Swakop

Swakopmund!

Last friday started a bit shaky. Our Independence day celebration ended at 10am. Peace Corps came out and installed locks on my burglar bars and then gave me a ride into town. In Windhoek I finally got to pick up my packages and check out the office. While waiting for the girls from Okakarara, I discovered we weren’t permitted to go on because of restrictions on night travel.

We went all over Windhoek and every hostel was full, so we came back right after that sun had set, and we are told by the guard that we are not permitted inside. All our crap is in the PC lounge. Helen comes out and lets us in, thank god, and arranges for us to stay in the sick bay, which is pretty damn posh. We did eat out at a restaurant called Grand Canyon Spur Steak Ranch. Like it’s name, it was over the top, more wild west than the real wild west. But it’s food was dead on American. Normally that wouldn't be exciting, but here I about cried when they brought me a real chocolate milkshake.

The next morning we were off early to Rhino Park and arrived at Swakopmund without delay. Leslie has a huge house right in the center of Swakop. We settled in and took a tour of town and the beach. We jointly decided that Swakopmund is actually not in Namibia. Perhaps it really belongs to the US or is a long standing holding of Germany, I’m not sure. But it feels nothing like what we are used to thinking of when we think of Namibia.

The buildings are germanic and well-kept, the city is very clean, there are quite a number of restaurants, internet cafes, nice bars, etc. I actually ate pizza, had a martini, and listened to Afro-cuban music all in the same city. I never thought that would happen in Namibia. The beach was small but nice. There was a lot of seaweed in the water and it was cold so I didn’t go in.

Activities for the day consisted largely of the stereoptypical beach vacation type: shopping, swimming, sunbathing, hanging out, going to bars, going to the movies or just hanging out. The only exclusive PC activities I can remember are sitting on the beach and eating an entire gallon of ice cream with three other PCVs and taking daily trips to the awesome grocery store SPAR just to look around.
It was so nice to see Americans again, and realize that indeed we are all going through the same exact thing. So it was a communal sigh of relief.

Getting back was a bit more of a hassle than it could have been. My cellphone decided to kick me off, although I swore it was the right pin. After 3 tries it locks you out until you enter a 10 digit code. Of course that code was back in Dordabis. So I had to take taxis all over town to my colleagues houses to get the phone numbers of the people I would ride with. Finally after buying tango for some guy and making 8 calls, I managed to get a ride, hustled back to the Peace Corps office, grabbed my things, ran over to Klein Windhoek, and headed off to D-town. Even Namibians were telling me I was lucky to get a ride. I think they were right. Otherwise I would have been hitchhiking today, which wouldn’t have been too terrible considering Tuesdays are the worst teaching day ever.

On another note, 5 months have past since I left, 20 more to go! That is a total of 1/5 of my time in Namibia, or 20% of my service. Holy cow. I don’t know if I should think a lot of time has past or just a little has past. Last time I calculated 10% of service was over.