Living in Mayara
So what does a typical day look like for us in Mayara? Several people have asked us what a normal day is like - hopefully this will help. We usually wake up around 6:30 AM and eat a pretty typical breakfast that consists of either oatmeal or scrambled eggs. Here is a breakdown from there:
7:15 AM- arrive at school after a 2 minute walk from our hut
7:30 AM - school starts
10:10 AM - 30 minute break.
1:20 PM - school is over which means lunch time, followed by a 30-40 minute nap - everyday. We love naps.
2:30 PM - study time for the students. They come to back to school for an hour and a half to study or do homework
4:00 PM - study is over and we go home.
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM - we normally read
5:00 PM - I go play soccer for a few hours, Lindsey goes for a run
7:00 PM - 8:00 - eat a delicious Lindsey prepared dinner (I’m pretty sure that we eat better than any other volunteers in Namibia)
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - clean up the kitchen and take a luxurious bucket bath
9:00 PM - 10:30 PM - watch a TV show or movie on our computer (we have quite the collection of media on our external hard drive)
10:30 PM - sweet dreams
That is our typical, Monday thru Friday schedule.
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| A donkey grazing as a women carries a jug on her head - a typical village scene. |
On the weekends, if we stay in Mayara, there isn’t a whole lot to do. We read a lot, read some more, take a nap, then maybe read a little, then maybe take another nap, sweat a lot, and then go for a run and sweat way more. There is not a lot to do in the village on the weekends. The phenomenon of doing nothing is known by volunteers as “village chillage”, because when you aren’t busy at school, you certainly have a lot of time to just.....chill. A good friend of mine from another village said this exact phrase - “I am afraid that when I go back home, everyone is just going to be like, ‘Dude, whats wrong with you? You just sit there all the time, like staring at stuff.’ Yeah, I guess I’ve got really used to just chilling......” Luckily, Lindsey and I have each other to talk to, so our sanity in the village lasts much longer than volunteers who are by themselves. Some of the loners try having conversations with goats when they are bored. To each his own I suppose.
On Sundays we usually do our laundry, which can take between 2-3 hours and then we read or take a nap. Those are usually the only options haha
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| Doing the Sunday laundry. |
End of Term 1
So believe it or not, we are already done with our first term of teaching. Remember, Namibia is on a trimester schedule, so they have three semesters throughout the year instead of two like in the US. So we have another month long break that starts on April 24th and goes until May 20th.
Exam time here is..... unusual. All of the students have 8 classes each semester, and they have a final in all of them. However, they only take one test per day, and some of tests are broken up into two parts for certain classes which spreads the final for that class over two days - so it takes over two weeks for them to take their finals. The students come to school in the morning, study for a few hours, then take a test and leave. They do that everyday for over two weeks. For the teachers, it is a pretty slow time, but it is certainly nice to have a break from teaching.
We had to make all of our exams for the end of this first semester. For the next two, the Ministry of Education makes the finals, so the students unfortunately usually do much worse on those exams because they throw some weird material in the questions that most teachers have not covered - which I am sure will include me.
Easter
We spent Easter at Popa Falls, the same place that we went for Thanksgiving, and had another little get together with about 10 other volunteers. The food was great and we all had a great time. One evening, we were all sitting on this hill that overlooks the Kavango River, and all the guys were talking about how awesome it would be to make a rope swing and swing from the top of the hill down into the water. There was even a perfect tree that hung way out over the water from where we were. We debated the best way to make it possible but then all the conversation stopped when we saw a 15 foot crocodile swim by, right where our theoretical rope swing would drop us. We then decided it would be too much work to build a landing cage and abandoned our imaginary rope swing idea. Too bad.
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| We took a little river cruise over Easter as well. |
Black Mamba
This past Thursday, I came into our hut to fill up my water bottle and guess what slithered across the ground and under our stove? A snake of course. I freaked out and grabbed my trusty axe handle and waited for it to come out, standing a few feet back from the stove. It wasn’t very big and it was tan, so I thought it was another Mozambique Spitting Cobra, like the one we had an encounter with a few months ago. I didn’t want to leave the hut, because then it could just hide in our hut somewhere without us knowing - so I waited with my axe handle ready to swing. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, it stuck its head out and I gave that thing the last beating it would ever have. After further inspection, it turned out to be a black mamba, the most dangerous and aggressive snake in all of Africa. They are called black mambas because the inside of their mouths are black, not because their bodies are black. They are huge when they are full grown. This one was only about two feet long so it was definitely a baby, which explains why it was active during the middle of the day. Two Namibians also confirmed that it was a mamba.
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| I hate snakes. |
Our killer cat was also present for this whole episode, and it was curled up asleep the whole time..... completely oblivious to the snake. But really, our cat actually has become quite the killing machine. Almost everyday this past week, we have found either dead or half eaten mice around our yard. She also has taken a fancy to bats -
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| Our cat leaves us little presents outside our door sometimes. |
Cape Town and Victoria Falls
At the end of April, there are six of us that are taking a marathon 20 hour bus ride to Cape Town, South Africa. We plan on staying for 8-9 days, so we should have a pretty awesome time. There is great white shark cage diving, wreck diving, canyoning, hiking, mountain climbing, wine tours, and surfing and much more - even though it is kind of scary to surf in the same water where you go great white shark cage diving..... I have no idea if we will actually do all of those things, but we are certainly going to try. After Cape Town, we are going to eventually make our way back up to the north of Namibia and head over to Victoria Falls - the biggest waterfall in the world. In addition to the giant waterfall, Victoria Falls has white water rafting, crocodile cage diving, and the second highest bungee jump in the world. So as you can see, May is going to be an action packed month for us. I am sure that the next post will not be for quite a while since we will be traveling, but it will be a good one for sure. If you have any questions, shoot them over!
Until next time
-Tim
