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A government bakkie pulls up to the dusty gravel parking lot of the Lutheran Guesthouse in Windhoek.  Two strangers come to take me to my home for the next nine weeks, Gobabis Namibia . One speaks quite a bit of English, the driver, none at all.  To each other they speak Tsetswana.  I say good bye to the last of the remaining volunteers and the program director, and jump into the truck smiling brightly. I am terrified.

We drive east, quickly leaving the city behind.  The land and air are very dry. The veld scares me, it seems to go on forever, and at this point in my trip, looks so desolate to me. Groups of baboon, guineafowl and warthogs appear frequently at the roadside.  I feel like I have not just stepped outside the box, I have leapt out and landed far, far away. (Ten weeks later the veld has changed completely for me, it has become natural and beautiful.  A week after that I am at home, and missing it terribly, and finding my surroundings back in Canada “unnaturally” and disturbingly “too green”. So green it makes me uncomfortable).

A few hours later we crest a low hill and a small town with a reservoir spreads out in front of us. Gobabis – population listed at approximately 5,000.  But go to any primary school classroom and pull down the globe from the shelf – Gobabis appears on the map of Namibia despite its seeming unimportance in terms of population. Ten minutes later we are in town. Its two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon and the streets are virtually deserted. It takes some time to find someone willing to claim me.  Finally, the school principal is located and we meet in front of the local motel where a room has been rented for me temporarily. A shake of hands all around, and then I am alone.

I explore the town and figure out from signs that this place is very much like the rural Ontario town I grew up in 40 years ago.  Everything closes at noon on Saturday and you are living in a ghost town until Monday morning at eight or nine a.m.  I take lots of walks during the day and huddle in my lonely and surprisingly cold room for hours each night.  Over the course of my stay I transform from a man who slept 6-7 hours per night to someone that sleeps 10 hours each night. I don’t need the rest, but sleep fills the time.

The first Monday morning I am instructed to arrive at eight o’clock.  School starts at seven, but the principal does not want to deal with me before he clears out the morning routine of starting the school day.  When we meet, he is openly disappointed to learn that I do not have a teaching credential.  My purpose is to facilitate ICDL training for the teachers, but he was of course, hoping for someone who could fill in some gaps in regular classes. We move past that when he finds that I have loads of experience as a corporate trainer for numerous software programs and general computer use.

Minutes later I step into my first class, a group of 40 grade 10s whom the teacher insists must be taught Microsoft Access.  Having no clue what foundation the learners are working from, I launch into the topic, substituting chalk and blackboards for my usual laptop and LCD projector.  The kids are not well grounded in computer skills, but very enthusiastic.

My next class is grade 9s, and the subject is spreadsheets.  There is a brief awkward moment as a straggler comes in and the regular computer teacher flicks the back of her ear.  I stop and have a quiet word with the teacher – this sort of thing just is not going to work for me.  She is clearly surprised by my objection, but accepts it without discussion.  We move into the subject area.  I have no text, no lesson plan; the teacher just asks that I teach. Fortunately Excel is a pretty strong area for me, so we begin.  After some struggles with names on both sides, I begin a survey of languages, asking each student to name their mother tongue.  When we are done, I have two columns on the board – languages in the first, and a series of numbers in the second representing the number in the class raised in each of the languages.  I have the students enter this information into spreadsheets and we turn in into a colourful chart. The chorus of “wows” as the charts appear on their screens make me feel like I have just been named king. For the next two months of school I never went a period in a classroom without at least one “wow” experience – how wonderful that was!

The evenings are killers – people vanish to their homes after five o’clock and its winter here, so it gets dark about the same time.  So then you are on your own.  I quickly discover the single largest error in preparation for this trip – I never allowed for loneliness!  I had thought to myself, “10 weeks, I can do 10 weeks blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back”. Ha! By the end of the first weekend I was an emotional ruin. I was so homesick it was embarrassing.  Calling home wasn’t an answer either – I would hear those far away voices of my family and fall into an incoherent emotional state that left them anxious and concerned. (I would hang up the phone and feel better, but would not have given them any indication that I was anything approaching OK). Near the end of my first week, a year-long volunteer at a nearby mission school came in and hand dinner with me. Emotionally, she came near saving my soul. During the balance of my stay I would see her once a week and it proved to be such a good support system (mutual I hope).

My second day at school we began the teacher’s ICDL certification preparation classes.  A slow start because so many of them had minimal prior exposure to computers, but enthusiasm and desire to attain certification were both quite high.  Our ultimate success with certification exams two months later was a little disappointing.  We only had an approximately 10% success rate. But the relationships that grew and the things these people taught me about making the most out of life will be with me forever.

And this sort of thing happened to me with the students as well, and people in the community. No, I don’t have 25 new best friends in Gobabis.  But I have a few good friends, and watched amazed as I saw so many people making good lives for themselves out of so little.  It was inspiring. And the warmth and support I got from my year-long friend at the mission school, my absolutely inspiring program director, and some of the Peace Corps volunteers I met while there were such blessings.

Despite trying hard to share as much information with the teachers and students to help while I was there as I could, I went home with the knowledge that I owed Africa.  I had numerous successes, many, many small ones, some larger. And a few failures. But I know in my heart that I came home with such rich experiences, the work I did while for Gobabis paled in comparison.

The number one question I have had from friends and coworkers since I got back is, “Was it worthwhile, would you go again if you had the chance?” The answer is always the same, and surprises me each time with how fast it comes and with what depth of conviction. 

I always say “yes, in a heartbeat.”

Selected as First Place, WorldTeach Fall 2006 Journal Contest.

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A Case of International Experience, by Zoë Sachs-Arellano

I’ve never been closed-minded toward new possibilities. On the contrary, it has always been perhaps the fundamental principle of mine to be constantly open to (and seek out) things that I don’t yet understand—to whatever possibilities of thought may lie around the corner of my perception. Nevertheless, no one wanders through life aimlessly, being open to everything equally with no underlying plan. One adopts first principles for a specific purpose, and mine was decidedly to avoid deception and blindness on my overall path toward finally getting some answers to questions that plagued me about human nature and existence.

Not surprisingly, then, I turned to science, philosophy, and the classics from early on—the fields of study that seemed to be asking the biggest existential questions, while still in a rigorous way. Originally planning to do a joint concentration in Physics and Philosophy, I always knew I wanted to travel ‘on the side’ (mostly to Europe)—but never thought of traveling to a developing country as a significant or even relevant part of my education. I never gave much thought to people who go off and spend great amounts of time and energy doing social activism (volunteering, Peace Corps, etc.) abroad. Of course I respected their work, but sort of as one might respect the work of a city council member or a businessman—I thought, that’s just not my personality, that’s not the kind of thing I would like to do with my time.

Nevertheless, driven by a vague feeling that something had been missing all my life and that I was only now starting to realize it, my sophomore spring I found myself applying to be a WorldTeach volunteer in Namibia. At first I couldn’t explain it to myself—I felt like a fish out of water. How on earth can Namibia and hands-on development work relate to my interests (and future thesis) in Philosophy? Yet somehow I felt this was important. This paradox was to plague me for a good several months after I returned from Namibia with my soul on fire, imprinted and transformed by what had been the three most ecstatic months of my life. Resolving and coming to terms with this tension during this past year has been the most exciting and satisfying stage of my education—a year of personal growth and discovery that I could never have foreseen or imagined, although it’s just what I always wanted and more.

I went to Namibia the summer after my third semester—just barely in time for it to completely transform my college experience. Before Namibia, I had felt that I was fishing through a vast institution and corpus of knowledge for ideas to master and call my own, feeling more confusion than clarity about my quest and unable to pull my thoughts together, such that I couldn’t talk to faculty about my interests and I certainly didn’t feel ready to write my thesis, let alone think seriously about graduate work. I had the feeling that I wasn’t really taking advantage of my time—and I was right. But try as I might, I was making only small progress, and didn’t know what else to do.

Namibia was absolutely necessary food for my brain, integrating and redefining my identities as a person and a student. From the moment I arrived, my conception of developing countries and development was turned on its head, and I saw possibilities that were never before open to me. Living and doing meaningful work along side local people in Namibia for three months was enough to turn this world that was so thoroughly and completely different, and yet so deeply resonant and therapeutic for me, into a place that I still today call home. In all the contours and the everyday details of this new world I came to know, I didn’t see stereotypes of hungry children and a poverty-stricken continent. Rather, what I saw constantly surprised and thoroughly bewildered my sensibilities until they were silly and giddy. I saw a kind of vision and creativity alive and thriving that I didn’t know existed, a way of life that was as viable as it was vibrant. I saw clearly the fundamental holes and gaps in contemporary development discourse and practice, and the obvious potential and need for a different approach. And, I saw how myself and others like me could and should play a key role in this new approach. No experience I could have had in college in four years could have compared to the impact on my worldview that each minute standing on the ground in Namibia—breathing in the air and touching the dirt to convince myself it was all not a dream—had for me.

Back this past year, the resources available to me have been outstanding, because I feel grounded now in a practical confidence of knowing what I am looking for. Namibia and development did not replace my prior interests, but it gave them shape and the vehicle in which to be expressed. By zeroing in academically on the philosophical frameworks underlying development (processes in which one cultural community tries to interact with and help another, or a given community tries to understand itself and better its condition), my interdisciplinary academic plan—which draws on such fields as anthropology, philosophy of race and racism, and empirical social analysis—necessarily involves practical fieldwork in Namibia no less than it does abstract reflections on identity and human relationships. Moreover, by integrating the high and the low, the personal and the political, the intuitive and the rigorous, the mundane and the transcendent, the cultural other and the cultural self—this new academic focus expresses who I am with a simplicity and clarity that I could not have had before.

It is entirely because of my first-hand experience in Namibia with WorldTeach—made possible by the fellowship I received from the Center for International Development—that I finally feel that I know something specific that is worth sharing; and that confidence and experience has defined my year here. For the first time I have been seeking out faculty members in various fields to connect my interests to theirs and to obtain reading suggestions and advice. I created a website for Namibian development, arranged to have a Namibian language tutorial added to the African studies program here, joined up with other students who are starting innovative NGOs and businesses for and on the continent, enrolled in a course at the Graduate School of Education to follow-up on my WorldTeach experience, and most importantly secured a travel grant and began to carefully plan for a 6-month return trip to Namibia, when I will build off of my past contacts and experience to pursue an independent research program and pilot some of the ideas that I’ve been developing with colleagues for a new approach to development. As a result of these experiences this year, I’ve already been able to write a preliminary sketch of the contours of my thesis, still a few semesters away, and concrete plans for post-graduate work are starting more and more to crystallize. It is because of the skills, hands-on experience and perspective I gained Namibia that I really learned how to give back to this community.

Namibia may not be the answer for every student. But, to every student, I would say: there is an answer. Don’t stay on if you suspect you’re not taking full advantage of your time. Take a summer or a semester off, go somewhere else. People often don’t know what they would do and where they would go with time off, and they see that as reason enough not to take it. But there is no real transformation that you can effect in yourself by brute force, without a change of venue. For those unsure, volunteering with WorldTeach is the ideal way for everyone (no matter your background) to get yourself on the ground and immediately involved with a local community vastly different from your own and very much in need, and to do work that is well-researched, cutting-edge, and part of a larger movement and that is guaranteed to transform your worldview and impact your life when you return.

Students tend to feel anxious about their future. If that’s the case, there’s nothing better than slowing down the pace and living up (or changing up) your time here. Before I went to Namibia, although I always knew I wanted to go to grad school, it always loomed vaguely and ominously in the future. Now, without even noticing the transition, I feel as if I already am currently doing graduate-level work, such that applying to grad school and post-grad fellowships will just be a formality. Nor is a life in academia the limited path it once appeared to me, but I see now how it is not at all (necessarily) disjoint from a career in the arts, the non-profit and public sectors, and even the private sector. To a student who really knows what he or she wants to study, doors (logistical, financial and intellectual) are wide open. Paradoxically, though, the problem is precisely that we all take ourselves to be that person who knows just where he/she is headed when we set foot on this campus. Thankfully—due especially to the generosity of some of the centers for international study, and the campus outreach efforts of WorldTeach—college is also a place where if you change your mind and realize how little you knew before, the doors usually open even wider. I regret that many students, however, don’t find themselves on this campus until too late in their college career. I constantly speak to friends who wish they had taken time off and gone abroad earlier, while they still had time before their thesis and course load crunch. We could be doing much more to shake students (and parents) out of their traditional four-year mindset early on, before they get to sophomore and junior year anxieties, and send them out into the world—where they can actually learn something of value and bring an exciting research program back to this community, rather than torturing themselves attempting to recycle what we all already know. What’s the hurry? An undergraduate education, where resources abound, only comes around once.

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A Changed Life, by Joshua Olatunde

Prior to serving as a WorldTeach volunteer in Namibia, I was a content person – with life, and the vision I had for myself regarding future endeavors. At the time, I was 22 years old and entering my final year of undergraduate school at Hunter College in New York City. My goal was to teach English to high school students upon graduation. However, my lifelong ambition was and has always been to become an actor – the best actor I could possibly be, which, I felt was my “calling.”

My parents are conservatives, and find far more comfort in their children’s ambitions in relatively financially secure jobs, than well… acting. So, I learned through numerous conversations with them, other family members, friends, and at times, bitter old souls of the entertainment business, to simply consider the performing arts a “dream” and chase “reality;” or, a life without major sacrifice for something which most people are unfamiliar.

Mwshependika School in Ongwediva, Namibia taught me otherwise. There, I instructed some 60 learners (students) in English and Computer Programming. The focus of much of my English coursework included Public Speaking and Writing. Many of the learners didn’t initially like my approach as a teacher, partly because they were embarrassed to speak English in front of a native speaker, in fear of mistakes, and, because some learners were just shy. Through writing, however, I learned a lot about these children, many of whom looked forward to very little in the future, in my opinion. “I can become a teacher, or a mechanic,” is what I heard from many of my male students, both orally and written. “I’m going to be a teacher,” is what every single one of my girl students said.

I asked them once if there was anything else they wanted in life. The initial response was none – simply a classroom of blank faces staring at me. Finally, Justina Namutungi, one of my female students blurted, “What do you mean, sir?” I responded with a statement I’d heard my whole life; “Well, there are a lot of things you can be in life. You can do anything you want. How come you all want to do and be the same thing – there are other things out there, you know.”

But, they didn’t. They proceeded in asking me what I wanted to be and do – I told them I wanted to be an actor in television and movies. They told me that if they had such a chance to make a living and do something they loved, or in many cases even liked, they’d work everyday to do so. When I returned to New York, that’s exactly what I did.

In the spirit of those youth, I began writing plays, and have since been produced threetimes as a playwright, including Off-Broadway and at The Newark Symphony Hall of New Jersey. I have produced many theatrical productions in New York City, and have also worked as an actor in several major-motion pictures, including Prime and Super Ex-Girlfriend with Uma Thurman. Water, The Cellar and Poultrygeist are amongst the independent films I’ve worked on over the past year.

Today, I am working as hard as ever to attain the goals I’d set for my self as a child, and have decided to let nothing ever deter me from them. Much of the work I’ve done, the few contributions I’ve made to my family, friends and co-workers as an actor/writer, is owed to my experience as a volunteer with WorldTeach. I most humbly thank your organization and hope it can continue to enlighten many more lives, as it did mine.

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Making the Most Out of My Time, by Carlos Carreno

When asked what Carlos missed the most from home after a month in Namibia, his reply was brisk: "Nothing; life here is so intense that there is no time to feel homesick." For a long time, volunteering in Africa had topped his 'do-before-I-die list'; the WorldTeach Namibia program has enabled him to cross the first entry in his list.

Carlos was placed at Mweshipandeka Senior Secondary School, a public high school in the outskirts of Oshakati. This is the capital of the Owambo people, the largest population group in Namibia, a truly intriguing place to live. "When applying to WorldTeach, I was hoping for a site that had enough local charm that I could never forget that I was in Africa." In Oshakati, there is no way that you could. "I am always mesmerized to see a herd of goats walk in the parking lot of the convenience store! One or the other seems misplaced. It is rural Africa meets development."

Carlos' living arrangement is a room at the principal's bachelor pad across the road from school. "It works out great. I have the support of a local friend when I need help and I don't have the hassles of living with a family. The principal enjoys my stories when I return from a bar or a weekend trip. He encourages me to make the most out of my time in Namibia."

The principal welcomed Carlos to school with a straightforward assignment: "Get as many of my teachers to use the computers as you can (but first fix the equipment!)." "I was contemplating some creative ways to express my frustration when I was handed a screwdriver. I am not a computer technician, I never intend to be one, and I cannot coach the teachers at Mweshipandeka to become one. Computers to me are like VCRs, who cares how they work as long as you can get them to play movies." With only 3 working computers, lessons were scheduled and practically all of the 32 teachers signed up (as well as the secretaries, the librarian, and the student teachers). A group of 50 learners from grades 8 to 12 also attend classes once a week.

Speaking about his biggest challenges, Carlos says, "patience is key to teaching computers. Some of my students (both teachers and learners) had never used computers before. They get frightened when they press the wrong button. Besides, if they don't enjoy learning how to use computers, they will stop coming to my classes. So, I make a real effort to put together entertaining lessons."

Was it worth your money and time volunteering in Namibia? "Definitely. It is very rewarding to see the teachers that were holding and using the mouse like a remote control now making graphs and posters. They are searching the Internet for information for their own learners. As for the learners, they are writing emails to find bursaries to finance their university studies. I had a blast and I got the most heartening feedback: 'Carlos our Captain, thank you for your effort I wish you the best in life! Remember: the little you have taught us will help us in a life time'."

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Brasius. Brasius is the kind of kid who shuffles his way to the back of the classroom every morning, one hand in his pocket and the other one constantly going back and forth from his nostril to the back of his ear. Brasius doesn't speak. He doesn't even cry when the others push him onto the ground or steal his lunch. He sits there all day and contemplates a mysterious point somewhere between the light switch and the ABC chart. Anyone who walks into the class could mistake him for a philosopher pondering over the meaning of life or awaiting enlightenment. But Brasius' metaphysics are so far beyond this world that the difference between 3 and 8, 5 and 62 or a goat and a butterfly simply becomes futile.

In the second term of Grade 1, learners are expected to understand and be able to compute basic additions and subtractions. Unfortunately, Brasius hadn't quite realized that 2 comes after 1. To be honest, I can see how putting numbers in the "right" order might seem a little arbitrary to a six year-old, but I decided that Brasius was going to learn how to count. No, he wasn't just going to, he had to learn how to count!

So after four or five weeks of intense ball playing, chart reading and singing with numbers, I was close to accepting the fact that perhaps Brasius would never stop picking his nose and chewing on his pencil when I was almost on my knees, begging him to say 1, 2, 3.

Then, one morning, the miracle happened. I walked into class and asked the usual: "So, who's going to count today?" When I turned my head, I saw that Brasius had his hand up! He went up to the chart and started - one, two, three. in a slow and clear voice. All right, so he skipped a few numbers and got a little confused after he passed 49. But even the other kids were holding their breath. When he finally reached one hundred, we all clapped. He looked at me, smiled, went back to his seat and. never opened his mouth again.

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Alistair served as WorldTeach Namibia Summer volunteer through the Morehead-Cain Foundation.

Things here are still going really great. I've started feeling at home at my village where I am treated like royalty (a little too much sometimes, it can be rather embarrassing). The teaching is even more fun than I expected it to be, although it is rather disorganised and I have to work out my own schedule with no set timetable, just filling in whenever one of the other teachers aren't there. My teacher training program in the afternoons is drawing to a close now and a good number of them are impressively skilled now. I am quite confident already that the computers will be used effectively after I have gone, which is incredibly satisfying. I am now trying to branch out into teaching the students and integrating computers into any classes I might be taking. The toughest thing is working out the logistics of having 45 students in a small room with 7 functional computers. I think it'll work out though.

Mid service training is next weekend and I am super-excited. All the volunteers, (who are absolutely great) are meeting up in Etosha, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places within this breathtaking country. The weekend after that we are thinking about making the trip up to see Vic Falls too. As I say - so excited!

My memory is filling up fast with unforgettable anecdotes and moments. Wow this is awesome!

P.S. One of the teachers at my school named his first son after me! Alastair Simunji. So touched.

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