Untangled

Omwedhi othindji (Many moons/months) have passed since I last wrote and I’m sorry but for a while I was the most out of sorts. The flood hit our village unexpectedly and HARD. I arrived back from a weekend away during Independence Day (March 21) about to take the turn into the village from the tarred road to find that that was impossible. The water was about to overcome the road. Luckily, my neighbor was there about to walk into the village also, and by necessity she became my guide. We walked for about two hours into the village (about 6 km or 3-4 miles) in water up to my thighs. The next day we had school and I wondered how all the teachers who come from town are going to make it into the village.

They walked. Two hours to the school and two hours back. Learners showed up to school with water marks on their clothes above chest level. The little ones were immediately dismissed (1-7) and the grade 7 was told to go and help carry the smaller ones across the water. This water is not safe, because it is full of excrement from the locals, cattle, goats, dogs, etc, and is therefore diseased. There are also animals living in the water like lethal snakes that are also searching for dry land like humans, so it was imperative that we cancel school under these conditions. Yet, the government was insisting that we continue with at least our grade 10 and perhaps have some sort of camp set up at the school. Without mattresses, food, or a place to bathe, the teachers complained and the parents refused to help out the school especially without reimbursement. I sat through hours of Oshiwambo, understanding very little except that the learners were fighting to have a camp set up at school and all the teachers denied their appeals. It was decided that school would end for a few weeks until the flooding went down and that we would continue during the holiday. (fake smile).

This presented a big problem for me, because I had Will, my mom, and Jacki coming to visit me during the entire break, so no matter where we put these days, it was impossible for me to not have a conflict. On top of that, I had just succumbed to the fact that I don’t want to teach the load that I am teaching and it would be better for the entire school and community if I could give English to someone else. My learners were doing terribly partly because my mind was all over the place trying to fill 50 different requirements a day. I felt like I needed to drop something, but I hate quitting. I hate not finishing what I start, no matter how stressful it is. I will never admit I can’t handle something, but this was not about whether I can handle the workload, this is about the learners learning. I had to get out of my head and into the real world where another’s future is dependent on my performance.

[Why drop English? I didn’t study English. I didn’t plan on teaching English. English has some of the most requirements out of any subjects and its very time consuming to grade. You have to be creative which is fun if you have time, but I am also busy planning for ICT, Physical Science grade 9, Physical Science grade 8, and Math grade 9. It takes FOREVER to grade. I don’t have the time to also teach another promotional (core) subject which is entirely different than what I studied or expected. It has many requirements to fulfill each term. It is also 7 periods a week which is a lot of time.]

These are two major problems that I struggled to deal with because I did not want to face my principal to ask for more time off. Not to mention my self-esteem was rather low because my competence is no longer based on how well I do, but how well others do which somewhat out of my control. I knew my leaving for a few weeks would be bad for my learners who are already getting 0 out of 40 when I am here every day (but then again it can’t get any worse hey?) but there was no way I could work. All that money and all that time and all that distance that my family and friends are sacrificing and I have to work? Sometimes things start to spiral. I just can’t handle this. I don’t have time to do any of the projects/things I want to do. I am going to look so incompetent for not being able to handle my load and all the teachers are going to be mad b/c I have to change everyone’s schedule. None of the learners understand me. Hardly any of the teachers understand me. I’m never going to learn this language. I have done nothing except help my learners get bad grades. They would do better with another teacher. I am behind in all of my subjects. I shouldn’t have come here at this point in my life. I should have come when I acquired more skills. The only thing I was looking forward to is now being jeoparidized… And then my meme caught me crying to myself.
“Why are you crying?”
“Meme, I was supposed to have my family and friends come during the break and now I have to teach.”
“Oh! Don’t worry! You just go to school for the subject you teach and then come back and they stay at the homestead! They will be here.”
(The crying worsens.)
“It’s just, we were going to travel to other parts of Namibia. We, we, we wanted to go other places besides the homestead.”
“Oh… you just tell the principal.”
“But I can’t. I feel too bad. It is not good for me to leave while all the others stay.”
“No, you just tell him. He will understand.”

All the next day was chaos. We decided to close school that day and the principal was running around doing many things, and I was too timid to talk to him. I just struggled to edit his letters to the Ministry of Education. How do I keep the same complex language as to not offend him? The only thing he said to me that day was, “Are you finally done [editing my letter]?” I’m intimidated. Luckily, Meme to the rescue. She went up to him separately and told him that before he leaves, we have to have a talk. At the end of the day we three went into his office. “Let’s make this quick.”

He said that he would allow me to be off during the weeks, because it is too far for my family and friends to travel and not be with me. He also said he would work something out to change my schedule. It was that quick; it was apparently that easy, but without someone beside me, I probably wouldn’t have had the courage.

There are times that this chain of life gets so tangled that you don’t even know where to start, and you feel like you would rather just cut it than work it out. But once your friend with the long nails unloops that last knot, you wonder why you even brought out those scissors in the first place.