taking walks, it is the norm to come across many
beautiful pieces of drift wood. In the case of the
picture ... what are you looking at is kind of the same
concept only from the bush. So I guess one could call
it ... bush wood.
Almost daily I take a walk out into the bush (not too
deep, two weeks ago a man got killed by an
elephant, he was deep in the bush) and of course
there are many things to discover.
One of them being that piece of bush wood. It has
become a mantle piece for my table. If you look at
the center of this piece you can see a shape that
resembles a dragon. It is one of those meant to
be/fate things as my Chinese astrological sign is the
dragon.
But as this is Saturday and the end of another week
it is kind of a recapitulation time.
The week went well and there was some progress and
of course regress. But I think that it appears to be
arriving at the point where the progress is greater than
the regress.
The netball court situation is still up in the air. One of
the poles broke and that's another challenge to overcome
(getting it fixed).
The women's support group garden had taken a little
back step as the people were occupied with other activities
but it is back to normal again.
The library continues to develop. The shaky shelves are
now actually able to stand on their own. Well, if they
are bolted together in a cross configuration. The shelves
were actually nailed to the wall and when we took the
nails out they actually collapsed like they got hit by a
George Foreman right hand. The reason that they
collapsed is that the metal shelves usually come with
some pieces that are bolted to the sides but of course,
aren't here. Also the shelves normally would be bolted
together with about 40 small bolts with nuts and washers.
Well, these had about 15 bolts and no washers.
So using the old engineering degree I somehow managed
to obtain, used the old noggin and also had about 10
bolts hanging around and lo and behold, it stands, holds
books and people are amazed that it functions while
not having to be crucified to the wall.
Another progressive situation is that with an ex Romanian
Peace Corps Volunteer we have been able to start up
a cross cultural blog. The link should be or will be in
the upper right hand section of this blog. The blog's
name is 'The Pando Project'.
We thought of this last year when we were both in
Romania and what it's goal is is to bring schools
together from different countries with the intent for
the students to ask questions and discuss points of
difference and interest.
This has been slow to start due to various reasons but
finally it appears to be gaining momentum. We hope
that once it gets up to speed that the countries represented
will be ... The United States, South Korea, Argentina,
Kazakhstan, Romania and of course, Namibia. So after
almost a year since conception, it is pretty cool
to see it come to life.
The debating clubs had a little snafu this last week and
didn't get to do their weekly debate, but we ironed
some points and it seems that it may begin to be easier
to get it to be kind of like it should be, easy.
Also had a sharing of my culture experience that worked
out well.
One of the goal posts at the new soccer field was basically
held together with bubble gum. The upper right hand
corner where the two pieces of tubing joined, had it's
welded joint broke. So what the people did was put in
a short (too short) piece of smaller tubing to
hold it together. It worked except for the fact that if
you hit, knocked or ran into the upright pole, it
would come crashing down. This was a dangerous
situation, that with the right circumstances, could
actually kill someone.
So, I found a longer and bigger piece of tubing and
then asked anyone at the Youth Office (responsible
for fixing the goal post) if they've ever heard the
term ... beat the s__t out of something. Here they
don't have all these colorful sayings like we do in
the States. I am sure they do in their local languages,
but not in the English they use.
So I said that all we needed was a strong hammer
and I will demonstrate what beating the s__t out of
something was.
So we went to the soccer field, found out that the
tubing that we wanted to use to fix the goal post
was long enough, but was too wide.
By beating the s__t out of that tubing and also
demonstrating and sharing of my culture, it worked.
The goal post is as stable as if it was welded.
I asked the guys if now they understood the meaning
of that phrase, beat the s__t out of something. They
said that now, they did. Let me tell you, I really had
to beat that tube to get it to work.
I guess there were other minor successes this week
but too small to mention.
It was a good week and of course that the hope
is that this is the beginning of an upward spiral.
Ciao
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