Friends and family, let me introduce you to some additions to the family:
My mom’s name is Hileni. She works for NBC, which is Namibia Broadcasting Company. My brother’s eighteen and his name is Gaint (Giant), but his friends call him Stix. And finally, my little sister’s name is Kandeshi (Kandeshee). I am getting to know Hileni slowly, as we find things to talk about, but we can still be shy around each other as well. Gaint has been introducing me to his friends and showing me around the neighborhood. Kandeshi really enjoys coming into my room around 6:45 a.m. to crawl into bed next to me. She’s too cute to get upset at!
Everyday I’m learning something new from my family, whether that is from what foods we eat to forms of respect for elders to ways of greeting each other. We also went to church on Sunday. My family is Lutheran, so I was interested to see how similar the service was to the Lutheran churches I know. One thing that didn’t cross my mind was that the service might not be in English. Ha! Needless to say, I couldn’t understand a word of the service. But leave it up to a Lutheran church to follow a liturgy J I understood when we said the Apostle’s Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and two of the hymns were hymns I recognized. It was also baptism Sunday, which meant close to 30 infants were baptized! This experience was enjoyable, even though I couldn’t understand the word part of the service.
Sunday afternoon I went swimming with my friend Liz from the program and her host family. We were the sole white people at the pool, meaning we drew a lot of attention to ourselves. Liz and I sat on the side of the pool. Soon multiple guys came up to us to talk. One man brought us into the EMT area to introduce us to his friends. This was strange, and reminded us how separate the Windhoek area, as well as Namibia, is in terms of race relations. We carry our white privilege with us whether we like it or not. How do I consciously acknowledge this and work towards equality? That’s a big question I’ll be working on for all the days I’m given.
Classes have been good. Today’s class focused on the genocide of the Herero people under German colonization in 1904. History is almost silent about this period of time of concentration camps and massive murder under German rule, mainly because of the Holocuast which fills our historical memory of genocide and concentration camps.
On a different, less heavy note, I saw my first cloud in the sky yesterday! I was so excited, I almost took a picture!
The highs and lows, joys and sadness are constantly juxtaposed next to each other, challenging each of us to make sense of history, inequality, global relationships, and our role and responsibility in all of it. Big questions, complicated thoughts, and slow (if any) answers. But I continue to pray that I might have the patience and courage to continue to struggle with these important issues, love in my understanding, and humility to see another’s perspective.
I hope you are all well. A great big hug to all of you.
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