Calculator Saga Continues

I've gotten a VERY generous donation of 45 graphing calculators - yes - 45!!
They are in a couple of boxes and hopefully flying this way as I type.

My plan for these puppies is to allow my grade 10's to use them for their
exams that start (gasp!) October 6. I will give a calculator to the
learners that are promoted to Grade 11. (There probably won't be more than
10). But those learners will have to come back at the end of the year to
collect them.

This way, I'll have 60 calculators for use in my two sections of Grade 9.
The top 20 in each class going into the exam will have their own calculator
for use on the exams. And the remaining 20 will be distributed for sharing
during the tests.

The top scorers overall (not just from the exam, but for the year) will be
given the calculators left over from Grade 10s (likely around 50).

Here's the kicker - each calculator that's being sent takes 4 triple A
batteries, and sadly, batteries are not included. A single battery is about
$1US. So to put batteries in all 45, it'll cost me around $169USD (which is
half my stipend). Many have asked about more opportunities to support the
goings on here. This is definitely it!!

Email me if you can help :-)

Zimbabwe and Botswana Pictures ONLINE!!

Link is on the left or http://picasaweb.google.com/heyjenjackson
The album is "Africa Travels".

YAY!!!

Cold Showers

(Get your minds outta the gutters.)

The solar shower has been put away. I'm taking a cold shower almost every
day at this point just to cool off. I'm sleeping with my windows wide open.
It's really heating up here. I'm starting to get kinda nervous about what
the summer, eeerrr, winter (southern hemisphere) will bring.

Teams Update

The team concept seems to be proceeding fairly well, as best I can tell.
There are a few hiccups, like the fact that 3 of my higher performers (and
hence team captains or acting captains) didn't show up at school last week.
2 of them were in a very serious car accident and are in the hospital - I'm
told it was some sort of drunk driving thing, but I have no details. And
another is just "sick". SO, that leaves their teams in a lurch. But until
I'm told they won't be returning, I can't really distribute the remaining
people. Oh, and one team captain is throwing some serious attitude. I
don't know what to do to motivate him.

Other than that, the rest seem to enjoy working together, and are proud of
their names and when they put the right answer on the board. Some of my
favorite team names are:
Ice Machine (slogan: "Too Cool")
The Survivors
Strength and Faith (love this one because it's arguably the weakest team in
the class)
SOH CAH TOA
NDF2 (Namibian Defense Force 2)

The first round of quizzes go out on Tuesday - we'll see how they do. I'll
report the results as I get em.

Challenging Day

Man today was a character test. I think I got about a B+.

I woke up with yet another case of pink eye. Don't know what it is with me
and travelling and eye infections, but I always seem to get em (and no, I
haven't been in contact with any domesticated animals recently). It's not a
big deal, really, I have drops (thanks again Amanda!) and since I treat it
right away it never really gets out of control - it's just annoying.

Oh, before the pink eye...i was actually woken up by blaring Namibian music,
skipping. No offense to any Namibians reading this - we are all allowed to
have our own musical tastes and preferences - in my opinion, Namibian music
sucks. Someone turns on a casio-synthesizer-like loop, and it goes and goes
not just for one song, but for all songs. I'm not kidding, one album with
however many songs has the exact same loop. So a skipping CD doesn't sound
that much different than the normal song. And there's some muffled sort of
lyrics. Not singing so much as making sounds that sort of follow the looped
music, with the occasional yell or holler. So I laid in bed for a bit with
the pillow over my head. But it got too hot. So I got up.

(Then pink eye thing.)

Then I went into the kitchen anxious for my instant coffee and Saturday
morning breakfast that I've nearly perfected, to find that it was a
disgusting mess. Old food, supremely dirty dishes, stickier than usual
table, crusted over burners where porridge had boiled over, and a pot of
goat meat currently boiling over (which carries an awful sour smell). I
just kept thinking, my god, everything these people touch turns to gross. I
mean there's a layer of dirt mixed with oil on the kitchen shelves about 2
millimetres thick. Every time I turn the water on in the kitchen to fill my
electric kettle, my fingers come away greasy. There's a steady stream of
flies, and sadly, cockroaches. Uneaten or half eaten plates of food and not
even rinsed dishes sit out for days. Now, this is NOT the general Namibian
way of life. Another teacher came over recently and was repulsed. And a
Namibian roommate of another volunteer is downright OCD when it comes to
cleanliness. And Mark, don't tell me that I just have a westernized notion
of 'clean'. My standard of 'clean' here is a far cry from what your typical
American would tolerate - just look at the pictures of my feet! Plus, it's
not like we're living in a mud hut. It's a house, and there's a shop a
couple hundred feet away with cleaning supplies. No, in my house's case,
the problem is the sense of impermanence that the people that stay in and
use the house have, even though they've been there for 2+ years now. They
don't care about it at all, so there's no pride or sense of ownership. And
I guess they just don't care how disgusting everything is. They do find it
disgusting - I've seen the wrinkled noses - they just don't do anything to
fix the situation.

So anyway, I kind of started freaking out, mad like. When my housemate came
out of his room I told him that I was really upset, and if this kind of
thing continued I was going to take the hot plate that James bought more or
less for me into my room and keep it there. (And just start living in my
room basically all the time) His response was that he would "just call some
learners to clean this mess." But as the coffee kicked in a little I
realized that that was 1000% not the way to handle things.

A little bit later I asked my housemate if he could kick down some money for
some actual cleaning supplies for when the learners do come and clean. See,
right now, they use dirty rags and a dirty mop. And there's no soap. (Btw,
not just random learners, but the same ones who are over all the time doing
his and their cooking.) He said maybe next week, so I offered to loan him
the N$50 (USD $6).

After my breakfast, and my first attempt at hot waxing my own legs (that's
another story), I went down to the shop and picked up some soap, sponges,
new dishtowels and a new mop. I brought all back and asked Annastacia to
clean just one of the shelves so that we could put their clean dishes there.
(Oh, I keep ALL my stuff completely separate, for this very reason, so this
is just their stuff I'm talking about). I explained that when the food
boils over onto the hotplate, it burns there, making everything smell and
eventually ruining the hotplate. I told her that the mop should not be
thrown onto the ground outside after it's used. And when a rag is used to
clean something, the rag itself also needs to be washed. She and Mr. T's
long term girlfriend who was over for the weekend kinda dove into the
cleaning effort. I don't know if it was for my benefit or not, but they did
more than I asked. And seemed pleased that I helped wash their dishes, and
made a sign for the now 1 of 2 clean shelves that said "Clean Dishes Only".
I don't think they were too thrilled when the actual cleaning was taking
place...particularly when one was literally scraping off that 2 millimetres
of dirt and oil with a rusty old knife...but all seemed happy with the
result.

I'm under no disillusion that things will stay clean in the kitchen, none
whatsoever. Too many people make an absolute mess of the table and kitchen
all the time. But today at least was nice. And in the end I'm kinda proud
of myself or not letting my freak out bitchiness get too out of control.

Anyway, day in the life...

Lions, Elephants, Zebras - OH MY!

Yes, dear friends, I got to see some a-min-als on the trip! So, we left
Victoria Falls in a private car at around 5:15am for the Botswanan border.
This is apparently the best time to see wildlife, but I didn't figure we'd
see them while driving down the road! On that little 60k trip we saw
elephants, giraffes, and, gasp, LIONS!! There were about 4 females with 1
male. How LUCKY! My pictures are kinda pitch black though, unfortunately.
But after talking to many who had just come from a safari and DIDN'T see any
lions, we felt supremely blessed.

The next couple of hours were rather nerve-wracking as we had to make about
4 different connections between combis (hired mini-buses), taxis and
hitchhiking. AND, the ATMs in Botswana don't take my card. NOW HEAR THIS -
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: If you EVER intend to do any international travel,
GET A VISA LOGO ON YOUR ATM CARD!! I was under the impression that ATM is
ATM and you can use it anywhere. Nope, wrong! Mastercard Sucks. Get a
VISA. (Visa rep, if you're reading this, I accept paypal.)

Anyway, we finally got ourselves all sorted out, and then I was blessed, yet
again, and got us picked up by a friendly fellow with a comfortable truck
who was heading all the way to Maun, our destination. P.S., it was FREE!!
(I think I must've picked up travelers in a former life.) Oh ya, lots of
Giraffes on the road on this leg. We settled in at a gorgeous campsite on
the water and booked our adventuring the next day.

Wednesday we headed out for our 3 day/2 night Mokoro trip. A Mokoro is a
hollowed out tree log that's used as a canoe (however, many are made of
fiberglass now in light of conservation efforts). A guy/girl called a
"poler" drives the boat with a long piece of bamboo that s/he places at the
bottom of the water and pushes us along. (I tried driving - while I did ok,
it's bloody tiring!) We traveled by Mokoro for about 3 hours and arrived at
an "island" in the Okavango Delta, and set up camp.

Over the next 2.5 days we went on walking safaris. We learned about animal
tracks, animal poop and of course what to do in the event of an animal
encounter. We saw TONS of Zebras, Blue Wildebeast, Impalas, Antelope,
Giraffes and Elephants...plus a whole bunch of birds and smaller mammals
that no one really cares about :-) My favorite were the Zebras - one
particular group sort of got used to us and let us get closer and closer
each time they saw us. But then, the last day, an Elephant totally came
INTO our CAMP!! Ever the one to tempt the fates (at much to the worry of
the guide), I got closer and closer with Mr. Elephant till I was about 10-15
ft. away. Our eyes were locked on each other - it was pretty magical.

Friday we made our way back out, Saturday was a travel day from Maun to
Shakawe, then over the border back into Namibia.

The holiday was WAY TOO SHORT! But I'm super glad I got to see all that I
did, and am very much looking forward to travelling again in late November
through December.

I Zimbabwe

I'm back from Holiday, safe and sound, and have had the pleasure to poke
around some of my neighboring countries. Boy are they all so different!!
Itinerary shifted a little bit from the original plan, but not much. In a
nutshell:
I (hitch)hiked from Divundu to Katima Mulilo where I met up with Rachel and
Mita. We then transited through Kasane, Botswana to (somewhat nervously)
cross into Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We spent more time there than we
expected because we all fell in love with the place! While there we took a
day trip to Livingstone, Zambia (bleh). We had planned to go back to
Botswana to do a safari through Chobe National Park, but on the
recommendation of a S. African tour guide we decided to go deeper into
Botswana and explore the Okavango Delta (via hike to Maun) instead. We did
a 3 day/2 night Mokoro trip (explained later) with walking safaris. Mita
went on to Windhoek to meet a friend, and Rachel and I traveled from Maun to
Shakawe and then back into Namibia.

We pitched tents and camped the whole way. After the first hard and cold
night I wondered if I wasn't going to break down and opt for a dorm room for
the rest of the trip. But as I'm learning over here, you quickly adapt to
whatever. The cost savings is substantial too. Camping runs you $7-$10 USD
a night, whereas a dorm, if available, is $25USD+.

So back to Zim (Zimbabwe). You all are probably at least a little bit aware
of the turmoil that country has been in for the last several years.
Recently it made some list as an official "failed state" in Africa. While
the government might still be in shambles, and they have yet to reestablish
a currency (there is no longer a Zimbabwe dollar that is worth anything -
only USD, South African Rand and sometimes Botswanan Pula are accepted), the
air of the place is one of perseverance and hope. The people aren't waiting
for the government to fix things; they are starting to fix things
themselves. There are still very few jobs, but those in them work very hard
and take a great deal of pride in their work, even if it is menial. Those
who aren't working are still trying to support themselves by catering to the
slowly rebounding tourist population, but not in as horribly harassing way
as their Zambian neighbors do. I also had the pleasure of exploring the
township where most of the locals live - and nearly every house had a small
garden filling their yards - they're taking care of themselves however they
can. Most of the houses were very well kept - extremely poor mind you - but
still with obvious pride.

The first Zimbabwean I spent any real time with was Thomas. I had set out
in search of a way to mend my tent pole, either with duct tape or a metal
tube. Thomas was one of many standing out on the street all too eager to
sell you a trinket or help you book an activity. He walked me to a camping
store, despite my assuring him that I could find it alone (I get sketched
out by these types of guys). The camping store didn't have anything, but
they recommended another shop. Thomas again walked me. This started a LONG
series of no-luck, recommendation, another shop as we walked further from
the main tourist area into the township. As we walked, we of course talked
and I grew more at ease with him. The 10th or so place had pvc of all
things, and I was able to get a small section. I learned that he earns
commission for people he brings in to book activities, so I promised to book
my bungie jump through him (which I did). Never did he ask me for money and
never did I feel unsafe. (ps - my tent pole ended up working alright for
the trip, but new ones will most likely need to be purchased for my next
outing)

The next day I met Julius. He was a bus boy/server at a (surprisingly good)
pizza place. Julius, like many we met, marched right up and struck up a
real conversation with me. After a while, I asked if he would be there
tomorrow, but he was working a different shift so he could attend a gospel
concert in the afternoon. I asked if visitors were welcome, and if I could
join him. He was thrilled and said I could also meet his family. The girls
weren't as interested in going, so I left them with the assurance that I'd
be back by sundown. He told me we would first go to his house, to see if
any of his family could join us (mind you, my caution bells are going off
loudly, but I had a good feeling). At his house, I met his wife and 2
daughters - one 5 months, the other 8 years. The 5 month old's name,
Tofara, means 'brings great joy'. And oh was she a cutie! No one else was
joining us, so off we went. Then I did start to get a little nervous
because we were going higher up into the township, not back to the main road
where I thought the concert was supposed to be. He said we were taking a
shortcut, and sure enough we popped out onto the main road soon enough.
After quite a long walk in the blistering sun, we arrived at a primary
school and could hear the music playing. This wasn't a church service, but
rather an outdoor music festival! (The music was gospel - but it was way
more pop than anything, just with lyrics about God (in Shona - a principal
language in Zim). Admission was USD$3 for adults and $1 for kids. Julius
paid my way (though I immediately paid him back). There must have been 1000
people there! (I saw one other white person the whole time). Everyone was
singing, dancing, laughing, playing, eating ice cream, etc. It was amazing
to see that that many people could afford to be there, and how good of a
time all were having.

I was kind of having a tough time with the sun. I had put on sunscreen but
could feel myself just sizzling. So we sat in the shade for a good long
while with some little ones that Julius was somehow related to. We talked
and talked...about his life, the hard times, and just whatever really. He
invited me to dinner, but I was very worried that they would serve more food
than they could, and I didn't want to worry the girls when I wasn't back by
sundown. He then suggested I come just for a quick bite of kovo, a local
leafy green that is growing in most of the gardens I had asked about. So
back we went to his house, where more of the family had gathered. His wife
picked some kovo from the garden, and then invited me in to see how she made
it. Julius, his wife, and 2 girls live completely in a single room, about
8'x10', with a hotplate, full-size bed, cupboard for dishes, small tv and
dvd player, and armoire for clothes. They share the very small 3 bedroom
house with 11 other people - 15 total. The toilet and shower are outside,
though the shower has stopped working. The kovo was pan fried with oil and
(too much) salt, but boy it was good!

As a side note, I've continued my sort of joking/sort of serious inquiry
into getting a Zimbabwean baby girl. I told Julius I had had a day dream
where during my travels I came across a woman who had just given birth to a
little girl but couldn't care for her, so she gave her to me. I said I
would take her home where she could be fed, clothed, educated and loved
dearly, and that I would often bring her back to Zim so she could know her
roots. Julius was quite fond of the idea, saying that so many babies can't
be cared for properly here. Much later on when we were back at his house he
told me that most babies are breast fed for two years, but that after two
years I could take Tofie (Tofara). I wasn't sure if he was serious or not.
His wife seemed to be in agreement.

Soon it was time for me to go, and Julius walked me back to town. I gave
him my contact information, though he has not way to contact me. He doesn't
have a cell phone, so the only way I can contact him is if I go back through
Victoria Falls. By this point, I'd so fallen in love with the place that I
axed my December plans of travelling through Zambia to Malawi to get to
Mozambique. Nope, I'm going through the heart of Zim. So maybe I will see
Julius again - I will certainly try very hard to look for him.

Oy vey this is a long post. But there's more! That Sunday evening back at
the camp, the girls had met a young Zimbabwean woman, Irvy, who is currently
teaching in Botswana. We had dinner with her, and then I went back to her
room where she and I had a veryyyy long talk - a few hours. Just two girls
chatting really, but it was an instant connection. I suspect I will be
friends with Irvy for a very long time. The next day she travelled with us
into Botswana, and before we parted she gave me one of those popular plastic
bracelet thingys that was for Breast Cancer Awareness in Botswana - "to
remember her."

In other Zimbabwean news...I did jump off the bridge. I was talked out of
the Bungie Jump since I've done so many of those and into the bridge swing -
rather than a bungie, you jump off with just a rope, and then get more time
to swing around at the bottom. There are photos, and videos. It was
thrilling - 83 metre (249ft) freefall - but I prefer diving to jumping, so
if there's a next time, it'll definitely be a headfirst affair.

And last, Victoria Falls is truly magical. I've seen my fair share of
waterfalls, but this place is in a class to itself. It's very difficult to
put to words, so I will try to post photos as soon as I can.

I'll have to do a separate post about the rest of the trip - obviously - Zim
was the highlight.

I also have lots of personal emails to answer - bear with me - I'm getting
to em! :-)