So For The Next Two Years I'll Be In...

SWAKOPMUND

After a blind folded reveal at the training center, I was walked to my space on a giant namibian map made of rope and stones. Under each stone was a different city/town/village. I was walked over, handed an envelope, and left at my stone. I was instructed to take off my blindfold (ripped up trash bag) and look at my location. I was in Swakopmund with my fellow CED volunteer JP. My job: working with the Namibian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. More info to come soon when I go through the details of the folder.

If you're interested in checking out more about the town, you can check out the Wikipedia page.

My Life Until Site

So I'm realizing that PST is much like a semester of college with a few exceptions (namely, I am only taking 3 classes and I pack my lunch). The next 2 months of my life will consist heavily of Afrikaans classes, economic development seminars, and PB&Js. I'll do my best to outline the day-to-day below.

This all leading up to a few notable days. My site announcement will be next Wednesday, August 27. Wild that it's only 8 full days away. PST is all about balancing our training and newfound skills with the anticipation of a 2-year assignment. Think of site announcement day as getting your college acceptance, but having no idea where you applied. Some volunteers have a vague idea due to their language. But with Afrikaans, it could be anywhere below the red line (the southern 80% of the country). Expect to hear from me then next. It'd be hard for me to imagine not posting given the excitement surrounding the day.

My PST Day-to-Day

6:00 AM:

My travel alarm clock blares in my ear. I'm mad at it for yelling at me, but am glad I bought it. I roll out of bed and head to the kitchen. I throw my eggs into a pan, and start boiling some water for a cup of Five Roses Tea. I'm trying to stay quiet out of courtesy, but I know the whole house will be up in a few minutes.

6:30 AM:

I'm sitting in front of the TV watching Good Morning, Namibia, chowing down on my pre-birds and toast. I swallow my last bit of tea with a delicious malaria pill. I bring my dishes to the sink and head to my room.

6:30:30 AM:

I grab a collared shirt and pair of khakis (PST dress code) and head to the bathroom for a quick wake-up shower.

7:00 AM:

Tidied up and ready for the day, I sit in the living room and practice my Afrikaans with Ouma for 10 minutes before class. She's really patient and lets me know when there is a better way to say things. It's a nice prep for the day.

7:10 AM: 

I live across the street from another volunteer (Sarah). We meet outside her house and walk to the pick-up point in Smarties.

7:15 AM:

Uncle Joe picks us and up and drives us to the Okahandja Community Hall where we have all of our classes. It's a quick ride, and an opportunity for all the volunteers to talk about entertaining/interesting host family happenings. 

7:30 AM: 

Morning assembly. We sing the Namibian, African Union, and American anthems along with a few other traditional Namibian songs. Namibians start singing young, and it forever remains a big part of their lives. It shows when all the trainers belt out beautiful harmonies while the trainees sound like a heard of tone-deaf hippos.

8:00 AM:

We get our morning announcements and break into our language classes. There are 7 different languages studied by Group 40, and a few groups within the languages. My Afrikaans class is me and five other business volunteers. Our teacher is Mike. He's a 6'1" Herero man who has a deep voice until he starts teaching us. He's a great teacher. Very kind, patient, and assures us of our progress even when we're butchering our "baby-dutch".

10:00 AM:

Tea time! It's a daily savior. Mornings are actually pretty cold here. It's definitely winter (yes, even in Africa). Layers are crucial. So some snacks and hot beverages save the day. I get my Mocha Café Latte on a good day (which is fancy way of saying that I blend powdered coffee, chocolate powder, and powdered milk with some hot water). We also get some peanut butter, bread, and apricot jam. I have eaten more PB&J in the past 3 weeks than I did in my entire elementary school packed lunch career.

10:30 AM:

Next slot of classes. This is usually a tech session (which for means Economic Development classes) where we touch upon some important volunteer skills / resources. So far we've gone over the broad overview of Peace Corps' view on development (which was a really exciting session for me), bookkeeping, marketing, and a few other business functions. 

At the end of our first session we were given an analogy of our jobs as volunteers. It helped me put into context the importance of my position. I'll summarize:

Individually, my works is important only in that it contributes to the overall mission of the project. My work is just small raindrops, but it allows the river to flow harder. Alone, we evaporate. Collectively, our raindrops can help change the landscape.

Our APCD's Linda and Gisella are awesome. Two very experienced people who are always willing to clarify, reclarify, and provide the appropriate responses to our inquiries. I'm excited to be working with them and think that I can learn a lot from them.

12:30 PM: 

Ek es honger. Lunch time. If I didn't pack a PB&J (I'm telling you, I am single handedly keeping the Namibian Jam companies in business) or leftovers from the previous nights meal, I head over to one of the local supermarkets to buy some eats. I usually pick one of two options: Spar or Spes Bona (careful pronouncing that one). Spar is a big super market chain based out of South Africa - think Stop & Shop. I either grab a sandwich or a meat pie from there. It's next to impossible to leave without getting some chocolate too. Spes Bona is the option down the street. They have, what I'll loosely call a grill, in the back. They make the worlds most delicious chicken there. It's rotisseried and then deep-fried. The oil for that deep-fry is changed once a month (I'm told). I'm imagining this is out of a desire to preserve flavor and not out of laziness. Regardless, it's amazing.

I usually use my lunch break doing some errands in town and chatting with other trainees. After lunch there are two more sessions before the end of the day.

1:30 PM

Post lunch blues are the same everywhere. Sluggishly, we make our way back to our seats. Thankfully, PC does a great job of breaking up monotony with practical applications of the curriculum. Lately, CED Volunteer's afternoon sessions have been focused on a small business partner. All 17 of us were each paired with a local SME (small-to-medium sized enterprise) who is looking for a little extra clarification on good business practices. It's a fair trade off as they can educate us on the business climate within their industry, Okahandja, and Namibia. 

I was paired with Ismael - an entrepreneur who manufactures and sells his own, homemade soap. It's crafted in a way that allows it to claim the distinction of "Boer Seep". He does very little marketing, so I doubt you'll find Okahandja Soap Manufacturing anywhere on the web. It's a very promising business. Mostly word-of-mouth exposure with a heavy emphasis on bringing the product to the customer (every sale is done door-to-door). We'll be working together over the month of August while we gear up to sell his product at Peace Corps' Market Day (a day when all of the CED volunteer's SME's promote/sell their products to the community in a expo style outing). 

4:30 PM

Sessions usually end around late afternoon / early evening. We have shuttles that bring us back to our neighborhoods, but, after sitting all day, most of the Smarties folk elect to walk home. Some days we have events planned - Ultimate Frisbee game, Lion King screening, social night. Honestly, except for the Disney Movies, think of it as your work's happy hour. Regardless of the evening, curfew is 8 PM, though I'm usually home well before that.

7:00 PM

Maggy gets home later in the evening, and Ouma has made food. There have been the days where I make a little something for the family (tacos one night, and Mac and Cheese with mince and garlic another), but typically it's Ouma's cooking. Every meal has been delicious so far. I'll likely post an entire blogpost about food soon, so I won't get you too hungry now. But we eat our meals together in the sitkammer. The TV is usually on, though the entertainment is always Waldo. The kid is a performer. Put on a song, watch him dance. Give him a ball, he'll take off running. Give him your cards, he'll lose the 3 of diamonds and the king of clubs (I'm still searching). So dinner is always fun.

The rest of the night is spent either studying, reviewing notes, watching a movie, doing dishes with Johnson, sharing music with Johnson, freestyling with Johnson, and sneaking some chocolate from the fridge with Johnson. He's super inquisitive and always looking to learn a little bit more about me. I appreciate his company.

9:30 PM

Yeah, you read it. Bed time. I tidy up and head to bed for my Peace Corps' bed time. I think I haven't fully adjusted to the time difference if I'm going to bed at this hour. Either that or the day has me wiped. I set the dreaded savior of an alarm and roll into bed.

6:00 AM

Repeat.

Settling In - Okhandja and the Start of PST

Time to catch you all up. I made it! Although I’ve had pretty reliable internet access at a few places in my current town, PC is keeping us trainees pretty busy during PST. So I’ll do my best to fill in the past two weeks without droning on about details.

Also: I got a phone number. Anyone who wants to have it should just shoot me a message on Facebook, and I’ll happily share it with you. I’d just rather keep it off the web (don’t want crazed iSoDope fans or Edward Snowden copycats calling me).

Where to start? From the beginning, perhaps. After an early wake up in Philadelphia (2 AM), we drove straight up to JFK airport. Neat thing was that we drove right through the heart of Manhattan and got a perfect look at Times Square. I think I needed that. 4 AM in the city with no traffic. Went right through the Lincoln Tunnel. Nice way to say goodbye to the US. At 11:15 AM, we all (deliriously) boarded our flight. I was completely out of it. As was everyone else.

When we boarded the plane I was one of the last ones to board - mostly because I made a mad dash to Hudson News to by some ZzQuil. I quivered with excitement as I looked to my seat (64 A) and the seat next to me (64 C) was empty. Nothing like a 15 hour flight with some leg room. Unfortunately, my excitement was short lived. My row-mate for the journey joined me. He wasn't much of a conversationalist.

“So are you from South Africa?” I asked.

To which he, without even looking at me replied, “yes”.

So that was that. Fifteen hours later Dr. Introvert, Group 40, and I touched down in Johannesburg. The city looked massive. I’m excited to get back down there. A four hour layover, a quick two hour flight (in which I was upgraded to business class due to a ticketing error), and we were finally in Windhoek.

As you can tell from the video, there is nothing for kilometers (forgive my choice of unit as I’m trying to make the change). It’s easy to see how this is the 2^nd least densely populated country in the world. But we were here.

And what a feeling it was. I had trouble identifying what my primary emotion was. Jetlag, excitement, exhaustion, anxiety? But we still had 1.5 hours of travel to get from the airport to our new home of Okahandja. We were all zonked from the trip. It’s an interesting feeling when your excitement is dueling your body’s urge to shutdown. A mental and physical tug-of-war.

By the time we got to the training center in Okahandja it was dark enough for us to be disoriented. I’d moved around so much in the past 30 hours, that I wasn’t sure where the hell I was. But I tried to understand that I was home. I tried to understand the magnitude of what had just happened. I left the states behind for two years in the unknown. I knew I was traveling, but it took me a minute to recognize that each leg of the trip pulled me deeper into something entirely unfamiliar. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or maybe it was the gauntlet of twenty LCTs singing to us as we arrived, but I realized all of this right when I stepped off that bus. I had signed many forms and said my goodbyes, but stepping off that bus was my own personal agreement and acknowledgement that this was all real.

The next few days were a blur. Getting settled was pretty difficult when you are living out of a bag. We were staying, temporarily, at a training and conference center that was a short walk away from the Town Hall where we would be having our training for the next three months. I had 5 roommates. The accommodations were great! No snoring roommates and a comfy bed to boot.

We would be staying at Kukuri Center for 7 days until we got our host families arranged. The days leading up to that were filled with shots, medical and site interviews, presentations, and warm welcomes. I was jet lagged for most of it, and overwhelmed during all of it, but I felt the excitement of new beginning.

The day came where I would 1) receive my language and 2) meet my host family. Peace Corps seems to like to pile all the excitement on a single day. They dished out the language information with a local twist. We were all handed pieces of paper with animals native to Namibia. We were to make the noise of that animal until we found the LCT (Language and Cross-Cultural Trainer) with the same animal. I got the desert fox. Great. An animal with no universally understood sound. So I did what anyone would – I barked. After meeting a lion, 2 horses (I assumed zebra), a host of elephants, and what I thought could have been a whale, I changed my tactics. I began just listening to the animals of the volunteer world, to see if I could filter out a fox-ish sound. No luck. It wasn’t until my LTC came by me and just showed me his picture. Remsy flashed me his fox and I had to ask: “What language do you teach?!”

Otjiherero. Spoken by the four clans of the Herero tribe. I knew absolutely nothing about the language or the people who spoke it. I’ve since done some research and will definitely throw a post up as soon as my language skills improve.

And I moved in with a family the next night! I said by to the other 48 trainees and hopped into my host mothers car. I would be living at her house with her two sons (Johnson 17, Waldo 5) and her mother (Ouma) until September 26^th. They live in a neighborhood in Okahandja called Smarties (because each of the houses is painted a different bright color).

I’ve now been living with them for about 5 days. They’re wonderful. I felt immediately welcome in their home. Waldo is a ball of energy. He loves playing cards (specifically the game ‘War’). I taught him the rules, but he changed them a bit.

Waldo’s Rules for the Card Game War

1)    He can look at his cards.

2)    He can play any card he wants whenever he wants.

3)    I have to play my card first.

4)    If I have two Kings after he deals, I have to give him one. (This rule does not apply to Waldo).

I’ve not yet beat him. I have hope.

Johnson is a super smart kid. He’s in Grade 10 and is in the middle of his exam period now. He loves African House music, hip-hop, and R&B. He’s already shown me so many sweet songs.

As for my host mother Maggy – she is the best. She organized a BBQ yesterday that her sister, brother, and their families could come and meet me. I appreciate, so much, her hospitality and generosity. It’s an amazing feeling to be welcomed, unconditionally into a home. I feel so comfortable here.

It’s a strange feeling waking up, every day, with a smile on your face. I love it here. I’m happy here. I know I’m new. I know that this is just the beginning, but what a lovely beginning it has been.

I’ll be sure to check in soon. The next 2 months will likely be a lot of the same – training, training, and more training.

(Post-Script)

So uploading this business is harder than I originally imagined. And the longer I wait, the more there is to update. So I’m no longer studying Otjiherero. My CED Placement Officer pulled me and three other volunteers out of the class to tell us that our languages would be getting swapped (this usually happens with either site switches or medical considerations – in this case, the former). I’m now studying Afrikaans. Which is awesome for two reasons – 1) Words like brood (bread), kom hir (come here), and telefoon (telephone) & 2) my host family speaks it. Either way – I’m excited for the change, and although it's a bit discouraging to have to start over, I know it was for a good reason.