viva namibia

so here is namibia. i was so so so surprised at how much namibia looks like arizona. it is crazy. i love the vibe there. as you will see here. all my az peeps will dig these next few photos

here we are on the trans kalahari highway

i am still mad i didn't get a photo of the sign!

arizona?

nope namibia

a church near a gas station

we arrived in windhoek on friday night and left the following morning for swakupmond

we had a meeting there with a organization that is a sub-grantee to an awesome new partner

they work here in the "DRC"

(i am not sure what it stands for)

it was blistering hot

we learned that in this neighborhood there is no public access water

the gov't sold the water rights to a private company who now charges

residents 10 namibian dollars for water--people who are making about 50 namibian dollars a month.

how do these people sleep at night?

one of the houses in the DRC upclose

susan watching some of the kids who were being helped by CAFO do their dance

lots of the kids you see in the photo above have no parents

they live in corrugates metal shacks in the middle of the hot sand desert

this organization keeps them alive and provides them with school.

there is no gov't school in this area

we left the site visit and i vegged out at my hotel room

it was the first break i had had in over 2.5 weeks.

this is the view from my balcony

looking the other direction

i ordered all this food from the "ocean basket" right next to my hotel.

it was so great! they delivered it and it was so so so delicious!

the first building is my hotel

see if you can find

the museum

a dog

a trash can

we decided that for our free day we would ride quads in the sand

it was awesome!

praya loved it

mike got scared and i don't think he had much fun

but the rest of us were in love with it

i want to do it again, but for much longer

can you see how much she loved it?

i decided we should do disco poses

turns out your c/fbo co-chairs are disco

SHAZAAAM

can you see the ocean peeking from behind that dune?

it is so wild to be in the middle of all this desert and have it end in the ocean

the jumping photos

praya

teabelly

it is safe to guess that susan was once a cheer leader!

you can take the girl away from cheering but you cant get the cheer out of the girl

on monday we visited catholic aids action

they are doing amazing things

the tall white guy in the middle is father rick

all these kids are orphans from a impoverished township outside of windhoek

i am so tired all a sudden

but i want to tell you all sometime how awesome this group is

some of the kiddos

the next morning we flew early to ondangwa, namibia

the map is here

we met with these women for a while

it was crazy hot

but super cool

they provide palliative care to people with HIV and support orphans

i must say, i believe stigma is more intense in namibia

than in some other countries.

more beautiful women

this is a place outside of windhoek called babylon

this is helping the orphans in the area

teenage girls performed a traditional dance for us -- and the dancing was awesome
i loved watching the little girl in the back the most
she was just way too cute

she started trying to dance with them

those kids live in this neighborhood
and they don't have parents

if you look closely you will see the beginnings of a tiny dust devil
praya and susan made me take photos of it
they had never seen one
ha ha easterners!!!
out west we have cool natural events

the sunset from our awesome bed and breakfast the palm quell
it was a delightful place to stay
i highly recommend it
i think they should get internet service in the rooms
but beyond that
we had delish breakfast each morning
the best bread i had the whole trip

this is where we ate breakfast
it was a nice oasis
(get it... desert)

it is weird that robert mugabe ave is in namibia.

fidal castro ave and independence ave intersect in windhoek
what do you think that means?

the chinese built an amazing presidential palace for the president
guess who did the labor?
chinese prisoners
they flew chinese prisoners over to namibia to build a huge house for the president

leaving windhoek
minus my fabulous new headphones
i am pretty sure they got stolen out of my hotel room.