apologies...

Hi friends! I realize that my punctual blog posts have been slipping as of late…I apologize for this. As many of you know, I was pretty sick as of late (I’m fine now), but I found myself neglecting using the internet since I was not getting myself into town to purchase more credit! In any case, I am better now and want to make sure I keep everyone posted on the Namibian news. I want to start with a brief story: I was marking some homework assignments (they don’t say “grading”) for my ICT class the other day. One question I had them answer was “What is Font?” Obviously I was looking for something along the lines of “how the words look on the screen” or “the style of typing”. Many of my learners supplied me with answers along these lines, but I got several (and I mean several) responses that said this: The receptacle for baptismal water at a church.
Several. Things like this make me laugh and also make me sad because obviously if they saw that definition in a dictionary, they didn’t make the connection that it has absolutely NOTHING to do with computers or computer skills. It did make me chuckle though.

Other updates…I am starting a school newspaper! I am really excited about this. I had created a current events bulletin board in the library and noticed that many people were really interested in it. I had been pondering what kind of project I wanted to start and a newspaper just seemed like a natural answer! Anyway, it is still in the very beginnings and probably won’t be really up and going until term 2. Term 2 is coming extremely fast! The last day of school is April 21 and before that, there are weeks of exams. That really cuts into teaching time and doesn’t really facilitate much extra curricular time. In any case, I am excited to be putting energy into something new and interesting.

On another note, my seeds have germinated in my garden! I think I mentioned before that I planted a few things in my backyard. Well, things are going well and hopefully in a couple of months I will have some fresh veggies!

Ok, now I need to backtrack…so I told you I was sick last week. Well, I missed a few days of school. Obviously when you are home sick from work, you are usually trying to sleep or rest, right? Well, that is exactly what I was doing, but after missing the first day, my rest was interrupted. At 8am the morning after a hellish, feverish night, there is incessant knocking on my door and voices outside my window. Some learners were coming to see if I was ok! It was both adorable and really freaking annoying since I was in my pajamas, looking like hell, trying to actually sleep after a sleepless night! All in all, it was really nice, but this happened many times before and after school on the days that I missed. I felt like I need to spruce myself up on my sick days since I was getting more company than I have had in 8 weeks here! Oh yeah, and one particularly crabby morning, a learner came into my house and knocked on my bedroom door! When I finally got up (cursing under my breath), she asked me if I could “help her a pencil” (lend her a pencil). I don’t really remember what I said, but I am certain it was a firm NO. More cultural differences that can be really funny and also extremely aggravating!

Other than that, I’ve made some new friends in different places and have just been trying to keep healthy and rested. I will try to put up some more pictures soon!

Love you all,
H