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Just a heads up, this post will have some graphic images!

- The past week has been very eventful. It started with having to learn to live with very little. First and foremost, the walk-around allowance that we were given shortly after our arrival should have more than enough to live off for a couple of weeks… if I had strategically planned how I would spend my money. With that said, I did not spend my money wisely and almost immediately after receiving it, I spent about ¼ of my allowance on a towel and a converter. Big mistake! On Monday, I realized that I only had about N$35, with 5 days left before our next payday. For those of you who are wondering, N$35 is about USD$3.50. I managed to stretch that out to last almost three days before finally making a trip to the ATM to withdraw money from my personal account. I’ve definitely gained a greater appreciation towards the value of money. The other day, I was fortunate enough to find N$5 on my bedroom floor. I never thought I’d be so ecstatic to find something that is only worth about 50 cents!

- Language class is going…ok, I guess. I’m beginning to realize that Oshindonga is a very difficult language to learn, and may take a long time for me to reach a slightly competent level. There are just so many rules regarding prefixes, suffixes, then there are numerical suffix, then there are other tenses like present defective and present habitual which have different rules and its all just very confusing. I still do enjoy classes and I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it eventually. It’s just going to take A LOT of practice. My class is small and there are only three of us and we all seem to be on the same page, which is reassuring. Hopefully, we don’t all fail miserably in the upcoming test next weekend! 

Here is my Oshindonga class!

- I’ve also started working with my business partner who I will be helping out for the remainder of PST. My business partner is a welding/construction company. They make lots of products like cloth lines, steel gate doors, steel fences and basically anything with steel. The issues they are facing are mainly with marketing, bookkeeping and inventory management so hopefully I’ll be able to help out a bit for the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to seeing how a small business in Namibia operates.

- Yesterday was the cross-cultural cooking and culture exhibition day. The day was very amusing to say the least. A lot of us made an attempt to dress up in the native clothing of the region where we will be living. Since I will be heading to Ovamboland, I got a traditional Ovambo shirt, as well as the other guys heading out to that region. We definitely had the looks of a Namibian boy band.
 

 Ovamboys!!                                                                        

 

Me and my awesome host mom

One of the biggest events of the day was the slaughtering of some of the animals! A lot of us decided to toughen up and decapitate some chickens. I felt very uneasy about it at first and didn’t really want to do it. However, I realized that this is something that I may end up doing eventually because it is a big part of the Namibian culture, so I thought I may as well get used to it now rather than at an unfamiliar environment. Sorry chickenz! And sorry if this photo offends anyone.

 

Another volunteer slaughtered a goat, which I didn’t watch because that is something I definitely didn’t fancy seeing. I did see them skinning the poor thing and the whole thing was quite surreal.

But animal massacres aside, it was a really fun day. All of the volunteers and host families were there and the food was great. I think the host families enjoyed seeing us all dressed up and we definitely appreciated everything that they have done for us so far.