Bushmen making fire and a temporary bushmen hut

IYA information

Here is the website that explains the IYA - International Youth Award. http://www.intaward.org/IAA/index.aspx

It started from the Duke of Edinburgh Award which some of you may have heard of and even participated in. It is a fantastic program and I recommend it to any young person who can get involved in it!

IYA and the Bushmen

This past weekend we went on another trip with the IYA – have I explained the IYA? Mmm, don’t think so, will do so in another post. Anyway, we packed 21 teens into a number of cars and headed north on the Okahandja road. WHAT? You ask, Are we doing going on ANOTHER trip with teenagers? Did we not learn from the last one?? But I have signed up for being and IYA leader and so must go, and therefore K must go too!

This trip was for the bronze award youngsters to have their expedition. Bronze is really all about training to do silver and gold level IYA. They learn how to put up a tent, how to hike silently so that they see interesting things, how to work together as a group and how to skip bathing.

The first leg of the trip was out to Abaadi where we were led on a walk by a pair of bushmen. They were dressed traditionally and showed us fascinating things like how to store water in ostrich eggs, how to identify uses of indigenous plants and how to make fire with two sticks. The students had so much fun doing the last! One must call the fire at the same time as rubbing vigorously. The way to call fire is with an eerie combination of clicks and eees, something like “tchai tchai eeeeeee”.

We also learned how to bake bread using an old anthill as an oven, the bread was mixed in a bucket and then placed under the anthill and covered with coals. I have rarely tasted anything so delicious!

After Abaadi we drove back to the Galloway farm where we set up our campsite in a riverbed. The kids made potjies while the adults chilled with a bottle of wine and appreciated the view. It was fascinating to watch the youngsters figure out who knew how to make a fire, who knew which stick went where on their tent and who was the most afraid of snakes! It was lovely to see that the people who are not the popular ones in school suddenly were everyone’s best friend because they had been camping before.

After sunset, dinner and marshmallows the students self-regulated and went to bed early. We woke them at 5, when it was still dark and felt like night, and headed off on a stiff walk around the farm. By the time we came home in the bus there was not a young voice to be heard, only snores!

Bronze IYA expedition

Hank the Tank

Here is a piccy of us and Hank the Tank. Named for the blue politician in X-men. I know, so far off the geek radar it hurts. But he’s blue and huge and when he gives us trouble we can call him Beast. It’s been quite a feat to get the dealership to sort him out – and I’ll name names… General Motors are a total pain in the arse. We are driving to Cape Town in a couple of weeks and the dealership has promised to have him sorted out by then, so hold thumbs etc for us! Meanwhile feast your eyes on the fabulousness that is a ’95 Volvo in almost mint condition, or rather, heading towards mint condition!

You say Tomato

I have now been back long enough to notice some essential differences between the two places I call home. The first and most noticeable is the lack of plastic spoons in Namibia. Or maybe it’s just Whk that insists on only eating off only the finest cutlery.

We used to use our thousands of plastic spoons to dish our cat’s food. That way we could feel like we were recycling the wretched things. Here, we have been reduced to using our own cutlery and then two precious plastic forks, one of which has lost all but one tine. In DC, plastic spoons were practically thrown at you! Coffee shops, Chinese takeout, lying around on the streets, magically appearing in the back of your spatula drawer. Here I have had to BEG the local chicken joint to share their spoons with me and I am becoming know as the crazy spoon lady.

I have one spoon now, but it has taken me three months to get it and I am still guarding my two plastic forks (named Winnie and Minnie) like they are a matching pair of diamond earrings!

mad skillz

In this pic you can see my sis doing a very complex manouvre called trapezing. The essential idea is that you strap yourself into a harness and then trust that harness with all your body weight and drop off the side of the boat. This makes the boat go MUCH faster and also tilt. For some reason, this is thought to be fun. For me, it mostly meant that I wouldn't pee on the boat out of fear, cos my rear end was hanging over deep blue sea and goodness knows what IN that sea! Clearly, my sis has an over-developed sense of adventure and should share just a little of it with me.

mmmmmm

Whoah - I reallllllly am craving Chipotle. The creamy guacomole spread all over the black beans, with the crunchy green peppers and the strong onions. All laid on a bed of fluffy, warm rice. Mmmmm, and if you're not on diet - the contrast of the cold sour cream in between, and the cheese to hold it all together. mmmm

Oh dear.

Walvis Bay

Here are a few photos - full story to come later once I have finished my history homework!

There was a resident seal at the yacht club who came up on shore and barked to be fed at 4 every day. He was very cute and did tricks for his fish! Actually, it may have been a she. Mum went over to talk to her/him and it rolled over in the water like it wanted it's belly scratched! Which is a bit like a leopard asking the same! At one point someone's rottwieler was running around on the beach and there was a brief face off between him and the seal. My bet was on the seal, especially if they got back in the water, but the rotty was smart enough to back off to a safe distance and bark instead.

Group photo

All 47 youngsters plus the four adults... I think one of the guides is in front too.

more Orange river

Orange river

This is K and I coming down a rapid called sjambok... in English... the equivalent of a cat-o'nine-tails.

Orange River - pictures four and five

On the last evening, the campsite was very large, we were basically camping out in a river mouth that had dried up. The boys couldn't resist putting sticks in the gravel for goal posts and playing some soccer. These are the same boys, who on the first night, wanted to sing Manchester United songs at close to midnight when everyone else had gone to bed long ago. They went to sleep talking soccer and woke up talking soccer. So when K bounced the ball on his head and some other fancy stuff, the boys were immediately smitten!

Watching them play in the dust with the sun setting on the mountain behind them was seeing soccer as poetry.

Orange River - pictures two and three

This gives a good sense of the geology and what it was like to be on the river with all the canoes, surrounded by water and mountains. In front is the guide giving the signal to stop.

Orange River - picture one

This is one of the river in the early morning on the last day.

wishes won't wash dishes

B and S wash dishes at their place next door, and I wash dishes at ours. I miss our dishwasher. Although, even if we used ALL our dishes we still wouldn't fill a machine. So I guess it's a blessing in disguise! Not to mention the water saved!

This is the Quinn cat next door that Henry desperately wants to be his new best friend. But she is making him work for that priveledge!

This is the wall we share with Mum's garden as seen from our upstairs bathroom. B and I sometimes have whole conversations from our upstairs bathrooms.

House & Home

Here are a few pictures of the house as we have done it up. I was given a new digital camera and so can finally put up pics - if I can get the internet to work with me, baby!

The first is of C and K at work in our dining room on a Sunday morning.

The second is of part of our kitchen, we seem to have unintentionally found a striped theme for the downstairs.

The lawn looks like it is starting to recover which makes the smell of the manure we put down worth it. Not that we can lie, walk or sit on the lawn without getting poo all over us yet. Hopefully we'll get it healthy just in time for winter!

I just cut some bougainvilla to put in our house, it doesn't have a scent but it is so exuberant, even in a vase that it livens up the lounge and K's fave sitting and reading the paper chair.

We are slowly starting to get to the place where we are completely set up and the admin is over, and we can actually start living a daily life. For me this involves getting up with the cats, walking around a few blocks with H before it gets too hot and then working on my history before going in to St P to teach it. For K it means running around in the car and eventually ending up at DRFN for some work.