Another week of teaching done

So its Friday again- this time its not quite as exciting. Teaching went better this week, but I also felt incredibly exhausted, especially at the end of the week. When I'm teaching it's a constant flurry of activity and I'm running on adrenaline, and then I get back to my flat and I can barely do anything. Yesterday I took a two hour nap in the afternoon, and I think I would feel much better if I could do that everyday!

I'm happy that I'm starting to learn my students' names- especially in the classes I have everyday (in the other ones I don't know if I ever will). The names are really interesting here, a lot of them seem German influenced, like Johannes, Fillipus, Germanus, Wilka, Hilka, Gertrud, etc. And then there are some Oshiwambo names that are really hard to pronounce- like Ndahashifera, Ndapanda, or Ndelinao- mostly girls have these names. Also students here all right there surnames first, and sometimes I get confused about which is which. To make things even more complicated, all the girls have short hair, and sometimes I have trouble telling boys and girls apart. The other day I accidentally called a Gerson (a boy's name) Maria, which is pretty embarrassing.

Oh yes, and speaking of Oshiwambo, my principal keeps telling me I need to learn it, but I'm not sure how I will since everyone is supposed to speak English at school, and then after school everyone goes home and I'm left out here by myself (except that Sinead comes to visit me, which is wonderful, but she's no help with the Oshiwambo!) I picked up a new phrase today when I met some parents who didn't speak English, but then I promptly forgot it, so learning the language will definitely be a challenge.

So that's my school life. This weekend I think Sinead and I are going to a VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) party that a friend invited us to, it will be nice to meet some other volunteers, especially ones that have been here for a while. We were thinking of also going to see a big waterfall about 100 km north of here- Ruacana Falls- but we might wait for another weekend. Other than that its just hanging out here in Oluvango, which is nice and peaceful, but also a bit too quiet sometimes, though there is a bar I can hear most nights that I have yet to check out. It's good its quiet though, because both Sinead and I have a lot of correcting to do- teaching is hard work eh.