a day in the life...

hello all. thought you might be interested in seeing what a typical weekday looks like for me. i know i may have written about some of this stuff before, but you can just get over it. okay, i like you all.

6:30 – my ouma (grandma) or my little sister Troosie knocks on my bedroom door to wake me up (even though my alarm is always set just in case…..for about 30 minutes later of course). The wake up usually goes something like “SHANNON!! YOU MUST WAKE UP!” Namibians use the word “must” quite often. So it’s quite a way to wake up in the morning.
6:45 after getting dressed half-asleep, I stumble into the kitchen where I greet my family (just ouma and Troosie unless Bruno has to go to work or Petra hasn’t left yet for Windhoek) and start to make my coffee. Then my wonderful ouma hands me a plate of scrambled eggs (sometimes with tomato) and buttered (of course) toast.
7:00 I head back to my room to kill some time before I have to be outside to meet the combi (van) to take us to the Kukuri center. So I brush my teeth, sometimes clean up my room or write e-mails.
7:15 go outside to meet the combi. Hang out with/talk to a couple of the other volunteers who live in the Ved (our neighborhood) while we wait for Magnus and James (who are invariably late). Finally, around 7:35 we leave for the center.
7:45 arrive and hang out with other volunteers. We talk and watch some music video channel that usually is very entertaining (plays kanye west, gaga, beyonce, etc.)
8:00 the trainers come in so we can start SINGING. We sing and dance our hearts out for approx. 15 minutes. We also sing the Namibian and the U.S. national anthems. We’re pretty good, I can’t lie. One thing that is funny is that there is one song called “Namibia !gai re” or something in Khoekhoegowab (one of the click languages) and you just insert whatever you want before !gai re so we just call people out and then they have to dance for like a minute in front of everyone. Well SOMEHOW it became everyone’s favorite thing to call me out EVERY TIME WE SING IT. Seriously. It’s getting pretty awkward. I’ve run out of dance moves (aka I had none in the first place).
8:15 announcements (us trying our best to come up with stuff to talk about so we run over into our language classes)
8:30-10:00 first part of language for the day.
10:00-10:30 TEA BREAK (aka, all of us eat our ENTIRE lunches and sit around and talk. It’s awesome).
10:30-1:00 some of the longest hours of my life….language #2. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t really complain because it’s not THAT BAD, but for the last hour sometimes I want to hurt someone. It’s just so hard to pay attention after doing it for so long. But don’t worry, we’ve spoken to the peace corps about it and they might try and make some changes in scheduling for the next training group.
1:00-2:30 glorious lunch time. Except for those of us (all of us) who have already eaten our lunches, it’s just time for us to either copy stuff from each other’s hard drives, roll around in the grass, walk to SPAR(our amazing supermarket) and buy a ton more food, go to the post office/internet café, or just generally bum around. It’s kind of awesome. Especially since we all like each other.
*I guess I should talk about what I eat for lunch. My ouma packs me 1 ½ (don’t know why) sandwiches that are normally bologna with butter, cheese with butter or peanut butter with butter), a piece of fruit (orange, apple, banana) and usually a thing of yogurt and a drink. Not bad at all. I am kind of in love with her. But THEN when we go to SPAR we go kind of crazy. Lately it’s been Oshikandela (a yogurt drink, guava flavor is the best) and this killer salad with lettuce, olives, tomato, avocado or just a bag of chips. Either way we spend a ton of money there and I’m pretty much always eating.
2:30-usually 5:00 sometimes earlier if we’re lucky: afternoon sessions. These can involve anything from HIV/AIDS awareness information to talking about relationships in Namibia or Namibian holidays to talking about medical issues, etc. sometimes they are great and sometimes we are just so tired it’s hard to pay attention.
5:30 arrive home after riding in the combis. Greet my huge family and ask everyone about their how their day went.
5:45-6:00 eat dinner. We eat almost immediately after I get home, which is nice because some people eat really late. Dinner is always meat (usually goat/sheep but sometimes chicken) with either pasta or rice with soup (like gravy) on top and then with some sort of veggies (either beet salad, carrot salad, tomato salad, etc.) keep in mind salad = with mayonnaise. OHsometimes we have baked squash and they put butter and sugar on it….oh my word.
6:30 depending on the night I might help with dishes, although I definitely don’t do this as much as I should. But there are so many people in my house it doesn’t always work out. Honestly sometimes when I feel like offering to help I just realize I would more of a nuisance because there are so many people in the kitchen. So normally I just get ready to take my bath. We have to heat up water because there is no hot water so we do that and I go get my stuff. Then I relax in the bath for 20 minutes or so and then I’m pretty much done for the evening. It’s nice.
7:00-8:00 LORENZO’S WIFE everyone watches this ridiculous Spanish language (dubbed over) soap opera that is sort of the more horrific (yet wonderful) thing I’ve ever seen. I mean seriously, if the kids try and talk over it they get straight up YELLED AT. It’s awesome.
8:00-10:00 my time, yo. I’m usually in my room on the computer or doing homework or just listening to music and relaxing. Sometimes I fall asleep by 9 but it just depends on how tired I am or what I have to do.
AND THAT’S IT!

picture

my house in okahandja. essentially a palace.

so, this is going to take a lot longer than i had anticipated. more later.