the second and third weeks in august are scheduled for exams, which means they actually began during the first week. i found this out the final thursday of july, giving me four days’ more notice than i’m used to. selah, the english exam was given on the 4th instead of the 11th, and i was left with an extra seven days’ worth of excuses for not grading papers. that makes me a bad person, non? i
should grade them right away, i thought to myself, b/c (1) the students are interested in their results – although if they were so “interested” in their grades they should prolly worry as much about performance
before the exam as they do
after…other story, again – and (2) i’d have arse to do but sit around and read books while all the other teachers complain about marking the exams that they’ve put off for two weeks themselves. or (2 revised) i could have a
visitor, and we’d do fun things like sit in a combi, sit in a combi, sit in a combi, and perhaps see swakop or walvis bay. if we made it to walvis we could meet someone named shannon, who would promptly admit to being wigged out on crack before inviting us for coffee. we’d accept, of course, and then we’d invite any friends we might have in walvis to join us…
actually, i didn’t see walvis or swakop. i’ve never been there. but i did meet a person named shannon, and i can definitely imagine what it’d be like to meet someon in walvis. or even swakop. maybe even in windhoek or cape town. lets see, what kind of character would this shannon be… for starters, androgynous. the third-person in the bantu languages i’m familiar with is gender neutral. in oshindonga, the pronoun for man, woman, boy, circus, red cow, shiny mullet, new friend, etc. is
ye. it’s understandable then that, when speaking english, many owambos have difficulty differentiating between he and she. if people can use their language to compress he, she, and it into a single pronoun, why not extend that phenomenon to other aspects of our existence, like visual appearance? just b/c someone has on a dress doesn’t mean he’s a she, or that she’s a he b/c (s)he rocks clothes generally associated with men. something like that. i suppose i should just say that this shannon of ours (ours: i have a visitor, remember, and 1 + ___ = plural) would be androgynous simply b/c it’d be difficult to answer: man or woman?
my imagination’s a bit limited, so i’ve no idea what else to say about shannon. i think (s)he’d say a lot of funny shit and accompany her remarks with equally comical gestures. perhaps (s)he’d look at me and say (s)he likes my friend better than me, BUT NOT IN A SEXUAL WAY! this, mind you, would precede the rumbling, suggestive giggle of someone looking to trade sex for crack money. or maybe (s)he’d agree to have a photo taken so my friends and i could laugh about it later. (s)he’d demure at first, but just as the photo would be taken (s)he’d scream something – CELEBRITY POSE! – and raise his/her left leg, exposing an inexplicably moist crotch. afterwards (s)he’d probably sit down and suggest that we order a bottle of wine. obviously, b/c WINE MAKES ME HORNY!, though the wet jeans would leave me to regard the wine as impertinent to the state of his/her sexual whoot-whoot. about this time my friends and i would begin to tire of the antics, so we’d ask for the bill, pay for our coffee, and begin the sojourn to our host’s flat. shannon would assume him/herself invited, or at least entitled to “taxi fare.” when both of these scenerios fail to materializ, (s)he’d stand in the middle of the road, screaming.
MY NAME’S SHANNON! i KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING! YOU’RE GOING TO [inaudible]! IF YOU’RE NOT GOING THERE YOU’RE GOING TO THE [inaudible]! MY NAME’S SHANNON! i’LL FIND YOU! YOU HEAR ME?!? MY NAME’S SHANNON….
of course, all of this comes from my imagination. what i really did was sit around a dusty namibian village and grade papers. 47% of my 10th graders got at least 50% on their august exams, which is better than the 14% that did the same last year, though the 14% comes from the december exams. the august exams are also called mock exams and have no bearing on whether a student passes or not. but then again,
mock doesn’t necessarily entail mock. i do happen to live in a country where the sole utility of names and labels is decorative. just b/c a store is called “fish and chips take away” doesn’t mean you’ll find any fish. or chips. or even anything to take away. and the numerous shops along the main road called “pick a phone?” maybe an old woman and a stool, but that’s about it. selah, the best i can do at the moment is take my 47% and pretend i’m having some sort of impact. perhaps i can entice one more student to rock the 50% in december so that i have more students passing than failing. if that be the case, i’m going to walvis, dancing the crack rock, smoking the horny wine, and standing in the middle of the road so everyone knows that MY NAME’S JEREMY! i TEACH OWAMBOS, MOFUCKA!!
