Next time, I'M running!

The sweet sweet smell of rain
Wednesday, 13 October, 2010

Today is a day to be remembered.

6A was so much funny today. Wednesdays are tough – six hours on my feet in at least 110F heat. It’s cooler to be moving because then at least there’s a slight breeze. So when I walk into 6A period 7 and plan to spend 2 periods with them, I’m always kind of exhausted and they’re extremely exhausted, hungry, tired and hot. Just like me, but I have to fake it, so I do.

So I walk in and Ms Shishanda gets up from her seat in front of a half asleep silent class. I put my books down without greeting or asking how they are yet, but they’re all telling me “we are super duper,” “we are excellent,” we are fantastic!” I tell them I’m magnificent and tell them the put their agriculture away. Thimende Dindo then finishes me sentence with “and take out your math exercise books.” I promt the next request with “And…” and at least 2 boys finish it with “show me your homework!” I’m waking them up slowly. I never even ask if they had questions on the homework, they’re already telling me they don’t have questions and they’re requesting a quiz. I have one prepared so I force a couple questions out of them to remind them what we were talking about yesterday and we write a quick two question quiz. They already know what’s coming.

When we finish the quiz and I have their marks all recorded, they’re antsy for another one. I refuse and ask them what we should do next. “Classwork!” But we haven’t done anything yet, classwork on what? “Something new, then classwork!” They have me figured out, or at least my general lesson plan outline that I never planned for..

After period 7, I still have another 40 minutes scheduled with them and I’m planning to do half of an activity with them to be finished tomorrow or Monday. But the bell rings and I know I’m supposed to go to the staff meeting to complete the school self evaluation form. It’s a 16 page questionnaire that we’re supposed to complete individually to track the school’s progress. Well, instead, the management has decided to have everyone sit down together in period 8 and complete them identically. One person reads the statement, we decide if it’s a yes or a no and we all put the same thing. So each one is the same and the analysis is useless. I go to the meeting 10 minutes late. We’re less than a page in and no one is listening to each other, everyone is arguing and I have a class of 25 learners doing an unsupervised activity which I know they’ll have questions about. I take my form, tell Siyanga this is ridiculous and give it back to Sihope in the front of the classroom. He grabs my arm and tells me I have to stay to complete it. “But they’re all going to be the same, so just fill mine in for me. I have a class to teach.” Apparently Mr Shangara misses this whole interaction because everyone is yelling at each other over some stupid form, so as I walk by him he asks where I’m going, we have to fill out this form together. “I have a class to teach. I’m teaching.”

I finished my class and when the final bell rang, I decided I didn’t really have any other reason not to be there so I went back. Sihope said I have to sign a misconduct form. “Fine.” But in my head I’m thinking to myself, “Whatever dude. You’re letting kids fail by pulling all the teachers from class period 8. You sign the misconduct yourself.”

So we suffer through the form for 3 hours, lying about teachers teaching all their classes in learner centered environments and finally we get to leave. No one mentions my outburst.

After what would have been study, I’m at home with Nicky and I hear the faintest of raindrops on my roof. I go outside and stand in the sprinkles. I start counting the drops as they fall on my outstretched arms. I get to 4 before I lay down on my stoop to maximize my surface area exposed to the rain. I pull up my tshirt so my stomach is even exposed. Nicky comes out with my camera. I get to 30 before the drops stop altogether. But they come back bigger and more and I lay down again.

“How long will you lay there?” Nicky asked in one of her ventures outside to see what her crazy white sister is doing.

“Until it looks like I showered!” Unfortunately there weren’t enough drops. But it’s continued to thunder and lightning since the rain stopped and I’m praying to whatever deities are listening that it POURS tonight.

Sun, sand, salt and sweat
Sunday, 17 October, 2010

Wednesday night at 8pm I was told that there was no transport from the village to town for my marathon team and me. Fantastic, I have about an hour to make sure we can just start on the road, never mind still crossing my fingers everything else has been taken care of since no one would let me do any of the transport work! Freaking out and in tears, within 10 minutes I had two rides arranged. Oops, ended up figuring that one out in the morning. I sent a message to every parent and told them they needed their marathon runner child at school at 6 for transport.

I barely slept – I worried that no transport would come, I worried that both transports would come and be angry I’d double booked, I worried we’d get left in town, I worried there’d be no transport for the 900km trip from town to Swakopmund. I woke up around 4:30 and was ready when kids started showing up just after 6. The first combi came and I still only had 4 kids or the 9 who I needed so he left and I waited for the next one. I was still missing some girls when our final option came. We waited. Finally we piled in to go and find Sara. We drove down the main paths and Omo said to me, “Madam, what if she takes a different way?” I’d told Elina to tell Sara to wait for us, we’d come back for her.

We passed long lines and big groups of kids going to school. I stuck my head out the window and yelled to Sawahenga, “Have you seen Mbamba?” They stay near each other. She hadn’t seen her.

A little ways further, I yelled to Steven, “Have you seen Mbamba?”

“Yes, she’s using this way,” as he made zig zagging motions with his hand. Great. We drove as close as we could get to her house and Kamwanga ran to her house to see if she was there, just in case. Nope. She was already at school and running to the road by the time we got back to her house.

Step one complete – all ten of us in a combi on our way to town. Take a breath and relax a big, Lori. It felt good to be getting away from school for some days, even if I knew it’d be more work than staying.

Once in town, we had at least 4 hours to kill. Everyone wanted to go into town instead of just sitting at the sports stadium all day. I wasn’t comfortable giving them free range of town since no one had a cellphone and no one has a lot of experience in town, so we went as a group to Pep. Kunyima was glued to my side the whole weekend and good thing. I grabbed her arm at one point to keep her from crossing the road when a car was coming. I was the only one looking, in the village you don’t really have to look.

In Pep, everyone went their own way and I stood near the door just waiting and making sure no one left.

Kunyima came to me, I was carrying her money, and told me she wanted to buy “this one” as she made a motion over her chest. A bra. I brought her back to that section and helped her, Kamwanga and Sara all get a somewhat appropriate size. They would have just bought whatever happened to be in the front. No one has told about sizes. Of anything. Isolde wanted to buy underwear, and was holding a pair for 5 year olds. We put it back and found one for 11 year olds. She’s 14 but tiny. We went to the checkout as a group and I counted out Kunyima’s money for her. She was first in line for us and gave the cashier the money and the bra. When she was handed back the bra in a plastic bag, she started to walk away without her change or receipt. I explained what she had to wait for and later in the day, she had it all figured out to buy a tshirt almost all by herself.

From Pep we got ice cream and Muhunguko bought a cell phone. He had asked me to get him a camera phone last weekend with money he gave me. It hadn’t been enough, so this was his mission this weekend. We went together to pick it out and pay. I loaned him N$80 so he could get the cheapest camera phone there was. At the checkout, I made him do the signing, explained he has to keep the receipt and if anything happens so it doesn’t work in the next year, he needs everything for them to fix it for him.

Back at the stadium, we took out the food I’d told them to bring and the porridge I’d made the previous night and the girls ate together and the boys ate together. They were all impressed that I knew how to make mahangu porridge. And that I like to eat it.

Finally, 5 hours later than I’d been told we’d leave, and 9 hours after we got to town, we loaded our bags into a trailer, our bodies into a combi with 4 older boys from another school, where the male coaches tried to put me in the front but I jumped in the back with my girls before they had a chance to protest and we were on our way. As we turned onto the B8 south to Grootfontein, Kunyima, sitting next to me, turned and said with a look of shock on her face, “WOW, we’re leaving!”

As we went slowly over the speed bumps, a donkey cart trotted by faster than we were going and Kunyima surprised me with her English wit, “Transport! If you want to hike, pay N$50!”

We drove for hours, watched the sunset to the west where we were heading, began making friends with the four older boys we’d spend a lot of time with in the next few days and laughed more than I expected. It was funny to get questions from the kids, seeing this new part of Namibia through their eyes. “Madam, they can sell things at night?” After some questioning, I realized Kunyima was asking if shops are also open at night. “Madam, where can you look to see the big star?” After even more questioning, with an answer of “the one that fell from the sky” I realized she was asking about the meteorite. We all started dozing and at 11:30 we stopped for a few hours to sleep in the grass in Otjiwerongo.

I took my sleeping bag, to everyone’s surprise, and spread it on the ground. I lay down, freezing, hoping sleep would take over and I wouldn’t notice the cold anymore. One boy came and told me I couldn’t sleep there, it wasn’t safe. “But look at them, they’re all sleeping outside!”

“But you have to come sleep in the combi.”

“I don’t want to sit, I want to lie down.”

“You can lie down in the seat.”

“But there are too many people, I’ll just sleep here.”

“But the dogs will come here.”

“What dogs?”

“They just went there but they’re coming.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He sat there, waiting for me to change my mind. I realized sleeping outside wasn’t going to be an option, and the desire to sleep had left while trying to fight for my freedom of choice. So I gave in an went in the combi. Once there, I wasn’t tired at all so I took my book and told them I’d read outside since they didn’t want me to sleep. That was still too much. After about a page, the same boy was back and just laying on the grass, seeming like he wanted to hang out. It was well after midnight now and I’d barely slept in over 24 hours. I knew if I could just read for 10 minutes I’d pass out. But he wasn’t having it. I took my book and my headlamp and read in the combi while others talked or napped the little bit they managed. At 3am we were moving again and I was sleeping in a way I knew I’d be sore the next day.

We finally reached Swakopmund at 9am and had the day ahead of us. Kids went to the edge of the water but it was still too cold to swim. After eating some breakfast, we went into town where the girls shopped more, we all learned how to cross the street using the robots (street lights) as our guide to when it’s safe and made our way to the snake park. On the way there, the boys were close behind me and Raffa says something about “crocodile style” and everyone starts gawking and something I can’t pinpoint and they’re all laughing. As a colored mad walks ahead, I ask “what is crocodile style?”

“Madam, there,” Raffa tells me, pointing to the man going ahead of us.

“Ohhh, in America we call that a mohawk.”

Muhunguko asks me several times to repeat it so he can remember.

In the snake park, there are cobras, pythons, boas, mamabas, any number of snakes in glass cages. “Madam, they can bite?”

“They can bite, but they can’t bite us because they’re in cages.”

“Madam, how do they get them?”

“I don’t know, ask him,” I direct them to the man working there and staying kind of close to our group, probably wondering what a young white woman with an accent is doing with a group of Namibian school kids.

“From anywhere.”

I ask if people bring them. Yes.

It turns out he’s from Kavango and knows some Thimbukushu, so he easily wins the trust of my learners and they can ask him more questions that I can’t understand.

Outside, there’s a lower jaw bone from a blue whale. I ask what they think it is when we’re on our way out. No one knows. There’s a sign. Still, no one understands. We talk about whales, where they live, what they breath. Then what is a jawbone. When I show them where in the body the jaw bone is, they all say in unison, “Heeeey” in shock that something could have a jaw bone that big. They all understand that the animal must be huge. “Bigger than an elephant,” I tell them.

When Raffa and Omo are just beginning to enjoy swimming in the sea after our excursion to town, I’m told we’re leaving. It’s not yet noon and registration doesn’t start until 4 but I’m the only woman doing anything, so my say doesn’t count. We pile back in and head to Walvis Bay.

Just as we’re reaching the town, Raffa asks me, “Madam, where does that water come from?” There’s some water in a big puddle or small pond near the road. These are things I don’t even think of because it seems normal enough, but for them it’s new. I don’t have a good answer for him, “Maybe from under the ground.”

After driving around for almost 4 hours with no explanation given to me despite my questioning, I’m finally told we’re looking for a beach. I ask them why we left Swakopmund to come here.

“We’re entitled to come here.”

“Yes, but we were at a beach.”

“But…” something distracted him and I was left hanging why that beach was no good and we had to waste our afternoon in a stupid combi. I thought we were lost all afternoon.

We finally found a boring beach where there were no waves and everyone went swimming. It was fine, but I was still annoyed.

After registering all my learners for the relay or individual 10km race for the Saturday morning, we went to our accommodation – I think I would have been left had I not noticed everyone was going. The male teachers were not giving me the time of day and I was the only one not in the combi when they were ready. Never mattered if I was ready or not, it was always about them.

The room we all expected to be open was locked and there was no water to drink. I finally called the woman in charge to let her know and she quickly sent someone to open the room, which also opened the only access to drinking water. No one seemed to care. I thought it was a problem that the runners didn’t have a way to stay hydrated.

Race day was finally upon us. We got the starting line and my learners were quickly whisked away to their various buses to be brought to their starting points along the road from Walvis Bay to Swakopmund. Kunyima was brought to Swakopmund to run the individual 10km race since we didn’t have the right number of runners for only relay teams. All the volunteers with runners struggled all morning to get to the next check point on time, usually just hiking a car on the side of the road. All my learners ran hard and I was impressed with how much work they’d put into training and how seriously they took it. They were proud of themselves and always happy to finish. The boys from our combi were a team of 4 and until the final leg of the relay, my team of much younger and much smaller kids was beating them! Sara said to one of them as he arrived, after completing her leg before the older boy did, “You’re late!” My smile couldn’t be bigger. At the next checkpoint, I asked how they were all feeling – Omo, Kamwanga and the older boy whose name I didn’t know. Only one was feeling pain, the older boy, in his calf muscle. Kamwanga said to him, “You didn’t train enough!” My smile got bigger.

After the race, my learners were silent, seeming like they were in shock at all the people and new sights. I bought them lunch and that opened them up a bit. Finally the awards ceremony started and I knew our relay teams hadn’t placed already. It had been decided Kunyima would run individually because “she’s too slow, madam,” Muhunguko had told me. So I was blown away when in the first category to be announced, the women’s U19 individual 10km, Thikoka Kunyima placed second!!! She shyly stood up, and I turned around from where I was sitting with other volunteers, and she had no idea what to do. I pushed her to the front and she received her envelope of prize money (N$300!!!!) and stood on the podium! Some people said to me, “She’s a shy one.” No, she has NO idea what she’s supposed to do in this situation!! I glowed and kept telling anyone who would listen how proud of her I was and how great that is! She’d spent her final N$30 the day before on a tshirt. This is more money than she’s ever had, for sure. She’s asked me to hold onto it for her for now. She doesn’t know what to do with it! But it’s for her, not the school, since this was separate from the school relay.

Two other volunteers had their teams come in second and third in the senior (ages 15-19) relay. That was exciting and a surprise for one of them.

After the awards and grabbing a bag lunch, we were pushed back onto the combi and told we were going back to Walvis Bay. What??? Let’s just go if we’re getting on the combi! We were surprised by stopping at Dune 7 and climbing it. I took photos of everyone, they loved it. I loved it.

From there, we did go back to Walvis Bay for unknown reasons and sat around for a while. Finally, the man in charge was called back to see the organizer of the marathon because of money issues. I wasn’t directly involved or even remotely blamed for anything negative, but I was still unbelievably frustrated and had to excuse myself from the meeting to cry in the bathroom instead of letting it out in front of all the male teachers who already didn’t see me as an adult. We finally left and it took another 24 hours for the 10 of us to get home. (There were no objections to me sleeping outside in Otjiwerongo this time, everyone joined me instead.) But home we got and despite all the frustrations, it was a huge success and I want to be here next year to celebrate with them.