Randomness

A lot of different things have been going on but nothing all at the same time. It is hard to categorize and sort out everything into different blog posts so I figured I would cheat and throw everything into one! Where to start is the question. 

Well, we had our site visits in this region with our Field Director from WorldTeach. He came and saw where we were living as well as talked with our Principals, Inspector, and observed our classes. They went fairly well and I think we all learned a little bit from them. We still have not yet received our first paychecks in this region which kind of stinks but things are slow here. Hopefully by next week they will be cut for us. 

My application for the grant money from the Embassy has been successfully submitted. I called Wednesday to check to see if they had received all of my paperwork and they confirmed they had. They will meet to discuss the applications in 2 weeks time. From there they are then brought to the Ambassador to be looked over and have suggestions made. We were told that we will find out mid April whether or not we will be approved. That is perfect timing because then we go on holiday and come back ready to get down and dirty; literally.

With that being said, our first term is coming to an end. We only have a couple weeks left and we will be finishing up term 1 out of 3. It is crazy how fast things have gone. I am a little nervous for the close of this term because our classes have changed again. When my director visited he informed the school that I was overloaded on classes; which I was definitely overwhelmed teaching all that I was teaching; especially Grade 5 English. We were having a big discussion that led no where on how we are supposed to change up our classes. I am still not sure. I am now teaching Grade 7 English, Math, Science, PE for grades 5-7 and B.I.S. for grades 5-7. B.I.S. stands for Basic Information Science. It is kind of like library science and teaching the kids about computers and things like that. Unfortunately, we don’t have computers so that won’t be an easy topic to teach. My school is just trying to keep me on my toes by changing up my classes every couple of weeks haha.

WIth the close of term 1 my mom and Krista come to visit! In between Term 1 and Term 2 we have about a month off to travel and relax. We have a conference in Windhoek at the end of April for a few days in order to talk about how our time is going and then we are released to do whatever we want to do. Mom and Krista are flying into Windhoek on the 29th and are staying for about 2 weeks. We haven’t really hammered down what we are doing yet but have our first 2 nights booked in a nice lodge in Windhoek. Mom is being a champ and doing all the research with Krista seeing as my internet is limited. I know that Etosha and Epupa Falls as well as where I live are on the list but beyond that I am not too sure what we are doing. Mom has gotten all of her shots and I believe Krista has also. ONE STEP CLOSER! It is hard to imagine that after 3 months I will be seeing my mom in about 1 months time. Man, how time flies... in a good way!

I have been so blessed by all the generous donations people have been handing to my parents! The project is close to being fully funded and will allow me to buy all of my students mattresses. It has been really encouraging to see children donating money from their piggy banks and report cards in order to buy these children mattresses to sleep on. I am currently working on trying to figure out how we are going to get the mattresses from Opuwo to Otwani but I am sure, like everything else, it will work out the best way possible.

Those are most of my updates for now. I am starting to get into a better routine of writing and answering emails. If anyone wants to email me they can send it to awillo1.ca@gmail.com. I only get to check it about 1 time a week but I dedicate a lot of my time on Friday afternoons to answer them. You guys are all 5 hours behind me (East Coast people) so you might even have an answer by the time you check your emails Friday morning. Love and Missing home but loving my new home here! 

If you plant it, it will grow!

Life here has gotten a little rough. These past few weeks have been a whirlwind and I have felt very overwhelmed and a little homesick. I know I am only feeling homesick because things have been getting a lot harder. As mentioned before they changed that classes, subjects and grades I am now teaching. Well, as of yesterday that changed again!! I am still teaching Grade 7 English, Science and Math and English 5 but they divided the English classes into 2 so now I am teaching double. There are 40 periods in a week and I teach about 35 of those periods which is a little overwhelming and I have a lot to catch up on. For Namibia their grading system is a little different and I need to make up for lost time with the grades for Science and English 5. Term 1 is almost over and I have to have my grades in in a couple of weeks. With that being said, I can’t believe Term 1 is almost over!! That means I am a third of the way into my time here. With the end of Term 1 comes a visit from my Mom and Krista. I am not too sure they know what they are getting themselves into ;). I am sure I will be posting about their time here. But before they come we do have a few breaks leading up to that. Next week we have Thursday off for Independence Day. Friday is a busy day for me though. I have a grant proposal due and my second teaching submission for my TEFL program. We also have a long break for Easter so we will be heading to Swakopmund to hang out at the beach and relax for a 4 day weekend. But before that happens I need to get a lot done and hopefully find out whether I will be approved for a grant or not. SO.. with that being said. 

I have been working very hard to put together a grant application for a program down here that awards money to people to work on community projects. It is called the Ambassador’s Self Help Grant. Awards can be upwards of $20,000 USD. In order to be considered there is a 5 page detailed application involved and you need quotes from vendors that you plan on using. I have been getting into Opuwo on the weekends to receive quotes from builders and people who will help with the garden. I have a contact in USAID, shout out to Mrs. Washington,  who has been such a blessing and has agreed to come visit my school in April to asses what needs to be done in order to plant the garden. My learners only receive, at the most, 2 meals a day that consists of just porridge. Many go hungry and are lacking very important nutritious needs. With the creation of this garden we will be able to give the learners at least one nutritional meal a day. If there is an abundance of crops we will be giving those to the local community with a focus on the children who are 5 and under and those who are directly affected by HIV/AIDS. I am praying that this grant gets approved. It would be such a blessing to my school. I will keep you updated on the progress of the application and approval.

The view of the school from the garden site

Future site of our garden!

The clinic that is waiting to be opened that will hopefully be supplying water for the garden

I am currently working on another project as well! A year isn’t that long to get things done so I am hoping to get a jump start on these. I have been working to raise money in order to buy mattresses for the learners at my school. The colder months are coming and I want them to be able to get off the ground when they sleep. There has been an overwhelming response and people have been more than generous. I can’t thank my coworker, Ahna, enough either for putting together an amazing flyer to put in places downtown in Patchogue. It really is amazing how blessed I am to know such amazing people. So far we have raised about $800 towards the mattresses. That is more than I ever was expecting. Thank you all so much for all that you have been doing!! My school is very appreciative of all that people have been doing!

Hiking Around

Craziness and overload don’t begin to describe this week. To begin, it is always a huge job finding a hike (ride) back to school no Sundays. It consists of multiple phone calls, text messages and waiting (everyone is on African time). So this Sunday was no different. I was scrambling to find a ride without them leaving me. The thing is, you can’t hike to or from my school so you have to make sure that a coworker or someone from the location will be in Opuwo or heading back on Sunday. I am sure one of these weekends I will be left haha. You really are at the mercy of other people. My ride back consisted of a little CRV with 10 people crammed inside with luggage and groceries everywhere. It was a tight, hot, ride but I managed. It isn’t the worst that has happened. **Side story** I have had to take a ride to school in a CRV with 9 people and a live chicken jumping around in the front seat all while a Herero woman kept hitting me with her hat and digging her elbows into my hip bones. Then there was a ride in a CRV with 7 people and a live goat that was tied up in the back of the car. The goat cried the entire hour and a half in!. THEN there was a ride where it was also in a CRV and I had the guy behind me throwing up the entire ride. Thankfully we stopped in time for him to do it out the trunk door; most of the time. As I write this I am currently riding in the back of an enclosed pick up truck with my boss of the region. It gets very bumpy and hot but I have become Namibian enough that I can type a blog post in the back of a pick up haha.

**Side story over**

As mentioned before we switched up the classes we will be teaching so Monday was the first day that I really taught my new classes. Grade 5 is HUGE and pretty much consists of 88 eyes staring at you the whole time. I have already had to break up a fight and raise my voice. They just laugh because they have no idea what I am saying. We just decided today that we will be splitting Grade 5 into 2 classes so they will be smaller but this means more teaching. I am loving that I get to teach my Grade 7s 3 subjects. I see them about 20 periods a week and am really beginning to know them AND they get my jokes and sarcasm, something that doesn’t usually translate here. My afternoons and nights are spent planning and grading. Wednesday night I spent hours grading 3 tests and creating one for Grade 7 math. It is tedious work but I usually put a movie on, get my dinner and multi task. It makes me feel like I am back in college. Today I got asked to be the new choir director because the other one now has to teach in the afternoon. My initial response was I can’t sing in Otjiherero which got a laugh and a “Miss, our native language is English.” coming from a colleague whose English isn’t very good. I haven’t heard them sing one song in English so this could get very interesting and comical. Mom, you will be very proud that I finally came back around to music after leaving it in 10th grade :). This week was pretty long and had its challenges. On Monday I taught all morning and then went back into Opuwo for a couple hours. I am working to put together a grant proposal to build a garden at the school and that entails me meeting with vendors and getting quotes. I was able to do most of the work on Monday but still have a lot to write up and figure out. This is the hard part; once approved (hopefully) the “easy/fun part” of building it comes.I will talk more of that in another blog post. I didn’t get back home till about 9 pm that night and still had lesson planning for my one class to do. Tuesday went by smoothly until about 8pm. Wednesday got rough. The electricity went out at 8pm at my place so that made getting work done hard. I ended up just chilling and trying to grade. I gave up, put a movie on; which then my laptop died, and went to bed. The electricity was off for a while so I had to mop my kitchen periodically as my fridge almost all defrosted. As soon as the electricity came back on the water went out for a while. I guess you can’t have both here haha. It was all good though, you find ways to cope :). The rest of the week was filled with workouts, gradings, and planning. It was a nice break to have a few people call my landline on Wednesday. I was able to talk to my mom, grandma, my friend Ben and Mailin about work questions haha. Every little bit is a nice break. The weeks are going by really fast here; for the most part. I say that I need to have a cameraman follow me around for a week just so everyone can laugh at the things I do. Life here is so different than home but I love it!