hanging out is better than parties

“But Madam, I don’t want you to go.”
Friday, 26 November, 2010

Last year, this time, there was a presidential election. I wasn’t allowed to be at school because it was a voting center. There was no school because people were voting here.

This year, there’s a regional council election. I’m not allowed to be at school because it’s a voting center. There was school even though they were voting?

I didn’t leave, no one specifically told me to and I want to enjoy my time here, so I just ignored the fact that I’m not supposed to be involved in politics. I’m not involved, but I was definitely within 500m of the polling center, I was within 5m. Oops. And learners assumed it was a holiday so only about 50 came to school and were gone by 8 when they realized there was no reason to be there. By 9, I was leaving with about 10 kids to walk to Mukwe to the nearest shop about 4km away. We had to get food for our party.

“Tuyende,” I told the kids who were hanging around waiting for me. Nduhe, Kamwanga, Shitunda, Yondo, Haushiku, Kamushambe, Kambango, Kashivi and I went on our way.

“Madam, we can visit Linda? Makushe,” she clarified at my blank look.

“Ghii!” I told her excitedly, with the baby! Makushe left school after term one because she was pregnant. She stays near Mukwe, so on our way we made a turn at her house. We didn’t find her there, but her small sister told us she was at the river, so we went there looking for her. And found her. Her hair is too long! And her son is too small! He’s about a month old now, and looks really healthy. It’s sad to see her suddenly in the role of a mother instead of the carefree learner in 2009 who told me, “Madam, I will give you N$1 everyday until you go so I can go with you to America.” Now I’m going. I reminded Yondo about this, she was also going to pay everyday so she could buy a ticket.

From Makushe’s home, some girls wants to go one way and some wanted to go another way. “This way is wrong,” Yondo told us.

“Open your eyes and just pay attention,” she was told in response.

A little while further, with another fork in the path, I didn’t know which way to go so waited for directions. “This way,” Muwara told me at the same time Kambango insisted on the other way.

“We’re just guessing, we don’t know,” Kambango admitted.

At Mukwe, Sophia dn Kapapero found us there. I took Nduhe and Muwara into the shop while everyone else waited outside. We priced everything out and bought what we could afford with the money everyone had paid. It wasn’t enough for chicken and they didn’t have any there, so I paid for the chicken back in Andara. Money is replaceable, somehow, and it’s more fun to eat good food with kids I love.

We divided up the food and walked back carrying everything. Somehow the date of my departure was brought up and it came as a shock, again, to many of the kids that it was next Friday.

“But, Madam, I don’t want you to go,” Kapapero told me.

“Even me, I don’t want to leave you, but I want to go and see my family. My sister, she had a baby in February and he’s almost walking and I still haven’t met him but he’s my family!” I told them, knowing how important family is to them, so that explanation should be enough to convince them I have to go.

“Tell her to send him in a box.” I guess it wasn’t a good enough reason to leave them all.

“Oh, like I’m doing with Ziggy?” I asked, comparing a baby to a cat is something they shouldn’t accept.

“Ghii,” apparently they’re just the same.

“But Madam, you’ll take Ziggy when you go? I want to buy him, me I like cats too much,” Kamwanga said.

“Ghii, I’ll take him with me!”

“But Madam, you have to come back. You can go and visit, but then you have to come back here,” Kapapero still wasn’t done with the topic of me going, possibly forever, or at least for a long time.

“Ghii, I’ll come back, but I want to go and see my sister and my brother and my parents. Long time to see them!”

“Madam, what’s your first name?” someone was confused about calling me Miss Lori when they call all their other teachers by their surname.

“Lori!” I told them, a little surprised.

“And Schippers?”

“My surname.”

“Oooh, and your other name?”

“Nicole.”

“And Sophia is just Sophia?”

“Uh uh, Sophia Lynn Schippers. No, Sophia Lynn Van Hoff.”

“Lynn?” Sophia asked.

“Ghii.”

“And Adrian?”

“Adrian Foster Schippers.”

“Hey, Schippers, Schippers, Schippers.”

“Ghii. Because we all have the same mother, same father,” something that isn’t so common here.

“Hey, it’s better that way! Me, ne, I don’t like when it’s the same mother but different father, or same father but different mother, it’s not good,” Kapapero told me. “Us, we are 7.”

“All the same mother, same father?”

“No, the first born is different father.” She proceeded to tell me where they each stay, since I asked.

Back at my house, we dropped the food and went on a chicken hunt, a frozen chicken hunt this time. I had suggested kids bring live chickens and we kill them, but since we could find frozen chicken, they wanted that. Fine. I’m all about local food, and this probably comes from South Africa, but it’s their party, and their food that we’d be eating if they brought chickens. At the shop, they didn’t have the right change, so I promised to send N$4 later in the afternoon.

We went to another small shop and got oros – a juice concentrate. I made them figure out how much two would cost, and what my change would be when I paid with N$50. They did it faster than the Nandu, who had the calculator.

On our walk to this final shop, Sophia insisted, “Buy for us fat cakes!”

“Hey, how many are we?” I asked, knowing I would do it anyway.

“One, two…nine, but you can eat for N$2 us for N$1, N$1.”

I gave Kapapero N$10 and she went to get fat cakes. When we were taking them, there were only enough for N$8 and two fell on the ground, which were still eaten, but sandy. I gave up one of mine, so Kamushambe and I only had one each instead of two.

We had done too much walking all morning and we were all sweaty, so a trip to the river was in order. “Tuyende ku dipupo,” Kashivi suggested, not necessarily to me.

“Ghii, tuyende,” I told her.

“Madam! That’s why I like you!”

“Why? Because I like to play with you?”

“Ghii, and because you like learners too much!”

I changed into shorts I could swim in and we went to Dipupo. We found a few boys, some from grade 6, swimming there already and they cheered and danced when they same me coming. We swam swam swam, jumped off rocks, rode the rapids. That place is TOO MUCH fun! I jumped from some new places, watching several kids do it first so I’d know where it was safe to jump. The best ones were from the VERY top of the rapids so I got to ride them all the way down.

“Tuyende,” Sophia said after at least an hour of play.

“One more time from there,” I said pointing to the top of the rapids. We all went back up there and even further than I’d gone before, having to go in the water to get to the rock we wanted to jump from. I almost got swept away before reaching the top, the water was so fast! It was a great last jump, minus the water in my mouth and up my nose.

I wasn’t sure where we were going, or if we were going to part ways now, so I asked, “Where are we going?”

“Ku kwenu,” to your house.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, just hang out because you’re going soon!”

“OK, you can pick my mudhika and go and pound and then we’ll eat it with dimbombo dyo mahangu.”

“Hey, where did you get the mahangu?”

“I bought it and then pounded last weekend!”

“Hey!” I showed them my blisters that are becoming callouses and got more shouts of surprise.

Sophia and Kapapero took the mudhika to their house to pound, I changed out of wet clothes and taught the rest of the girls how to play Uno since that’s the only game I have left.

When they got back, Sophia cooked the mudhika and Kapapero the dimbombo, each happy to be doing it, wanting to cook for me. Muwara took my broom and swept my stoop. Then she and Kamushambe washed my sink outside.

Something something something “murora” was the only word I heard. Soap. I looked over and my soap was quickly disappearing.

“Don’t finish it! I need it to last another 7 days. I’m not buying another soap before I leave in a week.”

“Hey, Madam, don’t say that!” Kapapero does not like being reminded that I’m going soon.

It’s funny how cleanliness is so important to them, yet they live in mud huts. I guess when you CAN keep something clean amidst the sand and dust, you do. I don’t so much.

“What will we do after lunch?” Kapapero asked.

“I’m going to nap. You know what nap is?” I told them.

“No.”

“Kukotha.”

“Ohh, me, I will go home and kukotha too,” Sophia agreed. We’d worked hard and deserved a break.

Now, if only this sunburn hadn’t come up to keep me awake.