Some videos from Namibia

Namibia - This land is ours (PBS 19 min)

Postcard - Namibia (Elon University 4 min)

Animals in Namibia (Google 1 min)

Cruisin Namibia (Google 4 min)

Namibia - experience it yourself (Google 10 min)


(For more videos click on Google Video, Yahoo Video or You Tube)

Detailed satellite maps of Namibia

Google Maps and Google Earth just did a big update of their satellite maps including many new high definition views in Namibia. In many spots you can zoom in to street and house level and see details (trees, cars, even people) that you could never see before.The following links are all in Google Maps but if you download the free version of Google Earth, you get even better views, angles and even 3-D panoramas.

For example, Amy's shopping and post office are in:

Kamanjab

(If you do not see detail, click the "satellite" button in the upper right corner of the map. Double click a spot or use the zoom bar on the left to get a closer view)

Unfortunately, the high definition satellite view ends about 8 miles east of Anker, where Amy lives.

(2/28/2007: updated high definition Google Maps now include Anker too)

Anker

Other towns are also now in high def. including the larger, nearby town of Otjiwarongo, where Amy has visited and shopped many times:

Otjiwarongo

Swakopmund, where Amy has spent a couple of vacations:

Swakopmund

The capital city and surroundings:

Windhoek

Where Jay and Shoni live:

Keetmanshoop

Where her good friend Elizabeth lives:

Gobabis

Dylan and Sandra's town:

Gibeon

Beth and Megan are in this town that had the bad floods in January:

Mariental

The town Amy did her orientation and where Caitlin and Wendy live:

Omaruru

The town Amy did her teacher training:

Karabib

Several volunteers live in or near:

Grootfontein

and:

Berseba

Many other towns and almost the whole coastline is in high definition. go exploring a bit on your own. Much of the USA is also now in good detail. Maybe you could find your own house

Recent Nam 25 PCV blogs and Namibian news for the month of September

Recent blog posts from some of Amy's teammates (58 Peace Corps Volunteers known as NAM 25) all across the country of Namibia:

Jason's page of Nam 25 blogger photos and links

Amy
Happy Birthday Amy! (9/27) NEW
Field trip to Etosha (9/25) NEW
Photos from Etosha (9/25) NEW
Amy is in Etosha (9/21)
Photos of Anker (9/19)
Haircut, electrical outage and the Brothers K (9/16)
My holiday and the first week of teaching (9/9)
How to help my school with school supplies

Amber:
we break (9/27) NEW
kuku (9/25) NEW
quotes (9/4)

Andrew:

Angie:
Links relevant to my work here (9/27) NEW
New(final) contact information (9/27) NEW
Hello (9/10)

Beth:
No more photos for a while (9/14)
Adventures to the North (9/13)

Brock:
Blocked extra point in overtime (9/29) NEW
Ear trouble + education tour (9/15)
no more blisters (9/1)

Caitlin:

Caroline:
Some stories from second term (9/5)

Chris:

Coppelia:
Update (9/23)
Thank you all (9/5)

Courtney:

Cynthia:

Jason:
Big Business (9/27) NEW
No Joke (9/26) NEW
It's OK:We're Peace Corps (9/25) NEW
Pizza! (9/24) NEW
Made to Order (9/22)
Vagina monologues (9/17)
Matrix farewell (9/16)
Tornado season! (9/14)
Matrix season (9/12)
Happy birthday, Jana (9/11)
Another Weekend (9/11)
World's largest Bri UPDATE (9/11)
World's largest Bri!!! (9/10)
Rain! (9/8)
Ice Cream! (9/7)
Dams, Cones and Goofin (9/4)
Super Bowl Sunday (9/3)

Jay:
Fear of engulfment (9/2)

Matt:
The changing of the seasons (10/1) NEW
August break (9/17)

Michael:
Back home again :) (9/29) NEW
All good things... (9/27) NEW
Pics of Windhoek siege (9/21)
Computer watch, Day 8 (9/21)
Schoolnet pics (9/19)
Adventures in Schoolnet computing (9/19)
Ending the week on a high note (9/10)
Swakopmund and everything after...pictures (9/8)
August and Everything after...pictures (9/8)
August break highlights (9/7)
A "POWER"ful update (9/7)
Back from break-updated (9/5)

Pam:
Photo page (9/12)

Patrick:
Update (9/26) NEW

Silas:

Will
culturally immersed in the back of a kombi (9/26) NEW
border hustlin" (9/16)

Link to previous list of recent blogs (8/1-31)

Recent news from Namibia:
Children's rights remain a challenge (9/29) - New Era
Workshops won't stop AIDs (9/27) - New Era
Namibia drops on economic index (9/27) - The Namibian
Tourism set for a boom time (9/27) - New Era
Population decline threatens Namibia (9/27) - New Era
Nama debate: more questions than answers (9/20) -New Era
Date set for power project close to Epupa Falls (9/20) - The Namibian
Gibeon back online but woes continue (9/20) The Namiban
Reparations motion makes history (9/20) - The Namiban
Rainy season "won't set records" (9/17) - The Namibian
Tourism is Namibias new gold (9/15) - Engineering news
Polio inoculations a success (9/14) - New Era
Dams holding up well (9/14) - The Namibian
Multi-millionaire dreams of turning Namibia into a game park (9/14) - The Namibian
Ministry issues alert on killer TB (9/13) - New Era
Big Braii without booze (9/12) - The Namibian
Clouds promise rain but fail to deliver (9/12) - The Namibian
Stigma clouds AIDs battle (9/12) - New Era
Opinion -Policies, Promises and Poverty (9/11) - The Namibian
Black September - a glance at Windhoek's seamy underbelly - The Namibian
Caprivi poitical party declared illegal (9/11) - UNIRIN
Namibia fails to break record (9/11) - The Namibian
World record braii hits a snag (9/11) - The Namibian
Etosha fires finally extinguished (9/11) The Namibian
Namibia's night skies (9/6) - The Namibian
Countdown to the world's biggest braii (9/6) - New Era
Etosha fires spare wildlife (9/6) - The Namibian
Caprivi political party ban draws flak (9/5) - The Namibian
Namibia bans political party (9/4) - The Namibian
Its summer time (9/2) - The Namibian

Happy Birthday Amy!

Send her an email greeting. Click this link

Field Trip to Etosha (email from Amy)

This weekend I went on a field trip with the grade 7s to Etosha (click this to learn a little about Etosha). Now, as you can imagine, field trips in Africa are a little different than American field trips. It started on Thursday afternoon. They told me we'd be leaving at 11 o'clock which made me think possibly 2, but I was pleasantly surprised when the bus showed up at 11:30 and we left at12:15. This is probably not what you're thinking; yellow school bus with a trailer for our luggage. Our bus was built to tightly fit 24 people in to tiny little seats. We, on the other hand, put 37 grade 7s, 10 adults, 2 little kids, and the driver (50 people), plus 25 litres of diesel, an enormous spare tire, all of the food we planned to eat for the next 4 days, everyone's luggage, blankets, pillows, and about 6 mattresses. Needless to day, it was a tight fit.

As we left on this really packed bus, passing goats, donkey carts, and mud houses, the kids started singing loudly. It was a really great moment.The drive up reminded me of a church youth group trip, if the trip were run by an insane person under ridiculous conditions. Although we live quite close to Etosha there is no gate on our side and no way to get to the road from here, so we made a 300 k detour in a triangle, going first to Outjo (130 k south of Kamanjab) and then up 150 or so k to Okakuejo (pronounced Oh-Kah-Kway-Oh) inside Etosha. In Outjo we stopped for an unspecified period of time and basically just set the kids loose. Then when we finally did decide to leave, we just got a bunch of people on the bus and then set off with no head count or checks or anything. I'm still not entirely sure that we haven't left someone Outjo.

I had decided the night before that I had to be the responsible one and bring all of the little things that are important on a trip as no one else was likely to do it. Therefore I packed a bunch of medicine and Band-Aids, a candle and matches, my Swiss army knife, a cup, fork, knife, spoon and plate, string, duct tape, extra water, a thermos, and a couple of checkers sets, card games, and about 20 books for the kids to enjoy in their down time. I was really glad that I brought just about everything. The candle came in handy when the light in the girl's bathroom didn't work, no one thought to bring water for the long bus ride, plus I used the duct tape and the knife a lot.

I picked up my mail in Kamanjab as we went through. My friend Mike had sent me a Chemistry book (along with Dylan and Sandra) and because I'm a geek I spent much of my time doing problems (without a calculator, so it was more of a brain workout.) He also sent me a bunch of Daily Show episodes which I'm mostly saving for my actual birthday.

One of the ridiculous things about apartheid (among many) was the stipulation that only white people could eat white bread. I don't know if they figured that the colour white was their domain alone or if they just liked it, but it leads to some absurd conversations. At breakfast we ate what they eat at the hostel (3 slices of brown bread with butter and jam, and ridiculously sweet tea (I think they just heat up the tea to be able to dissolve more sugar into it.)) The kids were really apologetic and told me to wait while they tried to track down white bread. They were a little incredulous when I told them that I actually like brown bread a lot (I didn't tell them that I liked it better than the tea.)

I caused even more of a ruckus when I tried to wash up the first night. Modesty is a whole different concept here and bathing often consists of plugging up a sink in the bathroom and all the girls standing around with washcloths. At first they were astonished that I actually intended to bathe (to which I responded "I get dirty too.") and then the sight of so much white skin just about sent them into apoplexies.

There were some very frustrating things about the trip too. Some of the teachers spent way too much time drinking unreasonable amounts of alcohol and not really supervising the kids. Part of that is cultural, kids are just not treated in the same way here. Still, the blatant alcohol abuse (although, to be fair, they did start out trying to be discrete, but by the end there were kids using empty alcohol bottles to hold their water and teachers drinking at 9 in the morning) and the lack of supervision for the kids really really frustrated me. We, for some reason, brought the hostel matron who lives next door to me and is constantly drunk. I don't think that it's actually physically possible, but literally every time I see her she appears drunk There were a few moments when I was really low, but I called Elizabeth and she cheered me up. Also, the kids actually made me feel better. Some of them taught me some songs in KhoeKhoe.

We saw lots of animals and I learned a bunch of KhoeKhoe words for animals. I saw a zebra and a black rhino for the first time. We didn't get to see a lion because they come to the waterhole at nighttime. We were staying at the Okakuejo Primary School Hostel which is at the gate to Etosha, 20 k from the waterhole. People aren't allowed to drive at night in the park because it's dangerous to the people and the animals. Anyway, we got a small exception, but we still had to be out by 8:30, long before the lions showed up. But almost more interesting was the tourist watching. When we first drove up, what struck me first was how many white people there were there. I'm just not used to white people everywhere (even in Otjiwarongo or Windhoek, where there actually are white people the bulk of people are black. Here almost everyone was
white.)

Later that day we were watching some of the people swimming (actually the kids were all standing in a circle staring at the people swimming. —I tried to tell them that I thought that might make some of the tourists uncomfortable but that is a completely culturally foreign idea to them) we were in the park on a free education pass so we weren't allowed to swim (and the kids don't have swimming suits anyway) and one of my learners turned me and said, "Miss, places like this make me wish that I was a Boer." I didn't know what to say about that because, quite honestly, it is a very honest reaction to the very real economic disparities in this country.

After that we went to the location, where the black people live, just outside of the camp to drop something off. There the people lived in some small cement houses and squatter houses built out of corrugated tin, wood scraps, and scrap plastic sheets. By the end of the trip I was really sick of being stared at. The tourists stared at the kids (especially when we were all packed on the bus) but they really stared at me. I could almost read their thoughts as we drove by and they did a double take, staring at the white girl in the bus full of black kids. Anyway, we were sitting down eating lunch at one of the camps inside of Etosha (think nice touristy rest stop, cabin hotel, and a campground.) We were buttering some bread when some Italian tourists came over and handed Mr. #Guibeb a handful of pens to take the kid's pictures. It was a little strange and I don't know why, but I felt kind of offended. The kids were happy (they love having their pictures taken) and Mr. #Guibebb was happy about the pens (although they wouldn't have had to give us anything- we're not Himbas or anything.) I think I was the only one who understood both sides. The kids were a little mystified (one of my learners asked me if maybe they would just throw the pictures away since they didn't know the people in it.) The tourists were equally naive about the kids. One of the tourists gave a penlight instead of a pen and one of the girls, just being a kid, was shining it into another learner's ear. I'm pretty sure I saw the tourists chuckling to themselves. I think they thought the kids had never seen a flashlight before.

Peace,
Amy

PO Box 90
Kamanjab, Namibia
AFRICA