http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/erinoq/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from erinoq en-us Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:12:24 BST Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:12:24 BST 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 http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Senegal/blog-110285.html 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 wear http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-106659.html 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 FamilyI http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-105438.html 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 p http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-104686.html 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 wil http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-102398.html 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 advent http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-100228.html 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 BB and spe http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Zambia/Livingstone/blog-98048.html 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 d http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Etosha-National-Park/blog-97758.html 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 Otjo http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/blog-96951.html 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 spe http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Swakopmund/blog-96883.html So I wish I was clever enough to have come up with this clever hand gesture of a country...but I'm still endlessly amused with it nonetheless. I'm around the middle finger's knuckle.The rest of the homestay ended well. When I returned to my house Saturday morning after a somewhat failed attempt at celebrating Mary Olive's 22nd birthday Friday night to find my host sister standing at the gate s http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-91352.html So for the past week or so we've all been with our homestay families around Windhoek. It was really odd at first...and still is in a lot of ways because we all had just gotten settled in OUR house and are very used to being on our own. To add to that we come back to our house almost everyday since alas our living room is the classroom. So in some ways that's nice I didn't have to pack a l http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-90451.html So I definitely wrote this a week ago...and I have no idea what happened to it.If I were an interesting person I would probably have more interesting things to say. Our days still seem jam packed and fascinating to me but then when you think about it they are pretty routine.Monday I started my internship which is at an organization called Catholic AIDS Action. I've been there two days and sti http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-88742.html So I'm now officially settled. We wrapped up our South African adventures and headed to Namibia on Wednesday. Besides the fact that there was awful turbulence right when we were landing so it appeared that we were crash landing in the middle of the Kalahari desert everything was great. I don't know why I didn't really believe that we'd be living in a desert but I just assumed Windhoek the c http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Namibia/Windhoek/blog-87620.html So apparently my infamous reputation beat me here...and my host mother was nowhere to be found the day we were all supposed to go to our homestays. So me and my homestay buddy Erica got split between two other houses. I ended up in Dobsonville one of the sections of Soweto where about 12 of the 18 of us were. I lived with Winnie a spunky 60 some year old woman and her 10 year old granddaughte http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-86982.html Apparently saying I know what time it is a cool way to say you know what's up. Or they just like to see us all look ridiculous. But in reality I have no clue what time it is. it seems like I've been gone for ages...when in reality I haven't even been gone a week. But I'm sure you all miss me so much that you think so too. Or at least I'll keep telling myself that.It's been a crazy whirlwind http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-85606.html So it's go time. After a minor flight debable...realizing that my flight home was wrong and having to fed ex my paper tickets back to Canada on Wednesday...I now have my tickets in hand with 12 hours to spare. I leave earrly tomorrow morning...it would really just make more sense to stay awake if it weren't for the fact that I have to make two connections before I can peacefully sleep in my tiny http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-84390.html So I was meant to go to my last wedding on Saturday...but we never really made it. Between running late to start with getting lost a huge traffic jam and torrential downpour the wedding was over before we even made it there. So instead we went straight to the reception...the important thing is that I still got my free food. And I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did stuck in the car http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Trinidad-and-Tobago/Trinidad/blog-71316.html They say getting there is half the fun right So my adventure to Guyana started about 16 hours before my flight even left for various reasons. I wanted to go to the festivities welcoming back the soccer team from the world cup and it wasn't a really good idea to travel at night to get my flight at four in the morning. So I was nice and sweaty and just lugged my bag all around town. All went we http://www.travelblog.org//South-America/Guyana/blog-70169.html So I decided the time had come for me to head down de islands. Everyone refers to the Bocas...a group of about 11 different islands of the northwest coast as simply going down de islands. It's right off the coast of Chagaraumas an area that used to be the US military base during WWII. So now it consists mainly of a national park lots of expats and yahties who bring their boats up here to get http://www.travelblog.org//Central-America-Caribbean/Trinidad-and-Tobago/Trinidad/blog-68850.html