Anecdotes

Last week I began music lessons with seven students who are a mixture of boys and girls from grades 8-11. As far as I can tell, it's going really well. I especially enjoy holding these lessons in my flat, as it makes for a very relaxed and comfortable environment. I feel like I'm back at my boarding school in Wales, where we would beg our tutors to invite us over to their houses so that we could enjoy a home environment for a while. The first few lessons have been pure theory, which is a trip for these kids. The past two lessons they have been struggling with dotted quarter note rhythms. However, after our last lesson, two of the boys suddenly started tapping out complicated drum rhythms, and I couldn't help laughing, because they were tapping perfect dotted quarter notes and eighth notes without realising it!

I also took out my guitar during the last lesson. But we quickly realised that we didn't know any of the same songs (or at least songs that I can play). Yet, as soon as I started to sing Brown Eyed Girl, they joined in, i.e. they started singing with me even know they had never heard the song before and didn't know how it went! They just sang their own notes along with me! It was beautiful.

The water has gone again, both at my place and Pete's. At my place it has only been 2 days, but at Pete's it's been 10 days. So every second day or so we trudge over to the tap at his school and fill up as many empty containers as possible. Now I have to heat the water up in a kettle before I take a bucket shower. It's getting cold here! It's funny that I now sleep with a duvet under my mosquito net, it seems like a funny combination.

Another funny contrast: on Sundays we use the computers at Pete's school. A lot of the village children know this and so they come and find Pete because they too want to use the computers. They are a motley crew with an assortment of clothing and lack of footwear, although sometimes some of the older boys have wellies. I remember last Sunday when we were done, we all walked outside and saw dozens of the big village cows with their impressive horns on the school grounds. One of the boys had forgotten to close the gate! It was hilarious to then try to round out all the cows. It also struck me as funny that as soon as we stepped outside the computer room, we were immediately back to the realities of living in a rural Namibian village.

It's groundnut season at the moment. I love 'em. They're more like beans actually. Pete's principal is really generous and has given us two big bags so far, as well as two huuuge pumpkins. The pumpkins are green and massive. I have no idea how we are going to manage to eat them. They are table decorations/doorstops at the moment.

There is a boy in my class who had polio when he was younger and was left with quadraplegia. There are other children at the school who also had polio when they were younger and who live with similar disabilities. It makes me incredibly sad that this is because of a disease that is easily preventable with vaccination. There is also a really lovely girl here who lost both her hands because of an accident with fire when she was very young. Sometimes she will show you a photo of herself as a baby with two tiny hands.