Monday
Quite a lot to catch up on ... The journey up here was much better than you would expect for an 18 hour trip on a coach! (two hour delay). I slept from about 9.30pm to about 6am with an hour awake in between - I had two seats to myself so I could really stretch out - jolly lucky. The delay was due to problems with the gears but patched up on the way. Not lucky enough to see elephants but I saw a number of giraffe (don't know the collective noun for giraffe?).
Viviene (VSO two year volunteer met us at the bus stop in town when we eventually arrived and managed to pack everything in the car (don't know how) and we tumbled out at Boma House about a mile from the centre.
So my digs are an old colonial bungalow in the white side of town where white South Africans used to live when they governed Namibia before independence. So a grand residence in its day but completely wrecked and being eaten alive by termites now (spot the missing woodwork / frames). It would have been a beautiful house with a good sized garden all around. We are all down one side of the bungalow and V had an en-suite room on the other side (she has inherited this as the longest serving volunteer in the house). There are burglar bars on all the windows and doors and we have to lock ourselves in and out of our rooms even.
The decoration and furniture are really run down and lots of items are broken - however this is to be our home for three months so we made the best of it so on Saturday we bought a mop, brush, cleaning products, cloths, food etc, etc. It took a long time and all I have in my room is a bed (plus mosquito net), huge desk and bedside table. The wardrobe is built in between the walls. A very interesting house feature is that there is a 'stoop' or open corridor virtually all around the house, like an enclosed veranda and the roof comes all the way out to cover this. There are no windows to the stoop, but openings covered in wire mesh to stop the insects (and then more burglar bars). The mesh is damaged in places and everywhere is very dusty as sand blows in. The stoop is about six feet wide and creates a lovely space with outside air. The rooms, including the bedrooms face the stoop with windows (and burglar bars). The floor is just grey polished concrete which I quite like. The windows are all Critall with opening doors exactly like Victoria Road. Several of these have been soldered shut.
We went shopping again on Sunday morning and bought bed covers and I had to buy curtains for my room as beyond the stoop and a narrow stretch of garden my room overlooks a school! I chose white shower curtains which are exactly the right width and lie flat against the window with the plastic rings attached to .................. the burglar bars! However the filtered light is just right and it makes the room look quite bright. I probably have the brightest light bulb which is lucky. I found a metal trunk in the store room and covered it with a sheet from the store cupboard to make a low table, finished the last of a large bottle of water and went into the garden to pick, amongst other greenery, some bougainvillaea which is hanging in great strands form very tall trees in the garden (which has some grass but is mostly sand). We have hung small branch ends of the pink flowers from random nails in the walls to make the rooms look better.
We have a washing machine!! It has been on just about every day as we try to get things better. The mosquito nets have had to be treated with some foul smelling liquid but this smell disappears when the net dries.
There is more to the story but that's enough for now except to say that the school placements for Elli and I have broken down and new ones have to be found. Julia's school is OK and we visited today but her house is not ready so she is staying with us and travelling when she starts. Next week we are to attend a three-day education conference in Katima (so again no school even if we have one by then, as all the principals have to attend the conference). Tomorrow we can't go anywhere so we have planned skipping and Pilates and my free Telegraph fitness DVD in the stoop followed by lunch here then a stroll down to the 'lodge' bird watching on the banks of the Zambezi and a swim in their pool.
This is Africa!
