Its All Rubbish

August 26, 2009

Trashcans are an illusion in Khorixas. When I first moved here, I lived in town at the Ministry of Education volunteer house. For those of you loyal blog readers, you’ll remember what happened that ill-fated night in January 2008 when the volunteer house trashcan lost it’s life at the hands of a naïve young American with a tiny touch of pyromania. To this day, the deformed and twisted plastic remains can be found in Khorixas and, essentially, serve as a warning to new volunteers that they know nothing and probably shouldn’t assume they do.

But this story isn’t about that trashcan. It only begins there. I know I’ve described the difference between “Town” and “Location” in Namibia. But to summarize, town is, for the most part, nicer. For example, they have regular trash pick-up and the location does not. Last year, when I moved to the location, I did not know that the trash pick-up I had so quickly shunned in town and that trashcan I so quickly killed would be the only real trash-solutions I would see in Khorixas for the rest of my days here.

When I first moved to the school, I remember standing with a few of my teachers at the door of my new flat. We were talking about what would be the most beautiful way to decorate my windows, when it suddenly occurred to me: what will I do with my trash? So, I posed the questions. The hostel matron pretended she didn’t know English and just stared at me blankly (to this day, she still pretends she doesn’t know English. The ruse is up matron! I know you’re faking!). The first grade teacher giggled under her breath and said she’d let me borrow her curtains for my living room windows. And my supervisor said, “Weeellll, dear… I don’t know.”

She didn’t know. A Namibian didn’t know what I was supposed to do with my rubbish and here I was, trashcan shy after my last attempt at anonymous trash disposal, by means of fire, left to my own devises. My first attempt at disposing of my trash in the location was to take it out to the trashcan in the hostel yard. You see, all over Khorixas, there are brightly painted public trashcans. These trashcans stand on two legs that are planted into the dirt. Then the legs rise to the top of the trashcan, where there is a hinge that allows the can to swing back and forth. There is about foot or two of space under the swinging trashcan and one lone crossbar in that space that children can use as a way of climbing up to look inside. And as luck would have it, the hostel yard had one of these trashcans. It was a glimmer of hope. It was a solution to a smelly problem. It was something that just made sense, right? Wrong.

The first day I carried my little bag of trash out to that can, learners jumped eagerly by my side: What are you doing, Miss? What is that, Miss? Can we help, Miss? In the midst of chaos, I arrived at the trashcan to find it full of grass. Yes, dead yellow grass – like someone had mowed the field from heaven in “Gladiator” and stuck in our one trashcan. I don’t know why. There was grass everywhere; why should we cram our trashcan full of grass? Isn’t that something we can just leave on the ground? Or feed to the donkeys? Apparently not. So, what was I to do? I threw my trash on top of the pile. The trashcan swung lightly on its hinges, squeaking ever so slightly. It was one lone tied plastic bag sitting atop a mound of grass. It looked so forlorn, so lonely. It looked so… just then, the kids stole it and ran away!!! They stole my trash!

From afar, I cringed at the fun the kids were having with my rubbish. The running commentary in my head was more than I could bear: Eeew, don’t eat that!! Oh my gosh, is that my dental floss? Oh please, oh please, take that off your head!

It was too much; I went inside and decided something must be done immediately. For months after that I carried my trash to town when I did my shopping. In town, they had regular trash pickup. I would walk to town with a bag full of trash, dump it, and then, walk home with a bag full of groceries. Thankfully, Jill was understanding – what sort of weirdo carries their trash around? Her site-mate, that’s who. The worst was when I would forget to empty my bag before I went into the shop. Then, I would open my bag to put all the groceries in but it would already be full of rubbish. It all got to be too embarrassing. I needed a new solution.

It had been months and the hostel’s lone trashcan was still filled with grass. It was then that it occurred to me: the trashcan was just an illusion – no one was ever going to empty it. I considered this and decided I was ok with people going through my trash. The key was that they shouldn’t know it was mine. So began the short period of trash displacement. The plan was like this: I would walk trash to public rubbish bins that were less full than the hostel’s but still in a somewhat close vicinity. I would do this at odd hours of the day and night so that no one would follow me. Children could then pilfer through the small bags later taking the good things. And, finally, no one would be the wiser that the things had once belonged to me.

It worked well at first. The sun would just be glistening at the horizon, with me sneaking back to my flat in my pajamas empty handed. Sunday mornings were the best because everyone was at church. The closest, yet just distant enough, trashcan happened to be adjacent to a makeshift soccer field and was therefore dangerous at too many times each day. The next closest, yet distant enough for privacy, was missing it’s bottom. This was a problem because it felt like littering. I put the bag in the top. It fell out the bottom. What was the point? Then the next closest was just too far. I got lazy. It would be weeks between taking out the trash. Gross smells and cockroaches were the only things that could persuade me to take action. I needed a new plan.

The new plan was brought about by desperation. For, desperation was the only thing that could drive me back to the match. I was going to burn my trash again. I was shy at first. I used an old baking pan to burn the small plastic bags full of evidence that I had lived. I would burn them within the walls of my porch behind my house so that no one could see me. There were many months of this sort of secrecy. Then, one Saturday morning, I smelled fire from my house I looked out the window and there stood about 50 boys burning trash just beyond my back door. It was chore day for the boys and it was their responsibility to burn up their rubbish. Brilliant! Other burners! I was not alone.

Where the boys were burning there was, yet another, large mound of cut grass and just beyond that was a rocky field full of all sorts of rubbish that had been abandoned there. This was the perfect place to take my burning public. The rubbish field and I were happy for quite some time. I would take my trash there, to a small patch of dirt and burn it. It was gone and I didn’t have to go more than ten steps from my door. No learner would ever again wear my dental floss as a headdress or use hair from my brush as a ball. Mission accomplished.

Slowly at first, and then gaining in frequency and severity, the rubbish field and I started to have disputes. People would come by when I was trying to burn my trash and ask, “Jessica, what do you think you’re doing?” And I would say, “why, burning my rubbish, thank you.” To which they would say, “tsk.”

A seed of doubt grew in my mind. Was it unacceptable to burn here? Was I breaking some sort of unspoken rule about women burning trash in fields? I tried to forget it, but more and more people, while facing the self-explanatory flames, would ask, “Jessica, what do you think you are doing?” Couldn’t they see? Or was it a deeper problem?

Out of shame and self-doubt, my burnings became less frequent. I would only burn important things like letters, prescription information or address labels from boxes. The other trash, I would put in the rubbish field with the scattered rubbish left by other teachers who had not been burning. Milk boxes, chicken bones and carrot tops were ok to be left on the ground, I thought. It’s not littering, I reasoned, the goats will come and eat it, or children will come and take it to play with. My first year as a Peace Corps volunteer turned into my second as told myself still, it’s ok because other people are doing it.

But it wasn’t ok. I had let it continue too long. The burnings had dwindled to once a month or every other month. More and more rubbish was being left on the ground in the rubbish field. I left the rubbish atop the mound the boys used to burn their trash on chore day, but it just didn’t seem to atone for the sin like I hoped it would. I despaired. I couldn’t see the difference between a rubbish field and a regular street in Khorixas anymore. I fell deeper and deeper into a hole of loose garbage morals of my own making. Children would come to my door and offer to take my trash out… and I would let them! I could see them in the rubbish field taking the good parts and leaving the rest behind on the ground and I felt nothing buy apathy (and joy that my trash had been taken out). I couldn’t see the light from the bottom of the deep dark hole. Until, someone saved me.

This past weekend, I took my trash bag the ten steps to the rubbish field and started a back swing to launch it into the wasteland. Just before I let it fly into the air, a guard walked by. He was hired by the Ministry of Education to make sure the school is not broken into during the school holiday. He stopped and said, “Good morning.”
I let the trash hang by my side. “Good Morning,” I said.
“How are you?” the guard queried.
“Fine, thanks. And you?” I replied.
“Fine.”
Which wasn’t at all weird because every person you pass in Namibia, ever, must says some semblance of these things to you and every other person they pass. But then there was a pause. Then the guard raised his eyebrows and pointed. His accusatory finger was not pointing at me but it would have been much less painful if it had been. It was instead pointing at the one and only hostel yard rubbish bin, the one that had been full of grass for so long. He said simply, “There.”
“Oh,” I said quietly and hung my head in disgrace.

I was too ashamed to walk to the rubbish bin then, so I simply went inside. The next day, I had gathered enough courage to try a second time to take my trash out to the hostel’s lone trashcan. When I was approaching, I could see that the top no longer sported a huge mound of grass. I had been too blind, too apathetic, to see that the trashcan had been emptied! Trashcans were not an illusion! People were starting to care about what to do with their garbage! It was the beginning of a new era in Khorixas, where the streets would be clean. The Ministry of Works would pick up trash all throughout Khorixas – there would be no distinction between Town and Location, between rich or poor! All trash would be equal! This was momentous.

I reached the trashcan full of joy and hope and gracefully tossed my tied plastic bag in. I felt satisfaction. I felt accomplishment… I felt something on my foot. I looked down and it was my little bag of trash. How…? What…? I tipped the trashcan on its hinges and peered in. At the bottom of the can, I saw my toes peeking back at me. There was no bottom. That was it. Just a can. No bottom. A tube to accelerate littering on the ground. A laugh in the face to someone trying to clean up the chaos. A step backwards in the grand scheme of garbage.

You see, I tell you this cautionary tale so that you can see the plight of those who want privacy in a developing country. I tell you this so that you can look down into your own trashcans and consider what would actually make a good toy for a child who needs less to be entertained than an American child. I tell you this so that you can feel a small sense of joy when the garbage truck drives to your house and takes your trash away so that you never have to see it again.

No, but seriously, with three months left I still don’t have anything to do with my garbage.

One Lazy Day

August 18, 2009

Here’s a secret about my job: Sometimes I go to work and I do absolutely nothing.

Now, don’t go out and join the Peace Corps right now. There are a lot of days that I’m so busy that I don’t sit down all day and my throat goes numb from yelling. But today was one of those days where I do absolutely nothing. The only thing I was supposed to do was get the kids ready for the National Science Fair at the beginning of term 3 in September. The Kunene region is short a couple projects and our grade 7 learners were runners up at the regional science fair. They may need to be prepared to go, but I’m not sure. Then, for the National Science Fair, there are special boards and special papers and this and that and what what what… but the man who is organizing the fair was out of the office today. Don’t know when he’ll be back. Just gone. So, I did nothing.

The kids are taking their end-of-term exams now. The whole school is on lockdown. We’re supposed to be concentrating and studying and wrapping up the term. Unfortunately, my term is wrapped up. I’m finished. So, I did nothing.

Today was nice though. Yesterday was really hot. The heat made some clouds overnight and today was really cold and cloudy. I can feel rainy season coming earlier this year. I bet that means it’s going to get hotter faster too. But this morning was nice while the cold lasted. I don’t know what it is about cold, but things get quieter. The roosters don’t crow. The kids go inside before they yell. Dogs don’t bark. It’s strange and calming. This morning was nice.

This afternoon, I read a little and then I took a walk to town. My first errand was to fax a letter to Windhoek. I had to go to the Telecom shop – which is just a phone company building. To fax my letter, they called me back to an empty room with one table that had a fax machine sitting on top of it. Nothing else. One window. The woman who worked there was dialing in the Windhoek fax number and a man was standing next to her. He was reading my letter. I waved my hand in front of his face and said, “Sorry, sir, it’s private.” His expression was like I had just slapped him. He took a step back. The woman who worked in the shop looked worried. She said, “Sorry, miss, I was just reading the fax number!” When the fax machine printed out the paper saying Windhoek had received the fax, she turned her head and felt around the machine until she could grab the paper and hand it to me without looking at it. Ha! It’s no wonder those of us with western attitudes get such a bad rap – all professional-like… what’s the big deal? Chances are neither of them cared what my letter said or what to make of the information.

The next errand was to buy a stamp to mail a letter to one of my best American pen pals (thanks to those who write)(really. You = mail box bliss). When I walked into the post office, it was completely empty. I’ve never seen it completely empty. Normally, I walk in and have to wait 20 minutes to 2 hours before I get to the window. Then, I try to keep my sentences short and fast to ward off any old people trying to push their way to the window to collect their pension from the government. Then, I walk off dejected because old people are really a lot stronger and pushier than you would think. Anyway, today it was empty and while I was still standing in the doorway (marveling at the emptiness), the post worker said, “Hello, Jess”. I felt so loved, so accepted, so welcomed. I love the post. Not only can they tell Jill and me apart but also I have a nickname. Mmm, good day. It was like post office heaven.

The next errand was to buy more Namibian pumpkin and some apples from the grocery store. Whenever you buy produce at the grocery store you have to get it weighed in the produce section before you take it to register. Granted, the produce section in Khorixas is about the size as a bathroom. I was about to pick up some apples to make applesauce when the produce-weigher grabbed my elbow and led me to a box around the corner that was filled with apples. Cheaper apples. Yay, secret weigher info! The pumpkin is pre-weighed. Don’t know why.

I decided an impulse buy was in order for the day. So I settled on buying some sweets. I wanted something chewy, like gummy bears. So I went to the sweets section. I grabbed the candy that looked closet to gummy bears and threw it in my basket. Then, I had to pull it back out to take a closer look: On the front it said “the unreal world of MANHATTAN”. Just below that it had a picture of a kangaroo with eye shadow and long eyelashes. Her name was Kylie Kangaroo, the bag told me. She had her pouch open and inside it was a picture of the candy I was about to consume: little “gum babies”. The rest of the package was decorated with these “gum babies” of all different colors (red and yellow, black and white… and green) floating around. The babies were posed like chubby mummies; legs stick straight and arms folded over the body. But, alas, each baby had a broad smile and chubby cheeks, obviously to encourage you to eat it. Finally, the back had a picture of a cow head and it said, “Cow-moo-nicate with us…” with an address and phone number, in case you are not satisfied with your babies, you can send them back. Tell me American packaging is this weird and I just haven’t noticed before… right? Oh, baby.

I took my babies, pumpkin and apples up to the register to pay, but I didn’t make it before a pack of Grade 5 girls, each one buying one item: oil, sweets, cookies, soda… it was a good day in the land of Grade 5 girls (except the girl with oil still confuses me). The first girl stood proudly at the register. Her total came to N$6.95. Unfortunately, she only had a 5-dollar coin. She scooped her sweets off the counter and back into the store to reevaluate her choice. The second girl nudged her oil across the counter. The checker looked up the price and told the girl. The small girl pulled a huge bag out of her dress pocket and dumped it on the counter. Hundreds of 5-cent pieces scattered everywhere. The checker gave the small girl a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look and then gave me a kind look and told me to go to my own cash register, opened specifically for my needs. Yup, it was a good day in the grocery store.

I wandered home at a pace of a Namibian person 50 years my senior, chewing my gum babies. The yellow gum babies are the best tasting. Plus, the yellow color makes it hard to see their creepy smile. Chewing my gum babies and surrounded by Khorixas–location chaos, I marveled that so much could be accomplished in Khorixas town. It was like an up and coming metropolis. I was rounding the corner to the school hostel when one of my grade 6 learners stopped me by standing in my path. She stood staring at me and smiling. I had the last red gum baby stuck in my tooth and the wind was blowing pretty badly (a symptom of dry season) which makes my nose run uncontrollably, so my learner had a lot to be staring and smiling at. She finally said, as I was picking baby out of my teeth, “Oh, miss, you are so Beeaaauuutiful today.” I paused for a second to remember that sarcasm doesn’t exist in Grade 6 Namibian English. So I said, “Oh, thank you!” and made a mental note to give her a few extra stickers for being oblivious.

I made it home no worse for wear and with all my errands accomplished. So you see, Khorixas was nice to me today. Tomorrow I may not be so lucky. Which goes to show, you can have your baby and eat it too!

Actually, no baby eating. That’s weird.

COMPUTERS!!!

The computers came this weekend!!!!! It’s been so many months waiting for our two computers to make their way across the Atlantic and to our humble little school.

If you don’t remember, when I was home for Christmas I raised money for my school to get computers. People gave money or bought crafts made by women in my community. It was super encouraging to be surrounded by such generosity! Then, at the beginning of this year, I ordered some computers from a donation company in Seattle. The money was used to refurbish the computers and ship them to Namibia (I got a great deal on shipping, by the way. Great deal!). And now, 8 months later, the computers are sitting in the office of Eddie Bowe Primary School. They could not have gone to a school that would appreciate them more. My colleagues are so excited to better their school and now they have the tools to do it.

Thank you for those of you who helped!

Leaving a Legacy

4 August 2009

I write about facebook a lot in my blog. We’re really lucky to have such good phone service in Namibia. Even though it can be maddening at time when things go all “Africa” on us, a majority of the time I’m connected. And it feels great.

In Peace Corps Namibia we have a publication called “Izit?”. The story behind Izit?’s name came from a popular saying in Namibia. It’s common to be telling a story and have all the listeners respond, “Is it?!?” In fact, “Is it?!?” ranks just below “Oooh-Kaaaay” and just above “Don’t say that!!!” in Namibian responses. I’ve adopted all of them in my normal speech.

Anyway, all that’s to tell you about our PCV publication Izit?. Nam27 (my group of PCVs) is the first group to really embrace mobile Internet on our cell phones. So, this year, when we took over Izit? a new section was added: “Facebook Statuses, Straight from Your Phone”. For those of you unfamiliar with facebook, statuses are a part of your profile page that you can update as often as you like. Most people tell what they’re doing at the moment or how they’re feeling. It is mandatory that the status starts with your name. So, if I updated my facebook status right now, I might say, “Jessica Royer is having a blast writing her blog after a two month hiatus.” The new Izit? facebook article included these gems from current PCVs in Namibia (names have been omitted just because having names would be weird):

[A PCV]’s youth center is planning to have a meeting to plan a planning meeting. Now now.

[A PCV] thinks a grilled cheese for breakfast as WELL as dinner makes for all the essential vitamins and nutrients.

[A PCV]: that’s right, it took us 5 hours to go 10k.

[A PCV] keeps getting faint whiffs of doody and can’t rule out that it might be his own clothes… Thank you peace corps for lowering my standards even further.

[A PCV] just printed 2 copies of a Valentine for a learner addressed to different girls. They both say “You are my one and only”

[A PCV] is amazed how things work out in Namibia. Yesterday I didn’t eat and had no money. Today I’m watching a plasma HD game of rugby and drinking wine in A/C. Wow.

It’s always to fun to read my PCV friends’ status updates. They can be so entertaining. They’re nice because they comment on the little nuances about Namibia that you wouldn’t notice unless you were working inside the system. Sometimes they’re negative and sometimes they’re positive but most of the time they represent two cultures coming together (and how rocky that experience actually is).

As the time before I leave Namibia gets shorter and shorter, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can finish strongly. Coming closer to the end means a lot of reflections. What was this time here all about? Have I made a difference? How have I changed? For the rest of 2009, I want to tie up loose ends. I want to make sure that everything is finished and ready to be left on it’s own. Or maybe not so much on it’s own but in the hands of another…

Recently, I found out that I am being replaced with a new Peace Corps volunteer. This is great news! I am excited that another person will be investing in Eddie Bowe Primary School for another two years. I will meet the new volunteer in September. Everyone is so excited for the PCV to come. The new volunteer will be staying with a family in Khorixas. People are so excited about the new volunteer that there was a moment of great disappointment when they were told that not all of them could be chosen to host the volunteer in their homes. When we finally decided on a host family, the host mother told her little daughter that “Jessica’s sister will be coming” (the family requested a female volunteer, hence “sister”). The little girl was so excited that she’s been telling all her friends that the new white girl is going to come live at her house.

With great excitement also come great expectations. Only now, watching a school prepare for a volunteer can I see how devastating it would have been for me to leave early. Volunteers who leave Namibia before even spending a week at their site make a huge hole in their host organization. A place was prepared and then there is no one to fill it. Peace Corps volunteers are never held to the full two years. I could have left at any moment. But every day held just enough hope that I stuck around and I’m glad I did. I hope this new volunteers sees how much they’re needed and appreciated.

Since I started my two years, the program has changed a little bit. We arrived in country on November 2nd and we moved to our sites on January 9th. Everyone from the previous group had gone home by then. This year, Nam30 will arrive in August and will be at site by October. I get to spend my last two months with the new volunteer. Sometimes I get really excited about this. Other times I get really worried – what if they’re way cooler than me? I bet they’ll be able to speak Damara in a couple of days? What if they really like to bake and make a cake for the staff every week? Seriously, these are things to consider! I need to get my act together before October!