In Girl’s Club, I’ve run out of topics, so I am teaching the kids Rueda de Casino style salsa dance. They are really good when they are not playing around. I hope to do a performance at the end of the year sometime, if we do not have the cultural week.
My beginning of the term enthusiasm has worn off, and little Nam things are grating on me again, like they normally do this time of the term. So I’m not as sad about leaving in two months! In a way it feels surreal. All last year, I wanted to go home most days, and now that it is almost here, it still feels vague and in the future. However, my flights have already been purchased, so it’s a definite.
I wrote an extensive list of changes in me, based on diary entries, and my own observations of myself. There are 70 changes, some minor, some not so minor. Some will go away once I’m back in my own culture, and I hope that others will stay a part of me.
Some details:
- Nam has released my inner bitch. I don’t take anybody’s crap anymore. I will confront when necessary.
- Dualistic thinking has clouded my understanding of other people. There is such a thing as the best lower primary teacher being a drunk or the best upper primary teacher being a philanderer.
- As a teacher, my classroom management skills were non existent before. Now, they are stellar. You try to teach 35 hungry, malnourished, learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, abused, orphaned/neglected, middle school students! Well, I did.
- A lot of my personality traits were more developed, and some became more minor. For instance, I am more introverted, emotional, patient, lazy, and optimistic. I am less perfectionistic, ego-driven, honest, distracted, and controlling.
Skills gained through my Peace Corps experience:
- How to cut corners
- how to use tables in Word
- how to use decorative page borders (on everything)
- how to pay attention
- how to say no or confront people
- how to cook simply and well
- how to speak Namlish
- how to ask for help
- how to see the grey area on everything
- how to unclog toilet with only a stick
- how to rid my house of cockroaches
- how to hand wash laundry and bucket bathe myself
- how to cook macaroni and cheese (and everything else) from scratch
- how to caramelize onions
- how to control a classroom full of middle school kids
- how to accept discomfort as a part of life
- how to fend off nam-stalkers
- how to kill scorpions
- how to garden
- how to set boundaries
- how to enjoy stupid stuff (movies, chitchat, etc)
- how to small talk
- how to hitchhike
- how to lie well
- how to accept my destiny
VACATION PLANS
Dec 11- 13 Hike out of Namibia into Zambia
Dec 14-18 Travel to Lusaka, Zambia
Dec 18-20 Train to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Dec 21-30 Zanzibar, Tanzania
Dec 31 Travel to Moshi (8 hours on a bus) (New Year’s eve!)
Jan 1 -2 Moshi, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Jan 3-5 Tours Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, etc. Tanzania
Jan 6 Bus to Nairobi, Kenya
Jan7 – Jan 9 Tours in Rift Valley, Lake Nakuru, Amboseli, Kenya
Jan 10 Fly to Ethiopia from Nairobi (leave 5:30 am – arrive 7:30 am)
Jan 11-13 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Jan 14-16 Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
Jan 17-21 Gonder ( for Religious festival) Ethiopia
Jan 22-25 Aksum, Ethiopia
Jan 26-27 Rock churches of Tigray, Ethiopia
Jan 28-Feb 2 Lalibela, Ethiopia
Feb 3-5 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Feb 6 Flight to Cairo, Egypt (leave 4:40am – arrive 7:30 am)
Feb 7-12 Cairo, Egypt
Feb 13 Memphis/Saqqara/Dashur, Egypt
Feb 14-19 Luxor, Egypt
Feb 20-23 Sinai peninsula, climb Mt. Sinai, see St. Katherine’s monastery
Feb 24-26 Cairo, Egypt
Feb 27 Flight to America! (Ash & Beth leave 9:20 am – arrive DC 7:45 pm)
(Megan leaves 4:55 am -- arrive SC 7:47 pm)
