Month 1

I've been living in Namibia for about a month now and this is my first blog post since setting foot in the sands of my new home country. Who would have thought it'd be so hard to gather enough time and energy to write a few paragraphs and post it to the internet, but alas I sit here in my bedroom at 4:00am typing this and preparing to upload it with some funky USB device that allows me access to the internet.

So, what's my life like in Namibia? Busy. I have classes from 7h30 to 16h30 each day with language classes (sometimes two hours long, sometimes four hours long) in the morning and cross-cultural and safety/medical sessions in the afternoon. When I'm not in class, I'm normally either at home with my host family or out with friends (PCTs and local Namibians) playing sports or chilling at the local hotspots. Classes are decent. Some days I learn a lot and am glad we had each of the sessions, but other days I get worn out by the four-hour Oshikwanyama (the language I'm currently learning) classes and the repetitive afternoon sessions. Luckily all of the trainers are awesome and try to make the day as easy as possible on us, knowing how exhausting some of the sessions can be.

My host family is very large and everyone is generally fun to be around. I still don't know exactly how many people I live with, but I imagine it's about 10: grandma, mom, uncles, cousins, and brothers and sisters. We live in the upper-class part of town and the family knows many people in the community, so I tend to see fresh faces at the house on a regular basis. The only problem is I am learning Oshikwanyama and the family speaks a combination of English, Afrikaans, Damara, and Otjiherero, leaving me with no one to look to with questions about the material we cover in language class. But it's all good. I don't expect to understand much by the end of training; the real learning will occur at site during my two years of service.

By far the most enjoyable part of my first month has been getting to know the 44 other PCTs in Group 32 (the 32nd group of Peace Corps Trainees in Namibia). There are a few people I interact with more than the rest of the group, but I cannot say I dislike anyone in our group. We are all very different but at the same time so similar. It's hard to explain, but we all share a common link at our core, the Peace Corps (I know, corny… but I had to do it).  If I was writing this entry just for myself to look back at years down the road, I would probably end it here, but I'll add a few details for people concerned about the minutiae of my everyday life…

Food. So far, I can't say my diet has changed much. A decent amount of meat accompanied by a reasonable load of grains and many fruits. Vegetables are fairly lacking, but I frequently eat fresh tomatoes and sometimes assorted frozen vegetables. Spices and seasoning play a large role in Namibian cuisine. Butter and tomato sauce (sugary ketchup) go on everything, so my cholesterol and blood pressure will probably be through the roof by the time I'm ready to leave Namibia.

Weather. The weather has been ridiculously nice thus far. I have no clue what the temperature is, but it has generally been fairly cool in the morning and hot in the afternoons. The dry heat is not bad though. I walk around in a t-shirt, a long-sleeved button-up and pants each day and I rarely feel uncomfortably warm. I guess it gets hotter in the summer (roughly October to March) and in the north (where I'm going). Oh yeah, it hasn't rained since I've arrived in Africa, but the few days we've seen with clouds have resulted in the most amazing sunrises and sunsets. No pictures yet because I'm scared to bust out the big SLR camera, but I will be sure to take a few at some point or gather links to other PCTs' pictures at some point in
the future.

Animals. I have seen a few fairly cool animals so far. Some baboons, a giraffe, several brilliantly iridescent birds and various insects I have never heard of. The real cool stuff is in the north, though. Etosha National Park is home to all five of the Big 5 (see Wikipedia) and I will be living about a two hour drive from there. There are also plenty of snakes and insects to be seen in the north.

Where I live. I can't say exactly where I live for safety reasons, but I am near Windhoek in a decent-sized city. I said earlier that I live in the upper-class region of town, but I get to see the other very different parts of town when coming together to play sports or go out to see the community. Some places are not so safe, but my PCT friends and I have developed some connections with quality members of the community and our Namibian friendships allow for a sense of comfort in the most troublesome areas in town. Plus, our Namibian
friends provide us with sweet lingo and cultural insights (maybe I'll expand on this in a later post, but not now), so we are slowly becoming acquainted with the Namibian customs. Oh yeah, I guess I should say a bit about my future as a teaser for my next post. I'm currently about halfway through training, so my next post (if I decide to post monthly) will be around the time of swearing in and the time when I depart and head to my final site. Much will occur within the next few weeks… On Friday of this week, I will be headed north to Owamboland where I will stay for five days at the homestead I will be staying at for the rest of my service here in Namibia. I will get to observe the community, learn about my host family, and see the school I will be teaching at (Isai Nhinda JSS about 25 km north of Ondangwa in north-central Namibia near the Angolan border). Then it's back to training where I continue sessions and begin to make final strides towards become an official PCV.

Stay tuned for information about my site visit, details about the swearing in ceremony, and any other critical events that may occur in the coming weeks.

Until next time…

Note: Sorry if I dropped a few Namlish (Namibians speak a weird, sometime utterly unintelligible form of English due to so many cultural and linguistic influences within the country) phrases/terms throughout this post and in future posts.
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