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on John and Dinah with VSO in Namibia (Namibia), 04/Jul/2009 16:47, 34 days ago
PRESIDENT POHAMBA VISITS MPUNGUAnd very interesting it was too. He came to preside over a SWAPO rally. SWAPO are the ruling party and have been so since independence, 1990, which they had fought to achieve. The people born since independence are known as the 'born frees' and so this label applies to most of our learners (although we have many in their 20s). Of course to the born frees this is simply taken for granted. No matter how much they are expected to appreciate what was gained it is very hard for them to grasp. They won't go on voting for SWAPO forever and in fact I think (speaking as an outsider) that a change would be healthy for democracy here, as anywhere. Although Namibia is mercifully relatively free from the corruption associated with many African countries temptation is bound to be strong if only one party is in power too long. Telling the people that there is only one church and only one party, which was repeated several times, and getting them to chant SWAPO - united,SWAPO - Victorious was a bit distasteful to us. That said, it was a real carnival atmosphere and great to see lots of people sporting SWAPO colours with obvious pride.Pohamba rightly pointed out the new schools and roads built under their regime. In fact there is now tar road from Rundu almost to Rupara (65 km) compared to 23 km when we arrived. At this rate the planned road will be completed in about 10 years as it's meant to go all the way across to Oshikati. At the same time a new road is joining Mpungu to Tsumeb which will make the trip south to Windhoek about 3 hours shorter and put Etosha within reach for a weekend trip. Marvellous for the next volunteer here. That road will also go north to Angola so good for trade between the 2 countries. As Mpungu will be at the crossroads of these two it will have a major impact here and it would be ve ry interesting to return in 10 years and see Mpungu town.On that subject we have heard from some possible volunteers and are hoping that they decide to come as they look marvellous from their CVs. Mr Mendai read said CVs and tactfully said he couldn't wait for them to arrive! He did later say he wanted to throw a thank you party for us before we go so I guess he might have realised he didn't sound too bowled over by us!It is strange that we are now over 3/4 of the way through our time and that we need to start thinking beyond. He also asked us to do a workshop on the time-table. He has realised that unless someone can do it next year they will be in a fix! We had to make another new one this term as some learners are joining my Maths class in grade 11 from the non-Maths part of the year. After we made the changes we were asked if we'd incorporated some other changes that we knew nothing about!We had a visit from our friend Graham from England and he came out and stayed in Mpungu where it was lovely to see him well-received. Graham has been very supportive of our work here and came bearing footballs and hula-hoops for the learners. He thought that the hoops would be for the girls but in fact the boys were very keen. We had a contest yesterday with the hoops as prizes. I think it's interesting that where no stereotype is known, the boys take over as it's a sport.We had a long weekend while Graham was here so we took him to Etosha. It was lovely to go there again and we had a wonderful time with the highlights being a rather nerve-racking encounter with an elephant who was guarding the road in front of us, where we had to go, and a real long look at a pride of lions. We have glimpsed lions before but only fleetingly. This time the male walked in front of our car and we followed him and watched him return home. He played with a cub. We saw about 6 lionesses but they remained about 30 yards from the male. They were totally calm and apparently not at all interested in the 8 or so cars who had stopped to look at them.The picture of the celebration of the harvesting of carrots is great I think. This school is rightly very proud of its status as a centre for excellence in Agriculture. The carrots were being raided by the learners so Mr Mendai informed them in assembly that if they ate one they would die instantly. In fact I think they are mildly poisoned with some insecticide but probably an awful lot purer than the ones we get in England!