For the past 3 weeks, we've been traveling all over Namibia, beginning with a week-long home stay in a rural area of Northern Namibia. All the students stayed with families that lived in clusters of farms, which had no electricity or running water. I stayed with a woman named Esther whose niece Johanna and her 2-month old baby Tanya came and stayed too. Esther didn't have a farm, per-say, it was more like a little house situated across from her grandmother's large farm where another CGE student was staying. Every day, I got to help with the farm chores, like milking the goats and preparing food, fetching fire wood and water, and avoiding the heat of the midday sun which got up to about 106 F. It was quite the experience to learn about how to live so simply and subsist as much as possible off of the land.
While we were there, Esther and her grandmother's family decided to slaughter one of their goats for us. We watched the slaughter (unpleasant) and then they had me help prepare the meat and cook it for dinner. Goat meat is quite good, especially when prepared in the traditional Southern African barbecue method of dry-rubbed spices. During the process, they also roasted some of the goat intestine for me (it's quite the delicacy) so I got to nibble on a that. I preferred the meat over the intestine. I had a great experience on the rural home stay, and Esther's hopsitality and kindness was truly amazing. It turns out that she is also a quilter, so when I presented the gift of a quilt that my grandmother and her church friends made, Esther was ecstatic (pictured)!
After the home stay, the group spent a few days camping in Etosha national park, a huge wildlife reserve in the north. We went on a game viewing drive and I spent every spare minute hanging out at the watering hole observation deck. I saw elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, a cheetah and all sorts of springbok, gemsbok and birds. It was amazing being in such close proximity to nature.
Last week was our Fall Break, which was free for us to plan to do as we liked. I traveled with a group of fellow students to the South Africa/Namibia border for a 4-day canoe trip down the Orange River. We spent each night camping under the stars and all day paddling, floating, swimming and hiking. It got fairly cold at night, but it was still a gorgeous setting and made for an excellent fall break.
