There's Dust In My Nose: A Memoir by Jessica Royer. Maybe?

26-09-08
It’s been a long long time since I’ve written. I’d like to take that as a sign that I’ve become more comfortable and busy here. I remember in January and February, I would have to pace my day so that I wouldn’t run out things to do. If I was walking home from school and I got an SMS, I would wait until I got home to read it. If I was cooking something on the stovetop, I would stir it while I waited instead of cleaning the preparations dishes. I couldn’t do two things at one time or I may run out of things to do that day. It’s a burden of being a fast worker, American, and completely without family and friends to distract you.

But, I got over it. And here I am begging for time to sit and stare at the walls or to read a whole book in one day. I still have a lot of free time on the weekends, which I love. But weekdays are filled with school and meetings about school and clubs and grading papers and organizing my file (an absurd collection of papers required by the Ministry of Education. I have yet to meet one single person who sings The File’s praises).

At school, we’re in the third trimester. This trimester started on September 1st with a Khorixas cluster meeting. As always, these meetings are informative and motivational and a completely blatant reminder that I am a terrible terrible mingler – you see, we have to stand outside and wait anywhere from one hour to three hours for these meetings to start. The men and the women usually separate into two groups to talk about the holiday and gossip, etc. This is usually the first thing that confuses the mingler in me. I work with the men because they are all the upper primary teachers, grades 5 -7. They are usually the most welcoming of foreigners, also. They told me it was because the women are threatened by English… But they also told me that women aren’t good at science and math. So, what do they know? And the group of women is all the lower primary teachers. They’re nice enough when I try to talk to them. But when I walk up, the conversation stops so that everyone can look at me while their eyes inquire, “what do you want?” Hanging out with the women at my school requires being in a certain mood because they treat me like a child. They call me “ti oa”, meaning my child. They’ll tell me how I’m getting fat. They’ll tell me that I got a pimple because I ate too much chocolate. Or how my hairs are looking like a horses tail. Or they’ll tell me how to iron my clothes that I can be more presentable next time… I can’t even imagine growing up here. They’re earnestly trying to help. I think. But it does require a certain kind of mood.

The first week of the trimester was a little slow. On the first teaching day of a trimester (usually a Tuesday), I’m lucky to get half of each class back. And I’m even luckier if we actually hold school with the learners who are there. This particular Tuesday we chose to clean the school instead. The learners who don’t show up to school are missing for any number of reasons: They could’ve dropped out of school. They’re still at the farm working and their family does not currently have enough money to pay for a taxi to take their child back to school. Or, my personal favorite, “they are just now remembering to find the donkeys from the field to pull the cart”.

It was ok that the first week was so slow because I used the spare time to get ready for the National Science Fair. The Kunene Region Ministry of Education (Kunene is one of the 13 regions in Namibia and it contains Khorixas) had this brilliant idea to have all the Kunene kids just bring the papers from their board and not the actual board that the papers are displayed on. At first, I thought this was a good idea because the boards I had made were fair quality for the materials I had available - there was a lot of duct tape. But they weren’t exactly my idea of award winning material. When we actually got to the fair and Kunene passed out the new boards for the kids, I wished whole-heartedly that we had my duct-taped boards. I think the “new” boards had been used for three or four science fairs before ours. And maybe a few roller derbies and monster truck rallies too… I distinctly remember footprints… and burn marks…

Anyway, I spent the first week of school with a stick of glue, a paper cutter and 6 young Namibian scientists – Olivia, Wynand, Cynthia, Katrina, Kennedy and Losia. Then, on Monday morning of the second week of school, a minibus owned by the Ministry of Education motored into our Monday morning school assembly held out in front of the school. The little lower primary school kids scattered so they wouldn’t get run over by Torro – our amazing Ministry driver (He actually is amazing but pedestrians, even tiny tot pedestrians at their morning school assembly, NEVER have the right of way in Namibia). And the upper primary kids took the opportunity to have a spontaneous dance party to the music blaring from the minibus speakers. The minibus already had all the Secondary school kids going from Khorixas. They loaded up our 6 kids. The Kunene Ministry had chosen two teachers from our region to accompany the learners to the science fair. Our learners were the youngest of the group – all the others were around grade 10. But the region didn’t choose anyone from our school to watch over the six youngins. So my principal offered to have to school pay for my trip there.

The science fair was held at Polytechnic of Namibia in Windhoek. It was the 6th Annual fair, I believe. When we arrived that Monday afternoon, it was a flurry of registration and set up. I helped my 6 kids set up their 3 projects. We did the best we could with foot printed, burned boards. Actually, there was a really dark hour in the whole afternoon when Olivia and Wynand did not find their name on any registration sheet. Then, once I cleaned up that error, we returned to find that their boards had been stolen. Luckily, the actual report was still there. So in the end, I would say we all got to prove our resourcefulness by producing a project board out of nothing... And I had even left my duct tape at home. It all turned out OK. But, really thought? Who steals a science poster board with footprints on it from a couple of thirteen-year-old kids?

The kids and I were staying at different youth hostels, so I met them on Tuesday morning back at the fair. Katrina and Cynthia were so excited to tell me about driving to their youth hostel the night before. They said that Windhoek look like “the stars had fallen”. It’s true; the lights in the city are beautiful, especially when you haven’t seen that sort of thing in awhile. Tuesday was actually a really boring day. Three different judges judged each project. The kids had to sit in front of their project from 9am until 4pm waiting to be judged. The day felt stressful though because the two teachers assigned to accompany the kids were scarce to be found. I spent most of the day putting out fires for the Kunene kids. I started the day by telling the learners, “Go find your teacher and tell them”. But that answer eventually turned into, “Alright, I’ll take care of it” when I realized sending them away would only mean I would have to listen to the problem twice.

Wednesday morning we all got a chance to go into to town and explore. The 6 Eddie Bowe kids decided to stick together. And they also decided to let me choose where to go. That was too much pressure for me, so I made them vote at every turn. Torro dropped us at a place called Werne Hill, said “vern hill”. It’s a small mall that is attached to an outdoor mall called Post Street Mall. Post Street Mall is a long, wide sidewalk with stores and restaurants. At the far end of Post Street is the famous Zoo Park. Zoo Park is settled on a hill. It has Palm trees, Ancient elephant remains, an amphitheater and a swing set. But Zoo Park in missing one obvious thing: A zoo! People often realize this after they’ve spent an hour or so searching the park for animals and only coming across a couple of lizards. I have yet to research the actual meaning behind the park’s name. Instead I revel in the absurdity of it all. At the top of the hill that Zoo Park sits on is a historic church. I’ve been told the story behind the church a few times but it went in one ear and out the other. There’s probably a photo of it on 45% of the webpages about Namibia though. So, feel free to research. Then, a little farther beyond that is the Namibian Parliament Building, which, along with housing the Namibian Parliament, also boasts one of my favorite views of Windhoek.

So, We get out of Torro’s Minibus – 6 grade school kids from Khorixas wearing bright yellow shirts and blue Eddie Bowe jackets and me.

Vote 1: Upstairs Werne Hill or Down stairs?
Majority says: Upstairs. So, I steer the crowd towards the escalator and hop on. I glance behind me and realize that my kids have never been on an escalator before. Katrina’s eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them before. Wynand is running up and down and up and down and annoying the man in a business suit riding behind him. Kennedy can’t quite figure out where to put his feet and Olivia has to catch him before he falls and gets escalator burn. Magically, we all make it to the top safely and with most of our pride still intact.

Vote 2: Ice Cream store or Music store?
Majority says: Ice cream! Soft serve is 5 Namibian dollars.

Vote 3: Stay in Werne Hill or go outside to Post Street?
Majority says: Post Street. We wander down Post Street mall. I’m amazed at how few people bug me. When I walk down Post Street by myself, all the street vendors constantly call for me to look at their crafts. When I walk down Post Street with my kids, the vendors barely lift a lazy eye to make sure my kids aren’t trying to abscond with their crafts. I guess we just don’t ring “tourists” as much as I do by myself.

Vote 4: Stay in Post Street or hit Zoo Park? Footnote: No, kids, there is no zoo.
Majority says: let’s go find the animals! I grab Kennedy’s backpack to keep his over enthusiastic little legs from running ahead and we all cross the street into Zoo Park. In Zoo park, we find the swings and see saw. We also find the amphitheater where Gaza performs on NBC (Namibian Broadcasting Company). Gaza is one of the Namibian singers I actually know. I see “GMP 4 life” written on kids’ assignments all the time. It means Gaza Music Production. Gaza is a popular guy and seeing the stage where he performs is a big deal.

Vote 5: Go back to shop at Werne Hill or go to the top of the hill for the view?
Majority says: As high as we can go! The kids and I start up the steep hill towards the old church and Parliament. The hill deters a few so we have to take vote 5 over again to make sure the kids want to keep going. After we pass the church, we have to enter into the gardens surrounding the Parliament building. We all pause for a moment to observe the sign leading into the garden. The kids are busy deciphering the pictures on the sign: no dogs, no sleeping, so bikes, no skates, no soccer, no hunting, no running, no jumping, no skipping, no breathing, no laughing, no fun… ok maybe not, but the sign sure kills the mood. We walk quietly through the large garden like we do not belong and someone will remember that we don’t belong at any moment. We walk until we reach the steps up to the Parliament building. My question to the kids: Who do you think can run to the top first? Everyone is off like a shot. I was surprised that I wasn’t the last one to reach the top. We all turn and face the view. It is beautiful. At least to me. But I don’t think it’s enough for the kids. Wynand turns and looks at Parliament then he looks at me. “Miss, can we go in?” I peak inside the building. It’s marble and official looking. I tell Wynand that he is a citizen of Namibia and as a citizen he had a right to see the building. Wynand takes the next vote.

Vote 6: Go inside or continue to cower outside?
Majority says: We’re young political activist! I’m looking at my watch and realizing that we only have 40 minutes to make it all the way back to Torro before he leaves us on the townside and goes in search of some meat to eat for lunch. But we all file into Parliament anyway. All we see is a tiny room, a tiny woman and a big metal detector and bag scanner. The woman looks at us blankly. It takes a beat before I can try to explain. “Um, we’re at the National Science Fair this week. We’re on a break right now while the judges are working and, well, we came here. And we just wanted to see inside. And, um, this is inside. Um…” The woman looks at me, blinks, silent for a little while longer and finally says she’s just going to call someone. Great, someone could be anyone. Who is someone? After she gets off the phone, Wynand’s curiosity continues and he insists the woman x-ray his backpack, his jacket, Kennedy’s backpack and jersey, Katrina’s bag, Losia’s bag and Cynthia’s jersey. All the things look the same in the X-ray but the awe is equally great for all the objects. I hear him say, “Oh, that could be a gun. It’s the right shape.” He says this about Losia’s bag. I’m rubbing my temples, imagining what’s coming next: newspaper headlines, “6 Future Namibian Scientists Aid Peace Corps Worker in Storming Parliament With Gun-Shaped Pencils and Straws”.

Finally our Someone arrives. He says he is going to take us on a tour of Parliament. I make all my kids file through the medal detector and into the next room. I was last through the medal detector and set it off with my cell phone. This requires me to walk through again without my cell phone and tell my kids numerous times that, no, I can’t walk through just to make the noise again. Olivia says, “What person thinks of such things? You cannot even see the phone on the person but the thing can.” Our tour guide leads us around the building and explains all the rooms. The room where parliament meets is the biggest attraction. The kids have seen the room on TV and they have seen it on a poster that is displayed in almost every school. But they have never imagined that they would be standing in the very center of the room. 6 VIP guests to Parliament. They all sort of wander around the room in a glazed-over awe. Kennedy lightly grabs the gavel on the front desks. Wynand quickly walks over and takes it from his hand makes slight adjustments to it until it looks precisely as it did when we arrived. Our Tour Guide concludes the tour by looking at me and telling me I may take a picture now. I start to explain that I didn’t know I was coming to Parliament that day but instead decided to just say that I don’t have a camera – I mean, who accidentally winds up in the Namibian Parliament building on a random Wednesday?

We all file out into the hallway as we wait for our guide to lock up the meeting room. The kids gather in front of the elevator. They are speaking in Damara but I gather that they’re asking what it is. Our tour guide walked up and presses the up arrow. The elevator opens almost immediately. It’s one of those elevators with a mirrored wall on the back. The 8 of us just stare at ourselves on the back wall. Our tour guide finally tells the kids to go in. The kids all take an internal vote and decide that they are not budging. The door closes. The guide presses the up arrow again and the door opens again. Go in, he says. Wynand says, “I don’t take risks, sir.” (We all know that’s not true). So the guide nudges Kennedy, Olivia, Losia and Katrina in. He reaches around and presses the button that says 1. The door closes. I hear some faint whimpering. We hear the “ding” and move around a corner so we can see the balcony above us. Four kids come spilling out of the elevator. Our tour guide has to walk up the stairs and steer their shaky legs down to the ground floor. Olivia tells me, “Miss, I could not figure out where you were hiding when the door opened again”. Losia tells me, “Katrina was crying for Miss Jessica the whole time: ‘Miss! Miss! Miss!’” Katrina tells me, “No, Miss! It’s not true”. Kennedy tells me, “Miss, I wanted to cry”.

I thanked our guide. We all maneuvered back through the medal detector. I looked at my watch. We had 5 minutes to make it through the fun-sucking Parliament garden, the old church, Zoo Park, Post Street Mall, Werne Hill, The Escalator of Death and back to the Minibus. We book it. I hold Kennedy’s backpack the whole time. I refuse to loose one to traffic – the pedestrian always looses in Namibia. It took us ten minutes to make it through the whole path. The escalator took a long time to get down – Did you know that you have to go up one escalator and down a completely different escalator? Hmm, who knew? Not my kids. We made it all the way out to Torro. And he had not left us. In fact, welcome to Namibia, we had to sit there for another 15 minutes before we actually left.

Wednesday night was the award ceremony. There were a limited number of chairs. So my kids, resourceful as they are, scavenge for a folding table that they place against the back wall for us to sit on. Medals were given to projects that earned a certain percentage. The Kunene region won 6 bronze medals and 2 silver medals. Kennedy and Losia were the only two from our school to earn a medal – Bronze. The ceremony continues for hours and hours and hours. I can see my kids becoming more and more restless.

Thursday morning, Torro comes to pick me up at my youth hostel. All the youth Hostel workers come into the common area asking, “who’s going to Khorixas?” It’s amazing how much more interest workers take in you when they find out you’re staying in the country. The guard takes the opportunity to ask who I know in Khorixas. In the end, he decides it doesn’t matter and I should just tell everyone in Khorixas that Randy says hi. “Oh, it’s your place?” is the correct way to ask if he’s from there. “Yes, It’s my place.” Randy says and finally lets me go to deliver his message to his place.

Back at school, the teachers were excited to have something to show for their kids’ efforts. Kennedy and Losia got to wear their medals around school for the morning. I think it was a good experience for the kids (And I think that we’ll be more prepared for next year. Wynand told me that he’s traveling back from secondary school (grade 8) next year so I can help him with his project on weekends). But overall, the experience was a little hard for me to watch. When all 13 regions come together it is so obvious to which ones are more privileged than others. For example, the two regions that won the most medals were the regions that include Windhoek and Swakop. Their projects were easy to pick out from the group because they boasted laptops, microscopes, elaborate models and wooden backboards. My kids barely noticed the difference between their boards and the fancy ones. And they learned a lot by investigating the microscopes and playing on the laptops. It’s all a learning experience – for everyone.

Since the science fair, I’ve just been biding time at site. We finished the fourth week of school today, and I’m already behind on the syllabus. I’m really enjoying the subject matter, though. We’re working on forces and energy in science. And before that we had a week of insects. I send all of grade seven out to catch an insect to draw into their notebooks. I thought each group might catch one or two – instead they all filled the jars I gave them. My kids have some of the strangest talents. And it’s always a joy to discover them.

Last weekend we hosted a sports tournament for primary schools in the area. Since our school was hosting, each teacher had a job. I was in charge of concessions. I sold NikNaks, small candies, coke, beer, and oranges from 8am until 6:30pm. The concessions worker also gets to be in charge of the stereo system. Anything with a guitar is “white people music”. Gaza and The Dogg are always acceptable. Rhianna (-ella, -ella, -ella), Shakira (I beg to differ – the hips can lie), Justin (two years later, Sexy sure is a slow traveler…), Sean Kingston (my favorite: Me Love), P Diddy, Alicia Keys (I can’t stand her) and R Kelly are all good. I could have played the song “It’s too late to Apologize” the entire day and the kids would have been happy (and I would have been entertained – imagine adolescent boys trying to hit those notes while thinking that the stereo is loud enough to cover their singing… it wasn’t… I could still hear them).

Before I go, I have two more things to tell you: 1) Khorixas got a paved road! Well, we already had one paved road that ran into town from Outjo and out of town towards Twelfontein and the Skeleton Coast. But this new one forms a horseshoe from town into the location, around the Ministry of Education and back to town. When I came back to Khorixas just before school started, they had cleared those stretches of dirt road. I got a little suspicious. Then, that week, they completed most of the road. My supervisor was late to work everyday because they started on both sides of the horseshoe at the same time. People who lived in town had to drive/walk/cart almost out of town before they could find a drivable road into the location. I love this place.

And 2) I went to South Africa in August! It was fun. It was rainy. It was artsy and western. I wore converse. I bought a scarf (Namibian cold isn’t real cold). I saw the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. I visited the penguins. I “climbed” table mountain… Well, I climbed the stairs to the tram that took me to the top. I stayed in a fancy hotel with a fancy bathroom and filter coffee every morning. I watched a movie being made outside my hotel – it was about Christmas. There was a lot of fake snow, props, huge wreaths, food service and a big statue of Santa that people cautiously ventured from our hotel to get their photo with. I tasted wine with a bunch of old tourist and had a blast. The over 60 crowd knows how to party in the wine cellar. I went to 3 movies. Count them, 3. I sat in 60% of the bookstores in Cape Town. “Where’s Fiction?” I ate Subway and McDonalds! Fantastic! I saw GAP jeans for sale. Two words: Haagen Dazs. Three scoops, please. We made a Nelson Mandela history pit stop. Throw two 18-hour bus rides on top, a side of food poisoning (short lived. I survived) and a couple of Mojitos and you’ve got yourself a genuine SA experience.

Yeah, Cape Town was epic.


October 4, 2008
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot. It’s a side effect of all Peace Corps service, I hear. But, I seem to be on memoir streak. First I read about Augusten Borough’s childhood and subsequent struggle with alcoholism in “Running with Scissors” and “Dry”. And, most recently, I started another book about a childhood gone awry called, “The Liar’s Club”. But before that I read a memoir about a PCV in Zaire called, “The Ponds of Kalambayi”.

The Ponds of Kalambayi was written about a Peace Corps service between 1985 and 1987. The Volunteers name was Mike and he was sent to Zaire to teach locals how to raise tilapia in man-made fish ponds (meaning, dug with a shovel by one person). I found myself jealous of Mike as I read. His Peace Corps service included a lot of things I hadn’t even considered for mine. First, he was teaching people how to make and stock fishponds. That job inherently has immediate results. A pond could be made in two weeks with intense manual labor. The fruit of all that work was obvious – a big gleaming water-filled pond. In stark contrast, I look at my job and feel like nothing is happening. I daily fill out endless Lesson Plan forms. I spend break times and afternoons talking and hanging out with 12, 13, 14 and 15 year old Namibians. I spend class times saying, “listen” and forcing 12, 13, 14 and 15-year-old Namibians to write endless notes about natural science and math. This is all work that could be done by anyone. And I am not anymore equipped to deal with the job than any other trained Namibian. In fact, maybe the opposite. The kids frequently teach me something – “no, miss, THIS is the test book. THAT is the exercise book.” or, on a lesson about Energy and Fossil Fuels, “Miss, we DO have a coal mine. In Tsumeb.”

Second, Mike got a ten-week training in the local language (after a ten-week training in Fish farming). And, then, The SHOW-OFF, became fluent in the tribal language and ONLY conversed in it. Ugh. I’m an utter failure.

These are the Damara phrases I know:
Matisa = How are you?
!Gai i ge a = I’m good.
!Gai Tses = Good Afternoon/day
Tita ge Donkey //gani !gaibahe tama = I don’t like donkey meat
Marie aute re = give me money
Marie uha tama ta ha = I don’t have money
/u = white person
/usa = you are white (thanks for the reminder)
Toilet sa mapa ha? = …

And, most important for encountering drunk men in the street:

/Nam sida ge a = I love you
Tita ge Khoeba uha = I already have a boyfriend (lies!)

I like to fool myself into thinking that I can follow the drift of a conversation in Damara. But to be honest I only follow conversations where people are discussing where they left there keys, whether the white person is getting fatter or where they are recounting ages, phone numbers, house numbers, amounts of money or how many fingers they have on their left hand (Goro. Usually).

Third, he was a volunteer in the 80’s in the inner part of the continent. In the 80’s, Peace Corps volunteers were allowed to drive! Unthinkable these days. And Zaire, I feel is probably worse off than Namibia. Namibia borders South Africa. They have a university in Windhoek. They have a steady government and economy. And, chances are, if Peace Corps withdrew entirely from the country, they would be all right – just in my personal opinion.

All this is to say that the book really got me thinking about my current situation. Far too often, I let my mind wander to the ever-present thought, “What am I doing here?” And far too often, I can’t think of an answer. Lately, my inability to conjure an acceptable answer has been compounded by the fear that I am actually becoming a worse person in my time here – I have never said “no” so many times in my life: No, I will not buy you bread. No, I will not let you come in and eat from my cupboard. No, I will not do your work/lesson plans/laundry for you. No, I will not leave you my cell phone when I go back. No, I do not want to “know” you. No, I will not push your broken car to town. And, no, you cannot have a dollar. Why? Because if I gave you a dollar I would have to give one to the 82 children standing behind you with their palms outstretched and, worse, would only enforce the “fact” that white people will give you money so you should ask EVERY opportunity you get.

See, complicated, right? All this has led me to believe two things. 1) That Jill’s friend back home was completely right when he said, you have to think of Peace Corps as a nice cultural exchange and that it. Thanks for sharing. And 2) I need to stop reading memoirs. Especially by RPCVs.

But, as I was reading the Ponds of Kalambayi, I came across some sections that I could totally relate to. And, even though Mike was serving 20 years before me and in a poorer region of the continent, maybe African culture has a lot of things in common all over this huge expanse of land. So, here I leave you, post-rant, with some quotes from my latest memoir:

“Like most people who go overseas to do development work, I did so expecting to find out what it’s like to be poor. But awakening to my surroundings after a few months, I discovered that’s not what happened. Instead you learn what it’s like to be rich, to be fabulously, incomprehensibly, bloated with wealth.”

“That I could go an entire week and not wear the same shirt twice was, in this African setting, the gleaming pinnacle of affluence… In a strange way, this consequence of poverty proved useful to me when I arrived in Kalambayi. It helped me remember people. If I forgot faces, I could often place names simply by using clothes as memory cues.”

“Eager to get to work and confident (naively) of Peace Corps’ judgment, I decided not to worry”

“Many times while I was in Africa the hardships I saw forced me to rework my understanding of what hell must be like”

“In Africa, children are the central, insuperable, all-important fact. They roam everywhere, five to every parent… so many children were there in every village that at the slightest spectacle – a soccer game, a heated argument, a fallen tree blocking the road – they appeared in droves this way, attaching themselves like barnacles to whatever was happening.”

“Play sessions never lasted more than thirty minutes, however, because an enormous wave of other children would quickly arrive… the children seemed to emanate from nowhere, popping out from behind cornstalks, dropping from trees, emerging from thin air. They came and came, dozens of them, until there were more than I could count. ‘Swing me! Swing me!’ they would roar simultaneously, standing together in my yard as if part of a clamorous crowd scene in some epic meeting. With tiny hands pulling me in every direction, I would start backing up towards my door”

“The local system worked. Everyone was taken care of. Everyone did stay afloat.”

“Above the horizon, the sun hung orange-pink, soft and perfect, coloring the valley with that lustrous final light that made ‘even ugly people look beautiful.’ Soon the orb sank behind a low ridge, passing with such a speed that, watching, you could almost feel the earth turning and hear the creak of it unfathomable weight. Africa was sliding beyond the gaze of the sun."