SCHOOLING

This is the school where I am based. It is called Kapolo Combined School because it has children from upper primary and lower secondary grades. There are about 210 learners (I might introduce this way of describing you when I return!) and the subjects they study are very similar to those you learn at Southwick. The main difference is that everyone has agriculture lessons – very important in this part of Namibia where most people grow a great deal of their own food.

School starts at 8.00 when the ‘bell’ is sounded.

I have already told you that most of the pupils walk or run very long distances to get there. Lessons are 40 minutes each and the learners work until 2pm with two 15 minute breaks. During these breaks some of them buy guava for a snack. There are no school dinners. I have learned that we are very lucky at our school. The government gives Kapolo School money for teachers, desks and chairs and some textbooks. The school has to buy everything else with fees which the parents are asked to pay. Everyone in Namibia, like in the UK, has the right to a free education, so if the parents cannot afford to pay the fees the school does not have enough money to pay for the things we take for granted. In the rural areas, like the one I am working in, most of the parents are very poor. Some learners do not even have parents and are responsible for looking after younger brothers and sisters. You have wonderful teaching assistants to help you, lots of computers, books and other equipment and games to help you learn; Kapolo School has none of these.

This is one of the classrooms. The learners are taught something by the teacher, then they copy from the board or do an exercise in their book. Here they are being taught the simple present tense (I fly, you fly, he/she flies).
Part of my work has been to show them how to make the learners do more of the work and not just listen! I have run two workshops for teachers.I based my English workshop on writing instructions - I remembered watching a wonderful lesson in Brunel on writing instructions for cleaning your teeth so asked one group to do that. It was very funny as the other group who had to carry them out tried to rinse their mouths with the toothbrushes still in them – they hadn’t been told to take them out! Mind you, their instructions also needed improving as they didn’t give us one to stop doing the exercise routine they had designed.

In the maths workshop, I showed them how they could make learning more fun by using practical equipment and games. I was very pleased as, on the very next day, I saw learners in a grade 5 class finding out about fractions by cutting up guava, using fraction wheels which I had shown them and stones which they pretended were sweets. I was so impressed that I gave them real sweets to do that activity with – the class was very excited.

We have also looked at how the school could make better use of its classrooms.

This is a picture of one where the floor was so bad that it couldn’t be used. We decided however that it needed to be used as a base for Junior Secondary maths. The school bought some concrete and pupils who had been late or who had been absent from school had to stay to repair the floor as a punishment. Desks and chairs were also mended and cleaned and I helped them to start to put up displays to help the learners. I also bought them some equipment such as metre rulers, a stop watch, measuring jugs, card and coloured paper.

This is a Grade 8 lesson I taught today in that classroom with their teacher whose name is Angelius - he's called Angel for short. I am sure that those of you in Fox Talbot and Priestley could add some more percentages to the number line.
Tomorrow I will be teaching a Grade 10 lesson on borrowing money. Some learners will pretend to be businessmen or women and the others will visit them to find the best deal to buy a car. I have had to learn all about simple and compound interest so wish me luck!

This is the staffroom and the school principal (head teacher). Each teacher has a desk to work at.

Have the toilets for Rennie and Brunel been refurbished yet? This is what a school toilet looks like here.

I also spend time working with an inspector called Hileni Amukana. We get on very well and she really wants to visit you and see our school at work. She wants Kapolo to tell the other schools in her circuit what they are changing and why. She is very proud as Kapolo is now the first school in Oshana to have a school improvement plan (ask your teacher to explain this bit to you).
We attended a 2 day conference together last week on text books – how to order them, label them, record them, check them at the end of each year, take care of them and use them. This is very important as Namibia aims to provide every child with a textbook in every subject and this will cost the country a great deal of money. On the second day I went to 3 lessons which showed how the textbooks could be used. I am very pleased with the story which my group wrote on ‘How the mosquito got its buzz’. Maybe you could write one too and we could compare our reasons.
One of the other tasks I have done with her was to visit some learners at the hospital. A company had sprayed their school with insecticide to kill the mosquitoes but hadn’t told them to stay out of the rooms afterwards. Many of them then got burns on their skin and their eyes were also affected.

I still have lots of work to do before I leave. I will show you more photos and videos when I see you all again in April. I know that our school will be different – I have already heard that the new classroom door locks are causing a few problems! I wonder if the school grounds will have changed too.
Just remember to appreciate everyone and everything you have.

Weekend at Etosha National Park

Last weekend was one of the most amazing of my life! Etosha means ‘Great White Place’ and you can find it easily on ‘Google Maps’ – it is to the south and slightly east of Oshakati. The huge white expanse which you can see is the Etosha pan (110 km wide), which used to be a huge lake but which now, for most of the year, is dry.

It is surrounded by a variety of habitats ranging from woodland to open grassland in which are watering holes where animals come to drink especially in the early morning and late afternoon.



The second scary moment of my stay in Namibia happened soon after we entered the park. We turned a corner to see a very agitated black rhinoceros charging down the road towards us. He veered to the left then turned to face us.Luckily he decided not to take out his bad temper on us!

We then visited our first waterhole and, on the way, spent time taking photos of a vulture in a tree. I happened to turn around and saw between 30 and 40 vultures on the ground behind us all trying to eat a dead zebra.
We watched them for a while then proceeded to the water hole where we saw zebra and giraffe drinking.




As we returned I noticed something else by the zebra – a leopard! It must have killed the zebra not long before we'd arrived and was trying to entice its two young to eat whilst also trying to keep the vultures away from it! I was so excited! You may need to copy the photo and look at it full size to see the leopard which was very well camouflaged, especially when it lay under the dead tree yu can see in the background.







We returned to the same water hole the following morning and all that was left of the zebra were some ribs. There were also some very full and sleepy vultures and a couple of jackal – all they managed to find and make off with was the tail!

For the rest of the weekend we just sat at other water holes and watched processions of animals come, drink and then melt back into the bush: zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, kudu, water hogs, impala, springbok, oryx, mongooses and eland. They all posted sentinels to keep watch in each direction so that the others could concentrate on the water and not worry about predators. They were very wary of a couple of hyena who mooched around a bit until they were seen off by a bunch of wildebeest.

On our last day we found a waterhole with 6 elephant drinking, washing and covering themselves with mud – an awesome sight!







The only animals which we really wanted to see but didn’t were lions. We plan to go again at Easter and seeing them will be our goal.

We saw many wonderful birds too including ostrich, flamingoes, cranes, hornbills, hawks and this beautiful shaft tailed widah- look at its long tail.


Here are some giraffe for Rennie to count. How many legs do 1, 2, 3 and 4 have? Maybe next time I will be able to find groups of 8, 9 and 10.



































































A zebra crossing.

Oshana on the move

In the Oshwana region in which I am living, there are no buses or trains; there is little public transport in Namibia as a whole. In the towns, people either own a car or walk or take a taxi. It costs about 60p for a local ride and other people share the taxi with you. When I drive to work I have to be very careful as taxi drivers might suddenly stop in front of you to pick someone up or pull out suddenly in front of you to drop them off. Other people ‘hike’ a free ride with someone.

If you want to travel south to Windhoek, you can take a seat in a minibus. The only scary moment I have had was when I was taking the picture below and a man tried to grab me to get me onto one, as they leave once they are full! Before I was allowed to drive a government vehicle I had to take a driving test. Two government officials sat with me as I drove around the block. I was told I was an excellent driver as I slowed down at the junctions and looked both ways.
The school where I am working is in Ompundja. If you search for Ongwediva on Google maps, then look along the main road west towards Oshakati, just over half way along is a road which goes south. Follow that road and keep going until it ends; that is Ompundja! This photo shows the road – busy isn’t it! I take the right track to get to Kapolo School.

As you can see it is a dirt road. When it is dry and another vehicle comes along you are blinded by a cloud of dust; when it is wet, the dust turns to a slippery, muddy paste and it is like driving on ice. As the principal of the school said ‘Ah, you danced to school this morning.’ Other hazards on country roads are cattle and goats which roam everywhere; we have been advised to never drive at night as we may well hit an animal. Warthogs in particular do a great deal of damage to cars. Some wild animals come out of the bush to sleep on the warm tarmac.

Beyond Ompundja the roads turn into tracks; donkey carts are used to get around or people walk.

The children walk many kilometres from homesteads out in the country to get to school. When I arrived one morning last week, two children who were late were sitting outside the school gate. It had been locked to teach them a lesson. Sometimes Meme Amukana, the inspector with whom I am working, and I pick up children who she knows have walked between 7 and 10 km and take them to school. Some of them are very small.

I do like my new car!

On my way to Ompundja I cross three oshanas (seasonal ponds). Recently boats have been out on one of these practising the rescue of people in case the floods come. This is one of a number of dug out canoes which have been bought from the Kavango region to the north east of us.
It is still very hot here, but there have been some showers and thunderstorms. Everyone is still waiting for the heavy rains to come.

Of course, babies and young children always get a very comfortable ride with their mothers!

Shopping

There is a small shopping centre in Ongwediva where I am living, but we usually travel to Oshakati which is about 10 km away to do most of our shopping, Here there are modern shopping centres where you can buy all the essential things you need, though they do not have ready meals or many frozen items.

Local shops look more this this one which is flying the SWAPO flag. SWAPO fought for the country's independence and now governs it.

It is most difficult to buy fruit and vegetables. One day you will go to the shops and there are lots of bananas and apples for sale. The next time you go there are no apples or bananas but lots of cabbages and carrots! It is difficult to plan what you are going to eat! This photo shows me in a shop called ‘Fruit and Veg’ where there is the biggest selection. Margaret is trying to remember the name of the vegetable I am holding. She lived in South Africa for a while and most of the food seems to be imported from there. One difference is that, to prevent shop lifting, you have to hand in all of your bags before you enter the supermarket. The first time I did this I queued like you do in England – but I didn’t get anywhere. I soon learned to stand up for myself! When you have paid for your shopping and before you leave the shop, you have to show your receipt to security guards who check it against what you have in your bags. There are also open markets which sell more local produce. The main food eaten by Namibians is ‘porridge’ or ‘pap’. This is the same as in Zambia though they call it ‘nshima’ there. Sometimes it is made from ground maize, but mainly from ground mahangu, a kind of millet grown locally. They are very worried at present that this crop will fail as the rains which fell during the first week I was here have been replaced by dry, hot weather and the this year’s crop is beginning to wilt. I have also been given a glass of a local drink called ‘oshikundu’ brewed from ground mahangu with sorgum; I’m not sure I will ask for another. It is very different from anything I have ever drunk before and impossible to describe.

Another great delicacy is the omanugu worm which you can see for sale in the photo below. These are dried, but the season for harvesting fresh ones is approaching; apparently they hang from branches of certain trees. Will I try one I wonder?

You can see mahanga growing to the left of the termite mound.

Here I am, in the market, trying on a dress in the Namibian style! It makes me look a bit like a highly decorated Christmas pudding but is cool to wear and cost me 100 Namibian dollars (a bit less than £10) with the head dress thrown in – a bargain!

There are not many places you can eat out. There is Kentucky Fried Chicken in Oshakati.

In Ongwediva there is an eating place where I had the worst pizza ever! I ordered one with tomato, salami, garlic and cheese. After about an hour and a half it arrived; however there was no tomato and no cheese on it (they had run out) and the salami was actually cubes of luncheon meat which fell off whenever I tried to eat.

Here you can see all the food which we bought on Friday to last us for the coming week. How many things do you recognise?

South African World Cup official footballs are on sale here - would you like me to bring one back for school or are they on sale in the UK too?
Tangi unene (thankyou very much) to all of you who have emailed me. It has been lovely to hear from you all. Kalei po nawa.