I honestly cannot believe that I have not
written a blog post in about 6 months. I guess it’s a true testament to how I
kind of consider this “adventure” my life now. Day in and day out becomes
routine, sometimes boring, mostly busy and one day you sit down and go Shit,
when did it become 2014? Wait, no, it’s definitely 2015 now. This moment
actually happens quite often in my life as my tiny little Samsung stupid phone
constantly is victim to gravity and I have to manually reset the time and date
from Jan 1 2007.
Anyways, let me jump into a time machine as
I take you all back through the last six months of Shannon’s crazy, although
not really SO crazy life.
September
Post Diversity Tour I returned to school
only for a few weeks before I had to be back in the capital for my Mid-Service
conference. Yep, the middle of my service. While I had been in Namibia for over
a year at this point, September marked the middle of my two year commitment to
my community. It was nice to see everyone in one place, some of the people who
my life revolved around for those first 2 months in country I then hadn’t seen
in a year. I went to the dentist and went through the annual medical
evaluation. Turns out most of us had high-blood pressure due to the traditional
diets consisting of meat. My nurse lectured me about how she wanted me to
regularly monitor my blood-pressure and not stress so much because she didn’t
want me to have a stroke in class. I thought this was perfect ammo to guilt my
students into behaving in class as the year comes to an end. Instead of Yes Ms.
Riley we love you and don’t want you to die, their response was: Miss, just go
home, these children won’t stop. Well, at least some of them cared a little
bit. Thanks guys. So instead, I decided to take up yoga. More on that later...
September also brought some new visitors to
the school. Well I don’t know if you can call them visitors, that’s putting it
way lightly. In a nut shell, there were demons at the hostel for about 2 weeks
in September. While I tried to stay as far away from it I will inform you of
what I understood happened. It all began with a boy who wanted to start a Bible
study group, which is wonderful. Religion is a huge part of the Namibian
lifestyle and many of my students are religious themselves, which I think also
played into the craziness that ensued over the next two weeks. Anyway, one of
my girls wanted to join the Bible study after school study but was acting
strange (I got mixed stories) and long story short the boy who’s idea it was to
start the Bible group turned out to be a self-proclaimed prophet, called upon
the spirits of the Illumaniti to reveal themselves, and then a book that was
under a pillow fell on the ground. I don’t exactly know the specific details of
these events, this is what I pieced together. Pardon my French, but that’s when
shit hit the fan. I heard the screams coming from the hostel on the Thursday
night but I didn’t go investigate, I just thought girls were being girls. The
following morning I learned that some girls had been possessed, rolling on the
floor as if they were snakes, growling like lions, eyes rolling back in their
heads, and someone vomited out of nowhere. No one slept that night and the
priest from one of the churches was called in in the middle of the night. The
first girl who jump-started it was “saved” I think is what they called it and
her and the prophet boy who saved here were making googly-eyes at each other
the whole next day. I was a bit peeved. That weekend they brought in priests
and other religious groups from the surrounding towns and even the capital. But
things weren’t over.
There were two girls who were consistently
absent from school, causing problems in school, and having “episodes” in the
middle of the night at the hostel. They were sent home for a week to see if
maybe time with family would help them (exams were coming up so this was a
crucial time not to be missing school). One came back, the other did not. Now
in my past experiences of tragedy and sad or difficult times, I find that more
often than not a sense of normalcy is what is best for some people. So I tried
to provide that because I see every kid in the school every day of the week for
English class. Now my kids are smart and their conniving and sometimes I like
to think I have had a positive impact on that part of them. For example: “Miss
can I sleep?” “What, are you kidding me? No you cannot sleep. Why are you
asking me that in the middle of my teaching you about vocabulary” “But Miss you
are letting her sleep, so why can’t I sleep? Its because you hate me isn’t it?”
Um no I’m letting her sleep because she has been possessed by demons for the
past 3 weeks and walks around like a zombie, when that happens to you I will
let you sleep in my class too… so I tried my hardest to get this poor girl to
lift her head and at least pretend like she was a part of the class. Well she
certainly picked up her head but then proceeded to glare at me never moving her
head or her body but following me with her eyes. I tried my damned hardest to
keep in the teacher mode and ignore it thinking that if I don’t fuel her with
attention it will go away. It didn’t cause now she’s clenching her fists and
breathing heavily, near to the point of hyperventilation. Tears are pouring out
of her eyes and all I can think in my head is I have some mark on me and if I
make the wrong move I am dead. She is sitting in the second row and if she
comes at me with all the force of the demons inside her the boys in the back
will never get to me in time. I can just see the headline “Peace Corps
Volunteer Killed By Demon-Possessed Student in Class” I eventually break out of
teacher mode and ask the class point-blank if this girl is okay or if I need to
be worried or try to take her to the sick room. They tell me to ignore her
because it happens but now I’m just straight up unsettled. I was literally
saved by the bell as she packed up her things and slowly made her way out my
door and onto her next class.
Unfortunately she did not return after
that. Thankfully both her and the other girl were able to work with the
Ministry of Education and finish their assignments and take their exams
off-site in town and I believe they both passed. I also believe they are both
continuing their schooling at other schools in the towns where their families
live.
I’ll be completely honest, I truly don’t
know what happened to these girls. However, and I tried to explain this to my
students, the life I grew up in, the schools I attended, and the culture I am a
part of don’t really have much emphasis on demons. Here in Namibia though,
demons are very real to many people. I can’t say they are real, nor can I say
that they are not real. Where I come from, a kid acting/freaking out in school
means that there is something mentally and/or medically wrong with them that
can maybe be alleviated through medication, counseling, or a transfer to
another school better equipped to handle them. The thought of a demon
possession has never been an explanation or a reason for anything in my life that
I have witnessed. It’s just the life and culture I was a part of. Here though
it is a very real thing and my guess is at the hostel, something freaky
happened, it was considered demonic happenings and everything my students have
ever known/learned/heard about demons came out. I honestly believe it was like
a subconscious thing that none of them had control over.
The two girls that were the most affected
though also had other challenges/problems that I saw which others might not
have. They both sought attention in anyway they could, talking out of turn,
making noise whenever they could and constantly accusing me of hating them when
I asked them to follow directions or said they couldn’t go to the bathroom.
They would get extremely upset and ask why I hated them and often times brought
race into the accusation. I would try my hardest to explain that No I do not
hate you, you fail to follow simple directions and then cannot accept the
consequences. In the mornings walking to school “Good Morning Miss” turns into
“Why does Miss hate me?” “Honey we have talked about this and I am expected at
a meeting right now so lets talk again at a more appropriate time”. These girls
were far from home, staying at a farm school and only a handful of other
students are of the same tribe and language group as them. My true gut feeling
was that their actions were a form of depression and possibly some other
underlining mental instability that unfortunately will probably go unfound for
the rest of their lives. I tried to explain this to my principal, and he agreed
with me on some parts. He still feels there were demons because multiple girls
in different rooms would wake up in the middle of the night possessed, and that
he feels is something you cannot explain or plan.
So that was exciting.
September also brought the Ebola Craze.
Chain text messages would fly around the country and between my students
declaring that Ebola was in the capital and that everyone was going to get it
and die. I tried to explain to them the various procedures that were occurring
in airports and at borders to ensure that Ebola was not anywhere near Namibia.
Still when I coughed up flem from the back of my throat, the entire class
raised their hands and yelled Ebola at me. I also told them that if Ebola came
to Namibia I would be on the next flight back to the United States before they
even knew about it. Unfortunately after that was when I spent a week in the
capital for my Mid-Service conference and some kids legit got worried. Opps…
October
October brought chaos to the school days.
The grade 10 final exams are nationalized and thus require specific regulations
on supervision and handling. This means that every day at least 3 of our 9
teachers were not in class and as a result Ms. Riley gets to supervise the
restless 8th and 9th graders. That was not fun but it
gave me time to hold extra English classes and give extra assignments. My
students told me it was illegal to teach them English when they should be
getting Life Science or Geography, so I came back at them and made my English
assignments about whatever subject they were supposed to be having at that
period. I was then just labeled a terrible person. We needed a vocabulary
lesson on what terrible is…
Other note-worthy comments (S*&# My
Students Say)
·
“Miss, why do you have so many
black dots on your nose?”
“Why are you that close to
my face?” – Thanks Allison I know I have large pores
·
Miss I am going to give you my
older brother to have babies with.
·
“Miss who were you in high
school? I bet you had a lot of boyfriends.”
“Actually boys, I was a
bit of a nerd, so no boyfriends.”
“Miss I don’t believe that”
“No seriously I was in the
marching band and science club and everything.”
One of the boys actually
fell out of their chair laughing; the others just failed to believe such a
thing was true.
·
Miss, can you flip your hair
like they do in the movies?
I’m glad that is what you
are thinking about during my riveting reading lesson.
·
When describing what I wanted
to be when I grew up when I was little, I said I wanted to be a princess. Then
half the boys in my class and even some girls called me princess. No. I’m Ms.
Riley to you.
·
“Miss your kids will be so hot.”
This occurred after a spelling test.
November.
I’m not going to put this lightly, the way
examinations are scheduled here is unfortunately a waste of time, resources,
and people’s patience. To begin with, almost all the content (math, English,
science, etc.) subjects have multiple papers (for example: English has a
reading exam, a writing exam, and a listening exam). So you can’t just have
English on one day and be done with it for 3 months. My students have almost 6
hours of English exams spread out over 3 different days. In total, exams are a
month long with one, maximum two papers being written a day. At least 2 weeks, probably more could be
dedicated to in class learning but instead are reserved for 3-4 hour study
sessions and 4-6 hour exams. In August when we did this I was peeved, it was
valuable time wasted, the kids were restless, I was restless, and I just wanted
to be productive. THIS term though, I was expecting it, so I had a nice month
of relaxation. To add to my life of general ease, national presidential
elections were being held over Thanksgiving weekend which meant all the kids
had to be out of the school and home by that Wednesday before. By the time
school came back around in January, I hadn’t taught a class in 3 months. Miss Who???
