The above line is not necessarily reflective of the way I feel (in fact, the response to our website so far, from those who’ve actually said anything at all, has been overwhelmingly positive); it’s just a quote from the T.V. show 30 Rock which I personally find hilarious.

What this post is about is the question that I think is on a lot of people’s minds when they visit Namibian Dreams, even if many of them aren’t saying it. The question, which I will hereby attempt to address as best I can, is this:

Why spend so much money on plane tickets for two girls? Wouldn’t the money be better spent addressing more pressing needs, for example by providing vaccinations or drilling a well?

Let me first say that this question is based on two assumptions, one of which is objectively incorrect, and the other of which I subjectively disagree with. The first assumption is that children all over Africa are suffering from disease and starvation — the stuff we all see in magazine and television ads for programs such as World Vision — and that it is therefore ridiculous to fund an expensive international flight for two children when such suffering exists. My response to this objection is first to point out that many people’s notion of “Africa” is unrealistically narrow — understandably so, since their only exposure to conditions in Africa are through these magazine and television ads, but unrealistically narrow nonetheless.

People often think of Africa as a singular place of ubiquitous hardship and misery. While there is significant suffering in many places all over the continent — areas such as Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or Sudan are obvious examples — Namibia, by comparison, is pretty well off. To be sure, there are those in the country who could benefit from the provision of basic needs which are not being met; but then, there are plenty of international non-profit organizations already dedicated to meeting these needs, organizations which are large and efficiently run and are capable of using money for this purpose far more effectively than we could with Namibian Dreams as just two people.

In Namibia, your average child is fed, is clothed, and has a roof over her head at night. Her parents may be deceased; she may have to walk several kilometers from her home to fetch drinkable water; she may eat nothing but mahangu (millet) for every meal; but she is not “suffering” in the way that most Americans would expect. In the lives of many Namibian children, the tragedy is not a lack of material needs; it is a lack of emotional and intellectual needs. This brings me to the second assumption inherent in the above question.

In 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow published a paper called “A Theory of Human Motivation” in which he outlined a concept known as the Hierarchy of Needs (I credit Kathryn for introducing me to this concept). This hierarchy can be visualized as a pyramid with five levels, each level dependent on the satisfaction of the criteria set in the level directly below it. In this pyramidal hierarchy, the bottom level is the set of humans’ Physiological needs: breathable air, food, water, sleep, etc. Without these absolutely fundamental needs met, Maslow argued, a person is not even cognizant of the needs in the level above: the Safety needs, including security of body, resources, health, and so on. Intuitively, this makes sense: if you are suffocating because there is no air for you to breathe, then you are probably not thinking about the security of your resources. If you are dying from thirst, you would likely willingly put your body in immediate physical danger in order to gain access to water, because you are not thinking about your need for physical safety — you’re thinking about your need to drink.

The reason I bring this up is that I believe too many people, when thinking about Africa, only bother contemplating these bottom two levels. We think that the people of Africa must have their Physiological and Safety needs met, and that is all that matters. This is the second assumption in the question: even if we don’t come out and say it, what it essentially amounts to is that Africans don’t have needs beyond these basic few. After that, anything else they’re able to get for themselves is great, but it’s not a need; it’s a luxury.

“Well,” you may be wondering, “then what are these other supposed needs?”

Above Safety, there is the need for Love and Belonging: friendship, family, and intimacy. Next, there is the need for Esteem: confidence, self-esteem, and the respect of others. And at the very top of the pyramid there is the need for Self-Actualization: morality, creativity, problem solving, and so forth.

Of course, Maslow’s theory is just that: a theory. No one can prove that this theoretical Hierarchy of Needs actually exists in some tangible, biological form. However, even if you dismiss the upper levels of this imagined pyramid as not being actual needs, ask yourself this: are they important? Do love, self-esteem, and creativity matter? Very few of us would answer no, they do not matter. Most of us, whether we truly believe these things to be actual needs or not, would agree at least that yes, these things are important. These things matter.

Perhaps the best way to explain our goal is by drawing a comparison between Namibia and a place most of us are far more familiar with: the United States. In this country, as in all developed countries, there is suffering. It may not be as widespread as in other parts of the world, but there are homeless, sick, and impoverished people in just about every major town and city within our borders. And yet we have projects devoted to a host of issues aside from addressing the seemingly more urgent problem of caring for these needy citizens: projects to develop music and art programs in inner city schools; projects to provide scholarships for gifted children in low-income households; projects to create international student exchange programs between foreign and American schools.

What good are these projects? Why do they exist? The answer, quite simply, is that there is more to life than simply being fed and being healthy. In other words there is more to life than mere survival. It would be one thing if organizations such as Unicef and World Vision did not exist and no one was stepping up to the plate to offer humanitarian aid to the Zimbabwes and the D.R.C.s of the world; if that were the case, then the most fundamental needs of those people these organizations seek to aid would be neglected, and attempting to do something about their higher needs would be misguided and futile. But these organizations do exist, and if you want your money to go towards meeting fundamental human needs, you should be making donations to them.

In Namibia, most citizens are at least lucky enough to have their basic Physiological and Safety needs met. Namibian Dreams is about just what the name implies: encouraging bright young Namibians to have dreams, and enabling them to realize those dreams. Namibian Dreams, as Kathryn and I have envisioned it, aims for Maslow’s higher needs.

I guess the last point I want to make is this: while I won’t pass any judgments, I do find it terribly sad to think that someone might visit our website, think to himself, “Hmph! They are only buying plane tickets, instead of feeding starving children? Forget this!” and then go on with his life. If that’s how you feel, make a donation to an organization that actually feeds starving children. Like I said, these organizations are out there; and they have the resources, organization, and manpower to get the job done. For Kathryn and me to start a new non-profit with the goal of sending food or medical supplies to Africa would be absurdly redundant; all of the money we’d have to spend on overhead and start-up costs just to get going could have gone through an established organization like Unicef directly to people in need. With Namibian Dreams, we are asking for the support of people who can relate, who can feel some connection, to our desire to meet the higher needs of Namibian children.

In conclusion, I ask you to consider the following question. In the case of your own children (if you don’t have children, imagine how you will feel about them if one day you do), would you be satisfied knowing simply that their basic needs are met, knowing nothing about the opportunities they will have in their lifetimes, or about their dreams for the future? Or, once ensuring they at least enjoy the basic necessities of life, would you do everything in your power to make sure they have all the opportunities this world has to offer, that they know what they are capable of, that they are not resigned to a life of narrow possibilities and circumstances beyond their control?

In the U.S., as in the rest of the developed world, it is important to all parents that their children “dream big.” Why should we not want the same for the children of Africa?

http://www.namibiandreams.org/

…was turned away, because she didn’t have an appointment letter. Funny thing is, I had asked the embassy ahead of time if she would need an appointment or confirmation letter and they’d said no, she could just show up. Huh.

To make matters worse, due to the time difference I didn’t receive this news until an hour AFTER she had already left the embassy.

Frantically, I called the embassy, called McKensey (our contact in the village), called the embassy again — eventually we got it sorted out so that she could go back and they’d be expecting her. Granted, they were already supposedly “expecting” her; but now they’d be even more expecting her.

Long story short: she went back, with Paulina’s father, and after interviewing them the embassy decided to grant the visas.

Let me just repeat that, for my own benefit. The girls have been granted visas.

Be excited.

For the moment, the good news is that I actually want to talk about something Namibia-related anyway. And that is: our mission to bring Paulina and Meameno to the States. (For those of you who don’t recognize those names, you can go back to one of my older posts — I think it’s called “Who Are These Little People?” or something like that — for a brief description of each girl.)

There’s a lot of news, some exciting and some frustrating. I won’t go in depth on either, but I want to at least provide some basic info. To start with the exciting: the visa application process is nearing completion, and it’s looking like both girls MAY be able to receive visas. This is obviously very exciting. The frustrating news is actually the flip side of this coin, and stems from the reason I say “MAY” instead of “WILL.” Paulina’s mother is proving to be very difficult to rely on. While she has pulled through in some pleasantly surprising ways (obtaining Paulina’s full birth certificate as well as written consent from her father, who lives hundreds of kilometers away in Windhoek), she has proven stubbornly unhelpful in others. Chief among these is her reluctance to make the actual physical trip to Windhoek — the last step in this whole process, the one thing left to be done before Paulina can be issued a visa — on financial grounds.

I should point out a couple of things: first, the only expense Paulina’s mom would incur by traveling to Windhoek is the cost of the transport itself, which would total about US $30 round trip. Granted, this is a significant amount of money for many Namibians; BUT, here’s the thing: Kathryn and I have already promised to reimburse her for the travel cost. The only problem is that we can’t simply make cash materialize in her pocket; it takes some time to wire money overseas and arrange for a person to deliver it to her. It almost seems that she is choosing not to help us until she can feel the money in her hands, which is problematic because this needs to get done as soon as possible since we need time to fund-raise and make plans for what we can do together with the girls when they arrive.

The other point, which hardly even seems worth mentioning, is that Kathryn and I have already made a pretty substantial financial investment in this process ourselves. Though I would not in a million years expect Paulina’s mom to spend a lot of money on this herself (that would be completely unrealistic), I do find it somewhat disconcerting that she would treat a matter that we have put so much into as such a low priority. I think I’m coming across as somehow self-important in this paragraph, which is obviously not how I feel; maybe I’m being too unsympathetic, but I think more likely is that it’s difficult to convey in writing the aloofness, the self-centeredness, and the general lack of concern for her daughter that this woman has.

But I do feel bad saying that because, like I said, she has been helpful in some ways. It may simply be that, like many parents, she feels for her child at certain points more strongly than at other times. If this is the case, and if the amount of time and effort she’s willing to spend for her daughter’s sake were a sine wave, right now it seems to have come down from a peak and be going through a bit of a valley.

In other news, my plan is to begin work full-force on that school administration software starting at the end of May, when Kathryn leaves for Malaysia and I’ll be home all alone with not much better to do for almost a full month. I’m actually thinking the timing is perfect, because now that I work full-time as a software developer, I’ve gained so much knowledge and experience in just the last couple of months that I’m far more confident now than I was in my previous post of my ability to design and build something solid and usable for my old colleagues back in Namibia. But time will tell if that confidence is well founded.

Also, to come back to the topic of Meameno and Paulina briefly, we’re planning on creating a website in the near future to describe the girls, explain our plans, provide an avenue for people to contribute, etc. One problem we’ve run into is thinking up a good name; does anyone have any good suggestions? And by “good suggestions” I really mean “suggestions of any kind?” One possibility we’re toying with is “Namibian Dreams,” i.e., something like www.namibiandreams.org. But maybe that’s too corny. In any case, all ideas are welcome.

About the school administration software: that’s on hold now. Since I’ve just started this job, personal projects are going to have to be secondary until I’ve really gotten some solid work done and earned the right to relax a little. (My boss likes me and I don’t have any reason to be worried, but given the economic pits our country is in I’m taking nothing for granted and fully intend to actually work hard and earn my salary … at least for the time being!)

I promise, next time I update this blog, it will be with something actually interesting.

This blog will also change in other ways. Since our time as volunteers is over (at least for now), my attention is inevitably going to be heading towards new things. That said, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake — not that I would even want to — the impact that living in Omungwelume has had on myself, my interests, or my priorities. I think what makes the most sense for this blog now is for me to refocus my public blatherings on projects that I am working on which are motivated by the experiences I had as part of the education system in a developing country.

So, to keep things brief, my first order of business will be to produce a free, open-source alternative to school administrative software similar to SchoolWrite. One issue I encountered over the last year is that, at least in Namibia but probably in other developing nations, the government is quick to deliver computers to schools but slow to provide training or otherwise enable the schools’ faculty and staff to use those computers to their full potential. Thus it was all too common in my staff room to see teachers sitting at their desks, working out assessment sheets and calculating sums and averages by hand, while someone who wasn’t busy sat at the computer playing Solitaire.

Free, easy-to-use software could make a huge impact and potentially transform such scenes. But I guess time will tell. I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress, or (hopefully not) lack thereof.

I guess if I rewind somewhat I can think of a few things worth mentioning. I believe Kathryn talked about the drama at her school between her principal and one of the other teachers, revolving around the school field trip to Swakopmund and Mr. Hasheela’s outrageous behaviour on the school bus, already. What I’m not so sure has been talked about is the next dramatic episode to have occurred, unrelated to that one.

Kathryn and I have struggled with this throughout the entire year: we, being the only truly native English speakers around, are often appalled (a harsh word, but accurate) at what seems to us a lack of correct English in official English exams. I could go on an entire tirade about this, but to keep things brief I’ll just say that it’s all too frequent that a question or many questions on an exam will be virtually impossible to answer correctly, either because (a) the instructions are not clear, (b) the premise on which the question is based is unclear or false, (c) the question refers to information which is unclear, false, or missing entirely, (d) the wording of the question itself is unintelligible, or (e) all of the above. And sadly, I am not exaggerating.

Well, to be fair, the amount of this I’ve experienced at my school is somewhat small. At Kathryn’s, on the other hand, since it seems the “cream of the crop” among teachers end up at secondary schools and primary schools are typically left with a shallower pool of talent, these types of problems are commonplace. Hence the dramatic episode I alluded to two paragraphs ago: Last term Kathryn was given the task of “monitoring” an exam, which means going over it with the person who wrote it and making suggestions and revisions. She did this without complaint, but unfortunately the level of English in the exam was so low that she couldn’t figure out a tactful way to express to the author, basically, “This entire thing needs to be redone, preferably by someone else,” without offending him deeply. So instead she made improvements where she could and then requested permission from her school’s Head of Department to prepare her own exam for her learners.

While that all happened, with seemingly nary a problem, this term it all just exploded. For reasons not entirely understood (though an inter-faculty vendetta not involving Kathryn is suspected), Kathryn’s coworker decided to make a huge stink about the whole affair this term. A meeting was called, Kathryn was interrogated by teachers from other schools . . . even the author of last term’s exam was there to express his humiliation and anger. All of this when Kathryn was given the go-ahead by her H.O.D. and no one said anything against her decision at the time.

So, she was a bit shaken up by that. The good news is that there were at least a few level heads involved in the meeting who sympathized with Kathryn and shared her (and my) opinion that the whole thing was being blown way out of proportion. Among them were my H.O.D., who came to me the next day to ask how Kathryn was doing and basically made the comment, “I don’t know what’s wrong with those guys [Kathryn’s coworker who made the stink and the others who interrogated her so forcefully]. I didn’t see the point in what they were doing at all.”

She’s OK now, but that was a trying period. After-school drinking was required on more than one occasion, to help lower the stress level in our home.

What else can I say? Oh, man, so my main focus at school these past couple of weeks has been on the pen pals program I’ve set up with Mrs. Croul, my 12th grade English teacher from high school, between my learners and hers. It’s something I actually tried to start way back in Term 1 — I even went so far as getting my learners to write letters and sent them off in the mail — but it never materialized, because the Namibian postal system is something of a joke (not that I’m biased). This time around, I decided to use e-mail, not sure how well that would work with the majority of my learners being computer illiterate, but hoping for the best.

I’d say it’s proven quite a success thus far; the whole thing with my learners not understanding computers or having their own e-mail address inspired me to set up a little system in the lab to make things as simple as possible for everyone involved (including myself). It gave me a good deal more experience with computer programming — always a plus in my book — but more importantly, my learners are constantly coming in to the lab now to check their “e-mail” (i.e., the thing I set up) and write responses. And the best part: apparently Mrs. Croul’s kids are just as excited as mine. Many of the pairings have already written back and forth 4 or 5 times at this point. I also took class photos and sent them across, and they’re doing the same. Obviously my learners are quite excited to see some faces (especially the boys, some of whom I think have wild notions spinning around in their heads of somehow attaining American girlfriends this way . . . and yes, I already told them to forget about that, but sometimes there’s no reasoning with this bunch).

Now for an abrupt topic shift (when there’s a lot of different subjects to cover, sometimes smooth transitions are best not even pursued): there’s a bit of sad news involving our puppy, Bingo, and one of our regular visitors, Mekondjo. Mekondjo, in case you don’t remember, is that kid we love but have some serious reservations about at the same time: he’s always visiting, and is almost always really enthusiastic and sweet (not to mention that he once declared me his second best friend), but he also once took our money under the pretense of purchasing some odjove oil with it . . . and never did anything. (In Namibia that’s called “eating the money.”) But he ALSO once recovered some stolen markers for us. Well, now there’s another event to throw on the “Bad Mekondjo” pile.

Mekondjo and his sister Meameno were the original owners of Bingo — their dog is his mother — so we often give them a bit more freedom in playing with him than the other kids. Even so, however, Meameno is sometimes too rough with him and we have to explain to her that we don’t want our dog to be treated that way (“Please do not poke our puppy in the eye”; “Please do not slap our puppy in the face”; and so on). I’d say lately she’s been pretty good about it. Mekondjo, on the other hand, apparently hasn’t taken our instructions on how to treat our puppy very seriously. Yesterday, while I was in town for a funeral (more on that in a moment), Kathryn let Bingo outside while she took a shower. Later, she looked out the window and saw Bingo outside our gate playing with Mekondjo and some other boys. Mekondjo was trying to get him to go back inside our gate, but when Bingo wasn’t cooperating Mekondjo wound up and kicked him — hard. Like the way you punt a football.

In case you didn’t know this about Kathryn, she can be pretty fierce when it comes to rectifying what she sees as unacceptable behaviour. So she went outside and informed Mekondjo that since he just kicked our dog (and the way she explains it, it’s pretty unlikely he would have done that if he knew she were watching), he wasn’t welcome back to our house that day. Later she sent the message with Meameno that if Mekondjo wants to come back, he’ll have to apologize to Bingo.

Mekondjo’s response to all this (as we’ve heard through the grapevine) is to tell the other kids that he’s going to come to our house to take back “his dog.” This is, to put it mildly, annoying. It actually makes me think of a drunken, abusive father storming up to his ex-wife’s house and banging on the door demanding to see his kid or something like that. Although I guess if you analyse that analogy, I’ve just painted Mekondjo as a much more violent and ill-tempered person than he is, and also us as his ex-wife. Anyway, my point is just that I really don’t see his claim to Bingo, especially if he’s going to mistreat him like that. And obviously, we will tell him as much.

OK, one last thing: one of my colleagues, Mr. Kashilula, died last weekend. He was driving into Windhoek and got into a car accident. I don’t have much to say about this other than that it was sad, not only that it happened (and that this man’s wife also died recently, and they left behind some rather young children), but that while the faculty at my school was clearly grieved, they weren’t really shocked. I don’t know exactly what it is; it just seems like the experience of death here, of someone dying, is so much more a part of life that everyone knows than it is back home. I guess that was the saddest part: that I was at the funeral, confused, trying to follow what everyone else was doing, while all of my colleagues and everybody else in attendance knew every segment — every action, every movement, every aspect of the tradition — by heart. It was nothing new.

I hate to end on a somber note . . . so I’ll end on a disgusting one instead. Those gigantic millipedes that we saw around here in the beginning of the year — you remember, I took a picture of one and posted it on this very blog! And my dad left a comment, something to the effect of “That’s a snake, right?” — are back! We just spotted one outside. I guess the rainy season is on its way back in, and that must be when they come out to play. So a new era of huge insects is once again approaching.

Kathryn and I were sort of debating the other day whether to write blogs and we both agreed that so much has happened since either of us last updated, the idea of covering it all is pretty overwhelming. Regardless, I sit here with the intention of hitting on at least some of the highlights of our past few weeks. Let this paragraph simply be a disclaimer that much will be left out for the sake of space as well as my own sanity.

The merits of chronological order notwithstanding, I must begin by informing all readers that Kathryn and I have become the proud owners of a new puppy! His name is Bingo and he’s one of a new litter of pups just born to Meameno and Mekondjo’s dog, Big Mama. Bingo is only a few weeks old, but his personality is already quite pronounced: he’s incredibly laid-back, but with a defiantly strong will at the same time (I have my doubts regarding the ultimate effectiveness of any manmade barrier used against him; already he’s proven capable of climbing a piece of cardboard more than twice his height). But pictures speak louder than words, don’t they?

(There would be pictures posted here, but in light of our connection speed, presently at about 250 B/s, that’s not happening.)

Now that I’ve annoucned the most exciting thing going on in our lives at the moment, I suppose I should go back to the beginning, where my previous blog post left off.

Malawi was definitely a wonderful trip, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we make an effort to go back there someday. The lake was beautiful, the people were memorable, and the whole experience was just a huge source of refreshment for both of us. Unfortunately, a big part of what made the whole trip so great for us — that we did practically nothing and just relaxed the whole time — also makes it pretty uninteresting to read about. So, I’ll just move on.

Kathryn’s parents visited us last week. Boy, was that an adventure! We were thrilled to see them, of course, and I think they both enjoyed their time here a great deal. Some standout moments from their visit:

1. The “dirt” road from Ruacana Falls to Kunene River Lodge, where we spent about four days. I put “dirt” in quotation marks because it was really more like “rocks and mud.” I think I lost track of how many times Kathryn’s mom made some variation of the comment “I had no idea it would be this bad.” The best part was that the 4WD vehicle the Morrisons had originally rented actually ended up having a bad CV joint, so we ultimately had to make the trek in a 2-wheel-drive Toyota Condor. I would say it’s a miracle we finally made the journey without breaking down, but I think we all agreed it was mostly thanks to Mr. Morrison’s superb driving prowess. Anyway, to give you an idea of the road’s condition, it was 47 km (that’s about 30 miles) and took somewhere from 1.5 – 2 hours to drive. Personally, I’m just thankful we didn’t have any reason to drive the road from Kunene to Epupa, which the owner of the lodge told us is about 100 km (60-some miles) and takes TWO DAYS to drive.

2. Speaking of that horrendous road, here’s a heartbreaking story: Kathryn and I had a bag lost on our flight from Malawi back to Namibia. (Wait, that’s not the heartbreaking part.) So South African Airways, once they’d recovered the bag, contracted a delivery company to bring it to us at the lodge. Of course, when I spoke to an SAA person over the phone to arrange this, I didn’t realize what the road to the lodge was like. When we did arrive there, we were quite pleased to see our bag waiting for us in the reception area … and then horrified to learn that the driver (whom we met, as he was standing right there) had suffered a flooded engine, realized there was no cell phone reception (Kunene is no man’s land, even for Namibia), and then WALKED 12 km with our bag to the lodge. The man’s name is Maurius (sp?), and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that committed to a job well done before.

3. While at Kunene, we made the aquaintance of a woman (never caught her name) who has been travelling for the past 3 years on her tractor through Europe and Africa (through some unbelievably treacherous places including Sudan and the D.R.C.) and is en route via Cape Town to the South Pole, where she intends to build a snowman filled with the dreams of those she’s met during her journey, all written down on bits of paper. Or something to that effect. It is precisely as crazy as it sounds, and that’s about all I know.

You know, it’s funny … in spite of how strongly I felt that there was way too much to write about in one post, I’m more or less out of things to say. Maybe it’s best that way?

In any case, the third term has started back here and so we’re just trying to get off on the right foot as far as that’s concerned. I’m optimistic: from Term 1 to Term 2 I think the average change in my learners’ exam scores was in the neighborhood of +15%, which is substantial. Even with a much more modest improvement from Term 2 to the End-of-year exam, many of my learners should qualify to at least enroll at UNAM (University of Namibia), if not receive financial aid. This being my first and only year as a teacher here, I have to admit I’m excited about the possibility.

So, if I were to describe how life is going right now, I’d say: we’re happy, we’re excited about this term, excited to come back home (!), and also quite sleep-deprived thanks to Bingo and his middle-of-the-night antics. And that’s it for now!

The first thing I want to talk about is the place we stayed when we first arrived in this country, in Blantyre, the capital that’s not the capital (Lilongwe is the political center of the country, but Blantyre is from what we’ve been told the place where business along with everything else is). Due mainly to the fact that we couldn’t get in touch with any other place, the establishment where we spent our first night was a place called Hostellerie de France, and as out-of-place as that name makes it sound as a hostel in the middle of a southern African country, we didn’t truly realize what sort of surreal experience we were in for until we actually got there.

The owner, whom Kathryn has accurately described as a dead ringer for the chef from Disney’s The Little Mermaid (complete with waxed, curled moustache), ranks among the most inexplicable caricatures I’ve ever met. His thick (authentic?) French accent, his shirt buttoned only halfway up, his apparently total disregard for the establishment he runs save for the dining area (walking from the rooms to the dining area is somewhat akin to emerging from a dingy unfinished basement into the immaculate main floor of an upper-class mansion) all combined to create the impression of a man who does not belong in the same reality as the rest of us.

Sadly, I can’t say we left with a completely positive impression of the place, particularly because it was overpriced and the owner ended up charging us an unanticipated 17.5% tax. However, we did take away a few priceless memories, including our breakfast just before departing; the owner (too bad I never caught his name) came to the table with a tiny American flag on a toothpick set in a shotglass, asked us which state we were from, then disappeared and reappeared with an accompanying Pennsylvania toothpick flag. Equally memorable was our attempt to obtain directions to the nearest ATM; rather than provide us with actual directions (in the manner of, “turn left on this road and continue straight until you get to Victoria Avenue”), the man played out for us, Charades-style, how to do what we were asking:

You walk to ze street, you get on mini-boos [minibus], you see ze mah-sheen, tic-tic-tic [pretending to punch buttons on the ATM], you get your money, get back on ze mini-boos, come back here, no problem.

For the sake of relative brevity, I won’t say any more about the Hostellerie de France, except that we aren’t going back there. At present we’ve been in Cape Maclear (after a pretty horrendous trip up here — 7 hours give or take on a packed-like-sardines minibus followed by a fantastically bumpy ride on the back of a pickup truck crammed with no less than 30 people, and I’m not exaggerating) for a few days and it has most definitely met our expectations so far. The first couple of days we were fortunate to have some friends we met on the way here to hang out with and go on a boat ride together to one of the nearby islands; they left this morning, and now we have today and tomorrow to just spend time with each other, eating quality food and lounging in hammocks by the lake.

At the moment the only other thing that comes to mind to write about (though I’m sure there’s a lot more I’m just not thinking of) is a local band we had the pleasure of watching last night. We ate dinner with Greg and Ben, the two friends we made here, at a place called Fat Monkey’s; and towards the end of our meal we suddenly heard music emanating from the bar area, the words going like this:

HOW ARE YOU?
I’M FINE!
HOW ARE YOU?
I’M FINE!
HOW ARE YOU?
I’M FINE!
HOW ARE YOU?
I’M FINE!
HOW ARE YOU?
I’M FINE!
HOW ARE YOU?
I’M FINE!

And so on. Naturally, we all gravitated to where the band was so that we could get a better look. The group comprised a dozen or more boys from the ages of 20-something down to maybe 9 or 10. The youngest boys stood in front, singing and dancing (with surprising skill), while the older members stood behind them playing various homemade instruments. This first “How are you / I’m fine” song (apparently a well-known hit in the village) was followed by charming renditions of “In the Jungle” and “Hakuna Matata,” plus a number of songs in the local language that we didn’t understand. Kathryn was particularly impressed by the ingenuity of the instruments used; boys sat on the ground playing what appeared to be giant milk jugs punctured with metal pipes and strung with wire while two percussionists banged away at assortments of woodblocks and strings lined with bottle caps.

She shot some videos of the concert, so we’ll never forget them. Not that it would be possible.

I think I’ve mentioned (complained about) this before, but lately it’s been somehow truer than ever: it seems that it almost never happens that everything here is working properly. Our water in particular has been quite a weak link for at least a month now. In general, it works on and off throughout the day. Sometimes, it stops working for extended periods of time, like for instance this weekend. But even when our water’s working, something else is sure to tag out, be it the electricity, the internet access, or our phone reception. The funny thing about all this is that it’s hardly even annoying anymore (well, when our water’s completely gone, that’s really annoying). Generally, when stuff doesn’t work all the time it just makes us that much more appreciative when it does.

Something I’ve long believed is that it’s important to always have something to look forward to, however remote that thing might be, in order to keep a positive outlook on things. For us this year, that has not been a problem. Leading up to this past Wednesday, we were literally counting the days to the birth of my sister Lauren’s new baby, Chloe. When the day finally came, unexpectedly early, we were so thrilled. Of course, given our luck, it’s no surprise that we were tormented for a short while having no internet access with which to download the much-anticipated pictures; but ultimately fate smiled upon us and the desktop background on our computer is currently the cutest picture ever. (There would be a link there, but my sister’s made her blog from which said picture was downloaded private, and I feel like posting a link would in some vague way go against her wishes, so I’m refraining.)

Now that Chloe is born, we turn our eyes to our upcoming vacation in Malawi, which we are both quite pumped about, followed by a visit from Kathryn’s parents, which we along with all the kids in our village are quite pumped about. After that, it won’t be long before Kathryn’s sister has a baby of her own, little Ella. So there’s no shortage of upcoming events for us to anticipate.

Last term, we sometimes felt overwhelmed by the constant stream of neighborhood children to our house. Sometimes there were so many that it was a bit exhausting trying to figure out what to do with them all, not to mention actually doing it. (I find it so funny how, as adults, we can only play “What Time is it Mr. Fox?” or “Simon Says” so many times and for so many minutes before it becomes somewhat maddening; whereas kids, especially little ones, are often capable of repeating the same task without variation through a seemingly infinite cycle.) This term, on the other hand, not only has the cast changed—some of our regular visitors from last term reprise their roles, but others have dropped off the map while a veritable hoard of newcomers have taken their place—but the set of activities has been completely revamped. For one thing, inflatable balls are a sure-fire hit every time. (This could be considered a pun, if I were capable of such things, since those things are pretty much guaranteed to develop holes within 3 or 4 uses in this land of broken glass and camelthorns everywhere. Luckily, we have patches.) An even bigger hit are the video games on our computer. The biggest hit of all is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I think they’ve been playing for at least a week now, repeating the same levels over and over and showing no sign of getting tired of it.

Throughout the year I’ve been asked/commanded by learners at Eengedjo to do a variety of things to assist them, typically centering on writing and printing CVs. On Saturday, one of my best learners, Florence, came to me asking for my help in submitting an application to an unspecified competition. I agreed, figuring she was probably entering some sort of essay-writing or otherwise academic contest. I told her to come over the next day and I’d do what I could. Turns out she wanted to enter her and her boyfriend in South Africa’s High School Musical contest (yes, the Disney production) for Hottest High School Couple. Don’t laugh; I haven’t gotten to the kicker yet. When we had trouble getting a focused picture of her photograph (I didn’t misword that; the school’s scanner was locked up in the secretary’s office so our only recourse was to use Kathryn’s digital camera to take a picture of Florence’s photograph of her and her boyfriend), Florence announced that it didn’t matter; I could just take a picture of her and Joas. Who’s Joas, you ask? Well, he’s another one of my best learners—probably my best, actually—who happened to be sitting there at the time; but what’s more important is who he’s not: Florence’s boyfriend. Apparently, despite the fact that she and her boyfriend are the Hottest High School Couple in southern Africa, the actual identity of her boyfriend is irrelevant.

So, as is often the case with my and Kathryn’s blogs, it has been several days since I started writing and I still haven’t posted. Currently Kathryn and I are in a hostel in Johannesburg where we’re spending our overnight layover en route to Blantyre, Malawi. They give us 30-minute internet access here for free (each), so the idea is I’ll wrap up by saying one last thing and then post this puppy.

That one last thing is a quick story involving a happy ending to our water shortage saga. Earlier this week, we had a mob of children at our house—I’d say easily a dozen or more—and a brilliant idea occurred to us (well, Kathryn): with our water not working, and all these kids at our house from around the village, and considering that some of them probably DO have water at home, and given their love of candy … why don’t we offer them sweets for water?

Like I said, it was a brilliant idea, and it paid off handsomely for everyone involved. Once we made the announcement, the volunteer count maxed out at the number of bottles we had to distribute within moments. Then we had the pleasure of watching out our windows as a train of little children marched proudly from our house off to their respective homes, and minutes later that same train returned, carrying precious liquid cargo.

There was one small hiccup in the operation: Fillemon, a somewhat-regular visitor, did not return with the others. We gave out seven bottled to fill; six came back at more or less the same time. We asked Meameno, one of the first back, if he lived far away. She said he didn’t. We wondered what could be holding him up. Then after some time, we spotted him outside the gate calling to Hangula inside the house. Fearing that maybe he’d misunderstood our deal, we asked Hangula to ask him where our water was. To be honest, I never quite figured out what the misunderstanding was, or if there even was any misunderstanding; what matters is that after several moments of severe confusion (Hangula telling us Fillemon was coming back with water, Fillemon coming back with no water, Fillemon leaving again, coming back again, still with no water), the boy finally brought us our water and collected his sugary payment.

And then only an hour or so later, the water started coming from our outside tap. And the next day it was working inside as well—and in a much higher volume and at a significantly greater pressure than we’d been experiencing for the past month or so. It was still working at this capacity when we left Omungwelume, so it seems that, for now anyway, our water’s fixed! Like I said, happy ending.