Memorable moments

I finally got back to the village so I'm on the Internet again. I
didn't take my camera along but there were a few memorable moments
that are worth writing about. First off, before I left for the coast
and a conference with 98 other PCVs I got the flu. Not a good memory
but it is the first time I've been sick in a cumulative 10 months on
this continent, not a bad record I'd say. But I got paid back with
three days of staying in bed with a splitting headache and bouts of
nausua. Luckily the morning I had to depart I felt much better. After
a couple hikes and a long bus ride organized by the Peace Corps (free
for me and much safer) we rolled into the coastal paradise of
Swakopmund. I was just getting used to mornings in the 40s but in
Swakop I walked out of the bungalow I was staying in in nothing but
shorts. Thats a contrast. The next memorable moment was the tour of
the various neighborhoods around Swakop that we were taken on by the
Public Relations officer for the municipality. We conspicuously drove
through the location, the informal settlement, the coloured location
and the beachfront mansions in two huge buses and a Land Cruiser. It
was very interesting to see the informal settlement with all its
infrastructure in the form of roads and ventilated public toilets and
to hear about the municipalities plans to offer low cost plots of land
near the location so these people can get into permanent housing with
water and electricity (clarification: the location refers to the place
where black people live, separate from the white community per
apartheid). Being in the bus was slightly revolting, you want to take
pictures to capture the contrasts of the various neighborhoods, but
you can't. I could never stomach it to take pictures from the big bus
like that. Besides being educational this tour was memorable because
the last time I was in Swakop, I met some tourists staying at the
hostel we were at who had just come back from their 'Township Tour'
where they got to see the kids running around and eat mopane worms
(local seasonal delicacy, kind of tastes like dirt if you ask me but
everyone gets pretty excited about free food every year... sounds like
college). We were talking with these tourists when they returned and
they enthusiastically recommended the 'Township Tour' to us at which
point we explained that in fact we were living in similar
accomodations farther inland, they insisted, without any reasoning
that the tour was still a very worthwhile experience and we replied
with thinly veiled disdain and disgust at their tourist mentality. So
after all that we went on our own tour of the location in a monsterous
orange bus.

The next day of the conference afforded another memorable experience.
Someone in the planning of the conference decided that we should all
visit schools around Swakop to share an HIV/AIDS message with the kids
while we were all staying in their town to discuss the topic. So, we
rolled out on Friday to take over groups of 30-40 kids for the last
two hours of the day. This could have been recipe for disaster, but in
the end everything went quite well. The memorable event was walking
into the classroom seeing 30 kids with pens and paper ready for
whatever we were going to do. Their proficiency in English was also
refreshing but their preparedness is burned on my memory. Besides that
they sang for us when we arrived and participated well in the
self-esteem activities we did with them. We ended our time with these
9th and 10th graders with condom races; 4 teams, 4 bananas and a bunch
of condoms. Fun and informative.

Speaking of food, the conference was held at a four star hotel in
Swakop and while we stayed in more modest accomodation on the other
side of town we ate breakfast and lunch at the hotel. Omlettes to
order, bacon, muffins, biscuits, lots of quality jam, granola, cereal,
three kinds of juice, tons of fruit, shellfish, cheeses, etc every
morning for breakfast. And lunch was always fantastic and followed by
cheesecake, white cake with vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate
mousse, apple tart... you get the picture. We ate very well, and we
had per diem to eat dinner in town which was also quite nice. Most of
the time I loaded up at lunch and skipped dinner altogether. Friday
evening was very enjoyable, we watched Germany beat Croatia at a
sports bar in town that had about a dozen tvs, then a choir from the
area that just returned from touring Canada for a month performed for
us. I didn't take my camera on this trip so I don't have any pictures
of any of the activities but I did buy the cd from the choir.

For the next memorable moment I'll have to rewind a couple days.
Coming down about 4000 feet in elevation left me pretty congested so
Thursday night I decided to turn in early for the sake of the rest of
the weekend. When I roommate got in on Thursday he said, so Saturday
after the conference is over we're going skydiving, you in? All I
could say was yes. I suppose there should have been some very rational
fear that would make me waver a bit, but there was never any question.
We got an incredible deal with a group rate and we had a connection
through a former PCV who is teaching in Swakop and dating a skydiver.
And who can pass up the chance to take a scenic flight over the sand
dunes in a little plane with a pilot and six passengers and then jump
out? Still, I didn't have my camera but I got the DVD that shows the
scenery and the sommersaults we did before the rest of the free fall
and parachute ride. My skydive was pretty tame, but one girl in our
group was the lucky 1 in 500 that has an equipment malfunction and has
to go to the secondary parachute. I have now completed the big 3 of
Swakop: quad biking, sandboarding and skydiving. Now we're looking
into parasailing and fishing for coastal activities and I need to go
after the big 5 of the elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino.

The trip home was mostly uneventful, and I have to hit the ground
running at school after missing 6 consecutive days. Tonight the grade
10 learners that were in their evening studies got an invitation to
watch the Brazil v. Croatia match with me for free in the library.
These kids have been working hard so its nice to offer a small reward.
But I have invoked a small riot of boys from the lower grades because
the television in their hostel is broken so they can't see the game if
its not with me. Satellite television costs a lot of money but one
dollar at a time for the next three weeks I'll be able to tape a lot
of movies to show the kids and catch the NBA finals.