Independence Day Weekend

Happy Independence Day! Wednesday is the big day. Our school lets out early tomorrow so that everyone can travel safely and be home by Wednesday. For this particular holiday, most everybody heads back to their family; homestead, town, where ever they are. I will be staying in Oshifo/Ruacana with plans to visit Ruacana Falls. Travelling is prohibited by the Peace Corps and with travelling during this holiday being quite dangerous, I chose to stick around town. School is going well, I am very much ready for this break in teaching. It is such an exhausting job and I will appreciate some rest and break from the routine. I have been giving a bit more group work as of late and have been really happy at the results. Asking questions is a huge problem here, so with group work the learners feel free to ask and investigate. Physically it is a bit easier as well, rather than lecturing for 4 or 5 periods a day. Had some interesting discussions about corporal punishment with my colleagues over the last couple of days. They all pretty much agree with the idea that if it was done to me and I am fine, then what is the problem with it. Also, it is very difficult to argue (which I am horrible at anyway) when most are against you. The conclusion I came to was that even just suggesting other means of punishment/management goes along way, and, as Peace Corps told us, we may not see results until we are long gone, if ever. Planting the seed is the important thing I suppose. Life is good otherwise, my garden is coming along nicely. I am a little worried about the fence. It seems I possibly made it tall enough to keep out animals, but not quite tall enough to keep out small boys. Small boys, by the way, is a term for basically anybody (usually boys) smaller than you, ha. Small boys are everything from couriers of messages and parcel to scapegoats. Example, when I want to buy some fat cakes (like funnel cake in ball form) from the local memes who sell them though the fence during out break to the kids, I send a small boy. And I know it sounds bad, but it really is the culture. I tried to get my own cakes a couple of times at the beginning of the year and basically got laughed at. I do give the small boy I choose for this errand some of my cakes, however. Currently, the 'upper management' of the school, basically the principal, secretary, head of department(vice principal) and half of the teachers are currently interviewing canidates for two teaching vaccancies. We have had an absent Agriculture teacher since the beginning of the year and also have another teacher leaving in April. It has been interesting to watch the hiriing process. Basically the school put in an ad in the paper, we have had the applicaitons rolling in ever since. It will be nice for the learners to finally have all their teachers present so they dont have to just sit around during their free periods.

If you cannot tell, my verbal and overall language skills are becoming extremely poor, so I appologize for this scattered and typo-filled update. I hope everybody is well. This will hopefully be accompanied with pictures...who knows.....

keif