Greg Vogl's Namibia Overview
Namibia Overview
Greg Vogl
gregvogl@yahoo.com
overview.htm
last changed January 1, 1970
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Namibia, land of the brave, freedom fight we have won.
Glory to their bravery whose blood waters our freedom.
We give our love and loyalty, together in unity.
Contrasting, beautiful Namibia, Namibia our country.
Beloved land of savannahs, hold high the banner of liberty.
Namibia, our country, Namibia, motherland, we love thee!
Namibia is a hot, dry, sparsely populated, but beautiful country in southern Africa that gained its independence from the Apartheid-based government in South Africa just eight years ago on March 21, 1990.
From 1994 to 1997, I worked as a US Peace Corps Volunteer. The third of the three Peace Corps goals is to share some information about the "host country" (Namibia) with Americans, so I am doing my patriotic duty and serving my country.
The school is located in a a small but rapidly growing village named Ohangwena in the extreme north of the country, only about 10 km from Oshikango and the border with Angola.
I was a teacher at Ponhofi Senior Secondary School, a rural government-funded boarding school which has about 500 Grade 11 and 12 Owambo students aged 16 to 25. The school staff includes about 25 teachers.
Oshikwanyama or just Kwanyama, the local language, is spoken in the Ohangwena region of Namibia. It is a dialect of Oshiwambo and is understandable by the majority of Namibians.
When Namibia won its independence, English was made the official language to replace Afrikaans, and the vast majority of the Namibian people are just beginning to learn English. I found the students' English to be the biggest problem they had with learning.
