A couple of evenings ago I was out running with Pete in his village when some funny things happened. First, we met an old woman to whom we said "walalapo", which is the standard greeting over here. However, she took this as a sign of our verbosity in Oshiwambo, and proceeded to speak rapidly to us in Oshiwambo. Despite our shaking heads and our increasingly desperate hand gestures to indicate that we didn't understand a word she was saying, she continued to speak to us, only more loudly and with more than a hint of frustration in her voice at our apparent stupidity! It was hilarious. What I took away from it all, was that she was trying to ask us what the hell we were doing running around like a couple of idiots in the middle of the village!

Second, on our way back to Pete's house, a group of about 6 children and women, who had just finished ploughing and hoeing for the day, decided to join us! It was very funny because they were screaming and laughing the entire time! Although they almost all eventually dropped out, one little boy ran the last mile and half with us, carrying a hoe that was twice his size until Pete took it and carried it for him!

In the long jump we used pieces of trash to measure people's jumping distances!

These are some photos of the athletic trials we held throughout the past week. As you can see, the students run in their uniforms, barefoot or in socks.

The first photo shows the entrance to the Mission grounds. As you can see from the sign, there is also a home for disabled children on the Mission grounds. The kids at the Cheshire Home are fabulous, and many a wheelchair race goes on in the afternoons!

The second photo shows a young student headed to school on the Mission grounds. Although most of the students are boarders, there are some from the surrounding area who walk to and from school everyday.

Each evening before driving, I have to make sure I am on the road before it gets dark because of the high risk of hitting animals on the pitch black roads(i.e. oryx or kudu)! So as soon as the sun becomes orange, I'm on the road! One of the perks of driving at this time of day is that I get to enjoy the beautiful sunsets in the big Namibian sky.

And another week of teaching is over! Tomorrow I will upload my latest photos when I head into Oshakati where the internet cafe has a USB port.

One of the highlights of this week was helping out with the athletic trials. It was quite the experience, and made me think back to my days of athletics in secondary school. Comparing these two experiences, I am mostly struck by what I perceive to be the many challenges that the students here face: not a single students appears to own a pair of runners, most do not even have any sports gear to speak of (shorts etc.), the weather is about 30 C, most do not have water bottles and so are unable to drink anything for the whole afternoon, and lastly, many have not eaten since early in the morning. But no one complains about any of this! It's incredible.

Speaking of their morning routine, the students have to wake up at 5a.m. in order to shower and go to Mass before school. Apparently they wake up so early primarily because there are just too many people for the number of showers available. One girl told me that she sometimes wakes up at 3a.m. to guarantee taking a shower!

As for my own daily routine, I am up at 6.30a.m. every morning and at school by 7.30a.m. School runs until 1.40p.m. when we end and eat lunch. I am cooking for myself, and have reverted back to vegetarianism! Truth be told, I only ate a piece of chicken one time back with my host family in Rehoboth because they didn't consider chicken to be meat! I remember Pete's host mother saying that she doesn't eat a lot of meat, which is a little strange considering we are in Namibia, but that when asked what she eats instead, she said a lot of chicken and fish! Pete and I cook dinner together every evening, which is a welcome respite in the day. Afterwards, I drive home on the sand roads and enjoy watching the beautiful Namibian sky changing colours. I think I'm getting better at tackling these roads, and sometimes I think that this is what it must be like to be a rally car driver! Another aspect of driving here is that I almost always give people hitchhikes. It reminds me of my days back in boarding school in rural Wales, where I would hitchhike on a regular basis! I enjoy the company and getting to know some other people in the community.

More and more of my students are coming to visit me in the evenings, which is really nice. I don't want to promise too much, but it's hard not to get caught up in their enthusiasm. Recently we have been discussing extracurricular activities, and if I am not too busy, I am going to try start the drama club next week as well as get a women's soccer team together, although we still have to buy a football, and the girls will have to play barefoot!

Pete's school is only 5km from the border with Angola, and I found it incredible when told that some students walk all the way from Angola to attend his school! I guess this is just another example of the porous and ambiguous nature of borders! Apparently there is an agreement between Angola and Namibia that people living within 30km on either side of the border do not need any documents to travel between the two countries.

This weekend we are heading off to visit some of the other volunteers again, and I think that we will even attend a VSO party! It will be fun to meet some volunteers from other organisations. That's all for now, remember to check back again for the latest photos!

Just in case anyone feels like sending me some post/mail (hint, hint)...

P/Bag 503 Ombalantu
Namibia

In the off chance that you are sending me anything of importance, I have been advised to tell you that you should address it to Sister Sinead Hunt, and maybe write some "I love Jesus" or "Praise the Lord" messages on the outside of the envelope/package!! In addition to the postal service being somewhat unreliable in general, a fair bit of postage theft goes on (the religious motif is supposed to make people feel too guilty to steal!).

Also, my cell phone is + 264 081 208 7761.

Last thing, I celebrated a small victory yesterday! I made seating charts for each of my classes (good idea thanks to another volunteer), and I have now started to put names to faces, yay! Only now do I realise how much not knowing people's names was wearing me out and taking away from the actual teaching.

There is a big lizard living in my room with me. And I mean a big LIZARD - it definitely is not a gecko! I'm banking on a tacit agreement - I won't bother it as long as it doesn't bother me. Hopefully I can reap the positive benefits of its presence such as the reduction of my spider and other insect populations. To tell the truth, my only real concern now (after getting over the initial shock of living with a bloody big lizard) is that if a creature of its size can get into my room (and who knows how), then what may follow? (i.e. snakes??!)

On a totally different subject, a lot of my students have been asking me how old I am. My stock response is that I'm 65 years old. I was quite flattered that one or two seemed to actually take this into consideration for a few seconds before dismissing it! Since I have a couple of 20 year olds in my classes, I have been reluctant to divulge the small age gap between us. However, the illusion of the maturity of my years may lie only in my mind, as quite a few of my students have already told me that they think I am 18 years old!

And on a third tangent, there are no textbooks for my grade 11 classes. Teaching without books for a year seems a little daunting right now. We were told to expect the unexpected back in teacher training - I guess that this is one of those times!

My first week of teaching is over! I am teaching English to grades 8 and 11, and also computer studies to grade 11. In addition, after school I am working on the school newsletter and helping out with athletics. I am still running most days, and I hope that eventually I will get some of my students to join me. (The exercise helps keep me sane and also helps me to acclimatise to my surroundings!)

I am definitely exhausted and overwhelmed after the first week. Teaching is TIRING! I guess that's probably just because it was my first week! My students are really smart, which is good, but it also means that I have to be on the ball and plan lessons that challenge them! However, there is definitely quite a large discrepancy between the learners' abilities.

Also, I think that my students were testing me at the beginning of this week, but I am hoping that I passed because by today it seemed as though we were all a lot more comfortable with each other! Unfortunately, learning their names is proving extremely difficult - I have about 140 students...But all in all, a good first week - the students seem motivated, and one of my short-term goals is to set up a drama club and put on a play at the end of term.

It's my birthday this weekend, so right now I am in Oshakati and about to head off to visit with some of the other volunteers to celebrate - hope you all enjoy the weekend too!

Frogs are in abundance during the rainy season...they are also a delicacy here in Northern Namibia.

The Mission.

These photos depict my new home on the Mission and the school where I am teaching (also on the Mission grounds).

Goats, goats, and more goats.

Northern Namibia!

I am now living in Outapi! If you check out a map of Namibia, it is about 90km NW from Oshakati, a city in the North. Outapi is also called Ombalantu on some maps.

Northern Namibia is very different from what I have seen of the rest of the country. Up here in the North it almost looks as though there is a coastline nearby - there are palm trees and sand everywhere! There are also massive termite mounds all over the place. Lastly, I can also note that cattle, goats, chicken, and dogs exist in abundance up here in the North - I'm seriously becoming skilled in the art of dodging these animals on the road as I drive!

Heading up to the North tomorrow in the small car that Pete and I just bought today! My father will also be joining us!

By the way, here is the link to Pete's blog: www.peteinnamibia.blogspot.com

While teaching at the primary school, we spent a lot of our free time playing games with the younger children. My favourite game was one where the children form a circle, while one child, amidst everyone singing, runs around and stops in front of another person. The two people then proceed to do quite a sexy little dance in front of each other! The photo in the middle shows Pete in the middle of swinging his hips with a little girl!

The school grounds. Coca-Cola signs were prevalent all over Rehoboth...

The location in Rehoboth.

This was a game called AIDS Attacker that I played with my students as part of their HIV/AIDS education course. In the game, someone volunteers to be the AIDS attacker. This person stands in the center and then tries to tag as many people as possible when they run. If a person is caught, they must show a piece of paper that they were given at the very beginning of the game. On the piece of paper is some kind of behaviour, such as "Has multiple partners." If the behaviour is deemed to be low risk, the person is let free. If the behaviour is a high risk behaviour, the person then becomes an AIDS Attacker.

HIV/AIDS murals on the school walls.

My host family! By the way, my host mother made me the skirt that I am wearing!

What a great week!

I am back now in Windhoek after spending a week teaching in the location in Rehoboth. A location is the equivalent of a township in South Africa, and where black people were forced to live during the apartheid era in Namibia. The past week has been such a stark contrast to my first week in Windhoek. I stayed with a wonderful host family. The father was the principal of the location primary school. They had 2 children themselves, but there always seemed to be at least 6 kids running around the house! I'm learning to expand my definition of family here. Cousins are considered as brothers and sisters. It's also more correct to ask how many children to your mother and how many children to your father.

The girls in the house were absolutely fascinated by my body! It was really funny to see what parts of me they were most interested in - my hair in particular. Actually, this seemed to be a general rule for most of the children we met. The kids couldn't get over how much arm, leg, and chest hair the male volunteers had!

Teaching was a really great experience for me. I was teaching the oldest group, who were between ages 13-20. I was wonderfully impressed by how eloquent and smart they were. Although, the girls in particular speak very, very softly in class - a lot of the time I had to almost sit on the desks to hear what they were saying! In addition to teaching English grammar, I also did two days of HIV/AIDS education. Although this was my favourite part of the teaching week, it was also probably the toughest part as well. It was really difficult for me to remain neutral in the face of the gender double standards (that exist the world over I am sure) and blatant myths that I heard. One of the most prevalent HIV/AIDS myths is that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS. It was also hard to listen to some of the boys who insisted that having multiple partners was fine and that condoms didn't work anyway. In addition, they also declared that they wanted to marry virgins!

Aside from some really interesting teaching experiences, I also finally stopped being vegetarian - it was only a matter of time in a country where one of the mainstays of the economy is cattle raising!

I also made my first trip to the hospital! One of my toes ended up getting really infected and I had to go get it sliced open and drained! I am now hobbling around in one of Pete's (huge) flip flops since my bandaged foot will not fit into anything else!