There are paw paw and mango trees and other trees with enormous pods. Not sure what they are, but will try and find out. 

Ants make enormous ant hills in the sand. This one is 4cm in diameter.

At the end of our road is a famous baobab tree, in which an English man called Mr Trollope is reputed to have built a toilet in the trunk. The remains of the toilet can still be seen!

These two boys asked to have their photo taken while I was taking a  picture of the baobab tree.

A lizard basking in the sun in the garden in Katima

Tadpoles in a muddy puddle in the middle of a sandy road. They weren't there the day before.
Lots of  frogs and toads here.

Haven’t seen any elephants or big animals yet, but have seen many of these centipedes. They are up to 10cm  long and crawl about everywhere, through sand, grass and even in the house. 

There are also these very colourful grasshoppers, which are about 3cm long and very attractive.

Life in Katima and School Hours and Grades

We have to filter and boil all the water we drink. We boil water from the tap in a kettle or pan, leave it to cool and then pour it into the top of this water filter. It then very slowly filters through to the bottom section, leaving the sand and grit behind. We can then drink the water that comes out of the tap at the bottom. Local people don’t bother with this, they just drink the water straight from the tap.

We have had torrential rain everyday for about an hour, at different times each day. Sometimes it is early morning on the way to school and sometimes in the afternoon or  night time. It is very cool today, around 20 degrees, but it was much hotter this morning when we were out doing the shopping (it’s Saturday). 

Yesterday schools finished early because it was Friday, so the children and teachers all left at 12.10. On other days, having started at 7am, they have a half hour break around 10 0’clock and then have the second session until 12.50pm. The younger children in grade zero, grade 1 and grade 2 finish a bit earlier at 11.30. Grade 0 has the youngest children in the school, age 5-6. Lots of children have to stay in the same grade for a second or third year until they pass the test which allows them to move up to the next grade. So children are not all the same age in each grade (or year group). 

Katima Mulilo

In the centre of Windhoek there is a display of pieces of meteorite. Can you find out when and where this famous meteorite fell?  

The long journey to Katima Mulilo brought me to a very different landscape. No mountains, but even greener than the rest of Namibia. The ground is damp, and in some places very muddy.








 We planted some seeds in the garden, but I think most of them have been washed away in a heavy rain storm. 

I am living in a large house in Katima, while I wait for mine in Bukalo to be ready. There is a lot of burglary here, so we have bars on the doors and windows. Burglars usually take food. Why do you think that is? The picture shows the bars at the door to my room.  Over my bed I have a mosquito net, which is essential to help to prevent me getting malaria.

People around here live in huts made of wood, mud and reeds. They are called rondevilles. Some of the huts have electricity – here is one with a satellite dish. Most of the teachers and children live in huts like these. 

I have visited my new school in Bukalo and met some of the teachers and Mr Nalisa, the head teacher (they are called principals in Namibia). I have to leave at 6am to get to school, which starts at 7am. The children finish at 1pm. Children walk to school and many of them have to walk a very long way (up to 5 miles).  

About Windhoek

Hello everyone. Here I am in the capital city of Windhoek where I have been staying in a guest house for a few days, getting to know a bit about Namibia and preparing to travel up to the very far north. I am with two other school leaders from England. We have sorted out all the things we need like banking facilities. The photo shows one of the training sessions with Irene from VSO at the office in Eros, Windhoek. VSO stands for ‘Voluntary Service Overseas’.

We had a really interesting tour around some of the areas where people live in Windhoek today. There is a very posh and affluent area with big houses. Mostly, the people who live in these houses have white skin. There is a much bigger area called a township where most of the people who live there have very dark skin and are known as black people. These houses are well-built, made from bricks, but not as grand as the white people’s houses. Then we visited a very, very large area, called the squatters area where everyone is black and the houses are literally small huts made of corrugated iron. Many of the people here have come to Windhoek from the countryside, looking for work. The homes look very temporary, but people live in these for a long time.  The last area we saw had houses which were neither very rich, nor very poor. The people who mostly live in this township are called ‘coloured’ people, which means that the person has some mixed race in their family history. People are happy to identify themselves as coloured – here in Namibia it is ok to refer to them in this way. It was very interesting to see such a big contrast between white, black and coloured people's homes. There are some black people who live in the area with mostly white people, but not many. There are no white people who live in the township where black people or coloured people live.

Today we are travelling overnight on a bus, setting off at 6.30pm, and are due to arrive,1250 km later, at 10.30am the next morning. How many hours travel is that, and how many miles? We will travel through a game park in Caprivi in the early morning and I shall be looking out for elephants!  

Preparing to Depart

I am almost ready to go to Namibia now. I am looking forward to going and enjoying some new experiences. I have set up this blog so that I can include photos and let you know what I'm up to. Here are two pictures of our school, to help me remember what it looked like before I left England!