Happy 24th Birthday Lisa

November 11 was Lisa's 24th Birthday

Thank you to all of you who sent Lisa e-mail birthday wishes on or near her birthday - she was delighted by all the good wishes. It was so nice to be remembered by so many from back home. Lisa also received presents! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa - thank you Aunt Madelyn, Uncle Ron and Gregory and Rebecca, and Thank you Mom and Dad (aw shucks - GRIN -)

One of the birthday gifts we sent her was an early Christmas gift of a "Christmas Tree in a box" - a kit to make a 2 foot tree out of paper - with decorations and everything. Lisa said she was in a holiday mood and there were a batch of kids from the hostel in her home so they helped her put the tree together - it was one of those cases where she felt old since the kids got the knack of putting tab - a into slot  -a - much much quicker than she did - they were quite nimble! Anyhow - she hummed "we need a little Christmas" and she felt quite happy. Everyone had a grand time. Boy will they have great memories of the "Peace Corps teacher who lived in their town!"

 

School

Exams are going well - her Agriculture learners seem to be doing a little better than they did previous terms. Considering some classes need a grade of 30 percent to pass, and some 40 percent, - she sort of thinks most of them should pass. But it's sort of depressing to her when learners miss some of the easiest questions.

And she discovered she had to re-grade the English exams - they found a rubric that she was supposed to be following (couldn't find it before she graded the exams could they  - oh well). She was doing roughly what they wanted but since these are end of the year finals and since the school is trying to improve standards etc she needed to grade with more precision. She managed - but 90 English exams are a lot to re-grade. And that's only a third of the classes she teaches. Man it's a hard way to learn how to teach!

Since it looks like the rest of the Grade 8 to grade 10 English teachers are going to be moving to other schools next January at the moment Lisa will be the senior English teacher. Of course they may get replacement teachers with experience but then again they may not. She's hoping that she'll have enough clout to follow her 8th grade English Learners to 9th grade - that would be 2 English classes vs 3 to teach - but who knows what will happen.

It sounds like  teachers move around a lot in Namibia - those assigned to rural or distant schools try to get placed in larger school districts in bigger towns or in schools closer to their homes as time goes by. And since Aroab is so far away from everything it's hard to retain teachers. The school is very nice from what Lisa says - it just would be nicer if it was in a more populous location!

So the next few weeks will be filled with finals, correcting them, monitoring them, wishing they were over (both Lisa and her learners wish for that - GRIN -)

 

Politics

We still spent lots of the phone call discussing the election and what's ahead for Obama. She's reading every scrap of info she can get on economics - from assorted magazines we've sent her over the past year etc. And she noted that one of the biggest problems seems to be that to improve each individual's economic situation  they need to spend less and save more but to improve the nation's economic outlook we need a lot of spending! Hmmm - one sides solutions create the other sides problems - or at least exacerbate them!

 

Odds and Ends

Lisa's still not sure what she'll be doing during the term break - the end portion will be most likely spent in Peace Corps training but that still leaves a few weeks - now in general the volunteers are supposed to be working on their extra projects when their "official jobs" are on break - but they do get  a few days of "vacation" allocated to them. They just have to figure out where they want to go since they have to turn in their request for leave from their site something like 2 or 3 weeks in advance.

I hope she manages to travel somewhere - to at least visit some other Peace Corps Volunteers - even if she doesn't do anything fancy. I can't believe I typed that - as if living and teaching in Namibia isn't "special" enough. Man how quickly we take situations for granted!

Again thank you all who sent her Happy Birthday e-mails! Take Care - I'll update again next week!

 

Susan Rothman