So I've moved in with my host family. They are awesome! I was actully a little worried when we were meeting our families. I was actually reassigned from my original family because the father was worried about having a male volunteer living with his daughters (they were 24 and 19, also had a son who is 28). Coincidently enough, I'm living in a house of all females...I think. There are supposed to be 3 girls (one has a daughter) and a boy. One of the girls, Nadia, left to stay with her father and I haven't really seen the boy. Rosa is the one with a daughter named Lien whom I've been helping brush her teeth each night (the daughter, not the mom). Jessica, the 3rd of the bunch, is on break from school and is helping me a lot with under standing my mama (or meme as some of the volunteers say).
Here in Namiabia the official language is English but this was only instituted in 1990. So while the children are pretty well spoken many of the elders (including my mama!) don't speak any English. That being said mama and I still are able to communicate pretty well for me only being here a couple days. Laughter is definitely something that takes very little to understand. For example: my entire set of linens was pink my first night. Definitely a little amusing. My reassignment was actually a swap between volunteers and the original one for them was a female so they set up the room under that impression. Now I have a brown curtain and some blue bed sheets to off set some of the pink.
But life here is not all that different from back in the States. I wake up each morning, go for a run (with other volunteers), bath, eat breakfast, and then head to "school" to study Afrikaans and Namibian culture. I come home, hang out, eat dinner, watch some soapies (soap operas), study a bit then hit the sack. Yeah, my bath involves boiling water on the stove then pouring it into the tub but the fundamentals of the routine is pretty much the same. I imagine when I get to my site the same will apply. I'll wake up and do my morning chores, head to work, then come home and work some more (I am a teacher after all...), clean up and head to bed.
We watched a movie that I believe was based off of the reason for Children's day. Children's day is a national holiday that celebrates the uprising of black students in response to the delibrately inferior education they were receiving. It's a national holiday in Namibia and may even be continent wide, I'm not sure. Whoopi Goldberg is in it if you're curious, I think the movie is called Serafina but not exactly sure on the spelling. It was a good movie to watch and has a great message but I'll be honest, I was definitely not in the mood for it. I was more concerned about the massive amounts of margarine in my food and by massive amounts I mean the roof of my mouth gets coated with fat as I eat.
I think a big thing that so many people forget a lot of times is this: We're all human. On the surface things are all over the place but inside there's a beating heart that gets each one of us through the day (unless you're in surgery, then you may not have one). People in the States think Africa is some crazy foreign place out in the bush and our host nationals here think America is some paradise where everyone is a celebrity ("Chris do you know ....?"). Yeah, the standards of living are totally different but the actual living is very much the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment