Saturday, January 8, 2011

The start of the weekend is promising....

I take my words back - there is always something to do!

After waking up late and just generally deciding that Saturdays are meant to be for lazying around, I went for a stroll and a brunch in a neighbouring lodge with a promising slogan "African hospitality". There was not a soul in that place, but the TV was shouting out the dialogues from some very annoying soap opera of undefined origin (undefined to me, as I am still unsuccessfully trying to figure out which country produced that gem of cinematography - they actors definitely look Asian, but it is dubbed in English, and their names are pretty Western, so there are no obvious give aways).

I was determined to get fed and eventually found a waitress. The ordering part as always was interesting as they did not have half the stuff I wanted, so we settled on the most expensive dish on the menu, which, of course, they had in stock! Well, I achieved something in the day: meal - done!

When I got back to my lodge there was a lot of life and noise - this is new! A corporate function was taking place where some new joiners were being welcomed. Turns out this lodge is quite a popular place for such events, it is just it is not quite season yet. Well, given I have not seen anyone apart from about 7 staff members duly cleaning out rooms in which seemingly nobody lived, this was a good change.

I spent my afternoon Skyping with past/other volunteers working for MLF (this is work related part, in case everyone thinks I only holiday all the time). By the time I was done, the weather got much better, and the sun came back again, and the sky was getting blue-er (yey!). What shall I do now? I started chatting with the guys who work in the lodge, who coincidentally happen to be the owner's sons...I was asking what they do around here on weekends, to which I received reassuring "nothing"...

Previous volunteers told me that dvd's were an absolute necessity as there is indeed not much to do after you have sampled the cuisine in the available few restaurants and visited Oshakati. There is a club that everyone seems to mention, which has a swimming pool and a restaurant and some greenery, and it is not too far. Sounds good! I asked one of the guys whether it was easy to get to, and after giving me a long explanation featuring a lot of "turn" somewhere, he said that actually he will take me there by car.

When he knocked on my door to go to the club, turned out that his friend was also going there and so would show me around. Excellent, now I have company.

The club is lovely! It is like an oasis, very green, with palm trees and peacocks everywhere (photos to come, bear with my slow internet connection). There is a mini zoo with a couple of monkeys too. This club, Bennie's is a hang out place by day, with cafe and restaurant and has a night club. My chaperone turned out to be an aspiring celebrity from Windhoek, where performs as part of a dance group, and even had the honour to perform in front of the two presidents of Namibia (first and current). Now I am in a company of celebrities too! I learned a lot of quite interesting information about the life of Namibians, which contributed to my attempt to understand this country..I have still not figured it out... This discussion will come at a later date......

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