Treated to a slap up meal at our favorite restaurant Kashana, myself and Tyche enjoyed hearing all of the stories of the other volunteers around the world. Who's been naughty, who's had to go home etc ;) haha, and then the tricky topic of VISAS. Yes at this point.. we still didn't have them.
After much talk, John reassured us that the problem does not lie with project trust, it is simply home affairs and the incompetence to simply stamp 6 passports. We had the visas, just not the stamps. Luckily he had meetings with people toward the end of the week so all would presumably be sorted.
On Sunday we sped off up north for a couple of days to visit the two volunteers Chelcie and Ottile in Otjikondo. We were allowed to have a look at them at work and were very surprised how they pretty much have everything. The school that they volunteer at is a semi-private school and it was opened some years ago by a budding British woman, Gilly, who traveled to Namibia back when she was a student and fell in love with a monk. She went home, and kept coming back until finally he was given the right to marry and they built the school together and the small village, Otjikondo, around it. What a fascinating story.
The organisation at the school and withing the school hostel is exceptional. There is a specific programme set up that the volunteers run every year where kids have the opportunity to take part in many of the school theater productions, have music, arts, and sports lessons/training. There is a wonderful library with very recent books that the children can enjoy everyday and much help and guidance with study. It actually made me quite jealous I must say, considering in our hostel, there is very little space and near to no materials for arts, very little sports equipment and definitely no musical instruments.
Seeing this though has definitely given me the motivation to try and change this at O.P.S. Even if me and Tyche can make a small change like appealing for sport donations, setting up clubs, whatever it takes, then the next volunteers will be able to carry on this development after us.
After visiting Otjikondo, we drove 20km down the road to St Micheal's where a new volunteer, Sam, since January is now staying. He is on the project trust participate program, so he only spends 8 months here instead of 12. The school that he is teaching at is very much like the Otjikondo one as they are partner schools.
After our visit, John agreed to treat myself, Tyche and Sam to a quite day trip to Etosha. Unfortunately Chelcie and Ottilie were unable to come because of there busy timetables.
Six hours in Etosha, we didn't see a lot due to the heavy rainfall this year. But the day was still enjoyable and after dropping Sam back, we drove back to Omaruru.
Greeted by Riette we went out for another slap up meal. This time now at the Rest Camp and spoke about how we are doing here and John also met my partner here, Gary.
The next day John observed a few of our lessons, had private chats about how we are doing out here and then rushed back off to Windhoek for his visa meetings.
Visa outcome.
So our passports have no finally been stamped, 7 months after we arrived here. But now there is another glitch. They are only stamped until June th. Meaning now that project trust are trying to arrange an extension for us. But worst case scenario, we'll be going home in June. More stress!!
No comments:
Post a Comment