Leaving School for the Night

21/1/2013

Scott Kerrel, a WorldTeach volunteer placed in Divundu two years ago, Unlock Foundation founder, and African/Namibian studies guru, took us out for dinner last night while he is here visiting this week.  He kind of showed us around the village, and let us know the shabeens to go to, as well as who in town it is really important to meet. We drove down the main road, past a bunch of homesteads, and then we turned down a dirt road.  Bushman kids ran up to the car, sticking their hands in the window.  He says we’re far enough out that these kids probably don’t go to school.  We passed a Malaria treatment testing camp (???), where I think there is a Peace Corps member stationed, and then we suddenly entered a freaking resort.  Divava Lodge, right on the Kavango River.  Out of freaking nowhere.  It was beautiful! Bungalows, a pool, a boat tour, safari trucks, a spectacular deck overlooking the river, and food to die for.  How do people find this place in the middle of the bush?! What???  I guess tourists/safari trips going from Namibia to Botswana (15 k down the road) or Vic Falls pretty much need to go through here, so that’s who stays there. 

There are about five lodges like that right here, in the same town where the ceiling is falling down on learners heads at the local school, in the same town where learners are supplied with everything they will need from sheets to pencils, from food to internet until they pass grade 12.  It is such a weird mix and clash of cultures, incomes and access here in Divundu. 

I do want to make sure and leave school a few times a week to remind myself of where I am, and where these learners are coming from.  My grade 11s all come from this region, but the grade 8s come from all over the country.  All of them are vulnerable/orphaned children.  I want to get involved in the counseling process.