I Have No Idea What I Am Doing - The Woes of the First Week of School

Pretty Much Sums It Up

Being able to adapt in any circumstance is a very important quality in a Peace Corps Volunteer. Case and Point: The First Week of School. Now let me quickly detail how school begins back in the US (from what I remember). You choose your classes the previous school year and turn them, allowing the administration plenty of time during the extended holiday to create schedules, adjust for people who move, and any other moving variable. In high school I remember you then arrive a MONTH before school begins to officially register, pay your fees, make sure the schedules are okay. Teachers then are officially required to come to work a week or two before school begins to prepare classrooms, seating charts, lessons, technology, etc. On the first day of school for the students, everyone attends every class like they would every other day and thus the school year begins when it should and the number of teaching days are extremely close to the number of days actually in school. Well let me just say, that is not the case here.

Day 1 Monday: Only teachers arrive today. My instructions were to just hang out and get ready for the year. My response “Okay! Where is my classroom?” “Oh its not ready yet. We have to find the key, and clean it up and set up your projector. So you can just hang out in the library” “Oh okay, are you sure there is nothing I can do” “No Ms. Riley its okay” Well crap, what do I do with my time? I bugged my coworkers

Day 2 Tuesday: Students finally are here….but only for registration…They come, pay for the school year and possibly for last year if they didn’t pay their outstanding dues, register for the hostel and prove what grade they are to be placed in. Seems simple enough, not so much. This was the first day I noticed a bit of a Catch 22 occurring and the beginning of complete chaos. If at the end of the school year a student does not turn in all text books or has other outstanding fees that they owe to the school, the school withholds their report card until they get their money. Makes sense right? That’s what happens back in the US, at least at my schools. If you didn’t pay, your advancement in the registration process for the upcoming year was halted until you did. Especially in a situation like here where textbooks and school supplies are very valuable resources you should be held accountable if you loose or destroy something. On the flip side though, many of these people cannot afford, well anything, let alone school fees which come on top of very expensive uniforms and in many cases, hostel fees. Also, the Ministry of Education, and very rightly so, demands that a school cannot deny a child an education so therefore cannot withhold the report cards that will prevent them from attending school the following year. Both sides make sense and unfortunately the school is caught in the middle. There are parents who bring all the money they have to get their kid into school and there are parents who send their kids alone to school with no money. So what do you do? It’s a really hard situation to be in and I am sure it happens all over the country every year.

            Oh and my classroom still isn’t ready, they took a projector out of an unused classroom and had to figure out how to put it in mine. IT was also still dirty, having been closed up for the past two years. So I sat in the library again twiddling my thumbs.

            Another factor that added to the chaos was that this was one of the only opportunities that teachers were able to see and speak with parents. While there are a version of parent teacher conferences, the attendance rate may be somewhere around 5%. Mostly because parents don’t have the time or money to come into the village to speak with teachers. During home weekends at the hostel the kids hike in and out of the village on their own, or  few key parents rush in at 1pm and kids, run, grab their bags and are back on the road in 20 minutes. So registration is the only opportunity to see parents and discuss with them their student’s behavior or schoolwork. The parents are definitely interested because they actually ask to speak with certain teachers but when that happens, registration comes to a screeching halt as a 20-40 minute private conversation occurs. As a teacher I would jump at any chance I got to speak with a student’s parents but at the same time, registering 3 kids one day took two and a half hours. I counted.

Day 3 Wednesday: It is finally the students first day! But only half the students are here. This is for various reasons like transportation, some people can’t get rides into the village in the middle of the week, or take work off to get their kids to their new school. Also, as you will see in the following two days, things are still not in order and classes are not held so many people don’t make it a priority to arrive when they should on the official registration day. I wouldn’t rush either if I knew I would be sitting around school bored for the next week.

            So it is the students’ first day and they are divided into their registered classes. I am not a registered class teacher so I did not have students to take care of. The problem with this was if they showed up and still had not received their report cards they were defaulted into grade 8, mostly because they had no way of knowing if they passed or not. SO without knowing how many kids were in each grade there was no way to start making a schedule of classes.

            My classroom is ready for me now, but I have no idea how many students I have to organize desks or arrange them. I also have no idea the skill level of anyone because half the school is new kids from other schools so I can’t exactly pull out their exams from the previous years and analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

Day 4 Thursday: Still more kids are showing up, there is a better idea of how many classes there will be, the schedule can start to be created, but it isn’t a quick process. Lessons will begin on Monday. Today they begin handing out text books and notebooks for the kids. (Please keep note, not all kids are here yet though)

            I have students from last year coming to visit me in my completely empty classroom saying how bored they are. There is nothing I can do, most the school is sitting around waiting for the rest of the kids to show up, which is all they really can do right now.

Day 5 Friday: I don’t think anything happened on Friday still. I just try to make lessons and hang out in the library because it is much cooler than my new classroom. To pass the time I organize books.

Day 6 Monday: Now I get nervous because I have no idea what to expect, today is my first day in front of all my students alone. Ohmygod I am going to throw up. I get to school in a super cute outfit, I have read all the books the Peace Corps gave me, I am ready to make an impression. I get to school and Oh…the schedule isn’t done because the internet reception isn’t working and so the schedule cannot be downloaded off a program. Well that was anti-climactic Okay I will just be super prepared for tomorrow.

            Also, I ask for class lists, to make a seating chart, make the popsicle sticks in a can to encourage class participation. They weren’t done yet because they were still expecting more kids and technically registration wasn’t going to close until mid February. So I wasn’t going to get one anytime soon. Okay I’ll make my own when I have kids in class

Day 7 Tuesday: I finally have kids in my classroom! I introduce myself during the shortened class periods but of course only after I send half students each period on a witch hunt for more desks and chairs because the 36 that I had set up was not enough.  The bells are also irregular today so one class I had for nearly 90 minutes and I missed another one. We also go over classroom rules

Day 8 Wednesday: Today was my day to have kids fill out a survey so 1) I could have all their names, 2) so I could see who have trouble seeing, hearing, not talking, etc., and 3) so I could get a sample of their writing. I made a copy for every student. There was a scheduled staff meeting which couldn’t be after school so we were told that the classes would be cut short. Okay no problem I can do that, oh but on Wednesdays I don’t have a class for the first 4 periods and the classes are not cut short, we just don’t see our last three periods. Whelp there goes that day of regularity.

Day 9 Thursday. FINALLY A FULL CONSECUTIVE DAY but my classes are on different “lessons.” I was ready to do the survey I had printed off the previous day only to find out that almost 100 blank copies were now missing. Okay they can rip pages out of their exercise books and copy the questions from the board. Unfortunately I find out that half the kids in all my classes have arrived periodically throughout the week and thus do not have text books, exercise books, or even an available desk in my classroom. Off for the hunt again but only after I convinced them that it was okay to rip a page out of their notebooks. They were oddly very hesitant to do that.

Day 10 Friday: I was finally going to have all my classes on the same page, and present an excellent lesson on how to write a paragraph. I was so excited, this was going to be awesome, I would then have my footing to prepare lessons over the weekend it was going to be great. I do my first class, it went over great, it was perfectly timed, its about to be break time, its Friday life is good. Oop, students are called at break time for an announcement. Guess what at 10am everyone is to go home, change into athletic clothes and we are all going to go clear the field so track athletics can start on Monday. I.WAS.SO.MAD. Now every single one of my classes was on a different lesson and I was dumbfounded. I stormed up to my principal and asked how was I supposed to do my job when the kids aren’t even in the classroom half the time. I was told I just had to be flexible because this is always how the year begins.

            An hour later we go out to our sandy, rocky, thorny, soccer field armed with about 8 rakes and 8 shovels and two wheelbarrows and were told that the kids must get the rocks and thorny grasses off the measured tracks. Of course this essentially meant that the girls stood there while the boys worked. I was not having that so I ran around the whole place channeling Amy Irvine and Kati Campbell telling the girls that they were not incapable of helping the boys and that they had the single greatest tool to use which was their fingers. If the boys were raking they could at least bend over pick up the bigger rocks with their fingers and get them out of the way.  It got to the point that when I walked up girls either ran away or immediately bent over picking up the rocks. I did catch a group of 6 girls “going to the bathroom” and pulled the line that if they had been sweating enough they wouldn’t need to go to the bathroom.

I did have one girl though that took advantage of the opportunity of throwing rocks and chucked one strategically at a guy who apparently was teasing her. He keeled over I pulled her aside and made her pick up rocks be herself while I stood over her for 15 minutes. It sounds harsh but I couldn’t give her a time out, then I would have every girl throwing rocks at boys, wanting to sit down in time out. Questionable punishment: maybe. Successful: She did not hit another guy and neither did any other girl that I saw.

So although amidst all the chaos, I began to appreciate my ability and that of my coworkers to just adapt to anything that is thrown at you. Sure, plenty of it could be avoidable, but then I would't have nearly as cool a blog post for you all.

A Narrative of A Peace Corps Parent

As a Peace Corp Parent you experience a range of emotions when your child is nominated to serve. First of all you are proud of the fact that you actually raised a child who has such an open mind, adventurous spirit and giving nature and is willing to give up their comfortable suburban existence to live in the third world. You are anxious for them and maybe fearful of what leaving home will be like for them, knowing you can’t protect or comfort them when they are thousands of miles from home. Or, if you are like me you’ll think “Cool! My kid is going to live in Africa and I finally get to go there!”  You see, since I was a kid and saw the movie Born Free with Elsa the lion I dreamt of living in Africa and raising orphaned  lions, (not children) . I even convinced my parents to take me to the Lion Country Safari in Florida just to see lions, and once there was a “get your picture taken with a lion cub” at our mall so of course I convinced them to do that too.  SO, fast forward about 40 years and here is my opportunity to live vicariously through my Peace Corp kid and travel to Africa.

Now, another thing that is interesting about being a PCP (Peace Corp Parent) is people’s reactions to your child’s service. Everyone is very interested in learning about the Peace Corp and thinks it’s a wonderful thing to serve , however the “ I could never handle my child leaving for that long/go that far” is a pretty common statement.  A side note, most men have a very strong reaction to having a daughter serve, an emphatic “I would NEVER let me daughter do that”, which I find interesting and somewhat chauvinistic. Would they “let” their son serve? Realistically can we stop our children from doing anything?  Reactions to my travelling alone to Namibia were the same from men, “ I would never ALLOW my wife to go  alone” …hmmm…anyone who knows me knows that the words “ allow my wife” wouldn’t fly at my house!

So, as quickly as Shannon got her assignment in Schlip, I began to plot our Mother Daughter Namibian Adventure. Armed with a travel book and the power of the internet I was able to plot out a 10 day trip for us. What I was most excited about was spending 10 days with one of my kids, just the two of us.  As any parent knows, as your children get older you spend less and less time with them, and certainly one on one time is a rarity if you have more than one child, so this was a great opportunity to just be together.  I was eager to see what kind of life she really was living, and although I was pretty sure she was happy and safe, it was good to see that for myself!

I arrived in Windhoek late at night in the middle of a thunderstorm and there was Shannon waiting at the gate for me, which was completely unexpected and since we are so restricted in airports now it was fun to see your loved one right there at the gate! Our first night was spent with two of Shannon’s fellow PCVs, Derek and Rochelle. It was great to be able to be a “Mom” to all of them , watch their sheer joy as they ate Christmas cookies and listen to their PC adventure stories.  Our trusty Toyota Corrolla took us through rocky roads and a dried up riverbed  that had actually turned into a river and we arrived in Schlip on Christmas Eve in time to check out the village and meet some of Shannon’s families.  We got to visit the family farm and learn about goat and sheep herding and witness the first hand the pasture to table path an unsuspecting goat takes.  The best part of Christmas, besides the fantastic  Christmas Day feast that I completely overindulged in, was going to one of the small churches in the village with Aunti Tina.  It was a very small congregation, so right away everyone in attendance knew we were somebody new! Whenever I hear Christmas carols I get kind of weepy;  I’m not a particularly religious person, nor do I attend mass on a regular basis, however  I think hearing  Christmas carols just  kind of takes me back to being a kid, and all the memories of Christmas past, and it is nice. So hearing Christmas carols sung in Afrikaans really got to me; with tears streaming down my face I thought “ How can it be that I am sitting in a little church building, in Africa, with Shannon, and she actually lives here?” It was all so surreal, and soon we found ourselves the center of attention, being recognized as honored quests, and being prayed over by the folks in this tiny community, who in their generous spirit assured me that as a community they would watch over my child and care for her, and that they were thankful God sent her to their town.  This generous and welcoming spirit was what impressed me most while in Namibia. Everyone was so kind, and courteous and giving, leaving me with a really good feeling that Shannon was in a great place. Especially when the congregation broke into a rousing rendition of Felize  Navidad , in English, just for us!

Our adventure continued as we made our way North to Etosha with a stop in Okahandja to stay at the Sylvanette Guest House, where Flip, the owner told us that Namibia was the equivalent of “Africa Lite” because it is such a  tourist friendly country. I couldn’t agree more! We ventured to the craft market with money tucked in our bras and a plan to negotiate our way to the best deals possible to fill up my suitcase with treasures. We were quite successful with our “good cop/bad cop” routine, when Shannon let the crafters know she was not just a tourist, she was a local!  And after throwing out a few key phrases in the local language, we were on a roll! I assured them that if we were offered a fair price I would be sending her back for more goods…mission accomplished!

Our next night was spent at what I call the “Peace Corp Hotel” in Otjiwarango.  We stayed with some of Shannon’s fellow volunteers and had a fun evening of me “interviewing” all the kids there and them dutifully answering my questions…”where are you from, where did you go to college…why are you here…where do you live…do you have enough to eat….do you have a toilet….” The usual Mom kind of stuff! We dined on chicken patties, French fries, salad, cheese and cookies, all foods that most PCVs cant really afford on their living stipends, so I was happy to be able to treat them to a feast, Peac e Corp style!

The highlight of our adventure was visiting Etosha National Park and staying at the Taleni Etosha Village. By chance I found the Etosha Village on the internet and it was everything I had hoped for. We were greeted by the Village’s general manager, Hein, who I had been emailing about 100 times with 100 questions about our visit and game drives.   The village is made up of 40 private campsites and then a main dining area and pool. It was absolutely beautiful , with a large air conditioned tent to sleep in(yes AC in a tent!)  and an outdoor kraal style shower, toilet and sink, as well as an outdoor kitchen and patio area. Using the “facilities” under the stars was awesome!

Our Kitchen

Hello Kelley

We chose to not prepare our own meals, so each day we dined on different game meats, like Zebra and Impala, which made us a feel a bit guilty after seeing the animals in the park, but not guilty enough that we didn’t enjoy it!  Our game drives were incredible and we got to see rhinos, zebras, giraffes and much to my complete joy, lions!!!  I had told Shannon that when I saw a lion I would probably cry and or pee my pants with excitement.  I’ll admit to crying…. When we saw the first lion he was about 100 yards way lying under a tree, just peeking out as if to say, “Hey, Kelley, glad to see you finally made it here to Africa!” The next day we encountered two large males, one within 50 feet of us and it was magnificent! I could have sat there all day and just stared at him. We also saw a lioness and two nearly grown cubs, and got to see another lioness casually saunter past a group of very frightened Impalas as she made her way to a water hole.  I could never get enough of just watching  all these animals, in their habitats, and how they interact with one another. What an experience!

We had to leave Etosha on New Year’s Eve and travelled back to Windhoek for my flight out the next day. We rang in the New year watching the Namibian equivalent of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin Eve, on TV, which was occurring downtown just 10 minutes away  from us but we weren’t motivated enough to check out. Actually, it was nice to have a quiet night, talking about our adventures and talking about future plans for the New Year.  It was really hard to get in the cab and leave on New Year’s Day, thinking I probably won’t see Shannon until the end of her service.

What started out as a fun opportunity to travel with Shannon also turned into a very enlightening experience.  I’ve come away so thankful to have had the opportunity to fulfill my own personal childhood dream, and most importantly, to have had the privilege of experiencing my child’s personal dream of living in a different culture.  I know there are probably very few Peace Corp Parents that get to travel to see their children’s new home and meet people they serve with, it’s truly an overwhelming experience to get to do this.  It’s  also a very eye opening, meeting people from half way across the world who have such a curiosity about the United States, who ask really good questions about our social and political systems, who probably know more about us then we do of ourselves! We may view them as cultures and countries that need help to live a better life, and in lots of ways that is true when you look at it from an economic perspective.  It’s made me think more about how people in other cultures live their lives, and what is truly important no matter where you are from.  The generosity and curiosity of people from what we view as a Third World Country  is inspiring, and something we in the First World need to perhaps be more aware of;  to take the time to look beyond our comfortable lives and explore another culture and realize that there are more common bonds that could unite us, instead of separate us. 

Welcome to “Africa Lite”

While this is a few weeks overdue I thought it would be worth highlighting Kelley (my mom) and mine’s adventures (ß I don’t even know if this is grammatically correct and this feeling will be highlighted in a following post). Kelley arrived a few days before Christmas bearing gifts and food of a foreign land. Two of my lucky friends and I were able to indulge in homemade Christmas cookies, Bath & Body Works holiday scented candles, and instant Starbucks coffee (Christmas Blend and Peppermint Mocha). After 5 months of being away from home these gifts brought a few tears especially from those who don’t hear from home (or receive as awesome packages) as much but I think the greatest gift was just having a parent around for the holidays. My mom was able to meet around 7 of my new American friends here however many more attempted to schedule their plans to meet her. Not only is someone right off the plane from the motherland refreshing, an American mother is something to be craved (specially when she comes with US dollars and tells us to shut up when we express how expensive cheese is at $27 a block and she comes back saying its only like $2 in her currency). Needless to say she earned the name of Santa Clause by showering people with gifts and food at Christmas time during her less than 24 hour visits. My friends are still talking about how awesome she and her $2 cheese is.

            Our adventure started with a tour of my new home which I am happy to say got the mom-approved seal. She was able to meet the various families that take care of me and experienced why its actually hard to loose weight living here because there is so much delicious food all the time. I also showed her how I can never deny braii-ed goat meat even after I have had a full Christmas dinner. She met some of my new friends, most of which were animals including but not limited to a cat named Cornflakes, a puppy, and a Rottweiler named Zamur. I also pointed out my favorite donkey.

            From Home Sweet Schlip we ventured north to our ultimate destination Etosha National Park which is very appropriately called The Real “Animal Kingdom”. I am letting Kelley contribute a post on her trip to this blog so I am sure you will hear much from her but what I want to highlight is how easy Namibia is as a vacation destination. Through all of our travels through third world, post-apartheid, newly independent (20 years) Namibia we never had any problems. It is not any more or less dangerous than the rest of the world, you have to exercise caution like you would walking anywhere from the mall in suburban America to downtown Detroit. Just don’t be stupid and flashy. Getting around the country is also super easy and convenient. The roads are better maintained than I-75, the rest stops (while usually just a large shady tree and a picnic table) are extremely clean, and every road is labeled quiet well. Much of that might be in part because there aren’t many roads in this country so keeping them up doesn’t require much work but honestly a lot of it has to do with the fact that this country relies on tourism. For that reason, they’re not going to let anything jeopardize it. 

            While driving though a small town on the way to Etosha I pointed out to my mom just how safe many of these communities were. The town’s residents were all black so any white person stuck out like a sore thumb and if their skin color didn’t do that, then the giant safari trucks/fancy rental cars did it for them. While they are seemingly moving targets though, this community (and many others like it) relies on travelers to Etosha and other tourist destinations to stop and purchase gas from their petrol station, or groceries from their market, or souvenirs from their small road-side shops.  I’m not saying go out to a shabeen (local bar) at night alone with your iPhone, I’m saying don’t let the stereotype of what “Africa” is keep you from visiting a place like this. (Kelley can also attest that once you get over the price of flight across the pond, everything is relatively cheap). Another refreshing thought that I realized when on the lonely road to Namibia’s most popular tourist destination was the absolute absence of billboards advertising anything. You had no indication you were going in the right direction toward the worlds greatest animal kingdom except for the fact that you were on the only tarred road for hundreds of kilometers and had not turned directions since getting on the road initially. We really didn’t see any other cars on the road either. No billboards for how much further you had to go, no information regarding where to stay or eat once you got there, and most importantly no advertising for attractions hundreds of kilometers away. I absolutely hate when you are on a road trip and you see a sign for something really cool only to realize that its 2-4 hours away in another direction from the next city you will come to. Like really? Buzzkill.

            The only inclination we had that we were going in the right direction was the giraffes on the side of the road a few kilos away from our lodge.

Hello Mr. Giraffe - Are you the welcome committee?

This is arguably cooler and a much better advertisement than any billboard.

            I will post Kelley’s personal account of our adventures but I leave you with the overall message of this post. While staying at a guest house in Okahandja, the owner appropriately termed Namibia as “Africa Lite” meaning you got the authenticity of what Africa had to offer but no terrorism, corruption, violence, etc that you see in the news that scares you away from coming on that safari you have always dreamed of as a little kid. This is no doubt a shameless plug for a country I have grown to love but it is not without true valid facts.