Katutura Soap Project

Hello Everyone!


My organization is helping to support this small business grow and be able to support the community for projects on HIV/AIDS.  We need one hundred votes for them to get started on givemeaning.com, then people will be able to donate to this organization. The Namibian Womens Health Network is support their project.  Here is the details: 


The Katutura Soap Project is a non-governmental and not-for-gain community based HIV project. It started to operate in 2009, beginning at a local shelter where women in need went to seek support. The purpose of the project is to offer an income generating possibility for HIV positive women in Namibia. Today there are five HIV positive mothers whom are working daily to produce ethical, environmentally friend and locally-sourced olive oil soaps. The ladies and their families also have a support group, and run awareness days and workshops for the community on issues related to HIV and AIDS. The goals of the project include: increasing awareness on HIV related issues, decreasing stigma associated with HIV, increasing community involvement and empowerment, creating a functioning network with other organizations working on HIV, increasing the understanding of the rights and responsibilities of people living with HIV, creating a culturally and linguistically appropriate support network for people living with HIV.


http://www.givemeaning.com/proposal/katuturasoapproject


Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Katutura-Soap-Project/194268063917299


Thanks for voting!Angela

Spending time with friends and Yoga...living life.

Hello everyone! 


We are winding down our experience and its been great thus far! 


I am writing about some experiences the last few days.  Last night, we went to my friend Hilda's house in Katutura, and met up with some other friends from Katutura.  We had a great time sharing stories and culture.  She made some great pieces of bread for us! Most of all she braided part of the side of my hair, and it turned out great. 


Today, I went with the ladies from my internship for a yoga class we did together.  It was very nice to have a relaxing night and to experience something like that with my fellow co- workers.  In such a short time, I have been welcomed in to such a loving caring community, and I could not ask for more!  People have been so kind and welcoming that it has been great. 


We are winding down our time with  a few projects and what not.  We are trying to make as much time as possible for enjoying our time with friends before we leave and try out the things we want to.  


Peace for now! Angela 

To the Coast....

Greeting Everyone!

Here are some photos from my adventure at the coast.  We went to Swacopmund, Mondesa, and Walvis Bay.  The first day we visited a few places including an after school program. It was exciting to see the work they were doing there.  The area was gated off and all of the buildings were made from donated shipping crates, which are easy to come by in a shipping town. It was very exciting to see the work that they did there with the top performing students in the former township, Mondesa. Even though their funding was limited, it seemed as though they were able to offer a lot of academics and support to the kids from the community. 

For dinner, we went to the ocean front, and found a beautiful restaurant on top of the water literally.  In the photo above you can see the lights at the end of the board walk, which was where it was.  It was very nice that our group was able to go to dinner together for the first time. We spent our money to get sushi (it was half off), dirnks, dinner, dessert. It was very nice. I tried a local fish called Kingsklip. At the end of the meal we got our bill, which was 1075 Namibian dollars, which is around 130 US dollars for seven people, which is only 18 dollars per person.  When you put it in perspective for the type of service and food that we got, the price is nothing.  But when you put it in perspective, some Namibians dont even make that much in a months time, as well as people pay that much for a months rent.  When put in perspective, we really had to recognized the privileges we have to be able to experience this. 

Below, this is a picture of all the ladies in my program!

The next day, we visited a Montessori preschool and training program.  Then we visited a sewing training program. Below is a picture from the shop of a graduated student from the training program.  He showed us a hand made wedding suite he had been working on that was N$800 ($100) and was very nice. All the clothes in the shop had been made by hand.  I think that we should appreciate more of this type of useful art forms. 

Next we made our way into the desert and to the dunes.  It is amazing on the coast you go from town, to more tropical areas, to the really dry desert, where they may only get rain once per year.  Below is a picture of one of the dunes. We climbed Dune 7, which is the highest dune in Namibia, and very steep. We climbed to the top (straight up) and then walked around and saw the view. It was a very spiritual experience to see Gods creation in a new way, exactly how it was meant to be. 

Below is a picture of me, Tawakal, and Courtney running and jumping together down the dune!

This is a picture of the group before the climb. 

This is us from the top. 

We then were staying only three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.  We went down for sun set, which was beautiful. We put our feet in the water and the foam, and it was not even that cold. 

We went out to a restaurant that had Karaoke. It was amazing to see that the whole place was Namibian Germans.  In Swacopmund the separation is even more apparent, and the racial economic disparities are even more extreme than in Windhoek from observation. 

On the last day, we went horse back riding in the morning in the desert.  We saw Springbok, which are almost like really slender deer,  there was probably a herd of 30 of them really close to us. For lunch, we went to Kapana in Mondesa to have beef and fat cakes ( fried bread).  We also got tomatoes and the picture above is of the spread in the market.  At Kapana, the people who are grilling will take a piece off, slice it, and then put it back on the grill, so you just grab a piece, and dip it in the spices and eat. 

It was very interesting to see how surprised people were to see us there. We got our picture taken by a few people even. What was even more surprising was to see how far - probably about a mile- the town ship was from the main part of town.  It was very separated but many people from Mondesa work in town. The apartheid policies is what made this happen and is still very real, even though it was twenty years ago that the policies were ended. 

Thank you for reading,  Angela 

eMTCT Conference

Hello All!


I am writing to you about an amazing experience at my internship this past week. It was such a blessing to be able to be a part of this experience.

The conference was at a conference center.  In order to get there we had drive far out of the city and up into the mountains in order to get to the conference center were the event took place.  


The event its self was pulled together in order to give feedback on the elimination of Mother to Child Transmission.  There were people from eight of the regions of Namibia there, including traditional leaders, religious leaders, women living with HIV, and other representatives.  In addition civil society and NGO's were there as well. 


Once we got there we spent time taking pictures, chatting, enjoying the sun, and getting settled.  I had the opportunity to meet the US Ambassador to Namibia while I was there briefly. We then had to wait 45 minutes until the first lady of Namibia showed up to start the opening ceremonies.  The first lady is a huge supporter of the work, especially health related, because she herself works as a nurse. Once she arrived with her security detail, the women connected to the NWHN began dancing.  Two of the women below (Linda and Alina)  are recent graduates of the English Literacy Class that my organization runs.  They are dressed in traditional Ovambo skirts, which is the pink pattern. This picture you can only see part of it.  

The conference began with speeches from a number of people, including the first lady, the ambassador, and the civil societies. One of the most powerful speeches of the day was from a couple, where the wife had been forcibly sterilised, even though they went through the PMTCT process, and another women who went through PMTCT.  In both cases, the virus was not passed along to their children.  It was very interesting to see that every time the first lady spoke, everyone stood up, but also she was conversing with a lot of people and very connected to the conversation and the feedback of the morning. 

In the afternoon, the conference continued with small working groups where people from every region came together to talk about the issues they are facing in regards to health care and male participation.  It was very cool to hear so many people speak so passionately about the issues that were important to them, and to hear about the number of issues and solutions that people had for those issues.  These conversations were going to have an impact on the overall plan that will be presented through the government in a few weeks. 

Overall, it was a great experience to be apart of such a grassroots effort to make change in Namibia in regards to stopping the transmission of HIV from Mother to Child. I think that often the best efforts are grassroots because in this case you had such a range of people there to represent the country and what efforts must be made.  You had people who are living in deep poverty all the way to the first lady of the country. It was very powerful to see this type of policy making and designing happening and is something we can learn from. 

During the day, I was very busy taking lots of notes and pictures!  Also I took all the videos of the women dancing.  I have a difficult time uploading pictures, but there are many on my organizations facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Namibian-Womens-Health-Network/109958059086329.  If you have a chance you can check these out! 

For now, I am off to bed, but I will share more about what was spoken about at the conference and the concerns.  Apparently, we were on TV!  Just let me know if you have any questions!  Also, I am going to write more soon about our weekend trip to Swacopmund on the coast of Namibia.   I can not believe it, but I will be coming home two weeks from today. 

Thank you for reading! 

Angela 

My best pictures so far.

My picture port has finally started working, so here are some of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks. 

Parliament Gardens in front of the Parliament Building in town in Windhoek.

My room at my host families house.

A picture of me and my host family, Trudi, Sam and Danta.

A picture of our CGE crew.  Lexi, Courtney, Tawakal, Amanda, Me and Ryan. 

Picture on the way of driving to the farm. 

Caterpillars, US AID and Recycling.

Hello everyone!  


We have had a mix of cook experiences the last twenty four hours I wanted to share. 


Last night for dinner we had caterpillars, cooked with onions and carrots.  I did try a small one, but the consensus was that they did not have too much of an appealing taste, but some people eat them here.  You will see them dried out at the market for people to buy next to the beans and what not.  We were joking that it was like being on fear factor. 


This morning we had the chance to speak to someone from USAID, the US governmental organization that distributes money in different countries around the world for development projects.  We heard about their process, what they are working on and how small NGO get grants. We met the director of the program in Namibia.  


It was very interesting because a lot of NGO's in Namibia are very reliant on foreign aid in order to run their business.  Despite the fact that Namibia has one of the highest income inequalities in the world, Namibia is now classified as a middle to high income country. With every city, there is former township and informal settlements that have not been developed in the same way as the city. Yet, the speaker was saying that a lot of the funders that are in Namibia are now starting to pull money out, including US AID because of the change in status. 


Unfortunately, these funds have such a large impact on the economy here, and bring so much money in that has created a cycle of reliance that must now be redirected in new ways to support the necessary programming. 


Lastly, today we went to a recycling plant in the afternoon, just to see how it was done. We found out that the plant was only build a few years ago, and it is one of five recycling plants in Africa.  It was amazing to see the amount of recycling that was sorted through.  The guy was saying that 90 of the trash is usually recyclable.  At this plant, they employ 250 workers that work shifts both day and night 24 hours a day. It was interesting to me to think about the number of jobs that could be created if the recycling process was utilized more. In this community, right now they have only started recycling in the town, and not in the other areas outside of the main part of Windhoek.  Hopefully they make efforts to expand. 


At the end we had some fun, and we broke bottles against the wall that needed to be smashed against the wall..  I will be posting some pictures when I make it home. 


Thanks for Reading, 
Angela 

Exciting Day at the Internship

Hello Everyone!


Today at my internship I had an exciting day working on a really cool project I wanted to share with you all!


Today I got to go with my supervisor, Mama Jeni, to the United Nations Offices in Windhoek for a meeting with a bunch of leaders at UNAIDS and a number of non-profits working on issues related to HIV/AIDS.  After getting to the meeting, I realized that the meeting was for planning for a big conference next week with people from all over Namibia from eight regions to come together.  Luckily I will be able to go to the meeting for one of the days. 


The meeting is being brought together to discuss prevention from Mother to Child strategies and access in the different regions in Namibia and also to review global policies. Today, I was working with my supervisor on finalizing a letter to the ministry of health and then contacting the participants. It was a busy busy exciting day!


I will have more reflections on the event next week.  The First Lady (The Namibian President's Wife) will be speaking at the opening ceremonies. 


Thanks for Reading....Angela 

Reflections on my Home stay.

Hello Everyone!  Sorry it has been so long since I have posted.  I have a number of things to share, so I will be writing a few different post.  Unfortunately my photo port is broken, but I will be attempting to share pictures from my group members and others on my facebook and on this page. 


So my host family, I stayed with Trudi and Sam and their two year old son Danta.  They live in a house in Katutura with three dogs.  We had great food and we had some take out (KFC, Spurs), we watched soccer and had a lot of down time. 


The family is Damara/Nama and spoke Nama, but also spoke Afrikaans and English.  Both of my host parents had family and themselves were very involved in the liberation struggle and are still activists.  Sam works as a developer as a consultant and works all around the region.  He travels often for work and has had the opportunity to travel all around the world.  Trudi has had her share of travels as well and now works for the City of Windhoek doing Youth Development.  Hearing from my friends at Young Achievers that they love Trudi, and she is so nice, I knew even more that I had a great host family. 


Their son Danta was very very cute, and had a great smile.  He fell in love with me by the first night.  Trudi said he did not know how to control himself he was so excited.  He would run around the house and jump around.  The best was that he only knew a little English, so he would speak to me in Afrikaans, often expecting my response, especially saying it a number of times thinking I would answer.  He would say AnGEEEEEla  AnGEEEEla.  Apparently he dreamt about me one night in his sleep as well.  We weren't sure what he was going to do when I left.


One day it was very funny, he was in my room I was staying in, and he tried to say something to me over and over again in Afrikaans. When I didn't respond after like five times and there was no one to translate for me, he started to speak in Damara/Nama, thinking that would work, but it did not. 


My accommodations were very nice, not much different than what I am used to which was very comfortable.  I got my own queen size bed for the weekend and my own room, which was nice to be away and have something different for a few days.  It definitely was strange being away from my housemates for so long though after we have been spending much of our days together the last few weeks. 


My host parents took me on a tour at night of Katutura.  They showed me the Bourbon Street of Katutura, which is a whole street of Shabines (or bars).  They said it gets pretty busy on the weekend, especially the last week of the month. They also drove around more of Katutura on the second night. At night in Katutura there are lots of people out and on the streets even when it gets very dark. Also there are lots of dogs that are up very late barking and barking all night long, which is a noise adjustment. 


On Saturday, I went with Sam to their farm.  They have a number of animals, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, chickens, and a turkey.  They said that it is great to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city.  Also they are able to teach their family members and their son about the importance of animals and about what life is like out of Windhoek.  They are also able to provide employment for up to three workers at the farm and purchase feed off of a women there. They are the only ones that farm there that come from outside of the village area. 


To get to the farm, we took the road towards the airport, and then went another half hour or so, so it was an hour away.  The road was paved with not much on either side, just lots of land, dried up rivers, and beautiful mountain ranges.  It is a great reminder of what Namibia really looks like out of Windhoek and makes you really understand that the population of Namibia is 2.1 million but with so much land. 


He was explaining to me about how land ownership worked for some of the huge commercial farm areas.  He said that during colonialization many German Settlers took control of large portions of land, and over time, that land has now been passed down a few generations.  The problem is that even when the independence happened, the land did not go back to who it belonged to.  The problem was surpassed and moved on, but a number of people and tribes no longer have the land they once used, and these huge spaces of commercial farms, are not actually being farmed, they are just sitting there. 


Even more interesting, the area their farm is in, was down a long dirt road, that gradually got smaller and smaller, to their house at the end of the 3 mile road.  As we drove there were a number of cows, donkeys, and goats that were roaming over the road and around different settlements that did not belong to them.  Also on the sides of the roads, there were people who had come back outside of the informal settlements because they could not find the opportunities that they thought they would have in Windhoek.  This is difficult because there is not a lot of sustainable living that they are able to do at this point in their position. Also, for kids to go to school who live in this community, they must go to a 'youth hostel', which is basically a boarding school, where kids go at the age of five to school, and are not able to see their families much. 


Being at my home stay, it was very interesting to see the impacts of American Culture. We were able to watch the cooking channel and all kinds of American TV shows.  We were talking about in our group, do they really think people in Namibia will be watching these shows when they are made, probably not. 


In conclusion, my last night, I made homemade spaghetti and meatballs and Papa's Salad - a Bonfiglio classic.  They loved the meal, and my mom asked for the recipe. It was nice to have a great last meal. 




Thanks for Reading...more to come....




Peace,
Angela

Back from Home Stay

Hello Everyone! 


I made it back from my home stay and I am starting a new week.  I will be blogging about my experience very soon and post this up! 


Peace, Angela 

Just an FYI, I will be at my homestay this weekend from tomorrow (Thursday) till Tuesday Morning.  I will be staying in Katutura with a family with two parents and one baby (one or two years old).  The home stay will give me a chance to live with a Namibian family and get more exposure to the life style of a family in Windhoek.  I am sure I will have reflections and pictures to share when I get back! 


Peace, Angela 

Hello Everyone!  I thought I would expand a little bit more on my internship! 

I am loving my internship so far.  I get to work with so many great people at the office from all over the world, from Canada, Germany, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia.  The back office that I work in with other staff and interns, we have lots of good conversations, connections and work together on lots of different projects. 

So far, I have been working on different little projects that come up as the days go on.  On Monday, I got to work with two other interns on two brochures, one about the organization, and the other about the End Forced Sterilization Campaign (endforcedsterilisation.wordpress.com).  In Namibia, there have been a number of cases where women who are living with HIV have been sterilized during pregnancy with out their consent despite the fact that there a number of other ways to prevent transmission from mother to child. Today I also worked on a letter to try to get more organizations to support the campaign.  

I have also been working on doing some other small projects here and there to support their programming. I am excited for tomorrow to observe the literacy classes.  I will be also working on the Youth Economic Empowerment Project, which is to help youth in Katutura to have access to training and education to be able to start their own businesses and to find employment in order to be more economically stable.  I will be working on this program as well to help support it. 

Lots of learning going on about the policies in Namibia, and the advocacy work being done to address these large issues. It is fun to see an organization that does so much advocacy as well as working directly with the community in a number of regions in Namibia.  

Please check out the Website if you are interested. http://www.namwhn.org/

I work at my organization three days per week from 8 to 5.  It is nice because I just have to walk up the street from my house to get there for about 5 minutes.  Lunch breaks in Namibia are from 1 to 2, so I get a chance to get out of the office and walk a little bit. 

Thanks for reading,

Angela 

Ps. Please comment or ask questions on my blog if you would like to know about something while I am here (or email). 

End of the Month

Hello Everyone!  I am writing to you about my weekend.

This weekend was the "End of the Month", which in Namibia is a big deal.  Everyone gets paid at the end of the month, so there is a great burst of spending the weekend after the end of the month.

We went downtown Saturday morning, and there was lots of traffic and there were long lines at the ATM.  Lots of people were out shopping and spending money!

It was very interesting to see how big of a deal this was.

Also on Sunday we got to go to Evelyn, the cook at our house, her daughters concert which was a fundraiser for going to Ohio in a few weeks.  It was really great to hear the beautiful singing and have some really taste food on a nice Sunday afternoon.

Thanks for now. Angela

Judgements and Assumptions

Hello Everyone!  


As I will say for everyday from now on, a lot as happened here in Namibia so far, and its has only been a week!


I started my internship on Friday, and met many amazing people!  I will be working with women at the organization, and interns from all around the world and the US.  We work out of a back office and we have a strong community in the space. Also I walk to my organization every day because it is so close to the house, which is really nice. 


Today, we met young adults from the group young achievers.  This group works with high school to college students to be able to succeed to the highest amount and to be positive role models in their community to bring access and resources.  They also maintain some small businesses in order to raise funds for their programming. We went to one of their meetings to sit in and to see what they were working on, to get to know each other, and for them to get to know us.  We also had a good conversation about politics and access with education in Namibia and the United States. 


What I learned from the conversation, is that we are really not much different, which sounds simple, but let me elaborate.  Even though our systems, structures, cultures, and traditions are very different, the problems we face and the challenges are similar.  We all have challenges, we all have triumphs, we all have failures, and we all have joys with in our own countries. 


From both sides, we often make assumptions about each other and about where we are from that then turn into powerful judgements that remove the humanity with in the relationships that we are able to have. For example, Americans often make assumptions about "Africa" as if it was one country, and that it is the same everywhere.  We must know that our assumptions and our expectations need to be expanded beyond what we know the stereotype to be. In order to remove these stereotypes from being such powerful assumptions, we must automatically start to assume that there is more to it, there is something else behind our assumptions. 


So as we were talking about standardized testing, and the movement of teachers in Minneapolis, and schools being funded by property tax in the United States, some of the students from Namibia started to realize that this media portrayed picture of the United States was not at all accurate, and the same could be said visa versa. 


What does this mean?  We must remove our assumptions and expectations as much as possible so we can push beyond the boundaries that they create. 


This weekend has been full of more exploring, socializing, getting homework done, and of course trying lots of good food.  


Peace, 
Angela