Rukwanganli, giraffes, and... bucket baths?

Ngapi Nawa! (How are you?)

The last few days we have started off each morning with about 2-3 hours of language classes. The language we will be speaking and are currently learning is Rukwangali (Rue - qwan - gal - ee). It is spoken in the Kavango region of the country, which is essentially a state in the northern most part of the country. While it will be hard to learn a completely new language, the good thing is that the spelling of the language is entirely phonetic. If you now how to make the sounds (which are pretty straightforward), it is incredibly easy to read.  Another factor that will help is that our host family is fluent in Rukwangali and are from the Kavango region! We have a LPI test (Language Proficiency Interview) next Tuesday already, and have to be at a “Novice Advanced” level. Crazy, considering we will have only had language classes for 10 days when we take the test. We have to learn fast!!

 We moved in with our host family last Tuesday (7/31/2012) evening. They are super nice and seem to think that Lindsey and I like to eat 10 pounds of food at dinner, because the mom is constantly stacking up food on our plate. They have 3 kids, but their two cousins and the mom’s brother are also staying here - so a total of 10 people in a house that was smaller than our apartment in Fort Worth and has one bathroom. I guess this is what it feels like to have a huge family? We have to take bucket baths in the morning, which really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. They have running water but don’t have a hot water heater, so the water would be absolutely freezing in a shower right now anyway. We have to boil water in the morning on their stove, and then pour the water into a bucket and mix it with colder water - we have mastered the art of getting the perfect water temperature for a bucket bath. Nawa unene. Plus, we will probably have to bath in a bucket for the next two years so we might as well get used to it now. But really, it isn’t bad. It has been freezing here for the past few days. We have a nifty little clock/thermometer (thanks Mom!), and our room is usually between 55-60 degrees, and it has been around freezing every night outside. So, it is pretty cold to get out of bed in the morning......

Last Saturday our training class (there are 35 of us) took a trip to Windhoek (the capital of Namibia) to get Namibian cell phones. We saw several herds of giraffes, baboons, warthogs, and gemsboks along the way - which was AWESOME. It is pretty cool to see wildlife actually in the wild, instead of a zoo. On Sunday, we went to church with our host family from 9 - 12:30. They definitely don’t mess around when it comes to signing and dancing. It is almost like a competition to see who can sing the loudest haha, so it was a great time. We also went to a funeral last week for a 5 month old baby (it was the baby of our host mom’s brother). While a rather somber event, it was interesting to see an African funeral service. It was in an army tent in the sand with a campfire in the middle. Literally, I think Africans are born knowing how to sing and harmonize perfectly - they certainly love to sing here, and they sing often.

We also had to wash our first batch of clothes on Sunday, by hand. Our host mom helped us, so it went a lot quicker than it would have if just Lindsey and I would have attacked it. But dang, she really went to town on my socks..... after she rung them out, they were practically twice their original size haha. But no worries, the sun here is strong and shrunk them back to 1.5 times their normal size. Lindsey keeps insisting that ringing out and scrubbing our clothes will be a good “weekly stress reliever”. I don’t know if I believe her.

The Peace Corps will tell us our permanent site on Tuesday, and we leave for a 5 day site visit on Thursday - so we are very excited about that right now. Sorry, these pictures actually should have gone with the LAST post - I am just happy that they actually uploaded. We are going to get a internet USB stick that connects to the internet through the cell phone signal, so hopefully we will be able to upload some pics then a little easier. Right now, the only place in town is sold out because the other volunteers bought them up! Until next time.

Kareni Po Nawa,

Tim & Lindsey