Site Assignment

Sooooooo, one thing that has made us feel like we are at home is that Kevin and I are the married couple in our group of ~44. This is the way we are a token at home as well, mostly among many of our college friends (Danny, especially), so we are used to it.

The entire PC application process is different for married couples, and only about 8% of volunteers are married. Differences persist for us as we learned that PC usually only places 1 married couple per group and attempts to place the couple at the same site but in different settings (in our case, in different schools). This is not easy to accommodate since volunteers are usually pretty spread out or are serving at the same school.

So while fellow trainees received basic descriptions (anonymously by number) of the available sites (how rural/urban, distance to the nearest village, degree of electric/running water, type of toileting, living arrangement and degree of privacy, specific needs/requests of the school) so they can rank their top 2-3, we were told all about our site! Mostly by a PC Volunteer Leader present at our training who has been serving there for her 3^rd year (which was lucky for us). I do feel like we're missing out on some of the excitement and anxieties all the individual volunteers are going through, but everyone has been excited for us and pumping us up, so that helps recoup my loss!

Also I think our Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) on staff is really understanding of the ways volunteering is different for couples (and he is also married), so he seemed to feel it was best to prepare us with as much information as possible, while everyone else endures more waiting. On that note, we will be told what languages we will be receiving training in soon, which will help those volunteers speculate the region in which they are being placed, but the mystery still remains.

I'm a list kind-of-person, so here's a bit of a description of our future site! Remember, we have a lot of extra info most don't have at this point and got to ask all the questions we want. This is because we are being spoiled as the married couple and because we were lucky enough that one of the PCVLs is currently serving at our site (though not in the same schools).

- Khorxias (pron:Core-ee-hos), Namibia (see the hand! This is the cool way Namibians and PC volunteers show each other places around the country! The resemblance is pretty funny!)

- In the country, this is fairly northwest. Just south of the Caprivi Strip (a small strip-shaped region in the far north where most Namibians live) and maybe 2 hours southeast of Etosha National Park (which apparently rocks, as far as safaris go). East of the Atlantic Ocean (that is obvious!) Skeleton Coast, and Namib Desert...

- Which means... it will be hot! And dry. Especially in the summer. We were told to have an electric fan in our room and that I can carry an umbrella during the day. And to drink lots of water.

- Fairly “urban” (Translation: basically a town or large village of maybe 10,000... in our case, also apparently farmy, with chickens roaming about. Grocery store, 1 or 2, with just about anything we can need, including fresh vegetables and fruit, hooray!) Also the presence of spiders and snakes will be much less than in the rural village sites.

- Language: We will actually be learning a click language called, Khoekhoegowab (KKG). And of the 8 languages in the country that we could potentially learn, this is the only one with clicks. I am pretty intimidated personally, but many are jealous, hoping they also are placed somewhere that speaks the click language! We've joked that our we'll fight in click so our kids don't understand (and so they also think we're crazy).

- PCV Flat/House (Sounds like we will have lots of privacy, space, and security. Others may or may not be occupying the other units. Heard it's very nice and in a pleasant, quiet neighborhood, which was in the white part of town during apartheid times. PC put a lot of money into it, so security really is quite good they say. We should also have furniture! May also mean we can easily host others, including volunteers and maybe some of ya'll! Pictures will come after we do our site visit and/or move in, for those of you who were considering visiting, but depending on the conditions!).

- Schools are said to have internet access we can utilize (and our phones might too).

- 1-2 other volunteers will be serving in the same town. We thought they might want to put us somewhere isolated since we automatically have each other as support, while individuals don't have this benefit. But what happened was staff wanted us to teach in separate schools so any politics/drama doesn't get the other of us wrapped into the mess. Seems wise enough to me.

Kevin's assignment and school:
350 learners, 15 teachers
Math teacher for grades 8-10 (Geometry and Algebra?)
Secondary requests: computer literacy, library

Steph's assignment and school:
461 learners, 19 teachers
Science teacher for grades 8 & 9 (Chemistry and Physics?)
Secondary requests: IT, library, sports

Our schools are within walking distance (or we can bike), and we were told mine will come up first so Kevin can drop me off and pick me up on his way (which I just like, that's all! And Mom probably too.)

However, before we begin at our site, we will continue our training sessions at the quite nice, educational institute where we are currently being accommodated with beds and meals. But our first homestays (all of us in the same town, but with different families) will begin this week so that will be a pretty big change, and they last until the the end of training when we swear in (October 15^th).

But anywho, I'm not sure if our site will be quite what we were expecting and mentally preparing for. In essence, we consider ourselves sort of spoiled, not only to be placed in what we are learning is a very cool, safe, and developed country, but also at a safe, accessible post... with all the amenities mentioned. But hey, if it means some of you will come visit who otherwise wouldn't, we are ok with the sacrifice. ;-)