36 Hour Itinerary

Leg one of this escapade: Seattle to D.C. Other legs as follows: DC to Ethiopia. Then to Windhoek.
When I checked my bag in at the counter (of the extremely rude United Airlines workers), it weighed 49.5 lbs. Talk about a narrow escape!!! I'm being watched over on this trip and it's only just begun :)

I'm not too thrilled to have the next 36 hours consist of cramped airplane seats and stiff airports but I'm freakin going to Africa and going to LIVE THE DREAM so I'll take it. I mean, I would even swim there if I could. Looking forward to what the future holds.

Made it to Washington DC and et me say one thing-- Red-eye flights are PAINFUL! Waiting to board Ethiopian Airlines headed for Addis Ababa. So pumped! I'm surprised to see as many white people waiting to go to Namibia as I see. My favorite fellow passenger is an Ethiopian priest/imam adorned in his blue robe, matching hat thing, and carrying a beautiful wooden cross at least 12 inches tall. Here goes the adventure! Cheers, America!

Can you see the bags under my eyes and disheveled hair? I just don't understand how some people can look so put together when traveling! Hahahaha.**And traveling hack that I just used and LOVE. Bring your own oats in a little bag and then go to a Starbucks in the airport and ask for a cup of hot water. Add the oats, and viola! If you didn't mix in brown sugar and cinnamon already, go to Starbuck's condiment counter and go crazy. Add some milk, nutmeg, vanilla...so good and saves you so much money!

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Going Native

As tradition follows for the BYU Namibia Field Study, all of the girls are invited over to a homestead of some women and allowed to dress up in traditional garb. For the Himba, this encompasses the red okre butter that they apply to their skin called “otjize” as well as goat skin skirts and skin head dresses. Then there are the woven belts, necklaces, and bracelets. We purchased some of the otjize rocks in Opuwo and brought them to start grinding. Marahoraguapi helped me grind it into a fine red powder. This stuff stains EVERYTHING and we wanted to get to be as close to a real native woman so we wore our bras and shorts. I was the first to get covered in the red paste and those women put it on thick—especially on my face. Not gonna lie, I looked really scary with my bright green eyes and white teeth against a shocking deep red skin. Our translators came along with us and Nicki in particular said that she couldn’t even look at me for a while because I was so freaky looking!...

NGOMBO—Stanley & Todd

If you remember from the Night from Hell that happened in our little camp, Boone brought a black goat to our camp and slammed it on the ground saying, “Should I kill it right now?” The story of Stanley (who turned out to be a girl) continues on to the next day when we actually slaughtered the thing. Jason, his friend, and Hartley (our translators) were the head honchos in slaughtering our goats. I’m not gonna lie, as we tried to eat our dinner of canned beans, I lost my appetite the closer we got to slaughtering the poor beast and when they stabbed the knife into it’s neck and drained the blood into a can, I freaked. Thankfully I kept most of my chill and didn’t want to look away just so I could say that I saw them slaughter a goat in our camp. People took turns skinning it and then we pulled out the machete to hack it down the middle. Gruesome but fascinating. When they split the thing open, Jason pulled a joke and pretended to predict the forecast by looking into its entr...

Funerals & Witches

So, witch craft is the driving force in this village among the Himba and Hakawona and the longer we stick around to observe these people, the more juicy the witch craft stories get. They call it "omiti". Our second week here, a Himba woman died and so we attended the week+ long festivities at their homestead. We missed the burial for that one because nobody knows how to relay details or plans because most people don't even know what day, month, or time it is. Basically there are three hours of the day: Sun rise, sun in middle of sky, and sunset. No such thing as "plans" here! Well, our third week had a Hakawona woman die. As we had learned previously, nobody just dies of natural causes here. It is always because of a curse that somebody else had put on them. Then begins the fun of finding out who the jealous witch is that killed them! (I find myself incredibly frustrated over here because innocent people are blamed and beaten over a belief that omiti is real...

BYU in the Bush

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