Woke up, got out of bed...

5:20 am – Wake up, hit snooze on my amazing Nokia phone that includes a built-in flashlight. Very handy here.

5:30 am – Roll out of bed, get dressed and walk the 1200m or so to my school. Accompaniment: rosters crowing, despite no sun yet.

6:00 am – Eat cereal, juice, wonder if I have actually planned for the day. Begin boiling water for instant coffee.

6:45 am – Wander over to the school grounds. At this point I know that school will be disrupted by the following: morning assembly (every Friday), some sort of assembly on AIDS/HIV, planned the day before, and the school tournament happening this weekend. Don’t know yet what time school will let out. Wonder if I will actually give test in life science. School “bell” rings (picture air-raid siren).

6:55 am – Morning assembly begins. Sun rises over plateau behind all the learners, singing gospel sings and the national anthem. Handful of teachers stand behind me and SMS the whole time.

7:02 am – Reflect on the interesting difference between the US and Namibia regarding separation of church and state. Not really existent here.

7:17 am – Morning assembly ends. We still don’t know when school will let out today. Principal suggests a short meeting to talk about it. Said meeting never occurs, and I head to my classroom.

7:20 am – Take attendance, then tell my kids to go to class. Class of 31 8th grade girls comes my classroom. I brace myself.

7:20 – 9:20 am – Fake my way through three periods. Turns out I won’t give my test today. I am informed five minutes beforehand that school will let out.

10:00 am – Head with 10 boys and two teachers over to the athletic field to prepare the soccer field for the tournament. This involves raking weeds out of the dust (no grass here), putting nets up in the goals, and painting lines that we judge by eye.

2:00 pm – Head home, eat a late lunch. Take malaria pill.

3:00 pm – Walk to Carmen’s place. Begin watching bootleg copy of Watchmen on her computer. It briefly switches into German. Strange.

6:30 pm – Walk back to my school to help with tournament events. These include Overitje dancing and a beauty contest, both involving the learners. Beauty contests are big here. Also highly inappropriate.

6:57 pm – Discover my help is not needed. I am told to show up at 6 am tomorrow to help draw the tournament matchups. I would later find out that this was done without me. Oh well.

7:06 pm – Walk back over to Carmen’s. Finish watching Watchmen, and eat delicious dinner prepared by Ayoola. Watch the news. Worry about the fact that the water is supposed to be out for three days.

9:30 pm – Bed time. It is difficult at this point to stay up beyond 10:15 on any given night. Set alarm for 5:20 again, little do I know this is not necessary. Read The Two Towers for a while, and fall asleep.

Ocean to Ocean Vol. II

From Swakopmund, we went on an epic 4 day combi/bus journey to Mozambique, with a day layover in Johannesburg. The northern section of South Africa is apparently modeled after Iowa:

Here is Carmen, Ayoola and Nathan, as we relax on the beach in Tofo. We are probably playing hearts, euchre, or spades:

A frog that decided to make its home in Carmen's shoe:

And the lovely beach in Tofo:

Maybe not as epic as going to Vic Falls, but relaxing. It was great to see lots of southern Africa by bus as well.