Adventure to Oshakati

9 March 2012

Adventure to Oshakati

I finally have a computer back!! I hope it continues to work! It is quite exciting!

I have had limited internet access all week, as I had not bought any airtime last week, but it has been quite an interesting couple of weeks.

Last weekend, I decided to make the trip to Oshakati to visit some of the other World Teach volunteers that are in that area. I knew that the drive would drive would take a while and that I would not be able to stay long, but I wanted to test out the journey and see how it would be getting there. I was feeling a little adventurous, and while I love Kavango, I wanted to try to see some more of the country. I had planned to leave early that morning, but ended up not out until about 10:30. Then I had to wait for a ride on the road.

While waiting, a man who was visiting a friend for the day at the Bunya Health Center, stopped on his way to talk to me. He kept talking to me for almost an hour and when he found out where I was going, he told me that they would cut out my eyes and cut out my organs to sell, they were bad people on “that side” he declared, who listened to the devil instead of God. Needless to say, he was wrong and I still have both of my eyes and all of my organs.

At around 12:45 I was just about ready to give up and try again another weekend, when a red truck with an Oshakati plate came by. I waved it down and it actually stopped! They were not going all the way to Oshakati, but were going close enough that I knew I would be ok and would be able to find a volunteer close by or a ride the rest of the way.

On the first part of the ride, I was with two men who were switching between Rukwangali and Afrikaans. When they were speaking in Afrikaans, I could pick up that they were saying something about getting married, but I couldn’t figure out what. They then decided to clue me in that they were saying that now that women and have money and both men and women have a way to support themselves, there is no need for marriage anymore, you just don’t need to get married, because you don’t need the financial support. And it wasn’t fair any way because if you get a divorce, you have to give some of your money to your wife, and if you die, she will just take it all and not give it to your mother or real family. He said that if you got bored with one boyfriend, you could easily just go and find another. It was going to be an interesting ride…

After we dropped the other man off it was pretty quiet though. Between the noise of the road, the music and my  accent, my driver really could not understand anything I said or asked, and most of my responses were just laughs or  an“o ya”. About 4 hours later, we made it to Eenhana (I think…) and he got me a taxi to my next destination, which brought me to another taxi, which bought me to another taxi, which brought me to the Oshakati Guest House and the rest of the volunteers.

It was nice to see everyone and hear how everyone else is doing at their sites. The next day, they let me know where I should  go to find a kombi (a van) ride back to Rundu. This was not as difficult as getting there because all of the kombis headed this way were at the local market. I just had to go and tell them where I was going and to be  pointed to the right van. When I finally found the kombi, I just got in to wait, even though it was so hot. It was comforting when I could pick up on some of the words people were saying  in what sounded like Rukwangali and unless Rukwangali and Oshiwambo were near identical, I knew I was in a kombi headed in the right direction!

Once we were moving it got a little cooler with the breeze and though it was a slow start, we took the new shorter road back and I made it home before dark! I also came home to my first care package from home which my neighbor had picked up in town for me over the weekend, and the package with my new harddrive in it!

I now have my own computer again and have been taking full advantage of its disc drive today!

I had a pretty good week at school this week as well. A lot of the learners seem to be opening up to me now. Some of them seem to be smiling more or at least a bit more engaged in class and I was excited that more of the girls were coming into my classroom teaching me Rukwangali and doing trivia and math practice on Tuesday and going on a picture frenzy on Thursday after their study time. One day this week as well, when I went around the room checking homework, they all were working on their warm-ups, and quickly opened to their homework when I got to them. It seemed like routines are starting to set in! I was so amazed when I got to the end of the room.

I also learned their love for stickers! One morning, the teacher who was supposed to have the class first period, was running late, or saw me sitting at the desk and got confused, but never came, so as I was sitting doing  work, I put a “Morning Math Challenge” on the board and told them to bring it up to me when they had solved it. It was a word problem, so I was not sure how difficult it would be, but once I gave a sticker to one person for doing it, they all started coming up! They also started coming up with their math homework for me to correct. It was really nice to see them so into their math.