Wednesday was a very busy day as Chelcie not feeling very well so she stayed in bed. Having done art with G2’s – got them to draw their “Dream Worlds”, I then went and mopped the stage from where we had spilt blue paint from painting the backdrop. Ms Shituleni also hadn’t come into school that day so Mrs Vermaak asked if I would take the G3 class as well. I put on a DVD for them and the G1s who I was supposed to be doing art with and then the G2s also joined me as their teacher thought it might be nice for them! On the plus side I got to watch Princess Diaries and had a rather relaxing morning! After taking Wings for PT I returned to the flat for a quick lunch before rushing off to a Nativity rehearsal which was absolutely awful – they seemed to have gone about 3 weeks backwards and couldn’t have make the whole thing more boring if they’d tried! Started to despair quietly...Went back to flat and made Good Luck cards for all the Grade 7 learners I do Remedial with as their “common entrance” started on Thursday. Gilly came to my Swakup music week and was very happy with what she heard so I think that everyone is being allowed to come which is good – touch wood.
On Wednesday night we had a bit of a good bye party as Nina left for Windhoek Germany
We have been incredibly busy making the backdrop and doing all the scenery but it is now all done and was definitely worth all the hard work. Our Nativity is set in heaven (it tells the traditional Nativity story from the point of view of the angels who organised everything) – we painted the top two thirds of the backdrop indigo and then glued on stars cut out of silver foil. On the bottom third we made clouds by gluing on rolled up balls of thick tissue paper into balls – this took hours and hours, the edges of the clouds have been spray painted silver (every cloud has a silver lining!). We have also cut out giant clouds from polystyrene and spray painted the edges silver – these have been stuck around the edge of the stage and hung from the ceilings. We also cut out loads of stars which are either silver or gold and they have also been hung from the ceiling. We have tried to make it that as you enter to watch the play you enter heaven because of the 3D effect.
On Friday evening we had a disastrous Nativity run through – if Gilly had seen it, the play would have been cancelled instaneously – this is not an empty threat as it happened last year. We went down to Gillys very depressed but were greeted by a huge bundle of post which made us both very happy and we both got a parcel. Mine was from Godmother Jo and had an advent card, a Christmas present and a bar of lindor chocolate in. Incredibly exciting and the chocolate went straight in the freezer and I can’t say it lasted long there!
On Saturday the Nativity was shown to Gilly to decide whether it would be good enough to be shown to the school or not. Luckily the children all acted proplery and for the most part remembered where to walk and stand. Although it didn’t go without hiccups Gilly was happy and said it was about 70% which was a good place to be – very relieved. We had another good run through on Sunday and this time we let them wear their costumes. It was very exciting to see them up there with all the scenery and in their costumes and I was very happy with how it went. However Shepherd 2 had chicken pox so I had to act her part which got a bit hysterical when I was lying on my front on the stage and trying to direct at the same time! We have a slight issue in that we have a couple of bee nests at the top of the stage which buzz very loudly when the stage lights are on, fly around, scare the children and have stung a couple of them. The worst thing about them is that Chelcie has made a series of bad bee jokes including “Bee careful” and “Don’t be afraid”, which I have had to suffer!
Monday was Diodores birthday (G6 – one of my favourites, if I’m being totally honest my absolute favourite!) so I made him a card and a “D” out of hammer beads which he liked but what he really wanted was my ring which he really loves and likes to “borrow” often! Had quite a relaxed week as not teaching Grades 4-7 and with the others we have been doing end of term things such as watching a DVD in their lessons. On Tuesday we had a staff meeting to discuss prefect elections which happen on Friday. Grades 5-7 vote and all the staff although our votes are worth 5 so its not just a popularity contest. We vote for Head Girl, Deputy Head Girl, Sports Captain and two prefects and the same for the boys. We went through all the current Grade 6s and everyone voiced their opinions. Some people we said yes to straight away and some were discarded straight away but some of the children caused very split opinions among the staff as to whether they would be suitable. I have already chosen five girls who I will vote for but I still need to narrow down the boys from 7 to 5. We have also been doing the Birthday Cupboard for all the learners with Birthdays in December so that they don’t miss out because of the holidays. We mistakenly tidied all the cupboards before doing this so had to do it again after loads of children had rifled through them! Eric (head boy) took my favourite top in “Large boys” – a blue lumberjack style shirt but he promised to let me borrow it on Saturday so I’m happy!
Today is Daddy’s birthday – Happy Birthday! Funnily enough going to try a horse! Weird not to see him but he got my card which I had sent on the Out Weekend and I managed to print out 5 photos which I sent with his card and one of my favourite poems (Three little Foxes) – he said his favourite photo was the one of the elephant which I took in Etosha – not one of his beloved daughter who he hasn’t seen for the last three months! When I texted him to see how he had got on with Jaspar (the horse he was trying) he said he wasn’t suitable but he had brought another horse called Finn home. Mummy later texted to say Daddy had only ridden him for 30 minutes before bringing him home - typical Daddy! I was lucky enough to spend the day at one of the Stommel’s farms, where the Heritage Centre is, with the Grade 2s and Wings on their class outing. We had a really lovely day out, although, I am now knackered. After a tour of the Heritage Centre, we spent the morning playing games such as football, skipping games (very difficult – you need springs in your feet), British bull dog, and a lot of African games such as “skolloley”! We then had a braai before heading back to Otjikondo. On the way back Joandre told us that we were the best gaps every and Tylan-Dre asked that we stay until she finished Grade 7 – so sweet and lovely to hear!
The rainy season has begun as we have had several thunderstorms and rain – they usually happen either early evening or during the night – not so good as we sleep under a tin roof which makes rain very noisy! The rain is nice as it clears the air and the next day is always slightly cooler however the electricity system in Namibia
The shop: apparently I haven’t painted a very good picture of this so hopefully this will clear up any previous discrepancies. The farm shop is in one of the farm out buildings within the farm yard. It is very small and the only fresh thing it sells is potatoes and onions. All the food is on shelves behind a wooden counter that runs the length of the room. Customers come up to the counter and ask whoever is serving for what they like. Namibians generally pay for each item one by one so that they know they will have enough money for the most important things which they would order first. The shop sells things like pasta, rice, dried lentils, cereal (muesli, cornflakes and occasionally rice crispies), some biscuits (custard creams and then different flavour ones like chocolate, strawberry and vanilla and also rusks which we buy), there are also tinned things like spam, tuna, sweet corn, mushrooms, pineapple and other fruits, a few spice packets and then toiletries (shampoo, toothpaste, soap, washing powder, shoe polish...). There is also a freezer where you can buy cans of drink (coke, appletiser, beer, sprite, fanta – orange, pineapple or grape) or chicken or gemsbok. You can also buy some snack things like a small packet of peanuts, a packet of sweets or a bar of chocolate. All the food arrives from the Outjo supermarket on a Thursday and bread and elephant’s foot comes from the Bakery on a Friday afternoon. The annoying thing is that you can’t guarantee that there is going to be the same thing there every week as sometimes they won’t send something – sweet corn has been a staple part of my diet but it hasn’t come for the last couple of weeks.
Every Friday we get our box of food which contains either a broccoli or a cauliflower, a lettuce, a butternut squash, a bag of peas, a lettuce, two cucumbers, a bag of tomatoes, a carton of milk, a dozen eggs, one or two pots of yogurt, a hunk of gouda (orange cheese) and three bottles of fruit juice (mango, orange and guava) and some six brechen (rolls). The annoying thing is that the order is never exactly the same – quite often the leave one of the vegetables out, sometimes the gouda
I can’t believe as Daddy pointed out today that I have now done a quarter of my time in Namibia
The next time I will write a blog I will have completed my first term at Otjikondo – how scary is that? It was lovely to get a letter from Hen from her brief stay in England Botswana Hong Kong and of course the parcel from Godmother Jo was incredibly welcome. However the shout out has to go to Mummy who is by far my most regular correspondent and I love getting her letters and hearing all the news from home – I am sure that one of the parcels will get through eventually! Love to you all as usual and have fun opening your advent calendars tomorrow morning – I know I will
Lots of love
Ottilie
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