Goodbyes.

Just as quickly as we arrived in this dusty town we are now saying our goodbyes. The last 4 days have been a whirlwind of hugs, kisses, promises of staying in touch and a few tears. I've been so unbelievably busy that blogging hasn't even passed my mind. And by busy I mean running from one activity to another with just about enough time to breath in-between not UCR "I'm so busy but setting aside 3 hours a day for YouTube videos is perfectly acceptable" kind of busy. Nevertheless, I'm not complaining! In the last four days we've planned, set and filmed a music video, pulled off Opuwo's newly formed drama club's first performance, organized and established "Girls club", learnt how to sew pillows, thrown a pizza party for my class, hung out with pre-schoolers and attended a farewell braai. Although everything has been interesting, exciting and fulfilling I must be honest and admit that I haven't enjoyed myself as much as I could have. Excitement of the action packed days in Opuwo has long been replaced by the excitement of my return date approaching. Tuesday just couldn't come any sooner!

We're currently on the road, Etosha bound. As the Opuwan dust trails behind us diminish I'll give you a brief rundown of the last days of my Going Glocal adventure:

Monday: school, drama club.
Tuesday: school, drama club.
Wednesday: school, first girl workshop & the beginnings of girl club. Marike, Lola and I had the idea of introducing gender awareness in Opuwo as the three of us have taken gender courses at UCR. We weren't entirely sure how or what we'd actually do but the end result of our unsureness was great! We invited roughly 15 girls to join us for snacks and some cool drinks (soft drinks for those of you not quite down with the Namibian lingo) and basically just have a bit of a chat. We'd noticed that relationships are a sensitive topic here with most girls dating in secret in fear of their parents reacting badly. Of course this leaves questions about sex completely out of the question. We gave each of the girls a piece of paper and invited them to anonymously write down any questions they may have about anything and everything. We had a lot of questions about love and sex but also a few really difficult ones such as "what can I do if my boyfriend is making me have sex with his friends to prove that I love him". Heftig.

Thursday: school & drama club - big performance tomorrow! We'd given the kids a rough outline of the play and split them into groups to improvise their scenes. Today we wanted to put the whole thing together. Sounds easy enough, right? The kids unfortunately hadn't quite grasped the idea and had created 5 different, very long plays. Although we, as beyond professional actors, were rather frustrated however the kids had a GREAT time and ultimately that was drama club's one and only rule: everyone has to have fun. Tomorrow should be interesting!

Friday: the craziest day yet! Had promised my class pizza as my goodbye gift and I'm a woman of my word. However an hour or so before I left I began to get a little anxious about being attacked by kids if I arrived alone with 10 pizza boxes (the words "STOP GRABBING, SHARE" have fallen upon empty ears thusfar) so Becci & Indya kindly offered to join me. Thank god they did as as soon as we entered the class room we were met by cheers, screaming, dancing and I'm pretty sure tears of excitement. As I've mentioned previously at least half if my class have never had pizza before. Needless to say it went down well! Then it was off to the youth center to feed the drama kids and get ready for the performance. We served them pasta salad which I'd say a good 80% didn't eat because the "green stuff" (cucumber) was scary. The youth center staff kindly advised us then next time we were going to feed a crowd of Himba and Herero children we should just provide a plate of red meat. Noted! The performance went without a hitch and the learners had an amazing time. They've promised to keep the club going so keep your eyes peeled for Opuwan Oscar nominees in the coming years!

Saturday: girls workshop round two! Started off with the same structure, an anonymous question round accompanied by light refreshments. Luckily there were once again many a question regarding relationships as the theme we had proposed for today was 'rights within a relationship'. Following question round we discussed some rights girls have within a relationship such as the right to be sad and grumpy sometimes or the right to say no at any point. We then explained the main activity which was received with much excitement: pillow making. The idea was to give each girl two pieces of fabric and some decorating materials and to allow them to be as creative as rhey liked. We encouraged them to write down one of their favourite rights either on the pillow or inside it so they would always have it close and be able to remind themselves of it at any time. The activity was a huge success and I'll attach some photos once I have better internet.

Sunday was just as hectic with last minute souvenir shopping and our final, farewell braai pulling it all to a close. Lots of meat this time and I think it's safe to say it was a perfect ending to the longest, most intense two weeks of my life so far.

That's all for now, Tiger Laylay xo