What I'll be doing here

So, every time I try to sit down and write like a serious and informative blog post about what is happening here, we are all back again to the office/living-room/dinner table (let's call it O.L.D.?! How about that?) and it's just too much stuff going on to actually focus. Right now, we're all trying to find as many vocal songs (pentatonic and pitch perfect)  as possible, singing along loudly (sorry guys!...they are sitting on the couch seeming all serious and honestly into their work, but who knows?!). SO you can imagine ;)

Anyways, I'll give my best. 

So for the duration of my stay I'll be doing an internship at the Mandume Language Centre, which is a language school in the centre of Windhoek. All my students are young adults from Angola who stay here to improve their English. 

Just as everything else seems to be a bit more chaotic over here, we were thrown into our classes without any really preparations on our first day. Swim and survive! We're doing pretty well so far ;)

My classes consist of five up to twelve students and are two hours long. So I teach from 8am-10am, 10am-12am and 1pm-3pm. I didn't really get a plan or curriculum so right now I'm trying to find out where my students stand and what they need from me teaching wise. Our material mainly consists of the black board. Printing is difficult (and I have a feeling they are not happy about too many copies) and the students don't have any books. So it's a lot of improvisation....and blackboard writing ^^'

I started my work together with Valerio and we'll also finish together. During our first week we always went to the craft café which is just around the corner. They have pretty amazing food....but by now I'm just making my own lunch (aka: sandwich).

Some weird drink I got served the first day we went there....

After school, it's normally grocery time...

Observe the Italian and his hunting skills with me (haha I guess I am really bad with my picture stalking)...

In his natural environment...

And even though I love taking pictures of everything, school is an exception. This however had to be captured. We (I was doing one shared class with one of my colleagues) gave our students animals and they had to draw them on the board while everyone else had to guess. Can you guess???
...it's a zebra! :D

More lunch impressions from our first week. It really is a touristy place.

Valerio is calling me Asian by now because I literally take pictures of everything ;)

One happy Italian 

And that was my treat last Friday, after surviving the first week :)

And just to keep it real. This is what my lunch looks like now ;)

So all in all it is a lot of work but also a welcome challenge. Teaching two hours is not as bad as I thought it would be but it still is some time you need to fill. And every of my evenings is filled with lesson planning and grammar research. But I'll definitely take something home from it.

So that is a more or less concentrated and well summarised impression of my work here. Now I'll be back to lesson planning (and vocal singing sessions ;P)

Work things {The "real" Wednesday post}

Since last month, I've been working as a salesgirl in the one big store in our little city. It's nothing huge but it's ok. It pays the bills (Sort of. I would need a bit more but I'm getting off topic).
When people ask me what I'm doing and I inform them about my job as a salesgirl/woman I get two kinds of reaction. The first one is a smile and "Oh that's great" (I wonder what emphasizing the "that" means!?) and that's about it. The second one is a shocked raised eye brown (one raised eye brown!) and "But that's just as a side job for now..." (ending in an raised-voice-open-end-sentence-question).

Here's the thing. People seem to assume working as a saleswoman seems to be some kind of lower not so awesome job.
Don't get me wrong but there are (again) two options. You could either be served by a person just as our, here lovely pictured, No.1. Or by a person just like No.2.

Grumpy No.1 and sunny No.2 in a have-a-closer-look study

 I, for my part, try to do my best and be a No.2. And believe me, that needs some work and some serious ambition, no matter what people might think.
Because, staying friendly when people consider you part of the inventory, or staying calm and focused while 10-or-so people are standing in line, furiously stabbing you with their glares, because the third person in a row decided to pay 4,33€ with card, or...I could just go on.
So, I am kindly smiling and confirming that "Yes, this is just for now." But I honestly think people should try to be a bit more...understanding. Meanwhile I'll just keep on standing there, smiling and hoping to make every ones day a bit brighter because there got there "And here's your change have a lovely day" with the sunniest smile I could manage ;) (Go appreciate them!!!)
(In case that sounded harsh...it wasn't supposed to be. Did I sound harsh...?)

Oh and because it wouldn't be a real post without some pictures (not my lousy drawing) here we go with what I had for dinner tonight.


Carrot-Apple-Salad

You'll need:

• 4 large carrots
• one large apple
• sunflower seeds
• sauce

1. Peel carrots and wash your apple.
2. Grate carrots and apple into a bowl (I don't peel my apples, but they are organic (therefore not chemically treated) so it's up to you and might be depending on the kind of fruits you use)
3. Add sunflower seeds (For the amount I used about 3 1/2 Tablesp. but that's optional)
4. For the sauce I have to admit I used a store bought one tonight. If you life in Germany and have free access to a REWE ;) it's the "Sylter Salatsauce" a gluten and lactose free kind of yogurt dressing. But really any dressing would work. You could, for example, mix together: Olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and a bit of honey. Or simply add a bit of lemon juice and salt and pepper.
5. Top with a few greens
6. Enjoy ;)

Oh and that's the smile you'd get...not the first one. The last one ;)

I kept half of the salad for tomorrow by the way. Great for any lunch addition!!