Dress Respectfully and Be Proud of Yourselves!

For some reason, I get a kick out of the sign in the gym advising women to “Dress appropriately, not provocatively. Dress respectfully and be proud of yourselves!” I’m pretty sure I have a different body temperature boiling point than people in Namibia. When I run on the treadmill, I’m seriously sweating in shorts and a t-shirt, but people on both sides of me are fully outfitted in sweat pants and long-sleeves. It’s insane.

I’m having lots fun at the gym and am very happy I joined. Unless a soccer or cricket game is on, they usually have the TV tuned to “BASSment,” which is an African version of MTV and quite entertaining to watch. I’ve becoming a regular at crazy Monday aerobics and it turns out that Japie (the instructor mentioned in a previous post) is a hasher. Go figure! Thinking back to the first aerobics class, it make sense.

Hashing, for those who aren’t familiar, is a running / beer drinking club. According to Wikipedia, hashing originated in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1938, when a group of British colonial officers and expatriates began meeting on Monday evenings to run, in a fashion patterned after the traditional British Paper Chase or "Hare and Hounds," to rid themselves of the excesses of the previous weekend.

I hashed quite a bit in DC and had a good time with it. I’d found a local chapter on the internet, but the web site hadn’t been updated in three years, so I’d pretty much given up on that idea until recently. Brooke and I were chatting with the Japie after class last week; she mentioned her need to modify one of his hip-swivel kick moves because of knee problems. Asking if we were runners, Japie suggested we come run with the harriers and promised to bring us their contact info the following Monday.

True to his word, Japie brought me contact info for the local Mismanagement (hash term for leadership) to class last night. I was actually a little nervous during class, wondering if he was keeping an eye on me to make sure I was “hash material.” I felt even more embarrassed when an enthusiastic but quiet woman from the front row came up to me after class and mentioned she’d seen me at El Cubano on Friday, commenting I was “quite the dancer” and it made her happy to see someone having so much fun. Well that’s a bit embarrassing. Overhearing, Japie joked he was going to get me on stage next week to co-teach with him because it also makes him happy to see how excited I get in the class. I can’t help it, something about the silliness of the moves and the blaring techno make it hard not to smile. Musical highlights of today – techno remixes of James Blunt’s Beautiful, Axel F (you’d recognize it – it’s on my 80s gold CD and was definitely a movie or TV theme), and Calabria 2007.

I’m totally pumped about the hash and really hope I can make it one of these weeks… I wonder if the Windhoek Harriers have ever had anyone from the Everyday is Wednesday DC Hash? Knowing hashers, though, they probably have.

Sunday Safari (Day trip to Okapuka)

The pictures are a much better summary than my words, so I’ll take a breather on this one and let you enjoy some photos of our day-trip to Okapuka, a game farm about 30km north of Windhoek. The photos above are of a lion-feeding. We watched from behind a wooden wall with square peep holes cut across the middle at varying heights; electric and barbed wire covered the front. A weird set-up, but we were amazingly close. Our feeding was also quite interesting because it is rare for the lion to let the lioness eat before he is finished - this only happens when she is pregnant or in heat. Note the tongue sticking out of his mouth in the first picture.

To start, here’s a rhino looking refreshed after a nice bath in the mud. Namibia has two types of rhinos, black and white. The names are misleading because they are indistinguishable in color. “White” is a mistranslation of the Dutch word “wijd” (meaning wide), referring to the wide, square upper lip of the White Rhinoceros, distinct from the pointed lip of the Black Rhinoceros.

I do have one funny story about the afternoon. See the rhino heading for our safari vehicle? For a good twenty seconds I thought I’d meet my end with his horn through my stomach. The guide in our safari car had a big bucket of food he would dump on the ground so the rhino would come near the safari car and eat, giving us a great change to snap some photos and watch it from super close. The problem was that after feeding the rhino, the guide stored the bucket of food right underneath my feet (I was sitting in the back of the car). Apparently one helping wasn’t enough, because after finished the food on the ground the rhino made his way toward our vehicle. Rhinos have terrible eyesight but an amazing sense of smell - which makes you nervous when there is a bucket of food sitting right under your legs... It is kind of amazing to think about now but absolutely terrifying in the moment, there was a good twenty seconds where I feared for my life and prayed for the sound of the engine starting. Rhinos are actually pretty peaceful unless you get near a mom with her baby. Still, that horn and big body make me nervous.

We had a great group for the safari – from left to right there’s Kaylan (intern buddy at the LAC), Brooke (neighbor at Puccini House, interning at Mt. Sinai Center in Katutura), me, and in the back row are Marybeth’s volunteers: Alex, Amy, and Elena (sorry for my big head!). Our photographer is Clay, an American who joined us on the safari, and was a good sport about all the estrogen.

Fun fact for the day: as giraffes get older, their spots get darker.

NICE is Very Nice Indeed

Tired after two nights of dancing and a full day in the sunshine, I was looking forward to curling up with my book in bed and getting a decent night’s sleep. My body has been extremely cooperative with new foods and evening adventures since I’ve been here, but I could feel a hint of a cold coming on and I didn’t want to push it. Brooke had to work all weekend and was in need a relaxing evening, but it was a Saturday night after all, so when she suggested we walk over to NICE and grab a glass of wine, we both agreed that was the perfect way to end the day.

The Namibian Institute of Culinary Education (NICE) is just around the corner from Puccini House. NICE is a chef finishing school linked to a profit-generating restaurant. The idea is that the restaurant will eventual fund the school, eventually making the whole project self-sustainable. With the tourism boom in Namibia, the demand for management and hospitality professionals far exceeds the supply, due largely to a lack of training facilities. (This is the case for many professions, particularly doctors and nurses, but that’s a different blog entry…) The idea is that NICE will provide world-class training for the future restaurant and hospitality management professionals of Namibia. Neat, right? And just around the corner.

So a glass of wine turned in to splitting a bottle, but at N$120 ($15 USD) for a really good bottle of cabernet, we might as well. We know we’re not supposed to walk at night by ourselves, but it’s so darn close, it seems totally absurd to call a cab. We joked on the way home that a bottle of wine at a nice restaurant costs the equivalent of the round-trip cab ride from a private taxi (which costs seven times more than the public taxis and severely complicates my danger / cheapskate calculations).

We’ll definitely go back to NICE and next time will order some food with our wine. It’s supposed to have the best sushi in the city. Who’d have thought I’d been eating sushi here?!

Diplomats and Dance Parties

On Friday evening, Ruth, Kaylan, and I went to a “Young Diplomats Wine and Cheese Reception,” hosted by the Lt. Colonel Christian Ranthum, Defense Attache for the U.S. Embassy in Windhoek. While a gathering of diplomats sounds a bit more glamorous than the unpaid volunteers I usually roll with, the invitation said “Interns Welcome” and it promised wine, so it didn’t talk too much arm-twisting for any of us to RSVP "Yes."

Courtesy of the U.S. embassy and the American taxpayers, Lt. Colonel Ranthum and his family live in a lovely home atop a hill in Klein Windhoek. The reception was held on their gorgeous stone patio with a beautiful view of the city (and a heated in ground pool to boot). I spent most of my time chatting with two cadets from the Air Force Academy who are on a whirl-wind tour of the country, and a very sweet girl named Megan, from DC and working for the National Institute of Health. I did have the opportunity to meet our host, and though I’m still a bit confused about what exactly a defense attaché does, from what I understand he works as a liaison between the United States military, the Namibian military, and the U.S. Embassy, serving as a representative and gathering intelligence. When he was talking about his role, he seemed surprised I asked so many questions about the military aspect of his job. When I mentioned my brother and father had also served in the military, his entire expression changed and he wanted to shake my hand (Dad and Ryan, I thought you’d enjoy that). Props to the U.S. Embassy for the nice wine selection and spread of cheese.

After a quick stop at home for a hot shower and a cup of tea, I rallied up my energy and headed out for Canadian Nicole’s birthday party. After a small gathering at her house (including fresh homemade sangria, yum) we headed out… yup, El Cubano. It was the birthday girl’s choice or else I may have campaigned to go elsewhere… I haven’t explored enough of the city to go there as much as I have. At any rate, we stayed until closing time, so despite my reservations, good times were had by all.

My legs are very sore today. I feel like I did hill sprints or something. I didn’t, just dancing the past two nights. I feel a bit pathetic for being as sore as I am, but dancing can be a good workout, right? Everyone on Dancing with the Stars looks great… but then again, I’m pretty sure they aren’t drinking Windhoek lager or red wine back stage…

If it’s not obvious yet, I’m a big fan of the nightlife in Windhoek. Smoke in the bars is gross, but an extra load of laundry a week is worth it. Admittedly making sweeping generalizations, the scene feels less drunk and frat-tastic than the bars and less pretentious than the dance clubs back home. The music selection is very danceable (always at Funky Lab, more variable at El Cubano) – a lot of hip-hop, some salsa and random pop, but invariably upbeat, which in my opinion is totally preferable to techno (too intense) or 80s and Journey (I’m a big fan but it’s better suited for karaoke and car rides vs. the dance floor). I recognize a lot of the music from the states, but they definitely mix in some more local music. I feel less self-conscious and less ogled at on the dance floor than I do walking down the street. It’s liberating, and it’s fun.

More Wining and Dining

I’ve been eating like royalty the past few days, so before reading further consider yourself warned that this post is entirely about food.

Sunday Night ~ La Marmite (Cameroonian and West African food): Sunday evening, Brooke and I joined Marybeth’s interns for dinner at La Marmite, located just north of the city centre on Independence Avenue (and fairly close my office). La Marmite takes its name from the French word for a cavernous cooking pot. The owner is originally from Cameroon (colonized by the French) and he has done an amazing job decorating the place – I wish I’d brought my camera – some beautiful masks and wooden carvings decorate the restaurant; the patterned table clothes, cozy alcoves, candles, and uni-sex bathrooms (!) give the place character.

I’ve been itching to try this place - I’d had West African food almost once a week when I lived in Geneva and fell in love with it. There were several men on my floor from Burkina Faso who would cook huge traditional feasts on Sunday afternoons, and the spread usually included a spicy peanut-chicken stew, which they always generously shared with me. Communal kitchens do have their advantages.

Anything with peanut butter is off to a good start in my book, so I was able to narrow down my choices fairly quickly. Alex and I both ordered the Vegetarian Peanut Butter with couscous, a variety of vegetables (eggplant, tomato, spinach) cooked in a thick, creamy nutty sauce. Elena ordered the fish of the day which came with couscous and salad, while Brooke ordered Mafe Chicken, a West African specialty where chicken and spinach are cooked with roasted groundnuts (like peanut butter). There wasn’t a grain of couscous left on anyone’s plate, except for a bit of meat left on Brooke’s. Her dish was really tasty, but ordering chicken dishes here isn’t the same as the states, where boneless, skinless chicken is the standard. It’s not unusual to find bones or bits of grizzle in your meat and takes a little getting used to.

Tuesday Night ~ Ocean Basket (Seafood!): Ocean Basket is a local chain I’d heard good things about, so I joined Shaun and friends for dinner Tuesday evening. I’m proud of myself for being so brave. I didn’t like seafood as a kid – fish sticks and tuna made me gag; I didn’t even try salmon or regular cooked fish until college. I definitely eat and enjoy seafood now, but it’s still not something I eat very often (fresh salmon and tilapia don’t really work on a law student schedule or budget).

Without thinking, I told Shaun I liked seafood and trying new things, so he ordered for me without letting me look at the menu. I was a little nervous when a steaming seafood platter – shells, antennae, eyeballs, fish skin, and all – was plopped on my place mat. The platter included oysters, mussels, prawns, fried baby octopus, port sardines, calamari, and linefish. I tried everything. The fried baby octopus (it makes me sad to say that) might have been my favorite. Everything tasted quite fresh and good – but I did have a hard time with the prawn antennae (they were like six inches long!!) strewn about the table. I certainly didn’t clean up my plate but I did pretty well.

You Had Me at Bean Soup

Wednesday night we enjoyed yet another delicious homemade Puccini House dinner. This makes the third dinner indulgence for Brooke and I, and enough of a feast to deserve its own blog entry.

Homemade bean soup had been on the menu board in the dining room for two days. Earlier in the week, the owners toyed with the idea of doing a small dinner (for like N$40 - $5 USD) of just fresh baked bread and soup. Though they decided not to do the bean soup dinner, they left it on the chalk board, and visions of a steaming bowl of warm soup and fresh bread was a huge tease ever y time I passed through the common room. Nights have been quite cold this week and there’s nothing better on a cold night than a big bowl of soup. Mmmm. It’s been surprisingly hard to find canned soup in the supermarket, lots of dry mixes and fresh and frozen soup and stew vegetables, but no cans. Weird.

There is a happy ending to the bean soup saga since they served it as an appetizer for Wednesday’s dinner. It was everything I imagined it would be – hearty and delicious – the broth was fairly thick and slightly spicy with chunks of game meat mixed in. Also on the menu was grilled oryx steak, a mushroom-barley bake (I don’t like mushrooms, but I tried it and it was still quite tasty even with the hint of fungus), and the wonderful huge salad that they’ve had the past few weeks. And, of course, red wine. Dessert this week was a “Roly Poly” – a baked cake that has spirals on the top filled with apricot jam. Baked fresh for us while we were eating dinner, the Roly Poly was served with warmed cream.

Our dinner companions were two men from South Africa, a couple from the Netherlands, the owners, and Christelle and her husband (the previous owners and relatives of the current owners). One of the men from South Africa was involved with meteorological equipment; from what I understand he works with weather stations and surveys all over the world installing specialized forecasting equipment. The other man spoke only Afrikaans, so we didn’t get to chat with him at all. The couple from the Netherlands was young and fun. They’d just finished a 3-week safari across Namibia and had some travel stories to share. Funny thing – the girl had actually been to Scottsville, New York. What?! When she asked where in New York I was from, I said, “near Buffalo,” expecting a vague nod. My jaw dropped when she said she’d been in Rochester for two weeks last year. She works as the European marketing manager for a heating and cooling company based in Scottsville – I can’t remember the name (Mom and Dad do you know?). Crazy! She remembered going to High Falls and drinking Honey Brown Lager. She thought the city was small but “very nice.” It’s a small world after all…

I look like a disaster in these photos (it was cold out!), but I haven’t posted many pictures lately so I’ll put it up anyway. Brooke and I love our desserts, so we though it’d be cute to get a photo of us happily together with our Roly Poly. The last photo is a botched attempt of us spoon-feeding one another cake. Good times!

All Quiet on the Blogging Front

Don't worry, I'm alive and well, just busy for the past few days! I should have some time this weekend to update the blog and post some photos.

It's been a pretty social week - I've been eating out quite a bit, including yummy Cameroonian food on Sunday, a fish extravaganza on Tuesday, homecooked oryx steak on Wednesday, and fun at Funky Lab Thursday, so consider yourself forewarned there will be at least two entries about food. It's a busy weekend too - Canadian Nicole's birthday party tonight, a 4th of July celebration sponsored by the U.S. Embassy on Saturday, and a game-drive / lion-feeding on Sunday. Get excited for more animal photos!

Joe's BeerHouse and MaryBeth

After all this time I’ve spent with Marybeth, I realized I haven’t given her a proper introduction! I also realized I haven’t written about Joe’s Beerhouse, so here’s a longer-than-intended update on these two Windhoek institutions.

First: How I met Marybeth. My first weekend in Windhoek was a fairly quiet one, and I was very excited when I heard an American accent in the common room Sunday afternoon. I introduced myself to Jim (I actually don’t remember his name, but think it might be Jim so that’s what I’m going to call him), a middle-aged man originally from Boston but currently working in Indonesia. He was in Windhoek on business and pleasure, a meeting for one day and a safari to Soussevlei for three. When he was doing some research before his trip, he read about Marybeth’s charity work online. Impressed with all she was doing in Katutura, the old apartheid neighborhood north of the city, Jim contacted her to see what type of help she needed. His company donated a bunch of soccer equipment to her community center, and he had plans to meet her and some of her interns for dinner at Joe’s Beerhouse that night. Thinking it’d be fun for me to meet some other “young kids” and Marybeth, Jim invited me along. I was thrilled – at this point, I was still afraid of the stove in the kitchen, so the prospect of eating something other than the yogurt and raisins made me very happy.

At dinner, I was absolutely blown away by Marybeth. Marybeth has been working in Katutura for the past three years. At her center, she does education programs for special needs children in the morning, has after-school programs for kids in the afternoon, and coaches or referees community sport teams on the weekend. She also seems to be in contact with every soup kitchen and charity organization in the city, know everyone in Katutura, and never stop working. She’s been doing international charity work for most of her life – before coming to Windhoek, she spent several years in Bangladesh and El Salvador doing similar work in humanitarian aid and community-building initiatives.

Though my “needs” do not compare to those she spends here days with, Marybeth has been a tremendous help to me since I arrived, researching potential apartments and even driving me to another hostel that had a cheaper rate than what I was paying at Puccini House. When I mentioned I didn’t pack many warm clothes, she picked out several second-hand sweaters for me to use while I’m here. She invited me out to dinner the following Sunday, and took me up on my offer to lend a hand at her center on the weekends. She’s an extremely passionate, generous, and hard-working woman – I feel incredibly lucky to know her.

Second: About Joe’s Beerhouse. Joe’s is a heavily advertised restaurant / tourist destination in Windhoek. They specialize in game meat and good beer. It’s totally touristy but worth going. The first time I went, I had a springbok (type of deer) kebab, the second time I was a bit braver, and tried the Bushman Sosastie (see picture). The Sosastie is a skewer with five different types of meat: chicken, kudu, zebra, crocodile, and ostrich. The kudu (another type of deer) was my favorite – the zebra was less flavorful and a little tough to chew, the crocodile had the taste of chicken but the texture of fish, and I think I was full by the time I got to the ostrich. Only the tourists order it, I’ve been told about twenty times since. The meals came with corn fritters (yum) and some veggies, and everything was washed down with some good Windhoek lager. Yum.

Food and beer aside, the décor and ambiance make the trip worth it even for locals. The place is huge, with several bars, a fish pool, tons of antlers and animals heads covering the walls, and even an outdoor fire pit to stay warm after dinner.

Shameless Plug for the LAC

Happiness Looks Like This

Today feels like Christmas. I received my first piece of mail in Namibia this morning – I was so surprised and excited I actually squealed when Schaulf showed me the package.

Thank you Mom, Sandy and Ryan! I really missed the family today, especially being Father’s Day and thinking about you all camping at Letchworth. The package timing was perfect – I’m really surprised it came on a Sunday, nothing here happens on Sundays. I ran to my room and tore open the package (which must have weighed 10 pounds at least). Homemade ginger snaps and granola?! Ryan’s beef jerky? Craisins?! Bottle-size Crystal light packets?!! So many of my favourite treats – and even Ziploc bags! You must have been reading my mind. I was totally surprised and delighted. I actually left all the goodies spread on my bed for the afternoon because it made me so happy to look at them. I feel loved. Thank you guys!

So what’s the first thing I ate? (If you guessed the cookies, good guess, but no. I’m saving them for tomorrow as a treat for Brooke and me after braving our Monday aerobics class.) Pizzeria pretzel combos. Mmmm.

Britain's Got Talent

I’ve been seeing signs around town all week advertising the World Music Day on Saturday, June 20th. I’m not sure how global World Music Day is (I’m trying to remember if I’d heard of it before in the states? … ) but concerts were planned for every major city in Namibia, including three concerts in Windhoek. With no real plans for the day besides groceries and errands, I thought it’d be fun to attend the 5pm concert in Zoo Park (an outdoor amphitheater in the city centre) and the 9pm concert at Warehouse Theatre.

Turns out the 5pm concert actually took place at 1pm. Thank goodness for Shawn. The concert was advertised as beginning at 17:00h in both the city paper and on the posters plastered all over town. Thinking I had the whole afternoon to lounge, I was getting settled on one of the lounge chairs by the pool to read and soak up some sun in my increasingly pale skin, and Shawn called asking if I wanted to join him and the Brits for the concert. Though I was convinced he had the wrong time, one of his friends was performing within the hour so I agreed to tag along, thinking it must be a pre-concert act or something. Turns out Zoo Park doesn’t have lights, so it’d be impossible to have any sort of concert there in the evening. So why was the show advertised at 5pm everywhere??

Last week someone asked me if I’d had a TIA (This is Africa) moment yet. Confused at first, I think I get it now. I’m pretty sure I had my first real TIA moment Sat. afternoon.

At any rate, the concert line-up was fantastic and it was a gorgeous day to sit outside. There were maybe 20 groups, mostly hip-hop, with a one jam band, one reggae group, and one gospel hip-hop fusion group. Each group only performed two or three songs and the variety kept things exciting.

Most groups had back-up dancers, which was really fun to watch. Shawn’s friend is a solo performer, and since he didn’t have any back-up dancers, Shawn dared us all go on stage and dance for the second song of his set. I told him he was crazy. We already stood out like sore thumbs, besides the German group sitting nearby and two people at the other side of the amphitheatre, we were the only white people out of the several hundred in the crowd. The Brits, on the other hand, were up for the challenge and when the second song started, they stormed the stage and started dancing. And by dancing, I mean shoes off, fists pumping, butts shaking, bodies dropping to the ground. It was crazy. They definitely held their own and the crowd went nuts! By far the highlight of the afternoon.