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Cape Town
Cape Town (South Africa) January 2004 & December 2004 Cape Town Hike up Table Mountain Robben Island & District 6 Museum Nelson Mandela’s cell click here to read Zac’s email about his trip to Cape Town in Jan ’04 or read Sera’s account of the trip in Dec ’04
Non-Disclosure
“Non-disclosure” 5 November 2003 “Just when things are going along all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principal of perpetual disappointment.” —Master Harold and the Boys by Athol Fugard If ever there is a doubt …
End of the First Year Teaching in Namibia
Things Fizzle Out 5 December 2003 The school year is finished now. I’ve marked my last set of exams, recorded the marks, wrote reports, gave them to learners, then came home and started a Jane Austen novel that I’d been saving for a reward. This year ended kind of weird. Things just sort of fizzled …
A Traditional Sling
Things Fall Apart 4 November 2003 Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. –W. B. Yeats: ‘The Second Coming’ On Saturday night my AIDS awareness club had their HIV/AIDS performance. I was very impressed …
Sera goes to Washington D
Sera goes to Washington D.C. 4 January 2004 “Why is Okonkwo with us today? This is not his clan. We are only his mother’s kinsmen. He does not belong here. He is an exile, condemned for seven years to live in a strange land. And so he is bowed with grief.” —Things Fall Apart …
Dislocated Halloween
Dislocated Halloween 31 October 2003 “Three days later the District Commissioner sent his sweet-tongued messenger to the leaders of Umuofia asking them to meet him in his headquarters. That also was not strange. He often asked them to hold such palavers, as he called them.” —Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Today was a …
One Year in Namibia
A Reflection on One Year in Namibia 30 October 2003 “In this way the moons and the seasons passed.” —Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Hello! So I imagine you’re all being inundated with trick-or-treaters. They don’t have Halloween here, but I’m sure I could introduce the idea. So tomorrow in class I’m going …
Fundraising Failure
Fundraising Failure 28 September 2003 It started with a snake. A teacher and a learner went into the staff room around 5 pm on Friday evening trying to find me. When they looked in the room, instead of Sera, there was a snake. Most snakes in Namibia are poisonous. Namibians don’t like snakes. They kill …
Baby Chickens
Baby Chickens 28 November 2003 Hello! Not too much is happening over here in our little corner of Namibia. Sera got back up here just in time to be buried up to her chin in exam papers to grade. I, on the other hand, have had an easier than normal exam time because my twelfth …
Final Thoughts in Namibia
Final Thoughts in Namibia 23-24 December 2003 23 December, Windhoek In a poetic, literary sort of way, my Peace Corps service started and is ending with a shoulder dislocation. On October 23, 2002 I tripped down the stairs in the DC hotel and dislocated my shoulder on the first day of pre-departure training. That was …