The post office assured me that it was no problem to forward mail internationally before we left. We have probably received about 30 pieces of mail total through mail forwarding until last week. Last week, I received a HUGE stack of mail the other day – more than 60 pieces of mail in a bundle. This stack included quite a few Christmas Cards sent in December, as well as correspondence from Wells Fargo informing us that our house was in foreclosure. We already did know about the foreclosure, fortunately, but not in time to cause extreme stress and headaches. Wells Fargo had made a mistake in our automatic billing (well, they essentially cancelled it for no reason), and while admitting their mistake, had refused to correct it. We finally had to get an attorney in the states to get them to agree to fix our credit, waive all fees, etc. Ugh. We will be avoiding Wells Fargo as much as possible from now on.
We had wondered why we hadn’t been receiving mail, like the Wells Fargo letters that we'd never received. But when looking closer at the stack of mail we received the other day, we noticed that each envelop had a stamp on it that said “Missent to Myanmar”. All of our mail had been forwarded to the post office in Rangoon, instead of Namibia! So we had quite a few pieces of mail that took 4 or 5 months to reach us here in Windhoek - and this is all well before the tragic cyclone that hit Burma a few weeks ago. The only explanation we can think of is that Myanmar (aka Burma) and Namibia are next to each other in the alphabet, and when sorting the mail they are accidentally putting it into the wrong country’s mail slot.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Goatscaping
I got a little delirious today after 8 hours of grading 60+ 10 page papers (though I was grading outside in the sun on the patio). In one of the many project proposals I read today, a student was describing the particular needs of running educational groups in the rural north of Namibia. She said it was important to reduce “goat scaping” in these areas. Naïve foreign professor that I am, I was picturing some rural technique that I didn’t know about in the North that was akin to landscaping, but using goats. It was only about 15 minutes later that it hit me that the student, who is a very smart student, but speaks English as her third language, meant “scapegoating”.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Still haven’t figured out UNAM
I’ve been here almost an entire term now, and I still know little about how things work here.
One thing I haven’t quite figured out is the academic system here, even though I’ve had it explained to me a number of times. This is how I understand it. In Namibian higher education, students need to have a 40% average on tests/projects during the term to be allowed to sit for the final exam. The final exam, called the “first opportunity exam”, is worth 40% of the grade. If they fail the first opportunity examination (less than 50%), but don’t fail too badly (more than 40%), then they have a “second opportunity exam”, in which they can try again. However, the second opportunity examination doesn’t take place until January of next year, seven months after the term ends. So for some, they don’t know if they have passed or failed a class until the week before the term after next term begins. It is very confusing for me. Exams here also have to be “externally moderated”. Thus, I had to send my “first opportunity examination” and my “second opportunity examination” to a professor in South Africa to get approval that my test was appropriate two months before the term was over. Then, after I have graded my exams, they are sent to this professor, who assesses whether I graded my exams appropriately. I’ve never had my final exams done so early in a term!
I gave a test today to my second year students. The tests in general cause high anxiety for the students. First, the majority of the students have not bought the textbook. The books are too expensive, and some students are still waiting for their bursaries (scholarships) for this term. I can’t imagine how difficult studying is when there is no exam. Second, we have such a small budget here, I can’t make handouts for the students except on my own dime at a copy shop. While I give notes to students electronically, I can’t give the extensive handouts I usually give. Third, the atmosphere surrounding tests is hectic. There simply are not enough chairs and desks for the students here. Before each class, students have to scrounge around the other classrooms looking for desks and chairs, and some students always have to resort to completing the test on their laps. Finally, I’m giving applied tests, where I gave them little situations and they have to apply the concepts to these situations. They aren’t used to these types of tests so much.
Another thing that I haven’t figured out yet is the room scheduling here. It seems as though rooms are not really scheduled, but are on a first come/first served basis. We spend a lot of our time looking for an empty classroom to hold class. My Monday class is the only class that is the same each week. We meet in one building for 45 minutes, then pick up our chairs and desks and walk to a different room in a completely different building and have the rest of the class for an hour. You have to have good biceps to be a student here. There are always at least a quarter of the students in class without a desk, and sometimes they are sharing a chair. A student always helps me pack up and carry my projector and laptop, which is very nice. The students are amazingly polite and respectful, and I’m getting used to being referred to primarily as “Prof”, and sometimes “ma’am”.
Despite the circumstances, which are probably really only a bother to me, the students are doing very well. They are bright and enterprising students, and have a demanding schedule of coursework and fieldwork. For most of the students, English is their third language, so they are at least trilingual, if not more. I often forget that they are undergraduates because of their maturity, and I find myself giving the students here, who are sophomores in college, much harder tests than the Masters students in the USA.
One thing I haven’t quite figured out is the academic system here, even though I’ve had it explained to me a number of times. This is how I understand it. In Namibian higher education, students need to have a 40% average on tests/projects during the term to be allowed to sit for the final exam. The final exam, called the “first opportunity exam”, is worth 40% of the grade. If they fail the first opportunity examination (less than 50%), but don’t fail too badly (more than 40%), then they have a “second opportunity exam”, in which they can try again. However, the second opportunity examination doesn’t take place until January of next year, seven months after the term ends. So for some, they don’t know if they have passed or failed a class until the week before the term after next term begins. It is very confusing for me. Exams here also have to be “externally moderated”. Thus, I had to send my “first opportunity examination” and my “second opportunity examination” to a professor in South Africa to get approval that my test was appropriate two months before the term was over. Then, after I have graded my exams, they are sent to this professor, who assesses whether I graded my exams appropriately. I’ve never had my final exams done so early in a term!
I gave a test today to my second year students. The tests in general cause high anxiety for the students. First, the majority of the students have not bought the textbook. The books are too expensive, and some students are still waiting for their bursaries (scholarships) for this term. I can’t imagine how difficult studying is when there is no exam. Second, we have such a small budget here, I can’t make handouts for the students except on my own dime at a copy shop. While I give notes to students electronically, I can’t give the extensive handouts I usually give. Third, the atmosphere surrounding tests is hectic. There simply are not enough chairs and desks for the students here. Before each class, students have to scrounge around the other classrooms looking for desks and chairs, and some students always have to resort to completing the test on their laps. Finally, I’m giving applied tests, where I gave them little situations and they have to apply the concepts to these situations. They aren’t used to these types of tests so much.
Another thing that I haven’t figured out yet is the room scheduling here. It seems as though rooms are not really scheduled, but are on a first come/first served basis. We spend a lot of our time looking for an empty classroom to hold class. My Monday class is the only class that is the same each week. We meet in one building for 45 minutes, then pick up our chairs and desks and walk to a different room in a completely different building and have the rest of the class for an hour. You have to have good biceps to be a student here. There are always at least a quarter of the students in class without a desk, and sometimes they are sharing a chair. A student always helps me pack up and carry my projector and laptop, which is very nice. The students are amazingly polite and respectful, and I’m getting used to being referred to primarily as “Prof”, and sometimes “ma’am”.
Despite the circumstances, which are probably really only a bother to me, the students are doing very well. They are bright and enterprising students, and have a demanding schedule of coursework and fieldwork. For most of the students, English is their third language, so they are at least trilingual, if not more. I often forget that they are undergraduates because of their maturity, and I find myself giving the students here, who are sophomores in college, much harder tests than the Masters students in the USA.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Academia
We have moved out of UNAM village into the former New Zealand consulate. The people at the Embassy are quite concerned with security, and the management of UNAM village was pretty poor so they approved our moving to a new place. We were plenty happy in UNAM village, and especially liked the other people living in the complex – the Geology professor from Zimbabwe, the Portuguese professor from Brazil, the Engineering professor from Tanzania, the Accounting professor from India, etc. etc. It was like a mini-UN there.
However, we are very happy with our new house. It is in a neighborhood very close to UNAM, which is fittingly called “Academia”. All the street names are of philosophers. To get to our house, you go on streets named Socrates, Hegel, Hume and Calvin, though our house is on a street named after a lesser-known philosopher, Bodin. Luckily, a friend of a friend from Minnesota was on an incredibly bike trip from Cairo to Cape Town, and he happened to be a philosophy professor from St. John's University. He told us that Bodin was the French philosopher that came up with the concept of “sovereignty”. Most Windhoek neighborhoods have themes like this. UNAM village was in Hochland Park, and the street names were bird names – Goshawk, Kingfisher, etc. Dorado Park’s streets are named after Greek Gods, Windhoek West ‘s streets are named after German composers. Downtown, it is a mix of historical figures, African democratic leaders, famous dictators, and some notorious figures. Thus, you have the intersection of Bismarck and Castro, and two of the main thoroughfares are Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela.
Our new house in Academia is still listed on some websites as the New Zealand consulate and we have already had one tourist come by our house looking for some officials. However, I don’t think the kiwis were putting much into their presence in Namibia! It is a fairly shabby house that is nothing like an embassy, but does have a swimming pool, a bar, and two outdoor braais (built in bbqs). What we like best about it is we now have room to be outside on the patio. It seemed a shame to be in this warm, dry country, but not have a place to actually sit outside. So we are happy here in Academia.
However, we are very happy with our new house. It is in a neighborhood very close to UNAM, which is fittingly called “Academia”. All the street names are of philosophers. To get to our house, you go on streets named Socrates, Hegel, Hume and Calvin, though our house is on a street named after a lesser-known philosopher, Bodin. Luckily, a friend of a friend from Minnesota was on an incredibly bike trip from Cairo to Cape Town, and he happened to be a philosophy professor from St. John's University. He told us that Bodin was the French philosopher that came up with the concept of “sovereignty”. Most Windhoek neighborhoods have themes like this. UNAM village was in Hochland Park, and the street names were bird names – Goshawk, Kingfisher, etc. Dorado Park’s streets are named after Greek Gods, Windhoek West ‘s streets are named after German composers. Downtown, it is a mix of historical figures, African democratic leaders, famous dictators, and some notorious figures. Thus, you have the intersection of Bismarck and Castro, and two of the main thoroughfares are Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela.
Our new house in Academia is still listed on some websites as the New Zealand consulate and we have already had one tourist come by our house looking for some officials. However, I don’t think the kiwis were putting much into their presence in Namibia! It is a fairly shabby house that is nothing like an embassy, but does have a swimming pool, a bar, and two outdoor braais (built in bbqs). What we like best about it is we now have room to be outside on the patio. It seemed a shame to be in this warm, dry country, but not have a place to actually sit outside. So we are happy here in Academia.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Busy at work
We’ve all been very busy with school and work lately. Maxine is busy doing her 6th grade graduation project, Alice has been busy learning Afrikaans, and Ruby has had several fun birthday parties (Happy 5th Birthday Ruby). Work has been very interesting for me lately. I’ve been visiting a lot of community agencies lately, and working on several interesting research projects with people at UNAM and people in the community.
One of the agencies I’ve been most impressed with is a grassroots community agency called Mount Sinai. It is an NGO that works with HIV+ mothers, with the objective of giving mild/food to their children for preventing mother to child transmission of HIV, and for giving food to children who are HIV+ and are taking antiretroviral drugs (they need a full tummy for those drugs). The founder of the project runs this woman out of her house – the dining room is her office, the bedroom is her supply room, etc., and she is amazing. She provides services to roughly 300 kids, and has an excellent success rate of keeping the children HIV-. She is really well-organized, and has plans for trying to get funding to open up a larger center. I was visiting the agency because one of my students is doing an income-generating project there, helping the mothers start up an ice cream/popcorn/cookie selling business. I was there with another lecturer, and we gave them lectures outside about running a business, investing, and all of that (complete with powerpoint slides beamed on the side of the house). They were all really motivated to be involved in this project. This is the type of organization that you visit and you want to help – because this woman is dong so much and is so competent, but is running on a shoestring. After visiting, I’m now written her a grant proposal template to use for gaining funds, and others in my department our helping as well. We even had our last faculty meeting at one of the beneficiaries place in an informal settlement in the township. We paid one of the beneficiaries to make us dinner, and we sat in her one room house eating fried mopane worms, mahango porridge, beans and drinking Mahangu beer. Quite a faculty meeting.
Liz with Christa, the founder of Mount Sinai, and Asaad, the 4th year social work student, in Christa's carport
The women from Mount Sinai who are starting up the new small enterprise
One of the agencies I’ve been most impressed with is a grassroots community agency called Mount Sinai. It is an NGO that works with HIV+ mothers, with the objective of giving mild/food to their children for preventing mother to child transmission of HIV, and for giving food to children who are HIV+ and are taking antiretroviral drugs (they need a full tummy for those drugs). The founder of the project runs this woman out of her house – the dining room is her office, the bedroom is her supply room, etc., and she is amazing. She provides services to roughly 300 kids, and has an excellent success rate of keeping the children HIV-. She is really well-organized, and has plans for trying to get funding to open up a larger center. I was visiting the agency because one of my students is doing an income-generating project there, helping the mothers start up an ice cream/popcorn/cookie selling business. I was there with another lecturer, and we gave them lectures outside about running a business, investing, and all of that (complete with powerpoint slides beamed on the side of the house). They were all really motivated to be involved in this project. This is the type of organization that you visit and you want to help – because this woman is dong so much and is so competent, but is running on a shoestring. After visiting, I’m now written her a grant proposal template to use for gaining funds, and others in my department our helping as well. We even had our last faculty meeting at one of the beneficiaries place in an informal settlement in the township. We paid one of the beneficiaries to make us dinner, and we sat in her one room house eating fried mopane worms, mahango porridge, beans and drinking Mahangu beer. Quite a faculty meeting.
Liz with Christa, the founder of Mount Sinai, and Asaad, the 4th year social work student, in Christa's carport
The women from Mount Sinai who are starting up the new small enterprise
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