Valentine's Day Event:

When I was told that the event was scheduled to start at 6pm, I foolishly didn't factor in Africa-time. I arrived at the dining hall at about 6:10, thinking that I might still be a bit early but that I could help with organization and final preparations. The event commenced at 8. The one positive thing about this was that I was able to flash some pictures of the learners waiting outside of the dining hall before they were allowed in. The moment that I brought out my camera I was swarmed. Seriously descended upon. The learners were vultures and I was a freshly dead carcass that they were fighting over. "Miss!" "Miss!" was being shouted at me from all sides and learners were jumping in front of me and in front of other students posing for the camera-anything to get a piece of the action. I couldn't stop laughing and just kept flashing...point and click .."good one!"..point and click.."nice!"..point and click.."okay now let someone else have a turn.." It went on until my camera was low on batteries and I had to rush home to get another one so as to have it for the actual event.

The event was..different from those at home. At the last minute I was chosen to be a judge for Miss Valentine 2009 - Shaanika Nashilongo's Valentine's Day beauty pageant - something that had me feeling sufficiently uncomfortable. The electing of Miss Valentine consisted of 5 rounds, including swimsuit (which was actually more of a bra and 'hot-pants' (booty-shorts) type of deal) and formal wear, during which I was required to judge these girls (3 of whom are my actual students) based on smile, style, walk, introduction, and question-answering. As one of the five judges I had to sit at a desk, alone, in front of the stage and the rest of the dining hall and intently scrutinize these girls for any flaw I may spot in their performance. In between rounds were talent-show performances which were very entertaining. Almost all dancing, with the occasional freestyle rap (in Oshindonga..so I just laughed when everyone else did and pretended I knew what was going on) and Chris Brown lip-sync. There were also a few games that learners and teachers could participate in, and at one point all of the teachers were called up onto the stage and we had to dance to music that was put on. I have no doubt that the colour of my skin has never been more apparent. In fact, many of my learners have commented in their weekly journals how amused they were by my stage performance. The event committee thought that it would be a fun idea to request that learners not give their friends gifts during the day on Valentine's Day, but instead surrender them to the event coordinators who would hand them out publicly throughout the night's events. The amount of gifts to be given was greatly underestimated. There were hundreds upon hundreds of them. Because of this, the night's festivities lasted until after 1:30am, with no less than 3 hours spent listening to a monotonous voice announcing name after name into the microphone as learners made their way to the stage to claim their prizes. As a member of the Entertainment Committee I will vehemently veto any suggestion that we do this again at any future events. I do have to say though, how much cooler Valentine's Day is here than back home. There's a greater focus on friendship; it's about love in general, not just romantic love. These are kids who have very little, but spent what they had on buying sweets and small gifts for one-another. How great is that. I was actually called up a couple of times to claim a fantastic card that was made for me by Brawny (the giver of the candy marshmallows) and a mug from one of my learners in grade 9. I am now officially a teacher- I've been mugged. No going back now. Coincidentally..the learner who gave me the mug ended up being crowned Miss Valentine at the end of the evening...no conflict of interest there.

At 1:30 I made my way home. In the brutal blackness that you can't experience back home. I swear it only gets this dark in Africa. I don't like the dark. I'm the girl who turns on the lights to walk down the hall at home. That's in Canada. I must have been so subconsciously terrified that my defence mechanisms kicked into overdrive, and to my surprise, I wasn't really scared at all. The night was buzzing with crickets and frogs and the wing-flapping and screeching of bats above me, that I would get a glimpse of in the moonlight every so often. By the same dim moonlight I tried to navigate around the worst of the puddles and mud-traps, using the shadows to guide my footing to the most stable ground in front of me. All I kept thinking was how cool this would sound in my blog. All of you got me through this. I was so mentally and emotionally exhausted when I got home that, naturally, I wasn't able to sleep. I finally crashed at about 3am, and prayed that I would be able to sleep in past 6am.