Visit to Vic Falls

Last Thursday I returned to Oshakati after being away for a couple weeks. I was in Katima for a while helping Elephant Energy with some work and then I went to Livingstone, Zambia for a few nights with some friends.

During my time in Katima, I slept in a tent along the hippo/croc infested Zambezi river. Although the nights were rough and wet, I still enjoyed my time sleeping in the yard outside of the nice Zambezi Protea Hotel.

After my stop in Katima, I began my trip to Zambia, which was the first time I had been out of Namibia in almost 9 months.  Once we crossed the border, I quickly noticed how different Zambia was from North Central Namibia, which is the area that I’ve become so accustomed to. First of all, it was far greener in Zambia than where I live.  When I was first told that I’d be going to Africa about 13 months ago, I always imagined that I would live in a jungle-esque setting, but Oshakati is nothing like that. Although the road from Katima to Livingstone wasn’t a jungle by any means, it was certainly closer to what I thought Africa was going to look like. Another stark contrast between Namibia and Zambia was the quality of the road. As soon as we crossed the Zambezi river and into Zambia, the road was instanly covered with potholes. Some as wide as the road itself. In Namibia, I’ve gotten used to traveling at lightening speeds and I expected the same in Zambia. However, due to the terrible roads, it took us forever to travel the 200km to Livingstone.

Livingstone is tourist town where people go to see Victoria Falls and it was the primary reason for my trip. Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world. Although rainy season was meant to be over by March, there was still been a lot of rain recently and we got really wet while crossing the bridge and the walk along the trails near the falls. Due to all the spray, it was slightly difficult to see the falls at times but it was still pretty amazing. The highlight of the trip was doing the Gorge Swing off the bridge. I did a tandem swing with my friend Andrew and it basically involved us taking a step off a bridge while connected to a swing and going over the gorge. It was one of the most frightening things I have ever done in my life but is something that I will never forget. 

I spent the other days at Livingstone lounging at the backpackers place, eating greasy western food, enjoying the sunset at luxurious hotels and visiting the local craft markets. It was very relaxing trip and definitely worth it.

Happy Independence Day, Namibia

Last Friday was the Namibian Independence Day so everyone had a long weekend. Mine was really enjoyable because I was able to spend it with other volunteers and celebrated the day by having a braai in a nearby town called Ondangwa.

It’s been a long time since my last blog post. It’s been so long that the topic of my last post was about my holidays and now I’m beginning to make plans for my upcoming holidays in April (Victoria Falls!!). When I first moved to Namibia, I felt like I had a lot to write about because everything was so new and there were so many things that I wasn’t accustomed to yet. Now, everything, even the strangest things, has become the norm but I’ll do my best to keep on writing about my experience here.

Even though it’s been more than a couple of months since my last blog post, that does not mean I haven’t been doing much. It’s been quite the opposite. Things with my primary organization have been slow at times because there have been fewer projects for me than originally intended. So, I’ve started to help out another organization in addition to my host organization. 

For about a month, I have been working with an NGO called Elephant Energy. They are a US based organization that provides rural households in Namibia with access to solar energy products and try to meet their basic energy needs. They have a unique market-based approach to selling their products which involves establishing shops in market centers and developing a network of sales agents in surrounding rural areas. At the moment, I’ve developed and assisted the Regional Managers with administering surveys to end users of the product so that we can get an idea about the impact the products are having on customers’ financial savings and livelihoods. It’s been very interesting and has kept me busy. You can learn more about Elephant Energy in the following link: http://www.elephantenergy.org/

Elephant Energy is also in the process of launching a new product and I hope to help out as much as I can by making the implementation a success. I’ll keep you posted on that once things are underway. Here is a link to a Huffington Post article which briefly discusses the project that I’ll be working on. Seems like the future is bright with this one… get it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-guay/solar-power-in-a-bottle_b_4979965.html

There has also been good news with one of the grants that I submitted back in November. The grant is for a chili farming project at Uukolonkadhi Conservancy which would help generate income for community members as well as help mitigate the human wildlife conflict situation with Elephants in that region. It’s still being looked at but a final update should be made soon so again, I’ll keep you posted with that if things work out for the best.

One last thing. 8 months ago I arrived in Namibia and it’s been a bit over 6 months since I’ve been at site. That’s pretty crazy to me. The first two months of training took forever. The first two months at site before reconnect felt like a really long time and now, time is just flying by. I find it hard to believe that it’s quickly approaching April. I think things are moving so fast now because I’ve become a lot busier lately and my calendar is just filling up with activities. 

Hopefully, my next blog post won't take another 2 months to get published because I'm hoping good things will start happening real soon. 

Wet Hot Namibian Summer

 I know it’s been a long time since my last blog post but the reason is because I’ve literally been gone the entire time. Yesterday, I finally returned back home. For the past month and a half, I’ve basically traveled all around the country. I’ve been to nine different sites and I’ve enjoyed exploring Namibia very much. I don’t really know how to start writing about my holidays because I’ve done quite a lot. I went to Windhoek, Swakopmund, Otjiwarongo, Ondangwa, Rundu, Kongola, Katima Mulilo, a village near Ondangwa and I even stayed in Oshakati for a week during Decemebr to show other volunteers my site. Each town/village were different but I really enjoyed them all. Overall, I did about 5,500 km of traveling and probably spent around 60 hours in a vehicle throughout the last month and a half. Since we don’t have much money on a Peace Corps budget, the main way of traveling around has been hiking (hitch-hiking). This may sound like a dangerous way of traveling but it is fairly common here and I’ve been able to meet a lot of interesting characters during my journeys and I never felt in any sort of danger. Hiking can be difficult at times because you end up spending a lot of time waiting for a ride. You can wait anywhere between 30 minutes to 6 hours. It definitely gets exhausting after a while.

Some of the highlights of my trip includes sandboarding in some dunes outside of Swakopmund, eating the largest burger I’ve ever come across, getting sunburnt, BEACH, playing with bow and arrows, watching the sunset over the ocean or the river, buying awesome shirts, eating great food, going on a Game Drive where I got to see some baboons, hippos, kudu, impalas and lechwe, seeing Elephants on the way to Zambezi, seeing the sites of other volunteers and spending Thanksgiving, New Years and Christmas with other volunteers.

It’s strange to be back home and alone again because I haven’t been by myself since Thanksgiving. Although its nice to finally sit back and relax, I definitely do enjoy the company of others and I’m glad that I got to travel with so many great people. 

Now, it’s time to get down to business again. I thought I started work on the 13^th because I received an email saying that’s the date that the office would open again. Apparently, work doesn’t start till the 16^th. I guess my holiday isn’t quite over yet :)

Kids fishin'

Baboons monkeying around

Hippos!

Sunset over the Kwando River

Loose seals

The Lighthouse Burger

My new friends

Working in Namibia

Today is my last day at my office for the week/month/year. On Sunday, I’ll be heading to Windhoek for Peace Corps Reconnect, which is when all the volunteers get together and talk about our projects, issues and opportunities at our site. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing all the other volunteers after being away from them for over two months.

One of the tasks that Peace Corps assigned us before reconnect is prepare a presentation on the different activities that we have done at our site. For those of you who I have spoken with, I've essentially been telling you that I have not done much, and understandably so. The first couple of months are for adjusting at our new sites, whether it’s within the community or at our workplace. After preparing for this presentation and reflecting on the activities that I actually have been working on since being at site, I thought it was only appropriate to finally let you in on the things that I have actually been doing.

1)    Co-facilitating the development of a Craft Centre at the King Nehale Conservancy- This is probably going to be my primary project for the next few months. It has received funding from the Millennium Challenge Account, but now it must become operational by March and at the moment, hardly anything has been done. I’m not exactly sure how I will be helping out, but I'm sure it'll be through business trainings. The Craft Centre does seem like a very interesting project that could definitely create some income generating activities for the people in the region.

2)     Attendeding a lot of meetings/trainings - Here are some of the meetings which I have attended:

·      Annual General Meeting for Iipumbu yaTshilongo Conservancy

·      Financial Management Training at the Uukolonkadhi conservancy

·      Progress Reports of the Cultural Centre in King Nehale Conservancy at the Oshikoto Regional Council

·      MCA-N forum for Gender Equality and Land Ferom

·      Tulongeni Craft Centre Committee meeting at the King Nehale Conservancy

·      Conservancy Review and Planning Workshop in Odangwa

Unfortunately, I don’t do very much at these meetings or trainings. I often struggle to pay attention at the meetings because they're always a switching between English and Oshiwambo, which makes it hard to stay focused. I don’t think much is expected from me yet since I’m so new to this working environment and industry. However, I do think it is beneficial for me to attend these meetings because I am learning more about the issues at hand and I’m familiarizing myself key members of each conservancy. What I usually do at these meetings/training is take notes, throw in a few thoughts here and there and introduce myself in Oshindonga, which is always followed by ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from the attendees and a round of applause. I’m hoping I’ll be able to contribute more eventually. Just still gotta settle in.

3)    Applying for grants- I started a few grant applications for various projects but I always hit stumbling blocks with them because they always require information that I don’t have access to and to get the required information can take a really long time. I did apply for a grant to fund a Chilli farm at the Uukolonkadhi Conservancy, with the hopes that the chilli would be able to make economic opportunity for farmers as well as create elephant repellent to mitigate the human wildlife conflict at the conservancy. Apparently, when you mix the chilli with elephant dung, then burn it, this repels the elephants because they can’t stand the smell. Mind you, I could imagine that that smell would repel all living being on this planet.

4)    Photocopying, stapling and whole punching- This may seem like a tedious task that I shouldn’t be worth mentioning, but honestly, I do a lot of photocopying, stapling and whole punching (I’ll just shorten it by saying P.S.W). I usually do a lot of P.S.W is because I usually prepare the documents and folders which are given out at the various meetings and training that we attend. So yea… P.S.W for life!! 

There you have it! Those are the kind of things that I have been doing at my work over the past couple of months. I’m hoping that after reconnect and the rainy-season holidays, I’ll become more involved in other projects and I’ll keep y’all updated when that happens. 

Besides work, I’ve also been settling in at my new house. If you guys saw my last post, then you now know where I live. I’ve definitely been enjoying it and other PCVs come to visit most weekends so many fun times have been had and more are to come. 

And one last thing, below is a photo of Wallace III, the Wall Spider. Wallace I went M.I.A and I accidentally murdered Wallace II after it jumped onto my bare torso, did a loop around my body, fell to the floor and then while I tried to pick it up so I could release it to the wild, it’s legs started coming off and I had to put it out of it’s misery. Apologies to Wallace II and RIP. I hope Wallace III outlives his predecessors.

Welcome to Oshakati

Sorry for the delay, but this is where I live.

A Learning Experience

I’ve lasted 3 months in this country now! Oh yea. I’ve started noticing some unique mannerisms that happen in this country, or at least in my town. I thought now is a good time to come up with a list some of the oddities that I face on a regular basis. Also, I want to make sure that you know that these are my observations and do not reflect the thoughts of anyone else. It’s pretty diverse in this country and I’m sure others living here are seeing different things. With that said, these are some of the tidbits that I’ve learned about my site and the way people act here. Here it goes:

1)    Don’t trust African Time- What I mean is that if someone says that activity Y will take X number of minutes, ignore it, because it will certainly take longer. African time works in mysterious way. The other day, I was asked if I wanted to quickly see a nearby village and it wouldn’t take long. I thought “Sure. Why not?” It took 6 hours! What I thought would be a quick visit to a village took 6 hours! But there were reasons why it took so long, which included finding a place to buy rocks, feeding goats and puppies and filling five 200L barrels with water through a dodgy little tap. So now I know. It’s not even worth asking how long something will take because I don’t think anyone really knows.

2)    If you plan ahead, people will think you’re crazy- Sometimes, I’d try to make a plan for tomorrow and I’d get strange looks because people here tend to just go with the flow. I like that… to an extent. It gets tricky at times because I do need to plan things in advance and sometimes, its part of my job. Regardless, if I try to plan something weeks in advance, some people look at me like I should be strapped down with a straitjacket and thrown into a psychiatric ward.

3)    I work too fast- People are constantly amazed about how quickly I can get things done around here. To be honest, I don’t work quickly at all. I really don’t. I just happen to do tasks when asked and when it gets finished, they are stunned. Other times, I have to go somewhere to buy something or get something fixed and when I return, they are flabbergasted at how quickly I do it. I think time just works differently here.

4)    Simba Chips Index- Some of you may know about the Big Mac Index and for those of you who don’t, it’s an informal method to measure the purchasing power parity between two currencies according to the price of a Big Mac in two different countries. My Simba Chips Index is in a similar vein but instead of comparing the purchasing power parity between two countries, I use it as a quick way to compare the overall prices between two different supermarkets. For example, if Simba Chips (fyi, Simba Chips are the bees knees and are sorta my vice here) are N$7.95 in one shop, then I can figure out that that shop will have generally cheaper products than a shop that sell Simba Chips for N$10.95. This is still just a stupid theory of mine, which isn’t groundbreaking to any degree and you can basically do this with any product, but since all I buy are Simba Chips, its works for me.

5)    People will always assume I have lots of money- I don’t. In fact, because of some situations which have arisen recently, I can see myself struggling financially in the near future. Since I don’t have much, I’ve found ways to spend wisely. I now know that I don’t need to spend more than N$5 on lunch and if I do, I think I’m spending way too much. However, people will constantly think I have more money than I do, whether it’s a kid on the street or someone who knows my situation. It gets a little bothersome at times but I think some people are realizing that I really don’t have much money on me.

6)    Lots of Gold Diggers here- I’m not talking about a person who only dates wealthy people, or someone who literally digs for gold. I’m talking about the brain-scratching, nostril-diving Gold Diggers. People often pick their nose in public here and it’s seems completely acceptable.

7)    People will think I know American Celebrities- You wouldn’t believe how many people have asked whether I know Jay Z. Well, only three people, but that’s more than anyone has asked me before coming here. For some reason, Jay Z seems to be a popular figure that people will ask me about. People have also asked if I know Barack Obama, Kanye West or Kim Kardashian. By the way, I have not met them. All I can tell them is that I’ve seen Obama’s dog, but that never seems to impress them.

8)    Conversations don’t have to make sense- Basic conversation can be amusing and/or a struggle here. The words chosen to respond to basic greetings in English can be strange at times. For instance, I may say “Good night” to someone and they would say, “Thanks, I’m good night”. Or I’d say, “How are you?” and they’d say, “Is it? Ee ee”. Obviously, English isn’t their first language here, but I just enjoy the nonsensical exchanges I have with some people at times. It’s a good way to remind myself of where I am.

9)    People will not acknowledge you- I’m sure this observation may not be true for other volunteers because I know people who live in a village are constantly greeted by their community. But I live in a town. A rather large and spread out town and people don’t really have the time to always greet you. For example, when I’m sitting in my home or my office and someone who I don’t know walks in, I usually think I’ll be greeted or someone will introduce me to them. Instead, I don’t even get looked at. I thought coming from another country would always make me some sort of mythical creature and that people would always ask me who I am, where I am from and why am I here. Nope. People will go ahead and have a conversation without even acknowledging my existence.

10) People do stare- I know this is basically contradicting the previous point, but whether someone will notice me depends on the situation. People will stare at me while I ride my bike. People will stare at me when I walk by a shebeen on the way to my local shop. People will stare at me while I’m reading outside my house. People will stare at me while I sit outside my house and enjoy the sunset. It seems like if they know they won’t have to have a conversation with me, they will likely stare at me instead. Or it’s because I’m just so god damn beautiful ;)

Me staring at a man staring at me while I was staring at the sunset

Well, that’s that. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone because it’s definitely not supposed to and I don’t want anyone thinking that I’m generalizing people here in Namibia, because I’m really not. I enjoy all the quirks that come with country. Namibia is also a very diverse country and I’m sure every town/village has its own unique traits. These are just things that I tend to notice on a daily basis and are situations that are in stark contrast to my life in a Western society. That is all.

1 month down. 23 to go.

First off, just want to say sorry about not posting in a while. The reason being is that I feel like there hasn’t been all that much happening as of late. Work has been slow and static for me. For my coworkers, it has been frantic because they’ve been working on the quarterly reports and I haven’t able to help them with that because I’ve really only been here for a few weeks. If they needed help with a quarterly-quarterly report, then I may have been able to help out. But they didn’t. So I haven’t really done anything on the work front yet, but I’ve been told that I’ll be getting down to business this week.

I’m still living with a host family at the moment, even though I was told I’d only be here for a few weeks. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my host family. They’re great and I really mean that. But after being told that you’d be moving out in 2-3 weeks, and a month later you haven’t, it makes it a little challenging to truly settle down and adjust. However, I have finally found a flat to move into, and if everything goes accordingly, then I should be in my new place this Saturday (but remember, in Namibia, plans fail to materializer). 

For this blog post, I thought I might as well write about my current living situation before I move on to my new abode. At the moment, I live with my host-mom, her sister, sometimes her husband, sometimes a couple of boys and sometimes a couple of girls. It honestly changes by the day and I never know who’ll be sleeping in the house on any given night, which I don’t mind at all. I enjoy meeting all sorts of people. Oh yea, three puppies also lived here for a few days, but now they have been banished to the village life. I got to name one of them. I named here Lola, after the telenovela show ‘My Heart Beats for Lola’. Gotta love them soapies that they constantly have playing here. The other two puppies were named Danger (a girl) and Fluffy (a boy).

Now as for my family, my host-mom Luanda and her sister Nunu (quick note- I’ve got no idea how to spell anyone’s name here, so everything is just a shot in the dark) are both great people. They always enjoy a good laugh and do their best to encourage me to speak their language, which I’m failing at miserably because I just don’t use it enough on a daily basis.

Morning  and Kambushe

This is Morning and Kambushe (remember, I’ve got no idea how to spell these). These two girls are adorable and are constantly giggling. They are both very intelligent and speak great English. They enjoy watching movies with me. I had an awkward moment with them the other night while we were watching Finding Nemo because in the opening scene *SPOILER ALERT* Nemo’s mom gets attacked by a barracuda. The next scene is in the future and Nemo’s mom isn’t there. Kambushe asks me “where is the mother’. Then we have an awkward pause and I reluctantly tell her that she got eaten… Yikes. Kambushe looked devastated and I actually thought she was going to cry. At least they enjoyed the rest of the movie. Luckily, the girls weren’t as distraught last week when we watched Mufasa die in the Lion King, but they saw that one coming. Besides watching movies and being ridiculous, the girls are constantly cleaning up the house and doing chores. It’s non-stop. I feel bad at times but they seem very used to it and I think it’s just a part of the culture here in Namibia.

Kowko with Lola and Junior with Fluffy

Changin' lives, for better or worse

Kowko being Kowko

These two kids are Junior and Kowko. These fellas are even more ridiculous than the girls. Kowko can be very quite at times and usually while I’m reading in the living room, he would sit in the chair opposite me and just stare at me. I’d laugh and ask him what he’s looking at, and he’d keep staring without cracking a smile. It amuses me. Other times, Kowko is showing me his cartwheel skills or doing dances that resemble a drunken monkey. Strange kid haha. Junior is a little older and also speaks good English. The first time I met him, he seemed very sweet because he greeted me with a hug even though I had no idea who he was. Now, every time he sees me, he says “Give me your phone”. No please. No thank you. Just “Give me”. By the way, that seems like a very common thing here in Namibia, regardless of age, and I think that’s because they don’t have a word for “please” in their language. I don’t see the constant demanding as rude anymore because I realize that its just part of the culture. Anyways, besides Junior’s obsession with the games on my phone, he’s a really nice kid and is constantly intrigued by what I do, whether it’s reading my kindle, working on my laptop or playing my guitar. Whenever he sees my guitar, he says “I’m going to practice now” and then he begins to thwack my guitar. At least he seemed generally interested by the guitar because from what I’ve gathered, no one plays a musical instrument in this country!

A part from my family, the other kids in my neighborhood are really nice. Ever since they saw me ride my bike home from work, they are always riding around my area with their bikes too. Also, the neighborhood kids are just as demanding as Junior. Some would say “let me ride your bike now” or “give me your bread” while I’m eating bread in front of them. I’ve gotten used to it and I just give in now. 

So, that’s basically been whats up lately and I’ll try to keep y’all updated once I move into my new pad next week… hopefully.

 

All the kiddies, and yes... the boys are wearing vampire teeth...