"The Person I Admire the Most"

On one of my first days at site, I asked to read some of the learners' journals to get an idea of their level of English and what's going on in their heads. A particularly touching entry came from a girl whose assignment was to write about the person she admires the most:

"Of all the people in the world, I admire my grandmother and to me she is my role model. She laughs with peoples and enjoy story. She is wise because she knows how to read and write. She is proud everytime and is polite in words. I admire my granny because she is so smart. When it come cleanness she is number one. I admire my granny very much and she is the only one who support me. I respect my granny because she is respected and too old. She old, but she is a hard worker especially when it is time for ploughing. She is so nice to me and she is patient. I admire my grandmother more than anyone else in the world. She is so special to me. She is kind, smart, and happy all the time. My grandmother is supportive because she support me and my brothers and sister when it comes to school fund and buy for us uniform, even food. She have got no problem when it comes to talk to other people. I love her so much." 

First Day at Site

The first thing I saw after waking up and looking out of my window was one of the most beautiful birds I have ever seen in my life, a lilac-breasted roller.

Birds were chirping, cows were mooing, and chickens were crowing. I took a bucket bath,

and set up housekeeping. Then I went for a walk and saw my school for the first time.

I met around 15 learners, who surprised me with how well they already spoke English. Since it's the weekend, there are no teachers around, but I already feel lucky to call this beautiful place home for the next two years.

Pre-Service Training

After getting settled into our training site in Okahandja, we began two months of extensive diversity, medical, safety, technical and language training. Language training was far and away my favorite part.

A standout from training was Cultural Day, when we all made food typical of our respective language groups. The Silozi group made fish, chicken, makwangala (cooked water lily bulbs), and pap (maize porridge). We also slaughtered a goat (a first for many of us), chickens, and make vetkoeks. At the end, we had a fashion show, featuring various forms of dress from Namibia. Here is a video I took from the cooking session:

Some trainings were more fun than others. Some were more informative than others. Some (the sexual harassment training) were downright uncomfortable and not fun. One of the more fun ones was a simulation of Namibia public transport. Trainers and volunteers were assigned roles and attempted to demonstrate what it is like to ride in a combi (usually a minivan with about 14-15 passengers crammed inside. I took a video:

Key insights into the culture during PST were the importance of greeting everyone (in Namibia, it's very rude to ignore someone in close proximity to you), the importance of being polite to elders (I consider myself a polite person, but Namibians are extremely polite and treat elders with a reverence long-gone in the United States), and the importance to helping each other. During one of our sessions, all of the Americans listed things they didn't understand about Namibian culture, and our trainers listed things they didn't understand about our culture. One of the things that came up from the Namibians was, "Why don't Americans accept help?"

A trainer stood up and said, "I don't understand why Americans don't accept help. Like, when you all arrived here, you have so many heavy bags, and people offer to help you, and you can barely walk, and you're like, 'No, it's OK. I got it.'"

In Namibia, and Africa in general, it is rude to turn down offers of help. I think Americans are so quick to decline help is because we value self-sufficiency, but also because - let's face it - it's usually an empty gesture in the US, and maybe we usually assume that whoever is offering help is just doing it to be polite. When you refuse help in Namibia, it is like saying that you don't want to interact with that person so much that you will not even accept help from them.

Historic Sites Around Windhoek

National Heroes' Acre

The National Heroes' Acre opened in 2002, and was built to memorialize all of the men and women who lost their lives in the struggle for Namibian independence. It was built by a North Korean construction company.

There are 174 tombs, some of which are symbolic, because the locations of the remains are unknown. The tombs which do contain remains are of people who have been declared national heroes since independence. The statue of the unknown soldier stands at the top, and contains earth from various sites around Namibia where battles took place during the Namibian Civil War. 

Fire is traditionally used by the Herero tribe in Namibia to communicate with ancestors. At the base of the monument, there is an eternal flame.

Behind the statue of the unknown solider is a frieze depicting the story of Namibia's struggle for independence:

1959 Heroes' and Heroines' Cemetery

Our next stop was at the 1959 Heroes' and Heroines' Cemetery in the Old Location in Windhoek. In the days of Apartheid, black Africans were forced to live in settlements called "locations." Officially segregated communities are a thing of the past in Namibia, but people still refer to the past boundaries as "the location" or "the old location."

The 1959 Heroes' and Heroines' Cemetery opened after independence to commemorate the site of a massacre. The Apartheid government designated a neighborhood near Windhoek as a location, then called the Main Location. Many black people who worked in Windhoek lived there. One day, the government decided to reclaim the land for white settlement. When the black population refused to move to Katutura (which means, "The place where people do not want to live" in the Herero language) an area far, far away from the Location, the government murdered an untold number of the roughly 7,000+ residents. This event took place on December 10, 1959, a day which is now marked as Human Rights Day.  

The Cemetery is considered hallowed ground, and one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a Namibian is to be buried there. 

First Impressions of Namibia

Our plane landed in Windhoek in mid-afternoon, after a 15-hour flight. Most of the places I have been in South America and Europe, the first sight of the country from the plane is nothing special...Everywhere pretty much looks like everywhere else from a landing airplane. But not Namibia. The view from the window showed a dry landscape, with undulating, sandy hills spotted with browning trees and shrubs (July is winter/dry season in Namibia) and green oases of vegetation.

Deboarding the plane, I looked at my new home for the next two years. Rocky mountains surrounded the airport and the sky was clean-lake blue with not even a hint of a cloud in the sky. The temperature was cool enough to wear a jacket, but the sun was strong enough to make me sweat under the burden of my carry-on bags.

The airport is strikingly small for a capital city. There were two lines, one for Namibians and members of countries with which Namibia has special border agreements, and the other for foreigners. Processing took quite a while and was done by three friendly agents. Peace Corps' country director and administrator met us after customs to welcome us and collect our International Vaccination Cards.

We boarded a bus that would take us to Okahandja, a smaller town outside of Windhoek where Peace Corps conducts its pre-service training. We would be staying with host families, but only after a week at the training center. Our trainers and the hotel staff greeted us with singing and insisted on helping us with our luggage as we went to our rooms.

The first thing I plugged into the wall with an adapter (my electric shaver) blew a fuse due to my inexperience with using electricity in Namibia. There are kill switches by every outlet, which must be switched off when you plug in your electronics. Procedure is: make sure the kill switch is on, plug in your adapter, plug in your electronic device, then flip the switch on to make the outlet live. 

Staging

Peace Corps flew me into Philadelphia on a USAirways flight. I met Mark at the airport and we split a taxi to the hotel and were surprised to find that we were roommates (not planned). We got a bite to eat and went swimming and called our loved ones, then called it an early night.

Staging was a straight-forward, uncomplicated process. We registered. I was nervous because my student loan servicers told me I would not be able to arrange a deferment until November, when I would be in Namibia. It wasn't a problem, though - apparently, pretty normal. We did some getting-to-know-you activities, then went through cross-cultural scenarios, reflected on our reasons for doing Peace Corps, then got a debit card with pre-loaded cash to withdraw for incidental expenses like food and "walk-around" money while in Philadelphia. Session lasted from 10am until around 4:30pm.

I went out for my last meal and had salmon with lentils. I figured salmon would be a food I wouldn't find easily during my stay in Namibia. We came back to the hotel and I began the laborous process of getting my checked luggage bag down to 50 pounds. The downside to not being charged excess baggage fees would be having to carry around lots of extra weight in my carry-on.

We convened in the lobby of the hotel at 2am, and boarded the bus that would take us to JFK in New York City, where our flight to Johannesburg would be leaving. We arrived at the airport around 4am, and ate donuts and drank water until the plane left at 11am. Leaving the United States was a surreal moment, and an unexpectedly emotional one. I cried a little bit during take-off. I thought of the family members and friends I wouldn't see for another two years, my ailing grandmother - sad things - but also cried tears of joy over my excitement about having a job that engaged all of my talents, two years in an entirely new and different culture, and because my heart was filled with love for the people I had yet to meet and the mission I was now a part of. 

College, Round Two

I have had a wide range of educational experiences - inner city schools through middle school, JCIB (a nationally-recognized high school), UAB (a large public university), studies abroad in Tanzania and Colombia, and most recently, Maharishi University of Management, (a small, private college founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi), where I studied for a Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Living between 2010-2013. All of these experiences were important in shaping my understanding of the world, but the past three years of my life at MUM have been especially insightful because they have contained many "firsts" in my life. Among the things I will never forget from my years at MUM are:

• the one-of-a-kind classroom building powered by wind and solar energy that combines Maharishi Sthapatya Veda architecture with LEED, Building Biology, and Living Building Challenge guidelines:

                                        

• homemade fermented foods, like lassi, kefir and kombucha 
• waste-to-energy technologies (polyfuels and cellulosic waste-to-ethanol)
• the Amazon rainforest: 

• learning about the "normal" states of consciousness (sleeping, dreaming, and waking) and the higher states: transcendental consciousness, cosmic consciousness, God consciousness, and Brahman consciousness
• the Sanskrit language and Vedic Literature
• building a wind turbine
• building a solar window unit space heater
• installing an electric motor on a bicycle
• learning to use a sewing machine then creating a line of Thai fisherman pants for an eco-friendly fashion show:

• building with cob earth
• how to walk on ice (you keep your knees bent)
• snowy, windy weather survival:

• using an electric bike as a main source of transportation
• forging iron
• swimming as nature intended (wink) with my best friends on hot afternoons
• making hot compost:

• growing techniques for producing food in Iowa winters
• creating furniture: 

• a quantum physics class from John Hagelin
• learning to form and fund non-profit organizations 
• becoming a Sidha:

• financial accounting and auditing principles
• grants and RFP's
• learning how to solder and weld: 

• teaching ESL (my work study) 
• studying green building design
• building a superadobe eco-refuge in Colombia: 

• building solar panels:

Over the past three years, I also learned a few lessons from the Vedic literature and of course Maharishi tapes. My five most useful "take-aways" from living in a spiritual community like Fairfield:

"Established in yoga, perform action" 

In Sanskrit: "Yogasthaha kuru karmani." In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is a prince leading an army in a war over dynastic succession that has split families and friends against one another. Unsure of how to act as he leads his warriors onto the battlefield, Arjuna asks Lord Krishna for advice, who imparts this piece of wisdom to him.  The essence of the advice is to act only when the changing states of the mind have been stilled. One could relate this to the Taoist philosophy of "holding onto the center."

Seek the highest first 

This means that one should perform every action with the intention, from the beginning, of obtaining the maximum result possible. In other words, be careful to not limit yourself by thinking it is impossible to do exactly what you intend to do on the first try. Underlying this principle is the avoidance of contemplating failure.

Take the path of least resistance/Do less, accomplish more 

This ties in with the lesson above. While seeking the maximum result for our actions, it's also important to not waste energy by acting unnecessarily, remembering that nature never strains to make anything happen. Rather, creation in nature unfolds in an effortless process, receiving the support needed for each step serendipitously along the way. By performing action with a still mind, seeking the highest return on our actions, we do less and accomplish more and experience less resistance along the way.

The source of all solutions lies in the field of endless possibilities 

To unlock full potential, it is necessary to entertain any possibility that enters your mind, regardless of whether it seems like it will work or not. That doesn't mean you implement everything, not everything will work, but the ability to solve problems and change the future for the better doesn't hinge solely on the rational brain and technological know-how, but also on the ability to freely imagine a future that is different from that of the present day.

Knowledge is structured in consciousness, therefore knowledge is different in different states of consciousness 

This may be the most important one. In Maharishi Vedic Science, one of the most important concepts is the relationship between the rishi, devata, and chhandas. Rishi corresponds to "the knower." Devata corresponds to "the process of knowing." And chhandas corresponds to "the known." What this lesson means is that everyone's unique background, skill set, personality, etc., will change the way he or she learns something, as well as the knowledge itself as it becomes part of the knower's makeup. The process by which the knower conceives the information received will be affected by the associations that already exist in the mind of the knower.

Meeting Mark

After finishing school in Iowa, one of my best friends invited me to come stay with her in New Orleans for a couple of months. When I left Iowa, there were 8 inches of snow on the ground, and when I arrived in New Orleans in time for St. Patrick's Day, it was 85 degrees and sunny!

To practice teaching and sustain myself financially during my stay in New Orleans, I put the word out offering my services as a language instructor, and soon I had a few ESL clients, and a Portuguese student with a very interesting history (seriously, click on his name and learn more about him!) named Lionel Lombard. At our pre-instruction interview, Lionel mentioned that he had a friend who just joined Peace Corps and was going to Namibia in July to work in education. This was an amazing thing to hear, because there are something like seventy (my estimate) people going to Namibia with Peace Corps this year. Those seventy people will be divided into PC's different projects in Namibia: education, community health and HIV/AIDS, and small business development. So that means Lionel introduced me to one of the fifty-or-less people in the United States of America with whom I will be training in Windhoek for three months before each of us departs to his/her assignment!

Mark at Lake Titicaca, June 2011

My new friend's name is Mark Burgunder. Meeting Mark makes me enthusiastic about what I will potentially have in common with my fellow volunteers. He comes across as quietly energetic and enthusiastic about sharing his life lessons and talents with other people. We found out we are both keen to use art and music as a way to allow students greater insight into themselves. He is a native of San Diego, California, and graduated with a B.A. in English Writing and Literature from Loyola University New Orleans in 2010. Then he went to Cusco, Peru, earned his TESOL certification, and taught English for a year.  After that, he traveled to other countries in Latin America and worked as a ranch hand in Glennville, CA. He moved back to New Orleans near the end of 2012.

Mark tells me that he found out that Peace Corps alternates between sending volunteers to the North and South of Namibia and that we will most likely be sent to the South, which is exciting! He also has a plethora of books and media he has found on Namibia that we will be exchanging before we leave. We only met up a couple of times over the course of the two months I was in New Orleans, but it's such a relief to know at least one person who will be in the same country as I for the next two years!

What do Namibians like about Namibia?

"There's a whole lot to like about Namibia - the people for starters...We love one another. We work together... We are people that love peace, people that love tradition, people that are filled with love...Everywhere you go in Namibia, you find people that smile with you, and when you are lost, say you are a tourist, you can ask anybody: Where am I; where can I go? Everybody will help you. Everybody is so willing to be friendly to everybody...When people come from other countries, we just accept them with our warmth..."

"The environment, peaceful country, very much clean and green...Great open spaces... Beautiful nature in Namibia and the wildlife is amazing...It's a comfortable country with beautiful weather...It's not a crowded country...I think Namibia has one of the best sunsets in the world."

The Invitation

March 11th - Events Leading up to Invitation

At 8:20 AM, I sent my answers for final review and by 9:32, I received an email notifying me that I had been qualified for service and that I would receive an invitation to serve via email that would detail the dates and country.

March 11th - Receiving My Invitation

By 3:20 PM, I received my official invitation:

"Dear Robert, 
Congratulations! It is with great pleasure that we invite you to begin training in Namibia..."

If you could have looked at me through the web cam on my computer, I probably had a look on my face like a confused puppy, one ear perked up, one lower. I looked at the list I had written down (you can see it in the "Predicting Where I Might Go" entry) and found that Namibia received volunteers in 2011 in August. Going on the July departure date, I had narrowed down the places I thought they were considering sending me to: Cape Verde, Philippines, South Africa, and Zambia. I had read up on South Africa and Zambia - but Namibia hadn't been on my radar. What would it be like to live there for two years? I only knew the capital (Windhoek), its relative location (southwestern Africa), and I had heard of it being a country with resources like uranium, diamonds, and natural gas.

My mind went back to my interview. At one point, I was asked if I had an idea of where I would like to serve. I said: "I'd like to go somewhere that has intact cultural traditions, a warm climate, perhaps a bit away from everything...like the Pacific Islands, for example." (hint hint) Then my mind went to a friend I studied Arabic with at University of Alabama at Birmingham who lived in Namibia for six or more years. I called him, and this is what he told me:

Source of photo: Guide de Namibie 

Namibia is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. It has a population of about 2.3 million in a country twice the size of California. The North is where 60-70% of the population lives. Oshiwambo is the most widely spoken language in the North with Khoisan languages and Afrikaans being spoken in the central and southern areas. He said he wouldn't call Namibia cosmopolitan, but is very welcoming/accepting of foreigners and there are fewer tourists than you would find in some other countries. Things can feel remote outside of major cities. Experiencing the vast expanse and open skies of Namibia will remind you what a tiny speck you are on the face of the Earth. The country has a considerable amount of money coming in from industry, which has been invested in good infrastructure which has in turn not been strained by a large population. Most villages have running water and electricity. Cellular service is expensive, because there is only one service provider. There is a special breed of horse - the Namib Desert Horse - from Namibia. Wherever you are, there are always things to do outdoors. Touristic highlights include the Skeleton Coast, Victoria Falls (technically not in Namibia, just past the Caprivi Strip), Sossusvlei, and Swakopmund. He said he couldn't recommend the country more highly, and that if he were offered a job in Namibia, he would accept it with no reservations whatsoever.

Linguistic map of Africa. Oshivambo would be an example of a Bantu language. KhoeKhoe would be an example of a Khoisan ("click") language. 

It became clear to me that this was a once-in-a-lifetime offer to experience something really different from anything I had imagined before. Two lessons from my past came up as I contemplated accepting the invitation: (1) the best things in life are unexpected and (2) a good sign that you're about to do something remarkable is an unsteady feeling of "What am I getting myself into?!" 

After a few hours of processing information from various sources, accepting my invitation was an easy decision to make. I can't wait to share what happens with you!

Click here for source of image for the Namibian Flag

Medical, Legal, Suitability, & Competitive Reviews

A note about Medical Pre-Clearance

If you have a complicated medical history, you are required to give PC certain information at this stage, but since I did not have any issues come up after answering the preliminary health questionnaire, I did not have any tasks at this stage of the application.

December 22nd - received background check forms and fingerprint kit

Find out about ID requirements for the county you live in. I needed a social security card, plus government-issed photo ID in order to get fingerprinted in the county I lived in, but a driver's license was sufficient in the neighboring county.

January 10th - mailed off background check forms and fingerprint kit

I was paranoid about getting the forms in late because I participated in a special course over the winter break, so I sent the forms Express Mail on the 10th after 4 pm on a Thursday and it arrived on Monday, January 14th, at the Peace Corps DC office.

January 30th - began teaching private ESL lessons

In my last communication with my recruiter, she mentioned that a way to make my competitive review go more quickly was to have more current experience in teaching ESL. I put a message out on Facebook, looking for a student, and an instructor at my university put me in touch with a man from Iran who recently moved here. We met M/W/F for 2 hours each session for the month of February.

March 7th - received request for graduation verification

An assessment specialist with the Peace Corps had questions about the nature of my degree and conferral date. She could see that I had taken a certain number of hours, but mistakenly thought I was getting an Associate's degree because she did not realize that I had transferred classes from previous studies at another university to satisfy requirements from my degree from my degree-awarding institution.

I answered the email as best I could myself, and CC'd the Office of the Registrar and a professor from whom I needed a grade to complete my transcript, and everything was taken care of by lunch time, March 8th.

March 8th - received Peace Corps placement questions

After the assessment specialist received a PDF of my graduation verification, she emailed me with questions she needed answers to in order to complete my final assessment. 

Here are the questions: 

(1)     Expectations – Part of preparing for Peace Corps service is developing realistic expectations of what life is like as a Volunteer, with specific attention to the common challenges Volunteers are likely to face. What resources have you used to learn about the realities of life as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)? What are the key lessons you have learned from these sources that will help you succeed as a PCV?

(2)     Challenges – What are the top 3 challenges do you foresee as a Volunteer and what are some strategies you think you might use to overcome these challenges?

(3)     English Education Programs – You are being considered for a placement in the Education sector. Please briefly list your teaching/tutoring experience. (For example: Sept. 2012- Dec. 2012 (2 h/w);  Adult ESL Tutor; 11 students; Cleveland Park Public Library; Houston, TX).

(4)     Teaching – What are your strengths as a teacher and what do you enjoy most about teaching?

(5)     Physical Challenges – Do you know how to swim?__ Do you know how to ride a bicycle?___Are you able to walk for up to 2 hours at a time over rough terrain?___

(6)     Legal Status -  Since you applied, have there been any changes to your Legal Status not previously reported to Peace Corps? (For example, name change? lawsuit? marriage/divorce?, traffic citation over $200 or involving drugs/alcohol?, other charges?, new/additional financial obligations? Other?) ____

March 11th - emailed answers to questions back to Peace Corps

For Question 1, I talked about videos I had watched on YouTube, Peace Corps Volunteer blogs, stories I read on the Peace Corps RSS feed, and questions I had asked RPCV's (returned Peace Corps Volunteers).

For Question 2, I listed (1) overcoming cultural differences, (2) being away from family, and (3) being without the conveniences of home.

For Question 4, part one, I included among my strengths the fact that I had studied in a wide variety of educational settings, studied foreign languages basically my entire life, am familiar with a wide range of methodologies for teaching that I had learned during my studies and integrated into my teaching methods, and am particularly skilled in pronouncing and teaching pronunciation in foreign languages.

For Question 4, part two, I stressed my desire to help others achieve their dreams, and drew attention to the fact that my degree in sustainable living would help me create meaningful secondary projects in my host community.