Blogs from Namibia, Africa - page 110

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 to drop in conversations, "Back when I was in Nam..." All the bumper stickers and abbreviations for Namibia are Nam, which I find funny. This has been one of the easiest semesters I've ever had...I ... read more

Mark turned 30! Oh to be so young! ... read more

I’m sitting at a friend’s PC in Johannesburg where, blu-tacked to the screen, is a quotation from Jennifer Aniston: “There’s nothing better than contagious laughter.” And nothing could better encapsulate my recent trip with my oft-travelling companion and long-time friend, Amanda Burge… (There was also “that Keane song” which we played as often as the road conditions would allow and which will forever conjure images of Namibia for us. Every trip needs its theme tune, although this one, it must be said, didn’t exactly capture the ebullience of our travels; nevertheless, we both loved it.) Travelling with Amanda has always been easy. We have known each other since the half-student/half-living-like-a-grown-up days of Law School at Chester and, although we’ve never done a Big Trip together, she joined me and my then-travelling companion, Delia, for three weeks ... read more

The various places that Amanda and I visited during the second week of our trip have one thing in common…. well, the heading for this blog entry has somewhat given it away… yes, SAND. When we were planning this trip, the one area that I’d insisted on including was the Skeleton Coast. Amanda, fried from juggling what really amounted to two jobs at once (someone should do away with the concept of “part-time secondment” once and for all - there ain’t any such animal: you just end up doing your fulltime day job squished into whatever time is left from your allegedly part-time role in the client institution which role, itself, tends to expand beyond the agreed limits), was afraid that this would involve just too much driving and, a valid point, what was there to ... read more

Sand Madness This was one of those great days where the unprofessionalism and incompetence of the activity operator cannot mask what is at its heart a really great, fun day. Despite their best efforts to convince all and sundry they were incompetent nincompoops by forgetting to collect two passengers, and having to turn around an already full Kombi and pick them up so that all eight of us were sharing just six seats, and then having a nightmare drive where every 'STOP' sign appeared to mean go faster and the difference between sealed and and unsealed road was so infintesimal as to be undetectable, this was a really great experience. There was a reasonably hard trudge into the place we would use for the rest of the morning as our return point, but once there, each ... read more