It's Good for You

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but it must have been a least a few weeks ago now. I said something in 10B along the lines of practice (math) problems being good for you. There's a kid in that class, who as best I can tell doesn't give a rat's a#$ about school, that just says "Thank you Madam" in response to everything I (and any other teacher for that matter) say. Anyway, he just started repeating it, "it's good for you" all the time in this really cocky and mocking yet somehow endearing way. Over the weeks I've noticed more and more learners saying it, but it has now spread across the school. Even teachers are saying it.."it's good for you", "it's good for us", "it's good for them", and on and on.

So something was very good for me, mostly, this weekend. I agreed to be the female supervisor for an overnight sports trip. Apparently, it's the first time Divundu has ever done anything like this (throughout the weekend it was referred to as "historic"..whether that is an exaggeration or not I'm not sure). On Friday after school we loaded 50 some odd learners into the back of a truck (yes, one truck). Last minute, I was asked to drive because the driver, Mr. S. wasn't feeling well. I quickly realized that meant he wanted to drink. And in fact, it wasn't long before I figured out I was the official DD of the weekend. It was a standard car.I've driven on the other side of the road before, but not a stick, so it definitely took some muscle memory adjustments. But I digress. We took off for Rcara (this is a click word, I'll have to demonstrate when I get home). It is about 100k away, 30 or so of which is down a dirt road.

This school looks just like Divundu *should* look.buildings all the same, even the school housing has the same layout, but it's all in much better shape. We had to take everything we needed with us, including mattresses. Thankfully I had the presence of mind to bring some toilet paper too. We got the kids squared away and the teachers went to a shebeen. I feigned tiredness after a while, plus I wanted to make sure the learners weren't having sex. I went to check on the gals and plopped right down on their mattresses all bunched up in a classroom. They loved it.started playing with my hair, wondering when they would get to braid it (after the break). They asked if I'd play netball with them tomorrow and I told them about my bum knees and showed them my floating knee caps which prompted squeals and giggles. I let them play with my camera which turned out to be a big hit all weekend. I saw one girls with some fabric wrapped around her calf. I
asked what it was and someone called out something about her trying a tattoo. I asked to see it and she pulled it down to reveal all kinds of badness underneath. I told her to come see me when we got home. Anyway, bonding abounded.

The following day got off to a slow start, naturally, since the other teachers got a learner to drive them *back* to the shebeen. But soon enough the first match started. Netball is a sport for girls, and as best I can tell it's basketball without the dribbling and some weird rule allowing you
to straddle the ball to keep others from getting it. Anyway, BOTH of our teams KICKED ASS! I don't think the other team touched the ball for many minutes at a time. Then it was on to boy's soccer. Our first team lost by 1 goal, but second team won by 2. Divundu "topped" the day!!

I had a blast. I'm realizing that when I'm around kids here (both my learners and other kids), I laugh very easily. When I'm around the adults I feel more like how I feel most of the time I'm at home where things are more oh, what's the way to describe this, layered? I guess I'm not that great at living in the moment. But here with the kids, most of the time, when I laugh I'm just laughing, not thinking. So we laughed and cheered together. I sat with some local kids for a good long while and though we didn't understand a single word out of each other, we had a grand time. They kept touching my skin and blond leg/arm/head hair, and just giggling and giggling. Seriously, this entertained them for close to an hour. Earlier in the day I held a baby for a good long while and had 'baby snatching' thoughts. I joked about buying her for N$20. I took pictures of the teams and started a new Divundu cheer. And of course, "it's good for you" was pervasive throughout the day.

There were a few annoyances. The music for one. Namibians love 2 things when it comes to music, excessive volume, and repeat. Seemed that all of the CDs but one was scratched, and that one only had 3 songs on it. So that's what we listened to, for 1.5 days. 3 songs, seriously, at a ridiculous volume. I still have them in my head.

There were a few other things that bugged me, but I don't think it's appropriate to mention them publicly, at least not now. Let's just say, whenever I could, I opted to spend the time with the learners.

I'm home now, and really happy to be able to sleep in tomorrow. This morning I was up around 5. I'll make a nice breakfast, have some coffee, and try not to think about the impending failure rate on the exams that start Tuesday. I was asked several times this weekend if I could stay on as a teacher here. There's so much to love, and so much to run from.

This blog post was more elegant in my head as I was thinking about it today. Sorry it's so clunky. I should get some sleep.