Long Time, No See

Hey there everyone! Sorry it's been almost a month since my last post-- it's been a very busy month! School is settling down into more of a routine, and of course that means more grading, more tests, more work. So that's been keeping me quite busy. I've also had some fun weekends hanging out with both other volunteers, and my friends up here in Onamutai.

Here are a few things that have happened since my last post:

1. I found out from another teacher that my learners say they really like me and are beginning to understand me better! This was really great to hear, as I had been feeling like I wasn't really reaching my kids and had had a bit of a "am I really doing any good here?" crisis. But apparently they are learning and are also enjoying it, so that's wonderful.

2. I had my first observation from my field director and that went really well. He came up on a Monday evening and we hung out and chatted about everything from how things were going up here to education here vs. the US to baseball. Good times. Then he came to school with me on Tuesday and although he only had to officially observe one lesson, he ended up watching at least part of almost all of them since the one he was officially seeing was last period. He told me that it seems like I'm doing really well-- both from a teaching standpoint, and adjusting to village life. I also got some great feedback from him with regards to my lessons and issues I'd been having at school.

3. I think I agreed to take over the Girl's Club at school. One of the teachers was talking about how desperately they needed to give these girls a sense of empowerment, but that he already had too much on his plate, and I told him I was happy to help, which basically mean's I'll be running it. I still don't know exactly what this will entail, but luckily I have the gender mafia at home ready to help me out to turn WHENamibia (our temporary name) into a huge success. I'm really excited for the potential that this club has to make a huge impact on these girls' lives. And it feels great to be in cahoots with the gender mafia again =)

4. I will be setting (read: writing) the Grade 9 End of Term Math exam for our school. I'm not sure that I know what exactly I'm doing, but I'm just excited for an excuse to use LaTeX again... (yes, I'm a huge math nerd)

5. Speaking of being a math nerd, I brought Pi Day to Namibia today, even though technically, with their date format, the holiday doesn't exist. I made it happen anyway, because obviously I can't go a year without Pi Day. I'm also hosting a St. Patrick's Day Party on Saturday night for my Namibian friends and a few of the volunteers. We're hoping to find some Guinness and Jameson at one of the big liquor stores in town and will get our Irish on with a viewing of the greatest Irish movie ever made: the DCOM classic, The Luck of the Irish.

Think that's about all for now. I promise not to go as long without a blog post this time. In two weeks a handful of the other volunteers and I are taking an Easter Weekend trip to Swakopmund on the coast, so you definitely have a detailed post about that to look forward to!

Love from Namibz
Jamie