Is she a Nama lady??

Guys, I’ve made it.

I’ve made it hard.

Someone asked last night if I was Nama.

But I digress - the occasion was actually the point of this blog post.

There was a Nama wedding celebration last night. It was for the brother of a friend of mine, and Jenita, Lily and I were invited to attend the celebration.

It was awesome – we got to get dressed up in Nama clothes!

The actual wedding was in Windhoek last week, but this was the traditional Nama wedding/celebration. When we got to the house where the wedding was being held, we were invited inside to sit with the elders. It was a huge honour and we are still not sure why they allowed us!

After a few minutes, the actual ceremony began. Some of the elders began to dance outside of the traditional hut, and the groom escorted the bride out of the hut where they must stay (per tradition). Her head and face were covered with a towel, so he had to lead her. They danced the traditional dance with the elders for awhile (which is really impressive given that she couldn’t see anything!!)

After the dance, we all went back inside the living room, where the bride and groom were seated at a table. An elder led a short prayer and ceremony, and the groom’s sister uncovered the bride’s head.

Each elder was given an opportunity to speak. We couldn’t understand any of the blessings since they were in the Nama click language, but we are told they were very beautiful, inspirational and wise. The groom, when it was finally his turn to speak and thank everybody, was really sweet and switched to English for a minute. He informed us that the elders had been blessing the new couple and passing on their knowledge as 2 they could. He also thanked us for attending and for trying to follow their culture (wearing traditional dress, etc.).

When the ceremony had concluded, the ladies from the family served the food they had prepared ahead of time. Then the younger generation (kids and the young twenty-somethings, us included) escaped outside to dance for awhile. Eventually, the elders and the new couple prayed again and all the extras slowly left.

It was such a great honour and experience to be able to witness such a wedding! Even my friend Elden said he had learned from the ceremony, because these traditions are not often followed anymore. A great learning experience all around!

A Hard ‘Nuff Life

(I recently discovered that I don’t have the Annie soundtrack on my computer, it’s a problem.)

Being a kid is hard. But the weird thing is, I remember when I was growing up, I used to always wish I was a few years younger. Really, no matter what age I was, I would always feel like I’d had so many fewer worries 2 years ago.

The thing is, I’m not sure it’s the same here. Yes, kids have fewer worries than adults. Probably. And yes, in general there are people around to care for them. Probably.

But then you have kids who take on the responsibility of finding food for their families, because their parents don’t provide. And hundreds of learners staying in the hostel with 2 adults around to supervise them. Let’s be honest, they’re basically fending for themselves at that point.

Some of my girls who were here for the “out weekend” –they live too far away to go home just for the weekend, so they were stuck at the hostel. They came over to my house to hang out, listen to music, do some sewing and make a cake (I felt like they deserved something nice and felt badly that they couldn’t go home!)

I get frustrated with my kids a lot. They don’t do their homework, they’re not up to grade level in school, the can (really frequently) be really rude, disrespectful, demanding and obnoxious. But I guess I’ve been starting to wonder if I can really blame them. Most of them don’t have parents to direct their behavior, and half of those who do have parents who are alcoholics, abusive, or in some other way not really able to be there for the kid. Which means the kids (at our school, we have learners who are only 12 or 13, but there are also hostels at primary schools) are responsible for doing their laundry, mending clothes, keeping themselves clean, finding snacks when they need them, finding rides for themselves to get to/from school from breaks, etc. The kids who aren’t at the hostel usually have it even worse – some of them have adults at home, but even those usually don’t eat 3 meals a day, have functional clothes and shoes.

 A bunch of our learners received blankets from a local organization called OYO. These are the kids we deemed most “vulnerable”—which in this case, meant the kids who are staying in Tses for the winter and don’t have a blanket on their bed.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, at least for most of our kids here in Tses, being a kid isn’t what I think it is. It’s not carefree or easy. And yes, there are probably parts of America where the same is true. But let’s be honest, not where I grew up. And I’ve gotta say, I’m just so thankful.

Hardloop, hardloop lekker!

“run, run nicely!”

Well, I started writing this post about a month ago and lost track of it. But I’m gonna give it a shot:

Pretty much any time I see a new person, or a kid, while I’m running, I’ll get pelted by cries of “hardloop, hardloop, hardloop!” run, run, run.

But my favourite is when those kids yell at me, but then decide to tag along. I kind of felt like the pied piper today—I was running out of the village and at the edge of the houses, there were a bunch of kids playing in a field. They saw me from a ways away, and ran across the field to watch me.

It was really impressive, I had 2 kids—a 10 year old and a 12 year old—come with me for probably 5 miles! I’m not gonna claim that I’m in shape right now, but we were probably going somewhere in the vicinity of 8:15 miles. (yes, I’m staying in Namibia, and yes, we use metric here, and no, I still have no idea how to measure my mileage in kilometers.) Dang African kids. Anyway, I was surprised. I tried to talk them into coming to St. Therese when they get to secondary school so they can run with me, but I’m not sure if it’ll work.

Even though I usually only have time to run twice a week here, I’m still really REALLY glad it’s part of my life. And that it’s acceptable (although weird) in my village. I’ve found that not only it is, obviously, a way for me to stay healthy and relieve stress, but it also helps me to get out and see people (and for them to see me). Yay running!