A day in the life of ...

Let me melt, I mean, write a few lines to go with the photos.
FRIDAY
Beth and I went to the school hall for a full run-through rehearsal of the play … but only 7 of the 29 children turned up!!
We celebrated David’s birthday by inviting a few friends around to play Cranium. It was great fun. There were 3 Afrikaans’ speakers and one German, plus us 3. I had fun trying to explain ‘liposuction’ in German, and David had to do likewise in Afrikaans with ‘belly flop’ So it was also a language lesson!
SATURDAY
Étienne’s (Afrikaans) school (from last year) organised an Oktober Fest, hosted by one of the lodges. David and Beth organised a volleyball team and their team did quite well! (Some folk have started a weekly volley ball game in Ongwediva so that is wonderful for David who loves the game and has had, until now, no sport to play. If he runs the local dogs chase him. He cycles when he needs to do stuff in the locality but it is much more fun to have a TEAM to do things with.)
The children swam and had their faces painted. Étienne joined in with the other boys by wanting the South African flag on one cheek in celebration of the Boks. But, unlike the other boys, wanted a Namibian flag on the other cheek. (The girl doing the painting could not remember the colours so Étienne reminded her!) Étienne said later that it was hard when he had Australia as his home and also Namibia, and so which country must he support? I said that it was a toughie for his Dad, too when Australia and South Africa meet on opposite sides of a rugby ball!
SUNDAY
We went to the Afrikaans church. It is hard work listening to a foreign language for 90 minutes as there are always words you don’t know and, whilst you are trying to work out what sentence A means, the preacher is already on sentence Q! After church I had some children around to watch the Jesus Movie in Oshikwanyama. Then we went directly to a 21st of a neighbour (Pandu) – so different from our culture. There were a lot of relations there but they were all watching a soccer match on TV. Pandu is not the daughter, but a cousin who lives there so she could be near a good school and now to UNAM as she is studying nursing. She sat with a few friends in an outside sort of room with a few friends and we ate some chicken pieces, noodle salad, baked fish and rice. There was some chatting but no music or ‘party’ atmosphere. A friend had baked her a cake.
David and I had to leave after only an hour as we had the choir rehearsal to attend as the nativity play is only 2 weeks’ away. When we got back home there were some street boys waiting for us in the hope of a meal so we fed them and then, when we finally sat down after getting the children to bed, we were aware of how tired we were!
MONDAY
This was supposed to be a day off but Beth and I had to have a drama practice as Friday was such a disaster. We had a much better turn-out (maybe cos I threatened to cancel it if they did not make an effort!). Beth and I are amazed at how hard many of the children have worked at learning their lines. However, we are still having people drop out. We have lost a main player again with our 4th attempt at getting a second narrator has told us she can’t. well, she has not told us, we have just presumed by the fact that she has not come to rehearsals and it appears she has been unwell. So maybe Beth will have to stay up late to learn lines as it is too late in the piece to expect one of the children to learn such a big part. In which case, I will need a replacement prompter ….
Keep us in your prayers!
On Thursday David goes to Opuwo for workshops. He will be home (DV) late Saturday night.
Ah, before I go: one photo shows Andreas (the ‘choir master’!) with a few of the children practicing. He has one strumming the guitar and two others to change chords when appropriate. The children think this is SO cool, to be able to do this!