The Small Things

A few weeks ago I got a couch for my house...ITS AWESOME I sit on it everyday! I will take pictures of my house soon now that it is decorated and lived in :)

I made a dinner with Kathy. Found my Cuban roots. It was like noche de buena in Feb. When I went home at Christmas I found a dry Mojo at Publix -man I love that store!-. So I made pork, black beans and rice! We have talked about doing a Easter/Passover holiday at my house and we are talking about making pork again.

I have actually become a good cook (somewhat!) over this side. I made cookies for my friends. It has been hard because the brown sugar is not like at home. So I have had to practice over the past year and I found that if you substitute 2 Tablespoons honey it works just as well!! I have also made Key Lime Pie and this weekend I made Lima Bean Soup. Man I am a domestic queen!!

This is a picture of my neighbor. SHE IS ADORABLE!! She just walks by and asks me questions "Where is your TV?" "Why don't you have one?" "What are you doing?" "Where are your friends?" She is very sharp and can sing to me her alphabet. She even will try to share her sweets. She just makes me smile. There is a little boy, her cousin who lives on the other side of me, and together they are a pair.

I could die a happy woman

It is the start of the new school year (our school year is Jan-Dec) and with the start of the new year comes the annual parents meeting. I went to one of my schools parents meeting. I was supposed to speak in front of all these parents, about 300, about my program and the new intake. I stood up and spoke made a joke in Rukwangali, it really wasn't a joke it was me saying "Edina lyange Kim, Ame mulizambeli koPeace Corps, Ame na hara mutete no mahangu" translated its : My name is Kim, I am a Peace Corps Volunteer, I like wild spinach and porridge! They seemed to find me very entertaining. Point is I did my speech and waited around until the end of the meeting for parents questions.

The last part of the program was a chance for the parents to stand up and ask questions. There was a woman who stood up, honestly I was not paying attention until she turned and pointed to me and said Kayec. I was told after that she was thanking me for changing her daughters(or son, the child changed each time someone told me about it) life. When the child started the program she did not speak good English and being in the program has brought up her grades and brought her out of her shell. The mother said that every parent there should enroll their child in the program and that it was one of the best things that could have ever happened to this school and child.

It was great to hear from a parent of the child. I know I can see a change in my kids, but to hear it from a parent was just the best year anniversary present I could have gotten.

Good Story...

So I was sitting at home in my bedroom around 7pm. It was starting to get dark and I was getting ready for bed (yes I know I am lame!) and I hear this yelling at my door. I go out and see a woman at my window looking in. (not appropriate!) she was at my door asking to be let in so I can help her to find her husband who died, but not in Namibia. She wanted me to escort her to the Ministry (they close at 5 pm!) I sent her on her way becuase I knew I could not help her. It was was strange and I am glad she has not come back but I do not miss her at all!

My New Babies

This past weekend was my bronze orientation! I did an intake of 100 learners it was chaos, but good chaos. I really enjoyed them. I think they will be a good group of kids. You will hear more about them I am sure. The weekend started on Friday and went until Saturday. We played games like freeze tag, red rover. Sang songs... WOW I am a camp counselor! They are so tiny. I will just post pictures and caption them if I can so its more interesting.

This is a picture of Immanuel and Petrus. They are two silvers who are fabulous and a great help. I asked them to come assist with the overnight because I knew there would be too many kids and not enough adults.

This is a group at the beginning of the day. I did the animal name game with them to figure out their teams. Each learner takes a slip of paper with an animal name on it and they must act like the animal to find thier team .I think this is Team Donkey or Team Goat!

This is a group of the boys doing the autograph signing laughing about something and I happened to catch them in the right moment!

This is the volunteers serving dinner to the kids. I think they were glad to get fed. The volunteers started cooking at 4 pm for an 8:30 dinner time. They got Macaroni salad, rice, soup and oros!

I think this is my favorite picture taken here so far. Hey are playing and having fun and you can see that in their faces!

We also played Red Rover... These kids were intense when it came to the game. I did get some good action shots though.

THE BRONZE BOYS!!

THE BRONZE GIRLS!!

I watch more TV here than I did at home...

Since being here I have discovered a beautiful thing called an external hard drive. It is one of the best things I have here. It holds all these movies and TV Shows and pictures. I just thought I would make a record of how much TV I have watched...
Prison Break (all 4 seasons)
Weeds (4 seasons)
90210 (2 seasons)
24 (on season 6, going to watch all 8)
Mad Men (1 season)
Friends (I have all 10 seasons)
The Tudors (1 season)
Its Always Sunny (4 sesons)
Glee (1 season)
Gossip Girl (2 seasons)
One Tree Hill (current season)

The list goes on and I am planning to watch The Wire and How I Met Your Mother!

WOW I am lame and I just shared that with the world... cool!

Weekend Getaway

Two weekend ago I went to Ngepi camp. There was a small group of us so we were always entertained. We all just needed a break and wanted to relax for the weekend. It is in my region so it was only about 200km to travel about a two hour drive. It was everything I could have asked for. We arrived on Friday night just in time to set up our tents and enjoy a cool drink (there is this really good grapefruit fizzy drink that is a very good mixer!). The day we just sat around and enjoyed the scenery and each others company. I sat on the dock reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man looking out over the river listening to the hippos. It was just what I needed to relax

I Can't Believe A Year Went By So Fast!

So it was 12 months ago I left for Nam. I remember sitting in Maria and Mom’s hanging out with good friends and thinking “what the hell and I getting myself into?”. I can say I am so glad I got on that plane to staging. Things have turned out so perfect. I know I have said this, but I really can’t imagine my life any different/better right now.

Here’s an update on what’s going on in my life right now...
Camp GLOW...
This is the camp I am a co-chair on this project. We spent this past week in Windhoek getting quotes, doing inventory, selecting the 80 learners and 25 facilitators that are coming and just figuring some things out that we needed to . I am really excited about the camp and it should be a good time. I am also working as a co-chair on another camp called EWA, it happens in Kavango and Caprivi, and it is almost exactly the same as GLOW the only thing is we take 80 learners from only Kavango and Caprivi. These will all take place over the next 5 months so I am going to be ready for a vacation come July but...

KAYEC
... my work with my host organization is crazy busy also. Come July I will be working 3 weekends a month doing things for my kids until September! My kids will get to go to a sports tournament in Windhoek, a bunch of leadership trainings, and the same camp they went to last year on the river, and a new camp out in Buffalo Game Park. These will all have themes( team building and environmental education) and fun games we play. It should be a good time. I am hoping to also hike Fish River Canyon with some of the kids from Windhoek, Reoboth, Otjiwarongo and Ondangwa (you have to be in the program for 3 years and my kids are not there yet so I am hoping to tag along with those that have). This weekend all the Youth Officers (my job) got together in Rundu to discuss the next year. There are a lot of good things going on with the program and it should be really great for the kids. Over the past year I have made some mistakes and learned from the program so I hope this year will go smoother and better for the kids. Today I am making a large jeopardy board for our Tuesday “Power Hour Study Time”! We will meet every Tuesday and study select topics. If you have any other fun games that I can make into studying with out studying I would love some input. I was starting to feel overwhelmed with all these tasks in my head so I made a yearly calendar and let me say I will be ready for a LONG HOLIDAY come December. I think I am going to go hide on a beach in Mozambique somewhere and read a lot of books and relax!

Personal
As you could have probably guessed I don’t have much personal time. Today I am going home and cleaning my house on my half day (not fun, but I worked all weekend so I don’t have a choice!) I am still pretty lame when it comes to doing exciting things on my own (not much has changed since I lived in the States!)I am just taking advantage of every free day of nothing that I get. I really miss those weeks of having nothing to do. Everything else is great. The new group comes next Sunday or Saturday. There are going to be 30 of them!! There are going to be a handful coming my side I think.I am helping with one of the weeks, the site announcement week! Oceano one of our grocery stores has changed its name to Woreman Brocks. It has not been raining that much, today is overcast so thats nice and not so hot! The river is still pretty high and we still have a few more months to go hopefully the flooding won’t be too bad this year.I got a couch for my house!! Its nice, small, but nice! I am getting a girl from Windhoek, Melanie to help me with my job. She is coming March 1st so that should be good. She is super sweet and she might stay with me for a month until she can find a place to rent. Tomatoes are $17 per bag!!! I think OK foods just bumped all their prices up. Kathy and I made these mint chocolate chip cookies ... YUM I might need another few bags of those chocolate chips when they come out again!

I think that’s all the happenings...as you can tell my life is very exciting these days!
EWA