Well, first off I would like to say sorry for this being a day later than I intended it to be. There were several factors working against me. The first of which was I simply forgot how busy a normal Monday is here for me. By the time I was able to sit down and write this, I was almost too tired to try to recount everything. However, there was a bigger problem than this. Last night, the satellite that services the wireless internet for all of Africa stopped working, so no one in the whole continent was able to get online. Keeping this in mind, I hope you can forgive this for being late.
The rural homestay was certainly the most interesting experience which I have had here in Namibia up to this point. In fact, some of the experiences I had were just plain weird (at least coming from the culture which I do. This is something we always need to do when judging another culture: keep the perspective we are coming from in mind). I'm not sure where to start, so forgive me if this is more of a random smattering of experiences than one chronological tale.
The group I was staying with call themselves the Herero. They have survived many years in huts which are a stick frame covered over with a plaster made of mud and cow feces. Though they don't look it, they are quite durable. As we would walk around the village, Arnold (my host brother) would point to a house and tell me that it was close to 80 years old. Of course there is patch work to be done, but when you think about how long some of our buildings last in the United States, this is a very impressive feat.
The village was really just composed of several large families. A family unit usually lives on about an acre or two of land. See, these people don't do agriculture. They raise goats, cattle, a few chickens, and some have sheep. This is the whole livelihood of the farm. People also have donkeys, but these are more for transportation than anything else. Usually a team of three would be hooked up to a cart and that is how people would get around the village. A lot of people would put the model of a car on the back of their cart. For instance, the one time I got a ride in a donkey cart, it was a Corvette. Riding in a donkey cart is quite the experience, especially when you are sitting on a nail which is party sticking up through the seat! As I was riding, I couldn't help but think about my grandpa Osthus telling me about when he used to be pulled to school by his pony. I believe its name was Buster...
The family I stayed with consisted mostly of men. Arnold, my host brother, was the youngest of the siblings, and according to their culture he has to live with his parents until they die. His mother and father were both about 80 years old, though his mother was in Windhoek when I first arrived for medical care. Other than that, there were three farm hands living with the family, but that was it. However, due to some tragic circumstances, I would meet the entire family. The first full day I was there, they father was leaving for the weekend to attend a funeral. His oldest son was supposed to meet him there, but on the way, his car flipped and he was killed. This was very sad news, and made me a bit unsure what my role in this family would be now that one of the brothers had died. Well, two days before I left to rejoin our group, most of the brothers and sisters showed up, along with the mother and father to plan the funeral. Though they still made me feel welcome and wanted me to stay, I really hope that if they needed me gone that they would have told me.
Eating was one of the most interesting experiences I had. Here is a riddle: What do goat head, sour milk, and canned meat all have in common? They are all things I had on my homestay. OK, so I could get through the first and the last, but the sour milk was horrible. In Herero culture, sour milk is something that is intentionally made and drunk on a regular basis. Many times, it is the entire meal. I saw more than one time an old man drink at least 3 liters of sour milk (they call it Omaere) in a day. They just love it! I however, being trained not to drink milk two days past the expiration date, could not stomach it. On gulp was enough for me to stay away from it the rest of the time. I would also like to comment on the goats head. It is a a delicacy in their tradition. We just pulled the hair off, cooked it, and when it was done started cutting pieces. I had goat ear, goat cheek, and goat tongue (the tongue was a special adventure, because when the goat was killed it was chewing grass, which we unknowingly cooked, so when we cracked the head open, there was a nice salad for us...uugh...) My brother, Arnold, ate the goats eye, and when I left to go hiking on some rocks with another friend, the head had been given to some children, who were beating the skull with an axe to get to the brain so they could eat it.
There is another interesting food being eaten in Namibia which the Herero people don't eat, but gather so that the Ovambo speaking people can eat them. This is a caterpillar called the Mupanni Worm. It is green, and about 3 inches long, covered in soft spikes. They trees, and ground, are covered with them! So, the people will gather them off the trees, drown them in a bucket, and when they have a full 5 gallon pale, they prepare them to sell. This is a process of squeezing the green insides out of the worm and baking them over a fire. They are paid so much for them based on the weight. I also tried one of these while in Windhoek, and literally gagged. The taste wasn't good, but much like the milk, just knowing that you are eating something that you are trained you should not makes it that much worse.
On the subject of animals, I have to tell you this story. Before we left, we were warned that the Herero people live in the land of the scorpion. And though I didn't see one, let me tell you, the holes which they make in the ground were everywhere! You never went anywhere at night without a flashlight. We were also told to wear shoes when walking through tall grass because of the amount of cobras in the area. Though I never saw one alive (at least on the farm) I got to see a dead one right when I woke up the first morning there. As I came out of my room, the man who slept in the hut next to me called me over. He pointed to the ground, where my eyes met a dead snake. Then he said "Here is the cobra that I killed in my room this morning. They are very poisonous, so be careful." Now, if I told you that I was terrified, that would be a lie. However, if I told you that I was just slightly unnerved by the idea of finding one of them under my bed the next morning, that would be an even bigger lie!
This is getting to be a long entry, and has the potential to go on much longer. So, if its OK with you, I think I will just make a list of some of the other interesting/fun events which happened during my stay. I don't think they all warrant a long story anyway.
-Climb beautiful rock landscapes, even seeing some ancient rock paintings along the way, including hand prints of the bushmen who created them
-Visit the school where Arnold teaches social studies. I was interested to see how graphic the AIDS education is for kids in 5th grade, but I guess in Africa you have to make kids grow up fast on issues of sex and disease.
-Have a BBQ celebration with all the host families in a dry riverbed to say thank you as well as to celebrate Namibian Independence Day.
-Shower in a bucket. If you are looking for a way to get to know yourself, I would like to recommend this. I doesn't get much better!
-Sit around the fire at night and drink tea that tastes like candy. In one pot of tea, it is not uncommon to put an entire coffee mug filled with sugar in it.
-Fend off the army of flies which assalted us on a daily basis.
-Ride the most rickety bick I have ever been on, lose the bicycle seat while walking it back to the owner with a friend of mine, and then spend a good half hour following the tire tracks through the grass back to the spot where it fell off.
-Milk a cow for the first time in my life. If you keep the udders wet, it really isn't too difficult!
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