There's no denying it, these bloggers are bound to make you jealous. Whether it's their guts, their energy or their tan you admire, overseas volunteers have got plenty to share with you about their remarkable work in fascinating countries. Read on to find out what you could be missing.

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Sunday Sep 10, 2006

Namibia - early mornings, ant genocide and eating crocodile

This is the first post I'm writing from my project, where I'm going to be for the next year. Eek. It seems like a long time but I think I'm going to like it here, Luderitz seems like a great town. I started this post on Tuesday, but things have been so mad I haven't had a chance to finish it, so I apologise for how late this is! We only arrived here on Monday afternoon, but we got into Namibia on Thursday – we got to stay in Windhoek, the capital, while we waited for our flight down. It looked so different and so amazing when we flew in over the desert, and ten minutes drive out of the airport we had to slow down to let three baboons across the road!Staying in Windhoek was really fun, as on the first night all 6 of the Namibia volunteers were there, and we went out for a meal at the world-famous (apparently) Joe's Beerhouse. Me and Bozena got right into the adventurous spirit, eating animals we'd never even seen before! I had gemsbok steak and she had a kebab with zebra, crocodile, ostrich and kudu on it. That's been our only experience of eating out so far, as that was a bit of a luxury; we're meant to spend the equivalent of a tenner a week on food here.

The flight down to Luderitz was great, the plane was tiny. We were 2 of about 12 passengers, and as the plane was so small it flew relatively low, right over the desert. The landscape out here is completely amazing, just miles of sand and windswept dunes as far as the eye can see. When we took off from Windhoek (which is pretty small for a capital, the population of Namibia is only 2 million), we soon left it behind us. I remember thinking, as this endless, beautiful desert stretched out all around us, with not a single sign of human settlements anywhere... "If the plane breaks down, we're so dead."

When our host, Lindsay (who is lovely and has been incredibly helpful), picked us up from the airport, she said, "Welcome to the moon!" It really does look like a lunar landscape here, but more colourful and hotter. It rained last year, which is a big event in Lüderitz, and the desert flowers have come out which barely ever happens. I think it's beautiful here, but people keep warning us about the wind – apparently it's always a shock to visitors. I'm a little bit worried about how strong it's going to be!

The volunteer accommodation is actually really nice. The only problem so far has been that one of the last volunteers (inadvertently, I hope) left a bag of sugar partially open, so there are a fair few ants to be dealt with. They're living behind the bath tap, so me and Bozena got to work with our DOOM insect killer – to be honest, it was quite fun! We committed ant genocide, by the time we were finished nearly the whole of the bottom of the bath was covered in dead ants. We still see a few lurking about the place, but we keep our DOOM close at hand (yes, it is really called that, and I think it looks better to keep it in capitals). I've only seen one cockroach the whole time we've been here so hopefully that's not an issue. There are a few things it'll take a while getting used to, like hand washing clothes and having no hot water in the kitchen, but all in all we've got it pretty easy.

The poverty has been surprising – not so much in the main town but the township of Benguela is quite poor, then the shanty town, 'Sand Hotel', is in a shocking state. There are people living without running water or sewers, in houses built from scrap metal and wood. The council are building a kind of estate, called Area 7, to try and move the people from the shanty town into, but aside from the fact that it has water and sewers it's not that much of an improvement. It's just very different from England. I knew it would be, but you can't help noticing that some kids walk the streets in bare feet because shoes are too expensive, and hang around outside food shops begging for bread.

I've started work at various places. We do two mornings a week at Brightstart, a Montessori primary school, which is very different to any school I've ever been to, but the kids are cute so it's fun. So far I've mainly just been observing, but I'm starting to do reading with the kids and in a while I'm going to be able to give lessons. We're also working at the secondary school, as one-on-one English tutors; the lessons are mainly taught in English, but kids are allowed to be schooled in the mother tongue up to a certain age. The kids who don't speak English at home are at a massive disadvantage when suddenly all their lessons are taught in a different language. Many of the children speak Afrikaans, which some of the lessons are taught in, but a couple of the kids I'm working with speak Oshiwambo, so both the languages are new to them. The biggest shock about working at the schools has been how early we have to be there; the schools start at half 7 here so we have to be up at 6, it's horrible!

We've also started on our first issue of the monthly 'Buchter News' paper – it's great how friendly and helpful everyone is here. As the project has been running for nearly 20 years, everyone knows 'the Buchter girls', and people volunteer stories for us at the most unexpected times – me and Bozena have both learnt that we need to have pen and paper with us whenever and wherever we are!

The other big change from England is how racist quite a few of the white people are. I know there's little point in trying to argue when it's something I can't hope to change their mind on, but it really annoyed me last night, when one man warned me, "Don't get colourblind." At first I didn't know what he meant, but it's always a warning sign that he started with, "I'm not a racist, but..." I just couldn't believe that someone would 'warn' me about making friends with someone because of their skin colour. Fortunately most people don't think like that, but racism is evidently still a massive issue in southern Africa.

Right, I should go do the washing up – I've just been eating 'mealie', a kind of maize porridge, because it's cheap, but if you leave it too long it welds to the bowl! Hopefully my next post will be in a week, like it's meant to be – maybe I should start it tomorrow...

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 5:57 PM )
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