Where the Tire Meets the Road
13 September 2003
Monday 8 Sept
Monday was the first day of school for teachers, which
usually consists of us sitting around the staff room waiting for the meeting to
start at some arbitrary time. But
this time it was different. Well,
it was probably the same, but we don’t know because we weren’t there.
About a week ago we received a message from the
Peace Corps saying that the world-wide Peace Corps Director from America was coming to Namibia and he
was also going to come to our house. Zac
called back and said that was fine, but reminded them that our house, being an
actual house, is not typical of volunteer housing.
We also found out that all volunteers had to report to the Cresta Lodge
in Ondangwa for a meeting with the Director on Monday.
We told our principal we wouldn’t be at the meeting Monday, which he
said was ok, since we had other “official duty.”
At Cresta, we milled around with the other volunteers
until the Director made his appearance. The
Peace Corps had arranged for a cultural group to perform, and after that we
went into a conference room for a speech by the Director.
He asked us to go around the room and introduce ourselves.
This is a typical feel-good ice-breaker, designed to make us feel
important, but with us it turned into a giddy debacle.
Namibians are generally very formal and respectful about such things, and
they esteem rank, status, and especially VIPs.
But we are American, and even worse, we’re Peace Corps volunteers, and
so not only do we think we are equal to anyone, we think we are better
than any high-ranking politician wearing machine-washed clothes, that has never
tasted oshithema or bucket-bathed. We
had discovered early on that satire was our best weapon against depression, and
consequently, our introductions were riddled with inside jokes that the poor
Director just didn’t get. “I’m
Frank and I live in Oshiyagaya, or trash.”
“Hello, I’m Jacque and I “teach” math and English.”
“I’m Scott and I’m a republican.”
The Director went on to speak about funding for The
Peace Corps, bi-partisan support in congress, new recruitment initiatives, and
a bunch of other things that seem completely irrelevant when you’re actually
here doing it. Then he opened the
floor for questions, and we hit him with our agenda.
“You spoke about increasing recruitment, but what plans are there for
ensuring the quality of experience once someone is in country?” “You mentioned more funding.
Will we see any of that?” “If
you notice a country has a high rate of ET-ing [“early termination” when
volunteers leave before their 2 years are complete] do you try to find out
why?” etc.
After lunch, it was arranged that Zac and I would
ride back to our site with the Director, his two assistants, one of the
associate Peace Corps directors of Namibia and the driver.
The Director settled in for a little snooze, so we visited mostly with
his assistant (we forget her name), a friendly, chipper lady with blond hair and
a frequently expressed fondness for termite mounds as well as goats, donkeys,
dogs, or anything that crossed the road during the 80km drive to our house.
During the ride, she received a call on her cell phone from the country
director, informing her that “Oshiyagaya” was oshiwambo for “trash” and
that’s why Frank said his village was trash, it certainly wasn’t that he
personally thought it was trash.
About half-way to our house, the Director came to, and we
talked with him about his job. He
has known the Bush family for a long time, worked for the senior during his
presidency, and when W took office, he was appointed as world-wide director of
the Peace Corps. He has a great
job and gets to travel a lot. He
said he likes to get out there, and “see where the tire meets the road.” It was an ironic analogy.
Because if he only goes to where the tire meets the road, then he’s not
seeing the whole picture. A lot of
volunteers are at villages where there’s no road and no tires.
We arrived at our school, and the driver had to honk
several times before the guard woke up to open the gate for us.
Once inside, we were delivered nearly to our front door.
Everyone piled out and took the grand 30-second tour of our house.
We tried to emphasize that none of the other volunteers live the way we
do. The principal came over to
greet the Director. He too had his
agenda. “Why do volunteers only
stay for two years? Why not three
or four?” But the Director could
only stay for 5 minutes. The
entourage soon had to rush off in order to get through the Etosha gates before they closed at sunset.
The Director was whisked away to see where the tire meets the elephant.
Tuesday 9 Sept
Tuesday was the first day of school for the learners.
In theory anyway. The school is going to have a big fund-raiser event thing so
the learners were all asked to bring something back with them from the holiday.
For example, grade 9 had to bring chickens.
Grade 11 had to bring beans or traditional butter.
Grade 12 had to bring sorghum. Of
course, half the learners forgot, so they were sent back home to get it.
The front steps to the office were littered with empty boxes from the
chickens. I absent-mindedly threw a
piece of trash into one of the boxes and it chirped.
I looked inside and discovered that the chicken was still in the box,
tied in a plastic bag. I had a rush
of adrenaline and I instantly devised my chicken-rescue plan.
I went and found the agriculture teacher.
Wednesday 10 Sept
Learners evidently had a tacit agreement to prolong the
inevitable, by just staying in their homeroom classes (called “register
classes” here) as long as possible. This
was fine with me. I put my class to
work installing the new “stop deforestation” and HIV/AIDS posters I picked
up at the trade fair. First they
had to take down all the stuff that was already on the walls, then wash all the
dust and dirt off so the sticky-tack would actually stick to the wall.
Then there were prolonged discussions and arguments amongst the new
interior decorators about the placement of the posters: “The National Anthem
must go next to the President.” “No,
that poster is about solar ovens, it can’t go next to this one about
condoms.” “But look, this one is red and this one is red, so they go
together.” “Put this one up
high because people will steal it.”
In the midst of all this, the teacher who beats learners
came in needing to speak to some learners.
She looked around warily at the learners swinging rags around the walls,
sweeping the ceiling with the broom (to remove spiders), standing on chairs and
desks to put up the posters, and the general mayhem of the class.
She didn’t say anything though. A
while later, one of the department heads comes to the room, and it’s still in
a general state of disarray, complete with learners still standing on desks
around the room. She
looks at me and says, “What is going on here?”
I try to act nonchalant.
“We’re putting up posters,” I reply, like isn’t this normal?
“The learners are supposed to go to class.”
“Yes. Ok.
I just thought because nobody was coming…”
“They must go to class.”
“Ok.” I
address the class, “You must go to economics now.
But you have me fourth period, in five minutes, so we can finish then.”
They leave reluctantly. I
sigh. I wonder what the other
teachers say about my teaching?
Wednesday afternoon was also the first meeting of the
HIV/AIDS club. You know, that club
I said I was going to start last term? But
then the teacher I was going to work with disappeared for a month and then I was
busy with computer training and then exams started…so anyway, here we are.
Mrs. Ndove and I meet at 2:30 to discuss what
exactly we’re going to do at the meeting at three.
We’re making our plans, but learners keep coming to the room early so
we tell them to come back in a few minutes and then we’ll start.
Kleopas rushes in.
“Kleopas, just come back in five minutes and then
we’ll be ready.” He is still
standing at the door, looking nervous. “Kleopas,
we’ll begin at three, it’s still early.”
“But I was supposed to tell you the HIV/AIDS people
are here.”
“Yes, I know, we told them to wait outside until
three.”
“No, it’s other HIV/AIDS people, not the
learners.”
“What? What
other HIV/AIDS people?” Mrs. Ndove
and I look at each other thinking, we are the HIV/AIDS people.
“Kleopas, who sent you?”
“The secretary.
She is calling you.”
“Ok, we’re coming.”
We’re still entirely confused. We
decided I would stay and start the meeting and she would go see what the
HIV/AIDS people were all about. I
start the meeting just by explaining the purpose of the club.
We’re going to take a peer education approach.
That is, we give the learners correct information about HIV/AIDS, sex,
condoms, etc. and then they share the information with their friends and
communities. We also plan to do some programs for the school and whatever
the kids come up with. The turnout
was decent, about 20 people, mostly from grade 9 and 11, my classes.
They were mostly the smart, outspoken learners, which is good because the
other students will listen to them.
After some time, Mrs. Ndove returned and said that
there were people here to speak about HIV/AIDS.
They had made an appointment, it’s only that the principal forgot to
tell everybody. Or anybody for that matter.
So we cut our meeting short and joined the other learners at the dining
hall for the assembly. It was a man
and woman from the Elcin church. The
whole program was in Oshiwambo, so one of my students translated for me. They
began with a Bible reading and a prayer. Then
the woman started by telling an HIV story, using simple posters.
Next, the man gave a long speech covering everything from how HIV is
transmitted to prevention (emphasizing abstinence and barely mentioning
condoms), proper nutrition for HIV+ people, non-discrimination, etc.
At the end, learners were able to ask questions.
They asked very good questions, which showed that they were paying
attention. One myth they brought up
was particularly disturbing. Apparently,
people don’t want to go to clinics to get tested for HIV because they believe
that when the nurses take their blood for testing, they are using needles
contaminated with HIV. You don’t
have to look too deep to guess how this myth got started.
“Gee honey, I don’t know where I could have got HIV from.
Maybe when the nurse took my blood she injected me with contaminated
blood.”
Thursday 11 Sept
School really started on Thursday. I began by passing back their exams from the previous term,
which I am not supposed to do. According
to the principal, we cannot give exams back to the learners because then they
will ask “why did I get this question wrong and she got it right?” and then
we will have to explain it, or change their marks, which leads to a big
disaster. Now, this is the sort of
“logic” that I am thoroughly opposed to, so I choose to be civilly
disobedient. Since exams are so
important here, I think it is crucial for learners to get direct feedback on how
they did, so they can learn from their mistakes.
Plus, I think I should be held accountable for my marking.
I discussed this with the English department chair and the other English
teacher, and they both fully supported my covert operation. The learners also want to see their exams, so I tell them I
will give them back on the condition that they don’t tell anyone.
I encourage them to ask me questions if they don’t understand why they
got something wrong.
Friday 12 Sept
Since Zac and I are “computer experts” and have a
digital camera, the principal asked us to design an information brochure for the
school, to be sold at the fund-raiser thing.
This is all well and good, except that it involves carry the camera
around school and taking pictures. Cameras
are people magnets here.
I started with 12B, the agriculture class.
I tried to explain that it didn’t look natural to have 30 people
weeding and watering a 4x8 (ft) plot. But
they all wanted in the photo. I
managed to get about two photos with only three people in them.
Then we moved down to the chickens.
I wasn’t sure what sort of photo to take with the chickens, so I asked,
“What do you do with the chickens?”
“We catch them.” Yes,
of course. There were lots of
chickens, from all t
he ones the learners had brought.
There were a few minutes of intense squawking as the entire class lunged
at chickens (for the BTSD people, their technique greatly resembled the first
move of bassai). After catching
one, they would crowd around me and strike various chicken-holding poses.
Then it was on to geography, where 30 people pointed at
maps and globes. Needlework
wasn’t bad, because they only have four sewing machines so I only took photos
of those four people. For home
science, I documented people pretending to stir pots and taste imaginary food.
In accounting, I got some great shots of the kids using rulers to draw
columns on their papers, because apparently that’s what accounting consists
of.
One thing I learned by going to all these classes is that I
must be a lot different from the other teachers. For example, I talk to the learners like they are human
beings.
At the end of the day, I went to take pictures of the
physical science class doing some important experiment involving lots of tubes
and chemicals. But their teacher
wasn’t there because she was helping another teacher redo all her reports
because she had calculated the percentage wrong and gave everyone an E instead
of an A. The class was 11B, my
favorite, and I didn’t have a class that period, so they asked me to stay for
a palaver. I asked if they had any
questions about the HIV/AIDS talk from Wednesday.
They asked a lot of good questions that I couldn’t exactly answer
properly, because I’m a little rusty on the science of the virus, but I did
the best I could. One kid asked if
it was true that the U.S. had a rate of infection of less than one percent.
(Here it is 20%-30%). He
asked why? But I really didn’t know what to say.
Love Sera
