Namibia is the 41st largest country in the world.
Life expectancy at birth: 51.24. It is ranked
205 in the world, it is due to HIV/AIDS.
Hello Kazakhstan;
Greetings to everybody and it's nice that you
are interested in chatting with us here in Namibia.
We are just beginning 10th grade and it is the
time of year where we will do some athletics, we
train some then we compete and if we do good we
go on to compete and keep going till we lose.
Our independence day is on the 21st of March.
We won our freedom from South Africa in 1990.
Some questions
- What sports do you do in your school?
- What music is popular there?
- Have you ever heard of Namibia before?
Rosemary and Martha
Hi Switzerland;
This is Nduva Ester and I was very glad to receive
your joyful response from our friends in
Switzerland. While me and my friends haven't
seen your country yet, I hope with the blessing of
God that one day we will meet either in Namibia
or Switzerland.
I saw the pictures of your school and I am sending
you one (above) off our buildings. Hopefully they
will finish painting it this year.
I was writing my exams before Christmas and was
panicked for the result but got excited when I saw
that I passed. It is a struggle to stay in school for me
because my parents left me when I was in grade 5.
I learned somethings about your culture while there
are differences between yours and mine.
In the olden days men married at the age of 15 - 20
but not only specifically. In those years some of the
men were engaged to a young girl of 12 years old
and at that time started supporting and feeding her
while not having intercourse until the time of the girl's
menstruation. Then the whole process began when
the man would go out to hunt then marry that girl.
This has changed as you were saying for now
"women marry someone of their choice" but the
main reason why they did that in the olden days was
to recognize a strong man who will feed his family
after marriage.
When you are 'bad' at your first menstruation you
go and hide in the bush or any safe place without
telling your friends. You will be missing in the area
and the adults will realize it and ask your friends
then look and find you and prepare a shelter and
put you in that shelter without anything much to eat
or drink. You stay 4 to 6 weeks in the house
drinking dirty water and eat dirty food until the
day of coming out. They will prepare special oil
and decorate you with beads and give you
medicine. They also prepare the man and then
put you two together and give an encouraging
speech.
In the olden days you got only get a child after
marriage but things changed so you can get a
child before marriage now. So the cultural
practices of the menstruation time of a girl
is no more.
In the olden days if a girl was not engaged at
the menstruation time they would go through the
process using a log as a husband symbol. Then
you get a man later and marry. This was a
training process for women to be strong so
that she cannot be greedy but feed the whole
family.
I have a boyfriend but I did not follow the olden
day tradition and the adults were not happy
with me because I didn't tell them when my
day came. They are of the generation that still
went through the old process.
I spent my Christmas vacation out of this village
and I was doing a little work like ploughing and
gathering veld fruit and foods. Us San people
were hunter gatherers for centuries and that
changed some sometime around the 60's.
My dream is I want to finish school and get a
job and fight for the development of the poor
San marginalized community, also for my own
family too.
We don't have the internet in our school but
I hope that soon they do so that I can get email
and we can communicate easily
Waiting to hear from you
Yours
Nduva
* As of now I have been doing the posting for
the school but one of the goals is to get the
students to learn to do it themselves. I have
seen a result of this project as that it is
creating a situation so that the learners themselves
are going to force the issue.
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