It is quite cool and rainy here right now. Pretty much I spent the first two days here doing tedious data entry (I am happy to do it, but would obviously rather be doing something else.) But yesterday and today have been spent bottle feeding goats and feeding 3 week old puppies! They’re SO cute. There are 14 goats, all a few months old. Paige (another volunteer) and I feed four at a time because we do not have 7 hands each! They are bad goats, though, and like to jump on us and try to eat my hair. The amount of dirt and goat slobber on my shirt is amazing. They also like to randomly jump up and hit me with their front hooves. It doesn’t really hurt, but it can knock you off balance a bit. I also learned how to properly pick up a goat yesterday as we were trying to wrangle them back into their pen.
The puppies are SO cute. We had to weigh them and clip their claws yesterday so I got to hold them A LOT. They don’t quite know how to bark yet, so they kept making this grunting and squeaking noises that were really adorable. I got to pet them a lot and then watch them stumble around in the puppy paste we give them to eat. (It’s a combo of dry puppy food, water, and goats’ milk). They are ADORABLE but their mama looks so tired. By the end of yesterday, I was covered in goat milk, dirt, puppy paste, and probably a bit of pee from sitting on the ground of the puppy pen. Ew. But it was okay; I had a lot of fun helping out around the corral. The animals seem to be warming up to me nicely! Though… that might be because I keep giving them food. Haha.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
The Sketchy Taxis of DOOOOOOM
SO I am at CCF now!!! WOOOO!!!
It was fun timez getting here since I REALLY didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving ALONE in Windhoek. However, the shuttle to Otji I wanted to take left about a half hour after my flight landed and it takes about an hour to get TO the shuttle from the airport… anywho, here is the FULL story…
The day before I left was a mad rush of TRYING to figure out where the HECK to store my stuff and returning my bedding, checking out of my room, packing the last bits of my stuff all while trying to study for a test I had to write at 5pm. And seriously, I have NO idea what I studied. I STILL don’t know what half those readings were about seeing as I was thinking about all the stuff I had to do before I left. Turns out it didn’t really matter since the teacher just COPIED questions from our last test… I didn’t even NEED to study all that stuff! GAH! Well, at least I know I’ll ace this class seeing as she wanted to keep the TWO things I wrote for that class for future generations to see examples of “good” writing… seriously.
ANYWAYS! Moral of the story is that it was hectic and I spent the last night at UB with no power in my room, sleeping on a bare mattress with no bedding at all, in a dress because it was the comfiest thing I had that could be dirty when I arrived at CCF. Sheesh.
Then I got up at 4:30 to make it down to my cab at 5am because my flight was at about 7:30 and arriving two to three hours before an international flight is sort of a knee jerk reaction… Yeah, the airport was still empty. Not even the STAFF had arrived yet when I got there shortly before 6am. But I sat at a café and waited it out. The coffee was pretty good.
The plane rides and immigration were relatively painless (for once), the REAL adventure started when I landed and needed to actually GET somewhere. I had TRIED to book a shuttle called TownHoppers the night before, but I couldn’t see anyone with that uniform, so when a man in a Spirit Shuttles polo shirt walked up to me and said “shuttle?”, I took him up on it. It took an hour and N$300 to get to the taxi rank in Windhoek, but I made it. There, my shuttle driver helped me to get a shared taxi to Otjiwarongo. (A shared taxi meaning that there were two other girls I didn’t know in there with me.) The shared taxi driver was a hip-hop loving guy with bleach blond hair, but he got me to Otji safely enough. I even dozed off once or twice on the four hour ride. Once I arrived at Otji, I once again had NO IDEA how I was going to make the last leg of my trip to CCF. So I asked my taxi driver. Again. He called some people and drove to a place where there seemed to be a lot of idling taxi men. (This is a common occurrence in Africa and they are ALWAYS eager to get people in their cars). After a bit of negotiation, one man agreed to take me the 45 minutes to CCF. Basically, the entire trip was me placing my trust in sketchy taxi drivers. But sketchy taxi drivers are something that I am becoming alarmingly used to in Africa and they’re really not all that bad.
When I arrived at CCF, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do… Santa was gone for a few days (the one I had been talking to) and I didn’t REALLY know if anyone else knew I was coming. After some confusion and introducing myself to one of the new interns and figuring out that they DID know, we hauled my stuff to my room, which I am sharing for the moment with Rachel (One of the BEST people I knew last time) and Suzie (a new girl in the ecology department).
Moral of the story is, the trip was an adventure, but I was NOT alone for Thanksgiving dinner.
Which was delicious, by the way, and included PIE.
SO THAT’S TH EPIC TALE!!!! One day poets will make it rhyme and sing it for kings and queens and all that rot. Go me.
It was fun timez getting here since I REALLY didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving ALONE in Windhoek. However, the shuttle to Otji I wanted to take left about a half hour after my flight landed and it takes about an hour to get TO the shuttle from the airport… anywho, here is the FULL story…
The day before I left was a mad rush of TRYING to figure out where the HECK to store my stuff and returning my bedding, checking out of my room, packing the last bits of my stuff all while trying to study for a test I had to write at 5pm. And seriously, I have NO idea what I studied. I STILL don’t know what half those readings were about seeing as I was thinking about all the stuff I had to do before I left. Turns out it didn’t really matter since the teacher just COPIED questions from our last test… I didn’t even NEED to study all that stuff! GAH! Well, at least I know I’ll ace this class seeing as she wanted to keep the TWO things I wrote for that class for future generations to see examples of “good” writing… seriously.
ANYWAYS! Moral of the story is that it was hectic and I spent the last night at UB with no power in my room, sleeping on a bare mattress with no bedding at all, in a dress because it was the comfiest thing I had that could be dirty when I arrived at CCF. Sheesh.
Then I got up at 4:30 to make it down to my cab at 5am because my flight was at about 7:30 and arriving two to three hours before an international flight is sort of a knee jerk reaction… Yeah, the airport was still empty. Not even the STAFF had arrived yet when I got there shortly before 6am. But I sat at a café and waited it out. The coffee was pretty good.
The plane rides and immigration were relatively painless (for once), the REAL adventure started when I landed and needed to actually GET somewhere. I had TRIED to book a shuttle called TownHoppers the night before, but I couldn’t see anyone with that uniform, so when a man in a Spirit Shuttles polo shirt walked up to me and said “shuttle?”, I took him up on it. It took an hour and N$300 to get to the taxi rank in Windhoek, but I made it. There, my shuttle driver helped me to get a shared taxi to Otjiwarongo. (A shared taxi meaning that there were two other girls I didn’t know in there with me.) The shared taxi driver was a hip-hop loving guy with bleach blond hair, but he got me to Otji safely enough. I even dozed off once or twice on the four hour ride. Once I arrived at Otji, I once again had NO IDEA how I was going to make the last leg of my trip to CCF. So I asked my taxi driver. Again. He called some people and drove to a place where there seemed to be a lot of idling taxi men. (This is a common occurrence in Africa and they are ALWAYS eager to get people in their cars). After a bit of negotiation, one man agreed to take me the 45 minutes to CCF. Basically, the entire trip was me placing my trust in sketchy taxi drivers. But sketchy taxi drivers are something that I am becoming alarmingly used to in Africa and they’re really not all that bad.
When I arrived at CCF, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do… Santa was gone for a few days (the one I had been talking to) and I didn’t REALLY know if anyone else knew I was coming. After some confusion and introducing myself to one of the new interns and figuring out that they DID know, we hauled my stuff to my room, which I am sharing for the moment with Rachel (One of the BEST people I knew last time) and Suzie (a new girl in the ecology department).
Moral of the story is, the trip was an adventure, but I was NOT alone for Thanksgiving dinner.
Which was delicious, by the way, and included PIE.
SO THAT’S TH EPIC TALE!!!! One day poets will make it rhyme and sing it for kings and queens and all that rot. Go me.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Leina Lame Ke Setunya
I am very sorry for not getting around to Blogging about the Delta trip since I explained everything to lots of people on Skype… If you want to know more about that, just ask! For now, ON WITH THE PLOT!
So last weekend I went on a weekend camping trip with the choir… well… camping in that we drove an hour away and slept on the floor of a class room. I figured it would be a painful and grueling experience as I don’t really have friends that were going… but it wasn’t AS horrible as I thought it would be. I mean, I started out with feeling sorry for myself and trying to ignore the fact that I couldn’t understand a darn word anyone was saying around me because no one was speaking English to me, but it seems that they made a pact or SOMETHING to ensure that I didn’t feel left out or get lonely.. so LOTS of people made efforts to make me feel included whenever I sat by myself... they also offered to share bedding (I was told to bring bedding in Setswana... NOT helpful) and gave me a Setswana nickname! (it's Setunya, btw, which means rose/flower) There was NO transition to the name and I was confused for a bit because suddenly everyone was saying Setunya all the time and I kept forgetting that was supposed to be me... but they all seemed more comfortable around me after giving me a name they could pronounce correctly. Haha! The actual singing part was kinda arduous as we sang from 8am to 11pm with only about 4 hours break in between, though I was very excited when we learned a song in Italian that had NORMAL sheet music... Basically, I was glad to not be the ONLY one who didn’t understand the lyrics for once. After the singing, we played Setswana games outside... at first I hung back, mostly out of fatigue and confusion, but by the third game, I was in it (someone was all like "Setunya! COME JOIN!" and I felt so warm and fuzzy at the nickname that I hopped right in). It was really cool when we played the Setswana version of telephone and they added the rule "No Setswana" in there because I was in the circle... actually, during those games they were REALLY making sure that I understood everything. :D The only REAL complaint I have about the weekend (besides eating bread with butter and polony 3 times, YUCK) was the sleeping. While I was physically pretty comfortable because a girl offered to share her air mattress with me, the games went on until 5 IN THE MORNING with the florescent lights on and everyone yelling in Setswana... and Setswana is VERY loud... thus when I tried to go to bed at 1:30 after having only 3 hours of sleep the night before due to the SAME lights and loudness, let’s just say it wasn't very RESTFUL and I woke up on Sunday with a migraine. All and all though, it was nicer than I expected.
ps- Title translates to "My name is Flower"
So last weekend I went on a weekend camping trip with the choir… well… camping in that we drove an hour away and slept on the floor of a class room. I figured it would be a painful and grueling experience as I don’t really have friends that were going… but it wasn’t AS horrible as I thought it would be. I mean, I started out with feeling sorry for myself and trying to ignore the fact that I couldn’t understand a darn word anyone was saying around me because no one was speaking English to me, but it seems that they made a pact or SOMETHING to ensure that I didn’t feel left out or get lonely.. so LOTS of people made efforts to make me feel included whenever I sat by myself... they also offered to share bedding (I was told to bring bedding in Setswana... NOT helpful) and gave me a Setswana nickname! (it's Setunya, btw, which means rose/flower) There was NO transition to the name and I was confused for a bit because suddenly everyone was saying Setunya all the time and I kept forgetting that was supposed to be me... but they all seemed more comfortable around me after giving me a name they could pronounce correctly. Haha! The actual singing part was kinda arduous as we sang from 8am to 11pm with only about 4 hours break in between, though I was very excited when we learned a song in Italian that had NORMAL sheet music... Basically, I was glad to not be the ONLY one who didn’t understand the lyrics for once. After the singing, we played Setswana games outside... at first I hung back, mostly out of fatigue and confusion, but by the third game, I was in it (someone was all like "Setunya! COME JOIN!" and I felt so warm and fuzzy at the nickname that I hopped right in). It was really cool when we played the Setswana version of telephone and they added the rule "No Setswana" in there because I was in the circle... actually, during those games they were REALLY making sure that I understood everything. :D The only REAL complaint I have about the weekend (besides eating bread with butter and polony 3 times, YUCK) was the sleeping. While I was physically pretty comfortable because a girl offered to share her air mattress with me, the games went on until 5 IN THE MORNING with the florescent lights on and everyone yelling in Setswana... and Setswana is VERY loud... thus when I tried to go to bed at 1:30 after having only 3 hours of sleep the night before due to the SAME lights and loudness, let’s just say it wasn't very RESTFUL and I woke up on Sunday with a migraine. All and all though, it was nicer than I expected.
ps- Title translates to "My name is Flower"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)