Nine days until we leave Himarwa Iithete and Mpungu – the school and community that have been our home for the past year. We truly have felt “at home” here, and it has been a fabulous year. In the last few months, we’ve found our stride and can really appreciate why VSO recommends 2-year placements. However, that probably wouldn’t have been the best thing for Kaia and Jake, and it seems like a long time to be away.
There is excitement about going home to Peterborough, seeing family and friends, and getting involved again in our regular fall activities. I’m actually feeling like it will be easier to go back to work this September, having not had a long summer holiday! I like the Namibian system of the holidays being spread out throughout the year: a month at Christmas, a month in May, and 2 weeks in August. There are other things I’ll miss about Namibia, as well as some that I won’t!
- I won’t miss the intense and relentless heat of September and October when it was almost impossible to sleep … but I will miss baking bread in the solar oven.
- I won’t miss the water being shut off every day at about 2pm and not having running water until 6am the next morning … but I will miss living in a community of people who know and respect the value of clean water.
- I won’t miss the sand that is everywhere – in my shoes, in my kitchen, in my bed … but I will miss having a very small house to keep clean.
- I won’t miss the long dusty drives to Rundu and grocery shopping for 3-4 weeks at a time … but I will miss the local mahangu (millet), veggies from our garden, and being able to sit down with my family for 3 meals a day.
- I won’t miss doing dishes and laundry (especially towels and bedsheets!) by hand … but I will miss my great year-round solar dryer (a.k.a. clothesline) and visits from Johanna, a young woman who often helped with the laundry, always working with her baby on her back. She can get clothes cleaner than any machine I’ve ever used!
- I won’t miss the twice weekly staff briefings at 6:30am … but I will miss being finished teaching classes by 12:50.
- I won’t miss the timidity of learners to speak up in class … but I will miss their discipline and genuine respect for teachers.
- I won’t miss the never-ending demands on teachers’ time (for extra classes, long meetings) …but I will miss living only 200m from work and being right next door to Kaia and Jake’s school.
- I won’t miss working in a system that doesn’t include supply teachers, where learners as young as grade 1 are regularly left unsupervised for many hours … but I will miss the slower pace and lower stress of teaching here.
- I won’t miss the general lack of initiative … but I will miss the excitement of feeling like I can make a difference by following through on even a simple idea.
- I won’t miss having to take malaria pills, and I won’t miss the cockroaches in the kitchen (no redeeming qualities there!)
- I won’t miss trying to teach in classrooms that have too few basic resources (like chairs, desks, chalk, chalkboard erasers, doorknobs, and lightbulbs) … but I will miss teaching English with my best teaching aids ever: Kaia and Jake! (When I asked one teacher what her class thought of my first lesson, she said they told her, “We like those small ones.” It was hard for me to compete!)
- I will miss the amazing night skies and having access to a world class game park like Etosha.
Speaking of which, we are off for a last weekend of game-viewing (our 4th visit to Etosha) later today. This time, we are taking 2 grade 12 learners who have lived here all their lives and never been to the park; never seen an elephant or a lion. Kaia and Jake are really hoping to see a rhinoceros this time to complete their “big 5” (elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard, and rhino).
sorry, no time for photos this time.
Yvonne.
