Swearing In

We made it! All 38 of us were officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers by the US Ambassador to Namibia. The ceremony was very formal and official, with each new speaker greeting all of the honored guests (even those in absentia). We opened by singing our anthems – the African Union, Namibian, and US anthems. There were speeches by the PC Director, the Ambassador, our training Manager, the Director of Education for our region, and other PC staff. There was an awesome singing group, a youth choir that was really, really talented. They put our singing to shame – we sang one of our morning PST songs for everyone’s enjoyment (and entertainment). One of my favorite things was the language speeches – you could tell the audience was impressed by each language as they oohed and aahed after every sentence! I gave part of the Afrikaans speech and was very nervous, but it went well.

As it turned out, the NBC people (Namibian Broadcasting Corporation) arrived late and got only the last 10 minutes of the ceremony on tape. So they interviewed someone from the SEED group (business) and someone from the SUPEP group (education), and they picked me from the SUPEP group to be interviewed! They asked why I did Peace Corps, what I thought of Namibia, and what I hoped to learn in the next few years. I’m not even sure exactly what I said, it was hard to think with a camera pointing at me, but I hope I made sense!

After swearing in a bunch of people left directly for their sites. We didn’t leave until Friday morning, so we went out for milkshakes with our group one more time. Then we spent all evening packing! Our host mom was sad to see us go, and asked us to keep in touch. Which brings us to…


First few days in Tsumeb

Friday: Awful
         In order of appearance, the frustrations of the day:

• African time
• The “everything will fit” philosophy (applied to 9 people, 5 of whom have three suitcases each, in one van)
• African time
• Failure to EFFICIENTLY drop bags and people off at home
• Failure to listen to the Americans’ suggestions for efficiency
• Realization that 5 suitcases of stuff does not fit in a single wardrobe
• Stifling heat
• Experiencing the inconvenience of grocery shopping without a car (10-15 minute walk from the store)
• Constantly dirty feet on constantly dirty cement floors
• Shower doors that don’t close, necessitating a bucket bath instead
• Noticing the dirt still clinging to me AFTER the bucket bath
• Broken fan (stifling heat)

Saturday: Better

• Got a fan and pillows
• Cleaned things
• Hung out with other volunteers at the pool
• Great dinner
• Alone time with Dylan

Sunday: Sad

• Got a phone call from home first thing in the morning – middle of the night US time. My grandpa, who was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, just passed away.
• What can I do? I was on the way to the grocery store at the time, so to the grocery store I went.
• Did laundry.
• Cooked some potato soup (didn’t turn out too well)
• Went to church and finally met the Shalleys whom we’ve heard so much about!
• Had dessert and chatted with Shalleys after church. They have been here almost 30 years!
• Cold shower to try to cool off (was hot again the second I turned the water off)
• Early to bed…

Monday: Not bad

• …Early to rise.
• Found an Egyptian bug in our Namibian kitchen. Hopefully there’s only one.
• Picked up at 6:30 to come to school.
• The other teachers here are super friendly and I enjoyed greeting all of them!
• I was introduced to several classes, then brought to the computer lab to enjoy internet, which is where I am right now. Couldn’t ask for anything more!

We’re only two days away from swearing in now, and we’re basically done with training. We’ve had our final language exam, handed in our final written evaluation, and actually only have a couple more real sessions. We both passed our language exams with flying colors!

Here’s what’s happening:

• Tomorrow we get to spend the day in Windhoek, shopping and taking a tour of the Peace Corps office.
• Thursday morning is our swearing in ceremony, which is broadcast on national TV by the way.
• Friday we will be arriving in Tsumeb and staying there for the next six solid weeks.

This past weekend we had a Thank you party for our host families, which involved large amounts of American food, some songs, and speeches. That event definitely merits a fuller account, so here it is:

How do you plan 38 people living at 36 different houses cooking 8-10 different food items for 160 people? It’s not easy. Fortunately I did not volunteer myself for the planning committee on this one (nor did Dylan)! The wonderful people who were on the committee figured out the menu and who would cook what where. There was a lot of guesstimating involved but it somehow worked out! For snacks we had Pigs in a Blanket, Angel eggs (some people here won’t eat “deviled” eggs), and onion rings. For the main course we made Hamburgers and BBQ Chicken on the braai along with large quantities of mac and cheese. For dessert there was Apple Cobbler, Rice Krispie Treats, and Chocolate Chip Cookies. And Lemonade to drink. Sound American enough?

Dylan and I were actually with the team cooking in town at the training center – in charge of the braai and the mac and cheese. We cooked NINE kilos of macaroni, in four different pots simultaneously on two stoves. We shredded literally buckets of cheese to make sauce, and had three huge pots of mac and cheese at the end. HUGE POTS. It tasted really good when we first finished it, but then it sat around for about an hour during the ceremonies and it wasn’t so awesome after that. The braai turned out well, even though our BBQ sauce was somewhat questionable, manufactured as it was from ketchup, Worcester sauce, and brown sugar. Somehow, in spite of the popularity of braai here, which is basically a barbecue, they don’t have bbq sauce. It’s on my list of things I want from America, if you’re ever coming to Namibia!

As it turned out, there was plenty of food and most of the Namibians went back for seconds (or for take away boxes to eat later, give to friends and family, etc). The Rice Krispies were a big hit, as was the apple cobbler. Of course, all the desserts! Everyone said all the food was good though.

Other than the food, our PST group sang two of our morning “African” songs, Tula Pele and Dumela Kaufela. One of the guys in our group also actually wrote a song about our Peace Corps experience, which was really good, so he/we all performed that one too. There was also a speech from each language group, in our new languages, thanking the host families for all they’ve done the past two months. The whole thing was started off by Dylan giving the first half of the Afrikaans speech! He did a great job, as did the other speakers.

Overall, it was a fun and exhausting (cleaning out the mac and cheese pots afterwards…) day, which we and our host families all enjoyed.

We have now had our last weekend in our training town, and our last Sunday at church. The pastor and congregation prayed for us this past Sunday, which was really nice – they’ve sent us out. I’m guessing many of you at home have been praying for us too, because I’ve felt unaccountably much more positive since that last, somewhat cynical, blog I wrote!

The last news for now is that I would like to note that it is getting hotter here. It’s gotten to the point where I’m taking cool/lukewarm showers in the evening trying to cool off. The high today was 35 degrees Celsius (about 95 farenheit). It’ll keep getting hotter for the next two months. It occurs to me that we will essentially be in Egyptian temperatures, without the advantage of the AC that we enjoyed in Egypt. Bring on the fans!

Thanks again for following along with us, and for your thoughts and prayers. We’ve made it this far, now we start the real thing!

As of today (Wednesday) we have been in Namibia for seven weeks – just shy of our two month training completion! Next Thursday (the 20th), we’ll be officially sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers and disperse to our various sites around Namibia. Wow!

Of course, that’s assuming we pass our final language test and assessment on Monday (not worried about that). We’re really starting to make progress in Afrikaans – we can pick out words on TV shows, more easily express ourselves in conversation or understand conversations around us. Far from fluent, but we’ve come pretty far in the last seven weeks.

Since we’ve been back from our site visit it’s gotten harder and harder to sit through our training sessions. Now that we’ve seen where we’re going, we’re anxious to go there and begin assimilating, using our language, living the lives we’re going to live for the next two years. No more sitting in the classroom, we’re ready for the real world! At least we’re almost there.

Our group is pretty unique so far in that no one has ET’d (early terminated) yet. In the last several training groups, at least one person has quit after site visit, deciding Peace Corps isn’t for them after all. It looks like our group will all at least make it to swearing in! The next hurdle after that is Phase 2 – six weeks, from the end of October through the end of November, where we’re all at site. Our first big dose of what Peace Corps will really be like.

Dylan and I were talking today about how different Peace Corps has been from what we expected. We’ve had fairly modern conveniences like water and electricity and a nice house. There are western-style toilets everywhere here and most that I’ve seen have toilet paper (an improvement on Egypt and Rwanda!). We’re learning a European-ish language, not some obscure Bantu language. And with that, many people who speak Afrikaans also speak English. I was expecting to struggle to communicate, but it’s so easy! Even with teaching, the kids we’re working with already speak English. I was thinking I’d be teaching grammar and vocab like I did in Egypt, but secondary students here are learning things like personification and metaphors and similes! Of course, we also expected to live in a hut on a traditional homestead in the middle of nowhere, totally isolated from other volunteers. But lo and behold, we will be (and have been) living in a big town and actually sharing a house with another volunteer. I have yet to see rural Namibia. Some people will have that experience – those who are going really far north are actually in huts, a few of the people going east are living on farms, a lot of people are in fairly small villages. Just not us.

There’s also very different motives for people being here. I think a lot of people joined Peace Corps because they wanted to travel and be somewhat productive, and because they didn’t have something better to do in the States. That definitely does not apply to everyone. Some people are interested in development work, some people really wanted cultural immersion, some people are really here to help others. It’s a totally different feel though from HNGR where we were going to “walk with the poor” and figure out how our world fits in with theirs and what responsibilities we have as “rich” Christians in this unbalanced, unjust world. Compared to that, Peace Corps feels more like a simple cultural exchange.

Forgive my cynicism. We haven’t really started yet and I may still be proved wrong!

In the interest of keeping everyone up to date, I should also mention that my school assignment has been changed from Nomtsuob Primary to Otjikoto Secondary School. This was due to some miscommunication between Peace Corps and Nomtsuob Primary about what I would teach. My principal wasn’t flexible enough to work with Peace Corps guidelines. Otjikoto is another school in the location in Tsumeb, although I’ve been told it’s much deeper in the location than Dylan’s school is. The principal of the school recently transferred to Windhoek, so the English Head of Department is currently acting as principal and she’ll be my supervisor. From what I’ve heard, they want me to teach computer classes as well as English. However, if I learned anything from my experience with Nomtsuob Primary, it’s that I can’t necessarily trust what I’ve been told, and things could still change. I feel at a distinct disadvantage now, having not seen my school or met my principal yet. I’m trying to keep an open mind and stay flexible!

That’s right. We will be sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers in just under two weeks! I think we’re more than ready to be done with PST (pre-service training). Since we’ve been back from site we’ve done a little teaching in the schools in our training town and a lot of language study. I don’t have too much to report, so here’s some pictures instead!
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