Part Seventeen: Back at Otjikondo (14th – 31st January)

I can’t believe that is my second term out of three working at Otjikondo and I’ve already had one out of two holidays – the time seems to be flying past and I’m sure it will only fly faster.

The weekend before the children arrived was spent doing washing, tidying and getting everything sorted for the start of term – this included sweeping the vast amount of bat poo from the Art room. I was also very trusting and let Chelcie cut my hair, luckily she was trustworthy and I have been left with some hair. We gave Luise a tour of the school and bombarded her with information about what she could expect once term started. We have also been joined by another volunteer called Rachel from England, who is English and 59. She has come for a month and has been twice previously. The children all arrived on the Monday and we spent the day going around the hostels, helping get things ready and welcoming the children back. It was so lovely to see them all again, we have both massively missed them, and it was very exciting to meet all the new children. The new G1s are so CUTE and really little. Andrew who was the smallest boy in the school last year has been joined by his younger brother – Solomo, and they are identical although Solomo is slightly taller. The pair of them are so adorable.

School started with an assembly in the Hans Seidal Hall where all the teachers are introduced and then all the new children. All the new children are then given a teddy of some sort to help them settle into boarding life – another special Otjikondo way. For the first week I was teaching Grade 4 as their teacher was still on maternity leave. This was quite challenging as I wasn’t given anything specific to do with them but told to occupy them with something useful! Their class is also massive – 35 due to 3 new children (Izaura who wants to be called Natasha and twins called Marlin and Martin) as well as 6 children who have moved from Wings. It’s quite a jump for them moving from a class of 12 to a class of 35 and it definitely takes a while to get them all to be quiet. I spent the week helping them cover their exercise books, doing mental maths, spelling competitions, English exercises, extra PT classes and teaching them elementary Spanish which they loved. When I came to mark a writing exercise on “My Christmas Holiday” I got a couple of shocks. The majority wrote about their Christmas day, time on a farm, visits to family, travels to other parts of Namibia, what I would have typically expected. However, when marking one boy’s exercise he wrote how he was so cross with the man who had beaten his friend and how he had gone to visit his friend in hospital. More shocking was another boy’s account of how his family had just been about to leave the farm when someone had hung themselves on a tree. I can’t say this is what I expected to read at all but as Gilly says you never know what happens to them in the holidays. The thing that I found most shocking was how they seemed just to slip it into their writing and then just carry on as if it wasn’t something massively scandalous or scary.

The second week of term I became Mr Kalundu as he went to Windhoek for a week. This entailed teaching Maths to Grade 5 and Science, Maths, Life Skills and Agriculture to Grades 5 – 7. Anyone who knows me would think that Otjikondo are crazy to put me in charge of teaching this but I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. I had one of my most enjoyable and satisfying weeks at Otjikondo so far. I loved teaching academic subjects and I really enjoyed teaching the older grades. I have always thought that I would want to teach lower primary, around Grade 3, but I am now properly considering teaching upper primary and specialising in one or two subjects. The children really wanted to learn and they were old enough to be able to listen and then ask intelligent questions so it wasn’t just me standing talking at the front. I had to learn to write on the chalk board after my white board pen stopped working which was pretty horrendous but didn’t kill me. I have now become Mrs Vermaak as she has gone on a conference so I am teaching Maths to Grades 6 and 7. I am doing Approximation and Estimation with the Grade 6’s and Factors with the Grade 7s. Today the Head Girl, Kenisha, came up to me after the lesson and told me what a good teacher I was – this meant the world to me.

I made my first cake in Africa as it was Rachel’s 59^th birthday so I made bobotie and then a chocolate cake. I was very anxious about how this would turn out as I didn’t have a measuring jug and the scales I borrowed from Gilly were the old fashioned sort and therefore not very accurate. Luckily it turned out well and we had a really lovely birthday supper. We had decorated the kitchen with bunting and made a happy birthday banner.

The Button Box: We have had first round auditions which were incredibly exciting and we are now half way through our second round of auditions. This is something that I have been looking forward to ever since I got my information pack from Project Trust about what my job at Project Trust would entail – putting on my own musical. We have already cast all the main parts and the solo parts and now are only left with choosing our chorus. We have nine solo parts and are looking for a chorus of 20 to support them. We have already narrowed them down and they are returning to sing and dance for us on Friday so I will keep you updated.

Athletics: This is Athletics term and since we’ve returned there has been a competitive air running through the school. Every member of the school is either in the Yellow Team (me and Rachel) or the Green Team (Chelcie and Luise), every year but one the Green team has won at Sports day but I have been saying continuously that the year that I am here will be the year that this changes. We have been training so hard every afternoon. I was put in charge of getting the older children fit and working with the relay teams. This meant that at the beginning of the term I was absolutely crippled. Having done no exercise what so ever for the last six weeks my body went into shock and slight melt down! We also went for cross country runs with the older ones before they had supper. Sports day is incredibly important and the rivalry is massive between teachers and pupils alike. All the pupils were given wool in their team colour so everyone was sporting yellow/green bracelets and necklaces as well as having braids in their hair. I was firmly branded in the yellow team with my yellow watch on my right hand, a yellow friendship bracelet on my left and then a braid in my hair done by Chelcie.

Sports Day: The most incredible day. My alarm went off at 5:40 and after a quick breakfast we headed for the school. I had a yellow star on my face and I have written GREEN on Chelcie’s face (we had missed our anniversary face paint for January so this was our face painting day instead). My first job was to hand out all the name badges to the yellow team and I branded them all with a yellow star on their forehead! We then marched out to the sports field followed by the enemy – the green team. The sports pitch looked incredible – the day before they had painted all the lines on for the races, put up bunting around the edges and erected gazebos and umbrellas for shade. My job for the day was timekeeping and in particular I had to time the person who came 2^nd in each race. This was easy for the long distance races but slightly more pressurized on the 80m sprints as they would come out of nowhere and I would have to spot who was coming second. It was a really good job to get as it meant that I got to watch all the races, coach the children before the long distance races and I had a pretty good view of all the other events. The atmosphere was unbelievable all day – each team had a tent where all the children sat when they weren’t competing and they were joined by their parents dressed in their child’s team colour. All the children were in little blue shorts and either a very vibrant yellow tshirt or a green one. They sang all day team songs and the parents got very competitive in their singing and dancing. It was soon incredibly hot (the previous evening it was 36˚C at 6:30 in the shade) but the children were very good at doing their best – even when the number of laps for the 800m was miscalculated and they all ended up running 1100m! The end of the events came and it was time for the relay races – for the younger ones there were 6 races and yellow won 5 of them. By this time I was sooo over excited that I was jumping up and down laughing uncontrollably which amused the older ones who thought I was going crazy! The relays for the older ones didn’t go quite as well but we still won a couple and that was the end of the events. I knew that we had done well but I wasn’t sure we had done enough – I thought we could have done with winning more of the older relay races. I wandered down the pitch for prize giving where I was spotted by Mr Hawaxb who told me it was my turn to run! The parents have two relay races – one for the mothers and the other for the fathers and they wanted me to run for the mothers! I found this distinctly unamusing as a) I can’t sprint and b) it was 3:15 and scorchingly hot however I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Luckily I won my 100m and we won overall so I didn’t embarrass myself! It was then time for prize giving: first of all certificates were given out for the best girl and boy for each year group. Out of 14 children 11 were yellow children and my hopes rose. They then announced the winning team and...............................WE WON! It was so incredible and all the children were so happy. We were given a massive trophy and we paraded up to the dining room where they were rewarded with chocolate icecream. It was a marvellous day which didn’t actually have much to do with winning but the atmosphere throughout the day. The only bad thing was when the parents left and we had some very unhappy six year olds who wanted to stay with their parents. I had one little boy who I was having to physically restrain with all my strength as he screamed for his Mummy and kicked and fought me to run away. It broke my heart.

Environmental English: Chelcie and I have been doing environmental English supposedly every day with 12 of the Grade Ones. Some of them have very little English and this is to help them with their vocabulary, so every session we do 5 new words. For example: head, nose, mouth, ears and eyes. This was all okay although they confused the sounds for ears and eyes. So I would say point to your eye and they would, then I would say point to your mouth and this was fine and then I would say point to your eye and then they might point to their ear. I have also done a bit of phonics teaching with the Grade Ones and I think I will do a bit more of this when my schedule is back to normal. Chelcie and I get to sponsor a child from Grade One so as awful as it sounds we have been vetting the children to choose which one we want! I feel I should just blindly choose from the list but....I have narrowed it down to a couple of them. Some were taken out straight away as I feel I can’t sponsor an African child called Sam! I think I’ve made my decision but I will let the suspense build and release the name of my child in my next entry! It really made me laugh reading through my little book that  my friends wrote in before I came away – 90% of the messages say don’t come back with a child and I’m going to even if it’s not in the way they meant!

Yesterday I had a moment when I find it really hard to be in Africa rather that in England. We are carrying on with Athletics in the afternoon with about 60 children who are representing Otjikondo at Outjo next Friday where we go for an athletics match to compete against 5 other schools. We were doing high jump and Damian had a crashing fall. He totally over jumped and missed the mats completely landing on his head. At first I thought he had knocked himself out but then he started making this awful animalistic groan, he was writhing about so I knew he hadn’t damaged his spine but I made him stay still on the floor and tears were just pouring from his eyes. I sent one of the older boys to get Mr Hawaxab and he came over but after he saw that Damian wasn’t seriously injured he went back over to his sprints session. After a while I got him to sit up and then slowly I walked him over to the clinic. He was very dizzy and I was properly supporting him. We don’t have an actual trained nurse in residence but we have the school “nurse” who was trained by a visiting nurse a couple of years ago. She got two girls to wash his head where it was cut, put some ointment on the cut, gave him two pills and sent him to the hostel to lie down. I felt so helpless as I didn’t want to leave him alone as I thought he might be concussed as he was still very dizzy. I walked him back to the hostel and then told Stanley that he had to check on him every half an hour to see how he felt, how dizzy he was and if he had double vision or anything. Luckily today he is absolutely fine but I felt very responsible last night and I wasn’t happy with how he was looked after.

I really don’t understand how but...it’s the end of January (I left home 5 months ago today) so record time: I have read 17 books (I would recommend The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins and Afterwards by Rosamund Lipton, both of which absolutely gripped me), I have sent 12 letters and received 11 so another win to me, competed in one relay race, discovered a passion for teaching science and maths (aghhhhhhhhh) and won one incredibly competitive sports day!

MASSIVE CONGRATULATIONS to Emma who has won a history competition and is heading off to Poland at some point as her prize – I am so proud of her as she has been working like an absolute Trojan! This is a dedication to Qwirkle who disappeared off over a month ago and has yet to been seen so if you have my cat please give him back as his brother is missing him and apparently is getting very fat. A big thank you to Godmother Katie to my parcel – the tangfastics disappeared very quickly and Chelcie didn’t get a share! I really hope that everyone who has gone off on their own travels this month is having an amazing time and that you are all sage. Love as usual to absolutely everyone, I’m missing you all although still having the best time ever despite losing the ability to sleep again. Last night I had horrendous nightmares of centipedes coming up the side of my bed and crawling over me and my blanket. I thought that I had actually stabbed a scorpion last night but when I couldn’t find the knife this morning I ascertained that it must have been a dream although in the middle of the night it was very real! Gilly has told me that I should try having a stiff drink before I go to bed?!

Lots and lots of love

Ottilie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Part Sixteen: Happy New Year! (29th December – 13th January)

The main reason that we were heading to Luderitz was to see Alex, Simona (two project trust volunteers working and living here) and Tyche (another PT volunteer who works and lives in Omaruru who had also come to visit, her partner is Sophie but she had stayed in Omaruru to be with her boyfriend). We had an absolutely horrendous journey down to Luderitz which I have no wish to dwell on but I will just say that we sat in a Combi for 11.5 hours so squished that both my feet couldn’t rest on the floor at the same time and in order for my arms to fit one had to be out of the window!

Luderitz was great fun and very different to what we both imagined. It didn’t feel like Africa at all, in fact it could have been anywhere. It was in the middle of nowhere, absolute nowhere surrounded by sand and sea. After a comforting bowl of butternut squash we all went out apart from Chelcie – explanation in a bit, and they introduced me to all their friends who were lovely. There is a large crowd of 20 somethings who are all white Afrikaans. At first it was quite weird as these were the first white Namibians that we had really met and for the first time we also met some girls! They were all really lovely and I will definitely keep in contact with quite a lot of them. It was also so lovely to be with all the PT volunteers and to be able to catch up with what everyone had been doing and hear about all the projects.

General Luderitz: It was lovely to be able to totally chill out and relax. We spent a lot of time in Luderitz chilling and talking. On our first day we walked to Shark’s Island – I was very disappointed that there were no sharks and it wasn’t even an island! It was actually just some rocks on sand where we just sat and talked which was lovely and there was an incredible view out to sea. We all got very into our milkshakes in Luderitz which were yummy and very good value! One night we went out to supper at an Oyster Bar which was incredible although none of us actually ate Oysters! Apart from Tyche, who doesn’t like fish, we all had Tuna steaks. These were cooked in front of us and were served just as they were with a little dish of soy sauce with a smidgen of mayonnaise and a chilli concoction.  It was absolutely delicious and we were even given a class of champagne on the house which was a great accompaniment! I also acquired a new nickname on my first night in Luderitz: “Dimples” because I have “the most beautiful dimples in the world”!

Chelcie: For someone who claims never to get ill, she gets ill an awful lot...Chelcie had been complaining of a sore throat since just before Christmas and on the 30^th she woke up and her right side of her face was massively swollen, she had a large lump in her throat and she was in a lot of pain. We decided it was time to get checked out by the doctor just in case it was tonsillitis or something needing antibiotics. We couldn’t get an appointment for that day but she went to see the doctor the next morning. I was still asleep at this point...when she returned I knew something was really wrong as she had tears in her eyes and Chelcie always says she has the “emotional range of a teaspoon”. The doctor had told her that she had a paratonsilar abyss – in English an abyss behind her right tonsil which he recommended removing because if they return they can swell up and block the airway. This meant that Chelcie would probably have to fly home as she and her parents didn’t want her to have the operation in Windhoek. Straight away I started making phone calls; first to Gilly, then to Project Trust and hundreds to the insurance people who each time asked me to confirm Chelcie’s name and date of birth...just in case! This was very stressful particularly due to the issues with our visas which would make it very difficult for Chelcie to get back into the country again which would have left me at Otjikondo by myself. Luckily the antibiotics that the doctor gave her started to work quickly and within a few days Chelcie was back to normal although we still had this looming over us. It was organised that she would go to see an ear, nose and throat specialist in Windhoek who would determine whether she would have to have the operation or not. This was first scheduled for the 9^th and then the 12^th.

End of December: I can’t believe that this is the end of the 4^th month and the end of the year. It seems crazy that is now 2012 – not only the year of the Olympics or the year that the world is supposed to end but most importantly I COME HOME THIS YEAR!!! December was a great month that I really enjoyed, it wasn’t what it promised to be but we had a lot of fun never the less. Okay records – I was very lucky and received 21 letters but I sent 31 to you. I win! (However, they were mostly postcards so we might have to call it a draw!) I read eight books and also cried eight times! Also lots of firsts: I put on my first Nativity and Christmas Concert, completed my first term at Otjikondo, I went dune boarding, I met my first Pelican and I survived my first Christmas away from home. Let’s hope that the new month and New Year are good ones!

New Years Eve: SUCH FUN! We set off to the beach at around 5 and we went to this place where there used to be an old golf club. The building was deserted and now covered in really cool graffiti which made an amazing background to photos! We built a massive bonfire there and we had a couple of flares and fireworks which were really cool. At about 11 we headed back to town and went to Barrells. This is the place where we went out most evenings, it was a bar/restaurant and really fun. We stayed here dancing until about 5am when a fight broke out which was pretty scary as everyone was getting involved and picking up bottles ... we then set off back to the flat but then we ended up going to someone’s house where we went swimming for hours, and ended up looking like prunes, we were all in our dresses as obviously no one had gone out with their bikini! We then had breakfast and we finally returned to the flat at 8:30. Such a good night

Skype: This is so clever and I still can’t get my head around it. Staighty had been trying to organise a ‘skype date’ for ages and I finally managed to talk to her on New Years Eve in the afternoon. It was so amazing to be able to see her and to properly chat. Letters are great but being able to talk to her was INCREDIBLE and we talked for ages and it didn’t cost anything. I tried to talk to Mummy but we didn’t have any of the right equipment for it to work.....thank goodness for Amazon Express. I managed to talk to Mummy and Daddy – once he worked out that his face needed to be in front of the camera and it didn’t just work if he looked at the camera – all I could see was his tummy! Then on my last day in Luderitz I talked to the whole family, including Peppy but sadly no Orange, and without even realising it we talked for over 2 hours! It was so weird that I could see them all sitting in the Nursery at home and they could see me in Africa even if occasionally I did turn green! It was very reassuring to see all their faces and to see that they hadn’t changed a bit and to be able to show off my watch mark. It was so lovely to have instant communication during the holidays but Chelcie and I both agreed that it would be too hard to be able to have it all the time. However, I am looking forward to the next time I might be able to Skype and see people’s faces or tummy’s again!

Sea trip: One morning we got up early and went out on a boat which was amazing. We sat right in the middle of the boat on top of the roof and admired the view. It was very cold out on the boat but we were given rugs to huddle up in and in the middle of our journey we were given very welcome mugs of steaming hot chocolate. The sea was absolutely beautiful and it was sparkling in the early morning sunlight. We sailed around the edge of Luderitz and we were given lots of information about the diamond ships. Chelcie and I had both been very disappointed not to meet a diamond diver in our time in Luderitz...I had imagined that they would be sitting at bars in their wet suits and flippers, but no such luck. As we were sailing along we saw dolphins and seals which were amazing. When we got to an island we saw PENGUINS....both Chelcie and I thought that penguins only lived in Africa in the film Madagascar....surely penguins live on ice???? However, turns out we were wrong and I saw my first real penguin which was very exciting although they were very small, after watching Happy Feet I thought they would be shoulder height but in reality they were more like knee height! On the way back it was very surreal as you could see the shimmering sea and in the background there were sand dunes....all very bizarre!

Kolmanskopp: This for anyone who doesn’t know is commonly referred to as the “Ghost Town”. Fifty years ago everyone moved out of town due to the wind and sand and now no one lives there. However, the houses are kept up so that you can visit and see what it used to be like. This was one of the things that I had learnt about Namibia before I arrived as Magnus had shown me some photographs which I thought were incredible and luckily Kolmanskopp lived up to my expectations. Some houses just had a thin layer of sand in as they had been recently swept however others you had to duck to get through the door way as there was so much sand deposited on the floor. It was really weird walking around a town where people used to live but now totally deserted.

Beach disaster: On the 7^th we all decided to go to the beach for the day and after numerous transport difficulties we finally made it. After a braai of cheese sausage (a very weird food which strangely tastes neither of cheese or sausage but  is very yummy...), a walk down the sea and just general relaxing the boys decided they wanted to play some rugby. We carried on talking until someone came running over saying “Ian has just broken his leg”....I thought this was a joke and that he might have pulled a muscle or something but it wasn’t. It was very clear from how he was lying and the amount of pain that he was in that he had broken his right femur. Luckily we had a buggy with us (a truck with an open back) and after strapping his leg with a car mat (the only thing we had) the guys managed to lift him onto the back and then a couple of us headed for the hospital. There are a lot of speed bumps in Namibia so the journey to the hospital was very slow and very painful for Ian. I found the whole experience at the hospital very shocking and very difficult to deal with. When we arrived at the equivalent of A&E there was one nurse around. Luckily the guys were able to lift him onto a stretcher and we were shown into a room to wait. After putting a drip in his arm and giving him a small amount of morphine (he couldn’t have much as he had drunk alcohol) we were left to wait and then wait some more. They rang the doctor and after a while he arrived and explained that the operation would have to be done in Windhoek as they couldn’t do it in Luderitz. He wanted to fly Ian there but that would have cost $60,000 (£6000) money that wasn’t unavailable and he had no medical insurance. We were waiting for him to have the x-ray to show where the break was and how bad it was – he was given one pillow to rest his knee on but for the 3 hours or so we waited for the x-ray Ian was holding up his thigh where it was broken. When it came to moving him for the x-ray the Nurses were so cavalier with him, moving him from one bed to another to a table and so forth. He was in agony and it was horrible to watch. This actually made me cry as it all seemed so barbaric. The x-ray confirmed that it was a very bad break and now we just had to sort out the details of getting him to Windhoek and into hospital. In Namibia you have to pay for everything up front otherwise you don’t get the treatment. The doctor decided that I was the only one who wasn’t panicking and therefore told me all the information and left it up to me to persuade Daniel (Ian’s younger brother) to make the right decisions. The choices were paying for a private hospital with a private doctor, going to a state hospital and using a private doctor or going to the state hospital and using a state doctor. Obviously if you had the money you would go private, private but this wasn’t an option but we managed to settle on using a state hospital with a private doctor. He also had to pay upfront for the ambulance which cost $4 per km – it’s a long way to Windhoek from Luderitz. We all stayed with Ian while everything was worked out and then he left for Windhoek at 3am on Sunday in the ambulance.

Back to Windhoek: On Monday we decided to head back to Windhoek, we needed to be there for Chelcie’s appointment on Thursday and we wanted to visit Ian as no one could go with him as everyone had jobs to go to. Simone came with us as she was bored of being in Luderitz and we had a really lovely couple of days. We even went to the cinema in Africa....! We watched “New Years Eve” which was absolutely hilarious although Chelcie has sworn she will never ever go to the cinema with me again as I was often the only one laughing out loud and everyone knows how loud my laugh is! On Wednesday we were joined by Luise who has come to Otjikondo for 3 months. She is our age and is from Germany. Tyche also joined us from Luderitz and we all went to Joes for supper as that is where we went on our first night in Namibia and we feel it’s a right of passage.

Visa scare: When we were in hospital with Ian we got a text from Tyche saying she had bad news about visas but would tell us later, obviously we wanted to know straight away! Sophie (Tyche’s partner) had been in contact with PT who had told her that there was a 50% chance that our visas wouldn’t be sorted ever and if so we would be flown home straight away. This was pretty crazy and obviously we all panicked. Not that any of us haven’t wished for a quick weekend at home – like an exeat but there is no way I want to leave Namibia. I absolutely love Otjikondo and I’m having the most incredible time. Luckily after our parents talked to Gilly we were calmed down and reassured that our visas will be sorted and we won’t have to leave. At this point and time they haven’t been sorted yet but we are “reassured” that things are being done....

I have been told off for my excessive amount of exclamation marks in my Blog entries....my excuse is that everything that I am doing or seeing is so incredible and exciting. Therefore in my eyes it merits an exclamation mark but I apologise to any grammatical lovers who view the amount as unwarranted! (Yes, that one was put in on purpose) Also according to Zim, I have very special spelling abilities....I know that I’m special as my parents always tell me that and I also realize that I have slightly dodgy spelling talents HOWEVER I’m using spell check so I fail to see what I’m spelling wrong.....please enlighten me?!

After an incredible five weeks or so of travelling around it feels incredible (and safe!) to be back here at Otjikondo. I did feel as if I should be heading home after the holidays but that is still a way off! I hope that everyone is enjoying the New Year and I’m sorry that this has taken a while to be written

Lots and lots of love

Ottilie xxx

Part Fifteen: Happy Christmas! (23rd – 28th December)

Total nightmare of a day! The direct shuttle from Windhoek to Otjiwarango only had one seat left so we had to take one that went via Omaruru – this is travelling two sides of a triangle. When we asked for directions to the shuttle depot we were told it was in easy walking distance, after wondering around lost for 20 minutes we got into a cab and it turned out it was a 5km walk! The bus left at 11 and we were supposed to get there at 3 but everything took longer than it was supposed to and at 3:15 the bus broke down! We then had to wait for a rescue bus and we didn’t get to Otjiwarango until 5:15 and not back to Otjikondo until 7; so much for a 4 hour journey between Windhoek and Otjikondo! Gilly very kindly insisted that we stay with her over Christmas rather than in the Gap Flat so that we would be properly included and be part of the family. We went to Paul and Sara’s for supper where we were fed delicious fish, which they had caught on their boys fishing trip, with asparagus and potatoes. This was followed by brandy soaked cherries with ice cream – this was REVOLTING as it was so potent, luckily I was able to siphon them off to Simon, Sara’s brother! We met all of Sara’s family; her Brother, Mother, Father and Grandfather had all arrived for Christmas.

Christmas Eve started with receiving a lot of post which was amazing! As usual I had lots of exciting things from Mummy including colour changing popping candy, mini face washes, moisturizer and Sudoku to stick into my diary. I had a second hilarious letter from Staighty which made me laugh out loud multiple times and the most amazing package from Emma. Emma definitely deserves a MASSIVE shout out as my most regular friend correspondent, despite having to revise for all her exams – she sent me nine photos of the two of us together and they all had really sweet friendship quotes on the back; “Friendship isn’t about whom you’ve known the longest...it’s about who came, and never left your side”. We spent the day prepare for the evenings celebrations and generally chilling out. In Germany they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and as Reiner is German, they also celebrate here on Christmas Eve as well as on Christmas Day.

It was requested that Chelcie and I sing something in the evening service so we went over to the Church to try out a couple of things. We ended up singing four verses of Amazing Grace – the first and last in unison and the middle two in harmony. We had a really lovely intimate service, we all sat around the altar rather than in the pews and throughout the service we were joined by more people from the Otjikondo community. Gilly had put me in charge of choosing the readings and the hymns for the service so we sang “How dark was the stable”, “Silent Night”, “Once in Royal David’s City” “While Shepherd’s Watched” and “O Come all ye faithful”. I also read the first reading which was Isaiah IX. As usual the prayers set me off and I had a quiet cry, unfortunately as we were all sitting together the tears didn’t go unnoticed as usual!

After the service we all went back to Gilly’s and Reiners and presents were handed out under the tree. Obviously, Chelcie and I didn’t expect anything but Gilly had bought us a beautiful candle holder each made from Namibian wood. She also gave us a bottle each that she had been given – Chelcie’s turned out to be red wine and mine was whisky! We also got a little wooden carved elephant and a wicker basket. All so lovely and unexpected. Supper was a seafood feast – we had massive platters of prawns, crab claws and crayfish which were accompanied by bowls or rice and asparagus with lemon butter or garlic butter. We then had the most incredible chocolate and walnut torte with strawberries and WHIPPY CREAM (so much fun!). We then sang through every Christmas song and carol that we could think of which got rather hysterical. Sara and I were convinced that there was one about Christmas pudding but we couldn’t for the life of us remember it....luckily after a quick text to Mummy she came up with “We all want some figgy pudding!”

I started Christmas Day reading my kindle by the pool as Chelcie slept in our room. After she woke up we opened our stockings which was great fun. I received a net of chocolate coins – Rand, a packet of chocolate raisins, a bar of Lindor chocolate, an elephant cuddly toy on a key ring, a South African fabric badge to go on my rucksack (I have the British and Namibian flag on there and I said that I wanted to add other countries that I travelled to, hopefully I will be able to add the South African one at some point!), and a shot glass with an Elephant on and Namibia written underneath. Chelcie did very well as I told that I always get chocolate coins from Father Christmas and a new cuddly toy even though I am 18. We had a Christmas breakfast with Gilly and Reiner which included my first taste of stolen which was pretty disgusting!

Christmas lunch was at Paul and Sara’s and it was another feast (no wonder all the teachers keep telling me I’ve put on weight over the holidays – I blame the Stommels!). It started with chicken liver pate, olive tapernade, peppers and tomatoes and homemade walnut bread. We then had duck breast, smoked chicken, mashed potato, carrots and green beans with walnuts and bacon. This was followed by panna cotta with berries and Christmas pudding. I feel full just writing it all down! As well as being with all the Stommels we were joined by Byron, his girlfriend and his Mother so there were a lot of us.  I spoke to home twice and they seemed to be having a nice day, they had changed their routine and were having goose. Made me cry...

Boxing Day was held at Gilly and Reiners and we watched Mattie and Ola swim before having a cold lunch of ham, cheese and salad followed by ice cream and chocolate sauce. I found it very funny that as I was watching the children swim in the heat my family would have been at the Boxing Day meet in the cold! Gilly got a Kindle for Christmas and I helped her upload some books on to it – I got a text from Mummy saying she wished I was helping her with her new Kindle instead... I also spoke to Alex (PT volunteer in Luderitz) and they were going down to Luderitz for the rest of the holidays so Chelcie and I decided we would definitely go and see them after our tour. In the evening Chelcie and I watched Bridesmaids on her laptop which was absolutely hilarious, and I kept on getting the giggles when we were trying to go to sleep thinking about some of the lines!

The 27^th became a day of organisation for us – I rang up the tour people to book it and it turned out they had quoted us the wrong price before and the actual price was £999 so very unaffordable! This was so frustrating and it just felt like everything was going wrong for us. We then had to decide what we wanted to do for the rest of the holidays and we decided we would go straight down to Luderitz to see the others and then maybe we could all go on a short trip together in the New Year. Gilly very kindly organised for Tate Simon to drive us to Otjiwarongo the next morning so that we could catch the shuttle to Windhoek and from there we would try to organise transport to Luderitz which is easier said than done!

The next morning we said goodbye to the Stommels and thanked them for having us to stay for Christmas and everything that they had done for us. They were so kind to welcome us into their family and we really felt included in everything – I can’t express my thanks to them enough. After arriving at the Cardboard Box we went had lunch before setting off to find

Brandberg Street

. Some family friends from home had come to Namibia on holiday and had kindly brought out a couple of packages from home for me so we set off to find them. I didn’t get to see them as they were on a safari but they brought out one of my favourite dresses, a new pair of Toms (mine were so full of holes by now), two wife beaters and a package for my birthday as well as 4 magazines which were very welcome. We are so out of gossip here! It was incredible to get everything especially the dress as it felt like a little bit of home so big shout out to the Goods and to Mummy for buying/sending the things for me.  We had a lucky break from a taxi driver who told of us a place where we could catch a Combi to Luderitz and he gave me his number in case we were ever in need when in Windhoek! We spent the evening playing cards and saw some of the guys we have met the last time we were in Windhoek which was nice.

Being totally honest I found Christmas day incredibly hard, I thought it would be easier to be with a family and although we were welcomed totally into their family and treated as one of them, it just emphasised to me that I wasn’t with my own family. However, Christmas Eve and the days after Christmas were amazing and it was lovely to be with a family, to be cooked for, to be able to properly chill out and relax and we really owe the Stommels! I hope that everyone in England had a lovely Christmas and that you ate as much as I did, although, I’m not really sure that’s possible!

Missing you all loads and sending you even more love

Me xxx

Part Fourteen: Holiday in Swakopmund and Windhoek (19th - 22nd December)

After our complimentary breakfast of eggs and bacon we walked into town to sort out our desert tour and dune boarding. We went to Charlie’s which is a travel shop and managed to book a full days Desert Tour for the next day. This was a splash out costing £83 but we both thought that it would be worth it as it was a full day, including a picnic lunch and we both agreed that it would be amazing to see the desert properly. They didn’t have space for us to go dune boarding that day so we walked to another shop where we managed to book it for that afternoon. We also found bright yellow and green t-shirts with Namibia on the front which we hotly debated buying for sports day (I’m in the yellow team and Chelcie is in the green) however, we decided to save our money and thought we could just paint ourselves green and yellow for free instead!

After going to the market again and this time buying a couple of presents – no, I won’t say who they’re for! and exercising our bartering skills, we returned to Villa Weisse to write a few final post cards. We returned to the Village Cafe for our final lunch in Swakop where we both had steak toasties and coke – we have got into a habit of ordering exactly the same thing which waiters always find amusing! We then went to Pandora’s Box for pudding – chocolate brownies, which we both agreed were the best things we’ve eaten in Swakop! After returning to the shop, we were picked up by two guys in a Combi and we headed for the dunes alongside a German Girl, our age, and her father. We arrived at the same place that we went after our first concert and after donning hats (yellow for me and white for Chelcie after I pointed out that a pink one would clash with her purple hoodie!) we started walking up the dune. The walk up the dune is actually quite hard work but you can always stop for a breather while admiring the incredible view. Our instructor was called Daniel and he was 16 and incredibly chatty! We started off by doing two taster runs, to get us started as we were both rather apprehensive, they were only little and you didn’t go very fast. You lay down on a board which was greased on the bottom side and then you lifted up the front and off you went....it was so much fun! I felt like a penguin sliding on ice, just like in Happy Feet, especially when you get to the bottom of the slope and then you just keep on going across the flat sand.

Chelcie didn’t really enjoy the taster runs as they made her feel sick and she bottled out of the first proper run but when I had walked back up to the top again, I managed to black mail her into doing it and luckily for my sake, she really enjoyed it. You got a massive adrenalin rush and you went so fast. Not so fast was the long walk back up to the top of the dune again....actually incredibly hard work! We then did the really big one which apparently we would have gone up to 180 km per hour – I know this sounds totally unbelievable and no I haven’t got my figures wrong, but this dune was pretty long and incredibly steep. I then nearly bottled out as when you looked down you couldn’t actually see the bottom was pretty scary but it was absolutely amazing. The German girl was doing it standing up on something which looked like a snow board – I think you needed a pretty good sense of balance and I’m not sure that I would have managed it! When we were too tired to climb any more sand dunes we had one more turn down to the bottom and then we stood having some much needed coke and nibbles before heading back to town.

Chelcie and I then headed out to get some supper. We were sitting eating when a guy approached us and said that he recognised us from dune boarding. He had recognised us by Chelcie’s shoes which had then been confirmed by my face which we both found pretty funny! He invited us to go for a drink with him later at his father’s club which we accepted. We texted him when we were on our way but when we arrived the club was deserted and we couldn’t hear any music and there were no cars.....so we did a runner! He had already told us that he was on his way so we just texted Pally saying we were going to Kuckis, but, we never expected that he would join us...he did! We had just bought a drink and then he came, he started talking really loudly about how racist the place was and that although he had lived here all his life he had only come in about 3 times before. We both became really uncomfortable as everyone was now staring at us as he was so loud so we suggested we went elsewhere. Both Chelcie and I were now really awkward so we decided to do a runner, we wanted to escape but there was nowhere to run to! Chelcie then said that she was feeling suddenly really ill and didn’t want to go out anymore and we managed to escape back to our hostel felling very uncomfortable!

The next day we headed off for our Desert Tour, we were collected outside our hostel by our tour guide Clio and it was just us on the tour. We spent the morning driving through the desert and stopping to look at plants such as the money bush and the pencil plant. We saw incredible granite mountains with streaks of basalt running through them. We went to one place where there were non-magnetic iron stones and if you struck them with another stone they sounded like a bell. The different sizes created different pitches so we could create a tune with the different stones – it was so bizarre and really good fun. The morning was interesting if a little awkward as there is only so many questions you can ask and we could have done with a couple of more people joining us. We stopped for our picnic lunch under the shadow of a large rock and we got to experience real silence which was absolutely incredible. After lunch we were shown Namibia’s national plant; the Welwitschias, they don’t grow in many areas and you have to have a female and a male in order to make a new Welwitschias and they have a very slow growth rate.  We then drove along the canyon and saw Swakop river and some greenery before heading to “No Man’s Land” – this was just open sand with nothing to be seen on either side of the road. Absolutely nothing; no vegetation, no telephone pylons, no sign of civilisation, just bare sand. We then went to the dunes which were very different from where we had been the day before, this time they were darker and they had a black layer on top due to iron but they were very beautiful. We declined the offer of climbing the dunes (we both agreed that we had climbed plenty the day before!) so Clio said he would take us to the township.

The township is where the majority of the black people live and it’s just outside of the main settlement of Swakopmund.  There was a huge range of houses from two bedroomed breeze block bungalows to shacks made from rubbish and cardboard. I found it particularly difficult to comprehend how it is still deemed acceptable in this day and age for that large a population to be living in houses made purely from rubbish with no electricity or running water. They had a very clever system for buying water – each house would have a magnet and they would pay x amount of money. You would then go to the tap and plug your magnet in which would turn the water on, when you had enough water you removed the magnet and a certain amount of money would be subtracted from you total depending on how much water you had taken.

It was a good day out and very interesting, however, we both agreed that it wasn’t worth the £83 we paid but it was still worthwhile and I’m glad we went. After having one of my worst nights sleep ever (we had a new dorm mate who was a very obese American peace core worker who sounded like a hippo when snoring which she did all night, I was so close to throwing my alarm clock at her but I thought I might miss and I didn’t want to break it...) we got on the shuttle to Windhoek. The journey went well and I managed to sleep for most of it which was useful. When we arrived, after dumping our bags at the Cardboard Box, we headed straight for the Bank of Windhoek to meet the lady who was sorting out our visas for us. She was a very scary lady who reminded us both of Cruella d’ Vill! There was no development in our situation but she told us that she would have an answer one way or the other tomorrow, she also made it pretty clear to us that we weren’t her priority! We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling in the Box.

In the evening we ventured out to the bar and started playing cards, we were quickly joined by a group of guys, all in their 20s, who were all really good fun. After being there a while we went to Joe’s for drinks before heading to Zanzibar – our first African club! A random man came up to me and complimented me on my “adorable chin” and told me how cute it was, I have to say this is the first and probably only time someone has complimented my chin! Namibians don’t believe in girls buying drinks so Chelcie and I had a very fun and free night!

The next day was a very emotional day for both of us....after returning to the Bank of Windhoek we were informed that we weren’t getting visas and that we were lucky not to be chucked out of Namibia! This was incredibly frustrating as our bus to Cape Town left the next day and we now wouldn’t be able to go. We had been so looking forward to going to Cape Town, meeting lots of PT volunteers and doing some incredible things. After some tearful telephone calls home, we decided to take Gilly’s kind offer up of coming back to Otjikondo for Christmas. We bought some chocolate and set ourselves two hours to complain before getting on with life again! We then started looking at some tours that we could do in Namibia after Christmas, rather than leaving the country. We found one which we thought was perfect; it was a 10 day camping tour going to various places and costing £270.

We had two American Peace Core workers from Malawi staying in our dorm called Gareth and Britni and we made good friends with them. They had a reservation at Joes and invited us to join them so we did....Joe’s food is delicious and very good value. The place was heaving and they seemed to be running out of food so we had to change our order a couple of times but I had some delicious monkfish, kinglip, fillet sole and prawns in a mustard cream sauce with peppers, onions and spinach. YUMMY! We then went on to Fashion Bar which was another club and great fun. This time there were a lot of white Namibians as well as black Namibians. We had a really fun time out and managed to drown our sorrows well.

The next morning we headed back to Otjikondo to spend Christmas.....

Lots of love Ottilie xxx