One Month

*note* if you click on the photos in the above slide show, it should take you to my picasa web albums page where you can see larger views of my photos with captions.

A month ago today we arrived in Namibia, jet lagged and without bags (I did finally get all of my bags for those of you who haven't been updated). In the first week, we were so slammed with information and overwhelmed by our surroundings that on Friday, it felt like a month had gone by. Now that I've actually been here for a month and have begun to adapt, some things are actually becoming predictable again and I've almost developed some semblance of a routine. I'm not quite as exhausted after each day because I have shifted back down from "high-alert" mode.

My language is starting to come along. It must be funny for the cleaning staff to walk by our class and overhear us practicing our simple sentences. "My name is Lindsay. I come from America. I like socks and peanut butter. I do not like mosquitos." And I never thought the day would come that I'd be texting my friends and Nam family in Afrikaans! However, knowing Afrikaans and English still doesn't mean you're covered. There are 11 languages spoken in Namibia and most people speak 3 or 4 of them. Once they find out you are actually attempting to learn the "local language" (whatever that means because there is never just one) then they expect you to learn theirs aswell. I guess I should take it as a compliment that they are actually pitching the language to me since speaking the tribal language is supposed to be for that tribe only, and the esoteric language is particularly useful when they want to discuss the foreigner in their midst. Nothing's better than looking over at the gossipers and saying, "ya, I'm American, but I can undestand what you're saying" in their mother tongue.

At my office in Mariental, they mostly speak English because it is the Namibian Government and technically English is the nat'l language. The locals speak Nama to each other (clicking lang.), my new friend Beata, who recently moved from Northern Namibia speaks Oshiwambo so she's teaching me a little bit of that. So I only really speak Afrikaans in training and to my family in Okahandja. At first I was nervous about learning Afrikaans because I was afraid that people would think I was an Afrikaaner (white African whose native tongue is Afrikaans), but my accent is not that good. I asked Beata if people who don't hear me speak would look at me and think I'm an Afrikaaner and she laughed, "no, they won't think you are an Afrikaaner because you are with the blacks!"

Sadly, racism is still very alive here. I've gotten dirty looks from Afrikaaners when they see me riding in the same car as my black colleagues. It's so jolting to see this blatant racism first hand and on a daily basis. It is such a damaging thing that impedes the progress of every transformative effort and I fear that it is something I am bound to run hard into once I begin my projects. But for now I'm in training, a protective bubble, which at the moment some of us resent but we will surely long for it at times when we're on our own at our permanent sites.