Happiness

I'm back in Tsumeb. Last week was my first week back to work. Anybody else get 6 weeks vacation this holiday season? I love Peace Corps :-) Going home was wonderful. Seeing friends and family was priceless, and all the snow and good food... it was great. But being back here is maybe just as good. I've really become comfortable here.

So the big goal for this year is our support group for HIV infected and affected people. The big goal is getting people to show up. Really, that's what I want. God just send some people through our front door. I think we can handle it from there. I hope so anyway. I'm beginning to question my colleagues commitment to this project. I guess I can't blame them. They are hardly being paid for their work. Anyway, we'll be buying our sewing and gardening materials in the next couple weeks with the grant money we received from the American Embassy. Wish us luck. Oh, and we don't have anybody that knows how to sew which I think is a key ingredient to a sewing project. I'm praying we find somebody.

Sorry I can't seem to load pictures. I promise some next time from our trip to Capetown. It was a blast!

Makalani Nuts

Hello Everyone. I am bringing home a little taste of Namibia.

These are Makalani nuts. They come from the local palm trees. They are small, like large marble size... mostly used as key chains. Artists carve beautiful images on them. The ones I'm bringing home all say Namibia on them as well. I'm selling them on behalf of another Peace Corps Volunteer trying to raise money to make improvements to her school classrooms in Namibia. If you are interested they are $8 each. I will have plenty available. They are only costing her $1-$2 each so $6-$7 goes directly to the improvement fund for each one. I know that doesn't sound like much but you would be surprised what we can do with that over here. Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to get them to you while I'm home. E-mail or comment here. Thanks!

The end of a year

I know. It's been a long time since the last post. Life has been great here in Namibia. I experienced Copper Festival right here in Tsumeb... wait til you hear what I won. I got to greet 20 new Peace Corps Volunteers at the airport and spend a weekend with them. And the best news, the rain has returned and the garden is still kicking.

Every year the Copper Festival is held at the end of October in Tsumeb, my hometown. The town was built on copper mining and it's the biggest party of the year here. It reminded me of the festivals in Wheeler Park, only four times bigger. We have a big beautiful park here in Tsumeb called United Nations Park. The whole festival was there. Most of the festival is just people sitting, talking, eating and drinking heavily. I guess that's what most festivals are though, neh? Anyway, I was invited to play basketball in the Copper Games the previous weekend. Our team won the Gold Medal! I was so thrilled to be part of the team. They are a talented group of players and they really made me feel welcome, even though I only scored one basket the entire tournament. One of the guys said, "You're not a full player, but you got a lot of heart." I was touched. The next weekend at Copper Festival we were awarded our medals. Here's a picture of our team plus some additional guys... people always jump into pictures randomly here.

On November 7th I was at Hosea Kutako International Airport to greet 20 new Peace Corps Volunteers. Just look at these poor suckers... deer in headlights. We were only three volunteers to greet the new group. I was honoured to be invited. Two of us got to spend the whole weekend with them as part of Volunteer Support Network (I joined that back in April). They had lots of questions and we had lots of funny stories for them. On Saturday we took them hiking up the mountain in Okahandja, just like the last group did for us. We're such a fraternity. I hope they feel welcomed.

The rain is back. It was six months since I'd seen a drop. Jesse (brother), Udi (friend) and I ran around barefoot in the rain yelling like school boys. It's been good for the garden too. It seems like when we water the garden the plants kind of shrug their shoulders. When it rains, they stand up and sing praise to the heavens. I guess that's similar to the way we reacted running around in it. Here's some of our squash. It's been hard to sell them. Nobody knows what squash is until they see it... and ours aren't all that attractive. Oh well. I bought some and I think they tasted great.

This is probably my last post until January. I'm going home for Christmas in a few weeks. I can't wait!

Yea for money!

The American Embassy finally called. They awarded us US$3400. I think we can do a lot with that here. If you don't recall, this was the grant we wrote back in May. I'm not as excited as I thought I would be. For one thing, the Embassy told me I'd hear something by the end of June. I tried repeatedly to contact them in July and August. I got only one response from a lady who said she couldn't tell me anything. I basically gave up on them. This money is to go toward sewing and gardening projects for our HIV support group. The support group is non-existent at the moment. I really hope we can get people interested. Pray for us.

Also, the Male Engagement workshop went well. My colleague, and friend, Udi and I will have an opportunity to share the info with some local SWAPO government leaders here in Tsumeb. I'm looking forward to the challenge. I think we will be speaking to some very conservative, traditional men. We will be presenting them with ideas about gender equality, and asking them how they think we can 'get outside the box' with local gender norms (i.e. Men don't cook or clean, women's sexual rights inside marriage). It should be interesting.

That's all for now.

Let's Get Physical

I’m back in Tsumeb after yet another detour. I spent the last two weeks in Windhoek for physio-therapy (British English). Nothing is really wrong with me. I just have some irritation in my right leg that I thought I’d get checked out. Why not? I have full medical coverage. I didn’t learn much. They say I have a bit of an abnormal separation in my lower spine. It’s something I was born with and it may be causing the problem. They recommended physio-therapy which is why I had to spend so much time in Windhoek. I’m doing stretches and exercises now that are supposed to help. The truth is I probably should’ve listened to my Mom last year when she evaluated me. She’s also a physical therapist and basically gave me the same plan.

I got a nice surprise when I got home. The squash plants are thriving! They were coming around before I left, but now they’re really kicking. Were they happy I was gone? Maybe my bad attitude was stunting their growth... could be a lesson to all of us who are parenting young species. We also started seeds in our planters a couple weeks ago. We planted green peppers, cabbage, spinach and tomatoes. Hopefully we’ll have something to put into the ground in a few more weeks. The ‘My Future is My Choice’ kids promised to help me with it. Here's a picture of them.

I’m looking forward to a Male Engagement Training next week. I’ll be going to Otjiwarango (2 hours south of Tsumeb) to be trained to give Male Engagement Workshops in Tsumeb. A Namibian colleague from Tsumeb will join me and help facilitate the workshops back here. I’ll let you know how it goes.

What a week!

I promised I’d report on the community meeting and self-defence classes. I didn’t plan on being all that excited to do it.

We held a community meeting on Saturday morning at Omatara (Oshiwambo word meaning open market). Community meetings in Tsumeb are notorious for poor turnouts, but this one was well attended. It helped that Omatara is naturally a busy place but we thought getting their attention and cooperation was going to be a heavy task. We requested ahead of time that all shops close during our meeting. They didn’t seem all that willing to do so but when Councillor Tobias went around with a megaphone they complied. Then about 250 of them pulled up benches and listened attentively throughout the meeting. We had a speaker from the Ministry of Health, and a demonstration by TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) but the highlight was definitely Tate Luanda Ndemweda’s speech. He is an HIV positive man living in Oshivelo, about an hour north of Tsumeb. We invited him to speak at our meeting because we are having a difficult time finding anyone in Tsumeb willing to speak out publicly about their HIV status. Word got out that we would have an HIV positive speaker. That may have also helped with the turnout. When Tate Ndemweda finished he was given a large round of applause and words of encouragement. A couple shop owners even gave him bags of tomatoes and onions.

We also held self-defence classes at Meameno Centre over the weekend. My friend, and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Paddy, taught the classes along with his partner Brooke. The two of them are trained in Karate and Tae Kwon Do. The classes were only for girls. We had 12 who completed the all three classes and received certificates. I was really impressed with the teachers and the girls. Paddy and Brooke spent a lot of one-on-one time making sure the girls learned all the techniques. I was amazed at what they were able to do after just three days. It was fun to see some of the really shy ones perform with so much energy. It seems so many young girls in Namibia have a hard time standing up for themselves and defending their rights. I think these classes gave them a real boost. I want to send special thanks to Paddy and Brooke who brought these classes to girls all over Namibia.

I know I complain a lot about being ineffective and not getting things done. Most of the time that’s how I feel. So believe me when I say this: I played a big part in making these events a success, and I’m proud of it.

Time to go to work

I suppose I’m due for a work update. I’ve been avoiding this a little due to the lack of production on my end. At least I have excuses. In May, June and July I was gone from Tsumeb for about 10-15 days per month. So I didn’t get a lot done. I shouldn’t have many reasons to leave site in the next few months, and I hope they are much more productive.

I just finished my first ‘My Future is My Choice’ course with students at Tsumeb Secondary School. 13 kids graduated. Next month they’ll be presented their certificates in front of the whole school. I think the kids enjoyed it, and I know I did. I feel like I could be a pretty good teacher. I think the best part of the class had to be the question box. Some of the students were pretty shy, understandable for their age, but they made good use of the question box. I had to refer to my smarter Peace Corps colleagues quite a few times. Many of them actually studied medicine or health. So not only did they learn a lot, so did I. The plan is for me to conduct one course each school term. I’m already looking forward to starting my next class in September.

You may recall I started a compost pile back in March for the new garden to be planted in the spring. We were able to get two good size compost piles going thanks to the help of a local grocery store who provided us their rotting fruits and veggies. It took a while for the decomposition to get moving, but both piles look pretty healthy now. In fact, the rotten squash liked their new home so well they decided to sprout like wildfire. I spent last Saturday transplanting the new squash plants to our garden… our garden that didn’t exist. So I had to prepare the soil. Anybody ever heard of the double digging method? It’s supposed to loosen the soil down to 24 inches. It was pretty painful, but I promise you that soil is loose! I transplanted about 20 squash plants. Unfortunately they may all be dead. Did I mention I’ve never gardened before? I couldn’t keep the root balls together. The compost soil was so loose, the dirt just fell off the roots. I had Jesse come and look at it. He thinks since the compost piles were covered the squash plants got used to a warmer temperature and suffered major shock in the garden. Why didn’t I recruit him to help me? I’ve still got some more squash plants to transplant. I’m going to keep that compost pile uncovered for about a week before I move them. If anybody has suggestions please send me comments. Oh, I forgot about the mango seeds we planted. None of them sprouted. We’re going to try papaya now. Jacob assures me these will work.

I’m helping organize a community meeting and a self-defence class this month. I’ll let you know how it goes. Ta Ta.