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Palaver Club
So “Mr. Zac” and I decided to buy the chicken. On Monday Shaanika came into my class and said, “Miss, I brought the chicken!” I was a little afraid he had literally brought it to class, so I asked him where it was. He said he put it in my yard. Sure enough, when I went home at break, there was a nice white chicken in the yard and chicken-feet tracks all over the sand. So far our chicken has provided us with two lovely eggs, numerous feathers, and some entertainment. Unfortunately it’s terribly camera shy, so our attempts to take its photo resulted in lots of squawking and blurry photos as the chicken dashed around the yard like…a chicken with its head cut off. We had our first real Palaver Club meeting today. We met during afternoon study to discuss why life is like this. Somehow the conversation digressed into a heated debate about whether or not humans are superior to other animals. I was very impressed with the level of the discussion. The learners were having such a good time, they asked to meet again during evening study. So we met again at 6pm, this time to discuss “relationships.” It turned into a question session where the girls asked, “Why do boys do this…?” and the boys asked “Why are girls always acting like that…?” It seemed like they had never thought to actually ask the opposite sex these questions because you could see they were genuinely learning something. For this discussion, I was mostly a spectator and one of the learners moderated the discussion. It was very interesting to me to learn more about their dating habits. I would describe them for you, but it’s quite a complicated mess. Basically, in Namibia, “No” doesn’t mean no, it just means “keep asking and then I will see that you are serious and then maybe I will say yes, but we still can’t tell anyone…” It just doesn’t seem very straightforward to me. Maybe that’s why when they ask to borrow my radio, and I say “no” they just sort of hang around and keep asking. Anyway, at the end of the meeting, they decided they wanted to meet twice a week, “because, Miss, this is very enjoyable.” Love, Sera For more information on relationships in Namibia, go to: An Interview with Sera
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