Journey to Cape Town

First, on my journey to Cape Town. I woke up at 4:15 A.M at my village, gathered my things, relieved myself out in the bush under the moon and hopped on the combi going to Rundu. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve taken this combi but that day it was special, they were playing an international news station! Usually they only play African music, I had not heard any kind of news from the outside world for months and I was jumping up and down in my seat out of excitement. The rest of the bus gave me angry looks but I was past caring. The news was about designer babies, nuclear war, and terrorist attacks. It only increased my trepidation about leaving the village and returning to civilization. I had become a village rat and was not prepared for the technology dominated world that was out there. But then I thought about my grandma’s cooking and it was all good again. 

I reached Rundu and went to the free hike point and saw Kyla there, she’s another volunteer from the west side of Kavango. Complete coincidence that I was really happy about since free hiking by yourself is incredibly boring. We talked about her trip to Egypt, mine to Cape Town, and how our students were failing our classes in spectacular fashion. It was good to hear from another volunteer that their students also weren’t doing well, made me feel like I wasn’t the worst teacher in the world. 

Quick tangent about my students, their exam grades were disgusting. My grade 9’s averaged 45% in English and 32% in Geography while my grade 8’s averaged 42% in English. There was a few days there while I was grading that I just wanted to give up teaching completely but I spoke to the other teachers and the other volunteers and everyone was failing so I pulled myself from the brink. 

Anyway, back to the journey, Kyla and I got a hike within half an hour and made it to Grootfontein. I was wearing a hoodie, jeans, and a Brazil jersey. I walked in the gas station, took off my hoodie, approached the sandwich station and ordered. While I was waiting I heard the two ladies at the cash register talking about me. I walked to the cash register to pay and greeted them. The lady in her twenties asked me if I was from Brazil. I said yes. At this point I had not cut my hair for around six or seven months so it was the longest it had ever been (although not as long as I wanted, I was going for a lion’s mane but all I got was shag). The lady asked me if I could cut my hair and if I could give it to her! A bit of a preface, it is very fashionable for black women here to change their hair often, once every two or three months most of my female colleagues will change their hair. And they look good doing it to; I’ve seen beautiful braids, dreads, weaves, straightened hair and everything in between. I don’t completely understand the process but to change their hair as often as they do, they need to buy hair extensions. Turns our Brazilian hair is the most expensive kind in Namibia! So I here was walking around with a couple hundred dollars worth of hair on my head! I told the lady at the cash register, no thank you I don’t want to cut my hair yet, I want to see my parents in Cape Town first and scare them with my ridiculous hair. She said alright its fine, and then she asked me if she could come live with me at my village as my wife. I told her that I would whisk her away in a fancy car when I came back up from Cape Town.   

Following that encounter we went to the highway, picked a spot, and started hitchhiking again. One guy stopped for us but told us that we would have to pay 50$ to get to Windhoek. It was still reasonably early in the day so we told him we would try our luckk for a free hike and let him go. Fifteen minutes later another man stopped and told us he would take us down to Otjiwarongo for free. We hopped on and enjoyed the ride down to Otji. 

We got dropped off since our driver had to pick up some of his friends. So we walked half an hour to the highway and posted up again. We waited twenty minutes and an old raggedy car pulled up stopped by us. The driver poked his head out, interesting looking guy, in his 40’s, black gloves, a Che Guevara cap, at least ten bracelets on each wrist, and a lazy eye. There was also a lady sitting in the front. We hopped on and got going to Windhoek. The guy starts talking and you could tell right away that he was incredibly intelligent, very well educated, and enjoyed conversation. We asked him his name and what he did. He told us Sem and that he was also a volunteer. We were a bit surprised and when we started asking more about his life we started getting suspicious that he was messing with us. I asked where he was born, he said Argentina. I asked him where he was going to and he said he couldn’t tell us.

We keep talking and trying to figure out who this guy was. He asked us where we are from and I told him my long story. He then started asking specific questions about each place that only a person that had been there would have known. I then ask him how many countries he has been to. He replied, almost all of them. I tell him, you’re lying, you say you’re a volunteer, you’re driving this tiny beat-up car, how could you have visited most of the world? I then started asking questions about lots of different countries and he is answering them all perfectly and even speaking in the languages of all those countries. He even told us why he liked Havana, Cuba so much and why Cuban women are better than Brazilian women. He spoke to us in at least ten different languages and claimed that he knew twenty. 

At this point Kyle and I were completely confused as to who this guy was. We started guessing, I thought he was a professor that had spent time teaching abroad. He spoke with us about several different books that he had recently read, then we discussed Freud and his ideas, and then sexism in general. I thought, with these kinds of topics he has to be a professor. We kept talking and he kept telling us stories about the different countries that he had been to and detailed accounts about those countries. It was clear that he was not making up anything that he said. He even said he was a Yale Associate. At that point I thought, this guy has to be some kind of spy! Maybe he worked for some intelligence agency? He knew twenty languages, had traveled everywhere, and was completely unwilling to tell us what he did or his full name. We told him that and he said, “Yeah maybe, that theory makes sense.” 

Kyla started guessing that due to his clothes he was in some way involved with tourism or environmentalism. He said with a mischievous smile on his face, “I am the Director of Tourism for Namibia.” “BULLSHIT!” I yelled. Kyle and I started reasoning; “no way he’s the Director of Tourism, look at this car! The Director of Tourism would never have picked up to scraggly volunteers on the side of the road. He’s just been to way to many places!” We convinced ourselves that he was lying and told him so. He just laughed and we kept talking. 

Turns out, he actually was the Director of Tourism of Namibia. We dropped off the lady that was also giving a ride to and he pulled his card out and gave it to us. There it said, clear and bold, Sem Shikongo, Director of Tourism. My knees almost buckled and Kyla’s mouth hit the floor. I clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Man, I am so sorry for calling you a liar.” Then he let out a big belly laugh and said no problem at all and told us that everything he had told us was true. 

Sem then told us that he had just come from Etosha and was driving this small old car so he could travel unrecognized, He also told us that he usually picks up Peace Corps volunteers since he appreciates the work that we do. Turns out he is also the head of the International Environmental Conventions Unit for all of Africa. And he is the first Namibian to be selected to the Yale World Fellows Program. Amidst all these accomplishments he was still able to keep his spirit of friendship and told Kyla and I that whenever we are in Windhoek we can call him to enjoy a beer together. Incredibly remarkable man, Kyla and I were blessed to meet him and I hope that we are able to cross paths with him at least once more. It was obvious from the start that he was a man that cared deeply about his country, the people of the world, and our wellbeing on this planet. Mr. Shikongo, if you run into this blog, cheers for re-energizing me in this long road that is Peace Corps and inspiring me to keep fighting for the people that can’t fight for themselves.                         

Quick Hits Pt. 2

Welcome to Quick Hits Pt. 2! This is where I tell you guys about some of the more amusing occurences in this land of Namibia! ·  

•        I was free hiking with 2 other PCV’s from Otjiwarongo to Ondongwa when the driver hit a guinea fowl who was crossing the road. He turns around, stops where he hit the bird, doesn’t check if there was damage to the car, grabs the dead bird by the feet puts it in a plastic bag and tells us that these birds taste nice and will be his dinner.

• ·         Saw children riding cows and donkeys on the main highway.

• ·         I was supposed to go with my principal to Rundu to speak to the Ministry of Education about opening the borehole in our village but he had to cancel because one of our students had fainted. He said that she had been infected by demons during the night and that they needed to go to church to cast them out.

• ·         I have two pet geckos that live under my bed, Godzilla and Lady Gaga, they keep my room mostly bug free.

• ·         For track and field practice most of the students do all the running events barefoot or with flip flops, shoes are very rare. Also javelin is done with long sticks sharpened at the end, discus was done with my Frisbee, and shot put was done with a large rock. 

• ·         One learner ripped out half of a page crumpled it up and chewed it for the rest of class. Another day another learner asked if she could take my chalk so she could eat it. I asked my teachers about that and they said it was normal, they also used to do it as kids, they also mentioned that munching on the dirt from termite mounds was common.

• ·         One of my 9^th graders said he had a business idea for me. He said that with my camera he can take pictures of learners, I take the camera to Rundu and print the pictures and bring them back. He then sells the pictures to the learners. My students are little hustlers!

• ·         One of my students cheated twice on essays for my class. After the second time I told him 15 minutes before school was over to meet me immediately after school so he could clean the area around the teacher’s houses (common punishment here) he did not show up, so I pulled him out of class the next morning,  and marched him to the principal’s office. The Principal asked him why he didn’t show up, his answer, “I had to walk to the clinic because my son was sick.” My mouth hit the floor causing an earthquake, this was a 9^th grader!! I’ve gotten used to a lot of crazy things but whenever I think of that moment I am still dumbfounded.   

Orphans in Shamangorwa and the Realities our Students Face

Due to the large amount of AIDS in the Kavango region many children have been left orphaned. Our school of roughly 400 students had a bit more than 150 orphans. An orphan in the village in Africa means something entirely different then one in Windhoek, Europe, the U.S or anywhere else in the world. Here, because of poverty, orphans must take care of themselves. The government gives them some assistance, 200 Namibian dollars per month as long as you are under 18. Many of our grade twelve and grade eleven learners are over 18 and must find ways to pay school fees, attend school, and feed themselves without any assistance. These learners live by themselves. Many miss days of school so they can work and feed themselves. A few anecdotes; near school there is a 7^th grader and a 4^th grader who live by themselves in a house that they built themselves. They get food from the good graces of people who are willing to help them and from the measly stipend that the government gives them. Another story, there is an orphaned learner from Angola in grade seven who crosses the river every day to come to school. He does not eat for the entire day as there is no food available for students. At the end of the day he walks 3km back to the river crossing, gets on his canoe and crosses the river and goes back home. Another reality that students face are the distances that they are forced to walk to attend school. A significant number walk 15 km, 1 way! This makes 30 km per day simply to go to school. Walking. The learners that live these distances actually don’t attend school until they are strong enough to make this daily trek. Performing well in school becomes impossible for these children, how is a 15 year old supposed to walk 30 km in a day, get home and attend to familial duties (pounding mahangu, farming, cleaning) and still find time to do homework? Learners have told me that they start walking at four in the morning just to make it on time to school at seven. Children only go to school when they are strong enough to make the walk. So you see kids that are 14 in fourth and fifth grade classes. If they don’t attend our school there is nowhere else that they can learn. Thankfully, we are currently working on a water project to bring clean water to our school. Following the completion of that project we will work to build a student hostel. This will turn our school into a boarding school allowing students to live on school grounds. In addition we once we have a hostel we will receive extra money from the government so we can feed our students. This will allow students to live at school and not have to suffer through olympian distances to attend their classes. I will leave you with one final story. We have a twelfth grader who is twenty years old. He is past the age to receive aid from the government. He lives by himself and has no food. He told me that if it is a good week he will eat once a day, if it is not, once every two days. His mother is dead and his father lives in Windhoek. His father does not care about him. Exam fees at the grade twelve level are 500 dollars. This student asked his father for the money but his reply was, “Sorry I have other things I need to buy.” This man has not given his son a single thing his entire life. The student cannot receive help from anybody else in his family, they are all drunkards. The student tries his hardest at school but he is hungry, he cannot focus when his body is constantly craving energy. He is not even able to attend school most days because he is working, fixing people’s houses, repairing fences, and any kind of odd job he can find just to put the bare minimum of food in his stomach. How is this student supposed to make it in this world? Every conceivable odd is against him yet still he tries and does the best he can in his studies, banking on the hope that one day he will be able to lift himself up from the oppression of poverty.                   

Kavango Evacuation

1                 I had been at site about 2 weeks and had gotten used to the electricity dropping as well as the cell phone network. That’s why I didn’t think it was particularly strange when the electricity and network were down for two days and it was expected that it would be down for another 3-4 days. We heard that there was a large electrical plant in Grootfontein that supplied the electricity to the region and that people had broken into the plant and stolen copper bolts that held the electrical towers up. When it rains in Kavango it really pours and as this is the start of the rainy season the electrical towers hadn’t been tested against wind or rain since the bolts had been taken. The showers started and eleven towers were knocked out effectively extinguishing all electricity in the region. The water also runs through electrical power so in Rundu there was no more running water. Food in the supermarkets started to get old and there was a mad dash to buy all the food before it got old. People living in town were also forced to walk down to the Kavango river to get their water. This is a town of around 80,000 people so the river banks also became very crowded. With our cell phone network down Peace Corps actually had no idea what was going on in the Kavango area.

 The newspapers in Windhoek left the report that electricity was out to the 7^th page of the newspaper. Mind you electricity dropping in the Kavango would be equivalent to all the electricity dropping in the entire west coast of the U.S. Peace Corps only found out about 2 or 3 days in when a volunteer was able to get a text out. So the afternoon that I was moving into my new house two Peace Corps cars drove into my village unannounced. I was in my room with all my stuff strewn about when I hear my friends Tim and Lindsey calling my outside. I get up confused and look outside and I see them with 6 other volunteers I hadn’t met yet. They greet me then they start screaming “village invasion!” Then they tell me that the entire Kavango region was being evacuated and that we needed to go to Rundu and stay at a lodge where there was power and water. I was convinced for about 5 minutes that they were joking until the head security guy for Peace Corps sauntered up and confirmed it for me. So I invite everyone into my completely messy house while Joey the security coordinator gives me a list and tells me I need to pack everything in it as fast as I can. I get everything packed and we head out while my counterparts looked on confused. We go through Rundu which looked like a zombie apocalypse had just gone through it into the middle of the bush where there was a riverside lodge. We then hang out there for two nights. It was a great time, there was beer, good food, and I was able to meet all the volunteers from the previous groups. For a moment Peace Corps was going to send us to Tsumeb, one of the nicest towns in Namibia, to hang out for a few more days until the electricity, water, and network came back but on the second night the power came back and we were shipped back to our towns and villages. Weird, fun, and an ambiguous experience but that is exactly the way of Peace Corps.     

First HIV/AIDS Lesson

1                 Today I taught my first lesson about HIV/AIDS. I have been told that the students here are very knowledgeable on the subject since they have the information drilled into them since a young age. Still a few questions came up which I found very interesting because it showed how much myth there is surrounding HIV/AIDS. The questions: I have been told that if you wear two condoms you will be more protected from STDS because if one breaks you still have the other one, is this true? Sir, there is a Nigerian preacher who had AIDS but after praying to god, and god cured him from AIDS, can this happen to us to? If I take a very nice shower after I have sex with a person that is HIV positive, will I be able to clean it away?