Part Thirty Four: Out Weekend and tonsillitis; the best of combinations! (29th June – 7th July)

Definitely the least planned Out Weekend of all time but turned out to be an amazing weekend nonetheless. I had planned to go home with Glenn but obviously due to her illness this wasn’t an option anymore. Chelcie and I decided to hitch to Outjo on the Friday and then spend the rest of the weekend finishing everything else that we needed to do for the Button Box – finish costumes, props and backdrop.

As we were walking out to the road we watched three cars drive past and thought we wouldn’t have much trouble hitching a lift. As soon as were at the road there was obviously no traffic but we started walking towards Outjo rather than just stand there and after about 15 minutes we got a lift. We got into a cab of a lorry with two guys who were driving from Oshakati to Windhoek and had been driving since 5am. It was one of our more comfortable rides although Chelcie managed to rid the inside of her jeans as she got into the cab! We saw so many warthogs on our journey so we started to count – on the way to and from Outjo (1h 45m in total) we saw 91 warthogs! Apparently you always see lots in winter but this is a crazy number!

We went straight to the Bank where we had to queue for ages as it was the end of month and therefore everyone was taking money out. We then went to the Post Office – Gilly had given us 110 letters which she had asked us to buy stamps for and post. To send to Europe you need $5.40 stamps however they only had 56 of these and therefore the rest of the letters needed 3 stamps to make the right amount of postage not forgetting the air mail sticker on top. This meant that between us we licked 332 stamps! Our tongues were soooo dry by the end of us and we rushed to buy drinks to recover! We went to print off photos and I asked the man to look at my camera. This is the one I bought a month ago to replace my stolen one – for some reason last night when I tried to upload my photos or charge it nothing happened. He told me that the bit inside the camera was in broken so I’m back to square one again without a camera and more money down the drain – very annoying.

It was very weird being in Outjo and not totally overexcited about using the Internet. Also probably the last time that we will be here....agh! We ended up in The Farmhouse for lunch and all of last year’s Grade 7 boys walked past. It was so lovely to see them and it was so sweet that they were all together especially as two were wearing Otjikondo t-shirts! They were such a wonderful year and it was great to catch up as we had missed them. We then started walking back to Otjikondo via the Garage to buy a calypso which was very welcome in the midday sun. We were passed by the Swiss Teachers and we stopped for a chat with them before saying our Goodbyes again.

We managed to get a lift to the turning towards Kamanjab pretty much straight away. We were picked up by a lovely Afrikaans couple – he had been to school with Mrs Vermaak at Outjo and had lived at Otjikondo with his wife for two years when it was still a police station. They were really lovely and invited us to come and stay with them for a night and said if we didn’t get another lift just to ring them and they would come and pick us up. This was all without giving us their name or number but they were really lovely. I get bored of just standing by the road waiting for a lift so we started walking and walking and walking some more without a car in sight. We got passed by a couple of cars containing the children who were leaving school and were extremely excited to see us. (On Monday we got asked if we walked the whole way back, obviously we lied and said yes and the children now think we walked the 90km home!) Luckily, we managed to get a lift in the end on the back of a combi. It was pretty comfortable as were sitting on some tyres but that made us pretty high up and as a result I had tears running down my face the whole way home because of the wind! I say down but I actually mean sideways as the wind was so strong. When we got to St Michaels we stopped in a stopover for a bit and it turned out that one of the guys in the front was Amor’s, from G3, father. We got talking to him and he was asking where we had been in Namibia. He was shocked that we haven’t been to Epupa Falls, somewhere be both would love to go, and said he was going to take us. When we got back to Otjikondo he took my number so we could keep in contact and arrange a time when he would take us. I’ve now had various texts and calls from Harry which I’ve ignored as I feel weird texting someone’s who I teach father and according to Paul we would have to pay in some way or another for the trip!

Reiner has been awarded the equivalent of an MBE from Germany which is absolutely incredible. He deserves it so much as all the work that he has done is absolutely incredible. Apparently it’s even more special as Reiner is actually a Namibian citizen and therefore it’s much more complicated for him to be awarded this as it has to go through loads of different things to be approved. I’m so glad that he’s getting the recognition that he deserves.  

On Saturday morning we managed to get everything done that we wanted which was a first. I finished making the costumes which was a massive relief as I seem to have had a needle permanently attached to my hand this term. Chelcie finished the window for the backdrop which looks absolutely amazing and I’m really exciting to get it up. I also made a table, sorted Grandma’s costume with Aune and glued the handle onto the Button Box.

We decided to go for a Picnic bicycle ride at lunch time. We borrowed Paul and Sara’s bikes and set off with a rucksack containing a blanket, ipod and speaker, salad, yoghurt and water. Chelcie was on Sara’s bike which had Helena’s baby seat in front and therefore she could only pedal with her legs sideways and looked hilarious. I was on Paul’s bike which was MASSIVE for me and my arms could hardly reach the handles so it wasn’t the most comfortable of rides. We went on the tar road towards Kamanjab and stopped under a tree for our picnic. It was really nice and good to be outside and away from the school and then we came back again.

Roland came over at 4 with Max. Although we’ve been in contact we haven’t seen Roland and Max (his dog) since Oktoberfest which was eight months ago. Max who was just a puppy then has tripled in size at least and they were both in brilliant form. It was really great to catch up and we had an amazing time. We had organised to stay in the girls hostel that night as some of the children hadn’t gone home and they wanted us to come for a sleepover. We said that we would come over at 9 as we thought that Roland would just stay for an early supper, sadly we had to let down the girls as Roland was here until 4am! We had a really fun night and it was great to chill.

The first day of July was very relaxed, I spent the morning in bed before having a clear up and clean of my room. We went for a very relaxed braai at Paul and Sara’s who quickly discovered how hung-over we were and found it very funny that as Roland was leaving Helena had woken them up! Can’t say we got much done in the afternoon either but we watched Harry Potter 2 and our lights were out by 8:30 having planned lessons for the upcoming week. Didn’t think that the weekend would be that spectacular but it was very enjoyable.

 I really can’t believe that June is over; I said that May had gone in a flash so June must have gone in a flicker. Chelcie pointed out that it was half way through the year, I said we were half way months ago but she said half way through 2012. That is the craziest thing ever and really sure how it’s happened but it has. At the end of 6 months I did ‘Best Sister Writing Award’ and the outcome was 1^st place: Cluny with 6 letters, 2^nd place: Lou Lou with 5 letters and 3^rd place: Matilda with 3 letters. Matilda has since requested that I re-award this so as of today.....

                        1^st Place: Cluny with 11 letters (I’ve sent 15 letters)

                        2^nd Place: Matilda and Lou Lou joint with 6 letters! (I’ve sent Matilda 10 and Lou Lou 8 letters)

Other records for the month are I cried once (has to be an all time low – Chelcie note The Wanted reference!), read six books, wrote 34 letters and received 8 (dismal effort from you guys! Although to be fair we’ve only got post twice this month so not sure whether you’ve all stopped writing to me or whether they just haven’t been collected), saw 91 warthogs in a day, became legal in Namibia with two months to go, went running with two giraffes and generally did way too much sewing!

           

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STAIGHTY! I really can’t believe that this time last year we had just got back from Tenerife, was going to Leavers Ball and actually leaving school. So much has happened in a year, it seems totally crazy that it wasn’t longer ago.

All the children returned from the Out Weekend full of beans, actually as if they were full of magic beans. They had SO much energy but all were very happy as well which was lovely. I spent Monday morning erecting the Backdrop with the help of Ivan. We nailed our ‘wall’ to the actual wall and then stuck the window to our ‘wall’ and then hung the window frame over the top. Later Chelcie and I glued the border to the ‘wall’ and it’s now complete and I’m really happy with how it looks.

Sadly Tuesday arrived with the onset of tonsillitis which really didn’t make me happy at all. I really think I’ve had enough illness this year and not sure I can cope with any more. Gilly returned from Swakop on Wednesday evening and brought me some antibiotics after I’d talked to the doctor on the phone – my fifth lot in 10 months. Definitely think I could do with having my tonsils removed once I’m home.

Spent the week in Art starting to cut out work and mount it ready to display which is actually very time consuming but strangely therapeutic, maybe that’s just because I’m feeling quite out of it at the moment. I had the idea of making a huge world map on a piece of fabric which would go up on one of the walls above the cupboards. Chelcie drew it out using her own scale and with the help of Diina and Paulus we have painted each continent in a different block colour which looks really good. It looks a bit like a giant risk board. We just need to paint the sea and then we are going to make some people to go around the edge which we are going to make clothes for – one or two to represent each continent. So for example the Asia people might wear a kimono or have one for Europe in top hat and tails. I think it will look really effective on the wall and the G7s will have fun helping us to do it.

On Wednesday afternoon we had a full run through of the Button Box in preparation to showing Sara and.....it went REALLY WELL! There is still plenty to work on but the energy was heaps better, they remembered the dances and most of the time when to come in and generally it was just a success. Very happy. Afterwards we tried their costumes in which had mixed reactions from them – they weren’t very keen on the Indian clothes but loved the African ones we had taken from Impi Ntombi. The boys refused to wear waistcoats without tops underneath to be sailors so we’ve comprised and let them wear little vest tops. Ruben who is Uncel Jack the Sailor Captain cried when he saw his sailor top as for some reason he thought he was going to be dressed as a pirate?! Luckily the next day I took him again to try it on and he has said he will wear it and I managed to find a sailor cap to go with it which he likes.

Swiss Family Robinson arrived in the post which was SO EXCITING. This is one of my all time favourite films and I was so shocked that Chelcie hadn’t watched it that I asked Mummy to send it out! We had a great evening enjoying it and both agreed that with the right person we could quite happily live there.

Thursday afternoon I retired to bed and I awoke on Friday sounding like Darth Vader. Spent the day in bed reading and feeling generally miserable L! Luckily on Saturday woke up feeling slightly more human and the drugs seem to be kicking in. On Friday evening Hannah and Carla arrived....Hannah is 24, from Northumberland and is taking a year off from work to travel and has come to Otjikondo for a couple of weeks. Carla is 18 from Germany and is here for 6 weeks which brings us to the end of term - AGHHHHH. They are both really nice and it will be fun having people here with us again.

I have finally heard my accommodation for next year and after much anticipation I’m going to be living in Holland Halls which was my first choice so that’s very exciting. The most exciting thing is that Hen is also going to Holland so there will be a friendly face about. Chelcie and I spent a break time looking at our respective University websites (she is studying Marketing at Durham) and freaking out. Seems very frightening so just trying not to think about it all! Sending love to everyone in my beautiful Darth Vader voice!

Love from Me xxxx

Part Thirty Three: Dramatics during Drama! (18th – 28th June)

Monday morning started with me giving a drugs talk! Once again I was teaching for Ken on Monday and Tuesday as he sat the last of his exams – the Police Inspector had kindly left his colourful poster and it was up to me to take the Grade 6s through it. I won’t lie....I definitely was learning new things as I was teaching them, for instance did you know that all cannabis plants have an odd number of leaves. The children took this piece of information to mean that a green plant with an odd number of leaves is cannabis and I was brought various specimens of cannabis throughout the day! Mondays mean triple Grade Five which is always a struggle. By the third lesson they had way too much energy to be conductive so I sent them out to do 3 laps of the football pitch and they returned with slightly less energy. Grade 6 agriculture was really satisfying – I started with a test on everything that we had covered last week and they had remembered it all which made me very happy. Grade 7 agriculture was a slight shambles as they knew they had a test in science next with me and were panicking about it so I did a quick recap for them. I really wanted them all to pass as the test was on Scientific Processes which is what I had taught them and therefore their marks would reflect my teaching.

Monday afternoon as incredible weather and I decided it was too nice to waste on sitting inside playing the recorder. Instead we played hide and seek and this crazy African game where one person has a stick and tries to hit everyone else with it on the bum?! Not really sure I got the finer details of this! Glenn is one of the girls in G6 and in my advanced recorder group. She asked me before to go home with her for the Out Weekend and we talked again about it properly and I said I would love to go. I really excited about going home with her as she is so lovely and it will be fascinating to stay with a Damara family. On Monday evening I stayed in the Art Room and skyped Staighty which was lovely. She is the only friend that I’ve actually managed to talk to out here and that was on New Years Eve. It was so great to be able to talk ‘face to face’ with her, being able to have an actual conversation is so much more satisfying than just communicating through leaving messages for each other on the internet or writing letters or texts. It was brilliant to hear what has been going on at home and to be able to share some of my news with her. I was also talking to Zim which was brilliant although he was in a ‘Grahamstown funk’ which I had to get him out of. As he knows I only have one joke which he doesn’t find funny – “What do you call a donkey with three legs?”..... “A wonky”! So I was googling jokes to try and amuse him. I then felt really sad sitting in a dark art room by myself in the middle of Africa, freezing cold and laughing out loud at jokes such as “Why does the elephant wear red shoes?”.... “Because his white ones were dirty”! So thought it was time to go back to the flat – a perilous journey without a torch!

Tuesday was brilliant – having nearly turned into an icicle last Tuesday I literally put on most my wardrobe in order to survive another three double periods of agriculture. However, it turned out to be a lovely day so I shed my layers and switched my hoody and cashmere gloves with Diodores in exchange for his cap so I wouldn’t get burnt! I sat on a bench sewing costumes for the drama while talking to the boys who would take it in turn to go and do some work and then come back to chat. A really lovely morning. In the evening after study we had an extra drama rehearsal for the Belly Button Boogie – the children really love this song as the music is so energetic and the dance is great fun. I always get such a high when we practise this as it makes me so happy and gives me a buzz.

Wednesday was Mrs Vermaak’s and Ms Laurencia’s birthday so at break time we had a celebration with the BEST carrot cake ever. It was absolutely incredible and cake at 9:00 is always very welcome! Thursday was a day of sewing for me and painting for Chelcie as Catherine and Jordan took our lessons so that we would have the time to try and get some things finished for the play. We also got a new kettle as we’ve worked out that it was our kettle that kept on fusing the electricity when Catherine and Jordan took it to the art room and managed to cut out the electricity all over the school! Our new one is very smart and lime scale free but we will miss our old one which used to just turn itself on randomly which we always considered a prompt for a tea break – if the kettle realised we needed a break it must be time for one!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Granny Paul today (22st June) – really hope that she’s doing something amazing to celebrate her 80^th birthday. Wish I could spend the day with you or at least talk to you on the telephone but my thoughts are with you none the less.

On Friday afternoon we had the most DISASTROUS drama rehearsal ever which produced tears in my eyes and great frustration from the both of us. We wanted to have a run through of the first half which would give us an indication of how much work we had left to – the answer was everything. I have never been so bored watching a performance, the main four gave dismal performances needing to be prompted every other sentence and Aune, who plays Grandma, had a two year old temper tantrum and refused to put any effort into anything. No one remembered when to enter or what the dances were and the whole thing was a shambles. Sara arrived and gave them all a pep talk and said that the weekend after the out weekend she would be coming to watch a full run through and expected great results – more pressure. The children just aren’t taking it seriously enough at the moment; they are acting like there is lots of time left rather than just a few weeks. There’s not much more that Chelcie and I can do, at some point the results have to come from them and they have to realise that they have to put the work in if they want to have a good show and not get it cancelled. After this Chelcie and were very downhearted and the last thing we felt like doing was TV for the kids so we went and organised to switch with Alberthina would cover for us and we would do it on Saturday instead. We went to the shop and bought chocolate and then made a picnic of egg and bacon rolls, popcorn, cut up apples and oranges and chocolate! We made a massive bed on my floor where we then curled up and watched Disney films. A very fun night and an effective way to cheer ourselves up!

Saturday was a really unexpected lovely day. There was no official cleaning today but with the help of my girls we managed to turn the Art Room back into an acceptable state in 45 minutes and sharpen all the pencils and colours ready for next week. The reason there was no cleaning was that St Michaels were arriving at 9:00 to play football and netball matches against our U11, U12 and U13 teams.  We looked incredibly smart in our green and white sports uniforms....unfortunately although we looked better turned out than St Michaels they had the talent! We lost every single match apart from the U12 football. Our only excuse is that they have double as many children in those grades so more children to pick from but it was pretty dismal and I think they will now be training harder from now on. At lunch time we did our May face painting (I know it’s nearly the end of June but things have got a bit delayed for one reason or another) – we each had an “S” on our face and we had a piece of paper in between us saying “O”. So we spelt out SOS as we were thinking of May Day in the ship sense! We did Bank and shop in the afternoon and then watched Duma with the children during TV. I was reading my book at the back amongst a couple of the G7 boys and looked up at the part when a boy is fighting of crocodiles trying to get out of a lake where he was swimming and I embarrassingly ended up clinging to Bredon’s (deputy head boy) arm in fright! Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind and is by now thoroughly used to me being scared of everything.

On Sunday I ended up having to read in Church as Ken didn’t turn up. I had helped Brendon with his reading during the week but obviously hadn’t looked at Ken’s so ended up reading it for the first time out loud in Church but thankfully it went okay. It was Sara’s birthday so we ended up there for a birthday lunch which was lovely. We had Indian which not only was scrummy but also a very welcome change. We both had wine hoping that it would relax us sufficiently for the drama rehearsal at 3.30. It wasn’t quite as disastrous as Friday but not much better. In that we now have one person who is taking it seriously – Desvino who plays Grandad, love that boy so much at the moment. However, at the end of the rehearsal we were just mucking around singing along to the backing track and it sounded really good. When we first chose the play we really wanted to use the backing track as it’s brilliant but there isn’t a speaker system in the Dining Room where the stage is. Also we have had to put a lot of the songs down as the music is written for English voices which tend to be a lot higher than the children’s voices out here. However, we have decided to use the backing track for a couple of songs. The music isn’t incredibly loud but you can hear it and it gives the children an instant boost of energy which is what the play needs. It’s lacking pizzazz at the moment. We can’t use it for all the songs as the majority of them are just too high for the children to sing to but it has worked out for six of them. Hopefully, this will really make a positive difference as we are starting to run out of ideas and time to improve the play.

This week in PT I took all the boys in each Grade while Chelcie took the Girls. I did penalty shooting practice with them and put it into practice by playing little games. This was good fun especially as they all really enjoy it and therefore are a pleasure to teach although I lack much football skill! In G7 PT I took Desvino, Aune and Diina to do some extra acting work with them. I managed to inject some life in to their performances and we worked on talking slowly and clearly but still having energy. I still have hope for them....!

G5 Art on Tuesday was a total nightmare from beginning to end. They arrived full of energy and never really settled down. It took us 40 minutes to complete their spelling test which consists of 20 words which they all failed miserably having not learnt it – 8 people scored 1/20. This doesn’t amuse me at all as I always write out their corrections for them and that’s a lot of corrections to write out in a class of 34 with the highest mark being 12/20. After the spellings we got them to line up outside in silence before we would continue with Art but they were being so disrespectful and would not stand quietly so after a while we took them to Mr Hawaxab and left him to deal with them. This was our final resort as this term there have been quite a few lessons when they have been playing up with us and we needed them to realise that they couldn’t behave like that. That afternoon, I had a craft session with my girls which includes a girl called Liezel from G5. None of us were feeling creative so we just went and crashed in the Grass Hut and they were giving me the low down about all of the teachers. I asked what the G5 punishment had been, expecting a bad class punishment such as no bank/break/vet cookies for the whole class......however, it turned out that the class had chosen eight members of the class who they considered responsible and they were beaten. Liezel was saying how she hated how her class were such snitches on each other and the G6 and G7 girls were saying how their classes always stuck together and would much rather take a whole class punishment then rat on each other. I felt so guilty that a decision I had made had resulted with eight children being beaten. The worst thing was that although I knew that Mr Hawaxab hit the children and it’s something I openly disapprove of I thought it was just with his hand however I discovered that he had a piece of metal that he hits them with them. I felt such shame and guilt that the children had been punished like this because of me and I have vowed that I will never send another child ever again to Mr Hawaxab.

Tuesday was Catherine and Jordan’s last night at Otjikondo so we had a special supper. I cooked I between the electricity cutting out a sausage and vegetable pasta bake and we had a lovely last night altogether. It’s been really nice having them here and to be able to share stories and memories with each other. A little daunting when Jordan mentioned that she read my blog....so if you’re reading this “HI!” I have definitely found someone who is blonder than me which is a relief although I’m now panicking about first impressions at Uni as I have been very blonde recently.

On Wednesday we did our first music class at the Kindergarten which was brilliant. There were 15 children, none of which apart from Mattie and Ola have much English so at this stage it was more of a question of singing at them and getting them to join in with the actions. We did “If you’re happy and you’re know it” which was good fun and then we sang some other songs which Sara had already done with them. Sara has given us total free range with these classes and says that if we want to do a game with them or something different than that’s fine. I’m really looking forward to taking over the parachute that we have in the store cupboard – I remember absolutely loving that when I was younger and I reckon not much will have changed!

Thursday I had rather a scary experience and another Oh My God I’m in Africa moments – funnily enough most of the negative ones of these are attached to medical care. When Glenn a girl in G6 and one of my favourites – she is my pen pal, returned to school we were told that in the holidays she had been fainting lots but it was nothing to be overly concerned about and it was to do with growing up. She told her friends that she had epilepsy but we were told this was wrong and we should play down anything we heard. She had fainted a few times at school and had just spent a week at home recovering from a couple. She was in my second remedial class and we were a verbal times and dividing competition. She was very quiet and said she felt faint but didn’t want to go and lie down so we just continued and I kept a close eye on her. When it was time to leave I saw she was very unstable and thought I would accompany her back to the hostel. She then got worse and luckily Chelcie appeared and with some help we were able to carry her to the Clinic. As soon as she was horizontal she blacked out and her body went completely like rigid. We got her on a bed and sat with her having sent someone to get Sister Lizetta. Her whole body was totally stiff but she was having spasms and we couldn’t get her body to relax – her hands had turned into claws as she was so stiff and the end of her fingers were freezing. Her breathing was regular generally although sometimes it went shallow but then would return to normal again. I was very worried that she hadn’t woken up and after half an hour we sent a child for Sara. Sara fetched Mrs Vermaak who had been dealing before with Glenn and with her help we massaged and moved all her limbs which started to relax but then would bounce back to being rigid. Luckily after about 45 minutes of being totally out of it she woke up which was a massive relief. Whatever we had been told this definitely wasn’t fainting but something much more serious. Her Mother came to pick her up that evening and she has to go and have lots of tests. She is very much in my thoughts at the moment.

Our theme for our Art Room for Parents Day is ‘Around the World’. With the younger ones we are colouring in animals from different places but with the older ones we are exploring different endemic art styles. With Grade Three we did Koru Art which is from New Zealand, Grade 6 Aboriginal Art from Australia and with G7 we were exploring Chinese symbols. It’s really important that the art work is of a very high standard and that it all looks spectacular. This is one of our big challenges for the year – 4^th August has become our D Day! As we this is when Parents Day happens and therefore the Art Room is open with the craft fair inside as well as performing the Drama in the afternoon.

On Thursday night we had supper with Nicole, Sabine, Mathieu and Maxime as they leave tomorrow. I cooked Gemsbok Josh Rogan Curry and we ate in the Pastoral Centre where they contributed wine and Swiss chocolate! It was a really fun evening and I only wish we had done it with them before however they invited us to come and stay with them in Switzerland which both of us eager to take them up on! They gave us all their leftover food bits which was so welcome – we now have very exotic foods such as honey cheerios, balsamic vinegar, an avocado, raspberry jam.....so exciting! It’s been really lovely having so many people around this term and we are expecting more people next week, finger crossed that they are as nice!

In order to be ready to perform a complete run through next week to Sara we had evening rehearsals of the Button Box on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night after supper. This is possibly the worst time to have a rehearsal as its 7:30, the children and us are ready for bed and its freezing but there isn’t another available time. I got into a good habit of being changed into my pj’s, teeth brushed and  a hot water bottle warming my bed so once we returned I could jump straight into bed and go to sleep! Monday’s rehearsal went well, we rehearsed the first 5 songs and added the backing track to two of them which was successful. Tuesday was less successful....we went through the middle section of the play and although the majority of the cast were brilliant Aune once again was being silly – she was putting no effort into speaking which was annoying everyone else and refused to sing without covering her face with her arm. We had discussed with Sara what we should do if this happened again and so we put the plan into action which then massively backfired in our faces! At the end of rehearsal we asked Desvino (Grandad) to remain behind as well as Kenisha and Tuyambeka. We asked both of them to read through the first scene with him so that we could “consider our options”, we explained how we weren’t replacing anyone but we needed to think about other options in case things didn’t work out. If we were going to have to replace Aune which we REALLY don’t want to do it was going to have to very soon only to be fair to the person who would take over. We walked outside to discover Aune in floods of tears, literally having hysterics. We sent everyone back to the hostel and took her aside to talk to her. We talked to her and explained that we weren’t replacing her but she was on her last chance and it wasn’t fair to the rest of the cast if she kept dragging us behind and if necessary we would have to replace her. We told her that she was our first choice of Grandma but if she couldn’t pull it together then she would be out. She then went on a massive rant about how seeing people happy and smiling at her reminded her of her Dad. She hasn’t seen her Dad since last Christmas which is very hard on her and we have talked and helped her with this before but at this particular point she was just using it as an excuse. We decided to go with it and said she had to make a grown up decision; she could either cope with it and was able to turn up to rehearsal and just focus on Drama and obviously we would be there for her to talk to at any other point or she had to make the decision that it was too much for her and she should step aside. We were very firm and said she had to make a decision by the next day. Luckily she has decided that she can “cope” and we shall wait with fingers crossed to see what happens next. On Thursday night we went through the last 5 songs in the play which all went well and hopefully things will keep improving.

I really hope that everything is going well in England or whether you are reading this from and as usual sending lots and lots of love to everyone reading this. Please feel free to send me an email as it’s now a viable form of communication for me or if you would like to skype let me know! Also forgot my very exciting big news – I’m officially legal after 43 weeks in Namibia! Finally our visas have been properly sorted and stamped into our passports until the end of August, huge relief although I’m looking forward to getting my passport back and seeing with my own eyes that its true. I trust no one when it comes to visas as we have been let down so many times. But all very exciting and it means I should be able to get home safely, touch wood! Bye for now

Love Me xxxx

Part Thirty Two: The Diamond Jubilee, Crounders and.....WIRELESS INTERNET (4th – 17th June)

This was the week of the Jubilee which we weren’t doing anything in particular to celebrate so we thought we would have a Jubilee themed Art week. With all the younger children we made crowns and they decorated them. This resulted in us having to draw out 34 crowns for G1 as we didn’t think they were capable of drawing them on their own, luckily the rest were able to as the novelty wore off pretty quickly! With the older grades we got them to design an outfit for a Royal to wear to a celebration or to design a form of transport for the Royal to get to the celebration. We started each lesson with a little talk about our royal family which they all found very interesting although they were outraged to learn that the Queen never carries any money on her!

We also invented a new sport which we played all week with all the Grades....it’s called Crounders. It’s a mixture of Rounders and Quick Cricket but played with a tennis ball and bat! It was really fun and all the children seemed to enjoy it as well. One of us would bowl each time and the other would either field or with the younger ones help them to bat. With the older ones the games got quite competitive and we had a really fun time playing this. Wings this year have been quite difficult to teach PT to as they have such a range of ages, however, this was something that they all could play and enjoyed. I think for the first time ever we went a whole week without a strop in PT from a single Wings child, which is unheard of.

I spent the actual day of the Jubilee in bed as at 3am I woke up and then was sick for an hour or two for no apparent reason. Didn’t get much more sleep so spent the day dozing in bed with a rather sore tummy feeling sorry for myself. After the holidays I haven’t been sleeping as well as I’m getting back ache like I did at the start from the mattress. Over the holiday I was spoiled and got used to sleeping on a proper mattress and my back isn’t appreciating my return to my Otjikondo bed! Chelcie is very excited about the return to her bed but worryingly I can’t remember what mine feels like! I know it’s nice but I can’t imagine it at all...

I have started running again on some of the mornings as I need to get fit and thin to come home. It’s a massive struggle to get out of bed that early especially as it’s freezing. I must look absolutely ridiculous in my running gear – trainers, leggings, a t-shirt, Uapiona’s beanie and my cashmere fingerless gloves! Luckily no one else is up at that ear to witness me like that. On Friday morning I met two Giraffe at my half way point which brightened up the run. They were crossing the road where I turn around (a road sign saying Kamanjab 70km) and when I turned around they followed me for a bit. My run took rather longer than usual as I stopped for about 10 minutes to watch them as they were really close to me and very beautiful.

On Friday’s we have a clash class when we have to teach G4 music at the same time as G2 PT. G4 is our devil class so neither of us like to teach them that much, especially on our own, but said I would do it. Last term we battled away doing Theory with them which they hated and I can’t say I enjoyed teaching that much either. I thought I would do something they would enjoy hoping that would make them behave. We went to the grass hut and I taught them some new songs – we started with ‘Nick Nack Paddy Wack, give the dog a bone’ which they already know and like and then I introduced ‘One Man went to Mow’. This has to be one of the most monotonous songs to sing as it never changes but they absolutely LOVED it. We probably spent half an hour just singing this repeatedly! Song of the girls asked me to write down the words for them after the lesson but I said if they couldn’t remember the words to this after singing it about 20 times they really shouldn’t be in G4. Finally I started to teach them ‘There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea’ which they also really enjoyed.

I then had my first keyboard lessons with Theopoldine and Revonia after the holidays. Theopoldine remembered lots and we made great progress so I was very happy. On the other hand it was like I have never taught Revonia the keyboard before, let alone the fact that she is in my Intermediate Recorder class and therefore should be able to read music! I would show her one C minim and ask her what note it was and how long she should hold it on for her. After a couple of tries she would get it right but if I then pointed to another C minim the whole process would start again and she would say it was an G. I haven’t even taught her how to play a G yet! Very frustrating but I made her a key which should help her to identify notes in future and make it easier.

Friday afternoon was spent rehearsing the Button Box (just to warn you if you haven’t already guessed the Button Box will be my main topic over the next 10 weeks or so!). We repeated The Belly Button Boogie, rehearsed Button Your Lip and Crows Button and then added dances to Uncle Jack’s Sailor Button and the Chocolate Button. Absolutely exhausted by the end of it but came back and did some planning of rehearsals before doing TV. We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was brilliant – haven’t watched it for ages. I ended up lying at the front on the floor where all the little boys sit. I had Dankie lying on top of me on my back so that he could style my hair – my boy is definitely going to be hairdresser when he’s older, he loves to play with hair and can actually make it look nice as well! I was propping myself up on my elbows and I had Ambrosious (G1) by my side with his head under my chest asleep, Alex (G4) just lying next to me and then Deon (G1) curled up into a little ball in front of me leaning back against me and using my face as a pillow. I can’t say I was particularly comfortable but I did feel extremely loved and they were happy which was the main thing.

We came back via Paul’s house to check he was alive. Sara has flown home to England as her Grandfather isn’t very well and is in hospital, she took Helena, the youngest, with her but left Mattie (4) and Ola (3) with Paul. The children were in bed already and we ended up having a very funny conversation about what we would have for our last supper if were on death row. Paul’s answer pretty much straight away was crayfish for a starter, then t-bone steak with salad and chips followed by chocolate sponge pudding. It was more difficult for me – obviously sticky toffee pudding but couldn’t think of a starter and I was debating between the same main course as Paul versus lasagne and peas!

Saturday was a very nice day – before cleaning I put up the new spellings for the week. It’s quite challenging comeing up with new words each week. There are three different lots of spellings; one for Wings and G2 who need 15 very basic words with no more than 4 letters, then 15 words for Grades 3 and 4 at a medium level and finally 20 quite difficult words for Grades 5, 6 and 7. I had done all the lists and then decided to play the dictionary game for Grades 5, 6 and 7. I came up with a word for the letters A-R all of which the learners wouldn’t already know so that they would end up improving their vocabulary. I can’t say I was very popular when they saw the list and spotted Quibble and Rumbustious. Chelcie and I spent the whole afternoon painting our border for the backdrop while eating chocolate – very naughty. Gilly came and invited us for lunch tomorrow – t-bone steak, chips and salad, which we both found very funny. Paul obviously couldn’t wait any longer!

On Sunday morning rather than go to Church we went over to the Costume Room and got out all the costumes that we need for the Button Box. The musical has 14 songs, all of which require different costumes as they are all about different countries or music periods so as you can imagine that’s an awful lot of costumes! Last year all costume changes were eliminated from the Drama to make it easier so I’m not really sure what we’ve got ourselves into! Luckily we managed to find most of them and get it all sorted but we still have a couple of things to adjust and make. My latest project is to sew 6 green sashes for the Irish Leprechaun Dance all of which need a big shamrock sewn with beads on the chest. In the afternoon we had another Button Box rehearsal which went well partly as Gilly came to watch most of it and therefore all the children were very well behaved. Sorted out a couple more of the dances which was good but still not finished which is slightly worrying. Also Nicole and Sabine arrived – they are two Swiss women who are training to be teachers and have come for three weeks to get some experience. Nicole has brought one of her son Mathieu who will be joining the Grade Fives and Sabine has brought her youngest daughter Maxime who will join Grade Four. They will live in the Pastoral Centre which is adjoined to our flat.

Can’t believe second week of school is already done. This is our shortest term and it’s already flying by. On Monday and Tuesday I was back to teaching Ken’s subjects for him as he was in Otjiwarongo taking some exams for his degree. Having talked to Mummy on the Sunday night and said there was no need for her to send out some winter clothes I swiftly changed my mind on the Monday morning. I have never been so cold – when I was packing for Namibia I really didn’t believe that Winter in Africa could actually be that cold as it’s Africa! MAJOR ERROR – so I am now trying to combine summer clothes to make winter ones which isn’t really working. It’s freezing, luckily I have a sympathetic Mother who is sending out my hat and Lacrosse jacket, cannot wait, literally.

Craziest thing ever happened on Monday....we were sitting in the staff room during break and there was a telecom man installing something. We asked what was going on and Mrs Vermaak informed us that they were installing WIRELESS INTERNET. I now have internet at Otjikondo which is mental. Luckily it doesn’t get as far as the flat otherwise I would get nothing done but I can get it at the school. So you are now free to email me! So exciting as it means I can be in better contact with my friends and hear what they’re up to rather than hearing about it 3 months later. Looking forward to some skype dates....

On Tuesday I had double agriculture first with the G5s, then the G6s and finally the G7s.             This was quite torture like as I have never been so cold and the sun was refusing to come out, so I was very unhappy. The boys finished levelling their plots in about 15 minutes and then were left with not much to do. They haven’t planted anything yet so there is nothing to weed or tend to so they were literally just levelling the soil and then lightly watering it. They then introduced me to Namibian figs which are purple, very sour and quite yummy. They stain everything you touch so you end up with bright pink fingers and tongue. Also they have thorns on the outside which can be very painful but the boys were very sweet and de-thorned figs for me so I wouldn’t get hurt!

I started making beaded match boxes with my girl craft box to sell in our craft shop. My idea for this was to paint the top of the match box white and then glue beads on to it to make a pretty pattern or shape. Some of them got the hang of this but others much to my horror put glue onto the whole of the top and then just threw a handful of beads onto it. Needless to say this looked pretty disgusting and I made them pick them all off again. My theory is that if I can manage to do the craft project then the children definitely should be able to and I managed to produce a decent looking matchbox!

Unsurprisingly, during the last ten months we have heard a lot about our predecessors from the children. When they left the children only had a two week holiday before we arrived and therefore the previous GAPs are very much still in their minds at the beginning and are never totally forgotten. Also once you leave you definitely become golden in the eyes of the children and are used against the next GAPs – ‘Miss Catherine and Miss Jordan always let us do this/never made us do that’. You know most of it isn’t true but you do get to hear a lot about them. We have been in contact with Catherine and Jordan most times when we have had internet which has always been nice and we’ve known for a while that they were coming to Otjikondo for two weeks ish sometime this term. We were actually really worried about them coming as we were concerned that a) they may not like us, b) they could be really scary, c) this was their home for a year and now it’s ours and we were just generally very nervous. However they arrived on Thursday evening and were perfectly lovely – they said they were just as nervous about meeting us and coming back to Otjikondo. We stayed up for a long time on the first night after having supper talking about all the children, general life at Otjikondo, travelling and what they had been doing in their year since being here. It was so lovely to be able to talk to people who understood how amazing Otjikondo is and knew all the children so weren’t bored by stories about them! They also brought us ingredients to make Fajitas which went down very well – it’s always nice to have something different so we have some variety.

Saturday the 16^th was the day of the African Child in Africa however we ended up celebrating on the Friday as there was too much happening on the Saturday. After lessons finished for the morning we all trooped to the Hans Seidal Hall where we were given a talk by the Head of Police from Outjo, our nearest town, and then a little concert from the children.  In my eyes the talk was very inappropriate – he was trying to make the point that the police are our friends and there to protect us rather than being people to be scared of. However, the story he used to illustrate his point was horrific. He asked if anyone knew what had happened in Outjo recently and then proceeded to tell us in detail….‘a woman had been hitch hiking with her two year old child and had hitched a lift with 5 men. They took her to the bushes and raped her before killing her child by bashing its head against a rock’. He told this story in very graphic detail which I found disturbing and I’m 19 – the whole school was present and therefore lots of six year olds were listening to this. The point of this story was that the police have since arrested the five men and they are in jail so the police have protected us. Chelcie and I were slightly more concerned that this had happened in the first place. He then went on to talk about drugs and started talking about date rape….with six year olds in the room! His English accent wasn’t very clear and he was talking about how juveniles are sent to an institution in Rundu where they are rehabilitated but it sounded like amputated – I was very shocked and thought that this was a bit extreme!

The concert was definitely not one of the best we’ve heard as not much preparation had been done. We heard from all the culture groups who either sang or danced in their traditional clothes. My advanced recorder group also played and luckily didn’t put me to shame even though we hadn’t rehearsed for a while what they performed so I was happy. We also heard from Maxime, Sabine’s daughter, on the violin which was impressive.

On Saturday morning Catherine and Jordan took our cleaning and did bank for us so that we could fit in some extra Button Box rehearsals. Unfortunately, it was a music weekend which is always lovely but it meant that we had to fight Faustinas for the children. Funnily enough all the musical children are in our play and therefore they were being pulled in all directions. We managed to finish choreographing the Irish Dance which was a massive relief and now it just needs loads of practice.

When checking my email – how crazy is that?! I had an email from Daddy saying how fantastic Cluny’s new flat was. Well this was the first I’d heard about a flat, funny how being in Africa people can forget to tell you things! Anyway, they have found a flat for her in Wantage which they are renting and she is moving in next Sunday. Totally bizarre.  

On Sunday morning I went for a run with Sabine, we set off at a very fast run and luckily she said it was too fast for her which was good as I was dying slightly. So much easier running with someone else and it pushes me a lot more and we definitely ran a lot faster than I normally do by myself. Church was filled with music and it was really good – especially the debut performance from Catherine and Jordan on the flute and violin. In the afternoon we managed to finish all the choreographing which was very exciting and satisfying. Technically everything is now learnt we just have to get it to a standard where we can actually show anyone which will take quite a while!

These two weeks have gone in a flash but a good flash! It’s been fun having lots of people around although we know that as soon as they have gone it will only take about a day for it to feel like they were never here. Just remembered that on Sunday Chelcie cut my hair again; having not cut it since January it was in a serious need of a trim. Loads of the G7 boys then arrived into the flat and thought it very strange to discover me sitting on a chair on a towel with Chelcie behind me armed with a pair of scissors. The scissors were then hastily put away as I definitely didn’t trust the boys with them!

Sending lots of love

Ottilie xxxx