Back from my homestay!

I just got back from my 10-day homestay. I was staying with a woman named Rosie, Rosie's son Mavin (in his 20's), Rosie's daughter Maggie, and Maggie's daughter Rosinha (6 years old). I work at my internship every weekday (except Tuesday when I have classes), so I spent evenings and weekends with the family.

We ate lots of rice, with onions and other veggies, potatoes, fruit and lots of meat. I also got to eat pap, a fluffy tastless white food kind of similar to mashed potatoes, but with a more solid structure....I'm not exactly sure what it is made out of.

We watched lots of TV including lots of World Cup games (which are on at approx 12:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. every day here). I think the commentary at halftime on NBC ("Namibian Broadcasting Company) is funny. We also watched lots of evening "soapies," various daily shows from around the world. A few originate in South Africa--those are interesting because the characters sometimes switch between Afrikans and English within a single conversation (there are always English subtitles). There are other soapies from a few central/south American countries--dubbed into English.

There are lots of ads for cell phones on TV. There are two main competing cell phone companies in Namibia, one of which, MTC--"Make The Connection", has a much larger market share. The way people typically use cell phones is to buy prepaid time on little blue cards which have a code they can call in to "recharge" their phones. These cards are for sale everywhere in stores and from street vendors. There are also a number of special offers that can be paid for with a bit of extra money. Both major cell phone companies are currently running nearly identical ads in which two different people are simulataneously making similar calls on both networks with the price on one side ticking up as the person talks while the price on the other side stays at zero for the whole call (the other company airing the exact opposite ad). It seems that both are actually could be correct depending on who the people in either ad are calling ("10 best friends", "anyone within using a particular network," etc.). Lots of people have cell phones here--texting ("SMSing") is done frequently. The "Grandma" in my host family even has a cell phone....althought she claims to only sort of know how to make and receive simple calls ......this sounds like my Grandma!

Last Sunday I got to go to church with Rosie, which was a very interesting experience, considering that I am definitely not a born-again Christian. The vast majority of the country identifies as Christian. The church was relatively far away from the house, and the church sent a covered pickup truck to pick up several of the people (including us) since the other vehicle they had planned to send had broken down--a bunch of very dressed up people riding to church in the bad of a pickup truck! The service itself was almost entirely in Afrikans, so I didn't really understand much of what was happening....

My host "sister" works a Windhoek Central Hospital in the oncology ward. I got to spend a day last week watching the world cup with all of the patients (they all crowded into a common room to watch the game. That was fun!

I have a bunch of pictures from the week. I'll try to post them on Facebook tonight....the internet is very slow, so it will take many hours...I'll try to let them start uploading overnight...we'll see how that works.