4 months later...

Yes, it's been almost 4 months since my last post and I'm sorry. I've been veryyy busy and have just never had the time to update this.

Well, we broke up from gqaina on the 30th November and headed north to Opuwo. From there we hitched south to Sesfontein and then Twiffelfontein and the Brandberg area. We then went to Swakopmund and Walvis Bay and then hitched to Sossusvlei with a tourist. After we went down to Luderitz and met the other volunteers. Then I hitched straight down all the way to Cape Town for the 14th December (birthday) and I met up with all the other volunteers. We stayed until the 27th December and then me and Jamie hitched along the garden route to Durban, in time for a bus back to Windhoek lasting 30 hours!

There's my travelling route, brief, but there for all to see. To hear about the gritty, fun, bad, extreme, exciting experiences you'll just have to speak to me personally about it. After all, my parents can see this blog.


Back at Gqaina
So its now over half way through February and it's also over half way through my time overseas. I have not gotten homesick at all which is a great thing, but sometimes I do think of home and miss certain things.. mainly the food!
Since I've been back, we've killed many snakes (including the mamba's) and even a kudu. I've just been settling back into the teaching routine and talking about the holidays with all the learners.
I have started up a 'Topic Class' where the learners get to chose what they want to learn about, just to help them gain some general knowledge. Most of them can't even tell the time at 14 / 15 years old and don't know where Namibia or England are on a map. I have also started up an arts class and bought drawing books and pencils for the keen ones.


The learners are really starting to grow on me and I care more about them than going back. I will probably never see them again or contact them as they have no internet, or money to afford stamps to England.  I'm trying really hard to teach them everything I know and help them to get on in life.

This post may seem a bit detached at parts, but it's break time so I'm rushing and I really have to go back and teach now!!


All is well (=

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! :)