Double Trouble

Woo-hoo! We have met some Afrikaans people who have just moved to Ongwediva (from Rundu). Their children are similar ages to our two and they have started karate (where we met them). I had her children here to play last Saturday and THIS Saturday they are playing at her house! Wow! This is basically the first time the children have gone to play at someone’s house. As I have mentioned before, local children have little or no parental supervision during the day and I cannot let them go into unknown situations, especially Caris. So everyone plays here – hard work for Mum but it means I can keep an eye on them. So, thank God for another chance (other than drama) for Caris to learn to be away from me (and ME to have some quiet!).
BAD NEWS my side is that my hard drive crashed last weekend and I lost everything on it.
I had not backed up my email but HAD backed up my addresses.
I had not backed up Feb-March photos (or anything else in Feb) but HAD some low res ones of my favourite ones on the blog which I can download.
The computer had to be sent to Windhoek where it awaited a new hard drive from South Africa. Providentially, SA had one in stock and I did not have to wait for them to order one from USA. I hope to have it back tomorrow.
So, if I have not replied to a recent email from you, it means I lost it before I could. So, please feel free to resend it!
SAD NEWS here is the ongoing flooding up here.
From a press conference by his excellency Hifikepunye Pohamba, president of Namibia:
“The severe flood situation in the northern and north eastern part of our country has had a negative effect on agriculture and agricultural production. Wide-spread crop losses are expected. This will impact negatively on those communities who depend heavily on subsistence farming. As a result, large quantities of cereal will have to be sourced in order to prevent wide-spread hunger. The 2007/2008 rainy season was delayed in the north. This significantly reduced crop growing conditions and are likely to reduce the yield prospects by at least 40% compared to 2006/2007 harvest. In this context, we must act quickly. Another contributing factor is the heavy and continuous rains received between January and February this year. This has resulted in water logging and leaching which led to poor germination and stunted growth of the maize, mahangu (millet) and other crops. Many fields, especially in the Caprivi, Omusati, Ohangwena and Oshana Regions are submerged. This situation was exacerbated by flood water from Angola. The available information indicates that many communal farmers in the north have reduced the area under cultivation by as much as 50% due to wet fields and unavailability of draught animals which are in a poor state as a result of recent drought. My Government is also very concerned that recent outbreak of Army worms in Oshana and Oshikoto regions pose a major threat to crops and pasture.”
We live in the Oshana region. People are being forced from their homes all around Oshakati and in many rural places. When I have my computer back, I will post photos of the floods, and of people fishing for catfish in the oshanas (depressions which catch water in the floods – we live on a flood plain). I think, when the oshanas dry up, the fish (or eggs) hibernate in the mud until the next rainy season. At the beginning of the rainy season, down near Tsumeb, one can buy GIANT mushrooms (you could hardly get your arms around the cap) from people by the road. Then comes the giant frogs (needing two hands to hold) and now people sell fish. All important dietary supplements.
We have a young woman staying with us at the moment. We are trying to help Aune to get into a course to better her matric results. It is very hard for people here as there are so few places available at Uni and the best teachers go to Windhoek and other well-paying venues. Most people sitting Matric fail to get enough points first time to qualify for uni and then pay a fortune rewriting their matric, sometimes over a period of years.
She wrote an entrance test today. There was no clock available in the room and the woman invigilator told them the wrong time left at one point so everyone panicked for 30 minutes until she rectified it. Owning a watch is a luxury in Owamboland. Many people have mobile phones (which also tell the time) up here as land lines are both expensive and require electricity in the house. Living where there are no electricity or telephone lines, people with mobile phones can charge them at many little roadside shops – for a fee!
We in our culture take all these sort of things for granted; watches, phone lines, electricity, running water, an opportunity for a decent education (which is even given to us in our mother tongue!). David has one NETS correspondence student who is a pastor. He never had any schooling as he had to herd cattle and goats all his youth. But he has taught himself to read and write and is now doing his courses in English, can you believe it!
David has had Simon Gillham (the new CMS missionary who, with his family, arrived in Windhoek in January to work at NETS) with him this week. They have braved the floods and gone on ‘safari’, doing workshops. It has been good for david to have someone to show around and I think a good time was had by all!
Request:
I have lost all the freeware graphics I had downloaded for Caris to print out and colour in. If you have one you could scan in and send (not too high a resolution!), she would be very happy. We were getting a bit tired of the collection we had anyway. And I think I have exhausted all the colouring sites online!