November 12

This is the easiest time of year for us teachers in Namibia. We aren’t teaching lessons anymore. The students are in the middle of their final exams. Instead of teaching, we proctor the exams to make sure no one cheats. When they take the exams in our subjects, we mark their answers. I kind of enjoy marking exams. I can go at my own pace, and its quiet work. It’s much easier than teaching and disciplining. We’ll be doing this for about two more weeks, then we’ll work on the report cards for our homeroom classes. The last day of school is December 1st.

It’s getting hotter, and the mosquitoes are slowly coming back. For a while we had a lot of rain, but we’ve gone a few days now without any rainstorms.

Next Saturday we’re hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner. We’re inviting other volunteers (WorldTeach, VSO, PeaceCorps, JICA) who live in the north, as well as some of our Namibian colleagues. It’s becoming a big group. It should be fun. I’m not the most relaxed hostess when there’s a large party, but the good thing about volunteering to host this instead of going to another volunteer’s place for Thanksgiving is that we don’t have to travel all over the North (in many different taxis) to get to our destination. One thing I won’t miss when we leave is the local transport.