Schools Out for Summer?

School’s Out For Summer 

School is out and the kids have gone home or to another town that offers more free time fillers than the village. Vera (my Vera Bradley duffle bag) and I headed out to hike to Windhoek to attend our second phase of Peace Corps training. While most Pre-Service Trainings are almost three months long, ours was about two and a half before we swear in and then another week after being at our sites for a few months. So the first week of December all 40 of us American’s were gathered together and put up in a beautiful mountain side resort and conference center complete with running water AND electricity. This was luxurious for those who have neither at their permanent sites. It was great to be with fellow Americans again, have free wifi, hot showers, unlimited food, and down time at the pool. Although being in the third world, this was actually a completely different experience than what you are probably picturing. Being isolated up a mountain where renovations were going on the power and water were only on half the time. You would wake up in the morning wanting a nice hot shower to wake up to only to find there was no water, oh well back to bed right? Luckily we are all well versed and experienced in how to not smell like you haven’t bathed in a few days after living in the bush for 3 months.

Meals with a view

We did have a pool all to ourselves though to at least rinse the sweat off. The first day it was slightly cloudy and tinted a bit green and absolutely freezing cold but that didn’t stop any of us. Some were scared off by the color, others were scared off by the cold. There were those brave few of us who knew we would one day beg to have an icy pool of water so we said YOLO to the color and dove in. With each passing day though the water refuge turned a darker shade of green and by the third day you couldn’t see your knees through the water. I called it the Ecto-Green Cooler pool like the Hi-C flavor that had the Ghostbusters ghost on it, others called it African Tropical Punch. The bottoms of my feet were slightly green with what I hope was algae residue after going in but I can assure you that I have yet to sprout any new limbs.

Green pool with a view

The week was an overall great time, the day was ours after 3pm every day and we drank overpriced beers each night in celebration for making it this far. By overpriced I mean 15N$ for a normal sized bottle which is actually only 1.50USD but should only have cost us closer to 10N$.

After our official Peace Corps business we were off to the coastal town of Swakopmund. It’s a bit of a tradition that each year after this second bout of training that a majority of the group travels to the vacation destination of the country to seek refuge in coastal breezes, adrenaline activities, good food and even better beer. Our days began with real (brewed, not instant) coffee at cute funky coffee shops, continued with beach time and various activities, consisted of indulgences of foods we have been craving for the past 5 months: pizza, Thai, Italian, seafood, and even Mexican. The days concluded with arguably my favorite part of the day, the sundowner. Sundowners will definitely be something I bring back to the states with me. It is a daily occurrence where everyone grabs a drink and watches the sunset as both your drink and the sun go down. There is no better tasting beer than one that you drink on a beach in Africa while the sun sets over the Atlantic Ocean.

Where the sand meets the sea 

Speaking of the sun, it is not something you mess with here. In the villages, we all know how HOT the sun is. You can literally feel it burning your skin if you walk around without sunscreen and its approximately 10-15 degrees cooler in the shade. Dangerous. On the coast though you let your guard down a bit because the cool sea breeze chills the surface of your skin. That does not mean that the sun does not still burn it. We all learned this the hard way as we strutted our stuff to the beach on day 2 armed with the best sunscreen money can buy in Namibia and burned to crisps. I was lucky enough to know when enough is enough but some of my friends’ bootys were not so lucky. Lets just say the next day none of us went outside or wore pants and we went through a few bottles of aloe. That didn’t keep us away from the beach the rest of the week though, our typical hangout ended up being a beach bar that was well shaded and served beer and seafood. I personally couldn’t stay way from that if you paid me.

One of the coolest and my most favorite activity was quadbiking. Namibia is an interesting place in that there is lush tropical greens, desolate barren wastelands, towering sand dunes, and beaches. Swakopmund is lucky enough to border the Namib-Nakuluft Park which is where some of its famous sand dunes are located. These dunes go right up to the coast line too. Like one minute its like oh wow look its like Aladdin and then you turn 90 degrees and its like wow look its like The Little Mermaid! One day a few of us signed up to go quad biking (like a 4 wheeler or ATV) through the dunes. It was about 350N$ for one hour but because I was on vacation I told myself it was only 35US$. We each jumped on our own personal bikes and followed our guide into the sand.  Leave it to me though to mess something up, about half way through our ride I realize my bike isn’t accelerating anymore. I don’t know what happened or what I did but it just stopped moving. So I just sat there staring at my friends riding ahead of me following the guide leaving me surrounded but vast nothing-ness. Within a few seconds the guide knew I was missing and came flying back towards me. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong himself and of course, couldn’t pick up a signal to call for backup so I jumped on the back of his and he drove me up the next dune to be with my friends. He told us to hang tight while he sped off to go pick up a signal to tell someone to bring me a new bike.

At first I felt really bad that my friends had to now wait on me like of course my bike would break down and we’d all be stuck but it turned out to be an awesome once in a lifetime experience. As our guide was busy riding around trying to get a hold of someone, we were left to take cool pictures and play around on the dunes however we wanted. I will say from my previous experiences climbing dunes in northern Michigan and feeling like I was going to die multiple times doing it, I did not instantly run down and try to climb back up. We did take a bunch of cool pictures and I did make a sand angel because I was feeling nostalgic for snow. You’re welcome friends. In conclusion though words cannot even describe how beautiful and barren and desolate and striking and everything the dunes were. I will pay to do it again and I would pay for even multiple hours out there because it was just breathtaking.  

My broken down bike in the distance