"That which is in between"

 Yesterday was a BIG day. I found out where I will be going for shadowing next week and where I will be going for the next two years!

For shadowing, I will be going to Lüderitz!! The purpose of shadowing is to follow a current PCV for a few days to learn about how people go about their daily activities. Lüderitz is an old German coastal town located in the far southwest corner of Namibia. It's apparently got a lot of colonial style building, which seems like a pretty strange concept. It's going to be completely different to the north of Namibia, which is where I will be living, so it'd be good to witness how diverse Namibia really is. The volunteer who I will be shadowing works for COSDEC (Community Skills Development Centre). The vision of COSDEC is to “provide focused, practical skills training that incorporates business skills, entrepreneurship, and life skills” and to “relate the training programs to opportunities in the local economy in terms of demand for goods and services.” I'm very interested to learn more about this organization and I'm sure the shadowing experience will be very valuable.

Now, as for the site where I will be working for the next two years, I will be going to…. OSHAKATI!!!

 Oshakati means "that which is in between" in the Oshiwambo language. It is one of the larger towns in Namibia and is located in the Ovambo region and the organization that I will be working with is called the Namibia Development Trust (NDT). According to the description, NDT’s main goal is to empower community groups in their efforts to become self-reliant and alleviate poverty by facilitating and supporting sustainable environment sensitive projects and participatory-gender inclusive development programs. I will be working with women craft makers on marketing and product development; training crafters on business skills; helping promote and market the Mopane conservancy; assisting various groups with bookkeeping and developing market strategies. Additionally, I will be supporting tourism SME’s within the conservancies and playing the role of a mentor to conservancies and cooperative groups.

Although I will be working in Oshakati, I will be living in a town called Ongwediva. For what it's worth, Ongwediva is the second largest entertainment town in Namibia, just behind Windhoek. My accommodation will be a two-bedroom house and I will be living with a Namibian family -- still not exactly sure about how many people. It’s either one femal host country national, a Namibian middle-aged couple or a Namibian couple and two kids, but I guess I’ll find out soon enough. The house has safe drinking water, electricity and a hot shower!!! Looks like I’ll be living the high life. I will also be close to a few other volunteers, which is a big plus! Unfortunately, some of the people who I have become close friends with during PST will be quite far from my site, but that’s what happens when you get put in a country as big and unique as Namibia. However, it gives me a good excuse to travel all around the country :)

I’m absolutely thrilled about my assignment and I’m definitely looking forward to starting soon. During the first week of PST, we got a list of the Main Assignments and all the volunteers had to list their top three choices. The assignment that I had ranked as number 1 was “promote community-based tourism enterprises as well as income generation activities (such as craft projects, mopane project, for various conservancies)”. So yea… you can see why I’m happy about my actual assignment. I got what I wanted :). The job also involves a lot of travel as the bulk of the work that I’ll be doing involves supporting projects in the different Ovambo regions. This makes the job even more awesome.  Anyways, life is pretty good right now and can’t wait to get started!