The Hills Are Alive!

There’s been a little more Internet drama recently and not a lot of free time, which is a lethal combination in terms of blogging regularly. Lots to share though, starting with last weekend. On Saturday, Pia, Jenita, Caitlin and I set off to climb the mountain at Berseba, which is about an hour’s drive from Tses. In the morning sun, it got hotter and hotter as we walked, but the views from the top were simply stunning. We did have a rather tense descent to start with, where we realised that going down the rocks without a path is significantly harder than it was climbing up, and ended up having to just sit down and slide over the baking hot boulders. With blistered palms, dusty bums and many expletives along the way, we finally made it down and were rewarded with a cool drink and an excellent morning’s walking. On both Friday and Saturday night, we camped out on mattresses in the hostel’s courtyard under the stars. With vast expanses of land and zero light pollution, the stars here are unlike any I’ve ever seen. All in all, last weekend gave us the chance to take in the alien but incredible scenery that makes Karas so completely different from home.

The view from half way up the mountain

Caitlin and I before the walk

Our, ahem, graceful descent. And Jenita doing the Mobot. Not entirely sure what's going on in this photo.

Last week, we also had an excellent time with an influx of more volunteers. An elderly German couple were making their annual visit to Tses, and so have been staying in the hostel’s guest house. They didn’t speak any English and have wildly inaccurate measures of Amarula, but they were fascinating people and made excellent company , with their philosophy of “the moon is the drinking sun”. He is a retired plumber in his 80s who has spent many years coming to various places in Namibia and voluntarily fixing their plumbing systems, and now brings his partner. We also had 4 US Peace Corps volunteers here running a business workshop for the village council’s youth group. It was absolutely knackering, but it was great fun having people over every night, staying up well past our 9.30pm bedtimes with music, good conversation and Mayank’s phenomenal Indian food.  The weekends ahead are also looking promising – as well as our planned Easter trip to Swakopmund, we are off to Fish River Canyon this weekend with Pia’s visitors from Germany, and the weekend afterwards, our Desk Officer is taking us to visit the other PT volunteers in Luderitz.

Believe it or not, school is still as busy as ever in and amongst all of our adventures – there’s so much to say that I’ll post again shortly with all of our tales from the classroom!