Coming to a Close

It has been a while since my last post, and there are many things I should have written about.  I hope to backtrack some in the future to write about the different events that occurred in my last months here in Namibia.  I also need to update on my awesome road trip - aka Road Experiment - around Namibia during the last school holiday.  I saw so much of this beautiful country and had a great time!

But for now, I will announce that my time in Namibia is coming to an end.  I will only be teaching for another two weeks before I say my final goodbyes in Tses.  Then I will be traveling to Windhoek to complete the final paperwork for Peace Corps before I officially COS (close of service) on 18 Oct.  I will then stay a few more days in the capital before flying to London, taking a train to Scotland, and finally traveling around Ireland before flying home on 11 Nov.  These are my plans for now at least, but I still need to finalize them and buy my tickets!

My time here in Namibia has been amazing.  There have been many up's and down's, as there always is in life, but overall I would say I've enjoyed my time here and have been happy.  I have made amazing friends that I know will always stay in my life.

Zanzibar Continued

Once we arrived in Dar es Salaam, we took a taxi to our hotel.  Since we were a day late for our reservation, I was a little worried they might not have our room, or would make us pay for the previous night, but the owner was super nice!  I definitely recommend staying at Jambo Inn on Libya Street.

The hotel has a restaurant downstairs where we ate that first night.  It was delicious!  Such variety on the menu.  I had Indian food - don't remember which dish though.  But I do remember the watermelon juice.  I could not get enough!  We had dinner with our friend Muhammed whom we met on the train and his friend who lives in Dar.  After dinner they took us to a restaurant/bar and we had some drinks there.  It was empty except us, but it was a nice low-key night after so much traveling!

The next day we woke up and started exploring the city.  We had a limited time because we were scheduled to catch the 3:30pm ferry to Zanzibar.  The city is full of people.  It's mostly a Muslim country and many of the women wear the head scarves.  The different materials are so beautiful.  We looked at some shops and I bought a pair of earrings.  I also enjoyed a lot of different street food, such as kabobs, fried bananas, sugar cane juice, pastries/donuts.  They were all very tasty and inexpensive.

The lady that makes jewelry including the earrings I bought.

Sugar Cane Juice - YUM!

 That afternoon we took the ferry over to Zanzibar.  It's about a two hour ferry ride, and was a very nice ride.  The wind blowing, the sound of the water...reminded me how much I really love being around water!  We stood outside the whole time and enjoyed the fresh air.  We arrived in Stone Town and had to go through immigration again.  And we had to show that we had a yellow fever vaccination.  Glad PC keeps us updated on all our vaccines!

We arrived in Stone Town late, so we stayed at the hotel that night.  Our hotel had a great roof top terrace where we relaxed.  The next day we went on a Spice Tour and a tour of the Jozani Natural Forest Reserve. We had a driver and tour guide just to ourselves, and it really made the day special.  

The tree above is located in the area of the Red Colobus Monkey (pictured below).  It is dead now because the monkeys eat all the leaves which eventually kills the tree.  But it really looks beautiful to me.

These monkeys are not scared of humans - but I was a little scared of them.  They are relatively small creatures, and seem to be harmless.  They are not afraid of humans at all and jumped in front of us multiple times to get to new leaves to eat.  The thing that scared me a little was seeing their teeth - they looked very sharp and when they screeched and bared their teeth - I was ready to keep my distance!  But it was great to see animals up so close.  We also took a tour of the Mangrove Swamp.  Such an interesting place!  When the tide comes and goes, this area's water rises as well.  The tree roots are all over the place!  This area helps with flooding of the main land, keeping the water from flowing too fast to do damage.

Below is a seed of the trees.  We were able to plant it just by dropping this seed into the mud below.  It sticks into the mud and then starts growing in the trees.  I wonder how many survive to adulthood since there area a lot of little saplings.

After our tour of the forest and swamp, we enjoyed a delicious meal before starting our Spice Tour.  The Spice Farm we visited is just for tours and has many different plants to show the variety of spices that are produced on the island.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and a very good guide.  His assistant would go ahead of us to gather leaves and such.  He would climb up the trees with such ease.

Our tour guide with a piece of star fruit on his forehead.

They gave us leaves made into cones where we were able to place the leaves and roots of the different spices.  We saw turmeric, lemon grass, cinnamon, nutmeg, among others.

This plant is called Touch-Me-Not.  The leaves close up when you touch them.  It was very entertaining - I don't think we left until we had touched all the leaves!

They made us many things from leaves including these glasses, a frog necklace, a ring and bracelet.  We also were given crowns and a hand-basket.  They made us feel like Queens!

This is nutmeg.

There is also a plant that is used as a natural lipstick.  

This guy climbs all the way to the top of the trees to get the coconuts.  He was very entertaining singing and playing as he climbed up.  He used a special "rope" around his feet to help him climb.

And afterwards, we got to enjoy some coconut juice/water.

The Spice Queen in front of the Indian Ocean.

Before the tour was over, we made a stop at an old Persian Bath.

Then we went to the open market back in Stone Town to enjoy street food for our dinner.  They had such variety including all types of seafood.  You picked what you wanted and they heated it up before serving it to you.  We had more sugar cane juice as well.  

Wanting to eat with us were many, many cats.  They were all over the city!

They also had pizza - I had this one with banana, chocolate, and nutella.  It was delicious!  And the guy that worked at the stall happened to be at the spice farm we went to earlier in the day - small world.

The next day we went out exploring Stone Town.  There are many old buildings with beautiful doors.

And small alley ways that you walk through.  It's so easy to get lost.  But then you turn a corner and there are tons of shops!  I bought some art work and some clothes.  I wanted more time to spend in the city.  But we had to leave to go to the East side of the island to spend a few days on the beach.

Dressing up for dinner our first night on the East side in my new dress.

BEACH!

I went snorkeling for the first time.  It was so great.  We were met on the beach by our captain and we walked over to the boat.  It was a homemade boat that was very narrow and was weighted on both sides to keep it from tipping over.  The ocean in this area is very shallow for a long ways - you can see the waves breaking far away - maybe a km or so.  The captain moved the boat by using a long stick that he stuck into the sand and pushed the boat along.  It looked very tiring to us, but he said it was not hard at all; he's been doing it all his life.  Once we were in the spot we jumped overboard to begin snorkeling.  I was trying to go too far below the surface at first and choked on the salty water.  But once I just floated on the surface I really enjoyed the experience.  I saw a lot of different coral and fish.  My favorite was this starfish I kept seeing.  It was grey with red and orange along the tips.  It was so beautiful.  I wish I had an underwater camera - but I found an image of the starfish online:

The next day was spent on the beach in the morning and then just in the lobby area in the afternoon - it rained every day we were at the beach which wasn't ideal, but I guess that happens when you go during rainy season.  But it was still a great relaxing way to end the trip.  Then the next day I had to go all the way back to Dar es Salaam because I was flying back the following day.  It was a relaxing morning and then we left to back to Stone Town.  I really could have used more time in all three places - Dar, Stone Town, and the beach.  

The ferry ride back to Dar was not fun - it was raining again and it was a VERY bumpy ride.  They started handing out sick bags to everyone which made me get very worried.  I'm thankful I have a strong stomach and I was sitting by the window to stare out at the horizon.  I made it back to Dar safely and went to bed early since I had an early flight the next day.  But I did have another watermelon juice!

I had a long layover in the Johannesburg airport.  As I was waiting, a couple sat down next to me and asked where I was traveling.  I told them Namibia and the man was born in Namibia (or South West Africa as it was before independence).  I explained that I'm a volunteer teacher in the South.  He asked where and I said Tses - which he knew where it was!  His family had/has a farm very close to where I'm living.  Small, small world!

I really enjoyed my time in Tanzania and wish I could have stayed longer.  It might be a stop on my way back to the States after I'm finished with my service. 

Zanzibar

I have to say - it's really nice being a teacher - having a whole month off to travel!  My holiday began by helping facilitate Southern Girls Conference.  I plan to do another post regarding the conference because it was really wonderful and I had a great time attending.  Also, five of my learners attended and seemed to really enjoy themselves.  More on that later.

 After the conference I started my journey to Tanzania.  It took a total of 7 days to go from Windhoek to Dar es Salaam!  But as one of my fellow travelers Allie said, "the journey is the destination".  We stopped in Rundu at another volunteers place where we were treated to a delicious meal and a nice place to rest.  But we did not rest for very long; we woke up early the next day because we wanted to travel all the way to Livingstone.  It was unclear if the train we were to take was going to leave Thursday or Friday.  Luckily it was Friday it left, so we had a day to enjoy Victoria Falls.

This was my second time to see Victoria Falls and it was worth it again!  The park is so beautiful and the falls are so much fun to get soaking wet under!  There are many baboons in the park, and we were warned to keep food away from them.  So we put all our food into a backpack and went on our way.  However, one of the baboons decided to mug Julie!  I was behind her, so I saw the baboon come up, reach up on its hind legs, and take the backpack!  Luckily there were some guys around who knew what to do.  We let the baboons take out the bread and apples and then they dropped the rest of the stuff.  These creatures are so smart - they were able to take the camera out of a plastic bag, and unzip the case and remove the camera!  That is why they scare me some.

After the baboon attack, we walked across the bridge where you get completely wet because of the spray from the falls.  It seemed like there was less water this year than last, but I still was completely soaked!  At one point, there was a group of guys singing in the "rain" from the falls and we joined in their group.  They were singing "shake your bum, bum"; it was very entertaining.

After the falls, we boarded our bus that would take us to the train station.  The bus ride was long and overnight.  One interesting/frightening thing was that on the road, a lorry (semi) truck stopped in the middle of the road blocking both sides.  It was told to us he did this because someone had messed with his trailer hitch and he was afraid he was going to be robbed.  It caused quite a disturbance on the road.  I was glad when we were finally able to pass.  Other than that, our bus ride was non-eventful.

We arrived at the train station early in the day and had to wait a few hours before we could board.  During this time, a few of us went exploring around the town.  We ended up talking with some locals and learned a lot about Zambia, including the different tribes and languages.  We were told there are 72 different tribes/languages in Zambia...hard to believe!  We also played with the children and sang songs with them.  It was a great way to pass the time!

We boarded the train at 2pm on Friday and spent the next four days on the train.  It sounds like a really long time, but the time really passed quickly.  It was enjoyable.  The train is old and makes a thousand stops, but I'm really glad I took it.  I was able to see so much of Zambia and Tanzania which are both really beautiful.  And watching all the locals come up to the train to sell things like nuts, bananas, avocados, meat, etc. was a lot of fun.  The kids all ran up to the train too.  It was interesting that they kept asking for pens.  Unfortunately I didn't have any extra pens to give them, but if anyone else goes - bring pens!

The train had a lounge car and a dinning car.  They served breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Which were all good - but after day 2 having the same thing for lunch and dinner started getting a little old.  They served rice or porridge with fish, beef or chicken all served with a tomato "soup"/sauce.  It was tasty and cheap.  They also served cool drinks and beer.  I tried two new kinds of beer and a new flavor of Fanta.  It was passion fruit flavored and was delicious!  I only had it twice on the train and then couldn't find it once we were off.  Very disappointing.  

Our train ride was only supposed to take 3 days, but because there was an accident further up the tracks, we were stuck in one spot for 14 hours!  It wasn't terrible...except for the bathrooms.  The toilets (or holes really) just went straight out of the train.  Which is fine when it's moving, but a problem when you are standing still for so long.  Not pleasant!

Finally we arrived on Monday at 2pm in Dar es Salaam.  More of the trip to come in the following posts!

Getting Caught in the Rain

Yesterday some colleagues and I went to the bridge that crosses Fish River about 20km from the village. We were hoping there would be some water to swim in since there has been some rain lately, but sadly, once we arrived, there was still not much water under the bridge. But we parked and enjoyed our food and drinks under the bridge anyway. It provided some nice shade and it was cool with the breeze. We then decided to walk down river some where there was about thigh deep water. This part of the river is really beautiful. On one side there are cliffs and it was really nice to walk around on the river bed. Then it started raining - and not just a little rain, but a downpour! But it was fun getting caught in the rain. We climbed up on the cliff side a little to try to block some of the rain, and I found a little spot where at least my head was covered from the rain. It was nice being in the rain. Then rocks started falling from the top of the cliff side! I was a little nervous, but they were mostly just small stones. Also, a small water fall started right beside me. It was a little bit of dirty water, but it still was really cool. After the rain let up some, we walked a little further down river and started seeing all kinds of water falls. It was so beautiful. I love water falls, so it made my day! Afterwards we walked back to the bridge, but on the way there were two large water falls. I was a little nervous having to pass them, but although the water was moving fast, it wasn't very deep, so it was okay to pass. At the spot closes to the bridge we all decided to play under the water fall for a bit. It was so much fun! I'm so glad we planned this trip and I hope that more are planned throughout the year!

Selling Grapes

This first week back in Tses, the power and water were shut off at the hostel. Thankfully I have a wonderful colleague Cooper who let me stay at his house. I’ve been able to cook some American dishes for everyone such as chicken salad and egg salad. And then I attempted my first Namibian meal consisting of goat meat in a sauce served with pasta. I was very pleased with how it turned out.

This past weekend I got to be an assistant in selling grapes around the village. Cooper’s father brought grapes from Noordeower (at the border of South Africa) and we went around selling them. It gave me an opportunity to see Soutputz which is the location across the main highway where many of my learners’ families live. Even though it’s close to the main highway, this area is remote and very rural. Most people live in metal shack type homes. I don’t know how they survive with this heat! But as we drove around, you could see how everyone just sits outside in the shade. Many were very happy to have fruit being sold and asked that we please bring sweet melons (cantaloupes) and watermelon next time. I practice all my greetings at each place and met so many new people. I wish I would have brought my camera with me because it would have been nice to document this experience…but sometimes it’s nice to just be in the moment too.

Swakopmund Marathon

The last weekend in September of 2011 there was a marathon that starts in Walvis Bay and goes along the coast to finish in Swakopmund. I was able to chaperon four of my learners who participated in the school age relay marathon race. We traveled on a government bus with all the Karas region runners and chaperones. It was a full bus! We arrived late in Walvis Bay and registered the runners and ate some dinner provided by the sponsors. Then we all went to a school where we would be sleeping for the next two nights. Our whole bus load – plus another school group or two – were all put into the auditorium of a school. They gave us mattresses and we all found our space in room. The next morning we woke up early to get ready for the race. At the start line I ran into many other volunteers that were running the marathon, half marathon, or were supporting other runners. The race for the school learners is each learner runs about 10km each. When the race started, our first runner Jesaya was pushing his way to the front right at the beginning! These boys were determined to win!

I was able to take the bus with all the learners that were at the halfway point of the race. I couldn’t believe that some of the people running the whole marathon alone were already crossing the finish line at about an hour into the race! They are fast! We waited and then the third learner to come into this point was Ricky – our second runner on our team! I was so excited to see the exchange between him and Johannes and to know that we were in third place at the halfway point. They really are fast – even running with bare feet! I saw a few more volunteers cross and switch at the half way point and then was lucky to find someone who gave a lift to the finish line. It was perfect timing because I was able to see Gregorius crossing the finish line! We came in second overall finishing in 2:26:39. The boys received metals and backpacks and the school received N$3000 to go towards school activities.

After the race we had some fun taking photos around Swakopmund. And then I took them to KFC for lunch. I had heard that the year before they complained about being hungry so I tried my best to keep them fed! The next day we loaded the bus and went back to Tses. We stopped in Windhoek for a few errands for others and had more fun with the camera. Below are some of my favorite pictures from all the photos: