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.
