The End Is Near

Oh hey guys. It has been a while. I have been waiting to upload a new post because I was hoping to be finished with the playground and include that story, but it doesn’t look like that is going to happen for another few weeks. Delays, delays..... but for now, here is what has been going on!

Culture

Every year, each region around Namibia holds a cultural competition where schools put together a group of students to sing, dance, and drum in their traditional attire. This year and for the first time in Mayara history, our school got first place! The cultural group has been practicing everyday for hours on end for the past month, so Lindsey and I have become very accustomed to the constant pounding of drums late into the evening (they practice about 50 yards from our hut). Since they got first place, they qualified for the next round of competitions and have already resumed their drum beating in preparation.  I hope their hard work pays off.

Some of the student in their traditional attire.

The younger guys need desks to help hold up the bongo drums.

The celebration that ensued when Mayara found out they won!

Camp GLOW

Lindsey has been super busy trying to plan and organize Camp GLOW for this coming August. She is a co-chair with another volunteer, Steph, and they are splitting the workload between themselves. Without a doubt, it is much harder and more frustrating than they originally thought it would be. They have been emailing, calling, and faxing companies to try to get information regarding quotes, donations, etc., however, many people do not respond, despite the constant reminders from Lindsey and Steph. Emails go ignored, phone calls unreturned, and faxes are thrown away. There are certainly some people and organizations that have been more than willing to help, but it has still been frustrating and sometimes painstakingly slow getting things done. Everything is progressing, it just takes a lot of work and consistent reminders on behalf of Lindsey and Steph. The camp itself is going to be amazing, but I know that Lindsey will be very relieved when the organizing and planning is finished.

A couple of weeks ago all of the counselors for Camp GLOW, which are 12 Peace Corps Volunteers and 16 Namibians, went down to Windhoek for a training/bonding weekend to help prepare for camp. Lindsey and Steph were in charge of buying food for the 3 days that we were there. Little did any of us know, that the place we were staying did not have a stove..... So after we arrived with all the food, we realized we had no way to cook any of it unless we did it over a fire, which of course we did not have wood for. Lindsey and I rode along with another guy (who owns a car and is part of GLOW) and drove around a pretty shady area of Windhoek after dark in search of mysterious firewood. We finally found an incredibly inebriated man that gave us a great deal after stopping at five different places. For some reason the other four places did not want to sell us their wood....

The entire GLOW team.

Shoe Eating Dogs

During the conference, all of the guys camped outside in tents (which was actually freezing because it is winter here and Windhoek has a higher elevation than Denver - you just learned something new) and a stupid dog came and stole my sandals and both pairs of my shoes. Incase you are wondering, I left them all outside the tent because I washed them that day in a real life washing machine and they were still wet. Well, I woke up in the morning and just like that, all of my footwear that I have here was gone.

This story does have a happy ending. We found my sandals and I was able to have all the chewed up straps sewn back together, so they are basically as good as new. My other two pairs of shoes were found on the morning when we were packing up. Apparently (and I still have no idea why) someone took those two pairs of shoes the first night and moved them back inside a room and never told me, despite the fact that our entire group went out search the destroyed, dog-eaten shoes. So just when I thought all was lost, all appears to be well in the shoe department.

COS

Lindsey and I have already been in Namibia for two years, and next week we have our COS (close of service) conference with the Peace Corps in Windhoek. How time flies...... I seriously cannot believe that our time here is nearly done and we actually have to think about what we are going to do in the future. At the conference we will go over all of the closing procedures, have medical checkups that basically test us for any and everything (which I have been told includes many poo samples over a course of several days. yum.), and find out the specific date that we will leave Namibia - which for Lindsey and I will most likely be the beginning of September, but we will find out for sure this coming week. Sadly, it is also the last time we will see most of the other volunteers from our group, unless we happen to run into them before we all leave.

Although we will be leaving Namibia in September, we won’t actually fly back to America until December. We are going on a pretty massive trip around Southeast Asia, India, and Nepal. We anticipate being on the go for around 4 months, but we haven’t booked any flights yet because we have to find out when we are leaving Namibia first before we can pull the trigger on anything.

The End Of Teaching

When we get back from Windhoek after our week long COS conference, there will only be one more week of teaching until the students start taking their exams. So basically, we are completely done with teaching in Namibia. Sure, we will do some revision with our students before they take their exams but overall, it is smooth sailing with teaching from here on. 

A parents meeting held under some trees. This should be the last one we have to attend.

Hopefully sometime in the next 2-3 weeks I will be be 100% finished with the playground, so expect a post about that sometime in the near future. Until next time...

Peace,

Tim