Hi again!
It’s been a very nice week here in Okahandja. Last weekend,
we went to Windhoek (the capital) for a field trip on Saturday. Last week’s
post was long enough, so I thought I’d include it in this week’s! The trip was
a ton of fun. We took a coach bus down there and went to the Hero’s Memorial,
commemorating the fallen heroes in the battle for Namibia’s independence. This
past Wednesday was Heroes’ Day, a national holiday, so they were busy preparing
for events that were going to take place at the memorial on Wednesday. We then
went to a mall in Windhoek to pick up any items we needed and to eat lunch. The
mall was insane! It was a very fancy
indoor mall, largely reminiscent of Northbrook Court (except with stores that
were actually affordable). I got a salad for lunch and was ecstatic to see so
much green! The salad also had half an avocado on it, which of course made me
SO happy! (Side note: I think I almost cried when I first saw avocados in the
grocery store here. So happy to know that I won’t have to go two years without
my favorite food!) After the mall, we went to Single Quarter market, which was
an outdoor market with lots of different vendors, most of them selling cooked
meat. It was quite an experience! I tried street meat, a mopane worm (like a
caterpillar), a fermented millet drink, and lots of other things. Check out my
instagram or facebook for a photo! Instagram.com/cnichols484
I had a lazy Sunday last weekend and enjoyed catching up on
some sleep. This week’s training was a bit slow moving, but the week passed
quickly. We learned a lot in our language classes and also learned about safe
transportation in Namibia, as well as lots of cultural information. For
example, no singing or dancing while eating. And no smelling food! And if
you’re giving someone else food or drink at your house, you must taste it first
from their plate so as to “prove” that you aren’t giving them bad food! Also, underwear are a very taboo item here.
You wash them daily when you shower and must hang them to dry in your bedroom—you
can’t even wash them with the rest of your clothes, because someone could see
them! Needless to say, you can’t hang them outside either.
This weekend was a lot of fun. We had a traditional cooking
day on Saturday at the town hall, aka our training center. We broke up into
language groups to cook traditional food from our language regions. My group,
the Oshiwambo group, cooked corn and millet porridge (you use a little ball of
it as a doughy utensil to eat the rest of the food), mopane worms, beans, Oshiwambo
spinach, and chicken. We were given five live chickens when we got there and
our group had to slaughter them! I watched from a slight distance as the braver
ones in our group stepped up to the challenge. After the chickens lost their
heads, they were dipped in boiling water to help make the feathers come off
easier. I helped a bit with plucking the feathers and cleaning the chickens. We
then watched our Namibian host mothers and teachers expertly butcher the
chickens! We cooked every bit of them. (I took a very normal looking piece when
it was time to eat!) One group had to slaughter two goats. That was a tricky
one to observe—it was sad watching the goats go, especially because we had seen
them corralled near our language classroom all week! But I have to say, the
goats were tasty! Another group cooked goat heads and tripe—I passed right by
that table without going for any of it! There was a ton of tasty food too
though! We ate like kings and queens and left with very full bellies!
I slept in this morning (Sunday) and as soon as I left my
room, my host mom said that I needed to gather my dirty clothes and she and I
were doing laundry! So, first thing, we got all of our clothes clean. Laundry
here takes some more time—hand washing everything is a slow process! There’s
one bucket with soap, another to rinse, and a third with fabric softener. After
each article of clothing passes through all three buckets (and spends some time
getting worked on in each), you have to shake out the wrinkles and hang it. So,
it took my host mom and I about 2 hours to do our laundry. After laundry, we
came inside and started cooking lunch! We made brown rice with some mixed
veggies blended in, as well as chicken, beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes. A
typical meal in my host family is rice, carrots, cabbage, some sort of meat,
and a soup with potatoes to pour over the whole plate for flavor. It’s very
tasty!
After eating lunch and cleaning up, I read, took a quick
nap, and then met up with 3 other volunteers to walk to the mall in Okahandja.
We mostly just wanted to see if we could successfully walk to the mall without
getting lost, since we’d never done it before! If we can get to the mall, then
we know how to walk to our training center, so that gives us some more options
for getting to and from training. We successfully made it to the mall!
Unfortunately by the time we got there it was already closed, so we just
grabbed a cool drink (the term here for soda/juice) from the gas station and
sat in the shade before returning home. It was really nice to get out of the
house and be active! It was about a 20 minute walk each way. On the way back,
Alene (another PCV) and I were “attacked” by a group of neighborhood kids who
ran at us and hugged us and started asking us all sorts of questions. They were
very intrigued by our piercings, our Nalgene water bottles (they drank the rest
of mine!), and our watches and rings. They were really sweet kids and we spent
a while talking to them. It’s good to know a few of the neighborhood kids now!
Maybe I can convince some of them to go on a run with me this week J
On Saturday, I’ll be heading up to the North (to Owamboland)
for training for the next four weeks. I’m not sure what the internet/cell
service situation will be like, so if I fall off the grid, please don’t worry!
We’ll be staying in traditional homesteads, with pit latrines and bucket baths,
so it’ll definitely be a change! I look forward to updating you guys on how it
is!
That’s all for now! My host dad just stopped in and told me
to tell you all that he says hello to you all and that they are very happy to
have me in their home. I’m very happy too! Hope you all had a great weekend!
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