Stickers !

Hello there ~ if you are interested…please send stickers! Our Namibian students love stickers! It sounds maybe ridiculous, but it is a great way to motivate them. Stickers are just less common and more expensive here, so it would make the students happy. If you are so inclined, please send me some for my students! Here is the address: Mariah Ortiz C/O Peace Corps Namibia PO Box 6862 Windhoek, NAMIBIA THANK YOU! xoxoxox

Site Visit

Site Visit I am back from my site visit, and have a lot to report! The Peace Corps (PC) method is such that trainees (we are PC trainees until we complete training and are officially sworn in) undergo 4 weeks of language, cross-cultural and technical training. Then, we visit our site for about a week, and then return for 4 additional weeks of training. This gives us a context within which to apply our training and preparation. PC also embeds two homestays within the training so that volunteers are given a deep understanding of the local culture. While the homestays may stretch our comfort zones, there is no better way to gain an inside insight into Namibian culture. Once I get to site, I will have another 6 week home stay with a family, and then will be moved to permanent housing. More about that below… Last week on Thursday and Friday, we all met with our PC supervisors for orientation and training. On Friday, I departed with my supervisor, Mr. Peacock, for Kalkfeld, where I will be working for the next 2 years. It isn’t far from the capitol of Namibia, Windhoek. I enjoyed meeting Mr. Peacock very much and it will be nice working with him. He has a strong leadership style and has initiated a professional development program for his teachers and takes them on an end of the year party each year to show his appreciation. Arriving at my site was a bit sobering – it is quite rural. It is close to a large shopping hub, but in and of itself, it is small, with about 4k residents. There is the school, a post office, police station, petrol station and very small store. Our school is in relatively good condition (see photos below), but is certainly resource-scarce. In one classroom, there was a large hole in the wall. The library is severely lacking in books and organization. But on a very bright note, there is a computer lab with Internet access – this provides a huge opportunity for the local community to communicate with the outside world. One thing that I particularly enjoyed about the visit was meeting both my colleagues and some of the students. (I will only mention them by their initials here.) My counterpart is a younger teacher who is very good in the classroom. I also met some of the other teachers. The dorm (or hostel, as it is called here – many of the students board at the school because their families live very far away on farms) superintendent also impressed me with his approach to education. He views it as a service to others, as a vocation, and works to surround himself by motivated teachers and professionals. The students, too, impressed me! Two young women in particular, “B” and “J.” B came up to me one afternoon where I was reading outside. She explained to me how even though she is 19 years old and still in 10th grade, she is so grateful to be in school. She had to take some years off due to financial struggles and her parent’s inability to assist her with her education. But she is back and she is committed. She is one of the diamonds in the rough, the David vs. Goliath cases, where she is overcoming the poverty around her; she has not succumbed to teenage pregnancy like many young girls in Namibia. She was a breath of fresh air, and I can’t wait to work with her and the other students. Another young woman, “J” was my running partner one day. She told me how much she loves to run, how great it makes her feel, and how she and her brother used to run the 3.5 hours home to her village (!!!). Needless to say, she was an awesome running partner. It is women like these that I cannot wait to work with. Moving on to my site visit…..I am very much looking forward to this. I will be staying with a Grandma in the “location” or township area of town. She is simply amazing! She is fluent in German as her older sister used to work for a German family in the area, and she learned German by spending time with them. Her German is better than her English, so we will be speaking all German. This is a win-win as she can communicate better, and I can practice my German. She was truly lovely, with such a rich expertise of the area, and a wise and accepting approach to the world. I also found it refreshing that she does not necessarily agree with some of the traditional gender roles found in Namibia, which can be quite shocking and starkly different from norms in the U.S. One of the best parts of her home was her PUPPIES! I am including a photo of them below. There is also a photo of her cooking pot – she lives in a mud hut, and cooks 100% outside. This will be an amazing learning experience to live with her for 6 weeks. After my site visit at the school in Kalkfeld, I moved on to Otjiwarongo for a site visit and shadowing with another PC volunteer who has been on site for 1 year. It was great to see her classroom and all of the policies and procedures that she has put in place. She is impressive in all that she has accomplished in her small time at the school. I enjoyed touring the other school, one of the largest in the region with 1,200 students (my school has 400). We were even able to attend a wedding reception for one of the teachers. This was an amazing opportunity and we gained an insider perspective on the Namibian engagement and marriage process. The toasts were very personal and the colleagues treated the teacher as a true family member, giving him heartfelt advice and best wishes for his wedding. To celebrate the wedding, the staff wore traditional Namibian tribal attire. The main tribes were the Oshivambo (in the pink striped dress), the Herrero (in the fancy Victorian-style dresses with the bull-horn hats – a remnant of the German colonialism here), the Damarra and the Nama (the patchwork-style dress on the woman shown with Marsha, another PC volunteer). Touring the schools helped me to approach the many challenges in the Namibian school system. Namibia gained independence from S. Africa and the apartheid system in 1990. At this time, the language of instruction changed abruptly from Afrikaans to English. However, it was impossible for all teachers to suddenly switch languages of instruction. So strong English skills are severely lacking in my students and even in the teachers (which is why the Namibian government originally invited in the PC after gaining independence). Other challenges include poverty, teenage pregnancy, the high HIV/AIDs infection rate, gender roles, a lack of understanding of the role and potential that education can have in one’s life, high unemployment rates (which can be demotivating for students who don’t see strong career opportunities in their future), and more. Of course, the US education system also faces many challenges! Part of the goal of the PC is to engage in a positive cross-cultural exchange. Power reflexivity, the process of mutual and collaborative engagement, is so important in international development. Here, I know that I am gaining as much or more than any of the students I teach or community members I interact with. Peace Corps is a process not only of training, but of exchange, reciprocal engagement, and deep learning from all sides. Peace Corps continues to be the “toughest job you will ever love,” and I am not even at my site yet! I am experiencing the joys, challenges, and deep learning that PC affords. Thank you for following my blog! Love to all of you!

Intercultural Exchange

Today we had an amazing taste of Namibian culture! Peace Corps Namibia hosted an intercultural day. Each language group cooked traditional foods for their tribes or region of Namibia. It was a fun, festive and interesting day! The regions/groups represented were Kavango, Caprivi, Oshiherrero, Oshivanga and Afrikaans. Highlights included: fresh chicken, mopane worms, the most delicious bread ever, traditional stewed spinach, 3 kinds of stomach (yes, stomach), and sugar cane. There were 6 chickens beheaded – I watched one, and it was quite sad. But I did watch because I am trying to experience everything here – as with the mopane worms.  As a vegetarian, I was able to avoid the stomach situation, but it was interesting nonetheless to see how it was prepared! The traditional costumes were amazing! You can see below my friend Anita (she is from Brooklyn, not Namibia!) in traditional Hererro dress below. It is European style, and the locals here added the animal-horn style hats to tailor it to Namibia. Below you will also see the stone pots in which all of the food was cooked, my host mom Rianna holding the mopane worms, and our group making “roosterbrot” – grilled Afrikaans bread. I appreciate being able to learn more and more about Namibian culture. Heroes’ day is coming up, which celebrates Namibian independence, and honors those that died in the struggle for freedom. I will write more about that when the time comes. I miss and love all of you at home, and send all my best. Hope you are each doing well - happy, inspired, and at peace. 

Hello all!

Hello all! First of all, I would like to say CONGRATS to my brother and my new sister, Andrea, who were married last Saturday. I wish I could have been there for you, but I heard it was amazing. MUCH LOVE TO YOU BOTH! I am writing with the latest updates! The big news yesterday was that our host family got a baby puppy! He is pictured below, and he is amazing. My host brother and sister are taking good care of him, and he is a fun addition to our family. (As part of our training, Peace Corps requires that trainees stay with home-stay families during our Pre-Service Training to learn about Namibian culture in an applied way.) In terms of training, it is progressing nicely. I found out last week that I will be studying Afrikaans, which I am enjoying learning. We have already our mid-term language proficiency exams, which will test our spoken knowledge of Afrikaans. This is one of the skills which Peace Corps emphasizes, being able to communicate with one’s local community in their native language. You will also see below a photo of my host family and I before church on Sunday. I enjoyed the service very much – lots of singing and dancing (!), but oy is it long here! It is not uncommon for a church service to last 4 hours!  Finally, you will see a photo of the new skill I am learning for Namibia…bucket bath. It is quite nice naturally and wonderful for a number of reasons – environmental conservation, thriftiness, less time-intensive. This definitely took some time to get used to, though! 

Windhoek

Above is a view from my house... This Saturday we went to Windhoek, the capitol of Namibia. It was a great day and nice to explore and learn more about Namibia. I have included photos at the bottom of this post. We began the day at Heroe’s Acre, which honours and commemorates Namibians who died in the fight for independence. The monument was built in 2002, and was a gift from North Korea. We continued on to the Maerua Mall where we purchased our cell phones and did some shopping. After that, we went to the Old Location Cemetery, which honors 19 Namibians who were killed by the Germans when they attempted to take over an area of their land. (Germany originally colonized Namibia, and then towards the end of WWII were forced to give up Namibia to Britain, which asked South Africa to manage and control the country.) Finally, we went to 2 local markets in various “locations.” Locations are the Namibian equivalency of a South African township. It speaks back to the time of apartheid, but now the locations and most areas are mixed. The photos below are: a view from near my house, Heroe’s Acre, Old Location Cemetery, MOPANE worms*, the locations, and my host brother and sister. Gertrude Rikumbi, whose grave is shown here, was a woman freedom fighter in the Namibian independence movement. She was the first member of SWAPO, the political party which advocated for independence. * MOPANE worms are a local delicacy. Locals hollow out the insides of these worms, and then fry with seasonings. Ask me my opinion about this next time we meet!

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PHOTOS

Hi All: I am posting here some photos of the journey over, a recent hike here in Okanandja, and our training center! Love to you all! :))

The Herero

One of the first things that I learned about Namibia is that, just like South Africa, the country was under a system of apartheid until 1990. This very recent change has left very obvious ramifications in this beautiful country. Being so new to Namibia, I have yet to experience and learn about the deep-rooted meaning behind this legacy; but even at the surface level, the remnants of post-apartheid Namibia are very apparent. Here in Okahandja, about 2 hour north of Windhoek, the capitol of Namibia, there is a large watchtower which looms above the small town. Apparently this was used for surveillance and control during apartheid. Strangely, the tower still stands and is quite an ominous reminder of Namibia’s past. Another thing we learned right away is about the dark history of Germany in Namibia. Germany colonized Namibia, which is why German is still spoken in the capitol and throughout much of Namibia. In many towns, there are still German bakeries, churches, and one can purchase German newspapers. I have to say it is an uncomfortable feeling, being German myself, fluent in German, and knowing that this is perceived by many to be the language of the oppressors. Returning to this history, the Herero tribe was one of the largest here in Namibia. Unfortunately, during WWII, the Herero suffered from an extensive genocide at the hands of the Germans. Thus, throughout much of Namibia, there are many Herero grave sites and memorials. Just down the road from our training center, there is a Herero grave site. These are meant to honor and remember those that fell victim to this chapter in history. I will continue to post and comment on this topic throughout my service as I find it an important and compelling theme to explore. I would also like to thank Professor Joel Ngugi and the Kenya Human Rights Group for guiding me on this journey and shaping my views. I love you all! Below are photos of the Herero memorial site and the Okahandja watch tower.