The Phase 2 Ambiguity

So. I finished training. Moved to my village. And now everyone (myself included) is a little fuzzy on what I’m up to these days.

You see… I’ve entered the grey area known as phase 2… (Cue twilight zone theme music)

Seriously though… when they say that PCV’s should be prepared to deal with massive amounts of ambiguity – they aren’t kidding around!

So here’s what I’ll be doing from now until December:

        Settling into my community

·      Getting to know my host family, neighbors, coworkers

·      Practicing Rukwangali!

·      Establishing my daily routines

·      Observing Namibian teachers at my school

·      Shadowing a near-by volunteer (for 1 week)

·      Brainstorming ideas for my own classes

·      Doing some preliminary lesson planning

·      Investigating some potential secondary projects

·      Working on the school library

·      Helping learners prepare for exams

The first week of December I will be heading down to Windhoek for another week of training, and then in January I will take over my own class load!

And all of this is good… And I’m glad I have all this time to adjust and plan and really get my head on straight. But it’s a VERY drastic change, after the intensive schedule of pre-service training (PST), to come out to the village and have to go looking for things to do, people to talk to, etc.

Some days I sit and think: what DID I do today? I cooked. I got water. I did laundry. I got water again. I read a book. I wrote a letter. I played with a baby. I chased a goat off the homestead… hmm…

But – even in the midst of the daily, miniscule activities, I’m learning. And to be honest, although two months seems like a long time, it won’t be enough! There’s just so much I don’t know about life here…but I’m soaking up as much as I can every day, and loving every minute of it. :)

p.s. Anyone who realized the title of this blog is supposed to resemble a BBT episode title gets cool points. :)