For our Fall Break, five friends and I chose to go to on vacation to Livingstone, Zambia. We spent 8 days taking a break from the hectic nature of classes and guest speakers and simply did whatever we wanted. We had an adventure planned for nearly every day.

On Monday, we experienced the gorgeous sunset on the Zambezi during a relaxing sunset cruise. We saw a TON of hippos and even an elephant hanging out by the side of the riverbank!

Sitting right on the edge of the Falls. One misstep & it would have been “Bye bye, Christiana”!

On Tuesday, we ventured just up the road to the Zambia side of Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls is the largest waterfall in the world & revered as one of the world’s Seven Natural Wonders. It is so large that it is located in two countries – Zambia and Zimbabwe. This particular event quickly got to be more thrilling than we anticipated – a private guide took us to a place where we could sit on the very edge of the Falls, lean over the edge and look down, and swim in a natural pool about a meter from the edge of the Falls!

We decided to take it easy on Wednesday, so we spent the day catching rays and reading by the side of the pool at our backpackers’ hostel.

Lizz Mook (Valpo) & Kayla Griffin (Pacific Lutheran) free-falling down the gorge on the gorge swing.

Thursday was definitely the scariest of our adventures. We spent the entire day at a gorge near Victoria Falls doing all sorts of ropes activities – including the gorge swing. For the gorge swing, you get strapped into not one, but two, harnesses, take a giant step off of the edge of the gorge, and free-fall 53 meters in 3 ½ seconds until you begin swinging at the end of the rope until they let you down. It is gut-wrenchingly terrifying, but the view was great!

The majestic “Main Falls” on the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls.

Friday’s adventure was going back to Victoria Falls, but this time we went to the Zimbabwe side. To me it seemed like the Zimbabwe side was more of the touristy side, and the Zambia side was more for the adventure activities. Both sides are absolutely breath-taking!

Our final adventure was our Chobe Safari Day in Botswana on Saturday. In the morning we went on a boat safari on the Chobe River. On that safari we saw lots of elephants, hippos, birds, lizards, and crocodiles. The afternoon game drive in Chobe National Park showed us hippos and elephants out of

Our safari adventure through Chobe National Park was a success!

the water. The hippos are massive creatures – its mind-blowing! Our day in Botswana was definitely a day to remember.

We made it home to Windhoek the morning of Monday, October 24^th. Now we’re getting back into the swing of classes and moving right along. I can’t believe there is only just over a month left of my time here!

Three Himba boys just hanging out on the fence in the village

The first part of our second week in northern Namibia was spent getting in touch with the people of the indigenous people of the Himba culture. The Himba are well-known for their distinctive appearance, which includes a reddish skin tone achieved by applying a mixture of red ochre and cow butter to their bodies, along with clay and elaborate hairpieces on top of their heads. The Himba have thus far avoided (or refused) assimilation into mainstream Namibian culture, and as such have managed to preserve traditional cultural beliefs and lifestyle.

We camped about 200 feet outside a traditional Himba village. We visited the village to learn about Himba traditions and clothing, and also to attend the market they held for us. We enjoyed being able to support the Himba through purchasing jewelry from the market. However, we also felt very torn because our village guide told us earlier in the day that the two things would wipe out the Himba culture in the next 25 years – money and education.

We thought about the effects of education on the Himba culture when we visited a mobile school. The Himba are a nomadic tribe based on cattle herding, so they have created schools that travel with them throughout the seasons.

One of the students at the mobile school working on his studies

The mobile school we visited was little more than two classes sitting under a tree for shade, but we were told that the school had hosted 80 learners in the last year. That is a drastic improvement over the early 2000s, when no children were attending school.

After our visit with the Himba, we drove to Etosha National Park where we spent the next couple of days. We camped in the park, and had a pretty

A herd of elephants quenching their thirst in the watering hole!

relaxing couple of days. We made use of the gigantic swimming pool, went on a couple game drives, and spent some time watching animals drinking from the watering hole that was just up the path. What an astonishing experience it is to have an elephant or a rhino drinking water right in front of you!

After a great week in the North, complete with many questions, sunburns, and photos, we were ready to head off to Fall Break!

I’m back in Windhoek and ready to swamp you with all of the wonderful experiences I have had! Just kidding. I’ll try to keep it brief, but still give you the gist of everything I have experienced these last couple weeks.

When we were picked up for our Rural Homestays in northern Namibia, we were greeted with all of the families singing a song that, translated, means “We are happy to be together”. It was absolutely amazing to see them all so overjoyed to welcome us into their homes. Their happiness made meeting them one of the most memorable parts of my semester so far. Over the course of the week, I even got to learn the song.

For the week, I lived with Tate (Father) Jeremia, Meme (Mother) Opuwo, Magy (age 18, the daughter of Tate Jeremia’s cousin), and my host brother Inekele (age 1 ½, pronounced in-eh-KAY-lah). Just down the path, about a 20 minute walk away, lived Tate Joseph and Meme Fina. They are the parents of Tate Jeremia.

The view from my front gate at Tate Jeremia’s house.

Tate Jeremia & Meme Opuwo’s house was a neat blend of modern and traditional. There was a large concrete structurehe  in the center of the property where we all slept, kept a lot of the food, and ate dinner. The perimeter of the property was fenced off by both metal fences and walls made of sticks. Several rooms outside were made of sticks and used for things such as a kitchen, a laundry area, bucket bath area, and storage. We used a gas-powered generator to watch the news each night, but used a fire to make the dinner.

During the day, we had class and then the nights were spent with our families. Throughout the course of the week, I got to experience several new things with my family. Meme Fina, my host grandmother, taught me how to pound mahangu (pearl millet) using holes in a concrete slab and a huge pole with a weight on the end. Pounding the mahangu enough turns it into flour, which is then used to make mahangu porridge, a traditional drink, and a type of traditional bread.

Meme Fina also taught me how to weave a basket out of reeds. I did pretty well, although my basket looks like it could be a resting place for an ant. It was a busy week, so my basket weaving had to take a back seat to other things.

As I mentioned in another post, it has been fun teaching my host families how to cook American foods. Since I’m no expert at cooking anything real over a fire, I taught my family how to make s’mores! They loved it & told me they would do it again for Christmas.

The Valpo girls decked out in traditional celebration clothing. A few siblings jumped in the shot too!

We even had a huge party at the end of the week for all of the families where we did traditional dances, sang songs, and ate some great food!

I had a really great week with my host family. I couldn’t have asked for more. They were so wonderfully welcoming, enjoyed talking to me about their culture, showed me some of they ways they do things, and gave me opportunities to learn things I would have never learned outside of northern Namibia. The rural homestay was definitely a highlight of my trip.

You can check out more photos of my homestay on my Picasa site!