I'm finally in Namibia! It took a 21 hour bus ride to get here but I'm finally in Windhoek (pronounced "vindhook"), the capital of Namibia. I'll fill you in on the past few days first though.

On thursday, Alison, Sarah, Jonathan, Vincent and I went on a wine tour down the Cape Peninsula. We hired a driver named Charles and he took us to four vineyards in the Stallenbasch region. First he took us to some place that was incredibly boring, where didn't actually taste any wine. I have a feeling he made a commission off taking tourists to this area because he kept telling us how we should come back and eat at the restaurant at night for a fancy meal. Then he took us across the parking lot to a Cheetah sanctuary. We only got to see one cheetah that could be viewed without actually paying the admission fee. We stood there for about 30 minutes just watching it walk around. AND THEN!! his trainer came in and walked right up to it and embraced it for about 30 seconds. Needless to say, it was the cutest thing ever, and I got some quality photos of it. The cheetah even started purring! Cheetah purring sounds half like a cat purr and half like some weird bird chirp. Very cute. Then the trainer walked away and sat on the ground to tie his shoes and the cheetah walked over and lay in front him for some belly scratches. Basically, I'm totally over domestic house cats and want a cheetah. (Hannah: would you be willing to get rid of Caramel while I try and bring home a real cat?). The trainer told us we could pay 10 rand (around $1.50 canadian) to see the other cats and animals, but our driver told us, and I quote, "you've seen one cheetah, you've seen them all). I think the rest of the group agreed to get on with the wine tour so I reluctantly left the sanctuary to head back to the van and drive to the next vineyard.

Enough about the cheetah though. I'm sure It's pretty boring to hear about. Next, Charles drove us to three more vineyards and we got to taste a total of 13 wines. I learned how to taste wine properly, but I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to be noticing when I swirl the wine in the glass. However, it looked pretty fancy when I swirled the wine, so I kept on doing it. The wine was excellent and I felt pretty proud of myself when I noted to Alison that one wine tasted oaky, and we read the label and found that, indeed, there was an oaky flavour, or undertone, or something in the wine.

We shared a lunch together with Charles at the last winery, and got to try some fresh goat cheese. I have a pretty horrible story about goats that makes me not want to eat their cheese every again. But I'll save it for another time. Let me just say, animals that drink their own pee are gross.

The Stallenbosch is a pretty beautiful place but it is overwhelmingly a rich, white population. On the outskirts of the little towns in the areas, there would be a clustering of townships that just remined us how segregated SA still is. That kind of disparity is obvious in almost all the places I saw while in SA. In fact, Charles referred to the townships as housing "coloured people."

On a lighter note though, I had a really great time in Cape Town and I'm really looking forward to coming back in August after my internship ends.

After we got back to the hostel after the wine tour, we met up with the rest of the group and went for dinner at a nearby restaurant. We went back to the hostel and pakced our stuff, played some Big 2, drank some SA beer and went to bed.

The next day we took our 21 hour bus ride to Windhoek. The first 10 hours were fine, the bus was nice and cool and the seats were comfy and reclined really far back. We all had a chuckle when they started playing this safety video for the passengers on the overhead TV's and the video included a prayer to Jesus that he would guide us to safety and make our journey safe. And it went on for a good 5 minutes, while we all kind of sat there stunned by the outright religiousness. By night time, we had gone through border and our visas were approved. We all settled down for what we expected to be a nice sleep on the bus, however, they pumped up the heat really high and none of us could manage to fall asleep in the heat. So I guess that meant we got a really nice view of the Kalahari at sunrise. It's beautiful, but I think it would have been better with more than three hours sleep.

We got into Windhoek at 6:00am and met Richard and two guys that will stay with 6 student who have internships in the city. We got some breakfast and each of us bought a Namibian cell phone (yay!!). Then we moved the Windhoek interns into their compound and Richard brought us (the Oshikati interns) to a separate compound. In the afternoon the entire group met the two University of Namibia (UNAM) professor who worked with Richard to create this program. They talked to us about Namibia's demography and the impact of HIV/AIDS on the country. But, once the professors found out we had just gotten off of the long bus ride they cut the meeting shortly and told Richard that he should let us sleep for a full day before getting us to sit through a meeting with them. They were really sympathetic to our situation, and all of us were really thankful for that.

We went for dinner after the meeting and had a really good time. The group is really meshing well and everyone is very friendly and funny. (my two favourite characteristics).

We all headed home and pretty much passed out for 11 hours.

Today Richard gave the UNAM and Oshikati groups a short tour of Windhoek. The city is really cool. The houses here are really colourful and the architecture is so cool. Kind of reminds me of South American housing. We have another meeting later today, and then a group dinner.

SO far I'm having a really great time here, but I'm anxious to get to Oshikati (another 9 hour car ride) and settle in there. I wonder what it will be like up there and what our living quarters will look like.

So my phone number here is: 081.447.2234, but if you're calling me you have to put: 011.264.81.447.2234. I don't expect any calls from friends cause it's crazy expensive. But family members have to. If you skype me, its free for me and about $0.02 canadian dollars/minute for you. (Ar, maybe when you go home you can set that up for M and D?)

Miss you!

day 2

Today I hiked Table Mountain with the group (Sol and Meghan joined us at the Hostel today). It was rough. It was really hot and sunny for half of the trek up (mom, I promise I wore sunscreen and reapplied during the trek up. no burns today!). we took approximately 10 or 15 breaks in 2hours of hiking! such a steep incline. But when we made it to the top it was pretty gorgeous. Took lots of photos, but I'm too lazy to post them right now. I'll describe what I saw: some sky, some sea, some mountains, so city, some animals and some people. I know, that's pretty amazing. I think the photos will do it more justice though.

The view from the top is amazing. I saw Robben Island ( I don't know if you can tell yet but I'm totally infatuated with that place) and cape point and a bunch of mountains with names like "devil's peak" and "Lion's rump" (lol). We also got an amazing view of cape town and some other cities in the distance. It's breath taking up there.

Tomorrow I'll probably be taking a wine tour! I'm pretty excited and I feel pretty adult and mature just thinking about it.

So far Cape Town has been amazing, but there's so much left to see. And, since I'm leaving on friday, I think I'll try and spend a few days here before I come home in August. I absolutely love it here!!

So I guess that's all. I'm too pooped to write more. (need to rest up before dinner and a night out with the group!)

LOVE hannah

I'm heee-errrr!

Hello from Cape Town!

After traveling for around 24 hours straight all five of us (Michelle, Annie, Alison, Sarah and I) have arrived in Cape Town!! We're staying at a pretty awesome hostel and we're sharing out room with two other people, Garland and Fabrice (from Madagascar!!).
When we got in last night we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and headed straight to an Irish pub for a beer and nachos. The DJ was pretty excellent so we all got up to dance but then we realized how tired we were so we ended up heading back to the hostel. We hung out for a bit but I started getting really tired and headed upstairs to bed.

Today I went to Robben Island with Michelle, Allison, Sarah and Fabrice (Robben Island is where the South African government held political prisoners during the Apartheid. It's where Mandela was imprisoned for 17 years and where Sobukwe stayed for about 20). We took a 30 minute ferry ride from the mainland to the island and hopped on a bus for a tour of the island. We saw the prison and some of the other buildings on the island, like the church, a small schoolhouse, and a clinic etc. The quarry is were the prisoners were sent to do hard labour during the day. Because the stone is so bright in the sunlight, and the prisoners were not given sunglasses, most of the prisoners suffered (and still suffer) from eye problems. Apparently, Mandela's tear ducts don't even work. After the tour we got of the bus and met a former inmate who took us on a tour of the actual compounds that held the inmates. We saw Mandela's cell close up. It was about 6feet by 4feet.

Interesting things to note/ really boring things that only IDS/history students would care about: During the Apartheid, political prisoners on Robben Island were originally placed in the same compounds as the regular prisoners, but after noticing how the political prisoners were influencing the other prisoners, the guards ended up having to separate them. Also, the guards had to be regularly changed to prevent them from getting to close with the inmates. Also, since most of the political prisoners were highly educated, they each taught illiterate inmates how to read. Their motto was "each one teach one". In later years, prisoners were allowed to go to college via correspondence.

Today, some former inmates as well as guards still live on Robben Island, and there's even an elementary school on the island for their kids to go to.

Today was really awesome. The weather was nice (probably around 20 degrees and sunny) and it looks like it'll be the same tomorrow. I'm planning on hiking up table mountain (google it, it's intense) and then maybe go to cape point to see some seals and penguins. (Cape point is the southern most tip of the African continent)

Anyhoo, I'm having a really great time and I'll hopefully be posting some pictures soon.

Love hannah

don't ignore me doing this

I'm going to Africa in eight days! Next Sunday I'll be leaving for Cape Town where I'll be staying for a few days. Then I'll be taking a 20 hour bus ride to Windhoek (capital of Namibia) where I'll be chilling for a few days and running some errands before I take the 6 hour car ride to Oshikati where I'll be living and working for the next two months.

I'm getting pretty nervous/excited for the trip. And, because I don't really know what to expect I can't tell what I should be feeling. I really can't tell what I've gotten myself into but I hope that I really enjoy myself and have a learning/interesting/satisfying/happy experience.

I don't really know the Internet situation in Oshakati, but I hope that I can produce some pretty regular postings or emails. And maybe, if you're lucky, I'll get my act together and post pictures! We'll see though, I can be pretty lazy if I want to be...

To summarize: I am going to Namibia. I am leaving soon. I will have some sort of adventure. I am excited.