The bustling town of Divundu

29/1/2013

I’m making friends! (That sounds like a third grader. Whatever.) Scott Karrell, a previous WorldTeach volunteer in Divundu was here, and introduced me to some people who live in Divundu.  Other people in Divundu got my phone number from his hand when he didn’t have a paper or his phone to put it in.  Either way, my phone is blowin’ up! There is also a guy from Chicago doing PeaceCorps less than 10 k away, who is really great! I’m trying to set up a movie night for the learners with his projector and movies.  That could give them a nice break! The teachers are all getting along pretty nicely (brought together by short water and electrical outages), and there is a lot of joking as well as effective work done in the staff room. 

I found a spot.  It’s in the middle of the bridge crossing the Kavango River, and it’s only ½ kilometer away, and it is beautiful.  I went there the other day for sunset over the river.  Unreal.  This place is breathtaking. I think at some point I will go there so that I can think about some of the bigger issues.  I find myself getting lost in some frivolous, day-to-day drama or annoyances so I don’t think about what really matters—the children’s education and emotional resiliency. My own, too.  I didn’t bring my camera the other night, so to tide you over, here is a picture from the Kavango River at Davava Lodge and Spa.

 

Being in a new structure and school comes with its own set of trials.  Water pumps don’t always work quite right; fuse boxes are overly sensitive at times; air conditioning units leak; furniture and teaching materials are slow in arriving.  But this school is built around two things: providing a free, safe education to vulnerable children, and teaching the best and the brightest of Namibian children.  I think the combination of these two attributes in one set of students leads to a very interesting group of learners.  They are super driven to succeed, but they need a lot of support in their struggle to make their dreams attainable.  It’s super rewarding to see achievement in these students.  As this school gets onto its feet, I think these learners are going to soar, if given the chance.  Soon, the student leadership will be elected, and I am curious to see how they are given powers in the school, and what will fall under their domain. 

These students are curious and creative.  I have taken over the Art-in-Culture classes, in addition to supporting the Information and Communication Technologies/Computer Studies classes.  For the first day, we talked about two things: culture and identity.  I stole a lesson from the practicum teaching at Eengadjo from Jessie and Jamie.  First, I went around the room and had everyone share a word that describes them to emphasize ourselves as individuals. Art is self expression.  Then, we began applying the cultural aspects of art, and we compared Namibian culture to American culture, starting with food, then values, then art expression.  The coolest part was that since the Grade 8 students come from all over Namibia, and are from different regions that have different tribal backgrounds, their own internal cultures sometimes differed.  I’m really excited to see where this class goes—I’m going to give a lot of it to the learners to decide and direct. They don’t get enough of that in their school day, so I’m excited to see how they use it.  And I will never grade their work with red pen.