If you're curious what I've been up to...

Grade 7 and 8 Maths (7 and 5 periods a week), Grade 8 and 9 Physical Science (both 4 periods a week), grades 8-10 BIS (total 3 periods a week). Altogether that's 23 periods a week teaching, not bad at all for a first year PCV in Namibia. Even under our "max" which is 28 peridos the first year (20 the second year) which I'm sure many don't get the luxury of. Feeling pretty guilty though as we're in need of 4 teachers so I kind of want to try and tackle the empty classes. Our kids are running around crazy so it's created a pretty large discipline problem. Here's what's stopping me: trying to clean up our library and then start on getting some subscriptions donated. I think I'll be able to work with the secretary on this one so that'll be nice. And then trying to start my work for the music and arts center one of my colleagues wants to set up. Well not really a colleague, he's even more of a volunteer than I am. Really an amazing guy. He's a retired musician that is friends with my principal. Asked if he coud come down here and teach the arts classes for the school without pay. He's collected donations for instruments, books, all sorts of stuff from all over. I know, pretty ridiculous right? I'm getting shown up all over the place even as a volunteer. For trying to keep some time for myself: I have indulged in the occasional movie but I'm trying to stay clear of that realm. I've been going through shrinking and cleaning up pictures on my external hard drive while doing other housekeeping things on my computer. Speaking of computers I a also in charge of the resource project for the Namibian PCVs (I took this willingly, so I can't complain). Really cool to get a bunch of resources right from the start: books for all sorts of things, lesson plans for classes (well, NOW it has lesson plans....), etc.

Fun right? I've been trying to exercise so I don't totally let myself go. Trying to do a bit of reading, been somewhat successufl in this department. Almost done reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Read Dune, and the Ranger's Apprentice series so I've been a little busy in that department. Also have taken out the guitar a couple times. Not as much as I'd like to but enough where it's relatively in tune each time I take it out. Also want to start studying a variety of topics. I really should get back to studying Kwoekwoegowab so I can start dropping some sick rhymes around here...okay, maybe I should just work on getting past introductions first. But soon, soon I'll be throwing together lyrics like the world has never seen. As for the other topics I'd like to study: art, music, other languages, computer stuff, acrobatics, etc.; all things I've had on the back burner...and will probably keep there until I finish my service. Okay, that's a lie. I've finally decided to teach myself a back handspring and I'll be delving into website design for the arts center, the school, and maybe a couple other organizations around here. Also I want to make one for myself, a little online profile/resume/CV/"if-you're-really-that-curious-about-me-or-want-to-brag-to-your-friends-about-me-you-can-just-google-me-and find-it" website. At some point have to get myself back into math and econ before it gets too rusty and then there's the GREs but those all can wait until next year.

Yeah, I'm totally not strung out. Going on dates all the time, partying every third night, haha, if only. But I only jest. It's actually a blast. For example teaching: it always keeps you high strung (or at least it does with me) but the kids always find a way to make you smile and ease the tension...hopefully for at least a short while before they have you wanting to smash your head through a wall again. It's mostly just a continuous cycle of procrastinating things I REALLY should be doing with just things I need to get done...and a little bit of the spice of life thrown in on the side (music, reading....not the recently afore mentioned things). The arts center is also something I'd really like to help out with because 1) I can and feel I'd be a valuable resource 2) it's the arts and I think they're incredibly important 3) I really think the guy is awesome and is doing an amazing thing with it. As I look around the room while I type this, I realize I need to do some maintenance on my room and clean up a bit. But am also surprised at how kept together it is. I guess the daily grind keeps it from getting too out of control. Same goes for myself too. After shaving my head, I've grown a matching beard. If I can, I'll try an upload the schedule I made for myself but am still working on sticking to. It's more of a guideline really....

Okay, I could swear someone is harassing me and throwing stuff at my window. But, I'm not going to jump to conclusions.......and upon further inspection, it's only the-larger-than-a-golf-ball beetles that are flying into my window at mach II. I have some fun encounters with these guys also while biking. Keeps me on my toes; I get to pretend I'm a large battering ram going against a little tiny mouse door or soemthing. I guess saying my helmet is a shield that I headbutt-bash them with would be a better metaphor but you get the war analogy either way. Though that battle is nothing compared to the war I have with mosquitos. You think the Karate Kid was awesome catching a fly with chopsticks? Ha! He has nothing on me. I swated a fly using my sandal basing it's location purely off of sound. I've learned to put myself into a ninja trance state with lightning reflexes and can flick the wings off of those little critters with just a snap of my pinky. Okay, maybe not that awesome but my hands have turned into something like snapdragons. It probably looks like I'm doing flamenco dancing or something because I'll walk around or stand in place spinning and clapping wildly.

Anyway, in the spirit of me running maintenance on myself I'm going to head to bed. It's already 9:30 and that's past my usual bedtime (9 pm....yep). Though even worse because I might get up a bit early to try and use the internet (between 1am and 5 am remember?). I know you were probably thinking, how is he going to design websites when he's barely connected to the internet. I'll manage. Next weekend will be a lot of internet usage I hope. I really want to try and upload some videos (and more pictures) so you can see some action instead of just snap shots. Ahh, then there's Skype/GoogleVoice to try and set up! The list keeps growing and my mind's been at it all night. Well, I guess some days are just meant for brainstorming and others are meant for vigorous work. Today was definitely the former (I feel asleep in the library trying to work on the computers...twice). Okay, I'm off! Night!

Out and About (no, not where I used to work...)

Hmmm, looking back recently I've been on some interesting mini-adventures. Caleb, one of the PCVs that moved to Tsumeb recently, was drilling a borehole nearby Tsintsabis and invited me to come along and watch. I totally took him up on it because I've never seen a borehole/well drilled before and thought it would be something cool to see. Well, the directions were pretty good except for one part....the first turn. Actually there was really only one turn in his directions, "take a left at the Mangetti West Wheel and go down the path, you'll run into us." Well Turns out it was the left right AFTER the wheel that says Mangetti west. Yeah, I walked down that path a while, I could actually hear them but was on a path parallel to the one they were off of. So I got to explore the bush a little bit in the hot afternoon sun. Tried looking for some shortcuts that would lead me across to their path but didn't really find any...well, any that I felt like taking. Saw a couple game trails, or what looked like game trails, but wasn't to keen on getting myself lost in the bush that particular day. Maybe some other time in the future though, when I have more than just a cell phone and nearly empty camelbak...or perhaps when I don't feel like my body is melting.

That following weekend I went to Caleb and Rachel's house with Quinn to play some board games. It was freaking awesome! Rachel was away at training for group 33 that is about to come in but the three of us had a jolly good time. We played a couple rounds of Pandemic which is a collaborative board game where your group is a team of medical specialists working together to fight 4 diseases and find a cure. Was pretty cool, we won a couple and lost a couple. The game is pretty crazy, it can be over even before you make it a full round of play! After we played Settlers of Katan; i'veheard of this game but never seen it inaction. What a fun game! Took a bit to get my mind wrapped around the game play since I didn't read the instructions but finally got it and really enjoyed it (Quinn won). So our little Tsumeb family had a blast.

I'm glad Caleb and Rachel moved into town. Love Quinn but it'll be nice to have other company around, for him as well. With all the craziness that is Tsumeb, he's got some company now when he needs it, or at least near by. Plus game nights! So cool! It's little hard with just two people.

On the way up to our first game night I rode my bike into town. Was a lot harder than last time but I did it in 3.5 hours this time. Little better because my pack was lighter and I was somewhat fresh from the week. Problem was heading back. We stayed up pretty late during game night and I tried to use the internet in Tsumeb at night (it's about 10 times as fast than my site, think 2G network versus 3G) so I didn't sleep well/much. Going back it took me about 5 hours though in my defense I got caught in some pretty nasty rains. Kind of reminded me of Colorado though: drizzle, sunny skies, drizzle, dry but crazy dark misleading clouds, bright skies, bright skies with a downpour, drizzle, dark clouds with an even bigger downpour, etc. Each phase of course lasted maybe 10-15 min. Was somewhat entertaining trying to find some shelter among trees during the more intense parts; other times I just had to keep peddling through the mess.

We had our Athletics (Track and Field....but just track for us) meet this past Saturday. I ran during practice once and got beat, not badly but it wasn't really that close. I've now become a slow old man. Ugh. Feeling age at 25. Well, I still have my goal of IronMan before I hit 30. During the big meet we had a teacher relay and would've won except the baton got dropped when I was passing it off. Too bad but we get to try again in September so maybe I'll be in better shape by them. Later that evening we had a school dance! Was pretty fun, not too many learners showed up, around 50-60 (we have 400 ish in our school) but still had a good time. They even had all the teachers that attended do a teacher dance. I was pretty tame during this. Towards the end of the dance a couple drunk guys showed up wanting to dance. Our principal let them in because the alternative was that they'd probably stay outside drinking and who knows what could happen then. Keep your friends close, and enemies closer ne? I was taken aback at first because this would have never happened at any of the schools I have been at. They would've been rejected and cops would've been called at the first sign of trouble. Kind of have to deal with your own issues here. I'm sure we could've called the cops (I know the police chief and he's pretty cool and would've helped) but the infrastructure here doesn't allow for rapid response like back in the States; it's just hard with a new country and places beig so spread out.

So I took some alternative methods to trying to help out with dealing with the issue. After one of them made a large show during a song that I swear wasn't going to end (it was like 8 minutes!?), we luckily had some DJ issues because the guy was outside or something. I walked up and was trying to help the guys put some music on and while doing, trying to get some of the guys out there and dance to take the attention away from the guys-who-can't-let-go-of-high-school. Yeah, we all know the type, they're all over the States too. Took some encouraging but finally after dancing myself a little, then telling them to show me some moves (and suprising them with a few of my own...), we got all the kids back out and the drunks were just doing their own thing in the corner with little attention paid to them. Most of the attention was on the crazy volunteer/teacher from America due to the revaltion that teachers actually have lives and may have once been young and reckless too. Guess we could say old and reckless now because after running and dancing I think I tweaked somethign in my butt because the muscles were a little sore. Man, actually having to pay attention and take somewhat care of your body sucks. I need to actually exercise to stay in a somewhat liveable shape. Ugh, I wasn't made for all this resposible hard work. Ah well, spent the past 20+ years in reckless abandonment so I guess I could use a change of pace for a bit....just a bit. Or try find a way to throw the reckless abandonment into something constructive (crazy training for an IronMan sounds about right....). I think I'll choose the new direction for fear of losing my style because we all know you love it even if you won't say so.

Speaking of style: I shaved my head...and did a bang up good job at it too! First I tried to cut as much as was worth while with some scissors the tried using the disposable razor. Those things suck so I took out the straight edge and went at it. Was a little nervous at first but then did what I usually do and got over it. Taking a straight edge all over your dome is interesting. I cleaned up the last bits with the disposable razor, then the straight edge again because it never fails me (just sometimes leaves a few scars in the process). Hmmm, that's an interesting way to think of life. You never fail to learn through experience but sometimes a few scars are left in the process. So if it still isn't clicking from a book or being told by someone, just get out there and immerse yourself. You might get a little bruised but you'll come out stronger and wiser on the other end. It is sort of like all the accounts of people's experience with Peace Corps service. I didn't read any in which someone said they regretted their decision to join the Peace Corps. I did read someone that said they did not enjoy their service and would not do it again but those that said so still stated they gained valuble insight and would've always regretted not making the decision to take part in service. That's how many things in life are: you may not succeed if you try but you definitely fail if you don't. And then you'll always be wondering what if, but I've already prattled on about that before so that's enough of that. Sometimes we do things not to motivate and inspire others but to do so with ourselves, people just happen to be caught in the wake.

Some more pics...

Oh I just realized, I didn't even talk about Thanksgiving! At least I didn't see it in my previous posts. Thanksgiving was fun. Just a few met up in Tsumeb (my shopping town) on the way to Reconnect. We cooked some pretty solid food that was the first time some people ate something other than porridge...and not the type you're thinking of. It's like really fine cous cous or something. But seriously, pop (porridge), milk and sugar in the morning and then for lunch and dinner pop, soup sauce, meat/fish and veggies (if you're really lucky). That was the diet for a lot of volunteers during phase 2. But we made up for that with our meal, which included plenty of desserts. Anyway here's a picture of the meal we cooked:



Here are some other pictures over the past few months including reconnect, Swakop, being back at home, etc.:















Yep, I biked 65km like this:






Also check Facebook! I uploaded a bunch on there! And I'll probably try to do another mass one in a week or two.