Apologies for my infrequent blog entries of late – my long leisurely Gobabis weekends have been stolen away & replaced by city breaks. Now that I finally have good friends in the city it’s always too much of a temptation to getaway from Gobabis & swap solitaire for sundowners!
Rewinding slightly, work has become a relentless juggling act with the departure of my trusty Finance girl & I’m now stock controller, camp site manager, craft shop owner, community worker, concerned parent AND Finance manager….oh, did I forget Organisational Development Co-ordinator – silly me! In fact unless you count packing off the Trainee Field Worker for two weeks training/exile, I’ve done absolutely zero what I came here to do & time has starting ticking, reminding me that if I’m going to achieve anything I really need to shut the office door & get my head down for some serious report/proposal writing. Hence the reason I packed Gert off for two weeks…breathes sigh of relief.
Week before last was a whirlwind of tasks against the clock (which is highly irregular for Africa) I a bid to get my house straight before a week away with VSO. It started with Gerts 3month trial review (best skim over that), another visit to the headmasters office (again best skimmed over), stocking/reviewing pricing structures of the shop, an overnight stay at the camp site/morning meeting & re-election of campsite committee (me spinning the car on mud tracks…yes, we’ll skim that too), packing Gert off to the North & submitting advertisements for a new Finance manager – phew! I really enjoyed my G&T’s at Ruths place on Saturday night!
Sunday was spent at Daan Viljoen Wildlife Park (pronounced Dan villoon) just outside Windhoek. I was shamelessly unfit, trailing behind Ruth (in her 60’s) & blind as a bat – relying on her eagle eyed animal spotting. Unfortunately none of the big 5 (which is probably why they allow you to walk freely) – but I did see my first Wildebeest and Hartebeest along with the usual Gemsbok/Springbok/Kudu & Warthogs – get me, African wildlife specialist (!)
Monday I got to meet the rest of my secure livelihoods vso buddies – Pratap, Mark, Geert, Penny, Alun, John & Paul. We bussed up in the vso minivan to a place called Tsinstabis & the San Treesleeper Camp where Alun works. Out came the tent again (camping pro now!) …and some more G&T’s (!) Ever so slight colonial feel with Marks public school bellows of ‘Helleeew my dear/old chap’ whilst ‘continuing the struggle to fight dehydration’ (!) But a great 3 days was had by all – with a little bit of work thrown in (!) And I have only myself to blame for the dodgy stomach on the way back after supper of termites & local liquor. It was sad to leave the camp – not least because the San there were so great/motivated/helpful/kind & all round fantastic…..in other words a little dissimilar to those in Omaheke. So I said goodbye to the camp & my new vso buddies & a little jadedly returned to Gobabis/back of beyond.
Just to make sure I was truly miserable, on my return I had to move to the ‘flat’ behind the office to make way for the anthropologists I so kindly agreed to rent out my house/the training center to. So I moved into a squalid little room, battled the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen (bout the size of a medjool date, not as tasty), and contemplated again why exactly I was here.
In the morning I put on a positive front, had a workout at the gym & came back to tackle the hovel. Then Gertud came knocking (german anthropologist) just to see how I was – generally upbeat until she arrived in actual fact. Firstly she informed me that she’d just carted Maria & her mum to hospital as Maria was coughing up blood (Maria is going for an operation on Thursday related to her throat, I can only speculate on what might be the problem), she then followed this up with news from Corridor (where Hattie lives) asking casually had I heard about the murder there L of course I replied yes as Hattie mentioned about it happening last year. But that was last year…in fact someone was murdered just last weekend. Then it came out in dribs & drabs that it was a wife killed by her husband, and the family had gone off dancing as if nothing had happened the morning the body was found….and the woman that was killed was the lovely Marcella. Marcella was a very talented & beautiful musician who featured on 3 cd’s of San music and was the inspiration for Hattie’s work in that community after discovering her whilst working for a record company in London. I’m still in shock writing this & I can’t comprehend how someone could do that (although as can be seen from the communities reaction, its almost a normality in a place where domestic violence is as regular as brushing your teeth) or that she’s gone now for good and before she ever achieved the success that she was due for her outstanding talent.
A very sad day – rest in peace Marcella.
I wanted to share the Active Learning Blog Carnival with you http://activelearningcarnival.blogspot.com/. The carnival is a monthly journal where teachers like you share the best articles about active learning. I’m hoping to increase the international focus, so please consider submitting an article.