Okay So…

I have been in Namibia for about a week. I have enjoyed my time here very much. The interviews I have conducted for my job have been some of the highlights of the trip. There’s been a bit of a learning curve with communication though. It turns out that most people speak 3 languages- English, Africaans, and their own tribal language. Their accents, while beautiful, can be veery difficult to understand. One of our Namibian colleagues calls it Namblish. But it is easy to adjust quickly to communicating and understanding, and Namibians are very open when I ask for clarification. I also love hearing the local languages that use clicks. I have learned how to make the 3 types of clicks used by one language using the front, middle, and back of the mouth. Apparently another language has a greater variety of clicks. I have also seen a number of Herero women. They look dignified in their traditional garb.

Today we finished our work early and toured Windhoek. There are some very nice area and some with terrible conditions. Apparently Namibia has one of the greatest income disparities between the wealthy and the poor of any nation in the world because of the gem and mineral wealth. We passed one of the large informal settlements where people live in shanties made of corrugated steel (we even saw people with a small cement mixer building one of these). In this area, there are many, many shebeens (speak-easies, also in shanties), which is not surprising given the terrible conoditions in which some people live. We also visited Penduka, a women’s workshop. The women produce handmade goods to get finances for a better standard of living . I bought a couple of embroidereed gifts to support them.

I have had some interesting experiences in Windhoek so far. Oddly, we are here during a 100 year rain. There have been heavy thunderstorms. The country is unusually green. One tour guide told us that locals don’t know what some of the blooming flowers are because they have never seen them.

Today the team I came with started our work. Our goal is to assess the current state of nursing education in Namibia and to make recommendations for improving the capacity to train nurses. Namibia has only 2 million people spread over a land area bigger than Texas. Delivering healthcare to the entire nation is a huge challenge. To start the assessment, we interviewed program directors in the Ministry of Health. They told us that the biggest problems here are maternal death, HIV, tuberculosis, and nutrition. Tomorrow,we will visit hospital clinical sites to observe clinical training.

This evening my work group went to dinner at Joe ‘s, a very kitschy local safari-themed restaurant. I had a kabob with oryx, kudu, crocodile, zebra… and chicken. The other night, I tried springbok. One thing I have learned is that Namibians love meat and eat lots of it. Game meat is really good- flavorful, but not obnoxious. The food is definitely influenced by the German colonization. There are hearty breads and a real European continental breakfast (meats, cheeses, etc).

On Sunday, my colleagues and I walked down to the local craft market. There are a lot of beautiful goods made by local artists. Using the ATM was unnerving though. I watched several men scoping out my colleagues as potential theft victims as they were at the ATM. Alertness is crucial.

Sunday afternoon, Susanna and I went to Duesternbrook, a game reserve about 1 hour north of Windhoek. A van took us there, then we went out in safari cars. We saw oryxes, springboks, and a herd of wildebeest all wild in the bush. At the reserve we saw semi-wild leopards and cheetahs. The reserve is a very large fenced in area where the cats are kept, and it is illegal to have game in with the cats (because the game can’t get away). So the cats are fed by humans- not entirely wild, but still pretty cool. The leopard was especially gorgeous. Also, the driver of the open safari car had a talent for swatting spider webs before they hit us in the back. Since I was in the front seat, I was very grateful to not end up with a two inch (!) spider in the face.