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But you can't have a swim unless you'd like to look like the toxic avenger. In the picture is one of the villages three in ground swimming pools. Yup, three of them and that is the best one. There is also two small (what looks like to have been) hot tub looking things. All in an advanced state of disrepair. What can be said, mismanagement, no management, maybe? It could go back to the original San (bushmen's) former lifestyle and culture. They didn't have swimming pools in the places they resided and it wasn't a part of their lives. The village was an ex military base and a ready made place of habitation. Also a fixed location as opposed to a moving around mode they were accustomed to. I am thinking here lies the problem with managing the village, no experienced people. Which I argue is more of a small city due to it's population of about 4,500. I am seeing various stages of deterioration without a consciousness of the fact that repairing is part of the process. Every village or city needs a few capable managers. This is the challenge in this village. Hopefully, someone will step up and rebuild the village to a semblance of it's former self. Kind of a 'Flight of the Phoenix' re-construction magic moment. Heck, we got a mile runway just waiting to be used. If only some community members could get the plane wreck ready to fly again. I think for now I'll stick with the soccer teams. Starting a swim team at this time could prove to be fatal. There is definitely things to do here. Two years doesn't look like enough time. Hell, even two lifetimes don't seem like it would be sufficient.
Minus the support, that is. In the picture are some plots of tomatoes that we had to plant. They were ready for transplanting but the group wasn't ready to come together. As I've mentioned in a prior blog entry, they have a good reason for not jumping into the project. The reason was that all of last year's garden money disappeared. The person responsible is still in charge, so there's about a snowball's chance in Haides that it will function with the status quo. In the meantime I go out there daily to water and plant a few more plots with the magician who made the group's money disappear. This is a classical group failure for the classical reason. Probably the only solution is to replace the head honcho but I'm thinking, when. There's been no movement towards action. It is in the wait and see mode. As for me, either way, with or without the group, I'm going to support the consumption of what hopefully will be a great year for tomatoes.
The volunteers that were in Senegal with me during the day (2003 to 2005). What you are looking at (in photo) is what we looked at all too many times in our villages. Yes, yes, yes, peanuts for the 'maffe gerte' (did I spell that right?) or peanut sauce. It was kind of funny how the other night I took a bite into the porridge and was stopped in my masticating tracks. It was a shock of familiar flavor and I was actually stumped as to what it was. It was another attack of nostalgia. It was Southern Senegal, it was like being with the Pulaars again. It was all your familar muggs coming into my noggin in a nano second's duration of a collage. It was great to see us as we were, forever young in the 'Fouladou'. I then re-focused and asked, is this peanut sauce? Got the answer in the affirmative and I commenced to tell people in this in Namibia about the good old peanut sauce eating days of Senegal. So this was a definite 'Back to Africa' moment. During my time with you guys I probably complained at least a few times about the overdose of peanut sauce that was ingested over the two and a half years. What I have to say now is that it is a case of not knowing what I had till it's gone. Got to say that it is better the second time around. So it looks like peanut sauce tonight. I don't know if it's possible to dedicate eating a plate of food in someone's honor, but I will. So, here's looking at you 'Fouladou' crew.
The building in the picture houses the generator for the village. There were two of them but one broke, went away for repairs, never to be seen from again. The result is that the power is rationed out to the community. There are two schedules, Monday through Friday from 5 till 9. Then 12 noon to 2 in the afternoon. The final leg of our daily rationing is 5 to 9 in the evening. On the weekends it is 8 a.m. till 2 p.m. then a resumption from 5 to 9 again in the evening. It's ok if you have electricity in the house, I do not. My biggest dilemna in this is trying to keep the hand held electronics charged. I have to carry a plastic shopping bag with the re-chargers in around fulltime. The reason being is that I never know when there is an available outlet around when the generator is on. I also have an hybrid solar charger than has been a godsend as of now. But there is never enough time to ever charge anything to it's full capacity. It is one gadget plugged in ten minutes here then anothes 5 minutes there. The solar charger for half an hour here and there. The reason is that it would get up and walk if left unattended. But a good point is that the electricity is free. That's until the end of the year. Then we're supposed to be hooked up to the grid. What I am interested in hearing is what the people will be saying about having to pay. Going from the out house to the big house is easy. It's the other direction that people have trouble dealing with. So from free to pay, well I am sure someone will mutter a few complaint words. So that is how it is and will be as it concerns our electrical power supply. I'd write more but the generator started and I need to search for a plug to charge up this phone.
When it comes to the art of washing clothes. What you see in the picture is all we need. In fact it could be simplified down to just one plastic bowl for the people of the minimalist persuasion. What you see is all that we use, period. Two pans with water, one bar of soap, something to sit on (for us older folk) which is a plastic milk crate under the clothes. Just add soap to the water, then add the reason for it all (dirty clothes) into the cleaning brew, then swish, swirl, rub and nead and eventually voila, clean clothes. Also with lugging water and srubbing away it again helps to reduce the need to go to the gym. Also total cost to get oufitted? Reddish bowl was $ 2.40 USD. Black bowl was $ 1.00 USD. Bar of soap $ .50 USD. For under 3 dollars I'm a rocking and rolling to another two years of the only machine cycle this system has, hand wash. So yeah, yeah, yeah with technology smecknology.
It was a classic case of 'build it and they will come' or 'it's always darkest before the dawn', plain and simple. In less than 24 hours we went from 5 players to thinking about starting a girl's league with 4 teams. This morning we had 25 girls and supposedly they are only half. So they had a game and it was great. They can sure run and the field is as sandy as a beach. That even raised the intensity of their training. It might give them an advantage over other teams who play on better quality fields. In the picture they are sitting in the shade after the game. The score was 1 to 1 and they all played their hearts out. So the humble beginnings statement I made in yesterday's blog entry makes me think, what was I talking about. Hopefully it continues to grow and doesn't back slide. I don't want to have to make a blog entry titled 'what was I talking about talking about'.
In the picture is what hopefully will be the beginning of our girl's soccer team. Yeah, there are 5 players and a normal soccer team has 11. So the math says we're short 6. That's ok, for it's something totally new and in a little time we should be fully staffed. Tomorrow morning at 8 will be their first official practice with their coach. I've seen them fool around kicking the ball and it is apparent that they've never really played. Again ok, that's what starting something that's never been done before is about, learning new things. The goal is more than just a sports team. It is to address gender equality, give them a healthy outlet and create a group that may be able to get together to collaborate in other activities. It definitely is a humble beginning that we hope will develop into something we can brag about in the end.
For more than eight of the last nine years I have been living the life of the minority of one. I've been the gringo, toubob (white person), straine (foreigner) and now the makua (again, white person). The one and only in each village. This means leaving a way of life I can navigate by remote control, to enter a new one with a myriad of challenges for the unknowing. Also left behind are memories of a prior life but also there is the promise of fabricating new ones. But at times and at random there have been these triggers that have brought back wiffs of nostalgia of what seems to me to be, a former surreal existence. What is in the picture has been one of these such triggers. That platform sneaker brings me back to my hey day during the disco era of the 70's. I've cringed as I passed it several times daily. It was in the middle of a trash pile along the main path I use to and from the house. I didn't believe anything like that existed anymore. What I did this afternoon was take it, stand it upright and take a picture of it for this blog entry. The couple of people watching me must have thought, well, who knows what they thought of the white guy taking a picture of a platform shoe from a garbage pile. The funny thing was that the next time I passed the spot where I last left the shoe. It had moved from the side to the middle of the sandy path. Plus as I returned along the same path a few hours later it was 'poof', gone. I am wondering if by giving this, which is to me a trigger, the importance of taking it's picture that I gave it some mysterious value. In turn, in someone's mind it became a must have. Either way, thank goodness it's gone. Imagine two years of multiple daily remembrances of the disco days.
Part of the Peace Corps mandate is an exchange of cultures. Those of the USA with the people of the country we're living in, and visa versa, they with us. The exchange is just a normal part of daily life when different peoples live together. Everyone acts in their own unique ways influenced by their respective cultures. It is demonstrated in our actions and speech as we journey through our day. What you see in the picture was an exercise in cultural exchange. It is not from my USA culture to Namibian culture but from Senegalese to Namibian. I learned this gesture during my time living in a rural village of the Pulaar people in the southern region of Senegal. The four San girls in the photo were kind enough to pose showing their newly learned Pulaar gesture. The gesture is similar to that of what could be best described as the arm movement in the dance called 'the funky chicken'. The meaning of the gesture is - I refuse. There is also a goal to teaching that gesture. The goal is to tie that gesture into a message later on that says - Refuse unprotected sex and teenage pregnancy. So it isn't a mindless exchange only, it is laying some ground work. Kind of a two birds with one stone strategy.
Seeing as we are situated in the Bwabwata Game Reserve a dried up watering hole could mean an anticipated gathering of animals when the rains come again. It will fill but it won't be all too exotic. This watering hole is for the village's cattle. I came upon today as I was doing a little venturing out exploring after lunch. It isn't located very far away from the village itself. A few people have told me that the UNITA rebels from Angola were around here around 10 or so years ago. There were also land mines placed as a result. So as I was just walking along through the bush, it entered in my mind that I didn't know to what extent they had placed or cleaned them up. I decided to stay on what looked like a path, head back and ask what was the land mine situation. The answer I got was that they cleaned them up around the village. It has been a while and people have been traveling the bush on a regular basis so it should be ok. But the not knowing at first did add to the degree of adventure.
