So, I arrived at my new home in Ongwediva for the first time
last night. My first impression… I could get used to this. The house that I’ll
be living in for the next few weeks is very nice and spacious. I met my new
host mom and she’s very welcoming and easy to talk to. I think she is genuinely
happy to have a volunteer stay with her. I’m still not sure about how many
people live in this house, but I think it’s about four others. I’ll try to get
more info on that soon. She is also very intelligent and has a lot of
experience working with conservancies. She does not work for NDT (the
organization which I will be working with) anymore but she does some consulting
for them, so she will be able to help me if I’m completely lost in regards to
what I will be doing.
I had a great sleep last night, even though I could hear music
blasting from the nearby shebeen, and Ongwediva seems like a very nice town.
However, I couldn’t see a lot of the town last night because we arrived when it
was dark. I did manage to see the new mall that recently opened. Looks good to
me.
Anyways, this is just a brief update about what’s happening
and my boss should be picking me up in 5 minutes to take me to the Annual
General Meeting for one of the conservancies that NDT works with. I’m excited
and nervous about meeting my boss for the first time, but I’m ready to get down
to business!
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UPDATE:
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| Me and my personal space on the road |
However, at one point, we picked up a lady and her baby on our way to the conservancy and she sat beside me in the bakkie. Then, as I was minding my own business, the baby grabbed my hand and I looked over at the baby and there it was, being breastfed right next to me. I did not see that coming. Also, sometimes the driver would ask the lady for directions and she would turn towards the driver and her breast would be mere inches from my face. Interesting start to my first day at site haha.
We finally arrived at the conservancy around 9:30 am. The meeting was supposed to start at 9 am. We didn't start till 10:15 am. I'm definitely going to have to get used to Namibian time. Before the meeting got started, I was given the agenda and it looked like they would be covering a lot of interesting topics such as the Conservancy progress report, the Financial report, their 5 year development plan, their Benefit distribution plan, their Game utilization and Management plan and their budget. Unfortunately, the meeting was almost entirely in Oshindonga, so hardly understood anything. And to think, I actually brought a pen and notebook to take notes during the meeting. I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was the only (semi) white guy in the room and I was sitting on the stage in front of about 100 Namibians (6 of the women in the audience were breastfeeding there babies throughout the meeting. I think public breastfeeding will be a common theme during my time in Africa haha).
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| Big turnout to the meeting |
One thing I did enjoy about the meeting was the occasional Cultural performances that took place, which were 12 girls doing a traditional dance and these girls had moves!
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| Dancin' Girls |
On the way home, we decided to take 14 others to their village on our way back to Ongwediva. So below is a picture from where I was, stuck in the corner of bakkie with a bunch of other people laughing at me because they knew I didn't know a single word that they were saying. All I could do was just laugh with them. All in all, it has been an interesting first day and I think it was a good introduction to the type of things that I'll be experiencing throughout the next two years of my life.
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| Packed in the back of a bakkie |
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