We have now spent two days at work on our table in the University of Namibia Northern Campus at Oshakati. We are collected from our house at 7:30 and arrive about twenty minutes later. The campus is modern and air-conditioned for some of the time. We went to visit the nearby teacher training college this morning. The English Head of Department was lively and positive but I met the Head of Science and Maths who was truly demoralised and depressed. She had no resources and no laboratories. Her budget did not even stretch to a padlock.
Our next stop was a teacher resource centre which was completely different. Here the advisory teachers were very positive and held interesting workshops and did model lessons as well as lesson observations. This was very refreshing after the earlier meeting. We then learnt that their budget is spent and so the advisory teachers are not allowed out into the schools to advise as there is no petrol refunding. If teachers come in to have workshops they leave their students unattended, no supply, no travel expenses either. The budget that schools and colleges have to operate within is truly pitiful so any help that you can organise in the country for maths and science text books and basic equipment would be very welcome.
We are both thinking of you as you work away in a cool green environment. We are living in a sandy desert where some trees and shrubs just manage to hang on. We have seen some wild beasts, kudu, warthogs, ostrich and many birds including an eagle. We are trying to grow lettuce, spinach and beans but I am not sure they will germinate at 30 degrees C and we are expecting them to dry out the moment they put up any shoots. We are off to a science fair on Friday and we hope to observe some pupils presenting their projects as part of it.
Our optimism isn’t yet too dented although it received some bending last night when our boss, the dean of studies, a wiry Nigerian, arrived in the middle of our dinner and said he was staying in our house while he was building an extension on a house he is buying, but that he hadn’t yet got planning permission. He thinks he’ll only be here for a few months. Slump of spirits there. Rosanne says the dry heat is like being desiccated.
They operate a good taxi system here, half bus system really. 50p a person to go anywhere (30mins even) as long as it's on a tarmac road, gravel costs £1. You hang about and everyone shares. Loud groovy music and lots of extended greetings about how you are and so forth in oshidonga, a language we have not yet mastered.