Angie's Peace Corps (Namibia) Adventure

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:34:04 GMT

17 July, 2007. Tuesday.
8:23pm
Listening to: “Is This Love?” mix, tons of different artists

Where to start? It’s been a really long time now since I journaled. I’ve realized again that I’ve been slacking on my journal writing. But then again, the last few weeks have been crazy busy and all over the place. This is the first week since the middle of June that I’m at site all week long. You know, it’s really hard for me to journal after a long time. I never know where to start, what to put in, what to leave out. I never do justice to everything that should be said, and I feel like I don’t get to cover everything I’d like to. And I don’t want to make this super long, but lately I’ve been realizing that the more I journal the more memories I’ll have, the more clearer they’ll be, when I leave here and look back on the whole thing.

So let’s just say that a WHOLE lot has happened over the last few weeks. Among the highlights: visiting Rute for a long weekend (she’s back for good!); Peace Corps Regional Meeting; the incredible huge success of the Northern Girls Conference; my never-ending flu; and it seems I’ve met someone at a time when I was least expecting/ looking for it.

Rute
28 June- 2 July:
Spent in Otavi visiting Rute. I hadn’t seen her since she was at the hospital in Windhoek after her accident. She’d been through a lot since I’d seen her last- dealing w the whole psychological aspect of the accident, fighting Peace Corps to not med-sep her, gotten to take a short vacation in the states, etc. So it was beyond wonderful to see her and spend a few days alone just catching up on everything on both of our ends. We spent the first night getting drunk together, and every other night just talking, talking, talking. About where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re going. Talking about everything and anything. Getting retarded, playing cards, cooking nice meals, reminiscing and dreaming. She’s my best friend in Peace Corps, but at this point she’s way more than a Peace Corps friend. She’s become one of the closest people to me in my life, and I think that’s just because of the Peace Corps experience. You make friends quickly and share such deep good, bad, and crazy moments. This woman I’ll treasure way after Peace Corps, so yes… getting to spend those few days together was amazing. And I’m so happy she got to come back & is well on her way back to fully recovered.

Peace Corps Regional Meeting
5 July- 7 July in Ongwediva.
A great weekend meeting up with other Volunteers that I never get to see from my group, meet some of the new volunteers (Group 26), meet our new Country Director, and oh yeah some in-service training tossed into the formula. Great weekend, but too short-lived. Getting all the volunteers together is a huge rarity, so whenever it happens I wish it could last longer. New Country Director seems to have it together and seems serious about changing some of the things in the program, which I’m all for. Not to criticize our old CD, I just don’t think he was as aware of or interested in the issues of the health program.

Northern Girls Conference
12 July- 15 July
I could write so much about the NGC but, again, I wouldn’t know where to start. It sucked that I had the flu throughout the entire conference, but I sucked it up & was there for it all. It went so well. Not w/out the typically expected frustrations of trying to do such a huge conference in Namibia, in Africa. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things that happen here that you just accept and deal with & have to not get frustrated with because it’s just Africa! But man oh man, the frustrations & the things that happen that would NEVER fly back in the States if we were doing the same thing back there. Ah but that’s the beauty of the whole experience. You just learn to laugh about shit.

But in the end, all those stupid little frustrations or problems don’t matter. All we had to do when crap got crazy was look around at all the girls. 80 girls from grades 8 & 9 , 8 peer leaders grades 10 & 11, and 8 teachers. The girls were SO happy and SO enjoying themselves. They had no idea about all the things we had to deal with behind the scenes in order to make everything happen. They were too happy enjoying the whole Conference. And at the end of the day, that’s what always matters.

The girls were SO clever and so well-behaved. They were right on. They absorbed everything. They put their hearts into everything. They showed each other the way. Besides the girl, our other proudest accomplishment from this whole thing is how much of it was carried out by the Namibians. Almost all of the Conference was facilitated by Namibians- teachers, peer leaders, guest speakers, members of the Ministry of Education’s Regional AIDS Committee for Education (RACE). The potential for sustainability is definitely there & definitely strong. And I know I speak for both Amber & myself when I say that that is one of our biggest accomplishments in our whole Peace Corps experience. And of course it helped that some Peace Corps Volunteers from last year first collaborated w some of these people and paved the way.

And one last thing.. can I just say how cool it was that the Namibian Vagina Monologues came to the conference and put on a “toned down” version of the Vagina Monologues?! It was soo fucking cool. You don’t understand- these girls, these kids, these people… NEVER talk about sexuality or really get much into reproductive health. Say the word “Vagina” or “Sex” and the girls will giggle and freak out. And one thing is to say it in English, but saying it in their local language is a WHOLE different story. These words, these topics, are never uttered in the local language. Getting them to talk about these things in their local language, and even English, was a huge deal. We were a little worried that it’d be too much for these girls, and I think the ladies who put on the show were crapping their pants, but it was SO worth it. I think the girls were floored at first, but by the end of the night they felt so comfortable talking about their private parts & about reproductive health in general. By the end of the weekend it was “Vagina vagina vagina”, but it’s not just the fact of saying the word & talking about it. What they took from it was how important & valuable that part of our bodies is and how we need to be comfortable w our parts, & why we must respect it & make sure that OTHERS respect it & respect our bodies, and ourselves. The reason all this is such a big deal is that we just can’t fight HIV/AIDS if we can’t talk about our private parts & about sexuality & if we can’t feel like WE have to take control of our own bodies.

The Flu
Yeah this has got me for 9 days now and won’t go away. I picked it up at the Peace Corps Regional Meeting. It seemed like half of the teachers had the flu, probably from being around their learners. So it was passed on to me and hasn’t yet left me. Strangely enough I haven’t had fever or real body pain, it’s just coughing, sneezing, sore throat-ness, losing the voice. I don’t know what is up w this strain but it must be pretty serious cause now all my co-workers have it too. I probably passed it on to them and now that I’m back at the office after the NGC, they’ve passed it back to me. I’m finally getting the appropriate medicine tomorrow, so maybe I’ll feel better soon.

About the Guy
Mid- June
Yeah, I don’t know. This has been going on for a couple weeks now. He’s not a Volunteer- he’s Namibian. I don’t want to say too much about it because for one, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself and two, I’m always really paranoid that by acknowledging this sort of thing I am jinxing it. So all I want to say is that the timing couldn’t be more terrible, but the situation (whatever it is that it is) couldn’t be more better. It’s like I found a needle in a haystack, and I wasn’t even looking. Not at all looking, not at all on that mind set, not at all for that kinda thing. I’ve been just fine & dandy alone, focusing on my work, making plans for grad school, starting to get ready for going home. It just happened. The timing is horrible, and I have to wonder if this is all some sort of cruel joke that the world is playing on us both. But in my own personal view when this sorta thing happens you just go with it, and, as David Gray sings, “what will be, will be”. In the meantime, it’s fucking great. Currently, my room smells of fresh flowers. A needle in a haystack.

And that’s more than enough for one night. I hope I’ve done the last few weeks some justice. Now I don’t feel so guilty about not journaling anymore. I’ll try to keep up w it some more so that it doesn’t have to be so hard to start up again. Til next time, peace and love, and see you soon enough.

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:30:32 GMT

20 June 2007, Thursday
8:35pm
Listening to: Beatles/ Nirvana/ Foo Fighters/ 3 Doors Down mix.

* Today during my down time after eating something for lunch, something hit me. It hit hard. I listened to some music that I haven’t listened to in a very long time, and it hit me then & there that the “disassociation” process is a long one. And although I’ve come one hell of a long way, I’m still trying to disassociate some things. Mostly music. Eventhough it was hard to swallow through it, I forced myself to listen to these songs, which by the way, I completely accidentally bumped into today. I pulled out a cd I hadn’t listened to in a long time (probably not even once since I’ve been in Nam) looking for some other music and found these songs. It’s a cd I’d put together in 2003 or 2004 it seems. I like this music and in order for me to continue to enjoy it, I have to separate it from what i automatically associate it with. And if you’ve ever had to do that, you might know it’s not exactly a fun process. So while the flood gates opened, I just sat there & dealt with it. And to you, my favorite mistake, I say congratulations… Because I know you are reading (or will read). I bet you are happy & proud. Finally I have addressed something regarding you in my journal. This is the first time & last I’ll acknowledge this… what was. In the 6 months it’s been since all this went down, I’ve not once spoken of this. Because let’s be clear on something: “this” doesn’t factor into my world anymore.

Disassociation sucks. But the great thing about it is that it means you’re moving on. It means the page has been turned, and I turned the page a while ago. I’m free as a bird. And wouldn’t you believe it, it’s the best feeling in the world.

* In other stuff, after lunch my day turned amazing. It ended up being a superfeelgood day. That’s how good it was. I had a good jog, and it was during the jog that I realized something. You know, when I go jogging kids are always coming out of the woodwork, jumping out at me, coming out of the woodwork, running to catch up, slowing down so I catch up with them, yelling at me from across the field. It used to annoy me initially because I like to listen to my music & think when I jog and I can’t do that when kids are running w/ me. But I got over that a long time ago, and most of the time now I enjoy it when they tag along or yell for my attention. It’s actually so frickin sweet. And it’s one of the things that I savor every time it happens, because I’m gonna miss that so much when I go. These kids will do whatever it takes to bump into me or to exchange a hello with me. I think the most special thing about this, and the thing that always really get me right there, is when I see these kids dropping whatever they’re doing or running from across the field to catch up… just so that I can say hello to them, smile at them, or wave. That’s it; that’s all they want. Just some attention & some love. It’s so fucking cute when they just smile & laugh shyly and/or run away after I greet them. It’s like they don’t know what to do w/ themselves and all I did was say hello, ask them how was school, and ask what they are doing at the moment.

I really enjoy it so much. It always helps me put everything into perspective. If I didn’t have a good day or especially if I’m having a bad day w regards to the work I’m doing here, they always make it okay. I guess during that moment when I get a kid giggling just cause I said hello them, everything else can go to hell and if i did nothing sustainable while I was here, at least I was able to bring some love & happiness to a kid for a little while. The kids here are lacking so much love & affection. So yeah, I don’t mind it one bit anymore when they try to get me to stop for them. They don’t know that I notice or realize when they purposely slow down so I can reach them, or when they run to catch up to me. But I do. And I realized that if some kid is doing that, then how can I be annoyed and not give them some loving attention? Anyways, this has been going on for months but i hadn’t really documented the phenomena. I just realized today that I’m gonna miss this tremendously when I go. No kid in America is gonna get such a grin on his/her face just from seeing me run by. Here it means so much to some kids.

* The other thing that made my day today was that after work my library counterparts & I were saying goodbye for the day when one of them said something in Oshiwambo, and of course I didn’t understand. So she said in English, “I say we will pray…” and then she giggled and went on “… that you don’t leave us until 2009.” I started laughing, eventhough inside I was a little choked up. We laughed together cause we all know that they want me to stay but that I’ve gotta go back. We’ve had conversations about it before, and I know they’re getting sad about November. But I said, “yeah? Do you want to tell that to my mom/dad so that they can have a heart attack about me not coming home for another 2 years?” . We just laughed some more together. And as they walked away, I noticed my heart was so happy but so heartbroken at the same time. It makes me feel good to know they care about me so much, but it also made me sad that they are sad. Just another one of those memorable moments. One of those that also helps put everything into perspective. It’s gonna suck having to say goodbye to my people in Namibia. I wish I could be in two places at once.

Alrite…enough for one night. I’ve got emails to catch up on. Tomorrow is internet day for this week. What What! Good night… peace & love.

“Looking forward & not behind- everybody’s gotta cross that line.” ~3 Doors Down~

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:28:38 GMT

19 June 2007, Wednesday
9:15pm
Listening to: 3 Doors Down & Staind mix

Remind me to come back to tell you about my new friend, a boy named Sacheus. He is gonna be helping us in the library, and he’s got a heart of gold.

12 June 2007

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 11:16:11 GMT

June 12 2007
9:30pm
Listening to: “April’s Chill Mix”, a mixed cd

I have been thinking lately that I have not been journaling much. I’ve been fully aware of this, especially over the last few days. Why I have not been journaling, I’m not sure. But I think it’s really due to the time factor. I have such a packed routine, that I don’t have much time for journaling. I’d have to give up reading or studying time in order to journal. And i’m trying to do all the studying I can, and I’ve started reading Nelson Mandela’s “A Long Walk to Freedom”. Finally, at last, I started the book. I couldn’t leave Africa w/out having read it while I was here. Well if you don’t know, the book is over 700 pages long. I have a lot of reading to do, and I’m finding it hard to put the book down.

I’ve also been staying away from journaling cause there are a few things I’d like to catch up on in my journal, but getting around to it all would be extremely time-consuming. So instead I choose to continue to avoid it so that even more things pile up. Hm. Doesn’t make much sense, I know. I have this thing where if I don’t get to journaling about something in the moment, I don’t go back to it later. Or rather, I find it hard to do so.

Anyways. Again, I don’t want to make this long. I feel like I always say that and it always ends up being long regardless. But today there were 2 things that struck me & I decided I really want to document these things and not let them get away from me and my memories.

First off, today when I was jogging as I got further into the village deeper in the bush I came upon this homestead that I always run parallel to. There’s this big beautiful tree next to the mahangu fields on this family’s homestead. I like to think of it as a “dreaming tree”, cause I’m a Dave Matthews Band dork. I’ve noticed before that close by the tree there are 2 big piles of old beer & liquor bottles, some of them broken. It always make me sad to see a big pile of alcohol bottles. Alcoholism is a big problem here, and alcohol leads people here to HIV & other tragic shit. So every time I see bottles strewn across somewhere, my thoughts immediately go to “what did the person who drank that get themselves into when they were drunk?”. It’s not even about what kind of danger did they get themselves into, but what kind of danger did they get someone else into?

But what struck me today was that as I ran in the direction of this homestead & got closer & closer I realized that there were 2 toddlers sitting around the pile up of bottles- a little boy & a little girl. It was as if that was their play pen. There were no adults in sight. I’m sure they were back at the homestead, and from the homestead you can’t see to where these kids were sitting. The kids were just sitting there playing w/ empty beer bottles, some of them broken. Back home, we’d be calling child services on the parents, but out here, it just is. I can’t say it was shocking at all, because things like that aren’t shocking anymore. But it did hit me; it was a reminder of how different things are around the world. And this is Africa. I don’t know… kids at home have little tantrums if they can’t get the latest “cool” gadget or toy while kids in Africa play with broken beer bottles cause there is no money for a real toy. No offense, but we are a spoiled people.

Moving on from that rant… The other thing I wanted to mention was a little story my supervisor told me today. Mind you, this is a brand new story, occurring today. As in, these are the kinds of things that are still occurring in Namibia, day in & day out. My supervisor was explaining to me that he had to cancel an errand we had to do today because he had to go take care of a situation. The situation goes like this: He had to go to the Voluntary Counseling & Testing Center (VCT Center- where they do HIV testing) to take care of a problem. He was asked to go pick up the wife of a guy who was waiting at the VCT. This guy (let’s call him Fred) is married and has been cheating on his wife for some time. Yesterday his “girlfriend” & him went to get tested. He tested negative, but the girlfriend notified him today, through TEXT MESSAGE by the way, that she tested positive but was too afraid to tell him in person. Upon hearing this today the guy starts freaking out, naturally. He is well aware that just because he tested negative yesterday doesn’t mean he IS negative, because he might be in the “window period” of infection (quick HIV lesson: during the first 3 months of being infected it’s possible that an HIV test could come back negative because the body has not yet produced enough HIV antibodies, which is what the HIV test actually tests for). He’s panicking because he & the girlfriend were having unprotected sex. Now he’s dealing with the guilt of having infected his wife, if he does turn out to be positive. The wife was not aware of the affair. So today he was waiting at the VCT for someone to drive his wife over there so that he could deliver the news that not only has he been cheating on her, but that he, and therefore she, might end up being HIV positive. Between the guilt he’s dealing with & the fear of having been infected the guy was talking about wanting to commit suicide. All because he chose to cheat and have unprotected sex. AAAGGGHHH. The VCT counselor had his work cut out for him between mediating between the wife & husband, explaining the possibilities should he turn out to be +/-, and also trying to persuade him to not commit suicide.

And I just want to pull my hair out & repeatedly say “why why why?”. I mean, what are we doing here? What am I doing here? What is Peace Corps doing here? What are all these other NGO & volunteer organizations doing? What is all this funding coming in to this country doing? There is soooo much information out there. I’ve mentioned this before. The information is out there, it’s everywhere. Eveywhere you look there are messages promoting abstinence, being faithful, condomizing, delaying. All the alternatives for a healthier country, preventing new infections. And yet, things just aren’t changing. Information is out there, but what’s lacking here is actual behavior change. And that is the most complex & challenging task to accomplish. Why aren’t people listening to the information & putting it to good use? It’s such a difficult question to answer, there are so many factors to consider.

It’s just so fucking frustrating to know that so much information is out there, yet the same things continue to happen. This example from today is typical. Typical, typical, typical. Women are victims. Married women are some of the most common victims. Fuck. I knew coming here that things wouldn’t change overnight, but at the same time I can’t say I was expecting such a resistance to change. In my head, I just assumed that if information is lacking, once you provide information on how to prevent such a painful deadly disease, then OBVIOUSLY people take that information and apply it. But it’s just not that easy. I think I just feel like we are in the same place that this country was probably 5 and 10 years ago in terms of HIV. I don’t feel like there’s a lot of progress.

When my supervisor told me the story today, I remained calm because as frustrating as it is, it is not a shock to me. I already know within myself that these things are still happening day in & day out. I politely asked him, “so John, why do you think these things are still happening? Why are they not using condoms? Were they using condoms?” To which John answered with exactly what I was expecting, which is problem number 1. He said something along the lines of “those are things from inside.” When I asked for clarity he said that people don’t really talk about those things. Like it wouldn’t be something that he and this Fred guy would be discussing. Which is true. People do not want to talk about what they do in the bedroom or how they’re doing it. It’s a problem. I pressed on because I wanted to get his Namibian male perspective on why males are just not using condoms. I said, “is it just because they don’t like to use them? Or that they can’t get them?”. He said it’s very complex and there are many reasons why. Part of it is that it is not in their traditional culture to use condoms, part of it is that some of these people in the remote areas don’t have easy access to condoms, part of it is ignorance. He says that even w/ all the info out there some people just refuse to believe or accept HIV & the reality of how it spreads & how it operates. He also offered another realistic perspective, like in the case of this Fred guy. He was saying that probably someone like Fred would be hesitant to obtain condoms from the clinic or hospital (the govt. supplies them for free, as people have no $ to buy them) or what what because people know he is married and so if they see him taking condoms they will wonder “hey that guy is married what is he taking condoms for?” and suspect that he is cheating, etc etc. You gotta realize that Namibia is a small world, it’s a small country population-wise. Less than 2 million people. And everyone always knows someone. Gossip is a big problem. It’s the same reason why there is so much stigma surrounding HIV. Basically it’s one big circle of a problem. It’s a sick cycle.

So that was today. And I’m gonna stop here, cause I’m exhausted. Physically & mentally. A pretty heavy day. A whole different world.

Sat, 19 May 2007 09:45:10 GMT

15 May, 2007.
9:00pm
Listening to: David Gray; Album- A New Day at Midnight

Holy cripes it’s mid – May already. It’s flying by. Geez.

Long time no journal. The last few weeks were stressful, tiring, draining, and then exciting, fun, & memorable, respectively. From 22 April to 28 April I was in Windhoek with preparations for Camp GLOW. What was I thinking when I volunteered to be the person in charge of materials & supplies for this youth camp? I’m just kidding. I’m glad I did it, but it was rather hell-acious during that prep week. I ran up & down and all around the damn capital trying to get the things we needed. By the end of that week I was ready for a vacation. Which is exactly what I got.

That’s right, I didn’t actually attend Camp GLOW. Only I would volunteer to bust my ass preparing a conference and then not actually participate in it. Actually that’s not true- it seems to be PCV tradition to in one way or another do the same. Anyways, yes it’s true that for a long time coming I was excited & looking forward to GLOW. But then my PCV friend Carl started bugging me telling me about this vacation a few other PCVs were going on. It started on the same day as Camp GLOW. So I had a decision to make. I figured since I wasn’t really needed at the actual conference cause we had a surplus of PCVs attending, and since this vacation thing seemed like a great deal, I decided to take the vacation instead. Alright, actually it wasn’t that easy for me to decide & initially at first I turned down the vacation. But after much inner turmoil I decided that I would have another opportunity to attend & be part of a youth camp, and more specifically this will be one that I have helped to coordinate in every sense (the Northern Girls Conference that Amber and I are co-chairing. Takes place in July). Soooooo I decided that I would take the vacation. It was perfect timing, I would get to see more of Nam, which I felt I hadn’t done enough of, & best of all we were renting a car so we wouldn’t have to hike anywhere. What a blessing! Our own transport!

So vacation it was. And what a vacation it was. A group of 6 of us: Matt & Carl again, Irene, and 2 PCVs from Group 26 who I’d not yet met (they just got here in November). I won’t go into too much detail about the vacation because it would take me hours, but just a brief couple notes on things we did. First off, I’m so glad I went! We went around North Western Namibia, namely the Kunene region. In my opinion, probably the most beautiful & “traditional Africa” region in the country. We started at Kunene River Lodge for 2 nights, then Epupa Falls for 2 nights, then Palmwag for 2 nights, then Hobatere for 2 nights. We camped everywhere. We are on PC budgets, after all.

Best parts of the trip? 2 things.
1) While at Epupa Falls I decided that I wanted to take a Himba village tour because if I didn’t do it then, I’d leave Namibia without ever being exposed to the Himba people. It cost N$40 (about US$6) plus some sugar & maize meal that you bring to the Himba family in exchange for your visit. Part of me felt weird & uncomfortable about doing it, like it was invasive. But part of me felt I would regret it if I didn’t do it. I’m here, I’d like to be exposed to the different tribes in Nam. And that includes the Himba. Plus I know that they benefit directly from being a “tourist attraction”. It’s basically the barter system. You take them flour & sugar etc & in exchange for that you are allowed to pry into their culture. Eh like I said, I’m not 100% comfortable with it. But I’m so glad I did it. I took some pictures which you all will have to see at another time because the camera wasn’t mine. It was one of my best moments in Namibia, hands down. The ‘family’ was relatively young- husband & woman were my age and so they were into talking to us & they asked us as many questions as we asked them. It was one of those golden moments of cross-cultural interaction. I’m sure they thought we are as odd as we thought they were. Ah but it’s the differences that make the world go round. By the way I say ‘family’ in quotes because it wasn’t a traditional family in the way we think of it. The men in the Himba culture often have multiple wives. There was a young girl from another village, a couple of little kids whom I couldn’t figure out who the parents were, as well as a couple young girls from another village. I couldn’t follow the story line, and that’s pretty normal with homesteads & villages here, especially nowadays in light of the HIV epidemic. Anyways, Himba visit: amazing. It was like out of National Geographic.
2) Finally got to see African wildlife in its natural habitat! Again, it was like out of National Geographic. Got to see giraffes crossing gravel roads in front of us, elephants feasting on some trees, zebras running away from our car at night as we drove by, and the typical African image: bunch of kudu, oryx, giraffes, zebras, & warthogs gathered at a water hole. Finally, after a year and half of being in this country I was exposed to the wildlife! The only thing I’ve yet to see are lions & rhinos, though we were told that they lions were around but were hiding cause they were probably gonna attack some giraffe later that night. I’ll never forget going to sleep at night to sounds of zebras & who knows what other animals yelling way back down there at the water hole.

*So that was the vacation vacation part of my vacation. But before I came back to site, I spent 2 days in Omaruru. Good ole Omaruru. That’s where we had our Pre Service Training. I love the Ru & one of my best PCV friends Wendie is placed there, so I went to her site for a couple days. Good times. We mostly baked & ate all day for those 2 days & had a serious serious Grey’s Anatomy marathon. Can I just say that prior to this, I had only ever watched 2 episodes of this show and purposely avoided more because I KNEW I’d get hooked? Well Wendie was in the middle of watching some of Season 2, and decided I should get hooked as well. At first I resisted but it wasn’t hard to crack and give in. So in a matter of 2 days we saw all of Season 1 and about half of Season 2. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we watched Grey’s, ate, showered, and slept and that was it. And what a great time it was. Always a good time w/ Wendie. We hiked back to Windhoek together. I left there with her promise that she’d come to visit me in July. Sah-weet.

*Finally headed back to my site on this past Saturday (12th May). Hiked back with Robin & her new German volunteer roommate, who luckily happened to also be in Windhoek. Luckily because it meant I wouldn’t have to hike back to site alone. After a bit of difficulty w/ communication problems w our taxi in the AM, we got on the road about 9AM. Got from Windhoek to about 30k outside Otjiwarongo. Then another ride from there to Otji. Then from Otji to Tsumeb. Then from Tsumeb to Ondangwa. Finally made it to Ondangwa after dark, at about 6:30pm or so. But of course it doesn’t end there. From there took a taxi to Okatana. Finally made it home between 7 and 7:30. Was happy that we made it all the way in one day, and still relatively early. It almost always works out in just one day, it’s just the longest travel day ever. It takes about 7 good hours to get to my site from Windhoek, and that doesn’t include waiting-for-hikes time, or account for super slow transport, or account for rides that make “just a quick turn there”. But got back alive and in one piece after being gone for 3 weeks and for that I was beyond grateful & happy.

*Which brings us to today, to now. It’s only Tuesday so I’m still getting into the groove of things, but all’s well. I was happy to come back home. As much as I love getting out every now & then, especially for vacation or seeing other PCVs, I do love my site. And I like my little place. And I like my routine. So it’s no surprise that it’s only Tuesday and I’m pretty much right back on track w my routine. I like having a routine, and I think it’s partly a coping mechanism as well. Things w/ work are good, off to a slow start for now. The kids are on school break for another week still, therefore the library is closed. And my biggest project for the next couple months will be the library. But it’s good that it’s off to a slow start. It gives me a couple days to re-adjust again.

There’s a lot going on for preparation for the Northern Girls Conference. Today I met w/ the “Acting R.A.C.E Coordinator” for Oshana. She is through Ministry of Education, and they are pretty much funding the ENTIRE conference. A lovely woman, and a pleasure to work with. We poured over a couple hundred applications from 11am to 4:30pm today, with no stopping for lunch. All from teachers who want to co-facilitate at the conference, and young girls who want to be peer leaders or just participate at the conference. Mind you we had to pick only 2 teachers, 2 peer leaders, and 20 girls out of hundreds of applications. And each application contained essays. It was draining and tiring, and I don’t remember the last time I talked out loud so much (from reading them out loud). But at the same time I fully enjoyed getting to collaborate on the choosing. It gave me an opportunity to how these girls/women think they influence others & how they’ve been influenced themselves, but also to be exposed to the quality of education. And also it gave a sense of perspective. After all, everything around here is in some way tied to HIV/AIDS and the Conference is very much so towards the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Over and over again in these essays I read about issues related to death & HIV/AIDS, no parents, no money, parents who struggle to provide food for their kids, rape, stigma, etc etc. All of the role models mentioned in one way or another dealt with this and other setbacks in a dignified manner & fought to make it & set an example.

So it was a highly valuable experience for me.

*There is a Journey of Life training going on at the Mission until tomorrow for about 40 OVC & 6 Home Based Family Care Volunteers through Catholic AIDS Action’s HBFC programme. It’s all in Oshiwambo & my co workers have it down pat, so I’m not involved. But I sat in yesterday for about an hour. Eventhough I had nothing to contribute and I had no idea of what was going on, it’s just something that I wanted to do to show them I care about what’s going on. But also it kind of needs to be done. For no other reason than that people notice things like that and it means a lot in terms of “cross cultural friendship”. It means a lot to people if I just show up. It’s very flattering & amusing, yet also highly uncomfortable. It’s hard to explain, but just the action of being there among them, it says a lot. Especially, and particularly I think, because I’m white. It’s very strange to be in this position. It’s very strange to see Meme’s & little kids’ faces light up just cause you walked into the room. It’s a big deal, especially in light of the whole post apartheid thing. I’ve gone into the whole race thing before & I don’t want to dwell on it now. But generally speaking the white Namibians, they wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out w the black Namibians, showing up at their conferences as just spectators for example. It’s a shocking thing, a novelty, a surprise, to see a white person so deeply involved in THEIR culture & in their lives. And as much cultural integration & immersion as is there, I think that to them at the end of the day I am still white, I am still not really one of them and so everything is examined under a microscope- everything you do, and everything you don’t do.

Anyways, the thing I really wanted to jot down w/ regards to the people here for the training is that today I decided I wanted to have some bonding time w/ them. That means whipping out a coloring book & some crayons. After dinner I walked to the Memes and asked if it’d be okay if I colored with the kids. Over the next 2 hours I had about 20 kids & 3 Memes on the floor sharing 1 box of 40 crayons, coloring their hearts away. The best part for me was seeing these Memes having a few joyous carefree moments coloring. They are dealing with so much in their lives and seeing them coloring it was like all that slipped away for a little while. It was adorable. The kids had a blast too. I started off w/ a 300 page coloring book, and we used up more than half the book. They’d finish one page and come to me for another. Not only is it fun for the kids, but it’s therapeutic too. All these kids are here because they’ve lost one or both parents, more than likely to HIV. Unfortunately I can’t do this w them regularly because they all live in different villages, but atleast we had this bit of play therapy today. And really the Journey of Life programme itself is therapeutic.

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:37:47 GMT

21.4.07
10pm
Listening to: Cities Sampler 97 Vol 18

On AIDS in Africa

Really the problem is I don’t want to delve into this epiphany right now because I’ve been having a conversation with myself, in my head, about all this for the last hour. But here’s what it comes down to: AIDS in Africa & why it is the enormous problem it is. Granted, my experience is based greatly on what I’ve seen & experienced in Namibia. But I’ve also learned a lot about what the HIV situation is in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa & the issues are analogous. Well today I was thinking of why this continues to happen everyday. I’m here, giving my insignificant direct or indirect contribution towards the fight against HIV, and yet I know it still happens every day. Every day here people continue to be infected. I just know. I know because of what I see happening. Things haven’t changed enough. So I began to think about why it’s such a problem here. Why the Western world was so quickly able to control the AIDS problem, while Africa is in such terrible shape & still slipping away. Certainly it’s not because of the “We’re better than them” point of view. And it’s certainly not because of the tremendously fallacious belief that “these people” are much more promiscuous &/ or dirty.

I see that this government is actually doing its part towards fighting the epidemic. They’re doing a lot, and they have forced every sector to include HIV/AIDS into their activities. Everywhere you turn you see HIV/AIDS messages & protect yourselves messages. Some would argue that a lot of that is just on paper, but when it comes to action not a whole lot is going on in some of these sectors. Perhaps; but what came to me today is that this problem is much bigger.

The messages are everywhere, the information is out there. Government, private organizations, and NGOs operating in this country are all contributing in one way or another towards putting the information out there. I feel like there is an overload of information. Everyone at this point agrees that the focus now needs to be on behavior change. How do we change behavior? Because information itself is not preventing or helping to solve this problem. So the approach now is towards focusing on getting people to take all this information and actually apply it to life & change behavior. But in my own opinion, this is a much more daunting task than was that of educating people. Changing behavior, specifically the kind that leads towards the spread of HIV/AIDS, in Africa means people have to let go of their culture & tradition in some ways. And that right there is one of the biggest barriers. What I have seen is a lot of resistance towards changing culture & tradition. It always blows my mind when I think about this barrier and realize that people are in effect choosing to continue this cycle of death & sadness because they simply don’t want to let go of traditional ways.

Here’s where it gets complicated. It dawned on me today there are 2 main issues that are hindering significant progress against the fight in HIV/AIDS. The first problem is gender inequality. The second problem is poverty. These are 2 problems that are prevalent across the board in sub-Saharan Africa. These were NOT 2 problems facing the whole of America when the HIV/AIDS problem showed up at our door.

I’m telling you right now that you cannot fight HIV/AIDS while ignoring these two issues. The highest risk group for HIV/AIDS infection is women. Mostly women between 20-50. Of this group of women do you know who is the highest at-risk group? You won’t believe this, but it’s married women. That’s right, married women are the highest risk group. Why? Because a woman has no say, married or not. She has no voice. She cannot tell the man what to do. She cannot stand up for herself. She cannot put her foot down. She cannot make her own decisions. Traditionally, and for the very most part, this is still the case. That means her husband can, and does, go out and be with other women. Comes home and passes it on to the wife. And why does he pass it on to the wife? Because the wife cannot tell the man to put on a condom. Why? Because if she does the man accuses HER of having cheated. Do you see what I mean about how intricate the whole thing is? Women have no voice here. They are nothings. For me, as a woman, it’s hard to see that. I see this type of thing everyday: A woman pushing a wheelbarrow full of crap while the guy just walks behind her making sure she’s doing a good job. So what I’m saying is, you cannot fight HIV w/out addressing gender issues. The man will do whatever he wants w the woman. Women & young girls have told me it’s very difficult to tell a man to put on a condom. It’s just not okay. She does not have a say in anything. But wait it gets even more complex.

As for issue #2, the poverty issue. These people are poverty-stricken, so what’s the only free & enjoyable thing you can do when you’re poor? Have sex. And if it’s the only thing they can get free & that’s fun, then gosh darnit you better believe it’s gotta be a fully enjoyable thing- none of that condom stuff. I’ll give you another piece of insight. I hear this from people all the time here, so you really have to consider this. With regards to protecting yourself & trying to live a healthy life & get far in life, people say “what’s the point of living anyway? What are we trying to stay alive for? To continue to feel hunger? To live in this misery? We have nothing. There is nowhere for us to go. We don’t have a good education. We have no jobs. There is no opportunity to move up or anywhere. What’s the point?” So how do you answer that? And more importantly, can we answer that? Outsiders? I’ve never walked a mile in their shoes. I’ve seen what it looks like now, & I understand it so much better. I understand it because I’ve been here now & I know what the situations are. But the truth is I’ve never really walked a mile in their shoes, and so how could I possible answer that. They just say: “what’s the point of living anyways? We’re all gonna die anyways, so we may as well enjoy what we can while we’re here (hence unprotected sex).” You have to understand people who live in penury don’t think about the long term- they think in the here & now. They’re not worried about how they’ll achieve a goal in 10 yrs, they’re concerned about where they’re gonna get some bread to feed their kids tomorrow.

So this will continue to be a cycle until something can be done about poverty as well. Until something can be done about unemployment. Until something can be done about the quality of education. It’s a sick cycle and the great majority of Sub Saharan Africa gets trapped in it- Without any money to go to school how can I get an education? And even if my family has money to send me to school, how can I get anywhere w the quality of education I’ve received? If I have no education how can I ever get a job? How can I ever get out of this hole?”.

Do you understand now? It’s just a bad bad cycle. It’s like people are destined to fail over & over again. And now you add in this HIV/AIDS world emergency & it’s just.. the cycle is getting even more complex. Cause now kids are also not getting educations cause they’re at home caring for dying parents. And once the parents die, then what?

If there was one journal I’d want EVERYONE that I know to read, it’d be this one. I feel we in America don’t really understand what’s going on here at all. And I’m no better- because I didn’t know til I came here either. It’s very easy to judge & misunderstand from afar. It’s like Africa is a whole world away. And in a way, it really is. But I love this continent. I don’t know why, but I have always been fascinated with Africa. I thank my lucky stars for being able to be here to see all this. It’s an incredible eye opener to another world. And now that I’ve been here & have gained some insight, I want people to be informed. I want the people in my life to understand what’s happening in Africa & why it is the way it is. I want people to care. We’re all one; we’re all human beings. I’m reminded of this quote I saw in a book I read recently called Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder. It says that “The only real nation is humanity”.

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:37:23 GMT

21.4.07, Saturday
9:35pm
Listening to: “Cities 97 Sampler Vol 18”, by Various Artists. Currently on Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’

Well I just had another epiphany this evening. It was just recently. This one’s much bigger and deeper than the one about the dogs the other day. I’ll briefly share, but I don’t want to delve into it too much. See tonight is my last night alone for the next 3 weeks or so. Tomorrow I’m headed to Windhoek where I’ll be all next week, running around like a chicken with its head cut off, preparing all the supplies & materials for Camp GLOW. I actually will not be at Camp GLOW, I’m just helping out behind the scenes with all the logistics. I decided that I will have another chance to participate in a youth camp in July (Northern Girls Conference, which I’m co-chairing w/ Amber) and that I should really take this opportunity to travel through Namibia. I feel like I haven’t seen much of Namibia, atleast not much of all the ‘touristy’ stuff. I don’t want to leave this country NOT having seen all these things. So anyways- I’ll be in Windhoek all next w/ for the coordination of GLOW, and then for the next 10 days after that, I will be traveling around w/ a couple PCV friends. They rented a car- oh it’ll be glorious to have our own car & not have to hike everywhere. Then taking a few extra days to slowly make it back to site. All this means that I won’t really have any alone time during the next couple weeks. Which is alrite. I don’t dislike people. I just love, value, & greatly appreciate my alone time, too. That’s one thing I’ve definitely learned while I’ve been out here. So with all that being said, for the next couple hours I have before I head to bed, I’d like to just sit & enjoy. Maybe I’ll watch my ‘Ali G- In Da House’ DVD. That would be awesome, I’ll be laughing plenty. Laughter is always good, they say. So w/out further ado, my thoughts this evening… See next entry. I want to make it an entry of its own.

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:36:54 GMT

4.20.07 Friday
11pm
Listening to: Ryan Adams, Love Is Hell

Here’s the last part of my last entry in case you missed it:
Earlier today when I had access to the internet I flew over to www.jasonmraz.com . Jason Mraz’s site. He’s one of my favorite singers, but beyond that, he’s one of my favorite writers. He posts some journals online on his site, and they are often very insightful & full of words of wisdom. He’s very sagacious. Well the one I found today, posted w/in the last week, was quite fitting to all that’s been going on. It couldn’t have been more appropriate, and it couldn’t have been more right on. So with that said, my next journal entry is going to be just a copy & paste of his journal entry. It’s kind of long, but it’s a beautiful entry. Please read it, I am sure you will find meaning in it too. Be grateful, right on.

So w/out further ado, here are Jason Mraz’s words.

AS POSTED RECENTLY ON MRAZ’S JOURNAL:

“About a month ago I received in the mail the top 100 classical masterpieces of all time. It's something that could be ordered from TV or the back of a magazine. I'm not sure who voted to determine why these selections were chosen for the compilation, but that's beside the point. And besides that, I don't know enough about classical music to care. I just know I like the stuff.

The collection once belonged to my grandmother on my mom's side. She passed away about 7 years ago. She probably ordered the CD's by phone sometime in the early 90's while watching the weather channel on the glassed-in back porch addition to her house; the same house I'd spend my afternoons after school between 3rd and 6th grade learning to draw and paint and eat my vegetables while acquiring a taste for whole milk and red apples. This is the same house where I'd break my leg while riding an exercise bike. And the same house with the piano rarely tuned donning the sheet music for the Muppet Movie as well as all the Christmas Classics that my sister would sing all year as if rehearsing months in advance for the holiday sing-a-long. My Grandmother, or Nanny's house was a workshop for cultivating craftiness. She herself was a painter. She loved wildlife, birds mostly. My grandfather, or Papa, was a gifted carpenter and woodworker and would make blanks for Nanny to paint on and sell at craft fairs. Blanks like the shape of an hourglass, which my Nanny would turn into an old maid. She would bring to life with her paints all kinds of kitschy creations to place at the hearth of the home or sit in someone's garden or doorstep. She was a master of two-dimensional southern accoutrements. She was also good at painting fruit on the 2inch boards shaped by my grandfather. Grapes and leaves I remember vividly having much character. To this day I remark at how the placement of a white dot in the right location can create the illusion of reflecting light.

Around the same time the CD's arrived in the mail courtesy of my Mom, I was informed that a friend from recent tours had passed away. The news came in an email. I was home alone. It was early in the morning, grey as a new day, but promises of sunlight lay just ahead. It was a short email that didn't give many clues or closure. It just stated the fact. My friend was dead.

I sank into my stomach. I felt the loss immediately. I experienced lack. This lasted for a good solid minute. The pain had a color. But it was swirling and constantly changing. As I was allowing and emotions were rising I opened my heart and head to tears. I opened my mouth to breathe in what I expected to be gasps of sadness and instead I joyously shouted her name. Oh Kelly, I said. And I was surprised by the sound of my voice in the empty space. I closed my eyes to hear the echo better and suddenly there she was standing inches from my nose. Tears never came. Chills stood up on my body and a warm smile graced my face. She looked exactly the way she did when I last saw her. When I opened my eyes I felt her everywhere.

Then I had a flashback to the night I heard of my grandmother's passing. I was about to play a gig in LA when I got the news. I cried in an alley behind the club keeping cool from the public while I communicated with my Nanny. That night I felt my grandmother's presence at the show finally, something neither of us ever got to experience.

So, I started thinking?

Why is it when someone passes we can immediately talk with them and welcome them into our home, thoughts and prayers as a spirit? We feel their spirit is free, ethereal and everywhere, where we are the ones trapped here in this limited capacity. Why is it I never sat and enjoyed a visit with Kelly or my Grandmother in meditation before? Did death grant them the power to be free and omnipresent? Heck no, they were always omnipresent. It was me who had failed for so many years to make contact with loved ones on either side. It was I who didn't trust or communicate with the Omnipotent.

Just because the stuff that makes us "us" is busy keeping us alive and active and involved in our somewhat mundane tasks, doesn't mean we are limited to being just us. We are unlimited! When you dream do you not escape the confines of everyday life. Can we not use our imaginations to soar above the skies or tell people things we might be afraid to say to their face?

For the first time in my life I am experiencing what I imagine is that universal sense of being connected to everyone, to everything. This oneness that so many have preached about and tried to teach aloud for centuries is today's posthumous gift from my dear friend Kelly and late Grandmother, Virginia.

Kelly has now made it clear to me how to access her gift and I'm spending more time with loved ones in my thoughts than ever. Just because someone is still alive doesn't mean you can't think of him or her in close ways and/or feel that person thinking of you. Just because you don't have their phone number anymore doesn't mean you can't talk directly to them.

Prayers are for all spirits, those of us still walking around and those us flying high lending our energy to all sorts of new things.

If the word "prayer" has you confused by it's religious connotations, use another word like "wish" or "meditation." Hell, don't define it in fact. All it is - is a positive thought coming from your true nature.

So here I am playing these CD's in my home. Enjoying my grandmother's knack for classical hits. Loving the fact that they arrived in my mailbox the day after I spent time in meditation remembering her. I'm uploading them into my computer one at a time so I can enjoy them on my ipod in the sky and in hotels across the world, bringing not only music but also my Nanny along for the wild ride I'm on.

But as I'm importing the discs, I notice she never opened Volume 8. It's still in the plastic. Apparently 1867 – 1876 weren't some of her favorite years as she skipped straight from Offenbach to Dvorak.

Perhaps she was saving me the thrill of opening a new CD. The peeling of the plastic wrap is something I have a special fondness for. I equate it to peeling dead skin after a sunburn. For some reason or another she never got around to it. Maybe before she got to it I had started making recordings and she diverted her attention to criticizing my music, which I heard she did on occasion. Grandmothers have the right if it isn't gospel. Either way, I'll open Volume 8 after I listen intently to the others that she spent time with. And when I do, I'll know she is listening. Then again, she's probably been hanging out with the actual composers. Whatever the case and however the truth exists, I am happy and I say thank you to everyone and everything.

Life is a miraculous occurrence. Billions of years had to go just right to produce you and I. Weather had to remain stable long enough for us not to get caught in a freeze or violent explosion. Species had to be fought and won. The evolution of the modern human, some 200,000 years in the making had to go accordingly and is going accordingly. What a glorious mistake if we are indeed an accident in nature! But so be it. I am that I am. This is what it is. And it works in mysterious ways; giving life, love or just delivering the mail at just the right moment to make us appreciate the magic. Each one of us is responsible for the ripple, even if we never leave the house.

Be grateful. Your family past, present, and future depends on it."

~Jason Mraz

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 08:33:54 GMT

4.20.07, Friday
10:13PM
Listening to: Ryan Adams

So I realized today I haven’t written an update on whatever happened with Rute & Karola, those friends of mine who were in a car accident last month. That’s mostly because given the circumstances, I’m mostly uninformed & it’s hard to be in touch. But over the last week or two I’ve gotten some updates. I won’t go into too much detail about everything, but man oh man, things are rough. And things are not getting better- rather they’re getting worse. I think they didn’t need to escalate to where they are now.

As I posted some weeks ago, I went to Windhoek to visit Rute & spent a few days w her at the hospital shortly after the accident. At that point Karola was still in Namibia but she was being treated at a different hospital. While I was there Karola was flown back home to Germany, where she will remain & receive care & treatment. Karola & Rute never got the chance to say goodbye to each other. Not only that but she has not been able to speak to her. She has no way to get in touch w/ her. They were separated after the accident never to be seen again. That’s one of the things that is most difficult to deal with for Rute. We talked about all this at length about 2 weeks ago on the phone. Our only phone conversation in the midst of all this chaos so far. All I could do was listen, but I wish there was more I could do to take away what she’s feeling. I wish I had the power to remove people’s pain. Especially that of good people who are suffering.

Karola is motionless everywhere except her head. Karola’s family recently told Rute that Karola has a bell on her nose & that’s how she calls the doctors. It seems that there is no hope she will walk again.

As for Rute, well everything is kind of up in the air right now. When I went to visit her in Windhoek during late March, soon after the accident, they had operated on her foot & she was wearing a brace to try to fix her collar bone. However, she wasn’t receiving proper medical care. It was she who had to be on top of the nurses to come & check her wound & clean it- it’s a huge deep gash going across her whole foot. Mind you, she had stitches on at this time. She had her stitches taken out a day or two after we got there. Well, over the next 2 days she found stitches in her foot that they had somehow missed. Not to mention that she felt the whole thing while they were taking them out cause they didn’t sedate her properly.

When it looked like she was on her way back to recovery, they left her in the Peace Corps Medical Office for observation. During those days they realized that her foot wasn’t healing properly AND that she had caught an infection on her wound at one of the hospitals on her foot. She also realized during this time that the bone on her foot was somehow sticking out now. PC decided to fly her to South Africa so that she can get treated for her infection & to figure out why her foot’s not healing & fix the problem.

It was the day before she flew to South Africa (about 2 weeks ago now) that I got to talk to her on the phone for a good 40 minutes. She seemed hopeful & I also was telling her that I was glad they were sending her there cause I have better faith in their health system than the one in Nam. She’d probably have to go & if the infection was gone she could have an operation in which they’d have to take skin from another part of the body and put it on her foot to cover the gash. After that she’d probably have to rest for 2 weeks, bed-ridden. And for someone like Rute, that’s a very aversive situation. She likes to be out & about. She was already struggling with having to stay put in bed. But okay, we agreed that if that’s what she needed to do in order to get better then she was going to have to be strong & deal with it.

Now with the latest updates we have gotten it seems her collar bone is not healing properly either. Additionally her foot is still messed up, though I’m not sure what the exact situation is. She just mentioned about not being able to walk currently & for some time again. So she’s regressed- she was walking before. But the biggest blow is that she got news from PC Washington,DC that they were considering Medically Separating her from Peace Corps (think ‘honorable discharge’). But that’s the last thing Rute wants. She wants to stay in Peace Corps, she wants to finish her service, she wants to finish her projects. Shit, she was even hoping to extend her PC service and continue to work in Africa. PC DC says that they are just concerned about the length of time she will have to be away from site & unable to work. I think typically if it goes over 45 days, they Med-Sep you.

Right now I have no idea when she’s coming back to Nam, or even if she’ll come back to Nam. Everything is in limbo for now. She & our PC medical officer are putting up a good fight so she doesn’t have to get Med-Sep, but who knows what will be. I don’t want my girl to go- I know she wants to stay with all her heart. Most important of all, she’s been planning since last year to go home this May for one of her best friends’ wedding. I don’t know if she will be medically able to do that anymore. She has been looking forward to this since last year. I wish I could talk to her. I wish this was all over for her. I wish I could take all this crap off her shoulders. As Jack Johnson sings in a song about life & death, “You know that I would now, if only I could”.

I just feel terrible. From one minute to the next things change so drastically. Your whole life can change & turn upside down just like that. All the plans you had, all the dreams, all the hopes. One thing that has come out of this for all of us- I know for Rute & me, atleast- is a lot of self reflection & reflection on life.

I’m gonna close up here soon. Earlier today when I had access to the internet I flew over to www.jasonmraz.com . Jason Mraz’s site. He’s one of my favorite singers, but beyond that, he’s one of my favorite writers. He posts some journals online on his site, and they are often very insightful & full of words of wisdom. He’s very sagacious. Well the one I found today, posted w/in the last week, was quite fitting to all that’s been going on. It couldn’t have been more appropriate, and it couldn’t have been more right on. So with that said, my next journal entry is going to be just a copy & paste of his journal entry. It’s kind of long, but it’s a beautiful entry. Please read it, I am sure you will find meaning in it too. Be grateful, right on.

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 13:23:11 GMT

April 11, 2007. Wednesday.
9:40pm
Listening to: my “Lovely Men” mix on iTunes… still.

*Alrite, I decided that tomorrow I will make time for journaling or emailing/ writing letters, since I will probably do internet Friday or Saturday. So I promise myself I’d make this quick tonight, but I have some things I want to point out now for fear that I might forget to get to it next time I journal.

*First off… ONDI HOLE OMAKUNDE UUNENE! I like omakunde very much. A few weeks ago, I was at my neighbor’s house being taught how to make oshithima when I was pointed towards an Owambo basket full of what looked like string beans or green beans. I still can’t figure out what exactly this is in English, as I’ve never really eaten either, let alone seen them fresh off the ground. Well I was told to try it, the omakunde. I liked it right away. I went through about 7 strings. One of the Memes told me that this stuff makes you poo a lot and we laughed about it. I believe her words were, “Do you like to poop? This stuff makes you poop a lot.” But she really meant fart, I think.

Long story short, I was hooked right away. Some days later Meme Maliki just handed me some as I was leaving the main kitchen. I was so happy- she remembered & took notice of the fact that I had really enjoyed them that day at their house. So since then I’ve been telling everyone here how I love those things, followed by a very innocent “Are you growing those at your house also?”. I was talking about it last weekend w my library counterpart (Meme Renate). She said she was growing them at their homestead & that she will bring me some next week. Well Monday I go say hi to everyone at the library & she says to me, “ I have a little gift for you” & smiled, conspicuously but tacitly showing that she meant the omakunde. I always feel guilty & uncomfortable taking gifts in front of other people here so I politely asked if I could just pick it up later after all the kids had left. It’s just a very strange feeling to receive a gift in front of other people who probably wish they were getting what you are getting- and when it comes to food, that will pretty much always be the case here. It’s Africa. At the end of the workday I went back to the library (really, it’s just adjacent to our offices) & she hands me a double-bagged shoe box full of omakunde. You can fit an awful lot of that stuff into a shoe box. It probably weighed 3 or 4 kgs. Sahweet.

When she & Jimmy were here on the weekend for our computer class, they explained to me how you cook the stuff. It’s basically just boil, add salt, and throw in a plastic bag on top to make it boil faster. I love that part of throwing in the plastic bag on top. It’s so unlike anything I’ve ever seen before I came here. Anywhoo, I don’t know what I was doing wrong but it didn’t come out as nice as when they all do it. How hard can it be to boil the dang things? When they do it, they change to a brownish color which signifies it’s ready. They never turned brown today- just a much lighter shade of green. They also got super mushy & starting popping out of the vine & what what what. I mean, it was fine. I ate them & they were good but it wasn’t the same.

I’m gonna be following up on this and I’m gonna master it- the truly Owambo way. I might ask Renate to give me real life demo this weekend.

*In other stuff, it seems that Oreo, one of the mission’s dogs that I have unofficially adopted, is pregnant. I didn’t realize until today when Renate & Jimmy pointed out that her boobs are sagging. I dismissed it saying maybe she’s just old. They laughed. I looked at her later in the day and holy crap. I think she is preggers. Poor baby. She’s got even more little puppy mouths to feed now. These poor doggies. Even the dogs here are skinny. The cattle are skinny. The goats are skinny.

I sometimes give them food when I have extras or when I have food that will otherwise be thrown out. But I’ve never given them water. Today for some reason it dawned on me, and poor doggies. I’ve never seen dogs drink so much water so rapidly. I don’t think they ever get fed water, and I don’t know about them getting fed on a regular basis. I’ve only asked once before and I was told yes, but I don’t know if I was just told what they thought I’d want to hear. I don’t think they get fed regularly, though they get scraps often.

I had an epiphany this last weekend. I’ve grown attached to these dogs and it’s gonna be hard when I have to go. Hard for me, but also for them. They love me to pieces & I’ve already been told that they come sniffing around my door when I’ve been gone for some days. It’s tricky because the closer we get the harder it’s gonna be when I go. I don’t worry about me as much as I worry about them. Once I leave that love & attention will be gone at once again & no one’s gonna be taking care of them like I do.

It’s just different here. People don’t see dogs here the way we do in America. Dogs here aren’t viewed as pets we love & play with & deeply care for. Mostly they’re there to protect the premises. And let’s be honest, if a household barely has enough to feed the humans in that house, how are they gonna be worried about a dog?

*Got another package. What what! Laurita, yeeeeeees your package has safely arrived. I’ll probably go into town tomorrow to pick that baby up. Sweet. This has been the best mail streak ever… 2 packages & 2 letters in a matter of a one week period? Blessed, grateful, & happy.

And that’s enough for tonight. So much for making it quick & snappy.

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:24:41 GMT

April 6, 2007
11:25am
Listening to: Ryan Adams- Love is Hell cd

I have to make this very quick so I can get outta here & head to town. It’s Easter weekend. I hope I can find a taxi to & from town. I’m meeting Tamara for pizza at SOS at 2 & I still have to do some groceries & internet in town.

Alright, here’s what the perfect package looks like on the outside. I would advise you to follow this as closely as possible if/when you send a package. Liz & Siggi’s package got to me in 3 weeks & completely intact.

1.) Okay, first off you wanna send things in a package as plain as possible. If you can fit what you are sending in a shoebox, perfect. If not, just try to keep as plain as possible.

2.) If you can wrap the box in some plain construction paper or brown paper bag- like material, that works wonders.

3.) write little religious statements around the box. I.E.: Draw a little cross, write “God bless you sister angie”, “glory be to God”, “Jesus loves you”. etc etc. I cracked up at Liz & Siggi’s package cause on the bottom of the packaging is written: “Those who steal will be punished- God”. Haha.
4.) I think this is crucial- on the sender’s name put all your info but make up a church name & act like it’s coming from the church.
I.E.
Sister Liz & Sister Siggi
Church of the Holy Brethren
12345 S.W. 1 St.
NY, NY 12345

5.) On the declaration description of contents, do not write exactly what you put inside the package. Write that you are sending religious pamphlets, rosaries, bible, whatever. Or any boring thing you can think of- a card, letters, etc. We’re trying to avert thievery here folks. Use your imagination. And of course, claim that the value is much less than it really is.

6.) Make sure you label it AIR MAIL.

7.) Send it to
Sister Angie Larenas
c/o Catholic AIDS Action
PO Box 2
RC Mission- Okatana
Oshakati, Namibia
Africa

So it seems like a bit of a pain in the ass, but I can assure you that your package is much more likely to arrive to me safe & sound and in a timely manner if you follow the above instructions. And if you took the time & money to gather some stuff and ship it over to me, of course we want it to actually get to me. I’ve had a couple packages go missing & quite honestly it sucks, so we gotta do what we gotta do to try to avoid that. Again, I think God will understand. Don’t you?

I’m gonna get ready to start making my way to town. It’s scorching hot today. Wish me luck in scoring a taxi to town. It’s a 45 minute walk to town otherwise. “See you” on the web.

Happy Easter!!!

Peace & Love.

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:23:48 GMT

April 5, 2007. Thursday.
11:20pm.
Listening to: Ryan Adams- Demolition

Got my package from Liz & Siggi today! What what?! A very fun, sweet, & thoughtful package indeed. Man, I wish these girls were still here. Since I only came to the north in September of last year I only got to spend about 2 months in their neighborhood. We didn’t get too spend as much time as I would have hoped, but both girls were super sweet to me in the short time we knew each other. Actually I ‘knew’ Liz through myspace way before I ever set foot in Namibia. I only met Siggi towards the very end which is a shame, but at the same time shows what kind of a person she is.

I remember the day back in October that Siggi, Anne, & Tamara stayed at my place (it was a crowded room for sure, since my ‘house’ is small) just weeks before they were set to COS. Anyways, Siggi asked me what I liked & said she’d send me a pkg. when she got back home. I told her some stuff, though honestly I was quite unprepared for the question & didn’t offer much. I remember thinking that’s really sweet but they’ll probably get so busy w/ life when they get back that they won’t remember this.

So I must say I’m grateful & thrilled that they did. Thanks ladies, you more than made my day. By the way, Liz is the PCV whose site I would go to for the last few months of last year to use the internet UNLIMITED & for FREE. So she rocks double style.

Tomorrow I plan to go to town to use the internet. Before I do that though I’ll have to do a journal entry about what the perfect package sent to me looks like on the outside. Liz & Siggi, I could not stop laughing out loud today when I picked up the package. Absolutely hilarious. To be honest, even I was blown away by the technique. This is the way you all who send me packages need to try to design these packages. This package got here completely intact & in a matter of 3 weeks. I think the whole religion thing really works on averting thieves. I might have to frame the outside of this box- it’s the paragon of a perfect outer layer of a package.

I’ll have to share the details on how to construct it tomorrow though cause I’m beat tonight. And I just ate a bunch of Reese’s pieces mixed with pistachios. What a combination. I might explode tonight.

I just finished reading “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder earlier this week. You should read it too. I started “Lost in Translation” by Eva Hoffman. I have got to read “A Long Walk to Freedom” while I’m in Africa. But it’s such a long book. I’m afraid once I start it, I won’t be reading anything else for a long long time. Maybe after Lost in Translation, Life of Bees, and High Fidelity :)

With that said, I’m gonna read for about 2 minutes & crash out. I’m looking forward to this 4 day weekend- I plan to catch up on work & some little things around the house, read, maybe write some letters, study, & relax.

See you tomorrow on the internet I hope! Peace.

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:23:07 GMT

4.4.07, Wednesday
9:05pm
Listening to: My “Lovely Men” playlist on iTunes. Ryan Adams is on repeat :)

*I got mail today!!!! Yay yay yay! I got two letters from Hippie Heather & a package from Liz & Siggi (Peace Corps Volunteers who finished their service this past Dec.) It’s so exciting to get mail. It makes my day. I won’t get the package til tomorrow cause I have to go to Nampost to claim it, I just got the slip notification today. So tomorrow will be a kick-ass day again cause I get a package. I’m so hyped for it!

A few things… you guys really don’t understand how nice it is to get mail. I don’t mean packages; I mean any mail from home. Don’t underestimate the power of letters. Often they can and do mean more than packages. Packages & gifts are fleepin awe-some, believe you me. But it’s letters that keep me in touch w your lives & make me feel for atleast just a few minutes like I’m not all the way in BFN (that’s ‘butt-f*ck Nam’). And that’s really the most important thing of all- to feel like we are still really in each other’s lives. Letters allow me to feel closer to you guys, as if I’m not as far away as I really am.

Man, what a happy day. I was happy to read through the letters. Hippie Heather bought moose stationary to use for my letters & I said it before but I’ll say it again… it f*ing rocks! It’s so beautiful. It makes me long to visit Alaska even more. It makes me miss the beautiful scenery of the New England area, and of the Pacific Northwest. Even though I’ve never lived in any of these two areas, it’s where I’ve always dreamt of one day living. In any case, I think these areas are absolutely gorgeous.

Speaking of beautiful scenery, nature, & wildlife, these letters have reminded me how much I can’t wait to go camping again. I gotta go camping in the Everglades with Cristine Beast, Julio Beast, & Lizard when I get back. But I also have GOT to go camping with Hippie Heather & Michael somewhere- be it in Washington state or Georgia. The 3 of us are 3 peas in a pod. We’re all obsessed with nature & camping, & oh yeah… uhh Dave Matthews Band among other things. We’ve been camping together a couple times before & both of them are as anxious about me getting back so we can go camping as I am. Too bad I get back right in the midst of winter, or I’d probably make a stop at one of their states before landing back home.

I think I was even happier today upon receiving mail than I normally would be simply because of 2 things. For one, I haven’t gotten any mail in a while. Been months. But I know two other friends have sent packages this year & as of yet I’ve not received them. So the second reason I was happier than normal today was because at least this means not ALL of my mail is being jacked. I was starting to lose hope of ever receiving any mail again. When I first got to site I received a couple letters & a package no problem. But then it just started to decrease heavily when I knew I was expecting something. So Grizz & Laura, there is hope that your mail will one day arrive. If it doesn’t, I feel terrible that you guys wasted $ & it never got to me, but I love you guys. In my case, it IS the thought that counts.

To close, I’d just like to say I wish it was as easy as picking up the phone & calling my friends to tell them I received their mail. I wish they could hear how happy I sound.

Good night friends. I’ll be home soon.

PS: While we’re on the subject of mail, I’d just like to throw this out there once again because the evidence thus far reveals that it works. If you send me mail, make sure to write “Sister Angie Larenas”. I’m not sure if the mail I never did receive did/didn’t say “Sister”, but I can guarantee you it helps to secure that my mail doesn’t get lost/stolen. So far in all of the packages I have received the sender sent it to “Sister Angie”. Again, it can’t hurt. Don’t worry- I’m sure God will forgive us for the fib. I think He’ll understand.

Sister Angie Larenas
c/o Catholic AIDS Action
PO Box 2
RC Mission Okatana
Oshakati, Namibia
Africa

PSS: I’d just like to add that in general, besides the whole mail thing, this week has been a pretty good week! I’m looking forward to spending most of the Easter weekend (4-day break) here at site just relaxing & catching up on all sorts of things. I love my site.

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 12:22:12 GMT

31 March 2007, Saturday
10pm
Listening to: my “Lovely Men” mix.

*Mom & dad called earlier today. It was great getting to talk to them. I also got to talk to Yeye for a bit. Yeye’s my big bro. Jason, my little bro, was out. He’s always out. He’s 20 and male. What could we expect? Anyhow I’ve come to the realization that I look forward to my family’s calls. Usually they call every 2 or 3 weeks, so when I know a phone call is due soon I get happy about it. Or when they call when they weren’t supposed to, that’s a treat too. I miss my family a lot. More so than I would have imagined.

*I told the Memes who live in the house in front/back of me that tomorrow I’m gonna come over so we can play cards. There are 2 or 3 from that house who are my friends; they’re the same ones that I’ve referred to before who work in the mission kitchen. I don’t speak Oshiwambo fluently enough & they don’t speak English fluently enough, but we somehow manage. And my co-worker, Inga, who is about my age, stays at that house too & she’s pretty much fluent in English so she can help us if we get stuck. I bought a deck of UNO cards just so I could use it as a bonding tool w more people on the mission. That’s one of my integration strategies. It’s worked well so far- everywhere I’ve whipped out UNO, the people of Namibia go crazy.

*I made a playlist on iTunes a little while ago. I needed a new playlist to play during my shower. I titled it “Lovely Men”. It’s what I’m still listening to. Check it out. I think it rocks.

1) Damien Rice- Rootles Tree, from the album “9”.
2)Mat Kearney- Nothing Left to Lose, from a compilation cd titled “Cities 97”
3)Ryan Adams- Wonderwall, from the album “Love Is Hell”. This version beats Oasis’ original version by a landslide.
4)Guster- One Man Wrecking Machine, from a compilation cd titled “Cities 97”
5)Jack Johnson- Constellations, from the album “In Between Dreams”
6)Ryan Adams- Avalanche, from the album “Love Is Hell”
7)Lifehouse- You & Me, not sure the name of the album
8)Dave Matthews Band- Dreamgirl, a kick-ass version from compilation cd titled “Cities 97”.

And by the way, Damien Rice… marry me. I’ve never seen what you look like & I don’t care. Your voice haunts me & time and again you strike a nerve. Actually I think I’d marry any of the guys from my “Lovely Men” list. I’m such a romantic.

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:26:30 GMT

29.3.07, Thursday
9:34pm
Listening to: DMB shuffle mix

*I’ve realized just recently that I am learning a lot about myself during this time. I’ve found that there are things I like and there are things I don’t like about me. It didn’t hit me until recently. Don’t want to get into it at this time, but one thing is this:

*I had to admit to myself earlier today that indeed what I’m doing is being here & thinking of somewhere else. Why won’t I just be here, in just ‘the now’? I think many of us tend to do this. Why do we do this? It’s hit me that it’s not something I’m proud of. Like when I was back home all I could think of was this- my dream of being in Peace Corps. That’s where I was mentally. And now that I’m here, I’m focused on returning home rather than being in the here & now. I don’t mean I sit around & daydream about being in America all day long. I mean specifically with relation to my studying for the GRE. Why am I studying for the GRE now? Because I want to take it while I’m here, so when I get back I’ll be ready to go to school in the fall 08. But I’m being very serious about this, and I’m putting in a lot of time. I study daily. There’s this guilt that’s starting to get to me about the whole thing.

My mind is focused on something in the future & it’s keeping me from being more involved in the here & now. Like instead of studying every night I could be learning more Oshiwambo. I could be hanging out w the Memes from the mission. I could be integrating more.

It’s really hard to break through the exterior of most of the people in the north. This is all part of the challenges of serving in a country that previously (relatively recently) was under the apartheid system of South Africa. I’ve mentioned that before. Being fluent in the language opens up a lot of doors, it helps to guarantee acceptance, it makes the process so much easier. Sure we’re all friendly here with each other, but I don’t really feel like I have made a connection with or have a relationship with anyone here except for just a few.

So my integration level here is mostly in my own hands. And yet I’m not really doing much to change that & to bolster what already exists. I don’t know if psychologically part of me has accepted what is & has given up on “getting in” any more & just begun to concentrate on the future. I don’t know if this is a typical stage in the process of being a Peace Corps Volunteer- you get well into that second year & you start to realize you’ll soon go home, but then you hit a slump & realize it’s actually not so soon. I really am not sure.

The GRE is important to me & I want to use my time here to prepare for it because life will just be so chaotic once I get back to the US. It’ll be hard enough as it is to get back into that life w/out having the extra stress of having to prepare for this examination. Life is leisurely out here. In America life is not. But again, I feel like by spending so much time preparing for the future I’m missing out on a more special Peace Corps experience. How does that DMB song, “The Trouble With You” go? It says, “the trouble with you is you’re always somewhere else.” And from where I stand right now that’s exactly where I’m at right now. I don’t know if that’s what’s meant by that line, but that’s what it means to ME.

And the worst part of all this dilemma is that I know when I go back home I’m gonna be back over HERE in my mind. Always somewhere else. And I don’t want to have any regrets about why I didn’t make more of my time here.

So as of tonight I’ve decided that I’m gonna ease up a bit on the studying & try to squeeze in some more time for cultural exchange & language improvement. I won’t be fluent, but I can improve. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, our language training during PST is not as intense or serious or adequate as most other Peace Corps posts. Don’t ask me why. Plus, I changed sites & went from one language to another language group so that wasn’t helpful. But I’ll give it another shot. We’ll see how it goes.

Oh, the other thing I have recently realized is that I’m a very “routine” person. I also think I’m very meticulous, but some might call that ANAL. Routines, yes. I have a serious routine that takes me from 6:30am- 9:00pm. That’s part of the dilemma with my above rant- there isn’t much time left for me to do anything else that’s not part of my routine. I don’t like to get out of my routine very much. If I have to, it’s ok. But I’m always looking forward to getting back to my ‘life’. Granted, after being in Peace Corps for close to a year a half I do MUCH better than I ever did with going w/ the flow, dealing with unexpected or unplanned things, & being okay to not need everything to be planned ahead of time.

Ehh. Those are my rants, thanks for reading.

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:25:20 GMT

28.3.07, Wednesday
9:13pm
Listening to: Dave Matthews Band. CD: Stand Up. Song: Dreamgirl

Ahhhh my DMB. I miss my DMB tons. Not just live, but in general. As I’ve mentioned before for some reason I haven’t listened to them very much while I’ve been here. I haven’t figured it out yet. I still love them to death- it’s not that I’m “over them”. I think part of it is that it’s nice to leave home- and not just literally speaking, but also figuratively. As Molly Shannon would say when she played ‘Mary Katherine Gallagher’ on SNL, “I feel my feelings would best be expressed in a monologue from….”

It’s not a monologue, it’s just something that Dave Matthews said a few years ago when he released his solo album & was playing with other artists who are not part of the Dave Matthews Band. He said something like it’s good and okay to go out and play with other friends and to know you always have this family to go home to. And that just because he’d ventured out didn’t mean DMB was forgotten. For him the Dave Matthews Band will always be his home.

And so it’s basically the same thing I feel. I haven’t listened to them much while I’ve been here, but I’ve listened to tons of other artists & discovered a lot of other music along the way. But at the end of the day, even while going through this break, if you ask me who my favorite band the answer will always be Dave Matthews Band. If somebody mentions them I still get excited & smile at the mention of their name.

Anyways, this journal was supposed to be about something completely different. But I happen to be listening to DMB right now, which as you now know is rare. I finally got my hands on “Stand Up” again. Before I left home I burned a copy onto my mp3 player which has been dead for close to 7 months now. Last week when I was in Windhoek I stayed up past midnight every night sharing & exchanging music from laptop to laptop. Ahh Peace Corps Namibia. This ain’t Peace Corps in a hut w/ pit latrine, no electricity, & no water folks! Nope, this is Posh Corps. Haha.

What this journal was intended to be was just a few points, not a full entry. See why I sometimes stay away from journaling? F! Once I start writing, I just go on & on.

“American Baby” just came on. “Stayyyyy American baby.” Makes me think of America. Makes me miss America. Actually I’ve felt more patriotic about both America & Chile while I’ve been here. I love my countries. Heck yeah I’ve thought a lot about the good, the bad, & the ugly about America while I’ve been here. And let me tell you, sure there is a lot dysfunction & absurdness & what what what in America, sure it’s crazy… but I appreciate it in all its glory & all its crap. Man, what a great country. I know that sounds boastful & full of it. But here’s the thing, it’s not meant to come off sounding like a typical “we are the BEST” American sentiment. It’s actually a good thing. It’s me being grateful for it all. I guess if you need me to put it in other terms: Sure our health system sucks, sure our education system is screwed up, sure American politics is a total load. But what I’m trying to say is you should see the quality of health services I’ve seen delivered, the education system I’ve been exposed to, & the politics occurring on this side of this continent. I’m not saying we should settle for crap just because “oh it can be & is worse in other parts of the world.” I’m not saying we shouldn’t stand up & fight (figuratively speaking) for what we believe in, to strive for more, for improved conditions. I’m definitely NOT saying that. I’m just saying be clearly aware of what we DO have, and above all don’t take that which you DO have for granted. That’s my rant and I’m sticking to it.

Oshi li nawa.

* The one thing I wanted to make a note of when I started this journal was that Amber & I met w/ the Ministry of Education for our 2nd meeting today. What what! Things are going so well. We had our first meeting last week on Monday. Right away they have been fully supportive of our ideas & plans. Not only that, but they are completely motivated & interested in working with us to do this year’s Northern Girls Conference. They’re gonna fund the whole thing! We’re talking serious money here- this is a big deal. It’ll probably be close to $9,000 in US$. It’s all turning out to be waaaaaaaayyyy smoother than Amber & I would’ve expected.

I think I’ve mentioned it in passing before, but here’s the idea in a nutshell. So atleast you have some idea of what the heck I’m doing out here. I feel like most of you at home don’t have much of an idea. It’ll be a 3 night/4 day camp/conference for young girls in grade 8 & 9 in the 4 “O” regions of Nam. The main goal of the conference is to build a support network of girls through self-esteem building, team building, the development of good decision-making skills, promotion of goal setting, & focusing on career aspirations. Teams of local teachers, peer leader girls in grade 10&11, and Peace Corps Volunteers will present material at the conference. Throughout the conference we will have different sessions & informationals focusing on the above subjects & other important “life skills”, reproductive health, by including a career panel full of successful local women, & having the girls make plans for information dissemination when they return to their schools. So that’s it in a nutshell. It’ll probably take place in July, probably right before my birthday. I’m very excited about putting this thing together.

Alright, I’m out. Take care. Be well.

PS: Remind me to follow my other dream & actually make it out to Tanzania sometime before I leave this continent. I’ve been wrestling w this one for some time now. But something today made that little dream come back to the surface again. I think I need to go to Tanzania, even if it means I get home a few weeks later than I had hoped for.

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 09:24:10 GMT

26 March 26, 2007. Monday
9:05pm
Itunes is on shuffle- including Sting, Matchbox 20, Jack Johnson, Michelle Branch, Green Day, Alanis, & tons of 80’s hits.

* Today I feel blessed again. Today I’m grateful for my lovely shower. I think I have the best shower in Peace Corps Namibia. I’ve been in many other volunteers’ showers & none compares to mine. I’m so lucky! I normally have hot water, cold water, & perfect water pressure. So knowing this, I’ve always been mighty grateful for my lovely shower. Well over the last 2 weeks it’s been raining & apparently they are working with pipes somewhere cause the water was on & off throughout this time.

I was a bit frustrated with the water going out- mostly because it went away unexpectedly. If I had to live w/out water on a regular basis, I know I could get used to it. Plus, I’d be prepared for it. But this time the first time it went out, I was completely unprepared & had no saved water since that’s usually not an issue. My dishes sat there for 2 days & I half-assed got myself clean with some water I was able to take from the kitchen’s reserve. I have no way to save water except for the 1.5 litre water bottle I have plus 2 cooking bowls. I have no water jug- that’s my problem.

When the water decided to show it’s face 2 days later, I quickly saved water in the above-mentioned containers. I was ready to enjoy a real shower again when I realized that I had no hot water & that the water was coming was pouring out in tiny drops. I was so pissed! I was ready for my nice shower. Instead, for the next couple days I had to settle for half-assed cleanings again. I managed to do dishes on a pretty regular basis during this time cause the kitchen has 2 or 3 jugs & they always fill them up w/ water when it goes out. Again, I need to get a jug. ASAP.

So after a couple days of half-assed cleanings & not washing my hair for a week, I knew I was going to Oshikuku (Amber’s site) on Monday so I decided to pack all my shower stuff & shower at Amber or Julie’s house. Ah, it felt good. I even washed my hair. It was a big day indeed. It sucked that by the time I got a taxi to come back to site, I had walked close to 4k in the heat. So I was pretty much ready for another shower by the time I got back home. That didn’t happen- but alright, atleast I had one earlier. The next day I was leaving for Windhoek, so atleast I was able to get fully clean before my journey down south. And traveling to Windhoek IS a journey- atleast 7 hours’ worth of traveling. And hiking in this country isn’t always pleasant & cake. But that’s another story.

Anyways, came back to site 2 days ago (on Saturday night). I was gone for 4 days, so I thought the water problem might’ve been fixed by then. Surprise, surprise- it wasn’t. I admit I was starting to get panicky. In my head I had already planned out how to reschedule my daily routine to allow time for boiling water for bucket baths & how I’d wash my hair & what I’d do to deal w the cold in winter. I thought I was going to have to go through another winter of bucket bathing. I decided to let it go on Saturday & most of Sunday. Sunday afternoon I bumped into the Sister in charge of the Mission, so I finally decided to use the opportunity to investigate. I asked if the water was working well throughout the rest of the mission. Of course she said yes & asked me why. I explained & yada yada yada… today morning Tate Timo came to check out my shower. That’s when they realized that the problem was in this entire wing. Of course they wouldn’t know that though, cause I’m the only one who stays on this side.

After some trial & error, he figured out what was wrong and as of this morning my shower is working back to normal- perfect water pressure, cold water, hot water. Ahhh it made my entire day. I am lucky. I really had already begun to come to terms w/ not having a shower for the rest of my service & had already begun to plan adjustments. I treasure that shower damn it! I have to laugh at the things we learn to be grateful for. This is just a guess, but I don’t think I’d ever be this grateful for a shower had I not come to Peace Corps.

PS: So I got to see Rute this past week! It was great to see her. I love that girl. She’s doing better. But more on that at another time. I think I’m still processing everything.
Peace out.

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:25:15 GMT

16 March 2007
8:40pm
Listening to: a David Gray mix

I’m still not really in the mood to write. I’m just not in the right mind set. Or perhaps it’s more like I feel that once I start writing, it will take me very very long to finish. But I still feel like I should write, atleast a bit. That way I can feel like I’m not repressing everything. The ironic thing is that I’m not repressing at all, I’m actually thinking about this too much. The problem is all these thoughts just fly through my mind, and I’m afraid that when I sit down to type it’ll all be too much.

Anyways. That car accident my friend Rute was in turned out to be pretty bad. And it wasn’t just Rute. It was Rute and a very good friend of hers, Karola, along with Karola’s brother & friend who had just flown in from Germany hours before the accident. The two guys had come to visit Karola. They were on their way back to Otavi (where Rute & Karola live & work) when one of the back tires of the car blew out. I’ve yet to see Rute, and communication in Namibia is difficult & expensive, so I will not have many more details about what happened & how until I go visit her next week.

Rute’s collar bone is broken. Her leg/s are gashed, if not broken. She’ll be in the hospital for a while. She can’t walk yet. It’ll be some time. But she will be able to walk. Karola is in worse shape. They are saying she may never walk again. The 2 guys- one (Karola’s bro) has recovered. The other is still in ICU but expected to recover.

Rute is, and has been from the very beginning of my Peace Corps life, my good friend. My best friend. She knows me just as well as my best friends back at home. We’ve been through one hell of a rollercoaster ride that is Peace Corps together. Karola is Rute’s other best friend, a friendship that was bound to happen since they were until very recently the only white non-Namibians in Otavi; dealing with some of the same challenges & ups & downs of working in a foreign land. I don’t know how to describe my own relationship with Karola. It is somewhere between an acquaintance & a friend. Certainly more than an acquaintance. We’ve all hung out together, I’ve met her parents, I’ve been to her house a number of times.

Both these ladies had been loving working in Africa. The only thing they each cited as the only difficulty in being so far from home (Rute’s from US, Karola from Germany) is feeling like you’re so far away & how it’s hard to imagine tragedy striking & one being so far from home. This had always been their only concern. But they felt that shouldn’t keep them from following their dreams. So they were both making plans to find work in Africa after this year. They were toying around w/ the idea of ending up in Mozambique. They had talked about how cool it’d be if they both ended up working there.

They are both good women. They both had so much going for them. They had dreams & plans. I don’t know what will happen to all their dreams & plans now. I don’t know if their desires have changed. Or if the realities at hand will determine that they must change. It is a fucking shame. That age old question keeps circling around my head, that question I’ve heard asked before many times:

Why do bad things happen to good people?

“Mine’s not a new story, but it is for me”. That’s a line from a song by The Fray. I think it perfectly captures my thoughts on the matter. These kinds of things happen every day, to people all over the world. Oshi li. It is true. Still, this is the first time I’ve ever had to deal w/ something like this on such a personal level. Tragedy has struck my family before, but that’s before I was old enough to know what was going on.

I don’t know if this happens to everyone when they experience that first tragedy that hits close to home, but it’s as if for the last few days I can just feel that innocence slipping away. You start to really think about things- about life, death, what’s important, what’s not, the things we take for granted. All that heavy stuff.

It’s funny how growth very often comes in an unexpected manner and at unexpected times. I knew by joining Peace Corps I’d experience some growth. But whenever I imagined growth in Peace Corps, I never imagined growth coming from facing a situation such as this one.

My heart hurts for Karola whose life is now turned-upside down. And my heart hurts for Rute because all her plans & hopes may now be out the window. But mostly because I know she is aching terribly for her good friend Karola. My own interpretation is that she’s struggling with the whole “survivor guilt” phenomenon. It’s the same thing as those few people who decided not to go to work, or who were late to work, at the World Trade Center on that black September 11, 2001 morning. Those who survived. Because I’m a psychology person I remember reading, hearing, & seeing the stories of the internal guilt that these survivors were dealing with. It’s a horrible place to be at emotionally & mentally. Feeling guilty that you survived while others didn’t, or in this case feeling guilty that you will be able to recover whereas your friend may never walk again. It’s a very cruel feeling.

Rute has to now be strong for Karola. And I have to be strong for Rute. It’s a role that neither of us has had to play before. Suddenly you’re just thrust into the role- and it doesn’t matter if you’re prepared for it or not. Whether you yourself are scared or not, whether or not you think you are capable, it is the duty of a friend to just take on the part and do the best you can with it.

This coming week I’m taking some time off work & going back to Windhoek, this time w/ no other agenda other than to be by my friends’ hospital bedside as long as possible. Wednesday (the 21) is Namibia’s Independence Day… happy 17th to Namibia. I was thinking of leaving that day cause it’d probably be easy to catch a ride to Whk, but I might just leave Tuesday & come back Saturday. I will only get to be w them about 4 days. It’s not much but it’s the best I can do given the circumstances. The only way Peace Corps would let me stay there for an extended period of time is if we were married. I’ll just have to go back in a couple weeks again.

I started writing an hour and a half ago. Not bad. I feel good. I think I managed to get my thoughts condensed & organized enough. It’s been therapeutic somehow.

Welp, til next time. Take care, & take it slowly.

Love & Peace.

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:24:28 GMT

12 March 2007. Monday.
9:41pm.
Listening to: The Fray, “Over My Head”

I’m not in the mood to write, but I have to vent a few words.

What’s going on? I feel like things are getting a little crazy. Just as we start to get fully comfortable & thinking about how we will spend our last 9 months here, things start to get a little shaky.

Yesterday my best friend in Peace Corps Rute is in a car accident. Because this is Peace Corps and because of the circumstances I don’t even really know what the story is yet or what’s happening. I just know her collar bone might be broken & her legs were heavily bandaged. Apparently the tire blew out. I got to talk to her yesterday for about 20 seconds on the phone. Ugh, I can’t wait to see her. The whole thing has made me really contemplative about everything. Anytime something like this happens it’s a reminder that at any moment we can slip away just like that.

This sucks so bad. I hope she doesn’t end up getting medically separated from Peace Corps. She’s gotten through so much difficulty, she’s truly resilient. And finally things are going so well for her at site, and now this. She had all these things going on and even more coming up. I don’t know if all of that will stall fall into plan. She’s supposed to go home in May for a wedding- don’t know if that will still be either. She was looking for work in Africa after we COS in November/December. She says this is where her heart is.

I might have to take a trip back to Windhoek yet again, for the 3rd time in a month. But I don’t care- it’s my girl. I have to go see her & be there w/ her. I hope soon I can get some more info on how she’s doing & what the prognostics are.

Then today, just a few hours ago, I get an SMS from Sandra/Dylan, the PCV married couple who I used to live with in Gibeon for a couple months before I was transferred. There seems to be some political/personal problems at their site and they are being forced to return to the US. I don’t know what’s going on down south, but apparently something’s brewing. They can’t get transferred to somewhere else cause it’s too late in the game, plus they’ve also been transferred already (they also left Gibeon, just as I did.) Things were going pretty good at their site, they were finally happy.

They are flying out after next week. Maaaan. These guys were the only friends I had down there in Gibeon, the only other Americans, the only ones who could identify w/ what I was saying. We lived together for a couple months, for geez sake! We experienced an immense amount of shit together, and we saw each other at our absolute lowest points. But we survived Gibeon together. And now they’re leaving, not by their choice. It all happens so fast. I can’t believe they won’t get to COS w/us. Everyone in our group loves these two.

So I just wanna know what the heck is going on? You start to think that because there’s only 8 or 9 months left that we’ve all made it & this is gonna be our group until the end, we’re all gonna be alright. And all of a sudden things start to fall apart here & there. All of a sudden something could change and you’re gone. It’s unsettling.

They’ll also be in Windhoek next week to do all their Interruption of Service paperwork before they fly out. So on top of what happened w/ Rute, I now have yet another reason for why I must go. Luckily there is a holiday next week (Nam’s Independence Day) so atleast 1 of my days out won’t count against me. People at my site are gonna think I’m nuts & rich because I’m going to Whk yet again. This is when things start to get a bit difficult- because if I try to explain to them that I have to go there again for these 2 reasons, they won’t get it. This is when our differences start to show & I hate that- it makes me uncomfortable.

But enough, my mind is spinning & I’m not really in the mood to journal. Til next time, take care of yourselves & each other. Peace out.

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:11:32 GMT

March 4, 2007
10:20pm
Listening to: The Fray

I’m listening to The Fray. For the 16th time this weekend. I’ve listened to this CD on repeat 15 times already. I just came upon it on Friday at Amber’s house. I stole some of her music. Of all the music I have, old and recently acquired, this is all I’ve wanted to listen to the entire weekend. I can’t remember the last time I listened to one CD this many times in a row w/out listening to anything else in between. I have no idea who these guys are, but holy crap they are kicking my ass. I’m not yet tired of this CD. Who are these guys? I’m in love w/ this cd. From beginning to end. Whoever you are/whatever you listen to, you should check them out. I will be buying this CD when I get back home. The Fray.

* Made spaghetti for Maliki (one of the Memes from the mission kitchen) & me. I made lunch for us & she joined me the whole time. I had told her it’d be around 2, but at 1:30 she was at my door. I wasn’t expecting her. Normally I’d been somewhat annoyed at something like that, but it was Meme Maliki. And for some reason I thought it was cute & sweet of her to be so anxious. I said “you want to eat now? Okay, let’s go.”

This was the first time I’ve done something like this for someone here. Well, I’ve cooked for Peace Corps staff before when they’ve been by for site visits. And I’ve made pancakes for the mission kitchen staff before. But today was special because it was the first time I had a “friend date” w/ a Namibian. She LOVED my spaghetti, cause of course she’s never had it like that. This was another one of those moments that I’ll always remember of my Peace Corps service. It was such a nice moment. It meant the world to me cause she seemed to be fully enjoying herself.

* Anyways, something that IS annoying is people SMSing me asking me to please send them some Tango (cell recharge). I just got one of these. AGH! This is one that’s never gonna stop being annoying. After almost a year and a half, it still grinds my wheels. Eewa, opuwo.

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 13:36:12 GMT

22 Feb. Thursday.
8:30pm
Listening to: The Cure

PLEASE READERS: SEND STICKERS!!!!!

I REPEAT. SEND STICKERS. PLEASE.

Oh my God, who knew stickers could cause so much frenzy! I’ve struck gold- now I found the key to motivating & reinforcing these kids. They go nuts for stickers.

Me & a fellow PCV who lives in Oshikuku (about 30k away) have teamed up to paint & create educational games for kids made out of rubbish. Amber was doing this alone, but when I moved here she told me she was doing this project & so we’re doing it together now. Well it consists of collecting egg cartons that would otherwise be tossed out as well as collecting bottle caps. It’s mostly games for really young kids & it consists of them having to match up the different color caps w/ the correct hole, which we have painted in different colors. There are different ways to adapt the game for different ages. For example, the bigger kids can get into teams & have races & competitions.

Last week we finally got together to start painting these egg cartons. Amber has a ton of egg cartons & I have a small stash as well. The only place I’m currently getting egg cartons from is the Mission kitchen staff, so it’s a growing collection but it grows slowly. I brought back a bunch of painted egg cartons after our painting session but I had no caps. So I put an announcement up at the library. I explained to the kids what we were doing & why we needed the caps. They listened intently because there was some mention of “stickers” being given away. I made a points system for the different color caps, and anytime they reach 10 points they earn a sticker.

Well little did I know what I was getting into. I’ve had tons of kids bringing me caps everyday. The library opens while I’m at lunch. So this week everytime I’m walking back to the office/library after lunch, I get mobbed by little kids w/ caps for me. It cracks me up. It made me a little anxious at first, but now I’m loving it. It’s so cute seeing these kids be so motivated & so damn happy with their stickers. I have a collection and I let them pick whichever sticker they prefer. Most of them take 4 or 5 stickers at one time- meaning they are bringing tons of caps.

Seeing what this has caused has also given me a bit of a realization, a sense of perspective maybe. It’s been nice to see these kids be just kids- happy & carefree for just a little while. It’s that innocence shining through perhaps. Even in the bigger kids. Getting so happy for a sticker. A f’ing sticker, you know? I feel like these kids aren’t really motivated, rewarded, or reinforced. It might be partly cultural, but it’s definitely not just that. It’s also very much so a product of poverty. How can you reward your kid w toys & stickers & fun stuff if you can barely even provide food & clothing?

These kids, they’re like little adults. They’re forced to grow up very fast. They learn to take care of themselves much earlier on than we in America do. Many do end up taking care of themselves at very young ages when their parents die & caregivers push them away. I have said this before in the midst of a deep conversation to a couple PCVs: I look at them and I admire them. These kids have a hard life. In the midst of all this poverty- and perhaps they don’t see it this way because they don’t know any better. But they’re surrounded by HIV/AIDS & other disease, constant death, abandonment, lack of attention, lack of a good education, lack of guidance, lack of opportunity.

Today I was going to a meeting w/ my supervisor & he was telling me how he has been having a hard time lately cause all these people have been going to the office to try to receive some support from Catholic AIDS Action. Everybody gives a very sad story. “There are 13 people living in our homestead. 7 of them are children. We have no money to buy them uniforms.” “I’m sick & I’ve taken in 6 grandchildren. I can’t afford to provide for them”. CAA gives some material support to its clients, so others in the community hear/see about it & of course everyone ends up coming to us because they are also in difficult circumstances & want to benefit too. Unfortunately we can’t help everyone. But how do you say no to these people who are in these circumstances?

Anyways, we got onto talking about the vouchers we have been giving out for OVCs registered w/ CAA (allows them to get free school uniforms) & got to talking about school. He mentioned something that made me almost feel guilty. He said “is it so that in America you don’t pay to attend primary school? These other German volunteers were telling us that’s how it is in Germany”. It hit me then & there about just how messed up the system, or the situation, is. I said, “it’s true. We don’t pay “school fees” every year. We do pay taxes and some of those funds go to the education system, but no we don’t have it set up like here. We’re all entitled to a free public education.” And he shook his head & half smiled and said “ogh man! You see, that is what the problem is here. They must pay a school fee every year to be able to get an education. Most families don’t even have enough to pay for food & clothes.”

By law, the schools are supposed to register kids even if they don’t pay school fees, but most schools don’t follow that law. And it continues to be that way year after year. Most schools if you don’t pay, then you don’t go to school that year. We were both shaking our heads in agreement that the system is completely set up for these kids to fail. It’s almost like it’s encouraged. I’m not even writing the half of it. Schools are understaffed. Teachers are under qualified If my local school reaches its maximum number of learners, I can’t register there & am therefore forced to either attend no school or attend one that may be over 10 k away & walk to & fro there everyday. I’m trying to be chary (sorry, gotta put my GRE words to practice) with regards to what I say. I often feel like I have to hold back some in my journals. Big brother might be watching.

I think I’m done for tonight. As I said about 20 paragraphs ago, PLEASE SEND STICKERS. I don’t care if you send nothing for me; just send this for the kids. I can promise you that you’ll make some kid’s day.

Tomorrow (Friday) I’m off to Windhoek (which is a journey & a half- about 7 hours away-…ugh) just for the weekend. Have a CAMP GLOW meeting w/ the others on the committee. I’ll try to do some internet & post this up while I’m there.

I’ll leave you with this, which is something from a book I’ve been reading (& which I’m hooked on) called “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder. It’s a biography of a young doctor from America who went to Harvard & who dedicates his life to fighting infectious disease on the front-lines in some of the world’s poorest countries, particularly in Haiti. You should read it, too…

“The only real nation is humanity”.

If that doesn’t help to explain why I’m here, then nothing will ever suffice.

Peace & love.

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 13:34:31 GMT

21 Feb. Wednesday.
9:43pm.
Listening to: The Cure, Disintegration

Okay, I don’t even know how long it’s been since I wrote. Feels like a lifetime. I had been writing so much but I just haven’t been up to it lately. I mean I have had things I’ve wanted to write about, but just haven’t been in the mood to do so. Probably because it seems to be that everytime I start writing a journal, I get stuck here for much longer than I really would want to. It could also be that I have a pretty serious routine that carries me from 6:30am until about 9pm every night- run, work, cook/eat/wash, exercise, study for GRE, & read before bed. But tonight I feel like writing. Maybe listening to the Cure just put me in the mood. And there’s been a lot I’ve wanted to write about. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’ll remember it all.

So just some scattered thoughts. More details about each point will come at a later time. Or if I never get around to it, you can ask me about it and I will be more than happy to share.

* Last week there was an Ordination on the mission and so they spent the whole week cooking in preparation for this. They killed about 2 goats & we had about 5 traditional Owambo chickens (raised on the Owambo homesteads). By the way, both goat & sheep taste really freakin good! Anyways, one of the Memes from the kitchen staff was killing a chicken. Oh my God it was one of those “Oh my God I’m in Africa” moments. I was walking back to my house from my kitchen and I looked back to say hi to her (she’s one of the sweetest ladies here to me, I love her to death) and I notice she’s got a chicken in one hand held over a tree stump, and in the other hand she’s holding like an ax. HAHAHA. Dude I caught this at just the few seconds before she swung. I walked away before she swung- I didn’t even say hi, I just stared & she never knew. Well after the beheading (they cut it at the neck) I gave it some time and had to go back to the kitchen to do dishes anyways. So I noticed there was Meme outside the kitchen. I went straight to her laughing & smiling, & yet looking quite mortified, saying “I saw what you were doing!”. And she starts laughing cause she knows that for an oshilumbu, especially American, this is like crazy stuff.

Well it was the best moment ever. It’s one of those moments I will always remember as one of those “Peace Corps” moments you always dream about. Those moments just sitting around w/ the locals & finding that you are bonding somehow. I feel like for many, if not most, Peace Corps volunteers, what we love most about it, what we most visualize when we picture Peace Corps is that “world friendship” concept. And that’s definitely one of the reasons I wanted to do PC. I didn’t wanna just travel through somewhere, I wanted to have the cultural experience- more than anything. And to tell you the truth, last year was very trying for me but time after time I realized that in the end I was still happy because of the cultural-exchange experience. So that’s what kept me from ever wanting to quit.

To put it simply- the moment consisted of Meme Maliki de-pluming/un-plucking (?) a chicken. When I first walked up to her and saw what she was doing I had this gross/jittery feeling. Partly because it was disgusting, seeing the chicken’s head and half its feathers missing, but also because I was thinking oh my God I eat those things. After a few minutes of watching her & asking her stupid questions like do they eat the heads? (some do- my other Meme friend did), and other “newbie-like” questions, I joined her. It was so cool standing there removing feathers from dead chickens with my Meme friend. Not because I really enjoyed what I was doing, it was quite gross (Un-plucked chicken skin is gross-looking). But because it was me & my friend, and I did something that I wouldn’t normally do (and I think she knows that), but I did it just because I wanted to share in her culture and in what they do. I think she knew all this, and it meant a lot to her. The reason I know this is because ever since that day she’s been treating me more like a sister & being overtly affectionate, which is not something Owambos really don’t do very much. And it makes me so glad I decided to share that time w her that day.

… shoot. I said I wasn’t going to write so much! See why I sometimes hate journaling? I can’t stop once I start!

* The next point is really not one to shrink into a small entry but I don’t want to really deal w explaining this right now because it’s complex & deep, so I’ll leave it for another time. I’m sure it’ll come once I’m closer to leaving.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fact that time is ticking. Yes there are still about 8 months, but that’s exactly the thing. Do I want it to go fast or slow or what? WILL it go fast or slow or what? Well this past weekend it finally happened.

It was Saturday morning and I was on a taxi ride into Oshakati (my shopping town- about 5k away). I think I was in a pensive mood, or maybe it’s simply that this all has been on my mind lately as I watch the time fly by. I started trying to picture my last weeks, my last days here. And I got sad. On that 10 minute ride, I started looking around & thinking about all the things that I will miss here- even those things that drive me crazy or that are so absolutely absurd. I realized “man, it’s gonna be hard to go”. Especially when I consider that as time passes my relationships w people in my community & and the people I work with are getting stronger & flourishing. I swallowed hard & I noticed that for the first time ever at the thought of leaving, I had teary eyes.

Ok enough writing for one night. Peace & love.

PS: Man I love the Cure!
PSS: I love Africa.

What up?

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 07:20:06 GMT

Hey hey friends & lovers,

I haven't written in some days. I'm in Windhoek (the capital) this weekend for a meeting & i found a place w/ great internet connection & a cheap price. I wrote a couple times throughout this week, but as things go this place doesn't allow anyone to use memory sticks. Therefore i can't transfer emails & journals i had saved. You can't always find the perfect internet place. I'll live. It'll have to wait til next time.

Hope to be around next weekend @ some point.

Take care.

P&L

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 12:41:23 GMT

Still 8 Feb, Thursday
10:15pm
Listening to: Howie Day & 3 Doors Down

A few anecdotes about today…
* So my library counterpart is also a Catholic AIDS Action Volunteer & therefore also a recipient of a bicycle through our partnership w/ BEN. She’s been riding her bike to work ever since the day she got her bike, but this week she hadn’t been bringing it to work. Instead she was choosing to walk the 4k. I was surprised to see her w/out her bike so I asked her about it on Monday right away. Then again on Tuesday. And again on Wednesday.

Each time I asked she just said her upper body & arms had been hurting so she wouldn’t ride the bike til Friday. I couldn’t understand why someone would choose to walk instead of biking that distance. I started to think that maybe the bike had been stolen or that she had lent it to someone and just didn’t want to tell me. So like I said, I asked about it everyday just trying to make conversation.

Today I noticed the bike was back, so dumb- ass me makes a comment about the bike again, about how it’s back w/ a smile on my face. And in the shiest way imaginable, she says, “those days I was not bringing the bike because of my menstruation”.

And it was like a bunch of bricks had fallen on me. I felt so crunchy & embarrassed. First off, I’ve never seen a 30 something yr old woman be so shy & ashamed of talking about her period. Second of all, I just felt bad & embarrassed because I felt like everyday I was picking at something that seems to be taboo to speak of. She clearly felt slightly uncomfortable mentioning it. So I said, “oh I’m so sorry, I had no idea or I wouldn’t have kept asking about it”. It was fine, & we just kind of giggled about it.

I wanted to ask more, because I want to understand. I mean, what about the menstruation? Is it against the norms of the culture to ride a bike if you’re menstruating? Or was it just because of physical pain? But I didn’t press on because again, it didn’t seem like something to be talking about. I didn’t realize till then that I have never heard women, or anyone really, talking about that here. I wonder if it’s seen as something “dirty” in this culture. I wonder if women prepare these girls for this before they hit puberty, or if they just let them be shocked by the appearance of blood in strange places. Well it’s related to sex & private parts, so more than likely they don’t talk about these things. It’s a shame. Lack of education leads to some of the very problems we’re facing in Namibia today.

* After work I made plans w/ my library counterpart & another young guy who’s been helping out at the library to show them how to send an email through CAAs intranet. They wanted to send emails to a couple German volunteers who were here last year. Anyways, we get to the keyboard and I realize only then that these people have no idea how to use a mouse, a keyboard, or a computer. I was blown away. Just one of those moments when you realize you’re in a whole different world. Most of the people in the village here don’t even have power, let alone have the opportunity to learn how to use a computer or type. The young kids are only now starting to get computer classes in school, but I’m not sure how much teaching/learning is really going on there. Yet we in America are exposed to computers practically from the time we’re born. It’s such a part of our lives & our culture. It’s so not the case here.

They wrote 5 sentences out & it took them exactly 55 minutes to do so. I had to restrain myself from saying “I’ll just do it for you”, because they ought to learn. The good thing is they wanted to learn. I sat there & found patience w/in myself to lead them through the use of the space bar, the arrow keys, and the backspace key. They were typing w/ one finger, looking for the letters all over the place. We didn’t even get to the use of the mouse. I realized then that there is so much more I could teach them. I don’t even know all that much about computers, but I could teach them so much.

I realized I was enjoying myself & I didn’t care about the speed they were going at. It felt so good to teach them something so important. These are skills that employers here want & require, and I can help them to acquire those skills. So I asked them if they’d be able to come sometimes on the weekend for a couple hours so I could teach them more. They were all about it. I was so happy to hear they were interested. I’m more than happy to spend a couple hours of my weekend teaching them. That’s what I came here for- to transfer skills, not to do everything for other people. So looks like in a couple weekends I’ll be spending a couple hours teaching some computer basics & I’m pretty stoked about it.

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 12:40:43 GMT

8 February 2007
9:20pm
Listening to: Jack Johnson, acoustic mix

I was just looking for a Peace Corps document in my “Pre-Service” file. Boy oh boy do I have tons of Peace Corps paperwork & manuals, much of it from during the application process. I found something that made me smile. Something that gave me a sense of perspective, I guess. During the application process you have to write & submit two Motivation Statements- once at the beginning and once after you’ve “accepted” your “invitation to serve”- covering various questions. Well I found the latter. It was weird reading that, something I haven’t looked at in over a year. It’s crazy to think how far away it seems when I wrote this. It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime since then. Anyways, I wanted to post it on here. It’s nice to have this & be able to look back on it sometimes. I’ve come a long way. I’m actually here now, living the dream. So w/out further ado:

Acceptance of Assignment- Motivation Statement, Summer 2005
“In coming to this experience of volunteering 27 months of my life for Peace Corps service, I expect that this opportunity will be a life-changing event. I believe that by volunteering to help others in a different culture I will be presented with the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the world. At this point in my life, I have only one set of eyes- those that have been exposed to the American way of life. By the time I am done with my Peace Corps service I expect to have a new set of eyes with which to view the world after being exposed to a way of life that is so different from the one I currently know.

I will work w/in my community by learning about the people through interaction. This should help me understand what direction to take in creating ideas to implement my program. This will in turn lead me to have a better understanding of the culture and traditions of Namibia & the people of Namibia. I will combine this understanding along w/ the technical skills I have acquired thus far plus the skills I will acquire during pre-service training to come up w/ different formulas for successful programs. It is my belief that the best tool I will acquire during my pre-service training will be that of learning the language. The acquiring of the language of the people of my community is what will allow me to interact w/ the people so that I can better understand who they are, so that they can better understand who I am, & so that I can learn about what direction I should take in carrying out my duties. Above all, I will be concerned with learning about the needs of my community.

If I get the opportunity to interact with previous volunteers who worked in the same sector I will seek their advice. I plan to inquire about what methods lead to success w/ their programs. There will also be questions asked about their overall experiences. I will use any resources available to me. I will also look to community leaders, school officials, and any other organizations w/in the community that would be willing to provide me w/ guidance. By combining our efforts along w/ our technical skills we should be able to maximize our outputs.

I have been warned that working in an environment in which HIV/AIDS is commonplace will take an emotional toll on me. But I do not fear this assignment. I have no hesitations. I have been told this requires a strong person, and I do believe I am strong & capable. HIV/AIDS is a worldwide pandemic, and the crisis is rampant in Africa. I will give it my all to the best of my ability to educate the people of Namibia about this disease, and more importantly to educate them about its prevention. I cannot fathom doing anything more worthwhile my time with my life for the next few years. Rather, I see this opportunity as a privilege, therefore I will treat it as such.

At the same time, I realize that I cannot expect to change the world. I am coming into this with realistic expectations. Battling AIDS in Africa is something that will take more than two years. I do not expect things to change overnight. Resistance and difficulty in battling this are inevitable. The crisis is so rampant that I am aware that it will take baby steps. I will be there simply to help bring about one of those many baby steps.

I am going into this experience with the mindset that I simply will have to take it one day at a time. At this point I feel that there is no way to really prepare myself for this experience since I do not know what it will hold for me. I do know that I am open to change and that at this point in my life I’m actually looking forward to this change. I am aware that there will be difficult days ahead of me as I make my way through this journey. But perhaps the fact that I am aware of this already will put me at an advantage. Being prepared to deal w/ the good & the bad is one step in the right direction to coping with the transition.

I possess an openness to change, openness to meeting new people, a new culture & a new way of life. My aim wilI be to become friends w/ those in my community. I want to be accepted by them. By participating w/ the people in my host country, I hope to become a part of them. This should in turn provide me w/ a new group of people that I can talk to in times of need.

At the same time, I realize that this might be the very source of painful times & difficult days for me. It might be the case that the people of my community are not very receptive to me or my efforts. It might be because I look different, or perhaps because they don’t understand why I would leave the comforts of America. They might question my intentions. I will have to be patient, strong, & understanding as I try to form friendships & trust. Over time they will see that I am a trustworthy person. Hopefully they will see that I have nothing but the best of intentions. I love children- perhaps I will be able to enter the hearts of my community through interaction w/ the kids in my community.

I am a respectful person. I will make it a point to make sure that this shines through at all times. I plan to tread carefully w/ what I say & do, for I do not want to insult the people or alienate myself. I also would not want them to think that I have arrived to their country w/ the intention of taking over & restructuring their norms, customs, traditions, or overall way of life.”

….
Well I was definitely right about one thing- there was no way to prepare myself for this experience. You just can’t when you have absolutely no idea what to expect. But reading this over and over again reminds me of how badly I wanted this. I wanted to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa w/ all my heart. I remember the almost year-long application process was strenuous & tedious & frustrating at times, but I also look back on it w/ fond memory. That period spent dreaming, hoping, wishing for, and finally preparing to come to be a PCV in Africa was great. There is no greater feeling than the one you feel when you are on the road to following something you really want to do. And that moment when you first decide to do it as well. It’s such a high.