Caprivi

Thursday morning Vincent and I wroke up at 5:30 and were out of Otjiwarongo by 6am. We were headed to Katime for the EduSector Health Day, the whole region closes schools and teachers and family all gather for health related matters. To my surprise his sister, much younger sister, was also catching a lift to Katima. She was accompanied by her baby son, who was so cute. We didn’t stop for food or the bathroom and made it in just over 8 hours. The little boy was very well behaved and thought I was the funniest thing in the world to look at, whenever I would turn around for a quick second he would laugh and giggle. When I got to the hotel around 2:30pm it was madness. There is a woman named Stephanie, who I met at the conference in Swakopmund and she was trying to get the ball rolling. The group had just finished a long important meeting about what needed to be done today to ensure that the event is a success, they were supposed to eat lunch and get going. Well, being African, most of the group began lingering around and it was ticking off Stephanie, as well as me. Stephanie is white but a born Namibian and people really need to respect her more, nobody was listening and all just sitting around chatting. There were some issues with the cars and how to get rides to where and when (most of the larger cars, the 4x4s and trucks were out in the bush of the region picking up rural teachers and bringing them into town so that they would be here for tomorrow). Steph was trying to explain what was the ride arrangement and this group of African women, who I was supposed to be working with, were completely disregarding her. It was making me furious, but being that I missed the meetings and was not sure what my tasks were for the afternoon I kind of had to stick with them. Of course as soon as we hopped in a car and left we got stranded somewhere because somebody else and already claimed the right to that car. It was a huge mess, and of course, Steph had to come pick us. From that point on I tried to stick with Steph being that she’s pretty much the only one in the group that has my full respect. We went to the Caprivi College of Education where the event it being held tomorrow and people, mainly students, were busy setting up tables and chairs. Steph new I was more competent than that, but that’s what needed to be done so she asked me to help. I agreed, yet after my first trip all the other girls helping quit and stood around chatting, it was very frustrating but I kept at it knowing that it had to be done (and not wanting to look like ‘the lazy American’). After a few rounds Steph told me to come with her, and after we got a few meters away she told me that there was no way she was going to make me help carry chairs while everybody else just stood around. I appreciated that, and asked what else I could do. She took me into an office where 3 women were printing and folding pamphlets for tomorrow’s event. (Obviously something that could have been last week)… but they too needed help, so I agreed. This girl ‘demonstrated’ how to do a 3-fold pamphlet, which too ticked me off, as if I don’t know how to fold paper… please people. I was nice and took it in stride, smiled and said ‘okay.’ A few moments later another women goes “can you make sure they overlap like ‘this’?” That almost put me over the edge. Here this group is procrastinating like the dickens and then trying to correct me. (Especially when you look at what she was doing: She was supposed to be cutting these printed sheets hamburger style and them folding each in half. She was folding each individual sheet of paper in half both ways (hamburger and then hotdog) then unfolding it and cutting along the hamburger crease and re-folding the other crease. She was doing this for each individual sheet of paper (dozens and dozens of times). Wouldn’t the sensible thing to do be to cut one piece of paper in half the hamburger way and then use that single half as a guide to cut all the others? And then fold them in half?) So anyways, I felt like an extremely patient person looking past all these low expectations of me and attempting to do it happily. It also helped that Steph was more that willing to acknowledge my competency when so many others were being so inefficient. At 5 people started quitting and walking off the site even though so much was no complete. I asked Steph what I could do to help and she told me to come back to the hotel. She said I’ve been more than helpful and after the long drive deserved to relax.
The next day was like a mad rush. We woke up somewhat early grabbed a very quick breakfast and headed to the college. The participants were meeting at the open market and then having a parade to the College. The band of people were led my the Caprivi army marching together, including their band. There were many speakers including Liman, our Chief-of-Party, the mayor of Katima, the governor of Caprivi and others, like the Deputy Minister of Education, and possibly Health, I cannot remember. Over 2000 people participated which was nice. Unfortunately only a fraction of those got HIV/AIDS tested which I thought was a slight let down considering that Caprivi has a 43% infection rate. But most got blood pressure checked, as well as glucose levels. Northern Namibia has a high incidence of diabetes and blood pressure because of their high meat, high salt diets. Additionally, individuals also recieved information on STIs, TB and could get tested for Malaria if they thought they needed.

Today the AED staff recieved the following e-mail from Liman, Chief of Party:
"We have done it once again. The NEPP team led by Steph was able to support HAMU and the regional education team of Caprivi to host the first every ESHD in Katima Mulilo. Well over 2000 teachers participated at the event and accessed various medical test including VCT, blood sugar, blood pressure, malaria etc. Logistics was a nightmare with that umber for one day and we owe it to Ephraim, Alfons, Dennis, Joors, who ensured that teachers from all over the Caprivi, in particular the swamp and islands were picked up and delivered on time, despite dangers to themselves from crossing rivers and mud flood plains. Theolida was wonderful wit ensuring proper food distribution and Rebekah helped chronicle the events as they unfolded and was there to support exhibitors with their displaysI have been to all four events and I must say this one was really the most successful in particular considering the logistical challenges that we faced due to flooding in the Caprivi. The Minister of Health and Social Services who graced the occasion was full of praise for USAID support and in particular AED leadership in initiating this great event which according to him is an innovation that he will make sure his Ministry learns from and emulates this approach. We await the final tally regarding how many teachers accessed what medical test, but even without that I can assure you all that it was a massive success by any measure. Partner collaboration and participation was as usual great. SMA, Know your medicine, Project Hope, Red Cross, VSO were all there and so was the Ministry of Health both regional and local staff.Congratulations to the team for making us proud once again. Liman, Audu Muhammed"

Overall my short time in Katima was the best time I have had to far, I finally felt more productive and it was nice to interact with locals in a constructive setting.

Tomorrow I leave for Ongwediva for yet another Stakeholders conference. I believe I am coming back Wed, so hopefully Thursday I will be back in the office and connected to the internet.

The following was from one of Rebekah's emails to parents.

Hey guys,

I hope that you are all doing well. I want to tell you about dinner last night. The whole AED headquarters office here went out to dinner last night. It was a very nice and funky restaurant and huge portions; I didn’t even finish half of mine. I ordered chicken cordon bleu, and it was less than $10 US. I cannot seem to understand the rhyme or reason to prices here, most things are about the same price in equivalent US $, but some things are significantly cheaper. Overall it was a very nice dinner, about 18 people and it all got paid for. It was nice to be able to ‘talk’ to the staff. I have only stayed in Rundu about half the time since we’re traveled to many conferences around the country. I was hoping to see Victoria Falls this month but it may not be until March now. There are a number of conferences I need to attend this month so it is making hard to get enough free time to drive to the falls. I’m going to trying schedule some time to go the first week of March.

While I’m enjoying being in Windhoek, I am really missing Bonga’s dinners. I’ve told Derek about them. Bonga makes this amazing somewhat sweet sauce called “soup.” It typically has sautéed onions, green papers and carrots, sometimes cabbage, and then she adds a liquid to it, red/orange in color. I’ve tried to ask her what it is but all she says is ‘vegetables.’ I offer to help almost every night, since she has to make dinner every night, but she uses this time for herself to unwind. She did tell me that she would teach me to make it before I leave. Whenever I ask what she’s making for dinner she often replies “soup and rice” with a smile and a chuckle. It’s funny because Maria is not a fan of it, but since Bonga likes rice and soup, and I like rice and soup that’s what she often chooses to make (when we have the ingredients). I miss her meals when we are traveling to conferences, and if I had it my way I would have rice and soup for dinner every night. However, since I won’t be back to Rundu for another 8 days, I will have to be patient and wait to enjoy it until then.

(haha I just opened my HIST term paper that I started, and it is just as long as this e-mail…… it needs to be at least 20 pages, clearly I have my work cut out! Ek!)

Take care all.

Brief Update

Sorry this is very short, I am currently writing from the Ministry of Education building in the capital of Windhoek. We got here yesterday afternoon and will be leaving again tomorrow. From there we will be heading to Otjiwarongo, this is an city in centrally located in the northern half of the country. We will be hosting a conference for primary school teachers addressing curriculum all of next week (which I think is excessively long, but okay). From there I will dpart from my host mother on Thursday and head to Katima in the Caprivi region from a few days to participate in EduSector Days, an event surrounding the issues of getting teachers HIV/AIDS tested. I am very much looking forward to the time away from my host mother. Since I arrived I have been with her 24/7, and its created some very bad tension between us. On Sat I will return to Rundu to finish out the last weeks of my program.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, internet has not been realiable.

Sand Everywhere

This is a supplemental post by Rebekah's parents. We had our first real chance to talk to Rebekah early Saturday morning. Technology is a wonderful thing when it works. Rebekah made use of Skype to talk to us via internet with her computer. It was truly amazing because even the web cameras on both computers worked so we could actually see each other. Spent over an hour talking about all sorts of things.

She had been at Swakomond which is located on the coast. She told us it was a long 10 hour drive to get there. We asked her if there where very many towns that she passed through and she said no. They went through maybe 6 towns and about half of them we deserted. Every where she looked there was nothing but sand and huge sand dunes. Rebekah said she now understands why everyone drives so fast on the roads it is because it is so desolate.

We asked her what type of food she has been eating and she said there have been lots of meals with chicken and beef, which is a big change from having rice and beans when she was in Uganda. The one thing she that is missing is readily available fruit. It is hot and dry so growing fruits and vegetables are hard to come by.

She is still hoping to see Victoria Falls and hopefully tour a game preserve before the end of her stay there.

Issues in Development

The last few days have been slightly more engaging but still very difficult. I am facing many challenges with how the local people in the North regard development programs. On Monday we were called out to a local NGO because they were hearing stories of students being turned away from schools for illegal resasons, ei they were not paying the optional school fees, not having 'proper' uniforms, etc. All of these reasons are phoney and made up by school administrations as a way to keep classes smaller. My issue with this is not only fact that students do not have advotes for them out in the field, but that the Ministry of Education hires 'inspectors' to monitor situations like this. The inspector's job is strictly to monitor schools and make sure that policies are being followed. Clearly, in this case they were not. I heard that part of why inspectors do not go visit schools in the 'bush' is because they are only alotted so many kilometers a week/month in company cars and thus only visit schools near by. Which begs the question, how effective are such positions? If they are not going to monitor thorougly, they might as well take the inspectors income and give it to the rural schools to cover fees that certian administrations are forcing children to pay.
The following day we proceeded to Divundu for some school follow up visits, I struggled with this becuase we only interviewed four teachers, not nearly large enough to cover the entire region which has hundreds of schools. I had been ready to visit many schools throughout the area, I mean after all we drove 2 hours to get there for only a short time frame of work.
Today was probably the most frustrating, as follow up to Mondays meeting with the NGO we were going to go out and have a meeting at Mayana Primary School at 8, along with the regional office of education, the deputy director, the inspector (who was only going because we brought up the issue) we were supposed to meet with the principal and the school board. After waiting an hour and a half for the party members at the regional office to join us, we finally headed to the school. When we arrived at the school we were informed that the principal and school board had been on campus but had recently left, and they argued that they did not know they had a meeting with us. So two more hours we waited fro him to return, it was not until 11:30 when he casually walked back in the office of the school. the whole situation was such a waste of resources. The regional office are his direct superiors, they simply could have come in, on time, and told him the policy and then come back in the following few days to collect the list of OVC in attendence. (The schools are also supposed to keep a list of this, so it should not take long.)
While I know that all parties have the interest of the students, it is hard to ingore the seemly obvious steps that could be easily shortened to effect more people. For instence, instead of spending hours at one school, we could have visited multiple schools in the area and confrimed that they had enrolled the students properly.

Back in Rundu

The conference in Swakomund finished out well. Towards the end of the week I was placed in charge of creating an abstract/proposal which will be sumbitted to the Ministry of Education. If accepted it will alter and transform the way that OVC are treated by the educational sector throughout Namibia. The overall poilcy framework began in 2006 by members of the Ministry of Education, UNICEF, and AED. I didn't recieve much feedback when I submitted it to the officials in Windhoek, but for my first one I think it was pretty good.
This week I forsee going by very slowly, we're back in Rundu and I have no specific tasks assigned yet. It should be okay, once I get over the low expectations for this week I should be able to get cracking on my research paper for back in the States.

Sorry this is again short, I am getting run down and fighting off heat strokes pretty much everyday which leads to low energy and enthusaism. If you have any questions leave a comment and hopefully those will help jump start my next post.