Shit My Learners Say Part 1

Do you have clowns in America?

Yes?

Maybe you can take some of these back to America with you.

Are you married?

No

Do you have a boyfriend?

No

Do you want one?

No

Do you know Chris Brown? Donald Trump? Lil Wayne?

No but I live by Eminem.

YOU KNOW HIM?

No I have never seen him.

How do you live by him but have never seen him?

Are there beautiful ladies in America?

Yes? Just like there are beautiful ladies here too and beautiful men.

Oooooooo MISS!!!!!!!!

Are you a part of the Illumaniti?

What are you talking about? No.

But your ring is a symbol of it.

No this is a peace sign.

Yeah that’s a sign of devil worshipers.

No it means peace. Where did you hear that?

The Internet.

I read that Namibia is full of snow on the Internet. Is that true?

What? No!

Exactly….

Miss the Illumanati is true!

No it is not, it is fake. I promise you.

No miss, I will bring you in one and prove it to you.

Is Nikki Minaj’s butt real?

What? I don’t know the specifics of people’s body parts.

What about Kim Karsdashian?

Miss, do bank robberies happen all the time? Is that how American’s are so rich?

Never in my life have I ever heard of a successful bank robbery.

Ohhhh so miss the movies are not real.

No hun. They are not real.

Miss, if I was given the choice between a cool drink and miss…

DO NOT ANSWER THAT.

But Miss

IF YOU ANSWER THAT YOU ARE GOING TO THE OFFICE

Miss I would take the cool drink and pour it and give it to you.

Oh lord you guys

Hello/ Good Morning/ Good Afternoon/ Good Afterbreak Miss *boys while waving arms at sides like birds or fish or something*

What are you doing?

Miss they’re our wings of love.

Do you seriously do this when you walk into class each morning?

No Miss only to the teachers we like.

Yes Miss and I only like you.

Miss do you have siblings?

Yes I have two sister.  They are 19. They are twins.

OOO do they look alike?

No actually I look more like each of them than they look like each other

Oh Miss you must take us to America with you when you go.

Sorry Allison and Kathleen I may have married you off…..

As a follow up to the previous ones the girls then replied

Miss do you have any boy cousins?

Yes I do

Oh Miss you must bring me them.

You do not want to marry my cousin

But miss why?

You just don’t

But Miss he is an American and I will love him

Oh lord, sorry Jimmy and Patrick

Miss where are you staying?

I’m staying with Christopher’s family right now but Im going to be living on the hostel grounds soon.

Miss, I’m going to bring my horses to show you.

I’m sorry but I’m not allowed to ride horses here. They’ll send me home because its dangerous.

What Miss?? No! My horses are not dangerous. I will bring one over and you will ride it and I will walk it, you will be very safe.

What does the water taste like in America?

Water? It tastes like water?

No it must taste different!

No really it tastes the same…..

Miss  you must carry an umbrella so the sun doesn’t hurt your beautiful skin

My host brother: Isnt the sun going to hurt you?

What?

Yes you are wearing short pants, wont the sun hurt your skin?

I’m going outside for like 10 minutes.

Okay but the sun is like allergic to you. Look what it did to my skin! (shows me his peeling arm.)

Yeah its just a sun burn. Have you never had one before?

No never!

I get them like at least once a year. I think I will be okay.

Miss why is your forehead two different colors?

That’s what happens when you put white people in the sun for too long. They burn and then they peel.

Oh Miss it looks like your skin is coming off!

Well it is but its dead so its good.

Oh Miss are you sure you’re not part of the Illuminati?

Upon seeing two girls crowd continuously going up to the classroom sink and look at something I ask them what is there.

No miss its nothing!

*Walking over to the sink* No what is it tell me now

No Miss don’t touch it!

I swear if it is a bug I will kill it.

OH NO MISS PLEASE!

I look into the sink and see a giant terrifying bug about half as big as my hand. So I say OMG get that out of here. If it is not gone in 10 seconds I will kill it!

No miss it is sick! It must stay in here.

No it is not sick

Yes he has a fever!

Hun, I studied bugs for like 4 years, they don’t get fevers.

Yes he has a fever

Well then he has fever because he is living in a chip bag and belongs outside.

The 16 year old girls then begin crying that this bug cannot go outside. I made them put it outside away from the window and they proceded to fake cry the REST OF THE DAY while peeking over their shoulders to see if I was watching.

Bonus** Not my learners but here are a few text messages from Mr. Derek that made me pee my pants.

Me: I want to show Mean Girls at the hostel.

Derek: OMG yes! My host family in Okahandja loved it too! I;m thinking it might be a little too racy for up here though considering the kids covered their eyes during a bugs life.

Me: What?? Omg I am dying! Hahahah
Derek: Like really? The grasshoppers are too scary? Stop.

Mind you I received this one during silent study time and began to cry while I stifled my laughter observing a similar cafeteria style map directly in front of my eyes.

Derek: So I started writing a Mean Girls Namibia… This is the map to my combined school, you’ve got your small boys, your unfriendly grade 10s, crazy pre primaries, girls with nice shoes, girls with no shoes at all, the greatest teacher you will ever meet, and the worst. Beware of the teachers with sticks….

I told him I would fund his project.

I received this one while at a funeral.

Derek: I am watching he Lion King in Africa. This is ridiculous. We live in Africa.

Today meme brought home chocolate. I got the white chocolate, everyone else got

milk…coincidence or her idea of a joke?

OMG OMG OMG Greatest moment ever. There is a girl in group 34 who is from Norway and we’re at her site looking at books, one was in Swedish. Alex goes “you know Swedish” and I burst out “YEAH everyone in Africa knows Swedish!” GREATEST MEAN GIRLS MOMENT EVER

Happy Thanksgiving America! My First Turkey Day as Host Complete With Holiday Crisis

Greetings from the other side of the pond. I certainly hope everyone is enjoying time with their family and loved ones. I never realized how much I loved Thanksgiving until I wasn’t really able to celebrate it. I love having the day off and getting to see family and frequently in my family’s case, travel somewhere. I love having a ton of food to eat and I love that it is all homemade. I love that in the middle of the night you can go find the turkey carcass and nibble off a midnight snack. I love the turkey, stuffing and mashed potato breakfast my family and I usually indulge in. I love laying around watching football while the food cooks and most importantly I love pumpkin pie. This probably explains why I practically cried when I received a can of pumpkin, pie crust, and seasoning in my most recent box from my mom. There is “pumpkin” in Namibia but it’s essentially squash, and I didn’t want to attempt and probably mess it up. Also given the fact that I have been making mashed potatoes with a fork (Nothing is standing between me and mashed potatoes Megan O’Connor) I could only imagine how an attempt at homemade pumpkin pie would end.

            It’s funny because when people ask me to make them American food my mind kinda goes blank. What is American food? I remember the first week we had Amandine in the Twp. Coming all the way from Belgium ready to experience American culture for the next year and her first week is full of pizza, Thai food, Mexican, spaghetti, Chinese food, and maybe burgers one night. We realized that we had given her a taste of the rest of the world’s food “Made in America” but not really “American” food. Even us volunteers hosted an American cultural food day and had an Asian inspired, Mexican/Southwestern inspired, and Italian inspired table. If you think about it, the food we (or at least my family, friends, and I) eat every day is always inspired by a different culture that is present in the melting pot that is the US.  I would personally consider “traditional” food is what we eat on holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter food. Stuff you don’t eat everyday and you don’t really know how to prepare until you are an adult yourself.

            For example, if you handed me a ham, I would have no idea what to do with it. At all. I am not sure if I have told this story but when I was living in Okahandja with my host family there my host mom comes home and tells me she has a surprise for me. I get really excited as she guides me into the kitchen where there is a giant bag. She reaches into the bag and says she stopped at the store after work in the capital and bought a turkey. She looks at me and says her family has never had a turkey before and since she had an American living with her she wanted to buy one to make me feel at home. I was touched and then she says “So you’re American, you know how to cook a turkey right?” Lol what? Um okay sure lets see here. 2 carrots, a few baby stalks of celery, mutton stock. I tried my best, it turned out pretty good but at the end of the day I think the turkey was actually an overpriced duck… oh well.

            Tonight, thanks to the wonderful Kelley Riley, and her expensive package, I have all the fixins for a pretty decent Thanksgiving (minus the bird – I’m just using chicken) and the traditional food that all the Namibians I have met are requesting. However now comes the moral decision to share or hoard it all for myself. Actually, I decided to share, now the task at hand is to cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner with 2 pots, and a baking sheet….

            It began with the baking of the pies. I have never actually made a pie and have only ever really witnesses my mother making cobblers in the summer and fall.  I was super excited for the pumpkin because I cannot stress enough how much I love it. However I should make a disclaimer that I am used to perfection when it comes to pumpkin and apple pies. Nearly every year we order our pies from the local Yates Cider Mill. They are delicious and even call us each year wondering if we would like to order again. Um yes we would. There was one slip up year however. We were eating our pies and something tasted off. At first no one wanted to say anything out of fear for shaming the Yates name, when someone finally spoke up though we all agreed that they were just having an off year when it came to their pumpkin pies. Then we got the call. The poor Yates people called every one that had ordered their pumpkin pies after Thanksgiving dinner to admit they had forgotten the sugar when making them. At this moment everyone let out a sigh of relief that it was just an honest mistake. However the memory was forever in our minds.

            I don’t know how I could have forgotten it. But when I was making my pies I was just so excited, I couldn’t contain myself. I even put it in two pie tins so that I could possibly hide one just for myself for the weekend. They cooked beautifully. They were perfect, I couldn’t wait to cut into them and actually I didn’t. A chef always had to taste their creations right? I cut myself a tiny piece unable to resist the temptation anymore and took a bite. Something didn’t taste right… Maybe it was because I was in the middle of nowhere Africa…but then that SHOULD make it taste good. And then it hit me. Ohmygawd I forgot the stupid sugar. I was so excited to use the goodies from America that I forgot to simply add that little bit of sugar. I was going to give pieces to all my neighbors, eat this for breakfast, and had people coming over in an hour. Holy crap what do I do? Text my mom of course.

            What I was advised to try and ultimately did was scoop out the filling, mix sugar and then rebake it. It ended up working pretty well  and my fellow teachers tried taking the whole extra one home. Not happening buddy, but boy was I thinking in my head that next year I will laugh about this. Thank goodness the rest instructions that I had to follow to complete dinner were “Just add water”

            In all the evening was very successful. I taught them each about Thanksgiving and attempted to explain Hanukah on the fly. There was stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy out of a box, Namibian chicken that was still bleeding a bit when it unthawed, some all American CocaCola, and we all shared what we were thankful for The Namibians each ate a plate and I almost had to roll them out the door. Amateur hour up in here, they served no competition to my Uncle Wook. I am now a happy camper with all my left overs and some delicious breakfast tomorrow morning. 

Everyone’s Favorite Time of the Year – Exam Time

Everyone loves exams, students get to study for and take them, teachers get to decipher answers and grade them then calculate final grades, parents get to encourage their kids to study for them. Who am I kidding, no one likes exams except for when their finished. Here in Namibia, final exams are a whole month long, delicately scheduling one exam a day (multiple exams for each subject) leaving study hall for the remaining hours of school time. It is a super unnecessarily long drawn out process that could be combined into a week like they have it in the States. But no system is perfect so there has to be some reason they feel this is best.

            The month begins with the sanding of desks. The desks here have wooden tops and become every kids personal art easel through the course of the year. Every  kid must pick a desk, bring sand paper from home and go to town outside. I’m going to be frank with you, this process was torture. Even the good students who you know would never make a mark on the desk were expected to go out in the hot African sun and sand away small drawings of shapes and flowers because it might be an answer they could cheat off of. Those kids who could either not afford sand paper or forgot it (I’m thinking it was most likely the latter) took to picking up rocks off the ground or flipping their desks upside down sitting on it and having a friend or two push it across the concrete, I thought that was pretty innovative. I was lucky enough to supervise this event and thus I was in charge of approving whether the desk was up to standards or not.  After a while when about half of the kids were done I began going around trying to speed up the process. I was wondering what took some kids much longer than others. It was the deeply carved straight lines, triangles, and flowers that obviously hid answers to history, Afrikaans, and the like. I told them it looked fine but they were so worried the principal would beat them if it wasn’t completely cleaned. This slightly infuriated me so I grabbed the sand paper and began sanding myself. I felt that if I could not get these marks out myself then the poor kid shouldn’t be expected to either. After struggling with many desks I told them it was fine and to get out of the sun. Some of them were still worried they would get hit but were so grateful to me for understanding they shouldn’t be punished for someone else’s mistakes (or in this case deeply grooved lines that was a result of boredom). I told them I would speak with the principal regarding their matter. When all the desks were put back I marched up to the principal and told him that some of the desks still had marks on them, on those ones I grabbed the sand paper myself and failed to get them out therefore if he felt they were not up to standards here was a piece of sandpaper, he could try for himself and if he got it out he could hit me instead of the poor kids. I think he thought I was joking, I was not. I don’t think he ever checked any of the desks.

            When the actual exams began the schedule was something like 2.5 hours of silent study followed by a half hour break and then about another hour or so of silent study before the exam began. Sometimes the first half of the day also had an exam during, which would make 2 2hour exams that day. This part was slightly torturous too as the students were not allowed to work together, make noise, or sleep. Although I was naturally smart through junior high and high school I did study but I always found that the two most important study aids was a restful mind and a friend to study with and ask questions to. Sitting there with a book in front of you for two hours 3 times a day (there is mandatory afternoon and evening study which is silent study hour) I think is a waste of time. Unfortunately for these kids, they know no other way of studying and the ministry specifically demands they do this. Why? They feel it will improve low test scores, I have other opinions on that though. During the exam the invigilator must actively be walking around inspecting and keeping a watchful eye on everyone. I told him I worked security for 4 years and have a better watchful eye when I am stationary. This was also another Ministry delegated rule.

            Once the exams are done, the teachers go into full marking mode. My school as is many other schools are in clusters, much like a district. Collectively they have a vision and a mission and during exam time they share exams. This is intended to lighten the teachers load of each writing their own exams and to ensure that all the students in the cluster learn the whole nationally delegated syllabus. It’s a really good idea except that the exams this year for this specific cluster were not looked over by someone else. One exam was missing a whole page, other exams had too advanced questions for the specific grade, and on a few of them even the answer key was incorrect. One of the exams I helped a fellow colleague check I realized every kid got the exact same questions wrong. From my experiences, when that happens the teachers I had threw out the question acknowledging the questions was poorly written or it was the teacher’s fault for not adequately teaching it for his/her students to learn. In Namibia though, a common excuse is that the student did not study, that it’s their fault. Maybe it is because I was just a student a mere six months ago or because I always tend to give people the benefit of the doubt but I tend to take the students’ side on many issues that have arisen since I have been here, my principal has even called me out for it and has told me I need to be harsher on them. This was not in a mean way, he said it teasingly and with a smile but I think there was some seriousness to it. Anyway for this specific exam, realizing nearly every kid failed the multiple choice portion, I decided to go through every single question and calculate how many kids actually got each question correct. What I found out was that practically every kid got the same questions wrong and had put the same wrong answer. I knew the subject teacher was in fact a very good teacher so it couldn’t have been his fault nor the students, unless all 20 of them copied the wrong answers off of one kid, which was also unlikely since I was walking around the tiny class for the full 2 hours. So I made the teacher take the exam – mostly because I didn’t know enough about African or Namibian history to vouch for the correct answers. As it turned out, the teacher himself failed the exam when I marked it according to the answer key. After the whole debacle and realization, I was able to then to go back and award almost every kid an extra nearly 20% for their correct answers. That was certainly the difference between failing and passing for many.

            The subject teacher was just as grateful as I was to figure this discrepancy out, what is heart breaking is to think how many kids took this same exam and how many of their teachers might not have caught this, nor taken the time to fix all the exams. This education system is far from perfect, but so is the one in the United States. While I am sure that I will definitely learn more about this system as time goes on, it breaks my heart to think that maybe one of the reasons for the high fail rate here is due unavoidable mistakes this this. Its seems like these kids have the cards stacked against them so often, its not surprising that help is needed. 

One of the Most Important Aspects of My Life: Food

A few questions that I have been recently getting involve what I actually eat here. I then remembered that I unfortunately never went over Namibian food on here. Only those lucky enough to be on Facebook have had the pleasure of seeing and reading about various food related adventures since beginning my time in Namibia. So now I will narrate it for everyone. Namibia is very diverse in almost every aspect you could think of for a country and its people. There are at least 5 dominant languages here, everything from sand dunes to lush green rivers, sea lions to real lions so obviously food is also very different depending on where in the country you are. In general though Namibians eat a lot of noodles, rice and pap (porridge) with meat. Vegetables are generally found if in a can and only in large towns fresh. When I was living in Okahandja dinner consisted of one of the carbs, a mystery meat, sometimes potatoes, a small bit of veggies. When I first met my host mom I told her I loved vegetables. She said the family did too and so I thought all would be good. When she said they liked vegetables, in reality she meant she’ll put in half an onion or half a tomato into the pot with the meat and sauce and cook it way down. I did one time get canned corn and I was in heaven. It didn’t go far in a family of five though. Other PC people only got their vegetables served with large amounts of mayo and/or sugar. Like imitation potato salad without the potato. So I was pretty lucky.

            Namibians LOVE their meat though. Many have told me that if there is no meat, then it is not a meal even then though I tried to put ham in a grilled cheese with tomato soup and my trainer still wasn’t really having it. I told him there was meat so it was a meal. He told me it doesn’t work like that. When we first arrived to the country all of us were staying at a hostel conference center for the first few weeks. Two girls were vegetarian, but understood that it may be complicated to have meals specifically for them. Still they politely informed the cook of their situation and he told them he would take care of them. The girls (and all of us actually) were very confused when the dish for the vegetarians the next day contained chicken with macaroni and tuna salad as a side. We all asked the guy what was up with that and he repsonds with a questionable look saying “Chicken and fish are not meat. You said you don’t eat meat, there is no meat here.” We just shook our heads and the girls said it was okay. Eventually he understood what we considered meat and made sure they always had something to eat. Unfortunately though the rest of us being so obsessed with getting our vegetables wanted to eat the veggie option too but were not allowed to, the cook guarded it because he felt bad. It was over all a very humorous situation.

            So now onto this meat situation that all the Namibians love so much. The most common meats in the country are chicken, goat, and sheep. No matter where you are in the country I am positive you will find someone to eat every part of these animals minus the fur and feathers. In the north fish from the various rivers are also commonly eaten but I do not know much about that yet because I have not been up there. Here in my village almost every meal is boiled goat, sheep or chicken, then mixed with some mixture of sauces, potatoes, and onions. Add a side of rice, noodles, or pap and a “salad” (meaning beetroot, shredded carrot, potato, or noodle) and you have yourself a typical baster meal. The more delicious way to cook (in my opinion) is called braii. Its essentially barbecue but just like so insanely delicious, but that may only be because by the time a fire is lit, burns down to coals and then you watch your meat cook, you (or at least I) am starving. This meat is complimented with barbecued bread rolls which I feel should be the only way to eat bread. (More details on braii-ing to come later)

            With my said living situation though I am quite lucky. Barbecued meat is something I can definitely do every day. Unfortunately for some people that is not the case. Those in the north living in much more rougher living conditions than I are living in a culture that literally eats everything all animal parts. While I have found animal parts with teeth in them in my freezer that does not compare to a whole goat head in the sink (Yes this really happens to many). People here eat every part of the animal imaginable. From goat stomach and lungs, to chicken feet and necks. I kid you not, in the major supermarkets you find chicken pieces, chicken hearts, chicken livers, chicken necks, chicken feet, and a lovely soup mix that combines all of them. Might I point out though that the list does not include chicken wings L Yes I have tried most of this, while during training out trainers put on a cultural food day for us. My plate included goat stomach, Mopani worms (crunchy little caterpillars), pap, boiled goat blood, donkey meat, and Smiley (boiled goat head getting its name from how the lips curl up exposing the teeth). For as scary as it sounds, prepared well, its really not too bad… Having it every day though is another story. Last week I received a text from my friend detailing his unfortunate situation where a cow died so his family would be dining on tongue and stomach instead of his preferred choice of chicken intestines. Sorry Mr. Derek.

            Living on my own though, subject to nice people giving me rides and a Peace Corps budget, I mostly find myself eating a lot less exciting food. It is hard to transfer meat from town and considering I do not want to purchase myself a whole carcass I do not eat a lot of meat. If I do it is because someone is feeding me or because I took the hit and bought the overpriced chicken from the shop in town. Most of the time I eat a small breakfast of granola or bread & butter/jam/cheese. That is at 630am so by the time I am home for lunch at 1 I am starving and have to refrain from eating everything in site. This time I generally eat rice and lentils with whatever vegetables I can find. Sometimes that is just an onion and an egg. I sill make it taste pretty good though. I don’t like eating dinner late because then I am up late so I will either skip it all together or have something small. Recently it has been noodles or my all time favorite: Kelley Riley Popcorn.

            I have been on a bread making kick. Not only does it feed me for a whole day but it gives me something to do for a few hours. On weekends I find myself making a loaf of bread and being content with eating that all day. Sometimes I will make a soup to go along with it but this is Africa so who wants to eat hot liquid on a 90 degree day? Not me.

            In conclusion, I am not starving, the food in my particular area is actually quite delicious. Though I do constantly battle with laziness as I do not want to prepare a whole meal for myself 3 times a day and would much rather eat bread and butter out of sheer ease. In the event that I am hungry, plenty of people would give me plates full of meat but after a note of warning from the previous volunteer here, I should probably watch my cholesterol levels. They tend to spike after living in Schlip and dining on salty delicious meat all the time.  I must choose my battles carefully.