Life Outside of Okahandja

Sunday, April 27
As you can see I have had a lot of down time because I have been writing often. School is out and on a three week break, so many children and their families are out of town visiting other family or working on the farm. The volunteer I am shadowing in Outjo works with children, so she does not have any work to do. I was able to sit in on a meeting where a handful of children are being sponsored to hike for five days in a town south. These are the first youth in Outjo to go on this adventure as children to do not often have the opportunity to travel within the country. Besides this one meeting, it has been my own little vacation away from training and I have immensely enjoyed it. Outjo is a nicely sized town with a large supermarket, multiple electronic stores (not the same you would think in America...more like pawn shops or something) and a few restaurants. The other volunteer here works at the hospital and I was able to have a short tour as we may collaborate in the future on some projects. My volunteer has shown me the town and we have been relaxing with reading. I may not have any media to watch, but I now have two books to read for entertainment! I also received some yarn to try and learn to crochet and small cross-stitch projects. I am very thankful for these kind gifts as I was starting to fiddle with my thumbs.

When you read of other volunteers on their blogs encouraging you to bring an external hard drive with movies and shows you like on your laptop- DO IT!!!! I brought an iPod at last minute because my laptop would be too heavy. This was a mistake as PC gives you USBs of information. I also have no way to share shows and music easily as the iPad does not have a USB port. I also never had an external hard drive before and did not think it was necessary, but sometimes after a long day of training you just want to watch a good movie instead of African or Spanish soaps. And yes, I never paid for cable or anything and only watched Netflix occasionally, but take one more person's advice and take your laptop and buy an external hard drive if you don't have one. If you don't have media, there is sure to be people in your group willing to share theirs with you. That is my little rant of advice for any future volunteers reading this.

Friday we hiked to Khorixas as you read in my last post and this is an even smaller town, but still a town at that. There is one main grocery store and a couple of smaller ones. There is not any restaurants, but a nice lodge that can be a getaway for a nice sit-down meal. The volunteer in Khorixas treated us to lunch and it was very luxurious. I know where to go when I want to pretend and be a tourist or to feel like I am in America. They have a few fenced animals at this lodge including an ostrich! I also got to see the hospital I will be working at and met some of my coworkers. They are all very nice. There seems to be a lot of resources that could help me with projects. There are two new gyms with nice equipment, one at the hospital and one at the other volunteers office. My office is huge! I have this large room that could fit a king-sized bed with room to spare. I did not get to see the flat I will be staying in, but I did meet my host mom and saw my room for my first 6wks in Khorixas. She is a young nurse at the hospital, so I will be sharing the place with her and her boyfriend. That evening it rained, but we were still able to have a braii. It was very relaxing and enjoyable to have a little cook out with us three. The next morning we hiked back to Outjo. It was a little poetic, I saw donkey carts on the way into Khorixas and baboons on the way out. This was my first sight of both.

My Future Office

My First Hiking Experience

Saturday, April 26th
The main mode of transportation here in Namibia is "hiking" which is essentially paying for rides by taxis, combis or personal vehicles. The head trainer at PST set a ride for myself and three others with this Otjiherero man. We paid the driver up front because he needed gas for his car. It was about an 1.5hr trip to Otjiwarango which we all slept most of the way.
After we dropped off one trainee in Otjiwarongo, we thought we were good to go, but he drove around for a bit and we thought that he wanted to pick up one more passenger to help with costs. We picked up this one man, but we only drove a short distance and were told the man we picked up would take us to from Otjiwarongo to Outjo. We informed the new and old driver that we paid up front for the whole trip and they said they would work it out between themselves.
So, we switched vehicles and were on our way. The new driver apologized for the mess in his car, but it was not dirty in the least. This driver spoke better English and was a lot nicer. I sat up front and he said his name was "come" in Otjiherero, but it sounded like Ninja. He nicely joked about several things. He asked how much we paid the other man and I told him we each paid $220 and he said the man jipped us. The man only gave him $200 for all of us and he was supposed to get $250. He seemed honest and kind. He said I was too beautiful to hike for rides and it would be unsafe, so I should call him. We dropped the two trainees off at the hospital in Outjo for they are shadowing the volunteer that works there and he took me to a gas station outside of town where I was to meet the volunteer I was to shadow. She  was not there when I arrived and he insisted that he wait until she did as I should not wait by myself. We exchanged numbers for anytime I needed future rides and he promised to not call me and he has not yet. So, now I have Ninja Driver who I trust to take me where I need to go safely.

This first hiking experience was on Wednesday and we just ventured yesterday (Friday) to Khorixas from Outjo. The volunteer and I wanted to try to get to Khorixas by 10am, and my driver was in Otjiwarongo so we went to hike. There are two main hike points in Outjo to get to Khorixas- one in town and one right outside of town at the turning point to Khorixas.
We first went to the one right outside of town because you can get cheaper hikes. When we got to this hike point there was a man there who said he travelled from Okahandja and was trying to get to Khorixas and was hoping to not have to stay the night in Outjo. He looked normal enough. There were only a handful of cars and none could take us to Khorixas. There was one small truck that had some men picking up trash. They picked up some trash, but the driver came back and told us it was unsafe for two ladies to be hiking on this side of town and showed a lot of concern. He then said the man that was at the hike point has been hanging around this area for a while and that it was rumored he already raped three women. He may of just told us this information to scare us, but it worked and we went back into town to catch a ride. We had one man offer, but he needed to find two more people. Then, one vehicle was leaving right now and we took this one to Khorixas and arrived safely where we met the male volunteer that has lived there for a year now.