Ongombe.....

Ongombe is the Otjiherero word for cow. The cow has great significance in Herero and Himba cultures; it is simultaneously a measure of wealth, a integral part of the marriage ceremony, a source of fashion, and a source of food.

Turns out cows are so important that they have somehow found their way into my dreams...twice. My first cow dream happened in training. In this dream my host family had given me a herd of 25 cattle (that's a LOT of cattle by the way). The problem was that I had to find a way to transport said cattle over the countless kilometers from Okahandja up to my permanent site, Opuwo. I was able to find a truck that would accommodate half of my herd, but I was really stressed about how I would move the others. In fact I was so stressed that it almost felt like a nightmare and I woke up without coming to any type of resolution. Yet when I shared this dream with my Namibian trainers, the consensus was that it was a great dream! A woman with 25 cows is rich and powerful here, and their interpretation was that in the future I am going to find myself in a very happy, rich, and productive marriage. This definitely made me giggle.

Yet not too long ago the cow revisited my dream world. In this most recent dream, I was flying back to the US and, for whatever reason, felt it necessary to bring a very large bull along with me. For obvious reasons, this became a problem when I was going through customs. Expecting a fair amount of corruption among the customs officers at the Namibian airport, I attempted to bribe the chief so that he would let my bull on board. No dice; apparently there was some worry about the length of his horns and the overall awkwardness a cow would lend to the distribution of cargo. Major bummer. Eventually I was able to talk them into allowing my bull to come along, on the promise that he would lay down the entire flight. Crazy right?

I have not yet had the most recent dream interpreted, but I'm sure when I do the explanation will be interesting. :)

One last thing while we are on the subject of cows: They are also great natural roadblocks!

Namlish...

English is the national language in Namibia. Of course, the quality of English varies greatly depending on whether one is in a rural or urban community, the individuals' level of education, etc. Interestingly enough most of the Namibians I know speak multiple languages including, but not limited to, their mother tongue, at least one other Bantu language, Afrikaans, and English. For instance, one of the women I work closely with at the office speaks Damara (a click language) as her mother-tongue, Otjiherero (a Bantu language) because her husband is Herero, Otjiwambo (another Bantu language) because it is closely related to Otjiherero, Afrikaans because she was educated under the apartheid regime, and English because it is now the language of the government! And she is not alone; I am continually impressed by how effortlessly Namibians flow between two or more languages in the course of a 3 minute conversation.

With all of these languages floating around in peoples brains, it is no small wonder that things can sometimes get a little mashed up. Enter Namlish. Namlish is the amalgamation which has resulted from Namibians infusing English with various expressions used in the assortment of mother-tongue's found here.

A few brief examples of Namlish:

• "I am coming now" = "I am leaving and will be back at some undisclosed time" (this is often used as someone is walking out of the room)

• "Now now" (as in 'i am coming to meet you now now') = "it will happen eventually" note: the number of "nows" generally indicates the urgency so if someone says they will do something "now now" it may happen in the next few days, whereas if they said "now now now now now" it may happen within the next few hours

• "Iz it?" = wow, i had to think for about 5 mins before i could remember the English equivalent "really? for real? is that so?"

• "So?" = used in my region the same way that 'Iz it' is used in the rest of the country

• "Borrow me" (as in "Borrow me a dollar") = " give me" the concept of "borrowing" something doesn't really exist in most Namibian cultures; lending and giving are typically considered the same thing.

• "nay?" (as in "the weather is hot today, nay?") = often used as a way to affirm your statement

• "a rubber" = "rubber band" Im sure you can imagine how confused and surprised I was the first time one of my older female colleagues asked me to "borrow her a rubber."

• "naughty" = "bad" this is generally used to describe people or animals and it still makes me giggle every time i hear it. "oh, that cow is very naughty"

• "Fine/nawa" = Fine (nawa) can be used as a response to a greeting, such as "how are you? I am fine" or as the entire greeting. Occasionally I will pass someone in the street and they will greet me with "Fine" or "Nawa." This might be unique to my area, where making an "Mmmmmmmmm" sound at the back of your throat is also considered a greeting.

Needless to say, my English has degenerated significantly. Sometimes it takes me a little while to figure out how things are said in American English. I am aware that my spoken English now has a slightly different structure, i have developed a funny accent, and in general I speak much slower. I sometimes wonder if I am doing a disservice to my mother tongue by adapting my English to the Namibian way, but i believe adapting ultimately helps me to be better understood, nay?

I am back from Reconnect, and I must say it was great to see my friends from Group 29 again! We stayed at a lovely conference center which was about 20km south of Windhoek. The center was on the top of a hill, surrounded by rolling hills and sparse trees, stripped by the winter. The second day we were there, a large group of tourists set off on a three-week bus trip to Tanzania, so we had the entire place to ourselves which was great. Unfortunately it is still winter so even though the sun was shining, the frigid breeze kept us from fully enjoying the outdoors. Still, we took the opportunity to take nature walks, and i was able to do yoga almost every day!

Harmony Center/Reconnect

Today I am busy doing some preparations for National Oral Health Day (August 18th) and Condom Awareness Day (Aug 22). I just wanted to take the opportunity to share a couple interesting facts I learned from one of my colleagues during our Monday morning meeting; last week she was out at a workshop and today she reported on the things she learned.

**Namibia is one of the two countries in the world with the highest Tuberculosis infection rates. This is aggravated by the fact that Namibia is in the top 3 countries in the world with the highest HIV prevalence rates (HIV makes people much more prone to TB infection). If you want to learn more about TB, check out what wiki has to say http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis

**So far this year my region (Kunene) has had 4 cases of MDR-TB (Multi Drug Resistant TB), two of which have turned into XDR-TB (Extensively Drug Resistant TB). This condition develops when people default on their treatment multiple times and the bacteria mutates and becomes immune to the standard lines of TB therapy.

**Of the 23 new cases of XDR-TB confirmed last year, 13 people have died. That is a more than 50% fatality rate. Pretty intense.

She ventures out......

As of today (July 21, 2009), I have been in Namibia for five months. My goodness the time flies! That is not to say that there weren’t plenty of days which endlessly dragged on, but overall I am amazed at how fast the time has passed. The last week has been particularly hard for a variety of reasons, and it dawned on me today that having hard times is ok. It’s easy to forget that life is different here and I am still adjusting. Learning to be patient with myself has been a process, but I think I am slowly making progress. :)

Last week I broke my routine and left site for the first time since I was sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer back in April. I had my first meeting as a new member the Volunteer Support Network, an organization run by PC Volunteers in Namibia to offer confidential support to our fellow volunteers working in the field. I was lucky enough to get a free hike down with our Ministry of Health patient bus, which was awesome because it literally left 200 meters from my front door. The down side is that it was a typical hike in Namibia: I was crammed into a seat too narrow to accommodate my small frame and the lovely lady who climbed into the seat beside me brought along a full sized keyboard, which she then preceded to stuff into the non-existent space between us. (Leg room is way overrated, right?) So there I sat, smashed against the window with said keyboard digging into my legs, when two lovely Herero women in yards and yards of traditional dress squeezed into the row with us. “It’s only 8 hours,” I said to myself as I inwardly braced for the long journey. Within about 20 minutes my back started to ache and my legs went numb. Oh well, at least the ride was free.

I tried to fall asleep quickly, which wasn’t too difficult because it was 6am (did I forget to mention that?) and when the throbbing in my back forced me to open my eyes a couple of hours later, I was greeted with a lovely surprise. We had just crossed the red line, a check-point which divides the rural north from the rest of the country, when I saw something move in the bush. I squinted my eyes against the harsh morning light and there stood a HUGE elephant, eating his leafy breakfast right off the side of the road! I was so excited to have spotted an elephant in the wild that I literally tried to jump out of my chair. This didn’t go so well, as I bashed my already numb legs into the sharp edge of the keyboard, while simultaneously jarring the poor lady who was sleeping next to me with her head resting against my shoulder. Oops! She sort of snorted awake, and glanced at me for a second before she readjusted the keyboard and fell back to sleep.

My heart pounded as I contemplated the thrill of this sighting. The elephant was remarkable; large and proud, it feasted on the tree totally oblivious to our bus full of people gawking foolishly at it as we barreled down the road. It took my breath away, seeing this giant animal in the wild. No zoo could ever compare. I sealed the mental image of it in my memory, and settled back into my seat only to sit straight back up three minutes later. Moving slowly across the land stalked a herd of 10 full grown giraffes! It was one of those moments where it dawned on me: this is indeed Africa!

Spending about five minutes in Windhoek gave me the opposite reaction though. The capital is huge and bustling. There are too many cars, too many shops, too many lights…it was overwhelming. It was as if someone had magically transported me into different area of the world. In 8 hours, my quiet, dusty Opuwo streets had transformed into multi-lane roads with actual streetlights! Designer clothes had suddenly replaced the rich red ocre of the Himba people. Exotic restaurants punctuated the blocks of shiny new buildings and all around everyone seemed rushed. Namibia is often called a land of stark contrasts, and traveling from my region down to the madness of Windhoek, this becomes very apparent. Almost as soon as I arrived in the big city I was ready to go back to site. Don’t get me wrong, the food in Windhoek was amazing! We had Tex-Mex, Indian food, Sushi, and good hamburgers and fries. Unfortunately I had gotten a stomach bug right before I left Opuwo which prevented me from eating very much at one time, but what I was able to eat was DELICIOUS! However, good food aside, the most valuable aspect of being in Windhoek was coming to the realization that I really love my site.

Our VSN meeting went very well and it was great to get to spend time with some of my fellow PCV’s. I am now back home in Opuwo for the rest of this week, and then Sunday I will head down to Windhoek again for our “Reconnect” which is a two week long Peace Corps training. I will meet up with my group of Health volunteers for the first time since we swore in so that we can all discuss what we have been doing for the last three months and hopefully gain some skills which we can use in our future projects. I am so excited to see my group again but I must admit the prospect of going back down to Windhoek so soon is a little daunting. At least this time around I won’t have the stomach flu, so hopefully I will be able to enjoy the delicious food a bit more!