The North! - Rural Homestay

Pictures from top to bottom ( I think? The formatting is very strange)

1 and 2: Images from atop the hill that we climbed at sunset. The black and white one has the rainbow (yes i know that doesnt make sense but its a good picture).

3: Anatomically correct horse toy made by my host father.

4: Yedidya and Maggie with my families puppies.

5. My host father playing with the horses with Bredlley and Queen.

After Swakop we had about a week to chill out at the house before we headed to the North for our rural homestay. We were all excited if not a bit nervous. It was going to be quite the experience living with a rural family on a farm for a week.

We arrived on monday after a six hour drive from Windhoek. I was in the last group to be dropped off. Although I was by myself with my own family there were three other families that were hosting CGE kids on the same plot of land. We were onthe Doro Nawas nature reserve. Thats where our families farms were. I was with Yedidya, Eli and Maggie. The Land was beautiful. We were in the base of valley surround by these amazing rolling hills.

I did a number of new things while on the farm and I did a number of things that I hadnt done in years. I milked a cow, which is quite and experience. I milked a goat as well (bastard almost pooped on me). I rode a horse a couple of times which was really cool since I hadnt done that in about ten years. I drove a donkey cart. I shot a rifle at a target with Yedidya and I did pretty well. I went swimming in the local river. We also climbed this huge hill near the farm at around around sundown. On our way we a got a bit of rain which resulted in a double rainbow and a beautiful sunset. It was fantastic. We played a lot of dominoes and frisbee and had generally a great time with the families. The kids at my homestay were great. There was Breddley (7), Omene (4), and Queen (1) and the other three were at school in town most of the time so i didnt see too much of them.

The food was very interesting. I had a lot of fat cakes (basically fried bread) with peanut butter. They were delicious. I also had some very interesting milky kind of noodles. They were very very rich. I also drank the cows milk. It was the first time i had unpasteurized milk and i was fine. It too is very rich.

My host father was also a very interesting man. He fought in the war for independence but he fought for SA (South Africa) and against Namibia. The reason this is so is because there was a kind of draft back then. So despite the side he fought for he really like Nujoma ( Namib's first president and the man he was fighting against). He doesnt like the current president, Pohumba, because he feels that "there is apartheid within him". My host dad was kind of like the god father in certain respects. He was the one who owned the cows on the farm and he took care of everyone else. All the other families he made sure were ok. He also took in kids of friends and made sure that they were going to school if their own families couldnt provide for them. He was cool.

During the week we made visits to local institutions of the town of Khorixas which is the town that all of the farms were situated around. We visited a school where we talked to the students and heard their choir sing (unbelievable). We met with the mayor and heard a group that raising aids awareness in the region. We also got a tour of the informal settlements as well. After this week we said by to our families and headed for Etosha.