Moving, Music, Gardening, and Everything Else I've Been Up To (and puppies)

So, before I begin, congrats Grace on the birth of your grandpups.

  I was recently asked what I miss about America. It was someone from college, asking what they could send me. The truth is, very little could fit in a package, and it's really an unspecific thing. Yeah, I miss certain restaurants and Mexican food (and Thai food, and spicy food, and 2am pizza, etc.), but that wouldn't travel well. What I really miss are the people and events. My friends. Tulane football finally getting good. Music festivals. That last one is the main focus of this post. Lately, this blog has been more focused on general Namibia/HIV topics. So, I guess I should probably go back to the personal “what the heck has Jay been doing lately?” stuff.

  Well, for one thing, I finally moved into my own place. No more host family (not that I had any issues with them, but I'm an adult, I needed my space and freedom, they needed the room for their large and growing family, and the kids were wearing me out), no more crashing with whoever would take me in (thank you to a certain someone who gave me a bed, roof, and crazy dog for about a month), no more wondering how long it takes to paint a wall. It's small. The windows are broken (despite being newly renovated), the shower is disgusting, the furniture is basic, and I had to get very creative about finding ways to hang my laundry and mosquito netting (hint: it involves making my room hard to walk around at night). I lose water and/or electricity for days on end. But, I got a working fridge and the nicest bed I've slept on (regularly) since high school (admittedly, I spent 2 years on a futon instead of a bed). It's really close to my work (as in, it's attached to my youth center). It's close enough to town. I got some decorations up for my teams from home. Oh, and did I mention I have an amazing fridge.

  Okay, so now for what I've been doing. At site, I've been very busy. I'm teaching 4 computer classes a day, where we're almost finished with Word (sadly, due to poor learner attendance, I don't think I'll be able to actually finish the course). I've also been teaching classes on gender relations, mainly in the context of HIV and GBV. They've certainly led to some eye-opening moments. We had an hour long conversation about what situations it's okay for a woman to turn down sex, which clearly reflected the male-dominant society of Namibia. It also showed that while condoms are readily available and schools teach about them from a very young age, the attitudes towards them are still a pretty major block in getting people to use them, a major force behind the HIV crisis in the country. As the album above included photos from, I also attended a wedding. And I learned the keys to surviving a Damara wedding: a liver of steel and a love of meat. In other words, I was perfect for it.

Well, like I said before, one of the things I've missed most since I left the US has been live music. So, when I found out there was a jazz festival in Windhoek on October 26, I jumped. Then, when I found out it was the same day as the Oktoberfest celebration there, I was even more excited. In the end, Oktoberfest didn't happen, but the Jazz Festival was incredible. I arrived Friday and checked in at the Cardboard Box backpackers lodge (a nice hostel in Windhoek) where I met some health PCVs serving in Botswana and had some interesting conversations. The next day, I did some walking around Windhoek (I'd forgotten my towel...I know, I'm a bad galactic hitchhiker) before grabbing a quick bite at Nando's (the Brit in Emily is obsessed with that place) and heading to Hage Geingob stadium for one of the best nights of my time here. We arrived and set up shop (enjoy the photos) front and center, grabbed some drinks, and got down to the business of enjoying the music. While I could share stories from the night, out of respect for my friends, since I haven't asked their permission, feel free to ask for them in a less public place. I will say that the highlights were Big Ben, Zahara (one of Africa's top musicians), and the legend Hugh Masekela (who was every bit as good as advertised). It might've been a jazz festival, but the music included funk, reggae, and even a litte pop. Given we were in a cab at around 1am looking for beer after the show (the festival ran out), I'm thinking it was best that I'd skipped Oktoberfest (a choice that Alicia confirmed was the correct one, though I've heard they had a fun time). I guess now is when I should apologize to Mayank for offering to buy his Oktoberfest ticket and then deciding I didn't have the energy (or money to do both...the result of an incident involving an ATM and living in a very small town). The next day, after walking around and taking care of some errands with Amy and Jaime (who I name only so I can quote another member of our group, Johanna, who realized “Jay...Amy...Jaime”), we met up at a place called Spurs for lunch. It was a TexMex place, a bit pricey, but we wanted the nachos (which were awesome). See, Amy is obsessed with cheese, so every time she and I spend time together, my cheese intake goes up big time (we even bought a bunch of cheese and crackers to have for dinner that night, in lieu of a real meal). Overall, just an amazing weekend.

High Masekela, doing his thing

  However, we weren't done yet. Oh, no. See, another reason why this festival was so perfect was that on Monday, we needed to get to Omaruru for our Re-Connect (part 2) and a gardening workshop meant to help us teach our communities to take crappy soil and make it into productive vegetable gardens that use less water and make sustainable food security. Honestly, I immediately fell in love with Omaruru. Just such a beautiful town. Quaint and artsy, with a nice coffee shop, it had hosted Group 35's (the health group before mine) PST. Our first stop was the Kristal Kellerie winery. After a tour and wine tasting, we returned to the lodge that would be our home for the next few days to chill in the pool and “re-connect” with the rest of our group (admittedly, with a few exceptions, I'd already re-connected with my real friends that weekend in Windhoek). On Tuesday morning, the training began. We learned to dig proper berms, trenches, and holes to help stop, slow down, sink, and eventually spread water to maximize the “water we get when it rains (as Peter Jensen, who ran the training put it, we want water to “walk off, not run off”). Peter also took us around to show us useful plants and other common things that could be used to improve the garden (all available for free). Over the next fewdays, we learned the principles of double digging to allow for deeper roots, how to enrich the soil, both bottom and top, proper crop rotation, how to plant on the berms to make use of the space, and maybe even create a natural fence to keep out animals (at least chickens without self-respect), composting, and maximizing productivity of the garden. We also learned how to use the garden as a larger classroom to teach more, like nutrition, water conservation, even health topics. It was a really interesting training, and one which will help quite a bit, even if I'm not sure I'll be doing any workshops as my own projects (I can still grow my own veggies).

Learning to shade seedlings to minimize water use (the bottle is not trash, but a form of recycling to make a cheap drip irrigation system)

Proper crop rotation

Nay, clearly working hard

Beautiful Omaruru

Nice coffee shop

See, I do work, not just take pics (unlike someone else in our group)

Finished product (for now)

How a nice garden should look

Some aloe vera and cacti

Double digging

  So, I'm back now. Home in Khorixas. Yes, home. About half a year at site, and I really feel a comfort level of home in this town. It helps finally having my own place, but it's more than that. Having been gone for a while, I realized I'd really missed being in Khorixas. I'm not one of those PCVs who goes away every weekend. I really love it here, and have, to this point, made efforts to minimize time away. I'd planned to meet my sitemate for a drink, but, while I was waiting, took some time to walk around. I'd been out of town for about a week and a half. I went to the Engen station for a meatpie, since I hadn't had time to pick up groceries. I said “hi” to the guard there, exchanged my terrible Damara with the counter lady, and took my snack to go. I continued to walk around. To the “Passport Shop” (a shabine with a pool table and awesome raisins), passed the Multisave, !Gowati, several other little shabines, and finally arrived at Sunrise Hotel, my favorite bar in town, where Elfy, the owner, greeted me on his way out. The familiar smells of street meat, the obnoxious voice of the co-worker I dislike, the blasting shabine jams, the stone benches in front of Sunrise. I just felt happy to be back. For the past few years, I've been torn between homes, never quite being a New Orleanian, but no longer fully being a Washingtonian. Now, while I feel ties to the US, even putting up my NoLa flag, Tulane banner, Nats rally towel, Skins flag, Caps mask, etc., being called a “Citizen of Khorixas” by Elfy really struck it home. And I'm looking for to the next year and a half here.

  Before I finish off this post, I want to share a recent story from that night I got back from my training, and I was out with Grace and another PCV who had a friend with her. Damaras tend to have little-no respect for people having conversations, and we were engaged in one, when someone decided to come over and butt in. At first, we were annoyed and tried to shake him off, but quickly gave up. So, we allowed him into our conversation. It was about top 5 places we want to visit and why, and we asked him to list his, with Grace quickly giving the rule that it couldn't be the US. Well, that didn't help, since the US (and, more specifically, New York, a city that everyone overseas wants to see, for reasons I can't comprehend). But the conversation quickly shifted to how we should feel very safe in Namibia. For him, the only Americans he'd met were Peace Corps volunteers. As a result, he has a very positive opinion of Americans as being people who try and help other countries (as you know, I have a very cynical view on this one, but I kept it to myself). It really drove home the point that Peace Corps has made about us representing the country as ambassadors to the community where we serve. And he ended by saying we should feel safe because he wouldn't let anything happen to us, because he wants us to go back to the US and tell our friends and family back home how nice and friendly Namibians are, rather than how awful they are, a point that really struck me after some recent incidents involving friends of mine in other parts of the country. It also hit home how unwelcoming Americans can be towards our visitors (I know I've been guilty of this during peak tourist seasons back in DC). Certainly a little anecdote that shows how much of an impact Americans overseas can have on those they meet and a little lesson on how we should see foreigners we encounter in our own country.

  So, I guess I'll end it there. My boss has law exams to study for and needs my help with some of the English, and I have lesson plans to prepare for this week. So, !Gâi tsesa u hâ re. Khawa mûgus.