Fasting in the Desert

Hey all,
A meaningful fast to any of you Jews. I'm on a break between services right now and listening to the Knights' (Carleton a capella) version of Apologize by One Republic, cuz we thought that would be appropriate, and we couldn't find Sorry to play or Atonement to watch.
So it's been awhile. Sorry about that, I've been pretty busy, both with class and related activities, as well as just trying to enjoy Africa as much as possible. My homestay finished up pretty well. Last Saturday I got to see both the Katutura hospital, which was kinda depressing, but interesting, cuz we were visiting my sister--she was feeling a lot better though, so that was good--and then to Oscar's workplace at a small airport, because he got called in on Saturday. It was cool to see what he does, which is basically manage a warehouse of cargo, and we met one of his co-workers who was pretty awesome.  On the way home we stopped at the graveyard to visit their son who died three years ago when he was 6 months old.   It was really sad, both for obvious reasons, and also because a lot of the graves didn't really have headstones and most were not well-kempt. I told Oscar about the tradition of putting a stone on headstones, and he really like that idea. Sunday was pretty ueventful, until I left. I did go to church, which I was upset at the time about having been 3 and a half hours of no English (it was mostly Oshivambo, and some Afrikaans) but then I realized that that's what this morning at Shul was. Granted it's different, but this morning put that in perspective a little bit.
Also, from a funny but also sociologically interesting perspective sometime Saturday or Sunday my little 5 year old cousin decided I was from a tribe called Damara, and started saying really mean (for a 5-year old) things to me because of it like "go away, you are Damara" and "i'll beat you, you are Damara." She seemed like she was just joking around, but it's still interesting that that would even be somethign she would think about, and it really highlights the strife that exists between different black ethnic groups within Namibia.  We learned a little more about this on Thursday in history class.  We heard from a speaker who had been detained along with 1-3 thousand others by SWAPO during the liberation struggle on the false suspicion that they were spies for the South African Army.  Terrible things were done to thsese people, and SWAPO still refuses to talk about it.  When I asked her how they went about "deciding" who to expect, she basically said that anyone who wasn't Ovambo was more likely to be detained than to not be.  It's interesting that people fighting against racial discrimination will commit the same things within their own group. I guess power corrupts, or something like that.  The experience of hearing this woman speak was especially interesting because earlier on Thursday we'd gone to see Heroes' Acre, which is the monument to all of the freedom fighters, and basically glorifies the SWAPO struggle. Now, of course they did something very good for Namibia and Namibians, but it was really fascinating and important to see both sides of the story.
Back to the home stay real quick. Leaving was, I think, an overall good thing, but not completely. While I'm glad to be back here at the house, I do feel like I'm experiencing Namibia a little less fully, y'know, a little more like I'm just in Europe or something. It was a really good experience to have had though, overall, despite its hardships, and I definitely want to go back there for dinner or something a few times.
My itnernship is going pretty well, although it's kinda unorganized--I'm never really sure what grade I'm going to have until I get there, although it seems as though they've settled me at 3rd grade as my go-to. I've found it a little hard to keep their attentions, and to figure out exactly where they're at. But all of that will come with time.  I'm also not totally sure whether or not what I'm doing is all that helpful.  Neither me, nor any of the other volunteers, really,  have much experience in education, and its inconsistent who's there on a given day and what exactly they'll be doing. I mean obviously it's something, and it's always going to be an uphill battle, but I feel kind of inutile there a lot of time.
Classes are pretty good. I feel liek I'm learning a lot, although it's kinda weird to be back now consistently  in a  more regular schoolish setting. granted it's not the same structure, we have long (4 hour) classes, once a week per class, and often a lot of that class time is taken up by field trips and/or speakers, but it's still weird having assignments and papers and stuff while being in such a different setting. Also, a lot of the assignments are personal reflections, which I see the use of, but I feel like there have been too many, and I really don't like them all that much. But at least they're not too hard. I do have a couple of real papers coming up though, so that should be cool.
Aside from that, I've also still managed to find some time to hang out by the pool and go to the 'Box. We went for dinner on Thursday. They have a braii (Afrikaans for bbq) on Thursdays and Sundays, so we went to check it out. It was pretty good, and a springbok sausage (tasted pretty much like regular sausage) and some oryx which was pretty good, but took longer to cook than a regular steak would for some reason.
That's about it from here for now. Yom Kippur is alright, it's like 4:30 so I'm getting into the hungry stage (home stretch though!) Temple is a little weird. I have the same issues with it that I did on Rosh Hashannah, only Hebrew, kinda impersonal, too much self-guided/not enough communal etc. Although the Canadian guy has been leading so some of his tunes are familiar, esp. for like the Aleinu and stuff. Anyways it's still nice to be in temple ,adn comforting to know that my family and Jew-friends are doing the same things today (at least the ones who don't suck at being Jewish, I'm looking at you Ethan and Zoe). Anyways, we're going to head back to temple now for Ne'ila and so that I can atone for that last statement.
I'll post again before Wednesday when we leave for the coast for 5 days.
Good shabbes and good yontiff, and peace out!
-jimmy