Advertisement
Published: November 12th 2006
Edit Blog Post
rainbow!
rainbow after the storm by our house. So the developments of this week include a recent unhealthy love of eggs and meat. Atkins anyone? I really never used to like eggs...but while most people have internships or class Wednesday morning me and two other girls have open mornings since I go to my internship in the afternoon. We pretty much spend the entire week planning where we will eat breakfast on Wednesday mornings and how we will order our eggs. I'm in love with Wednesday mornings...we're gradually hitting all the best breakfast places in Windhoek, and I now know I like my eggs fried hard with toast. mmm.
And the meat...somehow meat has become a perfectly acceptable snack. Come back really late at night, what do we do, fight for the left over processed chicken patties in the fridge. Go to a soccer game and want a snack...MEAT!
A bunch of us went to a soccer game Wednesday night of The Orlando Pirates vs. Black Africa. Both were Namibian teams, although the real Orlando Pirates are a famous South African team. For that reason alone I decided I was a hardcore Black Africa fan. Except I kept accidently calling the Black Power for most of the
game. oops. Black Africa did end up winning in penalty kicks, which was quite exciting...but more exciting was the meat Meredith and I found at half time. There is this really good beef cooked and seasoned on grills at markets and on the streets called Kapana that they were selling outside the gates. Basically it is everything every study abroad meeting and guidebook tells you to avoid at all costs. But we needed Kapana. Since it was outside the gate and they didn't give us tickets we had to place our order through the fence...have a messanger go get the meat and then pass it over the razor wire fence to us. The fact that it seemed highly illegal made it even more fun. My whole definition of food at a sporting event has now changed from nachos to gnawing on beef with my fingers.
This week end we took a class trip to Hardap Dam...which in itself was amazing to see such a huge amount of water in Namibia. Why we went though is still in question, but it ended up being a good amount of fun. We got there Friday night and made the most of our
dinner courtesy of CGE, ordering a ridiculous amount of food. I literally got a whole chicken, and that was after the appetizer but before the ice cream. The word resort is thrown around a lot for Namibian places to stay...but don't let that food you. While this was the Hardap Dam resort, it was essentially just a glorified camp ground with slightly upscale cabins from the 1970s. I'm also pretty sure we may have been the first guests since the 70s. But dinner was great, and I have never seen so many stars in my life!
Saturday we got up for our real destination of the trip...Gibeon. Basically we got in the car, spent 2 hours going to 3 different grocery stores, drove an hour to Gibeon, had a picnic and drove back. It is a really important spot historically for one of the ethnic groups here...yet we didn't really hear much about it or really see much other than the two trees we ate lunch under. The afternoon was fantastic though, because after a really hot morning jammed together in the combis we got to swim in the dam...which I believe is the largest body of water in
the country and a major water source. The water looked pretty ominously dirty, but felt amazing and I figure it can't be too bad if we drink it. Right? The real highlight of the trip was Saturday night. After sweltering in our room Friday night...literally waking up every few hours drenched in sweat, we decided we'd be better off sleeping outside. And to avoid the possibility of scorpions, snakes and random rodents, we decided the best bet would be on the roof. So we threw a few mattresses up there and had the best slumber party ever. We had prime view of all the stars and it was so much more comfortable than in our rooms. Falling asleep to the stars and waking up staring at the lake was so pretty.
Other than that life has been pretty routine. We met a bartender Thursday night who immediately wanted to talk American politics and Senate- which was pretty exciting that so much of the world really is paying attention. The even more fun part is that it turns out he was the same man we met loooong ago who was supposed to get us into an all white party, but
instead got arrested. Turns out he's great now though. This whole week has really shown how small Namibia really is peoplewise. For classes we have the heads of political parties meet with us, we run into the same people everywhere...whether we like it or not, and the biggest music star of the country frequently texts one of the girls in our house to hang out with us. Or more accurately her, but we're along for the ride. We're making plans for Thanksgiving, at the wine bar- where all good plans are born- we also decided we needed to develop our CGE dysfunctional family tree for the holiday, which has been an endless source of amusement. In case you missed the aftermath of my sad computer death I put a picture of that up just so you can see how tragic it was...but really I now have a lot more time for other things, even if that does entail watching episode after episode of House, our new house obsession. So I suppose it's a mixed blessing after all.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0222s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Erica
non-member comment
Erin I Need You
Obviously this has nothing to do with your adventures, but a brilliant beyond brilliant idea popped into my head and this was the only way I could let you know immediately. The Amazing Race is taping this summer, seriously, apply with me, and we could totally win a million dollars whilst travelling the globe for a month. Let me know what you think uber competetive one.