September 15, 2010
It has been a fun filled week of sports and tests. On Friday, all the trainees ended up going to the town hotel and ordering pizza by the pool. The pool was actually freezing but it was so good to swim when it is so hot all day. We had a blast and I was back by 7:30pm. The next morning, we went to the community hall where we have class and we had a group of traditional Oshiwombo dancers come in. It was a hilarious morning. The group would dance to drumming that the dancers themselves produced and some singing that they did. They were in traditional outfits, had skins wrapped around their lower half of their bodies and canes to work with. They would stomp so hard and make such loud, fast rhythms with their feet it was unbelievable. It is very hard to explain, but hopefully I can figure out how to post my pictures on here. And hopefully I have some pictures. We taught them the electric slide, because we could not come up with anything better. It seemed that it could have been potentially overwhelmingly embarrassing especially since we did not have music, but the lack of music actually made it better. We did it to a drum beat. They seemed to like it a lot. We also did the chicken dance, the worm and the tootsie roll lol. We were really trying to come up with something.
Sunday I went to church again and I was asked to sing another testimony. The preacher said that I was already on the program so I had to do it. However, I decided to respectfully decline. I’m unpredictable. After church, I went with my friend Ryan to play basketball. His host dad is the vice president of the Namibian Basketball Federation here and we went to the only school in the area that has a basketball hoop. Everywhere there are netball courts. Netball is this knock-off basketball sport that has hoops but no backboards and you can not dribble. It is very strange and slow apparently. I get picked up in a car by Ryan, his host dad, Snake, and D. We roll into the court, which only has one hoop, and there are a bunch of Africans standing around listening to Namibian rap music. Snake opens up the door for me because his car is really a three door and we hop out and give our greetings. Handshakes left and right, like whad up whad up whad up, except it is more like “How are you? I’m fine. Thanks, How are you?” They do not know what’s up means here.
The court is the most ghetto thing I have ever played on. Instead of tar/cement, it is composed of cracked concrete blocks that are not level. The hoop is about 9 ft tall and it was seriously bent such that I did not want to shoot from one side. No net obviously. The backboard is made of rotting wood so if you fire it at the backboard, it will likely go in due to the impact that the board can take. Snake and D make the brilliant decision to fix the rim so Snake gets wire clippers out of his car and they clip off some of the barbed wire that surrounds the court. There is barbed wire everywhere and for no reason sometimes. You will see things that are partially enclosed by barbed wire that absolutely have no reason to be, not to mention that partially encircling something doesn’t keep anything out. So Snake gets the barbed wire and gets on D’s shoulders and tries to maneuver a way to get the rim to stay in place. Then someone pulled up their car onto the court and he stood on that. It was one of my favorite images of Africa thus far. I mean this image is what I live for. They got it to work, the rim was straightened out, and we balled. It was so much fun that when the sun went down, we turned on all the car headlights in order to keep playing. I am playing again with them tomorrow. Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday baby.
One of the guys that we played with asked us if we would play softball with them this Wednesday and we said yes. They had all the equipment and we got about 13 players from Peace Corps to come with us. We also had some Peace Corps spectators. We did not have his contact number and we did not exactly know where to go. All 20 of us just went to a field and hoped. Upon arrival, you could see 10 high school aged Namibians in full baseball uniforms in front of a portable backstop amongst a field of people playing soccer, rugby, and track. I was picturing Bozo-esque slow pitch softball but it wasn’t. The pitcher really gave it some heat, and there were strike outs. We had a bunch of people who had never played but we still competed with these boys. They apparently do not have any opponents really, because they are one of the only softball teams in Namibia. Go figure. And here they are in matching uniforms, pants and all, with their names on the backs of their shirts, without anyone to compete against. It was a blast. We played until the sun went down and ended up tying them 7-7. We are hoping to make it a weekly ordeal.
I am half-way done with my training. It is incredible. I had my LPI , or my language assessment interview, and it was wild thinking about how far I have to become proficient. It is hard in an English-speaking country to learn the language. It has been good having Ebba here, because she and my host mom speak in their mother-tongue together and I am more exposed to the language. Oh! I received mail on Tuesday from Nonny & Poppy Lambert, my mom, and Stephanie (the girl I mentored in Rochester). It was so awesome getting mail and it looks like it takes about 3-4 weeks *hint, hint*.
The next most exciting thing that is coming up is that my site announcement occurs on Friday. I can’t believe that it is almost already here. My fate will soon be revealed.
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