This week's escapades!

As per usual, there is never a dull moment when teaching in Katutura, Namibia…

The week started out wonderfully. In grade 5 we worked on rounding. But, what I didn’t know when preparing my lessons was that they had never in their lives been taught about rounding. I made the rookie mistake of assuming they at least knew how to round off to the nearest 10 and 100 since I was supposed to be teaching them to round to the nearest 10,000. Naïve teacher moment for sure! Well, after a disastrous lesson with the first class of students where they stared at me like I was nuts, I later realized, thanks to my teacher that I was in fact nuts. They had absolutely no clue what I was talking about. After that class, my teacher offered to teach the next period to show me how she usually introduces the concept and because I of course now didn’t really have a plan. I was planning to ask her to teach this particular class later in the week so I could observe their behavior (since it hadn’t been very good when I was teaching the past few days). It was SO helpful to watch her teach and use some of her techniques, since I am not used to being a “subject teacher” and many of my techniques are for elementary aged kids. I also observed their behavior and realized the kids hadn’t been engaged enough in my recent lessons. Watching her was super, super helpful! She is one of the few Namibian teachers I have met that truly loves what she does!

         There were many other small but wonderful experiences I had throughout the rest of the week both at school and the BNC, but this one affected me the most…

         On Thursday when I was walking to break, I walked past a classroom with swarm of 50+ learners standing outside and some with their faces pressed against the windows. I stopped for a moment and my heart dropped, knowing exactly what I was about to witness. I walked up to the classroom, peered inside the door and I just wanted to throw up. It was exactly what I had expected…the male teacher was standing at the front of the class screaming at a learner with his whip caulked back, ready to swing at this child. Meanwhile, the learner was sobbing as every kid stood there watching. As a naïve American, I thought for a moment that standing in front of the door where the teacher could see me might stop what was about to happen, but of course, that wasn’t the case. We had been prepared for the possibility of children being beat. It is now illegal in Namibia, although it used to happen quite frequently and still does happen on occasion. Every year the teachers sign a contract saying that they won’t beat the kids and they understand their job is on the line should they be caught. It is no responsibility of the school’s. But truthfully, nothing could have prepared me for this.

         As I stood in the doorway, awestruck, I didn’t know what to do. So I followed what I guess was my natural instinct and started shooing kids away from the scene. If this teacher was going to humiliate this kid and I couldn’t stop it, there was no reason for tons of other children to be watching. I spent the next 5 minutes shooing kids away from the doorway, listening to the whip beating against this boy’s bare skin. When the madness finally stopped, the boy walked out of the classroom, head down, sobbing. I waited a few minutes and turned around as if I was going to walk away. Once I was out of the sight of the teacher, I turned around and followed the boy. We went behind a building where nobody could see him and I stood with him, rubbing his back, coaxing him to take deep breaths. He was sobbing so hard he could barely breathe. When he finally calmed down, I asked was able to get his name and what grade he was in. Johannes from grade 6D. I then asked him about what happened and he told me the kid behind him was kicking his desk and when he wouldn’t stop he turned around and “beat” him. (Mind you, even the slightest thing like poking or touching someone is considered beating in Namibia.) We talked about what he could do in this situation next time and I asked him if the other kid was hit as well and of course the answer was no. I asked to see where he was hit and he showed me the palm of his hand, glowing red. It was everything I could do not to cry at this moment. I opened my arms and told him he could hug me if he wanted and he turned around, this child I had never even met, and gave me a huge squeeze. The whole experience was horrifying and completely broke my heart. I am still in shock I watched that happen and can’t believe that was ever acceptable anywhere in the world.

         On a happier note…a story that brightened my Thursday… Jacky, a sweet boy in grade 5 has completely stolen my heart. He has the sweetest, most endearing smile. He has a horrible past of abuse both towards him and others in his household. He has been neglected time after time and is repeating grade 5 for the first or second time (I’m not sure). For the last two months, I’ve watched him get bullied and beat on by other learners for various reasons, one of them being his pencil case. Kids have a school bag/backpack of some sort that is inevitably falling apart because of the many pounds of books they carry around with them every day to and from school. Every kid also has a pencil case where they keep all of their supplies. I have noticed Jacky carries around his pencils in an old plastic shopping bag. Kids make fun of him for it because even here, it is a sign the family really has no money to spare. As I have observed this, I had an idea last week that towards the end of my time here, I would give him mine. At the end of class, I ran out the door calling after him to come back. I took him into the office in my classroom, told him to bring his bag and get out his pencils. Then, I dumped out my supplies and told him to throw away his bag and put his pencils in mine. It was his. He looked at me with a little bit of disbelief and said “thank you teacha!” I gave him a hug and of course we had to take a picture. It breaks my heart to think about children like Jacky and whether or not they will fall through the cracks when we leave. I have to give him every last bit of my love and attention for this next week and pray he will continue to work hard and pass grade 5.

         Finally, on Wednesday and Thursday I finally brought out the letters my 2^nd and 3^rd graders in the states wrote. I talked to my grade 7’s about the US, about these kids and what school was like in the U.S. I passed out a letter to each one of them to read and respond to. By the end of next week, every single one of my Namibian grade 7’s will have read a letter from a child in the U.S. and in a few weeks all of my U.S. learners will have read a letter from a Namibian child. The looks on their faces when they read these letters were so sweet. The classroom was dead silent and they were completely mesmerized. I can’t wait to give my Elk Plain learners a letter back with a  picture of their pen pal!

         What a week it’s been…it’s starting to set in that we are leaving next week. We are cramming every last thing in this weekend and getting together our last gifts and treasures to take home. None of us are really ready to leave and I cannot bare to think about saying goodbye to my learners next week. All I can do is enjoy every last second while I can!

Giving this sweet boy his new pencil case (Jacky)