Candilicious Kisses

Whew! I had a really nice birthday weekend. It has been tough to get back into the swing of things this week.

On Thursday night, I was able to Skype with my cousin and my grandmother, which was much needed. As most of you know, back home I usually talk to my grandma every Sunday. Since I arrived in Namibia at the end of December, I hadn’t been able to call her even once! So… as you might imagine, it was a great gift to be able to finally talk with her this week and hear her voice, finally.

On Friday, I got to talk with my dad and my sister, which also made me feel a bit closer to home. Hearing about normal things going on out there is always pleasant and refreshing! I received a lot of nice messages from friends back home, which I really appreciated. At school, I told my grade 8 English class that it was my birthday, so I used it as an opportunity to learn about what kids do here to celebrate their birthdays. I told them about how Americans eat a lot of cake, have a party, receive gifts, usually share a special meal, and have one candle for each year on their cake while singing the birthday song. Interestingly, their traditions are pretty similar- they eat cake, sing a birthday song in Oshikwanyama, use it as an excuse to have a party… except they also kill cows and “special chickens”, drink homemade beer, and oh, when it is your birthday, apparently it is YOU who is supposed to give out treats, not your friends giving them to you. I received a bunch of hilarious cards from some of my kids, here are some of my favorite lines from them:

“candilicious kisses on your smooth cheeks, stay blessed!”

“Your laughter and assistance that you gave us unconditionally is a lesson we will always treasure”

“Hi sweetiepie Jessilito, I wish you a happy birthday and hundreds of decades on the earth!”

Sweet, random, and awesome. Friday night we had a make-your-own ice cream sundae party at our house, which was just super. Ted and I made vegetarian chili, two cakes, sugar cookies, and homemade ice cream for our guests! We had about a dozen fellow volunteers come by- some of whom travelled between three and eight (yes, eight) hours to come and celebrate with us. I was feeling so special to see that some of them were willing to travel so far just for my party! Then I got to thinking about how some friends back home used to complain about me living “too far” away in NYC… these girls jumped on the opportunity to travel and come see all of us. Anyway, it was awesome. Some of our local friends came too, as well as a Peace Corp Volunteer who is working in the area. It was so nice to see everyone and catch up, as Ted and I hadn’t seen any of the other volunteers since we arrived at our site last month. Everyone camped out for the night, shared some laughs and some cider, and all in all, had a good time. I got some sweet gifts- red bell peppers ( I am too poor to buy them for myself, so one of the girls got me some!), a kombucha culture, and some South African wine!

Saturday we met up with everyone in Ongwediva, a small town outside of Oshakati (where we do our shopping each week). We went to a water park called Benny’s, which was oddly located in the middle of nowhere next to a shopping mall. They have a few outdoor bars, a pool, and a restaurant. We hung out there for most of the afternoon, and then things got interesting. At around five, Ted and I left to go and grab a bite to eat, as well as do our grocery shopping for the week ahead. We got a bunch of food at the supermarket, and found a pizza place (sort of like a pizza hut) to grab a pizza. As we were finishing eating, I took out my wallet to put aside money for the two cab rides we still had ahead of us. After a near panic attack, between the two of us, we had exactly enough for the ride with four Namibian dollars to spare (fifty cents at home). We had no debit cards or any other way of getting money, so this was a near disaster. The sun was starting to set and the weather was turning bad, so we hitched a ride to our hike point to get back to Omungwelume. We were just arriving as a black wall of a storm was coming in. In the distance, it looked like a wall of rain was about to hit us- well, it wasn’t rain. It turned out to be a giant sand storm. We had to just stand there with our groceries and wait it out. The wind and sand combination was so bad that you could hardly keep your eyes open. There were hardly any cars on the road, and there were about ten other people who were also impatiently waiting for a ride home. I was starting to think that for the first time, we were going to be ­­­­­­stranded in the middle of nowhere in the dark with no money.

Well, suddenly, a car pulled up really fast and a guy jumped out. He called for the two white people to come over and get in (hmmmm….) and to our pleasant surprise, it was one of my colleagues and his friends that just so happened to be passing by and heading back to our village. What a relief. So we get dropped off at the gate at our school’s property after dark, and the gate is locked. It is a “home weekend”, so none of the students are there. We are yelling, honking, waiting… and there is no guard to be found. We realize that the only way to get to our house is to climb the fence. Ted goes over first, and I pass him all of the groceries. I’m really not looking forward to climbing this thing, so I’m avoiding it and letting time pass. I’m literally half way over the fence when I hear someone calling for me to wait… and there comes the guard! Just in time to save me quite a lot of trouble and a broken leg or two.

Needless to say, we got home just fine. It was quite a hassle, though.

The rest of the weekend was quite calm, compared to the festivities of Friday night and the complications on Saturday.

The first signs of life have emerged in our garden bed, which has given me a lot of hope and motivation today. The fact that any seeds want to grow in this awful, hot and dry sand is amazing. So far, the zucchini have germinated! We are waiting on the beets, carrots, tomatoes, hot peppers, and melons, but hey, anything is amazing at this rate.

Things are okay at school, I am still having a lot of issues with kids just not understanding what the hell I'm talking about, talking while I'm talking... high school stuff I guess. I gave a quiz in my Geography class on Friday about clouds, for example. We have been studying clouds for more than a week, so I gave a wrap-up quiz to be sure that everyone is on task and keeping up with the material. Just clouds, what the types are, how we identify them, things like that. WELL, I get the quizzes back, and there are answers about parasites, math equations, and soil composition. No words. Sometimes, I just have no words. And that is where I'm at today.