Saturday, February 28, 2009

Just a Toothbrush: Anker...Finally

Despite the initial transport woes, my first farm school outreach with our dentist (Isabel) and her assistant (Lorain) was a huge success. Together, we were able to educate an entire school in a single afternoon. We supplied more than 300 learners with their own toothbrush and toothpaste, and for the first time--thanks to Lorain's help with Damara--we talked to even the littlest learners about keeping their teeth healthy.

Doing workshops on my own was fun. I loved working the kids and watching them get excited about health. But seeing these two women at work--their enthusiasm and their passion--was truly inspiring.

And not just for me.

The hostel matron told us that the next morning she didn't have to wake the boys. They were already in the bathrooms--brushing their teeth.


A Grade 3 Girl Checking Out Her New Toothbrush


Lorain Running Her Own Workshop in Lower Primary


Isabel with the Grade 7s

UPDATE: Isabel and Lorain attended a nation-wide workshop last week. They were informed that our hospital is not just number one for dental outreach in the Kunene Region, but in fact, number one in the entire country.

Thank you for your support!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Oh the Places You'll G.L.O.W!

I was lucky enough to observe last year's Camp GLOW and this year, I'm one of three PCVs charged with making the nation-wide event a reality.

Camp GLOW is a unique experience for a lot of reasons--and it's a project that's near and dear to my heart. I'm certain that if you visit this site (where you can read stories from learners and watch footage and interviews from Camp GLOW 2008) it will be clear why.

Many of you have already been incredibly generous in your donation of games, clothing and school supplies for the orphanage, arts and crafts for Hero Books and other after-school programs, and financial contributions to my oral care workshops. But if you'd still like to do more, and want to help 80 Namibian children change their lives for the better--please, keep reading.

Dear Friends and Family,

Peace Corps' Gender Awareness and Diversity Committee strives to promote cross-cultural understanding in Namibia, expand the definition of traditional gender roles and stop the spread of HIV/AIDS among youth.

To achieve these goals, the GAD Committee hosts Camp GLOW (Girls and Guys Leading Our World) each year. This weeklong event unites 80 promising young learners from low-income schools across 13 regions and 15 cultures, for a life-changing experience. Out-of-school youth, trained by Peace Corps Volunteers, use games and group exercises to illustrate the importance of teamwork. Breakout sessions and small-group discussions encourage self-discovery, while guest speakers and fieldtrips to Parliament and Namibian universities encourage future planning and goal setting.

This August, Camp GLOW will once again provide a unique opportunity for learners—some who have never left their villages—to interact with peers from different cultural backgrounds in a safe space. It will give adolescents the chance to learn about their futures, and it will help fight the spread of HIV/AIDS through candid and informative conversations. Camp GLOW will also continue empower out-of-school youth by teaching them the fundamentals of leadership, then positioning them as role models for Namibian learners.

The benefits of Camp GLOW are huge, but the operational costs are high. We need your support to make this fun and educational week a reality! It costs approximately US$200 to send just one child to camp. And while we receive funding from UNICEF and similar organizations, private donations play a huge part in making Camp GLOW a success.

If you are interested in helping 80 exemplary learners become future leaders, experience new cultures and gain a deeper understanding of gender and diversity, you can make a donation via PayPal using the following email address: jill.nawrocki(at)gmail.com. (Money will be transferred to the Camp GLOW account and receipts can be sent upon request.) Please include your name and mailing address to receive a special note from learners at the end of camp.

Thank you for your help and support. If you'd like to learn more about Camp GLOW, visit G.L.O.W. Namibia for footage from last year's camp.

Sincerely,

Amanda Rucker
Camp GLOW Chair

Jill Nawrocki
Camp GLOW Co-Chair

Leah Rubin
Camp GLOW Co-Chair

I hope you'll consider contributing to this incredible cause. Please email me if you have further questions or would like details on Camp GLOW fund raising projects for schools, churches and clubs.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine's Day!

I may not have a Valentine, but today was fantastic just the same...


My Valentines


The Kids at Sunrise Center Coloring and Creating


Martelena


Friedrick Coloring


Ivy Showing Off Her Hard Work


Me with the Kids from Sunrise Center After a Morning Making Valentines

Friday, February 13, 2009

Hero Books

My friend Tina was a reading and writing teacher before she joined the Peace Corps. Now, a handful of kids in Caprivi are lucky enough to have her leading their classroom. I say lucky, because when Tina talks about her lesson plans or the programs she’s implementing, it’s always with passion. The kind of passion I don’t often see here—and rarely saw in America.

It’s clear she loves teaching. And perhaps even more importantly, that she loves teaching her kids.

In the last year Tina’s found ways to bring English alive in the classroom and managed to get more kids into the library (however sparse the shelves are) and into reading. She used responsive journals in one of her classes to get learners to open up about corporal punishment practices. Because of that, policies changed at her school.

Tina has always been a mentor for education volunteers in Namibia because of her years of experience in classrooms full of learners. But recently, she’s helped us healthies (more specifically, this healthy) too.

In mid-January Tina told me about a new program she was introducing at her school:Hero Books. The 25-session workshop was created by Druscilla van Niekerk, a primary school teacher in South Africa. She believed that children’s psychosocial issues got in the way of affective teaching. And in many cases—in the way of actual learning. So she developed Hero Books as a way for learners to process their pasts and plan for their futures. In short:

A Hero book is a document, and a process, in which a child, youth, or adult is invited to be the author, illustrator, main character, and editor of a book that is designed to help them set goals, and give them power over a specific challenge or obstacle in their life.

At the end of the process, each person has a hard-bound storybook of their own making, which is not only a solution focused mission statement, but also documents, heralds and reinforces their problem busting strategies and hero-survival-resilient abilities. It is a therapeutic process.


Writing has always been important to me. It’s been a way to express myself in the public, but also to examine my life and actions in private. The idea of bringing this love of the written word, the experience of putting the past on paper, and using art to explore what life is about really appeals to me. I’m hoping it will appeal to these kids, who have such limited options for positive and safe self-expression, too.

So over the next few months, I’ll work with Natasha, an orphan and out-of-school youth—one who’s bright and funny, clever and bold—but who also failed Grade 10, and therefore can’t return to the classroom under Namibian education policies. Together, we’ll spend Wednesday afternoons creating our own stories using the Hero Books program as our guide. Then, next term, we’ll lead a group of 15-20 secondary school learners in making their own.

For now, it’s a way to keep Natasha busy—and hopefully out of trouble. But in the end, it’s also a way to get her back into the classroom—this time, as a teacher.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Reflections of a Recreational Reader: Part IV

Let the beauty of love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

--Rumi

The act of making art exposes a society to itself. Art brings things to light. It illuminates us. It sheds light on our lingering darkness. It casts a beam into the heart of our own darkness and says, 'see?'

--The Artist's Way

Once you have known need it is a phantom that hangs over any luxury

--Julia Alvarez, Saving the World

We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud of

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Everything is usually so masked and perfumed in this world, and it's touching when you get to see something real and human. I think that's why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull--because when people have seen you at your worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much. And that gives us license to try on that radical hat of liberation, the hat of self-acceptanc; we're allowed to escape from underneath one of the fatwas

--Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

Our own life is the instrument with which we experience the truth

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Arguing isn't where the faith is. That just feeds the ego. It's all in the doing.

--Phil Jackson, Sacred Hoops

We are here to learn to endure the beams of love

--Blake

Haroun knew what he knew; That the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could be real

--Haroun and the Sea of Stories

There are cracks in everything. That's how light gets in.

--Leonard Cohen

And we will be ready, at the end of every day will be ready, will not say no to anything, will try to stay awake while everyone is sleeping, will not sleep, will make the shoes with the elves, will breathe deeply all the time, breathe in all the air full of glass, and nails and blood, will breathe it and drink it, so rich, so when it comes we will not be angry, will be content, tired enough to go, gratefully, will shake hands with everyone, bye, bye, and then pack a bag, some snacks, and go to the volcano

--Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

She was extending a hand that I didn't know how to take, so I broke her fingers with my silence

--Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

In religion, as in war and everythingg else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth...in the end, only despair

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

History says don't hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime, the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme

--Seamus Heanly

One: out of clutter find simplicity. Two: from discord find harmony. Three: In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity

--Albert Einstein

When the work is done she forgets. That is why it lasts forever
--Tao Te Ching

Just a Toothbrush: The Waiting Game

Today was supposed to be our first major dental outreach. The dentist, her assistant and I spent most of yesterday counting tubes of toothpaste for some 300 learners and dividing them into bags for separate classrooms. We made fruits, vegetables, candy and other foods from construction paper, cut dozens of sheets of stickers for rewards, and went over our strategy for tackling seven grades in a single day.

The plan was to drive two hours outside of Khorixas, down a long dirt road and into one of the farm settlements. We’d use hospital transport (which we applied for weeks in advance) and spend six hours going over the oral care basics I’d outlined in previous workshops, class by class. Lorain (the dental assistant, who is fluent in Damara) would take the lower primary grades, while Isabel (the dentist from Zambia) and I would divide upper primary. Afterwards, Isabel would offer checkups for learners who had never been to the dentist.

It was a perfect plan.

So we rose at 5 a.m. I drank a few cups of coffee to get me going, and piled the boxes of supplies near my door.

And then, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

By 7:30 it seemed like something was wrong. Transport is always complicated--and it's usually running late, but we'd planned to be on the road by 6:30, because we needed to be at school sometime close to 9. I sent Isabel a message. She was waiting at the hospital, but said there was no car in sight.

So I left the supplies and I left my bag and I set out towards the hospital. By the time I arrived it was clear we had a major problem. The transport officer was off for the day and the driver we’d been assigned was only certified to drive around town.

While there was a vehicle somewhere, there was a driver nowhere.

So Isabel, Lorain and I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Luckily, the former transport officer was on duty. Although it was almost 9, she said one of the social workers could take us out to the farm school. The school we were going to was about two hours away, and we needed at the very least two hours to conduct our workshops—one hour-long session for upper primary and one hour-long session for lower primary. School was only scheduled until 1 p.m.—with no afternoon study—so we had to leave immediately if we wanted to make it in time to do anything at all.

But still we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Our driver came. But only to collect someone for a trip to the Location. He returned. But only to leave and collect a fridge from the government building. It was after 11 by the time we were really ready to go. And by that time, it was too late.

So we'll have to reschedule.

We’ll have to re-plan.

And we’ll have to reapply for transport.

The whole situation was beyond frustrating—the waiting and the not knowing, the last-minute cancellation and the work gone to waste. But there was a silver lining.

Sort of.

I was mad, but I could see that Lorain and Isabel were angry, too. That means that despite the headaches and the hassles, they were just as excited to get to the farm schools as I was. They were eager to conduct workshops, start our new, extended outreach, and see their hard work come to fruition. And that's really what this is all about.

It was hard to see them disappointed. But it was also strangely reassuring. It made me realize that while I’d done these workshops alone in the past, I finally had company—colleagues that were trained and prepared. And perhaps most importantly—colleagues that genuinely wanted to participate.

We may not have made it today, but I have no doubt we’ll make it there soon. In fact, we’ve already re-scheduled for two weeks from now. When hopefully we’ll rise at 5 a.m., drink a few cups of coffee to get started, pile boxes of supplies in the back of our bakki and be leading oral care workshops for some 300 learners before 9 a.m.

Transport willing, that is...

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Malawi: Senga Bay and Monitor Island

We spent our last night in Zambia at a Peace Corps transit house near the Malawi border. After 14 hours riding a bus, seven hours waiting in a station and one night in a rain-soaked tent in Lusaka, we were ready for a break. The Zam PCVs welcomed us, and we stayed up late swapping service stories and contrasting our Peace Corps experiences. The tin roof, real beds, running water and hot showers felt like luxury after a week’s worth of wet tents, damp clothes and constant downpour.

The next morning we piled into one tiny taxi with our big bags and headed towards Malawi. We met a man named Happy—a businessman from Zambia—who was also on his way to the capital city. He ushered us through customs and into a taxi, where he negotiated our fare to a nearby town. Then, upon arrival, Happy helped us find a combi on its way to Lilongwe. As we waited for the remaining seats to fill (combis never leave until they’ve reached—or more often exceeded—capacity), I noticed this sticker fixed to our windshield:



The way I saw it, we were two for two: Guided by a guy named Happy. Protected by the Big Man upstairs. Malawi, it seemed, was even better than we’d heard.

The inland country, which borders Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania, is just a small sliver in Southern Africa. But its population is still about six times that of Namibia. This was evident almost immediately. The sides of streets were lined with people. Men rode bicycles piled high with maize meal, fish and produce, while women wrapped in brightly colored chitenges balanced baskets on their heads. Traditional houses with thatched roofs and dung walls were as plentiful as the palm trees. In Namibia, it’s possible to drive a hundred kilometers—even more—without seeing another living thing. In Malawi, there were people at every turn.

Our combi ride was scenic--cloudless skies above fields of rich, fertile soil--and Mozambique off in the distance. After a year in the desert, it was nice to be traveling amid green grasses and tall trees.

But all of that changed when we arrived in Lilongwe. Yes, I was used to the crowds of New York City. Elbowing turnstiles and tourists, particularly when I worked in Times Square, was a part of daily life. We’d already survived the insanity of the Lusaka bus station and the disorder of the Zambia border crossing. But Lilongwe—with its impassable streets, crowded corners and five o'clock gridlock at most every hour was simply overwhelming. The fresh, clean air was gone. Now, the scent of oily meats, body sweat and diesel fumes hung heavy around us.

There was no denying it. We were in Africa.

Happy must have known that we, his foreign friends, would be totally overwhelmed. (After all, Namibia is one of the least-densely populated countries in the world—and this was a seriously big city.) So he’d arranged for our combi assistant to deliver us from one ride to the next. He grabbed my bag before the car had come to a complete stop and yelled, “Follow me!” as he took off across a congested street. We followed, single file, as quickly as we could. He led us through a maze of alleyways and alongside endless rows of combis. Drivers grabbed our arms, pulled our bags and yelled their destinations as we soldiered by and pretended not to notice. And then finally we arrived: an almost-full combi bound for Senga Bay.

Stopping in Senga Bay was a last minute decision. It’s not one of Malawi’s most famous beaches, or even its most popular. And while beautiful, there are certainly others more breathtaking. But we were limited to the northern part of the country since we were making our way towards Tanzania. And after days packed like sardines, traveling along rock roads, we were ready to stretch out by the water. Senga Bay was less than two hours from Lilongwe.

Our combi dropped us by the side of the road, where five locals met us to find out where, exactly, we wanted to go. The answer? We had no idea. We’d flipped through guidebooks as we made our way towards the lake, but hadn’t settled on anything. Our new friends took note of our Nalgene bottles and immediately recognized us as Peace Corps volunteers. From that point on they suggested only the most inexpensive accommodations.

We decided on a tiny place owned by a friendly ex-pat, nestled between a local market, where we could purchase tomatoes, bananas and chips, and the shores of Lake Malawi. It rained every night, but unlike Zambia, the days were clear and sunny. The staff was amazing and kind and after just one day they knew our names (and our drinks).

Though Senga Bay lacked the adrenaline rush we’d found in Victoria Falls, it did offer plenty of time to relax, play Scrabble with a group of friendly South Africans and catch up on a little reading. (By trip’s end we’d all swapped books at least a couple of times.) It was nice to take it easy after so much time in transit.

We spied an island about three miles from the shore that looked like the perfect place to spend a sunny afternoon. So after three days of pure relaxation, we slipped into a traditional fishing boat with the friends we’d met the day we arrived, and paddled towards Monitor Island. The tiny island in the big lake is home to several rare lizard species, as well as trees, plants and birds unique to the country. Our friends guided us through rocky passes, to the edge of jagged cliffs and through wooded forests, while they pointed out other islands in the distance and talked about the culture of fishing in Malawi.

I loved it all, but realized after a few of hours of barefoot hiking, I still prefer concrete sidewalks to moss-covered paths.