The latest step in Peace Corps-Namibia’s “dance of the veils” occurred this afternoon. We all learned where we will shadow a current volunteer for a few days next week.
Continue reading “The first of two consecutive days of breaking news”
Category: Peace Corps
Pertaining to the US program of international development and assistance.
We just passed a milestone!
It just dawned on me that yesterday marked one month since I left home. It seems so much longer.
May is Peace Corps’ Older American Month
I just learned in this article that May is “Older Americans Month” at the Peace Corps. I wonder if they’ll bake a cake.
Listen to this!
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, we begin our PST sessions with a number of songs to get the blood flowing. Starting with the national anthems (where you’ll hear the low energy in this audio clip), they get more and more rambunctious and end with stamping, swaying, dancing, clapping, finger-snapping and lots of laughing. It certainly wakes us up!
Continue reading “Listen to this!”Images of Life in Namibia
Some random photos from this past week…
Day of sightseeing in Windhoek
We spent last Saturday exploring various sites in and around the nation’s capitol, Windhoek:
- Heroes Acre national cemetery.
- The Grove shopping mall.
- Old Location Cemetery at site where signs of South Africa’s apartheid regime are still evident.
- Katatura (meaning “the place where we don’t want to go”) – the district where Windhoek’s blacks were relocated during apartheid.
- Single Quarters open-air market where traditional food and drink are prepared and sold.
- Independence Memorial Museum with impressive galleries commemorating the country’s struggle for freedom from German, British and South African rule.
Who is PC-Namibia Group 43?
Breaking News: I’ll be learning to speak Afrikaans!
Our language assignments were announced last night to many cheers of excitement & gulps of nervousness. This morning, we all had to learn some basic greetings in all 6 languages that Group 43 is learning, which gave us a sense of the amazing diversity of this vast land. Detailed instruction (full immersion!) have started and our host families arrive in 30 minutes for first introductions. We move in with them tomorrow so stress levels are at a peak!
Staging
Staging was a ½-day meeting in the U.S. of all members of our Peace Corps Namibia Group 43 and a couple of Peace Corps staffers, just prior to traveling out of the country. It was held in the conference room of a small hotel in Philadelphia and comprised 5 hours of structured but casual introduction, orientation and team-building activities. The premise is that these 32 other trainees will serve as my new support unit throughout my time away: raw strangers one afternoon in Philly will become close friends, even a new “family,” with relationships that will last a lifetime. We’re going to spend a lot of time together over the next 9 weeks of Pre-Service Training and at other times throughout our 2-year service period. I have no doubt we’ll get to know each other quite well.
Continue reading “Staging”We’ve arrived!
I’m pleased to report that after an endless series of plane rides, bus trips and long periods of w a i t i n g for connections, we finally arrived in the town of Okahandja on Thursday, about 25 miles north of the Namibian capital of Windhoek. We are 33 Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) along with ≈25 trainers and staff members who will spend most of the next 9 weeks together preparing us for our assignments. For the first 6 nights, we are living together in a conference center dormitory: women on the ground floor, men up one flight, 4 people per unit with shared bathroom/shower facilities on each floor. It has the feel of a summer camp.