Goodbye holiday and rainy season, hello Term 2 and winter

Term 2 will be my last full term as a Peace Corps volunteer. 4 and a half months to go.  It seems surreal. And it's scary. It's hard for me to see past  my last day as a PCV.

Winter came barging into a pleasant Namibian "autumn" this week.  Thursday morning was in the low 40’s, and in the afternoons it’s been in the 60s and 70s.  It’s certainly refreshing, not feeling like I’m living on the interior of an oven.  Let me remind you: winter is cold. Maybe it's not as cold as a Maryland or Pennsylvania winter.  There's no snow.  But it does go below freezing.  My house doesn't have heat.  Getting out of a warm bed in the morning is hard when the rest of the house is in the 40s and it's still dark outside.   I’m not sure I’m ready for namwinter just yet. 

The last few weeks have been pretty boring.  The end of my holiday was definitely pleasant until a visit to the dentist, during which I made an emergency/temporary root canal performed, with the promise of a more thorough root canal to come (it happened to be this morning, more to come on that).

While on holiday, I managed to break my phone and lose my sunglasses (which I suspect were actually stolen, but since I have no proof of this, I feel like I have to take the blame).  Being without a phone doesn’t really suit me, so the day we arrived back in Namibia from Victoria Falls, I had to buy a new phone, spending the remainder of my living allowance, and recognizing that having a phone was probably more important than fresh fruits and vegetables for the next 2 weeks.  I got a nice phone for what I paid for it, it has a qwerty keyboard, a music player and a micro SD card slot that turns it into an mp3 player, and a radio – the Nokia I broke had only the radio.

The beginning of the school term is off to a good start.  I had braced myself for all the women teachers to tell me how fat I’d gotten over the holiday, but then I realized that they, too, had gotten rather fat over the holiday.  So fat, in fact, that the first day I was back ( I missed the first 2 days for the aforementioned emergency root canal) several of them were wearing blouses with the bottoms 2-4 buttons unbuttoned because, well, they couldn’t be buttoned.  (I actually smsed some other volunteers and asked if that would be ok in America.  Clearly I’ve lost my perspective.)  To my great relief, none of them pointed out how fat I’d gotten.

I’ve have spent the first 2 weeks doing software installations/updates/troubleshooting, trying to prepare the computers for the classes I’m supposed to be giving to the teachers.  On my personal computer, I’ve been using Edubuntu (a Linux operating system geared towards learners and teachers) almost exclusively as an alternative to Windows.  One of the biggest advantages of Linux over Windows is that the viruses that haunt us are made almost exclusively for Windows, and don’t operate in Linux, making Linux immune to them.  As anyone who has had to deal even a little with computers here will tell you, after a general lack of knowledge, the biggest challenge facing IT is viruses.  Some volunteers have computer labs that have been rendered inoperable due to the destruction and devastation of viruses.  With all those things in mind, I made the case to my HOD/the acting principal (and it’s almost certain that he’ll become principal when they open the post up for applications) that since I’ve figured out how to install Microsoft Word and Excel inside Edubuntu, and since Edubuntu is geared toward educators and learners, and because the viruses that are running rampant around Namibia won’t run in Edubuntu, it’s the perfect operating system for the several computers to be used by the teachers. And he said ok. For me, this is a huge victory.  Not only have I freed my school from the chains of Microsoft Windows (well, mostly – they are on a dual boot system, the user chooses whether to use Edubuntu or Windows), but if I leave nothing else, at least I know I’m leaving computers that won’t be riddled with debilitating viruses 2 weeks after I leave.

The holidays were unkind to my figure: not enough running/walking/exercise in general, and too much fried/good food.  Last week I decided that walking to school would do me good.  Since school starts at 7am, I have to be out of the house by no later than 6:25.  The sun is just peeking its head over the horizon, and it’s quiet and cool and good for my head.  I listen to the news in the morning (the New at 6 from the National Broadcasting Company of Namibia) on my new phone, which is great – I feel like I always meant to listen to the news in the morning while getting ready for school, but was always too sleepy to remember to turn it on until it was time to leave.  I also pass a lot of people walking to work in town from the location, and I like greeting people in the morning.  As I mentioned shortly after moving to Gobabis and was still living with my host family, the walk to and from school was often the best part of my day.  It’s becoming so again.  The walk home lets me unwind and listen to music and greet people.  (As an aside, I refuse to give up wearing my Chacos (sandals) for the cold; at least 2 of the 5 days I’ve walked to school since it started, my toes have gone numb from the cold. Almost time to start rockin the socks and sandals!)
Listening to the news in the morning is eye-opening.  To say that NBC’s news has an anti-western tilt would be too strong, but certainly the way that the news is presented is not always objective, and does not always portray the US and other industrialized nations in the best light.  Sometimes I also wonder how the some of the people giving the news ended up as radio voices; their English is, ahem, pretty bad.

Last term, it came to light at Martin’s school, and then the following day at my school, that the learners have organized themselves into gangs.  Last week, members of one tribe (the Herero tribe) killed an old lady from another tribe (the Damara tribe) in the location, and so in addition to the gang activity, there’s now inter-tribal dispute.  The Namibian published a story about the gang activity last week; see below.

Last Friday, after Thursday’s article, the principal (formerly the HOD) observed during the morning staff meeting that no one is going to pay attention to these things until someone dies.  I can’t disagree.  And unfortunately, tribalism is so common in Namibia that it can only escalate.  He asked if we thought we should gather the learners in the hall and talk to them.  OF COURSE.  So the learners got a talking-to on Friday morning, although I’m not sure what was said, as I was busy trying to get Edubuntu to install and update using our one internet connection.

I found out that Yolande (the secretary at my school) will be finally getting married in December.  I’m happy for her, but sad at the same time, since I will no longer be in Namibia (although my whereabouts are still unknown).

Yesterday I underwent the worst dental procedure I’ve ever had.  I’ve been to the namdentist far more times than is reasonable.  The dentist I saw for my mid-service dental appointment found "soft spots" that he felt the need to drill and fill.  I saw the dentist 6 or 7 times between May and November last year, and one of the things he "fixed" has been causing me pain.  Finally PC sent me to a dental surgeon who discovered that I needed a root canal.  I've never had a full root canal before.  It was excruciating.  I teared up. I've never cried at the dentist before.  If I never need another root canal, it won't be too soon.  BUT, for the first time in ages, I can chew food on that side of my mouth without pain.  It's pretty great.

The upside to having to come to the dentist in Windhoek is that I get to hangg out with my friend Kamy, who lives here, and Debbie, who lives just too far to hang out often. 

Thanks for reading.  I hope wherever you are, you're well.