Cheeseburger in Paradise.

My cheeseburger made my afternoon. I made one for lunch yesterday and ate it along with my pitiful attempt to make mashed potatoes and carrots. The carrots didn't mash and the potatoes were too runny because I accidently put in too much milk. Oh well, a generous helping of BBQ/Braai sauce fixes that (I really miss A1 steak sauce....). Also didn't have any butter but that was because I made our super-awesome family cookies. They were a big hit and I'm a little sad I blew threw the batch in a week. Julie (another PCV) and I baked peanut butter cookies a weekend or two ago and they too were amazing! Leave it to me to come back from Africa significantly heavier than I left.

I'm very happy I am able to cook what I can. Probably helps with not being that homesick. Many of the volunteers don't have a fridge or stove (even though we're "supposed to/required" to have both). I've offered my place to others as a getaway. It's not exactly en route to...anywhere but it's not too far off the main path. Really I'd just love the company :) But I've been making friends with some of the teachers here so it's okay. And next year, I'll be super busy teaching and doing whatever else I'm involved in so my mind will definitely be occupied.

One of the teachers, Mr. Narubeb, took me to this marriage proposal thing. Very different and at the same time, strangely similar to customs back in the States. In the States, the guy usually buys a ring, does some cool romantic thing (generally involving dinner somewhere nice and more expensive than needed) and drops down on one knee and asks. Ideally he's also cleared all this with the bride-to-be's father/parents before hand and everyone's already considered each other family.

Here, they didn't do it in one/two shots like that, just one drawn out stretch. We went to the bride's house to ask for her hand in marriage in the groom's place. Kind of like sending out a search party. They banter back and forth, asking where she is, they say "she's off at the farm," "ran the 60k to the next town," etc. (all the while she's just hanging out in the house). Then, when they've established she's near (I think), they start asking what the other family has to offer. Like "why should your son/daughter marry my daughter/son?" I hear he's lazy, she can't clean or cook, no he's a hard worker, etc. This went on for a few nights, multiple hours each night. We even had to reset the whole thing because things were getting personal, how this actually happened I have no idea. When we finally started making progress again we got to the point where the groom finally comes in and starts his part or the pleading. They do the same thing then he has to go into the house and find his bride, amongst imposters. This is made a little hard because it's done in the dark. During our "discussions" we had a small light hung up or a candle burning (also the reason I did't take pictures) which also made thigns interesting. Finally he found his bride and asked her. Then he gives her gifts, that's right plural. A watch so she can be on time, earrings to look beautiful for him, same with the ring, and a necklace. Okay, one of those last three has another meaning but I can't remember (Note to my future wife: as it stands now, you can probably just expect the ring...). Then everyone celebrated it being over and partied the night away, I however was exhausted and went home and passed out. Using free internet from 1am-5am tends to leave you with poorly rested nights.

I've been trying to stay busy during the days, as I actually have a lot of stuff I could do....but find myself dragging my feet a little. From what I hear though I've made some good progress. I've completed year plans and other administrative stuff for classes I thought I was going to teach but turns out I won't, and am now in the process of doing the same for the classes I will be teaching next year. As it stands I'll be teaching 7th and 8th grade mathematics and 8th and 9th grade Physical Science (a blend of Physics and Chemistry). Classes don't work here like back in the States, more like how the do in the UK (or so I'm told). Instead of learning a subject for a full year, like Algebra in 8th grade (or whenever you take it) you learn parts of it over all of secondary school. same with the sciences too. Each year they just get progressively more in depth with the topics. Comparing the two methods, both have their advantages and disadvantages. I find myself setting up my schedule mimicing more of how I was taught, grouping topics together instead of just going through the order in the textbooks (though I'm pretty sure every math teacher on the planet does this...or would like to).

I've also been trying to exercise/think of ways I can do so. I've been running on and off but my right knee is starting to hurt so that sucks. I'm trying to get a bike and use it to make the 60k trips to my shopping town. That'll definitely get me some exercise, especially if I'm carrying a huge pack full of groceries. If any of you have some resources for no-equipment/crude equipment exercises please let me know! I also really regret not bringing my yoga mat. I tried using my sleeping pad this morning but just not the same (if you have yoga stuff I would be so incredibly grateful for those as well!!). I'm thinking I can get some of this stuff in the capital when I go back for our training, or at least I really hope I can. Our cookbook actually has a recipe for making weights out of cement. I think I know what I can use for dumbells...but that's assuming I can buy some cement mix and get it back here (the latter being the trickier part). Would be good to so maybe my reaction time might get back up to speed. I've been working on snatching mosquitos out of the air (with large success actually) but lost my encounter with out fence gate. Managed to dodge the rezor-wire portion of it (I was pushing it from behind) but the track bar managed to get the better of me...across the side of my face haha. Oops. A week later, the bump is almost all gone...maybe it'd heal better if it wasn't so hot here. Ah well, it's Africa, shouldn't be surprised. Though it's a little hard to get used to it being 33 degrees (Celsius, which converts to 92 F) in your room as you go to bed, or even wake up in the middle of the night with your windows wide open, and you're sweating like crazy, especially being from CO. Thank you metal roof for turning my house into a large make-shift human oven.

Oh well, count your blessings, not your misfortunes. I'd post new pictures but don't really have any to take, things look the same as when I first visited the place. We'll see, maybe I'll explore some more but for now time for a peanut and jam sandwich! (PB&J).

To add: The wedding was somewhat similar to the states as well. People said some words, sang some songs, preacher spoke, gave each other rings, kissed and danced out of the church. The only difference was the drunk people that came in and danced during the songs....well, I'm sure this happens in the states too in certain places haha. Now waiting for the after party (and secretly hoping for some good food).

Addition number !gam (two): The dinner was a lot shorter than I expected. Just a few songs, then dinner. No toasts, no dancing, place looked really sweet though. Like a Halloween dance actally, everythign was orange and black. So we ate, talked, then went home and crawled into bed.

Here's a picture of the lovely bride and groom (looking baller with his shades on...yep, during the whole wedding.)



This is a picture of the dinner/reception after the wedding. Told you it was Halloween themed :D



And this little guy made my night because he was rocking a hoodie with "Denver" across the chest. Made me get all sentimental and everything...

Luck of the dice.

So apparently there's always a volunteer who gets totally hooked up: sweet homestay family, awesome site, great school, etc. (probabilistically speaking it makes sense that there's one)...which may potentially be me, which is just so Namtastic. I'm not kidding, I keep forgetting I'm doing Peace Corps...though all I really need to do is walk outside of our school compound and it hits me harder than a brick.

But seriously, my family back in Okahandja was so awesome and great (as were a lot of the families). I'm the 4th volunteer (in a decade) at my site and my home is very well furnished like I have mentioned (probably even better than what I would have back in the states...sort of, the water definitely not haha). I'm a little sad I won't get the traditional homestay experience like so many of the other volunteers will but I will definitely be visiting some of the others and hey, if I'm that deperate there's always a 3rd year extension or even a second tour (and I have a lot more weight when it comes to that selection...hello Fiji!). My principal is so awesome and all the teachers and learners seem fantastic as well. Granted I have yet to really get to know them but first impressions count for something right? And I'm just 60k from my shopping town (Tsumeb...you should totally be able to find that on a map) which has SUCH a big selection for almost anything I could want. For example, I have been getting back into Nutella, yep, freaking Nutella. If you don't know what that is I strongly suggest you embark on the experience, it's glorious.

But really, I have so many blessings here and I am so thankful for all of them. I'm sure the full weight of what I aim to accomplishhere will fall upon me sometime soon but we must enjoy our small victories when we can. They (other PCVs, RCPVs, staff, etc.) keep telling us it's an emotional rollar coaster so I'll do my best to enjoy the ups, ride out the downs and always throw my arms up in the air inbetween! They weren't kidding though, I got teary-eyed last night thinking about the snow that must be falling back home in CO (and now again...); it hasn't snowd here in a decade (insert Global Warming comment here) so I won't be seeing any frost outside of my freezer anytime soon (yep, I have a refridgerator haha).

And it's not something I've just started doing here, it is something I've been practicing for a while now. I find life much more enjoyable when we take the time to appreciate the joyful things in life while we have them. And when things turn sour, to just bite down and work your way through it. It's like swimming, I think, maybe running, okay I know there's some athletic simile/metaphor here. If you keep your nose/chin looking down, all you will do is run yourself into the ground, or swim down and drown. That's why you have to keep it up and always pointing ahead...and slightly up if you're running downhill, helps keep your form and lengthen your stride or at least it worked for me (and Miles).

Another metaphor is you save so much energy too! If you spend all your energy being all mopey and negative, you won't have any left when things shape up. I rather be distant and aloof and be told I don't care when everyone's crying about stuff, followed by being super enegetic and told I'm trying to do too much when everyone's out of their funk than going with the flow. It no one disrupts the flow, it never changes and just remains stagnant. And stagnant is always gross and boring, plus mosquitos hang around stagnant water and they suck(bam! pun!).

Ugh, speaking of stagnant, I should get off my bottom and get some more work done. I've taken the past couple days (this is only my third at site!) to relax but also just clean up everything here and get settled in. I actually read for the first time since being in Nam, for fun at least. That's about it though, I did a lot of catching up on things, typing up some loose ends, organizing, cleaning, etc. Just easy, menial things that require not too much mental work, I've had enough of that the past two months. But I need to start teaching myself KKG sometime, and look, I have two hours before a community meeting. Seems like a perfect time to start.

Let's just hope this good luck continues as long as it can.

Two days later, when I am posting the luck ran out. Just f.y.i. There was a spilled baked beans fiasco, and lots of running into furniture, power outage, etc.

Oh well, c'est la vie. Throwing the hands up in the air!

It's on Facebook...so it's official.

I'm an official volunteer!! Whoo!! So pumped! I was a little worried about having stipulations on my swearing in for service but I did a lot better on my language assessment than last time so no complications. Not that it matters anyway haha, here we go KKG and !Khu!! Swearing in was actually an interesting day...I had food poisoning! I threw up before the ceremony haha, and of course am sitting in the front row. Nothing like being super pale with food poisoning sitting in the front row while on national television trying not to run out throwing up. Feeling much better today so hopefully I'll be back at 100% tomorrow or sometime soon.

The actual ceremony was nice. A bunch of speeches, us giving a pledge, a couple more speeches then done! Afterwards a bunch of people went hiking which I am SOOOOO bummed that I missed out. I felt better later in the evening so I met up with some people and just hung out for a few hours before heading back home. Finished my last little bit of packing and got ready to leave super early in the morning, well, was ready about 6am, not super early, but still early.

Right now I'm in the kombie (van) on the way to y permanent site again! Except this time I'm moving there!! I actually can't remember where my room key is haha, so hopefully I'll find it in all my luggage when I start to unpack. I have so much stuff...my duffel bag is packed, same with my hiking bag, backpack definitely isn't light and the decently sized storage trunk they gave us is PACKED (albeit with all the freaking papers and books they gave us).

Kim titled her recent blog entry "Leaving America" which I felt was interesting. Even though we've been here for nearly two months, service hasn't started for us. And really, the next 6 weeks won't be nitty gritty work. It'll be planning for the school year, learning a new language, assessing my community, etc. at the end of Nov. we're heading back to the capital for a few more weeks of training. After that, hopefully some vacation time THEN the school year (and service) start. At least that's what I'm thinking. I definitely want to get work done but I fee it might work out better if I spend the next 6 weeks in preparation for the following two years. From what it sounds like, and if I get into everything I want, I might actually be very busy during the school year outside of the classroom.

I'll be trying to get on a couple committees so that will definitely keep me busy and then there are the secondary projects that we're supposed to be doing within our community. I don't have too many ideas yet but there are a couple thoughts floating around in my head that I would like to try and put into action. In some aspects I have some solid resources but in others I'll be starting from scratch.. The toughest part, I'm told, is motivating people and getting them to do their own work. Our projects are meant to be sustainable projects. The aim of Peace Corps is to help the host country develop on their own, not build a crutch for them to stand on.

I think this will be a very nice idea for me to reflect on in my life and try to implement here. How many times have we just fixed something for others and not enabled them to help themselves in the future? I've done it a lot and I know a lot of people have done it for me. The thing is are we really helping them or hurting them? But I would say it is human nature (for most people) to take whatever road is easiest. If I have the means to do something with minimal effort, why would I put a lot into it? I think it was Joseph Conrad that said "I don't like work, no one does. But I like what lies within it, the chance to find yourself" or soemthing like that, I could've totally butchered it. It's not our destination that matters but the lessons we learn on the journey getting there.

I think that may be a big problem with a large portion of society. Many people haven't done enough work and don't know who they really are. I haven't led a hard life but I also know many people have it much easier than I do. Maybe I'm a bit behind the curve but it's taken me 24 years to get proactive and agressive on who I am and what I want to accomplish in life. And not just what I want to accomplish but what I want to define my life by. One of the tips I heard somewhere was to make a mission statement for your life (no, I do not have one). I think this is a great idea and I think I've tried it before but never got anything concrete. One of my problems is that I'm always all over the place, maybe because I never really knew who I was or what I wanted out of life. I feel I've been very successful though recently in becomig the person who I want to be and accomplishing what I want to accomplish. Maybe I'll give it another shot at the mission statement but I feel even that would change as I mature through my two years here. I have made a list of life goals though, easier because I can always add and rearrange it to my liking. Something to think about, if you could define your life what would you say?