Term 2 Progress Report

As my lengthy term 1 holiday ended, I was eager to return to teaching. At the same time, I was bracing myself for what I expected to be the dog days of the Namibian winter. The rain had stopped, and it still will not resume until the end of the year. What problems this would pose for me I wasn’t exactly sure. There were fewer national holidays in the term 2 months, and there were also fewer “volunteer get-togethers” planned. I envisioned this second term as a challenge that would have to be slogged through, and at some points even endured.

At first my prediction was almost palpably incorrect. I was hard at work and full of energy, and I was amazed at how rapidly the term was passing. Wow, three weeks done already, I would think, that’s about 30 percent finished. Hey, now a whole month is gone. My work was enjoyable, I delighted in the progress I could observe in my learners, and my weekends were unexpectedly eventful. I watched World Cup matches, visited Etosha National Park, spectated at cultural dance festivals (at one a Namibian teacher demanded I allow her to take the microphone and introduce me to the entire audience), and I was flying faster through Harry Potter than the eponymous hero could move on his Firebolt broomstick.

Then it all came to a sweaty, cramping, vomiting, moaning halt. I only missed three days of classes, but I quickly fell behind in my work. Despite this, when I returned I continued to take on more responsibility with the library and computer lab, and on top of that, it seemed I would be battered every Wednesday at the staff briefing with more tasks to complete. I was foolhardy and at any given moment worked with as much energy as my recovering body would allow. One afternoon both my principal and the science HOD implied in the Namibian way that I should sign out to go home and rest. “I can tell you are tired”, “Don’t force anything”, “You are not yourself.” It was obvious what they were communicating to me, but I declined their offer and returned to my office. It was weeks before I could go a whole working day without worrying about needing to rush to the nearest toilet during a class (or having to do just that), over a month before my appetite truly returned, and almost two months before I first feebly attempted exercise again. Goodness knows how long lingering symptoms affected me throughout the term, or how much I prolonged my own illness with over-exertion.

By the time the most salient of the symptoms had subsided, it was a few weeks into July, and I had already started counting down the days to the term’s end. At the end of each evening study session I would clean up the library and then exhale audibly as I crossed off that day on the library’s wall calendars. I peeked into my multivitamin container every morning to keep tabs on my progress to the term’s conclusion based on how many tablets were left. I conceived of every weekday in its relation to “hump day” (Wednesday), and I even realized that June 15th through July 16th, was the year’s “hump month”.

At the end of each week I would jet for town as quickly as possible. With my frustrations intensifying every week I was more willing to cut loose on the weekends instead of just relaxing. I was drinking larger quantities, and on Sundays rather than returning to school refreshed, I would be just as tired as when I left on the previous Friday. That meant that on the next Friday, after a full week of work, I was even more fatigued and ready to hop in a car out of Oshikunde, and wanted even more than the last weekend to blow off some steam. All of you are perceptive enough to see already how this cycle worked against me; it didn’t click in my head for several weeks.

Now the second trimester is ending, so it is time for another progress report. When I first arrived in Namibia, days were journeys in themselves. Absolutely everything that I saw, heard, or did was completely new. Each moment demanded my utmost attention and concentration. In term 2 I had found routines. Large portions of my day became automated, and the lack of needed conscious attention made this tougher term subjectively shorter. These past two entries may make term 2 seem pretty bleak, and although it’s true that portions were quite difficult and it didn’t contain as many “do before you die” events, it had more extraordinary moments than I could have justifiably expected. The whole process of building the media center and even just the smiles I got from observing kids flip through books or scroll through computer articles, were worth many years of frustrations - it is one of the most meaningful things I have ever accomplished.

Making kids laugh as I goofily acted out definitions during music night, leaving the classroom after a great lesson, riding back to school as the sun set, fetching water or brushing my teeth at night under the slowly rotating Namibian firmament – these are moments that I am willing to endure almost anything to experience. I am prepared to put up with dirt roads on ancient suspensions, the bell ending the period 10 minutes late, 9 power outages in one library session, incomprehensibly slow comprehension in English class, 5 hour long staff meetings, knocks on my door at 6:30 am, and everything else, just for those brief instants, because as long as you are awake and your head is up, no amount of fatigue can make the stars less beautiful.