Today we did the Katutura Quest. We were all assigned different places to check out in Windhoek. I went with Justine and Hannah to an orphanage run by just one lady and her helpers. She gets donations wherever she can and has taken in about 21 one kids. It was a very free lance type of orphanage because parents could just sort of come by and pick up the kids whenever. The owner did a really good job at improving the place. She had just built a new building with bedrooms and bathrooms for boys and girls along with a 2 rooms for homework, playing, etc. it was amazing what she had done. The kids were very young and climbed all over us. The practically tackled Hannah. They loved being lifted up and thrown around. One or two of them had AIDS which is a very hard thing to hear. Another girl was very disabled and forced to squat in order to walk around. She was very kind.
We had a debriefing about the quest and worked out some very interesting calculations comparing prices/minium wages for Namibians and Americas. For a Namibian to buy a pack of diapers it would cost them 51 Namibian dollars(N$) or 5 American Dollars. If they get the average Namibian salary ( 3 N$ an hour) it means they would have to work for 2 days to get one pack of diapers. If an American worked for two days at a minimum wage of abou 5.25 an hour it would mean that an equivalent pack of diapers would be $96.01. So although some assume its cheap for the average Namibian to live here its not if we turn it into an American equivalent. Pretty crazy. TIA.
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