Saturday school

It appears the rhino tracking cameras are not rhino proof. The wildlife volunteer went to change the batteries in the camera at the far end of the farm and found that it had been broken off its post and stomped into the ground. There were rhino tracks all around and leading up to the camera, but the camera didn’t capture anything before it got stomped. The batteries were probably already dead. These rhinos sure are camera shy!

I held a Saturday class at the school today. I honestly didn’t think anyone would turn up, but instead I got three recent graduates as well as my four little students. The three older kids go to school in Windhoek and come back to the farm for weekends. Their photos and work (with their names written on them) is still hanging on the walls of the kindergarten. I found (typical for Africa) that they could recite their ABCs with great confidence but when you put a letter in front of them, they couldn’t tell you what it was. Or when you asked them to write a letter, they were lost. So that’s something I can teach them.

I need to get working on the genealogy for the local Damara people who work on the farm. A former volunteer has it all in an excel spreadsheet, but I need to transfer it into a “Family Tree Maker” program that is only in German. Justina (who works in the kitchen) will be helping me with adding the details of education and what they died of. Unfortunately, I was with the owner when he asked Justina to help me with it. She was rolling her eyes. Obviously she has been through this process before - every time a new volunteer shows up or the boss gets some idea in his head. I’m going to have to find a way to get the information in a less formal way. But Justina is very friendly. She told me she prefers to be known by her hip hop name – Justified!

However, Justina might be pissed off with me today. She came to the school this morning to enroll the terrorizing toddler who breaks things. He is far too young. I would guess around 12 – 14 months. The owner made it perfectly clear that I am not to act as a babysitter and shouldn’t accept anything that would stop me from actually teaching the kids something. So I turned her away.

I was very annoyed yesterday when Vivian (a student who has the same mother as the terrorizing toddler) told me that her mother had instructed her to wait at the school until she came to pick her up (or I guessed that’s what she told me – it’s hard when you have to communicate with a couple of shared words “Vivian mummy here” and a lot of hand signals). I waited for an hour and a half before I sent her home with another student. The community is very very small – maybe 30 people. I know she would be looked after.

Other than that, life goes on at the guest house. The last couple of days there has been zero English spoken around the dinner table. I suppose my German is improving, but I was very happy to find a couple of young Dutch people at the bar to chat with after dinner.

The guesthouse is near Windhoek, so it is usually the first or last stop for people going to or from the airport. The “just arrived” people are usually very excited but jetlagged. The “just leaving” people are usually waxing lyrical about Namibia. I haven’t heard anyone yet complain about having a miserable time in Namibia and that’s saying something considering how much Germans like to complain.