Anniversaries

6 November – I got the pictures uploaded and caught a couple hikes  to get back to Coblenz in time for the big 50th Anniversary party. I got back Thursday evening so I unpacked and asked around to try to find out what happened the last few days with little success. Friday morning after the usual before school staff meeting I found out that nearly all the kids had gone home, the party had already started. The big surprise on returning to school was when I stepped into the library. Two teachers had taken it upon themselves to make some kids clean the library while I was gone. The best of intentions: forcing kids to do work while the teachers played computer games (I got the information later from some kids)   but unsupervised kids invariably mess things up. These kids succeeded in destroying all semblance of organization on every shelf in the library. Books were randomly placed on the wrong shelves backwards and upside down. I took me four hours to get everything back in order and the shelves had been thoroughly cleaned less than two weeks prior. The shelves didn't need to be cleaned but somebody failed to realize that.

 

The 50th  anniversary weekend went pretty much as I expected it would. Around lunch time on Friday some teachers from a neighbouring school arrived half drunk and continued eating and drinking until evening when they went back home. Through the afternoon other people arrived and joined in the drinking. My tone is one of disapproval so let me clarify that. The problem I have with the whole scene is that grade 9 kids are used to serve the alcohol. And the rest of the kids that are around crowd on the other side of the chain link fence and dance to the music while they watch the adults get drunk. Great example. The only other event on Friday was a poorly attended performance by a dancing group from the region. I turned in around 1AM but the party continued until sunrise. Saturday was the main day for the official speeches by principals, chiefs, teachers, former teachers, Ministry officials, former students, and farmers interspersed with music and dancing from a variety of groups. I participated twice during the program. My first performance was a rendition of a Don Williams classic, I guess the farming culture is the link but people here love classic country. I was gently coerced into playing the song and singing along with the teacher who insisted on having country music in the program after hearing me strum my guitar. He could barely hear me play, I could barely hear him sing but people seemed to enjoy it and afterwards I heard from a credible source that we sounded just fine coming through the sound system. Oh yeah, we picked the song at 7pm on Friday night, I figured out how to play it that night and we practised Friday night and Saturday morning before going on stage. I was also part of the teachers' choir that was organized two weeks before the event although I will confess that I stood in the very back so that I could consult my cheat sheet because I didn't know any of the words from the song we sang in Otjiherero. My other contribution was as photographer and since another PCV was at the event I also have pictures from when I was on stage. The program went from 10AM until 2PM but many people didn't come inside and just started drinking instead. More food and drink continued throughout the afternoon and evening but I spend most of my time at the soccer field with the kids. The evening entertainment was supposed to be a beauty contest but I was spent at 10PM, I went home to take my medicine and realized that my uncomfortable bed looked incredibly inviting.

 

The new development that came out of the weekend was another donation of computers. We started with five, got two at the beginning of the term and got two more with the indication of more to come during the anniversary. My plan to reorganize the library has been stalled, but now it is obvious that it is essential. More importantly we now have enough computers to offer a class as a promotional subject from grade 8 to 10. Since this is new for the school I am going to take a very firm line that I will not teach the class by myself. The ideal situation would be to co-teach with someone else so that I could help get the class started and pass off the responsibility for the class and the computers in general to another teacher.

 

Right now I'm writing and sort of watching the fourth quarter of the Seattle/Oakland Monday Night Football game. I don't remember the last time I watched such a boring game but its still fun to watch MNF on Tuesday afternoon. The teams are so bad the announcers spent the entire first half raving about a back-up quarterback and counting sacks against the other. At one point the game skipped past a Raider drive because they only have three hours to fit the game, but really I think it was more sympathy for the viewers.

 

15 November – Living in Namibia for a year is an occasion worth celebrating so I made up some beef and bean burritos for dinner and then stayed up for college football at 2:45 in the morning. The interesting thing is that this is the longest I've lived in any one place since high school. I hadn't kept the same address for more than nine months in Tulsa. Besides that milestone not much else is going on. Exams have started and to my great relief we split the kids up into different classes for the examination. Its a good arrangement because each class has two different grades so that you can alternate them and make it impossible to see someone else's paper but I'm just glad that I don't have to put up with my class for these last few weeks. These last few weeks, three weeks to go and I'm counting down. My subject is written next Thursday which is Thanksgiving so I plan to procrastinate marking for a couple days. I think I'll try to make fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy but I'm holding out hope I might find some StoveTop somewhere in Grootfontein. If I could find red hots I'd be making jello but maybe it will just have be some plain cherry instead of the indomitable red hot applesauce jello. If you've never had red hot applesauce jello you should feel sorry for yourself because it is a marvel of the culinary arts. I would write out the recipe here so that you can make some for yourself but I don't know what proportions are correct, the ingredients are in the name.