Windhoek

We headed north from Makopong and spent the night in Kang.

Then we hitched across the border with some truck drivers. We had to hide at police checkpoints a few times, but also had a good conversation with the truck driver about HIV for a few hours.

Most things were closed because it was between Christmas and New Years, and the city was deserted because people went elsewhere for the holidays.  We walked around the city for a few hours, winding up on the edge where we got a beautiful view. 

It honestly reminds me a little bit of a European city, with the architecture and the mountains in the background. 

Jess looking like a model

Me with Windhoek in the background.

We found a field of flowers and attempted to reenact the Sound of Music.

Saw a cool lizard (for Kate).

And then got on a Combi to Swakupmund, where we braided Ashley's hair to pass the time.

The week that wasn't

I had all kinds of plans for last week. I was coming home from MST/Gabs on Sunday, going to my friend’s village on Monday for a couple of days to help her put a fence up at the preschool she’s renovating, and then going to a Motswana friend’s wedding on Saturday, staying in Gabs again for the weekend.

Almost none of that actually happened.

Sunday afternoon I went to the hitching post in Letlhakeng, usually my final stop on the way back to my village. And waited. And waited. I waited three and a half hours, and NO vehicles were going to my village. There was a crowd of like 25 people under the hitching tree waiting for a ride and it was going to get dark. So I cut my losses, not willing to hitch home in the dark on a partially flooded dirt road, and stayed with another volunteer in Letlhakeng.

Monday morning I got a ride home, luckily in an SUV since it was raining. And raining. And raining. It rained a lot the week I was in Gabs at MST, and it just kept raining. Letlhakeng looked like a swamp in places. On the way to Aileen’s village I saw cows wading. I live in the desert people. Parts of it currently look like the Okavango Delta. If this is what rainy season is supposed to look like here, no wonder people said the rains didn’t really come last year. Because I promise, this did NOT happen last year.

My current desert.

Our school football pitch (soccer field)

It rained so much I wasn’t sure if I could get out of my village again (or if I wanted to try…), and my friend didn’t think we could build a fence in the mud anyway, so that didn’t happen.

I took a photo tour of my village near my house and school, complete with flooded field and destructive goats. I missed getting a picture of my neighbor digging a trench around her mud hut to keep it from flooding as much.

Standing water on the school grounds.

Trees down from a storm.

Lock your lockers or the goats mess things up a LOT.

The goats ate my homework.

Thursday I had a perimeter of goats around my house trying to keep dry in one of the storms. More pictures on that in a separate post.

Friday I went to Gabs, and Saturday I tried to go to my friend’s wedding. After getting to the village, finding someone else also looking for the wedding, walking around for an hour, and multiple phone calls… we realized we were in the wrong village. We were in Pitsane. The wedding was in Phitsane, or Phitsane Moloko. Which was another 2 hours or so farther from Gabs. It was noon when we figured this out (weddings last all day here), and by time I were to get to the correct village (which I’m still not even positive was the correct one), I would have to turn around and come back about 45 minutes later so I wouldn’t get back to Gabs super late. And I didn’t think there was public transport so I’d be relying on hitching.  So I sighed and turned around and began my journey back to Gabs. I got back after 3, so I know that if I had tried to go all the way to the wedding I would have gotten back around 8 or 9, which was too late (we aren’t supposed to travel after dark for lots of reasons).

On the bright side, I got to hang out with a friend in Gabs this weekend as I stayed at her house and I also got to go to church this morning, which I haven’t been able to do since… July. So that was great, even though I didn’t make it to the wedding.

The interesting thing is… not much of what happened actually upset me. I just sighed and realized the weather/transportation/getting wrong info about the wedding were not things in my control, and moved on. Maybe I am culturally integrating ^_^

And I'm considering building an ark as a secondary project.

Traveling, PCV style

So I got to go up to the delta for a few days- 9 including 4 days of traveling!  It was a lot of fun- some PCVs in Shakawe (sha-KA-way) organized a huge half-marathon/5K run and health fair, so a lot of other PCVs went up to run and help at the health fair.  While we were up there some of us went to Tsodilo hills and on boat rides on the delta near Sepupo.

I’ll post a bunch of pictures and stories from my delta trip, but I wanted to show first how I got there and back.  Since we don’t have cars as PCVs, we rely on public transportation, hitching, and spending the night with fellow volunteers to get places.

So this is a map of Botswana with my route marked on it, from Salajwe to Shakawe and back. The green and black are the trip up, alternating with each leg of the trip.  The yellow and red are the trip home.

Day 1: Hitch from Salajwe to Letlhakeng- 1 hour.

Wait in L for a hitch for 2 hours, meet up with another volunteer going with me.

Take combi from L to Takotakwane – 45 minutes.

Wait in T for a hitch for 2 hours.

Get a hitch all the way to Ghanzi- 4.5 hours.

Spend night in Ghanzi with 3 other PCVs and a German volunteer.

Day 2: Wait in Ghanzi 1.5 hours for a hitch (now there are 6 of us).

Get a hitch to Sehithwa- 2.5 hours.

Meet up with 2 other PCVs and another German volunteer). Wait for a hitch- 1 hour.

Get 2 almost simultaneous hitches to Shakawe (There are now 9 of us)- 4.5 hours.

Return trip! (2 nights in this mess, not saying where bc I don’t know who told Peace Corps what*)

Starting from Sepupa after the boat trip, about 10 of us.

Get a hitch to Gumare- 1 hour.

Wait for bus- 30 minutes.

Bus to Sehithwa- 2 hours, about 7 of us.

Wait for a hitch- 30 minutes.

Combi/bus to Ghanzi- 2.5 hours (with some extra time to have a blow out and change a tire)

Wait for hitch in Ghanzi- 3 hours.

Bus to Kang- 3 hours- 3 of us.

Wait for bus in Kang- 30 minutes.

Bus to Morumisu - 45 minutes- my 2 friends keep going.

Wait for hitch- 1 hour.

Hitch to Letlhakeng, by way of going back to Kang to get gas and then to L- 3 hours.

Wait for hitch in L- 1.5 hours.

Hitch to Khudamalapye- 30 minutes.

Wait for hitch HOME- 45 minutes.

Hitch to Salajwe!- 30 minutes.

* Peace Corps has a policy that you have to tell them what village you are sleeping in.  PCVs have a policy of not ratting out their fellow volunteers if some choose not to follow this policy.  Hence I’m not naming where we spent the nights on the way home, because I don’t know who told Peace Corps what.  On the way up I happened to know that we all told PC where we were, because our country director was also spending the night in Ghanzi (he went to Shakawe with his family and he and his wife ran the half marathon!) and we saw him a few times there.