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on John and Dinah with VSO in Namibia (Namibia), 28/Jan/2009 14:21, 34 days ago
The photos show both our houses and you can see all of the interior of our old house in the picture with me in it (except the bathroom). The sitting room of the new house is being modeled by John. The spare bedroom is being visited by our gardener, Sakaria, who is enjoying the comfort of all the mattresses! Our bedroom is much bigger but as I don't have a wide angle lens my picture looked like the spare room again so I didn't bother. The boys on the donkey have a big container and wanted us to fill it with water from our tap. We are not meant to encourage this as the school is short of water and we can't supply the community but it's hard to refuse as you can well imagine. The other picture shows 'Heavy' and Mr Hangula in their Namibian stripe.Well it's already January 28th and I am finally sitting down to write again after a deafening silence of about 2 months. I suppose I will have lost any eager readers(!) I might have gained, but I hope I haven't worried anyone. Apologies if so. As many of you already know John's mother died on Dec 1st. We obviously dropped everything and returned home early for Christmas and as we had already booked our return flight stayed over a month.It was a difficult time but also a wonderful one. It was so sad although not unexpected. Vera was 94 and her health for the last couple of years was not great. Her memory was also beginning to falter and it was a relief to everyone that she never suffered too much either mentally or physically. We had a very good service at the crematorium which was well attended and led by Simon, an old family friend. It was soo much better than being someone who never knew her. That was near the start of our visit. On our last full day in England a small group of close family went to the Isabella plantation in Richmond Park where we had been on our last day out with Vera and scattered her ashes. It had been snowing and was absolutely beautiful. We were attended by a very friendly robin which seemed incredibly comforting. She was a very wonderful woman (how many can really say that about their mother-in-law besides John?). She was terrifically kind, gentle and uncomplaining. We were sad not to have been there but very grateful that we had been home in August and seen her a fair bit then . If any of the rest of us live to 94, with nothing to be sorry for, I'd be surprised!We stayed most of the time with my parents which was lovely. The rest of the time was spent in Richmond, where Ross and Jen are doing a great job looking after our home, at my brother's house while they were on holiday, and we also had a few nights at Rachel's and Alex's. This was ideal as Luke and Leonie and the children live nearby and that was where we spent Christmas itself. I've got some splendid pictures of the wonderful tree they had and also of the table set for Christmas lunch which the learners here are fascinated by!It was a strange holiday and a huge culture shock at several levels. Obviously the weather was a complete contrast with me discovering that I have acclimatised to Namibia! I've always felt the cold but found myself glued to the fire in my parent's drawing room with several layers and blankets as well. Meanwhile my parents were frisking around practically naked! On top of that is the obvious affluence of everyone in the UK compared to Namibia. But this was complicated by the ghastly economic problems there, with lots of people losing jobs, or worrying about that if still employed. We understand of course but it still seems as if we have so much more opportunity and live such varied and interesting lives and I fear we were not as sympathetic as we should have been. Apologies if you are reading this and nodding.We still have another year of our placement to go and are not planning further visits home. This is because we want to take advantage of the breaks off work to see more of this wonderful continent. Also there is no doubt that while we love to see everyone it is very hard to keep saying goodbye. The only really big down side with VSO as far as we're concerned is missing everyone. This is worse at either end of the age spectrum. My mother (and to a lesser extent my father) find it hard. I lived away in Ireland for 3 years when the boys were small but they were fine with that. Of course this has been exacerbated by us actually being away when Vera died. We have told them we would rush back in the event of serious illness and hope this will help. At the other end of the age scale our youngest grandchildren (Simon and Sophie's 3) are 7 months,2 and 4 and we'd love to be more part of their lives at this stage. We actually decided to do VSO now as we had no children of our own to worry about but we have really missed them all the same. We have decided definitely not to extend for this reason.Our welcome back here has been lovely as ever, we feel real warmth especially from the learners. Also we have now moved into Alex and Christine's (the Peace Corps volunteers who we miss horribly) old house. We also inherited their wonderful maps which are decorating the walls and at least partially plugging the hole which is my Geography. Plus they left wonderful mossy nets which are much better than our old one as they are bigger than the bed and you completely forget you've got them. The old one would get in your face and you'd wake up convinced you were under attack. But the best thing is we now can work at separate tables. We have got 3 tables in the house instead of one! Also a large cupboard and a filing cabinet so we have no more excuses for not being organised. I have found lots of forgotten delights! The only minor downside is that we now have 3 double beds and 2 fridges and have narrowly avoided possessing 2 cookers. Usually Namibian teachers are provided with houses but not with any furniture. VSO and Peace Corps stipulate a cooker, fridge, bed, table and chair as a minimum. They are afraid that this stuff might be repossessed if found in the wrong place (ie a Nam teacher's home) so we must house it all until another volunteer arrives. At the moment there aren't any in the pipeline but the school has applied to PC.John says this is the first detached house he has ever lived in. It is literally twice the size of our old one and now have 5 rooms instead of 2. This includes a spare bedroom if anyone want to visit! We are expecting our first guests tomorrow night! Hope they enjoy being waist high and sleeping on 2 beds! This is another VSO couple, Addy and Barbara, who are coming our to Himarwa to show students their fantastic Science and Maths exhibition. This is like a mini travelling Science museum with lots of fun and stimulating activities. As I am woefully ignorent about Physics (something I intend to work on later) I learnt lots and only wish I could have had a science teacher like Addy. I'm sure our learners will be motivated to learn more, I certainly was.We have had a few hassles and been very busy with the move as well so we have been working off all the fat of the holidays! We have already made 4 timetables as new teachers have been arriving one at a time and we are still understaffed which means we are teaching extra classes for the moment. I like it as really I feel much more confident in the classroom than doing the training aspect of the work. The training aspect is on the back burner although we are planning a time-table workshop as they are realising we won't be here next year to do it and have asked for it. We have been a bit naughty as we like to do it as this means we get some control! Not the right spirit at all.The hassles I mentioned are the usual ie. water cuts (invariably when you are about to use the shower or cook!) and the phone. We have a land-line and a cell phone so you'd imagine we were covered but both have been out. The land line is particularly annoying as we use it to ring UK (too expensive otherwise and please don't talk to me about Skype as we tried). The engineer comes again on Mon. so hope to be back in touch again then. The signal for cell phone and internet are from the same mast so if one is out they both are. Last week we had no signal from the 18th,when I wanted to send Rach birthday greetings, to the 23rd. You feel as if you are totally disconnected from the world which is rather nerve-racking after all the emergency phone calls we've had since we arrived. Also our nephew is having a big operation on Monday in New York so we will obviously be keen to hear how that goes. It's at such times that being here is hard but we are feeling more useful and that's what makes us happy!One great story is that one of last year's Grade 10s, Kasera, is the Namibian under 19 heavyweight boxing champion. One of our teachers, Mr Hangula, boxed for Namibia in his youth and our school really does well with his training. Mr Hangula is also an under 19 national coach. He and Kasera went to S Africa during the holidays. This was for the Southern African championships and Kasera won this! Next stop the World Championships in India or Indonesia- people seem a bit hazy about the venue. Kasera is now known simply as 'Heavy'. He was perhaps not John's greatest success in learning English but is now living in Windhoek under the National trainers and doing a little schoolwork. However,at the start of term he came to school in his national tracksuit and gold medal - the first ever for someone from our region of Kavango. We have told him he must get into the Olympic team for 2012 and we will come and see him box in London. Dinah has never really liked boxing but is almost converted by the opportunities for this boy who had not been out of Kavango a year ago.All love to everyone at home.The views expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of VSO.