Graduation Day!

On the 18th of June in 2015, the 31 Peace Corps Trainees of Namibia Group 41 officially became Peace Corps Volunteers.  Yee haw.  The training staff were all very pleased with us that NO ONE went home during Pre-Service Training.  Apparently, they usually lose up to 10%, and sometimes more, during the process. 

Graduation day is the same day as moving-to-your-new-home-for-the-next-two-years day, so it was quite busy.  (Well, actually, I and many colleagues moved to our new homes on graduation day, but some people moved to temporary quarters until their new homes were ready, or stayed one more night in Okahandja because they were moving someplace very far away and needed a full day’s worth of daylight to make the drive.  So.  There’s always a wide range of experience in Peace Corps service, even in the same country, specialization and time period.)  I jotted a few notes a day or two later, and took several photos of the ceremony part, and saved my program, so I may be able to reconstruct a bit, from the distant vantage of December.

Trainers prepare the stage.

Two days before graduation – which Peace Corps calls Swearing In – we met the site supervisors with whom we’d be working for the next two years.  (Most of us, of course.  Again, some supervisors did not attend; a few sent counterparts instead; and many PCVs will interact with supervisors only rarely, spending most of their time solo or with counterparts.)  My supervisor is a very cheerful native Namibian man of about 40 who has worked in capacity development for a decade or two.  He is very excited about the opportunities we have to assist local entrepreneurs, both individuals and collectives.  He likes to joke and laugh, so I’m very comfortable with him.

Our whole group – 31 trainees and almost as many supervisors – did a series of exercises on Monday and Tuesday to help set expectations and support our efforts to work together effectively.  For me, nothing surprising emerged from those training sessions, and I think my supervisor felt the same.  I think the most useful and the most fun part was getting to know each other, and other supervisors from other parts of the country, over lunches and tea breaks.

On Swearing In Day itself, we had to be at the conference center – a new one; not our trusty training center – well before the ceremony started, probably to ensure everything was in place when the dignitaries arrived.  Many of the incipient PCVs wore Namibian clothes, either traditional attire or contemporary outfits they had ordered from a fashion designer and seamstress who was one of our Community Economic Development business partners.  We chattered together and took each others’ pictures for an hour or two, and then took our seats for the ceremony.

Traditional Damara dress; contemporary Namibian dress; US dress;
US slacks and shirt; contemporary Namibian dress with US sweater;
traditional Herero dress.  Deliberately silly poses.  Note the 'tradition'
of cloth dresses in Namibia isn't much more than 100 or 150 years old.

We opened, of course, with the African Union, Namibian and US anthems, which all of us PCTs knew well after singing them at least weekly for nine weeks.  Then the Okahandja Youth Choir took the floor and demonstrated how real singers sing.  Benna, our training manager, presented us, and Danielle, our country director, accepted us, and the Peace Corps Regional Director for Africa, Dick Day, celebrated us and all those who supported us through training.  Then Danielle led us in our pledge of service, which we had already had to read and sign, along with an oath of loyalty to the US – a modified version of the ones sworn by federal employees and military personnel.  At that point, we were officially Peace Corps Volunteers, and it was all so exciting we needed the OYC back up for another song or two.

More speeches – lovely and touching and rife with the metaphors of school graduation ceremonies; all apt.  In accordance with Namibian mores, each speaker began by thanking all the other speakers, special guests, and three or four people ‘in absentia’ – those were the dignitaries who had planned to attend but had to cancel at the last minute, who included the US ambassador and the local police chief.  After two to three minutes of thanking, the speaker says, “The protocol is observed,” and moves into the unique part of his or her remarks.  It makes for a longer, slower ceremony than one might find elsewhere.

Benna, Danielle, Dick, Local Official subbing for
Honorable Councilor Steve Biko Boois in absentia

Two volunteers made thank you speeches in their new languages – one Afrikaans, one Silosi – and three recited a poem they had written, together, in their three new languages: Afrikaans, Khoikhoigoab and Rukwangali.  People cheered like crazy.  The Okahandja Youth Choir performed an impromptu song when the P.A. system went wobbly and we sat waiting for it to be fixed.  We did all the anthems again and then went outside on another gorgeous day for a lavish buffet that was not quite lavish enough to feed everyone.  Many of us new volunteers looked a bit bemused, as the realization that training is done and we’re off on the independent, on-our-own part of the adventure.   Two of us will be living in huts made from reeds.

Three days after being sworn in, I took this photo
of the desert sky from my new back yard.  21 June 2015.

Six months later, as I type this, we have a new country director (the impressive and delightful Danielle resigned the day after our swearing-in), and four of my Group 41 friends are back in the States to stay.  Winter has turned to summer, and the difference isn't great:  nights are warm and days are too hot, instead of cool-to-cold nights and perfectly comfortable days.

PCN 41 - My Group

My group of trainees is Namibia 41 – the 41^st team to benefit from service in this beautiful country.  The first team traveled here in 1990, the same year Namibia elected its first president, and became officially independent.

In Philadelphia in April, deployment day.  Three of this
group came to my house for Thanksgiving.

We are 13 volunteers in the Community Economic Development program and 18 in the Community Health program.  We are all college graduates (typically a Peace Corps requirement, which I believe stems more from host country preference than PC prejudice.).  Several of us have lived in Washington, DC; three are from South Carolina.  New Jersey and California are heavily represented.  Enough of us have moved around that we qualify for two or three answers to the question, “Where are you from?”  The Californians like to argue the LA vs. San Francisco question.

The youngest is 21 – there might be two or three of these – the oldest is mid-sixties.  Average age is mid-thirties, although I think there is only one person in his 30s and two in their (late) 40s.  We have five or six in their 50s, and two in their 60s, so 20 or 21 are in their 20s.  Everyone seems smart and committed, and professional experiences vary widely.  There’s a former president of an east African college, a former entry-level investment banker, a coffee-shop manager and a wide range of others.  Religious backgrounds are equally mixed; most of us are not regular churchgoers; a few are devout.

At Heroes' Acres outside Windhoek in May.

Financial backgrounds range pretty wide, also.  There are plenty of us who are accustomed to scrimping, and others who clearly have more substantial financial resources.  The group includes twenty-five whites, four blacks and two Asians.  The blacks and Asians get frequent warnings that locals may not believe they are Americans, since the American media Namibians see is heavily focused on white culture.  The whites get warned that we may get preferential treatment given our skin color, which may make us uncomfortable, or very occasionally encounter anti-white prejudice.  I know I don’t have to check my shopping bags with security when I go into the supermarket, and my black Namibian business partner does.  Ick, right?

It is not uncommon for a trainee or two to decide that Peace Corps isn’t for him or her during the Pre-Service Training, which the staff also admits can be a Pretty Stressful Time.  So far (written in June 2015; posted in December - whoops), we’re all holding steady, even the people learning the quite challenging Khoi Khoi language, with its four precise clicking and popping noises.  Two people have been sick enough to require treatment in the capital, Windhoek, and one person has dropped a water bottle on another resulting in two broken toes.  Everyone seems to have found at least one or two colleagues to look to for support and friendship.  I am still charmed and delighted by my two roommates from the first week, and finding all kinds of other gems in the mix.

Roomies!  In Swakopmund in October.

I wrote the preceding paragraphs in June.  Now it is December, and four of us are back in the US for good – three from the 40-plus demo, which I believe is unusual.  I’ve gotten to know a few of my class better, and two or three from previous classes, and had four PCV friends visit for Thanksgiving weekend, which was wonderful.  (More on Thanksgiving later; probably, like, next May?)  This is probably the most admirable, most likeable large group of not-quite-randomly-selected people of which I have ever been a member.