Curiosity, Race, Abortion, and Young People. Neh?

I wrote two questions in my notebook this morning.
1) How do you drive curiosity?
2) How do you inspire drive?

Last week I delivered, which will probably be the most significant achievement I will have made in my volunteering experience here: Microsoft Word and Excel training. Although I've been spending most of my time trying to come up with alternative funding strategies, and developing a new tool/process to track HIV/AIDS service organizations in Namibia - ie: high-level stuff, the thing that seems to be the most valuable here, is support on basic technical assistance.

Two things (of note) struck me while I was conducting the training:

1) There's a thirst for this type of knowledge. My colleagues see the immediate benefit of creating a graph in excel, or using ctrl+x or ctrl+v, and once they've been shown it, they adopt to it very quickly.
2) This thirst of knowledge does not lend it self to an innate sense of curiosity. So much of learning is driven by your willingness to play around till you figure it out yourself. I found that several times during training, if someone couldn't complete the exercise, they would just sit there till I came around and helped them. I couldn't find that sense of desire to explore and just try for the sake of trying.

So..where does it stem from? A so-so education system? An incredibly low pay scale - why go the extra mile if you're only paid about $3-4000 USD a year? A segregated colonial past that reprimanded black Namibians who excelled and were natural leaders? But that's the older generation - I would like to think I shouldn't see that from the younger generation - but perhaps that urge/desire to self-help and initiate is not passed on to the younger generation as much. And of course, I'm talking on broad/general terms - I've come across quite a few very bright young Namibians.

But these two observations is what prompted my first question - how do you drive curiosity. And let me clarify - education is very much a priority here - for all Namibians it seems. I think everyone I met, no matter if their 22 or 62, they're all in school part time pursuing a Master's or a PHD or something (makes me feel quite inadequate with my lonely bachelor's degree) - but its that sense of 'wait, let me try to figure this out first, before i ask for help', that I haven't seen so much. Self-help? I dunno.

And, I know, I'm only here for 2 months so far, so granted, my observations are based on limited scope, but this is what I've gathered from my experience and from what I've learned/heard from others. I was talking to a lady at the grassroots organization I'm working with, and she was telling me that her number one challenge, wasn't finding funding, but was finding good resources. She and her husband are both expats, and recognize that in order to make their org a truly sustainable org, they need to build up local Namibians to take the reigns. But the second they find someone good, and build them up and train them, the employee leaves to get a higher paying job. And why wouldn't they? In a country with only 2million people, the few that are really good will of course go to the high paying jobs. So for everyone else, what's holding you to a skills-building office job that pays the same as selling soap in a local store?

Some folks I've discussed this with, have said they have found its a sense of entitlement...I don't think its that. Perhaps its complacency? I don't know - this blog might come off a tad controversial and politically incorrect, especially if I'm not explaining myself correctly.

I'm blabbering I know..but this is all a first for me. The multi-dimensional challenges of development. And, given that my job as a consultant has pampered me even more - when I fly in, my clients are ready to hit the ground running - meetings are setup, and that's that. Getting everyone to come to a meeting here...my goodness its painstaking. First off, everyone's always travelling, going for field visits (that's because their Per Diem is more than their salary). Secondly, getting people to make a decision...even more painstaking. And finding ownership - finding someone to take the reigns. It's a challenge. Oh..and apparently it's quite hard to fire someone here - lot of legal fees associated with it. So, as a result, you have a group of intelligent, highly educated individuals with great job security, but very low salaries, that are not challenged - so why initiate projects/ideas?

Let me transition to a slightly different topic: race. Wow. Never have I seen it so prominently highlighted. Blacks, Whites, Coloureds, Germans, Afrikaans, Hereros, Ovambos, Damaras, Basters. Yea...the girls in my office were talking about taking me out one night, and I said, oh, will it be safe for me (since they were talking about going to a not so nice area, and I thought I would stand out), and they were like, nah, you look like a Baster, so you'll be fine. Wha...she called me a whaaaa? Of course, in my ear, I added the 'd' at the end of the word so was very confused why these sweet girls were calling me such a thing. But no, they said I looked a Baster - the descendents of a group of immigrants from the Cape of mixed Afrikaans (ie: Dutch) and Khoikhoi (ie: African origins). The name 'Baster' comes from the Dutch word for 'basterd' or 'crossbreed'. While some consider it demeaning, the Basters have taken ownership of the term as part of their history. Wowzers, neh? (So another thing, Namibians use 'neh' like Canadians use 'eh' - so its quite an easy tranisition for me)...

Ok...another topic change: for a while now, I've been meaning to write about this wonderful group of young people I had the good fortune to meet a few weeks ago. My brother-in-law volunteers at this youth group called Young Achievers. It's a group of kids in Katatura (which in Herero, means: "The place where people do not live"), that get together every Saturday - its completley self-organized and self-run by the young kids who participate in it. There's no incentive to go there (no food, or anything) but about 20 or so kids get together to build each other up. There are a few adults that got there to help advise, but the youths mediate the entire session. Its so incredibly inspiring to see these young kids get together, open up the meeting with saying what their vision is and what they did this week and what they plan to do next week to get them to their vision. I came in to give a 'talk', and loved every second of it. The highlight was the debate they had. They picked the topic - the nomiated topic of debate: abortion. Yea, abortion. Not, Hannah Montana versus Jonas Brothers, but abortion. These kids run from ages...probably 8 or 9 to 22. I think it was the 13 year old who suggested the abortion topic.

So the kids put them selves randomly into two groups - a pro and a con, identified their points, and then one at a time, they would make their arguments. Granted, their facts and knowledge about abortion was skewed and limited (as a result, I think they're trying to find a MD as the next guest lecturer to give them some proper medical facts) but their arguments were so incredibly impassioned...There was one kid who was great - he was like a preacher-slash-lawyer...great charisma. It was just hilarious to see these kids go at each other's arguments. The fascinating thing for me, was to see that the argument for/against centred around religious values (not surprsing) and the impact on society (surprising). Essentially, the argument for 'for abortion' was that if this isn't an option for poverty stricken areas where children are not wanted, then the population will increase in poorer areas, and that will be a burden on the entire society. Interesting, neh? The argument in the Western world is typically more of an individualistic sense - this is MY right for MY body. It was refreshing to see these kids with a different perspective give such a passionate debate.

Anyways...these kids were very bright, and just were soaking up what ever advise I had to offer (which was why I was nervous about giving the talk beforehand...I mean, I haven't figured out what my vision is yet myself and i'm almost 29) - but I talked about the importance of education, taking whatever internship you can get your hands on to build up your skills, and that its okay to have multiple dreams. Well I sure hope it is.

Okay..that's all for now...Next week I'm hoping to head over to Cape Town, so hopefully I'll be back with travel stories and photos...but I hope you enjoyed my random cultural observations from my more daily activities. Got to be a good Namibian now and get me some Rooibos tea.

till next time, neh?

Are we still in Africa?

An overdue update on our journey to Swakopmund - a town on the coast of Namibia. Kirin, my nephew, kept asking in the 4-hr drive to Swakop, "are we still in Africa"? After about the 5th time, I had to break it to him, that, at least for the next 2 years, all his travel will still be in Africa. Don't think that sunk in. Last night, we went for a walk in the 'hood, and at the top of a hill, you get a beautiful view of the city...and he was like..."wow..is that Waterloo?" (as in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada). sigh.

But back to Swakop. It's almost like walking into a movie set (Pleasantville?) - felt like I was in an old european town - quiant little houses in nice organized rows, painted soft colours of yellow, peach, sky blue..white trim, big clean streets (seriously, some of the neigbourhood streets were as wide as a 4 lane highway). There were old German couples walking hand in hand, strolling through the streets, an old German dude with an old german-y kind of hat on an old school bike...I found myself wondering if I had packed my pair of leederhosen (I had not). And then I asked my sister, "So, are we still in Africa"?

My bro-in-law found us a goregous 3-bedroom aparment with a view of the ocean - the place was decked out, in that european/south african kinda chic. The food here echos the german colonial architecture...plain and bland. Sorry..not a fan of schnitzel anything. On our first night in Swakop my sister ordered some rendition of cordon bleu...and we decided it looked like coagulated vomit. Overall, my experience with food here has been extaordinarily bland (I'm so craving some vietnamese food with my beloved sriracha).



Anyways, the highlight of Swakop was actually what was just 10min outside of the city - the sand dunes! The dunes just extend off the Atlantic ocean - its quite incredible to see Ocean, beach, then piles and piles of sand dunes. There's something quite calming having your feet sunk in cold sand, and turning your head every which way to see mounds of beige sand. We went to Dune 7 - just outside of Walvis Bay (a port city just south of Swakop). Dune 7 is supposed to be one of the biggest dunes in the Namib desert (and of the highest in the world) ~over 1200ft tall . And believe me..it is hard to climb these things...the boys had not problem at all, but man...every step you take, you sink in to past your ankle..so your calves (and lungs) get quite a work out. But the view from the top is incredible. Just walking along a peak is amazing..and you can easily get vertigo since the peak is so narrow, but if you fall...where you going to go? You'll just sink in the sand on either side.


Apparently you can go four-wheeling and sand-boarding, but we didn't get a chance to. I don't know about 4-wheeling, but I'd like to try out sand-boarding the next time I'm out there. There's a bit of eco-controversy with the 4-wheeling and heavy trafficking of cars..I didn't know, but all the tracks cause great ecological dammage - something to do with Lichens sensitivity to all the track pressure. Who would have thought? I always assumed, its a dune..the wind will cover up the tracks afterwards.



By the way - it was unbelievably cold there. The Atlantic currents brought in quite the cold and foggy weather. So it was weird to be in the desert, but with a light sweater on. Oh..and so far, every river I've seen in Namibia has been dry. Dry dry dry. The running joke here: 'What do you do when you fall into a river in Namibia?...Get up and dust yourself off'.


Anywho..the second day in the desert was spent hunting for desert animals - snakes, gekos, spiders, oh my! this was obviously a highlight for my nephews...but made me think...why on earth did I spend all day yesterday barefoot walking in the dunes..

Sand Diving Lizard on my ear...latest fashion trend ladies...

Anyways...I think that's all for now about Swakop..stay tuned for more on my work and cultural observations...

ciao ciao!

Where to begin...

On the road back to Windhoek.

It's only week 2, but I'm exploding with stuff to share. No clue where to begin. I've been inundated with so much interesting information in the past few weeks, that I realize how ignorant I am of Southern African culture/history/etc. My brain is overflowing with stuff to share with you, so I'm going to break this down:

1) seeing lions and tigers and leopards oh my!
2) my first week working in Development
3) more stuff I didn't know...

1)Lions and Tigers and Leopards oh my!

Last weekend we headed up to the N/a'ankuse Lodge - a conservation reserve that cares for mostly orphaned and injured animals that cannot be released back into the wild. The lodge is stunning, all made from eco-friendly materials, and all its profits go back to their efforts for wildlife conservation. It's about an hour outside of Windhoek, and they give you a very up close and personal view of Baboons, Caracals (bigger and meaner version of a house-cat), Wild Dogs, Leopards, Cheetahs, and Lions...The Lions were the craziest, SO big...and menacing.

We get there, and the guide was like, so, if they growl at you, don't run, it'll just provoke them. So i thought, yea, they'll be kinda far back, behind a steel iron gate or something, no worries. Oh no. It's this thin little wire thing (of course it's all ridden with high-voltage electricity, so there's isn't any risk for us, and little harm to them...unless there's a power failure...). So we raise our camera to take a photo, and the lion lets out this menacing growl..and the guide is like, oh yea, i forgot to tell you, they don't like it when you point at them..so keep it close to your body. but dude, when you're standing less than 5 feet away from a massive lion, and he's so not trained, and growling at you, and kinda ready to leap at your throat, you kinda want to pee in your pants a little. just a little.

The leopards were beautiful, and the cheetahs, hah..well we saw two brothers that were very angry at each other for some reason. But when they growl at each other (very menacing) they don't look at each other head on - if they did, that means they're challenging each other to a fight - so you think they're growling at you. but as soon as they got food they stopped provoking each other. kinda like my nephews.

Oh yea, and the baboons were actually kinda cute. We saw the baby ones, and they were adorable playing around. Apparently, anyone can volunteer there and help care for the baboons and other animals. With the orphaned baby baboons, the volunteers need to give them 24hr care, holding them, feeding them, changing their nappies - because that's the kind of care their mother would have given them (minus the nappy changing), and its instrumental in their development. See...everyone needs love. (let's hear a collective, aawwwww).


2) Working in Development - my 101

So I don't want to disclose which non-profit I'm working with here (I want to be honest with what I say, and not give you a skewed positive/negative image of the organization), but it deals with HIV/AIDS services and coordination. Its a small organization, but is quite well developed. It amazes me to see the types of constraints they have to deal with- and these I'm sure, are applicable to most, if not all organizations in development) - like access to strong resources, funding, ethnic tribal conflicts, historical context that affects how things are run...it's all eye-opening for me. And, I've been fortunate enough to meet with people across development here, from UN and WHO physicians, to teachers in schools in slums, to social workers, to...the list goes on. There's a definite benefit, I think of using folks from the corporate world to work in development, but there's a sharp learning curve and a sensitivity to the context that applies in development.

It's only been a week, but I hear certain terms thrown around incessantly - sustainability and capacity building. And I think its easy for volunteers, expats, foreigners to wax poetic at a high level on how things can be improved, but its another thing entirely, to eloquently detail the specific steps to become more sustainable, and build capacity in an environment that is limited in resources, and still affected by it's somewhat recent unfortunate history. It's certainly a challenge, and I have to say, I'm really enjoying trying to figure out ways to make those steps. I know I'm bright-eyed and optimistic now in week 1, so stay tuned for a while down the road, to see how I'm feeling then.

This might not be eloquent, but whatever, I'll edit later.

All this ties in to my third topic:

3) Things I didn't know before...

I wasn't really aware of Namibia's history/culture/current events. Basically, I was/am ignorant. Some interesting things I've learned that are of note, and some stuff I knew, but figure would be good background information:

• Namibia was a German colony - as a result, Namibian laws/constitution are very well structured and organized (ahh..the Germans)
• Within this time frame, they conducted what is said to be the first genocide in the 20th century - against the Herero people. It was apparently the 'test run' with concentration camps and 'experiments that Nazis would later conduct in death camps in Auschwitz, etc
  
• Segregation seems to still affect today, as there are definite distinctions between Afrikaners, Blacks, and Coloureds (people of mixed European and Sub-Saharan background).
  
• Apparently, there's at least one store in Namibia that's very old school German - ie: still selling Third Reich paraphernalia
  
• Namibia was just classified as a High-Middle-Income country by the World Bank...but has a ~37% unemployment rate, with a really high poverty rate (apparently one of the highest gaps between rich/poor because of the natural resource mining..)

On a side note - I just finished a book called 'Blue Clay People' by William Powers about an Aid worker's experience in Liberia. Really interesting read. Nothing to do with Southern Africa, but good insight on development work, and on Liberia. I had no idea that Liberia was basically 'reclaimed' by Americans, where a colonization group supported the return of formerly enslaved African Americans to Africa. Apparently there was a lot of class cultural divide with this oddly American colonial presence in Liberia..but not..I'm not explaining it that well - but just read it. :D

oh one last thing. today i met a girl (maybe 7 or 8) with my name! I was visiting a school that is located in the 'Informal Settlement' (the slum area) for orphaned kids, or kids who's parents are disadvantaged, and it was so surreal to meet this young girl with my name. She thought it was so neat as well..such a cutie. And apparently there's this other girl, who's 13 who was adopted by one of my sister's colleagues, with my name as well. I'd like to think they were all named after me, but there' some former Miss Universe with my name that might have had something to do with it.

okay - that's all for now.

Week 1: Windhoek 101

In an effort to keep in touch with the world 'back home' I've succumbed to the masses, and have created a blog. Here is my contribution to this newfangled contraption called the world wide web. Oh Al Gore, look what you've done.

It's my first week in Windhoek, Namibia. The journey from the Windy City to Windhoek was a long one. Over the course of the 2 day trip (Chicago-DC-Jo'burg-Windhoek) I wished 3 things: that I had not mocked Dana for purchasing a snuggie for her trip, that the 10 year-old South African girl sitting next to me for the 17hr flight wasn't so talkative and in love with Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers, and that the "Proposal" wasn't such a bad movie. Ah Sandra Bullock, look what you've done.

Upon finally arriving in Windhoek, I was utterly shocked to see that all 3 bags that I had checked were waiting patiently for me on the conveyer belt. The 2 overweight bags and akwardly long box I checked were filled with hockey gear, bottles of body lotion, stacks of notebooks, children's books, and a hammock. But lugging all that gear was very much worth it, because I got the best hugs from my nephews who were waiting patiently for my arrival.

The first thing that struck me when flying over Windhoek, is how sparse it is...just massive spanses of land, with trees spottted around for a chang of colour. The roads from the airport had a few 'baboon' crossing signs which was great, especially when we came across a clan of 7 or 8 baboons crossing the road. My sister's place is great - such a nice home, and it reminds me so much of Saudi. There's a night guard in front of the house, walls and gates surrounding the house, with electric fencing around the top, etc. In fact, I didn't even notice it at first when I walked because I felt so at home (Saudi style).

There's a swimming pool and a great terrace, so its wonderful to sit out there for morning tea and meals. The boys are loving it, swimming two, sometimes three times a day. It's still too cold for me, but it should heat up soon.

This week I'm taking it easy, adjusting to the time zone, and trying to 'relax'. Of course, Day 3 hit and I found myself writing up a list of things I want to accomplish in my trip here. Go figure. Next week I start volunteering with NANASO, so I'm excited to start getting into the city.

Anyways - this weekend will probably hit up a safari lodge, so will hopefully have interesting things to say and photos to share. Tonight we're going to a portuguese/angolan restaurant - can't wait!

ciao ciao kids!