Hayestack

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 [...]

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 [...]

This will probably be a short entry as I shall probably fall asleep over my computer. The reason is simple. Throughout every night we are subjected to the deafening cacophony of a hundred Baskerville hounds seemingly baying for our blood. The effect is spine-chillingly awful. It can start with one puppy spluttering over a chicken [...]

By the end of the week’s training session in Windhoek everyone was anxious to reach their placement and start doing their bit for Namibia. Some were staying in Windhoek but most were going to see the real Africa up north. The details of where we would all be living were sketchy at best. Georgina and [...]

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 [...]

The Otjari Hostel sits comfortably on a hill overlooking the modern city of Windhoek. It is blue sky city. The air is clean and the sun shines all day. But all is not well in paradise. The high metal railings and barbed wire that surround most properties, the security guards outside many shops, hostel alarms [...]