Departing for our site visit to Khorixas!

So very shortly, we will be departing for our site visit to Khorixas with our two principals who we met yesterday. Basically, the purpose is for us to begin to meet people in the community and schools (and we all know how important first impressions are), and to orient ourselves and mentally prepare for what we can expect. We are excited, but also a bit nervous... because we hope we like Khorixas! (It could be a long 2 years if we don't!)

Yesterday: Yesterday, all of our supervisors arrived in Okahandja to meet us and attend a Peace Corps-run workshop with us. Most of our supervisors (about 70% male) are the principals of the schools where we will be teaching. My and Kevin's supervisors (and many others) seemed like very friendly and cool people, and many have a surprising amount of teaching and administrative experience, in part because they were able to begin their professions quite young. Kevin said, according to his math, that one of the principals he interacted with seemed to begin his teaching profession at 16! It's amazing though that, despite the age and experience of the teachers and administrators in the room, as well as of those who had come to run guest presentations at previous training sessions, Namibians have been so grateful and humble in requesting our assistance and expertise. (Keep in mind, most of us have little to no teaching experience.)

Along our way to Khorixas we will stop (or "make turns") in both of our main shopping towns, Otjiwarango and Outjo, for food and maybe some other goodies. All in all, without the stops, Khorixas is probably about 4 hours from Okahandja (the town where we have been living and training), but with the stops we will be traveling most of the day. It's pretty exciting to be going through shopping towns when you, like many Namibians, don't regularly have access to the ammenitites available here. So when traveling, one should always expect to make turns, probably at every shopping town you will pass through, for a lengthier period of time than expected. (To our understanding, Khorixas has some basic shopping, but it is limited as well as more expensive.)

That being said, we probably will not have email access until Wednesday/Thursday. Familia- if you really need to get a hold of us, we emailed you our cell phone number a couple weeks ago, which is possible for you to call (preferably using Skype to Go, since it is cheaper for you).