THE END

I'm back! If you didn't know this by now, you are not my friend. But you could be if you would just email me once in a while! Jeeze!

Greatest Hits

My time in Namibia is coming to a close (that’s right, you suckers are going to have to deal with me again!) and I’ve been looking back at some of the highlights. But I’ll have plenty of time to get into the mushy sentimentality later. Right now, I’ve completed most of the grading and marking I plan on ever doing so I’d like to share a brief montage of my favorite quotes.

From the learners:
I understand that English is no one’s first language here and is usually the third or fourth (ninth sometimes) for most of these kids. So tough vocabulary coupled with a huge language barrier caused me to start keeping a little book next to me whenever I was grading papers. What follows are all the things I wrote with the questions included for context.

Q: A meteorite is a piece of rock which comes from the outer part of the solar system and enters the Earth's atmosphere. Using scientific terms explain why the meteorite slows down.
A: “Global Warming”

Q: What is a property of chlorine?
A: “It destroy the world”

On a test about matter: “Cattle is liquid but is solid”

Q: An unknown gas relights a glowing stick. This means that the gas is…
A: “DOOM” (DOOM is a bug spray here that is highly flammable)

Q: Write three properties of an acid
A: “Cock”

Q: Name three properties of an alkaline substance
A: “Beer and Cake”

Q: Give two reasons why alloys are used more than pure elements
A: “Because there are many people at the world and they also want to eat with spoon”

Q: Is the burning of candle wax endothermic or exothermic?
A: “Dance”

Q: Is the burning of Magnesium endothermic or exothermic?
A: “pop”

Q: Write down the general equation when metals burn in Oxygen
A: “Nothing is happy when you burn out the Oxygen”

Q: Why is it easy to compress a gas?
A: “Because if you don’t compress it who will do it?”

Q: (The second part to a question on mass and weight) If a man travels to the moon, his weight changes to 80N. What would happen to his mass?
A: “You cannot go to the moon with 80N. You can die”

Q: What are three ways to prevent corrosion?
A: “Don’t cut trees”

Halfway through a test, a learner raises his hand: “Sir, I need a pen” What happened to yours? “It was stolen.” During the test?! “Yes.”

Q: (A periodic table outline with letters scattered around the inside is shown.) Which letter represents an element that is very reactive?
A: “D.A.D.”

Q: What volume of magnesium oxide is needed for the solution to be neutral?
A: “Toilet soap”

Q: What is the pH scale used for?
A: “For the diagram and pictures in our country”

Q: Why is acid rain bad?
A: “It will easily kill you”
A: “Coca-cola”

Q: What causes acid rain?
A: “Blood”
A: “The rain is untidy”

Q: Define what is meant by the term “aqueous”
A: “Toothpaste”

Q: Define force
A: “Force is when something or someone force you to do something like beating your sister.”

Q: Where in Namibia is Yellow Cake mined?
A: “University of Cambridge”

Q: Differentiate between a contact force and a non-contact force.
A: “Chemical and dead plant”

Q: Complete the following word equation based on the sentence describing it. Water is made when Hydrogen is combusted with Oxygen.
A: “Yes it’s true it is”

Q: (Question asks what gas results from a reaction between an acid and a metal. This is the second part.) What is the test for that gas?
A: “Nitrogen is gas that is killing”

Q: Define displacement
A: “Displacement is placing an object where it doesn’t fit and you forget where you place it”

From the teachers:
Between staff meetings, classroom observations, or just normal conversation, these are the gems that I was able to write down before forgetting. Incidentally, for some of these I was the only person in the room who thought they were funny and I would let out a sort of cough as I started to laugh and caught it when I realized everyone else was just nodding.

To a student who was having a tough time coming up with a correct answer to review questions: “Tomorrow I will cut off your neck if you do not answer” – Mr. Mubonda

In reference to all the kids in Khorixas: “We Africans, we are reproducing… seriously!” – Ms. Higinus

“Somebody told me I would have a kid by December. Why can’t we buy kids?” – Ms. Simon

At a bar in Khorixas, Mubonda’s phone rings in his pocket. His eyes perk up and says with a smile, “Aha! Girlfriend!” Looks at his phone, frowns and puts it back in his pocket. “Uh… No. Wife”

I have a special spot here for Mr. Goamub, my Head of Department. He is well over six foot three and is big. Not fat, but big. The man completely lacks that thing in your brain that stops you from saying things before you gauge if it is appropriate or not. He is a dedicated teacher and one of the greatest people I’ve met here. But the stuff that this guy says…

In reference to how happy he is teaching math to grade eleven, “Makes you so most happy that you want to stand naked in the class.”

Doing the opening prayer for the last staff meeting of the term, “Dear God, this is the day we’ve all been waiting for: when the learners will be going back. We know that because of their behavior, their parents don’t want them. But you, lord, we ask that you bless them and help their minds.”

An Aids Awareness Corner was set up in the staff room with a table covered with condoms and femidoms (female condoms). Goamub walks in, with the whole staff present, looks at the table, and waves a hand at the table saying, “Bah! None of these will fit me!”

And that's it for me for now. I hope you've gotten a little laugh out of these.

Science Fair Episode II: The Cattle Truck of Death

Last year around this time, I had the pleasure of attending the Kunene Regional Science Fair in Opuwo. On this trip we broke down in lion country, slept on the steps of a school, ripped out a fuel line on our bus, and I got yelled at by a drunk teacher. It was time again for the regional science fair and I must have been suffering from some strange form of heat induced amnesia, because I agreed to go again. Stupid stupid stupid stupid…

The fiasco started out fairly normal: we were scheduled to leave on Wednesday afternoon and I was still helping learners get their projects finalized on Wednesday morning. Before the end of school, I was able to get all the learners, their projects, clothes, blankets, etc. in my classroom ready to go. We still hadn’t heard anything about transport. The only thing I knew was that we were supposed to be in Outjo at some point this evening and we might get picked up at school. I had heard a rumor that there might be a bus coming down from Opuwo today, but who knows how long that might take.

In the middle of taking worksheets for my other classes to different classrooms, I was stopped by the acting school secretary. I say “acting” because we don’t have an official secretary at the moment… well, wait. No, that’s not true. We do “officially” have a secretary at the moment but it is the popular opinion around the school that she is seriously crazy. I’m inclined to at least go along with this since every time I try to say, “good morning” to this woman she starts laughing at me. And, the only thing she does during the day is knit and type her name in huge font with odd sayings and the date on our office computer. Her wall is covered with pieces of brightly colored paper that say things like, “IF NOT ME THEN WHO? MINA GIENGOS 06-07-2007” and “LOVE IS A DANGEROUS GAME WE PLAY MINA GIENGOS”. I mean seriously covered. From as high as she can reach, all the way down to knee level going all the way around her office are these papers. And we employ this woman! Or at least the government does.

But this has no bearing on the science fair. I just think it’s a funny anecdote. So we have this acting secretary who is supposed to be doing a work study program to become a secretary. As I’m walking past, she tells me that there was a call for me in the office about the science fair and I need to go wait for them to call me back in five minutes. I go to the office and stare at the phone for seven minutes while Mina Geingos types a “kitchen prayer” in seventy-two point font at the computer next to me. She’s not actually typing it from memory or something. It’s from an already typed piece she has on the table, but this version is inferior because you cannot see it from fifty paces. And who prays for their kitchen anyway? I could understand something like, “Dear god, get rid of these cockroaches!” but that’s not much of a prayer and it wouldn’t do any good posted on the wall. I give up and go back to my class where more learners have started taking apart their posters and remaking them.

Just before the end of the day, I talk to the Life Science teacher, Ms. Gawises (Ga-vee-sess), who tells me that she got a call saying that all the Khorixas schools are supposed to meet up at the Ministry Building tomorrow morning at 6:30 to await transport. She says that she and the Principal will take their trucks and load the learner’s stuff to drive it up the hill tomorrow. We agree to meet at my classroom in the morning at 6 to load up and I go back to inform the learners. They are disappointed and air all sorts of suggestions about how we should borrow someone’s van to take all of us (no one wants to pay for gas), hike (not enough money), all stay in the hostel (not enough beds), or sleep in my classroom (no way). I try my best to politely shoot down all of these and get them to organize their things and meet the next day at 6 at the ministry building. At this point, things are an improvement over last year since I get to spend the first night in my own bed. This will end up being the high point of the trip.

Thursday morning, I meet the principal outside my class and he shows me a fax he had received Wednesday at 4pm. It says that no teachers from Khorixas should attend the science fair since there’s not enough accommodation or food for them except for a listed two. I’m not on the list. But, Ms. Wasserfal (Vasserfal) from the drinking bus fun of last year is. At least they bring out the varsity team for these things. My principal says he told Ms. Gawises she didn’t have to go, but he told them that I would be attending. I would have gone anyway, but I know this does not bode well for the trip. We load up the projects, blankets and bags and head up to the Ministry building. My kids are already there along with Ms. Wasserfal and her kids. We unload and the primary schools show up. At around 6:30, a bus comes barreling up the hill in a cloud of dust and rocks. The driver jumps out and informs everyone of what the plan is. Unfortunately, it’s all in Afrikaans so I get nothing until I get one of my learners to start translating for me. There’s no diesel in Khorixas and no government credit card to charge to anyway so we won’t be taking the bus. Instead, we will wait for two pickups, a minibus, and a big truck to take us to Outjo. The bus leaves and a few minutes later, the vehicles arrive. Two covered pickup trucks and a minibus will take the girls and most of the projects. The boys and the remaining stuff will go in this behemoth cattle truck. We enter a ten minute period of absolute chaos where the learners start rushing the different vehicles. I’m yelling that everyone should give their projects to the girls who have real seats to sit on and all the boys need to get their blankets since we are looking forward to a one hour ride in status reserved for cattle being taken to slaughter. We’re most of the way loaded when I ask the transportation officer if we will pick up Braunfels.
“We’re not picking up Braunfels”
“Who is?”
“No one. They’re not on the list”
“They are on the list”
Checks the list “Nope. They are not on the list”
“Well they have kids there with science fair projects and they are waiting for us”
“You just want to help your friend”
Yeah! I do, you moron! I also know that you are too self-centered and incompetent to think of anyone other than yourself so shut up and tell this guy to go pick up Braunfels! “No, I’m just trying to make sure that all the schools get to go” is all I say. He does and we peel out of the ministry building with kids, posters, and bags rolling around in the back end.

This cattle truck we are riding in is a Chevy S10 Exterminator of DOOM (yes, it must be capitalized and you should read it with emphasis) with a twelve by seven foot flat bed that has four foot high metal fences along the sides. It is normally reserved for transporting four to five cows, a herd of goats or an M1A1 Abrams Tank. A commonly known conversion in Namibia is one cow equals six kids for purposes of space (or financial bartering) so we will easily fit thirty kids in here. I figure we will be rolling out in typical government style with a rickety 80kph. What I forgot was that livestock is much more valuable than human life so the vehicles designed to transport cows are kept in top form. When we leave Khorixas, we are flying, some smaller boys literally. We dive to keep the posters held down and blankets in hand. Thankfully it is a fast twenty minutes to Braunfels. Along the way, we hit a Dikdik and have to turn around to pick up the carcass. If you don’t know what a Dikdik looks like, think of Bambi. That’s it. Bambi versus the Cattle Truck of Death ends with one flat Bambi and us slamming on the brakes, going back and tossing Bambi in the cab for later consumption. In flattening Bambi, he lost his bowel control and I think we split him open so the cab might need a new air freshener. Suddenly, the wind blown back end isn’t so bad. We pull into Braunfels and Carl hangs his head in his hands at first sight of us. We take the stationary moment to lay all the posters flat and get everyone pushed up against the front of the bed where it is less windy.

As we leave Braunfels, the bumpy, up-down dirt road is too much for one boy and he walks to the back to lose what little he had for breakfast. Once back on the main paved road we really get moving. I mime to one of my learners asking what the speedometer reads. He gives me a zero sign in reply. The speedometer is disconnected, the oldest trick in the taxi driver book. Carl times how long it takes us to go the 10km between the distance signs to Outjo and calculates that we’re going 150kph. That’s 94mph. I’m sitting in the back of a truck with thirty kids going close to a hundred miles per hour. Science Fair sucks.

We’re in Outjo in forty-five minutes, a drive that normally takes over an hour. When we arrive, no one is really expecting us. We get dropped off at the boys’ hostel and, like a fool, I start asking who I should talk to about getting accommodation for my kids. No one really knows, and I finally get to talk to the Hostel Head Boy which is a sort of misleading term since this is certainly not a boy, though he is a learner. He lets us store our stuff in his room since most of the learners are in class and there are no keys to any of the rooms. We walk back to the school to get our projects set up. No one has eaten breakfast and I can’t find two-thirds of my kids because they were in the other cars. Carl takes the kids and their projects over to the school where the exhibition will be held while I finish unloading the rest of our stuff. I meet Carl in the exhibition hall where he is in the middle of telling them to head over to the opening ceremony and put on their school uniforms when they get back. Wasserfal is there, on her way out and asks if we will go to the opening ceremony. I say no and she hands me a stack of papers and tells me I can number all the projects then. She yells a thanks over her shoulder as she leaves and I tell her to go to hell, though she is out the door by the time the words leave my mouth.

There is no lock for the door and I want to pick up some things in town just in case my kids are missing something so Carl stays behind while I run around town for an hour or so. When I get back, we number the projects and have a quick lunch I had picked up on my way back to the school. Carl and I take turns going back to the hostel to change into some different clothes and check on our stuff. A little before lunch, most of the kids are back from the opening ceremony and we form a sort of plan for the day. The learners will use the time before lunch to get most of their stuff ready and then change after lunch and come back for judging at 2:30. During lunch, Carl and I stash our bags in the principal’s house since he lives on the hostel grounds and it is a much more secure place than the random unlocked room we found in the hostel. When the kids get back, we help them finalize the rest of their projects and take a few pictures before we take off into town. Like I mentioned before, we are not technically supposed to be there so we really feel no obligation beyond our own learners, especially not to judge so we have to get out before the judging starts. We head into town and run some other errands, wander the culturally rich sites, and generally complain about how much Outjo sucks.

We got back to the school at 5:30 and are quickly swarmed by learners complaining that no one has come to judge them yet. These kids have been preparing for this moment for… well… not long enough, but they are ready! Carl and I go back to where the primary projects are being judged a few blocks away. Sitting outside the exhibition hall is Ms. Jagger (Ya-gghhherr, you should make a hacking sound when you read the two ‘g’s) in her truck. This is the woman who has “organized” this debacle and I bite my tongue since I know this will do no good. Instead, we go inside and survey the situation: the judges are a mixture of primary and secondary teachers and only a few have finished judging all the primary projects. I walk up to Wasserfal and ask when they are planning on judging the secondary projects. She complains about how they are very far behind and we (her, Carl and I) can just judge them ourselves. She starts trying to pull us out of the hall and just go do it now. I mention the crazy concepts of objectivity and fairness in addition to a quick multiplication lesson on how long it will take three people to judge over fifty projects even if we only spend a minute or two at each project. She’s having none of it and continues to try and pull us out the door. We suggest the alternative that the kids go to dinner now and do judging after dinner. She says the kids won’t come back which means that she won’t come back. It is pay day after all. We get more judges over and they shoot down her idea so she immediately suggests our idea. People sort of grumble a little but resolve that it is the best solution possible. Carl and I volunteer to go back and inform the learners, which we do.

Now, a year ago, I would have stayed. A year ago, I would have thought the worst thing I could possibly do at this moment would be to grab my things and go to another town. But that was last year. This is this year. First off, we have no place to stay here. Our most likely bet is to sleep on the floor of the principal’s house. Second, we were told, via fax, that we were not needed. Third, and most important, this is the way things always turn out. Shit hits the fan due to bad planning and when we walk in and ask what that smell is, everyone suddenly realizes that someone screwed up big time. But then they look at us to help clean up. And since we’re nice guys, we grab a mop and start directing people to try and salvage what little is left. For once, we decide it’s time to let that big bag of donkey dung go sailing into the propeller and see how bad it turns out. Screw being nice.

Carl grabs one of his learners and I grab one of mine. We tell them what is happening and why we are leaving. I’ve already given my kids the twenty bucks each that the school budgeted for them, so I assume they’ll be fine until I get back the next day. Carl leaves a hundred for his kids in case no one provides food. We do a quick double check as we walk back to get our bags from the principal’s house. Our kids are here, they have a place to sleep, they have some food, some money, their projects are set up and someone is going to hopefully judge them. Staying will make no difference to the outcome of this farce so we leave. We go to Megan’s in Otjiwarongo where Benny is house sitting for her while she is on vacation. We have a decent dinner, a hot shower and sleep in until well past seven the next day.

Friday, Carl runs a few more errands in Otjiwarongo and we part ways. I’m going back to Outjo to make sure our kids get back to Khorixas and Braunfels intact (and see if I can finagle my way into an Etosha trip) and Carl is going to visit his better half in Kalkfeld. Carl gets the first hike since his trip is on a busier road and I wait around for an hour or so until the most decrepit Isuzu pickup gives me a ride. It’s a two-tone of baby blue on rust and I get the comfortable seat stretched out across the dented tool box, empty fuel jugs and greasy spare battery.

When I get to Outjo, three of my learners see me get out of the truck and they holler across the street, “Sir! Luxury transport!” Did I mention that I love my kids? I get the rundown of the previous night. Most projects only got judged three times, and some only twice. Most of the awards went to learners from Opuwo schools which is questionable since the Head Judge was from Opuwo. And Wasserfal was seen passed out at a bar. What were my learners doing at a bar? “Looking for someone, sir” I’m not going to argue.

It’s getting close to noon and no one knows what the transport situation is so I start walking through town. I see most of my learners and the bus which will take the Opuwo schools back, but none of the other organizers. I make it all the way back to the secondary school, drop my bag in the principal’s office and call Jagger. She is back in Khorixas and says transport will come soon. What transport? She doesn’t know. Where should the kids be? That was announced to them. What time should we expect the transport? She doesn’t know. I can tell this is going nowhere so I hang up on her since I can’t stand to waste anymore prepaid airtime on this nincompoop. I call the transportation officer, Timbo, and he says he is actually in Outjo. Thank god! I meet him at the grocery store and get that there will be some trucks and some minibuses coming “soon” and everyone should wait at the primary school. I tick this one in the ‘win’ column since I was able to get some sort of an answer. A truck or two does eventually come and we load in everything possible and hope for another when not everything and everyone fits.

I go for lunch and to cool off a little since the high stress and general stupathy is getting to me. After finishing a delicious bacon, egg and pineapple toasted sandwich, I get a text from one learner asking where I am. The cattle truck of death is back and I need to meet it at the grocery store. I’m touched, my kids are making sure I don’t get left behind! Seriously, this is really nice. Anyway, I get to the grocery store and find no one there. I give my learner a call and he says they are driving around town doing some other stuff so I get to wait. They eventually return and I see the delay that I’ve been waiting on. In the back of the truck are all the supplies for the next month for the Ministry of Education offices in Khorixas. Boxes upon boxes of copy paper, mops, cleaning fluid, and ink cartridges are all stacked neatly in the front half of the truck with a, get this, full size bed complete with box spring. We are transporting half as many learners but with half the available space so things are back to normal. We also cruise through Outjo picking up every single person who is attempting to get to Khorixas.

We finally start to leave town and, true to form, the driver accelerates with break neck speed. I’m sitting in the back corner of the truck leaning up against my bag with one of my learners standing next to me. I’m busy looking at my phone when I hear “WOOOOOSH!!” and my learner is curled up on the bottom of the truck next to me, holding his head. I look behind me and see the box spring sliding to a halt on the road behind us. The wind had kicked up the box spring and sent it into the top of this kid's head before spiraling out the back of the truck. There’s no blood, but a nasty bump is already developing. But these are tough kids and he turns out to be alright. We go back and pick up the box spring and reorganize stuff to make sure no other missiles develop. We are back to Khorixas again in under an hour and I finally get to my house a little after dark, vowing again (and I mean it this time) to never go on another Science Fair field trip.

This “Development” Thing

Now, this is going to seem like a red herring, but we are a narcissistic bunch here. If there’s one thing we can do well, it’s talk about our personal problems and/or adventures. Get three or more volunteers in one place and there is no limit to the length at which we can drone on about the same thing. The Internet has just projected this onto a more accessible forum. Unfortunately, with only one person talking to what they think or hope is many, the only comments they can make are about themselves. The blog, live journal, or whatever you want to call the personal little world-wide-waxing-on is possibly the most arrogant invention of this generation. This isn’t some grand revelation, but it became glaringly apparent last month when I reread some (most?) of my own postings and some selections from other volunteers. No headless goat or frantic hike was too small to occupy at least a paragraph or two. Make no mistake though, I don’t claim to be above all this. I’ve spun more than my fair share of tales and I’ve certainly kept the subject content limited to el numero uno. But I think there is a fine line between the entertaining absurdity of PCV life and the disconnected brain waves of my own inner fool. Expressing an opinion is one thing, but with the advent of broadcasting our ‘deepest’ thoughts to the world, we have reinvented the village idiot from ancient times, and digitized our more contemporary crazy-guy-standing-on-the-corner-yelling-at-cars. But of course, those guys can be fun. I really enjoy the one I always saw with the five foot cardboard sign standing on the corner of Fifth and Pine near the Westlake Center in Seattle. He would yell out in this raspy voice at anyone within earshot, shaking his fist at the unfortunate passerby. Every town has one, so in the spirit of tradition, put your chair in neutral and carefully lock your doors, ‘cause I got a bone to pick and a really big piece of cardboard.

So here it is. My (and some others’) thoughts on development: I can really only speak from experience here, but talking with other volunteers who have done this in other parts of Africa and the world has led me to some conclusions that might be totally wrong. Of course, I’ll say them here anyway. This development thing doesn’t work in its current state. There, I said it. The idea is nice when it’s placed in a two sentence mission statement, but when actually applied it’s more of a feel good version of monkeys banging on typewriters. Peace Corps bangs on one typewriter trying to get out the words “To be” while VSO pounds away at “not to be” and World Teach is over in the corner doing their best to come up with “or”. If by some miracle we each come up with our parts at the same moment, we are still a light year from pushing them all together to create a full phrase. Not to mention the fact that if three monkeys handed you a piece of paper with “to be or not to be” written on it, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. But I’m getting too into the thought of monkeys beating modern technology and I want to get back to what I’m tying to say. The current method of development will never work because of three main reasons: first, the culture differences between the host nation and the donor nations prevent effective transfer of skills and funding. Second, the western form of donation breeds dependence. Finally, and most frustratingly here, the development work is executed with shocking inefficiency. I’m going to try to explain these, and maybe accidentally stumble upon some suggestions.

Problem 1: The culture block
When you think of a developing nation, you will most likely come up with a nation which was formerly under colonial rule by some western nation. Chances are that colonial nation is now one of the donors attempting to lift the newly independent nation out of poverty. In the case of Namibia, there hasn’t even been a generation since independence, leaving at least one or two generations of people who have the memories of apartheid still in their recent memory. It’s certainly not hostile, but think of this: I come into a school hall full of the parents of the school learners. These are all parents who grew up being told what to do by white people. Everything from where to live to what type of bread to buy was dictated by the complexion of their skin. Now we are in a town hall meeting to try and determine what can be done to improve the school pass rates. The most successful learners in school are the ones who have the most proficiency in English since all the teaching as well as the standardized exams are in English. I voice this fact along with the suggestion that encouraging their kids to read the free English periodicals available or even watching television in English from a young age can help them tremendously later in school. This, by the way, is how several of my students have told me they first started picking up English. If you are one of these parents who have seen white people living in a totally different world from them, and now the one white guy stands up and suggests this, would you take him seriously? This really did happen and I’m sure some people understood and at least considered what I was saying. But from the blank stares (after translation into Afrikaans and Damara), I might as well have told them that they needed to make their kids sleep facing south east with a papaya in their non-dominant hand.

In addition, if the memories of colonial rule were sufficiently distant, or even if they weren’t, a functioning method of national operation would have developed before the arrival of aid. That is to say, regardless of how recent independence was obtained, a country stable enough to have development aid has a work culture that must already be functioning. People must be going to work, water and other utilities are most likely semi-stable and there has to be some sort of government and existing society. However, the finer points of this work culture will be at least foreign and at most mind-blowingly confusing. This past term, I was in charge of organizing transport for six learners going to a leadership camp in Windhoek. I had to get four learners from a school in the middle of nowhere (search for Okangwati on your favorite mapping program) to Opuwo where they would spend the night. Then they had to come down to Khorixas to pick up myself and two more learners and continue on to Windhoek. I admit that I have no idea how this would work in the states but I don’t think it would work like this: I faxed a letter to the director of education for the entire region (in Opuwo) two months early. He approved it and forwarded it to the education inspector of the northern Kunene region a month later (without telling me) who then sent it back to the transportation officer (three weeks later) who works here in Khorixas. I’m now one week from when I have to leave and panicking that I don’t have transportation. Three days before we’re supposed to leave, I get a call from the volunteer in Okangwati saying that he heard from one of the drivers that all was approved but we were leaving a day early. What? I went from thinking I would have to bribe private transport by phone, to leaving a day early. But this is normal for transportation in Namibia. Of course trying to change this backwards method or even trying to follow it not only gets you nowhere, but if you whine and yell too loud, it can get you left behind when you really need that transport. This seems specific, but is just one of many examples of the basic needs that somehow function here, but in a totally foreign way. It rarely has a direct effect, but the proximate effects come up enough that certain aspects of development are slowed or dropped completely because the basic needs are met in a different way. For example, I wouldn’t bother trying to hold a workshop for anyone other than teachers who live in Khorixas because transportation would be a nightmare even to get teachers from as close as fifty kilometers to Khorixas.

Assuming the colonial past and the foreign method of logistics work out, there is still the simple fact that the things we bring are exactly that: brought. The volunteer brings computers which the locals view as the volunteer thing. If your school functions well on faxes, why adopt email? Another example I’ve mentioned before is my school’s physical science lab. I can figure out what most of the chemicals and apparatuses are, but it was brought by a previous volunteer (most likely not solicited but also not rejected) and has since collected dust and will most likely collect dust after I leave. I can’t force any other teacher to use the lab, I can only make it as accessible as possible and leave it. Which segues nicely to my next point…

Problem 2: The dependence
These resources which are brought get left to the next volunteer who may arrive in a week, a month, or a decade. But no matter how long, it will most likely be left alone until white-boy Joe from Freedom Land gets there. That’s not to say the resources are not valued, it’s more like the adult version of a new toy. Every school in Namibia will have computers on its top three list of what it wants/needs. But when the computers arrive, no one wants to learn them. This is the way that the most well meaning donation or resource gathering project can just end up creating a little crack baby school. Bring in a resource that only the volunteer knows how to use, then you will need another volunteer. And after they get there, you don’t have to worry about learning anything about it, the volunteer will take care of it! We have our lab, our library, our computers and the chess club which were all created and/or improved by a volunteer but the staff and management think they need a volunteer to maintain them.

The second problem that the volunteer dependence causes is the fatalist attitude between the schools which do not have a volunteer, but see the schools that do. Several times, I’ve heard teachers from other schools say something to the effect of, “if we only had a volunteer, we would do better” or “Wahoo! Now we have a volunteer who will bring us everything!” An example was when I asked what my school wanted, one teacher said that I should get the town council to pave all the streets. Aside from the fact that the school really won’t benefit from that, I really don’t think the town needs paved streets, nor do I think that’s something I can do. The flip side of this messiah-esque status is that no idea I have is too stupid. If I had said, “Sure I’ll put all my effort into paving your streets. While I’m at it, I’ll get a wireless broadband tower installed” I’d still get an enthusiastic nod from everyone despite the fact that no one would have a wireless card and the single internet line going to South Africa through Windhoek can’t handle broadband. I’m still waiting to come up with an idea that my principal rejects. All of them certainly weren’t good because most I’ve come up with have since failed or fizzled out, but none were rejected outright. I wouldn’t be surprised if he agreed to a “fund raising” trip using learners to smuggle diamonds from Angola.

This isn’t much of an issue on the grass-roots level of a school, but there are aid workers going all the way up the ranks in the form of donors, consultants and simply acquaintances, all of them giving their two cents on how to improve something. The only thing preventing it from being a benevolent neo-colonization is the simple fact that aid organizations are a herd of cats which are incapable of working together.

The dependence then leads to projects failing during the window between incoming and outgoing volunteers or the failure of a project because the next volunteer simply has no knowledge of how to continue it, or does not want to. In this way, the dependence is working from both sides. The school, community, etc. wants another volunteer to take care of the things they have not yet mastered (whether or not by choice) and the volunteer wants to be replaced because they don’t want to see all their hard work dropped because of a lack of working knowledge, so both end up requesting another volunteer.

Problem 3: Inefficient aid
In any developing country there are multiple organizations working to accomplish similar goals but not officially working together. Instead they stumble upon each other within communities in the form of volunteers seeing the other at the local store. It’s up to the individuals to develop any sort of cooperation or pooling of resources to work towards a common goal. I had the benefit of meeting the person I replaced, and he told me there was a sports volunteer (SCORE) and a VSO I would be living with. In this way, I knew of the other volunteers in town and when the SCORE volunteer left, she was replaced by another, who I also met. In knowing the new SCORE volunteer, we started working together on the community hall project that I have mentioned before. Now, you would think that our parent organizations would at least know that there was a volunteer from the other organization in the same community so we could easily start something like this, but when I mentioned SCORE to our country director, he didn’t even know they were in the country or what they did.

This self-centered stance can even take the form of not wanting to appear like the other organization. I have heard, though not first hand, that some in VSO are advised not to carry around Nalgene-style water bottles since it is the Peace Corps label. Yeah, we carry Nalgenes and wear Chaco sandals so you can spot a PCV from a kilometer away. And we are also in harrier places than you and we don’t charge the host country for our work… so you can take your “volunteer” service organization and… well, you get the idea. But this is not the time or place to air my beef with VSO. Safe to say and contrary to all my grievances, I’m damn proud to be a part of Peace Corps.

The fact that some organizations are not even aware of others is minor compared to some of the more common errors in development execution. A favorite for NGOs (non-government organizations) and any other aid group is the all empowering WORKSHOP. Like so many other things in aid work, the idea is good, but the execution leaves things a little… well… undeveloped. A workshop can cover anything from a specific training on implementation of the new testing methods for physical science to the something as ambiguous as a “wellness workshop”. The idea is that one person from each region or community is trained at the workshop and then holds their own local workshop later to further pass on the skills. Sort of a Reagan-esque trickle-down development method. Good idea in principal and certainly the most efficient transfer of skills I can think of, the only problem is that it is never followed through. The workshop is held, people eat a bunch of food, there are some training sessions, and then everyone goes home. The following staff meeting, the principal looks at the teacher who just spent a week learning how to create a practical lab assignment and says, “What can you tell us about the workshop?” The teacher says, “It was very nice and we learned many interesting things. Those people from (fill in your favorite western country here) are good in science.” And…? What did you learn? Will you show others? When can we learn these things? Nope. Go to your own dagburn workshop if you want to know! But as far as the organization is concerned, they have done their job and can return with wide grins to tell all their friends, “I taught real African teachers how to make labs out of common things in their community!” So long as the number of people can be documented and sent back to the donor country, the money will keep pouring in. Aid workers are happy because they’ve done what they can, the parent nation is happy because the bureaucrats have numbers to make graphs with, and the host nation is happy because they got another twenty-bazillion-whatevers spent on them. So who’s to complain? Me! I get to watch a South African NGO hold a Wellness Workshop (whatever that means) that pays for a dozen Ministry of Education staff from each of the thirteen regions to go to Swakopmund, the vacation destination of Namibia. Travel, accommodation and food are all paid for in addition to all the workers still being officially on the clock at work. On top of all that, since it is a work related trip, everyone gets what is called S&T. S&T is an allowance paid by the government of Namibia to the workers to pay for their Stay and Travel expenses. Never mind that’s already paid for. Just to run that by one more time: the attendees of the workshop are paid their regular salary and given compensation for the travel and accommodation which has been provided for in such excess that people actually bring Tupperware containers to these events to take back food. A combined expense that would total several hundred thousand Namibian dollars if not a few million. Is that money well spent? Well, with less than 250,000 Namibian dollars, all of the learners at my school could go to school for and stay in the hostel for free with extra money left over to improve the food for an entire year. I think that would improve their “wellness”. Oh, I almost forgot. All those workers don’t make up for the lost time and productivity, things are just pushed back a week.

The biggest culprit of this sort of aid-based, government-supported graft is the warm and fuzzy HIV/AIDS workshop. What! You think we should stop sending money to prevent HIV/AIDS in Africa?! You must be some sort of evil, red, horned Beelzebub who stomps baby puppies and drives a Ford Excursion! No, that red is just sunburn and the horns are a slowly receding hair line. That puppy was a cockroach and a donkey cart just looks like a Ford Excursion in poor lighting. The jury is still out on the definition of “evil”, though I’m hoping for a plea bargain. In reality, Namibia is workshopped out and the money that comes in to hold more of these workshops is a waste. A student in grade seven here knows more about the transmission and prevention of HIV than most of the American population. So why do the infection rates continue to go up? Because there is nothing else to do! You can have as many posters, trainings, clubs, songs, dramas, magazines, awareness weeks and anything else, but at the end of the week, the only Friday or Saturday night activity for any age in small-town Namibia is going out drinking. Namibia doesn’t need another training or club about how to avoid “risky” behavior, it needs someone to fund an entertainment business that doesn’t sell alcohol. But the idea of giving money to the Khorixas Recreation Hall instead of the HIV/AIDS Club Meeting Room is a difficult one to wrap your mind around. Although, I do think it’s easier than trying to wrap your mind around the idea that no matter how much money gets pumped into HIV/AIDS prevention programs, the infection rate continues to rise. But like I said, I might be evil.

This workshop business is an example of the more broad idea of how ineffective it is to execute development from a western standpoint. Something gets lost in the translation when western governments assist in a way that makes sense to them. If you give a village woman $200 US to start her own business, in all likelihood she won’t put in a quarter of it and save the other $150 to cushion the inevitable initial loss. Instead she’ll spend it all on a combination of the business and her family members. Similar to the other cultural mismatches, the long term is not a priority here. I come to this conclusion after countless examples and several Namibians saying the same thing, so don’t start throwing around the R-word. Yet another example: at school, we are allocated a certain amount of copy paper to last the entire year. Last year we ran out before the middle of the third trimester so I suggested that this year we allocate a certain amount to each teacher depending on how many classes they taught. Then, keep the reserve for making end-of-term exams. That way, if a teacher ran out of paper, it was their own fault and would have to wait until next term to get more unless they could get some from another teacher or buy their own. We got most of the way through the first trimester this year when a teacher in the morning staff meeting said he had run out of paper and needed more. The principal said that the teacher just had to come to the office to get more, which got resounding approval from other teachers who had also run out of paper, but hadn’t mentioned anything. I voiced again that if we just hand out paper without a second thought, what was to prevent another situation similar to the one last year? “Oh, right. We must be careful” was all I got. The long term? I guess we’ll deal with that when we get there. And this isn’t just my interpretation. I was driving with one of the teachers from my school past two men herding their cattle along the highway. Due to the droughts this year, the wide embankments on the edge of the highway are the only places with a decent amount of grass left. I shook my head and commented on how meat would be expensive next year. My companion looked at me confused and I had to explain my rationale that if there was a drought this year, cattle would be sold cheap before they died of starvation. If more cattle were sold for less money this year, then next year there would be less cattle sold for more money. Fairly simple supply and demand, but still projected at least eighteen months in the future. The teacher contemplated this for a moment and said that that was why America had prospered more. He said that he had a hard time thinking of the end of this year and the end of next year had never come to mind.

These are just two examples of a number of situations where I’ve been presented with evidence of, and sometimes an individual stating that, the long term plan is non-existent. If you invest in an individual here, you also have to get his or her mind off of all the currently impoverished relatives they have, which is most likely the motive for starting the business in the first place. But how can you say to a person that they need to sit on that $150 for a year or two when their niece is getting kicked out of the hostel for not paying her fees? The solution is a tough one to swallow, and I’ll get to it later. For now, I have a few more bones to pick at.

Moving away from the individual and to the more national view, the development work I have seen has little to no real long term plan. We were part of the five year review of Peace Corps goals in Namibia where we all sit down and look at the goals of PC Namibia and adjust them based on what we have experienced. The goals were fairly specific but there is no real plan to achieve them and certainly no exit point where Peace Corps will say, “We’ve done all we need to for now, time to go.” I realize this is not reasonable in the true spirit of aid but at least to know what the previous volunteer was trying to achieve would be a good thing to communicate to both the next volunteer and the administration in general. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The fact is, when Peace Corps and other organizations go into a community, there is no plan for what needs to be done in the community or what should take priority. If five people are working to renovate a house, all of them should, say, replace the roof instead of one person sweeping the floor, with another repairing a door handle, two painting the west facing wall and one more checking all the bulbs. We are all trying to do our own little part to help the community, but not working together or cohesively on the local or national level between new and more seasoned workers makes our work become painfully inefficient. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the few resources available to volunteers are slow in arriving and involve a nest of red tape to negotiate. As a PCV, I can apply for one PEPFAR (Google it if you don’t know what this is) funded initiative during my service for a maximum of $3000 USD. I have a dilapidated classroom at my school that fits the bill easily but only needs about $600 of money to renovate it. The recreation hall in town, on the other hand, is a much greater resource to the community and would address the HIV infection rate much better but it is difficult to honestly tie this directly to HIV prevention since it is more a secondary prevention method. Plus the fact that the hall needs closer to $4000 to make the minimum improvements needed to get into working order. And since I applied for the classroom funding first, now I have to wait an additional three months for the recreation hall grant to go through, by which time it will most likely lose momentum. So now I have to start going to other donors for funding while the grant is in stasis at PC headquarters in Windhoek. If it does get approved, I will most likely have to decline the PEPFAR money from PC for the hall since I will have already secured the other donor. Got an extra $4000 lying around? Because it would save me a lot of letter writing and phone calls. Just kidding (but not really).

Volunteers and development workers are sent to nations with the best of intentions, but given the largest preventable obstacles to overcome. A volunteer who is willing to work for basically nothing but the experience should be given the most flexibility in what they do. Instead, we have administrations that are unaware of other organizations, much less knowledge of how to work with them. We are dropped in communities where there may be other volunteers, but we have to find them on our own. We fly blind for months figuring out what others have done before us and also failed at, wasting time and resources on things which should have been communicated to us from the start. If by some chance we do stumble upon a promising project which has not been beaten on before, we spend all our remaining time jumping through administrative hoops with the most honest goal being that, hopefully, another volunteer will show up to see the fruits of our labors and pick up the pieces. Alright, Mr. Pessimist, you got all these complaints, but how about some suggestions? I’m glad you asked.

Development, seriously!

1.) Make Host Country Governments Responsible
Existing development organization policy states that we have to be “invited” but you “invite” someone to a party. You don’t “invite” the plumber over to fix the toilet. You state a problem, a desired solution and a smart customer might even try to learn something in the process so they don’t have to call the plumber again. In the same light, a host country should have to develop a plan incorporating whichever organizations they propose to involve, delegating tasks and setting specific, testable milestones to be met. Not just, “improve math competency” but “develop a national average of X% by this date with further improvements of Y% until such-and-so”. Development and aid organizations would then work with the host government to create or modify a reasonable national goal, with consequences and completion rewards, before the work starts. The consequences mentioned would be on a more local level and I will explain them later.

The broad national plan would be disseminated to regional heads that identify target cities or communities with a reason that fits into the national plan. The communities are then tasked to develop community plans. Which schools both need help and have the potential to succeed? What resources are in the community and what can be developed with what priority? Who, specifically, will hover, learning how skills are used and how it all works? For each goal the community has, they must have a plan for how it will be sustained. I don’t mean a counterpart who, in reality, has another job and won’t ever be around. I’m talking about at least two people who will be present for the entire project, and each of them should have an alternate who can be used in the event that one is absent. Notes should be taken, questions asked and learning made a priority. As motivation for those counterparts, have guaranteed jobs lined up for them upon completion.

Again, using the experience I have as an example. Khorixas has six schools, including one of the worst in the nation, a large community hall, two empty swimming pools, a few empty buildings and a big housing problem. At present, there are two VSOs (one education administration and one social work), two PCVs capable of physical science and mathematics subject content, and one SCORE volunteer. As far as the schools go, start at the bottom. Make training four to six months for volunteers working in schools instead of the basic two month fly-by we get currently. During that time, learn the local language fluently so we can be useful in the lowest of primary classes, thus getting a solid education base started in the community. During the school term, the PCVs work on resource development in ALL the schools, not just one. They spend one term at each school learning the ins and outs of that school, team teaching and helping where needed. They focus exclusively on improvement of the first grade teachers with the help of the VSO education volunteer. Meanwhile, the VSO education volunteer holds afternoon training sessions for the first grade teachers with the PCVs helping the teachers implement the skills learned in the classroom. This is done concurrently nationwide within a two year window. In other words, by the third year, any community with a volunteer should have all of its grade one classes done. New communities should be established in the same way, starting from the bottom up, and held to a similar schedule. For instance, if the nation is mostly at the grade four stage (already completed grades one, two and three) when a new community establishes an acceptable community plan, the new community should start at grade one, not four.

Back to the Khorixas example. All the volunteers would work with the VSO social worker to identify and help get out-of-school youth back into school. The SCORE volunteer would work with PCVs to incorporate sports clubs in schools and create positive after school clubs. The VSO education and social worker would also work with the management staff at different schools on how to incorporate disabled students and effective discipline methods that are alternative to whacking the kids with sticks. The resources of the community would be placed in order of greatest impact. I believe that would initially be focusing donor money on housing projects and business development. However, these would be secondary to the primary projects of each volunteer. To accomplish all these things, each volunteer would have a certain amount of money ($5k-$10k USD?) at immediate disposal for funding such programs. To replenish those available funds, justification of the funding and potential of the project would need to be provided, but after the fact since a good project with momentum behind it cannot wait five months for funding. In a sort of shoot-now-ask-questions-later tactic, make the paperwork due after the fact. So when the community sets up a committee to improve the community hall, the funds are available to start work immediately. In short, reward innovation instead of passivity.

Of course, prior to any of this, the Ministry of Education would have worked with Peace Corps, VSO and SCORE to put a plan together with the target schools and community leaders. The resources that the community lists would need to come with a plan for how the resource could be used and what would be needed. Most importantly, there would have to be a set of local workers who would be there to learn skills. These community members would be there primarily to transfer skills and provide a realistic cultural perspective, with no reservations when the volunteer is about to commit a cultural faux pas. This would help with things like the transportation fiascos I mentioned earlier. If a new volunteer had to organize something like that, they would spend an untold amount of time and patience going through the wrong avenues. In addition, the local community member would have a much better idea of who to go to for various things. How do I get the rental of the hall transferred to a new name? Who should I contact to get an empty field leveled to make a soccer pitch? These are things that may have never come up with any previous volunteer but a local person would know immediately.

By entering the community with a plan in place, and communicating where the volunteer fits into that plan, the volunteer would be more prepared to make a reasonable amount of progress towards the goals of the community. This would most likely require communicating to a volunteer where they will go prior to departure from their home country and more overlap with the previous volunteer upon arrival. An honest description of the tasks would prevent the waste of resources that goes into moving a volunteer or sending him or her home early. Having a longer overlap of previous and new volunteers would provide the best training possible for entering a community and allow for a window period where the volunteer could get an honest assessment as to whether or not they can be of help to that site. If these things can be coupled with placing more resources (money and access to transport) at the volunteers’ disposal, real progress could be made on a grass roots level and in an amount of time that the community members who have skills transferred would be able to put them to use immediately.

With all the extra resources coming into the community with the volunteers, there would have to be some incentive to completion of different aspects of the overall community plan. These could be in the form of further donations of things like books, additional computers, funding for infrastructure development, etc. True, there are already programs in place which bring these into developing countries, but there is always more need than resources. The government would have to take in the donations and distribute them based on acknowledgement of various completions. To prevent sending too many resources into one school or community, these types of rewards would need to be large enough to be a good incentive but only on a one-time basis.

These rewards (volunteer resources, rewards for completion of projects) would also have to be combined with the possibility of a form of punishment for the mistreatment or mismanagement of volunteers and/or resources. For instance, a school could be barred from receiving another volunteer or the government could distribute resources to a different community. This would further tie the concept of good planning and progress to reward.

For example, my school has six computers that are still used only on an informal basis and certainly not to their full potential. If one volunteer could train several teachers in how to hold computer classes and then those classes were held for a long amount of time, at least a year, without the additional assistance of the volunteer, the school could be rewarded with additional computers. If the community hall is completed on schedule with the community leadership in place to run it, the first year of rental could be waived by the municipality and the utilities could be paid using donor money distributed by the government. On a national level, the consistent progress of a developing nation could be rewarded with things like reduction/removal of loan interest, increased imports or simply public/official recognition of progress to bring the nation more in the world’s eye, especially for foreign investment. On the other hand, if a school drags its feet on providing housing to a volunteer, the school could be barred from requesting another volunteer from any organization for a certain amount of time. If the government is found to be distributing funds in an inappropriate manner or exaggerating progress, the various funding agencies could pull their moneys.

In short, progress will not be made if there is not a tangible reward for all the parties involved and a real consequence for conscious, preventable failure. Planning and a cohesive execution of that planning by everyone will keep progress solidly in place.

Final Thought
This is a confession and a little something for those considering the Peace Corps or other government organization as a sort of intermission from their so-called normal life (not that anyone outside my family and a few last state-side friends reads this, but I’ll say it anyway). I enjoy the development work here, that is clear to me. Making a career of it is certainly appealing right now. The only problem is that I’m not working in development right now. I’m working in Public Relations. The three goals of Peace Corps are:
To help the people of interested countries meeting their needs for trained men and women.
To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
So 67% of my job is helping America interact with “other peoples”. This explains a lot of the “help” we do here. We are dropped into a community and told to help them, but not given the tools which are actually needed. And of course there’s not an exit strategy, or indicators, if the community is sufficiently helped. We are a bunch of under paid, benevolent PR representatives for the American government. And the sooner PCVs or prospective PCVs realize this, the sooner they will understand all the frustrations they have or will have. I’m officially not here to help anyone, I’m here to promote America. Again, not really any grand revelation, and I’ve known this for some time, but it seemed like the time to voice it. Still, I’m proud to be a part of it and now with about half a year left, I’m looking back on my time fondly and I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any other way.

Green light.

What’s Goin On?

And now… the latest. My work has been keeping me out of the house and the internet café quite a bit lately. I just want to give a (relatively) short description as to why nothing seems to show up here lately.

School
I reduced my teaching load to accommodate these other projects I’ve been working on, and which I’ll delve into in a minute. I was teaching about thirty periods per week last year. This year I’m teaching only eighteen. I think this has been the triggering change that has solidified my previous feeling that I was not meant to be a teacher. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it. There’s a lot that I do enjoy, and I think when I sit down and really plan a good lesson, class goes well (and I have fun). But the good times aren’t good enough to try and make a career out of it. It’s been a fun thing to visit, but I don’t think I want to make a life out of it.

I have followed most of my learners from the previous year (assuming they passed) so the good and the… um… challenging… are all the same. I’ve changed rooms twice now. Once to give a teacher who had a full load the bigger class, and then again when a new teacher arrived. I’m now full time in the lab where there are about fifteen stools and two desks to accommodate seating of forty one learners. It’s a well disciplined and perfectly organized class. It also snows regularly and magical pink elephants carry me around the room. (A sort of epilogue since I first wrote this post: I convinced my principal that we should get long boards to make benches out of the few stools. These are now in my class and things are improving slightly. I think it’s more of a classroom management problem i.e., I have no classroom management.)

I’ve been trying to get the chess and science clubs going again, but getting kids to show up to the meetings is proving to be like pulling teeth out of an angry hippo. If thirty sign up, ten don’t really want to but sign up with their friends, twelve have something else to do, and the other eight forget they signed up in the first place. If I’m lucky, three might show intentionally with a few more just because they are passing by. But by god, I will teach them how to play chess if they like it or not!

Not School
During the April to May school holiday, Peace Corps puts on Camp GLOW (Girls and Guys Leading Our World) for youth ages 14 to 16. The camp teaches team building, leadership, and life skills which are then taken back by the learners to, hopefully, be used at their schools. The camp is five days with a theme for each day. I’m helping with Team Building day this year which will consist mostly of games in a full day competition where the team who gets the most points by placing well in each of the races gets the prize. Though, we still don’t know what the prize is. The games are variations on things most people have had at some summer camp somewhere: passing people through the ‘spider web’, five people on planks stepping together to run a race, and other things that are essential skills to have in life. I mean, I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve had to throw someone through a netting of ropes without touching any of the sides! Many of the volunteers who help with the camp say it is the highlight of their PC experience so I’m excited. I’m helping to organize transport for six learners and myself from the far northwest down to Windhoek starting on the 27th. After that, its time for Fish River Canyon again, but I’ll talk about that another time.

Aside from the camp organizing, school, clubs and the battle at home, I’ve started to work with the local SCORE volunteer on a new and daunting task. In case you forgot, or I didn’t explain before (which is far more likely), SCORE is Sports Coaches out Reach program from South Africa but with volunteers from all over the world. Their term is one year where the volunteer is to develop sports in their community. In other words, they play games with kids. Sometimes I think I joined the wrong development organization.

The SCORE volunteer in Khorixas, Terje (tear-eh-yah), and I came across the old “whites only” club from back in the day, now known simply as the Community Hall. From the outside, the Community Hall looks like a big warehouse complete with broken windows and missing doors. Inside it has one large room with a stage at one end and what appears to be a DJ or film operator balcony at the other end. Behind the wall opposite the stage is a medium sized room that has a low ceiling held up by metal pillars. One of the pillars was knocked out and so the ceiling is now sort of half drooping on one side. These two rooms make up the southern two thirds of the building. The north side has a couple of rooms that could be used for offices, a kitchen missing ALL the possible fixtures, two restrooms with four stalls each, and even a snooker room complete with snooker table. For those who don’t have a busted apart snooker table and a Norwegian to explain what the heck snooker is, snooker is like pool played on a much larger table with much smaller balls and pockets. Everything in the hall that wasn’t nailed down, and most of the things that were, have been stolen. The snooker table stayed behind simply because it’s just way too big to move.

We went through the hall a couple of times to check out what work needs to be done and make a shopping list. Carefully avoiding the broken glass, trashed garbage (yes, it is possible), and piles of human excrement, we figured out that the place is in good working order and needs some cosmetic help. Okay, it needs a team of people working like mad to get to a point where a health inspector would even walk in the non-existent door. Not that there are health inspectors here to inspect buildings, but you get the idea. I’m optimistic, honest!

Outside the building to the west is a dried out pool which was rented out by someone else, who we haven’t been able to meet yet, but hopefully we can coordinate our efforts. South of the hall is a dirt patch big enough to easily accommodate two volley ball courts. North of the pool are a few sports courts which are in equally bad shape as the hall. A basket ball court exists but needs poles, hoops and some new lines. Two tennis courts sit beyond that, also missing nets, fences and poles. There’s a small badminton court next to the tennis courts also missing everything except the pavement. That seems to be the one thing we can rely on finding, the concrete foot print that sports once existed here. We’ve set up a volunteer guard at the site to make sure the ground doesn’t get stolen.

Our game plan is to apply for grants for the repairs on the hall and get a sports office established on the eastern half of the building where the medium room with the collapsing ceiling is since it still has burglar bars. Yes, our first step is to move into the room with the collapsing ceiling, you got a problem with that? That’s how we do it here! Of course we might have to get all that glass and poop off the floor first. So get the office established and donations from partner sports programs to get supplies for the sports areas. That’s the short(ish) term plan.

Terje leaves at the end of June and our goal is to have the hall clean with a team of Khorixas volunteers ready to continue working. Between the time he leaves in June and when the new SCORE volunteer arrives in August, I hope to get the office in place and have some funding secured so we can start to work on other things. By the time I leave, I want to have the supplies purchased and work started on the rest of the hall, along with a solid local volunteer base to work from. Then I can hand it off to the next volunteer so the whole thing can flop and lay dormant for five or six years. But again, I’m optimistic…

TRANSFER YOURSELF

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been avoiding the ‘blogo-sphere’ as of late, but this is something I’m too pissed off about to pass up. As always, my sweeping generalizations and sarcastic bitterness are just that: mine. With that out of the way, let’s open the flood gates. By the way, those looking for a Rated-G blog should skip the last paragraph.

Mariel, the other PCV here in Khorixas, left last week. I’m going to try to tell Mariel’s story with only the essential details, though I may get a few events mixed up in sequence, the overall theme will become apparent. Mariel’s original assignment was at a Teacher’s Resource Center in Gobabis. On paper, she was supposed to visit schools, hold training courses, and develop resources. In actuality, the support needed to do these things was less than available. Schools, like everything else in Namibia, are extremely spread out and communication with them is difficult, more so when your office doesn’t have phones (which Mariel’s didn’t). Transport was an issues since no one from the Ministry of Education ever wants to drive unless a free meal is involved, much less to get enough transport coordinated for an entire group of schools to send a teacher or two the two or more hours it takes to get to the Gobabis TRC. Mariel, like all volunteers, learned the problems and dealt with the ones she could while latching on to the projects which actually had a chance of pulling through. The one, and possibly only, example was the library. After collecting, organizing, and shelving all the books in the TRC library, she left for vacation. Upon return, her supervisor had changed everything back to the poorly accessible, dreary disorganized state the library had been in before. The one person who was supposed to want her help and support her work had erased months of hard work without notice. With no ways of visiting schools, and a manager who killed project ideas before they could start, Mariel transferred to the Welwitschia Junior Secondary School in Khorixas.

At WJSS, Mariel was not given a classroom and taught only extra periods of classes where the teachers were absent or the subject was non-promotional. In effect, the rejects and dregs of what was left. It was third term so the school was in a state of chaos which can excuse the apparent ambivalence of the school management when it came to something as minor as a new teacher which they had to apply for! Cut to term one of this year. Mariel was given a series of non-promotional classes again and the classroom situation was still lacking.

WJSS is possibly the poorest performing school in the nation when measured on the typical ‘Grade 10 Pass Percentage’ method. Out of forty-something students in grade ten, two ‘passed’. There are big quotes around that since ‘passing’ is achieving a 40% or higher in at least six out of nine subjects. So why such a low pass rate? Allow me to digress into a brief explanation of the school system here. It is against Ministry of Education Policy for a student to repeat a grade more than twice. This ‘automatic promotion’ means that if you fail a grade twice, you are automatically promoted to the next grade. Thus, it is theoretically possible to be sixteen and going into grade eight with little more than a grade two or three competency in many subjects. Keep in mind thins could also be due to absenteeism, family issues, financial problems, or the simple fact that after grade four, all teaching is in English which is almost never the child’s home language. Secondary schools (grades eight to ten) in Namibia are applied to much in the way colleges are applied to in the states. You choose the schools you want to go to and send in your grades. If you passed, you are usually accepted, but some schools are more competitive and require high marks. All schools have a target range of learners that they need to accept because they have the facilities and teachers to accommodate them, otherwise the government will bus in learners to bring them up to the right population. The better performing schools have the ability to accept or reject learners based on grades while the lower performing schools work to fill vacancies so they have the correct number of learners. This is the self perpetuating cycle that WJSS has found itself in. Since they are the lowest ranked school, no well performing learner goes there by choice, leaving them filling their rosters with learners who have been transferred through the system for one reason or another. They pass only four percent of grade ten learners per year, not because their teachers are bad, but because only four percent of their learners have a grade ten competency.

But what’s the point? The Ministry of Education looks upon the schools with this pass rate ranking system and attempts to affect change in the underperforming schools by making drastic changes not to the enrollment or ranking systems, but to the faculty. At term one of this year, the school was called together for an evaluation and meeting regarding its, yet again, dismal results. Blame was passed about as usual. Some of the teachers stated the obvious case that the school is receiving failing learners which, of course, results in low… results. But no, that’s too logical (and has way too much repetition). The correct solution: re-staff most of the school with more qualified teachers. Who would stay and who would go was left up to a small group that included one or two school inspectors and the principal. The fact that the principal is a widely suspected pedophile and ‘under investigation’ for impregnating a learner didn’t seem to exempt him from the decision making body.

A week later, the hammer fell. The teachers who would be transferred were given letters from the principal, signed by one of the inspectors on behalf of the director though, oddly, not actually signed by the director himself. Mariel, who has come to school every day, taught when possible, and was willing to stay on through April, even though she had a far better job lined up in Mali, was one of those transferred. The subject of the memo: TRANSFER YOURSELF (all in caps). She had been transferred to the Khorixas TRC, another TRC where massive resources collect dust and the workers have been observed sleeping on the couches due to the lack of things to do.

At the time of writing this, WJSS still does not have an English teacher and half the classes sit idle as the government drags its feet on placing new teachers there. In what is really her best interest, Mariel has returned home for a few months before she will leave again to teach at an International School in Mali.

We had athletics (AKA track and field) again this weekend. Take a look at one of the earlier posts for a more complete picture of how big a joke this is. This year, it was (dis)organized by WJSS, known for their spectacular leadership. As it was last year, Carl and I were used as timers for all the races. This year, seven sports volunteers from the SCORE organization were present to help out with all aspects of the events. Looking at the task list, a SCORE person had been placed as an official for every event, twelve in total, despite the fact that they had not officially been invited. They just happened to show up and be on the schedule. Last year, we had stop watches, a tent, a lap counter, a loudspeaker, multiple measuring tapes, and enough teachers to do record keeping and recording all before the day started. This year, an hour and a half after the official start time, there was a tent and that’s about it. Since I was working on timing, I thought we might want some stopwatches. Maybe. I asked the fearless organizer, the WJSS Principal, what we should do about stop watches. ‘Use the cell phones’ was his reply. I won’t dive into the technical hurdles of using a cell phone to time six different people in a 100 meter dash, but it would be better to just count ‘one-thousand-one’ and then make up decimal places. I knew we had stop watches at our school so I asked why we don’t just go get those. ‘That will take five hours and we want to start now!’ Actually, it took ten minutes and I was back before any of the races started. But he didn’t know that since he didn’t have a stop watch to time it.

The SCORE volunteers dispersed to different events and we worked on timing. I tried to show the one or two teachers who came over how to do the timing but no one cared. In fact, the only reason anyone came to talk with us in the blazing heat was to ask for a chair or help somewhere else. We sat in the sun timing until about one in the afternoon. At that time, two teachers had come up with a new reason to make the long trek out from the tent and come all the way over to talk to us: they said their student had come in second in one of the races while we had him down as fifth. This was a 100 meter final where the differences between first and last were less than a meter. We had one person timing, one recording the previous race, and one trying to keep track of all six places. Yes, we might have made some mistakes but that’s why you’re supposed to have seven people there instead of three. I felt too tired, too hot, and too hungry to put up with this crap. I felt like the Little Red Hen and ain’t nobody gettin’ no bread from me!

There were eight races left to time, all of which were the 400 meter. Carl and I packed up our stuff and I told my Vice Principal that we were leaving. He agreed and told me to take the timers with me, though I would have anyway. I walked up to the Principal of WJSS and told him we were leaving. He had four other people on the list he was supposed to use and ten inside the tent doing nothing. Plenty of helpful hands right there staying shady.
“Are you taking the stop watches?”
“Yes.” All he has to say is ‘okay’ and I’ll quietly leave.
“But the timers need them” Strike one.
“You said using the cell phones would work fine”
“Yes, but now that they are here, Goreseb should leave them.” Strike two.
“Well, it’s only the 400 meter that’s left. The cells should work fine for that.”
“Yes, but why should Goreseb take the watches?” Strike three, you’re out.
“YOU have made choices in planning this. Some day YOU are going to have to live with the consequences. We are leaving.”
“Fine”
We’re outta there. Later, Carl and I decided this combination of stupid planning and chronic apathy needed a new word since it is so common. We’ve dubbed it ‘stupathy’ and will submit it to Wiktionary as soon as Namibia gets broad band connectivity. Until then, we’ll work on a proposal to get it added to Webster’s Unabridged 2010 edition.

I hear similar stories to these from other volunteers from many other organizations all over this country. We come here to help and are expected to provide bailouts for others incompetence. Many volunteers in Namibia find themselves treated as free labor (which we usually are) that can be given sub-standard treatment, ignored, belittled, used and discarded. The need for help is obvious, and those high up in the Namibian government have requested aid. But when the aid is delivered, we are treated with an apathy that can leave you feeling like some sort of cheap benevolent whore. Fill out a form and stick a roof over our heads and we will show your students our math, spread some computers, and maybe even polish your library’s knob. When you’ve had your two year fling with us, we’ll happily send in a younger, more nubile, virgin volunteer to do it all again. I’m not asking for a parade, or to have my name on a plaque, or even a ‘thank you’ as I gather my wrinkled clothes from the floor. All I, or any other volunteer wants is for some Namibian to be excited, or at least present for the work we try to accomplish. Tell us what you want, and if there is a thread of hope of accomplishing those goals, we will throw our hearts and souls at it. But if we run a week long training on the other side of town, could you send a government car to help with moving the supplies? If you want the staff to learn how to write a grant, could you schedule the training? And if you want us to teach, could you give us a classroom? The desire is there with an in-your-face need, but I’m here to lend a hand, not to give a hand job.

December (January?) Vacation – Zambia (Round Two)

We got up early on the second to run some errands before going to the bus zoo to find a ride to Mchinji that is next to the Zambian boarder. We are traveling with two other Malawian PCVs who are going back to their sites. Four Zambian PCVs were going the same way and had arrived in Lilongwe yesterday, but we wouldn’t meet up with them for the rest of our trip. We went to the same bus parking area in town we had gone to with Dani’s family and found a bus that had Mchinji written on the front. We were the first five people so it would be a long wait. The first time we were here, we were the last three people to fill up the bus so we left relatively soon. This time, we got a long wait and came to appreciate the bus window vendors who walk around through the buses trying to sell things. To get your attention, the vendors make a sort of short hissing sound, the way you would imitate a snake, or slowly leaking gas line. So I’m sitting there, minding my own business when I hear a “tss… tss… tss…” over my shoulder. There is a guy standing there holding cell phone pouches and lanyards. I can definitely say at this point, I have no use for either of those. As the hours roll on, we would be offered everything from the normal (corn, water, candy, and bread) to the functional (toothbrush/toothpaste combos, cell phone chargers, pens) to the completely random (shower caps, umbrellas, girl’s underwear).

If you have read everything up to here (thank you, and I’m so sorry) you know that getting back into Zambia was going to be a problem for one of us. The other two had just enough days left on the multiple entry visas that we could get in, but one had expired back in December. Paul, who was supposed to make everything alright, was no where to be seen so we had to go with our powers of luck and charm. We filled out our entry forms all with the exact same information down to how much we estimated to be spending in Zambia. We would come up with our passports open in an order of one, two, and three. The first two people were supposed to get the boarder guard into a rhythm of stamping the visas, so when the third person got there the guard would, hopefully, not think twice and just stamp away. We approached the front with person one ready to go. There was a slight confusion with counting up to fourteen, but the guard figured out that the visa was good. Person number one had laid the ground work. Person number two came up with the exact same visa and turned on the charm. By the time person two’s visa had been stamped, the guard was laughing and joking like an old friend. Person three walked up and the guard glanced at the entry form only long enough to stamp it. It looked like we were in business. Holding the stamp up, he paged through person three’s passport. Then he put the stamp down. The three of us took a breath in and held it. He had turned back from the page person three had left open for him and was going through all the other visas. He came to a stop on the Malawian visa, grabbed the stamp, slammed it on the passport and told the three of us to have a nice day. You know in cartoons when people leave quickly and there is a cloud in the shape of their body still standing there? I think that’s what we left behind.

We walked across the border and were immediately offered a ride by a Zambian couple who were heading into Chipata. This was perfect, seeing as we had no money in Zambian kwacha and didn’t feel like dealing with money changers on the street, or negotiating yet another ride in rand. We got dropped in the middle of Chipata, across the street from the taxi corral we had stopped at the first time we came through. No one rushed us this time, but I think it was obvious we were heading the other direction. We went into a small change bureau to get some Zambian money. The other bureaus we had been at required a passport and had at least some sort of security at the front. This one was just a room with two women sitting behind desks with a large calculator (shared) and the current exchange rate written on a white board. They didn’t want our passports, and certainly had no way of giving us a receipt. I think we had just used the most official looking informal change bureau in the entire country. Whatever, we got our money and it was useable.

We walked to the place where we had ended up in the big bus taxi race from the previous week in hopes of finding a bus to Lilongwe. There was nothing in the parking area except coke (the drink) trucks. I asked one of the drivers, Moses, about what we should do for a ride. He gave us all the information we could need: the correct cost, where to buy tickets, when the next bus would leave (not till tomorrow) and where to stand out on the highway if we wanted to try and hitch. So a guy named Moses gave us all the information we would need to get out of this town. We followed Moses’ advice and walked for forty… minutes… down the road before a bus stopped and let us on. Hmm… someone should write a book about that, or something.

This bus was a full on long haul bus. Large, with room underneath for luggage and high backed seats that reclined straight into the lap of the person behind you. The bus did, however, follow the same pattern as the smaller buses. We still stopped every ten to twenty kilometers to load or unload people or things. This was a little nerve racking since our stuff was in the storage compartment and we couldn’t see what was going on while sitting inside. I have a preference of sitting either on my bag, or at least within sight of it when I’m hiking and breaking that rule had me pressing my forehead up against the window whenever we stopped to try and see what was happening.

Since we had such a late start, we wouldn’t get to Lusaka until ten at night. That’s fine by me though, since the road going through that section of the country is extremely narrow and winding. During the night, we passed an overturned semi and I think one other accident of some kind. We got to the bus station in Lusaka and got a taxi to the backpacker’s place we had stayed at before, Chachacha’s. Tent up, we bedded down for yet another night. The climate of Malawi and Zambia this time of year is hot and wet, which had made it difficult to dry anything. Our tents were starting to smell a little, and the clothes I had washed in Lilongwe hadn’t dried and were starting to mold inside my pack. The cleanest things I had were the things I had been wearing for three days and I was starting to appreciate the excruciatingly dry and hot climate of Namibia.

We got up the next day and realized we still hadn’t changed enough money to pay our bill, so it was back into the fun filled town center of Lusaka again to change money before we left. It seemed to be the pattern for this trip that we would always be about ten percent short of the last bill we had to pay whenever leaving a country. We got the money changed and went to the bus station. On this trip to the bus station, we were able to gain a full appreciation for the madness of it. The bus station in Lusaka more resembles a small airport terminal, but without the runway. Full size tour buses are everywhere, dwarfing the small minibuses we had grown accustomed to. I can tell that there’s some sort of system here since when we say, “Livingstone” we are taken to a specific area. The large buses want 65000 for each person, but we think we can get away with fifty. The ride is short and we have all day so we just keep walking along repeating “Livingstone, Livingstone, Livingstone” until someone comes up to us. At this point, we’ve figured out the most efficient method of negotiating is to agree on the max price between the three of us beforehand and then claim to have exactly that much and no more. Dishonest? Maybe, but not anymore than negotiating down to that same price (and we are on a budget.) The guy that has grabbed my arm after I said Livingstone is dragging me towards a bus. I tell him that we can only pay fifty each. He thinks this is a bargaining opportunity and says to just make it sixty-five.
“No, we only have fifty each. I’m not trying to talk you down, this is all we have”
“Oh, just make it sixty-three and we can go.” We are starting to attract a crowd of others who also want our money. Excellent.
“No, really. Fifty is all we have and that’s it.”
“Ah, you won’t find anyone who will take you for fifty” he says.
“I will, come with me” says another man. Ha! In yo face, other guy!

We get led to a small minibus where the guy who agreed with us starts talking to another man who is holding a receipt book. The second man writes us each a receipt takes our money and loads our bags in the back. We find seats inside the almost empty bus and start waiting. After getting the bags completely squashed in the luggage spot, the man with the receipt book comes back wanting another fifteen thousand for each bag. We repeat that all we have is the fifty each. He says he’ll knock it down to ten, then seven, then five. We get up and start to ask for our money back and magically it becomes no problem and we can stay. We are the masters of negotiation! Offer three quarters of what the cost should be and then threaten to walk every time more money is asked. The only problem is that we have to stick to our story which means we can’t buy water, toothpaste, shower caps or underwear from the vendors who come to our window for the next two hours while we wait.

When we finally do get going, we do the same bus thing that we’ve done the whole trip. Stop, unload, reload and start driving. Someone comes running up to the closing door, get them in, they don’t have enough money, slow down and push them out, close door and keep going. That last part only happened once, but it was entertaining. We got to Livingstone at nine-thirty at night. We seem doomed to always arrive at our destination after dark, regardless of how early we leave. We get dinner at one of the pubs in town. Tonight, they have a live band playing, of all things, Elvis and Bob Marley covers. Over our pizza dinner, we listen to four Zambians belt out remarkably good versions of ‘Jail House Rock’, ‘Hound Dog’, and some Marley songs. I can’t remember the Marley songs since they seemed normal when compared to hearing and seeing someone do an Elvis strut that would put many Vegas impersonators to shame. The best part: the band had the requisite blind old man sitting on the side with a cane, bobbing his head to the music.

We stayed one more day in Livingstone to get our bus tickets for Intercape (the South African bus company that runs all over South Africa and parts of Namibia). And, of course, we had to go to Subway one last time. Subway had just opened when we were there the first time, so we excused the fact that they were missing at least a third of their menu. We were hoping for a little more selection this time, since they had now been open for a couple of weeks. When we got there, though, they had even less. Lettuce, tomato, pickles, any cheese except parmesan, cookies, chips, oil and vinegar were all missing. Not only that, when we tried to get them to compensate for the lack of lettuce and tomato by putting extra olives on, they refused! We are only allowed six olives per foot-long. This is a crock! They aren’t YOUR olives! Some things I’ve grown to appreciate in America are the little benefits to working for “The Man”. When you work for The Man, nothing you are selling is yours and the customer is always right. If the store ran out of a staple like lettuce, something that goes on each and every sandwich, it is your duty as the corporate worker to dump an entire olive tree on that sandwich to quell the frustrations of the customer. The Man won’t come in and make sure there are the exact number of olives on that sandwich, but you know that the customer is feeling gypped already and you have the power to decide where your relationship goes from there. You can pledge allegiance to The Man and deny olives, or you can be the hero and create a solid five minute bond with that customer and pile on olives even though both of you know you’re not supposed to. I think this is yet another skill that must be transferred to developing nations, so starting next year, I will have a few mini-lessons on the concept of The Man in western culture. If these countries are going to have places like Subway and KFC, they need the training that we, in our teenage years, take for granted: the power of the lowly food service worker to make or break any person’s day with something as simple as a hand (or fist) full of olives.

We boarded our Intercape bus on the fifth and rode that all the way back to Namibia. I got to Megan’s at a little before three in the morning to find the gate locked. So there I am, tired, dirty, and smelling fairly rank staring up at the fence I had jumped back at the start of this vacation. It’s appropriate that this is where this story will end and I will return to the ‘normal’ routine I’ve come to appreciate here in Namibia. Yes, it’s an expensive, corrupt, hot, sandy country with an unforgiving climate and could possibly have a massive overpopulation of volunteers, but it’s mine. I complain and make snide comments on most every detail, but deep down I appreciate what the country has to offer, what it has done for me and what it has changed within me.

With a running start, I javelin my bag over the top of the fence, snagging the waist belt, and sending it into a flip before crashing to the ground. I climb up and over, gingerly negotiating the two overhanging rows of barbed wire and descending the other side. If a guy with a thirty pound pack can get into this place in under two minutes, who exactly are they keeping out? Crippled old women and paraplegics? The back door is open and I quietly sneak in and crash on the floor.

Acknowledgements:
I’d like to thank Silas again for unknowingly loaning the tent, sleeping pad, and guide book. Thanks to Carl for organizing the first half of the trip and continuing to join me in doing stupid extreme sports in Africa. Thanks to the Malawi PCVs for letting us crash the New Years at their place. As their shirts say, “Quite possibly the best volunteers on the planet” (second of course to Namibia!). Thanks to Megan for letting me stay at her house for the past week to type all this madness (and letting me watch the first two seasons of ‘Lost’). Special thanks to Angie and Robin for sharing in this experience. I had a blast and I hope you did too. Finally, thanks to my parents, family, and friends back home for staying in touch and giving me the best reasons to count the days in this final year. I hope you’ve enjoyed this and I’m sorry for any and all errors, offenses, shocks and/or awes I may have caused or included. It takes me long enough to write this that I have no desire to proof read. Hats watt spell checks are four. Please submit any complaints by yelling them into the screen now. See ya!

December Vacation – Nkhata Bay to Lilongwe (The Other Way)

We left Nkhata bay on the morning of the thirtieth. We don’t have to wait too long for the bus to load, and when we leave there’s the requisite eighteen people crammed inside but with a little more luggage than our earlier rides. This time we have two large baskets of fish sitting up front and a guy in the back who has to large jugs of gasoline. With the bus stopped, the gasoline smell is bad enough that I think we would have blown up if someone had struck a match. This is relieved by the wonderful smell of rotten fish when the bus is moving with the wind pushing the petroleum smell out the back. During the seventy kilometer trip along the Lake Malawi coast line we have about an even mixture of these two, since the bus stops every two kilometers to either pick someone up, or drop them off. During the course of the trip, a wide range of people embark and disembark from our aquatic-fossil-fuel scented interior including business men, evangelicals, mothers with babies, and one old woman carrying a live chicken. I think this is a requirement of a minibus ride in Malawi. At some point on every bus, there will be a live chicken, whether you know it or not.

We had paid the cost to get all the way to Nkhotakota which is half way between Nkhata Bay and Lilongwe along the coast road. About two thirds of the way through our trip, we get to Dwangwa. We pull up to the bus stop, which is little more than a turn out with a picture of a bus next to it in the middle of town, and the bus driver says that we need to unload. Our bus is out of fuel and Dwangwa is out of fuel too. An entire town out of gasoline? No problem, we are being transferred to another vehicle that does have fuel and an additional ten people already in it. Another compact pick up ride with no canopy for the bed. To fit all the people and stuff, we have the tail gate lowered with stuff tied down to make the bed a little longer. Half of the makeshift wall is a huge basket of tomatoes and the other half is our three packs piled up. Oh, and it’s starting to rain. So the truck that was already loaded with ten people is now loaded with an additional twelve plus a baby or two. No chicken though, but this isn’t a minibus, so is not a requirement.

Before leaving, I notice something a little strange about Dwangwa. Although the town is extremely small and appears to exist within an area about two hundred yards long, most of which is an open market on one side and bottle stores on the other, there are a lot of bikes. I guess this makes sense because the town obviously runs out of gas often enough. It’s just shocking to see so many people riding bikes, and an entire rank of bike taxis. Oh, bike taxis are the same as normal bikes, but with a rack on the back equipped with a cushion for the comfort of someone precariously perched, trying not to get anything caught in the chain or the wheels while in motion.

The rest of the ride to Nkhotakota goes the same as when we were in the minibus, although the transfers of passengers are a little easier since there aren’t any walls to hold us in or out. At its fullest, I think we had twenty-three in the back and four in the cab plus a baby here or there. The rain stopped though, which was nice.

Nkhotakota is spread out over several kilometers and set, mostly, inland from the shore. We got dropped in what I can only assume was the town center, though we walked for at least a kilometer towards the shore and the town never really got more or less dense. Nkhotakota seems to be the last major town that hasn’t been over run with the tourist scene yet. This is fairly easy to gauge based on people’s reaction to us. In places like Nkhata Bay and Livingstone, we didn’t get a second glance since we were just another group of white people passing through. In Nkhotakota, we were stared at by several people and enough kids pointed at us that I’m pretty sure tourists are a rarity here.

We stayed at a place called Pick and Pay Lodge and Restaurant. Pick & Pay is the name of one of the supermarket chains that span across southern Africa. This is a little like calling your place the Safeway Select Motel. The rooms are… rustic. The rooms have a sort of perma-dirtiness and the mattresses need to be fumigated (by incineration). Still, a bed and a mosquito net are better than a tent since the camping area is in the parking lot and there’s high volume of trucker traffic that stays there.

Our options for eating were either the Pick and Pay Restaurant or the adjoining restaurant. We had dinner at Pick and Pay and wanted to try something new for breakfast. We sat down ready to try whatever the ‘Continental’ was and the waiter/chef/owner told us that he would be happy to make it and just wanted to know when we wanted to have it. Um… now, or in the next hour would be nice. That was a problem since he had to take our order and then go to town to buy the food, then cook it, then we could eat. So if we wanted to tell him when we wanted to eat, he’d be happy to go and get the food. We were touched, but (as politely as possible) we told him that we were leaving that morning and so kind of wanted to eat soon, like before twelve, so we went back to Pick and Pay. Breakfast was two fried eggs, toast, rice porridge and coffee. It was good, and didn’t involve waiting for someone to drive into town and buy the food.

Back out for more joys of hiking. We arrive at the bus stop to find a mostly full bus. Two guys rush us to say there’s room. The Pick and Pay manager (owner?) told us that the price should be 650 to Lilongwe. The bus initially says 750 and we say 600. They agree to 650 but when we get to the bus, there isn’t even room for just one person with a bag. That isn’t to say that all the seats are full and we’ll have to cram. No, that line was crossed long ago. There physically is not room for the three of us. Never the less, the driver tells me to sit on a seat (which has a kid on it) and then sit with my bag on my lap. The passengers start to make groaning sounds and I make it apparent that I agree with them. There is no way all of us will fit. We get out and go wait under a tree on the other side of the street. Sitting there, a kid about twelve years old starts asking us for money, then clothes, then shoes, then food. He’s selling frozen drink packets out of a cooler and I start getting irritated since ‘asking’ is more of demanding. He’s not even bothering with an attempt at looking sad and desperate and instead is just looking at us straight faced and saying, “Give me money.” I look him straight in the eye and say in my most stern teacher voice, “We will not give you anything. Stop talking.” And I stare him down until he looks away. I am a well-meaning volunteer in Africa… fear me.

After waiting about five minutes, a truck pulls up and one of the passengers comes over. We do our introductions in English and then he starts gesturing at the truck and speaking in Chichewa. Another man comes over and says that this one is insane and they want 600 for a ride to the Salima junction. The Salima junction is on the way, but still seventy kilometers from Lilongwe. We won’t pay more than 400. They blow us off and go back to the other side of the street. Five minutes later, another guy comes back and says we can go for 300. Wait, what? No, never mind. We’ll take it.

We don’t get any chickens on this ride either, but we do get six goats further down the road. At the Salima junction, we switched to another open truck and continue on to Lilongwe. This last ride is probably the smallest truck we’ve been in yet and so I’m sitting high up on our bags with most of my upper torso above the height of the cab. Since the truck is so small and we have it packed past capacity, it isn’t moving all that fast, which is good because the bugs in Malawi are big and hurt really bad when they hit you in the face.

When we get to Lilongwe, we use a map drawn by Dani to find the Peace Corps Transit House. In most other countries in southern Africa, Peace Corps has houses in hub towns where volunteers can stay for free while they are traveling. A splendid idea, especially with how dangerous it is to travel at night. Namibia, of course, has nothing like this so we stay at volunteers’ places when we travel, crashing on the floors of one bedroom apartments. Or, we get stuck and have to stay at B&Bs that have racist guard dogs… stupid Outjo. Anyway, we’re winding down a few side streets trying to find this PC House and find the corner where we think it should be. The only thing on the corner is a huge blue concrete wall ten feet high with spirals of razor wire and electrical fencing across the top. We bang on the fence and say we’re looking for the PC house. The guard has an American flag patch on his sleeve and there are signs saying that all volunteers must sign in. Must be the place.

The PC House has two wings, each with a sitting area and two bedrooms with six bunk beds in each of those. There is a kitchen, a couple porches, and enough spare mattresses and couches that the house could easily sleep twice this many. Everyone was extremely welcoming, and we quickly got into the socializing scene, being that it was New Year’s Eve and all. I think that pirated movie watching and Beer Pong are constants for Peace Corps world wide, though the Namibian Beer Pong table is probably the only one made out of a cell phone antenna.

We went out for Chinese food for dinner. I wanted to get the “Fried Crispy Pigeon” but that must be seasonal because they didn’t have it so I settled on some normal beef thing with steamed rice. After dinner, we go to a club for new years. The club is only three blocks away, but we have to take a cab because we are guaranteed to be mugged at this time of night. What is it with Peace Corps and renting buildings in dangerous parts of town? Rent must be too high in the safe areas. We dance the night away and into the morning. Two Malawi PCVs and I get a cab back to the PC house. Once there, Bethany realizes that she left her purse back at the club so we have to go back. I wait in the parking lot with the driver as a sort of deposit while she goes back inside to look for her bag. I don’t think the driver really understands my purpose there as he constantly complains that he is missing business standing there with me. I tell him to go, so he leaves his brother with me. Eventually, Bethany comes back outside saying she still hasn’t found it, but she did find some money in one of her pockets so she can pay the driver. We go back in to look one last time. Another ‘white privilege’: on our way in, we blow past the security guard and the guy taking the cover charge. I don’t think Bethany had her bag at all, but she is adamant that she never goes out without it. She goes to check the bathroom while I ask the two bartenders, who haven’t seen anything. With my mind on things getting stolen, I’m happy that I didn’t bring anything with me except my phone… which, check the pocket, is gone. It had been in my front pocket around midnight, but some time between then and now (it was probably two or three at that point) it got stolen. I’m upset for about ten seconds. Then I realize that it had a Malawian SIM card in it, so all my numbers are safely back at the house and the phone was a piece of junk anyway. I meet up with Bethany again and she has had no luck. I tell her about my phone, which was a mistake since it just got her more upset, which made me laugh more since I really didn’t care about the phone and I still didn’t think she brought the bag. We go back to the house and she checks her room. She comes back out saying that the bag was sitting on the bed. I’m sworn to secrecy, which is immediately made irrelevant as she goes out and tells everyone sitting outside. So now I might as well put it on the internet.

During the night, the pipe in the bathroom burst so the New Year started with two or three inches of standing water. This was all but cleaned up by mid-day and the rest of the day was spent watching movies and lazing about.

Next time: We make the mistake of trying to get to Lusaka in a day and how to cross a border with an expired visa (or maybe it was all a hallucination).