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Salamatu Projects...
ï Salamatu Workshops 2003
written by Meme Babe (Leonora Vanhook)
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On Wednesday, June 25th, Andrew Ayers, Paul Henkel, Liz Roy, David Reyes and I boarded the plane in NYC and arrived in Windhoek at 7:10pm on June 26th. Our beautiful blue VW kombi was waiting for us at the airport. Our luggage, however, was not! Luckily we all had our toothbrushes in our carry on bags and that was all we needed to head off to our favorite B&B, Casa Onganga, where the rest of our paraphernalia would catch up to us the following morning. Friday was spent doing errands, getting supplies and meeting with Silke Felton, UNICEF Project Officer HIV/AIDS (Life Skills). We talked about what we are doing regarding HIV/AIDS education, what UNICEF is doing and how we can work together. We were provided with a great deal of Namibian specific information and many materials (books, posters, pamphlets, condoms, etc.) to be left at the Oupumako library. We shared with them the books that Paul Henkel and his friend Daniel Cofone wrote for our workshops: one for primary school children and one for secondary. They are storybooks containing HIV/AIDS information.
Saturday, our group of five split in two and Liz and David headed off to Soussusvlei for a
romantic two-night honeymoon in the Namib Desert dunes. Paul, Andrew and I traveled to Swakopmund where we spent the weekend walking on the beach, eating good food and preparing materials for the workshops. On Monday we regrouped in Windhoek and drove up to Otjiwarango where we spent the night. Tuesday morning we met with Johann van Schalkwyk who is the Rotarian we worked with in conjunction with Rotary International when we were building the library. Then it was on to Oupumako where we checked in with Tate Hamakuaya to confirm the dates we had reserved for our workshops there, admired the new addition to the library (and the new flush toilet) and were surprised to learn that there is now a “mini police station” in Oupumako and that the library and school are being wired for electricity. Development has come!! We also met with Lahja Shingenge and Charles at the library of the Teachers Resource Center at Ongwediva Teachers College and arranged to have them join us at the Oupumako workshops where they would run a “library skills” lesson for the Oupumako teachers.
Wednesday, July 2nd we headed up to Ruacana with a stop at Anamulenge where Andrew spent his Peace Corps years. Everyone at the school there was very excited to see him once again and we arranged to return the following day and run a workshop for the teachers there. We spent a very restful three days at the Sunset Lodge overlooking the Kunene River Valley, met with the Director of the Ruacana Teachers’ Resource Center and made plans with him to run a full week of workshops at that center when we return (hopefully) next year. This will be a great set-up as the teachers will come from schools throughout the district. They will be provided with accommodation and meals and we will be able to hold full day sessions as opposed to after school sessions. This means we will be getting our information into many more classrooms in Namibia.
Sunday we were back in Oupumako to attend church services as a kick-off to our week of work there. The week went extremely well. Our three main topics were HIV/AIDS information, literacy and library skills. Using the books Paul provided, we were able to tie all three together. The books were a huge success and teachers were using them in the classroom immediately. We showed them that in addition to using the books to teach HIV/AIDS information they could be used to teach literacy and library skills. On Saturday, July 12th we held an open house at the library and were pleasantly surprised to have quite a large turnout (mostly children). We spent the day chatting, reading and taking photographs. That night we spent with the Hamakuayas sharing a traditional meal (oshifima, chicken and wild spinach) and sleeping on the homestead. Early Sunday morning we left Oupumako (always a sad event) and drove to Etoshia for a few days of game watching. We saw tons of elephants, giraffe, zebra, gemsbok, springbok, ostrich, etc. and even a few rhinos………….but no cats (unless we count meercats)!! Then it was back to Windhoek and the long flight home.
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