Hayestack

 
It was about midnight and we were just slipping off to sleep when loud screams of searing pain snapped us back to reality. Someone was murdering a child outside our bedroom window. Georgina jumped up and peered out. The body was slung to the branch of a tree and was howling pitifully like an [...]

Try wedging yourself in a tree where a branch meets the trunk and take a succession of 10 minute naps throughout the night. This is how the bushmen traditionally slept and how they became known as tree sleepers. How they managed to procreate is a mystery.
At the end of the Tsumeb training we stayed [...]

The final exercise of the week was to go in groups to different organisations to discover their views on Namibian education. My group had to visit the small but impressive Tsumeb Museum. It is run and owned by an elderly German couple and is stuffed with pictures and memorabilia from the German Second Reich [...]

The town of Tsumeb was the location for the second part of VSO training. It is an old copper mining town about 2 hours drive from Rundu and is a tiny version of Windhoek. This old German town has green lawns, smart shops, pavements and even traffic lights. One of the more charming characteristics [...]

Etosha is one of the best game reserves in Africa. It is amazing that anything can live on this vast arid plain and the fact that elephants, giraffes, zebra and many kinds of antelope amongst other large animals thrive in such abundance is a miracle.
We took the “gravel” road to Etosha. This kind of road [...]

Popa Falls is a rapid on the Kavango River just outside the Mahango Game Park. On our way there we stopped at a supermarket to buy cold drinks. Small and dingy, it was anything but “super”. But it did have cold drinks. Men and boys propped themselves against the walls as though the walls were [...]

So you’re on your way to Tesco, you turn the corner and there’s an elephant in the road, staring straight at you, wondering if it wants to charge you. You would have a fright, right? Well, we were sort of expecting it as we were in elephant country, Mahango Game Park, to be precise. Not [...]

Have you ever lain in bed in a semi conscious state and gradually become aware of a persistent sound in the background that you feel you’ve been listening to forever? A semi conscious state is my natural milieu. Some are born zombie, some achieve zombie and some have zombie thrust upon them. I am [...]

Mary came for us in her old, battered, dusty, red car. She was a self-confessed missionary with  Inland Africa Mission.  Looking for all the world like everyone’s maiden aunt, she inspected our clothes. Good, I was wearing long trousers (God doesn’t like shorts, apparently) and stout shoes. We may have to trek halfway across Namibia. [...]

I went shopping today. This is not exactly news as I go shopping most days. Today, however, was different. I have given up looking out of the window in the morning and wondering what the weather will be like as it is hot and sunny most days. The days when it is not hot and [...]