Mweeeeeh

As we were sitting at a campsite in northern Kunene, we heard a voice of disdain... maybe it wasn't as strong an emotion as disdain, but rather just laziness. Mweeeeeeeh, mweeeeeeeh. It was like someone was summing up my emotional state of the moment (and ok, possibly of every moment since I graduated a year ago)... I had to meet this person who so clearly understood me. Unfortunately, my attempts to find my soulmate were thwarted by the fact that it was a bird and afraid of all of us. It flew away from the tree right above me when we attempted to move closer. I have no idea what kind of bird, but i've started hearing it everywhere in Namibia (and not just from my own mouth, since I can't make the sound nearly as well as some of my fellow volunteers can).

From following the mweh bird all over north western namibia to playing german monopoly (where I lost spectacularly. As if the fact that I'm broke wasn't enough to indicate to me that I am terrible with money), I have to say I've had an exciting month without any time for updates... including two sort of vacations. Well the first one was a full blown vacation, largely due to the fact that it was entirely planned by group 25ers (aka the people who came here last year). They rented a car and two of us from 26 came along for the ride. It was all in Kunene, but Kunene is ginormous (is that a word?), so we did a lot of traveling and saw a lot of different landscapes. We spent the first four days on the kunene river.

At the first place we went, the staff was really nice to us b/c they're not used to getting younger people coming to see them (its usually older europeans), and we went on this river boat cruise thing, which was nice but we didn't see any crocodiles. This may have been fortunate since most of us (including our tour guide, who lives there, so I trust his judgment) ended up swimming in the river, but I was still disapointed. And don't worry, it moves too fast for schisto... or so they told us.

At Epupa Falls, which was even harder to get to but definitely worth the bumpy travels... we were just driving and driving and suddenly, you look down the hill and see palm trees and water falls in the middle of the desert. I thought i was seeing a mirage. (Once you climb up a bit higher than we were you can see that the falls are actually huge and the angolan side of the border is much greener, but that moment was pretty shocking, especially after miles of desert). Our campsite was right infront of one of the smaller falls, and right next to it was a small delta with little water falls that was safe from both schisto and crocodiles so we could swim there also... it was amazing. There was a huge baobab tree right in the middle and tons of little himba (you're gonna have to look this up) kids playing in the water. A bunch of them braided my hair, but my favorite was a little girl named wendy... i didn't keep it in for long b/c it really hurt, but apparently it looked allright and someone has a picture of me and wendy after I got my hair braided. I tried to give her a bunch of cookies, but a bunch of kids swarmed me, so I settled for just giving her two instead of one. (One of the 25ers found a bag of them at a store on our way there. I think he said they said “South West Africa” on them. Well, he might have been joking? Either way, delicious. Oh how my standards for food have gone down.) Ok so maybe my favorite was also happy boy, this fat fat little baby who was sitting in the water giggling while we splashed (or uh... rolled) water on him. How did they name him so appropriately?

Anyways, after epupa, we went on to some desert campsites where we were supposed to spot elephants and rhinos. We didn't see any rhinos (unfortunately, since someone just told me i look like one...mweeeh), but we saw an elephant and tons and tons of zebra, giraffes (we got a momma and baby crossing the road), oryx, kudu, and even a few warthogs. And off course the standard cows, goats and donkeys that you get everywhere in namibia (today i saw a goat wandering around by it self bleating... it was so depressing... i never realized that goats can't be alone, but i had no idea how to make it feel better. somehow petting it didn't seem like the right thing to do.) PLus, the campsites we went to were all nicer than my homestead. Some how most of them had electricity and ALL of them have hot water. I am so gonna figure out how to set up a woodburning waterheater at my site.

Second vacation was to Grootfontien, Rundu, and Divundu (the latter two being in the kavango). We mostly hung out with other volunteers, but it was cool to see what life is like in the kavango. We saw rundu beach on the kavango river, although we stayed out of this river since it was pretty still and obviously could have shisto, although apparently no crocs b/c little kids were swimming in it. On the other hand, volunteers east of Rundu in kavango have mentioned that they lose 5-6 learners a year to crocodiles when small boys/girls are sent to fetch water. Maybe corporal punishment is the kinder alternative in some places, eeek. Anyways, we hiked out to divundu which is right on the edge of caprivi strip, and stayed with the volunteer there who lives in this amazing amazing youth center. we're apparently supposed to get one like that out here, but uhh.. who knows when that will happen. we spent most of our time cooking and watching sex in the city, but we did make it out on a river cruise, which was really cool, we saw a lot of hippos!!!!!, water monitors (huge lizards), baby crocs and cool birds. The guide must have had like 20/0 vision b/c he could see everything and kept on pointing out stuff to us that we would have never noticed. Everything was great in dividu until we had to hike back... we waited for FIVE hours to get a ride to Rundu and had to split up. Its a nice place, but i dont know if i could handle the difficulty in traveling.

So I am back at my site after many travels! I plan on spending time at my site, but imma rolling stone (ahaha, i jsut wanted to stay that), and I can't say that I am ever just happy sitting still in one place. But now that I'm back, I've decided to get to work at getting work now that I am here, but its still slow coming. We were supposed to have a meeting on June 1 for this new job description that Mr. Matengu helped me to create for myself, where I will be working with OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) within our six cluster schools. I'd say maybe 60% of our kids are OVC, so I'm not gonna be working with all of them, but just what the OVC coordinators at each school decide are the cases in need of attention. I'll be monitoring their weekly progress and school, applying for food and blankets from the government and local businesses, and hopefully doing some activities with them, which I am still trying to work out, b/c I want them to be fun and some how also confidence building. Any ideas anyone?

Unfortunately though, the ministry recently decided that school should be postponed another week, so I have a feeling this meeting will not go as planned. It makes sense that it is postponed, b/c it was supposed to start this week, but we get friday off for africa day, but its weird that they decided that this should happen last week. well it will be figured out next week.

So that is whats goign on... I am also continuing to work on my peer counseling thing/ school newspaper/income generating projects/legal assistance and looking forward to GAURI visiting meeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!! For now, it is weird b/c I feel like I am doing a lot and its tough to keep it organised, but at the same time, I feel like I am doing nothing.


Mweeeeeeeh.