Trip to Windhoek - September 5th

Go Cats!! I’m there in spirit! The past two days have been pretty busy with some early mornings. It’s finally the weekend so I have a little time to rest before training starts up again on Monday. On Friday, we were able to get out of Okahandja for the day and go to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. About ¼ of the population of the country lives in Windhoek (appx. 500,000) so it was a bustling city filled with a westernized restaurants and shops. We started the day with a visit to the American Cultural Center where a cardboard cutout of Obama greeted us and there we received a presentation on the dangers and prevalence of malaria right after I got another Hep A vaccine. We left there mid-morning to go visit the Peace Corps office where I received my first mail from the states!!! Two packages to be exact – one from Mom & Dad and one from Teen. Yay!!! Who knew a two-week old US Weekly could be such a hot commodity around here. I loved all of the goodies – thank you!!

Following a brief tour of the PC office, we broke into our regional groups and set out to see where we will “hike” from in Windhoek to get to our permanent site (which we don’t know yet, but will find out this week – all I know is that I will be in the Otjozonjupa region north of Windhoek). Needless to say this was an experience all to itself and I’m certain I cannot put into words what this was like. Our “hike point” in Windhoek is at the SWAPO (South Western Africa Political Organization) headquarters. Our bus pulled up to drop us off and it was an immediate attraction to those living around the SWAPO HQ in tents. Come to find out, these people are basically living there in protest and have been for years. They are called “children of the liberation” which means many of them are orphans who lost their parents because they were killed while fighting for Namibian independence. Many of them have set up permanent camp at these offices trying to obtain reparations from the government. Very sad scene. So on to the hike point – this is just a small area where cars for hire wait for people like me and others to come when we need rides out of the city to a specific area of the country. Taxis are too expensive to go far routes and the cars for hire are the suggested mode of transport for us. Basically – if you own a car, you can make a living out of this work. Not sure how this will all go once I have to do this by myself but it’s a tried and true method used by current PCVs so we’ll give it a whirl otherwise I’ll never get to leave my site.

After visiting the hike point we took taxis to something a bit familiar to home – the mall!!! Our main objective was to purchase cell phones – check, and eat some good food – check! My parents have my cell phone number so if you’d like to call me (incoming calls and texts to me are FREE but it is too expensive to call home unless it’s necessary) give my parents a call or send them an email to get the number. I would love to call and text everyone but keep in mind we’re being paid based on the typical lifestyle of the Namibian family (currently we’re being paid about $2.67 US per day). Starting on Sunday, September 6th we’ll be 6 hours ahead of the US. The food was great – cheeseburger, fries, coca-cola light and a chocolate milkshake! Amazing what a cell phone and western style food can do for moral around here. Cheers!