Final Words from the Village

The hostel project was wrapped up last week. I'll let the photos do the talking on this one.

Before:


After:


With the PCPP funds we built a floor, sixteen beds, a ceiling, and now the room can be recognized as an official hostel by the Ministry of Education. This means that next year the school will receive food for the students living in the hostel. This is a huge victory for the school and Okando.

The builders threw my directions to the wind and built the floor as they wanted, they ended up only using half the cement we had bought. So we used the extra cement to build an outdoor kitchen and shower area for the girls. Unfortunately, this drew funds away from purchasing mattresses. The Ministry has said they will provide mattresses for next year, let's hope they follow through on that.

For science club in term three we tried to beat the heat. Namibia is incredibly hot and dry during October, which makes it a perfect time to build an evaporative cooler. I had been selling photos for the past year in hopes of having a tour or field trip. However, every single one of my transportation requests was cancelled for some reason or other. I used the funds instead to buy a quality fan and we went to work. We used broken desks and tables to make a frame for a piece of burlap. Four two-liter bottles keep the burlap wet as hot air passes through it which evaporates the water creating a cooling effect. We've been tuning the evaporative cooler the whole term. It's able to drop the temperature by about 4ºC. However, it doesn't seem to have enough cooling power to cool the entire room. I'm very happy with how it turned out, I hope they use it next year for the science fair.


The never-ending map project finally came to a close this week. I kept adding details, tuning coastlines, creating islands, and labeling Luxembourg-sized countries. One thing I've learned here is that HIV/AIDS education can be incorporated into everything, even a world map. We painted a banner this week.


These past few months I've been applying to graduate programs in physics. This doesn't leave much time for blogging, which is why my posts have been so sparse. I have a back log of stories that I want to tell, but just don't have the time to get them out. So expect some after-the-fact blog posts sometime. There's so much to tell, my host-brother's wedding, my vacation to Katima, a weekend at a game count, and so much more.

Tomorrow I'm leaving Okando, words fail to describe how I'm feeling. I've been so busy these last few months that I haven't really thought much of my impending departure. It hit me today just how emotionally attached I've become to this place. I'm going to miss all the daily challenges that life presents. I'm going to miss how the air feels just before a thunderstorm hits and the sound of the first raindrops striking my tin roof. I'm going to miss the liberating feeling of bathing outside under the stars. I'm going to miss the crunch of the salted sand under my bare feet. But most of all I will miss everyone here; my learners who always try so hard but end up not quite reaching the mark in the end, the school staff who always manage to find the strangest topics to discuss, and my host family who have provided me with so much for the past two years.

This is me signing off from Okando for the last time. I'll try to keep you informed as I travel around Africa. I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?