"Before 500 years ago, Africa was a dark continent"

The days are starting to blur a little bit, but I'll try and piece them together.

This morning the whole group piled into our white micro bus and headed out to Penduka, a non-governmental development organisation working with women in Namibia. This organization (which resembled more of a little nature reserve) encourages and supports women throughout the country to take charge of their lives. We did our group bonding here. It is on the Goreangab dam,. There were over 400 species of birds there, and I saw a lot. A heron flew by as well.

I didn't take either of these photos, but just a look at what Penduka looks like.

After our wonderful group bonding and ice breaker sessions, we headed back into Windhoek and did a couple of museum tours. We did a tour of the Nat'l history museum , where we had a tour guide give us some interesting interpretations of history, including the titled quote of this blog entry. Overall a long but very stimulating day.

Day 2 Namibia

Just a short snippet of my day; went on a trip with a tour guide to the black township Katatura again. My group member and I, a university student from Ohio, went with our tour guide to SWAPO (the ruling political party in Namibia) headquarters to meet with a youth league representative. It was a really interesting talk about the role of the youth league's role in SWAPO, as well as in Namibia.

After our meeting we went to our tour guides' friends house and got to see how the lower-middle class lived. We also went to a market and I felt as though I didn't belong. Most of the people looked at us as though whites didn't belong there, and a few people made comments to our guide that she "isn't white, so why is she pretending to be".

We also went downtown to get some lunch, and back to the center.

Our group went out on the town tonight, only gave a taxi driver the wrong directions once, and found a great hostel and bar right across the street from our center, which seemed to have lots of interesting people at it. That's all for today.

Windhoek

Some photos of the poorer townships where black Africans were forced to relocate to during the years of apartheid.

The more affluent areas in Windhoek where mostly white Namibians live.

Arrival in Windhoek

After 24 hours of travel from Budapest, I finally made it to Windhoek. I'll try and keep my blogs short this summer since I know they can get a little boring or repetitive. I flew from Minneapolis last Wednesday to Budapest, through Chicago and Warsaw.

Spent the weekend hanging out with my parents, seeing teachers from AISB, and eating and sleeping a lot!
I will be heading back to Budapest, on my way home from Namibia.

I arrived today at 2:30 with the sun beaming down, probably 75 degrees out; there are palm trees at the airport which was a nice welcome. After 30 minutes waiting in line at customs, I got my tourist visa and found my bag, and the driver for the Center of Global Education (my program) holding a sign, awaiting my arrival.

Windhoek is encompassed by some high hills-not so much mountains- but pretty rugged hills. I'm excited to maybe climb some of them this summer. Orientation starts tomorrow, including a meeting at the US Embassy about safety.

More coming soon- off to enjoy being in Namibia!!

A little more of Boston

A photo montage of my trip to see Chris. Weather was beautiful, kinda like it is now in Minnesota!!

Dropkick Murphys

Dropkick Murphys


On Saturday I went to see the Dropkick Murphys at the House of Blues in Boston with my friend Chris who goes to Olin College of Engineering.
There were two lesser-known opening bands, The Have Nots and Creepshow. The show was slightly awkward as it took place during the middle of the day and all three bands expected the crowd to be less rowdy. This performance was a few days before St. Patrick's Day in Boston so there were many people drinking copious amounts of beer and wearing green.
The first band of the day, The Have Nots, was a punk-rock-ska band consisting of a drummer, a base player, and two lead guitar and vocalists. I enjoyed this band because of their relatively simple show without fancy outfits or lighting, which allowed me to focus more on their playing. The guitarists were fun to watch as they play with a ska style so their fingers were moving quickly and hitting the fret board to make short and distinct notes. While this band was not well known, I enjoyed their style better than the second opening band.

Lead singer for Creepshow

Creepshow consisted of three males: a drummer, an organist/vocalist, a stand up bassist/vocalist, and a female lead guitarist/vocalist. While this band was a bit livelier than the first, and was able to get the crowd to mosh a bit more, I was not as big of a fan of their actual music. Their guitar and bass playing did not seem very complicated and I felt as if some of their songs were repetitive.

After 20-30 minutes of stage prep time, Dropkick Murphys started their performance. I was really impressed by the stage setup with a front curtain displaying illuminated Irish crosses, which was then pulled down by stage-workers at the start of the show; it was all quite dramatic. I was not very familiar with the band and was surprised to see how many different instruments were played throughout the show: bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, accordion, mandolin, banjo, whistle, acoustic guitar, and bagpipes. Also, during one song where all of the ‘lasses’ at the show were invited onto the stage to sing one of their more popular songs, a group of string players were also present on stage which included a violinist, a cellist, and a double bass player.
View from the stage as I sang with the song *Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced*, one of the more popular songs by this band.

Playing in their hometown I think is always a good experience for this band since most of the people at the show knew almost all of the lyrics to each song and everyone appeared to be really enjoying the music. My favorite part of the show was being able to go up on stage and sing with the band and standing next to one of the guitarists, who happens to play a beautiful Gibsonguitar.

Andddddddddd... I'm back

Hi again to everyone who takes a few moments out of their day/week/month to read my blog! I have put off writing any updates for awhile, but hopefully you have spoken to me since August of 2009!
I am still at the University of Minnesota, 3rd year student, double-majoring in Political Science and Global Studies with a minor in French. This summer I will be studying in Windhoek, Namibia for two and a half months.

I am currently at Franklin Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts visiting my friend Chris who is a sophomore here- we've been friends since high school (his family also lived in Budapest). The campus is small and beautiful; Chris has a view of woods and the open areas of the campus which is a pretty sight from his bedroom. Currently raining, just like Minnesota so I can't complain too much.

Later today we will be going to a Dropkick Murphys concert(pretty famous band out of Boston). Will write more soon, off to have some spring break fun!!