CBT in Tsumeb

I'm having a problem posting pictures to my blog. I was hoping to post quite a few today. I can tell you I'm back in Tsumeb. It's great to be home! I'm here with 12 other health volunteers for our CBT (community based training). They are all quite jealous that this is my permanent site. We will be training here thru the end of December. I'm staying with a different family for the month. I live with Meme Egumbo and her grand-daughters Winnie and Susana. They have been most accomodating, except when it comes to speaking english. They are pressing me to learn Afrikaans, and I'm very thankful for that. Unlike my permanant family, this one speaks mainly Afrikaans in the home. They are patient with me and always slow their speech when I ask them.

(Cont)...
So training finally got intense last week. Our job was to prepare a Community Health Workshop for Tsumeb that runs Dec. 17-20. On Monday we invited the community to a needs assessment meeting. They gave us very good feedback and some direction for our workshop. We spent the rest of the week in training with very little time to prepare our workshop. While many of us were frustrated we worked through the weekend and I think we're putting on a pretty fun, interactive workshop for youth age 13-30 (that is the rough definition for youth in Namibia). The volunteers have decided we should introduce me to the community on the last day of the workshop so they know they have a resource over the next two years. I suppose that's an obvious thing to do, but I was touched that the group has made it a point. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

Saturday was our first language proficiency test. I was not prepared for the questions I was asked, but I think I did fair. I'll know my results later this week. This test is just preliminary. The important test is at the end of December, and I plan to be ready.

Interested in what I'm eating? Lots of Meat! Namibians love their meat. We eat mutton, pork, beef, you name it. We usually accompany that with pasta or rice, some tossed veggie/macaroni salad, maybe homemade soup (usually a tomato w/ veggie type soup) and sometimes porriage... that's typical dinner stuff. Lunch is very similar on the weekends. Weekdays I pack a lunch to the training center (5 min. walk from my house). I have bologna or pb&j sandwiches and fruit, usually mango as they are now falling off the trees. All the volunteers are enjoying the surplus of mangoes. For breakfast I eat weet-bix, oatmeal, bread, fruit and sometimes tea. Oh that reminds me, I quit coffee the day I got to Namibia. So far so good. I haven't had any problems with the food or water here. The water is supposed to be good out of almost all taps in Namibia. I avoided a nasty bug that went through about 80 percent of the volunteers. Many were throwing up regularly and some had to go to the hospital. Lucky me!

I'm really happy to be part of Nam27 (2007 Namibia PC volunteers). We are a great group, and nobody has gone home yet! Our trainers tell us this is quite unusual. We are all tired of the heat and looking forward to fall which is still a ways off. I hope some of you are enjoying snow by now. Let me know if you are so lucky.

Til next time.

Quick Post

I'm having a problem posting pictures to my blog. I was hoping to post quite a few today. I can tell you I'm back in Tsumeb. It's great to be home! I'm here with 12 other health volunteers for our CBT (community based training). They are all quite jealous that this is my permanent site. We will be training here thru the end of December. I'm staying with a different family for the month. I live with Meme Egumbo and her grand-daughters Winnie and Susana. They have been most accomodating, except when it comes to speaking english. They are pressing me to learn Afrikaans, and I'm very thankful for that. Unlike my permanant family, this one speaks mainly Afrikaans in the home. They are patient with me and always slow their speech when I ask them. I was just told the internet center must close. I'll write more later.

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My New Home

Hello All,

I'm at the end of my permanent site visit today. It's in Tsumeb! I'm the only volunteer having CBT and permanent site in the same location. I got here last weekend. It is truly beautiful. It's very green, colorful trees and quite a bit of rain. I'm living with a host family and will continue to do so for my full 2 years. They are really wonderful. They are tate Lebbius, meme Rosina, 17-yr old son Jesse, and 1-yr old daughter Tangasia Cssdy Ulla Palla. Yes, that's her first name. I do have pictures, but forgot my camera connection. Sorry, I'll send some later. The family has been incredibly warm to me, and I've enjoyed some great cooking. Last night we had my new favorite meal. They call it Braai & Pap (BBQ & Porridge). The meat was Mutton ribs and broerwors (sausage). Man it was excellent! Meme Rosina will be living in Windhoek next year for advanced Nursing school/work study. I will really miss her cooking. So it will be a bachelor pad... me, Jesse and Tate Lebbius. The father is a regional councilor here in Tsumeb. He is a very popular guy. Everywhere we go he gets caught up talking with the people. My job will be working closely with him and the local Constituency Aids Committee (CACOC) trying to get the new Meameno HIV/AIDS Support Center going. It just opened in May and we are struggling to get the community to use it. I look forward to working on that. There are several young Red Cross and TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) volunteers here that I will be working in tandem with. It seems like quite a challenge at this point, but I'm sure it will be fun. I've met so many people in Tsumeb already. I'm just trying to remember faces for now.

I live in a very nice modern home. They even have satellite TV! In the backyard we have mango, guava, lemon, narches (like tangerines I think) trees. I can't wait to pick fruit off of them. Next week I will be shadowing a current PCV (peace corps volunteer... I'll be using a lot of acronyms, hope they don't confuse you) next week in Omuthiya. Then I will train all of December back here in Tsumeb.

I'm starting to go through the emotional highs and lows. Thanksgiving day was tough. I certainly missed friends and family, but the very next day was great! Never know how I'm going to feel. PLEASE KEEP SENDING THE GREAT COMMENTS. YOU ARE REALLY MAKING ME SMILE.

Settling in

Yesterday we visited a public hospital and clinic in Okahandja. While the facilities aren't great, they are better than I expected. You have to understand 'public' here means poor. People with very modest income would likely only go to private hospitals and doctors. It costs about $4N to visit the clinic and $8N to go to the hospital. That covers all care provided, including a trip to the main hospital in Windhoek if necessary. The staff we met were very informative and happy to speak with us. Unfortunately there just aren't enough of them. Doctors and nurses are in high demand here as you might imagine.

Earlier this week we got to go into the community with our language teachers and speak Afrikaans with locals. they were very receptive and patient with us. It was a lot of fun. Ek praat net 'n biejtie Afrikaans = I only speak a little bit of Afrikaans. It's not a very difficult language thankfully, although pronunciation is pretty wierd.

Tomorrow is a big day. It's site announcement. I will finally know where I will be spending the next 2 years. We are all pretty excited. My internet access will be very limited the next couple weeks. I'll do my best to check back in. This pic is from Saturday. We got to try many interesting cultural foods, like sheep brains. They are quite tasty.

Bye!!!

Thank You

Thank you all so much for the wonderful posts. Sorry I can't really respond individually right now but I did publish them now. I am really excited, but it makes it all the better having friends and family rooting for me.

Til next time...

I'm Here!

I have lots to say and not much time to say it, so this is going to be a laundry list... sorry. We arrived in Windhoek, Namibia on Friday and were transported North to our training site. It's basically like a school with dorm rooms. We sleep 6-8 to a room. I have great roommates. Here's a picture of Nick under his mosquito net. I'm at the only internet cafe in town. It's $20N (about $3 U.S.) per half hour. That is our daily allowance of money so I can't really go over. When we arrived the entire training staff, about 30 people, lined the driveway singing and dancing for us. All of our trainers are either native Namibians or close by. They are wonderful. We've been cooked and cleaned for, fed like 5 times a day. We are spoiled rotten. I'm not sure how this prepares us for upcoming service. Training goes into the first week of January and then we go to permanent sites... don't know where yet, but I have learned the language I'll be speaking is Afrikaans. This language is used in much of Namibia and all over South Africa. I feel fortunate to be studying it. Each day we start out in language class, then have cross-cultural sessions, medical & safety sessions, along with VRC sessions (This is the volunteer support group consisting of current Namibia volunteers). We have gotten to spoke to several of the current volunteers. They all have very different experiences to share. We are all a little tired of our training site and really want to see more of the country. We have a permanent site visit in 2 weeks and then we spend a month in new training sites. I'll be in Tsumeb for most of December, up north near the red line (look that stuff up if you want to know more). I'll try to post again early next week, but it is hard to find time. Other pic info... Me at the Vietnam War Memorial, All of us at the airport in D.C., The Namibians greeting us on the first night.

Go Time

Tomorrow is the big day we ship off to Namibia. Actually we spend the night in Johannesburg on Thursday and then fly to Windhoek, Namibia on Friday. It's about 18 hours total flight time... lots more in travel time. We finish up orientation in the morning with a 5am wake up call followed by shots at the clinic (oh boy), then we leave DC in the afternoon. The last two days have been great. I'm in a group of about 70 volunteers going to Namibia, most of us either as teachers or HIV/AIDS educators. Everybody seems excited about our opportunity. We've learned some of the basics so far about Peace Corps safety, policies, etc. Not the most exciting stuff, but still quite useful. Training begins officially on Saturday Nov. 3. That's when we really get down to details. Everybody says training is brutal, but necessary. I don't have much time, so the info is limited. I hope to have some better material for you next week. Take care all.

The Countdown

Hi all,

I've got about 2 weeks before I leave for Namibia. I'm busy wrapping up so many things right now I hardly have time to think about it. I'll be flying out of Phoenix on Oct. 28th to Washington D.C. We have 3 days of orientation there before we take the 18+ hour flight to Windhoek, Namibia. Then training begins and lasts 8 weeks. At some point during the training we find out where in the country we will be placed. I'm sure I'll be missing many things at home. Feel free to keep me posted. Til next time...