NAMAS: First day of field study

Bright and early yesterday morning, I started my field study at the Namibia Association of Norway (NAMAS) Namibiahuset in Eleverum.

(I described this organization in an earlier post. For more information see Monday, September 3 entitled: Elverum; or check out the English page of their website listed under LINKS on the right-hand side.)

It was incredible!

Actually, when I describe what I did, it probably sounds pretty boring to the unknowing lummox: I spent 6 hours sitting at a table with my colleague, reading through an 18 page draft of a project summary and Terms of Reference looking for holes in the information.

But as a matter of fact, it was SO fun!

First when we arrived in the morning we spent about half and hour perusing the NAMAS website (listed in LINKS on the right), getting ourselves moderately informed about their four major projects.

Then, Svein, the managing director of the Namibiahuset in Elverum, presented us information about their newest endeavor: expanding the Ondao Mobile School, which currently exists in the Kunene Region of Namibia, on the North-western border, across the river into Angola.

The people who live on that side of the river in Angola are of the same ethnic background and have a very similar nomadic culture to the Ovahimba people in Namibia who are currently using the Ondao Mobile School.

These people have very little access to school, because of their nomadic culture and limited resources, such as roads, electricity, etc.
They heard about the Mobile schools in Namibia and about a year ago requested that NAMAS help them to extend that same system into Angola.

In September, a team from NAMAS went to this region in Angola for their first excursion to evaluate the situation and possibility of initiating this project. Before they went, they drew up a Terms of Reference for this first excursion.

[A terms of reference is kind of a road map for going through with a project. According to Wikipedia:
Creating a detailed Terms of Reference is critical to the success of the project, as it defines the project:

* Vision, objectives, scope and deliverables (i.e. what has to be achieved)
* Stakeholders, roles and responsibilities (i.e. who will take part in it)
* Resource, financial and quality plans (i.e. how it will be achieved)
* Work breakdown structure and schedule (i.e. when it will be achieved) ]

So Svein presented us with their Terms of Reference for this step of the Project and their information and conclusions that had been drawn during the 5 day excursion in September. Our task was to match up the information with their Terms of Reference and see if there were any holes in the information--questions that had gone unanswered.

It was SO great! Neither Joe, my fellow intern, nor I had ever done anything with a development project before, and weren't really sure how one went about working with and initiating projects so this was THE BEST learning tool we could have ever asked for. Furthermore, we were actually doing something RELEVANT! It wasn't just..."Read through this and do it for a grade." It was actually meaningful; we were using our own critical thinking and careful consideration on something that might actually be VALID--something that might even, despite our inexperience in development work, be used toward something really good.

I can't even describe how exciting that is and how good that makes me feel!!

I'm really interested to hear what Svein has to say about our input tomorrow. :)
I think these next 6 weeks (I'll be working Tuesdays and Thursdays until November 22) could be the most rewarding of the whole semester!



On an entirely different note: I am currently looking out my window and glancing at my clock and noticing that the two can't possibly be corresponding. And yet...they are. It feels like it should be about 5:50PM, but it's only 2:50PM. The days are RAPIDLY getting shorter. My goodness. Looking at this statistically:

A week after arrival in Hamar:
Sunrise August 25: 4:52AM
Sunset August 25: 7:42PM


And today:
Sunrise October 17: 6:59AM
Sunset October 17: 5:01PM

I can only imagine what it will be like in a month!

But until then, I think I'll enjoy the daylight while I can...