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...

No country for old vegetarians

Not that I'm old nor a vegetarian, though I have often contemplated becoming one....oh and in fact I was one once in my early 20s before I came to Africa for the first time. Then I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere for a month in Kenya to do some research and was confronted with the choice of 'eat goat or eat nothing', so very quickly my vegetarian principles evaporated in the African sun.

Anyway I have noticed that Namibia is not a country for vegetarians or vegans. There is a lot of meat around, of all kinds, yes you have the usual beef, chicken, pork and lamb but you also get the dried kind, 'biltong', and an array of game including springbok, gemsbok, kudu, oryx, zebra, ostrich and crocodile. Today I forayed into the famous watering hole of many a Windhoek resident and tourist, Joe's Beer House where I sampled a Namibian Bush Fire platter consisting of ostrich steak, and hefty chunks of kudu and springbok served in a rich red wine sauce with green beans wrapped in bacon and straw potatoes all neatly arranged around a lit shot of schnapps, quite a sight to behold.

Fire seems to be a theme at the Beer House. My colleague who works for UNICEF and I sat at a long table near an open fire. We were in the boma which is basically a large, rotunda open to the night air, only partially covered. In the middle is a huge raised open fire basket made of iron rebar in which large tree trunks are ignited to keep customers warm. It is quite a spectacle especially when the over zealous beer house staff put trunks that were much too tall for the basket into the fire and then ran around prodding and poking the smouldering logs into a frenzy sending a fountain of sparks in our direction. Thankfully my reflexes were in order and I managed to duck to prevent my hair from catching fire. After gorging on meat we indulged further by enjoying warm, chunky chocolate cake served with vanilla cream, berries and ice cream, washed down with the house speciality, a shot of Jagermeister (sounds like a James Bond villain or Frankenstein's brother) a potent liqueur, so if you don't burn on the outside from being too close to said fire basket you burn on the inside instead. Well it isn't a bad idea really on a cold, clear night under a full moon.

...and so ends the first week

It is now Friday afternoon and I'm sitting out on the veranda in the late afternoon sunshine. I can't believe how quickly my first week in Namibia is zipping by. It has mainly been a week of introductions, to my UNFPA colleagues and key people in other UN agencies such as UNICEF, UNHCR, UNAIDs, UNDP, WFP and FAO. Not everyone was around as there are a couple of large conferences going on in Windhoek at the moment including one on Education so no doubt I will have more introductions next week. I also met a counterpart in the Namibian Red Cross who gave me a thorough briefing on the current situation in flood affected areas in the north of the country. I hope to do the rounds at various Government ministries next week and plan a field trip as soon as possible. I have settled into my office, it looks tidy doesn't it? Bet it won't stay like that for long!

In between I've made contact with a couple of estate agents and viewed a couple of properties yesterday. All I need is a studio or one bedroom flat/apartment to rent for 6 months but these seem to be quite hard to come by as properties are quite large e.g. 3 or 4 bedrooms with ensuite, 2 garages etc. I will see another property this evening. I circulated an email around the UN yesterday and received some emails and phone calls of friends of friends informing me of some options plus an invitation to join the International Women's Association of Namibia which welcomes newcomers to Namibia, organises social and charity fundraising events and supports a number of local charities which assist vulnerable women and children. This sounds interesting so I will check them out. It might be a great way to make friends as well as doing something in my free time.