Yesterday we found out the language that we would learn. We were each given a piece of paper with our name on it and an animal. Then we were told to make that noise and find other people making the same noise. Then we found our teacher. My animal was a jackal, and making a noise for this was a little hard. I found 3 other people making the same noise. Our teachers name is Ramsey and we are learning Otjiherero. Otjiherero is spoken pretty much through the entire country. For some people their language is only spoken in one region so they pretty much know where they're going to be. But for me I could literally be anywhere. Today we had our first language class. We started off learning about possible consonant and vowel combinations. This language has single sounds like A (ah), E (hay without h), I (ee), O (oh), U (You without y). Then there are consonant and vowel combinations like ta (tah),and me(may).Then there are double consonant and vowel sounds like nwa (the n is a short sound not fully prounced) and vye (v ay). THEN there are triple consonant and vowels like mbwa (the m and b aren't as prounced) and tjwe (the tj makes a sh sound like she). Getting my mouth to form some of these sounds was really hard. We also learned greetings. If you want to say to someone or ask them how they are you could say Kora which means what's up. The person could respond with Nawa which means good.
In the evening we got to meet a member of our host family. We were given a slip of paper with a name on it. Then after a session about the expectations and what not for host families we stood up and one at a time say the name of our family member.I'm living with the Hijarunguru family. My family consists of Belinda (the mom), Judu (the son) and Tukoo (the sister). Belinda is a single mom living with her 13 year old son and her sister. She teaches English and on the weekends makes her perfume. They live in town so I will be walking to training everyday. It will probably be a 25 minute walk. Thankfully the first morning we will be picked up at a central location. The house that I'm staying at is a 1 story cement house. When you first enter through the gate there are 2 houses and the one I'm in is the 2nd one. You enter right into the kitchen. The house has everything, running water, electricity, and internet (which is how I'm typing this now). I am required to have my own bedroom (not my choice, it is a peace corps. requirement). It's a simple room but very pretty. The bed has orange sheets, there is a closet and a dresser. Another requirement from the Peace Corps. is that my room is able to be locked. If the house doesn't have a lock on the door, or it's broken the Peace Corps. will provide a new lock. All the volunteers were placed in either town (like me) Smarties(see previous post), Vedersdale(the town that I thought began with F...again, see previous post), Nau-Aib (previous post), and Nieb ( which just got added.) Everyone not living in town will be driven to the training site, so I'll get plenty of exercise walking everyday. Housing a Peace Corps. is considered an honor and to make sure that the families can support us they are given gift cards to multiple grocery stores. We will have 2 meals a day with our families (breakfast and dinner) and lunch is during training so it's on our own. We were given money so that we could actually buy food. Dinner was a bit awkward. My family dinners are always very loud and full of discussion. This dinner was quiet but then again there was only 3 of us and I'm brand new. I wish I had a little bit of warning because I was about to eat before she mentioned saying grace.
I figured I'd say something about the food here. So far it's been a form of meat (if you ask the type they won't usually answer until after dinner), rice, and some form of vegetables. Apparently I've eaten antelope one day, beef, liver, and even chicken one day! But most of the time the locals don't know what type of meat they are actually cooking. I've noticed that the game meat (antelope and really anything not beef) has a very distinctive taste and my stomach isn't really sure if it likes it or not. The juice here is amazing, or so I think so. It is very sweet and very rich in flavor. One of my favorites is guava juice.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Quirks are only Quirks to other Quirks...aka the first few days
To start this off right I am going to begin with the staging. On Monday I flew from Hartford to Philadelphia on a tiny 8 row plane. Once I got there I got to meet everyone. There are 49 of us, and we are all either math/science education volunteers or business volunteers. Most of us are education though. Everyone is so nice. The average age of a peace corps volunteer is 28 but most people in our group are younger. Everyone is really nice and we all get along really well. At the hotel we signed in and had sessions about security and what not from 2-7. Then we were dismissed until the time when we had to leave the hotel. So a few of us got dinner at a sea food restaurant and went to target to pick up some last minute items (for me it was deodorant...apparently it was suggested to pack 6 packs but I only had 1). Then most people tried to get some sleep until the 2:00 am check out. So everyone including me got around 2 hours of sleep. We piled onto 2 buses and drove to JFK airport in New York City.
Once there we had 2 hours until we could check in for our flight. So since it was 5 in the morning I took a nice but comfortable nap in the airport surrounded by our suitcases. Finally we were able to check in at 7 am, but then we had an additional 4 hours until our flight boarded. So yet again we just hung around. I bought some motion sickness medicine and fuzzy socks since I forgot to pack both of those things. Then we boarded our plane for an excruciating 14 and 1/2 hour flight. Dramamine puts me to sleep so I managed to watch 1/2 of a movie before sleep claimed me. Then I would wake up, watch a little more of the movie, read a bit, eat, and sleep yet again. This process was repeated for quite some time. We got 2 meals, which I feel is not enough considering we were on there for nearly 15 hours, but the flight attendants would give you snacks if you went to the back and asked for some. Then we landed in Johannesburg South Africa and had a 5 hour layover until our last flight to Windhoek Namibia. Once we landed in Namibia there were people who greeted us from the peace corps that also helped us collect our baggage. The media was also there. 5 people including myself were selected as potential spokes people and we went out first and got interviewed by a newspaper. Then we took a group photo. We then got onto another bus for 1 and 1/2 hours that took us to our training site in Okahandja. In case you didn't keep track of all the hours that was 29 hours of travel (including layovers and waiting time).
Namibia is very dry and desert like. There are a few trees here but again their not very green. Of course that might also be because it is winter here. We're staying at a hostel that is 10 minutes away from the training site.I am in a room with 6 other girls. The entire bottom floor is all girls and there is one common bathroom. The water is always hot when you want it and it felt so nice to take a shower after all the traveling. We have breakfast lunch and dinner in the dinning hall so far but that will change come Tuesday. There are other people staying at the hostel so it isn't all Peace Corps. Training has been from 8-5 generally so far. We've covered a lot of introductions and sessions including security and expectations.
Yesterday (Friday) we began the process of choosing our site. The leaders of the education committee put up descriptions of each site. Things that were included in this description was the grade range, the subject preferred, number of teachers and learners, if it was urban or rural, the type of housing the volunteer would stay at, and the secondary project they would like. The secondary project is something the school would like to have work done on while the volunteer is there in addition to the volunteer's original work.
The sites I'm interested in are in urban settings. I chose this because I've never taught in a city and I would like to experience that. I also choose sites that were generally grades 8-10. I like working with older kids so I didn't choose many sites with grades 5-7. I also liked the sites that had a library listed as a secondary project. So we were asked to choose 3 sites and talk about why we wanted them in our interview.
Today (Saturday) we took a tour of the surrounding cities, that our host homes will be in. We don't know who we are staying with yet, but we find out on Monday. We stay with our host families for the remaining of training which is around 8 weeks. The goal of being in host homes is to integrate into the culture and to practice our language skills. I'm a bit nervous for this just because I don't know what they'll be like or if they'll like me. There are 4 main areas around our training site and there is an interesting history behind them all that I will try to explain. The first village was called Smarties (yes that's right, just like the language). In history this is where the richer white people would live.
Then there was Nau-Aib (pronounced No Ape) where the blacks where placed. This was definitely not as nice as Smarties.
Then there is the 3rd village that begins with F that I forgot the name of.
The last village Extension 6 is 2 years old and is still being worked on today.
I was told that the divide between the villages today isn't nearly as visible but it's still there.
On Monday we also find out what language we'll be learning. There are around 7 languages and we'll be taught in one. The language you are taught depends on your site placement. Generally the language you learn is the one that is spoken there but that isn't always the case. I am really interested in learning Afrikaans. This is the language that most of us will be learning. I feel that this language would be a little easier for me to learn just because it has a strong German influence. It is also spoken in South Africa. Now I know the question everyone wants to know is if I could learn the click language. Well. Khoekhoe (pronounced kway kway) is the only click language. The language isn't all clicks. It's use is closer to the use of an umlaut in German. It's only used in some words. The whole language is not in fact just clicks. I've been told there are 4 clicks that are used. All clicks include the tongue and different parts of the mouth.
Now I'm going to include some more random pictures of my time here so far.
This is a picture of some of the trainers singing to us .
Above is my bed in it's mosquito net...Haven't seen a mosquito yet. Underneath that is some of the girls of the group having a jam session.
This is me and one of my friends Rachel on a tour of the vilages.
Once there we had 2 hours until we could check in for our flight. So since it was 5 in the morning I took a nice but comfortable nap in the airport surrounded by our suitcases. Finally we were able to check in at 7 am, but then we had an additional 4 hours until our flight boarded. So yet again we just hung around. I bought some motion sickness medicine and fuzzy socks since I forgot to pack both of those things. Then we boarded our plane for an excruciating 14 and 1/2 hour flight. Dramamine puts me to sleep so I managed to watch 1/2 of a movie before sleep claimed me. Then I would wake up, watch a little more of the movie, read a bit, eat, and sleep yet again. This process was repeated for quite some time. We got 2 meals, which I feel is not enough considering we were on there for nearly 15 hours, but the flight attendants would give you snacks if you went to the back and asked for some. Then we landed in Johannesburg South Africa and had a 5 hour layover until our last flight to Windhoek Namibia. Once we landed in Namibia there were people who greeted us from the peace corps that also helped us collect our baggage. The media was also there. 5 people including myself were selected as potential spokes people and we went out first and got interviewed by a newspaper. Then we took a group photo. We then got onto another bus for 1 and 1/2 hours that took us to our training site in Okahandja. In case you didn't keep track of all the hours that was 29 hours of travel (including layovers and waiting time).
Namibia is very dry and desert like. There are a few trees here but again their not very green. Of course that might also be because it is winter here. We're staying at a hostel that is 10 minutes away from the training site.I am in a room with 6 other girls. The entire bottom floor is all girls and there is one common bathroom. The water is always hot when you want it and it felt so nice to take a shower after all the traveling. We have breakfast lunch and dinner in the dinning hall so far but that will change come Tuesday. There are other people staying at the hostel so it isn't all Peace Corps. Training has been from 8-5 generally so far. We've covered a lot of introductions and sessions including security and expectations.
Yesterday (Friday) we began the process of choosing our site. The leaders of the education committee put up descriptions of each site. Things that were included in this description was the grade range, the subject preferred, number of teachers and learners, if it was urban or rural, the type of housing the volunteer would stay at, and the secondary project they would like. The secondary project is something the school would like to have work done on while the volunteer is there in addition to the volunteer's original work.
The sites I'm interested in are in urban settings. I chose this because I've never taught in a city and I would like to experience that. I also choose sites that were generally grades 8-10. I like working with older kids so I didn't choose many sites with grades 5-7. I also liked the sites that had a library listed as a secondary project. So we were asked to choose 3 sites and talk about why we wanted them in our interview.
Today (Saturday) we took a tour of the surrounding cities, that our host homes will be in. We don't know who we are staying with yet, but we find out on Monday. We stay with our host families for the remaining of training which is around 8 weeks. The goal of being in host homes is to integrate into the culture and to practice our language skills. I'm a bit nervous for this just because I don't know what they'll be like or if they'll like me. There are 4 main areas around our training site and there is an interesting history behind them all that I will try to explain. The first village was called Smarties (yes that's right, just like the language). In history this is where the richer white people would live.
Then there was Nau-Aib (pronounced No Ape) where the blacks where placed. This was definitely not as nice as Smarties.
The last village Extension 6 is 2 years old and is still being worked on today.
On Monday we also find out what language we'll be learning. There are around 7 languages and we'll be taught in one. The language you are taught depends on your site placement. Generally the language you learn is the one that is spoken there but that isn't always the case. I am really interested in learning Afrikaans. This is the language that most of us will be learning. I feel that this language would be a little easier for me to learn just because it has a strong German influence. It is also spoken in South Africa. Now I know the question everyone wants to know is if I could learn the click language. Well. Khoekhoe (pronounced kway kway) is the only click language. The language isn't all clicks. It's use is closer to the use of an umlaut in German. It's only used in some words. The whole language is not in fact just clicks. I've been told there are 4 clicks that are used. All clicks include the tongue and different parts of the mouth.
Now I'm going to include some more random pictures of my time here so far.
This is a picture of some of the trainers singing to us .This is me and one of my friends Rachel on a tour of the vilages.
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