Procrastination on paper writing

Duluth: Sunny snowfalls and radio waves

Delicate December: new winning song in my books
Loveliest Radio
Currently listening to the radio program that a friend of mine does here in Duluth, DJ Wonderland on KUMD, sitting at the kitchen table of the house I grew up in. The winter sun is shining softly through the window and snowflakes are sparkling in the air. Nothing like a sunny Sunday snowfall. Can barely see the lake due to a light fog settling upon Duluth.

Home Away from Home
Minneapolis feels so far away right now, even thought it's only a three-hour drive (supposedly, I beg to argue this fact after my travels on Friday). After having spent the weekend away from school, Mpls friends, and the busyness that encompasses the Twin Cities, I gain a new respect for this "great white north". Duluth is a treasure in its own right, even if it is colder than one might appreciate, it has a beauty that I forget to appreciate at times. Driving into town on Friday night with the trees heavy with snow, houses full of Christmas trees and lights, everything felt just about right. Seth picked me up at UMD with his girlfriend and brought me home to my parents' house (where Seth currently lives). Despite getting into town 5 hours later than I had expected, I was just happy to get here.

Radio is now playing one of my absolutely favorite songs, River (Indigo Girls).

Skiing, Hockey, Foods and Friends
Saturday morning I went x-country skiing for the first time this season with Seth and Kara and a few of their friends. I seem to always forget the subtle pain that comes with the first ski, the aches on the particular appendages of your body that you either over-worked, or happened to fall on (I fell twice, once on an uphill, once on a slick downhill attempting to avoid a tree). Pictures of this adventure sure to come soon.

Evening time means food and friends. Dinner at Haciendo del Sol
Enchiladas De Carne Two corn tortillas rolled around our special blend of ground round and spices, smothered with our special enchilada sauce and topped with two tasty melted cheeses.
Mmmmm. That's all I have to say about that.

After dinner I went to a Bulldog hockey game vs. Denver @ the DECC, final hockey game at the DECC before they open the new arena right next door. Very cool to see the closing ceremony and see many of the former Bulldog players.
After hockey it was time to see friends, from near and far, some recent, some it's been a few years. We talked about life, school, the usual weather, the KGB, personality types, childish vs. childlike-ness, Katy Perry (apparently not as popular in Turkmenistan as here...), and of course, knitting. Cannot forget knitting.

Also, went to my first gay bar-not taking into consideration the bar my family accidentally went into in England on my brother's birthday, when we were just looking for a place to eat dinner- the Flame in Superior, very interesting, enjoyable place to dance when the DJ is doing his thing correctly. Ended the night by talking with a friend of mine til 4:30am, who has been abroad in Peace Corps. I love how friendships surpass national boarders, continents, and timezones.

Still jiving to Radio Wonderland, something that has finally given me the inspiration to write...first time in awhile as you can see. Hopefully my winter break will bring my writing itch back.

The weather outside is frightful..

Missin Namibia

I left my heart on the east coast

Surprise trip to Boston for my friend Chris' Birthday

OK Go Concert with my friends Chris and Becky

The backs of their shirts lit up!!


Dinner with Daniel (former classmate from Budapest): best Japanese food I've ever had!


Hobbit feet


Olin College Campus

Downtown Boston
Crossing the Charles after my tour of Northeastern University School of Law

The big 2-1

Namibia offered me with the best birthday weekend of my life.

On Friday I woke up to a text from a coworker, wishing me a happy birthday. Just half an hour later, one of my roommates who had been getting ready for her day burst back into the room and looked at me and said "happy birthday!!"

I went into work on Friday and my coworkers threw for me a birthday party with cake, cookies, and cool drinks, or as we would call in Minnesota, pop. More than half of the office came out and celebrated with me. It was a birthday/going-away party for me, as today, the 27th, is my last day at my internship. (More on that later) I was on a sugar high for the rest of the afternoon after all of that cake!
My housemates and I all went out to dinner at the Namibian Institute of Culinary Education, or NICE. The food was delicious, salmon with cream cheese and ravioli with tomato sauce and cheese,along with a little vegitarian quiche as an amuse-bouche. For desert my friend Hayley secretely ordered two little cakes for the intern and I (who share a birthday). Photos to come, i promise!

After dinner we all headed to a bar where one of the interns' friends was holding a going away party. We hung out for a bit, me not drinking (until 12:01) , talking with some people I knew and some I didn't.

To top off the evening we decided to go to one of the clubs in Windhoek called La Di Das. We all danced the night away until at least 3:00am, some later, with all sorts of music (not great music but we take what we can get right?) Many of us had some 12-15 Namibian boys trying to dance with us, to which we attempted to politely decline. One of the guys in our group had the opportunity to dance with the Namibian guys. Getting home at around 3:30am, I was exhausted!

On Saturday I went hiking on a hill that overlooks Windhoek, and on Sunday we all had a big "family dinner" at the house, everyone helping to make Mac & Cheese, Sushi, 7-Layer Dip, and Vegan Chocoalte cake/ cupcakes. Needless to say, most of us overate. We then raided our interns' closet, dressing up in some pretty fantastic outfits. A good party and a great end to a birthday weekend.

Avis Dam and Ovitoto

It's hard to write when everything going on around you just fills your brain and it's so interesting that you don't even know where to start. Weekend continued to be good after the party; finished writing a paper about how Africa is both represented in and impacted by Western Media.
On Sunday we took a break from studying and schoolwork and went out to one of the most gorgeous places I have been in my life, Avis Dam

This dam is a bit outside of the city and a river flows into it during the rainy season, but it doesn't rain much here so I doubt it gets that deep. We walked around the entire dam, one of my friends carrying the son of another of our classmates (he's almost 3 years old) around the whole thing. Took us 1.5 hours or so total.I think I may have just found paradise. Just to let you know, it's in Namibia.

Today was our 2nd-to-last actual day of class and we had a road trip, 1.5 hours drive west of Windhoek to Otjozondjupa region, to the Ovitoto Conservancy as we have been studying sustainable development. It's mostly hills, semi-arid climate, some bushes and grasslands.
We did a tour of the Ovitoto town, where in 1904 the colonizing Germans conducted a genocide upon the Herero people, a tribe that was wiped out and is now a minority within Namibia.

There was a school in this town, 400+ kids attend it.. many of the kids were walking to or from school, they almost all waved and many said hello. There are very few white people in that part of the country, most of them are German. The sense in the town is that they still very much remember the genocide, and one of the men we talked to said "don't worry don't worry, we know it wasn't you. it was your great grandparents..." A sense of blame upon all whites was felt at that particular moment, but it's certainly not held against any visitors.
The conservancy is ever-searching for new ways to bring in tourists from the outside, because this bring in money into the community.
Many of the people that live there breed cattle to sustain their livelihoods. Cows, bulls, goats, and sheep wander freely around this whole town. Pretty cool site to see.
It seems that some of the area had some kind of plumbing, but not much. They have a well and a pump where they get most of their water, you can see this in the picture below. Very few bathrooms as well in the town.



After meeting with the Counselman of the whole area who told us it was not a mistake that we came to meet with him, as any outsider needs to get permission of the counselman before visiting, we met with the head of the Conservancy.
It was a long day, but our driver did a great job in getting us home safely in the dark. A view of our gorgeous drive. More soon. MCS

Windhoeked

Only one and a half weeks left of actual classes, where has this summer gone??
Since we've been back from Swakopmund, I have been struck by two colds,which zapped a lot of my energy and willingness to write.. or run..
My internship has been going relatively well, I haven't always had a lot to work on but I have had the opportunity to edit some very interesting documents, such as the Universal Periodic Review report submitted on behalf of Namibia, and a few legal documents sent to the High Court of Namibia. Only one full week at my internship left!

This Tuesday we are going to visit a conservancy about two hours drive outside of Windhoek, I am excited to be on the road again!

Went to a party in one of the mostly white neighborhoods outside of Windhoek, in the nicest house I have been in in quite some time. Met quite a few people there, danced to a lot of music, and really enjoyed it being summer time (despite the paper I have to work on this weekend!)

A group of students/teachers/profs arrived from the US funded by Fullbright. They are doing a travel seminar so are traveling around Namibia for the next few weeks, and staying here for the next couple of days.

Off to watch Lion King!

Swakopmund

The city on the coast. The warm part of Namibia in this mild winter. And warm it was indeed.
I guess I'll start at the very beginning.

The Drive:
The drive to Swakop takes about four hours in our 12 passenger van, and we were all very ready to leave last Wednesday. Ready for the ocean and the dunes and the more humid air (Windhoek is extremely dry). On our drive we saw baboons, an ostrich (way off in the distance), and springbok, a deer like animal. I felt as though we were just jumping through different parts of the world as we started off in a rather hilly area which surrounds Windhoek, and then hit the grasslands. You can see for miles there. Then we hit the desert. Very few plants, except for tumbleweeds and little bits sprouting up here and there.
Once we got to Swakop, I was in heaven. Dunes on one side of me, Atlantic Ocean on the other.
I had my first oryx meat on our first night (google oryx.. pretty cool looking animal). I also have been enjoying the local brews here, but the Windhoek lager is my favorite.

Day 1: Gobabeb, Lagoon, and Export Processing Zone & Dune 7!!

Our first day was spent visiting Gobabeb, an environmental research center located about two hours from pretty much everything. The center is used to study climate change and environmental changes on the Namib desert (fact: the oldest desert in the world). Gobabeb is run by Namibians, but is home to a few interns and many international researchers.This is Ollie, the almost three-year-old on our trip, and Passat, our driver who is from Swakop

It is an amazing center for environmental research, and is run mostly on solar energy. When were at Gobabeb the winds were coming from the east across the desert, so very strong and very warm... as you can see the wind blowing off the top of the dunes.

After our picknick lunch at Gobabeb we meandered back to Walvis Bay, the town just 20k or so away from Swakopmund... Walvis Bay is more the industrial city, whereas Swakopmund is more tourist focused. We all ran around on the lagoon and had our first experiences in this side of the Atlantic Ocean... chasing away the flamingos!

After seriously dirty-ing ourselves in the sand and muck of the lagoon, we visited the Export Processing Zone (or free trade zone). We visited a factory that makes parts for many car companies. We saw many of the positives and negatives of this kind of economic zone (ask me if you wanna hear more.

Around 4 in the afternoon we headed towards the dunes, to climb Dune 7, the sand dune located 7km away from Swakop. I don't have pictures of this amazing experience yet since I took a kodak non-digital camera with me, as the sand will ruin most digitals. I felt as though I was in a dream, looking out over Namibia from the top of a hundred-something foot sand dune.

Day 2: Rossing Uranium Mine & Tour of Informal settlements (including meeting with a traditional leader)

I felt like a very small child in a very very big sandbox. The mine was about 400m deep at its deepest point, and is constantly expanding. We learned about the process is takes to make Uranium (unenriched). The factory area was HUGE! The wheels of the trucks used to carry from the mine to the factory were bigger than ME.

We visited a center that was originally set up by an American to help support motivated kids in Mondesa (a township outside of Swakop) reach their full potential. It is now run almost entirely by Namibians, and gives about 120 kids grades 4-10 the opportunity to read books, learn to play musical instruments, play sports like tennis, and have lunch after leaving school (schools end around 1pm here, start at 7 generally).
We also had a tour of the informal settlements, which included meeting with a Darama tribal leader in her home, a 70-something year old lady with many grandchildren, who acts as a representative of the Darama peoples in Namibia. This was one of the most interesting experiences I have had in my life. We then went to visit a remedial school where kids are sent if they are not in the correct grade or if there are no rooms in schools (or if they cannot pay for school fees/uniforms). Inside of this school is also where you can buy tokens for the local water pump, so many kids and their parents were hanging around.

Day 3: Free Day
Our final full day in Swakop was left for us to do our own biding. I ran along the beach with Kristen, the CGE Intern, enjoying the waves crashing just a few meters away from us, smelling the sweet salty air. We all went into town and looked at some shops, ate some fish, and sat on the beach. I swam in the Atlantic and convinced a young Namibian girl to come swim with me. She asked me if I could "learn her how to swim". She was adorable, and we ran around chasing waves. As a group, many of my classmates and I did yoga on the beach, instructed by our professor.
We topped off this productive yet busy day with eating sushi (pretty sure i had 22 pieces....)

Day 4: Last day-swimming-ride home (giraffes!)
On our last day in Swakop Kristen and I went running again, and I took one last dip into the frigid Atlantic before packing our stuff up and climbing back into the van. It was sad to leave the sunshine and the fresh air, but I was exhausted from vacation. The coolest part of our ride home was seeing giraffes along the side of the road eating off of trees.

Atypical Friday

While I am certainly not going in the correct order in writing these blogs, I'm going to talk a bit about my adventures yesterday (Friday).. and then eventually about my homestay experience.

I went to work at my internship at 8am and worked on calculating some data for the annual human rights report that will be coming out in a few months-- this report is sent to the UN and other organizations as a shadow report. I also went to water the garden, which I have been doing on a daily basis, in hopes that it start growing some more plants (seeds may be required however).

Aside from working a newsletter to be printed in a few weeks, I am also progressively working on a photo project so that the office can have some pictures from Namibia (both landscapes and people) on the walls.

The reason for this blog is that I decided to go take pictures, and a friend of mine has her friend visiting form the states, so they invited me to go outside of Windhoek to see the terrain... We drove in a big 4x4 for about half an hour, partly on paved roads, partly on gravel.

The land is hilly and mountainous, lots of rock and cacti, some other small trees. The wildlife that we saw included 1 donkey, about 8 coys, 1 deer-looking animal, and wasps as large as my pinky finger.

We went to a vacated house which was covered in graffiti and remnants of past visitors, but still gorgeous. We sat on the "porch", really a cement slab, ate our sandwiches, fruit, drank our Windhoek Lagers and peach ice tea, and soaked up the sun.

The house was likely a white farmer's house, judging by the size, location, and architecture. I have never seen a house so empty, broken, or beautiful.

All of the windows were gone, along with the doors, and all furniture.

Stable enough to walk around in, but not enough that you'd want to be there for a long time. After two hours of exchanging stories of learning to ski in the alps (my new Namibian friend) with his florescent colored spandex and foot-long dreads, or about the pornographic writings on the walls of this house, we all climbed back into the car and into reality.

The whole CGE spent our evening at Cafe Sol watching the Spain-Chile football match.

My time in Namibia is already going far too quickly, I have almost been here a MONTH.

4 cups of tea

I have come to find throughout my life that at every age, I have had a travel comforter: a stuffed animal, a cd player, a lucky hat. One thing has remained constant... no matter what country, what trip, what language they speak that I don't. The global drink. It may be reminiscent of former British colonial rule, spreading east-asian culture throughout the world, but it's calming. Tea.

I don't remember the first time I had tea, but on our family trips it's always been present. Trekking through wind and snow in the Himalayan mountains, looking hopefully into the white distance for a little house, some warmth, a place where I could sit by a fire, rewarm my feet, and drink tea.

Exploring Istanbul, smoking hooka and eating kabaabs, drinking the sweet tea in tall glass cups.

Sitting in my kitchen in Windhoek working on my assignments for my development class, talking to my classmates and swapping stories about our lives and plans for this "winter".

When I get home I probably won't drink tea, at least not 4 times a day like here. But I'm okay with that. It's my travel comforter.

Africa World Cup

Last night I watched part of the 2010 World Cup Concert, I felt very connected to all those around the world watching it in celebration with me.
Today is the opening match; when South Africa scored their first goal, I could hear the sounds of car horns and plastic horns.. one of my co-workers ran into our room, basically jumping up and down. Even though none of these people are South African, the excitement of this event is not lessened by any means.

Homestay!

Heading off to start my 10-day long homestay with a Namibian family this evening and I am very excited. The family speaks English and Afrikaans, and doesn't live too far away from the Center. They have a daughter, 8 years old, and a cousin who is 19 who apparently lives with them. I don't know any more about them than that, but I am very excited.

I won't have access to my internet/blog for for the next week and a half, so if you need to contact me, I will have my cell phone on me (emergencies only please!), and the Center will also know how to contact me.

Just a picture of me in front of my internship building

Fat Cake

A Fat Cake a Day Keeps the Skinny Away

Just a note, this is from a blog of a woman who used to live and teach in Namibia, not my own writing:

"The problem of my losing weight has been solved.FAT CAKES! Fat cakes are a Namibian staple - they are simply balls of fried dough, about the size of a small fist. A few ladies come to the school every day at break time and sell them for 50 cents (Namibian). (USD$0.0625) At first I was walking back to my house and grabbing a piece of bread with peanut butter for a snack. But then I realized not only was I being anti-social, but I was also not supporting my local vendor. So to the fat cake woman I went. They're kinda greasy, but all in all pretty good. I started out buying a couple things because this particular lady had small cakes. So I'd get a fat cake and a sweat bread sort of thing. Then a different lady started showing up, with nice big fatties. So one was plenty.

But a funny thing happened yesterday, the lady said, "I bought for you one,so take two." Wow, ok, thanks! So I had two. But man, that's just one too many. So I resolved to only have one from then on. Today though, she said it again! I politely said no thank you. Later it dawned on me, she WANTS to fatten me up! See, skinny is a sign of being sick (HIV/AIDS) here. So this lovely girl simply wants to give me a little plump. I think, however,that one fat cake a day will work just fine. I'm feeling plumper already."
A blog from a woman who used to live in Namibia. I tried fat cake on my first day in Namibia, last Monday, and have been craving it ever since!!

First day on the job

Successfully completed my first full day of work at my internship, which is at a human rights organization. I was asked to help out with a training, which is a three month-long training to help teach Namibians about their country, their civil rights, and what they can do to help promote human rights.

They had to take an aptitude test (multiple choice) to determine how much they knew about politics and government, most of the questions asked who were the heads of different parts of the government, political parties, UN High Commissioner, and important dates in their history. I have been in the country for a week and I already felt I could answer a few, but would have failed miserably if they had graded my test.

I talked to one of the participants of the training who is studying bio-med and wants to go to the US on scholarship- it turned into a very interesting conversation.

I spent much of my day talking with members of the organization about various topics: from Michael Jackson to gay marriage, imperialism and the colonialist era to Namibian weddings (which I was invited to attend!! I hope the offer pulls through!)

My friend W walked me home at the end of the evening which was very nice since the sun is already setting at 5pm!!

I also received a copy of the Namibian Constitution today.

Windhoeked

This week has gone by so quickly it's been difficult to process all of my emotions towards this whole trip and all of the events I have already encountered. This weekend I spent much of my time with my fellow CGE-ers (Center for Global Education) exploring Windhoek and it's little nooks and crannies.

Today we went to the craft market, which is basically a large building with vendors (mostly women) selling handicrafts, jewelry, photography, and many more touristy things. I bought a few items, and found this wood-carved tortoise on our way out. I thought it was appropriate since I miss my tortoise Leo, but I don't think I'll be bringing this guy home with me.

Even though it is winter here, the temps are close to 75-80 every day during the daytime, so the pool in our backyard is nice to dip my feet into, even though it's too cold to swim in (maybe on a really hot day I'll be brave!!)
The sun rises here close to 7:00 (I've yet to get up that early so I can't give you a more exact time), and sets close to 5:45 pm. The temperature difference during the day and night impresses me, as some nights it's down to 40 degrees F.
We start our classes on Tuesday so I spent a few hours today soaking in the sun and reading by the pool; a good end to an amazing first week.
In Windhoek there are a couple parks for lounging, eating, studying- this one is called Zoo Park (there are no animals here, and I have not found any evidence of any animals ever having been there). The downtown area of the city is not too large but has many restaurants and bars (if you know where to find them). The main street is called Independence Avenue, which cuts north-south through downtown.
Though I enjoy walking down Independence Ave, my favourite streets so far are Robert Mugabe St, Fidel Castro St, Florence Nightingale St, and John Meinert St (which I live right off of). Most of the street names here of scientists, philosophers, Namibians, and other famous individuals (such as Gandhi and Beethoven).

Today we went to lunch at an Italian restaurant in downtown, which ended up being a restaurant where only white people eat. Though most of the people in the restaurant were not tourists, there was only one table that did not have whites sitting at it, which is a little strange where whites make up 200,000 of 1.8 million Namibians. I felt awkward sitting at a relatively nice restaurant being served by coloreds and blacks, while neither were represented as customers. I wonder if there will be similar encounters in the future.

"Before 500 years ago, Africa was a dark continent"

The days are starting to blur a little bit, but I'll try and piece them together.

This morning the whole group piled into our white micro bus and headed out to Penduka, a non-governmental development organisation working with women in Namibia. This organization (which resembled more of a little nature reserve) encourages and supports women throughout the country to take charge of their lives. We did our group bonding here. It is on the Goreangab dam,. There were over 400 species of birds there, and I saw a lot. A heron flew by as well.

I didn't take either of these photos, but just a look at what Penduka looks like.

After our wonderful group bonding and ice breaker sessions, we headed back into Windhoek and did a couple of museum tours. We did a tour of the Nat'l history museum , where we had a tour guide give us some interesting interpretations of history, including the titled quote of this blog entry. Overall a long but very stimulating day.