photos instead of videos

You’re probably all video-ed out by now…sorry ’bout that.  As a little break, here are some pictures to scroll through.

Students sweep the classrooms because students dirty the classrooms.

Not that I have a favorite class, but if I did....

One morning I woke up to the suffocating smell of smoke. One of the hostel staff was burning leaves he'd just raked. Try to sleep in when you have smoke pouring into your house. I guess (to quote my brother about the sound of his newborn's cries): Evolutionarily speaking, we weren't designed to ignore that.

I loved reading Pockets magazines when I was younger. Now my mom sends 'em in care packages for my students to read. It is probably better for their reading level than a lot of other publications I loan them. Pockets is a United Methodist magazine.

Last year we read a book called Chocolate Fever, by Robert Kimmel Smith. In it, the main character loves chocolate so much he breaks out in brown spots that turn out to be a chocolate rash. One day these 9th grade girls surprised me by showing up to school with their own makeshift chocolate fever, courtesy of a brown marker. It made me love them just a little bit more

Sharing a dictionary; borrowing magazines received in a care package; demonstrating that a sense of "personal space" differs greatly from culture to culture.

changing classes

In most schools, there is a buffer between classes.  First bell rings, which means the period is over and you walk to your next class.  There is a 2- to 3-minute window in which to travel.  Second bell rings, which means no more walking, no more talking, you’re in your seat and the next period has begun.

In Namibia, one bell rings and one bell only.  So there’s no way to determine if a student is late.

Worse still, the bell is hand-controlled, so if the secretary is busy or not around, the bell just doesn’t get rung.  That means I could have prepared my lesson and timed it exactly so that it’s finished in 40 minutes…but all of a sudden I have seven extra minutes on my hands and I’m wondering what to do with 35 kids.

Seven unplanned minutes with 35 kids is a lot.

Here is what it looks like for students to meander on to the next class.  I do sorely miss the fastidious schedules of most American schools:

not the best way to spend a Friday night

taken last year at one of the many pageants we hold at our school – but at least that one involved older girls

I loathe basing a woman’s value on her appearance.  Worse still is doing it to a young girl.  Worse still is being an official judge for the beauty pageant known as Miss Newcomer 2012.

Here are these young girls—13, 14, 15—getting leered at by people of all ages.  Countless men were there holding up their cell phones for pictures and videos.  The swimwear competition was actually the girls walking around in their bras, because most of them apparently don’t have swimsuits.  I realize a bra is no more revealing than a bikini top, but it feels so much worse.  I didn’t want to look.

I don’t know what the worst part of the evening was.  Was it how the tickets say it starts at 7, but it didn’t start till 8:45, nor finish till 11:30?  Was it how a performance of this simple, repetitive dance style they all love makes the kids scream as if it’s Elvis’ pelvis…when to me it looks utterly boring?  Was it how some of the catwalks were agonizingly slow and we just wanted to get on with it already?  Was it how the dining hall has wooden floors and every sound echoes, so you can’t hear what the girls answer for the question segment—the only part worthwhile, to me?

No.  I know what the worst part was.

It was our very own “wardrobe malfunction” a la Janet Jackson at that old Super Bowl performance.  I thought I was uncomfortable just watching underage girls in their bras.  Little did I realize how much worse things could be.

(Some of these kids are from the Himba tribe, where women are topless all the time.  Moreover, Namibians have explained to me that shoulders, cleavage, and even breasts are no big deal—but when you show leg it’s really scandalous.  Nevertheless, the audience was mortified.  The poor girl had no idea her strapless dress had sunk too low.  As I was averting my eyes from her, I was watching the reaction of everyone else.  That’s how I could glean that, Himbas or not, this was horrifying.)

The icing on the cake was at the very end, when the same girl with the wardrobe malfunction thought she’d been called as one of the ten finalists.  So she started to come forward before realizing her number had not been called.  And thus her humiliation was complete.

I rushed home as soon as the show was over and wished I could go to sleep and never wake up.  Before I fell asleep, though, I prayed the prayer Jesus warns against:

“God, thank you thank you thank you that that’s not me.”

(Luke 18:11, AP)

panorama of the village

In this 360-degree view, you can see what our students do for fun on free afternoons, the hostel where the kids live, how close our teacher housing is to our principal housing/office building/school blocks, and even some guys doing construction on the pavement near our assembly block.  Just another day in the life….

new year, new hope

sunrise over Otjiperongo, Sunday, January 29

I’ve been back at site for three weeks now.  It’s strange how much changes from one lifestyle to the other.  Now, the advertisements I see online implore me to “Become an American—get a green card” and remind me, “Do not miss your chance to live and work in the USA” as it shows a Statue of Liberty holding up a STOP sign.

Now, I have to stop and think before I say a catchphrase like “The buck stops here.”  I was in a meeting with my principal and wanted to use the term “benchmark,” too, but didn’t know if it would translate.

What a difference from one place to the next.  You’ll recall the passport official in the U.S. airport, who refused to say “hello” back to anyone who greeted him.  Compare that to the passport official in the S.A. airport, who asked me how long I’d be staying and offered me the keys to his place.

Coming back felt like a fuzzy, bad dream in some ways.  I hated being confronted with all those old worries related to food, transportation, and safety.  Big worries—basic parts of life.  …You know how, when someone you love dies, there is that occasional morning where you wake up and forget for a moment–but then you remember?  It was a little like that.

But, I am coming to believe that with God we can have hope.  And there are many blessings to be grateful for about my return here.  We now have a big antennae for better cell phone reception.  I have screens on a couple windows and no mosquitoes.  Chatting and joking with fellow teachers has become easier and easier.  This year I get to teach mostly just 9^th and 10^th graders, which means we have lively classes with quick conversation (as the kids are, after all, about 19 years old).  Our school received even more new equipment, like a giant copy machine that I adore.  Best of all, I’ve done this before.  So I’m not as scared about discipline problems and I somehow have gotten more respect.

As always, your comments on these entries help me carry on.  I’ll keep you posted in the new year!

reuniting with my gal pals