Makalani Nuts

Hello Everyone. I am bringing home a little taste of Namibia.

These are Makalani nuts. They come from the local palm trees. They are small, like large marble size... mostly used as key chains. Artists carve beautiful images on them. The ones I'm bringing home all say Namibia on them as well. I'm selling them on behalf of another Peace Corps Volunteer trying to raise money to make improvements to her school classrooms in Namibia. If you are interested they are $8 each. I will have plenty available. They are only costing her $1-$2 each so $6-$7 goes directly to the improvement fund for each one. I know that doesn't sound like much but you would be surprised what we can do with that over here. Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to get them to you while I'm home. E-mail or comment here. Thanks!

The end of a year

I know. It's been a long time since the last post. Life has been great here in Namibia. I experienced Copper Festival right here in Tsumeb... wait til you hear what I won. I got to greet 20 new Peace Corps Volunteers at the airport and spend a weekend with them. And the best news, the rain has returned and the garden is still kicking.

Every year the Copper Festival is held at the end of October in Tsumeb, my hometown. The town was built on copper mining and it's the biggest party of the year here. It reminded me of the festivals in Wheeler Park, only four times bigger. We have a big beautiful park here in Tsumeb called United Nations Park. The whole festival was there. Most of the festival is just people sitting, talking, eating and drinking heavily. I guess that's what most festivals are though, neh? Anyway, I was invited to play basketball in the Copper Games the previous weekend. Our team won the Gold Medal! I was so thrilled to be part of the team. They are a talented group of players and they really made me feel welcome, even though I only scored one basket the entire tournament. One of the guys said, "You're not a full player, but you got a lot of heart." I was touched. The next weekend at Copper Festival we were awarded our medals. Here's a picture of our team plus some additional guys... people always jump into pictures randomly here.

On November 7th I was at Hosea Kutako International Airport to greet 20 new Peace Corps Volunteers. Just look at these poor suckers... deer in headlights. We were only three volunteers to greet the new group. I was honoured to be invited. Two of us got to spend the whole weekend with them as part of Volunteer Support Network (I joined that back in April). They had lots of questions and we had lots of funny stories for them. On Saturday we took them hiking up the mountain in Okahandja, just like the last group did for us. We're such a fraternity. I hope they feel welcomed.

The rain is back. It was six months since I'd seen a drop. Jesse (brother), Udi (friend) and I ran around barefoot in the rain yelling like school boys. It's been good for the garden too. It seems like when we water the garden the plants kind of shrug their shoulders. When it rains, they stand up and sing praise to the heavens. I guess that's similar to the way we reacted running around in it. Here's some of our squash. It's been hard to sell them. Nobody knows what squash is until they see it... and ours aren't all that attractive. Oh well. I bought some and I think they tasted great.

This is probably my last post until January. I'm going home for Christmas in a few weeks. I can't wait!