Church: the Musical Theater

Well, let’s just say it has been fifteen years since I last attended a church service. And, when I decide to attend a service after fifteen years, I go big.

Lydia is one of our sweet learners at our school and at the tutoring center we volunteer at. A few weeks ago we had an assignment to visit one of our student’s home and visit with their family. So naturally we picked Lydia. Her family was so welcoming, kind, and we fell instantly in love with them. They invited us to join them at their church for service, of course, being the adventurous undergrads we are (trust me, it was an adventure) we agreed in an instance. So, the day comes when my little soul found its way back to church. We meet Lydia and her family early on Sunday morning at their house and their entire family walked us through Katutura (something like the slums of Windhoek). We go to school in Katutura, so we are definitely use to locals staring at us and making us feel a little out of place, but we have never walked through the short cuts of Katutura like we did with Lydia’s family. People starred at us even more than usual. Maybe they are wondering why this family is walking with these five American girls. Anyways, we could tell we were getting closer and closer to the church… music blasting and man’s voice could be heard from two blocks away. We turn the corner and set our eyes on a beautiful church! Lydia’s mom, dad, and older brother introduce us to everyone, including all of the different pastors.

Then, we were ushered into the church. Naturally we were aiming to sit a few rows back from, just in case anything got weird and we could have a fast escape. But, of course we got ushered to sit in the VERY front row of the church. The service was really great to listen to and to watch the passion in everyone. It first began with singing. Music is so important to Namibians and it was no different here. Next, the pastor opens the service with a very passionate prayer. This resulted in a women crying. To sum up the service: Musical Theater. There was singing, dancing, and acting. They would actually play a song, do a skit, and cut back to a song. The only church I ever went to was a Catholic church and I definitely don’t remember musical theater being on the agenda. It was actually so much fun. Seeing the church goers so passionate about something and seeing how musically incline they are was so fun. It was nothing like I have ever experience, and of course that always seems to be the objective when you are living in a new culture.

Herero Villages

Our new tour guide, Israel, took our group to visit some different Herero Villages. Herero is a particular tribe of Namibian people. They originally were part of the Himba tribe, which are the tribe of people who wear little clothing and smear a red clay mixture onto their body. In the late 19th century, Christian missionaries influenced the Herero people to dress more modestly but were we unable to convinced the Himbas to do so, that is when these people split into two different groups. So now Hereros continue to wear the long, thick dresses that resemble western fashion from the late 19th century. Although their lives styles are more modern than the Himba, they would still be considering less technologically advance from our lifestyles.

Hereros are cattle people. They live in remote areas outside of Windhoek, amongst the Namibian hills. Cattle are their life and their money. They use them for the food that they provide like milk, butter, and meat. They also sell their cattle in order to pay for things like school fees, weddings, or other expensive. Israel is a Herero himself and took us to some villages to see their lifestyles. It was so relaxing out on the homesteads. It just felt simpler, like nothing was rushed. We got to go to a small homestead and meet the eldest man and his wife. They let us walk around and see the animals and their homes. We greeted them in the Herero language, which was fun because when I went back to school I told one of my Herero speaking students I learned some new words. He got a kick out of that. After we visited this homestead, Israel took us to his farm on top of a hill. It was beautiful! We also got to see where he grew up and we met some of his family too.

After we visited these homesteads, Israel took us to a school in the Herero village. This school serves the children in the area and even dorms many of the students. We were welcomed into the school and got to meet many of the kids. We had a blast playing soccer with them and singing camp songs to them. They were so sweet and nice. After the school visit we also got to visit an after school facility. This was actually the most beautiful classroom I have seen in Namibia! It honestly looked like an early childhood classroom in the States. This was shocking to us because our classrooms are so bare and have few materials. Seeing these schools makes us wish we could teach here!

It was an overall great experience being able to enter these people’s world that seems so far removed from life in Windhoek.

Culture Day

My students have been learning about the various cultures within Namibia. There are a ton!!! I definitely did not teach this unit. Many of my students come from different cultures. Most of the students are Damara but are often mixed with another culture. So for this unit my cooperating teacher asked students to bring in different traditional foods from their culture for the class to sample! On the first day, students brought portage, breads, and meat (beef intestines). Guess who got to try the food first. This gal. What an experience it is to try this new food while forty small faces are staring at you, waiting for some response. They got a kick out of my expression when I was finally able to sallow the beef intestine.

The next day, some more students brought in food for the class to try. This time there was donkey meat! It was not terrible, but it definitely was a little more salty than I would prefer. 

And then this face...

 

Visiting Our Students' Homes

I was dreading our fourth assignment - having to visit our students' home and meeting their family. It is not like I did not want to meet my students' families, I just thought it would be so invasive and awkward to ask the students' parents if we could come and visit them at their home. Would they feel awkward? Would they feel embarrass? Would any family say yes to this? I ended up LOVING this experience. We asked one of our learners, Lydia, if we could visit her family. Lydia is in grade three and she goes to the tutoring center that we volunteer at. She is the sweetest little girl, so she just seemed like the most natural learner for us to ask.

After school, we met with Lydia and she walked all three of us to her home where we were greeted by her mother and father. They invited us in to their living space. They live directly across the street from the north side of the school. They live in a small, brick house – no bigger than my kitchen at home. The house seemed to have a central living space where the family gathers to watch the television or relax. Off of this living space there seemed to be two rooms that I assumed are bedrooms and another room that I assumed to be the kitchen. In our conversation we explained how grateful we were that they allowed and welcomed us into their home. We expressed how impressed we are with Lydia’s dedication and devotion to her education and how hard of a worker she is.

We learned a lot about her family. Her parents both went to Steenkamp when they were young. They both grew up in Katutura too. Their eldest son received a scholarship to attend a private school, which is like winning the lottery! Her family was so nice and welcoming. They showed us family pictures and pictures of their wedding day. And by the end of our visit we were invited to come to their church's Sunday service some time.

Pictures to come!

And the Choir Sings!

This is a video of the BNC Choir. We spend twice a week tutoring students at the BNC. These students come from all around Katutura and spend two hours each day working on English and Mathematics. They also receive many opportunities to participate in extra-curricular activities like tennis, swimming and choir! These students were so kinds to do an impromptu performance for us! I really hope the video works.

Here's more lovely pictures of the BNC.

Our First Free Weekend at Home

Thursday night, came around… our last night with Mitchell before he and the professors and Chelsea leave back for home :( So for our last night, then entire group when out to Dylan’s which is a karaoke bar! We had so much fun singing and dancing. It was the first night this entire trip that we really got to go out for fun. Friday night was our first night by ourselves, just the eight of us. We went out to dinner at some tourist like restaurant. It was decorated like a restaurant in Disneyland – African safari themed. There were lots of things on the wall to look at. It was actually pretty cool but definitely a tourist restaurant. It was a nice night out with just the eight of us, but Saturday night was the most fun. We went to a bar/club called Vibe. At first we were the only people there… it was already 10 pm and no one was there! So we had made great friends with the bar tenders. Finally, it started to pick up and more people came in. We met some people who were so nice (and not creepy!) and talked with them throughout the night. It was actually really interesting because Megan was talking to a guy who is Namibian who went to a school in the nice town of Swakapmund. Megan was telling him about how hard it is to teach sometimes because we have to see so much corporal punishment.  He was shocked and appalled! He had no idea that this happened in public schools in Namibia. Corporal punishment is illegal in Namibia but it happens a lot in the schools that we teach in. His reaction was just so interesting because we just thought because it happens in our schools that it happens all throughout Namibia but it doesn’t and that’s actually a relief to us. Anyways, our Saturday night was so fun and turned out to be pretty insightful haha! 

On Top of the World

This is a post about our last weekend with our professors and the two non-education majors. We spent our last weekend together as a group of 12 in Namib Desert in an area called Sossusvlei. We actually camped in the Namib Desert - tents, sleeping bags, and the whole things. Can you believe it? Me, camping? To be fare it was a camp ground, so there definitely were bathrooms, a pool, and restaurant/store. It was actually a very nice and relaxing weekend. But oh lord could you imagine how much sand there was everywhere!

 Anyways, the absolutely best part about the weekend was climbing the TALLEST SAND DUNE IN THE WORLD! Well, the climbing was not the most fun but reaching the top and seeing down below was awesome. Climbing a dune is so hard and exhausting and it felt that you were never making a progress. It probably took about two hours to reach the top, but reaching the top of the dune and seeing down below is almost an indescribable experience. It is breath taking and the pictures do not do it justice. Once we made it to the top, we just sat there for about thirty minutes taking it all in. The entire class made it up to the top while our professors watched from 380 meters below. They honestly looked like small moving specs down below. We were so high we couldn't even make them out!

I’m not sure what was more fun, sitting on the top of the dune and looking down or sprinting down the dune?! Megan, Mitch, and I just started sprinting down the dune towards our professors. It seem like it took ages to get to them. Sometime we would be going so fast that we would fall and snowball down. Sometimes we would sprint and leap into the air. It felt like flying. I can’t get over how cool spending the morning on the dune was. Once we made it down to our professors, we were on this dried up pan called Deadvlei, which the land has cracks on it that made it look like cobbled-stones. Deadvlei means “dead valley” which is fitting because it is this piece of the land in between sand dunes that has nothing but thousand year old dead trees. There is something ominous but beautiful about this area. 

On our way home from this weekend trip, we got to walk down a canyon! It was actually so cool and beautiful!! It just felt like we were really in nature being down there and looking up to see the caves in the canyon. Also on our way home we crossed the Topic of Capricorn!!! How cool is that? This weekend was so much fun and filled with a lot of “once in a lifetime” activities!