After Chelcie had gone I moved in with the Stommels so that I was being looked after and so I wouldn’t be alone in the flat. Obviously I’m supposed to celebrate Christian events with them. I spent a very relaxing weekend reading, writing a couple of letters and watching films on Chelcie’s laptop. On Saturday I helped Gilly get ready for Easter, we hung Easter Eggs with ribbon from the lights in the dining room where we had stars at Christmas. We also dyed some eggs – red, blue and green which was great fun. We then made an Easter basket which was filled with our dyed eggs, candy coated chocolate eggs which looked like normal eggs, chocolate covered marshmallow bars and chocolate covered almonds.
On Saturday night we went to a candle lit service at St Micheals (Otjikondo’s brother school), this was the first time I have been there so it was very exciting. Lots of the teachers also came with us with their children in their school Combi so that was lovely. The service started outside with everyone standing around a big bonfire which was beautiful and then we went into the church. Reiner designed and built this church in the 60s and it’s much bigger than ours and has a very modern feel to it. The service then went on for 3 hours which nearly killed us! It was split into four parts and in the first quarter we had 8 readings which I felt was slightly excessive! When we returned it was just before midnight and we thought we both deserved an Easter egg!
Easter Day was very relaxing and in the afternoon we went for a game drive where I saw warthogs, a kudu, a springbok, a gemsbok and finally got to meet Charlie the Giraffe. Charlie is the resident Giraffe, apparently he is a bit thick as he doesn’t realise that he can step over gates and fences and if you want to move him you have to open gates for him to walk through! He lives here throughout the year and has friends who come and visit him and then go away again. Chelcie had left me an Easter Card and hidden 8 paper eggs around the kitchen for me which was very sweet. There was one multi coloured one and then the rest were the colours of the rainbow – in the card she said she had hidden them somewhere to do with that colour. I had a good look but failed to even find one egg! I also had a jiffy bag from home to open which was lovely, lots of sweets and an amazing mint balm which tastes incredible, the only downside of this is that I am now putting it on several times a day as it tastes so good! TWO WEEKS TODAY MUMMY AND DADDY ARRIVE! Now counting down days rather than weeks or months, can’t believe it!
Throughout the weekend I’d been feeling much better although still coughing like crazy but on Monday I woke up feeling much worse again. I spent the morning reading and then in the afternoon I opened the shop with Gilly for the children and parents to return to and then Chelcie returned! Although we only went 3 days without seeing each other this is the longest we have been parted in 7 months and we were texting each other several times a day! She had a brilliant time in Owambo land, on the way up she got stuck behind an elephant which was hugely exciting as this is the first one she has seen. On Saturday she went to a traditional Owambo party in traditional dress. She was then given the dress as a present which I was hugely jealous of, she also tried Mwbame worms (caterpillars) which I apparently didn’t miss out on! After moving back to the flat we spent Monday evening telling each other about our weekends and then we watched a film.
Woke up on Tuesday morning without a temperature but every time I coughed it felt like my head was being sawn in half. Gilly made me a doctor’s appointment for the afternoon and we spent a normal morning teaching. The doctor listened to my chest and said that the antibiotics obviously hadn’t worked as m lungs sounded worse than last week and they had closed up a bit. He said that my tonsils also weren’t looking great just as an added bonus. After going through the routine of discussing the origins of my name again and hitting me on the head he started prescribing more medicine. His theory was that I’m allergic to the grass seeds out here which is why the bronchitis is getting worse rather than better so as well as another sort of antibiotics, I’ve been given a special inhaler and antihistamines to take for three months as well as two other medicines to get rid of the bronchitis. He said that if I’m not any better by next week I will have to go into hospital. All incredibly frustrating and rather scary as I really don’t want to end up in hospital out here and I want to be teaching and not lying in bed.
I woke up on Wednesday morning felling truly awful and totally out of it. After lying in bed, feeling very miserable Sara came over and persuaded me to come and chill at their house. I spent the morning watching cookery programmes on TV and coughing my lungs up. After a sleep at lunch time I returned again in the afternoon, although I didn’t want to talk to anyone it was nice not to be alone and Sara cheered me up. Chelcie came and picked me up at 6 and cooked me supper and then I went to bed.
Luckily, over the next couple of the days the copious amount of medication I had been prescribed finely started to kick in and I started to feel better. On Friday morning I was sitting in the kitchen area sewing one of the costumes for the Musical when I looked down to see a.....SNAKE slithering out from behind the bin towards the area where I was sitting. It slithered towards the corner where it stuck its tongue out at me and then turned around again. I ran for shoes and then for the safety of Sara’s house where I texted Chelcie. I was surprisingly calm considering that there was a snake in our kitchen. I have said right from training that the day a snake moves into the Flat is the day I move out! We returned to the Flat with Stanley and Simon who proceeded to turn our kitchen upside down in search of the snake. However, it was a lot better at hide and seek than we were after a while we had to admit defeat. From my description they think it was a zebra snake so highly dangerous! We think it must have crawled out under the door and away through the garden as it was really nowhere to be found in the kitchen. Both Chelcie and I were incredibly jumpy for the next couple of days in the kitchen and would check under the cushion and chair before sitting down!
We spent Friday evening making a ‘Kicks and Dimps Bus Food Allowance’ sign. Having worked out that after we leave our respective parents we will be spending 87 hours and 15 minutes (knowing our luck with transport Paul said we should just round it up to 100 hours!) we decided we were going to need some serious supplies as well as entertainment. Luckily my sisters and Emma have been making me CDs at home which Mummy and Daddy are going to bring out so the new music will be much appreciated. As Mummy pointed out Eye Spy isn’t much fun in Namibia! I also got a lovely parcel from Godmother Katie containing some things to remind me of England – a lavender bag (the children loved this but couldn’t understand why you would want to put it in with your clothes, three lucky buttons which will be sewn onto my rucksack to bring us luck while travelling and a sheep! The sheep is about 2 inches long, made from wool and pipe cleaners and made us laugh a lot!
We have been incredibly busy making costumes for the play, every time we return to the flat I sit down and start sewing and Chelcie starts painting. I have been making a chocolate button costume, and three dresses for backing singers as well as sewing numerous sequins onto a hat for our Rapper. Chelcie has been painting a Crunchie, Bar One and Smarties costumes. These all look really effective and we are very pleased with how they have turned out. We have also finally finished painting the backdrop yellow – we now just need individual paintings, a window and a border for that to be finished. On Friday we had our first run through of the whole play which took forever. It went like a first run through should – definitely illustrated what we need to work on next term but there were some parts which I was really happy with but there is a lot left to do.
Last Saturday in TV we watched ‘The Wizard of Oz’ which the children loved. Chelcie and I sat amongst the little boys in front of where the older sit on chairs. I had two little boys using me as a pillow and Tuhafeni sitting behind me plaiting all m hair into lots of tiny little plaits so by the end of the night I looked pretty crazy! Unfortunately, one of the G3 boys went to sleep and then wet himself and woke up in a big puddle. I felt really bad for him but it also smelt awful! We came back to the Flat via the little boys hostel as I wanted to say goodnight to Dankie, he then very sweetly undid all my plaits for me which saved me the job later!
On the Sunday we had a Thanksgiving service – instead of the usual collection everyone gave in either toiletries or some food. We gave the two tins of baked beans and the tin of pilchards that have been sitting in our kitchen since the start of the year! Boys from G6 and G7 processed down the aisle with pumpkins, from the school gardens, on their heads which looked amazing. All the donations will be distributed to the poor, sick and old in our community. When I went to bed that night there was the most humongous spider I have ever seen on the wall next to my door. It was the size of my hand outstretched – no exaggeration. Both Chelcie and I were petrified of it so we texted Stanley who came over and got rid of it for us. By then we had both got really freaked out so Chelcie ended up moving her mattress and sleeping on my floor that night!
In all our last PT lessons we played Party Games such as Musical Chairs/Bumps/Statues with all the Grades which they loved. G7 were the most awful cheats which was very amusing but it was a very fun week of lessons. In my recorder lessons I’ve been busy preparing things for them to play at the end of term concert on Monday. Both my Intermediate and Advanced classes will perform two songs with two solos as well. My beginner class also would like to perform but I’m not really sure I can stand listening to them – they are truly awful! I also don’t feel it’s fair to make other people suffer them as well!
We have also planted the sunflower seeds that Mummy sent me for my birthday. They are growing at a crazy rate so we’ve taken to making a video diary of them each day as they seem to be on steroids! We now need to work out what to do with them over the holiday when we go away.....!
On Friday morning we had a Spelling Bee with ten children from G5-7 who had done the best in their weekly spellings throughout the term. I had ordered all the spellings from this term into levels of difficulty and they all took turns in spelling a word. If they made a mistake then they were out. We got down to the ten unseen words and by now it was only between Uapiona (G6) and Aune (G7). Uapiona spelt ‘examination’ correctly but Aune spelt ‘proprietor’ wrong making Uapiona the winner.
On Saturday night we had our ‘Star Party’, this was for the 16 children with the highest amount of stars. We had one from each Grade and then another eight children. The children earn stars through good behaviour, acts of kindness and having tidy bedrooms. Gilly had given us borevors and brotchen for them which I cooked on the braai and we also cut up lots of cucumber for them – a big novelty, and made them little party bags (in yogurt pots!) with sweets, fruit, balloons and little toys in. Having made two parcels the children played their first ever game of Pass the Parcel which they loved. I gave them my camera which as usual caused endless amusement. It was a really fun evening and they all seemed to really enjoy themselves.
Visas: Gilly went to have a meeting with the Deputy Minister about our visa situation but returned to Otjikondo without having been able to meet with him. We now have our passports back ready to go travelling but the visa situation is all a bit scary. I really don’t want to have to leave Otjikondo before the end of next term. So if anyone has a magic wand please grant us one wish: ‘To have our visas extended until the end of August’, thank you very much.
I can’t believe I have taught my last lessons this term and we only have the last couple of days of cleaning before my second term is over. This term has gone at least as twice as fast as last term, which I didn’t think was possible, and everyone says that next term is the quickest. All very scary. The next time I write here my parents will be with me which is so exciting. At the moment they are on a plane between Frankfurt and Windhoek and I can’t wait to see them! I hope that all is well with you at home.
Lots of love
Ottilie xxx
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