Service and Sand: 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.