Weekend at the Farm

We got back to our house from the farm at about 9am Tuesday morning – having left the farm at 5am! One of our hosts, Elana, had to be back in Windhoek by 9 for work, so we left early. 
 
It was a good weekend! We got there Saturday afternoon and met Elana’s parents, who own the farm. Fortunately for us they both speak English as well as Afrikaans. The farm is along the southern border of Etosha a little ways east of Outjo. The name of the farm, Grensplaas, actually means “border farm” because it shares an 18 km border with Etosha. One of the first things Patat (Elana’s father) showed us was a lion he had shot because it was eating his cattle! It was in a closet-like space and he moved some stuff around then told us to look in and a lion was staring at us. Creepy and cool?
 
We took a short walk in the evening to see the goats and sheep (their sheep look like goats by the way, not white and wooly) and some cattle. It’s very dusty on the farm. On Saturday night we had a braai with steaks and homemade potato wedges and onion rings. It was quite delicious and amazingly I managed to eat my whole steak – probably for the first time ever. I did feel a bit sick afterwards. We sat around and talked for a long time (varying between Afrikaans and English) and had some hot chocolate. 
 
For breakfast on Sunday, Dylan and I had eggs and toast and everybody else had eggs and toast and leftover steak. They had said something about having steak for breakfast the night before, but we thought they were joking. Nope! They really were very serious about their meat – and only red meat. They said (jokingly?) that chicken wasn’t really meat. So for lunch on Sunday we had kudu schnitzel (which was quite good), then for dinner we had lamb (or goat, I’m not sure which). On Monday we had fatcakes and mince for breakfast, lamb/goat for lunch, and beef for dinner. I have never eaten so much red meat in my life! Dylan and I are eating only chicken and veggies and pasta now that we’re home. =)
 
We didn’t have to get up too early – although there was a rooster who successfully woke us up at 4am every day, we just went back to sleep. During the day we went out driving on the farm with Patat and Dewet doing things like bringing water to some workers who didn’t have any, putting a water pump in at a “pos” (drinking place for cattle), collecting wild watermelons for jam, dropping off “dropers” (fence posts), and other errands. We stopped frequently for Patat to explain to us different kinds of trees and grass you’d find on the farm – and which ones are better or worse and which ones the cattle like and so on. Not sure how much of that soaked in. We drove up to the Etosha border and looked in. The farm and Etosha are separated by three fences, although apparently that’s not always enough to keep the animals out. 

As you can probably tell, farms in Namibia tend to be more like what I would call a ranch – all the focus is on animals, not crops. I don’t think they actually grow anything intentionally, although they use the wild grass and berries and whatnot. At this particular farm, they also produce charcoal which is sold around the country. We saw the whole process more or less – from cutting down the wood, to burning it, sorting it, breaking it up, packaging it, etc. Packaging charcoal is a very dirty job.
 
Most of the manual labor on this white-owned farm is done by black people. It was challenging to be a white guest of a white host being shown around like a tourist amongst blacks doing hard, dirty work. For the first time, I realized that when my learners say they went to the farm over break, at least some of them mean a farm like this – one where their parents work, not one that they own. The workers had their own little villages on the farm with huts and shacks. From my attempts to communicate with some of them, I think they mostly speak Afrikaans and their mother tongue, not English. They were very subdued. Worked hard, not much talking, didn’t speak to the boss unless spoken to, no smiles. It was a very different world from the one where I go to school and am surrounded by empowered, professional, friendly people who happen to be black. 
 
Aside from that part, we really enjoyed the weekend. We drank homemade lemon juice (kind of like lemonade, but sweeter), played UNO, milked cows (I even squirted milk directly into my mouth!), enjoyed hot baths and showers (the water is heated by fire in a “donkie”, a big water tank in a brick structure outside), and enjoyed getting to know our hosts. Hopefully we’ll get to go back again sometime!
 
For the rest of the holiday (one week), I think we’ll just be hanging out in Tsumeb. As fun as it was to experience life on a farm, it wasn’t as relaxing as sitting around at home with all the familiar comforts near at hand. We have some lesson planning to do, some house cleaning, some baking…but mostly enjoying the time we have to ourselves, especially as our roommate is also away this week. It’s getting hotter every day – we just put away the last of our extra blankets and took out the fan. It’s going to be a long summer…

Be interested to hear your thoughts on this one…

Last week, I was supervising the 8B class. There are 40 learners in the class and the whole class is generally regarded as a problem class. Lots of kids fail, lots of troublemakers.

My job was to keep them quiet as other classes were writing exams. This was extremely challenging. First I asked them to be quiet. Then I walked around the class and told individual people to be quiet. Then I started taking time away from their break every time I had to ask them to be quiet. For most people, that was effective. But there were four boys who WOULD NOT stop talking. I went and stood right in front of them. No effect. I took more time away from their break. I thought about asking them to move seats, but realized I would physically have to pull them up and move them myself as they were determined to ignore me. I stood in between them and asked them to stop talking. They literally ignored me, leaned around me, and continued their conversation.

Wow, I was annoyed. I called for another teacher, a male teacher who speaks their language, thinking maybe they’d listen to him. He came and called them out of the class – but instead of talking to them, he beat the back of their hands with a piece of wood. They came back in rubbing their hands and looking sulky. But do you know what? They were silent for the remainder of the period – over an hour.

You have to admit – the beating worked where other methods of discipline failed. I do not think that this shows that corporal punishment is the best way to deal with problem kids. But I think maybe it shows the difficulty of switching from a system of corporal punishment to another system? Maybe kids who have been beaten for punishment in the past really will just ignore all other forms of punishment because they’re not nearly as bad as a beating.

For the record, corporal punishment in now illegal in Namibia. However, it is still the de facto form of punishment in most schools. I have even had learners argue in favor of beating as a punishment because it’s the only way some people will listen.

Once again, I don’t think that’s the answer. But how do you make the shift from this system to another? Maybe it just takes time. What do you think?

Okay, while it lasted, here were my rules for not stressing, spending time with teachers, and still getting stuff done:

1. Be flexible. If plan A isn’t going to work, be willing to use plan B or randomly create a plan Z.
2. Don’t be efficient. This is easily the most difficult thing. I used to plan my time efficiently – I have 40 minutes in the morning before class so I can get A,B,C, and D done in that time. No. Maybe plan one thing to get done in that time, or ideally nothing. Do everything else at home the night before.
3. Redefine what is “productive.” Sitting and chatting with another teacher, or even sitting and listening to other teachers talk in a language you don’t understand, can be productive. You’re showing that you care enough to spend time with them.
4. Let some things go. You can’t chase down every learner and force them to hand in their assignments. You might not cover everything you wanted to cover in class. Oh well!

“While it lasted” happened to be about four days. I did really well for those four days, Monday – Thursday. Then on Friday I found out that the learners were writing part of their English exam on Monday. This was a problem for two reasons – one, I was expecting to use that time to teach because exams weren’t supposed to start for another week and a half, and two, I was the one who was supposed to set the grade 8 exam! No advance notice at all, I found out on Friday that the exam had to be set by the end of school on Friday. I was not a happy camper. However, I was still relatively in a good mood at that point, so I laughed and was angry at the same time.

The following week another unexpected school event caused me to miss more classes. Then they decided that we would stop rotating classes on Thursday (still 5 school days from when exams were supposed to start!). Theoretically the teachers are still supposed to teach during this time, but it doesn’t work out well at all, it’s pretty much chaos.

THEN, they decided that exams would start on Monday instead of on Wednesday as scheduled! Unexpectedly I was done teaching for the term two days early. Fortunately, this was not entirely surprising, so my classes were 90 percent done with what they were supposed to finish and they were able to finish the rest Monday and Tuesday.

Besides the crazy school schedule I had a very stressful weekend just before exams started when I went to the north for the parents’ meeting. Many of our learners (about half) are boarders who actually come from villages in the north, so we have one parents’ meeting up there every year that all the teachers are supposed to go to. I was glad to get the chance to go to the north actually, since I still hadn’t been. The meeting was held in Oshakati, about 4 hours north of Tsumeb.

In short – glad I went, both for the chance to see the north and for the chance to spend time with teachers outside of school. On the other hand, EVERYTHING from departure to meals to sleep to the actual meeting to getting back home ran 1-3 hours later than planned. It just about drove me crazy.

NOW, we’re well into exams (only one week left, thank goodness!) and that’s a whole nother story… Learners come to school every day for six hours, but may be writing as few as two exams a week. There are no lessons. It’s like an endless study hall. Poor kids, and poor teachers who have to supervise them and keep them quiet!

The good thing is, now that we’re not planning lessons, we have a lot more free time in the afternoons and evenings. That alone makes a big difference! I even have most of my marking done and Dylan’s about half way through his. We’ve pretty much successfully completed our second term as teachers!

One sad thing is we haven’t been able to watch any Olympics at all, given our lack of access to TV. I realized this is the second time in a row that I’ve missed the summer Olympics because of being in Africa (the last time was in 2008 while I was in Rwanda). Shame!

Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement. We wouldn’t be getting through this nearly as well as we are without that! =)