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 :)
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