As the days go on...

I have been here now for 2 weeks, and I have to get out some frustration and say that I am so bored. My work is mainly in collaboration with the schools in the community, and since I have been here they have been taking exams, so there is no PE, and now everyone is on a 2 week holiday! What to do? I keep myself busy by walking to the library where is can use the Internet cheap, walking to the stores, and by sending SMS (you get 100 free SMS every day)! These distances are about 30min walks that normally people would take a taxi for. Taxis here are Namibian $7,50 per person. You might have to share a taxi. That is normal. It will sometimes take you on a round trip around the city to drop off and pick up other passengers on the way, so make sure you ask him/her where they are headed before you get in.

I also try and keep occupied by washing my clothes. By hand of course. My host mom was laughing at me and my poor washing technique, but what can you expect from someone who has never done it before. It is really dusty here and you don’t really see how dirty your clothes are until you see the water after you wash. It’s disgusting, but to change the water half way through is out of the question! Just add more soap! When no one is around though, I change it! :P

I have now become a morning person! It is not possible to sleep than to 7am. At this time the town is wide awake! People will start coming to the door (I will get into this later), music from the houses, and everyone, all 3 people other than me, are up and already left the house. In the beginning I was often in bed by 8pm. Not unusual. So it would only be natural to wake up rested at 6 or 7 am, but since making calls are free between the hours of 10pm and 6am, There is no way I will be able to sleep unless I turn off my phone. During the day, making calls is quite expensive, so sending SMS is the way to go. It is crazy! I have never sent so many SMS before! I go easily through 70-80 SMS a day.

Throughout the day people in the area will come to the door or stop by for short visits. In the beginning I thought it was just friends stopping by, but then I noticed that they were giving my family money… hmm. What is this? I thought the worst: that my family was dealing drugs or something like that or lending out money or something fishy. But I saw recently that my family is having their little business selling Air time! In Norwegian this is “påfylling av contantkort” or recharge or credit (kjært barn har mange navn) for the phone. So instead for the neighboring people to go to the store about 30 min walk away, they can come here at basically any time of the day as long as someone is home! And someone is always home. I think I have been by my self in the house for maybe 1hour altogether in 2 weeks. The “houseboy”, Ndara, who lives here is always here! Doing work, washing, cooking, listening to music, keeping the family business afloat, fixing, and keeping me company.

I have now taken a “combie”. This is a minibus or car that works as pubic transportation to the other cities in Namibia. It works like this: In every city there is a gas station (here they are called service stations) that works as a drop-off/pick-up for the combies. So if you want to go somewhere you meet up at this station, and wait. If you are in Rundu for examble, which is often a staring point for the combies, you find the combie goin to your destionation and wait for the combie to fill up with people. It will not leave unless it is full. And full is defined by all the seats being occupied by adults. The children do not count. So a combie with 16 seats can have the double amount of humans. If you are traveling from a city that is on the way to somewhere else you just have to patient and wait for a combie that is going your way to stop by, and hope that it is not full. There are other means of transportation in Namibia, but if you want to experience the “African way” this is it!

I have not been able to upload pictures yet. This internet thing here is very slow. I have a lot of pictures I want to show everyone, so I will keep working on it!