Democracy U

I was recently asked to do a blog for a project at my school, and I spoke a little bit about my trip!

Just thought I would share.

Angela

http://democracyu.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/my-sources-of-inspiration-to-create-change/

End Forced Sterilisation Trial

While I was in Namibia, the organization I interned at was working on the End Forced Sterilization Case, trying to get a judgement court date for two years.  While I was there I worked on some letters and some brochures for the campaign, which was a very very small part of all the work that has been put in.  Some progress has been made since the July 30th Court date, but please read up on the news that is getting international attention from all over the world. I worked and was friends with the people in this article which makes it even cooler!

http://www.mintpress.net/international-aids-conference-hits-home-for-namibian-women/

Front Cover of the Namibian

http://www.namibian.com.na/news/full-story/archive/2012/july/article/govt-held-liable-for-sterilisations/

http://allafrica.com/stories/201207190900.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19044569



MY BODY, MY WOMB, MY RIGHTS!

Photos

I uploaded my best 512 photos to facebook this week if you want to see more from my trip! 


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4284513952807.2170019.1285114358&type=1


-Angela

On my way home...

Hello Everyone!  I did this entry on my way home from Windhoek. 

Leaving was by far harder than I thought.  In my short time here I have made lifelong friendships with a number of people from all over the world. People who are the type that I could just pick up where we left off.  Over the course of Saturday night and Sunday morning, saying goodbye was very hard, because you really mostly do not know when you will see that person again even though we all say that we are going to visit. It is amazing how connected people and a community can become in such a short period of time.

When getting on the airplane, the Beyonce song “I Was Here” came on, which really connected to how I was feeling at that moment.  This time in the airplane and airports by myself will help me have more time to rest and reflect. I will be meeting up in London with two of the guys from my program who will be passing through at the same time. Otherwise it is from Windhoek to Cape Town to London to Boston for me.  I will arrive by the afternoon on Monday in Boston. 

What I have realized is that it is not really about where you go, it’s more about what you do while you are there, who you meet, and what you make of it. In the end, I felt like I made the best of my time, learned a lot, and had a great experience.

Thanks for reading, Angela 

Etosha National Park

Hello Everyone!

Our last few days of the trip from Thursday to Saturday were spent at Etosha National Park, which is an animal reservation north of Windhoek by about 3 to 6 hours, depending on how fast you drive.  Etosha was created before independence, but there were San people living in the area before hand.  When speaking to people on the trip we learned that there is a court case now because the San people want their land back. 

Within the park, there are three main camps that you can stay at and a few roads to drive around on.  Anyone is able to enter the park and go on a game drive, where you drive along the road and along the watering holes to see animals.  According to our guides, Passat and Nespect, who have taken a number of trips in the park, we were a very lucky group.  We got to see about every animal, except maybe a cheetah, which is very rare. 

It was very surreal and unbelievable that we were in this park, where there were herds of hundreds of Zebra and we were so easily seeing a pride of lions and hundreds of ginnea fowels.  Even more surreal was our camp site.  We camped in a park where about 300 feet walk from our camp site you could walk to a man made watering hole that was open to the park, and around the watering hole was benches, where we could sit in silence and watch animals as they would come to the watering hole.  We spent a lot of time here watching for animals to come to see what would come and what would happen.  It was amazing how time just seemed to pass so easily sitting there.  We saw so many animals right there including elephants, rhinos, giraffe, zebras, kudu, ginnea fowel, oryx, and many more.  We got to see the animals interact and what not aswell.  My favorite was one night we saw about twenty elephants at once at the watering hole.

Another favorite part of the trip was cooking on the braai.  We had really good meat and vegetables and it was great to spend this last bit of our trip together.

Thanks for reading, Angela  

Final Days in Windhoek

Hello! 

In our final days in Windhoek we did a number of things to make sure we got to see our friends and have a good time before we left.  We attended a braai on Tuesday, and then we hosted our own braai on Independence Day to celebrate and to have closure as our last day at the house.  We also decided to have a pretend wedding, and I bought and wore a traditional Oshiwambo skirt, called an Ondelela.   Just purchasing the skirts with two of my roommates was a great experience, we had lots of fun in the shop trying them on and wearing them home.  We decorated the skirt up with wearing some beads I borrowed from a friend like a belt.  I had some help attaching the head piece as well. 

It was a blessing to have everyone together, including the women from my internship to friends we had made over the course of the semester.  We were able to celebrate what we had learned and what we had in common.  We did sing the national anthem as well.

In the last few days I got the chance to say goodbye to people from my internship, my host family,  and others I had met.

Thanks, Angela 

Final Project

As you know I am doing school while I am here, and out final project for both my internship class and my development class was to use themes and experiences while we were in Namibia to present to the group.  We had to use some sort of artistic or creative element for our project.  Below is my project that is symbolic for “Women and Solutions” for Namibia. I also created a Prezi presentation to go along if you are interested.

Thanks, Angela 

PS,  My lovely co-workers came to join!  Love these ladies.   Here is the link :Prezi Presentation Link