Drafted on 28 January, but updated 28 February while "watching" the USA Canada Gold Medal Hockey game on ESPN.com. It is overtime as I type... Great goal Zach!

Of the past six weeks, we've been without power for almost two weeks. My roommate went down and had the Liberians measure out the latest fuel shipment and did we find a bombshell - we were being shorted between 200-300 gallons of fuel ... every two weeks ... for over two years. Upwards of 24,000 USD of corruption! No wonder we've been running out of fuel at the end of every shipment period. People insisted the storage container here could hold 1000 gallons even though I could prove it could hold 650-700 gallons maximum with math. Goes to show you math geeks get no respect over here.

The power outage was so ironic as one of the teacher trainers on campus had finished an in-service on laptops, external hard drives, LCD projectors, mp3 players, cameras and video cameras - all donated by USAID. He (along with my help) will be "capacity building" with the remaining teacher trainers on campus so they can use technology to enhance and suppliment their lessons. Too bad there was no current to charge or run these things for TEN DAYS! Lots of reading and cards by candle, excellent stargazing in the wee hours of the morning when the moon has set and lots of silence.

Sad to see the Queens did so well this year and to fall on their faces in the NFC Championship game. No team has ever out-gained their opponent by that much yardage and lost - by well over 200 yards. At least they won't have a chance to go 0-5 in Super Bowls. Could not believe how many late hits Brett Favre took. But did get to see the first half of the Super Bowl when I was up in Voinjama until the power went out at the beginning of the second half. Did get the update. Either NO played well in the 4th quarter or the Colts stunk it up. Yet another year of dreaming of the Vikings as Super Bowl Champions.

The Ghana Trip Highlights:

Eating sausage on a stick, crepes, meat pies from street vendors. Ghanan taxi drivers trying to rip you off. Seeing actual petrol stations and not buying fuel in a glass container. Body surfing in ocean, touring Cape Coast slave castle, battling giardia the entire trip, traveling on roads where you are able to go faster than 20mph, sunbleaching my hair, meeting other PCVs, speaking French again & having a 10-15 minute conversation with a gal au francais - and she understood me to my total amazement, making sand castles, eating an entire pizza on our last day in Ghana and, of course, more meat on a stick.

Go Team USA! Beat those Canucks!

Alright, the entire delightful affair was set to start at 2pm. We showed up at 2:15 and were still over 30 minutes early. Still haven't figured out what the correct delay is to be "on time". As an honored guest (being Peace Corps Volunteers) we had to give a speech. I proudly stepped up to the plate.

The keynote speaker was a hoot! He spent about 75% of the time turning back and speaking to the director and academic dean of the institute and the remainder speaking to the graduates and Peace Corps Vols. His theme came from the book "The World is Flat", saying we have the ability to move $100,000 from Switzerland to Stockholm by Internet or phone, to purchase a home in California over the phone in Liberia. The playing field is leveled due to instant communication. Then he looked at we two Peace Corps Volunteers present and said, "Peace Corps is Jesus Christ! You go and live with the poor and work with them, just like Jesus did!" I'm sure you can all imagine how red already my sun-scorched face turned.

Then came the rally for funds for a generator and football uniforms. Imagine the coupling of riot and a monster truck rally. Pitting the men vs the women to see who could raise more money. I went to my happy place in my mind and showed my friend, the VP of the Demonstration School, my speech. He loved it.

What would a graduation be without a music selection. The vocal group slowly move to the front, singing in the isles, and sang ... and sang ... and sang. The Energizer Bunny has nothing on these guys. After almost 10 minutes, people got up and gave them money to stop singing, which was their strategy in the first place.

If you have a music selection, you must also have some sort of a drama! An excessively long skit about HIV and getting a haircut. Over here they use razor blades - the kind you'd see in a safety knife. How does the skit relate to the graduation? Well, you'll just have to figure that one out on your own. The moral was not to reuse the blades but to throw them away and use a new one. By throw away that means throw on the ground. (Why not bleach them and use em again? And not throw them on the ground?) Yeah...

The ceremony and speakers supposed to focus on the graduates? Not exactly. The trainer rep used it as a soapbox to criticize the Ministry of Education, the director used it as a chance to talk about the challenges of ZRTTI, the DEO as an opportunity to talk about school issues. All of this while the DJ played incredibly loud music, (the speakers were in the front row), not being able to get the mic to work - trying to fix it as people were giving speeches with going so far as to verbally test the system while the guest speaker was up on the stage.

My inspiring speech ... at 5:40pm. The only one to focus entirely on the graduates and weaved inspirational phrases from Toto, Journey, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and The Life and Times of Tim to form a beautiful tapestry of prose. It also took only three minutes. By far the most pithy.

Yes, we ducked out just before 6pm. Almost right after my speech. Earlier in the month i missed because the trainers and administration had a four and a half hour meeting. There were only seven items on the agenda. It ended at 7:40pm.

All of this while the graduates respectfully sat through four hours of absurdity the graduates finally got their recognition but not their diplomas. They were to be handed out at a later date.

The year is winding down over here and thoughts are turning from creating Christmas decorations to packing for a trip to Ghana with some friends. Been putting in some good runs here. I don't even need to include a specific hill workout day - my runs include from 6 to 18 hills. It really stinks because the rainy season has long past. We went from raining torrents multiple times a day to no rain for the past week. Dust, dust everywhere. Feels almost as dry as it did in Namibia. Don't need to use sunscreen when walking to town or running. You naturally have a thin layer of dirt on your skin. White is not a good clothing color at this time.

Speaking of clothing, it is getting downright cold here. The last winter did nothing for making me used to the cold. I'm sleeping with a fleece on and still a little chilled. The lows are in the frost friendly 60's. Apparently they will get much lower come January and February.

There was a bit of a scandal for a few weeks when we ran out of petrol for the generators. When you only get electricity a few hours a day, you do realize We ended up going without current for three out of four days and scattered outages and rumors of missing petrol, theft or dishonest pumps. The highlight of it for me was that I got to use some of my mad math skills for calculating the volume of fuel in a horizontal cylinder if you know the height of the fuel. No, it isn't as easy as you think. Then converting it from cubic inches or cubic feet into gallons. Then printing off a spreadsheet for the workers to do the calculations.

Have taken to getting water for myself instead of hiring people to do it for me. Consequently am getting better at balancing things on my head. I can balance my Nalgene bottle for most of the walk up and down the hill to work. I can walk with a filled 5 gallon water container on my head. Talked my roommate into doing that as well. I'm not good enough yet o balance it without using m hands, but have improved enough to where I only need one hand.

On schedule to meet the book a week goal. Put down 18 books in 16 weeks, including the four Ender's Game books. Highly recommend Orson Scott Card to anyone.

For Thanksgiving the US Embassy invited all the PCVs to Monrovia for a dinner. Unfortunately we had to find our own transport, lodging and to claim the vacation days. I'm burning almost all my days for Ghana so I passed on it. Besides, it is a full day of travel on a dusty, pothole filled road. Anyways, the remaining PCVs here got together in the town and went around and did our own gorging on our favorite Liberian foods: fat cakes, sour milk (yogurt), fried plantains and picked up some supplies for the campfires in the evening. The remaining roommate and I made a bonfire, boiled some hot chocolate and cut up the pumpkin and threw it into the coals (wrapped in tinfoil + adding some sugar and cinnamon) and singing Christmas carols.

One of my sitemates needs to get on the computer to do some Skype, so I need to cut this off. Will update this tomorrow morning with the extension school graduation. It is a story in and of itself.

Take care ya'll!

Since reaching my site, my actual position (assistant to the principal of the demonstration school) has been largely theoretical. I’ve been told it exists but have seen no direct evidence. I buried myself in getting the library organized and running, amounting to a week of grouping and cleaning around 2,000 moldy books. The next two weeks were a philosophical quandary of what I’m actually doing here. I joined my roommate with some of his projects and brainstorm ideas to bringing positive changes to the campus. Hunger and poverty are major problems up here thanks to the 20 years of war. From what people have shared with us, this was a major strategic battleground during the civil war. You can still find bullet casings on campus, even after a year of cleaning. Fortunately the school did appoint a new principal and we've been working together on a lot of projects to get the school on a positive track. I'll talk more on that in the next posting.

The past few days you could say that West Africa Won Again (WAWA) many, many times so I’ve been dragging myself through the bottom of the rollercoaster. To get out of the funk, I decided to start making the place a little more homey, putting up pictures, cleaning all the mud and junk off the bathroom walls, clearing off the table (was a dump) and started coloring the windows with the crayons I brought along. Nothing like a little color to brighten up the day. My roommate and I also finished plans for a palava hut (sorta like a tiki bar) next to the fire pit. People like to ask me why I run, so I enjoy giving playful answers such as: I’m being chased by lions, We’re out of palm wine, A group of crazed women are trying to marry me.

Ahhh, the fish pond. Gotta talk about the fish pond. Before the civil war this institution farmed fish to eat and sell at the market in addition to all the produce they grew. Big money. No fish farm and no produce. In comes the primary and secondary projects. Two weeks ago my roommate and I went down to the pond to start digging out the bog. Just he and me to start with for about the first 30 minutes with people stopping by to watch the volunteers work ... not to help. Two people were inspired by our efforts (or took pity on us) and joined. Gradually it became four and by the end of the four hours we were up to eight helpers. We threw a bash for them later that evening to show our appreciation for their hard work. Last weekend we had 15 help and this upcoming weekend we will have a whopping 25 helpers! What looked to take about a month to get done may be done within the next week. That plus some great runs this week have pushed the rollercoaster car from the bottom to the way up to the top of the next hill. Another side project we’re working on is to start a Loma language book (for personal use, not Peace Corps) so with the help of my Namibian APCD Waldo, I procured an electronic copy of my Khoekhoegowab language training manual to use as a template for the Loma. Our friend Flomo just finished it today. Before the war he was working on putting together a Loma dictionary and is translating the Old Testament into Loma (they already have it translated for the New Testament). I’ve got a font editing program and am going to make up a Loma font so I can type it all up. What I want to do and I wish I would have done in Namibia for KKG, is to record conversations and make a podcast type of program or even use the webcam on my laptop and do a video language program. Lots of people here want to contribute to its genesis. It would be fun to go back to Namibia and do something like that for volunteers so they can have it for their iPods. It is fun to watch the reaction of people when you greet them in the local language and see the genuine joy on their faces. Reminds me a lot of KKG in Namibia

Oh, since getting drenched in a downpour a few weeks ago, my cell phone won’t let me dial across the pond to anyone in the States. It just gives this business about how the network is busy. Probably need to get a new phone or to use my roommate's and buy him some credit.

That’s about all the time I have right now. I’ll do an update this weekend. Take care, ya’ll!

We're curious to see if anything will get through. I'm guessing the odds are much better for here than in Namibia. The hard part is that you can't send it directly to my site, however we do have the ability to get it up here through some connections/networking we've done in the past three weeks up here.

Give it a try and send a small one!

-Cliff bars (Brownie, mint choc chip, oatmeal walnut raisin)

-Skittles

-Peanut or plain M&Ms (dark chocolate if have them)

-Jolly Ranchers

-Jerky

-Coffee (the ground version)

-Crystal Light drink packets (raspberry tea or others)

-Fragrant clothes dryer sheets (to keep us smelling nice in a moldy environment)

-A strong needle (like leather or tougher) and some 30-40 lb test fishing line so I can sew up my sandals

-Tie dye colors for us to make sweet t-shirts

-Deflated american football

-Deflated basketball

-Frisbee

-Any cool music saved to MP3 format

-Any “must read” books

For torrent downloaders:

The new season of Lost, Smallville, Leverage, Doctor Who (Waters of Mars, the Sarah Jane Chronicles special coming up before Waters of Mars and the two part Christmas special last hurrah for David Tennant as the Doctor … google MadMartha and torrent)

*just make sure that you send a list of contents in a sealed envelope. also send an email as well. send it to the address on my blog (Peace Corps HQ) and we will find a way to get it.

Was down at the capital this weekend and my roommate got a new cell phone. On a whim I asked to borrow his battery to see if it worked in a cell phone that two volunteers left for me when in Namibia. It works again!! The charger cord doesn't work, but now can charge it up using the phone I bought here!

So, if you have tried to call me over the past two weeks and not had any success, my roommate called me while I was sitting on the couch in our living room. So yeah, you can reach me when I'm not working on campus. :) I love Nokia phones

-crossing the bridge to a fellow PCV's flat.

-the mud/clay we plowed through. nearly got stuck in this. was up to the base of the bus.

-group photo with President Johnson-Sirleaf at swearing-in

- us on the plane, but no snakes to be found.

- ooh, ooh, ooh lookin out my back door

-the mountains. yeah, it rains every day right now.

-the backyard

-neighbor's garden in backyard

-it wouldn't upload properly. yes, that's Mr. Obama and he's the 4th president of the US

ngo = good morning.

oboy, nguay = my friend, good morning (in response to 'ngo')

yana = good afternoon/good evening.

va bel sue = how are you? (have any problems)

fine lay sue = good/well. (have no problems)

ya la zegi? = what is your name?

na-de zegi ya ga Mike. = my name is Mike.

It gets complicated when you are talking to a group of people:

wugo

oboy, wuguay

wana

wa la zegi?

ga la zegi a ga ........ (everyone in group then says their name)

Been practicing with the children and the workers. They get quite a kick out of it.

So I'm at my site and my roommate and I are moving into our flat when we realize we have absolutely no coverage. We do, however, have reception if we walk 1-2km toward our workplace and either: 1) stand by the tilting pole, 2) stand by a patio where the women gather or 3) go in my roommate's office. That one floored us when we found that out today!

Things are going well. The site is amazing - misty clouds passing by jungle covered mountains. Yeah, it's rough. Only problem is mud. Mud and clay. It's everywhere. I'll upload a couple pics I took of our three and a half hour journey to travel 100km to the site. Three and a half hours to go about 62 miles. Would have been stuck twice if not for the incredible navigation/sliding skills of our driver. All this mud sure makes running a more interesting adventure.

They don't have coffee easily available so a teacher trainer (and former PCV) at the site gave us a cola nut, a bitter tasting nut loaded with caffeine. After eating only a quarter, it was like downing three shots of coffee!

We get power (they call it current here) from 4am-7am and then again at 7pm until 11pm or midnight, so we can charge our electronics. Hooray!

Gotta run. Time to head back to the flat. If you want to get in touch with my by phone, you'll need to call while I'm at work, probably sometime between 5 and 11pm my time (am 5 hours ahead of Minnesota time). If you don't get through, just wait and try calling again later. I'll be around.

The plane ticket came today, so the green light is on! There are 10 other people heading over and am excited to meet them all - we’re all Returned Peace Corps Volunteers.

I’ll be serving as an assistant to the Rural Teacher Training Institute (RTTI) Principal in either Zorzor or Kakata.

You can send mail to this address:

Micheal Miller

Peace Corps Volunteer

P.O. Box 707

Monrovia, Liberia

West Africa

Yeah ... about the mail service, from the Liberia Resource Handbook:

“Letter mail may be received at the above post office box number. Parcels may also be sent, but delivery is not reliable. If parcels are sent it is recommended to keep the tracking number for reference. Please keep in mind that mail delivery is nearly nonexistent in Liberia, so Volunteers should not count on receiving a lot of mail. Email is the best bet, but access will vary according to location.”

The civil war destroyed 80% of the schools. Currently there is no national power grid, meaning any electricity comes from generators or solar chargers. The telephone lines were destroyed as well, so my cell phone will be the means of communication and many of them also offer Internet access.

The foods that make up a Liberian diet are rice, plantains, fufu and dumboy (paste balls made of root vegetables), meat, pineapples, bananas, papaya, coconuts, mangos and other vegetables.

I COS in the last week of June, 2010.

Information about Liberia from wikipedia

Map of Liberia from google maps

from National Geographic

I've been keeping a lid on this to most people, but I applied, accepted the invitation and passed medical, dental and legal for a 10 month job as an assistant to the principal at a teacher training center. It's different than the PCR position I applied for last year, where I would have taught English/Math to students. Just found out that I will fly out Aug 22nd in the afternoon. Will post more about the position in a couple days.

Whoo hoo!

Took the bus from St. Paul to Woodbury yesterday morning. Felt different being on a bus that showed up and departed at the posted times, was in excellent condition, didn't travel at excessive speed or weave in and out of traffic, wasn't packed with adults, children, goats/chickens and other misc stuff. I did get some strange looks while waiting at the stop with my big backpack and when I was walking for about a mile along Valley Creek Road from the bus stop to my friend's place.

This is my last day in Africa for ... I don't know how long. It doesn't even feel like it was almost 800 days since leaving the States and feels even stranger thinking that in just over one day I'll be back in Minnesota - if I make all the connecting flights that is.

Goodbye Africa, at least for now. You've given me experiences and friendships I'll treasure for a lifetime!

I was fortunate enough to get in on a camping safari to Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti and Lake Manyara National Parks. Some of the highlights couldn't be captured by photo, like hearing an elephant devour a tree and a lion growl just meters from your tent around 11pm. I survived many mosquito (and a few tse-tse fly also) bites, a head cold and travel fatigue. The journey is almost at an end!

Tomorrow I head to Zanzabar with a volunteer I met on the safari. Will be fun to just sit on the beach, read a book and look out over beautiful blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

Here are the pictures:

- Lioness laying around in the Serengeti

-Hippo pool in Serengeti

- Rare sighting of a Leopard in Serengeti

- Herd of Giraffe with Zebra in Manyara National Park

- New Year's Day on Lake Malawi

- Mount Kilimanjaro

- Elephant getting some water at Ngorongoro Simba Campsite

- Sunrise in Ngorongoro Crater

- Lions relaxing after feasting on a kill in the crater

I'm in Tanzania and finally bought a sim card. My new number is:

+255 783 352 853

I think that should work. Anyway, the country code is 255 and my cell number here is 0783 352 853. You just drop the zero when you add in the country code.

Happy Holidays to all and I'm thinking of you all back home.

Picking up where we left off:

Dec 23: took a 14.5 hour overnight train ride from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo, through a national park. Well over 100 people before us in line waiting to purchase tickets. We stopped by earlier and got our tickets reserved, fortunately. Met some cool Zim people.

Dec 24: after a nice rest we got up at 4:45am to get to the bus station (a 40 min walk with our full packs) only to see the same insanity we viewed the day before. Just imagine it as a scene from any Indy Jones movie. Some people had been sleeping outside at the station since Friday in the hopes of getting a ticket! Chose to hike and lucked out - a guy we'd been talking to at the hike point had an "uncle" going through Masvingo (on the doorstep of Great Zimbabwe) and we were able to grab a hike with him.

In Masvingo we grabbed a cab but, to our dismay, all the hostel and hotel rooms in the town were taken due to a church conference. No room in the inn for us... Decided to deal with sleeping later. Great Zimbabwe was ... great! The taxi driver offered us his place to stay the evening and then we met a person from town who told us a place we could stay. Spent Christmas Eve thinking of people back home, watching the full moon rise and putting together some reindeer a friend sent me.

Dec 25: Masvingo to Harare. The owner of the place gave us a ride to the hiking/bus place in town. We got there just in the nick of time to catch the nearly packed bus leave ... to drive around town to pick up more and more people (a rusty dilapidated, black cloud exhaust spewing bus) and somehow we kept packing the people in. After a safe seven hour ride we got to Harare. We'll be leaving for Zambia tomorrow morning (Dec 28th).

I call Zimbabwe the Midwest of Southern Africa because the people here have been Minnesota Nice to us. The work ethic and attitude fits in so well with the midwest. Imagine walking around in a city of one million people, saying "good morning" to everyone you pass and almost everyone responding? That was Bulawayo, second largest city in Zimbabwe. Imagine that in a US city?

One last Minnesota Connection:

Walking around Harare today I walked past a guy wearing a Hooter's t-shirt from the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN

Here are some pics from the journey so far:

Vic Falls from the Zambia side

Vic from the Zimbabwe side

Again, from Zimbabwe side, the better view

A better shot

The toilet on the train

Great Zimbabwe, the kings' place

Looking down on the remains of the Great Zimbabwe

A closer view of the background

Celebrating Christmas Eve in Masvingo The reindeer add a nice touch Unique looking building in Harare

What US$20 will fetch in Zim $$

We're just hanging out until the train departs tonight for Bulawayo, then Great Zimbabwe and finally to Harare . Will be fun to compare the train ride to Namibia's.

Here are some of the happenings thus far:

*A 24+ hour bus ride from Windhoek to Livingstone which should have taken 19 hours.

*Victoria Falls lives up to expectations, especially the Zimbabwe side! I tried for two days to do the ultralight flight over the falls but the weather didn't cooperate.

*Almost daily torrential downpours, walking in them, getting soaked to the bone and liking it.

*Meeting a somewhat fictional chain smoking, mango-eating, insomniac, gemstone selling character in Livingstone who said was from Zimbabwe and wanted to help us. Our senses told us otherwise. I did get a job offer from him...

*I am currently dealing with FOUR different currencies: US, Rand, Kwatcha (Zambia) and the Zim dollar. I am a multi-millionaire, trading US$20 for Zim$24 000 000 (official government rate is 1 USD = 30 000 Zim dollars. Unofficial is 1 USD = 1.2 mil to 2.5 mil Zim.

Minnesota connections so far:

*When talking to the somewhat fictional chain smoking, mango-eating, insomniac, gemstone selling character I told him I was from Minnesota. He replies, "I was selling to someone from there ... living in a town named Cannon ... Cannon Falls."

*Met a really cool gal from Minneapolis who is currently in Mozambique on a research grant. We did the whole "Fargo" accent to the comical amazement of everyone around us.

*Hurriedly walking down the muddy streets of Livingstone we passed a Midwestern/Scandinavian looking guy wearing a U of M Gopher hat

*Riding to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border I met an RPCV from Lesotho who used to work at a summer camp near Bemidji.

My last night at Jason’s. My last run in Namibia. My last N$4 twist cone … lots of lasts going on here. After almost 27 months, my journey as an RPCV begins and the chapter of being back in the USA will start. I’ll be heading to Victoria Falls/Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania and Zanzibar, however I won’t be going it alone, traveling with a friend and then meeting up with a group of people later.

Thanks for the positive thoughts, support and encouragement over the past two years. I’ll be home soon.

Take care!

This weekend marks the beginning of our end of service here in Namibia, with the first group 25ers checking out. December 15th is coming quickly.

With the start of exams last week, I spent my time doing some final cleaning. All the things I'm taking home fit into my Gregory pack. I get to have the four group 27ers teaching in the Karas region shadow me for a week at site, so I'm looking forward to that - company and stories! Then it's off to help with community based training/model school in Otjiwarongo - I'll be the only volunteer helping there. The sad news is that I'll be leaving Tses a few days earlier.

Finally, after 812 days I got my hair cut last night. It went from being 10 inches long to half an inch. It's time I started to look less like a drifter and more like an employable person. At least when I'm back in the states I won't hear, "Jees, you look like a damn hippie!"

Popped into Windhoek to greet the Group 27 newbies at the airport. Lots of fun and craziness to say the least. Probably the last time in the big city until COS/helping with CBT. Got my travel plans finalized - I get to do the trip I was hoping/planning for since last year! The only bad part is that I won't be home until mid-January or so. Will try not to smell like I do when coming back from camping trips.

Hey all-

The village does have power, except when the priest loses power and tries to throw the breaker back on (he blew out power to the village last week). However, the Internet is not working. Probably all due to the fact that we haven't paid our bill in the past year. In our defense, we have yet to receive any billing statements. So assume any e-mails sent will not get read for a few weeks.

Through some dealing, the village council was able to broker a deal to get the electricity turned back on, but only through the end of the month. If we don't pay the bill in full the power is out until the account is settled. Just in time for the grade 10 October exams.

Anyways, school is back in session after a strange weekend in Keetmanshoop. Right now I'm up in Windhoek doing some stuff for group 27 training. If the power wasn't back on, I was going to try to hook my passport so I could do some traveling. Perhaps I'll be able to do so in a couple weeks?

It all comes down to drama and my village has been full of it over the past weeks, more drama than in a typical day in the life of a volunteer.

For over a year we've been hearing how NamPower was ready to shut off the electricity to Tses because we owed them a truckload of money. Empty threats are a part of life here and nobody believed it, that is until last Tuesday.

Sitting at the computer during a free period to research potential jobs post-PC, when at 11am my monitor goes blank and the lights go out. Not a problem, it's happened before. I just need to talk to the principal of Nowak and he'll send a learner to the circuit box to flip the switch. (aside: After almost two years living here I still have no idea where the breaker is. The principal and I have searched for it unsuccessfully, which leads me to believe it is located somewhere through a wardrobe in the land of Narnia.)

As I walk to the office I see members of the village council swarming the mission. Humm, red flags are abounding. Turns out that NamPower arrived and cut power to the entire village. Of course we've been under the specter of this threat since the previous Tuesday and, as usual, it went unknown to me. Here's the chain of payment in Namibia: People in the village pay their water and electric bills by paying them to the village council and the council then pays NamPower and NamWater. Makes sense, nay? The mission has not missed a single payment and many in the village prepay their electric and yet all are lumped together.

Am I upset? Having candlelight dinners, using my Solio (solar battery) to recharge my iPod, perfect stargazing conditions (now that the streetlights aren't working), cozying up to the candle every evening to read and carrying water to my flat. No problem, it's just like camping. I ran out of matches so I had to use my camping stove (it has an ignition switch) to light the candles. It's exactly like using a blowtorch to light a candle. It was fun to go out stargazing in the evening, but I wish the power would've went out during the Perseid shower in August instead of now.

My principal called the regional office for help. Their advise: cook all the hostel food (no refrigeration now) and you won't be getting any more. Oh, and you'll still have school. Ok ... where's the logic in that? The other problem is now that we've had electricity at my site since around 2000, the village water is no longer pumped by hand or windmill. It's by electric pump. Some learners were leaving the hostel to go home.

Fast-forward to Thursday, ignoring some craziness in the hostel. Again a phone call to the regional office, saying we don't have any food for the learners today or enough gas for the stove either. Unbelievably the people in the office were shocked, showing how much attention they were giving our situation. They did immediately sent a truck with food and gas. Arriving just two hours later was a weeks worth of food, including meat. Much of the food required refrigeration ... WHAT? Can't believe this! The regional office's solution: we're going to store the meat and such in Berseba (44k one way on a winding, bumpy dirt road) and the principal will drive there daily to get it. Makes sense to me!

The straw that broke the donkey's back came when the bore hole water ran out. So at 2pm on Thursday we released the hostel learners and closed the school until the power comes back. A friend of a friend in Keetmanshoop was in the area, so I got a hike out of here to the comforts in Keets of electricity and running water.

I'm completely fine. Actually, I've been laughing at the absurdity of the entire situation. Can't get angry, what good will that do? Be interesting to see what Peace Corps does with me about this. We'll see how long this outage lasts. Grade 10 national exams start in three weeks.

As of now I am close to reaching my mission of reading, on average, a book each week for my two years of service. Only seven to go after a reading blitz of 34 books from May through the first week of July! The highlight was doing all seven Harry Potter books in 12 days. The books are BY FAR much better than any of the movies. In fact, it frustrates me now that I know how much the movies cut out of the books.

Before term two finished I worked on teacher computer training (teaching them all how to do their marks on a spreadsheet), the updating the computer lab network and trying to fix up some old computers, including my laptop. Oh, did I mention my laptop broke back in April and have been working to fix it since? Got it working about a week before term two break but it went down, possibly for good, last night ... hard drive failure. Hopefully I can resurrect it once again.

The brief tales of South Africa

A 16 hour bus ride to the Cape. Cape Town is not Africa at all. I felt like I was walking around in San Francisco. The waterfront, Table Mountain, botanical gardens, the smells and sounds, completely opposite of my village. Did a tour of the cape, on which I met some interesting fellow lone travelers. Reading Long Walk to Freedom in two days, finishing just before doing the Robben Island tour. Just before going on the tour I ran into a group 25er who was doing the tour a couple hours later. Reading the book made the tour so much better.

Yes, the country still bears scars from apartheid, but I also saw many more reasons for hope than I did while in Jo'burg last year. I will admit I still got lots of strange looks when I walked around Cape Town greeting the people I met on the street. That lasted for all of half a day. I'm not in the village anymore.

The week in Hogsback

A 20 hour bus ride to East London and Intercape was two hours late, so I missed the shuttle to Hogsback. We had some issues with the oil pressure and a leaky ceiling which just happened to dump onto my lap, looking like I had a bladder accident. The nice woman sitting next to me requested a wet suit for me from the attendant. The delay was thanks to switching buses.

Anyways, II called them to tell of my dilemma and it turned out the owners were in town and they gave me a ride! Talk about luck. Planned on spending only a weekend there and it ended up being five days. The hikes are incredible. It feels just like you're in a scene for any Tolkien book. All the waterfalls are fed by natural springs. There was mud everywhere – I nearly feel full profile into a huge mud pit on more than one occasion. The waterfalls, moss-covered ground, gnarled tree trunks and mountain scenery were breathtaking. I watched a family of monkeys savage a tree just outside my bedroom window! Living in a desert for two years makes you appreciate the smell of moisture and plant life. An invigorating experience.

I would go out for hikes in the morning and then spend the evenings watching cricket and rugby with fellow backpackers. I got along so well with the owners that they upgraded me from my dorm (a room with a bunch of beds) to a private double bedroom, called Frodo's Room, with a fireplace and fantastic view. I got a ride back to East London with the owners, stopping by a maximum security prison – they were having a silent auction and he was bidding on a vehicle. Yes, we walked right in the prison yard. How many vacations can boast that?

The journey home

Decided to come back a little early, riding 36 hours on a bus over two days. Not as much fun as you'd think. I spent the time reading and listening to my “Last Term of Service” mix on my iPod. They showed Hitch on one leg of the journey. Not so much fun when we crossed the SA border. The police brought out the x-ray machine and scanned all the baggage. That happens when you are the first or second bus through, not the sixth as we were on the way into SA two weeks ago.

My ticket was from Cape to Keets, but I was able to beg and plead my way to getting dropped off right at the Tses B1 hikepoint, and the two liter of coke I bought for the crew didn't hurt either. I am much safer walking home at 2am in Tses (completely safe) than walking around in Keets. The best part was that I got to ride shot-gun on the Intercape (double-decker bus) for the last leg. The funniest moment happened in Cape Town as I walked out to queue with everyone else. As I walked out of the Intercape building I heard someone yell out, “Mike!!”. It was another group 25er heading back to her site too. So funny.

The closure of service conference at Midgard

I took the train to Windhoek, so in the past week I've spent over 46 hours on buses and trains. Midgard is a weird place, like Greiters insofar as they have the feel of belonging in some kind of horror movie, though Greiters has more of a Psycho feel to it being that it's on a hill. Huge chess set, some pools, bowling alley, volleyball and tennis courts, a ping pong and pool table, car museum, amphitheater, but all at the cost of an hour plus down a bumpy dirt road.

The first two nights I spent my time with people I normally don't. We played volleyball, a lot of billiards, swam in the icy cold, mildew-smelling pool amongst other things. One of the volunteers in our group also teaches tennis and we wanted to play sometime before leaving Namibia. Although we didn't get the time to play on the tennis courts, on the last night we did get in some good table tennis time. He beat me every time, but had some great rallies and close matches. One of the older volunteers strolled by and joined in, saying she wasn't that good and nearly beat both of us. It was a lot of fun.

I had the worst insomnia there as well. I got about seven hours of sleep in three days. The hardest part was knowing that this is probably going to be the last time I'll see most of the people in the group. Most are completing service early to travel, while I'm going to stick it out to Dec 15th. Also add in that I'm down in the “deep south” and most of the group is a seven plus hour hike away on a good day. Afterward I'll be staying to help out Group 27's teachers at model school from Dec 10th (with a break to do some closure of service PC stuff) until Christmas-ish or so and then traveling to Vic Falls and possibly to Tanzania and a bunch of other countries along the way. Depends on if my credit card works and some other things. I just noticed the other day that my Wells Fargo ATM card expired in May...oops. If all goes to plan I should be home sometime in January, February at the latest. After that...

Right now I'm torn between six different short/long term career options of which three involve teaching, however only three of the six options are in the United States.

Only something like 95 days to go until I'm officially an RPCV.

Take care and I'll see you soon

p.s. - I've put in 26 hours of sleep in the past three days since leaving Midgard.

p.s.s. - If you're thinking about sending a package specifically for me, don't because I probably won't get it. With the probable delivery time, I'll be finished with service and gone from my site. If it's for the school/learners, great! Send away!

Hey everyone. The last few weeks have been packed, with the end of the term, creating spreadsheets for the staff to do our marking (and then taking the time to teach them how to use them) and figuring out travel plans for break. Right now I'm in Hogsback, South Africa. It's about 140km from East London and the place where Tolkien supposedly got the inspiration for LOTR and the Hobbit. Just got done with a few days in Cape Town, running into a fellow group 25er. Lots of fun meeting other solo travelers along the way. In fact, I ran into a fellow Minnesotan at Sugarshack Backpackers in East London this morning. Really a small world. Am making up this trip as I go, with the only planning was purchasing a ticket to Cape Town last week. We'll see how it goes or if I make it back to Namibia!

I still laugh at that name...it sounds like some kind of Internet bamboozle, doesn't it?

That was the phrase the four St. Therese JSS learners kept using over and over at the exhibition the July 6th weekend. Didn't get enough of the mince/curry/peach chutney that Sir Williams made? Part of life...

Lots of things have been going down the past months. First was the Southern Girls Conference in Keetmanshoop in June. Lots of fun was had by we volunteers and the gals. The closest I've felt to a rock star was when the ministry bus came to pick us up. Rolling in at the crack of dusk, the bus shows. Chester hops off to help load and elementary school learners swarm. Beth, standing on the bus, foolishly near an open window, gets hit by a rock. The learners here are deadly with rocks. I lock up the library and venture out as the learners center on me. They tell me how they'll miss me, touch my hair and start pulling it. Guess they must want a souvenir? Courtney tells the driver to get moving, worried a riot could break out. Ahhh... good ol' Tses.

The sessions from self-image/girl power to gender equity/rights to a phenomenal woman panel to HIV/AIDS (explaining exactly how HIV acts at the cellular level, something the HIV education here doesn't include) and a big dance party – I even broke out some dance moves when JT's SexyBack came up, to the surprise and laughter of my girls club. The only major dampener was the hostel they were staying in didn't have hot water for the showers, but they did for the baths. I woke up every day before 6am to take my hot bath, but I was staying with the volunteers and not in the hostel! The best moment(s): Two nights of making the no-bake cookies and eating it right out of the bowl, sans spoon.

No sooner had we been dropped off by our bus back at our site on Sunday (the primary learners chased after, trying to kick it) had I found out about another conference. A “Sir” Williams was back for two weeks, doing research down here for his doctorate. His other motives became clear, when he talked of the genesis of a St. Therese History Club. He also brought a friend with him, another Fulbright Scholar working on her PhD here in Namibia. The national exhibition was 5 – 8 of July. The three of us plus one history teacher plus one former teacher/community activist had ten days to help our club members do a research project on a topic they wrote in history class the month before, “Namibian Heroes of the South.” We took the two best from grade 9 and two from grade 10. I don't know how we did it, but we pulled it off. In the process, we got to go on a field trip to Keetmanshoop museum to do research and also to see how information can be displayed. The curator offered to help our learners type up and arrange their displays for the exhibition.

The best part about the two weeks was that I got to have visitors at my flat! The earliest I got to bed was 11:30, will all the talking. Even though his friend was just out of grad school, she was an aficionado of the 80's, so we got along swimmingly. No, don't think like that, she's married.

Sidetrack:

A week before it got to be below zero C and I was wearing as many clothes that would fit on my body to stay warm in my bedroom. By accident I left my hot plate on overnight, absent pot or pan thankfully. I walked in my kitchen the next morning and it was about 18 degrees C in there! I pulled my bed into the kitchen and have been using my fan + hot plate as a space heater since.

Back to the story...

So we had a slumber party in my kitchen for the first week. Again with the stories of St. Therese in 2001, how he created a Namibian version of the play Fiddler on the Roof, the glory days of Miss St. Therese (imagine the combined energy of NASCAR race and a monster truck rally) and other things the previous volunteers did during his tenure.

On Thursday, we piled four adults in the front of the bakkie and the four learners in the back, dressed in winter clothes and lots of blankets and made our way to the Rehoboth Spa on Thursday afternoon. Christian and I weren't willing to pay N$600 per night at the bungalow, but through his connections we were allowed to pitch a tent and stay outside, which we both jumped at. Small world experience: in talking about camping and such, it turns out that we just missed each other in the Grand Tetons back in August 2005 (my national park farewell tour before PC), doing the same trail (Lake Solitude&Paintbrush Trail loop) by about a week.

MAN SCAM – X. Nice name, eh? Breaking apart the acronym: MAN = Museum Association of Namibia. SCAM – X = SChools And Museum eXhibition. Some stunning works on display. The winning school got a week trip to Cape Town with a private tour of Robben Island (famous prisoner: Nelson Mandela) among other tours. Second place? A weekend at Omaruru Rest Camp! That's where we did our PC pre-service training.

We didn't place in the top four, but we were just happy for the experience. Saw the Rehoboth hot spring, did a boat ride at the dam, attended some great sessions about history and saw some amazing cultural presentations - each group had to do something to show their culture on the first night.

Anyways, unlike most clubs started here, it looks like this one will be sustainable, with at least one teacher already committed to running it next year. Great news.

I did miss out on a big PC meeting up in Ondongwa that week, but it would've taken me two days just to hike up there and I was only interested in the small part pertaining to training for group 27. Just wasn't worth the investment of $$ and travel time. Besides, I would've missed out on this glorious adventure.

I got a strange question from both of my principal's parents the other day as I walked to their shop. I stopped by for some soda, milk and eggs and talked with Pauline's father on the way in and her mother while in the shop.

After a some time in the conversations, talking about how things were during the day, both of them (uncannily...) asked me if I was lonely. Upon clarification, they meant because a lot of volunteers have left the region. While walking back to my flat, listening to my iPod, it struck me. In January 2006 there were eight group 25ers within 80km of my site. As of now, only three remain.

A day in the life of a volunteer going to his shopping town on Friday the 20th (payday)

This country seems to change to a zoo around two times of the month: the 20th when government employees get paid. The end of the month when everyone else gets paid. It's like a werewolf in the presence of the full moon.

Usually I wait in the library for the combi to pick me up. Today didn't feel like a normal day. It's the 20th. The good news was that the grocery store was stocked this month in preparation for payday, unlike last month. Unfortunately neither they nor the OK had dark baking chocolate. So much for chocolate chip pancakes. Will need to substitute cappuccino chocolate for dark chocolate.

I got dropped off for some grocery shopping at 2:30pm and to pick up some contact solution. In 35 minutes I've finished everything I need to do. The waiting game begins! The time on my watch is 3:06pm.

I decide to walk around the streets of Keetmanshoop with my backpack. End up running into four of my grade ten learners from last year and some others who are St. Therese grads.

I walk to sit at the usual combi meeting place, adjacent to the Spar grocery store. As I stroll on the scene a fight breaks out between two drunks. The other people in the crowd don't look all that much better. I turned tail and decided to hang out in front of the post office and revise my Nama flashcards, texting the driver to pick me up there. Who'd start trouble in front of a post office? The phrase, “going postal” doesn't have the same context here.

The driver stops by after almost an hour to pick me up. Sitting in the combi I start to notice something. Thanks to a much harder than expected run during my 6th and 7th free periods, my digestive system was in fast-forward. I go out for runs when I have back-to-back free periods, that way I can stay in the library for learners in the afternoon for reading, research and computers. I also run according to how my body feels - great this day. Anyways, the words to best describe my issue were eminent and catastrophic.

We do a bunch of stops (like ten+) and then make our way back to Spar about two minutes before 5pm. The driver decides to do some grocery shopping after all, knowing that Spar in on winter hours (we're in the Southern Hemisphere) closes at 5pm. In a glaringly ironical moment the driver mutters that he's angry with people here and how they don't do things on time.

Tses people pile into the combi, including and extremely drunk (even by Namibian standards) guy, all of 20 years old. Two of his even drunker friends are right behind him, threatening to beat him up for something he did earlier. One guy keeps banging on the window while we wait for the combi driver to return. We waited for almost 30 minutes. I run into one of my non-PC friends and catch up with life after not seeing each other since March. Meanwhile, the extremely drunk guy's mother exits the combi and gets in the face of the drunk friends. She nearly takes them to town, pushing one of them and almost slapping the other one. The driver finally shows up, unconcerned about recent events.

We finally head back to Tses. The extremely drunk guy started acting strange, kicking the window and some other things. He kept falling on me as we were heading home, so I told him a few things in Nama. The sober people in the combi busted out in laughter, especially my learners and colleagues knowing I don't speak Khoekhoegowab often. Effectively, what I did could translate in English to 'you got served'! I turn up the volume on my iPod and play the soundtrack to the movie Swingers. Dean Martin possesses a disarming power in the song You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You, unlike Motley Crue and Looks that Kill.

I was supposed to be back at the hostel to supervise the Tses Girls Club Movie Night, starting at 6:30pm. We finally left Keetmanshoop at 7:14pm. Thankfully the principal decided to reschedule it for Saturday night. I didn't find out that my club was going to do a movie night until that morning. To think that I passed up a trip to Windhoek for a Harry Potter party for all that? Missing out on a chocolate scone and mint tea at the Craft Centre and then to the mall for The American Fudge Factory?

Speaking of Khoekhoegowab earlier, a couple weeks ago an elderly Nama couple were walking in front of the library as I was telling my class to enter. I accidentally said !gû to my learners instead of go (!gû = go in America talk). The couple quickly turned around, probably in shock, stared at me and smiled. Words fail to describe the moment. It's right up there with the time during training in Omaruru when a group of us went to the Lutheran Church in the location. Enter Dr. Emmett Brown, Mary McFly, a DeLorean, 1.21 gigawatts and the line, “The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”

We're back to PST 2005 in Omaruru, seven Peace Corps volunteers going to Sunday Lutheran service in the location. We walk in and the people there are so welcoming. Children and adults just stare and smile at us and we smile back. Midway through the service, unexpectedly, the pastor calls all of us (the only white people there, by the way) up front about halfway through the service to introduce ourselves. Visitors are not anonymous here. Some of us do our introductions in English or in Afrikaans. At my turn I risk it, not very confident in my Khoekhoe and say, “!Gai //goas.” The congregation erupts in applause. Then go into, “Ti /ons ge a Mike. Tita ge Minnesota za hu ra hâ. Tita ge Tses !nâ //an hâ," the phrases we'd learnt the previous week - Good morning. My name is Mike. I'm from Minnesota. I live in Tses.

My break started of with a much needed injection of energy, helping out with Camp GLOW. It's a camp for the “top” learners at PCV sites. A breath of fresh air. The day I helped plan was teamwork day and decided it should be a competition, sort of a teamwork Olympics with certain scored events. Well, Amber and I took it to the extreme, having the teams make flags (team signs in reality), march around the block and into the hall to John Williams Summon the Heroes, a torch relay culminating with the lighting of the flame (a big candle on a bench). Things were going great through the 4x4 relay, water balloon relay (the balloons were breaking, just as we'd hoped) and the jigsaw puzzle until ...

Amber put together a panel of people from various backgrounds – soccer, art, tv, radio and print media to discuss how they use (apply) teamwork in real life, not just in games. Not even five minutes into the discussion many started tuning them out. By the ten minute mark, the level was up to most. It didn't help that we volunteers weren't modeling the right behaviour. Long story longer, after some discussion my idea prevailed and we cut out one of the events as a punishment, the spider web, the event group 26er Brian and I spent over two hours setting up the previous afternoon and the event the learners wanted to do the most. It sent the right message and the day went well, topped off by a surprise visit from the Brave Warriors, Namibia's national soccer team.

Other GLOW highlights:

Watching learners go crazy over Akeelah and the Bee (we put the English subtitles on. amazing to actually hear the learners spelling along with the movie), a "surprise" visit by Gazza (Namibia's musical artist of the year) to talk about leadership and goals, going to parliament (many of them have never traveled to Windhoek) and just getting to see many of the group 25ers from the way north. (It seems that people only come down to Keets when on their way to South Africa, Mozam, Fish River and such)

AfterGLOW:

Windhoek-Watched the remainder of the Dr. Who 2006 season. Got in some good runs. Met most of the group 26ers doin Naukluft Trail – all survived. Gained a sweet pair of running socks from a gracious group 26er. Played guitar a lot.

Next I did a 14 hour hike from Windhoek to Opuwo to visit a volunteer, riding on dirt roads with dust caking everything even things I enclosed inside my backpack. A home visit of a Himba family. Read 11 books. Did Frisbee golf. Hiked the plateau.

On to Outapi! A couple days with another volunteer and her German roommate. Going on a food delivery (World Food Program) out in the bush - about 1.5 hours of driving to get back to the nearest paved road. More guitar. Celebratory goat meat dinners. Bushwacking. Sidewalk hockey.

The Ministry of Education deciding to start term two a week later, trying to hike to the highest mountain in Windhoek but camping in a riverbed instead, doing the four day Waterburg Trail, learning how to “safely” dodge a charging rhino and getting in a better mood for this term.

The hardest part about break was that I truly did want to be around people, but I didn't really feel like talking. If I hadn't promised earlier to visit my friends up in the North, I probably would've been sitting in the park reading beneath one of the palm trees. Was good because the people I visited did understand how I felt, as they've had similar experiences. But then I gave up the simple pleasure of spreading out on grass reading my books in Zoo Park. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I forced myself to travel. It was the break I needed.

I'm looking through the pics from this year and deciding which to upload. I'll have them up shortly, along with updates about Southern Girls Conference, the history club we formed, the National History competition last weekend and some other musings.

It's taken me quite a while to try to come up with the words to explain the first four months of this year, and I wasn't going to post it until I could get some perspective. That's why I haven't posted for quite some time.

The phrase Term From Hades... is the best description for the first term this year. The disasters of my secondary projects, the teacher/computer training, learner behaviour in school and the hostel, teacher apathy, a priest not addressing my housing issues with electricity and sanitation, uffda! Visualize each of these as low pressure systems converging on my village, specifically me, all in a two week span and continuing throughout the term. A “perfect storm” of problems if you will, constantly dumping it's gloom on me. And I had about as much control over them as I do over the weather.

It didn't matter what I tried to do to alleviate the fronts, it just seemed to seed the clouds more. For example, I wrote a letter to the priest expressing my concern and disappointment with the lack of action taken on electricity (it went out almost every weekend the first term, and only in my building. It's been a continuing issue for well over a year) and sanitation (my toilet stopped working, so I asked to get it fixed. It took TWO months). His solution – move, because we are not going to fix anything. We only need to give you housing, nothing more.

As it turns out, after I leave he is going to turn the hostel into a bed and breakfast. The sooner I leave, the better. Still brings up the question of why he won't try to fix the power? Won't the guests at his B&B want electricity? Besides, why would people want to stay here? The majestic views of the sand dune, the herds of goats and donkeys? The open sewer just outside school grounds? They need a corn palace or the world's biggest ball of twine to bring in the big money.

As I now look back, the relationship started to sour last November when I wasn't able to change some of his Namibian $$ to US $$. Seems it's a little improper/illegal to do that here if you don't have proof (the exchange slip) the money wasn't originally in US $$. In April he had his workers replace all the broken windows at the primary school. The only classroom at the primary school the priest didn't replace the broken windows for was the library. Not very subtle, is it?

Almost every secondary project I tried to start didn't go as planned (usually failing when attendance was mandatory), and I tried to start quite a few. The most spirit-crushing was the teacher computer training class. I'd been asked/begged by the staff to train them in how to use Word and Excel to help with the question papers and mark sheets, throwing in how to use the Internet to search for teaching materials. We're talking importing graphics, fonts and alignments, special characters and symbols, etc. Classes were Monday to Thursday for one hour a day, starting the second week of school. Reminded everyone at devotion about it on the first day and even reminded them right after school, just to be sure. There is no after school study or any other conflict of any kind. Day 1 – Out of the ten teachers here only ONE showed up on time, two others arrived 30 minutes late. Day 2 – Only one showed up. Day 3 – Nobody. Spirit-crushing and shocking considering how often they've asked me to do a computer class for them. I did get an uplift in helping two teachers type up their question papers – they did a great job too!

I've been frustrated before, but not to this extent. An incident at the hostel and the disciplinary committee & school board response, or lack of a response – giving the learners a final last warning. I think they also put them on double-secret probation. Now mix into brew my friend got into a serious accident, two others going home and then getting the big-time shaft from a friend with a hike I REALLY wanted to do... Well, you get the picture.

Combining the toll on the personal, professional, spiritual and emotional areas of my life, the first term was by far the most difficult time of my life and, for the first time, quitting Peace Corps started to feel like the right thing to do. The day I seriously thought about quitting, I added the “until COS on Dec15th” counter to my blog. I've done a lot of soul searching in the department of life, meaning, volunteerism and such throughout the term. Fortunately I had my laptop and episodes of Doctor Who 2006, House MD, Firefly and West Wing to help me through the term. (It only took me four months to download all 13 of the episodes of Dr. Who 2006! )

Two of my secondary projects did get off the ground – continuation of girls club and movie night. I got a copy of Mary Chapin Carpenter's new album The Calling. Was so excited after hearing it, recognizing many of the songs as she played many of them at her concert at the Minnesota Zoo Amphitheater in 2004 – one of the best concerts I've attended. Throw in Motley Crue's import CD (and I just got your package Erik and that set of Bruce Hornsby rules!) and lots of kind words from many former learners now at different schools, that was enough to keep me going. Those intermittent successes coupled with escapism kept me from falling into a Rainy Days and Mondays Carpenters' type of blues.

Some other positives: near the end of the term I helped a learner with math for the grade 12 exam. If you could only feel the endorphin rush my brain felt when I got to teach matricies AND systems of equations. Then, I taught a woman how to type and use Microsoft Word using my laptop and an old South African keyboarding book.

The end of the term party did inject some humor and energy, going to the hot spring that's just 5k away. We braaied some meat, talked about my going away party in term 3, discussed the likelihood of a crocodile being at the waterfall just 2k downstream from here (the Fish River, which at the time the hot springs looked not like a tributary but the headwaters for that mighty river), dodged some questions about me extending and staying for a third year in Namibia (not going to happen) and talked about what I'm going to do after December.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: after getting Peace Corps involved who then talked to the priest, the head of parish in Keetmanshoop and a connection within the Namibian Catholic Bishops Conference - Ms. Kusch (the 1st principal of St. Therese and has a soft spot for volunteers) and doing a little PR campaign of my own within the community ... drum roll ... my toilet got fixed! An aside to the PR campaign, I pasted pictures of Galileo, Martin Luther and a copy of The 95 Theses in my flat. Passive revolt, the Midwestern way!

Add the grade 9 math results of term 1 2007: 37%. Grade 9 term 1 2006: 24%

(I have a much stronger group of learners this year)

Add the grade 10 English results from 2006: 53.4% and no one failed. English was the best subject overall, even beating out Afrikaans and the highest results in at least six years. Even had a learner get an 'A' in it, the only one for our school. My principal has kept saying over and over how impressed she was with the results, saying they were the best of all the volunteers who've been here. Maybe I'm an English teacher at heart?

Had I written this before going on break, it would've had a much different tone than now. This term I've decided the glass will be half full instead of empty. So far, so good!

Final ramblings:

I am looking forward to getting my hair cut when I get back. It's getting a little too long for my liking. Sometimes while listening to my 80's music on my iPod, I feel like putting it up in a ponytail, dressing in a pink shirt with white pants and playing the Miami Vice theme in the background.

I just realized that if you took what I got for my 2005 tax return (only working 2/3 of the year as a full-time teacher) and then doubled that amount, it is more than I earned in 2006.

I know I'm going to get fired from at least the first three jobs in the US due to my conversion to the Africa Pace of life, so Cold Stone, Dairy Queen, Don Pablos, Barnes & Noble and Best Buy, look out for my application! Can always bum around the world for a while, like most every foreigner I met at the Jo'burg hostels.

One of the best pics of Dylan taken. We're climbing down to walk in the Sesreim Canyon.

Here's the canyon

Eric and I were trying to see how far down we could jump

Why walk back on top of the dune when you can jump down just as easily?

Deadvlei

The erased part said, "What about George?"

The world's first neapolitan doughnut

and me eating it for lunch

sunset at the Tug restaurant in Swakop

Waterburg Plateau

Looking out from on top of the plateau

What the hell is that thing? It was in the pool with us!

Finishing the evening like almost every other on the camping trip - watching some sort of movie on our laptop computers. We added in smores this night.

Amanda's in Namibia!

Amanda, Rute and me waiting in the blistering sun for a hike to Jo'burg

A long hike in the desert and no aircon make us all smiles.

Offloading the liquid fat near Jo'burg

Is that a nucular ... er ... a nuclear power plant?

At Rowe's, preparing the feast!

Which was just this steak.

The family with one missing (Brad) and one new member - Silas, my new nephew. Me, Amy, Silas, Brian and mom

The grandparents, Amy and Silas

Back to Africa. The "pool room" at Dylan and Sandra's flat.

Starting our way to hike Brukaros

Dylan doing a 14-point turn. The road was so bad we couldn't drive up any further. Sandra, Partick and Eric help guide.

Hanging outside of Rute's place in Otavi, watching the sunset.

Choose your own caption here. Yeah, she's fun to hang around!

True...

The Group 26ers, community based training in Grootfontien. They're in the Kavango now. We're introducing ourselves to the learners.

Putting in some classroom time. It seems like we're always training for something.

And NamPower just recently spent a few weeks installing streetlights to the entire village here. So how's using more power going to help us pay out bills?

The 50 ton Hoba meteorite!

Taking a midservice break, checking out the Mentos and Coke reaction.

Frisbee pool tricks during some down time.

Add chicken fighting and a new pool activity, the joust.

Carl giving me a piggy-back ride to my pad with Jay-Z spotting. I musta looked tired.

Listening to Mitch Hedberg by the pool before the big dinner.

The cooks preparing the meal. Every pot had a different meat in it!

The women who keep us full.

The education group pic with Greiter's staff. Probably the last time we'll all be together before COS.

Some after-the-dinner traditional dancing.

The flight back was a little more comfortable because I got to have two seats to sprawl out. I left snow-covered MSP at 8:15am on Jan 1st and landed in Jo’burg at 6pm on Jan 2nd. My Gregory Palisade pack weighed around 26kg (about 62lbs)! The bag limit was 50lbs on Delta but I think flashing my Peace Corps passport helped them look the other way. On the flight I finally got to see Little Miss Sunshine. It actually made me laugh out loud. The humor appeared to escape the people seated near me. Was able to sleep the remainder of the flight time.

After getting the shaft from Gemini Backpackers (the owner there must have a split personality disorder and I got the bad one) I chose to stay at a backpacker place near the airport. Met a guy and his girlfriend from Sweden, who correctly identified that I was from Minnesota. Apparently there are more Swedish immigrants living outside of Sweden than there are current Swedes in Sweden.

Flew out to Windhoek the next morning. As it happened I was on the same flight as Sandra’s brother Eric, aka Nerd or Version 2.0. I got kidnapped by them and forced to endure hiking Brukaros, Seseim Canyon and the sand dunes of Sossusvlei, spending some nights in Swakopmund, a stop at Omaruru Rest Camp (remodeled and sweet looking!) and camping at Waterburg Plateau. It was torture, I swear!

After a quick stay in Windhoek to pick up the school computer from Schoolnet and to catch up on the first six episodes of Lost Season Three, I took the train back home to Tses. Was lucky enough to snag a sleeper car. About 10k from Tses the train broke down … for FOUR hours. I woulda hoofed it but I had the server computer along with two backpacks.

Fortunately the parents kept their children in line so they weren’t running up and down the sleeper cars, screaming bloody murder. Then I awoke from that blissful dream to children screaming bloody murder up and down the sleeper car isle. A good book and an iPod helped me pass the time.

Finally at 10:00am the train got going again. On at 7:00pm Friday evening and off at 10:14am. Amanda thought her train experience was slow? I did text Waldo asking for them to send the PC helicopter to rescue me. Alas, it didn’t show.

Well, that was break for year one of PC. While at home I got a lot of questions about what I’m going to do after this year. I have few ideas but frankly I haven’t moved on any of them yet. We’ll see how the first few months go before starting anything.

Anyways, this should be an interesting start to year two. I’ve already been told that I might have a classroom this year. That’s strange as we had enough classrooms last year for me and we’re starting this year off one teacher short, waiting for the Ministry to assign a replacement. Something’s rather fishy here and we’re so far away from any body of water.

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I did not proof any of these postings, so please ignore any spelling or grammar mistakes!

The friendly faces at the baggage retrieval - Bri Tri and Amanda’s family. Now comes the surreal part of the trip - going to the bank and then to Best Buy. Bri was laughing at me. I thought I was a country hick before, but being in the middle of desert and donkey cart country takes the cake. People on the move, in a hurry to get here and there. I saw more people in Best Buy than I’d see in a couple weeks over here. I was so not used to that. Later on, after I gathered the courage to go into a Barnes and Noble, I bought three books in under 10 minutes - a new record for me. So many books and so many choices.

I dropped Jay’s computer off at the Apple Store in Rosedale Mall. This experience was disturbing to say the least. Apparently the US culture has gotten so worried about speed that they have taken the human element out of service. You now don’t go in and wait in line to talk to a service rep. You need to go on a computer in the store and reserve a time. You can do it at home too. If this doesn’t spell the end of civilization. My time is so important that I can’t wait in line for a little while?

Here are some random things that stick out in my head about being home:

Got to hang out with my family and some friends. A special thanks goes out to Bri, Sean, Brenda, Pauline and my family n relatives. Thanks to their help, I got to Kato it at their places and some even got to drive their vehicles - a risk considering I haven’t driven in over a year and am used to traveling on the opposite side of the road. I enjoyed getting stuck in rush hour traffic, really. Got to see my nephew Silas for the first time - I’m an uncle! Played the new Wii. I felt like I had to rush to get to here and there, something I’m not used to anymore.

Played poker with the Albert Lea guys - the new AD made this feeling rise within me again, the urge to coach. Cool guy too - an Ole graduate as well. Hung out with the math department. Saw snow for the first time since 2004. Played tennis in Owatonna. The open house at Pauline’s and telling stories and hearing more from Frame‘s when he did Malawi. I took hot showers every day. Getting to see an AL girls b-ball game (I coached a number of those gals in tennis). Wearing my Chaco sandals every day. Got to experience the joy of pirating broadband on my new laptop and experiencing download speeds significantly over the 5kbps I‘m accustomed to here.

Don Pablo’s, Chipotle, Dairy Queen Blizzards, Arby’s roast beef. Thank goodness I was back into running. I lost 12lbs before I left (running) and ended up gaining 10 of ‘em back from the food I was eating. It was worth every calorie. Playing Candyland, winning and not having my opponent throw the board/pieces around (that‘s for you Hannah). Seeing how much Noah and Hannah have grown in 14 months. A freak win in pool over Bri (like my one foosball victory over him) - sinking the 8-ball in the kitchen end on the break - believe that was my only win for the evening. Meeting some PC group 25 and 26 families. I also, for the first time, felt like I was a visitor in my own home state and country.