Road trip to northern villages

To be able to go to all nine schools in one week instead of three we had to split up. So on Wedsneday 3:30 AM, Joel and I left Oskar alone in Windhoek and began an adventurous 900 km long journey to the north of Namibia. Susan of Star for Life drove ahead of us, and it was pretty much just one straight road all the way from Windhoek to Ondangwa, which is near the border to Angola. It was a crazy road: only one small lane in each direction, with a speed limit of 120 km/h and with cows, goats and donkeys passing. We also got to see a sunrise like the one in The Lion King.

When we arrived in Eenhana after about ten hours of driving, we were too tired to do anything more than take a stroll and eat delicious vegetarian pasta. Eenhana had a country side feeling, cozy, small, warm, and there weren’t electrical fences surrounding houses like in Windhoek. We did not have any internet connection, which is why we have waited until now with telling you about it.

When we woke up on Thursday we began by delivering 23 computers to the secondary school of Eenhana. We were met with great gratefulness, and put the laptops in the library together with the teachers. Here we also met up with our friend Emilia, a Star for Life life skills coach, who guided us throughout the day. The teachers of Eenhana especially liked the offline version of Wikipedia, which now can be used for research on almost any topic by the learners even when the WiFi connection is down. :D

After Eenhana we went to the last school of the nine: the secondary school of Ondobe. This was also the most country side one of the schools, with many of the learners living in traditional farms. The large sandy school yard had goats and pigs chilling around. Here too we were met with gratefulness, set up the computers and showed the programs to the teachers.

Afterwards one of the teachers took us to a traditional farm nearby where an elderly lady showed us around and gave us peas and fruits we had never seen before. Unfortunately we did not have our camera with us in there. Later Emilia showed us around in Eenhana telling us about how life really is for the people living there. We got to see more parts of the town and got a better understanding about life in Namibia in general.

Today, Friday, we woke up at 3:00 AM again and went the 900 km back to Windhoek with Emilia on the back seat telling us everything about namibian youth. This was an extremely memorable road trip, and guess what, we did manage to distribute all the computers in just one week!!

So, now our work here is done, and tomorrow we leave Namibia. It has been a great experience and we want to thank EVERYONE we’ve met. ♥ ♥ ♥