The Republic of Congo - sometimes the gamble pays off.

Choices you make whilst you are travelling are more often than not a bit of a gamble. This hostel or that one, this taxi or that one, this country or that one. As with any gamble, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn`t. Congo gave us a fair few options and made us gamble with more than just a night in a comfy bed.

The train across Congo, from Pointe Noire to Brazzaville, was a bit of a gamble. Still reeling from our forced flight from Angola, we were determined to continue overland and that meant the prospect of taking the train. Despite choosing the First Class option, we never really expected luxury (though Rose did pack her PJs just in case), but I didn`t think that expecting a back on my chair was too much to ask. Alas, a backless chair I got. However it was the prospect of meeting the ninjas which played on our minds as we boarded and headed out of the relative comfort of Pointe Noire. The Ninjas are a group of rebels who still are dominant in a small part of Congo, the Pool Region. A region which the train had to pass through.

Pointe Noire Train Station

Despite my backless chair, the driver`s desire to stop for an hour at random places on the way, and the undesired attention and intimidation tactics of a group of lads, our journey was progressing smoothly but slowly. Then we got to Pool. The police, who had been wandering up and down the aisles up to this point on the journey, summarily disembarked. the train proceeded about a kilometre, at which point the ninjas embarked. But funnily enough, the train got a sudden air of calm. The boys who had been pestering us for much of the journey were firmly sat in their places. In fact everyone firmly sat in their places. The ninjas, it would seem, had been given the task of securing the train for their section, and that was a role they seemed keen to play out. Yes they were heavy handed. Yes they were intimidating. Yes they did request a "donation at the end". But I did have an admirationn for the way they clearly took their roles seriously. At its head was a Congolese Chuck Norris lookalike. He assigned a ninja to babysit "les blancs", clearly feeling we were stupid to be on the train - a crime waiting to happen, but one which wasn't going to happen on his watch.

At one of our random stops the driver, obviously feeling a bit twitchy with rebels in tow, decided to cut short his usual hour long break and moved away with half the train still squatting in the trees. Cue panic on the train and a mad dash by the rebels to signal the driver to stop. By firing out of the windows. We stopped soon enough. I turned to Rose and said, "You have to admit, they do look out for people". That was one step too far.
"Feck off Ant." came Rose`s reply in her dulcet Irish tones, "I think you`ve got that Stockholm Syndrome or something. These people shoot other people don`t forget."

And I had to concede the point. They probably do shoot other people. But I still gave Chuck Norris a secret wink and a nod when he got off and Rose wasn`t looking.

And so we found ourselves safe and sound in Brazzaville and headed for gamble number two: seeing the gorillas. Our plan had always been to do this in Gabon, yet suddenly we discovered that we could possibly do it right here in Congo and get to Cameroon all in one minor leap of faith. This meant heading to the far North of the country. No rebels on the way. What could possible go wrong? A mere 600km - Windhoek to Tsumeb. And its the main road. This was gonna be a doddle.

Hmmm. To say the roads up North in Congo aren't that great, is probably akin to saying a sumo wrestler is a little bit chubby round the edges. It all started so well with tar road for 300km and a rather pleasant 4 hour bus journey. The remaining 300km took three days, two breakdowns, three rescues, a lorry crash, a night on the equator, a night "sleeping" on logs, a 10km hike as part of the standard bus service, a canoe across the river, a missing boat, several bribes, being pulled out of a tent at 01.30 by an army officer, some pretty grotty food, and a not so friendly insect who found warmth and lodging in my ear for a couple of days.

















Yet once again the gamble paid off and the gorillas and Cameroon transfer were ultimately a rip roaring success. But that remains a story for another time.

The Republic of Congo. In a nutshell, a gamble worth the wait(ing).

Democratic Republic of Congo - the one that got away

Sometimes the Angolans were a bit too helpful. Sometimes they told us things that weren't true, not out of spite I don't think, but because it is better to say something than admit to not knowing. That is why we ended up yoyoing up and down the main promendade for three hours one hot Luanda afternoon looking for an office. It is also why we ended up bypassing the DRC on our journey.

Actually, that is a bit of an exagerration. We decided in Luanda that given the slightly volotile circumstances in the DRC, an uncertain route to get from the boredr to Kinshasa on public transport, to save some of the pennies which Angola had sucked out of us, and to save a page in our passports, that we would catch a ferry up to Cabinda (the separated Angolan territory between DRC and Congo), or even more ideally to Pointe Noire in the Rep of Congo. "No problems at all" we were told. "Boats go all the time" we were told. "But you have to go to Soyo" we were told.

And so it was a day and a half later that we found ourselves in Soyo somewhat bruised, battered and really rather pungent from a minibus journey which included two breakdowns, the loss of both our wallets and a rather painful hour holding onto an axle. "There's no boat from here" came the answer we really weren't wanting to hear from a security guard at the port in between mouthfuls of the lobster he was devouring. "Fiddlesticks" I said (though that might not be wholly true).

Fast forward an hour and we had been offered a "legal" trip to Cabinda on a barge that evening which we felt was one step too far even for adventure seekers such as ourselves. Three options remained. Fly, turn back, swim.

The twenty miute flight was unpleasant for all the other passengers on board I have no doubt. But we covered the distance it had taken the previous 18 hours to do in 20 minutes and landed in Cabinda where we promptly hightailed it out of there to arrive, quite unexpectedly given our situation just a few hours earlier, in the Republic of Congo.

So that was that. We turned down the opportunity of "legally" canoeing through without valid visas, but that was as close as we came to the DRC.

Angola - money matters

Picture the view. Peering out to an oceanic vista with millionaire yachts docked on your doorstep. To the left is a 7km stretch of beachland called the Isla. To the right is the centre of town - a multitude of giant buildings and construction sites on their way to becoming giant buildings. At night, the skyline is more reminiscent of Hong Kong - electronic billboards and lazer lights - than the stereotypical image of Africa.

But there is a twist (there's always a twist). Our vista was affectionately known as "monturo de beuena vista" roughly translating to "rubbish dump with a nice view". You see it is nosebleedingly incredible how expensive it is here. The dump was actually the car park of the Luanda Yacht Club who very kindly allowed us to pitch tents much to the bewilderment of Zirka, our taxi driver, whose jaw almost hit the floor when he saw that we weren't like the usual punters he drops off at the Yacht Club (I thought at one point, in fact, that he was going to offer some of our fare back. No such luck!)




Angola holds a bit of a mystique when you are in Namibia. Off limits, down talked and yet so close, it wasn´t a hard decision to want to find out what really goes on here. And what we found was a country which truly does seem to be putting its war years behind it, rolling up its sleeves and building for a bright future. The amount of construction work throughout the country had to be seen to be believed.

By using public transport, we figured that we would be doing things on the cheap, yet even packed minibuses were mindnumbingly (not to mention bumnumbingly) pricey. How the local people afford such prices is beyond my comprehension. One person we spoke to simply said "we Angolans are very innovative". And from what I saw I can't disagree. The people, in fact, were brilliant. I read somewhere that if a journey through East Africa is about the landscape and wildlife, the West Africa is about the people. Angola has really started to live up to this. It wasn't just the innovativeness of the Angolan people though, but more the fact that people seemed willing to spend money. In Namibia I often felt like people were reluctant to part with their cash. In Angola, people bought things on the street, got their shoes shined and generally seemed to be happy to contribute their money elsewhere. And noone seemed remotely interested in us. Anywhere. Angola is very very untravelled and white faces are seldom seen, especially in the rural areas. Yet noone took a blind bit of notice. It was fantastic. We would converse, barter and pass just like anyone else and that anonimity really made you feel safe and, in a strange way, very welcome.

Of course there are many sides to a picture. I can't for one minute say that its all sunshine and roses here. I think I read that the GDP is still amongst the lowest in the world and certainly the slum areas were in a very bad state indeed. And there were children everywhere. In Benguela we took a long midday walk along the beautiful beach and there were hundreds of Angolan children revelling in the sea. It was wonderful to see, but you realised that the children were out because there are no schools for them to go to. I hope that the future is bright for these people and the money which is clearly pouring into the country gets down to those who need, and deserve, it.



So country number two, Angola, a big thank you. You have proven that a book should not be judged by its cover and I will be watching with interest. I can't think of any place where I've been more intrigued about going back in five years time to see how it changes. I'll just save my pennies before coming back and hope for a room with a view next time.

Namibia - the rediscovery

As I have said before, when you live in a place for a while - nomatter where that place is - it becomes normal for you. Namibia was normal for me. Day to day routines of work rest and play had become thoroughly set in and were very comfortable. And then the 30th of September came about and I had finished my job. The thought of uprooting myself and discovering new countries became a scarily imminent prospect which I was both excited and pertified about.

But Namibia - my home - was about to do its last favour for me. It was about to prepare me for what lies ahead. It started throwing problems at me and I strongly (want to) believe that it was Namibia´s way of saying, "Ant. Thanks for helping me out the last few years. Now I´m gonna toughen you up for a couple of weeks for what lies ahead." And in a Micky training Rocky Balboa style it did. Visa problems, transport problems, money problems and homelessness helped me to find the fighting edge that will hopefully get me through the next couple of months as I wade up the West Coast. Even the Windhoek taxi drivers made us wait an age before we could get to the bus station.



And it succeeded. The visa worked out in the end. The transport got there in the end. The money came in the end. And people housed me, for which I am ever ever so grateful especially given my rather distracted and absent mindedness as I rediscovered myself and Namibia.

So thank you Namibia. I know you were only being cruel to be kind and I will never forget that.

Arise sir blogalot

So. There we have it. My time in Namibia is pretty much up and it has come just a mere six months (give or take) after my blogging life came to a slow grinding halt.

This is the thing. The problem with trying to write about different experiences when abroad is that if you experience them for long enough they stop being different. And hence stop being blogworthy. I have started writing quite a few times and just stopped again because I think they stopped carrying the conviction and surprise of my first experiences here.

However good news is on the horizon. Life is soon to take a new blog friendly twist and hopefully you will be the benefactors of this. After a slightly drunken conversation and an inability for either of us to pluck up the courage to step down and admit a terrible idea, myself and a fellow VSO volunteer, Rose, have decided to saunter our way back home (UK and Irelend respectively) and take public transport back up the West Coast of Africa. Roughly this way:



I do plan to go back and add more stories about life in Namibia as I think and reflect on them, but for now you can keep updated with our findings as we embark on the slow journey home.

The Culture Club

Before I came out to Namibia, I undertook a number of training sessions – organised by VSO – to help prepare for the new life which was to be brought upon us. In one of the courses we undertook a very clever little exercise giving descriptions of various exotic “cultural” scenarios and we all had to give our honest reactions as to how we felt or would feel presented with such a situation. I can’t quite remember them all (something to do with taking your clothes off springs to mind for some reason) but the one which I do remember described a type of edible delicacy enjoyed locally - albumen of bird, lightly cooked so that the juice still flows freely, eaten with pounded wheat mixed with water cooked over a flame and cut into pieces.

The thing was though, those little tinkers at VSO has called our bluff. Whilst we were there debating the merits of closing your eyes, holding your nose and anything aka “I’m a Celebrity…” food trials, it turns out all of the exotic scenarios were from no further afield than Blackpool or Peterborough. They were all perceptions by other people towards British cultural practices, you see. The delightful sounding recipe above is none other than soft boiled eggs with soldiers.

I bring this up now for two reasons, 1) It was interesting; 2) I want to talk about culture and it seemed a nice way of introducing it.

A while ago I helped out with the national immunisation campaign for children. Teams of people went to outreach posts with cool boxes containing vaccinations, a clipboard, paper and pen and packed lunches. It was actually a very impressive undertaking and something I should write about one of these days. However, it is the latter of these items which is the purpose for our cultural difference demonstration for today – my lunch. Most of it went without a hitch, but then came the orange. Now, for me, I’ve been brought up on football and rugby pitches eating my oranges in quarters, rinds still on and sucking the life out of that piece. So there I was, quartering away, lost in my own world, sucking away, when I became all too aware of an ominous silence. I looked up to see six African faces staring at me in a conjoined bewilderment. All I could do was muster an orange gum shield smile back.

I guess the point I’m getting at is that whilst I came out here expecting to be amazed, surprised, possibly a bit shocked by cultures, beliefs and practices here (and on many an occasion it has lived up to its bill), I’ve probably shocked and surprised more people by doing things which I consider perfectly normal. Of course, when you think about it logically it is to be expected – I’ve come away prepared for surprise, yet I’m undertaking bizarre behaviours on people’s own doorsteps here.

Jogging, for example. Namibians are on the whole very naturally fit – they cultivate their fields by hand, schoolchildren walk miles to school and back each day, girls pound the grain with giant metal or wood poles, boys herd cattle. When you do all this, why on earth would you undertake extra training? Whenever I go out for a run, people watch in astonishment, join in for the sheer uniqueness of it or just laugh and wave. I’m not offended or put off, its just that I realise they NEVER see anyone else doing anything like this. The concept of training only comes into the fore when it is associated with team sports. Silence and a look of bewilderment would proceed when I would tell somebody that I was running for the sheer sake of running rather than heading to play football or the like.

At the beginning of my second year, I was given a tortoise from a departiung volunteer to look after. The tortoise had been rescued from the cooking pot by said volunteer in exchange for 20 Namibian dollars (which I can only assume was subsequently spent on a KFC). Having a tortoise for a pet (granted, a somewhat exotic thing in the UK) was a source of shock and fear for my neighbours in Outapi. “Aren’t you worried it will eat you in the night?” said a good Namibian nursing colleague as we watched it slowly munch through a patch of grass. “No, no” I reassured, and proceeded to show her my photos of the chameleons I used to keep in England. She needed a ten minute sit down and a glass of water and if I’m honest hasn’t looked at me the same since.



The thing I have learned is that even though Namibians live amongst a truly incredible wide array of wildlife, they have almost no knowledge of any of them. It is quite astounding. Reptiles all fall into a ‘dangerous’ category where even the smallest gecko is highly venomous and capable of eating a whole human. Simple reason and logic goes out of the window. I remember in the hospital one time chatting with a couple of guys and noticed something small wriggling near my feet. On pointing it out, absolute panic ensued followed by a machete attack on said beast as I stood in slight incomprehension. “Its one of those dangerous ones – maybe black mamba.” Came the explanation. I’m pretty sure to this day it was a worm.

These are just two examples, but there are more. Many more. Little pecularities that I do that seem to surprise others. Perhaps it is just me?

Footnote: Have just read a book called “The Other Hand” by Chris Cleave which has some great examples of the weirdnesses in our culture as experienced by others. Recommended.

Hello. How are you?

Footnotes:

This is stage one of greeting. I’m at stage three. I don’t know how many stages there are.

This is for greeting in a morning only. Substitute “la la” for “uhala” in an afternoon and “tokelwa” in an evening.

Knowing who is a “tatekulu” and who is just a “tate” can be tricky. In general, tatekulus have beards and/or carry sticks.

Getting the Bit Between Your Teeth - a guide to food in Namibia

I bought a packet of green Mentos the other day and was surprised to find that they were “Chlorophylle” flavour. I must admit I can’t remember whether chlorophylle is the stuff they put on handkerchiefs to knock people out in spy movies, or something belonging in plant leaves. Either way, I’m pretty sure it’s not a first choice ingredient in chewable minty products in most places. But when it comes to food, Namibia isn’t like most places.



Actually, that last sentence is a lie. It just sounded good. I have to be honest and admit that my diet here is pretty similar to the one I enjoyed back in the UK. Today, for instance, I’ve enjoyed cornflakes for breakfast, followed by cheese on toast for lunch and I just made a pretty tasty sausage casserole for my dinner. Not exactly stuff which makes for the witty, original and wild musings to which you are accustomed from these blog pages (though I did add a bit too much Cayenne pepper to my casserole and I’m half expecting some pretty wild and exciting bowel action over the next 24 hours. I’ll keep you posted).

Fear not though, help is at hand. Whilst on the whole I eat a plain ordinary diet, I have partaken in the consumption of local foodstuffs here which have left me a mixture of disturbed, non-plussed and sometimes smitten.

Food seems to be a key ingredient, if you’ll excuse the pun, of any worldwide travel experience. I don’t think I can recall anyone who has returned from a distant (or not so distant) country not having at least one culinary related story to tell.

My first “story to write home about” was probably the mopane worms I ate in week 2. They call them worms, but actually they’re more like fat caterpillars in a cocoon. So that’s alright then. Not bad – a bit salty – apparently very good fried with peanut butter. Mine were served with extra salt.



A standard local northern Namibian meal will always consist of a number of certainties – oshithima, meat, oshikundu and sand. I’ll take each one in turn.

Oshithima is a porridge made from the flour of the local wheat grown here – Omahangu. It’s a little bit bitter, really rather sticky and an acquired taste. But I’ve acquired it and do enjoy a good plate of the stuff from time to time (though eating it as the sole ingredient for meals on end, as many people here do, may get a bit much. Then again so might strawberries). What really gets me about oshimthima though is the incredible process it takes to get a plate of it. To understand that, we have to go back to the beginning and to something which is happening about this time – cultivating the land. Mahangu is not bought in shops, you see, people grow it themselves. Lots of it. And then store it in giant baskets at their homes to sustain them for a year. In order to do that, many days of backbreaking (as a physio I can vouch for this – January is one of my busiest months) cultivation is performed – all by hand – to prepare the land for planting. Planting is then done followed by an agonising wait for the perfect rains – too much and the crop drowns, too little and not enough grows and is taken by birds. Eventually picking can be done – again by hand with machetes or pangas as they are known here. The seeds are pulled off manually and then need to be crushed into flour – you’ve guessed it, by hand again. To crush the seeds requires a thick wood or metal pole (I guess about 10-15 kg in weight) and two people who take turns in lifting said pole and pounding it into the seeds. For hours on end. The “pounders” are often children once they have finished school. That yields the flour and from there you’d think it was easy – add some water, boil it up and bish, bash, bosh. Alas no, this method doesn’t work. Believe me I’ve tried. The cooking process is a bit of a guarded secret but involves hot and cold water at the right times in the right amount and a LOT of elbow grease for the 20 minute stirring process. Then, and only, then can you put a large dollop of off-white porridge onto your plate and call it oshithima.

Meat is inherently Namibian. A country which has had such divisions over the years seems to have total harmony in their love for meat. In the North the choice is largely chicken (isn’t it everywhere?), goat or, on special occasions like weddings, beef. The chickens are about as free range as it gets which means they are lean, tough but highly flavoursome. Goat is like mutton and beef is like, errm, beef. The choice cuts for Namibians are the innards and I learned that the hard way. Interestingly though, whilst an Ovambo likes nothing more than gorging on tripe or stomach, when it comes to the classic meat pieces to which we are more accustomed, rare is not an option. I love a good bloody steak, but found that they are difficult to come by in local circles – you really have to do your own.



Oshikundu is a drink made from mahangu and sorghum and omulovu is its alcoholic brother. Thick in consistency with bits floating around (not too infrequently bugs), this is the “Slimfast™” of Namibia in that you can take it as a meal and it keeps you full all day. And it really does fill you up to. Namibian culture seems to dictate that any visitor to your home must be given refreshment and more often than not that refreshment comes in the form of oshikundu. And its great. Simple as that.

Sand is sand. And it really does get everywhere.

Only one other item is essential – a toothpick. Never go anywhere without it.

Oh My Law'd

An interesting thing happened the other day which got me a pondering. Interesting things do not happen as often as you might think, so I made a mental note to myself to write about it in my blog. And so we find ourselves here (and I promised a story on food. Dammit. I should reread my own blog from time to time)

Anyway, the incident to which I refer was whilst I was travelling from A to B in a taxi. As per usual attempts to break the land speed record in a Toyota Corolla were well underway, when a police roadblock appeared in front. After deploying the parachutes and clunking to a halt, a check of the car and its occupants was made. Police roadblocks are not uncommon and seem to serve a number of purposes:

To check drivers actually have licences to drive
To deter overloading of taxis (1 person per seat – children don't count)
To check people are wearing seat belts
To prevent the landspeed record from actually being broken

Whilst we were being checked, a pick up truck (or bakkie as they are known here) pulled up with 15-20 people crammed in the open back and were ushered along their way by the policeman. This is perfectly legal – you cannot have more than one person per seat in a car in Namibia, rightly so, but there is no number limit for people in the open back of a truck. Putting aside the fact that this method of transportation is absolutely vital for many people to get to their homes in rural areas, this seems to me to be a slightly odd law.

This got me thinking about laws, and the odd ones I have encountered around the world. (Being an Englishman, I’m only too familiar that I hail from a country which still has some bizarre laws theoretically in effect, some from medieval times. In fact, I’ve been astounded when meeting other travellers about just how many other people are aware of the odds laws in my country. I forget how many conversations have erred around “bails of hay” and “London taxis”. I once met an American who thought Paris was a part of London, but if I had the chance to meet him again, I’m almost certain he could rattle of the fact that it is legal to shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow in York on a Sunday).

Another Namibian peculiarity is to do with the movement of meat. There is an imaginary line running across the country and about four fifths of the way up it. As I understand it, this line is for veterinary purposes - all meat reared below it can be used for industry and exported, all meat above the line is for public consumption or private sale only. Furthermore, meat in any form cannot be transported from North to South even for private use. Whilst in principle I understand this, in practice it lacks the thing which many stupid laws around the world no doubt lack - a bit of common sense. Even meat bought in a supermarket in the north – thereby being industrial and forced to comply with veterinary laws – cannot be moved South.

Namibia is not the place with the stupidest laws in the world which I have come across though. Not by a far stretch. For that, I’d have to turn to New Zealand.

Most of you who live or have been to New Zealand will, I’m sure, think I am referring to the “turning right” rule of driving: If you are driving along the road, perfectly minding your own business, perhaps whistling along to the eighties hit which is doubtless on the radio, you may well have somebody cut across immediately in front of you coming from the other direction, forcing you to spill your steak and cheese pie all down your lap. And they would be in the right. You see, cutting across oncoming traffic is your right of way in New Zealand. And that’s just odd.

But no. This is not the craziest. The craziest law in New Zealand relates to drinking and socializing on or around public holidays. I happened to be there on Good Friday in 2006 and, after a long day of travelling, decided to pop into a friendly looking bar for a drink. And was refused. I could only have a drink if I was getting food, and even the was restricted to two drinks and a two hour time out. I kid you not. If this wasn’t enough a big rugby match was due to play that evening. We were told that the match could be shown but without sound. “Why? Does Jesus get offended by the commentary?” was the rather amusing retort of an embittered local. What does make this story a bit more tolerable was not only the fact that the staff seemed genuinely as annoyed as we were about having to turn away custom but also their resourcefulness at rescuing something out of a crazy situation. At the stroke of midnight, thus ending the day of Good Friday, the bar opened again to one and all. I’d long got fed up and left by this point, but I do hope they had a great evening and made up for lost time.

What I do. Sorry It’s a Little Late

You see I’ve been learning to touch type and its taken me this long to finish one story. Arrrgh, who am I kidding? “My dog ate my laptop” would have been a better excuse. And feasible too – Kate, a good friend of mine who is a teacher in Okahao, actually observed a goat eating someone’s homework.

I genuinely am learning to touch type though. And I genuinely am sorry that once again it has taken so long to update this blog. The persistence of Simon must be lauded in the emergence of this story coming and I hope that it does him justice.

I went back to the UK in September for a short visit, and lost count of the number of times I was asked “So what are you actually doing out there?” I figure that perhaps now, after being here over a year, is a good time to answer that. The trouble is there are so many levels to this question it is difficult to know where to begin. I suppose that is why I’ve avoided it up until now. In honesty, it is best answered in three ways: the official answer, the practical answer and the real answer.

The official answer, which became a seamless response after a while, is that I’m helping to set up Rehabilitation services in a region of Namibia called Omusati. There are four hospitals here, but only one has any staff to provide any service like physical rehabilitation, hearing screening or mental health assistance. That one is Okahao and I’ve been working with the magical Padelia (for those who remember previous blogs) to enhance the way she was working. Padelia is ace, and has been legendary in the way she responded to my suggestions, changes in ways of working and attitude to learn. I couldn’t have asked for more from her.
I’ve now been able to move away from Okahao and leave Padelia continue her duties so that I can focus on the bigger picture. Since returning from the UK this has started in earnest. I’ve moved house (60km further north) and have a much bigger challenge on my hands for the next year. Which feels great.

The practical answer, is I guess what I do on a day to day basis. Well, although in theory my job is more managerial, I do a lot of hands-on physio work too. In an average week, I probably spend between half and three quarters of my time on the wards or in the rehab room doing practical work with patients with a whole variety of problems and complaints. It is a much wider scope of work than I ever did in the UK, and incorporates mental health, speech therapy, deafness and blindness and many other things with adults and children. The rest of the time at work is a mixture of report writing, planning, policy writing and yawn yawn yawn…
Work is, of course, only part of what I do and I spend a lot of time eating, sleeping, drinking watching (many) DVDs and avoiding writing blogs.

The real answer, is that every day I am learning. An incredible amount. About so many things I’ve never contemplated. I’m taking in far more, I’m afraid, than I give out. Ironic, given that the concept of “development work” is that we are passing on our skills. It feels like every day you learn something new and that becomes common place. Just thinking off the top of my head now I can tell you that the things imparted to me over the last year have included: How to fix a puncture with a bit of string, how to open a bottle with another bottle, how to hand wash clothes and not make them smell like a wet dog, how to make Indian food, how to slaughter and prepare a goat, how to assess someone with knee pain in Oshiwambo, how to rescue a tortoise. Clearly a list of vital lifeskills I hear you remark. On a more serious note, I can also put together a reasonable account of Namibian politics, talk with moderate confidence on the successes and failures of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, tell you a bit about how the dunes need conserving or debate the issue of seal culling. This is not me trying to be big-headed or gloating in any way, shape or form. Many fellow volunteer colleagues here can do these as well (and no doubt much more efficiently than I). The point I think I’m trying to make is that being out here lends itself to learning where at home you perhaps have to go out looking for it that bit more.

I fear I’m getting all philosophical on you, so will draw to an end what can be termed my comeback blog. Next week: getting the bit between your teeth: A guide to eating in Namibia, which should be not nearly as difficult to digest (‘scuse the pun).