1 more year!

 

Alas! I’ve lasted in this country for one year! Last week marked the anniversary of my arrival in Namibia. Time has truly flown by. I have been very busy as of late with many projects coming up. Some projects are trying to run smoothly. Others are trying to get started. Overall, I’m predicting a far more successful second year to my Peace Corps service since I feel like I have really settled down in this country. I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to my life here and few things phase me here like they used to. This includes things like goats and cattle blocking my bike path to work, the unfriendly greeting from the lady I buy fish from everyday, the long and awkward handshakes, old men wearing leather jackets and leather hats, public urination, drivers never slowing down, pedestrians never speeding up and the never-ending near death scenarios between drivers and pedestrians. These are just a few of the quirks that I will surely miss when I leave the country in 14 months.

Besides my recent 1 year in country anniversary, I have a few things lined up for me over the next couple of months. The Chili Farming project that I have mentioned a few times in previous blog posts will finally get its funding from the US Ambassador’s Self-Help grant. I just need to help the project members write a budget for the equipment needed and then we are making progress!

The site of the chili project

Small sample of chilis

Another one of my projects is a Solar Schools Project. I will help coordinate the delivery of donated solar lamps to schools across the northern regions of Namibia. Many rural households in Namibia live of the electric grid and many children are unable to perform their studies once it gets dark. The aim of this project is to provide learners with access to small, solar powered products so they have light to perform their studies. Once selected schools gets these lights, a “Solar Library” will be implemented where kids can rent these lights for a duration of time. A curriculum based on Solar Energy will also be taught at the schools so learners can learn more about the benefits of renewable energy.

Sun King Ecos that will be going to the schools

Finally, I will be doing the Diversity Tour next month. This was mentioned in my last blog post, but basically, it’s a week long trip with vulnerable and marginalized children form rural areas that have not seen much of their country before. Should be special. 

Here’s to another successful year in this country!

Many Miles Traveled Milestone

 

Last week, I traveled to the remote region of Omaheke. While I was venturing to the least populated region in Namibia, I realized that I was about to achieve something pretty cool. I have been to every region in this country! Namibia has 13 regions (well, 14 now since Kavango got split into Kavango East and Kavango West). This may not sound like a brilliant triumph but I don’t think volunteers get the chance to achieve such a feat during their two years service. All the regions are very spread out and some are completely out of the way for some volunteers. Yet, I feel quite accomplished when I say that I have been to every region within the first year of my service.

I've been there!

I’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to explore this diverse and one of a kind country. With that said, I wanted to tell you all about my plans for this August where I will be helping out with the 2014 Diversity Tour Namibia. This is a Peace Corps project and is a week-long education tour working to give vulnerable and marginalized children the opportunity to explore the country. Most of the kids who will be going on this tour haven’t seen much of the country. A few of haven’t even left their villages before! The aim of the tour is to give these kids the opportunity to see parts of the Namibia which they may never get the chance to see again while developing leadership skills and a passion for learning. Daily educational sessions will take place on the tour and will focus on leadership skills, entrepreneurship and HIV/AIDS awareness.

Up to 38 Namibian kids from each region, ages 12-16, will be going on this tour. We will be traveling to Otjiwarongo, Waterberg Plateau, Swakopmund and Windhoek. Most of these kids want to see the ocean for the first time so our stop at Swakopmund should be something special. The tour will be from August 18^th to the 25^th. It should be a great experience for everyone involved and I’ll keep y’all posted on how it goes.

One more thing, back in November, I applied for a grant to start a Chili Farming project at the Uukolonkadhi Conservancy. On Monday, I got a call saying that the project will get funding! It’s quite a lot of money too so hopefully it all works out. Again, I’ll let you what happens next.

Enjoy some photos from the many regions of Namibia!

Site of where the Chili Farm will take place (Omusati Region)

Ruacana Falls (I swear it's more impressive during the right season) on the Kunene River

The kid and I (Oshikoto Region)

The dunes near Swakopmund (Erongo Region)

The location outside Windhoek (Khomas Region)

Double Rainbow in the Oshana Region

My home for a week in Katima (Zambezi Region)

I swear I've been to all the region even though I don't have photographic evidence of it all. But I have. Trust me.

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.