The second week of school

The second week flew by. One reason is probably the great anticipation of the upcoming trip. But even otherwise, the school days were quite entertaining.

On Monday, I talked to the principal and the teacher in charge of us volunteers, and I am now allowed to stay in a class for now. So I don't have to spend all my time with the stupid math teacher, have more variety, and can get used to and help one class (7th grade). There are ten children in the class, but at least four of them have additional disabilities and therefore need a lot of support.

I didn't have to work on Tuesday because some of us had to go to the ministry for their visas. I didn't receive mine before departure, even though I applied for it in August. But Africans are really slow in such matters. So I entered as a tourist first and now got my visa here retroactively. We can consider ourselves really lucky that Shaun (who owns the house we live in) has connections to the ministry. Otherwise, it probably wouldn't have worked. Afterwards, I went to the city to have coffee and ice cream with two girls. I also had some photos printed to make my room a bit more cozy. On Monday and Tuesday evenings, I attended a volleyball trial training session at the German Sports and Gymnastics Club in Windhoek 😉 but it's too expensive for me in the long run, as volleyball is not one of my favorite sports. Maybe I'll find another way to do sports regularly here, as contrary to my expectations, I can't go jogging here because it's too dangerous.

On Wednesday, I was only in class for 5 out of 8 hours, as I spent the rest of the time in the city with one of the teachers at three different bookstores and at the ministry. My school still has hardly any books and I wanted to take care of that. At the ministry, it turned out that the principal or the teachers at my school simply missed the times to pick up their books, which I didn't expect any different. The teachers always tell me that they are disadvantaged compared to the other schools, but I no longer believe that.

Today, on Thursday, as agreed, I went out with the teacher again, as we had arranged to meet with the man from the office at a school at 9 o'clock to pick up some books. He still wasn't there at 9:45. After talking to various people on the phone, I finally reached him and he said he would be there in the next 15 minutes. As you can see in the photo, we arrived at a rundown warehouse where the school books distributed by the ministry were lying on the floor and in crates. It's shocking how the material is handled. Since we were three weeks too late, there were only very few of our books left, so our trip was not really successful. No one could tell us exactly whether the books would be delivered again. I will now try to buy at least individual books through our organization, but the school's delay in setting the date has somewhat dampened my enthusiasm.

After school today, I quickly went to the city to buy malaria prophylaxis for the upcoming trip. Among the volunteers and guides, there is a lot of discussion about whether and who takes it, what side effects can occur, and so on... I have now decided to take it and hope that I will be largely spared from the side effects.

Last night, we had a meeting about the trip and were presented with the rough route. However, Lena didn't want to reveal too much to us so that we wouldn't have too many expectations and develop pictures in our heads, but could simply be impressed. I am sooo excited and will of course report more detailed to you 😊 that's all from me for now, I'm sending you my best wishes!

Yours, Hanni ❤️