Hello from Omaruru (group e-mail from Amy)

Hello everyone,

I wrote out a long email offline and a special one for my parents (sorry mom and dad), but I can't figure out how to connect to it, so I'll just write a little update. I am safe at the Omaruru rest camp. Everyone here is very nice. I found out today that I'll be learning Khoe-Khoegowab, which is a click language. We all did pretty bad on the clicks, our teacher laughed at us, but they say it can take a full week or more to learn them, so I'm not too concerned. It is quite hot here, but it is also dry, so it feels a little less hot. I'm drinking loads of water, at least two or three liters a day no problem, which is unusual for me, but I suppose I am in a desert now. I haven't been sick at all, except the Larium makes me a bit dizzy, but no funny dreams. The water here is very safe, they recycle it all, so it's super-purified. According to the Peace corps all of the teachers will be living in western style housing which means brick walls and a tin celing and electricty and running water (although possibly not all the time and possibly not hot water). We've been doing a lot every day. They take such good care of our health, I've been stuck with all kinds of needles and they taught us how to put up a mosquito net (mine looks like a 3 year old put it up with duct tape, string and paper clips.) We generally have sessions from 8am until 5 and then another one from 7pm until 9pm with breaks for three meals and two teas. I'm not going to get skinny here. The meals are heavy on the meat (the vegetarian meal one day was chicken, because chicken isn't meat), but they're very good. When we got here a local secondary school sang and danced for us. It was amazing. I'll put up the video when I get somewhere where I can. I am really excited, although I have been a bit tired. I am glad I got the language I did. I really wanted that one, but I didn't think I should be picky. You can buy a lot of things here if you need/want them. I ate cheesecake at a local coffee shop run by americans for N$12 (about $2) and for 10 N dollars she has this amazing bathtub that you can bathe in and for an extra N$10 you can have champagne and strawberries. It doesn't feel like this is what Africa is supposed to be like. I have seen springboks (and I eat them as sausages most mornings), ostriches, guniea hens and a few other animals. OK, my internet time is running out. I didn't have the chance to add new names to this email, so if you know someone wants it, send it to them. Also personal note to mom and dad, I love you. The phone number I told you is right, but the 061 shouldn't be in there and you can leave off the 0 before the 064. Hope that helps a bit. Maybe I'll call later on, but we're going to permanent sites next week, so maybe not.

Goodbye everyone, much love, take care,

AMy