Opuwo,
Namibia
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
After driving through a very dirty town with trash piled in the streets through some open sewer running in the extremely rough streets, we arrived at our restcamp at the base of a mountain which was actually really nice. One of the camp guides organized a Himba village trip for us that day. We went to the grocery store to get gifts for the village people which amounted to a couple days worth of food. We met with the chief's second wife of five and she showed us how the women bathe themselves with incense and the red ochre paste. We sat in her hut and talked for about 30 minutes about their culture and village life. They then set up a market for us outside the hut and everyone tried to sell us something. This was a little intense to say the least and created some tension amongst the women. Apparently we didn't spend enough time looking at some women's goods and not enough time at others...but it ended well and they agreed to let us take some nice photos.
We also found a Peace Corps volunteer at the hospital named Kate. We went and visited with her a while that day as well. All the volunteers have cell phones now which Beth is very jealous of. She gave us contact information for the Peace Corps office in Windhoek. It was nice meeting her. We heard from Kate about the fires in San Diego. It was quite a shock since we have been away from any kind of news for over 3 weeks now. We hope everyone is well.
