Back From Keets

Pay Day

Spoke with Lisa this morning, yesterday - it was pay day when they get out of school early (after just an hour - she still can't figure out why they go in at all - oh well) in order to trek into Keetmanshoop (90 miles away for new readers) to get cash and do major shopping. With the local ATM shut down for the foreseeable future the once a month trip will be Lisa's only path to money etc. It is different for her, having to plan things out for a month at a time. But she's managing.

Lisa sounded happy, her day went well and she returned with her backpack filled with lots of cash, food (cheese, salami, rolls, fruit juice, canned fruit etc.) , and tango (the phone calling cards that allow her to use her cell phone). She managed to see David a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, catch up on his life, (I gather he's going through a stretch where he feels like he's accomplishing a lot! Go David!) and read some current magazines before her trek home.

In addition to healthy food and snacks she got a small dictionary (I didn't realize she didn't have one - sigh-) and an outlet adaptor so she could run more than 2 things at a time in her place - so now she can keep the fridge running and run both her hotplate and her cell phone charger or a light. WOW! GRIN  I will never get used to the fact that her only source for electricity is an extension cord from the Hostel next door. Ahh well. A very productive day - and a non-teaching one to boot! (GRIN)

 

Today

She got a lot of school work done, and she read a bit of a Peace Corps library book - a mystery set in Washington DC which made her reminisce over her college years there. It's fun for her, reading a novel set in what she considers home turf.

It's cool (sort of) with that damp feel that rain will soon be coming. It's been rainy on and off - everything is green with lots of yellow flowers. Very pretty! But with all this rain I gather her gardening projects haven't been going well - there are no shovels to be found -from what she's seen people either use large scale (well bigger than she could use comfortably)  farming equipment or do things by hand - literarily by hand. And while her turf is sandy it also holds a surprising amount of rocks and stones. So she's still working on it.

 

School

School is going OK - she's 1/3 of the way through the first term. Unfortunately her 10th grade class did very badly on their first Life Science test - in Lisa's words they did "abysmally". she had these learners last year and they did quite well - the problem is that she has to prepare them to answer the kind of questions they'll find on the major state wide exams at the end of the year and they are not transferring their knowledge to the new exam format very well. Lisa hopes she can help them in this by the October exams. Since the exams are brand new - the other Teachers are having as much trouble as she is in this endeavor.

Some of her classes are huge! She teaches English and Life Science to 42 (yes forty two) 9th grade learners without enough desks for them all. The reality is that even though everyone in the school recognizes that this is a very large group - there is no way they can afford to split the group into 2 classes of 21 - by local standards that's way too small to run. Her smallest class is 10th grade Entrepreneurship which has around 26 or 27 - but they will be adding more soon she thinks. It would be lovely if all her classes could at least be under 35!

Lisa recalls the year her Grandmother had an exceptionally rare group of only 8 to teach. Sounds like heaven to her. There is a private school in her town that has much smaller classes - it's called the White School by the locals - she's not sure if that's due to formal segregation of learners or just due to the fact that only whites can afford to attend. But the net result is that they have very small classes and Lisa is envious - she wishes that school could take just a few of her school's learners!

 

Secondary Projects

Lisa will be involved in this years Science Fair, and the head of the science department is trying to organize a Science Club which he hopes will in addition to broadening the science fair will serve as a major fundraising group. The goal being to collect enough money to arrange a trip around Namibia to see science oriented spots. Lisa would love for that to work out - she'd love to tour Namibia to see the sights as it were - but based on how things work even if a good deal of money gets raised her guess is that the trip won't occur till next year or later after she's left. Sigh. But she's going to work very hard to try and make it happen!

Right now her challenge is to get the teachers to tell her when the meetings about it are running. They always forget - or discuss it in the teacher room in Afrikaans forgetting that even if Lisa is in the room she's not hearing (ie understanding) the details of when the meetings will occur. So now she's asking some of her learners to tell her when other teachers have mentioned that a meeting will occur. In this regard the learners seem to be more dependable than the teachers GRIN.

The 10th grade LRC's - sort of the equivalent of Student Council Members -want this to work so maybe it will! GRIN

The learners want her to start up the Drama Club again - I guess they really enjoyed it last year. She'll probably start with some short one act plays - and she'll see if they get excited enough to handle the work involved in putting the kids version of The Wizard Of Oz that her Grandmother sent her last year.

 

Final Thoughts

We ended our conversation with Obama talk, and her rambles over what life after Peace Corps might involve. Even with all the good things President Obama is achieving it will still be a tough economic world to return to. We'll just have to see. The Mommy in me is happy - Lisa has food, cash and phone cards! All is well in her world! Smile.

 

Susan Rothman