Hayestack

  Sheena, Georgina, me, the wall and the rockery.
The sudden and unexpected nature of the encounter made it quite shocking. It happened like this. We had had a wonderful night at the luxurious lodge at Ghaub saying goodbye to Addy and Barbara who were returning to the north of England after a three and three [...]

John and friend
Yes, I don’t know what it means either. There is a new law that says everyone has to pay to register their land that they have lived on for generations. It is not just the cost of administration but constitutes a substantial tax on the poor. A Community Volunteers Day was organised [...]

Today we were invited for a cruise on the Kavango River. Fourteen of us, volunteers with VSO & Interteam, set out at 6.30am. It was dark when we left home but soon the stars disappeared and the orange glow on the horizon showed that it was almost daytime. We floated along in the flat bottomed [...]

Just as in Israel at the time of the birth of Jesus, everyone in Rundu travels at Christmas.  It’s not that  we need to be registered for taxation, it’s just too hot here. At times the mercury hits the forties.
Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, we are going to Bloemfontein.  This is the legislative [...]

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 [...]

Hats off to VSO. They don’t send you out unprepared into the bush. They train you how to swat mosquitoes and wrestle with crocodiles first. Training takes place under a canopy out of doors. If you are unlucky the sun will slide around and strike you on the top of your head when you least [...]

We thought we’d send our Christmas letter early this year just to make sure you received one in time. The days and weeks are flying by and it will be December 25th before you know it. In the 1950’s & 60’s the days/weeks/years lasted twice as long. Now they are gone in [...]