Part Twenty Five: Bronchitis.... (1st – 5th April)

On the 1^st of April not only was it April Fool’s day but we also celebrated Palm Sunday. Various children came around early on Sunday morning to tell us that Gilly wanted to see us but were caught out when we enquired as to where she was “the hostel” and simultaneously “her house”. Luckily we weren’t fooled and returned to our beds.

Palm Sunday is a massive celebration here and they really went all out. Instead of lining up outside the Church the children lined up by the gate house and then walked toward the tar road. They lined up on either side of the path here facing towards the church and then we gave them a palm leaf each. Gilly stood on a chair in the centre and read from the Bible and then we had a procession. Stanley, dressed as Jesus in a white robe, riding a donkey led the procession and he was followed by some of the G6 and G7 children who were in costume for the play later. We then all followed them to the church where we left our palm leaves at the entrance. The church had been decorated with more palm leaves and looked spectacular. During the service we had the play which told the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. It was a really good service.

At lunch time Diina returned from the Nationals....she had come 3^rd! She was competing against 13 other children and so had done absolutely amazing. She returned very happy with a bronze medal. I am so unbelievably proud of her, she has trained so hard and improved so much and I’m so happy that it all paid off.

Monday was our 7^th month anniversary here at Otjikondo; it seems totally unbelievable that we have been away from home for over 7 months now. Monday’s lessons went well, in Social Studies we did a quiz which I had written on Unit One to help them revise for their exams. In English I gave out the prizes to the best three writers in each class and read the best ones aloud. In G7 the winners were Vanessa, Xunta-I and Sevelina, G6 Theopoldine, Uapiona and Emilia and G5 Revonia, Alberthina and Audrey. There was a massive kerfuffle about Alberthina’s story, half the class accused her of having copied it from a G4 Afrikaans book and the rest claimed that Theopoldine had written it for her, both allegations she denied. This resulted in a lot of tears from Alberthina (this is not an uncommon thing) and me having to get cross about making false accusations. Otherwise all went well. I was feeling really ill all day and nearly didn’t do activities in the afternoon so decided to go with Gilly the next day to the doctor. Even thought the antibiotics I’d been taking were double strength they didn’t seem to be making much of a difference.

Gilly was driving to Otjiwarongo so I was in Outjo by 8:00 and made an appointment for 10:20. I then went to the internet cafe where I was able to Skype Mummy and Emma which was an unexpected bonus. Skype really is amazing and it was wonderful to be able to see them and talk to them. Also talked to Peppy which was brilliant although she couldn’t quite work it out! When I returned to the surgery I had to wait about half an hour for my appointment and a man who was obviously drunk came and sat right next to me, even though there were plenty of other chairs free. He started talking to me in Afrikaans which I didn’t understand and was sitting far too close for comfort. Luckily, we were then joined by some other people which made me more comfortable. When I went in the Doctor then questioned me about my ‘friend’ as the receptionist had told him that he was drunk. I explained I have never seen him before, that he had just joined me and was most definitely drunk!

After listening to my chest, taking my blood pressure, and hitting my head a lot with a hammer type thing and asking “Does this hurt?” (What do you think?!), the Doctor informed me that I have bronchitis again. This is really annoying but at least I now know why I have been feeling rubbish. He gave me a prescription for different antibiotics and four other medicines and told me to go to bed. I then managed to meet up with Paul, and after doing a food shop with him (this was really weird – like being at home, not that I often went food shopping with Daddy and we never bought nappies!) and then we came back to Otjikondo.

I went to bed and after finally allowing my body to feel ill then felt properly awful. Today is now the 5^th and the start of Easter weekend holiday. Chelcie is now going home with a girl called Aune who is in G7 and I am staying here to properly recover. I doubt it will be the best Easter ever as I will be myself but hopefully I will feel better soon. This is going with Chelcie in the hope that she will be able to send them home to be posted on my blog if she gets internet over the holiday.

So Happy Easter, I hope you all have a lovely day and that the Easter Bunny finds you where ever you are in the world at the moment. Sending lots of love

Love Me xxxx

Part Twenty Four: Hello John, Goodbye Luise (25th – 31st March)

Monday morning was very sad as we had to say goodbye to Luise. I also woke up sounding like a man with a chesty cough – absolutely brilliant. We had a special goodbye assembly where all the children sang goodbye songs and both Mrs Vermaak and Gilly made little speeches about Luise. By end of this she was crying, I was crying and Chelcie was laughing at me! We had one last group hug and then waved her off as she sat on the front of Gilly’s quad bike. We all became really close friends in the last three months and we will miss her.

I then had the tricky job of trying to teach with no voice. The children found my voice absolutely hilarious but then were actually very sympathetic and well behaved. I also had Ken in the next door classroom who would pop in to check that they were listening to me. They actually had to be silent in order to hear and understand my voice so maybe it was a good tactic to employ! John, Sophie and Tyche left for St Michaels after assembly and after having lunch there returned with Sam in tow. By lunch time I was actually feeling pretty ill and retired to my bed for a bit before remedial and two hours of Recorders. Tyche came with me and the others came and listened for a bit and John came to the last part of my Advanced Recorders session. Tyche was very impressed that I could manage to teach Recorders for two hours in a row and I admit this is often a challenge and there is only so much shrillness the ears can take!

We then had some very mixed news from Gilly.....on the plus side our visas are now officially stamped and Robert has them. This is a huge relief as not only are we now legal but it means we can travel without difficult at Easter, Vic Falls and Cape Town here we come. On the down side they are only stamped until the 6^th of June and we don’t fly until the 25^th of August. This is so totally ridiculous that it left us both pretty speechless. They are trying to sort it all out but the worst case scenario is that we will be flying home on the 6^th June which does not amuse me at all.

John is took all the other volunteers to Etosha on Tuesday, there wasn’t room for us all in the car so Chelcie and I didn’t go and we needed to teach anyway. Gilly said we could have an extra day at the Easter Weekend instead which was very exciting. We definitely got the better deal as they only ended up seeing one Giraffe and lots of birds anyway!

Lesson went really well all week and the children seemed to enjoy them which was good. Teaching English was very different to teaching Maths and Science but equally enjoyable. It’s weird out here as although English is the language of education it is still taught as a second language out here but still from English which is probably quite unique. I had only had one slight problem when one girl called Franzelle didn’t turn up to my double social studies lesson first thing on Tuesday morning. I was informed that she had been told by the hostel mother not to come to school until she had found her school shoes. I thought it was a bit weird that she didn’t manage to come to any of the lesson so I checked with Mrs Vermaak at break time. I discovered that this was a lie....the Hostel Mother had actually locked the hostel and told her that she would have to come to school in her pluckies (flip flops). However she knew she had a test with me and she hadn’t completed her Maths homework for Mrs Vermaak, the lesson after mine, so she went and hid in the sick bay! Needless to say when she was found she got into a lot of trouble. This isn’t the first time that she has lied and the teachers are starting to worry about what to do with her.

On the Wednesday evening after I made Chicken curry – this was pretty experimental but worked out well although a little spicy for Chelcie, we went over to Paul and Sara’s to chat. We wanted ideas as to what to do over the Easter Weekend when we have 6 days off. Our original plan was to go to Brandberg and then that fell through and then we were going to go down to Luderitz but that is so complicated to get to and back so we wanted ideas. Our only idea was to try and hitch to Botswana and back...! Paul suggested that we go up to Racuna, this is North-North West and right on the Angolan boarder. There was a nice camp there where we could stay and we would be able to go white water rafting. We decided to go for this as it sounded fun and not to expensive as we would take a tent with us. Sara gave me some cough syrup for my cough which I then promptly dropped as I walked into our kitchen and it smashed on the floor. Really clever!

On Thursday night Chelcie managed to break a chair! In our kitchen we have a long table with benches on either side and a chair at either end. Chelcie always sits at one end on the chair and I sit on her left on the bench. For some reason while Chelcie was eating a bowl of coco pops she sat down on the other chair which was obviously already a bit broken as she went straight through it! This was extremely funny but quite painful for her as she scraped her back and then was stuck! I was sympathetic but insisted on photographic evidence.

On Friday evening after our Button Box rehearsal we started making some of the costumes. We need four chocolate costumes – Crunchie, Smarties, Bar One (a bit like a mars bar but smaller and not as nice) and Chocolate Buttons. I started sewing a Chocolate Buttons outfit while Chelcie started taping boxes together to make the others. We had a really fun night and even made homemade pizzas to eat.

On Saturday I suddenly realised why getting the whole of G5-7 to write Creative Writing pieces was not actually such a good idea – it meant I had about 100 stories to correct and mark and some were awful! I gave them four marks out of five; firstly if they had put in any similes, metaphors and onomatopoeias, secondly if they had used speech and if so if they had used different words apart from ‘said’ (during the week we had a competition to see how many alternate words we could come up for the word ‘said’. G5 came up with 32, G7 60 and G6 62 which was pretty impressive), thirdly how many interesting adjectives they had used and lastly how good their actual story was.  They had an overall mark out of 20 which could be slightly misleading – some of them had written brilliant stories but had failed to put in the first three elements while others wrote rubbish stories but filled them with adjectives, description and other words for said. Luckily, a few managed to do all four things which was brilliant. I had given them all the title of “The Island” but hadn’t given them any other stipulation so that “The Island” if they wanted could be the name of a street, a boat, a school, anything they wanted, so they had a very free reign. In order to spur them on I said I would award the best three from each year group a prize which went down very well. The way to the children is definitely through their tummies!

Sara also gave me some more cough syrup which I managed to not drop this time and told me to start taking some antibiotics as not only did Paul tell me I sounded like I had tuberculosis but I still was feeling pretty rubbish. In TV we watched a DVD that Nina had sent – she had made it from all her photos put together with music. The children absolutely loved this and it’s something that Chelcie and I will definitely do once we’ve left.

I cannot believe that it’s the end of March, we are now properly in our second half which is seriously scary. On the other hand tomorrow is April and April is when our parents come out, aghhhhhhhhhhh!! So records for this month: I’ve cried twice (fewest times so far!), read 20 books, sent 22 letters and received 25 (you win)! Throughout the month I’ve had a massive influx of things arriving for my birthday which has been amazing and meant I’ve had a very long birthday! I’ve seen 13 cheetahs, turned 19, got into Exeter, trained a girl for the Nationals, eaten Indian, celebrated Independence Day and so many other things. March has been such an amazing month and we have done a ridiculous amount of things. I feel I should offer a formal apology to a couple of people; Izzy, Staighty, Hattie, Sas, Sarah and Magnus who put up with my frequent tears and fears over coming to Namibia for most of the Summer term. I was absolutely petrified about coming out here and couldn’t really remember why I ever thought it would be a good idea to go and live in the middle of nowhere for a year without seeing my friends and family. In theory it still sounds pretty crazy but instead of being the worst idea I’ve ever had it is definitely the best idea I’ve ever had and I’m so glad I made it. So I would like to apologise to all my lovely friends and thank them for putting up with all my fears and worries. You were right as usual saying that it would be incredible and I’m just glad that I didn’t bottle out.

Okay lots of love to everyone at home and everyone who is also away travelling. I hope you are all having a brilliant time and I can’t wait to see you in 5 months time!!!

Lots and lots and lots of love

Ottilie

Part Twenty Three: Independence Day (19th – 24th March)

Monday morning started with a prize giving ceremony in Assembly – on the previous Friday the Kuene region had had its prize giving and Mrs Vermaak had brought back our prizes. Mrs Vermaak won the best Maths Primary School Teacher and the Best Primary School Teacher. Otjikondo also won the Best Primary School Award (this shield is amazing as it has lots of min plaques on it where the winners name is engraved and the only name on the shield is Otjikondo!). There were also certificates for the teachers and Mr Hawaxab received a bronze certificate for English teaching, Mr Kalundu a silver one for science and Mrs Vermaak got a gold one for maths. I felt very proud of our school and lucky to have been placed at such an excellent school.

We have started teaching Gymnastics in PT which is incredibly amusing as none of us are particularly gymnastic; however, I am rather talented at forward rolls! The children on the other hand alternated with being gymnastic whizzes and the most inflexible, ungainly children ever but they all seem to really enjoy it. With the younger ones we did balancing – using our raised telegraph poles as something to walk along. It is only about 6 inches off the floor but some of the Grade Ones act as if they would fall 6 feet! We had the usual trouble with the girls not having anything on under their dresses (apart from underwear) so we would make all the boys go first and then stand in a line facing the opposite direction. They would then strop saying that the girls were allowed to watch them, why they couldn’t they watch the girls. When we explained about the underwear issue one of the boys started to take off his shorts so his underwear was also on show....I said this wasn’t an answer to the issue!

The author of “Africa Rocks” (last year’s drama) was very impressed when he came out to watch it performed and he recorded the children singing lots of songs. He is now teaching various schools in England the songs and merging the voices. He has started a new project which is about connecting voices all over the world. We have been given the job of teaching a song to some of the children and he will come out in July to record them. He is also recording other schools all over the world singing the same song and then they will be merged together to create one record. This will then be produced and released at Christmas in the UK which is very exciting!

This week was all about Independence Day (21^st March). On Sunday I wrote a speech with Jacky (G7) all about how Namibia won its Independence – this was rather scary as I found myself saying “We Namibians”. In Art we made Namibia flags with the children – you would be surprised how many children drew and painted the flag back to front! Wednesday was a holiday from school and a day of celebrations instead. We had planned to have a Talent Show in the evening, giving the children the afternoon to come up with and practice the acts. However, at Tuesday break time the teachers suggested we have it on Tuesday night instead as Wednesday night was a school night. So we then had to organise the talent show – we restricted the acts to Grades 5 -7 and the rest of the school was the audience. Luise, Chelcie and I were the judges and although the acts were very talented trying to keep the audience quiet long enough to hear them was a totally different matter. The winner of the night was Evangelina (G6) singing Justin Bieber’s “Never say Never” and the runner ups were a group of Grade 5 and 6 boys dancing which was absolutely hilarious.

On the Wednesday we had an incredible ceremony at 9 just outside the gate house where the flag poles are. All the children processed down in a crocodile line from the school all waving flags and banners. Ms Rachel was in charge of the whole thing and organised all the different groups that sang and danced. All the children performed in their different tribal groups wearing traditional clothes which was amazing. We also had a group of boys from G6 and G7 who marched perfectly and put up the Namibian flag. They all looked so grown up especially as they were dressed in the blue overalls that the workers wear. They had done this all by themselves and they marched totally in time and looked very professional My favourite was the G7 Owambo girls who sang and danced – they were really good and I love the clothes. We also had a dance competition at the end between three girls and three boys. The children are really incredible dancers – the big girls hostel mother, Sister Alberthina, tried to call me and Chelcie up to dance together at the end but this wasn’t something I particularly wanted to do! After the ceremony we held a quiz in the Dining Room for anyone in G5-7 who wanted to take part. We had written 20 questions all about Namibia which ranged from “Name the regions in Namibia” to “Who was Namibia’s first president?” to “How many species of snakes are there in Namibia?” They really enjoyed this and they all did very well.

We were invited to have lunch with Paul and Sara and the children which was great fun especially as we got to eat Indian food. Both of us have missed Indian food since about week 3 and this is the first time we have eaten it – we did think it was slightly ironic to eat Indian food on Namibia’s Independence Day but it tasted delicious. In the late afternoon we then met up with the teachers and we drove out of Otjikondo to the nearest stopping place. The equivalent of a Namibia lay by is a place with a table and chairs and a braai. This is where we had our celebration; it was really nice as you wouldn’t really notice you were by a road as not many cars pass and the verges are about 20/30 metres wide here! This was great fun and it was brilliant to socialise with the teachers outside of school. We had a lovely braai and they taught us some more African dance which I have to say Chelcie is rather more talented at than I am.

The rest of the week passed very quickly as it felt like we had had a weekend and therefore we only had a two day week before the next weekend! Thursday was the 22^nd which was a very important day as it meant that in a month’s time Mummy and Daddy would be out here with me which is crazily exciting! On the Friday we had a good Button Box rehearsal but as we left Chelcie gave her keys to Luise as she needed to finish tidying the Games Room. When we returned to the Flat we realised that Luise had locked the door and my keys were in my room. Neither of us could be bothered to walk back to the library so we walked around to the gate into our garden and decided to climb it. This was actually pretty funny as the gate is actually rather tall with spikes on top and we had to do it without being spotted by any of the farm workers or the children but we managed to break into our house successfully!

Until Easter Mr Hawaxab is away and he has asked me to teach for him which is very exciting. He teaches English to Grades 5-7 and Social Studies to Grades 5 and 6. Social Studies is a mixture of politics, history and geography and there is a very interesting syllabus. He gave me some work for the first couple of Social Studies lesson and then I had to do revision work in preparation for the end of term exams. In English he gave me a total free reign which was very exciting if a little scary. I spent Saturday planning the upcoming weeks lessons. I decided to do a week on Creative Writing – I teach each grade for 7 English lessons so I thought I would use the first 5 lessons to work on different components and then leave the last two for them to plan their story and write it. So I worked on description looking particularly at similes, metaphors and onomatopoeias, speech/dialogue, then different words for said, interesting adjectives and finally the importance of planning.

Saturday morning also started with an......Earthquake! Apparently it was 4 on the Richter Scale so I have now lived through my first natural disaster or should I say slept. At breakfast Chelcie told me there had been an earthquake so obviously I told her not to be silly, of course there hadn’t been an earthquake! Actually there had been which was later confirmed by the children and Gilly. And I thought I was a light sleeper.....

On Saturday night we had a big party for Luise as she was leaving on Monday morning. I was in charge of cooking and we had open brotchen with onion, tomato and cheese or onion, bacon and cheese which I grilled. We had this with popcorn, some crisps, lettuce and elephants foot. It was a really fun night and we had the most people we’ve ever had squeezed around our kitchen table: the three of us, Stanley, Festus, Tabs, Vehonga, Rachel, Laurencia, Brenda and Ken. We had a really great time and it was a good way to say goodbye to Luise.

Sunday morning instead of Church was spent clearing up and making sure that the Flat was back in its immaculate state ready for the imminent arrival of John from Project Trust. On our training course we told that we would have a visit in March from our Desk Officer and this time had arrived! He arrived at 11 ish bringing with him the two Omaruru volunteers Tyche and Sophie. It was lovely to see them as we hadn’t seen Tyche since the end of the holidays and Sophie since our arrival. Before lunch having caught up we gave them a tour of the school and then we cooked. Chelcie and I for the first time cooked together making egg fried rice with borevors. In the afternoon John went to have a meeting with Gilly and we took Sophie and Tyche to our Button Box rehearsal. We had a very successful rehearsal doing our first proper read through, although, I had to read Grandpa as he was at home with Chicken Pox. Also started with Ruben’s solo and continued with Damian’s rap. In the evening I had another training session with Diina when she ran the 1500m with Diodores and Brenden and managed to knock 18 seconds off her time which was stupendous. These boys are really brilliant and managed to push her a lot further than I ever imagined. At the end of the race they collapsed in a heap and I got a brilliant photo of them on my phone lying on the floor having taken off their shirts to try and cool down! I am so proud of Diina and of hard she has worked in the last couple of weeks.

Since receiving my offer from Exeter I have had to do some serious thinking about University and where I want to study when I come home. This has been very difficult as out here it’s very difficult to picture myself at University let alone choosing which one I want to go to. However, I know when I came out here that I really wanted to go to Exeter, the whole reason I reapplied, so it would make sense to choose Exeter but I haven’t quite got there yet!

Can’t believe this is the end of another week – time as usual is flying past which creates mixed emotions. In some ways I want time to slow down as this term seems to have disappeared and there doesn’t seem to be anything left of it. However, on the other hand my parents arrive just before the end of term and that is literally the most exciting thing ever.  As usual sending love to absolutely everyone. I hope that it all makes sense and manages to paint some sort of a picture about what I am doing out here. As usual I couldn’t be happier and coming out here was definitely the best thing I’ve ever done. I hope that you are all equally happy in whatever venture you are doing at home.

Lots and lots of love

Ottilie xxx

Part Twenty Two: A week of being Mr Kalundu (12th – 18th March)

Mr Kalundu was away this week at a Life Skills (a bit like PSHE in England) in Windhoek, so I got to teach all his lessons this week which has been absolutely amazing. This consisted of teaching Maths to Grade 5 and science, life skills and agriculture to Grades 5, 6 and 7. Not only do I love teaching this age group and doing some academic teaching but I really enjoy teaching maths and science. Ken had given me a pile of resources which I spent Sunday afternoon utilising and planning my lessons for the upcoming week.

Life Skills is a very funny subject and they have one lesson a week. It ranges in topics from Career advice, to leisure activities, to healthy eating, to discussing the role of food in different tribes. These lessons are quite laid back with more discussion than formal teaching and I covered healthy eating and leisure activities during the week.

Teaching agriculture always makes me laugh as it just for the boys as the girls learn home economics instead. I’m always worried that they are going to know more than I am even though I have the text book. Luckily, there is quite a cross over from what I learnt in Geography at school (see Daddy it has come in useful even if I can’t place the counties in England!). As it’s just the boys, the class is much smaller and therefore more intimate which is nice. It is easy to discuss different views with 16 people in a class rather than 32 as you can actually hear what someone is saying. In my G5 agriculture class Heinzley farted and literally gassed out the whole class. First of all, the people sitting at his table all ran for the windows and I told them not to be so silly as it couldn’t be that bad a smell.....and then it hit me! It was the most disgusting smell which seemed to fill the whole class and soon we were all standing by the windows fanning ourselves with our books. I’m glad that none of the other teachers came in at that point. The other boys told me that I had to punish him as Mr Kalundu had banned farting in the classroom so I asked what I was expected to do. They answered that I was supposed to hit him, which I obviously wasn’t going to do, so they told me to send him to Mr Hawaxab, but I really couldn’t do this. Not only do I not approve of them being hit but I just couldn’t send him to Mr Hawaxab with the message that he had farted in my class!

I was teaching the Grade 5 class Data Handling in Maths which was fun as it meant lots of tables, bar charts, tally tables and pictograms. The downside was that I didn’t realise they had maths textbooks until Thursday so I spent all week drawing tables and graphs on the board and writing up endless questions. I had shown them one of the textbooks I had and asked them if they had it and they said no. No one had thought to mention that they had a different text book! Grade 5 were the least fun to teach out of the three year groups as they are still at the stage when you have to ask them to be quiet the whole time and they don’t listen to instructions. On Thursday after I had finally discovered about the textbooks I set them a task to do from them. This involved answering two questions from pg 9 and one question from pg 10. I wrote this on the board as well as writing that they needed to copy out the graphs or tables and the questions before they answered them. I also said this to them at least three times – repetition is very necessary with this age group! However, I was still asked at least TEN times whether they should copy out the tables and that doesn’t even include the amount of times I was asked if they needed to copy out the questions.

Science is probably my favourite of these subjects to teach as it involves a mixture of discussion as well as note taking. With the Grade 5s I was doing “Water around us” and “The Water Cycle”, with the Grade 6s “Energy from Water” and “Advantages and Disadvantages of Air” and with the Grade 7s “Air Pollution” and “Puberty and Reproduction”. When Ken told me all of this I said I was happy and confident to teach all of these topics apart from “Puberty and Reproduction”, which I thought was just mean of him to give me. His advice was don’t let them be silly about it, easier said than done with 32 twelve to fifteen year olds in the room. This was actually really challenging to teach as some of things I was asked and some of their answers it’s probably best not to post on the internet and I had to then try and answer them. As everyone knows I go red when embarrassed and I think I was probably bright purple for the majority of these lessons. I then had to draw the male and female reproduction organs on the board for them to copy down and my lack of any artistic talent meant that these were absolutely horrendous...luckily we found some in their text books for them to copy instead. At least I now know that I’m definitely not interested in teaching that again without some formal training!

I slightly despairing with one of my Grade 6 remedial groups – at the moment we are working through the times tables. Having had a test on the 2 and 3 times tables separately we combined them to have a test out of 24. I told them that I obviously expected them to get full marks but I could just about live with two silly mistakes. One of my girls Stacy got 6. I really didn’t know what to do – it’s the two and three times table! If you ask her to do it she can count up easily but ask them separately and she has no idea. I saw her count 3 x 1 on her fingers....aghhh!

Really annoying my watch strap has finally snapped...it started to die pretty quickly but I bandaged it with selotape and it has survived thus far. But when eating breakfast one morning it finally just fell off. Not only is it annoying not having a watch, it means I have to take my phone everywhere which the children love, but it means that I no longer have my watch mark. This was my only proof of how ridiculously white I was when I came out here and showed how much I have actually changed colour even if both Chelcie and Luise are a lot darker than me.

We have now finished doing all the Christmas thank you letters with the learners including rewriting two which somehow managed to get lost in the process. It’s good to get this off the ‘to do’ list. The Button Box is coming along well and we have started teaching some of the soloists their songs. We started with Damian who is our rapper – we picked him as he has lots of character and is very good at doing his own raps. He learnt his first verse very quickly but we just need to make sure he keeps in time. We then taught Kenisha her solo which is actually our least favourite song but it really suits her voice. There is a really simple melody which is repeated throughout the song.

Chelcie and I decided that we want to make a DVD all about us titled “Kicks and Dimps” featuring Kicks and Dimps. It would contain all the crazy things that we do together and just generally be all about us! We have to do a community project for Project Trust for the end of the year and we think this would be a prize winning project! We are also considering handing in a collage of our Smartie box collection (at the moment each box of smarties comes with a picture on the back of a person from a different country with some facts about their national country, there are 16 friends to collect and at the moment we have 8!) with the photos of our monthly face painting.

On Friday night the three of us went to start painting the backdrop for the play; it is set in a sitting room so at the moment we are painting the ‘wall’ pale yellow and then we will stick on paintings and a window. We painted about a quarter of the fabric and then went to rootle in the Costume Room for Costumes for my Birthday fancy dress party on Saturday. We had great fun becoming princesses, Dorothy, wearing fur coats, Indian people, African people and clowns in dungarees or onesies. I was very upset as despite looking everywhere I was unable to find Josephs Technicolor dream coat which is what I had been planning to wear over a pretty dress. After making our final choices we headed back to the flat, it was by now pitch black and we didn’t have a torch having not realised we would be away for so long. It was then I saw my second snake.....we were walking up our path when we heard a noise and both Chelcie and Luise screamed “It’s a cow”. I on the other hand screamed “It’s a snake”, quite a difference in opinion I’m sure you will agree! I was the most scared out of the three of us but the others couldn’t see the snake so I pointed to the snake no less than 4m in front of us on the ground. Chelcie and Luise kindly pointed out that it was actually a twig....it was then I noticed the cow – “Aghhh it’s a cow”. For some reason we had an escapee cow right outside our flat and in the dark it was very sinister. The next day Festus told us he had heard the screams from his house and had come running out to see if we were okay, obviously he didn’t consider a cow a threat to our lives as he didn’t venture any further. We texted Paul to see if there was anything we should do and his only reply was “Don’t shoot it”!

My birthday party was absolutely BRILLIANT and totally made up for being ill on my actual party. After a normal Saturday, Luise and I went to do TV for the children while Chelcie cooked. I had been banned from our kitchen all afternoon while she took over. We came back from watching Mamma Mia to find Chelcie transformed into a flower girl, in her blue dress with flowers at the bottom and flowers done in face paint down the whole of her left side as well as flowers in her hair. I then transformed into a fallen angel in a little black dress with a gold tinsel halo and gold wings and sash borrowed from the Costume Room. Luise became a warrior princess in a pinky shirt dress, silver crown, and a very sharp bow and arrow. Stanley came in normal attire but with a Peruvian style hat and Brian was most definitely himself. Chelcie had made pizzas from scratch which will definitely be repeated as well as cupcakes decorated with smarties. We used the Happy Birthday individual candles Mummy had very kindly sent out and they looked amazing. We had a really, really fun night. The next morning was less fun especially church which was a musical church featuring lots of recorders! I also was called up to read the first lesson on the spot as the first reader hadn’t come to church!

On Sunday afternoon we had another Button Box rehearsal where we taught our four main characters the opening song, Damian the second verse of his rap and Xunta-I and Vanessa’s duet. All very successful. Had mu usual weekly conversation with home but not with Daddy as he had gone to watch the rugby....talk about priorities! Apparently from when I get home I only have 21 days until Freshers Week at Exeter starts so that will be frantic!

Had a really marvellous week, I get such a buzz from teaching the academic lessons, although it slightly scares me that I’m considering becoming a science teacher! Who would have thought that?! Lots of love to absolutely everyone

Love from

Me xxxx

Part Twenty One: Sleeping with Cheetahs (9th – 11th March)

 Our out weekend started with a lift into Outjo from Gilly who was passing through so we were there but 8 o’clock. In return for the lift Gilly left us with 210 letters to stick stamps on, luckily this didn’t take too long but we were left with that horrible stamp taste in our mouths. After posting our own letters and buying new stamps we headed to the stationary shop where I bought more envelopes as well as being able to print off some more photographs. I have kept two for my diary and I am in the process of sending the rest home to various people. We then went to OK Foods, not only to stock up on shampoo and chocolate but to buy food for the rest of the weekend. After looking around a couple of shops and visiting the bank we headed to the Bakery for 11s. Outjo Backerei has gone bust and been taken over by new people and neither Chelcie nor I were too impressed with the new food! We then went to investigate a different internet cafe to see if they had lower prices and they did - $40 per hour rather than $72 and the internet was twice as fast. We spent an hour, reading emails and starting to reply to some (because of my birthday I had hundreds which was lovely but the first bit on the internet is always stressful as you want to read everything and time goes so quickly). It was lovely to read two email with the subjects ‘Darling Daughter’ and ‘Dear Darling’ – one from each of my parents before you start speculating!

We then had an early lunch before returning to the internet. I had a chicken salad pitta with chips having realised that I hadn’t eaten chicken since the holidays and I love chicken! We then spent just over two hours on the internet which I found very emotional. I have wanted to listen to Hattie’s new music since I came out here but have never had the chance to before so I listened to all of them on YouTube (if you haven’t listened to them type in Hattie Briggs to YouTube immediately, not only does she look absolutely stunning her photos but the music is incredibly beautiful and I am so proud of her). The combination of this and looking through lots of my friends photos had me sitting in absolutely floods of tears for about an hour – I think I started to worry Chelcie a bit when I started properly sobbing! I was suddenly feeling very overwhelmed and incredibly homesick; I just wanted to be at home surrounded by my friends and family. Luckily Matilda was on hand to cheer me up and then I even managed to Skype Abi for a little bit. This was very amusing as we could both see each other and I could hear her but she couldn’t hear me. Luckily after a while I was able to find where I could type and we managed to have a conversation which was lovely and it was amazing to see her. I managed to talk to a couple of friends on facebook but then had to be content to leave messages for the rest as they weren’t online. After another quick shop to get meat for the weekend we started walking out of town trying to catch a lift. We were totally unsuccessful in trying to get a lift but luckily Gilly passed and took us back to Otjikondo, we tried again to catch a lift from there but failed miserably so in the end Stanley drove us.

We were headed for a Cheetah Farm which was between Outjo and Kamanjab, about 40km beyond Otjikondo. It was 8km off the tar road and we passed through various gates telling us that we entered at our own risk and that there was Danger! We arrived at a house surrounded by a gate with a bell telling us to ring and on the other side of the fence was a cheetah. This was so surreal that I got nervous giggles. Having rung the bell two guys arrived and they drove us to the campsite where we were staying. Having failed to find a tent at Otjikondo, we stayed in what looked like a garden shed although it was camouflaged on the outside. On the inside there were four beds and that was it, not even electricity so we were lucky that we had brought torches. There was a gas canister attached to a little hot plate on which I cooked borewors which we then ate with brotchen and tomatoes. This tasted amazing washed down with Savanna. The guys who were in their late 20s then came back and we went to the bar and had a couple of drinks with them. It had been a very good day with some very high points seeing my first Cheetah and some pretty low ones.

Saturday morning was blissful, after a lie in until 8 o’clock (!) we went over to the pool which was big and round and lounged next to it reading our books and writing our diaries. I did my first sunbathing in Namibia before it got too hot! We then read inside eating brotchen and cheese with some Doritos for lunch. In the afternoon the guys came and collected us and we went to their garden where we met the tame cheetahs. Before we were picked up we made friends with a tortoise although he objected to having his photo taken; we have photos of each of us lying next to the tortoise and they are all really nice however in mine I look absolutely petrified....I didn’t want it to lick me! They have three tame cheetahs which are 3, 10 and 12 years old and one is even called Babar! The cheetahs were just like cats although a lot bigger! We could stroke them and one of them lay on his back and wanted his tummy tickled! At first I was a bit scared but then I relaxed even though I could have technically been eaten at any moment. They were really soft and very friendly, just like a cat; apart from they had really rough tongues which felt like sandpaper. I had scratches on my leg from being licked! It was very odd just chilling in a normal garden but just sitting next to a couple of cheetahs. We then watched them eat; a hunk of donkey meat with the fur still on was on the menu. They were actually very civilised eaters – they didn’t use their paws or anything but just lay on the ground nibbling at the meat. This was when Chelcie cracked out her joke if it can be classified as that “Why aren’t they allowed to compete at the animal Olympics? Because they’re cheaters!”  We then went to meet the wild Cheetahs.

They have 14 wild cheetahs that all live together in a big field but which wasn’t as big as I had anticipated. We were in the back of the open-back truck and as we drove around small groups of Cheetahs would pop out to follow the truck. After there were quite a lot we stopped so that they could be fed. Not all of the cheetahs came, probably 10 did, as if they have caught something themselves and aren’t hungry then they don’t come. These cheetahs looked a lot more scary and a little bit evil – not sure why, maybe because they were thinner and they had the ears back? It was amazing to be standing on the back of a car and to be surrounded by cheetahs. It was fantastic to watch them run towards us and to watch them jump for the meat and between us we got some brilliant photos of the cheetahs in action.  It was only when we returned to where we were sleeping that we released that the cheetah run finished literally right next door to where we were sleeping!

On Saturday evening we had an incredible braai! We cooked chicken kebabs, green pepper kebabs and bacon which were accompanied by tomatoes and some left over Doritos. I finally got to make real use of my pen knife and got great satisfaction out of using it for anything and everything! The knife is actually very sharp and a good size for cutting things. We talked outside for ages and had a really fun night although our conversations got a little deep.

On Sunday we spent the morning relaxing and reading before hitch hiking back around lunch time. The guys gave us a lift out to the road and said they would ring us in an hour or so to check if we had got a lift and if not they said they would drive us which was very kind. Fortunately, our luck had changed and we managed not to flag down one car but two cars. Luise got put in the boot with our rucksacks and Chelcie and I sat in the middle. The good thing about this was that there was air conditioning which is a luxury we have never had on a hitch before but the down side was I was in the middle of Chelcie and a guy who had his arm around the back of my seat and was pressing his leg closer and closer to mine as I shifted closer and closer to Chelcie! However, they were really nice despite playing the song “Girl, I just want to get you pregnant” twice in a row which slightly creeped us out, and we got safely back to Otjikondo!

We didn’t have any signal at the Cheetah Farm and when we got to the gate I had two texts from my sisters; one saying “Wish you were here at Florence and the machines!!!!!!!” which I would have loved also, and another which was a little more difficult to understand from Cluny: “CONGRATULATIONS!!! OMG well done soooo exciting mummy screaming!!” Obviously I had no idea what this was about and was about to text back when Chelcie made me ring home on her phone as she was too impatient to find out what had happened. The news was......I had got into Exeter! This was very exciting and a massive weight off my shoulders. Although I haven’t been thinking about university at all, it has been lurking in the back of my mind that I have yet to hear from them and having an unconditional offer was very exciting and was a great way to end the weekend! Now I just need to be 100% sure that I want to go so that I can reply. It’s very difficult trying to picture myself at university while I’m out here so trying to choose which one I want to go to is even harder!

All in all it was a pretty amazing weekend. It was lovely to talk to the people who I managed to talk to although very disappointing to miss the ones that I didn’t manage to talk to. I hope that you are all well and enjoying whatever you are up to at the moment

Sending so much love

Ottilie xxx