And...I'm off!

This is my last blog entry, I am now officially a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer as of March 20^th, 2013. It's been an incredible journey, full of the expected ups and downs, some months more downs than ups. I can’t describe the feeling of saying goodbye to people that have become like family the last two years here. The going away party thrown by my center was so fun. There were lots of traditional singing, dancing and speeches made. You know it’s an important event when there is macaroni. Namibians for some reason love putting LOTS of mayo and ketchup with their macaroni. I know I have lived here for so long when I not only think this is delicious (carbs!), but that it is fancy. The macaroni combined with lots of cold soda made me feel like a big deal. To compliment the pasta was a smorgasbord board of meat; barbecued chicken gizzard, goat head, chicken feet, goat intestines and all the normal parts of an animal as well.

I realize that I am not only saying goodbye to wonderful people that welcomed me into their community but also to the lifestyle here. It is easier to describe the feeling of leaving my hut life rather than the people, that will be something I process for months to come. I am saying goodbye for it ever to be appropriate to dig a hole behind my hut and call it my bathroom. I am saying goodbye to all the interesting insects that build nests and come in through weird holes in my wall, goodbye to the mentality that every drop of water should be used efficiently, saying goodbye to my leaky thatch roof, the sound of roosters and goats every morning and my taco bed that I hate more than anything else.

Overall I say I am leaving just in time though, as my hut is sort of falling apart with the latest storm. I saw the biggest mamba snake I have seen yet slither out from under my bed last week and found the secret hole it came through. Plus I woke up to puddles on my floor this week due to the heavy rain. Time to go!

I want to thank you for sharing this experience with me, it was extremely therapeutic for me to write my emotions on here knowing that my friends and family were reading it back in RI and wherever. Tomorrow I fly off to Thailand, where I take a crazy five week trip with three best friends. I will see you all in May though!! Looking forward to some cheerios and cold milk every.single.morning!

the morning I left Kayanga

The Beginning of Goodbyes

The goodbyes have finally begun. This Sunday was my very last full weekend in the village, meaning my very last church service. I wanted to say a few goodbye words to the community: to the ones that taught me the seemingly mind boggling dance steps and with whom I mumbled my way through two years worth of gospel Thimbukushu songs.

After the two hour service that ended with a group prayer, I went to the front of the church to say my prepared speech in Thimbukushu. At the end of the speech there was the expected cheering and clapping. What was completely unexpected is what came afterwards. The priest and his wife, my friend Getu, instructed me to stay at the front. My dear friend Pakela started singing a song that loosely translates to ‘carry on, we will never forget you’. After one verse a man in the back came in with a lively drum beat then within seconds the whole congregation stood up from the hand-made benches and perfectly started in on the second verse. I awkwardly stood there for 30 seconds until Astrid, a member of my Women’s Group, slowly came up from the back bench to give me the traditional Namibian hug. It starts with a handshake then goes into a double hug, once to the right then once to the left. This prompted others to follow her lead. Before I knew it the entire room was lined up to hug me, all while still singing and dancing.

It only took until the fourth hug before I just started crying. I normally become embarrassed when my emotions get the best of me and when I am crying while no one else is. At this time and place, however, I found my emotions 100% appropriate. While still standing at the front and after hugging close to 75 people, I was able to take in what was really happening. I brought into focus what my last two years had been. Through all the lonely and sometimes difficult times, it was a beautiful thing. The most beautiful thing I have been honored to be a part of. Once they closed the song and I wiped my tears, I wrapped it up with the traditional, ‘ALALALLA’ call of celebration. I have always been to shy to start this call. It has the most contagious effect and right away the rest of the women followed suit in perfect harmony of the painfully high pitched shriek, all powered by the tongue and impossible to not smile while performing.

I say this probably because it is still so fresh in my mind and I am still on a little high from it, but it was one of my most favorite life moments. I hope to always remember this feeling of love from the amazing people of Kayanga.

A Tall Tale

This past Thursday word spread like wild fire that a man in the next village over, 4 miles away, was killed by an elephant. Elephants are known as very peaceful animals their ginormous size granting them a proportionately sized heart. I find death confusing in the village, as it is sometimes not treated as a big deal. However, when I was just as shocked as everyone else, I knew it was a big deal.

Elephants are known to bury their victims. People say they feel remorse for their actions, even if it was in self defense. They use their feet and trunk to dig a hole, then cover the body with leaves and branches. This body was found just like that, with elephant foot prints all around it. I'm told that this violent act is viewed as unforgivable from the rest of the elephant's herd, kicking him/her out forever.

Traditional Mbukushu beliefs say that when someone is attacked by an elephant, it is because they were wrongfully accusing someone of something. Or it could mean that this person's wife is pregnant (if this seems confusing...I'm right there with ya.)

Elephants seem to be very ritualistic beings. When one of their herd members dies (by natural causes or by man), each member takes turns touching the trunk of the deceased. Last year there was a baby elephant killed by a 18-wheeler truck on the tar road about 25 miles away from Kayanga. With a twist of fate the driver lived, while the ellie laid dead in the middle of the road. People heard the commotion and came out with their axes and bags to get a chunk of the rare and delicious meat. Even with it being a baby elephant, there was plenty of meat to go around. The meat was divided so fast that the baby elephant's mother and herd did not have time to come out to touch trunks and get closure. People said that consequently, the mother went on a rampage across the road, refusing to be scared away. I normally don’t believe everything I hear here, people have nothing but time on their hands to retell tall tales, but I believe this one.

My friend, Selma, got some of that meat during that event and invited me over. While we sat around the open fire and spicing the meat she dramatically and enthusiastically re-told the story of how she strategically got some of the meat without an ax on her (I believe it was her charming convincing skills). It ended up being my 24^th birthday weekend meal. And it was the best meat I have ever had.

Back to South Africa

After Christmas spent in the village, the four of us that slept in huts made our way down to enjoy some time in a very developed city, Cape Town. It took 9 hours of hitch hiking plus a 20 hour bus ride, but finally we arrived. First stop? McDonald's! (Well ,real first stop—shower).

I didn’t think anything could top my 2012 New Years in Zanzibar, but sure enough Cape Town lived up to the hype. Eight of us all stayed in one room at the well-rated backpackers. It was almost all of my group that I entered the country with. As our time quickly dwindles down, this was a great opportunity to spend an ample amount of time together. Every other place in Southern Africa we have visited has always been a constant reminder that we are the group of foreigners and we stand out. Cape Town had so many ethnicities that there was barely any of that, it was incredibly refreshing. Also in Cape Town, for the first time in 2 years we went shopping, I felt like I was in America. On New Years Day one shop offered us complementary champagne. At another shop we became such immediate friends with the employee that we had a group hug after he rang up our items. He actually leered us into his shop by jumping up and down yelling, “Come stop in my shop! Come in my shop!” when we walked by.

Table Mountain (Cape Town, South Africa)

Arrow points to the only guy left in our group!

The whole week we were able to eat tons of different types of food-Ethiopian, Indian, some great street meat, and then of course...lots of McDonald’s. We all climbed Table Mountain as well. This was harder then expected considering none of us have climbed stairs to work our quads in the last two years (Namibia as a country just does not have stairs!). New Years Eve consisted of lots 
of dancing, dressing up like we were in America and toasting to the last 3 months of our service in Namibia. My New Years resolution last year was to empty my pee bucket more regularly (I did well on that one, until I eventually just burned the thing altogether). This year it is to be less forgetful, more responsible.

 

Christina needed her inhaler after vineyard #3

biking through the beautiful vineyards

After Cape Town we were able to take 3 extra days to visit Stellenbosch, wine country. It was great to be back in Stellenbosch, where I studied abroad 4 years ago, but I quickly learned that I was unable to recreate the memories that I had during my study abroad trip. So we made some new memories, like taking a wine tour...on bikes. Our friend, Janice, convinced us to do it. She is a triathlete and probably had not consumed as much McDonald’s as we had that week, so she led far ahead the whole way. It was so much fun. So much fun that 4 of us had to beg a taxi driver to take us and our bikes back to avoid the hills back to town.

As usual, I will recount my first impressions of returning from such a high class, crazy fun vacation back to the village life. I actually had a conversation the other day about returning back home after a long vacation with an American. In America you come home late from traveling, there are too many missed emails plus just none of the essentials in the fridge. For village life, however, it is common for my mice to start a collection of their poop...all over my sheets. There is dirt and straw everywhere due to wind blowing it through the cracks. The weeds have grown waist high in my bathing station because of all the rain. And lastly, I seem to have at least 3 more chickens in my flock then I left the vacation with. All this still doesn’t compare to the maggot infestation and termite infestation I came back to last year (two separate occasions, thank God).

Even with my complaining I will miss this life. My village and hut just have so much character! Happy 2013 Everyone!!

How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

My supervisor, the unofficial mayor of Kayanga, has been working on her shebeen (local bar and shop) for over a year now. When she announced that the grand opening would be Christmas Eve, people immediately starting saving their coins and fattening up their goats. Almost the whole village, plus lots of outsiders, attended the party.

Three other Peace Corps friends, from all over the country, came to join the celebration. Christmas Eve started with the slaughtering of multiple animals, all to sell at the shebeen that night. Then there was the unexpected python that came through the courtyard, that one brave soul bashed on the head. Pythons are actually not venomous but they are dangerous constrictors, I had the guy save me some skin to make bracelets. That night seemed to go by in a flash, all of a sudden it was 2 am and we had danced our way through Christmas! The highlight of the night for me was when my host father, Febian, got his hand on the microphone. This is the man that I lived with for 4 months, see every week and still he barely speaks to me. But put a few beers in him and he becomes the life of the party. He gets on the mic and starts rapping in a low voice, “Jackie, Kayanga. Jackie, Kayanga” over and over for about 3 minutes! I felt like a celebrity, and I danced along with everyone else to my own theme song.

Christmas day was spent with apples, sandwiches and not enough sunscreen at the Kavango River, with Angola a stone's throw away. The plan was to spice up our holiday and head over to Angola in a traditional canoe. However with the recent croc sightings plus the gun shot we heard, we decided to stay on the Nam side. For dinner, we collected some fire wood, fetched our water from the borehole, opened wine brought from town and started preparing our weird Christmas dinner. The meal consisted of beans and rice and for desert, Velveta Macaroni and Cheese (that Christina received from America!). We cooked over an open fire, ate from one communal pot, drank our wine from tin cans turned into cups, sat on carved out tree stumps, all under the sky full of stars that night. We agreed it was probably one of the weirder Christmases we will ever have.


Christmas dinner


the sheben, where the dancing didn't stop until past 5 am


Susana and her completed work!!


Trying to bring some Christmas spirit to the desert country

Activity at Thabita

After months of thinking that we are on the verge of really starting up our sewing project and getting closer to our goal of a sustainable center, I think we are finally there. Figures it happens in the very last stretch of my service. December has had lots of progress (most of it only noticeable to the members and myself.) I am now so grateful for our ceiling, our ten plug outlets, our windows and an overhead light in all 5 rooms. If we had a butt load of money we could have thrown it all towards private contractors and electricity install men. But we didn’t, so the process took 20 times longer doing it by hand. We hired outside work for some tricky parts we didn’t have proper tools for (ceilings turned out to be beyond the project's expertise). As a result of doing it all by hand, the building now has a very “homey” feel to it; the doors get really jammed, the cemented walls are very discolored and uneven but at least it is veryyyy spacious with not one piece of furniture to clutter the place up.

With all its imperfections I hope the members look at it with pride. Even when I walk by the windows I personally installed, I think 'those are nice windows'.

The other reason I feel confident saying we are on the verge of our breakthrough is due to the week long sewing workshop just held at the center. Previously, we would never have had a proper working space to accommodate ourselves, never mind visitors coming to spend the week. However, the whole week the 15 project members worked morning and afternoon to become adjusted to the machines, patterns and to start making clothes. Kyla and Geri, two fellow Peace Corps Volunteers from my region, were the expert trainers. They had to work with a huge language barrier, lots of different experience levels within the group, all while attempting to babysit the crying babies to let the mothers sew but succeeded like pros. In just 5 days the group collectively made 15 pin cushions, 15 draw string bags and 7 beautiful skirts! I was able to pick up some sewing skills and a ton of useful sewing language in Thimbukushu, at the end of the week Kyla and Geri helped this newbie make her own shirt.

Dongo even learned to sew!

Geri demonstrating to the group

Kyla and Geri with some of the members and their brand new, homemade skirts!

Midnight Dance Marathon

I recently attended what I consider an African Dance Marathon, and I regret to report that I could not keep up. The occasion was in honor of a mere 3 month old, the son of my friend and fellow kindergarten teacher, Justina, for his community “coming out” party. Months ago Justina asked me what the names were of the men in my family, I told her “Sean” and “Patrick”. She took a liking to Patrick, but failed to inform me until after the baby was born that her son now has my father's namesake. Therefore this 'coming out' became slightly more personal and attendance was required.

The afternoon of the party we made our way to the next village over to a church hut deep in the bush, far from a river, borehole or any other people . However, the large clearing was perfect for the dance circle. Apparently afternoon time was far too early, upon arrival I was informed the mother and baby would not arrive until 11 pm and the dancing would begin at midnight. So we waited around the fire and ate. The meal was a plate full of fried worms (dislike), cow stomach (dislike), warmed porridge drink with sugar (like) and fat cakes (like).

yummy worms

the drinks for the evening

Post cow stomach, things got even weirder.

We all gathered in a circle, the women wearing white and yellow and me wearing red and black, obviously I have no clue of the dress code. Tradition says women cover their hair and go barefoot once in the dance circle. I forgot a wrap and no one had an extra so my only option was the shower cap someone lent me...and then the dancing began. In a circle there were the men on one side, women on the other with the head leaders in the middle with candles and drums chanting and leading the songs and dance. They would start the twirling within the circle in a very rhythmic motion combined with noises I am not sure how to explain in writing. People from the circle joined in. I did not because everyone gawks at everything I do, plus I was wearing a weird shower cap. This chanting, singing and dancing went on for 10 straight hours. From about 2 am to 4 am I really got into it; it was dark, I was deliriously tired and thought what the hell—so I sang loud to Thimbukushu lyrics I didn't know and danced my face off. At around 4 am I crapped out and went to sleep in a random tent til sunrise. When I woke up with drums pounding next to my tent, the group was still dancing with as much gusto as when I went to bed.

so much dust from the dancing

While all of this was happening Justina and her baby were hidden in a hut next to the church. This event is not just the dancing and spiritual aspect to bring luck to the baby, it is also a huge money raiser. People put money in a collection bowl the whole night and morning, and the mother does not come out until there is enough to buy Patrick a cow. Owning a cow means you have something of worth, gives them an investment for the future. One cow costs 2,000 Namibian dollars, which takes a long time to accrue when people are putting in 5 dollar coins at a time. Therefore, her expected 7 am grand showing turned into 11 am. I was pisssssseeeed! At 11 am, once we reached the goal amount, she didn't just walk out, she was escorted out by a crew of singing women that were covering her with a beautiful cloth to bring her to the center of the circle. Once in the circle's center, still covered, people were asked to pay a dollar to peek under the cloth to see little baby Patrick. So an hour more singing and dancing while we all took peaks.

Just before I was going to call it a day and go home to sleep for 12 hours the baby was revealed, Simba style, just like on Pride Rock from 'The Lion King'. I was glad to experience such a traditional (and bizarre) event and like to think that it also shows the union community members feel towards each other, to dance for 10 straight hours to bring a baby luck..and if all goes well, a nice, fat cow.

Justina and Patrick

Let's Hope...

Every month I go into town to do my bulk food shopping trip. As I am waiting on the side of the road with my shopping bags and big backpack, someone tries to sell me a live chicken while the men from the bar across the street yell for the 'white girl' to come over. I end up waiting over three hours until a car stops that is going the 175 km to my village. No control over my transportation...

this is what hiking looks like....(my friend Peggy)

and what our rides usually turn out like...

After lasting through the night during an insane rain storm with the sheet covering my head to prevent raindrops running my face, due to an old grass roof, I wake up to find my bathing station ripped apart. The reed fence is becoming more and more sparse so any given person passing can't miss more of my white skin whenever I bath. No control over my hut's stability...

There were two memorials and two burials last week, so no one showed up to work at my center. I didn't go to work for four days in a row. No control when no one works for a paycheck.... 

Kayanga's sheben (with my mom!)

I go to the local sheeben (bar) with my friend Selma to relax and treat ourselves to a Saturday afternoon drink. There is a car full of men from town that had stopped. They all want to greet me and take individual photos with me. I spend 25 minutes with 12 pairs of eyes solely on me, so I leave, because after a year and a half it still makes me feel so uncomfortable. No control or chance of ever blending in...

While walking into my center's storage room, the cook yells something in Thimbukushu. I don’t understand and continue entering, I walk right into a bee's nest. (There was some sense of control over this but I didn't know the word for bees...)

I have four different people ask me, “kupi wa kuyenda Jackie?” (where are you going?) every time I make the walk to my pit latrine. No control over my personal space...

Every volunteer has to deal with the lack of control in our Namibian lives one way or another. Whether it be waiting for over an hour in an ATM line only to find that it, along with the entire town, has run out of money, or having to hitch hike 11 hours to get a cavity filled, we all are living it. Some volunteers handle it like pros. I, on the other hand, have monthly breakdowns.

My Namibian counterpart takes flexibility to a whole new level. I used to laugh at his ability to brush off any incident with his bizarre laugh, “the roof blew off? OK, we will fix it later”, “someone stole my phone but ah, life is just like that”. Recently I have more pent up anger to the time frame of my projects, and when he contributes with his overly laid back personality I unfairly take the anger out on him. The last two months I have had to shell out a lot more apologies than usual.

His motto in life is “Let's Hope”.

This phrase can apply to ANY situation he likes. If I try to set up a meeting time, and ask him if he is free at that time, “Let's hope”. When fixing my netting in the space around my hut cracks and I ask him if this will keep the snakes out, “Let's hope”. If I press him for more information, because I don't find that answer is satisfactory, he will follow it up with “if God will allow it”. He lives life so in the moment that he cannot predict if something else will come up.

Instead of trying to get to his level, which is know is impossible, I really try to think before I react to a situation. I ask myself “am I reacting to this in an American way?” When the answer is yes, I go take a walk to the river, go fetch water, go buy a cool drink, wherever, and talk to myself. I literally talk out loud to myself and pretend I am venting to someone that gets me. I look like the crazy, drunk guy that lives around here but it actually helps. It also saves my friends an earful from me, I know they are all going through the same cultural obstacles all over the country.

Also, I learned how to say “Let's Hope” in Thimbukushu so if he ever asks me anything I just glibly reply with “Na Kurupera”. It's liberating!

Let there be light!

October 2nd, 2012: Thabita OVC Center finally has electricity!

I thought it would take about 6 months, instead it took over 20...but its here!

Digging the looong line for the electricity wires. It is the 2nd time in Namibia that my vision got fuzzy and I thought I was going to pass out due to heat exhaustion. Also I got a big, big blister so I had to sit out under that tree in the right corner 

About half of the distance we had to cover to dig for the wires

but...after months and months of waiting we finally got our electric box in our sewing room!!!

Round 2

me babysitting while the mothers got a break to eat

Just completed the second round of the nutrition program dubbed HEARTH. Seven more mothers and seven more adorable little babies. Just as last time we conducted a cooking course of sorts, adding local ingredients rich in vitamins and proteins directly to porridge. Without  meaning to I chose all young mothers and consequently young babies (only one is over a year old). When walking around with my MUAC bands, a tool to measure the Mid Upper Arm Circumference to determine the baby's nutritional status, it was a whole lot easier than last time. Women already were well aware of the program from just conducting it once in the village, months earlier. I actually had women coming to my home instead of traveling to a whole bunch of homesteads. 

MUAC bands

This HEARTH was a little rougher than last time, mostly due to the lack of crops from Winter. Certain adjustments had to be made to the recipes, and the alternatives were not as yummy. The delicious mangoes will not grow for months, so it was replaced with cabbage. But little babies, 7 and 8 months, do not eat cabbage as readily as soft porridge with scrumptious pumpkin, which also will not grow until at least December. Another unexpected obstacle came with the yogurt. After Winter there is very little grass for the cows to eat, this significantly affects how much milk they can produce. When I requested milk from my host mother's crawl I didn’t even question the trouble we would go though to get it. I went over there at 5:30 am to meet her and my host brothers. My only job was to hold the bucket while my host brother did the milking. However, I had no idea that I would literally have to fight off the calf while doing so. (The calf is present when the mother is being milked because if not she does not cooperative.) But this calf was pissed off at me for stealing the little milk her mother produces. We had about 2 cups full before the calf finally got broke through my weak arm barrier and knocked me FULL ON into the manure. I picked myself up, mortified, to find three people looking at me, their faces reading 'stupid white girl'...I not only lost out on the ingredient that would serve 7 babies that day but also the wasted effort left a calf hungry for the day. They had a second cow we could try. When watching my replacement, host brother Praise, with the bucket holding/calf fighting I can see where I went wrong. Praise (age 11) was literally punching the calf in the nose and grabbing his legs to knock him over every time he ventured near the utters of the cow. Of course I couldn’t do that! I am flattered that they considered me 'village enough' to give me that job in the first place. Praise was able to get just enough milk from the second cow. After we picked out all the little hairs and heated it, it was ready to add in the active bacteria cultures. This is always the favorite recipe of the bunch for the babies. 

Just like last time, there was a baby that stood out above all the rest. He was the oldest of the bunch, at only 1 year and 1 month. The first 3-4 days he would come and scream the whole morning until the food was ready to eat. He had just recently moved in with his aunt, his mother is a known drunk in the community. Combine that with being HIV + and 5 months pregnant, everyday this baby was crying out of hunger from lack of food and breast milk. Drunk mothers, like this one, have been known to slip their baby some of their traditional beer, to stop them from crying. And it works, it does stop the crying. Luckily this mother did abide to her medication while pregnant/during the first few months of breastfeeding to not transmit the virus to her baby. I liked this baby so much because he would just dive into the food, since he was old enough to feed himself (versus the others that were still so young). After he was fed a proper meal he would actually smile and interact with others. I am so impressed with his new young care giver, who was just thrown the responsibility of raising a toddler. She has been so motivated to learn the lessons and recipes we are trying to incorporate into their lifestyle.

With the last HEARTH I was just happy that all the women showed up everyday and the encouraging response I had to the program. But with this group I was a lot more strict, really encouraging them to adjust their child's eating habits as well as the mother's habits to make for an overall more nourished upbringing. It does seem a bit hypocritical of me- to preach to these women about better practices for raising a baby when I have never actually had to care about anyone besides myself. Which is why I really try to have the village mother do most of the 'preaching'. For example, during the breastfeeding session I was mute almost the whole time. What did I have to add to that?? While each woman whipped out their breast and spoke warp speed in Thimbukushu about various breastfeeding problems I felt a little out of place, with my well secured under wire bra and lack of toddler grabbing at my chest. The results for this round showed that 6 of the 7 babies gained weight. The smallest weight gain being 0.2 kg and the biggest weight gain at 1.2 kg. 

the hammock my mom bought served as a napping place 

weighing

group shot

Lose of Sanity and Sanitation

When my wonderful family visited me last month they not only graced me with their presence (and much needed piece of home) but also stocked their suitcases with yummy, yummy treats. Per request, they flew with; maple syrup, mac n cheese, m&m's, tuna, cliff bars and pancake mix.

I love pancakes, more than any other food. In college my dad bought me a big skillet for my 21^st birthday, specifically for making pancakes.

Pancakes remind me of all my family coming back after church every Sunday and hanging in the kitchen while my dad made a huge batch; adding choc chips for me, apple for Christine and mom, and 6 servings of bacon for Sean. It reminds me of the nights in high school when Mom was distraught on what to cook us for dinner so every time we convinced her breakfast for dinner.

After my whole family left Namibia I grew slightly homesick. I am so far into my service (19 months, about to celebrate my second birthday!) and was just given a taste of all the love I left back home only to have it leave after a short 4,000 km trip. But at least I have the pancake mix, right?! My thoughts exactly. So this past week I, like a newbie to hut life, left it out uncovered in my kitchen hut after using it a few days before. Well...a sneaky mouse cleverly hopped in (without ever knocking it over) and left 4 'lil nuggets behind. I was in a serious dilemma. Do I throw out the whole package knowing the mouse was hopping around in the mixture? Or do I just scoop the poop and indulge in my coveted treat that symbolizes so much more than just pancakes?

After consulting my friend Tracy (and ignoring my friend Christina), I scooped the poop.

But that's not all!

I have really cute hangers for all my kitchen utensils (can opener, knife, spatula, strainer, vegetable peeler, etc) from bits of reeds that I cut short. So my spatula hangs off my reed wall and, due to lack of running water, sometimes does not get washed after every single use. Such was the case with the 'scoop the poop pancake mix'. I made my first pancake, and after I flipped my second I noticed ants scurrying all over my shirt. I look at my spatula and notice them everywhere. Food particles from the last use attracted the ants and I unknowingly fried a whole load of them into my precious pancakes. Still determined to eat them, I went ahead and picked out about 30 dead, fried ants out of them (and probably missed a good number more...)

When coated with Aunt Jemima they were as delicious as in America.

 

Whaaaa???

What is it that Americans believe to be good luck; finding a penny heads side up, discovering a 4 leafed clover among 3 leafed nobodies, and then the weird one about bird poo falling on your head. Here in Namibia, I had the pleasure of learning that a chicken laying an egg on your bed is a very, very good luck (specifically for a woman's fertility). To quote my friend Pakela, “chicken egg in your bed?! It means good luck for five years and soon a fetus in your belly!”

And it happened to me, TWICE!

The bold, lil' pecker sneaked into my hut, hopped on my bed and let nature take its course. The first time I only found the egg and was obviously extremely baffled. The second time I caught the chicken red handed and, as someone who has never birthed a baby or an egg, was understanding enough to not interrupt the process. I let her have her 15 minutes of peace while she lay her egg in the same spot I lay my head each night. It was surprisingly a very clean process.

A friend, Geri, that recently moved a village nearby along the same dirt road was visiting when we both discovered egg #1 and egg #2. Geri is also female, short and white so unfortunately having arrived a year after the first white girl means she gets called Jackie too often. I enjoy having a friend and fellow American close to me for many reasons. One of the top reasons is that this girl can cook! So we took the precious eggs that sat comfortably on my sleeping bag and whipped up an egg, tuna, cornflakes, onion mixture and fried them into patties. Pair it with some chutney sauce and it was an exact replica of McDonalds chicken nuggets with sweet n sour sauce.

(After 19 months without fast food this may not be as accurate as I am depicting but delicious nonetheless). I would say good luck traditions in Namibia are a lot more fun than in America, it was such a nice treat on a Tuesday afternoon.

Building My Resume

I can now add PC Construction worker; specialty in cementing floors, to my resume. This past week, the Thabita women and myself worked hard to complete our sewing building's floor. I say this with almost all elements in my Namibian life; travel, water, electricity, food, cleanliness, time, etc, but I will never take cement floors for granted again! That's probably not true. When I get back to the States, I will most likely never stop to admire how smooth the machines have made the floor or how nicely it meets the wall.

In all seriousness though, imagine cementing an entire building by hand. No machine mixers, no tools to lie it, and no overtime pay if it takes you from 8 am to 8 pm.

We began the preparation a while ago, by gathering the small stones, roughly half a truck bed full in total. Then we (not me, the men) dug a hole so deep that if I ever fell in I would never, ever be able to get out and consequently die of hunger. Since Namibia's landscape is sand, everywhere, we needed to dig for the nice deep sand with moisture. Once we received money for the cement bags, we combined the three. This is probably boring, about how to mix cement, but I had no idea how to do it. It took a few hours to mix it and make a looot of it. Then we had to fetch enough water to fill about 8 big, big trash bins of water.

So. Much. Fetching.

I sort of appointed myself the errand girl because I was useless with the mixing. While all the women did the prep work, three men were spreading the cement. It got real tricky towards the end when 9 people were in one room working, only able to step in the small space not cemented yet. I excused myself for a fake toilet run. I refused to be the girl to screw up days worth of work by tripping over a bucket to fall in the wet cement. At the end I tried to explain that we should put our hand prints in the corner before it all dried, just like my dad did with us when our garage was being made. The motive was lost in translation. That day the construction crew treated ourselves to a delicious meal. Nice meat, lots of porridge and the exciting splurge of cokes and fantas.

This means that our building, which was started last August, is one step closer to being done. We were also approved for the grant to install electricity, provide tin for the classroom roof, and new sewing machines to get this sewing party started. My hope is that by December we will be all done and stitching up the uniforms for the students to start the next term looking sharp.

Kalehari Ferrari

Lesson in African driving--ELEPHANTS ALWAYS HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY:

4,000 km from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to the Namibian sand dunes! Mom and Dad at the wheel, Helen in the back snappin' pics and me with the map giving us shotty directions. It was my first road trip and a serious, serious adventure. African road trips require driving only during daylight hours, because elephants and cattle are all too common up north. We saw so, so many animals that some of the reoccurring ones became no big deal. Mom was even quoted saying, “I'm taking a nap, don’t wake me for baboons or springboks”. What a Safari Snob, right?!



Kayanga Dinner

The trip started with a straight drive to my village, took more than a day but we made it in time to have dinner with my women's group. My parents and Aunt Helen mastered the culturally respectful Thimbukushu greetings and no-left hand rule, and we had a delicious and filling meal of porridge and chicken. Kids ran wild around the fire while my family stared in awe when Selma cooked the porridge; touching the boiling hot pot with bare hands and readjusting the firewood heat as if they were knobs on an oven. After the 4 of us sleeping in my one hut that night, we all went to my center where they helped teach, sing songs, dance and read to the 40+ kids that were there that day. Kayanga included trips to the river, the borehole and the garden to help plant more onion beds.

Helen and I in front of my kitchen hut (where dad knocked his head and bled for a day!)

After Kayanga, we headed straight to Botswana. Our only rip off of the trip came when a guy demanded 200 Namibian dollars to cross the border. We went to Chobe in Botswana, which has the largest concentration of elephants in the world and just about every other animal that appears in the Lion King. While in Botswana, we took a day trip to Zimbabwe to Victoria Falls, ya know, might as well check out one of the 7 Wonders of the World while in the area. We got soaked and ate our PB and J's overlooking the double rainbow at the falls, hard to believe but that wasn’t even our best lunch of the trip. My mom befriended a man named Tomato after he claimed to be the king of the the Zim/Zam border. Then that night we ate our dinner next to the river and listened to the pod of hippos right by our lodge.



rare sighting

After Zimbabwe and Botswana we returned to the Land of the Brave, Namibia. In Etosha, Namibia's famous game park, we got to see the highest form of Survival of the Fittest, where the animals who have managed to survive do so in such extreme desert conditions that a parade of 25 seven ton elephants becomes even more impressive. Check out this leap of leopards we spotted! That night at Etosha, the staff of our lodge surprised my dad with a birthday cake at dinner paired with a 10 minute serenade of traditional songs. The cake was so good that Mom was still talking about it a week later. We were able to share the cake with the entire dining room too and made some friends.



mom and I on the sand dunes!

This is getting long and I feel there is still so much left to say, sand dunes were one of the last big events, and quickly turned into my favorite event. Sandwhich Harbor is a remote, hard to get to spot where high sand dunes meet up with the Atlantic Ocean, it's incredible. But us Gannons, so flexible and just wingin' it, did not read the description in our travel book. So, we pack our credit cards and jackets for what we assume is a nice day out by the harbor where we can grab a nice lunch. It actually turned into one of the scariest things I have done, in life...and that includes bungee jumping off the highest bridge in the world. Bungee lasted maybe 3 minutes, but this was 5 hours in a 4x4 going straight up and straight down double black diamond sand dunes with an insane and fearless driver out in the middle of freakin NO WHERE. Our credit cards were clearly useless. Then Ernest, our crazy and old driver Earnest, suggested a walk in the dunes. Well that turned into 2 hours of walking up and down dunes so steep that you were climbing with all 4's without bending over because our hands were that close to the sand. At one point us Gannon's got separated from the other 4 people in the group. It was so, so fun though. Oh and the best part was Earnest packed a gourmet lunch, set out chairs, table, silver wear and plates with a 3 course meal plus dessert. We were the only people for miles and miles and milesssss out in the middle of the desert. THAT was the best lunch.



The only hiccup of the trip came when trying to make it to our next destination. We busted the car's oil pan. Hard to properly convey here, but someone was looking out for us on that ride because we barely made it to the only gas station in a 300 km stretch of dirt road without losing all the car's oil. Mechanic suggested we stay overnight, so we checked ourselves into the gas station/bar/lodge and came to terms with having to miss our last big adventure (which was actually just more sand dunes, but really famous ones). But that extra time gave us the opportunity to meet my first family in Namibia—the ones back from over a year ago at my training.

SOME MORE CAPTURES OF THE TRIP:



 

celebrating after we found clues of human contact in the desert