On on

Sue and Hector picked me up on Sunday afternoon and we went down to the Roof of Africa Hotel in time for 4pm  to meet other folk who also belong to the Hash House Harriers, Windhoek Chapter. I hadn't heard of the Hash House Harriers before, or H3 for short. Apparently it is a global running and social club which originated in Kuala Lumpur in 1938 when a group of  British officers decided to meet up and run on Monday evenings to work off the excesses of the weekend! There are 1984 Hash Groups registered in 1295 cities around the world. The Windhoek chapter was set up in 1990. The group meets every two weeks to do a Hash trail which means the "hare" sets a trail and the group has to find it and follow it. "On on" means the group is on the trail.

As Windhoek is at altitude and very hilly and the climate hot, "hashers" hike the trail rather than run, which is a big relief to me! Afterwards the group gathers for drinks and songs (down down) and food.

Enjoying a shot of sake at the half way point!

I've been on 3 hash's so far, two were in the hills starting in Ludwigsdorf in Windhoek and the other one took place, unusually at 8.00am on a Saturday morning (groan, no lie in) in Dan Viljoen park just outside Windhoek. The group attracts people of all ages and nationalities and is really friendly.

On on!

S.. in the City

No, this isn't a spoiler about a third movie with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda suddenly descending on Windhoek in designer animal print safari suits ready for sundowners and game drives.. (and I don't mean in Etosha National Park).

However S.. in the city could stand for Sarah, swimming and spa instead! A few weeks ago on a sunny, Saturday morning I joined two glamorous ladies, Elham and Anamaria,  for a girls morning out at the newly completed and opened Hilton Hotel where we tried out the pool and spa facilities on the roof sun-deck for a very reasonable day pass price (100 N$ which is about £8). Going up to the top floor in a glass lift was a bit of a shocker but, thankfully, on the roof the wall surrounding the sundeck was high enough to prevent me from succumbing to vertigo and plunging over the edge into the carpark below. We arrived quite early and had the pool and comfy sun loungers to ourselves for a while. The temperature soon soared and it was time for a dip in the cold water.

 The pool is long, narrow, attractive and has two waterfalls running into it from a mosaic wall but realistically no more than two people at a time can swim in lanes before it gets a bit crowded! A few minutes warming back up in the steam room finished the morning off perfectly.

In the evening I went to a leaving party for a colleague from UNICEF, Madhavi and her husband Robert who were going to move to Kenya after 5 years in Namibia. It was a lovely evening. Plenty of guests turned up to give the well-respected couple a good send off and it was a wonderful opportunity for me to meet some new people and make a few more friends. A couple called Sue and Hector invited me to join a group for a hike the following afternoon...

A little four letter word update

Yes...that little four letter word called WORK, which is what I'm actually here for in Namibia and not on an extended holiday or foodie fest, honest! I thought I'd better mention a couple of sentences about how things are going here.

My colleagues and I circulated our joint UNFPA/NRCS Regional Field Visit Report on Protection in Flood Relief and Recovery to a wide range of people in agencies and National and Regional Government and have used it to generate discussion and planning for activities we can carry out in the coming months to strengthen the protection sector before the next rains.

The report has been well received and we are in the process of planning a national level protection in natural disasters training workshop for a range of actors with support from the Global Protection Cluster Working Group (GPCWG) and regional trainings together with the Namibia Red Cross Society (NRCS) which will take place in November. In addition we have been working closely with our colleagues in the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to provide some input into their Camp Coordination and Camp Management training of trainers course, specifically two protection chapters. The ToT course was launched this Wednesday and will commence in the northern regions of Namibia in the first week of November. It is really good to know that protection will be covered during capacity development of camp managers.

National launch of IOM's ToT course

I've continued to participate in various UNDAF activities including assisting a small editorial group to edit the Country Analysis paper and attending a validation workshop for said paper. I still can't get my head around the fact that it can take almost 2 years to develop an UNDAF (United Nations Development Assistance Framework) that will cover a 5 year development cycle, so no sooner is one completed then the next one begins.....

Cafe culture x 4

I thought I would tell you about a few more finds. Sometimes, during my lunch break from work I go across the road from UN House to the Portuguese Pasteleria Lua del Mel for a toasted sandwich or a delicious pastel de nata and coffee.

A week after my weekend in Swakopmund, I met up with Beth, who I met on the Botanic Garden guided walk a few weeks previously, for a late lunch at the Craft Cafe. The Craft cafe is situated on a balcony in the older Brewery complex off Independence Avenue which houses some of the very best Namibian crafts from all over the country including wood carvings, paintings, leatherwork, clothes, soft furnishings, jewelry, photos and household items. I enjoyed a citrus keffir drink (like an orange lassie)with a rolled greek salad with olive tapenade and health bread while listening to Beth's adventures as a field guide at the P.A.W.S project in Okonjima. It was good to catch up!

Two other cafes I tried for a change of scenery in order to get out of the office during lunchbreaks were Paprika and Fresh n' Wild. Paprika is a new cafe next to a small boutique in a large house around the corner from the Wild Eende nursery. It serves a limited range of light lunches, cakes and beverages and a couple of daily specials. Although reasonably price, I didn't think the food was as good quality as the Cicada in Wild Eende.

Fresh n Wild is a chain of cafes. I chose to try the branch in Utopia which is a health and wellbeing complex down on Nelson Mandela Avenue. They serve healthy lunches and revitalising or detoxifying smoothies. I found out about Utopia through a health, wellbeing and green-living newsletter called mind connections and went along one evening to listen to a spiritual talk on Ascended Masters at the Fresh n Wild one Wednesday evening. The event attracted quite a crowd of all ages and backgrounds. It was an interesting talk but not for me. I heard alarm bells ring when the speaker inferred that this was the only way to enlightenment and urged the audience to buy a series of 19 books to find out more. I believe that God or Universal Life Force has made all knowledge available to all beings. The skies proclaim the work of his/her hands and we already have everything we need to lead fulfilling lives, physically, emotionally and spiritually in harmony with all living things in the universe.

Swakopmund photo essay

Here is a slide show of my photos of Swakopmund.

Enjoy!

A seaside adventure

I slept like a log in Villa Wiese, it must have been the bracing sea air. I got up reasonably early and enjoyed a tasty cooked breakfast (somehow bacon tastes better by the sea!). Then I set off into the fog which had rolled in off the sea during the night and wrapped Swakopmund in a thick grey blanket. The town was silent. Only a few people and vehicles were about. The fog gave the streets an eerie appearance, like a German version of Brigadoon (the legend of a Scottish village which appears once every hundred years in the fog!). 

I decided it would be a good idea to do a photo essay. So off I trotted down to the lighthouse, as if I had stepped into a Virginia Woolf novel…, and wandered up and down the sea strand, along the jetty, waves crashing underneath, around the Mole and back into town. I wended my way through the still fog-shrouded streets. I snapped away, framing seascapes, street scenes, the German colonial architecture and every now and then captured some colour e.g. brightly painted benches in primary colours and arty murals along walls. I stopped for a latte in the Garden Café which is tucked behind an art gallery and craft shop and sipped to warm up a bit. Afterwards I continued my walk up the seafront and bought a few postcards on the way. I soon worked up an appetite and checked the menu at the famous Tug restaurant but it looked a bit run down and overpriced so I decided to go to 22^o South, a new restaurant in the bright and cheerful red and white lighthouse that stood proudly, like an oversized pepperpot, a sentinel looking out to sea. 

I chose hake, vegetables and new potatoes, a lime soda followed by ice cream and coffee. The food was excellent and the service impeccable. By the time I had drained the last few drops from my cup, the fog had dissipated and the sun had come out. And like any mad dog and Englishman, I strode out into the midday sun and plonked myself down on the beach in a sun trap and began reading the novel “What I loved” by Siri Hustvedt that I had bought earlier at Die Muschel bookshop and art gallery. I continued reading and soaked up the sun’s rays, lifting my head up now and again to watch the waves crashing onto the beach and children playing on the sand and a few brave souls who paddled out to sea.

The water looked too cold for me and the current too fierce. Signs on the beach indicated ‘swim at your own risk’. Later on I wandered idly along the strand in the other direction, took more photos and then returned as the temperature cooled. I stopped off at the Strand café for a warming pot of Five Roses tea and watched the sun sink down behind the Mole.

When it was too cold to sit there any longer I slowly strolled back up town and popped into the 3 NAMigos Mexican restaurant for a burrito before going to bed. Although I woke up early, or so I thought, the hostel was busy and I thought this was strange so early on a Sunday morning. I checked the time with the receptionist and discovered to my horror that the clocks had gone forward in the night by one hour and I had just 10 minutes to grab my bags and sprint across town to catch the bus back to Windhoek! Thankfully I made it in the nick of time. The journey back was smooth and Townhoppers dropped me home by lunchtime. I popped down to Checkers to stock up on food and then sat outside in the sun for a while in the garden.