My apologizes for being away from the blog for so long. I was away over the month of December with training and vacation and have been having some technical computer difficulties. I'm back in Sangwali now and greatly relaxed and ready to start teaching.
So at the start of December I had just finished my six weeks of observing my Namibian school. The school year was over and the Peace Corps was summoning all the Volunteers in my group back down to Windhoek for our Reconnect training. After a 2 day journey, I arrived in Windhoek and reunited with others in my group. I hadn't seen most everybody since swearing in so there was a great deal of excitement with exchanging stories about our sites and the ups and downs during the past month and a half.
The Reconnect training was taking place at a hotel just outside of Windhoek up on rolling hills with a great view of the city and even better view of the gorgeous African sunsets. The hotel had everything I had been missing for the past few weeks, hot showers, flushing toilets, and even wireless internet! The two weeks of training covered everything for classroom management, to lesson planning, to possible ideas for secondary projects at our school. Being together as a group again brought out lots of laughter and usual a dinner performance of some kind. The training went by quickly and I took away some great ideas to use in my classroom.
Our fun together as a group wasn't over yet. Like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, we had made plans to cool down a bit and enjoy the holidays out on the beaches of Namibia in the city of Swakopmund. We arrived on Christmas Eve, and I immediately felt like I had left the continent of Africa and ended up somewhere in California. Swakop was unlike any other part of Namibia I had seen. All the cattle, mud huts, and street vendors were gone and had been replaced with tons of traffic, extravagant hotels lining the beach front, and rows and rows of shops. The city's architecture was also quite the contrast, taking on a Colonial German look. We made our way to the campground which was conveniently located 100 yards from the beach and quickly set about creating a make shift Chirstmas tree at our campsite. We then hit the town to explore and find the many restaurants the older volunteers had been raving about. Sushi, Italian, Chinese were all there. All things I hadn't tasted since leaving for Namibia.
The next day was Christmas and in the spirit of things we all exchanged gifts in a “Secret Kudu.” That's were the norm for celebrating Christmas ended as we then took to the beach for football and grilling. Definitely felt weird to be out in swim trunks laying out in the sun instead of bundled up around a fire.
The following days just seemed to fly by as we took advantage of the many great restaurants, bars, and coffee shops Swakop had to offer. We took a these days to explore the sights in the area including a shipwreck and a seal colony north and the world's tallest sand dunes and a flamingo colony down south.
Come New Years Eve we again took the celebration to the beach. Instead of a ball dropping in Swakop there is a bonfire lit at midnight which took place not too far from where we were. We went to check it out and were a bit surprised by the 30ft somewhat unsafe looking structure of wood that they had erected and were at the moment dousing in gasoline. Being Namibia and a not having really any safety codes you could get as close as you dared to the monstrosity. At the stroke of midnight the wood was set ablaze and the 2011 was here.
After the holidays it was time to head back to site and prepare for the real work that was soon approaching. Even though my next vacation won't come till the end April, I'm already getting excited.
