One Month Down!

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week! Special announcement: I survived my first real week of teaching. What a RELIEF it is! Rewarding myself with brownies again.

I’ve officially been out of America for one month. Exactly 30 days ago, I was taking my last hot American shower in DC and saying goodbye to winter.

When the adjustment calms down, I’ll do a hefty blog post about the growing pains of living in Namibia. In one sentence, this week has been a constant, exhausting battle against the despair that so easily creeps into my soul; I have to actively remind myself of God’s sovereignty, presence, and promises at every turn. But God is here. God is good. More to come.

Please know that I can physically feel your support and prayers. All the concrete ways you have thought to encourage me and bolster me in prayer are immensely appreciated and will continue to be in the days and weeks to come.

So...now for a list of the many things I’ve written down to you this week:

- I hate chalk. I hate the sound it makes. I hate the chalky feeling on your hands that doesn’t go away after class. I hate that it runs out so quickly. And breaks all the time.

- Instead of a bell, our school uses an air raid siren every 45 minutes. That took some getting used to...

- When I’m in a room of teachers, they almost always only speak in Oshikwanyama. So far, this has done nothing to improve my language skills and has only served to further my concern of ever making friends. But it is fascinating and gives me a chance to zone out and get work done.

- The other day in class my foot started feeling funny. I looked down and had a horrifyingly large, light blue, long-antennaed beetle covering the space between my Chaco straps. It took a lot of self-control not to flip out in front of my grade 12 class.

- I feel like I’m living every day on a beach despite being nowhere near the ocean. There’s no dirt in north-central Namibia! Only miles upon miles of deep sand. As a result, my calves are looking incredible. Walking in sand all day? It’s like long walks down the beach on Beach Week...minus the good friends, heart talks, ocean waves, and Flying Dutchman.

- My learners are perfectionists to the extreme. It seems that all Namibians are, as a matter of fact. You might have thought I had some perfectionist tendencies, but no way. These kids use rulers to line all their paper, protractors to carefully tear sheets out of their notebooks, constantly erase and rewrite everything...and not a single learner has illegible handwriting. So different than when I was a kid in American schools! I could still name the messy kids in elementary school if you asked.

Look forward to a couple posts this weekend about my schedule, classes, contact information, and the hilarity of wasted time in Namibia.