well, christmas was good. we went to a beach town called swakopmund. when we got there, i decided to go surfing with this jonathan guy (it was his birthday, so i told him i was up for whatever he wanted to do). the sea was angry, and there was a riptide and undertow and all that stuff so i was having a good time. after i'd been swimming a while, i saw a big wave coming, swam to catch it, and did. i rode it for a ways, but when it broke i was near the top so i had a long way to fall. i knew that i shouldn't fall on my head so i tried to roll over and fall on to my back. i didn't quite make it. that is how i damaged a clavicular tendon and contused my lung. immediately after the incident, i looked towards shore and saw many people laughing and pointing behind me. it turned out that another large wave was arriving. that is how i blackened my eye and bloodied my nose. after that, i got out of the ocean, coughed up blood, and went to the hospital for a day.

i was only feeling really awful for a while. by that evening (this was all on the 23rd) i was feeling ok, and by the morning of the 24th i suggested to the doctor that we send me back to the beach where i could rest (no pun intended) in peace.

i continue to feel better every day. i'm using my arm more and more, not running a fever, there's no blood in my sputum (when i write that word, i remember mariah talking to me about the doctor asking for a sputum sample--try and picture her waving her arms and saying 'you must give me some sputum'). i haven't seen an 'orthopedic anybody' about the shoulder joint yet, but the doctor in swakopmund made it sound like it wasn't too big of deal -- that it would always be ayssmetrical with the other shoulder, but that my arm would work ok.

so that was that. i had a lower speed christmas than i'd planned because i was resting, but it wasn't too low of speed and i spent it with good friends. it was really nice to talk with the family (or, in some case, to hear their voices on answering machines). the experience was a little bit like lighting money on fire though -- lots of times i would dial the call, wait and listen to silence for a while, and then find out that i'd just spent US$5.

so, i'm sure some of you are wondering, 'what else is going on with jon?'

training has sort of degenerated into half summer camp, half disorganized half-attempts at continued training, and half valuable training. ok, maybe my fractions aren't so good, at least my english ain't bad.

i've been keeping busy writing a description of khoekhoegowab grammar for the other trainees. the grammar is confusing, and none of our teachers understand it in a way beyond 'that sounds right' and 'no, that isn't right.' i've been spending a lot of time with native speakers saying 'how do you say this?' and making generalizations from their answers. i've managed to infer some fairly complicated rules (i.e. the present continuous tense particle 'ra' changes to 'ta' in questions when it follows a pronoun that ends in a consonant). i also feel like i can make simple sentences in the various possible word orders with some fluency.

i'm pretty excited about going to the permanent site. i'm sure that adjusting to being a teacher is going to be difficult and good. it will be nice to be around mostly khoekhoe speakers (here in okahandja and in otjiwarongo there are a lot of languages mixed together, so potential conversational targets can be difficult to identify) so that i can learn more quickly. i'm sure, though, that i will also miss being around all these americans and doing our american stuff. our contact will be infrequent in the future, so we're getting as much out of it as we can.

i won't have a mailing address until the middle of december (mail doesn't come to our village, so we will have to get a post office box in town), but i will post it then. if you want to call before jan 9th (when i leave okahandja for the south) the number (dialed from the us) is 011-264-62-504801, and i think we're 7 or 8 hours ahead of the east coast. that phone is in the office, so it will mostly be answered during office hours.

oh, they call 'joe books' 'jon books' here. i'm trying to fix that, but it is an uphill battle.

take care, much love, and merry christmas. if you listen around midnight namibia time on new year's eve, you should hear an explosion.

hi all,

i'm back from otjiwarongo and on a three day vacation for christmas. we're going to the beach (along with everyone else in namibia who can afford to). it should be fun.

as the song says: feliz navidad. i want to wish you a merry christmas.

i wish you all an enjoyable holiday and i miss you.

the rest of model school went well. i learned a lot about being a teacher, and expect to learn a lot more as i do it in 'real life.'

the language study is going well. i can now understand grammar well enough that i can read a third grade level book using a dictionary. my vocabulary is big enough to have a 15 minute conversation, if i'm really creative in saying things.

i want to tell you some more interesting stuff, but don't have time now. expect something with more information in about a week.

lee jones asked what the click symbols mean. here's a short explanation:

/ means put your tongue behind your upper front teeth and pull it back. maybe also pull some air back. it should make a soft, scratchy sound.

// is the noise you use to make a horse go (apparently). hold your tongue against your bottom teeth on both sides. move it and/or pull air and make a loud scratchy sound.

! is made by popping your tongue off of the top of your mouth right behind your front teeth. you kind of cup it, so it makes a loud, low hollow gourd type of sound. you can fake it by smacking your tongue against the bottom of your mouth while holding your mouth in the shape you use to pronounce a long o.

# (the symbol should actually be a vertical line with two short horizontal lines crossing it in the middle, but i don't have one of those on my keyboard) is made by popping your tongue off of the top of your mouth on the flat part behind the ledge right behind your teeth. you should feel your tongue against your top molars during the process, and the sound is loud and high pitched. this is usually the most difficult one for people to learn.

the 'model school' is going well. it is really difficult to know which things the students will already know, so every time i start a new topic we hiccup a little. the classes love to play games, so we play a game called 'survivor' and another game called 'math relay' a lot.

probably the best part, so far, was when i taught them to sing on top of old smokey and then assigned writing about how the singer felt and what had happened. i will try to get some of the writing copied on to this at some point. then, i taught them the 'on top of spaghetti' version, and it is the one they remember.

the language is still going well. i didn't study much last week because of preparing for lessons, but i got a new dictionary (with tone information) last week, so i spent a lot of last weekend updating my flash cards with the correct pronunciation.

i know this was lame. i'll do better next time.

you can see some pictures of namibia and our group (taken by a married couple that went home) here: http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=zphsj51.nkko15h&x=0&y=o4jc3l

today we were supposed to do "model school" and practice teaching, but the students and classrooms were not available. it is good to be flexible in this business.

well, i don't have much new news from this week -- we have been studying language a lot, and it is going well--the grammar is starting to make a little sense, although the plethora of options for sentence formation are a little intimidating. i had a language proficiency test today, and the immediate feedback from the tester was encouraging.

people ask me what i'm eating. no worms or dirt yet. actually, yesterday i went shopping for worms and was told that they're only available in the springtime (may or so). i will have to travel to get them, because people in the south think that it is disgusting to eat worms. i mostly eat food that wouldn't look that strange to you. it is usually a lot of some carbohydrate thing (maize porridge, oatmeal, rice, or macaroni) and a little meat (a lot bigger variety than at home -- we regularly eat sheep, goat, chicken, beef, or pork and occasionally eat kudu or some other game animal). vegetables are rare--people eat meat if they can afford it. interestingly, in the alphabet posters for kindergarten class a is for 'apple,' b is for 'boy', ... 'm' is *always* for 'meat.' usually there is also some kind of gravy or meat drippings based sauce, and sometimes there are vegetables. sweet potatoes, pumpkin, or carrots seem to be the most popular. tomatoes are also popular, and people really love ketchup. i've seen a table of 6 people eat a bottle of ketchup with their meal.

schools are a little different here as well. classes are usually big -- around 40 students per teacher, although it goes to 50 sometimes. when students arrive at class they line up single file (often tallest to shortest) outside of the door and wait quietly for the teacher to arrive. they enter the class with the teacher and must wait for the teacher to greet them before they are seated. if a student raises their hand and is called on, they stand beside their chair while they answer the class. it is illegal for the teachers to use corporal punishment, but it is still very common and the severity varies depending on the school. schools provide pens or pencils and paper, but if the student loses them it can be a real hardship for their families to replace them. students wear uniforms, but are allowed to wear something else if they can't get a uniform. most of the students have shoes, but some do not.

this is a literal translation of the greeting used up north. people joke that it can take an hour for northerners to greet, because each person must greet each other person in turn.

person a: did you wake up?
person b: yes, i woke up.
a: well?
b: yes, very well. did you wake up?
a: yes, i woke up.
b: well?
a: yes, well. go well throughout the day.
b: thank you. go well throughout the day.
a: thank you.

it is really something.

my host mother said she "nearly declared world war 4" last night. i thought she was referring to a disagreement she had with her son, but she said that she saw me standing outside with her 12 year old daughter, and thought i was some random guy and prepared to kill me to protect her daughter.

she also left the other morning wearing shorts, her church hat, and carrying a tree saw. she said "i'm going to get a christmas tree." she walked across the street, found a nice bush, and cut a branch from it. she dragged it home and said "i got one." i thought it was really funny, because it is so hot and what she brought back wasn't what i would normally consider a christmas tree.

oh, i should also tell you that i climbed the mountain. i left !au tsawises at around 8 in the morning, and walked in a straight line to it (and, in a straight line to my door on the way back... it was cool, because the non-mountain ground is so flat that i could see our town's water tower the whole way and the building i stayed in most of the way). i thought i was nearly there (about an hour more) after an hour, but it actually took 3.5 hours to get there. i drank 3L of water during the trip and wasn't dehydrated when i left, but i was as thirsty as i've every been when i got home. i couldn't click to say good afternoon -- my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. water dissapears quickly in the desert.

the town looks tiny from the mountain. the mountain does not look tiny from the town. this is as it should be.

i saw a few groups of kudu running around in the distance, and could see forever. the only other animals were a few lizards and some birds. there are rumors of wild horses (although that may be a mistranslation of kudu).

i took some pictures, which i'm sure won't do it justice. i'm looking forward to climbing it repeatedly over the next few years, and taking my friends there when they come to visit. also, if i get a suitable bike, i feel it may be possible to ride much of it.

ok, i'm out.