Pre-Service Training

As I suspected, access to internet is hard to come by.  This means my blog will not be highly active.  I will do my best to post at least once a month.

Today marks exactly two weeks that I have been in Okahandja, Namibia for pre-service training.  It feels like it’s been a very long time and yet, I’ve only barely scraped the surface of what I’ll be doing here and what it will be like.

I am a member of Group 42.  All 53 of us are here for the Secondary & Upper Primary Education Project (aka. we are English teachers for students from around the ages of 12 to 18). 

This group has quickly become my family away from home.  Each person has something incredible to offer and I feel blessed to be able to share this journey with them. 

After interviewing with some of the program coordinators to discuss personalities and interests, they assigned us to our sites which are spread all across this country.  We will not find out what our specific assignment is until we swear in on October 15^th. 

We did, however, find out which language we will be learning.  Group 42 is split into six languages: Afrikaans, Khoekhoegowab, Oshindonga, Oshikwanyama, Otjiherero, and Rukwangali.  (I can now “roughly” greet you in each of these).

I have been assigned to Oshindonga with 4 other volunteers.  They say it’s one of the easier ones for us to learn so I’ll hang on to that hope.  I’m excited and nervous at the same time.

This assignment greatly narrows down where I will be located.  O-land, here I come!

Oshindonga, along with Oshikwanyama and Otjiherero, is a dialect of Oshiwambo, the most widely-spoken language in Namibia.  It is found mostly in the northern part of the country, or what I’ve come to know as the “North North.”

In two weeks we will be leaving Okahandja for our community-based training which will last a month.  I have been told that my language group will be approximately 15 km from Ondangwa in the Oshana region. 

This training will take us out of the town setting and bring us to the villages.  We can anticipate no electricity or running water as well as full immersion into the languages. 

In addition to language assignments, we moved in with our host families this week.  I am staying with a woman who has been very kind to me.  She’s not much older than I am and we seem to have a lot in common.  She has a cat too, who is absolutely precious. 

We’ve been spending our evenings cooking together and watching Zee World, an Indian soap channel.  I’m getting sucked into the plots…and all their fancy costumes.

She does not speak Oshindonga so we’re pretty much an English-only household.  Her mother tongue is Khoekhoegowab (commonly known to Americans as the “click” language).  I’m going to try to learn some of it but I can’t seem to replicate the sounds she’s creating.

Everyone here seems to speak 3+ languages fluently.  A trainer joked that if you run into someone who only speaks one language, they’re American.

Feelings

They say that everyone goes through a little bit of culture shock at some point or another.  I know leaving a town where everyone seems to speak English will be that moment for me.  But I’m not there yet.

I’ve seen baboons, giraffes, antelopes, ostriches, warthogs, and a variety of other things I wouldn’t even begin to know how to name.

We climbed to the top of a nearby mountain/ hill through thorns the size of your palm and jagged rocks.  From the top you could see the whole world, almost. 

Just yesterday we tried dried caterpillars/worms at an open market...which I promptly drowned out with a lick or 8 of ice cream.  But it didn’t make me gag, so that’s a big step. 

I’ve begun to learn about Namibia’s history and struggle for independence.  She is captivating in her strength and pride.  The cultural diversity is so vast you can’t accurately describe it through one lens.  Keep that in mind as I share my experiences.

I’ve been feeling peaceful contentment towards daily life, wonder at all of the new things I’m seeing and learning, and gratitude for this opportunity. 

I have a lot to learn but I’m taking it one day at a time.

The community center where we were training.

The view from a mountain on the outskirts of Okahandja.