First week in review

As much as I hate to take words from someone else, I’ve got to say that this week could really be summed up in the album title: the Foo Fighters latest album is titled Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace.

Echoes: While Namibia is proudly an African country, the South African Afrikaners and heavy German influence has made this culture shock much less shocking. It’s even familiar in many ways. What is shocking is the fierce racism that is rampant in Windhoek. Whites are demeaning to the black tribes, but at least a little more accepting to the “coloreds” (an exceedingly proud sub-culture of Namibia who escaped South African slavery many years ago to settle up north, and then proceeded to fight for their freedom against the German settlers later on in history… pretty B.A. if you ask me). The colored people are less out-right in their dislike for the other tribes, but it’s there, and there’s even a pecking-order in the black tribes (this is all what we’ve been informed about and seen in many instances). In any case, Community Hope works with many of these triply oppressed black cultures. So the kids that Community Hope is based around are the product of this new and still forming culture of Namibia. Regardless of this terribly fascinating culture (and I really do mean terrible) these kids grow up in, I cannot help but see my past student’s faces in the students here in Community Hope. It’s so strange that these circumstances do not mute out the consistency of life, but I think it’s kind of comforting too. Kids are kids, and life is life… but it seems harsher here.

Silence: This trip has been surprisingly quieting. Some times the silence comes because we have no words to react to the poverty but more frequently it’s humbling to realize how much joy there is despite this poverty. We’ve seen more smiles from people on their morning hike back to their tin shacks with loads of branches on their heads than anywhere else in the city of Windhoek. I’m still at a loss for words on that too. But even back at the YWAM (Youth With a Mission) base where we’re staying, we’ve gotten a lot of time to just sit in silence and rediscover living simply. In this way, it has been uncomfortable, humbling, and familiar.

Patience: In school, there needs to be structure and rules so that the elementary kids feel safe, have boundaries, and so things can simply GET DONE. That’s when the teachers need to start “cracking the whip,” so to speak. I (Bryan) had been pretty comfortable doing that at Washington, but both Jenna and I are struggling deciding where there needs to be more patience for these kids in this situation. In the last BLOG entry, you read how sacred this Community Hope School is because it provides a place where these kids get to be children. It’s hard to “crack the whip” when you know that this is the most comfortable place they have all day long… that kind of patience takes a lot out of a person by the end of the school day.

Grace: If nothing else, this whole travel experience has revealed a lot in seeing just how big this world really is. We’ve been on three very different continents over the past week and three days. We’ve heard dialects from the Irish lilt to the German and Africaans’ guttural speech, to the Damara clicks (what the kids speak in when they don’t want to teachers to know what they’re saying), to South African English, and John Hunter’s heavy Texan influence. It’s enough to make a person feel pretty small. It’s enough to have a little more respect for how much earth is turning around in the sky every day. It makes me pretty happy to realize how much falls into place every day, and it makes grace seem like an even more potent balm when you realize just how much grace cuts through.

So there you have it. It’s been a week in Windhoek, and our time here already seems like it’s slipping away. Next week brings some fun new experiences: Bryan will be teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th grade math & literature, Jenna will be running “soccer break” during the school day, and both of us will continue to work in the tutoring room during the rest of the day. It should be pretty fun!