Off to Midproject!

I cant believe we are leaving tomorrow AM for a 2 week midproject camp... truth be known I am a little scared, participant issues 24/7 & nowhere to hide! That aside, I think we'll have a lot of fun, work hard and enjoy some good times together as a team before we head back to Swakopmund for our final 3 weeks of work placement...

We are first off to cheetah conservation camp to do a work camp and then to Waterberg Plateau Park for another work camp and then I get to return to beautiful Etosha National Park, where we will conduct our own midproject sessions and debrief the Namibian experience thus far!

Wish me luck!

Swakopmund Update

Since Vadim has left Agnes and I have worked non-stop. We have had some difficulty with work placements not giving the volunteers enough to do, which in turn causes them to come to us for work! That gets complicated and problematic as we have our work to do, so coordinating and supervising activities for the participants can get a little crazy!

In any case there are a few projects that we have begun that need to be completed. Such as our painting project in the DRC(the most impoverished community of Swakopmund)where we have been painting huge containers that are used for a community soup kitchen to provide food for the community's children and sick. Another project we have started is a mural project along a busy main road in town, we painted messages related to the HIV/AIDS epidemic here in Namibia. There is a 20% infection rate, which is alarmingly high for such a developed country. Tomorrow we are working on a vegetable garden for the "House of Safety" where another work placement where 2 volutneers are working.

Only 4 weeks of work placements to worry about, as next week we will start our 2 week midproject trip to the North, where we are doing a couple outdoor work camps with the Ministry of Enivornment!

Happy New Years!

I am now back in beautiful sunny and hot Swakopmund.I left Vadim in Windhoek this morning, as he flied home today.... that aside I can really must say our trip was AMAZING, it truly was nice to finally take a real holiday. It was by far our best holiday ever!

Vadim and I spent New Years deep in the Namibian Safariland of Etosha National Park, travelling from water hole to water hole through the desert to see lions, elephants, rhinos,ostriches, etc. It was great- we saw lions three times, once we were 1.5 metres from two male lions! It was incredible to see all the animals. When we saw our first giraffe we were both so excited and took a zillion photos! In total we took over 250 photos -all my 2 memory cards could hold.

We rented a tiny compact car and braved the heat -of 40 degrees- without AC. In the national park it is forbidden to leave your car, so we travelled all day in the car, usally in the mornings and late afternoons and then each night we stayed at one of the park's three rest camps in the park. These "camps" were more like run down basic resorts. The last one though was very nice and looked as though it had been recently renovated. I kinda wished we had more time to really enjoy it. But c'est la vie, I had to go back to work and so did Vadim!

Overall our trip was amazing, we really had a lot of fun! I am now back to "work" aka 24 hour participant management and conflict resolution! I hope to give another update soon.

We wish you all a very Happy New Year, and all the best for 2006!