1 year NAMiversary

One year since coming to Namibia!  (Photos taken in August of 2010.)

( Only some of us in Group 32.)

Remembering our bittersweet send-off in Philly...

We can't exactly remember what Grandpop was doing (we guess he got tired), but then again, do any of us usually understand what he is doing??!  ;-)

Can you believe it's been a year?!  We wonder how long it feels to all of you in the States..?

Mid-Service & All-Volunteer Conference

The week we were away from site was because we attended our group's Mid-Service Conference and an All-Volunteer Conference, both in Windhoek (capital).

The focus of Mid-Service was mostly revolving around, well, that we are at about the halfway point!  Really they held the conference early... We have been in Namibia for 11 months out of approximately 27-28.  But still!  So a lot of the discussion was reflection of what has been going well for us all in the last (almost) year and what we want our final year to look like.

The venue was at a place called Greiters Conference Center which sits in the mountains surrounding Windhoek, offering lovely views (especially at sunrise and sunset).

Since we didn't take any photos on this trek, the following photos were from when we were there previously in Nov/Dec 2010.  A lot of hiking was done and Patches was in attendance that time!

After Mid-Service, we spent the remaining time in Windhoek at a very modern hotel where we enjoyed super-awesome breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  The focus of the AVC was the 50-year anniversary of Peace Corps.  One highlight was that we were invited to the residence of the American ambassador of Namibia for pizza and drinks!  (She knows us too well apparently!)

Bucket baths

We have concluded that a warm/hot bucket bath is better than a cold shower. And unless you're really overheated, it's usually worth the time and effort of boiling water.

Flood

There has been some pretty serious flooding in the far north of Namibia, close to the border of Angola.  Serious enough that schools are closing (the primary schools at least, since the water is more dangerous for the small children) and Peace Corps has evacuated the MANY volunteers up there.

It's hard for Kevin and me to imagine since what they are experiencing in the north is so different from what we have in the south (they say "the North" (which means the extreme north, where most of Namibia's population lives) is a different country from "the South").  But a PC friend showed me some photos and gave me this video:

News article from The Namibian: "Floods continue to threaten the lives of children and families"

News article from The Namibian: "This year's floods the worst ever"

New site in Omaheke

We have moved!  And we are thankful that Peace Corps made this happen basically as quickly as possible.

Realizing many of you may be anxious for information about our new site, we can give you that. We are still lacking a bit in the photo department though, but they will come oh patient ones.

So our new site is in Namibia's Omaheke (pron. Oh-mo-heh-keh..?) region 6-8 miles outside a major town, called Gobabis. By “major,” I mean much bigger and more developed than Khorixas, but not as large as Windhoek (the capital). Gobabis is about a 2-hour drive east from Windhoek. And you say the “G” the German way, like you're clearing your throat. :-)

The drive:

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In the center of it all is the school grounds, which consists of a primary (grades 1-7) and secondary school (grades 8-12). Then you have the hostels where all of the schools' 800+ learners stay, as well as the dining hall, community-type hall, and sports fields. Finally, there is some other housing off to the side for teachers. The place exists solely for and because of these Roman Catholic schools and the education and extracuriculars that take place there. And so all this is simply plopped in the middle of the “bush” with nearly no other development for miles. No shops, and I am happy to report there are no shebeens (small, family-operated bars). (I will add that in many villages, despite how isolated they may be, there often still manages to be a shebeen or two, sadly.) Here, it's just the schools and us people who teach and learn there. It sort of has the feeling of a college campus! With lots of beautiful bush enclosing us in. A college campus inside a campsite!

We continue to stay in small, modern-style housing with (cold) running water and electricity (... and a washing machine, um, YAY!!!!) and neighbor with several colleagues from our schools. Our other colleagues live in Gobabis and commute daily.

 (We all marveled at the wonders of this contraption!

Patches was quite startled by the sight of his first washing 
machine in action and was sure to vocalize his hesitation about it!)

It's really just a quiet and pretty place. The soil is an appealing rust color, contrasting nicely with the plentiful green grass and trees (so nice to have trees and the shade they provide) that come from the frequent rainfall the region receives during the (current) wet season. A bit cooler weather in general is also a plus (*sigh of relief*), though it still gets good and hot in the summer and apparently quite cold in the winter.

 

Stay tuned! Will post more about our schools soon.

You say goodbye, and I say hello

It is goodbye to Khorixas.

Peace Corps broke the news to us that they would be placing us in a new site in Namibia, due to safety/ security precautions. (We knew this was in the cards, which helped us cope a bit.) This meant we needed to break the news to our principals and schools (who knew nothing, which PC intended for the purpose of protecting our safety). And almost immediately, we would depart Khorixas for good. Kevin and I shared our stories of "how it went" at our respective schools and the theme was the same: sad, disappointed, and broken hearts- often accompanied by tears- on the giving and receiving end of the news-bearing.

Just to give you an idea, site changes are quite uncommon in Peace Corps Namibia, especially after the volunteer has confirmed that the site is suitable medically and programically (i.e. there is work for the volunteer) and he/she gets settled in. In our group so far (of 45 to start), 2 site changes took place before the end of Pre-Service Training (PST) due to medical reasons (these volunteers were supposed to be placed at sites with hospitals in case their severe allergies were triggered), and 1 took place during Reconnect in late Nov/early Dec for programming reasons. And then most recently, there's us, after spending 5 months at site (and 7 in Namibia).

For me, the school principal and others publicly gave words of thanks and farewell. When a grade 8 female learner volunteered to also speak, she barely blurted out a sentence before bursting into tears in front of the whole school. All I could do was hug her, with tears also running down my face. I also spoke, giving the kids encouraging words to hang on, after expressed my thanks and my sadness that I needed to leave.

Just before all this, we had spent some time in Windhoek to take care of "Peace Corps business" before leaving Khorixas so when we returned, one of my classes sang impromptu songs to welcome me back. They were unaware I was not back to stay and I couldn't tell them, so I held it in and silently interpreted the song as one of good-byes. The learners would discover this soon enough.

And there we were, in Peace Corps transport (unfortunately it was not a helicopter or something cool, just a Land Cruiser :-P ) with our ever-growing number of belongings (remember we have bikes now!). Destination: Windhoek (the capital). But only for the weekend, and then we will be moved to our new site next week.

Thankfully, having each other as support (yay marriage!) helps tremendously. And we couldn't dream of forgetting Patches, who slept like the angel that he is (sometimes!) at my feet during the 4.5-hour drive from Khorixas to Windhoek as I was finishing Grogan's Marley & Me.

View Larger Map

This was just after he took the initiative to army-crawl his way into a tiny caveat of space under a folded-down seat in the Land Cruiser, making sure we weren't leaving him behind. (He still makes a habit of sleeping on our bags and belongings that he can see will be accompanying us when trekking somewhere. But since all those things were already packed to the brim in our transport, I guess he had no other choice!)

Peace Corps Golden Anniversary

March 1, 2011 commemorates 50 years of service by Peace Corps.

Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in 139 host countries. In its 50^th year, over 8,600 Americans, ranging in age from 21 to 86 and from all 50 states, are serving as Peace Corps Volunteers in 77 countries. Currently, there are more Americans serving as Peace Corps Volunteers than any point in the last 40 years. Volunteers are grassroots ambassadors for the United States, and they represent America's values, generosity, and hope.

Have you seen anything about it on the news or anything?

So you want to join Peace Corps...

 

Youtube = truth.  And it's hilarious.

6 months down

Happy 6 month anniversary to us being in Namibia!  It's going fast for us.  How about you guys?  (Kevin would like to add that that is over 1/5 of our total time commitment here.  21-22% in fact.)

(Yeah this is late and I squeezed it in, but we're in Africa ok!)

And lots of Happy Birthdays!  To Dana, Grandpa, Steve, Dad, and I'm sure others.  Also to Ben in the beginning of the month!

Itinerary for our first 8 weeks

Where we are and what we are doing:

Aug 15-- Checking into our hotel in Philadelphia
Aug 16-- Staging (orientation into PC) and more shots :-( mostly for Kevin
Aug 17-- Bus to JFK International airport :-/ ; Fly out to Namibia! (see itinerary below)
Aug 18-- Arrive in Windhoek

******International Flight Itinerary******
Aug 17, 2010- United Airlines- Flight 9816- 15 hr 25 min- Non-stop
Depart: JFK @ 11:15am, Terminal 4
Arrive: Johannesburg @ 8:40am

Air South Africa- Flight 76- 2 hr 0 min- Non-stop
Depart: Johannesburg @ 1:20pm
Arrive: Windhoek @ 2:20pm

Aug 25-Oct 14-- Move in with your Namibian host families in Okahandja, 8 weeks of intensive training begins in Okahandja, usually at the National Institute for Educational Development (NIED), on a variety of subjects to be blogged about

Oct 15-- Swearing-in ceremony to officially become PCV