I can't stare at this title line any longer. I can't think of a good title. Just read the post and forget the title. It's just a title. It's really not that important.

I’m growing a mullet and I have a cat in my apartment named dieciocho, or ocho for short.  It's not my cat.  The cat belongs to my housemate, Gio.  It didn’t have a name.  Well, it had a name but Gio forgot what it was.  I call that not having a name.  He said, “its name is Rukwangali for hiccup, but I forget what that word is.  It’s really long”.  Her name is Ocho now.

The mullet is a Peace Corps NAM35 Mullet Club requirement.  We have 2.5 members.  The .5 is rock-star Rob whose commitment level to the club is debatable.  I guess the take away here is that you can all look forward to a picture of me rocking a hardcore mullet by late summer or early fall.  Nothing commands respect like a man with a mullet in a suit.  Part of my mission here is to expose Namibians to American culture.  And though the mullet is not my culture, there are some in America who sport them proudly and that’s good enough for me. 

Long before my mullet comes in, I will be facilitating a large Business Plan writing workshop.  Preparing for the workshop has kept me busy.  It’ll be a 3-day event and will include one day on business plan writing, a second day on financing start ups, and a third day that will be on Rundu small business success stories.  Besides developing all of slides and handouts, I also need to worry about things I have little experience with (particularly in Namibia) such as food, facilities, and identifying and inviting guest speakers.   It’s been many months since I left my job at Alere and it’s nice to be work-busy again.  I never anticipated having this sort of gig in the Peace Corps, but at least it feels familiar.

As promised, here are some photos of some of my daily sights;

First, we have my lunch friends, Maria (red hat) and Kito in their restaurant/bar.  

Maria - left, Kito - right

Some sites on my walk back to work after lunch;

This is the road Kito's place is on.

Some young entrepreneurs I chat with on the walk back to the office.  They just started a little car wash and were excited to show me the puppy they just bought.  

 This is where I get my fat cakes (fried dough, so good, so cheap, so not good for you).   This is an Angolan family.  They never smile.  Ever.  It has become a mission of mine to get them to smile at me.  Just once. 

On this particular walk home I struck up a conversation with two men, Albinus and John.  They're brothers and they live in an informal location near the youth center.  Binus wanted to show me a certificate he'd gotten a few years ago from the Red Cross.  He'd once done volunteer work for them and was hoping to find similar work.  He makes a little money by catching fish in the Kavango river and selling them to people in his neighborhood.  After about 30 minutes of conversation on where/how he might find some other sources of income, he mentioned a farm his family owned about 15 miles outside of town.  He said there was a lot of lumber on the land and that much of the fire wood used in Rundu came from the same area.  

We started talking about a fire wood business (firewood is big here because many don't have electricity and have to cook over fire).  John (right) said he'd sold firewood in the past and thought he could sell a lot of it if they could just get it back to the home.  We talked a bit about how much it would cost to hire a truck and how much they could make from a truck load of firewood.  They said they would talk to some people and find out how much it would be to hire a truck.  I'll visit them again next week to see how their plans are coming. 

Binus (left) and John (right)

This is their house.

Sometimes there is a language barrier and drawings in the sand go a long way to get over these little hurdles.  This is me clarifying what these gentlemen mean by a "4x4 truck" and "2.6 Namibian after truck".  

I work in a modern building.  The full name of the facility is "The Rundu Multipurpose Youth Resource Center".  This is our receptionist, Venicia.  She never stops smiling. I should bring her to get fat cakes with me someday so she can give the Angolan family a smiling lesson.   

This is our intern, Leticia and her grandmother.  

This is my counterpart, Mr. Kamushambe.  He is the director of the youth center.

This is my office spider.  It's a wall spider.  They're everywhere here.  You hardly notice them after a while.  

Besides the modern apartment and a nice office, another thing that makes my Peace Corps experience a lot different from many others' in my group is my access to internet.  It's very rare here to have fast free wifi available.  It's nice to be able to keep up with friends and family when you're so far from home.  Here's my ever faithful friend, Rosellen.  She lives in Italy and she doesn't like getting her picture taken. 

I'm a laundry (hand washing) pro now.  Only takes about an hour.  This is what the beginning of the process looks like.  

This is my apartment (in the middle of cleaning).

The view of my laundry drying from the back room window.  Yes.  Exciting.  

This guy showed up in my yard when I was taking pictures so now he's in my blog.

The front of my place.

 

This is Emanuel and Uno.  They're host siblings to my friend, Alice (PCV).  They're getting ready to show me how well they sing.  I was invited to their house to celebrate Alice's birthday.

This is PCV Alice (sitting).  Her host family hard at work preparing her birthday dinner. 

Meat getting grilled for Alice's birthday party.  

 Here are some random shots of people and places around my neighborhood;

My favorite photo of the week.  These girls hang out in the park near my house.  They think it's hilarious when I try to speak to them in Rukwangali.   It's very common to see a young girl hauling an even younger child on her back as seen here.  Kids start to help caring for younger siblings at a very early age in Namibia. 

Some of the neighborhood boys.  There are so many kids here.  You almost never see boys playing with girls here.  

Neighborhood barber shop.  

Shop owner.  Super nice guy.  The road rash is from falling off the back of a truck.  I didn't ask for further details though I wanted to.  I don't think I'd be able to get a proper mullet here. 

Sunset over the Kavango River.

 

 

 

That's it for this week.  Please note I've updated my mailing address over there on the right side of your screen.  I've also added a couple other blogs I've been following.  I hope to post a more wordy blog next week.  I hope you are all well.  Thanks for reading.