above you see two people. One is my counterpart
(Susanna) and the other is a man from Cuba who
came to hold a meeting in the village last week.
Also, a group of high school kids from England arrived
as part of the World Challenge program and will be here
for a week. They will help out at the school working
on a project to spruce up and refurbish a few of the old
classrooms.
The volunteer from the Netherlands just left for a few
months and the priest from Germany and the two
Romanians from the Adventist Church are in Europe
and will be back within this month.
Of course I am from the United States and in my opinion,
that's a lot of different people in a village of 700 people
out 70 kilometers in the middle of the bush.
In my experience it is just a great thing to be able to be
a part of. With all the problems people have with
conceptions and discrimination of and against other
people it is a refreshing experience to just interact with
these people of other cultures and build friendships.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to add in the people of Namibia
and there are something like 6 or 7 different tribes with
their little agendas within themselves and ... well ... one
learns to be open minded, tolerant, accepting and in the
end it is a great chance to develop one's personal
perceptions first hand. No secret and no revelations will
be found in this statement ... it takes meeting the people
first hand to actually know what is going on. Listening
to other peoples opinions and taking them as our own
and not seeing first hand if they are correct leads to a
lot of this discrimination through ignorance.
I really enjoyed talking to the man from Cuba seeing
as the situation between his country and mine could
present a little resentment but ... actually it was the
opposite. We got along great and both mentioned that
the political stuff is not of interest to either one.
I don't know how many times this is repeated but in
general people are people no matter where we are from.
To change the subject and give a little info on what is
happening in the village ... well ... it is a slow period other
than the visitors.
The main accomplishment that seems to have any value
to me has been that I've been taking video clips of the
young San Cultural group's practices (ages between
8 to 15 or 16 years). The reason being that they could
look them over and see if there are any mistakes or things
that they may improve on.
So far there are four separate sessions that have been recorded.
Last night I went over the the group's leader's house as he
had all the kids over to sit and watch and critique their work.
Let me tell you it was fun to see. They were laughing at some
of the gaffs and making comments on what they may be able
to change. Also, there was no room to move as not only the kids
were there but so was the whole neighborhood, young and old.
Doesn't seem like much but here it is a first and the value I
find in it is that they are hopefully acquiring the character
trait of self-improvement. The idea is that a character trait
learned will be used in all activities as it will be a part of who
they are. Things like this is just ... who knows if it will work
... but ... it may and that's worth the effort.
This month may be even a little slower as it is kind of a vacation
month. That's ok, I'll find something to do somewhere. These
are the dog days of my volunteer tour.
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