Work

I (Liz) finally started working at the University of Namibia this week! I’m already very impressed with the people in my department. They teach about 150 undergraduate majors, and only have 5 faculty members and no support staff at all (zero). The head of the social work section, a lovely, committed hard working woman, does everything from arranging field placements to developing the curriculum to fixing the fax machine, along with teaching about 6-8 classes per year. The faculty members all have really heavy teaching loads, and also arrange and supervise field placements of varying lengths for students all over the country. I just went to a meeting where they were being encouraged to do research, but I can't imagine how they could fit that into their schedules too. They have all gone out of their way to be warm and welcoming, and each are very impressive. The Dean is also a very kind man, who has lots of good, big ideas for making the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences more relevant to the county.

Despite all the best efforts of my department, I still don’t have an office or a desk, and it is not clear when I will get one. We went to where we thought my office was going to be, and it had electrical cords hanging out all over the place. I’m not going to be teaching any classes by myself this semester, but instead will be teaching parts of pretty much all of the classes being offered. I’m also trying to get my research started, and have a few smaller projects lined up already. I am not even beginning to be able to find my way around campus yet. Some of it is quite lovely, like the interior courtyards of my “block” (building). Other parts look almost abandoned in the middle of the campus, like the empty Olympic sized swimming pool right in the middle of campus which definitely is abandoned. The pool at UNAM village where we live, while much smaller, is also empty with weeds growing in it. There clearly aren’t funds for extras at this school, though a pool would be ideal in this hot country.

Bill has been volunteering for the past two weeks every night for 4 hours per night at the American Cultural Center (Embassy) teaching GRE classes for Namibians who want to go to graduate school in the United States under the student Fulbright program. He has found it very rewarding, and they are so happy to have him helping them prepare for the tests, which are a week from Saturday.