Break Pictures - Sos to Waterburg

One of the best pics of Dylan taken. We're climbing down to walk in the Sesreim Canyon.













Here's the canyon











Eric and I were trying to see how far down we could jump











Why walk back on top of the dune when you can jump down just as easily?








Deadvlei












The erased part said, "What about George?"










The world's first neapolitan doughnut









and me eating it for lunch











sunset at the Tug restaurant in Swakop











Waterburg Plateau












Looking out from on top of the plateau










What the hell is that thing? It was in the pool with us!











Finishing the evening like almost every other on the camping trip - watching some sort of movie on our laptop computers. We added in smores this night.

Break Pictures - Up to Brukaros

Amanda's in Namibia!

Amanda, Rute and me waiting in the blistering sun for a hike to Jo'burg








A long hike in the desert and no aircon make us all smiles.










Offloading the liquid fat near Jo'burg












Is that a nucular ... er ... a nuclear power plant?










At Rowe's, preparing the feast!












Which was just this steak.











The family with one missing (Brad) and one new member - Silas, my new nephew. Me, Amy, Silas, Brian and mom










The grandparents, Amy and Silas













Back to Africa. The "pool room" at Dylan and Sandra's flat.










Starting our way to hike Brukaros












Dylan doing a 14-point turn. The road was so bad we couldn't drive up any further. Sandra, Partick and Eric help guide.

Break Pictures - Up to Greiters

Hanging outside of Rute's place in Otavi, watching the sunset.










Choose your own caption here. Yeah, she's fun to hang around!








True...










The Group 26ers, community based training in Grootfontien. They're in the Kavango now. We're introducing ourselves to the learners.










Putting in some classroom time. It seems like we're always training for something.








And NamPower just recently spent a few weeks installing streetlights to the entire village here. So how's using more power going to help us pay out bills?









The 50 ton Hoba meteorite!










Taking a midservice break, checking out the Mentos and Coke reaction.











Frisbee pool tricks during some down time.









Add chicken fighting and a new pool activity, the joust.










Carl giving me a piggy-back ride to my pad with Jay-Z spotting. I musta looked tired.











Listening to Mitch Hedberg by the pool before the big dinner.










The cooks preparing the meal. Every pot had a different meat in it!










The women who keep us full.












The education group pic with Greiter's staff. Probably the last time we'll all be together before COS.











Some after-the-dinner traditional dancing.

Break Part Five: Back in Africa on Holiday

The flight back was a little more comfortable because I got to have two seats to sprawl out. I left snow-covered MSP at 8:15am on Jan 1st and landed in Jo’burg at 6pm on Jan 2nd. My Gregory Palisade pack weighed around 26kg (about 62lbs)! The bag limit was 50lbs on Delta but I think flashing my Peace Corps passport helped them look the other way. On the flight I finally got to see Little Miss Sunshine. It actually made me laugh out loud. The humor appeared to escape the people seated near me. Was able to sleep the remainder of the flight time.

After getting the shaft from Gemini Backpackers (the owner there must have a split personality disorder and I got the bad one) I chose to stay at a backpacker place near the airport. Met a guy and his girlfriend from Sweden, who correctly identified that I was from Minnesota. Apparently there are more Swedish immigrants living outside of Sweden than there are current Swedes in Sweden.

Flew out to Windhoek the next morning. As it happened I was on the same flight as Sandra’s brother Eric, aka Nerd or Version 2.0. I got kidnapped by them and forced to endure hiking Brukaros, Seseim Canyon and the sand dunes of Sossusvlei, spending some nights in Swakopmund, a stop at Omaruru Rest Camp (remodeled and sweet looking!) and camping at Waterburg Plateau. It was torture, I swear!

After a quick stay in Windhoek to pick up the school computer from Schoolnet and to catch up on the first six episodes of Lost Season Three, I took the train back home to Tses. Was lucky enough to snag a sleeper car. About 10k from Tses the train broke down … for FOUR hours. I woulda hoofed it but I had the server computer along with two backpacks.

Fortunately the parents kept their children in line so they weren’t running up and down the sleeper cars, screaming bloody murder. Then I awoke from that blissful dream to children screaming bloody murder up and down the sleeper car isle. A good book and an iPod helped me pass the time.

Finally at 10:00am the train got going again. On at 7:00pm Friday evening and off at 10:14am. Amanda thought her train experience was slow? I did text Waldo asking for them to send the PC helicopter to rescue me. Alas, it didn’t show.

Well, that was break for year one of PC. While at home I got a lot of questions about what I’m going to do after this year. I have few ideas but frankly I haven’t moved on any of them yet. We’ll see how the first few months go before starting anything.

Anyways, this should be an interesting start to year two. I’ve already been told that I might have a classroom this year. That’s strange as we had enough classrooms last year for me and we’re starting this year off one teacher short, waiting for the Ministry to assign a replacement. Something’s rather fishy here and we’re so far away from any body of water.

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I did not proof any of these postings, so please ignore any spelling or grammar mistakes!

Break Part Four: Out of Africa/Coming to America

The friendly faces at the baggage retrieval - Bri Tri and Amanda’s family. Now comes the surreal part of the trip - going to the bank and then to Best Buy. Bri was laughing at me. I thought I was a country hick before, but being in the middle of desert and donkey cart country takes the cake. People on the move, in a hurry to get here and there. I saw more people in Best Buy than I’d see in a couple weeks over here. I was so not used to that. Later on, after I gathered the courage to go into a Barnes and Noble, I bought three books in under 10 minutes - a new record for me. So many books and so many choices.

I dropped Jay’s computer off at the Apple Store in Rosedale Mall. This experience was disturbing to say the least. Apparently the US culture has gotten so worried about speed that they have taken the human element out of service. You now don’t go in and wait in line to talk to a service rep. You need to go on a computer in the store and reserve a time. You can do it at home too. If this doesn’t spell the end of civilization. My time is so important that I can’t wait in line for a little while?

Here are some random things that stick out in my head about being home:
Got to hang out with my family and some friends. A special thanks goes out to Bri, Sean, Brenda, Pauline and my family n relatives. Thanks to their help, I got to Kato it at their places and some even got to drive their vehicles - a risk considering I haven’t driven in over a year and am used to traveling on the opposite side of the road. I enjoyed getting stuck in rush hour traffic, really. Got to see my nephew Silas for the first time - I’m an uncle! Played the new Wii. I felt like I had to rush to get to here and there, something I’m not used to anymore.

Played poker with the Albert Lea guys - the new AD made this feeling rise within me again, the urge to coach. Cool guy too - an Ole graduate as well. Hung out with the math department. Saw snow for the first time since 2004. Played tennis in Owatonna. The open house at Pauline’s and telling stories and hearing more from Frame‘s when he did Malawi. I took hot showers every day. Getting to see an AL girls b-ball game (I coached a number of those gals in tennis). Wearing my Chaco sandals every day. Got to experience the joy of pirating broadband on my new laptop and experiencing download speeds significantly over the 5kbps I‘m accustomed to here.

Don Pablo’s, Chipotle, Dairy Queen Blizzards, Arby’s roast beef. Thank goodness I was back into running. I lost 12lbs before I left (running) and ended up gaining 10 of ‘em back from the food I was eating. It was worth every calorie. Playing Candyland, winning and not having my opponent throw the board/pieces around (that‘s for you Hannah). Seeing how much Noah and Hannah have grown in 14 months. A freak win in pool over Bri (like my one foosball victory over him) - sinking the 8-ball in the kitchen end on the break - believe that was my only win for the evening. Meeting some PC group 25 and 26 families. I also, for the first time, felt like I was a visitor in my own home state and country.

Break Part Three: The Road to Jo’burg

The stop in beloved Tses was short-lived, pausing long enough for me to pack for the US and grab a quick nap. The stupid DVD kept skipping on this horrible movie and then repeated the same musical track over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Keets was fun. It was more of a layover in many ways. She got to experience waiting out in the sun and hearing me exclaim, “Really, I‘m a nice guy!” to people who wouldn't stop to give us a hike.

The next morning we waited ‘til Rute got into town to do anything. We took care of some business and then got a hike to the Jo’burg/Uppington hikepoint. The more people (more than two) the safer the hike will be. Rute (thanks to her sheet) and I (thanks to my nylon rope) were able to pitch a sheltered area using the sign we were next to and our backpacks. The more pitiful you look, the more likely you’ll get offers for a hike. As we were running out of H2O, we did find that merciful soul to take pity on us. He was a truck driver who needed to get to near Jo’burg in the next 24 hours. Talk about catching exactly what you need. It usually doesn’t happen over here, especially on a long like that. Just check out how far apart Keetmanshoop, Namibia and Johannesburg, South Africa are.

Later on Amanda and I would argue about how “sketchy” this guy was. If I’d gotten this hike a year earlier, I’d probably think the same. So he may have been a tad homophobic, racist and may have killed someone (that person was trying to hijack his semi and kill him), but he would check up on us, buy us water or sodas - he did care how we felt. Rute and I stayed up with him to make sure he made it to his site. It may have been from the hijacking stories he told us. The road between Uppington and Jo’burg is the most dangerous stretch of road in South Africa. If we got hijacked, they’d be in for a unpleasant surprise - always a load of fun to haul liquid fat. He did give the three of us a FREE hike from Keetmanshoop to Jo’burg. Check out on a map how far apart those cities are. It’s about N$50 to Windhoek and that’s only about 420km away. The only really bad part was that his air conditioning was broken and it was incredibly hot in the cab.

We got into Jo’burg after a few hours of offloading liquid fat, we got dropped off at a mall near the airport. THANK GOODNESS! Usually people get dropped off at the bus station, the heart of the beast. So much so that PC said it’s off-limits due to an attack on a volunteer a few years ago. One of the most dangerous places in Jo'burg. Well, we didn’t have to deal with that at least.

At the backpacker place Amanda happened to run into a guy who did some volunteer work with a Peace Corps friend in Tanzania. Let the healing begin - she was having a hard time dealing with leaving Tanzania. This place was so nice that it even had a tennis court! The only downer, the roof leaked near my bed and they had a bit of an ant problem. They liked to crawl on me while I slept. Rute and I met some people who were there from Pretoria on vacation and talked about gossip sort of things. Later we celebrated surviving our first year in Namibia, ironic as we weren’t in Namibia to celebrate it.

Rute left early in the morning for the next leg of her journey. Amanda went to a game park with her new friend while I slept off my all-nighter and got some computer work done. I was bringing a friend’s iMac back to get it fixed, which led to a truly surreal experience of being out of the loop of US. That’s later.

The cool thing about staying at a backpacker hostel is that you meet backpackers. They are so awesome. We met a guy from Norway who went with us on a tour of the Apartheid Museum, Mandela’s home, Hector Petersen’s Museum (the first person shot/killed in the uprising in Soweto against Afrikaans and Apartheid in South Africa) and other sites. I could have easily spent an entire day at the Apartheid Museum but I also see how it impacts my life here in Namibia.

South Africa portrays Soweto as really bad. Well, their houses have plumbing and electricity, which is one luxury more than in my village (along with many settlements here, we don’t have plumbing, hence the whole polio problem last year). In fact, their government has guaranteed that their citizens will get concrete housing, a small step above the tiny tin shanties I see every morning on my way to work. As the tour guide was driving past some of the Soweto houses, he commented how small they were. Well, they’re bigger than what I see every day.

Another leg of the Apartheid Museum tour was the Hector Petersen Memorial. He was one of the many who were protesting the mandatory use of Afrikaans in the classroom. He was the first person shot that day and eventually died of the wound. On the rock honoring his sacrifice was one plaque, in Afrikaans, explaining his death. I don’t know, but I think that explains why I don’t want to spend money in South Africa again. That country is so screwed up. On a memorial for someone who was protesting the use of Afrikaans, let’s put a plaque explaining his fight in language of … Afrikaans? Yeah, that’s respecting his sacrifice.
That’s almost as crazy as having a memorial in Namibia to the 50 or so Germans who died in their slaughter of 80% of the Herero population back in 1904. Oh, they do and the German tourists here flock to see.

Note: That was the first genocide of the 20th century. Bring in that Hitler based his concentration camps on those here in Namibia. He also read a book portraying the superiority of the whites (written by a German in Namibia) and then proceeded to write Mein Kemph while he was in jail for his beer hall putsch. That’s World War II based on German beliefs and actions in Namibia, just expanding it on the Jews.

The flight back left Jo’burg at 9pm due to a storm delay. At the Jo’burg airport we ran into our Norwegian friend and hung out with him. As we were waiting for the plane, we argued about pretty much everything, making for good entertainment to all the people waiting through the delay. Most of the people I could see were laughing at us. Was good to see that side of her back again. Just make some kind of sexist comment or such and she starts attacking. It’s so funny! This quiet gal suddenly transforms into a pit-bull. It was fun to see how much she’s changed in the last couple of years, all for the good.

The flight back was somewhat uneventful, unless you include how much Amanda made fun of me during take-offs, landings and turbulence (I hate flying and plunging to a horrible death). Apparently I’m such a wuss. But I got me revenge, creaming her in gin rummy. We’re talking total destruction! With a short layover in Atlanta, we got to MSP around 2:30pm. Believe it was close to 24 hours of actual flight.

Break Part Two: Mid-service and getting Amanda

Mid-service was a blast. Imagine walking in late to your mandatory meeting with your boss. Just feeding the complex here. During breaks we were able to answer the tough questions, such as will Coke and Menthos react violently? Can you do man/man vs. woman/woman chicken fighting and jousting in the pool? Issues Dante and Nietche pondered all of their existence. A braai from the Greier’s owners and killing two poisonous scorpions. Who couldn’t ask for more! Finding out that there’s a connection between Amanda’s family and someone in my group - it's a small world in southern Minnesota.

On the day Amanda was supposed to arrive, I decided to be prudent and secure a ride to the airport early and then read my book in the park nearby. I thought I’d gotten a great hike to the airport with a guy, but apparently he left. Yeah, it ticked me off as I spent the whole morning reading “The Infinite Universe” in the park and then found out I had no ride to the airport.

Looking for an excuse for starting another paragraph about how I got a ride to the airport, and as it turns out, I got a ride from a guy from a Nama guy from the south, which is why I was able to get catch a break in the $$$ realm. Midway through our convo, he was telling me that I wasn’t really an American, but a Nama.

After waiting at THE gate in Windhoek International Airport for a couple hours, I finally got to see Amanda! I was so happy! Then she broke it to me that she couldn’t get through customs until she had an address were she was staying at during her time in contrasting, beautiful Namibia. I don’t have a street address here, by the way. The Namibian government seems to overlook important things like that - your exact location. In fact, most places outside of Windhoek don’t have street addresses.

**A quick aside: For my Emergency Action Plan, the plan of evacuation if something catastrophic should happen and we need to be spirited away, I drew a picture with the B1 (the road from South Africa to Angola) and the exit to Tses. I wrote down - drive to the yellow church (can see it from the B1), get out and yell. Seriously, I’m not joking. All you need to do here is ask where the white guy is at and you’ll find me.

Anyways, we got dropped off by Windhoek High School, a good 10-15 minute walk uphill to Jason‘s pad. Couldn’t believe how much Amanda’s pack weighted, that is until I weighed my pack on the way back to Namibia. I tried to carry hers, but she insisted to carry it.

Took her around town. Well, it’s the largest town in Namibia, at 200,000 people but doesn‘t feel that big when compared to a US city of the same population. Was fun that she got to meet two of my friends the night before we left. Now she should recognize the mental disorders it takes to join Peace Corps. I tried to cook her one of my specialties - grilled cheese. I ended up eating her food. My bad.

We took the train to Tses, as she’s taken a combi (called a dali dali in Tanzania). It’s listed as leaving at 7:40pm, but we took bets when it was really leaving. She was closer to the actual time, 9pm. Hate getting showed up like that in my own country. My second guess was spot on. It’s not like she’s a Doubles Champion of the World, unlike Gillam and I :) She did get to feel the speed of the rail service, going 420km in close to 10 hours. 420 divided by 10 = 42 km per hour. 42 kph * 0.62 miles in a km = about 26 mph. Namibia railways, moving slower than the speed of sloth!

Break Part One: School’s Out For Summer and Group 26 Training

This was all typed almost two months ago. Sorry for the delay:


It’s been so long since I’ve updated my blog. Just been busy and haven’t been in the writing mood. It’s amazing how working on the school timetable can bring out the urge to do anything other than working on the timetable. Here’s the update of the past couple months.

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I got to help out with the Group 26 training, which got me out of the last week of school. Didn’t matter as I had done all my final grades the day after my math exam and analyzed the results against the previous two terms. The learners who improved did so by over a full grade level. To bring things back down to reality, my grade average went from the low 20’s% in term 1 up to close to 34% on the term 3 final.

I took the train to Windhoek, taking the broken server to Schoolnet with me. Didn‘t get a lot of sleep because of hearing, “There‘s Mr. Mike” as people walked by me. Had breakfast with a couple of friends before heading up to Otavi. I got clearance to help with Group 26 up in Grootfontein. It wasn’t until the day before I left that I realized that Otavi was on the way to Groot. Yeah, I didn’t know much of Namibia north of Windhoek until now.

Had a great time on my “layover” at Rute‘s pad. A braai at one of her friends, deciding against eating a pheasant she found out running (only because we‘d need to pluck it - don‘t get me wrong … I grew up on a farm and helped raise chickens), I would’ve ran with her but I guess my running history intimidated her. Yeah, I was a sprinter in high school but completed two marathons (Chicago ‘97 and Twin Cities ‘01). Had a bonfire at her place, visit by another friend, and catching up on life. The most awesomest, coolest, bestest thing to happen was that Rute and I were heading to Jo’burg around the same time! Heading into the belly of the beast. Traveling with more people there is better than with fewer.

Anyways. I ended up getting a free hike with a volunteer doctor from Botswana up to Groot. Thank goodness they had a flat tire or they wouldn‘t have been at the gas station for me to catch them. What a change from seeing sand as far as the eye can see to vegetation covered mountains. They had real trees and green everywhere! Rute’s site had mountains but I didn’t get to see them up close. They dropped me off at the gas at the end of town. Fortunately it was only a couple blocks of walking.

My days in Groot were mostly a flashback to my CBT (community based training). They were a small group, 12 in all, but not as small as the Okombahe group, all five of us. They did have a lot of our idiosyncrasies that we had. I spent good portion of my time laughing because of the chaos of the first week - not knowing how many classes you’d teach and students in class. My first day at CBT involved our language trainer not being there, a drunk walking into one of our homes, the guys trying to remove him and picking up another drunk on the way, PC showing up and saving the day. Anyways, I digress. I hope I was able to impart my whole 365+ days of knowledge to the younglings. IDK … it felt like a piece of litmus paper dunked in water … not acidic and not basic - just somehow. I did get in a lot of good early morning runs.

After hearing some learners conversing in KKG, I introduced myself to all of them in Nama and they went absolutely wild! I said, “!Gai //goas. Ti /ons ge Mike Miller. Tita ge Minnesota sa xu ra ha. Tita ge Tses !na //an ha.” You have no idea how far speaking Nama goes in Namibia. They’re pretty low on the totem pole, so for a foreigner to know how to say anything in their language…an instant bond. I didn’t get to see much of the teaching – was leaving to midservice as they were starting. They look like a solid group of teachers.

Got a free ride back from the country director as well as getting to see the Hoba meteorite. At 50 tons, it’s the largest intact meteorite ever found on the planet.

Training was also a blast because when I got back to our mid-service I found out that I was supposed to be there. Oops. I must be a diva now as everyone I talked to was surprised that they allowed me to miss it. I knew my masters in education would be good for something.

I've Got A Phone Again!

Finally Blogger will let me log in, and not a moment too soon. I, once again, have a phone. I got this one thanks to the generosity of two of my friends, who now are at home. The new number is on my blog page. Now that I have access to this again, I'll be uploading a few months worth of pictures and stories in the upcoming days.

Side note: As a way to cope with their absence and the lack of learners at school today - under 50% showed up, I've been programming/composing new ringtones. I now have the U of Minn Rouser (they had Hail to the Victors for their ringtone), the theme to Doctor Who and Umm Ya Ya. I'm so proud of myself!