Monday, May 9, 2011

The Oshilumbu (White Persron) makes it to site

It’s been a few weeks since I have posted anything so I’m not sure what the last thing I wrote about was, but either way my life hasn’t been all that exciting since the last post. I was sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer about 4-5 weeks ago. Following the swearing in ceremony, the procedure is to move to site and start your Peace Corps service. But like everything in my life, things were not that easy for me. Since the north saw a record amount of rain fall which in turn created massive flooding, I was unable to go to my permanent site and had to be relocated to the capital city, Windhoek, where I stayed for several weeks.
Many of my friends in my group were jealous of me and thought that this was some sort of vacation and that I was so lucky to be relocated to the nice city of Windhoek. While I might have had hot water and daily showers to use, that was the only lucky part of my relocation. I was forced to spend money that I didn’t really have on food that I didn’t really want.  Along with expensive meals it was 4 weeks of boredom and hours upon hours of card playing with two other volunteers who were also in the same situation. 
Finally, after about 6 weeks of being a refugee in Namibia, I got the call that I was cleared to go to my site and start my service. I arrived to Oshikuku this past Friday and moved into a house with a new host family where I will hopefully only be living for a short period of time. I am currently house hunting for my own residence but until then I will be living with a retired teacher. School doesn’t come back from holiday until May 16th so I have a few days of touring the bustling village of Oshikuku and getting to know the very interesting residents that it has. 
The second day of me arriving to Oshikuku, I found out that my supervisor was planning a welcome party for me, where I would have the chance to meet most of the people in the village. That night I travelled down to a bar that my supervisor owns where he had a stage set up and several local bands and rappers scheduled to perform for me and the village. Before I had left to go to the party I was pretty scared of being the only oshilumbu (white person) in the crowd, but it turned out to be a lot of fun and squashed any doubts I might have had about being able to mentally do this for two years.
Besides the exciting party there really is not much going on for me until school starts. I found out that I will be teaching 15-18 classes for this term. The subjects included English, Life Skills, and BIS. BIS is a simple class that teaches students about computers and how to use a library…might sound strange that kids need to know how to “use” a library but since these kids have never been in a library it may be a useful thing for them to know if ever given the chance.
I know that some may be wanting to see pictures..of Oshikuku and what not, so I will try to be better about the picture taking and see what I can do….sorry mom….but until next time I guess that is all.

P.S….HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOMMY DEAREST!!