Quick update!

Hello everyone! I’ve once again let my blog slip…sorry about that. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, and I’ve not had the time to gather my thoughts well enough to write about them.

So, let’s see…two weeks ago was model school. The school system here runs in trimesters (January to December), so the learners had just finished their exams for term 2. During their week and a half long break, we bribed them to come back to school and be taught by the new Americans. While I can’t imagine this plan would work very well in the states, we had a pretty good turnout of around 230 learners. I taught two classes a day, grades 6 and 8, and had a blast! It was a great experience to get up in front of Namibian learners, be awkward, get slightly more comfortable, and have the benefit of there being virtually no pressure. I was also observed by both Peace Corps staff and a few Namibian teachers, over the course of the week, so I had the opportunity to get some great feedback. It was hectic, stressful, and exhausting, but overall – it was a fantastic week.

Since then, it’s been back to a fairly normal training schedule. Training has its good days and bad days, and some sessions are repetitive (or just common sense), but overall, it’s really not bad. My group is awesome, and they make it bearable – even on the worst of days.

I’m steadily picking up three new languages… Rukwangali (the language I’ll speak in my village), Afrikaans (the language my host family speaks) and Namlish (the English dialect spoken by Namibians). It drives some of the Americans (particularly the English teachers…) a little crazy, but I tend to find Namlish pretty endearing. It borrows some words from British English (such as boot and lorry), but some phrases I’m fairly certain are entirely its own. For instance... a marker is a kokie, a bar is a shebeen, and a soda is a cool drink. In Namlish, you wouldn’t say you had a headache you would say: “my head is paining”.  If you live in a neighborhood or suburb, you say you live in “the location.” If someone is leaving but coming back soon they say: “I’m coming now.” And “now”…is a whole story of its’ own. “Now” can mean anything from 30 minutes to several hours. “Just now” is usually sooner than “now”. But if something is literally happening right away it’s “now now” or “now now now,” depending on how serious you are. It can get really fun. :)

It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster around here lately, and I’m sure that will only increase as swearing in approaches. I’m really excited to move to my village and start getting to know my community, but I dread saying goodbye to my amazing host family here in Okahandja. With all the stress and information overload we’re going through right now, my first response is usually to shut myself off for some alone time, but I’m trying to balance that with the fact that I’ll soon be living in a very isolated village. Some days I feel like there is nothing worse I could do with my time than sit in PST sessions, but at the same time I know I’ll soon be missing all my fellow trainees and wishing for any excuse to see them. So… life is a bit oxymoronic right now. But it's still good. I love it here. I love my group. And I know this is where I'm supposed to be.