Luck of the ‘Bing

Phenomenal all-you-can eat buffet at the hotel followed by the swearing-in ceremony, the Otjiherero learners did a passable job at giving our pledge and Chad did well with his speech, however the Khoekhoegowab students were the stars of the show earning the collective adulation of the assembly as well as the American ambassador, Joyce Barr. There were a few speeches including a gentleman from the Namibian Ministry of Education, the Country Director Jeff Millington, Waldo Junius the APCD for Education and Tuaunda Keeja, our training facilitator.
My host family was unable to make it from Otjimbingwe but Silas and Matt’s host mothers were in attendance wearing traditional Herero clothing. We also had some amazing cultural performances whose provenance I couldn’t place, it was a troupe of young men and women doing song and dance that was African in origin but I have not seen anywhere in Namibia. Afterwards we had a brief reception and I sent my laptop off with Jason to be mailed to S. Africa for repairs. Everyone headed back to their respective rooms, packed up, said some goodbyes and then started boarding buses, Land Cruisers, and combis for their trips to site. Unfortunately there was no transport for the teachers going to Otjozondjupa region and we were able to stay another night at the hotel. It was actually a blessing in disguise allowing me to do some errands around town, do last-minute purchasing that I missed during my out-of-body shopping experience and grab an amazing dinner at Taal. It started pouring and when we finally got to the restaurant we looked like drowned rats but we were seated anyway and enjoyed ourselves very much. Since it was so far from our hotel we had the restaurant call a car for us. As is common the car made another stop to pick up passengers at another restaurant. As it happened a couple of us went into the other restaurant to go to the bathroom. When I was waiting I hear my name being called with the unmistakably pleasant voice of Richard Siriryinka. It was great to run into him and we shared some laughs before promising to meet up in Cape Town – of course this serendipitously pleasant event would only happen to the Otjimbingwe learners whose “luck of the bing” has served us well throughout training.
In the morning Brock and I headed out with Stanley for Grootfontein picking up groceries along the way and relaxing to soothing classics from the Soul Brothers and Jimmy Cliff.