This is not going to be a sappy post about my dreams and life goals. This is literally about my dreams. I don’t dream very often, or at least I don’t remember them, but sometimes I have some pretty interesting ones. And since I’ve come to Namibia, I don’t need Freud to interpret them, my [...]

I was going to start this blog off with “now, I’m not one to toot my own horn, but…” but that’s false. I toot my own horn all the time. Because I’m awesome. I’m so awesome I have an entire blog dedicated to stories about my life (this one). But anywho, today I’m awesome because [...]

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on this blog or not, but my mom’s sure gotten an earful about it, but not having a washing machine is second on my list of things I miss the most from home. (First being a car). In America I always hated doing laundry; the sorting, the removing [...]

He did a little too much prancing one day and then passed out for a nap on the kitchen floor. I have about a million things I need to write about, but I guess I’ll start with the thing that takes up most of my time: my new puppy. When I joined the Peace Corps [...]

Well, it’s Friday. And the principal is gone, which basically boils down to “when the cat’s away…”. So I don’t really have anything to do, since we’re in the middle of exams and I’ve finished teaching the syllabus for term two. I could just hang out (hide) in the computer lab and have a peaceful [...]

They say goldfish have such poor memories that everytime they swim a lap around the bowl, they have forgotten what they saw when they started. So each time they are fascinated by what they see, even though they’ve actually seen that sunken treasure chest 8 million times. This is how I imagine my learners view [...]

As you may or may not know, I’ve spent the last week participating in various Peace Corps training sessions. Generally training sessions are a bit dry *ahem* unbearable *ahem* but I do enjoy seeing the other members of my group and hearing about how their lives are going. Living in the village, I really have [...]

Last week a group of volunteers from Great Britain visited our school to do a week’s worth of beautification and service work. Many volunteers complain about having to babysit other foreign volunteers and deal with the disruption they can cause, but I must say, I LOVED playing hostess. First off, let me explain why I [...]

This week I reached the end of the Plant Reproduction topic in my life science classes, which means: test time. Generally I love giving tests because I don’t have to teach anything for a couple of days, I just sit and watch the learners squirm while trying to answer my unbelievably easy test questions. So [...]

This is my first year teaching, which would be hard enough on its own, but here I am doubly challenged by having to find my teaching groove at the same time as learning a completely different system of schooling. In Namibia, sometimes learners are transferred to the next grade without having passed their current classes. [...]

This my new classroom. Swanky, ne? Before I explain why I love National Geographic, I first should explain how my classes work. I teach only grade 8, which may sound horrific to some of my teacher friends, but I actually kind of like the little monsters. Grade 8 is divided in to six classes (8a, [...]

Here are some pictures from my vacation. Most were taken in Etosha National Park and the Cheetah Conservation Fund. I was super glad to see my parents again after having been here for nearly 9 months. I’m very grateful that they braved a trip to Africa just to see me (and some cheetahs). Side note: [...]

The last week or so, I’ve been traveling around the country with my parents who flew for forty hours just to see me. I don’t have any of my pictures ready to upload yet, so I’ll save all the details for a later post with visuals. I did have a funny thought today though, so [...]

About a week ago my school decided to have a meeting with all the girls in the hostel to talk about “relationships”. Aka sex. Considering that last year around 14% of the girls fell pregnant, I was excited to hear about such a proactive meeting. When I arrived at the meeting, it turned out they [...]

I know you guys must be mad at me because it’s been like a year since I posted a blog, but I have reasons. Some of them are actually valid. Mostly it’s just because I’m lazy. Lately I’ve been focusing almost all of my attention on teaching. I don’t know if y’all realize this or [...]

So I mentioned in a previous post that I was having some trouble getting my kids to act right because my shiny newness was wearing off. But that problem is no more. I have found a way to get them to behave (at least for this week). I was done playing nice, and without warning [...]

The other day I was talking to one of the new teachers at my school and he asked me if I can speak Otjiherero. I just laughed and said not really. He then asked how long I have been here. Six months. Oh, then you should be able to speak it by now. It is [...]

First of all, it is exhausting being a teacher. I spend most of the day trying to get a bunch of eighth graders quiet long enough to try and shove some life science or math down their throats. Which is really hard on my voice. I need a new system of hushing rather than just [...]

I know what you’re thinking, two posts in two days? This lady’s on fire. But actually, I’m just taking advantage of the fact that the internet and electricity at my school is working (for now). I have a little 3G internet stick from the cellphone company that I can use, but it’s expensive. So I [...]

One thing you may not have considered when you heard I was going off to join the Peace Corps was transportation. Sure they fly us to the country and drive us everywhere we need to go during training. But then, they send us out into the bush with no way to get around. We are [...]

During training, we were warned over and over again about the unbelievable mood swings we would experience as Peace Corps volunteers. Now, during training, I experienced plenty of mood swings, but I think that’s because training was actually government sponsored torture. (Do you see why they make us put disclaimers on our blogs?) But I [...]

Well, I really haven’t got much to say about the past week, but I figured you guys deserve a blog that doesn’t mention bats. Dammit, I just said bats. Oh well. This week was the first week of school. While I was expecting to get to interact with the students and hear how much they [...]

Step One: Locate the Bat(s) Each morning as soon as you get out of bed, carefully stalk around your house listening for echolocation-y sounds and/or skittering wings. Check the molding around the ceiling of each room for upside-down hanging bats. Checking the molding means turning your head straight up to check the ceiling above the [...]