November 24

Our Thanksgiving dinner last weekend was a big success. We were all relaxed and enjoying ourselves. There were about 20 people here, representing 11 different countries (Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Japan, England, Ireland, France, Australia, Israel, Canada, USA). The food was also very international; it was my first Thanksgiving dinner that included mopane worms as one of the main courses! We had: mopane worms, millet porridge with spinach sauce, chicken, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, miso soup, tofu with soy & scallions, chick pea soup, cabbage & beet salad, apple pie, pecan pie, fruit salad, and brownies. Then in the morning, some of the Europeans got up early and prepared crepes for everyone. Ooh la la.

I finished marking my exams and I think Inbal will be done early next week. We’ll have to pack and clean the house next week. One week from today we’ll be in Zambia! I don’t think we’ll be online again until we’re in Zambia.

One of my ninth graders, Nickodemus, knows that I like to run and he challenged me to race him in a 100-metre dash. I bet him my sneakers that I could beat him. So I stretched my out-of-shape muscles for a half hour and we set up a start line (in the sand, next to a cactus-type plant) and a finish line next to a tree stump. We cleared broken glass and stones out of the sand and recruited some older boys to act as finish line judges and one boy to say “On your mark, get set, go!” We raced barefoot and had a great time. Nickodemus was a LOT faster than me and I was trying my hardest. He looks pretty good wearing my sneakers around the school this afternoon. After my loss, some of the other boys wanted to race me and they said they wanted to bet my watch, my trousers, and anything else they could think of. Some of them said the winners of the races should get a chance to peek at their report cards a week early. Once I lost my sneakers I decided to give up gambling altogether, and I focused on being the “On the mark, get set, go” announcer for some other informal races. None of the girls wanted to race. I might try to set up a small track meet one day next week, when all of the final exams are finished.

I found out this week that the animal husbandry portion of the life science curriculum has been removed from the new syllabus. No more chicken slaughtering! The current 8th graders, who were looking forward to killing chickens next year, are crushed. I’m glad I got to teach animal husbandry before it’s phased out. It was a bizarre but useful and interesting experience.

I’ll end this blog post with some musings on politics. I don’t get a lot of international political news updates here, although we get all the celebrity gossip (I know what Wesley Snipes and 50-cent are up to, but I don’t know if the war in Iraq is still going on or if we’re still supposed to be scared of China as an up-and-coming world power. Honestly my mental health is probably better pondering Wesley’s well-being than fretting about Saddam.) Inbal had an interesting discussion last night with some of our colleagues about Osama bin Laden. Osama, as I have probably mentioned countless times on this blog, is an enormously popular cult of personality here, even in this tiny rural village. One of our good friends here was explaining why he bought an Osama t-shirt and why learners put up posters of Osama on the wall. Many Namibians had a lot of affection for Clinton, Carter, and even Reagan, but Bush is literally despised. He is hated as a symbol of an ideology…an ideology of arrogance, aggression, and world domination. Bush, and therefore the U.S. and Americans, are threatening. Osama is seen purely as the Anti-Bush. Osama is out there fighting this evil force (Bush) who is trying to take over the world. Osama is viewed as kind of a cool rebellious guy and I think people don’t think of him as someone who murdered thousands of people. (Bush is definitely thought of someone who has murdered thousands of people, in Iraq.) Inbal made an interesting comparison: Namibian youths wearing Osama t-shirts are like American youths wearing Che Guevarra t-shirts, without really knowing much of anything about him other than the fact that he was cool and rebellious and the cool kids are wearing Che shirts.

My mom told me about the recent election at home. I’m thrilled that Deval Patrick is the new governor of Massachusetts, and now I don’t have to feel guilty that I wasn’t able to vote by absentee ballot. I would have voted for Patrick. And I’m thrilled that Democrats have regained control of Congress. It’s only a matter of time now till Barack Obama is our new president. :) I have hope for a better America in some sense. I think things will be better at home, within the country, and I think our leaders’ foreign diplomacy will improve. But after gaining a deeper perspective on perceptions of the U.S. abroad, within Namibia in particular, I have much less hope for our future in a different sense. I have less hope for the future safety of Americans. Although Bush is on his way out, he is the face of the U.S., whether we like it or not. He has irreparably damaged our reputation abroad, and I think we’ll suffer for it. I think we’re tremendously less safe now that we were before Bush came to power. I don’t feel unsafe here when I see Osama graffiti on a school desk; it seems harmless. But somewhere else, that type of graffiti might actually mean something more violent. It doesn’t matter if we get another charming Clinton who tries to do his best to make things better. It’s too late.