outside the rain's falling down...

post date:
monday, march 29th - 12:42 PM

current weather:
64 degrees, sprinkles

okay, okay. so i've been slacking off on updating my blog, i'm sorry. here it is.

while i was at work on thursday, me and john discovered another really nice casino online in the windhoek country club resort. we decided to check it out that night, because we heard they had poker tables available. and i really wanted to check out their golf course. so at around 7:30, we called a cab and drove right over to the resort.

when we arrived at the resort lobby, i was in awe. this hotel was at least a 4 star hotel with fancy waterfalls, fountains, and bright lights. i definitely felt underdressed with my t-shirt and jeans. but no matter, we found the casino and walked right in. i must say though, every time i've walked into a casino there is always a flock of chinese people crowding the roulette or blackjack tables. and they're always smoking and talking loud. so it's impossible for me to play those tables and walk away smelling clean.

we quickly discovered that the poker tables were reserved for a poker club, which we clearly were not a part of. however, the president of the club told us we could play in their tournaments, so hopefully we'll be able to play in one of those soon? should be fun.

me and john then decided to suck it up and play blackjack next to all the old people and smokers. i'd say it was a pretty good decision - i lost $N200 to start off with, but then i put in another $N200 and ended up walking away with $N1200 in my pocket, while john walked away with $N900. yesssss.

on friday, i lounged around the museum office and explored the building a little bit. since it is located on the top of a hill, the view from the balconies is gorgeous. just take a look for yourself!

and you thought africa was only desert.

i think this sign was trampled by elephants. adds to the scenery.

later that afternoon, we found this strange box with a lock on it in the corner of our office. it looked like a freezer, so we decided to take a peek inside...

sketchy looking metal box?

just a plastic bag inside.

oh wait, that's a frozen snake.

betcha you weren't imagining that, were you? haha. but that's as exciting as my day got, i'm pretty sure i just slept the rest of the night away. awesome. but at least i'm getting my recommended hours of sleep in?

okay, so i'll admit this. i like to shop. i like shopping. okay? i've said it. on saturday morning, a small group of people decided they wanted to head to the mall and plaza and pick up a few trinkets and things like that. i woke up to find out that they had already left... and i woke up at like 8:30! how early do i need to get up to go shopping these days :(

so instead i decided to go wander the city a little bit. all the stores close at 1 on a saturday, so i really didn't have much time to do anything once i decided to get off my lazy butt. we hiked up some hills but still stayed in the main city. i showed some people where my office was. they felt really bad for me. they said the hike up there is miserable. so i guess every morning for me is miserable.

at night, our entire group went out to dinner at a nice restaurant called... nice. or better known as the namibian institute of culinary education. i tried out springbok for the first time, it was very tough meat but still delicious nonetheless. i really wish we had this type of meat back in the states :(

big boys waiting for big boy food.

our guests, BP and chris.

springbok leg in cherry sauce.

so yeah, that was the story of my weekend. sunday was another lazy sunday, lots of reading in the sun and playing cards. i wish i could go and travel though some more though, it's just so hard to do things on your own because of all the safety precautions. and the fact that i don't know much about the good places to go visit in the country. and also because i don't have a car to travel around in... but technically i can drive ;)

lunch break! it's been another slow day at work...

malta-yahhh

post date:
thursday, march 25th - 4:15 PM

current weather:
81 degrees, mostly cloudy

so it begins. week number two of work. i feel like i've been here forever, i don't know why it's felt like we've been working for so much longer than that. i suppose this is what real life will be like once i get out of college. but i can only hope that the weather is as nice at home as it is here.

these past few days have been pretty productive days for our group. for our project, we are working on three separate displays in the owela display centre - traditional music, omahango / oshiwambo people, and etosha (national park). our plan was to create a small interactive true / false quiz that featured some information that was already displayed in the cases. we spent the entire day doing research and i decided to re-learn HTML for the actual quiz. janine and lily were able to get all the research and questions done, and i got about half of the actual quiz coded and programmed. that put us wayyy ahead of schedule, so i'm pretty pumped about that. if all goes well we'll be mostly finished with the bulk of our project by next week. i hope it all goes according to plan :)

on tuesday night, chris (one of the namibians) came over and brought his poker set for a casual game of poker. we played for about two hours, mostly chatting and just getting to know more about life in namibia. they're very similar to us, and they absolutely love people from other countries. that's something i still have to get used to - being called an international student. it's weird.

yesterday was quite the interesting day. the maltahöhe group (dan, meghan, and ally) came to work with us so they could tour a little bit on the nama people exhibit, which is what they are doing their project on. while they wandered the museum, i did some wandering of my own. i realized i needed to use the bathroom, and i never knew where it was. so i explored.

when i finally found the bathroom, i felt like i opened a door to an underground dungeon cell. the walls were pale and rusted, and all of the porcelain was dirty. i also couldn't help but notice how interesting the urinals were (sorry if i'm touching on a sensitive subject to some people but i think it's funny!). they are about half the size of urinals back home, and they were mounted so freaking high on the wall. to give you an idea, the bottom of the urinal comes up to my hip. definitely not kid friendly. the flushing system was also very unique - instead of a lever or a button, they had a knob which worked just like a sink. manually turn the knob to unleash as much water as you'd like to clean off the urinal. interesting.

i forgot to mention that in the corner of the bathroom, there was a shower stall with no curtain. now i wonder who would want to use one of those. sketchhh.

on the way back from work, i started paying a little more attention to all the buildings and noticed that most houses had electric fences on them. i guess people here are really protective of their stuff, or the crime rate here really is bad as they say it is. even our bed and breakfast has a huge electric fence, i'm always tempted to touch it to see if it actually works, haha. even if it did i'm sure it wouldn't kill me...

so at night, everyone decided to go back to the box but for some reason i just felt like staying in. after more chilling and mostly doing nothing, i was washing my dishes from dinner when i suddenly needed to go to the bathroom. i walked outside and decided to cut under the umbrella that covered one of the outdoor tables. little did i know that i was about 4 inches too tall. and did i mention the umbrella was made out of thick and rugged tree branches? and to make it better, it was pitch black outside. needless to say, i now have this interesting looking cut right above my left eye. i've never been more thankful for having glasses to wear.

as for work today, well... our main advisor left the country to visit south africa for about a week, so we've been sitting in the office and taking turns using the internet. i have the feeling that tomorrow will be the same. i did take a short lunch break at around 1 and met up with jenna cantwell and john, and i got to eat my first king pie meal. delicious. and i also found out that my computer is too advanced to support the touch screens that our museum provided. but it's already 15 minutes past 4, which means it's time to go! i'll figure it out tomorrow haha.

sweet dreams

post date:
monday, march 22nd - 4:56 PM

current weather:
90 degrees, sunny

man, it's quite difficult to keep up with updating a blog. i can never distinguish between days, and everything that happens feels like it happens all in one day. ah... i'm trying my best.

after coming back from work on friday we chilled in pool and sat outside and baked in the sun. every day is pretty much ideal for tanning, there's practically no clouds and the weather's always nice :) but i also decided that i wanted to start working out again. i got my workout email from matt and it was all dryland, since i don't really have any access to a gym or a pool. so then i tried to do a set, but i failed miserably and couldn't finish it. lots of abs and lots of pushups, man i'm getting out of shape kinda fast :(

that night we went back to the cardboard box, because nick (one of the wpi kids) met some other american students who were working in the same department as him and found out that all those kids would be at the box too. turns out that other group has 3 people from clark, that's so crazy. after some mingling i met jenna, who i believe is from new york? she told me about how she was on spring break, and then convinced me to go on a trip to swakopmund and the skeleton cove for the long weekend (since we have monday off from work) with nick and some other groupmates. i totally told them i was in, and they told me to meet them at the bus station at 6:30 the next morning. cool.

so i got back to puccini at around 1 am, packed my stuff in my bag, and then went to bed. i woke up at around 6:34 the next morning to a phone call asking where i was... turns out my alarm didn't go off and i obviously suck at waking up so put those two things together and you can figure out what happened. so yeah, i failed at going on vacation. i felt pretty bad for ditching, but i hope they had a good time without me haha.

but on the other hand, the rest of the wpi crew was already planning on taking a game ride through the okapuka safari, so i went with them instead. we took an hour and a half ride through this huge field on a range rover, and i saw all sorts of animals just chilling out in the wild. crocodiles, springboks, warthogs, vultures, rabbits, giraffes, rhinos, you name it! i saw a warthog from about 10 feet away, and then i watched a rhino eat some chocolate that our tour guide fed them. these animals are huge, it's crazy to see them face to face out in their natural habitat. i took a ton of pictures but my camera died about three quarters of the way through the trip, but hopefully i can upload them soon and show 'em to you guys!

view of the safari fields. amazing scenery.

by far my favorite african animal, the springbok :)

family of rhinos!

family of giraffes!

warthog.

i literally spent the rest of the day napping and making more pasta for dinner. really exciting, i know.

yesterday, march 21st, was namibia's independence day! they were celebrating their 20th anniversary of independence, and the town center was bustling with locals and foreigners alike. there were a few speeches and a long parade, i could hear all of it from where i was staying. after all the festivities we mostly just chilled all day in the shade and then went back out in the sun. i taught cribbage to brittany and dan, and then i learned how to play skat from meghan and jenna. cards are pretty much a staple of our survival here, i also broke out my set deck and we all took turns playing that. we also lounged by the pool and cut down some limes from a tree. we invited BP, a local namibian who we became friends with the night before, down to puccini to chill with us. he stayed for the whole day.

i also ran about 3 miles for the first time since i got here. it was awful, i got winded in about 10 minutes. but the altitude definitely has something to do with it, i'm sure i'll be a crazy runner when i get back to the states. watch out.

yesterday was also steve galucki's 21st birthday! we celebrated by throwing him a barbeque on the patio. we had a grand 'ol group bonding sesh, it was cute.

africans like their meat raw, so we decided to give it a shot.

john showing us the proper way to grill. no hands.

stuffed and happy after a hearty meal :)

birthday boy and his cake! i guess he's only 5 years old.

as for today, it's been a very lazy day. i don't think i have anything planned. guess we'll see...

pinch me

post date:
friday, march 19th - 12:00 PM

current weather:
73 degrees, sunny

so as you might have noticed, i've added this little 'post date' up top. this is because i write all my entries in a small word doc, and i upload them whenever the internet is nice to me. usually it ends up with me writing out my blog, and then not posting it until about 5 hours later. it's like a surprise, really.

today marks one full week since i've left the US for namibia! for some reason i really feel like i've been here much longer than that, i guess it didn't take long for me to get used to this culture. aside from the fact that i obviously don't fit in appearance-wise, i don't mind the area, and it slightly reminds me of being in both taiwan and costa rica. the only difference is that i can use english to communicate with people :)

after work yesterday, we walked through the mall again and had to pick up a few things from the grocery store. i wandered into an urban clothing store and saw that a bunch of sports jerseys were on sale! they had some lakers and nuggets jerseys, as well as a bunch of different soccer uniforms. i'm still debating whether or not i want to buy one - they're on sale for $N350, which is a little under $50. i think that's cheaper than the ones in the states? someone pleaseeee help me out on this.

we also encountered our first random stranger on the street! he was one of those street vendors and followed us for an entire block while carrying small keychains and talking his head off to try to get us to stop walking. slightly sketchy.

i've also started noticing that since people here drive on the left side of the road, they also like to walk on the left side. there have been so many times when i was walking on the sidewalk and then i look up and realize someone is walking right at me on the same side. i even got stopped once by a kid who told me to be on the other side. i didn't even notice how natural it was for us to walk on the right and pass on the left. it's little things like these that make me remember where i am, haha.

yesterday afternoon was really chill. me and janine visited the poly library so i could test out the wireless over there. the library is beautiful, i'd much rather be in there than the one at wpi. it's just very aesthetically pleasing, with large glass windows and what seemed to be brand new furniture. we stayed for an hour or so, enjoying the AC.

the evening was just the usual - cooking dinner, chilling outside, playing some cards. seems like nights just fly by, and i always find myself just sinking into a couch and getting bitten by mosquitoes. i have noticed that i've been taking fewer pictures though, so i should probably get on that.

as for today, i woke up at 8:30 to get to work by 9. we've been lounging around in the acre again, doing a little bit of research and killing time. my work really isn't exciting at all, i don't even know why i write about it in the first place. but yeah, that's where i'm stuck at right now.

i also just checked my bank statements today. counting the $100 i brought in cash to namibia, i've already spent $330 in one week. even though about a third of it is on groceries alone, i still think that's a lot of money to be throwing around, haha. whoops.

51 days and counting... i'm sure there'll be plenty more stories (and hopefully pictures) to come :)

how far we've come

post date:
thursday, march 18th - 9:50 PM

current weather:
88 degrees, sunny

i apologize ahead of time for these ridiculously long posts, but the past few days have been quite an experience. we've been staying in the city, but i don't think i've had to walk so much in the past two days. most of the city is also on a hill, so i feel like every walk is a hike up a mountain... haha.

on monday night me, john, becky, dan, and heidi went to the casino after dinner. it was at the kalahari sands hotel on independence ave, which we totally walked past because the entrance to the hotel was in a mall plaza. after about 20 minutes of searching, we got into the casino. it was a $N10 entrance fee, and we spent about an hour playing on the roulette tables. there wasn't any poker :( which is why we went there in the first place, but i made $N400 and john ended up making $N300 as well!

on tuesday morning, at around 8, we took a bus tour around the city in the morning. we drove to the area right outside of town and visited the informal settlements, where the (i don't like saying it this way but i don't really have any other way to) poor people live. their houses are pretty much shacks and made out of scrap metal, and the roads are all dirt and unpaved. it's almost shocking to see how close these settlements are from the city - i feel like it's almost like seeing two worlds right next to each other. it's unfortunate, really.

even people don't like living in places like these.

african spices and other delicacies at a local market

my house, come and visit me!

we also visited the habitat research and development centre, which was a government facility dedicated to reusing materials for sustainability. we saw some cool things - there were walls made out of soda cans and buildings made out tires. things like that make me wonder why people always waste materials when there are so many other alternative options out there.

our impromptu tour guide talking about the facilities

using different materials to construct a wall

later that morning our group walked up to the museum to visit our sponsor, anzel. she's quite young and very sweet, and she loves to talk haha. we pretty much talked about our proposal and our plans for the next few days, and then we took a short tour around the museum. it's not bad at all, i think it's a very comfortable place to work.

we stayed for about two hours, and then we just headed back to puccini. on the way through the mall we stopped by that ice cream place and got a cone for $N6.90. madd cheap. when we finally got back i just passed out on my bed for about 5 hours and woke up at 7... that night a group of us went to spur again for dinner and then me, john, and becky hit up the casino for round two. it didn't take long for me to lose the $N400 that i earned, so i guess i broke even. haha.

yesterday, we got to work at 9 and toured the acre, a separate building where all the museum staff works. we met eugene, the museum technician, and he talked forever about our project once we were able to sit down. we pretty much completed our staff interview cause he answered all of our questions for the project, so that was nice. at noon we took a lunch break and i napped on the grass outside because i forgot to bring lunch, oops. in the afternoon we went back to the acre to write up the timeline and test the internet... which works! but still unreliable.

after work we stopped by for ice cream again, and then ran into our advisors at the bistro. this time we got gelato, which was only $N8. but then we went to the pick and pay, the local supermarket, and i went a little crazy with my food and spent $N417... which is the equivalent of like $60. i had spent $N350 on food only a couple days ago, i think i eat too much?

in the afternoon me, john, peter, dan, and becky got into the pool for a little bit. i brought my dragsuit haha, and i wore it cause my swim trunks has a hole in an awkward place. yeah. then we made some dinner and a group of us went out to the cardboard box at night, a small local bar in a hotel. we met some namibians and some people from canada, and i'd say we had a pretty grand time. we had to wake up the security guards on our way through the poly on the way back though, that was fun haha.

all the single ladies! (all the single ladies...)

boys being boys

today, we started to conduct a few visitor interviews at the museum. we planned on staying from 8 until noon, and in this time we only got about 6 different groups to come in and talk to us. the museum itself doesn't really attract that many visitors in the first place, so we had about three hours of dead time where we just sat around and talked about random things. we spent the rest of the afternoon bumming around up in the acre, doing a little bit of research and being mad at the internet for not working. talk about team bonding, hmm?

i really hope that now we've started working, things will start picking up a bit. it's only been a week since i've left the country, but all the days feel like they've blended. it's also frustrating to know that so many stores close at 5 in the afternoon, so we have to miss most of what goes on because we don't get out of work until then. at least our everyone here gets to talk to each other a lot in our free time, i'm pretty happy with the group we have :)

meters and zebras

current weather:
84 degrees, showers / clear

sooo, it turns out the internet situation here is little stickier than i thought. i ran out of my first 120 minutes kinda fast, mostly from waiting for websites to load. and i couldn't buy another card until about an hour ago. so now i'm back!

on saturday night, a group of us went out to eat at spur, an "american" restaurant with pretty decent food. i forget what i ate, but all i remember was that it was mad cheap. after dinner, we were invited by the polytechnic of namibia students to go see a fashion show, which was held as an orientation event for new students. they had some pretty rockin' music, but the show dragged on forever because it was more like a beauty pageant. i left a little early cause i was still tired from the trip, and i just missed sleeping in a real bed in general.

namibians really like to strut their stuff.

yesterday was a very relaxed and chill day. we had no plans except a small barbeque with some staff and students from the poly. it was nice to get to know a few people from here, i really also enjoyed the food and meat they had. my plate looked a little something like this:

i honestly wouldn't mind eating this every day.

for the rest of the afternoon, we played cards and relaxed back at puccini (the name of our place). we also went shopping down at the mall, got a few groceries and necessities like that. at night we went to joe's beerhouse, a local restaurant and bar. they had some pretty amazing drinks, and even more amazing food. i got myself to try a zebra steak (which is DELICIOUS), and we also ordered a meter of beer. the meter was pretty much a meter-long box with 13 beers lined up in it. it's just really cool to look at, and i guess that's what they're known for haha.

imagine ordering one of these for yourself... oh man.

on the way over, we learned a little bit about the taxi situation here in namibia. apparently taxis will pick you up and fit as many people into a taxi as they can. however, if there are any empty spots, they will drive around until they find someone else who needs a ride. they have absolutely no problem picking up other strangers to sit with you... as you can imagine this made our rides a little awkward. taxi drivers will also fight other drivers in order to get customers, we had about 4 different people offer us rides back to puccini. i guess they can't really be that reliable, maybe we need to find a better way to get around the city.

today, we finally got to tour the area a little bit. we got up at 9:30 in the morning and took a tour around the main mall and city area with our advisors. we walked around the plaza and found a cell phone shop, and most of our group bought cell phones and SIM cards. mine is really basic and i haven't tested it out yet, but hopefully it works! i spent some good money on it haha.

me, dan, and becky found a small bistro in the center of the plaza and grabbed a lunch. we all got club sandwiches and sodas, and the meal came out to be $150 namibian, which is approximately 20 dollars US. not bad for a lunch for three people! we then got ice cream cones for $6.90 namibian, or roughly 90 cents. i think i'm liking the prices here on food :)

in the afternoon, we all dressed up and went over to the poly to meet the director of the university. we walked into this huge conference room with two circular tables, and each seat was equipped with one of those microphones that you can press and talk into the intercom. being goofy, bme and john took turns just talking to the whole room, it was kinda cool haha. finally, the director came in and gave us a small speech about the area and some of his experience in traveling abroad. he seemed like a pretty cool guy, hopefully we'll be able to meet him again.

after a trip to the poly, we went over to the US embassy for a security briefing. i won't lie, when we walked into the building after all the security checkpoints i felt pretty american. i felt like i hadn't left the country at all seeing as how we were surrounded by american flags, pictures of obama, and normal white people. this guy named frank gave us a speech about the crime rates and terrorist rates in the country, and honestly i can't say i feel the safest being here. apparently people get pickpocketed all the time, and mugging is a very common act of violence here. even people who have been here in the past have told us they've experienced something like that before, and it's best to just use your common sense. oh well, i've been here three days and so far so good. let's hope we can keep this up.

oh, i completely forgot to talk about the local time and things like that. i believe right now we are 6 hours ahead of US time, since daylight savings just happened. it's a little hard to coordinate things between countries right now, especially since my internet is so limited. i'm trying the best i can to keep in touch, so just bear with me as i try to settle in and figure things out!

i'm here!

current weather:
78 degrees, cloudy with thunderstorms

i made it in one piece!

so i flew out friday morning from boston at around 7 and landed in JFK at around 8:30. when i first checked in my luggage, the jet blue staff told me that my suitcase was 11 pounds over the domestic flight limit... i obviously packed for an international flight, so of course i had a little more baggage. so i had to open my bag and stuff like 15 pounds of shoes and shirts into a small duffel bag that i also packed. good thing i bought that bag, or it's like a $50 fine.

when i got to JFK, i wandered around and got lost a little bit, then finally met up with janine, john, and brittany at our gate. we also ran into peter, boya, and george as the plane was boarding. we then took a 15 hour flight to johannesburg at 10:30, which maybe took forever (but they had free wine!). i don't remember much except waking up and trying to sleep every hour or so, and the little kids next to me being loud. my neck's also sore for not getting comfortable. ohh well.

our final flight was from johannesburg to windhoek, and it looked a little something like this.

they're squinting to make me feel a little more at home.

i think it was around this point that i finally realized that i was in AFRICA. just looking at all the shrubbery and plains, it's hard to confuse that with any other place! it was exciting for sure :)

there's probably a giraffe in this picture somewhere.

after landing in namibia, we drove about 40 minutes back to the bed and breakfast. the road back was basically a two-lane highway with endless trees and shrubbery on either side. oh, did i mention they drive on the left side?

and this is a picture of our luggage... safe, i know haha.

it would probably suck a lot if it started raining... oh wait. it did.

finally we arrived at our bed and breakfast. i'm living with three other dudes in a relatively small pad. it pretty much only supports four beds, one small cabinet, and one small table. turns out the bathrooms and showers are outside - there's two bathrooms and one shower room for the entire complex. so this will probably make things interesting.

my room with four single beds. this is as big as our room gets.

breakfast area / indoor lounge

small courtyard outside of our room

outdoor patio (and hammocks in the back!)

this is the pool where plan to train at.

also, internet here is really really slooooowwww. plus, it's not free so we have to pay for it by minute. i happened to only buy the 120 minute card, so i guess i don't really have a lot of time to spend on my computer today. it sucks that most of my minutes are spent waiting for a website to load, but whatever. hopefully i don't go broke from internet services. i apologize in advance for these spotty posts, i'm trying to write as fast as i can haha.

anyway, it's looking pretty good so far. tomorrow's our first official day here, so we'll be touring the city and things like that. so hopefully there'll be more posts and pictures to come!

one last hurrah

so in about 12 hours, i will be all packed and on my way to the airport. i can't believe how fast time has flown by during these past several days, and i can't even begin to imagine what my life is going to feel like tomorrow. it's almost overwhelming...

so today is just a very mellow day. running some last minute errands, finishing (starting?) my packing, and making sure i remember to turn off all my alarms when i leave my room. you know, the usual stuff :)

only a couple more hours! not a lot of time left in the land of the free.

[EDIT] it's 2 AM, and i'm still up packing? i'm supposed to leave my house at 5. uh oh.

i hear the drums echoing tonight

i feel like this is only appropriate...

in other news, i just found out i got an A for ID 2050! it's nice to know that hard work does pay off :) and now i actually feel like i'm ready to start working on this project.

packing... holy cow

so i finally got home yesterday after staying at wpi a few extra days to finish up some work and things like that. i didn't realize how much stuff i brought to school!

it took me about three hours total to load up my car and then unload it when i got home. my room is probably the biggest mess i've ever seen right now, i can't move around my room without stepping on something. i just think it's funny that i have to unpack all of these clothes and random things, and then i'm gonna be packing it all away again probably in a few days.

in the meantime, i think it'll be nice to just sit around and enjoy the weather. 50 degrees? i'm not going to complain :)

intro

i've decided to start dedicating this blog to my trip to namibia!

for those who don't know, i will be leaving the US on march 12th and staying until may 9th. i will be working in the national museum of namibia for seven weeks, doing research and helping the staff update their exhibits. it's looking to be a grand 'ol time!

classes have finally ended, so now i'm just getting ready to leave. and getting ready to say some farewells. and getting ready to pack... haha