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.