End of Service

Sunday, August 10, 2008
This morning we had time to do some shopping and hang out before our end of service meetings and dinner. Laura, Dana and I had fun exchanging stories and ideas for music mixes over brewed coffee. We then met some of the other volunteers in Zoo Park to eat lunch outside. At end of service, there were some fun games and competitions. I almost won most likely to own a shabeen and I did win most likely to hitchhike at home. Dinner was at a west African restaurant called LaMarmite and afterwards a group of us went to Joe’s Pub as a last hurrah.

Saturday, August 9, 2008
I’m shocked! Government transport showed up at the homestead, just before 7am. Wow, I have to hand it to Kavungo. Unfortunately, I had arranged my back-up plan and was a bit disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to see Johnson and Delicious one last time before leaving. I called both Johnson and Steve to cancel my rides, but was having trouble getting through. Maria and Kaia came with me to Ondangwa – Maria had been planning to go for the weekend anyway. And I thought that Kaia decided to go at the last minute, however it turns out that she just wanted to see me off and only went along for the ride. Since I couldn’t reach Johnson, on the way out of Edundja, I stopped at Delicious’ flat to ask him to tell Johnson that I had government transportation and to tell him good-bye. Solomon, the driver, told me that he would have to get his pilot’s training since there was no road to drive to visit me in the US. As prompt as the regional transport was, our transport from Ondangwa to Windhoek was not. We didn’t leave the regional office until just before noon, which made our group the last to arrive at Backpackers. It was fun to see everyone and we had a braii. Also, Tangeni agreed to get me a SWAPO t-shirt. We were able to watch a bit of the Olympics on TV.

Last Days in the Village

Friday, August 8, 2008
I received a text from Maggie that the region was not providing transport from my homestead to Ondangwa. When I mentioned it to Kavungo, he insisted upon calling the regional office to arrange for it. But, since he was not able to get confirmation that it had been set-up, as a back-up plan, I arranged for Johnson to take me to Oshikango to meet Steve, one of the year-long volunteers, to give me a ride to Ondangwa.

On the way home from school there was a “ghost wind”, which is like a mini tornado blowing across the veld. Kavari said that it’s a ghost wind because there is a spirit caught in it. I’m going to miss all the superstitions and beliefs that come out of nowhere. When we got home, I used the shower to bathe and wash my hair for the first time since the water went out. Even though it was warm out, the shower was still a bit cold for my liking, but I am so burnt on buckets baths and head under the tap hair washing. I started packing up the rest of my things and cleaning up my room and got ready for the cookout.

In addition to the kids, Maria, Kavari, Inno, Teodore, Delicious and Johnson were there. Later in the evening, Mpinge returned from Angola and I learned that she was not aware that I was leaving the next day. Everyone enjoyed the cookout, despite the fact that we didn’t have the marshmallows. I felt that I was short-changing the kids, but they didn’t mind at all. They were excited to have so much food.

Thursday, August 7, 2008
Today Kavungo held a staff meeting, my final one, and I presented the money (N$266 in profits) raised from selling photos. We also took a couple of photos of the entire staff together. Around 1pm I left with Ashiyana to have a beer at the cuca shops. He had marking to do, so the intent was to have one or two beers and then head home. However, some of the Tates in the village kept buying more Windhoek Lagers. We were getting ready to wrap it up and head out when Kavari sent me an SMS saying that she was coming to the village. This was around 4p. She, Maria and Esther ended up showing up at around 6:30p. By this time, Ashiyana moved on to Kandja’s bar and were hanging out with Kavungo, ZapoZapo (who I hadn’t met before), Johnson, Delicious, Nangolo, Teodore.

Nangolo left for Ondangwa after school to get the keys to his new house, but had forgotten his phone, so when he reached Oshikango he decided to come back to Edundja and just leave in the morning to get the keys. As a government employee, Nangolo only has to pay 30% of the mortgage and the government covers the other 70%. When Nangolo came and joined the rest of us, at this point, it was just me and the boys, he started giving everyone nicknames and joking around. Nangolo’s nickname was “City” – as in LA because his first name is Angelius. Other names were Prof. Dubious, Prof. Flabbergasted, which are some of Delicious’ favorite words. The funniest was when Nangolo pointed at everyone at the table except for me and told them that they “must call me City” and then he pointed at me and said, “but you must call me ‘Honey’”. It was another late night, as we were out until 10pm. Kavari, Maria, Kavungo, Esther and I all walked home together. As usual, I was using my phone as a torch and Kavari was making fun of me.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
While marking and invigilating in the staff room today, Kavari brought in her portable radio (broadcast was in Oshikwanyama) and there was a news story about a plane crash. Kavari, who has never flown before, said that she would not fly in a plane piloted by a woman or a black man – WHAT?

After school, Johnson gave me a ride to Oshikango to get stuff for the campfire cookout that I planned for Friday, as a parting celebration with the kids, since I’d be leaving the next day. We went to both Portugal and Pick n Pay, but unfortunately I could not find marshmallows. As usual, Portugal was extremely shady and mobbed.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Today I spent all day marking papers. After school, I went with Maria, Kavari, Esther and Joolokeni to dance at one of the bottle stores that I had not previously been to. We went there because Kavari loved one of the cds in the jukebox.. Nangolo, John and Mutwa came by for a bit, but didn’t stay too long. Once we got home, we watched the new soapie, Catalina and Sebastian, which debuted the night before.

Don't Worry Baby, It's From My Thug Days

Today at school was more marking and invigilating for grade 8D. I have not had as much exposure to the Grade 8 learners and came across the greatest name so far - Happy Son. It just makes me smile to hear that name. There is also a learner that has no shoes, Jackson Paulus, and that made me sad. Many of the kids don’t have much and their clothing is in disrepair, but to not have even one pair of shoes to wear.

So, on Sunday in the bakki, John Delicious asked me if I had a marker pen. He wants a shirt that says John Delicious on it. I was hesitant, because I did not want to ruin one of his shirts. Again, he does not have much. But, he insisted that he has a shirt to write on. He said that it’s “too big” and that it is from his “thug days” and a “XXL” shirt. So, today after school I went over to Delicious’ with a Sharpie and made him a shirt. I assumed that he just wanted to have a shirt with his name on it, not that he was going to wear it. But, he did. He was so excited about the shirt. We took a bunch of pictures of him posing and showing it off. While I was making the shirt, Delicious was making food for himself, Soini and several others. But, again, he was struggling to cook – so Soini had to help him. They ended up making Pilcher’s canned fish with soup mix sauce and eating it with bread. I was reluctant to have the canned fish and was hoping that they would forget to save me some, since I was busy making the shirt. But, no, they saved some. So I felt obligated to at least eat a little bit. But, after tasting it, it wasn’t bad. I kind of liked it.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out at a couple of the cuca shops in the village, with Delicious proudly sporting his new custom made shirt. It was Mutwa, Mr. Cash (Jonnah), Nangolo, O Seven, Johnson, Kaio and others and we were out until after 9pm. While hanging out in front of Max’s, I met a man, Charles Haindongo, who left Namibia for Cuba when he was 15. He returned to Namibia in 1988 just before the end of Apartheid. He was in Edundja to register at the Regional Councilors office for Veteran’s benefits, which means that he’ll get a pension from the government each month for the rest of his life. Johnson gave me a ride back to the homestead at the end of the night. It seemed that everyone was already in bed for the night, so I got ready for bed. Just after I turned out my lights and was in bed, Takataka knocked at the door, so I assume that he was in Kavari’s room watching tv and saw that I was home, but since I was already in bed, I didn’t answer the door.

An Eye for An Eye... Or, A Dog for an Egg

At lunch, Maria made maize meal porridge, told me how to make it. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing Connect Four and card games.

Kavari made Otjiherero bread for dinner, and we ate it with butter and coffee. Kavari has lived at the homestead for 5+ years and has always promised to make it, but this is the first time that she is doing it. The bread came out great, but Kavari kept saying that it was a disaster because she did not have the same type of pot to put over the fire as they use in her tribe. Victor had to say all the things he’ll miss about me. Ana, Kangube, plaited my hair. Kandambe = Rosaria.

Meme from neighboring homestead cam by and conversation about the dog that just had puppies came up. Apparently the dog keeps eating their chicken’s eggs and they are planning to wait until she is finished nursing the pups and then they plan to kill and eat the dog. So far, 4 of the puppies have been given away. Kavari’s distant, distant relative was on the news, his name is Dr. Gift Kavari.

Admission for Three to Bennie's Park

So this morning we were all up by 6:30a. At 8a the village tap opens for business, so we took Johnson’s bakki to fill up 5 giant jugs with water for the homestead. When Johnson is not there, which is most of the time, I assume that Sem walks over with just one of the jugs, as I can’t imagine that he could handle more than one full jug at a time. The village tap is near one of the schools and is locked when the Meme who “owns” it is not open for business. The Meme that runs the tap records the number of liters that each customer takes and the customers pay for their water usage – vs. using a well at no charge. When we arrived back at the homestead, Johnson’s sister made up porridge and evander for breakfast. And, it was actually one of the best oshifima and evander meals that I have had. After breakfast, Sem took several pictures of me on his cell phone, as did Sylvia, and then we left for Oshakati so that I could check email, we could pick up Delicious’ chain and then meet Tiela to get the disc utility before heading to meet Kimberlee, another summer volunteer, and one of her colleagues, Frans, at Bennie’s Entertainment Park in Ongwediva.

Bennie’s Park has a pool, picnic area, restaurant, DJ, water slide, trampolines and springboks and peacocks that wander around. I thought that Sylvia was headed home in the morning, but she must have changed her mind, as she came to Oshakati. Johnson said that she was going to visit a friend. But, when it came time to go to Bennie’s she came with us. I ended up having to pay for all of our admission to get in, which irritated me. It was not about the money, it was about the expectation that I pay. In Namibia, if you invite someone to do something, the expectation is that it is your treat. However, I did not invite Sylvia. Kind of like the situation in Oshikango with Lavinia. At the restaurant, the 7 of us that were there split 4 pizzas and had a bottle of champagne – at Frans insistance. Frans also insisted on picking up the entire bill – but Kimberlee and I both forced him to let us contribute. Kimberlee, who was a competitive diver at Penn State, was very excited about swimming in the pool. She brought two bathing suits – one for herself and one for me to borrow (since I was not aware we’d be coming to Bennie’s when I left Edundja). At lunch, Kimberlee was trying to convince some of the Namibians to swim. There were no takers, until Johnson reluctantly said that he’d do it. I am sure that the only reason that Johnson decided to swim was because he into Kimberlee. Add another Angel to the roster! Once Johnson was in the pool, I knew that the reason he agreed to swim was because he was into Kimberlee. He could barely stay afloat and looked like he was going to drown for the majority of time that he was in the water. We left Bennie’s Park around 4:30p and dropped Sylvia off in Oshakati to hike back to the village.

Once we got to Oshikango we picked up John Delicious and headed back to Edundja. On the way, Delicious said that something smelled “delicious” and he wanted to know what it was. I realized that it was the left over pizza that Frans had insisted that we take home. So when we got back to the homestead, Johnson and Delicious came in and we shared the left over pizza. It was the first time that Delicious had pizza and it was the most hysterical thing in the world to watch. He was pointing to various ingredients and asking what they were and holding his slice up for inspection from all angles. It was too cute. Once Johnson and Delicious left, I joined Kavari, Maria and the kids to watch a movie. Of course, I fell asleep during the movie.

Random Hilariousness: I'm not sure if I wrote about this - when referring to the day that Delicious left his flat with boiling macaroni on a hot plate and came back to a flat full of smoke, he says that he “fried the macaroni to ashes”, it’s not burned.

Delicious told me that he “was taken, but came back”, meaning that he had been drunk.

Delicious wore a khaki shirt with a little pocket on the sleeve, I liked to call it a Boy Scout shirt, and I asked him what he kept in the pocket. He said “Pepper, salt, chilis, cinnamon, whatever makes me delicious.”

Johnson said that he wants a wife that cooks, not boils.

When we shared the leftover pizza, Johnson and Delicious had a conversation over the rarity of napkins and said that the only places you get napkins are restaurants, lodges and hotels. Generally people use newspaper, a cloth towel or I guess toilet paper if they need a napkin.

Village champions – people who never leave the village and are always around

Delicious wanting me to help him correctly pronounce "metropolitan".

Still a Stranger

Last night, as I was falling asleep, I realized that somewhere along the way my bed became comfortable (even with the rock underneath it).

This morning I did some last minute tutoring with Selma and Idelini, 2 grade 9 learners for today’s Business Management examination. After reviewing and discussing questions for about an hour, Selman began to ask me if I knew any Oshikwanyama words and if I knew how to spell them. They were surprised that I could correctly spell the words that I knew and started teaching me new words. Finally the learners are starting to open up and feel more comfortable using English to talk with me and I’m leaving soon – I wish that I had another term here. At 11am the examination period began and I invigilated for 10B while marking grade 9 math papers.

After school I left to meet Johnson, as we were going to the homestead where he grew up, which is about 20km from Oshakati, for the weekend. Last week Johnson was saying that he’d like me to go there sometime, so I said we should go this weekend. Johnson mentioned that he couldn’t afford the fuel to get there, so I offered to pay. As it is, when I travel for the weekend I end up paying close to N$100 (roughly $15 US) on taxis and hikes for the roundtrip. After we dropped off Kavungo and John Delicious in Oshikango, we went to get fuel before hitting the road. I ended up filling Johnson’s tank with gas, which was a mistake – 1) the roundtrip wouldn’t have needed more than ¼ tank and 2) Namibians are notorious for driving around with very little gas in the tank, so his tank was empty and 3) petrol is sold by the liter, not gallon and currently petrol is N$11 per liter. I spent close to N$300 ($45 US) on fuel. But, in my mind, I can justify it by the fact that Johnson has given me countless rides to and from town or from the village to the homestead after dark and he never asks for money (typically I would give someone N$10 for a ride to or from Oshikango). Also, he and the boys typically outspend me when we have beers in the village and at the bottle stores.

Once on the road, Johnson said that we needed to stop and “drop off some paperwork” in Ondangwa. I assumed that it was something from school, but then we headed to a residential area, near where Soini’s sister lives. I was not sure what we were doing. We parked in from and went in. We greeted a meme at the kitchen table and a girl in her 20’s in the living room. Johnson invited me to sit down. There was a conversation in Oshiwambo and Johnson gave the girl, Caroline, a packet on interview tips. I met Caroline’s 2 year old daughter and what might have been Caroline’s younger brother, then we left. Back in the car, I asked if those were relatives? A friend? I found out that it’s Johnson’s on-again-off-again girlfriend of almost 5 years. So, it turns out that Johnson is not with Marvin’s mother, Sunday. Marvin is 6 months, Caroline’s daughter is 2 years old, so they each have a child with someone else and they’ve been on and off for 5 years. Interesting… So now I’m starting to understand why Johnson is ALWAYS on his cell or SMSing. But there’s more – apparently Caro found another girl’s number in Johnson’s phone, so he’s changed that girl’s number to be under UNAM (which is University of Namibia). Btw, the other girl is named Pandu and she goes to UNAM, which is in Windhoek, which is 7 hours from Edundja. Anyway, Johnson wants to get married and has said that I have to come back for the wedding. The problem lies in who he will marry… For the rest of the ride, I teased Johnson about his woman problems, accused him of being flirtatious and told him that instead of Charlie’s Angels, I was going to refer to his women as Johnson’s Angels.

Next, we stopped in Oshakati to drop off Delicious’ chain to be repaired and then headed to Game (S African/Namibian version of Target) to get Lobello lip gloss for Amanda. We also stopped to buy some food to make for dinner and at a bottle store to have a beer. At the shebeen we met up with a couple of Johnson’s friends and were invited to meet them at the bottle store in the village later. We left with just enough time to get to Johnson’s homestead before dark. As we drove down the tar road it became a gravel road and eventually a sandy path.

Along the way we picked up Sem, the first born brother. Johnson is second born and has 2 younger sisters and a younger brother. One sister is in school in Windhoek and the others live at the homestead. Johnson never knew his father – his parents never married and his mother passed away a couple of years ago. The homestead doesn’t have electricity or running water, but he is in the process of building an outhouse and has built 2 concrete structures – a block of 3 rooms for the boys and a separate block for the girls. Out of the siblings, Johnson is the only one with a steady income and profession. For the outhouse, the hole has been dug and the bricks are there, but the construction has not begun. Currently, all personal business is taken care of behind a thorn bush in a sloped area a short distance from the homestead. They have a solar panel that is used to recharge car batteries, which are used to power the radio and charge cell phones. Once it’s dark, they use either the campfire or an oil lamp for light.

Despite Johnson’s appearance of having some degree of money – a recent model bakki, slim Samsung cell phone, being a teacher (one of the better jobs in Namibia), I see that he’s probably put most of his money towards building up his homestead from huts to concrete structures. Also, Namibians are not known for saving. Payday is once a month and when payday hits, you’ll find grocery store, banks and bottle stores full of people spending their money. Shortly after arriving and meeting the other brother and sister, Johnson, Sem and I left to meet Elago, Johnson’s friend.

As we drove into Johnson’s village and past the cuca shops, people were staring, as not many white people come to the village. The same thing happened when we went to the bottle store. There were probably 15-20 men there, a female shop keeper and 4 other women. I was definitely the focal point. Once drunk guy (drinking punya punya, Tassenberg and coke, of course, they are always the most drunk) was mad at me for bot being fluent in Oshiwambo, but only because he was afraid to use the little bit of English that he knows. Eventually I was able to say enough random vocabulary words to make friends with him. Sylvia, one of Johnson’s friend, took pictures of me and her on her cell phone. Repeatedly. At least half of the people there made an effort at some point to say hello or try to chat with me. Francina, a local teacher who is moving out of the Ministry of Education and into the Ministry of Sports and Culture and to Tsumeb (a town) was friendly and obviously interested in Johnson. Another potential Angel… We danced and drank beer until close to midnight. Sylvia came back with us to Johnson’s, we made macaroni and finally went to sleep.

The Invigilator

This morning I proctored the mathematics examination for class 9B. Except in Namibia, instead of it being called proctoring or monitoring, it is called invigilating. I am an invigilator. Doesn’t it sound impressive and authoritative?

Anyway, the exam started at 9am. At 9:40am, one of the male learner strolls in, places his study materials at the front of the class and stops by my desk to pick-up an examination paper. When he walked in, he did not shut the door behind him, I had to ask him to do it. This is not uncommon. Last Friday I invigilated an exam where 2 boys came in 1 hour into a 2-hour examination. Calculators are allowed for the exam and some learners share calculators, passing it back and forth as needed. As I was passing out the exam, one girl was trying to re-assemble her calculator. Well into the exam she was still working on trying to fix it. I was a bit concerned for her, but finally one of her peers that finished early let her use her calculator.

Random funny stuff: Today Johnson and John stopped by the homestead – most likely because they knew that I had gotten the pictures developed – but Kavari gave them a hard time because they would never stop by to visit until I arrived. Johannes Indongo a.k.a. John Delicious has upgraded himself from Mr. Delicious to Professor Delicious. Today when I gave Johnson a picture of the two of us from the staff party, he commented that next to me he looks white.

I’m freaking out right now! This evening I was going to copy of few of Kavari’s CDs of African music and as my computer was burning the first one, it froze. I powered it down and tried to re-boot. The drive started whirring, the circular “thinking” symbol was there, but it stayed there, and stayed, and stayed… So I got worried. I left it alone for a while before trying again. But nothing – nothing but the white screen of death and a flashing folder with a giant question mark inside. Thankfully I backed everything up before leaving for Africa and burned a DVD of the photos that I have taken so far at Tiela’s the other day. Tiela is going to bring me a disk utility CD that she burned from the apple website this weekend in Ondangwa, but other than that, there is nothing I can do…