Down on the farm

The building on the left is going to be for the family of the man that will be managing the farm on a day-today basis. Next to it is a greenhouse where I believe they are growing tomatoes.

This building you see here is a goat house in progress. There is probably a ramp going up there by now. They have a nice balcony with a view off the back.

I was lucky enough to have a chance to check out my cousin John's farm while in Kenya. It is taking forever to upload photos tonight, so I'll just be adding them piecemeal as I can. And I cannot say enough how wonderful it was to visit with John. He was a great host and I had the most amazing time. You'll probably be hearing that again.

Top left: That's John with his back to the camera taking a look at the progress of his composting.

Top right: The brown building is a mushroom house.

Cape Point continued...

Cape Point...and penguins!

My very own Shark Week

We're gonna need a bigger boat....

All the bad things that Julia and I endured while we were in Cape Town led to this great moment diving with Great White Sharks. I may be terrified to swim in places where I can't see what's below me, but for some strange reason I have always wanted to go cage diving with great whites. And Julia is absolutely obsessed with all kinds of sharks, so we got lucky enough to go out with Chris Fallows and his team (they shot the footage you see on Planet Earth) and see these beasts in the wild!

There is an island off Simon's town on the Cape pennisula where seals go to breed every year. This makes this area very popular with great whites since they love some delicious seal. So the day that we went was one of the first days of the breaching season. Breaching is when the sharks chase after the seals and leap out of the water. Unfortunately, the breaching didn't happen the morning we went out but we got to see a shark feeding on an already dead seal (they will scavenge for an easy meal) and we had 3 others come over an check out the boat.

Chris Fallows doesn't chum the waters to attract the sharks, but he put out a large chunk of tuna and a carpet cutout of a seal. Great Whites are very curious creatures and like to come over and check things out. They pretty much ignored the tuna, were very interested in the seal cutout and responded to the vibrations sent out when a pole was banged against the deck.

More to come...

BOTS

The Daring (and Sometimes Dangerous) Adventures of Megan and Julia in South Africa

My May holiday was supposed to start off with an educational tour to Swakopmund with the grade 11s. For whatever reason the transportation for this trip fell through so the kids had to stay up north and I got to start my vacation early...by going to Swakopmund anyways. I felt pretty bad about that. Especially since some of the kids didn't get the memo and showed up at school with their bags, all ready to go. It was terrible having to tell them the tour was cancelled, but they took it way better than American kids would.

Sharing the Glee love

Mom was wonderful enough to bring me Glee dvds when she came and so I introduced Glee to Susan and Rosa over the weekend. They were enthralled! I had promised they could watch something on Sunday and they showed up at my door at 9 o'clock sharp that morning. It was the perfect opportunity to get them into Glee...

7 episodes later I had to kick them out of the library so they could eat dinner (they had long since missed lunch).

Ready, Freddie, Fly!

Back in action

It's been a long time! I haven't had a working computer since April and then we were on a school holiday for a month, so those are my excuses. Now that my parents and brother came to visit and brought me a new computer I have no excuse. I have TONS to update, so hang in there while I work on getting new posts and lots of pictures up.

I used to live alone, but I'm now living with Mamiko, the Japanese volunteer, and Johanna, a Namibian teacher. Johanna is actually leaving Ponhofi at the end of the month to go on for more school down in South Africa...so, sad for us, but really exciting for her. In our house, which you can see above, we have the kitchen and a large living room in the middle. Then there are wings on either side. Mamiko has a wing all to herself, and then Johanna and I have rooms on the other side. I thought I would be by myself after Johanna left, but it looks like we finally got a new accounting teacher, Hambeleleni, and I think she will be moving in with me.

There will be more on my family's visit later, but here are some pictures that mom took when they visited the school. All my learners loooooove having their pictures taken, as you will see...

From left to right: Mirjam, Rosa, Susan, Me, Hendrina, Sean in the Ponhofi library.

These girls are my favorite grade 12 learners. Susan is the Head Girl of Ponhofi, so she has a lot of responsibilities that keep her busy. All four of them are incredibly bright and hard working and I expect great things out of them someday.

Here is my 11H class. I have them for both English and Life Skills. I love all my grade 11 classes, but this class is a lot of fun to teach because they like to ask a lot of questions. Creativity and imagination aren't always evident at the schools here, but this class is very curious and we can have some really interesting discussions.

So you can see that the kids are not at all excited to have their picture taken! This is 11D, my register class. Basically that means I'm like their homeroom teacher, except there is no homeroom.

Mom managed to sneak this shot of Sexon. Sexon is in grade 8, so I don't have him in class. But he latched on to me almost from the beginning. It's to the point that the other teachers jokingly call him "my son". You can find him in the library every afternoon, whether he's helping me run the library, participating in English club, or begging me to make him more brownies. He's my little sidekick and I really hope that he gets a chance to visit the US someday. He's already made friends with my cousin William, and was very disappointed that Aunt Kathleen didn't let William come with my parents to visit. Next time Will!

Here's Petrus from 11C. This is my third English class. This class lacks focus sometimes, but they are very into my Learner of the Week program. Every Friday in my English classes I announce the Learner of the Week. It's a chance for me to highlight someone that is behaving, doing really well academically, or has just done something outstanding during the week. The person I choose gets a certificate, a baked good (brownie, chocolate chip cookies or rice crispy treats) and a free photo. I get frustrated that the others make the learner share the treat that I bake, but they always tell me, "Miss, it's Africa. And in Africa we share!"

There is one learner in the class, Andreas, that I had a really hard time engaging at the beginning of the year. Then we did a lesson on idioms. Andreas had a tendency to try to sleep through class during this time, so when the idiom "when pigs fly" came up I used Andreas as an example, saying that unless Andreas stopped sleeping through class, he would only be Learner of the Week when pigs flew. Whether he just really wanted to be Learner of the Week and prove me wrong, or idioms were the lure I needed to interest him he really improved over the next week. So that next Friday when I announced that he would be Learner of the Week, he pointed out the window with a huge grin on his face and said, "Miss, look! There are pigs flying!" It was a very rewarding moment.

So there's a run down of my classes. Hopefully it gives a little more insight into where I'm teaching. Check back soon for more posts...I have a whole month of travels to write about!

Etosha: Take 2

Here are some pics to tide people over until I can post more

The first glimpse of lions! At first we had no idea what was blocking our way, but I thought that they looked feline.

This is the storm we were heading into last Friday on our way to Etosha. Our tents were not up to the task of keeping us dry so we all ended up sleeping in the car. Not the most comfortable night of sleep I've ever had!

Ruacana Falls

Don't worry, we didn't see any.

The rocks had been worn down into a seat where you could sit on the edge and let the water rush over you. It was so relaxing...Julia and I felt like we were at the most exclusive spa in the world!

Pa, Ecky, Julia and Kyle

The past two weekends have been jam-packed with traveling. Three other volunteers are fairly close to me and I've been able to hang out with them almost every weekend since we got up north...it works out nicely that we all like each other so well! So Julia, Brent, Kyle and I planned a trip to Ruacana Falls. It's a waterfall that has been dammed up and now provides power to about 70% of northern Namibia, if I remember correctly. Also, technically you leave Namibia and are in Angola briefly when you visit, so this will be the only time I set foot in Angola. During the rainy season (which is now) the falls can be very impressive so we decided to play tourist and get away from our towns for a couple of days.

Everything fell into place nicely for us...we had planned to hike there on Friday after school, but Kyle's colleague David, or "Pa", was nice enough to offer to drive us. It wasn't an entirely altruistic offer, though, since Pa had never been to Ruacana and it gave him an excuse to go. He brought a friend, Ecky (I'm probably butchering the spelling of his name), and we set off on a meandering route to the falls. Pa and Ecky were up front and the rest of us arranged ourselves in the back of the truck. Luckily it was covered and it really wasn't a bad way to travel...the alternative would have been much hiking with many more people in a more cramped space, so we were happy to have the luxury of Pa's truck.

We stopped in Ondangwa for food and wine, where we were made fun of by the woman at the check out because Julia and I rolled up with a ridiculous amount of chocolate and marshmallows for s'mores. Randomly enough, once we explained what we were planning to do with such a copious amount of chocolate, the woman said that she had tried s'mores before when she was in Wyoming.

Then we needed to stop at KFC in Ongwadiva (I'm not sure I've ever eaten at a KFC in the states) for dinner and then Pa needed to stop in Oshikuku to say hi to his girlfriend. We didn't reach Ruacana until after dark. There wasn't anyone on duty at the campsite but it looked like there were some people behind a fence sitting around a fire. Pa and Ecky got out to ask the man (a white afrikaner) about camping and he was incredibly unhelpful and told them they couldn't camp there. The four of us then got out to talk to him to see if that would help and the guy back tracked a little bit, but still said he wouldn't recommend camping there since we hadn't made a reservation. So we backtracked up the road to a shebeen to find out what we should do. We found the woman in charge of the campsite hanging out there and she told us just to go back and camp and that we could pay in the morning. So back we went and set up camp. Pa and Ecky clearly thought we were crazy to sleep in tents on the ground so they slept in the back of the truck and the rest of us pitched some tents. Then we settled into an evening ginger nut cookies, boxed red wine, and some raucous games of skip-bo.

The next morning came all to soon and we were up early to find the falls...I had been hoping to do some hiking, but it was more of a drive. I really didn't have high expectations, so when we found the falls it wasn't hard to be impressed. We viewed it from the top for awhile and then walked down the stairs (something like 479 of them) where you could scramble over the rocks down to the very bottom. Maybe the falls themselves aren't as physically impressive as Niagara Falls or Vic Falls, but we were completely alone there. We were there for 3 or 4 hours and we never saw another person. It was an incredible feeling. We had a picnic on the rocks and lay out in the sun for hours and it was amazingly peaceful. It was wicked hot though, so when we found a spot at the edge of one of the rapids where you could sit safely and have the water rush over you we all indulged in a safe dip.

Afterwards we continued our lazy afternoon lounging around the campsite. The only thing that would have made the weekend more complete would have been if we had gotten the goat that had been offered to us...the woman who ran the site came over to say there was a goat auction going on and to see if we wanted one. This would've involved killing the goat ourselves, and Brent said he was up for it. I wasn't too sure about the killing part, but I would've eaten it, but we waited too long and missed out.

Sunday morning came and we loaded up our stuff and crawled back into the truck to head back home.