Christy in Namibia - Peace Corps

Hey all! As per usual, I'm behind on blogging. This will be a quick post with updates on how life has been here since... September, the last time I blogged about life! September Exciting things: Receiving my first visitor in Namibia-- Elyssa, a friend from U of I, who was passing through at the end of her PC service in Tanzania! highlights: showing off our village, school, and learners; learning how to walk to the lake in our village by being escorted by some of my learners; going to Ben's birthday party in town Going to a wedding at a colleague's house!  highlights: all hanging out together; Wambo chicken! Less exciting things: Injuring my arm from excessive cleaning lowlight: getting a cordisone injection at the doctor in Ongwediva General feelings: It's been so long that it's hard to remember September now, but I know Elyssa's visit made the month quite fun! Photos: Elyssa and I at Outapi's famous Baobab tree My colleagues

Hi all. I’m a bit behind on blogging; I still haven’t written about my friend Elyssa’s visit or about being a resource volunteer at group 44’s PST. But, that can wait. What I feel that I need to write about today is the current state of affairs in the USA and my thoughts. I’ve sat by quietly and followed the current events through news articles and friends’ facebook posts for the past few months, feeling a bit too out of the loop to make any commentary. However, I can’t sit idly anymore. The current state of affairs is way too messed up to keep quiet about. The institutionalized racism that is clearly rampant in the USA truly is mind-boggling to me. From numerous police shootings of black men to the discrimination against black women ( www.revelist.com/viral/Tameka-cross-delta-doctor-discrimination/5240 as one example), it is really unbelievable and out of control. It truly sickens me and shows me how much work we still really have to do as a society to overcome history. I was lu

Hello, my lovely blog readers! I strive to keep you updated on my life here in Namibia and thought that you may want to be updated on the situation here as well. At present, we are on the verge of what appears to be an impending teachers' strike in Namibia. This could have enormous implications on the country of Namibia and a small impact on my service as well. Here's the story. So, the Namibian National Teachers' Union (NANTU) is requesting an 8% raise for all teachers in Namibia, mainly because of the rising cost of living. The Government of Namibia has said that they cannot afford this raise this school year and will offer a 5% raise this year and a 7% raise next year. NANTU then pointed out that the senior officials in the Ministry of Education received a ~26% raise this year, so the point about not having enough funds seemed a bit off. Due to dissatisfaction to the government's reasoning, NANTU decided to have all members vote either for or against striking unt

Did you ever go to summer camp? I BET YOU LOVED IT! If not, get a window into camp life here in Namibia with Camp GLOW! Camp theme: Superheroes: Soaring to new heights! Camp GLOW (Girls and Guys Leading Our World) Namibia is a holiday camp for learners from all over Namibia. It's a week-long camp for school children to develop their leadership, communication, empathy, and teamwork skills. The camp is completely free for learners, so that cost won't prevent them from gaining a life-changing experience. It's been going on for many years here in Namibia (run by Peace Corps Volunteers and Namibian facilitators) and it's also a global Peace Corps initiative. I had the privilege of being selected as a member of Peace Corps Namibia's working group, GAIN (Gender Awareness in Namibia), which puts on Camp GLOW. As such, I was a facilitator for Camp! It was a tremendous experience and one of the highlights of my service thus far. We had 43 AMAZING kids from all over

As the title states, the month of August was a total whirlwind. Here's the run-down: August 5th-- Hosted a going away party for my dear, dear friend Linnea. Her two years are complete and, of course, we had to send her off properly. We enjoyed homemade mac n' cheese, honey sriracha chicken, broccoli, etc. A true feast for a PCV! It was bittersweet to say goodbye to Linnea. She was a phenomenal volunteer in her community, so it was great to have a chance to honor that and put her in the spotlight. At the same time, Linnea is one of my best friends (and the closest volunteer to me) and I truly can't imagine my service without her. Her absence will certainly be something to get used to! August 6th-- Travel down to Otjiwarongo, where two PCVs are stationed, to visit with friends. It's more than halfway to Windhoek, so it makes for easier travel southwards. August 7th-- Travel the rest of the way down to Windhoek. August 8th-12th-- Our Midservice training! We had 2 (

Some days start out well.  On other days, like today, you get stung by a stinging ant within the first 20 minutes of waking up and it stings all day long.  However, the start of the day isn't always indicative of how the rest of the day will be. And today, that was so very true. I got the BEST NEWS EVER today! As I was leaving grade 7A and was carrying on to grade 6A's classroom for their lesson, I asked for someone from 7A to please bring the class set of textbooks back to my desk. One of the brightest learners in the class, Anatolia, jumped up for the task. We had to walk the same direction for a bit and as I was turning off to go to grade 6A's class, she quickly said, "Miss!," in order to stop me. I turned, a bit surprised, and asked, "Yes, Anatolia?" Here's what she told me next: "Miss, I just wanted to inform you that my mother received a phone call and I was awarded the scholarship to attend school in Windhoek. So I want to thank you

Hey all! I’m going to stop starting off every blog post with an apology for how long it’s been since I’ve posted. I’ve been here for nearly a year now and I honestly forget to blog! Namibia (and specifically Oshikulufitu) is now home and sometimes it seems silly just to write about everyday goings on at home. Things are going great here. I am so happy and satisfied with life these days. I have a lot of solid connections and friendships here and I am constantly making more… as I was sitting in church this morning and my mind was wandering (tends to happen since the service is in Oshiwambo), I started to think about how insanely fortunate I am to have so many wonderful relationships in my life—all around the globe. I have so many fantastic friends, family members, and family-friends all over the USA. I have a second family in Spain, in addition to lots of great friends. And now I’m lucky enough to call a third country “home” and have a third and fourth family (and maybe more) he

Anywhere you live in the world and any job you work at, you will always have good days and bad days. But somehow, the bad days as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) seem particularly bad and the good days particularly good. During my time as a PCV, I have felt some of the highest of highs of my life and some of the lowest of lows. On my blog, I normally write about the good and the routine. However, today I’m writing about the bad! Today was an awful day at school. Yesterday, I had a great lesson with each section of grade 6 all about how to write a friendly letter. I was so happy and had so much fun and they really really seemed to understand the content—a success of a lesson! I had such high hopes for today and was excited to see the letters that grade 6 wrote as homework. Things took a turn for the worse when I went around this morning to check their homework… in section 6A, 12 of the 22 learners either copied their letter from the examples in the textbook or didn’t write a letter a