Going Green

Matisa! It’s been exactly a week since we arrived in Tsumeb for one of the final steps in our technical health (and of course language) training: Homesteads. Peace Corps says this is our best chance to understand the community and day-to-day life in Namibia before swearing in. Plus, it’s a dry run in adapting to new cultures. Only this time, it’s under the expert guidance of a local family.

We spent the two weeks leading up to homesteads visiting our permanent sites and shadowing current volunteers. We returned to Okahandja for three days. Apparently that’s just long enough to regroup, repack and contract some heinous stomach virus.

Sure, Nam 27 was the first group in years to have all its trainees return from site visit to continue PST. But when more than 40 and the 70 volunteers (myself included) fell ill before Community Based Training, we weren’t sure whether that trend would hold. Truthfully, I’d expected to get sick much sooner than this (it’s the Peace Corps, after all). Luckily the cramps, the fever and the vomiting were short lived. And while the three-hour bus ride to Tsumeb seemed forever, we managed just the same.

The city is unique. It sits in what’s called the Emerald Triangle: a part of Namibia just north of the desert, known for its regular rains and lush greenery. It’s no African jungle, but Tsumeb certainly offers more color and contrast than dusty brown Khorixas. Most people have at least one mango tree in their yard, and I’ve been told the fruit should be ripe in time for my birthday. A perfect gift for my first summer celebration. My Damara mama, Lucre, says we’ll go to her Auntie’s house in town at harvest time to pick them. I’ve already tasted some of the smaller fruits and they put those available in stateside supermarkets to shame.

The level of education here seems remarkably high. Many of the residents of Tsumeb are fluent in English and the majority of them are proficient in five or six local languages. Unemployment is still a problem though, as it is throughout Namibia, but there are enough shops to keep people working, and a copper mine where many residents find employment.

My mama teaches grade two at a nearby school. Her cousins, who also live with us in the Location, work at the local mine. My little brother, Cecil, is just three years old. While he can count in English, we still can’t really communicate. He laughs at my attempts to speak KhoeKhoe. But then, most people do.

According to the calendar, we’re been learning the language for over a month now, at what feels like breakneck speed. Our twice-daily sessions on vocabulary and sentence structure have covered in four weeks what it took me three years of Spanish classes to master. Still, I’m not sure I’m really retaining it. My neighbor, Jo-Ann, is on holiday from school, so she’s been helping me practice for our initial language assessment this weekend. It’s a 30-minute conversation about God knows what using whatever words I can muster to describe my day, clothes and job. I’ve got the greetings down pat, and hopefully after a few more sessions with Jo-Ann, I’ll be better prepared for the test.

And language feels like a full-time job, it’s not the only thing keeping us busy here in Tsumeb. The 13 health volunteers here have been charged with developing and executing a community health workshop for local youth next week. In typical Peace Corps fashion, that bomb was dropped just two days ago. We’ll have only Thursday and Friday to plan and prepare for a four-day, 20-hour workshop that starts Monday.

We spent yesterday conducting a needs assessment—an informal Q & A with area youth. (Here in Namibia, that’s anyone between 14 and 35.) As you might expect, drinking, drugs and unprotected sex are major issues here, just as they are for teens in the states. Participants listed boredom, poverty, hunger and unemployment as the major causes of risky behavior.

While most of us expected to spend the next two years educating community members about HIV/AIDS, healthy nutrition and proper hygiene, it seems one of our biggest projects as health workers may in fact be developing organized sports leagues, recreation centers and income generating programs to keep kids busy, motivated and having fun. While our approach may be new, the problem isn’t.

The first case of AIDS was reported in Namibia in 1986. Since then the rate of infection has been steadily growing. The country has made some serious strides in preventative education, from PSAs on local TV and radio stations, to a comprehensive health curriculum that starts as early as grade one. Free condoms are available almost everywhere, yet the majority of sexually active Namibians admit to rarely using them.

More than two-thirds of the participants in our needs assessment sessions know someone who died of AIDS. While most youth claim to know the facts, we’re quickly learning that misconceptions are as prevalent as the disease. One teen in our assessment said people who know their HIV status die faster than those who don’t. Another argued men live longer than women once they’ve contracted the disease. In a culture where women are expected to say no (even when they’re interested), on guy argued that when a woman says she’s HIV positive it means she wants to be pursued harder. Others claimed the disease made the carrier more attractive to the opposite sex.

So while the information is out there, it seems false information is, too. That, I can only assume, is why we’re here.