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Hannah Russ and Lasse Schneider are our new weltwärts volunteers in Gobabis and have been supporting the project for one year since August. We look forward to your wonderful commitment and share your first impressions with you:
We've only been here for a few weeks, but it feels like an eternity - at least from what we've already experienced. We arrived in Namibia on August 12th and were warmly welcomed by Ulrike Mai (national coordinator of steps) and Jac-Louis van Rooyen and his family. Over the next few days he showed us something about Gobabis and introduced us to the project. Since it was the last week before the holidays, the project had that holiday feeling and nothing was really done anymore. The teachers, Gerald, Angela, Noubert and project manager Henk were all open and friendly. Georg and Sibylle, also volunteers from Germany, helped us to integrate into the project and gave us ideas for the coming year. In our 2nd week there was already a holiday club where we played, painted, sang and did sports with up to 170 children. The club only went from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., but afterwards you were really broken. Still, it was a lot of fun.
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The rest of the vacation we used for our first trip through Namibia. We visited volunteers in Windhoek and Rehoboth and then traveled with them to Keetmanshoop, Lüderitz and Swakopmund. Was very nice and you have already got many different impressions of Namibia.
The trip was also good for another reason, because when we got back to Gobabis we had somehow really arrived. Jac-Louis and Henk took good care of us, but at the beginning you had the feeling of what you should do in Gobabis for a year, because at first glance it looks like a dump with no real leisure activities. But the other volunteers initially had the same problems. Now we feel really good in Gobabis and we have met a lot of people and have already taken part in one or the other event, like a bike race.
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In the meantime, we volunteers have taken on many different tasks: For example, we learn the numbers up to 10 in small groups with the children or how they write their names. We help in the kitchen with cooking and serving meals or in the Guardian Angel program and in the garden. In the afternoon we do homework with the school children or give tutoring in math and English. New is the German Class, which we have been offering from 14:15 p.m. to XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.
In the afternoon we meet with Jac-Louis or Louisa, a volunteer our age from Germany who helps in the project for three months, or go to the town, do sports and chill out in the roundhouse. The last few weeks have passed very quickly and there was almost time pressure 😉 If it goes on like this, the year will be over quickly.
The Roundhouse is simple, but we get on well and it is very cozy. Last week it was painted by Henk and a few volunteers from South Africa with sun-reflecting paint, which made it pleasantly cool inside. We get on well with the host family.
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