Our last official responsibility as World Teach summer volunteers in Namibia was to give a short presentation at a conference Bret McSpadden, the in-country director for World Teach, had arranged. Officials from the information technology division of the Ministry of Education had been invited, as well as officials and principals from the regions where we taught.
The regional director from the Ohangwena Region (the region where all of the northern volunteers were placed) was there, as was the head of Information Technology at Ponhofi, where Dona and I taught.
In general we described the state of affairs at our schools, things that were going well and headed in the right direction, particular problems we encountered, and things we thought could be changed to make significant improvements in the process of helping Namibian learners become more proficient in the age of information technology.
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| Bret Theo | Bret | Paavo |
All of the summer World Teach volunteers participated:
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| Diane | |
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| Katie | Fletcher |
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| Shawn | Kathryn |
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| Jessica | ||
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| Gary | Dona | |
In addition to the summer World Teach volunteers, two two-year volunteers also presented. Patrick Xxx and Stanton Dunn had great presentations and perspectives; their schools were clearly fortunate to have them as teachers for their extended stay in Namibia.
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| Patrick | Stanton |
Bret invited others from the regions and schools to present. Theo Mwashindange, the head of Information Technology instruction at Ponhofi Secondary School, where Dona and I taught, presented, as did another woman whose name I don't have; Bret, help me!
Also presenting was Joris Komen, a Namibian from north of Windhoek who has been researching ways to help people in the schools which are located in the far-flung hinterlands of Namibia, where there is no power and no internet access. Joris's talk was particularly interesting, as it involved ways to bring much of the information available via the internet which is relevant and useful to primary education to places where the internet itself is not accessible. This is possible because some of the major primary sources such as WikipediaWikipedia and Khan Academy are available as off-line packages. For more information, see the RACHAEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education) project.
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| Theo Mwashindange | Xxx | Joris Komen |
After the presentations, we broke up into groups to discuss some of the problems and possible solutions.
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| Group1 | Group2 |
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| Group3 | Group4 |
I felt the conference was useful. It allowed the Namibians who chose to come to see some common problems and possible solutions. It allowed volunteers to talk about problems which may have been more difficult to talk about at the home school, and it gave us a more direct pipeline to the regional directors. Unfortunately, not all Namibian officials who could have benefited were present.
That evening we enjoyed the Namibian sunset from a restaurant and bar high above the city of Windhoek. Later, my co-volunteer from Japan, Sho Tamagawa, two of his fellow volunteers from the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, Yuta Aihara and Hiromasa Yamauchi, and Bret's girlfriend Alina all went out to dinner at the Stellenbosch Restaurant.
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| Sundown in Windhoek |
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| Katie, Jessica and Diane | Dona |
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| Gary and Dona | Hiromasa, Sho, Yuta, Bret, Alina and Dona |
The next day was "get ready to go home" day for everyone except Dona and me. We spent the day trying to get our visas extended to cover the next two weeks, when we planned to travel around Namibia by ourselves. It was a bureaucratic mess. We showed up at 07:30 before the Immigration Office opened, but when we talked to them they wouldn't extend our visas as tourists without a signed statement from Bret saying our contract as teachers was terminated. We got back there with that at 12:50; they closed at 13:00 for lunch, and they turned us and others away before they were even closed. The cashier closes for the day at 13:00, so we had to come back the next day. It was unclear to me why any of the offices were even open after 13:00 if the cashier was closed, since everything seemed to require a payment of some sort. Fortunately, the next day we did get it, and we were able to continue with our plans.
In the meantime, we enjoyed some of the birds around Backpackers Unite, where we were staying.
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| White Backed Mousebird |
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| Sociable Weaver | ||
That night we had a final dinner at Joe's Beer House a famous Windhoek establishment. Most of the food was pretty good. I wasn't particularly hungry, and had the vegie spinach cannnelloni; and it was delicious. The rest of the crew except Dona all had some kind of wild game. Dona had the spaghetti, which was not particularly good.
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| Last Night at Joes |
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| Dona and Shawn | Shawn,
Chaperoned by the Giraffe |
Shawn and Bret | Bret |
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| Kathryn and Diane |
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| Kathryn, Diane and Jessica |
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| Fletcher | Fletcher and Katie |
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| Kathryn, Diane, Jessica, Fletcher and Katie | Katie and Jessica |
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| Toast | |
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| Diane | Xxx Driver |
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| Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie | |
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| Kathryn, Diane and Jessica | Kathryn, Diane and Jessica |
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| Jessica and Katie |
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| Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie | Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie |
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| Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie | Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie |
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| Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie | Kathryn, Diane, Jessica and Katie |
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| Xxx Driver and Kathryn | Diane and Jessica |
Shawn and Kathryn each ordered something that amounted to the whole hock of a large animal; can't remember what it was, maybe an oryx, or maybe the pork knuckle. In any case, it was more than a mouthfull. And no, neither of them ate the whole thing...
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| Shawn | |
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| Kathryn | ||
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| Alina and Xxx Driver | Bret, Alina and Xxx Driver |
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| Diane and Jessica | Alina and Kathryn |
They had lots of local cultural stuff hanging around, which made it an interesting place just to sit and look around. One of the things that stared you in the face was one of the baskets they use to store grain. It's ... BIG
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| Big Basket |
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| Katie and Fletcher | Katie! |
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| Gary and Dona | |
We were pretty full by the time it came to dessert, but dessert is one of my specialties, so I had a whole one. Others shared; they were so good some wished they hadn't.
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| Gary and his own whole Dessert | Diane and Jessica "sharing" Dessert |
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| Diane and Jessica, Dessert | |
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| Alina, Paavo and Xxx Driver |
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| Diane, Katie and Jessica | ||
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| The Whole Group | |
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| Group Backside | ||
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| The Girls |
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All in all, it was a great evening to finish off a wonderful summer ... for all of us, I think. Hey guys and gals, you're still all invited to come up for a visit! You too, Bret!
The next morning everyone was off to the airport, but Dona and I headed for the Immigration Office to get our extended visas, and then the car rental agency, and then our own adventure exploring more of Namibia.
This page last updated on 2015-01-30.
