Projects, Projects, and more projects… Tses is growing!

I’ve been very busy over the last few weeks, with a whole host of different projects. Although I’ve been busy at the school with my teaching and planning, athletics, after school clubs and classes, etc., it’s actually the work with the community that I’ve been loving the most lately.

1. Tses Youth Group. A few years ago, Tses had 2 different youth groups, which met about once a month and focused on different things. In talking with a pastor /village councilor (advisor for the local government), we decided that the need for, and interested in, a local youth group probably merited the recreation of one.

So once a week, for about two hours, I meet with the youth of Tses! (here, “youth” means vaguely 20-30 year olds.) It’s so cool – when they’re really given a chance to speak out and act on their ideas, there are people staying here who have some really great thoughts about the future and ideas to improve the social conditions of Tses. Already, we have worked on forming a community English group (to improve English skills), a business group (more later), a local Girls’ club (there are really high incidences of rape and other abuse here, and especially as Tses grows with the big glass factory coming in, we want to work to empower our young girls before these kinds of things can happen to them), and a kids’ soccer league. It’s SO COOL to see these people having ideas of what they want to have happen, and act on them! I’ll try to get some pictures later, but seriously it’s really incredible to watch them do their thing. It’s also great that there are some other volunteers staying in Tses from the UK and Germany. They’re all younger (just out of high school), but they’re really enthusiastic and are really very willing to help me out with running all of these projects when I run out of free time to coordinate them! It’s pretty fantastic! The British volunteers are taking over the English classes, and the German volunteers will start working on the Girls club with a woman from the church and one of the youth.

2. Tses Entrepreneurial Development Group. Out of the youth group, there was a huge interest in business development (especially since Tses will soon grow into a town)! We want to get started before people from “outside” come and take all of the business/job opportunities. So a group of ~30 youth (and a few elders) have gotten together to try to start their own small businesses.

3. Business Workshop. I pretty quickly got out of my league, so next week FOUR other (business) Peace Corps volunteers are going to come run a workshop for me! I’m really excited to see them, plus really excited that my community will get the chance to think together about business plans, getting their businesses registered with the government, and so on. This means we’ve had lots of meetings and have been doing lots of fundraising to try to make it happen!

That’s about it. My life in a nutshell. I don’t have any pictures of these things yet, so I’m adding some pictures of my classroom and stuff, just for fun…

see those big white sheets at the back? best idea ever. they're Sticker Charts, which my mom used when we were little as positive reinforcement for good behavior during the day... works the same with grade 8 and 9 kids when you give them a sticker for good behavior or for doign their homework! Victory!

some of the girls one afternoon

Tses Glass, coming soon to a village… right here!

This post will probably be hugely boring for most of you, feel free to not read it… But for those in Namibia / curious about the development:

The official launching of Tses Glass Pty Ltd happened a few weeks ago! The president of Namibia was supposed to come but didn’t, but lots of other important from around here (council, traditional authorities, Berseba constituency head, various ministers, etc.) made it!

One of the main speakers for the event, plus a translator 

Tses Glass is officially happening. The feasibility studies are still being finished up over the next months, so I’m a bit confused. But it seems fair to say it’s happening, since they officially launched the company?

As one man said, “You look at Tses right now and there is nothing.” But they announced again the prediction of 47,000 jobs created in Tses itself, 160,000 created in all of Namibia, and the Tses population jumping from 2,000 to 200,000 within only a decade (or maybe 2). It’s hard to believe that within a few years, assuming all goes as planned, the people who are here now will make up only 1/100 of the people who are living in the city.

There’s also a claim that the new factory will eventually be responsible for 20% of the Namibian GDP. Anyone else wanna call bull?

Currently, glass is imported into this region from South Africa, India, and China. Supposedly Tses Glass should supply the entire region and world with all kinds of glass. There will be 3 factories (commercial/residential flat glass, containers, and tableware), and they’re being compared to a German factory that uses 1000 TONS of raw materials every day!

So yes, I’m a little skeptical. The claims seem pretty big. On the other hand, a lot of positives are already coming out of the project. There have been regular calls for the Tses community to jump on opportunities before they are stolen from “outsiders” – starting businesses, creating groups, getting things moving. The youth group I work with has been trying really hard to start small businesses (which they hope will grow when all of this stuff starts to happen)! In general, just having something this huge to talk about seems to be having huge effects on community mobilization, in lots of aspects of life. Pretty cool.

A local dance being performed before the event opened

my kids are FAST!

Ok, not the most exciting news, African kids are supposed to be fast. =) But I've been working with our athletics learners (those competing in track and field) for a few weeks (our track season is really short!) and we went to our first competition yesterday. There are only 3 meets here - Zonal, Regional, and National.

some of my athletes halfway through the meet

I have to say - what an incredibly long and frustrating day – but also what a cool day and a cool way to spend time with my kids! I left Tses before sunup and came home after sundown… and as a result am incredibly burned! The meet was supposed to end at 1pm and instead ended around 7. We experienced a lot of delays brought about by a whole host of unnecessary reasons, but it turned out all right!

I brought 25 learners, the best from my school, to the Zone competition, where we competed against schools from 5 other villages. The best from our zone form a new team, which goes to regionals next weekend.

my team!

Despite all the problems, the day was super cool. My kids aren’t always used to being successful at things, but they’re good at running! My kids did SO WELL. I think most of them will end up going to Regionals in Keetmans because they placed first or second in their age group in their events! Many of them placed in more than one event, and I even had one girl who had never long-jumped before at practice who came in second!

Yeah, so this girl had never long jumped before. She was 2nd. 

The kids were so excited and so proud that they did so well, and it’s nice that there is something they can be really proud of their school for. It was really the first time I’d heard them say with pride that they were from St. Therese, or the first time they’d been praised for it rather than scolded for our poor academic performances. Plus, more time bonding with my kids is usually pretty fun! They can be really sweet and helpful – definitely tried to take care of me today. Gave me a towel to cover my shoulders when I started turning bright red, etc. I think it’s also true though that we have a different relationship than they do with most other adults. They realize I care about them and recognize that I trust them with their own responsibilities. 

Now back to Tses – lots of work today before a big week coming up. I'll try to explain soon...