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Tuesday Oct 03, 2006

Changes to the project, and my life as an unqualified, inexperienced and unprepared drama teacher!

Well, our first edition of the paper is printed and delivered, yaay! We slightly confused a man in one of the shops when we both got really excited at the sight of him holding a paper. Ah well, everyone here says that staying in Lüderitz for too long makes you go mad, so maybe he just assumed we'd been here slightly longer than a month.

I've just got back from my second time of doing choir at the primary school, and it wasn't too bad. The first time, in fact, I was pretty damn proud of how well I managed to think on my feet. When I turned up both me and the kids hadn't realised the timetable had changed from last term, so I was faced with a group of 8-11 year olds expecting a drama lesson. As some of them didn't actually come to choir, I said, “Ok, that's fine, we'll do drama.” And thought, “Aaargh, help me someone!” Hopefully I managed to keep calm on the outside... And, amazingly, I managed to produce an hour-long drama lesson off the top of my head. Admittedly, it wasn't a lesson which will get any of them into theatre school, but I kept them occupied, enjoying themselves, and hopefully learning something.

For the second group (this time younger children), I just told them they were having choir, I couldn't cope with any more inventiveness. Today we started on songs from the Christmas play, which is called 'The Very Hopeless Camel'. I managed to get hold of a copy quite quickly as it's written by a family friend, and my parents sent it out to me – I wasn't too hopeful about finding a Nativity play for primary kids in the Spar. Though it's not very big, it's the main shop of the town. They get a delivery of fresh fruit, veg and dairy once a week, and it's pretty much all gone within day! While I was giving a piano lesson to one of the teacher's children on Saturday morning, Bozena went and did the shopping – when I walked past Spar on the way back I was slightly concerned as to whether she would have survived. The queues for the tills were as big as the shop, and yet only 2 of the 5 tills are ever open... The logic is lost on me, but I suppose they really don't have to worry about competition. I got back to the flat and luckily Bozena was still alive, though she's warned me never to try and shop on a Saturday!

The main news for our project is that we're getting a new volunteer. Two other Project Trust-ers were working at a primary school in Ondangwa, in the north of Namibia. It was a challenging project to start off with, and a couple of weeks ago one of them was attacked. A combination of factors have led him to decide that going home is the best option, and so he left a few days ago. If you're reading this, Ray, once we're all back in the UK you have to make up for not seeing us this Christmas!

This leaves his partner, Marcel, with no project or anywhere to live. Bozena and I automatically thought about the possibility of sending him to Lüderitz too, as there's plenty of work to do and room in the flat (me and Bozena will have to share a room instead of having one each, but I'm sure we'll live with it!). When we talked to our desk officer we found out PT had been thinking the same, but weren't sure whether we'd be willing to take him. We really wouldn't be mean enough to make him try and handle a project on his own when he could just as easily come here. They've had as many as four volunteers in Lüderitz before, so I'm sure he'll quickly become just as busy as we are. It helps that we all got on really well on our training course, so we don't have to worry about personality clashes. Provided he helps out with the cooking and housework – if not, he's out!

He's staying with our country rep in Windhoek at the minute, but will be coming down to Lüderitz on Sunday if all goes to plan. So it'll be like the first month all over again – wish us luck!

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 6:45 PM )
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