Monday, October 29, 2007

It started way back when...

Hi Everybody...
 
It started way back when it was still cold...  Ok, so that was only back in June, but it feels like forever ago!!  I am finally getting to the point of telling you about the last few months!  (Warning, this is not going to be short)  So, let's start by going back before conference to my week of vacation in Windhoek in June when I bought my car....
 
Short-term short-termers
While I was there I met Laura and Anna, both nursing students from the UK that were working in the hospital in Windhoek for 6 weeks.  They both asked if they could come up and  work in Rundu with me the week before conference...  I agreed, so Anna and Laura came to stay with me for one week.  It was wonderful having students that were excited to learn!!  Laura stayed with me all week in the Pediatric Ward and Anna also went to visit Rob in the OB/GYN department as well as hang out in Maternity watching babies being born.  
 
The week after conference I had Kathryn here for a little over a week...  She was a physical therapist also from the UK who is going through seminary.  As a part of her course work she was required to do some work overseas and through some other people in AIM made her way to us here in Rundu!  Since Minnie (the PT from the Philippines that works at the hospital) was out of town she ended up spending the week with me and Rob.  Since she didn't have a work permit she couldn't see patients (that wasn't her job here anyway), so she just hung out, talking with the mothers and the nurses, and at one point when we had a lot of admissions she even sat down and was our unit secretary!!  I can't even tell you how wonderful it was to have someone helping with all the paperwork!!  (Yes, Shelli, it means I miss you and all your hard work!!!)
 
Now, while Kathryn was here for her one week (the beginning of September), there was a wonderful couple from Egypt, Moheb and Rania (rah-knee-uh), that was here.  Moheb is a radiologist that was working at the hospital trying to train the doctors in different techniques.  I don't know what I was expecting before they came, but they were not it!  They were both very kind, sweet and funny... They were one of the cutest couples I have ever met!  Unfortunately I was only here for their first week then a few days in the middle when I was here with my family, but I enjoyed the little bit of time that I got to spend with them!
 
The end of Kathryn's time here was linked to me going back to Windhoek to pick up my sister and brother-in-law at the airport...  Which takes us to the next part of the story...
 
Traveling with Val & Jim
The pictures are on the photobucket site(link is below), the album is 'holidaywithvalandjim2007'.  I know that 50+ photos aren't quite enough to show you 4 weeks of traveling, but I hope that I chose a good blend to give you a good idea!
 
If you want to see where all we went, there is a map on my blog from back in August before we went that has a yellow highlight for where we all traveled.  Right now I am only going to give you some of the most exciting parts.  One of the biggest thrills I had was getting to meet Mufasa.  He is a nine year old male lion that weighs about 600lbs, that is kept at a guestfarm just outside Grootfontein.  For five Namibian dollars (less than USD$1), you can pet this massive lion!!!!  It was AMAZING!!!  Through the fencing you can run your fingers through his hair, have him lick your fingers (his tongue felt like sandpaper!!!), or pick up his paw in your hands...  It made me nervous, but he it was so cool!  He was so big yet so gentle.  He licked my fingers twice and he actually took Val's hand in his mouth!  She didn't mind at all, but Jim was a little concerned...  The last time that I pet him I closed my fingers and ended up with 2 hairs from his mane!  I don't know how I am going to keep them, but I definitely think that I will!  :-)  How many times in life can you say that you have pet a lion first of all, but secondly say that you touched a lion and lived?!?!?! 
 
Another thing we got to see was a waterfall in the desert.  It was a truly awful trip out to the area, the roads were terrible and I was very thankful for having bought a 4X4!!  As we were driving I was wondering if they were just joking about it being a big waterfall.  The desert was so... deserty...  I can't describe it... it was just a desert...  Then you round this corner and see this amazing oasis.  When you get closer to it... there it is.. this huge waterfall!  It was so beautiful!  The pictures really don't do it justice!  I have never seen an oasis before and I was in awe of it after driving through such desolation for so many hours.
 
Of course we went to Etosha and we had very good luck.  Just a few things that we saw included a lioness and her cub on our first day, two more lion cubs the next day, three different hyena sightings during the day, a VERY close encounter with a bull elephant (he was less than 5 feet from our car!!!) and too many other elephants to count!  (Ok, we tried but we lost count!)  One of the biggest thrills we had while we were in Etosha was that our car wouldn't start while we were at one of the waterholes!  When we had started driving it was before sunrise so I had my lights on...  Apparently I forgot to turn them off as we sat at the waterhole for almost an hour.  OOPS!!  Thankfully there were some nice Germans next to us that helped us jump start the car and off we went.  If there hadn't been so much game at the waterhole I would have been very nervous indeed of having to be out of the car (you sign a waiver when you enter that you won't and there are signs posted everywhere reminding you to stay in your car).  But, since the animals were so relaxed we weren't really concerned that there were any predators around to be worried about. 
 
We also made our way up to Victoria Falls in Zambia.  The lack of water was astounding!  We were actually able to walk about 1/3 of the way out into the falls and it was so dry.  There were little pockets of water in the deeper pools, but overall it was dry!  The Zimbabwe side was still full, but we never made our way across the border to see it.  Val & Jim did take a helicopter flight over the falls and based on their photos it was still spectacular!  
 
The last exciting thing that we did was go to the Okavango Delta in Botswana.  The Okavango River is the same river that is here in Rundu creating the Namibia/Angola border.  It is one of the few rivers that never meets the sea, it travels inland from Angola, through Namibia and empties out into the Kalahari Desert creating the Delta.  We took a 3 day trip into it on mokoros (muh-core-oes) which are dug out canoes.  Though it was exciting, it was also made me very nervous since I knew we would be sharing the water with wild animals including hippos!  Most people don't realize that hippos are very dangerous and cause many deaths per year.  They are dangerous on land but even more so in the water where they have been known to overturn boats and chomp people in two!  So it was with trepidation that I set out on this trip.
 
The guide loaded all of the things for our camping and us and our bags into four of these mokoros and set out.  We traveled for about 40 minutes and saw three sets of elephants on our way to a shady area that we made into our campsite.  (It even had some elephant bones!!!  They were massive and beautiful!)  Our time there included a two hour mokoro trip, two small hikes to a shallow pool where hippos lived and a 4 & 1/2 hr hike looking for different types of game.  The second morning before our long hike we found lion tracks about half a football field from our camp!!!  Jim said he heard some roaring in the middle of the night, but I never heard a thing!  (Nor did I hear the second night when some hippos were grazing on the outskirts of our camp and got spooked and ran off!  I guess it's not good to be a hard sleeper sometimes!)  I think that the lion spooked off all the animals and that's part of why we had to walk so far to find game that second day!  It was really cool and a little bit scary knowing that we were just walking around where lions were!  In most game parks you are in your vehicle and even being right next to them is exciting and not scary, but being out in the wild walking was different!  Especially since all our guide carried was a stick no longer than his arm!  What we got to see on these walks were elephants, baboons, wildebeest, warthogs, zebras, impalas, hippos and a giraffe!  It was a really cool experience!
 
While we're making lists, I should add one more... the types of game meat that I have been able to eat!  So, the animals that I have been able to taste include ostrich, kudu, oryx, zebra, steenbok, warthog, eland and crocodile.  Out of those, the first three are my favorite!  Ostrich, though it is a bird, is a red meat that is incredibly tender and tasty!  Kudu and oryx, aside from being beautiful antelope, are also very tasty!  :-)
 
Upcoming adventures
Laura and Janeen will be arriving in Rundu in a few weeks!  I am so excited to have some new people to share life with!  Having to cook for myself this week has been hard.   I enjoyed having Alisa's friend staying with me and making some of the dishes that I like to cook that you can't really make for just one (like tacos), and I look forward to having the ladies come so I can start cooking again!  
 
I know that after a long holiday like that I should be content to stay here in Rundu..   My dad teases me that I spend more time traveling than working so I should just come home!  Though it might seem to be true, I can assure you that working in these conditions is extremely stressful and the breaks are very welcomed times of escape to relax and recharge.  So, my next holiday might be in December after Laura and Janeen come up to Rundu.  They are only going to be here for 6 months, most of that which is going to be in the rainy season.  Though the rainy season is great for relieving the heat, it makes viewing animals very difficult.  Without having to be dependent on the man-made waterholes for water, the animals roam freely through the parks and often wander out of viewing range deep into the bush.  That's why the ladies and I might go to Etosha in December, before the rains start to some, so they can see some animals!  Of course after being in Tanzania climbing Mt Kilimanjaro they might have had the chance to be on safari so they might not want to go to Etosha during the hottest month of the year!  I guess we'll see!
 
Other than that, I am hoping to do something spectacular in February in honor of my 30th birthday!  I don't know where or what yet... only the when... ;-)  I am possibly thinking of taking a few nights to stay at the farm where Mufasa is and share my birthday with a lion... wouldn't that be memorable!!!  I wonder if he likes chocolate cake...
 
Thanks for taking the time to read all this... I miss you all!
 
much love,
kimmie 
 
 
 
P.S.  Just a quick update on my step-mom.  She had surgery done in Seattle and they found stones in her pancreas.  This would explain the chronic pain and reoccurring pancreatitis that my dad thought might have been cancer!  We are all thankful that it was such a good diagnosis!  She is recovering from the surgery and was expected to be put on solid foods this weekend.  Thanks for your prayers!
 
 
 
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