First up: our plane ride! So On the plane there was a cool little map that showed us where we were and where day/night was in the world. Also totally ate like a king! Not really, but man good food and a big amount, also free (stateside airlines totally suck in comparison) and the beer was free too! Like wow! Some people had themselves a few servings haha. Below it is the view from the plane to Windhoek and a picture of the plane itself!
So getting off the plane was a bit of work. All 44 of us needed to fill out customs forms and pass through. Then we had to give back some stuff to our Country Director among other small things. Then getting all of our luggage, whew that was a lot. Then we got to load everything onto the bus! Oh the bus...that was a fun ride haha. Small towns reminded me so much of America...like in Arizone where there's a small little suburbia in the middle of nothing, this place looked just like that. It took about an hour to get to our training site from the airport but during the ride I got to see my first African sunset! It is beautiful during dawn and dusk here. All the sand is blown up so the sun is just a BEAUTIFUL red and turns the whole sky into a wonderful chromatic waltz. When we arrived arrived, our trainers were waiting to greet us and sang us songs while we walked into the compound. It was very touching and so much fun to meet everyone!
We ere definitely shocked when we entered our training site. The place is nice! It felt like walking into a summer sport camp at some University back in the states. Hot showers, nice toilets, small beds on sturdy furniture haha. The first is a picture of our room (I bunked with another Pi Kapp...fratty!!) and a picture of our second meal there, didn't catch one of breakfast haha.
There was a cultural celebration the first weekend we were there which was awesome to experience. We learned a lot about the Herero culture and witnessed them honoring the grave of one of their past leaders. He was a chief for one of the tribes when they were experiencing genocide from the German settlers. It is strange though, because a lot of their traditional stuff is taken from German culture. Strange to see that and hear the history of their people at the same time.
They chose that weekend because it was the weekend before Heroes day, which is a national holiday that celebrates all the men that fought for the country's independence. The monument is a huge, magnificant graveyard with an awesome statue and mural at the top.
A couple weekends in we decided to go for a hike. We heard about some place from a couple volunteers (remember, I'm still a trainee) that is near by so we decided to ry and find it. It was fun, we went up a route that was probably not the best....as there was no path but it was still a lot of fun! The first picture is a picture of where we hiked through and the next is a pic of the group that hiked with us. The only really tough part was dealing with the trees. Namibia's trees don't mess around. I saw at least 3 different types of throns. One type was hooked looked like a claw, those were painful and hard to get out. The picture I have is of the ones with CrAzY big thorns! You'd step on them and they wouldn't break either, just through an inch of your sole right into the bottom of your foot. So insane! Good thing I have my tough Indian feet haha!
During training we also built a campfire. It reminded me a lot of back home when we went camping. Gotta love the smell of smoke. Oh man, my family needs help learning how to start fires. I tried but didn't work out too much. All that I got across (I hope) was not to use plastic to start a fire. Yep, they do haha. Speaking of fires, it was really sad when this huge craft market burned up. I wasn't in town but they had the most amazing woodcarvings for sale. To give you an idea, the second picture is just carved into a tree outside a person's gate to their home.
