A New Learning Center in Namibia

Chloe Faught, a year-long Namibia volunteer finishing up her service, reports on the successful creation of a Learning Centre at the secondary school where she teaches, put together thanks to funds that she raised through donations from friends and family back home. Originally from Canada, Chloe has spent the past year serving with her husband and teaching at Omugwelume Junior Secondary School.

Chloe and her students

"It wasn’t until late August that I learned that there was a small room, with lights & electricity, that was being used solely as a storage place for broken items. So in September I tentatively asked my principal and he agreed that if I could raise money I could transform the room.

The funds flew in during October and once I was sure that this was going to happen, we started cleaning out the room. I found the electricity in working order, but the room ugly, with a large termite hole in one corner. So drywall patching equipment was bought, and paint & termite killer to start us off.

Next was a journey to the local big city of Oshakati with my principal and Mr. Haindobo, who fortunately happens to be a part-time builder in addition to his teaching job. We bought many items for the infrastructure of the centre: boards & cement supports for shelves, a large metal security door, benches, etc. Once those were installed, we brought in spare metal tables & we were ready to begin with the audio equipment.

Some of the learning materials Chloe was able to gather for the Center

Now we have 4 CD players, some which play MP3s and some with Cassette players. We added security cables to keep them from being stolen, a lockbox to store all the items. I added a few beauty items like curtains (also for security) and tablecloths. Now in our cupboard we have more than 100 CD’s and cassettes and capacity for 13 headsets & splitters to be used. The kids have been in it and have listened to short stories, novels & music for hours at a time. I am so happy, and glad that John & Eve (Chris’ family) could bring over so much of your donations when they came to visit us.

I ended the year with a teacher training for all teachers interested and had a fun scavenger hunt of the room to learn about it. They had a fun time even though they originally thought they were too busy with marking. And I’ve created a schedule & system and put some teachers and learners in charge of it so that it will run next year."

Some of Chloe's students, including one in particular who inspired her to start up the Learning Center project. "Johannes (front left), is child #13 in his family (the "last born") but listens to everything I say and just absorbs it. I often find him secretly cleaning the library when I'm not around."

Johannes in the new learning center

This is just one instance of the meaningful community projects that our volunteers are able to implement while serving abroad in addition to their teaching assignments. More information regarding these opportunities as well as additional past examples can be found on our website, here.

"Home" for the Holidays

In the States, holiday season reaches a crescendo during these first weeks of December, sandwiched between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Starbucks greets us with peppermint lattes even before we’ve stopped eating recycled Thanksgiving dinners, and the local CVS loses no time in pumping “White Christmas” through the overhead speakers. Here, holiday festivities are happily impossible to avoid.

For most WorldTeach volunteers, however, this year’s Thanksgiving wasn’t the usual American production characterized by turkeys and family assemblages. On this family-centric holiday, they were continents apart from their loved ones, in countries where Thanksgiving was unheard of and cranberry sauce was an unknown entity. As a testimony to the spunk and creativity of our volunteers, some WorldTeachers created a modified version of Thanksgiving dinner with their teammates, reproducing a little bit of American tradition with their surrogate “families.” The Thailand team managed to produce a full Thanksgiving dinner – complete with a hard-to-find turkey – which they ate on floor-mats, in traditional Thai style!



Above: Caitlyn Pisarski from the Thailand team shares some photos of her team's Thanksgiving dinner - successfully made with Thai ingredients!

For WorldTeach volunteers, Christmas is also unlikely to be the classic ensemble of caroling and mistletoe. For most, the only truly familiar elements of the holidays will be the ones they carry with them – family traditions that survived the continent swap, and favorite recipes that can be recreated with local ingredients. They face an unusual challenge: how to summon the “holiday spirit” without the aid of outside sources. (In fact, most volunteers will go the whole month of December without hearing Elvis’ soulful voice the radio, reminding them to be “merry and bright.”) And by far the greatest challenge facing WorldTeach volunteers will be staying optimistic during a season when the absence of family and friends is impossible to ignore.

Fortunately, most WorldTeach volunteers have embraced their new homes and communities with both arms. One volunteer from Ecuador, after a Thanksgiving dinner with her team members and host family, wrote: “It felt like home…the only thing missing was my real family.” While our spirited volunteers can find local substitutes for almost all the components of Christmas, there's no foreign replacement for family and friends!

Tranquilo! :: A Gringa's Perspective

WorldTeach volunteer Emily Koester is based in Riobamba, Ecuador, located in the Chambo River Valley of the Andes. Having departed in September and completed her orientation, she is now teaching at a university located in the outskirts of town. Here, she shares her reflections about her first weeks at her placement and the contrasting mindsets she has faced as she settles in to a new culture.

A view of Quito, where the WorldTeach orientation is held [photo courtesy of Katie Calvert]

"It’s hard to believe that I’ve been teaching at ESPOCH university for over five weeks now. It seems like only a moment ago that I was facing my students for the first time, smiling with feigned confidence at a classroom of strange Ecuadorians. It turned out there was nothing to be afraid of – my students, a mixture of teenagers and 20-somethings, are all enrolled in the class as an extracurricular activity, and consequently they genuinely want to learn English. They amazingly complete homework on time, seem excited about games, and all wave a friendly goodbye to me before they leave.

Enthusiastic as my students are, convincing them to speak English at all times is a constant battle. I bought a pair of sheep ears at a Halloween shop, and have tried plopping them on the head of any student who dares utter a Spanish word. The method is surprisingly effective as well as entertaining for the other students, but I also can’t run around with sheep ears all hour.

Despite having completed “five weeks” of class, however, none of those has been a full week. Every week there has been some unforeseen obstacle for classes, and hence I have had several unforeseen vacations. The second day of teaching, for example, an Ecuadorian English teacher at ESPOCH stopped by my classroom to say good night. “Oh, and by the way, I told your students not to come tomorrow,” he told me off-handedly as he left. “Wait, what?” I asked him. “Well, there’s the soccer game tomorrow,” he told me, as if the next day were Christmas itself. “They’re missing class for a soccer game?” I asked doubtfully. Apparently, I was playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. “Your students wouldn’t come anyway,” he told me matter-of-factly.

A common phrase in Ecuador is “Tranquilo!” which basically means, “Relax!” So whenever class is canceled, or the lights flicker out in one of Ecuador’s ubiquitous power outages, or when people show up an hour late, or when striking students block the roads with flaming tires, you shrug and say, “Tranquilo!” The utter lack of predictability is pretty antithetical to Americans’ unshakable devotion to punctuality and progress. And things are often a little dysfunctional from so much “tranquilo” – garbage never gets cleaned up and buildings stand unfinished for years. At the same time, people can skip work for an afternoon to get ice cream with a friend, and no one breaks a sweat over running a few minutes late. As an American taking a break from the frenzied pace of life in the States, I can’t say I mind."

Chimborazo volcano, which overlooks Riobamba [photo courtesy of Peter Daniels]

Welcome to Boruca!!

Dan Perkins, a WorldTeach volunteer in Costa Rica, shares a video project he made with his second graders as a way to show everyone, including the volunteer who will replace him in 2010, around town.

Teaching the Teacher :: A Chinese Cooking Lesson

Jolie Lee, a year-long volunteer in China, writes about receiving a cooking lesson from some of her teenaged students at her teacher's apartment! Jolie, a Northwestern graduate who worked as a reporter in Chicago prior to serving with WorldTeach, is teaching Middle School in a town called Lengshuijiang, or "Cold Water River", located about four hours south of Changsha in Hunan Province.

One of Jolie's English classes

I wouldn't say I am a bad cook -- just an infrequent one. I cook a few things and I cook them well, but my repertoire is very limited. When I told my students that the main dish I make is fried rice, they immediately offered to whip up a meal for me. Teach the teacher. I was in charge of providing meats and vegetables, and they would do the rest.

Unfortunately, I failed at even this simple task. I inadvertently bought pork instead of beef, marinated eggs instead of regular eggs and and probably triple the amount of potatoes we needed. Nonetheless, my students are resourceful. Seven students descended on my apartment. A few who learned the art of cooking from their grandmothers took charge in the kitchen. I stood idly back, admiring their skill aloud.

Another food shopping faux pas I made -- I did not buy enough peppers. So while my kitchen steamed and clanked with the sounds of delicious food being made, I scrambled to the street outside of the school hoping the vegetable vendors were still around. No small green peppers, the kind found in nearly every dish. But I did find a larger variety that are not as spicy. I was also lucky enough to run into my neighbor and Chinese tutor, Mr. Tang, who offered to lend me some spicy pepper sauce when he heard my dilemma.

Being the resourceful girls they are, my students were unfazed by my failed mission. They started chopping the too-big, not-spicy-enough peppers. I saw they had finished two dishes already and were making two more. I had bought an eggplant that I thought would just end up in the garbage since I was leaving town the next day for a week. But my students had cleared out my refrigerator, including the eggplant, and were making the most of everything I had.

We ate in the living room, toasting orange juice and milk. The girls were happy in a way I never got to see in the classroom. When we finished off every last bit of food, they started taking silly pictures of each other. During class, my students are one mass of faces and black hair. But here with a handful of them hanging out with me in my home, I could pick out the personalities -- the goofy jokester, the serious brooder, the nice girl, the shy girl, the leader of the pack.

They called their head teacher to tell her they would be late for the evening self-study. I was afraid they would get in trouble, but they insisted that they could take time off from self-study, especially now since so many students were sick and not showing up in the evenings. But they could not miss the second self-study period and reluctantly left after helping me clean up.

"We'll do it again," I told them as they left. "I will buy beef next time."

A view of Lengshuijiang

A Patriotic English Lesson in Namibia

Jen Jackson, one of WorldTeach's Namibia volunteers now wrapping up her time in-country, shares with us her experience of teaching her 8th and 9th grade students their own national anthem (in English). Jen's placement is in the rural town of Divundu, teaching math and science for grades 8 - 10, and living with two other teachers in designated teacher housing.

Jen with some of her 8th grade students

"I have decided that I'm not leaving this school without teaching my classes the ACTUAL words to the Namibian national anthem. The song is really pretty simple, but it wasn't until I looked it up that I actually figured out what many of the words were.

Here's the song:
Namibia land of the brave
Freedom fight we have won
Glory to their bravery
Whose blood waters our freedom
We give our love and loyalty
Together in unity
Contrasting beautiful Namibia
Namibia our country
Beloved land of savannahs
Hold high the banner of liberty
Namibia our country
Namibia motherland we love thee!

---

Here are pieces of what I would hear:

..."Whose blood [muffle] our freedom"...

..."Constrassen beautiful"... (i.e. contrasting)

"Be love land sav[muffle]
[muffle muffle] of liberty"...

I started with "contrasting beautiful". I wrote it on the board, pronounced it, got them pronouncing it correctly, and explained what it meant. Man, ALL EYES were fully engaged. They were SO THANKFUL that someone was finally telling them the actual words!

By the time I get done with them, grades 8 and 9 will be leading the school, including the teachers, who also don't have a clue what most of the words are.

Interestingly, both classes I did this with asked about the American national anthem. I said that it was much longer, with quite a few more words. I sang the first verse for them; they humoured me and seemed impressed.

Next week we will tackle the "savannahs" and the "blood waters"..."

The principal's house at Divundu Combined School

photos courtesy of Jen Jackson

Changsha Scavenger Hunt :: Getting Oriented

The orientation provided by WorldTeach once volunteers arrive in-country is instrumental to their success as they acclimate to a new culture, gain critical teaching and language skills, and start to develop a support network through the community of like-minded volunteers in their departure group.

Our field directors in China, Chris and Theresa, set up this photo scavenger hunt for their year-long volunteers who arrived in Changsha this past August.

WT China 2009-2010: Orientation Photo Scavenger Hunt from WT China on Vimeo.

SAGE Guyana :: some of WorldTeach's amazing alumni

WorldTeach is proud to showcase an instance of WorldTeach alumni who have remained connected to their host countries and continue to make a meaningful contribution to the communities in which they served.

SAGE is an organization created and run by a group of returned WorldTeach Guyana volunteers whose mission is to empower young Guyanese to contribute positively and effectively to their country by increasing their access to post-secondary education. SAGE identifies secondary students with high academic potential but limited financial means and provide these students with scholarships to help fulfill their commitment to Guyana.

SAGE fosters development by identifying students with a commitment to their country, high academic promise, and limited financial means, and provides these students with scholarships while encouraging scholarship recipients to work within Guyana for several years after graduating. Targeting students living in the interior of Guyana allows educational resources to be re-invested in areas where development is needed most.

Learn more about SAGE

Guyana, a small country on the northern coast of South America whose official language is English, boasts some of the world's most natural beauty, including the world's tallest single drop waterfall, Kaieteur Falls, and an abundance of lush vegetation.WorldTeach runs a year-long program departing in August in direct partnership with the Ministry of Education of Guyana teaching math and science in some of their most underserved rural areas.

Learn more about WorldTeach Guyana