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Of teachers, oryxs and the elusive eland

Ola todos!


Greetings from Namibia.


I was sitting on our balcony early this morning and just taking in my surroundings. Even though I have been here for more than a month now and early routines have started to settle in, my heart still skips a beat when I think about actually being here and living in Namibia. On the flip-side of this, I am far away from my family not waking up Sunday mornings when my Dad blasts music by Runrig or the Killers at hours that should still be reserved for sleeping. I am also not driving my parents around to make sure we are present at all of Zuri’s, Niall’s and Noah’s games. Last, but not least, all at home are gearing up for winter while I am counting the number of short sleeve shirts I brought with me as temperatures are heating up here in Windhoek. I asked them to send a few chilled degrees may way to cool off from a balmy 35C the other day. That is life at the moment and I am loving it.


So what has been happening at my end lately!


The 3rd of October is the day of German Unity, so all of us volunteers were invited to the residence of the German ambassador to Namibia. Our projects manager, Ulla, accompanied us and we were all dressed neatly in blue jeans, white T-Shirts and our blue volunteer jackets. You could spot us from a mile away! As usual at those events, lots of speeches were held and both national anthems were played. So far, I have not mastered the words of the German national anthem, so could only sing along the Namibia one. I will do better next time. The best part of the evening, you could have guessed, was the food! They offered a lovely buffet with a mix of German and Namibian delicacies. For us low budget volunteers, it was a much appreciated distraction! Even the famous Black Forest Cherry Cake was not missing – can you believe it. We met some wonderful people that evening and had good conversations and network moments.



The following day our school had its first fire drill. Yes, the first one ever. In Berlin they seemed a lot more common, but come to think of it, I also do not remember them from Kenya or Mozambique. We helped the teachers prepare for the day as they had cancelled school for the day not knowing how long the drill and its aftermath would take. So no real spontaneity or surprise here! In the end, it worked fairly well other than having to explain to one of the 2nd graders that there was actually no fire and we were only practising. Cute! After all kids were back in class, we waited for the final bell to ring and I went home to take a break as a fully prepared fire drill pretending to be a surprise took more energy than I thought!


We also had our teachers’ day this past week, which was on a Thursday with Friday being an off day leading into the weekend. This year the school decided to do something special for the teachers and we were also invited along. We spent the day at GocheGanas, a game reserve about 45 minutes outside of Windhoek on the way to Rehoboth. We departed early in the morning in an old delta school bus. That was an experience in itself. It was very loud with the windows rattling and engine roaring. We got there safely and muscle memory kicked in immediately. My whole body relaxed. Nothing will ever beat the silence of a game reserve. Since our safari was only later in the day we spent the morning relaxing at a pool. I was very confident that I was not going get a sunburn (brain memory about the African sun did not kick in!) so I did not apply sunscreen and just laid back to read. Want to guess what happened next?


We finally set off on our safari, the younger self of me appeared, and I morphed into the giddy young girl in the back of a safari truck oohing and eyeing the nature and its animals around me. As tradition has it, we even picked up our drinks ahead of time for that famous one stop in between. We saw plenty of Sprinkbocks, Waterbucks, Ostriches, Warthogs, a few Giraffes, Oryxs and in the end we were even lucky enough to see a few Eland. As the large predators and elephants do not inhabit the reserve, we seem to have had a chance to see almost everyone else living there. It felt wonderful to be part of the fauna and flora of Africa again.



At the end of last week, Delta School hosted A friendly match of netball against one of the other schools in town. We awoke early morning around 7:00 to the noises of the court being set up, which is about the time I am up anyway most days. Life in Africa starts early morning! The rest of my flat mates were rather wondering what this early morning commotion was all about. Nevertheless, we had fun watching and cheering on our girls getting off to a good start of the day.


The weekend was rather filled with school admin work, which needed to be prepared for the week to come. I will not bore you with this. I hope that you enjoyed catching up and look forward to our next time!



Warm hugs from Namibia,

Zoë


1 Comment


Johnny L. Weting
Nov 15, 2023

Hi Zoë, it seems that your Namibian adventure is off to a great start. I suspect that the opportunity for delicious food at the embassy reception was very welcomed. I think it is wonderful what you are doing this year. I am just curious. What are your plans after Namibia?

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