Showing posts with label peacecorpsafrica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peacecorpsafrica. Show all posts

Monday, April 25, 2016

Sunday Funday 24-April Kids say the darnest things

So with term one coming to an end, countless amounts of paper have been marked (graded). Sometimes the marking seems never ending, and sometimes it's super funny, or just sweet. Check out some of the fun stuff I came across this semester:





 Question: give the antonym of the word "happy".
Answer: hungry 


 Well, I mean she has a point....






Sex: a human 
What is the nationality of Mrs. Calment?
A human 

Ha ha ha this kid is kinda onto something. 





We watched The  Lion King  as a listening activity with fill in the blank from the scene with adult Simba and Rafiki befor Simba returns to pride rock. 

Rafiki said to Simba "Yes, the past can *hurt*, but the way I see it you can either run from it, or *die* from it. Ahhh see! You learned!"


Hmmmm.... Talk about the past haunting you! 




He he he being a teacher is like being President. I guess this could mean Ms.Tena for President? ;) 







For the start of class everyday we have a warm up. On this day the prompt was "Tell me something that makes you feel good"

The thing that makes me feel good is when ms Tena she teaches like I am eating chicken.


 .... I'm gonna take that as a compliment. Chicken is good. Lol






In a counsling group I was once apart if we did "visual journaling" and it's activity that really stuck to me. It's really relaxing to just throw on some music, clip away and break out the glue. I must admit this is something I really enjoy doing! Sunday morning collaging :) This was what I did this weekend 




These were the other two I made since being here




Thursday, October 8, 2015

You done with CBT, ya you know me!

Written on 1-Oct-2015

Community Based Training (CBT) is officially complete and we are finally in the home stretch of all our training so that we can be officially sworn in as the Peace Corp SUPED group 42 of Namibia!!!

First off I'd like to start by saying CBT went by way too fast! I absolutely LOVED the community myself and 7 other trainees were in for CBT, I loved my host family and all the extended family, and full on fell in love with the river and skies. It was simply gorgeous! I truly look forward to being able to come back to visit my host family. 

So what is CBT?
CBT is a 4 week immersion part of our Pre-Service Training (PST) required in order to officially Swear -In as Peace Corps Volunteers. The 4 weeks is envisioned to give us exposure to how education is provided, hands on experience teaching, language immersion (many languages are only spoken is specific areas of Namibia), and have cross cultural exchange/exposure to the region of which you have been assigned to. Myself, along with the 7 other volunteers I had CBT with we assigned to learn the language of Rukwangali and serve our 2 years in the Kavango Region. We were the lucky ones who got to serve in the great village of Bunya about 50k (approx 30mi) west of Rundu. 

Bunya Combined School was nice enough to allow us to perform our training at their school hosting grades 0-12. The school served learners (students) from Bunya and neighboring communities making it a very large school. It was not uncommon to have classroom sizes well into the numbers of plus 40 learners. Both my grade 6 classes had over 50 learners in the class. We did observations for the first week along with co-teaching and then took on our own classes including everything from the lesson planning, to teaching the lesson, to debriefing and analyzing it  after the fact. I got to work with grade 6 and grade 8 learners. Schools in Bunya are definitely different than they are America so it was a great to get our feet wet. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to get feedback from my co-volunteers and support teachers. At first I was nervous about working with older learners because teenagers are so cool, and well, I’m really silly and dorky. However, the games I used with my younger ESL (English as a Second Language) students in the states worked just as well with the older learners. Guess you’re never too old for learning to be fun. Though I have done volunteer work in other countries prior to Peace Corps and worked actively in classrooms in the States I had not been a teacher by profession prior to this. I was an American Sign Language Interpreter and though I did enjoy that profession a lot a piece of me longed to be a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching abroad. It really felt good to get feedback one day telling me I am “one of those people who are just meant to be a teacher and work in classrooms. It comes naturally to you.” That comment really made me feel like I’m on the right track! J

The village of Bunya was extremely welcoming and everyone was rather kind. Each person we crossed wanted to have a conversation. The typical school day started at 6:45am and ended at 1:00pm. We then had debriefing and language training till 3:00pm. After that we typically went down to the river banks to enjoy the amazingness and soak up some sun. Locals and ourselves would have a great time playing and exploring. It was a great opportunity for learning conversational language and bonding with family members, extended family, and each other’s families. There were more times than I can count that I would just stop and think, damn, this is really happening isn’t it? This is real life, my life!!! Sometimes it all seems so surreal.


Thursday, October 1, 2015

CBT Photo awesomeness

 My washing Machine. I'm so fancy huh? ;)

 Charlie and his host brothers are way too adorable. 

 Some of my amazing co-volunteers, some of the local children and I enjoying the beach. 

 Bathing in the Kavango 101

 These skies and fun evenings stole my heart every day

 Jake looking so fresh and so clean clean 

James being pulled by the cattle you know.  Being superman is rough


A beautiful way to stay the day. My morning walk to school


Some of our learners. 

Its at least 70 degrees... the locals seem to think its cold and need a fire

Charlie riding the cattle


We love to have fun

Sunday, September 20, 2015

A few signs that you're living the village life in the Kavango

When you get home early from school and you host mom says "Morokeni! You're home early, go put on a head wrap so you can pluck the chicken" and sure enough plucking the chicken is exactly what she meant.

On that note I'd say I've become a pretty decent chicken plucker


When your host mom thinks it's funny that you feel the need to set up 2 flash lights in your [outside] shower area so that you can see if there's any spiders that will get you at 5:30am. 


When you think you've gotten the hang of bucket bathing.... Until you get to stay somewhere with hot shower. So naturally you take the first shower you've had in the past month only to discover a filthy wash cloth at the end of it all. Apparently my bucket bathing skills could use some improvement. 


If you're watching world's strangest pets with your mom when a family with a pet crocodile that sleeps in the bed with them comes on and she asks you "why would someone do that?!" So I respond "I guess that's their pet, like a dog" and stares at me with a very strange look and says "why would you let a dog in the house?" The concept of pets is much different here. 

When your host mom finds it very funny how your terrified of spiders and literally run out of the house screaming after a camel spider runs out of no where and over your foot. I hate spiders!!!!!!!

When you have to make sure you put your apples away so that giecos don't eat them. Along with not leaving chocolate out or a mouse will get it. (it is war between that mouse and I now!! I love chocolate! Touching my chocolate is just something you don't do.) 


When your host mom asks "do you want Kuche for dinner" and you ask "does it have flour or bread on it" and she says no it's meat so you agree.... Dinner time comes around and BBQ bat is on the plate. That's one way to discover bat is edible. And still looks exactly like a bat after being cooked over a fire. 


When you seriously deliberate how bad you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night because it's a bit of a walk to the latrine which doesn't include any lights, or if you would rather wait till the sun rises.


When people tell you when something is happening by pointing to where the sun will be in the sky rather than giving an actual time. 


When you fall in love with hanging out at the river and just want to spend all your free time either in the water or sitting on the beach/river banks. 


When yisma (aka pap aka porridge) is your utensils (which you eat with your hands) most nights of the week. Who needs spoons and forks? T.I.N.A! 


When one of the main forms of communication you have with some of your family members (who don't speak English and you're still not the master of Rukwangali) is via dance parties on the homestead.


When nuts suffice as soccer balls.


When you realize you've woken late and ATTEMPT to jump out of bed in a panic only to get tangled in your misquote net and fall to the floor. (I'm extremely clumsy even in the states. Lol)