The Ups and Downs

The agricultural show was great, I saw many HUGE cows and traditional farming equipment. It was a lot of fun with the grade 7's too. After this me and Jamie stayed overnight in Windhoek at the cardboard box hostel and the school went home. The next day we got up at 6 and got a taxi to a combi meeting place. Once here we got a lift straight away to Swakopmund for a reasonably cheap price. It was a long journey and very cramped, but 4 hours later we arrived in Swakop! Wow! It was windy and cool, very similar to England! We walked around a bit and found some accommodation, Desert Sky Backpackers. Funnily enough this was where Mary and Fran were staying (otjikondo volunteers) and we booked into the same dorm. We went out again and walked to the sea, it was very choppy and freezing cold so I decided not to swim. We got a surprised call from the others and went back to meet them. It was very good to finally meet some other English people again and talk! We went out for a pizza altogether that night. Something about 4 volunteers in the middle of Namibia just chilling and eating a pizza gave me that warm glow inside.
    The next day we said our goodbyes to the others (they left) and me and Jamie went on a desert tour for 6 hours. It was very interesting and we saw some amazing views of the famous moon landscape and the towering sand dunes of Namibia. We also drove through a current film set for Mad Max 4 being filmed in Namibia so those people in England, watch mad max 4 when it comes out! After a tiring day we headed back and walked to the pier at night. It was nice to get that sea breeze on my face - nothing like this at  gqaina. The next day we booked some sand boarding... Wow was that fun! The dunes were beautiful and perfectly golden. The boarding was very thrilling even if i fell over a lot and I reached 74km p/h when lying down. One thing that wasn't so good was getting a mouth full of sand after facepalming the dune after a jump!
 Then that night we got an old steamtrain back to Windhoek. It took 10 hours; it was sooo slow and uncomfortable - ill never complain about British rail again! Eventually we arrived and hitched back to gqaina via gobabis, just in time for bed on Tuesday. Altogether it was a great mini holiday!

After all that excitement there was bound to be a down... And it came. My famous ingrowing toenail decided to make a guest appearance and eat my toe. After much re arranging appointments I finally got the operation booked. It was very bloody and I have stiches in my toe now which are most uncomfortable! The op was on Thursday and I still can't walk. I won't go into details but I had to change the bandage myself today and well , the toe was... Er... A mess. And to make matters worse one of the teachers invited us to go to their farm this weekend to go horse riding and hunting and braai-ing. But I couldn't go :( so we stayed!
My chin is up though and should be limping tomorrow!
One of the teachers is away next week so me and Jamie will take the grade 2 ourselves all week! That's something to look forward too!!

Apart from this I'm all okay! Hope you are all well!
x

Long Weeekend!

Today is my first long weekend: I get Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off!! Ahah more like a week off!
Tomorrow we are going with the grade 7s to Windhoek for an agricultural show - which is meant to be a great event! Then we are staying overnight in Windhoek and hitching to swakopmund on Saturday. Really looking forward to it as it is known as the 'adventure capital' of Namibia. Might go for a skydive or water skiing!
Then we're going to get a train back on Monday night to Windhoek and then return home on Tuesday!
We managed to contact other volunteers in otjikondo and will hopefully meet them in swakop!

Can't wait for this weekend, it's going to be very fun! Will take lots of pics!
Hope all is well in England!

Home sweet home

F

Okay, so I'm not going to be able to update this blog or go on the Internet as much anymore so I thought I'd upload some pictures of my room, so you can get a feel for what I'm living in. Above are: my room, our kitchen area , and the doors- left is my room, middle Jamie and right is the bathroom .
I'm having a great time and getting along with everyone!
If you want to try some food that I'm cooking here:
1.boil some curly macoroni pasta with salt.
2. When it's nearly done, fry some cut up chicken rolled in herbs and pepper in a pan of oil.
3. Take out the pasta when done and leave to drain, use same saucepan and heat gently: 1 tin of cherry tomatoes in sauce, pepper, herbs, and a splash of milk.
4. When chicken is white (not brown yet) add a whole chopped onion and fry with the chicken.
5. When onion is done and sauce is warm.. Serve up!
6.

Last night I cooked us a Braai (African BBQ) which went down well. Although we didn't have many ingredients so we had chicken, onion and butternut squash.
It's 9.00am here and I just got back from a morning run - views are fantastic!

Here I am next to my Braai -^

All is well!

Peace

We're free to do what we want at the weekends, so after helping out around the school, I took a sketchpad and pencil and coke and walked outside the school. I went and sat under the shade of a tree at the top a hill about 5 minutes away .. Silence. All I could hear was the occasional buzz of a fly or the local goats roaming around; it's so peaceful here. Nothing like England, no motorways or busy shops.. Namibia (Y)

Ridin' Solo

I had my first solo teaching lesson today - Arts with Master Lucas (sounds like a some sort of Jedi knight) Grade 2 (this is around 8/9 years old).
I was sitting at the back of the class waiting for the English lesson before to end then suddenly Lucas walked over to me and said "Go on" , for a minute I paused and then asked "You want me to teach now?!" with which he replied "YES my friend !" and walked off to do some paperwork. Talk about being put on the spot!! I walked to the front slowly, with all of these eager eyes were upon me, a couple of children felt my hand as I walked past then - probably thinking I was some sort of painted man. I tried to think of something to teach on this 5 second walk, and then it came to me! At the front after I had turned around and seen all their smiling faces - drawing animals! I introduced myself and they all exclaimed "HELLO MR.GEORGE!" (even though most of them new me anyway! I found that when you tell 1 child your name... Nearly all 300 know your name within 1 hour!) I quickly explained the lesson, handed out paper and asked them all to name and draw their favourite animals! It took a whole but eventually all I could hear was the eager scratching of pencils and crayons on paper - trying to make their picture the best! I drew a giraffe on the blackboard for inspiration , and at the end of the lesson a few of the children had attempted to copy my giraffe exactly!
I said my goodbyes and went out, after all the children had handed in their pictures - "wait! Wait! Mr.george!" It was a enjoyable lesson and Master Lucas was pleased!
The pictures are currently decorating my fridge and walls of my room! Next lesson I think we'll learn about colouring in neatly!
Enjoying every minute here, hope everyone's enjoying England! :)

First Day

Last night me and Jamie walked around the school and managed to convince a teacher to give us a football! We met our first group who's names are Suarez, villa, Gerard, iniesta, drogba and silva! They were all so happy to play with the ball and thought we were English footballers! Ha!

Today we started officially although not all the children ('learners') had arrived. We started off with a meeting of the teachers and then I helped out in an arts class - wordsearches and colouring in! It was very fun! Later on we had another teacher meeting... It was VERY long!
Now we are just resting In our room and are about to go and help out with soccer practice!
One of the coaches wants us to help, and if we do, when the team enters the league we will be able to travel around Namibia!

Still hot as ever!

Touchdown!!!

And so I have arrived! After many flight hours and waiting... touchdown!

For the past 3 days I have stayed in a hostel named 'The Cardboard Box' about a 5 minute walk from Windhoek. It has a bar, pool, computer, and several rooms with bunks in. I have walked into Windhoek every day and have already had Nando's and KFC! - Very African I know! The Fanta here is soo good too! it's so much better than the UK version! Windhoek lager is also pretty cheap! We have already been offered drugs and asked if 2 of us were married! (obviously we declined! no panic!)

Anyway, today... OH we also saw some giraffes as well the other day! as I was saying: Me and Jamie got picked up from our hostel this morning by 2 teachers in a battered VW campervan. We picked up another teacher and then started the trek to Gqaina School! Van Zyl (Head of school) had already bought us some sweets and coke for the journey! On the route we saw many animals including warthogs, wild horses and cows and a strange Dodo kind of bird (We nearly killed it). 

         After 3 hours we arrived at Gqaina school! WOW! It was hot! we unpacked out bags and put them into our new flat on the school campus (when I say flat I mean Brick Hut). The flat has everything! 2 separate bedrooms, with wardrobes bigger than my one in UK, a bathroom with solar heated water and shower, a kitchen area with a fridge/freezer, microwave, kettle, 2 hobs, pans and pots, and a few essentials like rice and bread. (on route to the school we stopped at Gobabis, and bought some extra supplies with our NS$800 (each)) The flat also has a living area with about 8 chairs... even though there are only 2 of us in it..... it's nice to have a selection! We didn't see the school grounds a lot but I caught a glimpse of the football pitch and playing area... can't wait to give it a go and release my inner-child! 

After we had unpacked, Van Zyl, drove us to her farm because there is more to do here! (I am currently here, sitting on her computer, with the equivalent of UK Dial-up 0.5mb internet! In non computer terms... VERY slow... 10 mins to load google!) The farm is HUGE! and she has three!! There are cattle, and old tractors and lorries which look as if they drove straight out of the 40's. She is very nice and we are making ourselves at home, at her expense! Anyway, I must be off! I can't be seen as anti-social!!! And these people are so interesting!

All the best from George!

Hope everyone is having fun in UK!
(p.s. It's around 29 degrees here non stop, mmm... tan)

(p.s.p.s. We have no internet at the school I think, so I wont be able to contact people very often!)
x

The Year So Far...

This last year has be hectic! With passing my driving test, A levels and AS resits, choosing a university, London 2012 Olympics, my 18th, infinite jabs and injections and not to mention fundraising towards my £5,100 total! BUSY seems to be the appropriate term.

It all started from when a returned volunteer arrived in my college and gave a talk about Project Trust and his year abroad. I was intrigued from the start and stayed behind to have a chat. I signed up there and then (that night) and couldn't wait to get going. After going through a week's selection course and then 4 days Training course later on in the year, I had found out I was going to Namibia! Gqaina School!

Excitement arose as the UK leaving date approached! And now I'm here.... It's amazing....