Namibia is on Drudge

Angelina Jolie has had her baby in this "impoverished country known
for its wild remoteness" according to the article I read on Drudge.
Now at least everyone knows the name of the country I live in even if
you still can't find me on a map. This weekend was sweet and sour. I
was very pleased with my performance on the soccer field, I scored a
goal in the first game but the second game was my best. I'm getting
used to the sand and actually made a couple decent plays instead of
relying on other peoples' mistakes. However I mostly wait for mistakes
to happen and pounce on them, these guys are good but they rarely trap
the ball to their feet and if you're in position the goalkeepers have
been known to bobble the ball. The really interesting shift is that
when I was on the field the goals were 4-0, when I was off the field
we were a dismal 1-5. My analysis is that its not so much that I am a
better player than any substitute but that my prescence on the field
alters our alignment into a more favorable set. We also are definitely
a first half team which I fear might be attributed to nutrition. I
didn't play the last game because my achillies and calves were and
remain extraordinarily tight and the team got smashed 3-1 when a win
in that match would have won the whole weekend tournament. The only
upside to the loss is that it got me off the hook for making the team
food, although as soon as we find a way to win I've promised the team
I would cook for them.

Sunday evening I got the library helpers together after dinner to
clean the library and then to enjoy some cookies and Coke while we
watched The Rock and played computer games. They seemed to enjoy and
appreciate the gesture and I took great pleasure in being able to give
them something nice. One difficulty I face is that there are so many
kids at the school that I cannot afford to give them food or anything
special. Not that I don't want to or I'm being stingy, I simply don't
have the funds to treat such a large group. Now after five months at
the school I'm starting to carve out smaller groups that I can do nice
things for. My finances allow me to treat the 6 library helpers or 11
guys on the soccer team. Walking home Sunday I had a lightness in my
step as I realized some options were starting to be available where I
could open up more with a select group of kids without inviting
disaster.

I have to say I'm impressed that Dallas kept the Suns under 90 points,
but I'm pretty much indifferent in that series. The real story is that
the dominance of the Western Conference is a thing of the past (at the
top level at least). Detroit or Miami will beat Phoenix or Dallas in 5
games. Any matchup goes to the East. I would like to see an Amare
Stoudamire led Suns team in the Finals though. High powered offense
against the shut down defense of the Pistons, or see if Shaq can get
past halfcourt as the Suns run up 130 points. This evening I'm marking
some grade 10 homework in preperation for a test on Wednesday and then
I'm hoping for some sleep. Last night was filled with alternating
insomnia and vivid dreams induced by the mefloquine.

Another goal

Saturday is always a little bit unpredictable. This morning my plan
included finishing a book, french toast, coffee, laundry, maybe some
time on the Internet and a little school work. I woke up, stayed in
bed to finish my book then made my breakfast and started washing
clothes. Then the boys I play soccer with came and asked for $30 to
cover the rest of the $50 entrance fee for the mini tournament that
was going to happen this weekend. We play soccer a lot of weekends but
somehow I never manage to find out until its almost time to start. No
problem though, I only have two blisters from my latest attempts at
running. Our first match was against the best team at the school,
Never Lose, captained by my fellow teacher Mr. Mbaukua. Mbaukua is by
far the best player on the pitch and his team is the most disciplined
so by the end of every weekend they are in fact the winners. My team
is strong though and after I netted the second goal of my career we
had a 2-0 lead going into the half. I decided to stick with my
pre-game plan of letting another boy substitute for me at half time,
after a frigid week it was hot this afternoon and my lungs were
burning. Unfortunately the second half didn't go so well and we ended
up with a 2-2 draw. Now we have two more matches tomorrow to try to
offer up the bitter taste of defeat to Never Lose.

The other thing that I really want to do this weekend is to read. One
of the treasures I've found in the school library is novels by authors
from this region. I indulged my curiosity with a small book written by
a Namibian set in 1988, after the farce of an interim government had
been established. The story follows leaders of the student movement as
they evade the police and then decide to go into exile to avoid
capture. Not a great work of literature but it is an interesting piece
of history. Next I read a book by a Zimbabwean author about a woman
who spent her adult life working on a white man's farm until she went
searching for her son who had left the country to return and fight for
independence. This one is a great work of literature, replete with
Zimbabwean idioms. These books have been an intermission in my
endeavor to read a 680 page history of the "Scramble for Africa."
European colonization of Africa from 1886 - 1910. The difficult thing
about this book is that most of the imperialism was justified in the
name of Livingstone's 3 Cs: commerce, Christianity and civilization.
The colonial period is technically in the past but it seems that the 3
Cs are alive and well. As good as the Millenium Challenge Fund seems
like the answer to the troubles of development it is squarely focused
on bringing civilization (and better commercial prospects) to the
continent. The question I ask myself is if the economic policies that
spurred the parceling out of Africa have changed at all in this era of
international aid. That will have to be explored further. The chapter
I'm reading right now is about the revelation of widespread abuse in
the philanthropic venture of King Leopold in the Congo, abuses that
were not revealed by the over 400 missionaries on the ground at the
time. Next chapter is about the Germans in Namibia so I'm planning to
make some coffee when I get home and read that one close.

Since when did Tony Snow become the White House press secretary?
Straight from being the most boring person on Fox News to the
President's mouthpiece???

Isn't Africa Supposed to be Hot?

Whoever made us think that Africa was always hot? Well its not. In fact right now I can barely type because my hands are so cold. One of my favorite things that I brought is a handy little clock with a digital thermometer that I got from the bank when I opened an account in Colorado. This morning it showed 56 degrees in my bedroom. And when I put it outside my front door? 37. I also took the thermometer to class with me today. The whole time I was teaching my classroom was less than sixty degrees. Its not so bad as the teacher since I get to walk around and talk I stay reasonably warm, but the kids have it bad. Especially the girls wearing skirts with their socks pulled up as high as they go in a futile attempt to keep warm. And when I go home this evening? I expect my house will be in the range of 62 degrees. Luckily
I have a small space heater to take the edge off the cold, but it doesn't have a chance at heating up my small little house. And June is supposed to be the coldest month. The impression I get from the other teachers is that these days have been unusually cold so I'm hoping this cold spell will break soon. After a couple days of cold, though, I'm staring to get used to it. Mostly I've adjusted my schedule to take advantage of daylight with the warmth the sun brings, in the
evenings I make coffee to help me get some work done after dinner, then I take a hot shower and get in bed. Mornings are tough to get out from under the blankets and brave the cold, that is before I put on my coat and make oatmeal. Standing over the stove while the water is heating up for the oats tends to help cope with the cold.

I've found that I have gotten used to a lot of things that seemed a bit strange at first, but there are some things I don't think I'll ever get used to. It doesn't faze me anymore when random livestock walk around by my house or my classroom, it doesn't seem odd if it takes two hours of dialing to get connected to the Internet, I don't think twice when I roll out of bed on a Saturday and start hand washing my clothes. If I ask when we are leaving, I plan to hang around for an extra hour or two; when I pose a question to one of my classes I expect to have to repeat myself two or three times with simpler and simpler vocabulary and grammar; when I mark homeworks and tests I'm excited when anybody makes above a 50%; a large piece of meat hanging in a tree, a MacGuyerverd electrical cord, and a whole lot of conversation in languages I don't understand are all part of a normal day.

However, there are also many things that I doubt I will ever become accustomed to. Every night when I walk out of my house I know I'm going to have to stop walking because otherwise I might trip while I stare at the sky. Since the rains stopped the nights are clear and the stars are magnificent. The Milky Way is easily seen from horizon to
horizon. I know that it is inevitable, but I have to catch myself whenever one of the female teachers shows up to school with a new hairdue. That normally means a new wig, all of which are somewhere between absurd and awful. Sometimes they go for braids which only heightens the contrast from the last wig. I thought I had stopped noticing the foul odor on some of the kids, but this week I was overwhelmed again. No matter how much I get excited about a 50% on a test I won't accept the idea that 80% of my grade 10 learners could fail. And even when I know that classes won't run completely smooth, I have spent all week frustrated at the other teachers for ditching their classes. School has been in session for almost two weeks and we've had three days run normally from 7 to 1. With tomorrow being Friday I don't expect anything better but I'm still hoping to get finished with an activity on acids and bases with my grade 9 classes and I'm pushing to have the grade 10 classes write a test next week Wednesday, but that might not be possible because so many teachers leave school early and make it impossible for me to each.

If you have some time to spare and are interested in getting a better picture of the test results you should check out this website: http://cronin.dyndns.org/Software/NamibianSchools/index.php
Comparable schools are Coblenz JSS (my school), Waterberg JS, and Okakarara SS (kids from Coblenz that pass grade 10 often go to Okakarara for grade 11 and 12); the interesting comparisons come
though when you look at Grootfontein SS which is nearby and for an extreme contrast check out Windhoek High.

One final thought.. If you needed to dispose of some sulphuric acid how would you go about it? I found myself at home needing to clean a jar containing sulphuric acid and a coin that didn't react to the acid as much as I had hoped. That tells me that the acid is rather dilute, but the bottle had no mention of molarity so I don't know for sure. I decided not to just pour the acid down the drain in my kitchen, but I didn't want to throw it out into the sand either. After a couple moments of thinking it seemed like a good idea to try to neutralize the acid before I went ahead with the disposal. What was closest? Baking soda. To my credit I tried to write out the equation for the reaction I was about to create, but I have to admit that I don't know for sure what the products of the reaction should be. After I put a small amount of baking soda into the jar I started wondering if one of the gases being produced might be dangerous, so I added some more baking soda and went outside. The jar got pretty hot as I continued adding baking soda and eventually I tossed the remaining liquid into the sand. To redeem myself as a science teacher I will point out that I made some great
indicator paper with red cabbage, one batch with the hard water from the tap and one batch with pre-boiled water. The solution with the hard water is distinctly green and the soft water is a light blue. They real highlight of this activity was showing my students the slightly pink color on the indicator paper for milk, and the bright pink on the indicator paper for omaere (sour milk). The only drawback was that I had to smell the omaere when I opened the jar to put a drop
onto the indicator.

According to a recent labor survey in Namibia unemployment is at 36.7%
and rising.

And one more chance to laugh, my neighbor got his ties dry cleaned. Not funny yet? He doesn't know how to tie them, before they were cleaned they had been tied for years and he just pulled them on every morning. So, this evening I got a visit from a 40+ year old man asking if I could help him with his ties.

Sometimes you just have to laugh

After I finished my last post I remembered that I left out one
important, though embarassing bit of news. But that can wait until the
end. Anytime after the kids have recently been home they have lots of
pocket money, which means Friday and Saturday movies are extrememly
profitable. This weekend was over the top insane. I rolled up to the
library about 20 minutes before showtime to a mob of kids pushing and
shoving... at a locked door. My library helpers morphed into security
guards and cleared the kids away from the door so we could get inside,
but even then, when we started taking money everyone was pushing to
get inside. On Friday I turned away about 30 kids who wanted to get in
after I declared that we had reached capacity (about 70) for the
night. So, I decided to show the same movie, Bulletproof Monk, on
Saturday as well, followed by Bubble Boy as the second film. Saturday
brounght another 70+ kids which means I brought in over $100 and now
have enough to pay for the satellite during the World Cup.

And the funny news? On Friday while I was collecting homework in 10B,
I found out that two of the boys are identical twins. In my defense, I
started teaching this class halfway through last term, but still
that's pretty bad. These two are a couple of the brightest kids in
that class that struggles so much. And now I have to figure out how to
tell them apart.

Mood Swings

I take some measure of pride in generally being an even keel person, but his week I have found myself on a bit of a roller coaster. Monday started with a staff meeting, nothing too noteworthy ever really happens in meetings. I've already learned that most of the times the
right things are said, but the follow through ends up lacking. Thats pretty standard for anywhere so its no big deal. Tuesday was supposed to be the first day of class. I'm not sure why but I thought that we would actually start class on Tuesday, instead we had the kids clean up the classes some and the teachers worked on paperwork that needs to be in order for when the inspectors visit. The theme of this term is preparing for the inspectors to be here for their week long visit. On Wednesday we started rotating to the different classes, but at least one third of the kids aren't here yet, so you have to decide if you start teaching and leave some kids behind or wait and not disadvantage them for being late to come back to school. I went for the halfway point, the grade 10 classes are going full steam ahead but I'm moving a bit slower with the grade 9 classes and covering a unit that is not as important as some of the others. My big revelation this week was that acids and bases are not tested in the big grade 10 exam, so I may as well breeze through that in grade 9 and spend more time on
electricity and the other topics that are tested. Its tough though because I want to have some fun with indicators but its not the best use of time, which gets wasted too much as it is. The other nice thing I learned this week is that I have a meeting in two weeks with some other science teachers to set an exam for August, I didn't expect to know about the meeting until the day before so the advance notice was very refreshing. Wednesday was the Champions League final, Barcelona beat Arsenal 2-1, thats soccer by the way. I wanted to show the match
in the library but the tv wasn't working, the Namibian station wasn't coming in and the Botswana station wasn't showing the match, but I went to a teacher's house and watched it even if the kids couldn't. It was an exciting game, the Arsenal keeper was red carded for tripping Eto'o after 18 minutes and Arsenal still took a 1-0 lead into half even though they were playing a man down. Anyways, Thursday was day 2 of classes and went ok, but with the timetable I didn't have many classes to teach. But by Thursday evening I had a headache and was tired so I didn't feel like getting ready for Friday's classes at all. My solution? Watch an Adam Sandler movie and plan my lessons while I watched. Always worked when I had homework that I didn't want to do and its still effective. Then Friday morning my classes went really well. I drilled my register class on walking into the room quietly, we had to go outside three times (and its cold in the morning) before they got it right. My register class had gotten out of control last term so I'm instilling a bit more discipline in them now, and after that my lesson on acids went off pretty well too. The big shocker, and encouragement, was that the class with the weakest students seemed to understand my lesson on simple machines (we made levers out of two pens to lift a shoe, taking off my shoe got their attention but I'm not sure how to work that into other lessons) and they had done their homework! The assignment was simple, bring a food label to class and show me how much energy is in the food, but they did it. I took the chance to encourage them as much as I could because they were discouraged last term by all of the teachers telling them about how bad they were doing (because they were doing bad) and how they were not going to amount to anything (which hopefully isn't true). So the first few classes went well, but then after break the school started
shutting down. I had fourth period off, but by fifth period over half the teachers were gone and by sixth period the office was locked and three teachers were left. I'm not sure how that is suposed to help education but I was looking foward to my later periods and now I'm behind.

I'm just reading Sen. Inhofe got a bill through making English the national language to the ire of Harry Reid. Now isn't the time to voice my opinions on the this issue but I will say that I think its interesting. When there is already so much division in the country, its odd that a move intending to promote unity could deepen the rifts. The really shocking news that I just saw on Drudge is this move in Iran to identify Jews, Christians, and Zorasters. Wow. The good news keeps coming too. Who would have guessed that LeBron could be on his way to the NBA finals? Not Rasheed Wallace and not anybody who has watched the smothering Detroit defense but ...

And the biggest news that I have to make sure you don't miss. A lot of us have been wondering lately what redeeming quality San Jose State University has after their unexplainable decision to hire Keith Burns as their defensive coordinator, but now we all have to tip our hats to the Spartans. A SJSU student just set a new American record for hot dog eating. At the Las Vegas qualifier for the July 4 extravaganza of gluttony at Nathan's, the 22 year old swallowed 50 hot dogs and buns to shatter the previous record of 42. What is more important is that the Japanese sensation who is the 5 time champion at Nathan's has won twice eating less than 50 dogs. Think Rocky IV, this is about national pride. So, treat yourself to a couple coneys and cheer for the red, white and blue this Independence Day. Forget language, America is more likely to be united by a spectacle of gluttony.

FYI - I just uploaded some photos from January and from the wedding I went to a couple weeks ago.

Six Months

Today marks six months I have been living in Namibia. I'm not sure
what this occasion deserves: celebration, reflection, maybe some
ambitious resolution. In a way it feels like a high school romance
acknowledging every month as a significant anniversary. Since the
proper action for this day eludes me I intend to celebrate, reflect
and resolve all at once. My celebration will be modest and mostly
involve food. I made myself breakfast burritos and coffee this morning
and plan to cook again this evening, meat loaf, potatoes and green
beans. If I have the energy I may bake some cookies as well. The
reflection is a bit more complex. I am looking back on six months in
this country and looking forward to a new school term at the same
time. As I turn around I realize that I haven't done much yet but
hopefully have laid the groundwork for projects that will be initiated
in the coming months. That could be an eloquent justification for
slovenly behavior or typical procrastination but I actually believe
that is the case. I spent some time this week writing down my
impressions of various people at the school and in the community with
whom I work. Having been in Coblenz for several months I have been
able to observe people in a variety of settings and assess who I
believe to be the best potential partners for any projects I pursue. I
also realized this week that the people here will remember me
differently than the way I will judge my own success as a Peace Corps
Volunteer. This revelation hit me over the weekend while I was hanging
out with some of my colleagues not doing anything. I actually didn't
do anything most of the time. The conversation was often in Otjiherero
so I just sat and tried to pick out words I knew and observed everyone
else. But the revelation came when a teacher said to me that he
appreciated my relaxed demeanor, that it made him feel like he could
relax around me. There were some other things said that I won't go
into, but what I took away from that was my efforts to adopt the pace
of life were working on some level. Regularly, I bite my tongue and
resist the temptation to take charge of a situation because I want to
wait for someone else to decide that they care enough to do something
about whatever is happening. This is my main rule for myself when I
think about sustainability. Sustainability is a great buzz word that
gets thrown around all over in conversations about development because
it is so vital. I figure that if I wait for leadership to emerge on
its own from local sources then my efforts are much more likely to
last. There is a danger in waiting in vain when what is really needed
is outside leadership, but I don't think that is the case here. Plenty
of people have good ideas and can articulate them well so my job is to
be patient and nurture the idea until things start happening. One
thing I absolutely want to avoid during my service is what I refer to
as the Santa Claus approach. It would be easy for me to write to all
of you and solicit donations of whatever sort, you all are generous
enough and I like to think that I am persuasive enough to convince you
to help with a project. But that would short circuit the whole process
of local initiative identifying an issue and developing a solution. If
I have learned anything during these six months it is that the people
I live and work with possess a wealth of talent and ingenuity in
solving the problems that mean the most to them. At the wedding last
weekend we were hard wiring floodlights to extension cords to provide
some light for the groom's family's campsite. In America we would have
bought a bunch of adapters or hauled out a generator and got the job
done. In this village they didn't need that stuff because they knew
how to solve the problem with local resources. That is the ultimate
goal. The problem lies in getting people to buy into the existence of
the issues that exist (e.g. AIDS, marginalization of the San,
atrocious pass rate in the grade 10 exams, etc.), finding the
threshold of local resources, fully utilizing those resources, and
then appropriately supplementing the local efforts with outside
assistance. My reflections might be a bit self flattering and sound
rather high minded, but I think I'll leave it that way. I'll criticize
my teaching and discuss my other faults in the privacy of my own
journal.

So then what is the resolution? What do I hope to accomplish in the
next six months? One goal I have is to spur the school into setting
goals. I have talked to my classes about setting goals for themselves
but I've not been able to get a clear vision of what the school would
like to be. Everyone can tell you that the learners don't perform well
enough on the external examinations but there is not a comprehensive
strategy to improve or even a corporate notion of what improvements we
are striving for. I want all my learners to pass Physical Science but
that won't happen. I want more than 20% of the grade 10 learners to
pass their exams so they can continue to grade 11 but I don't know
what percentage would be a successful improvement.

A lot of things were said during our reconnect training but the most
simple yet profound concept came from Jay H. His approach towards
sustainability is to directly invest in individuals and their personal
development. Libraries and computer labs will eventually go unused or
become obsolete. Workshops probably won't achieve their stated goals.
Test results are absurdly overemphasized. However, whatever task is
dubbed primary, the greatest local resource that must be discovered,
nurtured and empowered are the people. I can not discern why there is
not a greater emphasis placed in this direction. Probably because
people all over the world are extremely difficult to judge, impossible
to collaborate with and unreliable. But the real objective is to help
communities improve themselves and that will always have to start with
individuals.

Don't take all that too seriously, I'd call most of that reckless
idealism but hopefully this school and this community will somehow be
better for the time I've spent with them. I know that whatever happens
I will always benefit from the time I spend here.

Since you read this far you deserve my thanks and notice that I posted
several new pictures of the new playground and some around the school
office. I got the keys and was there after hours so I decided to take
some shots that might have been hard to explain during school hours.
Also there is a link to Nam25 Blogs. It goes to another blog that
updates whenever people in my group update their blogs. If you're
exceptionally bored at work or want to see if what I'm writing is true
or are just interested in some other PCVs blogs you should try that
one out. Many of these people write very well and I have enjoyed
reading their blogs when I get the chance.

new address

My new address is PO Box 145 in Grootfontein. At least that cuts one
chain out of the link of possible problems with me receiving mail.

Churchill

"The world, nature, human beings do not move like machines. The edges
are never clear-cut, but always frayed. nature never draws a line
without smudging it."

from Great Contemporaries written by Winston Churchill about the most
prominent political figures of his time, written in the early 1930s,
between the two big wars

Coffee

If you've ever wanted to learn about brewing coffee make a turn by
DoubleShot, but if you don't live in Tulsa you could check out
www.coffeegeek.com. I was curious about how the hard water here might
be affecting the flavor of the coffee I brew. I haven't found anything
very specific besides that a lot of websites recommend bottled water
if your tap tastes bad. But my water tastes fine it just has stuff
dissolved in it. The problem is alleviated by heating the water
because some of the salts precipitate out of the water but I know the
water isn't pure. My biggest problem with coffee now is that the stuff
I have is too old and tastes a bit stale.

The playground people are gone as of this morning. Yesterday the
handles on the see-saw broke, no suprise it was just rope tied around
the log, but the real excitement was when one of the swings broke. The
most annoying person in their group immediately assumed that someone
had climbed up and tampered with the nuts, but upon further review I
think they forgot to put a second nut on one the bolt that came loose.
It was an easy repair job and I doubt it will be an ongoing issue but
the officials are still reviewing the photographs from earlier in the
day to see if the bolt in question was fastened with one or two nuts.
Those locking nuts are far less effective if you forget to put the
second one on. I'm working on getting the pictures uploaded and then
you can decide for yourself if the swing was hung properly the first
time.

Last night a wedding got started in the village and it will continue
until Sunday. Not much was happening yesterday evening so I didn't
stay long but this afternoon there is supposed to be some more
activity.

Mail

If you want to send me a package I finally got good idea to pass on.
Several years ago I decided that it would make a lot of sense to
celebrate every holiday a week late so that you could take advantage
of all of the post holiday sales. Living in Namibia I can celebrate
holidays pretty much whenever I want and since mail takes so long to
get here, if it ever does, you should wait until after the holiday has
already happened before you send me anything. For example, I would
love a random Halloween package and what better time to get stuff for
such a gift as right after Halloween when everything goes on sale. I
don't mind eating black and orange peanut M&Ms in December. Unless
you're incredibly lucky or can work magic I won't get anything on the
proper day or even the right month anyway so lets beat the system and
forget about normal holidays. I'll celebrate everything six weeks
after the real holiday and maybe have some holiday themed candy that
was half price to enjoy it with.

For real, this is the mail situation. The ministry of education didn't
pay the bill for the school's po box so all of my mail was rejected
for at least a two week period. I received a hand delivered letter
that had been posted in Namibia on Feb. 8, it was stamped in
Grootfontein on March 15, and again in Grootfontein on March 29 when
it was returned to the sender. You can do the math on when anything
you sent might have arrived but for those two weeks at least, we're
probably out of luck. You might get it back but I don't have a lot of
faith in anything making it back through customs and across the ocean
again. The only mail I have actually gotten recently are birthday
cards from Grandma Cornett and Aunt Connie. Letters seem to take about
a month and packages anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months depending on
how you shipped it. This is just for informations sake, I am only
frustrated with the mail services here and just thankful for anything
that does come through. I will try to send a note whenever something
does arrive.

The only partial solution I have for the mail situation is that I am
going to open my own box at the post office next time I am in town.
Its only a modest annual fee so I would rather pay some now than have
this happen again next year if the ministry doesn't pay the bill for
the school again. Once I get that opened I will be sure to alert you,
but in the meantime the 2004 box should be fine for the next year as
far as not getting things bounced. Its just a matter of getting
someone to collect the mail since I don't have a key.

The group that built that playground is leaving tomorrow and I am
mostly glad to see them go. That sounds pretty harsh so let me
explain a little. Many of the people in the group have been pleasant
but there are some that are annoying me to no end. I was able to give
them a brief history lesson last night which was nice but the
disparaging comments are difficult to deal with. The first time I was
around the group I was ready to actively avoid them for the rest of
the week, but after a little more time I identified the one ringleader
of the awful comments. The others seemed to just be feeding off the
one that is the worst because they are generally ok to be around. I
think part of my attitude is like that of an older brother, I can make
negative observations about life in the village but you'd better not
even think about it. I have felt the need to defend many things and
people while I have been around the group from Raleigh and I don't
like having to do that. Also, the group of builders is mixed, mostly
Brits, 3 Namibians and one from Hong Kong. The most disappointing
thing about having them all here is that they are completely separate
and the Brits, not all but nearly all, treat the Namibians with
unveiled contempt. I don't know what all has happened before I showed
up, but the separation and disdain is palpable. I had idealistically
imagined that the group would get along in a more unified fashion and
that they would interact with each other as peers. And especially that
the Brits would include the minority aspects of the group instead of
alienating them and then mistreating them. The Brits in the group
don't understand much about Namibia, which is understandable with the
short time they have been here, but they are not very understanding or
willing to adapt to how things work here. I will be glad when they are
gone, but I am pleased with the playground they constructed. The
positive side is that with all these outsiders in the village I feel
much more like an insider. I have intentionally spoken to some of the
Brits in Namlish that I know they won't understand because it makes me
feel like I belong here a little more. That might be a little bit
spiteful, but too bad. If you're going to rag on my home and the
people I live with I don't mind leaving you confused.

new playground

This morning we opened the new playground built by people from Raleigh
International. I don't have the pictures ready to upload just yet but
I will be working on that over the next couple days. Our opening
ceremonies consisted of a few short speeches after which about 30 kids
swarmed the new playground. I took a hundred pictures and several
short videos and will be getting photos from a couple other cameras
that were at the event. Tonight we are going to have a small braai to
celebrate and then tomorrow there is a wedding in Coblenz that I will
attend and photograph as well.

If you didn't already know you should be aware that Garrett Mills was
drafted by the New England Patriots. I am interested in opinions on
the Spanish version of the national anthem. Is there a back
translation available? If you can sing it Spanish is there going to be
a version for every lanuage soon? Why not Clingon? Also does anybody
know if Angelina Jolie has had her baby yet? There was a rumor that
Brad and Angelina were going to have a traditional Himba wedding but I
am skeptical because Himba women are usually topless. On a historical
note, the HImba and Herero have the same ancestry but split into
separate tribes centuries ago.

Back in the village

I would like to give you a a quick recap of the last couple weeks, but I'm kind of tired and don't feel like writing much. I'll probably get around to philosophizing more later this week but for now one story will suffice. Last week Sunday, in the middle of the Peace Corps training conference that was about 4 days too long, I decided to go for a walk by myself in the hills around the hotel/conference center we were staying at. I set out after a good breakfast (we ate very well throughout the entire conference) with some food, water, cell phone, reading and writing material. My goal was to get lost, but being a bit too practical I decided to follow the dirt road. The tall grass seemed like a good habitat for snakes and most of the land was fenced. After walking for an hour and crossing two ridges I was sufficiently far from the hotel that no other PCV would come by and disturb me (not that I hate the other people in the group but I was hoping for a little solitude) I found a rather lousy place to sit on a rock in the shade. Not long after I got comfortable I heard a horse in the distance. I had already noticed some goats grazing in the distance but the horse seemed to be coming closer. I took a minute to watch the hill above me and finally caught sight of a white horse and a brown one grazing and clearly walking towards the road where I was sitting. Since I had climbed through a gate to get to this point I decided to put some space between me and the horses and head back towards the hotel. Don't worry about the gate, if people want to keep you out in Namibia they use razor wire or an electric fence, I just slipped through the opening in this gate. I had seen a couple side trails earlier so I checked a couple out before I found a nice rock to sit on with a decent shade tree. I checked the grass around my rock and decided it was the perfect place to spend a couple hours. After a few minutes of reading I heard a sound in the distance. At first I thought it was a dog barking and some pigs squealing (I had passed a small pig farm on the way) but then I realized that I was in the vicinity of baboons. The noise was coming from some distance so I decided to keep reading and keep my ears open. It didn't take long before it was obvious that the baboons were coming closer and they were excited about something. My shade tree was between me and the noise, so I stood up to see what I could see. When I was on my feet I discovered a pack of about 10 baboons about 200 meters away jumping around and making quite a raucous. I watched them for a little while running around and climbing trees, but then seven of the baboons took off to my left and three started moving towards my right flank. I was curious to see what they would do but knowing that baboons are territorial and can be pretty mean I moved back to the road and headed back towards the hotel. I tried sitting in one more place but it didn't have any shade and the lizzards were fighting me for space on the warm rock. I ended up lounging by the pool most of the day away from the wildlife.