Hello from Okaku!

Hello to my dear friends and family reading this post! I miss you all dearly! 

And hello to the internet strangers reading this post! (I don't miss you all dearly, since I don't know you, but I hope you are well!) 

Things are going really well for my training group and I here in Okaku village. (For those who haven't seen it on a map yet, do a quick google search to see where I live! If you search "Okaku, Oshana, Namibia" you should see my training village on the map.) The past week here in Okaku was really great. I feel like I've settled into life here and have adapted to the routine of life here. I'm really enjoying teaching everyday, I love hanging out with my little host siblings (and the rest of my host family!), and the lack of electricity and other comforts of the modern world really doesn't even phase me anymore. Life is good here in Okaku! I feel very settled and am sad to be leaving here Thursday morning to go back to our center-based training in Okahandja. The good news is that this time that we're moving, it's back to a familiar place. We'll be moving back in with our host families from the first month that we were here in Namibia. My host parents in Okahandja still call me several times a week to check in on me and to make sure that "their daughter" is doing well. I've truly been blessed with some wonderful host families so far that have made me feel so welcomed and cared for. 

My plan for this post is to describe a bit about what my life is like in the village, now that I've settled into it. Here's a typical day:

5:45- begin my daily fight with the snooze button. 

6:00- force my lazy butt out of bed to go and boil water for my breakfast and shower (I'm lucky that I get to use the gas stove for my cooking needs, unlike the rest of the family that uses an open fire! Being a guest has its perks at times!)

6:10- eat breakfast. Typically instant oatmeal with a bit of sugar and powdered milk (no electricity = no fridge!) or an instant maize meal porridge that is flavored (chocolate, vanilla, etc). 

6:20- wash breakfast dishes (we have a bucket system, since there's no kitchen sink or running water in the house) and mix boiling and cold water until a desirable temperature is reached for my bath. 

6:25- bucket bath! (Surprisingly, a shower is not something I really miss. Bucket bathing is nice!)

[side note: at the end of a bucket bath, you also wash your undies and then hang them to dry in your room. Undies are very private/taboo in Namibia and must be washed privately instead of while doing laundry.]

6:40- get ready for school and pack lunch 

7:20- hop in the car with my host uncle for a ride to school

8:00- school starts. I teach 1-2 lessons per day, mostly English, although I've also taught life science (biology + chemistry) several times. When not teaching, I'm either grading, chatting, lesson planning, or studying. Or, currently, writing a blog post!

1:50- school ends. 

2:00- debrief with our support teacher about our day and ask her for advice with any difficulties we encounter. 

3:00- Oshindonga class!

4:00- hop in the car with my host brother, who graciously comes to pick me up everyday from school. (It's a ~35 minute walk and it's about 100F at 4pm. Oh, and also I have a broken toe at the moment because I'm a dummy, so I especially appreciate the ride!)

4:15- get changed into my "house clothes", aka the same daily lounging outfit of a tshirt and capris, hop on the Internet for a few minutes and see if I have any messages from you lovely people, and start lesson planning or doing Oshindonga homework. 

5:30- play with host siblings! Running around, making faces, blowing on each other, tickle fights, and other things that don't involve talking since we can't communicate too well! Our lack of a common language hasn't impeded a great friendship between the 3, 4, and 10 year olds and I! 

7:45- eat dinner! Every night, we eat oshithima (millet porridge), which you eat with your hands, and dried (and rehydrated) meat and dip the oshithima into the meat sauce. It's delicious!

8:15- start getting ready for bed and read, journal, or browse the Internet. 

9:00- as there's no electricity and it's boring once the sun goes down (around 7), so it's sleeping time! 

Additionally, I do laundry on Sunday afternoons and sometimes bathe for a second time in the late afternoons if it's a sweaty day. On the weekends, we laze about, clean, and spend time together. I also typically go to church on Sunday's, which is a 3-4 hour affair. Life is simple and wonderful! 

Below are some new (and frequent) additions to our vocabulary as Peace Corps trainees. These are meant to express the humor and ridiculousness of our lives here!

1. "Fan my (sweaty) butt!" -- frequently asked of other volunteers when we're nasty and sweaty. A breeze on some sweat is glorious. 

2. "Don't look at my feet!" -- the never ending sand here makes for some perpetually dirty feet!

3. "Did you have second lunch today?" -- a common question, as most of the host families try and force food down our throats at all times. Luckily, my host family has acknowledged that I'm adult capable of feeding myself, so they've stopped trying to give me second lunch! 

I wrote this on my phone, so I'm not sure how coherent this post was, so please bear with me! Also, check out my most recent Instagram post with a video of our students performing at an all-school assembly this morning! Link here: https://instagram.com/p/8Lnxo2xanW/

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Sending lots of love across the ocean to you! Thank you for keeping up with my journey and for your thoughts and prayers. 

PS: since I wrote this post earlier today, the students taught us the songs they performed! We had SO much fun with them, laughing so hard at how funny the whole thing was. So as you watch the video on my Instagram, imagine us performing too!