Impressions from school

Today was the third day of work and unfortunately, there hasn't been any proper classes yet. However, there were some interesting things happening. For example, yesterday an American foundation visited the school and provided free hearing aids to both the students and hearing-impaired residents of Windhoek. Another German volunteer and I were shown exactly how the hearing aids are adjusted and set, and it was super interesting to get insight into their work. Additionally, at the moment, there is physical education class on Tuesdays and Thursdays for half a school day, as the students are practicing for something (I didn't quite understand what, but I suspect it's something like "Bundesjugendspiele"). However, it was very unorganized and chaotic, which seems to be the norm here. Since the students don't have to wear their school uniforms on those days, you could see very clearly how poor most of them are. Hardly any child has sports shoes, most of them wore flip-flops or walked barefoot on the gravel field (sports field).

Today, the math teacher told me that the students are now being taught according to the "normal" curriculum, but other regular schools receive their textbooks first. So my special needs school has been waiting for their books for two years now. For math, for example, there is only ONE book for each grade level.

The math teacher seems a bit strange to me, and the children also told me today that he regularly hits and kicks them. Unfortunately, I witnessed it myself. But it seems that this is not uncommon here, which is sad.

The school is a boarding school and a student showed me her room and the cafeteria today. Very very cramped with 4-5 bunk beds and not very nice. Antonia, the second volunteer, told me that the teachers' rooms are similar.

Today, in the last school hour, there was a donation handover, which took place in a relatively large-scale in the auditorium. It was nice to see how grateful everyone was. The children signed the Namibian national anthem in sign language while the teachers sang along. They also performed a dance. It's crazy how well the children can dance even though they can only feel the bass. Unfortunately, I can't upload any videos here.

See you soon 😘