to wait for people from the program to get there. Two of my professors arrive (one of whom I happen to have a huge crush on) and start talking to the doctor about what needs to be done. Unfortunately the hospital ran out of packaged (a.k.a. clean) needles two days before and the Doctor did not trust the needles that he had access to but he made it my choice.......UMMMMMM NO THANK YOU! So now i get to have my little operation with out any painkillers or anesthetics. I wont go into detail about that, mostly because I passed out half way thru. But I wake up later on a bench in the hallway with my friend Anna and my teacher Romanos sitting on the floor next to me and little kids playing with my hair. (Little kids love white peoples hair and there were no extra beds, thus bench). But now i get to ride in a van back to my homestay. Unfortunately they have slaughtered another goat for me so I can eat properly and "rest". For the next two days I went back to get it re-dressed and the nurses and doctor we so kind and good to me. But on Saturday morning I woke up to find that one of my poor teachers drove her truck all the way up from Windhoek to get me and bring me back to the city so i could see a doctor there. Now this sucks for three reasons: 1. I had to leave before our camping Safari in Etosha National Park. 2. The truck broke down on the way so we had to hitchhike back and i spent 3 hours in the back of some truck that played "Will You Be There" by Michael Jackson on loop pretty much he whole time and 3. I now am on bed/couch rest for the rest of the week while my friends ride elephants and wrestle tigers in the North.
But rest assured that I am fine now and am in communication with Mom, my Doctor at home, and the best of the best in the city. The only bad part is that I'm going to have to baby it like crazy so it heals right. And we all know how much I hate that! Just Kidding.
But I still think it was a memorable experience and I was never at all in any danger, just discomfort. And one important thing to understand is that Namibians are very very kind. I always felt taken care of and safe. And hitchhiking is not only very safe, but is the main way of getting around for most Namibians. All-in-all, this continues to be an adventure.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
A Malawian Send-Off
My first week of orientation in Johannesburg South Africa was INCREDIBLE! The group I am with is amazing and this is going to be an incredible semester. There are a million things I could tell you about our 10 days here. Including a Homestay in the Soweto Township, speakers from the ANC, Afrikaners league, and a man who spend time as a political prisoner with Nelson Mandela on Robbin Island. But instead I’d like to go into detail about an experience I had on my homestay.
On the last day of my homestay I was privileged enough to get the chance to attend an African funeral. It was like nothing else I have ever experienced. When we first arrived to the house there were people everywhere. It was like the entire community came out and then some. They piled into the streets and then the casket came out of the house in a procession. It was a very simple casket with makeshift handles on the sides and carried by 4 men in the finest suits they could afford. The coffin was placed on a table outside the house and the singing began. A few short speeches were made ( the whole thing is in Malawian by the way) and then there is a dialogue between the preacher and the woman who was leading the singing. It seemed like they were having a debate back and forth on what the fate of the dead man was which I hope came to a happy ending. Then the men lift up the coffin again and put in on the back of a cow-drawn cart. And a procession starts. But this is not just walking, it’s like dancing. Its this stomping/marching movement that keeps time with the ongoing songs and chants. Once we clear the neighborhood and get to the street the coffin is put in the back of a car. Everyone else gets in a huge bus. This is when the funeral really gets rolling! This bus is like a block party; no joke. The ride to the graveyard is a whirlwind of sound and music and noise. They sing these amazingly powerful songs and chants and they hit the ceilings and windows while stomping there feet. NO ONE SITS. The songs are beautifully complex layers of overlap and the beats created are unique and somehow fit with the overall sound. Ironically we were so loud we probably woke the dead. Part of me wishes that I knew what they were saying, but the rest of me is glad I didn’t. We get to the site and not only do the songs and dance continue, but the get louder and even more passionate. Everyone gathers around the grave that his family had dug earlier. A prayer is said and then it is quiet. This is a time to just start singing any song you want and everyone with going in to sing and dance with you. Only the family sits. What struck me the most was the grief and power behind their song and dance. It was heart wrenching and hopeful at the same time. Some just collapsed in grief. During all this the coffin is lowered into the ground. Once it is, the family that can stand put the first shovel full over the coffin. Once they relinquish the shovels there is an eruption of movement. All the men come forward, be they 9 or 90, and pick up the spades. With no regards for their fines suits or white shoes, they wade into the dirt and begin to lay a final blanket over their departed friend. Some of the older men get tired and the teenagers relieve them. All the while the women are dancing and singing around the grave. The men fill in the hole with vigor and relieve each other as they get tired. Then the songs begin to slow as the grave reaches completion. They stopped and three women begin to sing a beautifully somber song while two men sculpted with their hands the mound of his grave with such tenderness that I was moved to tears. So softly as if they didn’t want to wake him. Flowers were placed on the fresh grave. Then a very elderly man from the family comes to the front and thanks everyone for coming then invites us all back to his house. And the funeral is over.
But it is Malawian tradition to invite everyone back and have a party to celebrate the lives of those still living. There are mounds of food and ginger beer everywhere. Malawians are a very hospitable people. Therefore it was apparently a big deal that I was there. They took me in the house and washed my hands and feet and fed me. It was the only time in Joburg that I felt truly safe and welcome. And not because I was white.
On the last day of my homestay I was privileged enough to get the chance to attend an African funeral. It was like nothing else I have ever experienced. When we first arrived to the house there were people everywhere. It was like the entire community came out and then some. They piled into the streets and then the casket came out of the house in a procession. It was a very simple casket with makeshift handles on the sides and carried by 4 men in the finest suits they could afford. The coffin was placed on a table outside the house and the singing began. A few short speeches were made ( the whole thing is in Malawian by the way) and then there is a dialogue between the preacher and the woman who was leading the singing. It seemed like they were having a debate back and forth on what the fate of the dead man was which I hope came to a happy ending. Then the men lift up the coffin again and put in on the back of a cow-drawn cart. And a procession starts. But this is not just walking, it’s like dancing. Its this stomping/marching movement that keeps time with the ongoing songs and chants. Once we clear the neighborhood and get to the street the coffin is put in the back of a car. Everyone else gets in a huge bus. This is when the funeral really gets rolling! This bus is like a block party; no joke. The ride to the graveyard is a whirlwind of sound and music and noise. They sing these amazingly powerful songs and chants and they hit the ceilings and windows while stomping there feet. NO ONE SITS. The songs are beautifully complex layers of overlap and the beats created are unique and somehow fit with the overall sound. Ironically we were so loud we probably woke the dead. Part of me wishes that I knew what they were saying, but the rest of me is glad I didn’t. We get to the site and not only do the songs and dance continue, but the get louder and even more passionate. Everyone gathers around the grave that his family had dug earlier. A prayer is said and then it is quiet. This is a time to just start singing any song you want and everyone with going in to sing and dance with you. Only the family sits. What struck me the most was the grief and power behind their song and dance. It was heart wrenching and hopeful at the same time. Some just collapsed in grief. During all this the coffin is lowered into the ground. Once it is, the family that can stand put the first shovel full over the coffin. Once they relinquish the shovels there is an eruption of movement. All the men come forward, be they 9 or 90, and pick up the spades. With no regards for their fines suits or white shoes, they wade into the dirt and begin to lay a final blanket over their departed friend. Some of the older men get tired and the teenagers relieve them. All the while the women are dancing and singing around the grave. The men fill in the hole with vigor and relieve each other as they get tired. Then the songs begin to slow as the grave reaches completion. They stopped and three women begin to sing a beautifully somber song while two men sculpted with their hands the mound of his grave with such tenderness that I was moved to tears. So softly as if they didn’t want to wake him. Flowers were placed on the fresh grave. Then a very elderly man from the family comes to the front and thanks everyone for coming then invites us all back to his house. And the funeral is over.
But it is Malawian tradition to invite everyone back and have a party to celebrate the lives of those still living. There are mounds of food and ginger beer everywhere. Malawians are a very hospitable people. Therefore it was apparently a big deal that I was there. They took me in the house and washed my hands and feet and fed me. It was the only time in Joburg that I felt truly safe and welcome. And not because I was white.
Conclusions
SORRY
I am just awful at this whole blog thing. But I thought I’d write some closing remarks seeing as how my work in Namibia for the summer has already come to a close. Looking back I’ve decided to approach this in a very un-Crowley-Buck-child way (omit David of course) and approach the expense of my time in Namibia in as a business venture. Therefore, the following is an incident report detailing different pros and cons of my time and its overall value in the greater long-term efficiency, significance, and preparedness of my pre-professional time in the world. (I know right?). Lets investigate shall we?
Nights that I got sick: 14
Amount of times I had to eat meat straight from the carcass with my pocket knife: 7
Times someone got my name right: 4
Number of German swearwords I now know: 5
Times I got mugged: 3
Number of kids I fell in love with: 23
Namibian handshakes received: 14
Number of times I was attacked by guard geese: EVERYDAY
Tears: 5
Times I got the local dancing right: 0
Times I tried: 20 +
Caught the flu: 1
Languages attempted: 5
Not ending this list like a MasterCard commercial…..priceless.
With all this accounted for I can sincerely say that these were some of the most exhilarating weeks of my life. Everything just feels different in my life. And I don’t even know if I made a dent! Things just move differently in Africa. Its like time goes by the beat of your heart and the pace of the sun more than dials and ticks. Its moments not minutes. It is more likely that you’ll see a smile looking at you one the street than ahead bowed or someone on a cell phone. You’re more likely to be confronted with good company and a sincere curiosity in a person when you‘re asked how your day was or why you’re smiling, then the usual polite indifference. I think I learned more patience and compassion from my class than I think any other opportunity life has given me for it.
It has not been ‘all-fantastic’ though. And seeing as how the two countries I have found myself in lately have no thought for Human Rights added to the fact that the path I’ve chosen to pursue will be a frustrating and lonely one. And that’s the trick of Human Rights. There are no quick fixes. It’s a lifetime of trying to change ideology, not policy. All I could hope for is the knowledge that it is possible that somewhere along the line I could have helped plant the seeds of change or set something in motion. Or that I just didn’t make things worse. We never know the ripple effect of our actions right? Oh well! If nothing else I’m blessed with the opportunity to have spent time in such an amazing country as Namibia. With its noble past and promising future, I’m happy to have had a chance to have been a part of it. Well, onto Doha!
I am just awful at this whole blog thing. But I thought I’d write some closing remarks seeing as how my work in Namibia for the summer has already come to a close. Looking back I’ve decided to approach this in a very un-Crowley-Buck-child way (omit David of course) and approach the expense of my time in Namibia in as a business venture. Therefore, the following is an incident report detailing different pros and cons of my time and its overall value in the greater long-term efficiency, significance, and preparedness of my pre-professional time in the world. (I know right?). Lets investigate shall we?
Nights that I got sick: 14
Amount of times I had to eat meat straight from the carcass with my pocket knife: 7
Times someone got my name right: 4
Number of German swearwords I now know: 5
Times I got mugged: 3
Number of kids I fell in love with: 23
Namibian handshakes received: 14
Number of times I was attacked by guard geese: EVERYDAY
Tears: 5
Times I got the local dancing right: 0
Times I tried: 20 +
Caught the flu: 1
Languages attempted: 5
Not ending this list like a MasterCard commercial…..priceless.
With all this accounted for I can sincerely say that these were some of the most exhilarating weeks of my life. Everything just feels different in my life. And I don’t even know if I made a dent! Things just move differently in Africa. Its like time goes by the beat of your heart and the pace of the sun more than dials and ticks. Its moments not minutes. It is more likely that you’ll see a smile looking at you one the street than ahead bowed or someone on a cell phone. You’re more likely to be confronted with good company and a sincere curiosity in a person when you‘re asked how your day was or why you’re smiling, then the usual polite indifference. I think I learned more patience and compassion from my class than I think any other opportunity life has given me for it.
It has not been ‘all-fantastic’ though. And seeing as how the two countries I have found myself in lately have no thought for Human Rights added to the fact that the path I’ve chosen to pursue will be a frustrating and lonely one. And that’s the trick of Human Rights. There are no quick fixes. It’s a lifetime of trying to change ideology, not policy. All I could hope for is the knowledge that it is possible that somewhere along the line I could have helped plant the seeds of change or set something in motion. Or that I just didn’t make things worse. We never know the ripple effect of our actions right? Oh well! If nothing else I’m blessed with the opportunity to have spent time in such an amazing country as Namibia. With its noble past and promising future, I’m happy to have had a chance to have been a part of it. Well, onto Doha!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
A New Pair of Shoes
Things are pretty consistent for me right now as far as my days go. But I do make this entry with an example of why I love working with kids and two stories to tie you over. 1st, the end of the month is a very interesting time in Namibia, and 2nd monkeys only eat wrapped food.
Lets begin with the latter shall we? Yes! It is now a confirmed fact: Namibian monkey’s will not eat your food unless it is wrapped, but they also will not leave you alone until they get said wrapped treat. So one might assume that it would be quite a pickle one would find themselves in if they were relatively trapped in a cab with 4 monkeys that don’t seem to want to let you leave.
SIDE NOTE: One expression you should get used to if you ever feel like trying to rationalize what goes on here is, “It’s Africa.” You would be surprised how many problems that phrase answers quite nicely.
Anyway. I was in a cab a good way into the desert when we caught 4 monkey’s attention when we came to a stop. I personally advised honking the horn to scare them off but apparently that just angers them…no thank you. So the driver asks me if I have any food. No I didn’t because it is a good rule of thumb in Africa to only carry just what you need. Well apparently that’s grounds for the cabbie to get angry with me and decide to double my cab fair. As if I should have anticipated the possibility of a couple of monkey’s barring our passage into town and should have packed accordingly. But hey, it’s Africa! So the cabbie goes into his glove compartment and throws out a sandwich and a granola bar that hasn’t been opened yet. One monkey goes to investigate and throws the sandwich back at the window of the car, then it proceeds to open the granola bar and divide it amongst each of its companions to eat on the hood of the car and then leave. Apparently, monkeys have learned in Namibia not to take any food from a person that is not wrapped, much like kids on Halloween. Unfortunately, Namibians used to poison food and give it to them as a way of killing them. But the monkey’s learned quick. They know we have food but they know to only take it if it’s wrapped. And I can’t teach my mom how to upload pictures on the computer! (just kidding Mom, truth hurts).
My second, less fun story is more of a warning. That is: beware of the city at the end of the month. The end of the month is when everyone that works in Windhoek gets paid. Unfortunately, this has many negative effects. First, 90% of businesses close down. Because most workers get paid, they don’t show up for work for the next 4 or 5 days. Instead they all go to the bar. This has the negative consequence of nighttime becoming a lot more dangerous. The end of the month also means a big increase in muggings because those that would steal from you know that everyone has money now and are a lot more bold. Therefore you should take a cab everywhere and even during the day, it’s a lot safer. Finally, the end of the month is very dangerous for our kids at HISA. Those who are abused are in more danger because drinking increases tenfold for the first week of the new month. For me this is a ridiculously frustrating time. The lack of work ethic and duty is enough to baffle me for the rest of the month. It is not rare to see someone carrying a plasma TV or satellite into their home around this time. A home where his or her kids aren’t fed or there is no running water or food. But there’s a new TV or they have a flashy new cell phone. It’s Africa. But that frustration brings me to my final point in this blog: the resilience, kindness, and potential for the future in Namibian children. Twice a week I work with a youth group ages 9 to 16. I mostly just work on their English and reading skills with them. Last Monday I played a game with them I thought up to help improve their English. The idea of the game was to never answer my questions with a Yes or No. For instance, my questions were ones like: How are you? Do you like fruit? Are you in the same school as last year? May I ask you a silly question?
I would go like that till they got one wrong and then they would stop. It turned into this big competition between the boys and the girls and was really successful. But what stood out in my mind way the type of answers I would get for one of my questions. What would you do with one million dollars? Only three students made it that far in the questioning but their responses astounded me. One boy, Joseph (16) said he would buy everyone in the class a new pair of shoes. Sunday, an 11 year-old girl, said she would buy food for a month for her family. And Mbdele (14) said he would buy everyone he knew a winter coat. Not typical answers for pre-teens huh? But it filled me with such a sense of hope. There needs are so simple and selfless. Maybe if we can just continue to care for one another, and teach the generations below us what truly matters, maybe 15 years from now at the end of the month, we’ll see shoes and coats being brought home to family’s and not cell phones and TV’s.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try not to take so long between future posts. And I am very close to figuring out how to put up a slide show of pictures!
Lets begin with the latter shall we? Yes! It is now a confirmed fact: Namibian monkey’s will not eat your food unless it is wrapped, but they also will not leave you alone until they get said wrapped treat. So one might assume that it would be quite a pickle one would find themselves in if they were relatively trapped in a cab with 4 monkeys that don’t seem to want to let you leave.
SIDE NOTE: One expression you should get used to if you ever feel like trying to rationalize what goes on here is, “It’s Africa.” You would be surprised how many problems that phrase answers quite nicely.
Anyway. I was in a cab a good way into the desert when we caught 4 monkey’s attention when we came to a stop. I personally advised honking the horn to scare them off but apparently that just angers them…no thank you. So the driver asks me if I have any food. No I didn’t because it is a good rule of thumb in Africa to only carry just what you need. Well apparently that’s grounds for the cabbie to get angry with me and decide to double my cab fair. As if I should have anticipated the possibility of a couple of monkey’s barring our passage into town and should have packed accordingly. But hey, it’s Africa! So the cabbie goes into his glove compartment and throws out a sandwich and a granola bar that hasn’t been opened yet. One monkey goes to investigate and throws the sandwich back at the window of the car, then it proceeds to open the granola bar and divide it amongst each of its companions to eat on the hood of the car and then leave. Apparently, monkeys have learned in Namibia not to take any food from a person that is not wrapped, much like kids on Halloween. Unfortunately, Namibians used to poison food and give it to them as a way of killing them. But the monkey’s learned quick. They know we have food but they know to only take it if it’s wrapped. And I can’t teach my mom how to upload pictures on the computer! (just kidding Mom, truth hurts).
My second, less fun story is more of a warning. That is: beware of the city at the end of the month. The end of the month is when everyone that works in Windhoek gets paid. Unfortunately, this has many negative effects. First, 90% of businesses close down. Because most workers get paid, they don’t show up for work for the next 4 or 5 days. Instead they all go to the bar. This has the negative consequence of nighttime becoming a lot more dangerous. The end of the month also means a big increase in muggings because those that would steal from you know that everyone has money now and are a lot more bold. Therefore you should take a cab everywhere and even during the day, it’s a lot safer. Finally, the end of the month is very dangerous for our kids at HISA. Those who are abused are in more danger because drinking increases tenfold for the first week of the new month. For me this is a ridiculously frustrating time. The lack of work ethic and duty is enough to baffle me for the rest of the month. It is not rare to see someone carrying a plasma TV or satellite into their home around this time. A home where his or her kids aren’t fed or there is no running water or food. But there’s a new TV or they have a flashy new cell phone. It’s Africa. But that frustration brings me to my final point in this blog: the resilience, kindness, and potential for the future in Namibian children. Twice a week I work with a youth group ages 9 to 16. I mostly just work on their English and reading skills with them. Last Monday I played a game with them I thought up to help improve their English. The idea of the game was to never answer my questions with a Yes or No. For instance, my questions were ones like: How are you? Do you like fruit? Are you in the same school as last year? May I ask you a silly question?
I would go like that till they got one wrong and then they would stop. It turned into this big competition between the boys and the girls and was really successful. But what stood out in my mind way the type of answers I would get for one of my questions. What would you do with one million dollars? Only three students made it that far in the questioning but their responses astounded me. One boy, Joseph (16) said he would buy everyone in the class a new pair of shoes. Sunday, an 11 year-old girl, said she would buy food for a month for her family. And Mbdele (14) said he would buy everyone he knew a winter coat. Not typical answers for pre-teens huh? But it filled me with such a sense of hope. There needs are so simple and selfless. Maybe if we can just continue to care for one another, and teach the generations below us what truly matters, maybe 15 years from now at the end of the month, we’ll see shoes and coats being brought home to family’s and not cell phones and TV’s.
Thanks for reading. I’ll try not to take so long between future posts. And I am very close to figuring out how to put up a slide show of pictures!
Friday, July 25, 2008
A Day In The Life
How about a story about my day? Because it’s been a long one! It started like any other. I went to work early and taught my class. At noontime however Katarina and Claire (the two German girls I live and work with) show up at the site in the back of this safari combi-truck. That day was Katarina’s birthday and the locals that we work with found out. So there was quite a day ahead of us. We climbed in the back of this flatbed and drive for about 30 minutes over dirt roads with dust flying in our faces. About 10 women had begun to prepare this big traditional Namibian lunch for us. Because it was Kata’s birthday, she had the honor of killing the two chickens we would have to eat. Claire and I then had to help prepare the chickens for her, which includes draining the blood and plucking them. On an unrelated note, I am now a vegetarian. How does one kill a chicken you ask? Well it’s a very simple process. *WARNING* First you grab the chicken by the neck. Then you swing it in a circle three times over your head to get momentum (feel free to skip ahead at this point) and finally, on the fourth swing you abruptly change directions and effectively snap the chickens neck. After the first chicken, poor Kata could not do the rest and went to find a quiet spot to throw up. That spot, which we dubbed the Erbrechen Corner (Erbrechen is German for Vomit) would be visited by all three of us throughout the day, no less that 3 times each. We then had to participate in three different tribal dances while the rest of the meal was prepared and then personally thank all the cooks by accepting each part of the meal from one of them by giving the ‘Namibian Handshake’ with two hand while simultaneously bowing and then putting our fist over our heart and saying “Damkie”. (It is pronounced damm-gee and it means ‘thank you’). Everything is piled into a bowl and you eat it with your middle finger, index finger, and thumb on your right hand. In Namibia, almost all foods are starch based because they need their meals to be filling. Our meal included the following: Omutete (a heavy and thick spinach), Carrots and Cabbage Salad, Oshingali (a yellow, soupy porridge), Oshifima (a thick pap-like gray paste), Oxuxwa (the chicken we had ‘prepared’ earlier), rice, and to drink we had a local brew called Oshilcundu. That can best be described as chunky, sour, fermented milk with sand in it. Some of the food was actually quite good, but other parts not so much. However, the piece de resistance was dessert (a.k.a. the last taste you will have in your mouth in a while). The local delicacy: Omaungu. Omaungu is a local bug that is about the size and thickness of your thumb, green and black, and is a cross between a worm and a caterpillar. We were each given a bowl of 10.
After our unique meal we were then invited to play the drums with a couple of Rastafarian men named Bogo and Jerry. That lasted about an hour and, in case you were wondering, I am terrible at the drums. Then we headed back in the combi only to get a flat tire on the way home. Who are the only two people who know how to change a tire? Myself and a man named Marus; who has a broken leg. That took another 45 minutes. When we get back to our house, Elka (the crazy German woman we live with) is in a ‘lovers quarrel’ with her boyfriend who is 30 years younger than her and she is throwing brown sherry bottles at him. We quickly decide to leave and move onto our next plan which was to take Kata out for a birthday dinner at a local restaurant. The dinner party included Kata, Claire, myself, and 4 of our German friends that we either live with or know, Annd, Eva, Kirsten, and Sebastian. It was a good meal and a very nice night out because we met this very old Australian man who talked to us for a while and then left, but not before he had gotten hold of our waitress and paid for all of our dinners and left before we knew. He said he “admired what we did and we deserved a night off” and paid for our dinner!
But the night is not over because luckily Thursday nights are open mic night at Namibia’s only Karaoke Bar. And the only people who take Karaoke more seriously than Namibians, are Germans! I absolutely could not believe the crowd. To add to my surprise, apparently all first-timers have to sing a song before they leave. And they MEAN IT. I was watched the whole time and was prevented from leaving at the end of the night. Therefore, Annd and I had to sing ‘Heartbreaker’ by Pat Benatar. When I was finally done, the DJ took me aside and said it was okay if I came back but he asked me if "I could please not sing there again.” And no I was not offended because Yes I am that bad! When we finally got up the courage to go home, we snuck in thru the garage because the lovers were still at it and went to sleep but that was only after the guard geese attacked our legs…again.
Ironically, I am surprised this is the first time I have had a day like this…
After our unique meal we were then invited to play the drums with a couple of Rastafarian men named Bogo and Jerry. That lasted about an hour and, in case you were wondering, I am terrible at the drums. Then we headed back in the combi only to get a flat tire on the way home. Who are the only two people who know how to change a tire? Myself and a man named Marus; who has a broken leg. That took another 45 minutes. When we get back to our house, Elka (the crazy German woman we live with) is in a ‘lovers quarrel’ with her boyfriend who is 30 years younger than her and she is throwing brown sherry bottles at him. We quickly decide to leave and move onto our next plan which was to take Kata out for a birthday dinner at a local restaurant. The dinner party included Kata, Claire, myself, and 4 of our German friends that we either live with or know, Annd, Eva, Kirsten, and Sebastian. It was a good meal and a very nice night out because we met this very old Australian man who talked to us for a while and then left, but not before he had gotten hold of our waitress and paid for all of our dinners and left before we knew. He said he “admired what we did and we deserved a night off” and paid for our dinner!
But the night is not over because luckily Thursday nights are open mic night at Namibia’s only Karaoke Bar. And the only people who take Karaoke more seriously than Namibians, are Germans! I absolutely could not believe the crowd. To add to my surprise, apparently all first-timers have to sing a song before they leave. And they MEAN IT. I was watched the whole time and was prevented from leaving at the end of the night. Therefore, Annd and I had to sing ‘Heartbreaker’ by Pat Benatar. When I was finally done, the DJ took me aside and said it was okay if I came back but he asked me if "I could please not sing there again.” And no I was not offended because Yes I am that bad! When we finally got up the courage to go home, we snuck in thru the garage because the lovers were still at it and went to sleep but that was only after the guard geese attacked our legs…again.
Ironically, I am surprised this is the first time I have had a day like this…
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Dostoevsky
Hello Again!
Sorry it has taken so long to update but time is a funny thing in Africa. It moves so slowly, but it still seems that I don’t have time for anything. And there has been a lot going on. (also I apologize if my English doesn’t make sense but my current dialect includes German, English, Afrikaans, and Oshiwambo). If anything, I may be a little more poetic because this is the only time I can use the English language to its full extent and know that I will still be understood!
It has been quite a couple of weeks! But I thought I would make this entry about what I have experienced with HISA. To be honest, there really is no way to convey what it is like here so I apologize if my thoughts are choppy or jumbled.
My favorite days of the week are Monday and Wednesday because I am at Okahandja Park with my children all day. It requires me to walk about a quarter of a mile through the settlement in the morning because city cabs don’t go as far as where I work. Every morning I must see and walk thru where the children I work with call home. The homes are made out of stolen sheets of tin. The roofs only stay on because they load their trash on them to hold it down. There are no windows or floors and they average the size of 8 feet by 15 feet.
Trash is just thrown on the dirt pathways that wind thru the settlement where there is room and the smell is something that will never leave me. It is not just the smell of dirt, garbage, sewage, and death (because most people are very close to it) but it is a smell of stale desperation and a lack of hope. It is consistently the most humbling 5 minutes of my life. And for those thinking of my safety, I am perfectly safe. Namibia is safe when it is light out and most all of the children and mothers in the settlement recognize me by now (how many 20-year-old white women walk thru an unofficial settlement in southern Africa at 7 in the morning?) and they know where I am going. In the evenings Zoxa (a man I work with) always walks me to a cab). But the women and children make me feel welcome; not afraid. When I get to the soup kitchen I immediately enter the kitchen and help prepare breakfast (pap or bread and powdered milk). The children have already learned that when they arrive they enter the back of the building, grab a small plastic chair and go into the yard where they sit in their class circle and wait for us to come out with breakfast. But despite how miserable the evening before must have been for them, whenever we come out with our tray of food they never fail to start to chant, “Teacher is coming! Teacher is coming!” They eat their food slowly and deliberately because they don’t know when their next one will come but we have to watch them eat it because if we don’t then they will hide it and bring it home to their families instead of eating themselves. Then they put their bowls and spoons in a bucket and I bring it back to the kitchen. Specifically, I work with a group of about 23 children even though there are about 85 in these morning play-groups. Of these 23 kids: 20 are HIV positive, only 13 have a parent, 7 have two parents and 2 bring their infant siblings with them to class. For the next 4 ½ hours we do things like sing, dance, learn and draw to pass the time. I don’t mean to be so abrupt and brutal about the reality here but I feel like if you can try to understand the sorrow of the situation here, you will take even more joy in how happy the kids are when they are with us. Apparently, me trying to do a traditional Zulu Dance with them is just bout the funniest thing in the world. When they draw, all they need is a smile and a thumbs up to be proud and satisfied. They are absolutely starving for physical contact and attention. They always want to be lifted up or hugged or just want to hold your hand. When they don’t call me Teacher they follow me around and call me “Careful-Careful” because it is always what I am saying to them when they play (and Namibians tend to repeat words like: yes, yes or fine, fine). My hair is another point of fascination for them and it fills up my heart when we are mutually ecstatic to see each other every morning. That they have just a few hours where they can be a kid has given me a satisfaction that I have never found before.
With everything that I see I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes as said by Dostoevsky: “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately because there are a lot of different approaches to the situation I find myself in. I have come to the conclusion that there are two different ways to deal with the current reality. To feel nothing or to feel everything. But I’m beginning to think that both ways are right depending on the person. Fortunately and unfortunately for me, I tend to feel everything. This makes my job very tolling emotionally. But my experience here so far has helped me understand that I wouldn’t want it any other way. It makes sense to not think about it and to work and know that you are helping. You can get lost trying to find reason in the way something’s are or in the way things work out; or don’t. And the sad fact of the matter is that they can’t be compared. It literally is two different worlds. You could go crazy trying to rationalize it all and it’s a very depressing business. If anything, there is some comfort in the fact that these kids know nothing else and can’t understand the gravity of the situation. But I think there is something to feeling it all. Even if its just so that these kids are felt for. That someone knows and feels what they’re going thru. And on a selfish level, one of the benefits of this type of work is your own ever increasing sense of a persons self worth. It does keep me up most nights worrying about…everything. But it also makes me appreciate even more the close bond I’ve formed with three of the girls I live with. I may cry a little hard every once and a while but I laugh even harder, and more often. Time moves very slowly here giving me plenty of time to dwell on the injustice of it all. But it also gives time to enjoy a good book and an exotic cup of tea and even better and more diverse company. On some cosmic level, the more pain and experience we let ourselves have will eventually bring more joy into our lives. Even if its just the appreciation of joy itself; for anyone. Maybe just to be worthy of our suffering is enough. To be equal to it. To not just cope with it, but to understand it for ALL that it is. To be worthy of what life gives us. Maybe that’s what this is all about.
Rant too long? Am I reaching or babbling too much? Oh well! I guess I’ve become a poet in my old age? My next post will be sooner and (luckily for those who might still be reading) a little shorter and less heavy!
Thanks for reading!
~Melissa
Sorry it has taken so long to update but time is a funny thing in Africa. It moves so slowly, but it still seems that I don’t have time for anything. And there has been a lot going on. (also I apologize if my English doesn’t make sense but my current dialect includes German, English, Afrikaans, and Oshiwambo). If anything, I may be a little more poetic because this is the only time I can use the English language to its full extent and know that I will still be understood!
It has been quite a couple of weeks! But I thought I would make this entry about what I have experienced with HISA. To be honest, there really is no way to convey what it is like here so I apologize if my thoughts are choppy or jumbled.
My favorite days of the week are Monday and Wednesday because I am at Okahandja Park with my children all day. It requires me to walk about a quarter of a mile through the settlement in the morning because city cabs don’t go as far as where I work. Every morning I must see and walk thru where the children I work with call home. The homes are made out of stolen sheets of tin. The roofs only stay on because they load their trash on them to hold it down. There are no windows or floors and they average the size of 8 feet by 15 feet.
Trash is just thrown on the dirt pathways that wind thru the settlement where there is room and the smell is something that will never leave me. It is not just the smell of dirt, garbage, sewage, and death (because most people are very close to it) but it is a smell of stale desperation and a lack of hope. It is consistently the most humbling 5 minutes of my life. And for those thinking of my safety, I am perfectly safe. Namibia is safe when it is light out and most all of the children and mothers in the settlement recognize me by now (how many 20-year-old white women walk thru an unofficial settlement in southern Africa at 7 in the morning?) and they know where I am going. In the evenings Zoxa (a man I work with) always walks me to a cab). But the women and children make me feel welcome; not afraid. When I get to the soup kitchen I immediately enter the kitchen and help prepare breakfast (pap or bread and powdered milk). The children have already learned that when they arrive they enter the back of the building, grab a small plastic chair and go into the yard where they sit in their class circle and wait for us to come out with breakfast. But despite how miserable the evening before must have been for them, whenever we come out with our tray of food they never fail to start to chant, “Teacher is coming! Teacher is coming!” They eat their food slowly and deliberately because they don’t know when their next one will come but we have to watch them eat it because if we don’t then they will hide it and bring it home to their families instead of eating themselves. Then they put their bowls and spoons in a bucket and I bring it back to the kitchen. Specifically, I work with a group of about 23 children even though there are about 85 in these morning play-groups. Of these 23 kids: 20 are HIV positive, only 13 have a parent, 7 have two parents and 2 bring their infant siblings with them to class. For the next 4 ½ hours we do things like sing, dance, learn and draw to pass the time. I don’t mean to be so abrupt and brutal about the reality here but I feel like if you can try to understand the sorrow of the situation here, you will take even more joy in how happy the kids are when they are with us. Apparently, me trying to do a traditional Zulu Dance with them is just bout the funniest thing in the world. When they draw, all they need is a smile and a thumbs up to be proud and satisfied. They are absolutely starving for physical contact and attention. They always want to be lifted up or hugged or just want to hold your hand. When they don’t call me Teacher they follow me around and call me “Careful-Careful” because it is always what I am saying to them when they play (and Namibians tend to repeat words like: yes, yes or fine, fine). My hair is another point of fascination for them and it fills up my heart when we are mutually ecstatic to see each other every morning. That they have just a few hours where they can be a kid has given me a satisfaction that I have never found before.
With everything that I see I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes as said by Dostoevsky: “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately because there are a lot of different approaches to the situation I find myself in. I have come to the conclusion that there are two different ways to deal with the current reality. To feel nothing or to feel everything. But I’m beginning to think that both ways are right depending on the person. Fortunately and unfortunately for me, I tend to feel everything. This makes my job very tolling emotionally. But my experience here so far has helped me understand that I wouldn’t want it any other way. It makes sense to not think about it and to work and know that you are helping. You can get lost trying to find reason in the way something’s are or in the way things work out; or don’t. And the sad fact of the matter is that they can’t be compared. It literally is two different worlds. You could go crazy trying to rationalize it all and it’s a very depressing business. If anything, there is some comfort in the fact that these kids know nothing else and can’t understand the gravity of the situation. But I think there is something to feeling it all. Even if its just so that these kids are felt for. That someone knows and feels what they’re going thru. And on a selfish level, one of the benefits of this type of work is your own ever increasing sense of a persons self worth. It does keep me up most nights worrying about…everything. But it also makes me appreciate even more the close bond I’ve formed with three of the girls I live with. I may cry a little hard every once and a while but I laugh even harder, and more often. Time moves very slowly here giving me plenty of time to dwell on the injustice of it all. But it also gives time to enjoy a good book and an exotic cup of tea and even better and more diverse company. On some cosmic level, the more pain and experience we let ourselves have will eventually bring more joy into our lives. Even if its just the appreciation of joy itself; for anyone. Maybe just to be worthy of our suffering is enough. To be equal to it. To not just cope with it, but to understand it for ALL that it is. To be worthy of what life gives us. Maybe that’s what this is all about.
Rant too long? Am I reaching or babbling too much? Oh well! I guess I’ve become a poet in my old age? My next post will be sooner and (luckily for those who might still be reading) a little shorter and less heavy!
Thanks for reading!
~Melissa
Friday, July 18, 2008
My Week's Schedule
Accommodations:
I am currently living in a German Hostel just outside of Windhoek. There are about 8 people here including the German couple that owns the house. The people here can speak English but usually don’t (who could blame them they don’t need to!). I work with two very nice German girls: Claire and Kataria. The couple that owns the place is…unique. The woman is a very kind, chain smoking, eccentric with bright red hair and a tunic. The husband is a big built man with bleach blond dread locks for hair and every day, with out fail, he wears a khaki colored long sleeve button down shirt with brown leather hide shorts that could be mistaken as a speedo…and hiking boots. But they are very kind and sincere and you have to admire the type of people that march to the beat of their own drum. So I like them very much. (Plus they gave me a great deal on the price!) And the things I was greeted with at this German Hostel? 20 snakes (it is also a snake farm) 100 snake eggs, 3 violent and aggressive geese that quack at all hours of the day and night and will attack you if you get too close, 1 needy black cat that I am allergic to, 1 room in the garage because they were out if space in their house, 1 bucket to use for the bathroom at night, 1 bucket to heat my water in for the shower in the morning (don't get those two buckets confused!), 1 bed and mosquito net, 1 oil lamp, 1 lock box to put all my stuff in, and 1 pillow and blanket.
Monday:
6:00 am: wake up and fill a bucket of water from a well that I will then boil outside and use for my shower. Then get dressed and ready. Breakfast? Hot Tea and Toast
7:00 am: leave or work at the soup kitchen in Okahandja Park.
8 am – 1pm: working with kids in a playgroup/daycare. Ages 2-8
1 pm – 2 pm: Lunch (either toast soup or pap with hot tea)
2 pm - 5pm: Homework group and rape, HIV/AIDS, and family counseling
5 pm – bed: Keep myself occupied with a book or I go into the city. Dark at 6:00 pm and must be indoors.
Tuesday:
6:00 am: wake up and fill a bucket of water from a well that I will then boil outside and use for my shower. Then get dressed and ready. Breakfast? Hot Tea and Toast
7:00 am: Leave for work at the Bridging school.
8 am-10:30 am: Teach classes in English and math at a third and fourth grade level.
10:30 am – 11:30 am: Serve/eat lunch. Hot tea and toast
11:30 am-1:30: teach at the Bridging school. Sports. Gardening.
1:30pm – 5:30: Keep myself occupied with a book or I go into the city. Dark at 6:00 pm and must be indoors
6 pm – 7:30: Kickboxing classes at this random German mans backyard who apparently was a world champion.
8 pm – Bed: Keep myself occupied with a book or something.
Wednesday:
Same as Monday
Thursday:
Same as Tuesday
Friday:
Same as Tuesday and Thursday but without the kickboxing.
Saturday and Sunday:
Work at the soup kitchen at 2 pm but otherwise on my own.
Monday:
Start again
I am currently living in a German Hostel just outside of Windhoek. There are about 8 people here including the German couple that owns the house. The people here can speak English but usually don’t (who could blame them they don’t need to!). I work with two very nice German girls: Claire and Kataria. The couple that owns the place is…unique. The woman is a very kind, chain smoking, eccentric with bright red hair and a tunic. The husband is a big built man with bleach blond dread locks for hair and every day, with out fail, he wears a khaki colored long sleeve button down shirt with brown leather hide shorts that could be mistaken as a speedo…and hiking boots. But they are very kind and sincere and you have to admire the type of people that march to the beat of their own drum. So I like them very much. (Plus they gave me a great deal on the price!) And the things I was greeted with at this German Hostel? 20 snakes (it is also a snake farm) 100 snake eggs, 3 violent and aggressive geese that quack at all hours of the day and night and will attack you if you get too close, 1 needy black cat that I am allergic to, 1 room in the garage because they were out if space in their house, 1 bucket to use for the bathroom at night, 1 bucket to heat my water in for the shower in the morning (don't get those two buckets confused!), 1 bed and mosquito net, 1 oil lamp, 1 lock box to put all my stuff in, and 1 pillow and blanket.
Monday:
6:00 am: wake up and fill a bucket of water from a well that I will then boil outside and use for my shower. Then get dressed and ready. Breakfast? Hot Tea and Toast
7:00 am: leave or work at the soup kitchen in Okahandja Park.
8 am – 1pm: working with kids in a playgroup/daycare. Ages 2-8
1 pm – 2 pm: Lunch (either toast soup or pap with hot tea)
2 pm - 5pm: Homework group and rape, HIV/AIDS, and family counseling
5 pm – bed: Keep myself occupied with a book or I go into the city. Dark at 6:00 pm and must be indoors.
Tuesday:
6:00 am: wake up and fill a bucket of water from a well that I will then boil outside and use for my shower. Then get dressed and ready. Breakfast? Hot Tea and Toast
7:00 am: Leave for work at the Bridging school.
8 am-10:30 am: Teach classes in English and math at a third and fourth grade level.
10:30 am – 11:30 am: Serve/eat lunch. Hot tea and toast
11:30 am-1:30: teach at the Bridging school. Sports. Gardening.
1:30pm – 5:30: Keep myself occupied with a book or I go into the city. Dark at 6:00 pm and must be indoors
6 pm – 7:30: Kickboxing classes at this random German mans backyard who apparently was a world champion.
8 pm – Bed: Keep myself occupied with a book or something.
Wednesday:
Same as Monday
Thursday:
Same as Tuesday
Friday:
Same as Tuesday and Thursday but without the kickboxing.
Saturday and Sunday:
Work at the soup kitchen at 2 pm but otherwise on my own.
Monday:
Start again
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
