"Working"

Monday--The music to the musical "Working"

For those of you who know nothing about Namibia, Namibia used to be a German colony during the 1800's (around 1871 I believe). I learned today that about 80% of Namibians speak German, although their official language is currently English. But around the 1960's, South Africa gained control of the country and many European colonies exploited it's mining and fishing industries. It gained independence in 1990 from South Africa and had it's first free elections in 1995.

Tuesday--We Are the World by Michael Jackson
Today was a refresher because we saw the Mondesa Youth Opportunities program (MYO) and the Medi Clinic, a private medical hospital. MYO is a program for kids in grades 4-8. They pretest the kids in English reading comprehension and select 25 every year to be in the program. essentially, its for gifted students. They can only afford to take the top of their classes because their funding comes from the Rossing Foundation, a fund set up by the Rossing Uranium mine. At MYO, the kids do sports, receive extra help on their homework, and get to take wonderful fun fieldtrips out at places like AfriCat, a feline sanctuary for the big cats in Africa. We got to eat lunch with the kids and tour around their school. They use old storage containers for classrooms, but the containers are referbished and they even have a Lennox computer system. We were sad to learn that there were no other programs to help the kids at the bottem of the barrel in the community however. Or that they weren't using success stories of locals to motivate the kids. They're so dependent on foreign aid and foreign help that it almost seems patronizing at times. i hope its something they can overcome in the future.

Then we went to the Medi Clinic. Its a 52 bed hospital with doctors around the corner. They treat everybody who comes in, but because it's private, its also more expensive. Fun fact, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt had their child Shiloh at this hospital. We saw the room where she had the C-Section and saw the thank-you note they wrote after their stay (For Grand-Mama, you should know that the note was NOT in cursive and was like a sentence long...not as impressive as mine or Gumbo's...). Something that struck me about this hospital was that they were expanding it, but it didnt' look like much was going on. We have yet to go to a public hospital yet, but I'm sure the two are night and day different. I just wish the medi clinic could use more of their facilities to treat those who are really sick, like the people with TB in this country. Did you know that every 20 seconds, someone dies of TB? Anyways, just an observation...

Wednesday--Send me on my Way by Rusted Root
At last, our time in Swakopmund came to an end. We liked it, but we were clearly ready to leave. Most of us were not meant for the desert life (or the briney tasting H20). On the way to Windhoek, we stopped at the Rossing Uranium Mine. It employs over 3000 people in the three main towns surrounding the mine. There were many interesting comparisons to the De Beers Diamiond Mine in Kimberly. For one, Rossing seemed so concerned with keeping their workers safe and in a good environment (obviously, as they're mining a radioactive substance). The hole where they dig the element is 3 km long, 1 km wide, and 322 m deep. It's the third largest open pit uranium mine in the world. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Like how we shouldn't be mining uranium in the first place because its bad for the envioronment when we use it for nuclear power...or weapons. But if I lived in Namibia, with a 50% unemployment rate, why would I care about the ethics of uranium use? I would have a job. I could feed my family. So it's a sticky situation. Other than contemplating the ethical issues, it was interesting to learn how uranium was found in alaskite rock, ground into sand, mixed with chemicals that strip the uranium, mixed again with ammonium sulphate, packed into yellow cake and roasted in the oven at 800 degress Celsius (sp?) to become uranium oxide so it can be transported to the UK, the US, and Japan.

After the mine, we drove for 3 more hours. We watched the desert mountains become sparsely populated with grass, then bushes, then small trees, then mountains covered in vegetation. It was almost like being near Mamba in Thabazimbi again, but a little greener because it was the rainy season.

We arrived in Penduka, our abode for the next two days, ate a lovely meal, and had a student lead discussion about all that we've done in Namibia for the last few days.

Thursday--Pick a song
So I didn't realize this when I went to bed last night, but Penduka is a place where women with physical disabilities come and work on a specific craft to sell to places in Europe. I have so much more respect and love for this place now!

We've gone on a tour of Katatura, the township around Windhoek. The more I go on these tours in buses, the more I feel like I'm in a zoo looking at animals. It makes me uncomfortable, even though I know its for safety and distance reasons. The townships are all the same. No electricity, no water. All are looking for jobs, but there are none to be had because there isn't enough incentive to expand job opportunities, among other issues. We did get to go to an open market again, though, which was wonderful. Dad, you would have thought this one was interesting because they were chopping meat on tables with machettes, flies everywhere on the beef. but then they grilled it and it was delicious! I also bought a "fat cake" (fried dough) and that was also arterie clogging and fabulous.

I'm not going to be on for a while cause I have limited access to computers from here on out. 2 more home stays and then to Botswana. Love you all!

Hill