Yes, You Can Have A Baby Even If You Have Only Passed Grade Two

Guess what? Hilde, the 16 year old girl with the baby fathered by Gideon, is not actually 16, but 14. She doesn't even turn 15 until July. And guess what? She only passed grade two. Surprised? Don't be.


MB spent the evening at this household:

Grandma. Grandma has six children.
1) Lazarus (lives away from home) has a child Michelle (13) who lives in the house. His girlfriend also lives away.
2) Aleita has Cien (11), Nono (3) and Diola (three months), and her partner (there are really no marriages here, they are too expensive) Dion lives in the house as well.
3) Frieda has McCreney (14), Edelsine (12), and Ruru(8). McCreney has a different father than Ruru and Edelsine. Her partner Donovan lives away.
4) Martha (died last March) has Hilde (14), Daffney (18, deaf), and Mayorine (13). Their father Jonathan lives away.
5) Yvonne (died last January) has Charleton (9), Papas (15), and Mario (5). Their father, Tha, lives in the house with his new girlfriend Mona.
6) Mapuse (lives away from home)


Think About This:

Some old sleazy guy whole lives next to his family frequently tries to fondle Daffney. Daffney is deaf and slightly mentally retarded, and stays home all day taking care of Nemo, Hilde's baby. She obviously can't hear the baby cry. She has no life skills. She is basically just a warm body to cradle Nemo the whole day.

Hilde is 14, has a grade two education, and a three month old baby. She doesn't want to go the the bridging school, which will take her, but she doesn't want to walk that far to school. It's probably an hours walk from her house. (A bridging school is a school for children who dropped out of school and are 13, 14, 15 years old but at a first or second grade level). Today Hilde asked MB what Catholic AIDS Action is doing, because it seems to Hilde that MB is doing all the work around the center. MB was surprised at her comment, and glad someone is finally realizing all her hard work. After all, MB is doing the job of the social worker on top of everything else. MB also explained to Hilde today that if she goes to school, she needs to make sure she doesn't have another baby. Hilde said, "I know Mary. I know". Hilde told MB that she is on birth control -as is Daffney. Think about that. Daffney the deaf sister. MB thinks that Daffney is being raped, and by making her take birth control, it guarantees her not getting pregnant. If MB puts Daffney in school, Nemo's babysitter is gone. If Daffney is gone, then Nemo would have to be in daycare. MB doesn't want to have to deal with that, because then Hilde gets what she wants; everyone but herself taking care of her baby.

Gideon works for Catholic AIDS Action. He gets $500 a month (Namibian dollars) for cleaning the center. He works maybe 30 minutes a day out of his 4 hour shift, and frequently tells the younger children to do the work for him. Basically he is getting paid to play dominoes. Kiersten was holding Nemo yesterday, and after an hour she went over to Gideon and tried to give him the baby. He told her that he didn't want to take him, to give him to someone else. Meanwhile, Ilga had been holding the baby for the first two hours. Kiersten just said to him, "No, Gideon, Nemo wants his father". He got frustrated and just took Nemo when Kiersten wouldn't give up.

Michelle, 13, went to Auas in 2005 for grade three, and took her exam, fourth grade in Auas school in 2006, but didn't take the end of the year exam. In 2007 she was enrolled in grade four again, but dropped out. Michelle's younger sister lives with their mother and their mother's boyfriend, who is probably sexually abusing her. Michelle left that house because her mother's boyfriend was making sexual advances towards her. Michelle had $50 for school. Hilde convinced Michelle to give her the $50. $30 was spent on formula for Nemo (because Hilde won't breastfeed so that she doesn't have to be "tied down" to Nemo all the time) and $20 for food for themselves.

Ruru is 8 years old. He dropped out of kindergarten last year, just walked out of class and decided he didn't want to go or perhaps his mother made him stay home. We can't be sure. Ruru is now in grade one at Auas, in a half-day afternoon class, and he hasn't been showing up. He doesn't want to go to this class because he has to walk pretty far no one is there in the afternoon and he prefers to be at the center in the afternoon with all the other children.

McCreney failed school last year, and so is now in class with Edelsien. Apparently you have to be pretty bad to fail. Kids pass with 18s, 27s, etc.

Edelsien is being raped. MB thinks she has HIV. Ilga and I agree. Her hair is patchy, and today during track and field she passed out from weakness.

Develien is 16. She dropped out of grade four years ago.

Charleton, 9, dropped out of kindergarten.

Set graduated from Steinkamp. Now he is enrolled in 8th grade at school so far away that he just doesn't show up. MB offered to pays fees at the closer school, the school less than a block away from his house, but he doesn't want to go there because "all the girls are getting pregnant and all the boys are dropping out".

MB spent $700 each (totaling about $100 US dollars) on Morris and Gerome, out of her own pocket, to put them in school and get them uniforms and school supplies (after she swore that she wouldn't ever help them again for the violence and stealing they've done). They started Monday. Guess what? They have already skipped out on classes. The secretary at their school called MB today, letting her no that they didn't show up.

Michael went to school at Auas, dropped out of grade 6.

Usho is maybe 13, and not in school. Bully. Great soccer player. MB doesn't know his story other than that.

Pattern maybe? Every kid who has dropped out of school has dropped out of Auas; Hilde, Michelle, Morris, Gerome (failed out), Rodney (dropped out of Auas and then Stienkamp), Develien, and Michael. Auas takes these dropouts perhaps because they have space, and the kids just end up dropping out of Auas.


Mb explained to Kiersten that there is a phrase in English, beggars can't be choosers, which perfectly explains all of this.

Kids who aren't in school have very bad home situations; education is not their parent's priority, whether alcohol replaces it, or the parents never had it themselves and so don't understand its value. Kids like Cien, who's mother is really on the ball and motivates Cien and makes sure he is in school every day, is in 5th grade and a total exception in his family.

-Side Note-
While MB was in El Salvador, she tried to put eight year old twins in school. When the school said they were full, totally out of desks, MB bought and hand delivered two desks for the kids. When the school then told MB that the door had to be able to open and close all the way, and that wasn't going to happen with the two new desks in the room. MB hired a carpenter and helped switched the hinges on the door so it would open out, not in. After three weeks MB went to visit these two kids, Siomara and Roberto, and check in with their teacher. She told MB that they had stopped coming to class. MB hiked all the way up a volcano to the children's house, where she found the two children sitting outside their home. When she asked why they weren't in school, they told her that their father had a job for two days and used the money for a new TV. They had to stay home to watch the TV, and make sure no one would steal it, for if anyone did, the children would be to blame. Not to mention that their electricity was illegally thread into their house through a wire running up the volcano.

This situation is not unique to Namibia or El Salvador.

MB's Definition of a developing third-world country
No shelter for battered women.
No adult education programs for young girls like Hilde who have babies.
No special education programs for deaf children like Daffney.
No health benefits or even health care.
No pensions.
Unemployment.
No social services (pensions, minimum wage, unemployment benefits).
Lack of police service and other public protection services.
No free education. $100 a month for kindergarten (only private kindergartens here; no government kindergartens), $250 for elementary children, $600 for grade 8-11, and $1080 for grade 12.
No school busses.


Here is Namibia for you...

People walk into the New Start HIV/AIDS free testing and contraception and take the free condoms, and sell them at the shebeen(bar).

A man named Abia, who worked for Catholic AIDS Action , embezzled tons of money from home health aid volunteers. He forged their signatures and stole their Christmas stipends. The women who were supposed to receive the money didn't even know it was ever supposed to have existed. They quietly mentioned how last year they received $30, and then nothing this year. CAA then told them that they were supposed to recieve $50 each this year, but the women never received any of the money. Abia also stole money from school vouchers that were supposed to go towards uniforms and school fees and supplies for the kids.

Lots of "Witch" doctors in Katutura sexually abuse their patients during "magical healing ceremonies".

The security guard for the PC Center/Africa One Television next door to our house said to MB as she was getting the rubbish bin, "Give me food." MB said "Excuse me? You are the one with the paying job. I am a volunteer." and the woman replied by saying "No, that's a lie, that's not true". And this is not the first time she has done this. WHen MB was using Ger and Jose's bakkie to pick up bread for the kids on pool days, the security guard would run up to the window and demand rolls.

NBC Namibia workers recently went on strike after not receiving more money from the government. The government has replied by saying, "become a news station, and then maybe we would consider it". Apparently it is a joke of a station; they don't know anything about camera control or white balance or how to run programs. MB and the Rotary Club here in Windhoek were donating an ambulance to Okahandja. They invited NBC to the dedication ceremony a week beforehand, and NBC showed up as people were getting in their cars to leave. Two and a half years after they did an story about MB, it is still playing the the station. People come up to MB in the grocery store and ask her if she is "that woman from that story on NBC". 18 months after it first aired, it's still playing as a story.

There is one qualified paramedic in Namibia.

Most people hire private security companies to keep homes and company buildings safe, because the police force here is a good-for-nothing bunch of men and women collecting their government pay.

Words of Wisdom

Here is an updated list of cool words people use here:

"braai" is barbecue
"yebo" is yes, or yeah
"kokie pens" are sharpies
"petrol" is gasoline
"stokie lakker" is a lolly pop
"sweets" are candy
"robots" are traffic lights
"fat cakes" are balls of fried dough that the kids love to eat
"cheesy bread" is any roll with cheese baked on top. --When MB asks a child how they got so cute, Wendy always says, "It's the cheesy bread, Mary. It's from all the cheesy bread they eat."--
"bakkie" is a pick-up truck, common in Namibia.
"combi" is a minivan
"rubbish bin" is a garbage can
"rubber" is an eraser
"tocks" are soccer cleats
"mealymeal" is basically like grits
"Ouma rope" is a Chinese jump rope
to "nick" something is to steal something
"shebeen" is a bar
the phrase "I am coming now" means I will be right back
the phrase "it's you" means "it's your turn", when you are playing a game
Shoots and Ladders is Snakes and Ladders here
"plakies" are flip flops and
"g-string plakies" are sandals that have a strap around the ankle.


"pad" is way (in Afrikaans)
"speel" is play (in Afrikaans)
"bolla" is a hair tie (in Afrikaans)
"donke" (pronounced donkey) is thank you (in Afrikaans)
"asublif" (pronounced aus-oo-bleef) is please (in Afrikaans)

"proetchen" are bread rolls (in German)

"swimming costume" is a bathing suit (British English)
"trousers" are pants (British English)
color is spelled "colour" and favorite is spelled "favourite" (British English)
"biscuits" are cookies (British English)


I'm sure some of you reading this are familiar, or at least know about, the clicks that are used in the Native languages here. Many of the kids speak Damara, which includes these clicks. The click is a sound in their alphabet, just like a letter in the English alphabet. It's written as and exclamation mark (!), which is so cool! I've got videos of the kids speaking, and maybe I can upload one.


Aside from all of this, things are going as they usually do. Kiersten and I left for the center this morning at 11am, but didn't arrive until 11:35. Our taxi driver just kept picking up more people, letting them out, picking up others. It was ridiculous! Normally the drive into Katutura is maybe ten minutes.

Rodney didn't show up for morning studies. He starts school on Monday. When he showed up at the center later on, we continued reading Pup and Pop, but he seemed really exhausted and out of it. I let him just go play, because there was no point in trying to have him read while he was falling asleep at the table.

MB arrived late to the after school program. Kiersten, Kenny, and I were the only volunteers there for the morning and beginning of the afternoon. Kenny was playing dominoes with some of the kids, and Kiersten served soup. So I was in charge of the library, big room, and activity tables outside. I was running all over the place! It was really overwhelming! When MB arrived, she told me she got in the mood to clean, and so scrubbed down the kitchen for four hours (MERVE INTO ACTION!).

I took some boggle dice today and worked with some kids on a game MB had talked to me about a week or two ago. You take the dice, with six letters on it (one on each side) and roll it. Whatever letter it lands on, each player must come up with as many words as they can that begin with that letter. Once ten minutes passes, everyone takes a turn reading their list, crossing off repeats. At the end, the person with the most words no one else had is the winner. The kids loved it, surprisingly!

There is a deaf girl at the center named Daphne. It was great working with her today. We flipped through an alphabet book, signing the letters, and then signing the animals and colors pictured. Amazingly, more and more kids started gathering around us wanting to learn the signs too! It was great! At least ten kids were involved! I think Daphne was very happy to be able to play with the other kids and communicate with us a bit.

I watched some of the choir practice again today. The kids sound great. Sha whipped Meroldi on the face with a towel, again because Meroldi didn't want to share the drum. Sha has been quite violent recently. MB says that all the kids in that family get beat up on by their parents.

But Sha can also be really sweet. She made me a bracelet for my birthday and gave it to me this morning. It's spiral knots of red string with a pink bead and a brown bead.

The mosquitoes are driving me nuts. I clapped one dead in the air today, and, no joke, blood splattered on me and the desk. GROSS.

Ilga and Kiersten and I made cheese burgers and fries for dinner. It was really tasty. But Ilga and Kiersten think I have a really unhealthy diet. I beg to differ. Then I tried to convince them that anything with seeds is a fruit, but they wouldn't believe me. I think that sometimes, people don't take me seriously. I am HILARIOUS sometimes, but then when its time to be serious and philosophical or scientifically knowledgeable, people don't trust what I say. It is really very frustrating to me.

Anyway, then I sat outside for an hour or two (I have absolutely no sense of time here) writing and listening to my ipod. I saw a wild ferrit run across the front yard! It was hilarious! And of course adorable!

I then came inside and helped Kiersten with her Resume (which everyone else in this house calls a 'CV', after some Latin phrase I can't remember) and letter or intent. I was surprised that I knew way more than she did about what to include! I also had a copy of my resume to show her (and frankly, mine was much much nicer). I think she is just looking for a short internship at Goethe Institute. Ajay and I gave her some tips, as did Ilga. Then I let Ilga watch Monsters, Inc. on my ipod. She thought it was a really cute movie.

Apparently John Jay High School had an emergency evacuation today for a bomb scare? Boy oh boy, good thing I don't take classes there any more. I'm sorry that some of you do. I really am sorry. Too bad we can't all go to Namibia at the age of 16.

Speaking of 16, I'm only 16 for two more days. For my birthday I may go see a movie at the cinemas with some of my house mates, or maybe to Spur, this restaurant with a jumping castle and painting and video games! You know how much I love jumping castles...!!!!!!!!

I am so tired! This is a long week, and every day I am at the center for six to seven hours a day! No lunch included! And besides being tired and having a bazillion mosquito bites, things are perfect.

Oh, last minute side note, the man who was shot by a Shoprite security guard and hit by a car was brought to Katutura Hospital. The doctors there cut off his leg, and he died the next day from excessive blood loss. It was Wendy's uncle, so that's how I know these details. MB said that many times the doctors at the hospital will use criminal patients and "nobodies" to do experimental things on. How terrible is that? Anyway, Wendy is going to the funeral on Saturday.

:(

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

A told B
and B told C
to meet me at the top of the coconut tree
"whee!" said D
to E, F, G
I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree
Chicka chicka boom boom!
will their be enough room?
Here comes H up the coconut tree
and I and J and tag-along K
all on their way up the coconut tree
Chicka chicka boom boom!
will their be enough room?
look who's coming, L M N O P
and Q R S
and T U V
still more, W, and X Y Z
the whole alphabet up the...

OH NO!
CHICKA...CHICKA...BOOM BOOM!
skit scat scoodle doot
flip flap flee
everybody running to the coconut tree
mamas and papas and uncles and aunts
hug their little dears, and dust their pants
Help us up! cried A B C
next from the pile-up, skinned-knee D
and stubbed toe E
and patched-up F

Here comes G all out of breath
H is tangled up with I
J and K are about to cry
L is knotted like a tie
M is looped
and N is stooped
O is twisted alley-oop
skit scat scoodle doot
flip flap flee
look who's coming, it's black-eyed P
Q R S
and loose-tooth T
then U V and W wiggle wiggle free
last to go, X Y Z
as the sun goes down on the coconut tree

But chicka chicka boom boom
look there's a full moon
A is out of bed, and this is what he said
"Dare double dare, you can't catch me!"
chicka chicka boom boom chicka chicka boom boom
"I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree"
chicka chicka boom boom
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In the computer room we have the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom computer game. It focuses on the alphabet. Today I was running the computer room with a new volunteer named Emma. She is 15 and from North Carolina. It's cool to have a kid around my age. I showed Emma all the switches for the computers, and gave her a short overview of the games on each and how the kids do with them. She and I worked in the computer room from 2pm-3:30. At 3:30 Kiersten took over, I went to watch the choir practice, and Emma played some games with the kids in the big room.

Earlier in the morning, Kiersten and I arrived at the center to find Gideon and some other boys scrubbing down the kiddie chairs and tables (those chairs are red and yellow?!?). Then I worked with Rodney and Sheola on reading and math. Around 12:30 Rodney and I left the center and walked a block to the Katutura post office, where I mailed my 16 postcards. It cost $64 Namibian, or about $10 US. Rodney found it intriguing the way I was licking the stamps and air mail stickers, and so I let him do half the pile for me. He really is a wonderful kid.

Back at the center, I showed Emma the computer room, and the two of us worked in there until 3:30.

At 3:30 Wendy came to the computer room and told me to come watch the choir practice. Taura, the young woman who comes every day with her guitar to sing with the kids, stared a choir class for the kids who were interested. The class is held inside the New Start office conference room. The room itself has great acoustics. The kids sounded great...when they were working together and listening to Taura. There were probably fifteen kids in the room. Taura started by warming them up with some fun songs, including Taura's song I am and Africa Child and some other songs that I love listening to. Then she tried to get them organized standing into lines, and to start practicing other songs; but the kids wouldn't listen. Gideon kept starting arguments, and Michelle was always going into the fridge that she's not supposed to be in, and the other boys would just sit in the back and bicker while the other kids were singing. And not all the kids would even just stand in line the way Taura asked! I got up, and told the kids I thought they were being incredibly disrespectful to Taura. I could see her frustration, and was getting angry myself. The kids are so ungrateful. She totally volunteers to work with these kids, and they can't even be quiet and get along for the 40 or so minutes that they practice.

I did get some good video footage of the kids singing, when they were singing and not arguing. At one point, Meroldi was playing the drum for one of the songs, and at the end Sha, her older sister, came over and wanted to take over the drum for the next song. They started grabbing each other and pulling on the drum, and getting so violent to the point that Sha pushed Meroldi on top of one of the new volunteers who was sitting on the floor, and the girls had to be pulled apart by two other volunteers. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wanted to yell and scream at them for being so inconsiderate to Taura; I wanted to just stand there and cry, make them realize how terrible they were acting.

After a while, the kids got sick of Taura's songs and they sang some songs in Damara while dancing fairly provocatively. They have this way of dancing where they get up, the girls usually pull there shirts up half way, and they literally move as if they were engaging in sex. Gideon was dancing with everyone except Hilde, even with Salome and Sha, who are nine or ten years younger than him. This obsession with sex and proactive dancing at such a young age is so strange to me.

Ilga says she is waiting for Gideon's baby number two, and the mother will not be Hilde, she says.

I left the room after a while, when any sort of organized singing had gone down the tubes. A few minutes later Wendy and Rosaine came outside and the three of us played dominoes until 5pm.

MB was closing up the big room when Wendy, MacCreney, Edelsien, Esme, and some other girls ran over to MB and asked for some string. Then they ran over to me and wanted to put their fingers around my wrist. I think they may be making a bracelet for me for my birthday Saturday.

Ilga, Kiersten, and I walked to the Taxi station alone today. One of the drivers, who we usually get a ride from, came up to us and told us he would drive us. Another man come over, and told us that tomorrow we must go with him. The drivers are always so eager to drive white people places. They will even kick other passengers out of their cars in order to fit all of us.

We all had separate dinners today. i just had some pasta and cheese. Tomorrow night we are going to make cheese burgers- and not let any of the guys have any, since they left us out yesterday. We will have our own braai.


Ilga and I watched Little Miss Sunshine on my ipod earlier. Now she is on the couch next to me watching Garden State, which she has never seen. We were talking about the kids dancing, and she said something hilarious, and I was drinking water, and spit it out, all over the electronics and plugs and transformers on the floor next to the desk. It went down my air pipe and I choked for a minute or two, gasping for air and laughing and feeling the need to vomit (or, "womit", as Kiersten or Ilga might say). I still feel the burn in my chest from the water. Ilga and I get along really well, and always go crazy at night. Our silliness always puts me in a good mood before bed.

Pool Day and Bad Day

Yesterday was pool day. MB left for the center around 9am to give out "tickets" to the BNC kids for the pool. The tickets are really just calendar days cut out of MB's old snoopy calendars. The kids take the tickets, for free, and the people at the pool know that they are MB's kids and are allowed into the pool for free.

The Katutura pool looks like it was picked out of a resort in Aruba and plopped down into the middle of Katutura. It is way nicer than our town pool. It's huge; an Olympic sized pool, and a fairly large bean shaped kiddie pool.

Ilga, Kirsten, and I got to the pool around 11am. The kids really wanted me to jump in right away, so I did. I spent about an hour n the pool with the 100 or so kids swimming with me, some of them jumping on my back, many asking me to help them float on their backs or swim. After I got out I took some pictures of the kids, jumping in the pool or just acting silly. Around 1pm MB asked Ilga, Kirsten, Kenny (one of the other BNC volunteers from Sweden) and I to sort through the two large bags of bread, throw out anything moldy, and rip the large pieces apart. Them MB called the kids into the gated in area where bread is handed out, and had them all sit in the grass. First she addressed an issue some of the kids were having; Edelsien and Michelle stole some of the other children's clothes and stuffed them in other people's bags. She talked to the kids about stealing, and told them she didn't care who did it, she just wanted the stuff returned. Then she started with the BNC kids, then the kids she knew, tapping them on the heads and telling them to get in line for bread. Everyone got two pieces of bread. After everyone she knew got their bread, she let everyone else get in line. We had just enough for the almost 200 kids there.

One of the kids told Ilga the the bread was bread for chickens. Ilga responded by telling them that if they didn't wanted, they didn't have to eat it.

I spent the rest of the afternoon taking photos and playing with the kids on the grass. I got to spend a good amount of time with Wendy, Meroldi, and MacCreney. Meroldi and MacCreney started doing acrobatics, and really enjoyed looking at the pictures I took of them, handstands and cartwheels frozen in time. Kiersten's towel was stolen, and some of the swimmies MB gave out as well. We left the pool at 6pm.

We got home a half hour later, and found Ajay on the couch sleeping. Ilga suggested I take a video of him. I was doing a close-up on his face when he woke up startled, scaring me. The video is hilarious. After that Ilga and I shared pizza, and Kiersten had pasta. We were really tired, but stayed up to watch Mission Impossible 2 with Ajay. We each had bowls of chocolate ice cream and frozen grapes (although not together...). Then Kiersten started telling us about her fear of snakes, and Ajay told us that there are snakes in Klein Windhoek, and Kiersten though he said at "climbing rock" and it was so funny to me, but Ajay seemed annoyed, so I left the room and read my magazine in the kitchen. After Kiersten went to bed, Ilga and I went into the kitchen and were acting crazy! We were throwing ice cubes at each other and spraying each other with water. I laughed probably the hardest I have ever laughed. Ajay at one point came in and said, "come on girls, please, don't be putting ice on your breasts".It was insanely funny coming out of Ajay's mouth.

This morning Kiersten and I decided that we would go to the center early to tutor the kids who aren't in school and just hang around the center all morning with nothing to do. So we had breakfast and left the house at a quarter past ten. We got to the center, and Kiersten began working with Rodney and Charles on reading, while I took a group of maybe six younger girls (ages 3-9) into the library to practice with the alphabet cards. It started out well, but soon all the girls had left and now BamBam, RuRu, and some eight or nine year old boys I didn't know came into the library. I was so frusterated at this point with the lack of respect the kids had for me. They got chairs and were lying on them, underneath them, yelling in Damara at each other, laughing. It was nearly impossible to do anything with them. I read them Pup and Pop and then asked the older boys to read it together, each taking every other page. These nine, maybe even ten year old boys really could not even read this kindergarten book.

After a while I got fed up with their behavior and went into the big room. I started again with the alphabet cards, and had BamBam write out his name, alphabet, and numbers up to ten. He did well with that, but then couldn't even put pictures on their corresponding letters/sounds with the alphabet cards. These kids really have no idea about phonics.

At 1pm, many of the after school kids began to arrive. The soup line was crazy.. All the kids push and cut each other, even though every day every child gets soup, no matter if they stood at the beginning or end of the line.

The "play" fighting was also bad today. Kids wrestle each other all the time, to the point where they really hurt each other. It seems impossible to stop this behavior.

Kirsten took the first half of computer room duty today. While she was doing that, I ran the big room. Tons of kids are constantly asking for puzzles and jump ropes and cards and dominoes. It's very overwhelming. Then at the same time I am trying to facilitate games and do puzzles with the smaller children, meanwhile Mooty is in the corner crying and everyone is shouting or whistling...ugh...I think you get the picture.

MB finally relieved me of my big room duties and so I went outside to the tables to read with Rodney and Rainy. We read Pup and Pop. I am so impressed with Rodney's improvement. He is at the point where he can read Pup and Pop books 1, 2, and 3, and then help the other kids with some of the words when they are struggling. I decided that tomorrow morning at the center, I am going to work with Rodney, instead of with the other smaller children. I really feel that my time is wasted witht hem. I don't think they are taking away anything from what I teach them, and don't see the point in making them sit down with me and be quiet and learn if they have no motivation to do so.

I had computer room duty from 3:30-5:30. This was ok- I'd rather be reading with the kids outside, but it's certainly less work in the computer room. At the end of the day, MacCreney and Wendy helped me turn off the computers and close the windows, and then they walked us to the taxi stand. Once home, Kiersten and I walked to the Pick and Pay to get some stuff for dinner. We had chicken and rice and salad. Mark, Toby, and Ajay had a braai, and didn't invite us to each with them. It was really rude, and we are currently hatin' on them. Ilga and I are in a bad mood, and she asked me to tell her something funny. So I did. But it wasn't that funny. Also, an artist and friend of Mark came to the house to show us his artwork. He does prints. He carves into linoleum and then inks the linoleum and presses it on paper. He has some really nice ones of African dancers and fertility symbols, and art based on political issues as well. He is selling them, and maybe I will have the chance to take one or two home.

MARK IS SO MEAN HE CAME IN THE LIVING ROOM AND I TOLD HIM HE WAS MEAN AND HE GAVE ME A WET WILLY AND MB SAID THAT ILGA AND I CAN PLAY A TRICK ON HIM BECAUSE HE IS SO MEAN.

And that was my day.

Teeth and Soccer and Chicken and Funny Things and Butterflies

Suzanne left today for her 10 travel trip. Today was relatively chilly. It looked like it was going to downpour the whole day, but didn't start until around 11pm or so. It was also really windy, which was a problem at the soccer fields because the dust and sand was blowing everywhere. I was wearing sunglasses, and the kids thought it was hilarious when I took them off, because the only clean spot on my face was around my eyes. Oh and on the way to soccer, Kirsten and I saw a jaw on the sidewalk. Probably from a dog, definitely not a human jaw.

At 1pm we left soccer to go to Brian's reading program at the center. MB gave us the keys to all the doors we would need to open. When we got there the security guard let us inside. We were able to open the gates on the outside of the doors to the "big room", but when we tried to unlock the "big room" door, we ended up breaking the key inside the lock. Eventually MB showed up, and luckily we had broken the key with the door unlocked, and just didn't push the door open hard enough.

Someone tried to break into the center towards the end of the day, and of course that was a total distraction and show for all the kids. Luckily the breaker-iner didn't get anything.

Sha's tooth was really bothering her. She has a deep cavity that is eating a large hole right through one of her back molars. She was in so much pain, so Taura took her to the hospital. She got some medicine there, and they are going to pull her tooth out next week. I am teething as well; my wisdom teeth are coming in and the right one is pretty uncomfortable.

We left the center around 4:30. A woman who volunteers at the reading program, Cynthia, took us home. Kirsten and I went out to the Pick and Pay to purchase a few things that the house needed, a few things for Ilga, and a bunch of stuff for myself. I got some boneless chicken breasts to make chicken cutlets for dinner, and some toothpaste and hand soap and butter...etc. I finally took a shower when we got home. It was much needed. Saturday soccer tends to be dirty.

Kirsten and Ilga helped me get dinner ready. It was chicken cutlets and pasta. I looked in Ajay's cabinet for some flower, and I found a bag of some white powdery stuff. The front of the bag wasn't in English, so I asked MB if it was flour just to make sure. She looked at my funny, and turned the bag around, where it said "White Flour" in English on the other side. During dinner Ilga told us about her day, because she didn't go to soccer. She got in a taxi to go to a meeting this morning, but when she got to the building and got out of the taxi, she realized that the entrance was closed, and needed to go to the front entrance, which was sort of far away. By then the taxi had already left. So she hailed another cab and before getting in asked them driver if he knew where the front entrance was. He said yes, so she got in. Apparently he didn't actually know where it was, because he drove out of the city, and when she asked him again, he said he had no idea where it was. Ilga was late and getting upset, so she made an angry sighing sound, and the driver started laughing. Apparently when she finally got there, he wanted way more money than what was actually owed, and Ilga started getting raising her voice, after he wouldn't stop trying to get her to pay more. Apparently he just kept laughing. Finally he let her go. Drivers around here are crazy. Yesterday when the four of us were going to the center, we got into a fairly nice cab and drove into Katutura. Once at the BNC, I gave him $26, which covered the fare for the four of us. Then he tried telling us that it was $13 a person, not $6.50. We told him no, that it is always $6.50 from Windhoek to Katutura, but he persisted, to the point that we started getting scared. Suzanne was in the front seat, and after she told him we had no extra money, he reached over and touched her pocket, pinched her leg, and tried to get money out of her pocket. After that we gave him $5 more and walked straight to the center. MB would have called the police, but we all wanted to just get away from the taxi so badly that we forgot to write down the license plate number. Oh well. Now we know for next time.

I don't remember how we got in to the conversation, but I was trying to explain what wedgies are to Ilga and Kiersten, and to help describe them, MB let me give her a wedgie. HILARIOUS. Really, highlight of the day. We started talking about how every American kid has had one and given them, and that it's as American as peanut butter. We started talking about thongs, and then I told MB that they are like butt floss, and she made this hysterical joke about the dentist saying something like "you really should floss, so you don't have these chunks here". Oh god, we couldn't stop laughing. And then we had chocolate ice cream! We were so excited, we were literally jumping up and down in the kitchen, acting like four year old kids. MB went out for dinner with a friend. Ajay was int he living room on his computer, and Mark out on a photo shoot. Actually, we were so hyper that right before Mark left he asked us for three Namibian dollars, and we each gave him $1.50 in coins, just to be funny. We just had a bad case of the sillies. Then we sat down for the ice cream and talked about the kids, which ones we thought were being sexually abused and the different ways they were dealing with it. Some really pull themselves away from others, and avoid social contact, while others are totally out their with sexuality and sex in general. Even the younger kids. Ilga thinks it's their way of trying to make it more normal.

After that, Ilga and I started reading the Cosmo, Glamor, and Seventeen magazines that I have here with me. We were totally cracking up about the silliest stuff. It was really fun. We looked at the prom dresses and Ilga told me about senior proms in Germany. Apparently the whole family goes along with the kid. Weird. Then we started talking about how Germans pronounce their "v"s as "w" and vice versa. This came up when we smelled a horrible magazine page perfume, and Ilga said she was going to "womit". I couldn't stop laughing. The Kiersten said "elewater". God, maybe it was the grapes gain. We were snacking on those frozen grapes. This was going on simultaneously with the movie Ajay put on on his laptop, Mission Impossible. Terrible graphics. Too confusing. But there was a huge butterfly on the curtains, and a got a good picture of it :)

I wrote a bunch of postcards today. I will mail them out Monday. Hopefully they will be delivered before I return to NY.

Anyway, today was a very funny day. Pool tomorrow! And I am going to make French toast for breakfast!

Blog #3 For Today

A bunch of things currently on my mind:

1) I hate high school girls. Please, do me a favor and get out of my life. For God's sake, I'm in Namibia, this is ridiculous. I know you are jealous, but get over it. Really. I'm serious.

2) I don't understand how my feet get so dirty.

3) Showering is not a necessity, and abstaining from it is good for the environment.

4) African chubby babies named Ethan are adorable and I WILL kidnap them and bring them to New York.

5) I am posting a ridiculous amount today.

6) Marybeth is the best therapist I have ever had.

7) Sometimes I think people don't get me, but then I remember that it doesn't matter.

8) I got into college. Read previous post.

9) Some kids from St. Paul's school in Klein Windhoek are coming to the center next Wednesday and every following Wednesday to volunteer. This should be cool, because I will get to interact with kids my age who school here in Windhoek (the kids who go to St. Paul's are mostly all white, or children of lawyers, judges, government workers. It's a private, upscale school).

10) My back hurts. I've been carrying a lot of children.

11) Yes, Victoria, the peanut butter here is good. It's actually called Yum-Yum. It's really tasty. I really like peanut butter.

12) To Dad or anyone else who was wondering: The soup that the kids get varies daily. Sometimes its vegetable glop, sometimes its noodle glop. Either it's delicious, or the kids are so hungry they just can't eat fast enough. Usually they get bread with it, just little rolls usually, to scoop up the soup with, because while they have bowls, there are no utensils. It looks gross to me, but then again I've never tasted it.

13) I miss the cold weather.

14) NICE restauraunt, across the street, is actually named NICE for Namibia Institute for Culinary Education. I thought they just named it NICE because it is nice. Haha.

15) Mom, Marybeth gave me that hug you told her to give me :)

16) HUGE BUG JUST JUMPED ACROSS THE ROOM WITH A CRUNCHY NOISE. WOW.

17) I miss YOU. (Unless of course you pertain to number one at the top of the page, and if you do, stop reading my blog.)

18) I'm sorry if you are an innocent bystander and don't understand what I am complaining about. And I'm sorry if my Africa blog has turned into teenage-complaints. I swear this will be the last post with stupid references and ranting lists.

So I'm Not a TOTAL Loser...

Well, I've gotten into SUNY Albany and New Paltz. I would never go to Albany, truthfully, but New Paltz maybe.

It makes me feel a little better that I've gotten in at least somewhere.


Today at the center I ran the computer room. I hate running the computer room. It's a really small room, hot and stuffy, and I get so fed up when the kids just click everything on the screen because they have no idea what is going on in the game. Sad thing is, all the games are preschool through third grade, and the older kids still have trouble.

Tomorrow is socceer, and Sunday is pool day. Next week a family from North Carolina will begin volunteering at the center. They have a 16 year old daughter, so hopefully that will be fun working with them.

This is my second post of the day. I may post again later, if I feel I've forgotten to say something.

Organizational Skills and Social Injustices

This morning I got up and decided to MERVE into action. (Merve is a Walkabout College/Life Skills word. It means to jump into doing something during those times in which you have a surge of motivation. Created by Vic Messic). I shook the dust and dirt out of my sheets and remade my bed. I taped some of the photos I brought with me to the wall next to my bed; Ronan, mom and dad, Gen, all of Walkabout, Bell, Grace, and I, and Becky =) Then I organized all the clothes on the shelves; refolded them, stacked all my books, and put away all my shoes and extra stuff under the bed. I washed and refilled all my water bottles and stuck them in the fridge. Everything looks so neat now! Mom and Dad, you would be proud.

Last night MB, Kirsten, and I talked about the school system here. MB spent the evening with a family of 13 kids, 10 of which are in school. Their mother is hard working and really an excellent parent, MB says, quite the exception from the norm here. One of her older daughters also has an infant, and so she is taking care of that baby as well.

To enroll a child in kindergarten is $100 (Namibian- Which is about $15 US dollars. There are 6.5 Namibian dollars in $1 US dollar.) and that doesn't include the cost of the school uniform or school supplies. Girls can wear a skirt the entire year, but boys need shorts for the summer months and trousers for the winter months. An entire uniform (thats socks, shoes, shirt, skirt/shorts) costs about $200 Namibian ($30 US). And then there is the cost of school supplies. So- $100 for kindergarten school fees. For grades 1-5, the school enrollment fee is $250. For grades 6-11 the school fee is $500. And for grade 12, the initial enrollment fee is $500 for the year, plus at the beginning of the year you have to pay an additional $580 for the grade 12 test. The system insists that if you are going to enroll in grade 12, you must pay for the end-of-the-year test at the beginning of the year, because what's the point of studying the whole year if you won't be able to afford the test when the time comes to take it? All those fees I just listed, let me remind you, do not include uniforms and school supplies.

So, this family has two children in kindergarten, five children between grades 1-5, two children in grades 6-11, and one child in grade 12. That's over $3,500 Namibian dollars to send these children to school, over $500 US dollars. So you can see how, for a mother of 13 with 10 children in school, this could be an issue, especially in this country. Luckily, this mother is extraordinary, and will make sure the children do not drop or fail out of school, and spending this money, or rather, MB/Catholic AIDS Action spending this money for them, will not be a lost cause. Can you imagine the situation when fees are paid, uniforms and supplies purchased, and then the child decides not to go or to cause enough trouble to be kicked out? There are no refunds, obviously.

This is Namibia's PUBLIC school system.

Catholic AIDS Action pays for the school fees and uniforms/supplies for over 20,000 "vulnerable" children and orphans all over Namibia. A vulnerable child is an orphan of whose parents died of AIDS, children of alcoholic or abusive parents, or children with a mother diagnosed with AIDS who cannot hold down a job or support her children due to her disease.

Outrageous.


Hilde is a 16 year old at the center. She just had a baby in November with Gideon, a 21 year old soccer coach of the BNC boys team, and paid worker at the BNC. Their baby's name is Nemo, as in Finding Nemo. Gideon insists that the baby is Hilde's, as if he had no part in the creation of the child. Hilde is at the center 4 hours a day, as is Gideon. Where is the baby? Oh, you know, at home with Hilde's auntie or granny. Hilde acts like she is 10 years old. She cannot read or do math, she dropped out of school years ago, as did Gideon. Both play dominoes all day. And Hilde isn't breast feeding the baby. She claims she wasn't producing milk, or he wouldn't drink it or something. So now formula must the purchased, which is fine, because they have the money and the little Namibian baby won't need it's mother's antibodies and vitamins anyway. I mean, it's not like Gideon is always asking MB for money to buy formula for "Hilde's starving baby" or anything. Yes, the situation is totally under control.



Please note my sarcasm above.

MB thinks that this is a good example for the other younger girls at the center. They can see now, that Hilde is responsible for the child. Hilde has in fact missed pool days and soccer days to stay with the baby. In my opinion, the girls are seeing that she can get away with having a baby and not needing to tend to it on a daily basis. They see that she can still come to the center, dance and sing and have fun all day without worrying about Nemo at home. I don't know. It's an overall terrible situation in my opinion. And Gideon, although improving, still calls the baby "Hilde's baby" and really claims no responsibility. He has recognized that it is his, sure, but I think wants no part of it. Apparently he hangs around Hilde's house quite a bit. In November when Hilde was in the hospital having her baby, it was pool day. Gideon was at the pool. MB asked him where Hilde was, and he replied that she was having her baby. So MB asked him why he wasn't there with her, and he said Hilde was with her auntie, having her baby.


And that's Namibia's youth for you.

TACOS!

We had tacos for dinner!

This morning Suzanne and I went to Pick and Pay and I got some more food.

I finished What is the What, and started Into the Wild, which is really good so far. I'm only 40 pages in. I've spent almost all my free time reading. It's great.

I have also been waking up every morning around 9, sometimes 10.......sometimes 11am. But usually just 9ish.

Today at the center the same little three year old Mooty was totally attached to me like a barnacle. Whenever I put her down she would cry. She fell asleep on me, again.

Rodney and I spent some time reading again today. He got through Pup and Pop 1, 2, and 3. He's definitely improving. Starting Monday I will be at the center in the morning as well, to tutor Rodney, and to do "supervised play" for the kids who have dropped out of school and just hang around the center ALL DAY. Most of the kids who do this are kindergarten drop outs. RuRu just walked out of kindergarten one day because he just didn't want to go.

I took a lot of great pictures today. I really will get them posted soon, I promise. Maybe tomorrow night.

This morning MB went to a school far away to enroll Morris (the kid who got in a huge fight with Daniel my first day, the kid who is banned from the center and the kid that MB swore she would never pay his school fees for) in the hopes that he would get off the streets all day, not blame her for the way his life would turn out if he doesn't finish school, and because it's far enough away that she is hoping that he won't even be able to get to the center after school. They are going to enroll him in a seventh grade class. For his age, he should be a sophomore, and he dropped out in the middle of fifth grade, so basically, in my opinion, there is no way he is going to pass seventh grade.

At the end of the day MB had me take Morris's picture for his passport/school picture.

This Sunday is pool day. My birthday is Feb. 2nd, Feb 3rd is the UNAM soccer auction where MB is going to try and sell some of the really big shoes I brought with me here, and some jerseys. Rodney starts school on the 4th, Meroldi goes to the dentist with MB on the 5th to get her chipped teeth fixed (she had an accident at the pool), and that same day a new volunteer, Bianca, is coming from Germany. All these Germans! It's CRAZY! Then a guy from Canada, Mark, arrives on the 7th, and MB leaves for Botswana. She is visiting her friend Barbara until the 11th. Then when she comes back, she will be gone 8am-3pm from the 12th to the 14th for a teaching workshop for some kindergarten teachers to learn new games and methods. While she is absent at the center, we will all be in charge of keeping things in order. This includes soccer on Saturdays. GOD HELP US. Suzanne leaves on the 12th. Kiersten turns 23 of the 17th, and either that week or the following week Ilga, Kirsten, and I are going to maybe take our Etosha trip. The 24th is pool day, and March 1-2 we may be taking 60 kids to Swakopmund! That will work out perfectly, because I will get to see the dunes and the coast, and be back Sunday afternoon. Then I come back home on the 3rd. Time is flying! And there is so much going on!

SO. That's my schedule. Besides that, I'm doing well. It's very hot here every day. I have luckily managed to completely avoid sunburn or tanning. I miss all you guys! I'm normally on AIM any time between 9pm-12am every day. IM me!

xoxo

:)

We've Regressed...

This morning MB took Rodney to school to sit in on a fourth grade class, and then afterwards spent three hours home schooling him at the BNC. Apparently the first two weeks of school are all athletics, to sort of slowly move into classes, and so MB can teach Rodney for two weeks without him missing classes. She left our house at 7am this morning...It's 8pm now here, and she still isn't home. Honestly, I don't understand where she gets the energy to wake up every morning.

I spent a good five hours reading today, this morning and evening combined. I have 50 pages left in What is the What, and I think I'll read Into the Wild next.

We got to the center earlier today, mostly because we were a bit late yesterday, and also because there happened to be a taxi right across the street who was free to take all four of us. Yesterday it took at least twenty minutes to find a taxi.

When we arrived at the BNC, MB and Ruben (an employer at the BNC, usually gives out the soup) were taking down children's names, ages, schools, and grades, I think so that they can receive uniforms and school supplies. I took over for MB so that she could control the rest of the usual BNC early afternoon chaos. The list ended up with more than 100 names. It was really unorganized. The kids would give Ruben their names and ages, and he would write them down, and my job was to copy the names and ages off of his sheet, and then they would come over to me and tell me the name of the school they attend and their class. But after telling Ruben their names, most kids just ran off before I got the rest of their information. Plus, a lot of the schools have odd German names that are impossible to spell, and it was so loud that I could barely hear what the kids were saying to me.

After that I grabbed Rodney and we continued studying. He worked really hard all morning, and I was really proud of him for wanting to continue through the afternoon. But I'm starting to get frustrated with his inability to retain some very simple stuff. I really truly think that he has dyslexia and probably some other learning disorders, because he really just can't get anything I teach him. He can read a good portion of the books Pup and Pop, and a few pages of Hop on Pop, but I think that he has at this point just memorized the books (if I pick out a random work on the page and ask him to read it, he is unable to). We started today with just the alphabet again. I asked Rodney to line up the letters in order, and then match the pictures under the letters (a apple, b ball, c cup...etc). He always leaves out "N" and can't always figure out the last couple of letters. Then when it comes for matching the pictures with their corresponding letters, he really struggles. I try and say things like "what is this a picture of, it starts with an 'F', what sound does 'F' make?" but he can never tell me the sounds correctly. Not for a single letter. When we read and come across the word "a", he will sometimes say "the" or "on", never even being able to just say "a". And then, in Hop on Pop, the same sentence is often repeated. He can read it the first time but when the same sentence is on the next page, he can't read it. I just don't understand. I really do think that the reason for his struggling is too complex for me to understand. He tries so hard, and I commend him for his passion for learning and his ability to stick with his studies and work for hours straight, but I am out of ideas on how to help him.

We only worked for two hours, because I could tell he was exhausted and let him play for the rest of the afternoon. Oh, and, funny thing is, I think he really thinks I'm his girlfriend.

After working with Rodney, I saw this nine or ten year old girl trying to get her crying three year old sister off the ground. I just walked over and told the older girl that I would play with the baby for a while. I picked her up and brought her to one of the tables. She couldn't speak English, so I asked one of the kids at the table to ask her what her name was in Damara (their native African clicking language) and I could have sworn she said Beauty, but her sister later told me it is Mooty. She is soooo adorable. I asked her sister to ask her what she wanted to do/what was wrong/was she sad in Damara, and Mooty told her sister she was hungry and didn't want to do anything. I carried her to the sink to get a drink, and then brought her to the playground. She didn't want to play, so I took a few pictures of her and showed her, and that kept her happy for a while.

Then I saw two girls in a group of children crying, and walked over to see what was wrong. The kids "fake cry" a lot to get attention, so I wasn't overly concerned. Eventually I convinced Princess (yes that is her real name) to come talk to me at the table (I still had Mooty on my hip at this point) and she told me that one of the older girls had hit her when she asked that older girl not to beat up her friend Emogene. Princess wanted to be alone for w while, so I asked Emogene to come talk to me about what happened, and she told me the exact same story. I didn't do anything about it though, because I told her we should talk to MB about what happened, and she told me she was fine, laughed, and returned to the group of kids, with her arm over her face, pretending to sob. The kids play so roughly, often wrestling and hurting each other for fun, and it's hard to tell when they are serious or kidding.

Mooty was still on my hip, and so I went to sit on the wall with her. I was watching a group of girls playing cards when a woman from the BNC office walked by, and asked me if she was sleeping. I totally hadn't realized it, but she had passed out in my lap. She slept there for about a half hour. Kirsten took some really cute pictures of her for me! I wish I could figure out how to post them...I'm working on it, I swear!

The day was winding to a close when all hell broke loose, and MB found out from one of the girls that while Ilga and Suzanne were switching computer duty, two of the boys had reached into Ilga's bag stolen her money. Apparently they passed it through the window or something crazy like that, and then left the center. MB left to go find them, but couldn't. Luckily they didn't take her cell phone. But we are all sick of this type of behavior. And it's even just the older kids! The kid who took the money is fourteen! Obviously they know right from wrong, because MB has stressed the "no stealing" rule. I think that they just don't care.

MB gave Ilga the $40 that was stolen, and isn't going to let that kid back into the center, nor pay for his school supplies or uniform. And if he asks, she is going to tell him that he can buy those things with the money he stole from Ilga.

Then there was a bit of a problem with Dios (who was Erica's best friend, and basically favorite BNC child, and ended up asking Erica to hold her bag at the airport, and went into the bathroom and took her money...only ended up giving part of it back to MB). There was a backpack left in the big room during clean-up time and Meroldi was helping MB clean up, and opened the bag to see whose it was, and saw a pack of UNO cards. When they found out it was Dios's bag, MB took him aside and talked to him about it. They were actually his cards, that he had gotten at a grab bag for Christmas, and so he was cleared.

I had pasta for dinner. Again. We don't normally have group dinners (actually, we only had one the first night I was here). I really miss your cooking Mom! :) And I miss the Blazer! It's been like...MONTHS!

I really have some great photos! I'm trying so hard to post them, really I swear!

So Ajay and I were talking about India, and the languages he speaks. He wrote out the alphabet in his language, Malayalam (PALINDROME! so cool!), and it was all swirly squiggles and crazy shapes! Plus, there are 54 "letters", which are actually sounds. So, you would spell my name "Ka" "tri" "na" in the characters that represent each of those three sounds. So weird! And he has a friend who just had a baby. His friend's name is Anu and his wife's name is Priji, and they names heir son Prinu. Apparently a lot of people do that, combine parents names.

That's it for now,
xoxoxo

Ein Einhorn and Ein Zweihorn, Zwei Einhorns

This morning was the same as any morning here in Namibia. I got up, ate, blah blah blah. Then I spent from probably 11am to 12:30 putting together phonics exercises.

I'm trying to teach this thirteen year old kid Rodney how to read. This morning MaryBeth brought him to his old school. Apparently he was having some issues with his third grade teacher, and just wouldn't show up for school, and he ended up dropping out multiple times. They didn't want to let him back in, but MB convinced the school that he has really changed his attitude, and that he really wants to be in school learning. Really he should repeat third grade, but quite obviously they won't let him because he is thirteen. So tomorrow MB and Rodney will sit in on a fourth grade class and see if he is up to starting there (which he is not- by any means), but MB told the school that she would home school him for two weeks before he actually enters the classroom as a student. Hopefully things will work out. MB brought him to the PEP store to buy his uniform. She got him two pairs of socks, trousers, a shirt, and new shoes. All that cost about 25 US dollars.

On our way to the BNC, we passed the shopping center, and saw that there was a big crowd and a lot of police. Apparently, a man tried to steal from Shoprite and a security guard shot him in the leg, and the man ended up running into the road and getting hit by a car. There was a huge pool of blood in the road.

I spent almost the entire three hours at the center working with Rodney on his reading and math. It is so frustrating that he is thirteen and basically at a first grade, even kindergarten reading level. And enrolling him in the fourth grade? It blows my mind when I compare how old I was in fourth grade...eight...and when I was thirteen? In ninth grade.

Towards the end of the day at the center, the kids were looking at the palms of my hands and pressing on them. They were completely amazed that my pink palms turned white wherever they pressed. [side note: BECKY: CAPILLARY REFILL!!] It was cute.

Taura (the woman who comes to the center to play guitar for the kids) came and let this teenie tiny girl strum the guitar. It was adorable. Taura always dresses so nicely and is so beautiful and so happy around the kids, and you would never know what a hard life she has had.

Tonight at the house was sooooo funny! We sat around after dinner debating about politics and terrorism and who terrorists are...it's really too complicated for me to go into detail about now, PLUS I'm exhausted. Anyway, afterwards things just got so outrageously hysterical. There was a cockroach on the floor behind a chair in the living room, and Ilga went over to it to put it outside. She put a jar over it and accidentally chopped it's head off! BUT the body kept moving, and it was creepy! Ajay came in and told us that they can live for a week without a head! Then Ilga decided that we better let the body out, in case there were eggs inside that could still possibly hatch. THEN MB came home from dinner with a friend, and I told her the story and told her that Ilga left the head there, and she said that the ants would take care of it. Ten minutes later...a bunch of ants were across the room with the cockroach's head! It was crazzzzzy.

Then I was trying to convince MB that if I rolled that little wheel in between the mouse, the internet would load faster. She looked at me like I had five heads, and WOKE UP Ajay to come and see my great new way of speeding up our connection. I SWEAR IT WORKS! No one will believe me! MB walked Ajay back to his room, saying along the way "it's just a bad dream, just a bad dream!" And then when she came over to the laptop and I was trying to prove to her my method...she took the "magic" unicorns (named Ein Einhorn and Ein Zweihorn, but there are Zwei Einhorns) that supposedly help with the technology in this house. MB took them, and used their paws to roll the mouse wheel. IT WAS SO FUNNY. I've been eating so many grapes, I think that the natural sugars are really getting to my head.

I miss you guys so much!

(still working on getting pictures posted...sorry!)

Monday

Yesterday morning Suzanne and I went to the Pick-And-Pay. I got some more peanut putter (in a huge jar this time), some grapes (so I could freeze them for a chilly snack), and some chocolate. Oh and more apple juice. We enter through the service entrance, just because it gives us easier access. But the hallway leading into the mall is always soaking wet. As we were leaving, Suzanne slipped walking down the ramp because our shoes had gotten wet. Basically she skinned her knee. When we got back, she washed it and put a snoopy band-aid on it. Then Ajay and Suzanne were in the kitchen, and she hadn't told him about what happened, and he goes "whats that?!" and pushes on her knee. She squealed soooo loudly. Apparently he had thought it was a tattoo or something, and he was like "well it wasn't there yesterday and it looked funny so I pushed it". It was pretty hilarious. Suzanne was fine, but Ajay felt so bad and left the kitchen with his head down :(

I started working on a game for the kids. It's really simple, just pictures drawn in a box and the identical pictures drawn on cardboard circles. The point of the game is to match up the disks to the pictures drawn in the box. I made one with animals (which I didn't finish until 11pm last night!) and had to recreate pictures of clothing in a box for disks whose box had been stolen.

The center was a gazillion times better yesterday! I worked with a boy named Rodney who stopped going to school after grade three because his school fees weren't being covered. Today Marybeth is bringing him back to school. Only thing is, he can't read. So I went over the alphabet with him, but he couldn't even line up the letters in the correct places. He's eleven! Then I tried to teach him the phonetics of the letters, and he really struggled with that. We read Pup and Pop together, but it's impossible to read if you don't know what sounds the letters make.

Then he and a bunch of other kids played Sight Word Bingo. Many of the kids know their sight words, which is great, but there are also a lot of kids like Rodney, who don't know any of them.

While I was playing bingo with them, Ilga was playing shape/color bingo with some of the much younger kids. And Kirsten, the newest volunteer, worked with the older kids, playing checkers and other harder games. Mondays and Thursdays are knitting days, and a ton of kids get involved with that. Even the boys! Suzanne ran the computer room, and kids who weren't liking the structure and learning just left themselves, MB didn't even have to tell them to leave! It really was amazing, a HUGE improvement.

Ok- side comment- There is a boy named BamBam, who is I think six or seven years old (although he looks like he's four), who is the epitome of child-Tarzan...with the name and everything! Frequently he doesn't wear a shirt, and he runs around like crazy! It's the cutest thing ever.

At the end of this wonderful day, MB asked a group of boys to walk us to the taxi. They took us as their "girlfriends". It was so funny. Rodney took me, Helton took Ilga, and Set and Brownie walked with Suzanne and Kirsten. They walked us to the taxi station, and helped us get a taxi. We rolled down the windows, and I told Helton to make sure that Rodney didn't forget to bring MB all his previous school papers and reports to MB so that he could get back into school today, and Helton replied to me, "and he won't forget you either!" and they all shouted "I love you, I love you" as the taxi left. They are hilarious!

We came back home and Ilga made pasta and meat sauce for dinner, and her friend Rubia was there with us. She is also from Germany. We got to spend a lot of time talking about Namibia and languages and perceptions of America, Germany, Europe in general...etc. It was really interesting. She and Ilga may take some weekend trips to Etosha and to some other places, and I may join them. I really hope I get to travel while I'm here.

I've been trying to load pictures, but it just isn't working. Sorry! :(

Saturday and Sunday

Ok, I've already gotten beef from three people (BECKY,DAD,GEN) about being behind on my blog. Guys- I'm in Africa making the lives of vulnerable AIDS orphans better. I can't possibly post every single day.

So Saturday I got up at 9 and got ready for the soccer program. We left the house and got a taxi around 9:30, and rode into Katutura. MB gets to the center at 8:45 to hand out shoes that she holds for the kids (whose uncles steal them at home and trade them for booze) and then is at the field by 9am starting games and giving out jerseys.

The taxi dropped us off at the center, and the field is about a block down the road. There is a gaping hole in this big cement wall that you have to walk through (that just happened to appear after the kids started using the soccer fields on the other side). The kids play on gravel fields. Many of the children don't have tocks (cleats) and play barefoot. The skin on their feet is literally inches thick, but I still cringe when I see them run for the ball over all the gravel and broken glass. The worst part is, they have to walk past a really nice grass field to get to their fields. MB has tried to convince the owners of the field to let her teams use it, even just for games, and they refuse. she has offered them ridiculous amounts of money for it, and they just respond by telling her that the grass needs to "rest".

Saturday soccer is so crazy. MB literally has to organize a zillion games for a zillion kids. When it was time for her girls Little Pumpkins team to get ready to play, total mayhem broke out. Unlike the rest of the teams of the world where the coaches chose the spots for the players, and the players agree, MB lets the girls shout out what position they want and whether they want to play half a game or the full game. It's crazy! There is so much screaming and pushing, and the girls are all shouting at each other in their language and screaming at MB in English...Anyway, that was the last Saturday MB is going to let them do that. From now on, she will decide their positions and who will play when. She told them they can say "yes Mary," or "No Mary, I don't want to play that spot. I will leave the Pumpkins team". The girls actually agreed to this (they really have no choice, I suppose).

I sat an watched some of the teams play, until around 12:30 when we went back to the center for the Saturday reading program. It's run by an American man named Brian. He writes stories using their names and animals as characters, and at the end there are a series of reading comprehension questions. They hand the papers in and he grades them, and they can fix the ones they got wrong. He also has math sheets for them with addition and subtraction. There are books for them to read, and after reading a book, he often asks them what it was about. All of these things can earn them "points" and after a certain number of points they get a sticker book or something. I was so impressed with the kids at the program. It's really totally voluntary, but there were 10 or 15 kids there. Since it directly follows soccer, many of the kids are from the girls soccer team. This Saturday, he also talked to the kids about conflict resolution, and they had to preform skits about situations where normally there would be violence, but had to use their words instead. They worked on "I" statements like "I feel sad when you do this because..." or "I would like if you ask me before you take my pencil". Some of them are pretty good at it, and like to act in front of everyone, and others really just hate it. Anyway, I had a really great time working one-on-one with a girl named Sanet, a twelve year old girl, who could barely read through a children's book. She was alright at subtraction, but it was sad to see how much she was struggling with really just third grade work. Things were a bit better when I was working with Meroldi. She is eleven years old but is a fairly good reader and is very good at answering the comprehension questions. Then I worked with Macreney, a fourteen year old boy, on his math. He was ok with that. It's really terrible because you would have no idea he is fourteen by his size. He is literally as small as an average American seven or eight year old child. He and his seven year old brother RuRu (who looks like he is four) and their sister Edelsien, are all sexually abused at home. My first day at the center, Macreney was asleep under a table in the Library room when Ilga came over to talk to him. He told her he hadn't slept all night or all week, which can infer means that he was raped every night. Rick, the CEO of Catholic AIDS Action, recently told MB that he thinks that every single child at the center is being sexually abused. That is probably the source of their anger and rudeness towards the volunteers, because after being so violated themselves, they have become good at pushing other people's boundaries. They don't know how to treat someone with respect, and they have never gotten respect from anyone in their whole life.

After the center we came back home and all showered. Saturday is basically shower day, because the soccer fields are so dusty and it's incredibly hot (there is practically no shade) so everyone is just one big muddy sweat ball. After showering we started getting ready for the braai (pronounced bry), or barbecue. A bunch of other volunteers were invited, as well as some of Mark's (a house mate of ours) friends. Around 5pm I laid down to read, and ended up falling asleep. I woke up around 8pm, and everyone was outside eating and talking. I couldn't even hold a conversation! I was exhausted! So I went back into my bedroom (which I share with MB and Suzanne) and MB had also just woken up. We started talking about the kids and some other things, and I basically had a mental breakdown. It was crazy. But things are fine, and I have this huge epiphany that has totally changed a lot for me. I'm not going to go into details, but it was pretty amazing.

This morning I woke up around 11am and had jam and crackers for breakfast. MB had run out earlier to visit the UNAM soccer team and ask them if they wanted to buy some of the really large shoes I brought with me. She ended up playing with them for a while as well. When she got home, the two of us left to visit her friends Ger and Jose Kegge, the people who I met on the plane from JoBurg. They invited us to lunch on Saturday. We arrived, and there was actually another couple and woman there. Jose and Ger are the loveliest people I have ever met. They live in the richer part of Namibia, on top of a mountain overlooking "suburban" Windhoek, and more mountains. They have a fabulous garden and two very hyper but very loving dogs. There is a pool in the back and the inside of their house is beautiful. It was really kind of them to invite MB and I. Jose served chicken soup for the appetizer (yeah, it was a really fancy lunch, actually!), and then Indian food for the main course. We had those crispy pancake things with rice, meatballs, and all these things to put on top. It was really tasty. Then we each had 1/4 of a pineapple with cream for dessert, and lots of little chocolates. I was going to go for a swim, but it began to rain, and there was quite a bit of thunder and lightning. It is really strange, there are these things called micro-climates. It's especially cool from their property because we are so high up- basically what happens is that you have one area of perfectly blue sky, and then on your other side you see these dark clouds approaching, and you can literally see the rain coming down! It's awesome. I've never seen anything like it.

We ended up staying at their house until 7pm! MB drove me back to our house, and then left to pick up our new volunteer, Kirsten. She is also from Germany, like Ilga, and will be sharing a room with her. I have to say, it feels good not to be the newest person here.

I am almost done with my book, What is the What by David Eggers. Tomorrow I am going to go to the pick-and-pay again to get some more peanut butter (I've just been eating spoonfuls through the days!) and some other snacks. Then at 1 we will go to the center. I guess that's all that's going on...

xoxo

A Better Day

This morning I got up at 10:30 and had...FROOT LOOPS! They certainly aren't the same; there are only four colors of loops and one of them is barf green. But they were good. I also had apple juice...FAVE. Anyway, it was a pretty lazy morning. Around noon Suzanne and I went to the corner store because we needed smaller bills for the taxi. I just picked up some crackers and a fizzy lemon-lime water (which was amazing). I've actually been drinking the water here. MB says it's chlorinated (and you can certainly taste it!). She has always been drinking it and has never been a problem, a Suz hasn't had any issues with it either. Ilga (a German exchange student from Germany who was originally studying at the university here but not volunteering with MB) has been drinking bottled water from the start. I guess it's just personal preference. I'm fine so far...knock on wood...

I've also been eating fresh produce, usually also a no-no, but Ilga eats a lot of veggies, and so if she won't drink the water but will eat the veggies...I'm guna assume they are alright. (MOM/ROB/GRANDMA don't worry, I'm fine)

Today at the center things were much calmer. I ran the computer room. There are eight computers, seven which run pretty well. The sad thing is that there are 14, 15, 16 year old kids who come in to use the computers and all they will play is Elmo or preschool franklin. Most can barely read, and so they don't even try the other games. The kids who are 6, 7, 8 years old have to work on the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom alphabet game, because they don't even know their alphabet all the way through. Basically I hate running the computer room because I get no other interaction with any of the other kids.

There is a woman named Tara who comes every day with a guitar to sing. Apparently she has had the hardest life imaginable, but you would never know it. She is so happy all the time, and so hardworking. Besides volunteering at the center singing with the kids, she also performs at a place that raises money through an open-mic type situation with poetry and music.

We left the center a few minutes early because it looked like it was going to down pour. It didn't until around 8:30, and then it was raining crazy hard. The roof even leaks in MB's house when it rains!

We had past with meat and tomatoes for dinner. I'm really tired and we have to get up super early for soccer tomorrow...and you probably know how i deal with early mornings...

miss everyone! a lot!
xoxo

SORRY FOR THE DELAY

OK so this a catch-up on the past...four days? My laptop hasn't been connecting to the wireless network here, so I've been waiting to use MaryBeth's laptop (MaryBeth is the woman who I am staying with, and the woman in charge of the Bernard Nordkamp Center). (AND sorry this is so long, you can stop if you get bored...)

So...Monday- Mom, Dad, and Gen drove me to JFK. I had a large duffel packed with soccer cleats for the kids. It was extremely heavy, but we really had no idea how much it weighed until we put it on the scale. It was 61 pounds, and the limit is only 50. The lady kept telling us that she really couldn't let that pass, and that maybe if we could get the weight down to 55 lbs she would let it go. We let her know that the bag was full of shoes for AIDS orphans. Eventually Dad and I just opened the bag and took three pairs of shoes out, and the weight went down to 57 lbs. She was EXTREMELY nice about it and let us leave it at that. We just threw those three pairs out. Luckily, my suitcase was 49 lbs. Then Mom, Dad, and Gen wanted to be at the gate with me, and so they needed gate passes. The woman told us she could only give us one, she even double checked with her supervisor. Then Dad told her that he would just buy three fully-refundable tickets, and she felt so bad that it stupidly had to be this way that she left and talked to another supervisor and was able to just give us the passes.

We were at the gate for maybe a 1/2 hour when they called up my name. There was six year old kid traveling alone and so they just basically put me with him. During good-byes, Mom cried (expected) and Gen didn't want to hug me (expected), and Dad took tons of photos (expected). Anyway, they changed my seat so that the kid and I would be together in the last row of the plane. HE WAS HILARIOUS AND SO ANNOYING. He was flying to London to meet up with his Uncle and mother. His English name is Daniel, but his mother is Nigerian, and so his Nigerian name is Touyxv. Talk about all the most uncommonly used letters in one name...Anyway, he's from Galway, Ireland. When I called him Daniel, he told me to call him "boy" because that's what his "uncs" call him. And then he pointed to an Orthodox Jewish man, and told me that he was ALWAYS on his flights. It was hysterical.

It was -85 degrees up in the air.

I landed at Heathrow in London around 6am on Tuesday. The stewardess who had been in charge of me and Daniel made us wait for everyone else to get off the plane, and then handed us over to two escorts. One of them was for Daniel, and the other for a woman in a wheel chair. They asked me if I knew where to go, and I said yes (I looked up the terminals before leaving), and told them I was going to terminal one. They asked what airline, and I told them British Airways, and one of them told me that British Airways was actually terminal four. Stupidly, I listened to her and the people at terminal four told me to go to terminal one. STORY OF MY LIFE. moral? Katrina is ALWAYS (usually) right. Anywayyyyy it was such a hassle because at Heathrow you have to get on a bus to switch terminals. As the person letter-goer-counter man was letting people walk into the bus, he stopped right after me. It must have been a sign, because I really didn't have any other mishaps after that. When I got to terminal one and past security, I walked into the main concourse and tried reading the departure sign...and this is when I realized that they don't tell you the gate number until 30-40 minuted before boarding time. So I found a seat and watched Monsters, Inc. on my ipod. After that I got up and went into a toy store, and looked at the clock and realized that I still had ten hours to kill. I walked to another bunch of seating and took a nap. That's how the rest of the day went; walked around, moved to a different area, napped, new seats, napped. Finally at 6:50 my plane started boarding. No one asked me if I was a minor traveling alone or anything. There was a woman on the plane who looked like Jane from Tarzan. I was originally in a row of three seats by myself, but some woman had leg problems and needed my isle seat, and some other guy just didn't want to sit in the back of the plane. So unfortunate. THEN they gave us socks! It was amazing to wear clean socks. And the pillows were hot pink. So cool. After we took off I watched Hairspray since I hadn't seen it yet. The food was edible, at least the bread tasted like bread. And I decided that first class should not be at the front of the plane, because it's complete torture having to walk past the huge seats (on this flight beds!). The stars were incredible! The flight was 10sih hours and I probably slept for seven or eight out of that (even after napping so much in the airport). The sunrise was also really nice, and the views over Africa were amazing. Right before landing, one of the male flight attendants came up t me and asked if I was alone. I said yes, and after we landed, there was this whole to-do about where my unaccompanied-minor papers and forms were, even though I told them that I didn't have any. It worked out in my favor, because this really nice woman walked me to the Air Namibia desk and helped me get checked in. There was still confusion because they were still trying to find my non-existent papers. I ended up being taken to the British Airways lounge! Free food, drinks, internet, not to mention amazing decor and beautiful bathrooms! (SO weird...in Africa, righty-tighty, lefty-loosy does NOT exist...on faucets, jars, etc.). Anyway, I got on one of their complementary desktops and sent an email to Mom and Dad letting them know that I had handed in Jo-Burg. Then guess what I did? walked around, slept, took some pictures, slept, and then got on my next plane.

The clouds were outrageous on the way to Windhoek. Like, looked like heaven amazing. I got off the plane and went to customs, and I was sure I would be totally interrogated, but the woman didn't say a word and just stamped my passport and let me go. Then I got a luggage cart and I was able to wheel the 106 pounds all by myself! Then I met up with Ger and Jose Kegge, whose house MaryBeth was house sitting while they vacationed in Asia. Luckily for them (even though MaryBeth never told them that I'd be meeting up with them...) I had MB's phone number and so when she was running late we called her. She picked us up in the bakkie (pick-up truck thing) which belongs to the Kegges and was loaned to MB while they were away. They all had so much to check in about; the dogs, the house, the enormous amount of mail she picked up for them, how the bakkie got broken into, and the New Years eve party MB threw at their house. While driving from the Windhoek airport (which is totally in the middle of nowhere, like not even close to the city ) to MB's house, we passed the "rich" area and then downtown Windhoek. The apartheid here only ended fairly recently. There is no public transportation in Windhoek other than taxis because the rich Europeans (mostly German) didn't want the black population to be able to ride into their neighborhoods. The unemployment rate is 80% here because during the apartheid blacks were not allowed promotions, and many store owners won't hire because when they do, the employee, in many cases, will do no work or not show up, and if fired, can bring the case to court and argue discrimination or hardship due to loss of employment. If the employee wins, the owner must not only re-hire them, but also pay them for these "hardships" caused. As MB tells me, everything, every single aspect of Namibia is totally corrupt. She gets really passionate when someone mentions things just falling apart here. After we got to her house, we unpacked together (she is done house sitting and living at the Kegge's) and she told me about the situations here. Unfortunately, even the people who work for the NGO just sit around doing nothing, collecting their relatively high incomes.

Even though begging is illegal, MB told me that people often walk up to her and ask her for money. The blacks here have the impression that every white person is rich. MB even got verbally harassed at the pool last Sunday (in front of some of the kids) when she wouldn't give a woman a lift. She called her a bitch, and yelled about how she shouldn't be around the children, and just totally beat up on MB. There is no positive example for the children here; even with the kids at the center. I have never seen children so greedy and ungrateful. In fact, MB has been questioning closing the center down, worrying that she is now doing more harm than good for the kids. They get everything; food, games, toys, computer access, soccer cleats and uniforms, and in some cases, MB personally pays for a child's school tuition and uniform, or for needed medical attention. Yet many of the children- in fact most of the children- still steal things from the center, and from volunteers. In fact, one of the children, whom Erica was very fond of, stole her money while dropping her off at the airport with MB. The kids come up to us in the center and say things like "give me money", "give me fifty cents, you are rich", or if they come after the kitchen closes, they hassle for food, saying that they deserve it, or come to the center with homework and leave if we don't do it for them.There are kids who are 12, 13, 14, who cannot recite the alphabet, teenagers who read at a second grade level- because there is just no motivation. These kids have basically nothing going for them, even thought Catholic AIDS Action pays a. At the start of the center three years ago, MB was sure that she would teach math and reading, but not a single child would work with her. They spend all their time playing games and being ungrateful for what they are given at the center. MB is so unhappy with their attitudes. Of course some children are very helpful, and some are motivated. One fourteen year old girl asked me to teach her to read, and there is a boy who is really passionate about art. But there area maybe 25 kids about of the 150 who really deserve to be at the center, at least in MB's opinion.

Anyway, last night we had cheese burgers for dinner, and Ajay (the greatest Indian man every) made rice. I still couldn't get my computer to hook up to the wireless, so I waited for Suzanne (a senior from Bennington College) to finish up her emails, and then I got online and talked to a few friends, which was nice. I went to sleep around 9:30, and then woke up today around 9ish, and Suz and I walked to the post office and the mall, where the pick-and-pay grocery store is. Its incredible- you walk into the mall, and I swear it looks like any high-end mall in the US. Its crazy! I was really surprised. Like, legit its fancy. Parts of Windhoek are totally like the US. In fact, while we were walking through one of the sidewalks where people are selling things, I could have been convinced that it was Mont Tremblant, Canada. And besides that, the landscape really looks similar to Nicaragua. In place of the volcanoes there are mountains, and the shrubs and surrounding are is basically the same.

Anyway, we came home and had lunch, and then just relaxed until we had to leave for the center. When we got there, MB was already there, breaking up a huge fight between two boys. One of them had just been beating this kid up, totally unprovoked, and it blew up into a situation involving chairs and their fathers and knives...It was an all around bad situation. The worst part was most of the other children saw it as a show- things get exciting when kids are thrown into this imaginary arena of childish-turned-deadly violence. MB went to the police station and filed a report. Oh, that worked well, because the kid came back an hour after he was kicked out of the center. The lack of respect and control is astounding.

Tonight we got home and MB and I (actually just minutes ago) finished up a conversation about all of this.As I said before, she is seriously considering leaving the center, maybe going back to work in El Salvador where people were gracious for help. She blames herself for creating this generation of greedy children in Katutura. At the end of the day at the center (let me mention we stayed an hour late with the kids...) she started handing out "tocks", or cleats, to children who are on the soccer team but don't have shoes. Some of the kids were grateful, just said "thank you Mary," and "good bye Mary, see you tomorrow". One of the girls came inside the room where MB was with the tocks, and immediately said "none of these are my size, none of these will fit me" and when MB told her to try a pair, she responded by showing her foot into the shoe, stepping on the heel, complaining about the size, and then said "Mary, don't you have any pink tocks for me? when is the next shipment of shoes coming? I will wait", meanwhile the shoes would have fit her. After three years of giving, giving, giving, the kids have become dissatisfied with what they do have. MB said that three years ago, if you had given any child a pair of tocks, they would have been jumping over each other to get a pair, and NOW the kids "will wait for the next shipment", wait for MB's friends to send more tocks, better ones will come. It's outrageous.

UGHHHH. Sorry this was so long. I will definitely post every day now so everything isn't totally blurred together.

xoxohopeyoumissme