One month is all I have until I can officially refer to
myself as a Peace Corps Volunteer and my oh my this title couldn’t come soon
enough. I did recently find out my placement for the next two years, or should
I say my new home, my new family, my new community, and my new life. Mariental
State Hospital, here I come! I’ll
be living on the health centre compound, in either a shared dormitory with
shared bathrooms and kitchen or if I’m lucky I’ll have my own flat (fingers
crossed)! I’m not sure of the specificities of what is needed of me as a health
volunteer at Mariental, but I am not worried. The first three months at sight
will be dedicated to integration and gaining an understanding for what the
community’s needs are.
We learned of our site placements in such an awesome way.
Trainers and other PST staff created a massive map of Namibia and labeled each
of the cities that each volunteer is placed. Then one by one our names were
called up (very reminiscent of
dodge ball pickings) and we were escorted to our “destination” on said map. Of
course this loser was last up, and goodness I couldn’t believe it was where I
guessed I’d go earlier that day.
(The Afrikaans Crew. Most of us are within 3-4 hours away from one another. Oh, and the momma bear who is sitting down is our glorious Afrikaans teacher, Aunty Martha!)
From what I have heard Mariental is the administrative
capital of the Hardap region so I’ll hopefully be in contact with officials of
the Ministry of Health in Hardap region (lucked out) and the regional office is
right next to Mariental State Hospital.
Travelers on their way to Windhoek often frequent Mariental. Although I
will be living in town, I will be able to do outreach to villages outside of
town. I know the volunteer whose place I will be taking in Mariental and she
has got me covered for real! I have two extremely dedicated counterparts that
she found herself during her Peace Corps service and they have agreed to take
me under their wing. I have already met one and I can tell I’m in good hands,
oh, and best of all they are both Social Workers!
(Mariental)
I do know that my supervisor will be expecting that I come
up with income generating projects for clients during my service, which I worry
about, but I’m sure I will be successful in my projects, even if there will be
quite a few that don’t end up working. I’m confident that all will be well.
That’s all for site placement…. Only because I really know
nothing else =) I’ll update as I
get more information!
This weekend was A-m-a-zing! Friday started out with
language, which was more open conversations than structured class and
thereafter we traveled to the Dam! We expected a dirty swamp only because none
of our trainers were going to swim and what we got instead was a gloriously
clean and massive dam that was difficult to part with in the end. We swam and had a braai (BBQ) and all
was well with the world! The only reason the trainers did not swim was because
they did not know how to, and most had the same story of almost drowning when
they tried at a young age. These stories were perfect for a newb like me who
had only been swimming for two years and I’ll be happy to tell you folks, I did
NOT drown or even come close to =) The braai and dam day reiterates just how
thankful I am to be surrounded by a kick ass group of fellow trainees (soon to
be volunteers) as well as trainers and other staff at PST. Though it will be
hella difficult to part ways with these fine people I find comfort in knowing
we will all meet again! All of them are in my hearts always and only a phone
call/sms away when I need a set of ears!
(Most of Group 39 and PST staff! Mad love for these guys)
I'm going to start tutoring ESL students this quarter. Perhaps since you yourself are learning a new language you could give me some pointers for what has been helpful to you as an adult learning a new language? :)
ReplyDeleteI could have sworn I responded to this, so sorry!
ReplyDeleteI think it was great that my language group learned a lot of songs in Afrikaans and presented them to the larger group often! Also, study cards with the english word on one side and the afrikaans word on the other was helpful too! We also had a lot of visual games and such as well as competitions like listing as many fruits as you can remember in 1 minute before the other person finishes a list of vegetables for instance...