Just when you thought you were done with me... I'm in Senegal now. Awa is at school, the teachers here have been on strike for a month, so I'm not really sure what she does there, and me and Mama have already had about 7 circular conversations revolving around Ca va? and Oui Ca va. So in an effort to keep myself amused and out of the house I'm at the internet. I'm not going to lie, that I was less than excited about coming here at first. I seriously considered just staying on the plane, but knew there would be [View Full Entry]

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I have very little to write and very little time to write it, but we leave Namibia tomorrow morning and are off to Cape Town for 10 days. The past week has been great...we're all done with our integrative projects, had many fun nights out, a GREAT house party and I went to a Christmas party with about 300 kids from my center, complete with the Christmas Pagent done while Mary and Joseph were wearing swimming suits, eating watermelon at the pool. I don't want to leave Namibia but I hear Cape Town is amazing. The things I'll miss about Namibia... [View Full Entry]

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I know two days in a row is a lot to handle, but I'm feeling slightly Thanksgiving inspired and and highly against the paper I have to write on Thanksgiving. Here's a poem by Maya Angelou that Rob, one of the other students also from UNC shared as a toast during our Thanksgiving. The title is also a quote from his mom, which was so fitting for our hodge podge family this Thanksgiving. Human Family I note the obvious differences in the human family. Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy. Some declare their lives are lived as true [View Full Entry]

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Somehow, this entire semester is almost over. This is our last full week, our last week of class, our last week of internships. We have just a week left in Namibia, and I'm pretty much freaking out about having to leave. I really love this country. Like a lot. And I can't believe that the time flew by so quickly. Right now the only consolations are the fact that I don't have to leave these people yet, we still have 10 days together in Cape Town after we leave that promise to be an absolute blast, and I'll routinely be able [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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Last week end 6 of us headed out to Soussevlei, which is home of the biggest sand dune in the world and is in the Namib desert. I'd be lying if I didn't say one of my main reasons for going was because we were told by a group of our guys that they didn't think we'd be able to do it. So clearly, super competetive Erin kicked into gear and had to prove them wrong. Just getting there was an adventure...the driver that was going to take us didn't have a working phone, so we had to just hope he'd [View Full Entry]

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So I'm finally getting around to finishing with the October escapades... Considering we were fully expecting to spend 9 hours at a gas station on the edge of a highway waiting for our bus to Zambia- the bunch of us going to Victoria Falls really lucked out. Three of the girls in our group were staying a night in the town we got dropped off in, so we were able to dump our stuff at their B&B and spend the afternoon checking email, relaxing and getting a nice big dinner before getting on a bus for 17 hours- which wasn't actually [View Full Entry]

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So that's actually a lie, since there were no tigers or bears. And apparently the whole statement is a lie because you can't see them all on one continent. But what we did see was essentially the real life lion king. Etosha is a big national game park in Namibia, so after we got picked up from our rural homestays Wednesday morning we headed off for our mini safari. Now when I pictured safari I definitely pictured off roading in a big open landrover. Instead we drove on gravel roads through the park in our combis. I guess in all fairness [View Full Entry]

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There are nowhere near enough adjectives to describe the past three weeks... by now a lot of it has already started to blur together, but when class consists of climbing the 2nd tallest dune in the world, milking cows, going on safari and rafting the zambezi...how can you expect me to keep the adventures apart? It's been incredible...hands down the best 3 weeks of the semester. Most days were spent laughing that we get grades for this and thinking about what we'd be doing if we actually had to go to real classes back home. so for your attention span and [View Full Entry]

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Our last homestay for the semester was in a rural setting in villages where one of our professors coincidently was from. He just moved back from living in America for 28 years- yet the families we were staying with were already his family. I was most excited to get an "authentic" experience with this homestay...but also a little nervous since I had no idea what I was getting into. I was in Otjoherango, a small village that is part of a Herero reservation near the north of Namibia. The Herero are one of the ethnic groups here, and I've never been [View Full Entry]

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