Witched!
on John and Dinah with VSO in Namibia (Namibia), 08/Mar/2008 12:07, 34 days ago
Witched!We have had a bloody couple of weeks. If I was a local I would probably believe that someone was witching me!We went to Rundu to get our car licenced which involved a visit to the 'one stop shop'. It was already the second time we had been to this misnamed place. We got there, tyres squealing, at 3.45 on Friday afternoon. We were told we needed the car testing (like an MOT), which we expected so we said fine, please test it. Not so fast! They only test on Tuesdays and Thursdays! We thought we'd have to go home and come in again and miss a day's lessons but Nico and Margaret very generously offered us a swap and said they would take ours to be tested on Tues. We would never have accepted this if we'd known what a nuisance this would prove to them. Even though we were very confident of the car's health (after assurances from our garage), faults were revealed on Tues. morning. Nico spent 4 hours at the garage while these were rectified and then got the licence. He went shopping and left some stuff in the boot which was pinched. The next morning the car refused to start and N got the garage out who 'fixed' it. It failed again. N told the garage not to return the car until it was really mended. He had no car until we came back in his on Fri. afternoon. We picked ours up from the garage. Sat. it wouldn't go! We rang the garage who were unable to help until Mon. So we missed Mon. sch. and got it sorted (ha ha). It's always the learners who lose in the end. Car seems to be OK now but trust is an issue.Then my computer wouldn't work. A wonderful Swiss volunteer in Rundu has sorted that out and it wasn't a virus. I just had a problem with my configuration whatever that means. If I want it to go better he suggests removing Vista and installing XP which would apparently be quite simple. I may take him up on that as I am not impressed with Vista and am told Microsoft now offer downgrades to other disillusioned owners!Then came the coup de grace. We got back from Rundu on Mon. to find sewage coming up in our shower! We were unable to use our loo or shower until Sat. morning when the men finally came heralded by tremendous noise and unbelievable smell, but hugely welcome! The peace corps couple let us use their shower and the loos in the school, a mere 500 yards away, still worked (except the Wed. when no-one had water). Not exactly easy or pleasant. Still I have been complaining about lack of exercise.In between, on the Wed., our principal, Mr Mendai, asked us to take ourselves and 8 others to a highly successful private school (with water) about an hour away for a visit. I wish I had a photo of all 10 of us in the bakkie. Not a feat actually by local standards. We have the lid on ours which cuts out space. Most drive around with about 12 people standing in the back. Ghastly if anything goes wrong, even just a skid would throw some out one feels. Anyway we arrived to the astonishment of the principal. He said he'd have liked some notice! I handed him a letter which was the notice. Very embarassing. Surprisingly the sch. did not have any magic formulas. It is highly selective. They have sets. The resources are not much different to ours and the teachers, although obviously good are not in a different class. Not very surprising their grade 12 Maths results are great when most got As at grade 10 and the worst 2 learners got Ds. Our best grade 12s got Ds in grade 10! They also operate a strict policy about teachers missing classes - a huge problem in sch. here generally. Often this is because of Workshops, like the ones we are meant to do. We are trying to stick to non-teaching times for our training because of this. One of our teachers left sch. on a Thurs. for a one-day workshop on Fri. and returned to sch. the following Thurs! This is apparently very typical and causing concern to the many conscientious teachers here as well as parents and ourselves.Other than these pinpricks things are going well. The teaching is rewarding although sometimes disappointing. The learners in grade 8 are very weak in their English which is why Mr. Mendai has got John teaching English to all 3 grade 8 classes. In fact J only does these plus one grade 10 class. English only became the national language here at independance in 1990, before that it was Afrikaans. Many of the learners speak more than one of the local languages (some speak 3/4), Afrikaans and English - so in fact are terrific linguists.We had our first ever regional VSO meeting on Sun. It is always good to see everyone and once again we thought what a fine bunch of people come out and do VSO! The minutes of the national meeting were produced and we were rather nonplussed to be told that VSO do not approve of volunteers using private cars in order to do their jobs. While we appreciate their reasons for this ie. we should live as much like our local counterparts as possible and that when we leave it should be poss. for our role to be continued by a Namibian (the much vaunted sustainability). In fact several teachers at our school do have cars. Also we feel that we would never have come here without a car! There is no public transport and if we didn't have a car we would have to hike ie. hitch! Much as I might complain about our car we love it really!I have one grade 8 and one 11 and a 12. I also teach grade 8 for just 40 mins a week each ie. 120 mins total for the 3 classes for computers, which they are very keen on but pretty hopeless at! Anyway I find them very challenging for Maths as communication is such a problem and often I feel they've had a successful lesson but then looking at their books realise they have not understood. It is difficult to get them to ask questions and a complete waste of time to say something like 'do you understand?' as they always say 'yes'! I really enjoy the 11s and 12s even though they are weak because language isn't such a problem and it is a 2 way street.The cold wet weather is more or less over and it is very hot again. Much easier now that we have acclimatised a bit and have indulged ourselves with an air cooler. It's not air com but the next best thing. Of course the roads are much better and the journey times are almost as good as before the rain.It's only a couple of weeks until we set off for the wedding and I spoke to my parents who were threatening me with snow! I'm sure even if everyone thinks it's mild J and I will be freezing! So excited and looking forward to seeing everyone. It's going to be a hectic week!Horrors it's Saturday again and I haven't posted this so must do it now!Before going to press must say it's been a much better week but with a sting in it's tail. All well on the plumbing, car and computer. However at the staff briefing it was announced that the government have guaranteed that anyone who wishes to re-do grade 10, no matter when they failed, is now entitled to re-join a school. Our school was therefore open for registrations and it was anyone's guess how many new students would appear. The fact that this term is almost over and if they were going to do this January might have been the time is just one of the problems. We also are already short of furniture (no new stuff has yet appeared and learners literally carry chairs with them). Add to this that there is no room (for boys) at the hostel and we are in the middle of nowhere. Then who will teach this new class? The learners can't be put in the existing grade 10 classes which are well over 40 as it is. The government has promised large sums and so a new teacher can be recruited but when? If every school is scrambling around trying to recruit it won't be easy! Can you believe it? Actually I approve of the idea of tackling the problem of (unemployable) youths but this could be the final straw for our poor system which was already struggling. I hope to be proved wrong.Only one full week of teaching and then the long awaited trip home and the wedding!!!Once again technical problems have overwhelmed me in the question of downloading photos. Many apologies as I really want to add them. I'm doing exactly what I always do and all that downloads is a load of text.The view expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of VSO