Namibia!

Dear Class,
I made it to Namibia! I am in a group of 53 Peace Corps volunteers. We make up a group of high school science, English, and math teachers, as well as health/HIV educators and computer teachers. My group is named PCNam 24. We are all living together in college-styled rooms at a conference center in a town called Okahandja. As a group, all 53 of us are living and traveling together for our first eight weeks in Namibia – during this whole time, we are learning lots of things about the country, and also how to be at whatever our job will be (of course, I will be a high school physical science teacher. I’ve also learned that I may be needed to teach other subjects also.).

Namibians are a diverse group of people. Most of the people who live here are black, but there are also many white people (descendents of Europeans who colonized Namibia), and people who come from mixed families. There are also a few people living in Namibia that are from immigrant families who have moved here mostly for business purposes - there are some Asian and Indian people, but they are few and live mainly in the capitol city (Windhoek) and other larger cities and towns. You should know that there are very few people living in Namibia – it is one of the least densely populated countries in the world!

A few interesting facts: Namibia has a high average family income. By comparison with many other African countries, you might even consider Namibia rich! BUT, the bulk (the main portion) of all the money in the entire country is owned by a tiny number of people. This leaves many people who are very poor. It is true that Namibia has the largest disparity of wealth distribution in the world! In fact, the large majority of Namibians are considered either poor or very poor. The definition of “poor” here means that 60% of all the money that a family earns is needed to buy food. People who are considered “very poor” must spend 80% of all their earned money just to have enough food to eat! You can imagine that a situation like this doesn’t leave much money over for other basic needs or for any luxury items at all. I will not become a teacher until January, but I will be teaching and living in the “north” of the country, where the majority of people (including the poorest people) live. I will be able to give you a good picture of how the local people in my village live and what their schools are like when I get there and settle in.

Alison – thank you for asking about the weather here. It has been hot, hot, hot every day. The good thing is that it is very dry (low humidity), so the temperature (which has been between 80 and 100 degrees F the whole time) feels cooler than it would if the air were very humid, like in Florida or Louisiana. The sun is very strong. Namibia is a very arid country – the climate is desert. It rains very little here, except during what is called “the rainy season.” And guess what – we are in the rainy season now! Yesterday it poured for 10 minutes. The rainy season, typically, consists of a couple of weeks in late November and then for many more weeks in January. There will be enough rainfall that by the end of the rainy season, the landscape will be covered with green grass and plants. But the green color won’t last long and soon the landscape will turn back to beige.