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.

4 cups of tea

I have come to find throughout my life that at every age, I have had a travel comforter: a stuffed animal, a cd player, a lucky hat. One thing has remained constant... no matter what country, what trip, what language they speak that I don't. The global drink. It may be reminiscent of former British colonial rule, spreading east-asian culture throughout the world, but it's calming. Tea.

I don't remember the first time I had tea, but on our family trips it's always been present. Trekking through wind and snow in the Himalayan mountains, looking hopefully into the white distance for a little house, some warmth, a place where I could sit by a fire, rewarm my feet, and drink tea.

Exploring Istanbul, smoking hooka and eating kabaabs, drinking the sweet tea in tall glass cups.

Sitting in my kitchen in Windhoek working on my assignments for my development class, talking to my classmates and swapping stories about our lives and plans for this "winter".

When I get home I probably won't drink tea, at least not 4 times a day like here. But I'm okay with that. It's my travel comforter.

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

Fat Cake

A Fat Cake a Day Keeps the Skinny Away

Just a note, this is from a blog of a woman who used to live and teach in Namibia, not my own writing:

"The problem of my losing weight has been solved.FAT CAKES! Fat cakes are a Namibian staple - they are simply balls of fried dough, about the size of a small fist. A few ladies come to the school every day at break time and sell them for 50 cents (Namibian). (USD$0.0625) At first I was walking back to my house and grabbing a piece of bread with peanut butter for a snack. But then I realized not only was I being anti-social, but I was also not supporting my local vendor. So to the fat cake woman I went. They're kinda greasy, but all in all pretty good. I started out buying a couple things because this particular lady had small cakes. So I'd get a fat cake and a sweat bread sort of thing. Then a different lady started showing up, with nice big fatties. So one was plenty.

But a funny thing happened yesterday, the lady said, "I bought for you one,so take two." Wow, ok, thanks! So I had two. But man, that's just one too many. So I resolved to only have one from then on. Today though, she said it again! I politely said no thank you. Later it dawned on me, she WANTS to fatten me up! See, skinny is a sign of being sick (HIV/AIDS) here. So this lovely girl simply wants to give me a little plump. I think, however,that one fat cake a day will work just fine. I'm feeling plumper already."
A blog from a woman who used to live in Namibia. I tried fat cake on my first day in Namibia, last Monday, and have been craving it ever since!!

First day on the job

Successfully completed my first full day of work at my internship, which is at a human rights organization. I was asked to help out with a training, which is a three month-long training to help teach Namibians about their country, their civil rights, and what they can do to help promote human rights.

They had to take an aptitude test (multiple choice) to determine how much they knew about politics and government, most of the questions asked who were the heads of different parts of the government, political parties, UN High Commissioner, and important dates in their history. I have been in the country for a week and I already felt I could answer a few, but would have failed miserably if they had graded my test.

I talked to one of the participants of the training who is studying bio-med and wants to go to the US on scholarship- it turned into a very interesting conversation.

I spent much of my day talking with members of the organization about various topics: from Michael Jackson to gay marriage, imperialism and the colonialist era to Namibian weddings (which I was invited to attend!! I hope the offer pulls through!)

My friend W walked me home at the end of the evening which was very nice since the sun is already setting at 5pm!!

I also received a copy of the Namibian Constitution today.

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.