Swakopmund

The city on the coast. The warm part of Namibia in this mild winter. And warm it was indeed.
I guess I'll start at the very beginning.

The Drive:
The drive to Swakop takes about four hours in our 12 passenger van, and we were all very ready to leave last Wednesday. Ready for the ocean and the dunes and the more humid air (Windhoek is extremely dry). On our drive we saw baboons, an ostrich (way off in the distance), and springbok, a deer like animal. I felt as though we were just jumping through different parts of the world as we started off in a rather hilly area which surrounds Windhoek, and then hit the grasslands. You can see for miles there. Then we hit the desert. Very few plants, except for tumbleweeds and little bits sprouting up here and there.
Once we got to Swakop, I was in heaven. Dunes on one side of me, Atlantic Ocean on the other.
I had my first oryx meat on our first night (google oryx.. pretty cool looking animal). I also have been enjoying the local brews here, but the Windhoek lager is my favorite.

Day 1: Gobabeb, Lagoon, and Export Processing Zone & Dune 7!!

Our first day was spent visiting Gobabeb, an environmental research center located about two hours from pretty much everything. The center is used to study climate change and environmental changes on the Namib desert (fact: the oldest desert in the world). Gobabeb is run by Namibians, but is home to a few interns and many international researchers.This is Ollie, the almost three-year-old on our trip, and Passat, our driver who is from Swakop

It is an amazing center for environmental research, and is run mostly on solar energy. When were at Gobabeb the winds were coming from the east across the desert, so very strong and very warm... as you can see the wind blowing off the top of the dunes.

After our picknick lunch at Gobabeb we meandered back to Walvis Bay, the town just 20k or so away from Swakopmund... Walvis Bay is more the industrial city, whereas Swakopmund is more tourist focused. We all ran around on the lagoon and had our first experiences in this side of the Atlantic Ocean... chasing away the flamingos!

After seriously dirty-ing ourselves in the sand and muck of the lagoon, we visited the Export Processing Zone (or free trade zone). We visited a factory that makes parts for many car companies. We saw many of the positives and negatives of this kind of economic zone (ask me if you wanna hear more.

Around 4 in the afternoon we headed towards the dunes, to climb Dune 7, the sand dune located 7km away from Swakop. I don't have pictures of this amazing experience yet since I took a kodak non-digital camera with me, as the sand will ruin most digitals. I felt as though I was in a dream, looking out over Namibia from the top of a hundred-something foot sand dune.

Day 2: Rossing Uranium Mine & Tour of Informal settlements (including meeting with a traditional leader)

I felt like a very small child in a very very big sandbox. The mine was about 400m deep at its deepest point, and is constantly expanding. We learned about the process is takes to make Uranium (unenriched). The factory area was HUGE! The wheels of the trucks used to carry from the mine to the factory were bigger than ME.

We visited a center that was originally set up by an American to help support motivated kids in Mondesa (a township outside of Swakop) reach their full potential. It is now run almost entirely by Namibians, and gives about 120 kids grades 4-10 the opportunity to read books, learn to play musical instruments, play sports like tennis, and have lunch after leaving school (schools end around 1pm here, start at 7 generally).
We also had a tour of the informal settlements, which included meeting with a Darama tribal leader in her home, a 70-something year old lady with many grandchildren, who acts as a representative of the Darama peoples in Namibia. This was one of the most interesting experiences I have had in my life. We then went to visit a remedial school where kids are sent if they are not in the correct grade or if there are no rooms in schools (or if they cannot pay for school fees/uniforms). Inside of this school is also where you can buy tokens for the local water pump, so many kids and their parents were hanging around.

Day 3: Free Day
Our final full day in Swakop was left for us to do our own biding. I ran along the beach with Kristen, the CGE Intern, enjoying the waves crashing just a few meters away from us, smelling the sweet salty air. We all went into town and looked at some shops, ate some fish, and sat on the beach. I swam in the Atlantic and convinced a young Namibian girl to come swim with me. She asked me if I could "learn her how to swim". She was adorable, and we ran around chasing waves. As a group, many of my classmates and I did yoga on the beach, instructed by our professor.
We topped off this productive yet busy day with eating sushi (pretty sure i had 22 pieces....)

Day 4: Last day-swimming-ride home (giraffes!)
On our last day in Swakop Kristen and I went running again, and I took one last dip into the frigid Atlantic before packing our stuff up and climbing back into the van. It was sad to leave the sunshine and the fresh air, but I was exhausted from vacation. The coolest part of our ride home was seeing giraffes along the side of the road eating off of trees.

Atypical Friday

While I am certainly not going in the correct order in writing these blogs, I'm going to talk a bit about my adventures yesterday (Friday).. and then eventually about my homestay experience.

I went to work at my internship at 8am and worked on calculating some data for the annual human rights report that will be coming out in a few months-- this report is sent to the UN and other organizations as a shadow report. I also went to water the garden, which I have been doing on a daily basis, in hopes that it start growing some more plants (seeds may be required however).

Aside from working a newsletter to be printed in a few weeks, I am also progressively working on a photo project so that the office can have some pictures from Namibia (both landscapes and people) on the walls.

The reason for this blog is that I decided to go take pictures, and a friend of mine has her friend visiting form the states, so they invited me to go outside of Windhoek to see the terrain... We drove in a big 4x4 for about half an hour, partly on paved roads, partly on gravel.

The land is hilly and mountainous, lots of rock and cacti, some other small trees. The wildlife that we saw included 1 donkey, about 8 coys, 1 deer-looking animal, and wasps as large as my pinky finger.

We went to a vacated house which was covered in graffiti and remnants of past visitors, but still gorgeous. We sat on the "porch", really a cement slab, ate our sandwiches, fruit, drank our Windhoek Lagers and peach ice tea, and soaked up the sun.

The house was likely a white farmer's house, judging by the size, location, and architecture. I have never seen a house so empty, broken, or beautiful.

All of the windows were gone, along with the doors, and all furniture.

Stable enough to walk around in, but not enough that you'd want to be there for a long time. After two hours of exchanging stories of learning to ski in the alps (my new Namibian friend) with his florescent colored spandex and foot-long dreads, or about the pornographic writings on the walls of this house, we all climbed back into the car and into reality.

The whole CGE spent our evening at Cafe Sol watching the Spain-Chile football match.

My time in Namibia is already going far too quickly, I have almost been here a MONTH.

Africa World Cup

Last night I watched part of the 2010 World Cup Concert, I felt very connected to all those around the world watching it in celebration with me.
Today is the opening match; when South Africa scored their first goal, I could hear the sounds of car horns and plastic horns.. one of my co-workers ran into our room, basically jumping up and down. Even though none of these people are South African, the excitement of this event is not lessened by any means.

Homestay!

Heading off to start my 10-day long homestay with a Namibian family this evening and I am very excited. The family speaks English and Afrikaans, and doesn't live too far away from the Center. They have a daughter, 8 years old, and a cousin who is 19 who apparently lives with them. I don't know any more about them than that, but I am very excited.

I won't have access to my internet/blog for for the next week and a half, so if you need to contact me, I will have my cell phone on me (emergencies only please!), and the Center will also know how to contact me.

Just a picture of me in front of my internship building

Windhoeked

This week has gone by so quickly it's been difficult to process all of my emotions towards this whole trip and all of the events I have already encountered. This weekend I spent much of my time with my fellow CGE-ers (Center for Global Education) exploring Windhoek and it's little nooks and crannies.

Today we went to the craft market, which is basically a large building with vendors (mostly women) selling handicrafts, jewelry, photography, and many more touristy things. I bought a few items, and found this wood-carved tortoise on our way out. I thought it was appropriate since I miss my tortoise Leo, but I don't think I'll be bringing this guy home with me.

Even though it is winter here, the temps are close to 75-80 every day during the daytime, so the pool in our backyard is nice to dip my feet into, even though it's too cold to swim in (maybe on a really hot day I'll be brave!!)
The sun rises here close to 7:00 (I've yet to get up that early so I can't give you a more exact time), and sets close to 5:45 pm. The temperature difference during the day and night impresses me, as some nights it's down to 40 degrees F.
We start our classes on Tuesday so I spent a few hours today soaking in the sun and reading by the pool; a good end to an amazing first week.
In Windhoek there are a couple parks for lounging, eating, studying- this one is called Zoo Park (there are no animals here, and I have not found any evidence of any animals ever having been there). The downtown area of the city is not too large but has many restaurants and bars (if you know where to find them). The main street is called Independence Avenue, which cuts north-south through downtown.
Though I enjoy walking down Independence Ave, my favourite streets so far are Robert Mugabe St, Fidel Castro St, Florence Nightingale St, and John Meinert St (which I live right off of). Most of the street names here of scientists, philosophers, Namibians, and other famous individuals (such as Gandhi and Beethoven).

Today we went to lunch at an Italian restaurant in downtown, which ended up being a restaurant where only white people eat. Though most of the people in the restaurant were not tourists, there was only one table that did not have whites sitting at it, which is a little strange where whites make up 200,000 of 1.8 million Namibians. I felt awkward sitting at a relatively nice restaurant being served by coloreds and blacks, while neither were represented as customers. I wonder if there will be similar encounters in the future.