For the past 5 days (last week) we have been living and teaching above the Red Line in Omungwelume. The Red Line in Namibia separates North and South Namibia and was used as a disease check point. Below the line is commercial white farming and above it is communal farming/subsistence farming. Cattle from above the line could not be brought to areas below the line in order to prevent the spread of disease and make a definite delineation. In Omungwelume we stayed and taught at a Primary School called Eengedjo PS. Children from around the village and in neighboring areas came and participated in the classes we were teaching. The classes began on Monday and ended Thursday. For me, this was the first realization that I am in Africa.
The drive up North was an experience in and of it’s own. To us, it was a grueling 10 hour drive in a hot van known as a Combie but to everyone else it was luxury. The Ministry of Education provided two vans (Combies) for WorldTeach to bring us up North. The views that we witnessed as we drove up North were absolutely breathtaking. Considering Long Island is as flat as flat gets, seeing these rolling mountains and rocky terrain was amazing. I had to stop a few times and remind myself that this gorgeous country is my home for the next year.
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Views driving up North. A camera doesn't do the scenery justice! |
When we arrived at the village we were greeted by a house that needed a lot of loving touches and a really good cleaning. So we got together as a team and worked on cleaning up the house where 2 of the volunteers will be living for the year. We have broken down cooking dinner into groups. Taylor, Mailin, and I are group one so we were up to cook dinner that night. This turned into our second realization that this is Africa. The electricity wasn’t working and none of us had ever used a gas stove before so we cooked spaghetti by candle light while we prayed that we didn’t blow the house up. Dinner was a success, for the most part. They don’t have spaghetti sauce here and ours didn’t taste the hottest but T.I.A (This is Africa) so you go with the flow.
For the week we lived it the dorms of the students that attend the school. The rooms boasted metal framed bunk beds, and a few storage cubbies built into the walls. The bathrooms weren’t much different. Lined with metal sinks and toilets that seemed like they were going to overflow everytime you flushed; it didn’t appear very welcoming. Not to mention that the shower stalls were curtainless...
In order to not make this a really long drawn out blog in where I try to fit a weeks worth of teaching and experiences into one post I will try to summarize as much as possible. I love lists so that is what is the easiest for me to organize everything.
Monday was our first day at Omungwelume. For our practicums we taught in pairs and were split based on what grades we will be teaching when we go to our site. We started each morning lesson planning and getting the materials together that would be needed for that day. After planning in the morning we went to meet our learners in the courtyard of the school. They were very timid and reluctant to make conversation; this was to change as the week went on. We bonded over soccer and our lack of playing ability. I hope I can get my act together before I have to start coaching it at my school! For our first lesson we decided to teach them how to form sentences using a ver and subject. I was very nervous going into my first day of teaching but as soon as I stood in front of the class and saw those smiling faces my nerves dissipated. We taught and then had them do a fun activity that made them form their sentences using sentences that were already written out and then torn up. This was our first gauge on the learning level of our students and boy, was it a wide range. We had some that could only copy and then others that were forming sentences and labeling the parts of the sentence. This idea of multilevel classes will be one of our greatest challenges this year. Our lesson was a success and the students seemed to grasp what we were presenting.
Monday night we walked around the village and got our first bakkie ride in the back of a pick up to the closest town; obviously we survived it :). A few of us decided to continue to walk around the village after we returned from our thrilling ride and for the first time in my life I saw a cow fight. A serious horn to horn fight. Here, like mentioned before, cows are pretty free to roam. Us girls tried walking around them but we couldn’t seem to escape them. I think we provided the village with a little show as these 4 white girls tried to avoid the charging cattle.
Tuesday was a fun lesson to teach and I was very impressed by some of the knowledge the learners brought to the classroom. We decided to introduce them to the idea of the food chain. We had a really fun activity where we had them act out the food chain. They drew animals or plants on paper plates and in order for them to portray eating something they had to hug eachother. By the end of the lesson they were able to go through the food chain independently. This was definitely helpful because I am teaching science this coming year to 5-7 graders. I am super nervous about this and praying that God gives me peace about presenting this material.
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Teaching the Food Chain |
So the moment I have been waiting for the entire time I have been here happened. We had our first torrential downpour rainstorm. It was amazing to feel the coolness of the water and the relief it brought from the heat. I think since that day, it has rained almost every day here. I’m not complaining, a light shower in the afternoon is an amazing relief from the heat of the day.
Wednesday we switched up partners for people who wanted to try to teach different levels. I stayed with the 5-7 graders because those are the only grades I am working with this coming year. We did another grammar lesson introducing adjectives that describe a person. I had a lot of fun with this lesson and we received a huge response from the learners. We had them come up with as many as they could and then added our own. After we had a pretty solid list we put actions to the words and soon had our learners jumping around the room and using motions to portray adjectives. For our closing activity we had the students create acrostic poems using their names. This was a bit challenging for learners on lower levels but was fun to go around and see what some learners were writing. We were all pretty exhausted by Wednesday so we just chilled for the night. During the days after teaching we had meetings that lasted a couple of hours; our days were long.
Thursday was our last day to teach our precious learners. This, by far, was my favorite lesson. With it being the last day we wanted it to be a lot of fun so we decided to teach them how to follow directions... using the Cha Cha Slide :). We played the song through and saw how many of the directions the kids could list. We filled in what they missed. After that we taught them the Cha Cha Slide which turned into a major dance party. One of the learners knew the entire dance to Waka Waka so she taught us how to do that after the kids had learned the Cha Cha slide. This is a lesson I will reuse and never forget. To watch some of these kids dance and the smiles they had on their faces melted my heart.
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Our Dance Party!! |
Thursday night we had another T.I.A experience. All of the volunteers piled into the Ministry of Education vans and headed to Angelina’s (gf of our Field Director) homestead. A homestead is a group of houses, huts, rooms that are surrounded by some sort of fence or brick wall where one family lives. When children get older they are to build a room or small house that adds to the homestead and this is where they will live when they get married. Here we toured the homestead and saw many of the traditions the African people hold. It is amazing to see how much they embrace their roots and still hold true to their cultures. We were served a traditional drink called Oshikundu. Oshikundu is made of fermented grains that are kept in hollowed out gourds. It tasted somewhat like wet bread. Along with the traditional drink we had the traditional Oshiwambo meal. This consisted of chicken and a thick porridge. The meal was eaten with your fingers by breaking pieces off and dipping it in the sauce that the chicken was made in. The porridge is made out of mahangu that they crush in one of their huts. As the day came to a close we left Angelina’s and headed back to the school to get ready to head “home” to Windhoek the next day.
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Emily and I eating the traditional meal at the homestead |
This past week was draining but one that I am ever so grateful for. I will never forget the first students I taught in Namibia. It also helped to show me that I will be able to be a teacher to these open hearts, minds and beautiful children. We returned back to the capital on Friday as a group but not the same as we left; we had seen and realized our purpose for being here.
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Some of the volunteers with Learners |
UPDATE: So I have received a little more information on my site. I will be living in an apartment by myself with a kitchen and bathroom. I am teaching grades 5-7 English and Science. I won’t have internet at all so communication is going to be very limited after Thursday. I will have to head to Opuwo (capital of the Kunene Region) in order to receive good internet connection. I don’t really have cell service either. Well, I do but I have to walk 3k up a mountain to get it. I am determined to build a hut or string a hammock on the top of this mountain so I can chill and catch up on news back home. I do have an address but I will provide that in my next post.... 2 days till Musaso!