Blogger: Katie Karstensen

Program: Windhoek, Namibia

Let me show you around some of my favorite places at my home for these three months:

Plumeria, the beautiful flower trees that I’ve happened to find at all of my favorite places I’ve been to so far.

View from Lover’s Hill overlooking the city of Windhoek.

Namibia Art Gallery, featuring work from local artists and students.

The Church, yes that’s actually the name of it. One of the many Lutheran churches in Namibia. About 95% of Namibians are Christian, and 75% are Lutheran.

The best meal I’ve had, and probably will ever have. At N/a’an ku sê Animal Lodge & Wildlife Sanctuary.

Clarence the Lion

African Wild Dogs, on the endangered species list with only about 5,000 animals left, mostly in northern Namibia. They have very poor immune systems, so if they eat an animal that’s sick, they also become sick.

My new favorite animal, the oryx.

Stained glass window inside the Church of God. The top of the stained glass window shows a pelican. Not remembering any pelicans in the Bible, we asked and were told it was thought pelicans gave part of themselves up to feed their young, though in reality they pick up food in their beaks, store it, and then feed their babies. So the pelican acts as symbolism, reminding of us how Jesus gave up himself for us.

Namibia Independence Museum

Windhoek is full of lots and lots of colorful flowers that make walks around the city even more pleasurable.

The typical view of yellow flowers and mountains when driving right outside of the city.

Habitat Research Development, an environmental sustainability facility that teaches community members alternative ways to build houses and live in a more environmentally friendly manner.

Craft Cafe Bookstore

Three Circles, literally three circles of concrete where people use street art to express political opinions, artistic expressions, or whatever someone is feeling. Everything goes.

Sunset at the Hilton Hotel Sky Bar, also known as a sundowner: getting drinks with friends while watching the sunset.

The classes I am taking this semester are a part of my experiential learning. It has taken some getting used to having lectures in the living room at our house, but I’ve been grateful for a change of pace in my academic learning style. With our classes, we go to different areas of the city, and even country to learn more about Namibia from the places and people themselves. Through my Environment and Sustainability class, I have had the opportunity to go to a Bird Rehabilitation Center (which due to my fear of birds was one of the more scary things I’ve participated in), community development and educational environment sustainability centers, and will be visiting NaDeet (the Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust) for an upcoming weekend. Through my Religion and Social Change course I have had the opportunity to go to a Lutheran Church, Dutch Reformed Church, and Jewish Synagogue. We have heard from speakers about African Traditional Religion and different marital practices within Namibian tribes. Through my History, Racism, and Resistance class I have had the opportunity to learn more about apartheid and the colonization of the Southern Africa and explored different museums including history about Namibia and the different tribes (Herero, Damara, Nama, and Oshiwambo to name a few).

We’ve had the opportunity to learn more about the city by guided driving and walking tours, and even being dropped off in the middle of the city with a map, a couple of dollars, and a few hours to navigate our way home on our very first day in Namibia. I’ve been able to bond with other students on the program by going out to markets, small music festival with local artists, and other events. Another must if you’re ever spending time in Windhoek is to try kapana. Single’s Corner Market in Katutura, a neighborhood in Windhoek, contains some of the best meat I’ve ever tried, and that’s saying a lot after being raised on a beef farm in the Midwest. Single’s Corner has a colorful mix of women selling clothing, men selling leather shoes, spices, mopani worms, fat cakes, and so many other things. The other half of the market is where trucks come with entire animal carcasses and people immediately butcher the animals out in the open for all to see, then more people slice up meat to put on the open fire grill where you can walk and sample meat from every station. You walk up to a grill and pick the meat right off of it and dip it in kapana spice, this wonderful orange, spicy, delicious goodness. After sampling you can get a box of kapana all for yourself, best paired with fat cakes (delicious fried bread), special sauce (freshly chopped tomatoes and onions), and a Stoney Ginger Beer.

— Katie

Blogger: Katie Karstensen

Program: Windhoek, Namibia

From getting to know the sixteen other students I’ll be living with for the next few months, art and history museums, climbing Table Mountain, and swimming with penguins, Cape Town quickly became one of my favorite places I’ve had the opportunity to visit and learn from.

To give a descriptive look into Cape Town, imagine standing on a beach with the ocean on one side, the city itself on a hill above you, and towering behind it lies Table Mountain with soft clouds rolling over the side of it like a waterfall, and to the other side you see Lion’s Head, seemingly coming from the midst of nowhere. During our time in Cape Town, we were able to go on a walking tour of the city to learn

Iconic Nelson Mandela glasses sculpture on the coast.

more about the history behind the hustle and bustle of locals and tourists in constant motion on the streets. Our insightful tour guide, Lucy, was one of my favorite people I’ve met so far. She talked at length about her passion for feminism, but dislike of the term because of how people view it. Cape Town, as I’m realizing with most large, somewhat touristy cities in Southern Africa, contained a lot of juxtaposition. We passed a building that was formerly an execution house for local tribes Europeans were colonizing, that now stands as a church.

We passed a former prison that now acts a university. We went through a museum, another prison that held little attention for those who were imprisoned there. Cape Town comes out of tragedy. As I learn more about colonization of Southern African colonies, the best way I can relate it to something I’m familiar with is the treatment of the indigenous people in the United States. In the U.S. our treatment of Native Americans (taking over

View from the top of Table Mountain.

their land, genocide, giving them small reservations of land to live off of) is similar to how European countries came to a land that wasn’t theirs but took it as their own.

Visiting Robin’s Island was another difficult learning experience. A short boat ride away, our group visited the island where up to 1,000 prisoners were held at a time who opposed the apartheid movement in Southern Africa. Prisoners, the most famous being Nelson Mandela, were kept in terrible conditions, tortured, and sometimes kept in solitary confinement. Only a few short years after the last prisoner was released, the island opened as a museum, “celebrating the freedom of oppression.” Ex-prisoners are now tour guides, most of whom do it for the money. There were only three people from South Africa in our entire tour group; the rest were all white and from different countries around the world. The tour was a strange experience and very intense as we saw the room where our tour guide spent many years of his life and Nelson Mandela’s cell that held him for eighteen years. Then right before we left the island, it was as if a switch had flipped and there was a touristy shop, incredible views, and penguins playing on the beach.

Sunset view on the beach at Camp’s Bay.

Table Mountain is one of the New Natural Wonders of the World. Climbing up the India Venster trail offered views of the entire city of Cape Town along the ocean, and unexpectedly a new friend. I don’t have much (any) experience rock climbing but was feeling ambitious and wanted to take the less touristy trail up the mountain. I was doing really well and cheesily couldn’t stop smiling because of the opportunity to be surrounded

Penguins sunning themselves in Simon’s Town.

by 360 degrees of God’s natural beauty. I was enjoying going along the trail, marked by yellow spray-painted footsteps on the ground when I came to a place in the trail where I couldn’t figure out where to turn and couldn’t find any of the yellow footstep markers.

When I looked up, I found a yellow footprint on a boulder at a 90 degree angle to the ground at my eye level. I could not for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to go up the side of this ten foot boulder to continue on the trail. Then Robin appeared, a 72-year-old member of the South African Mountain Club. We greeted one another, and I told him I was taking it slow, and he could go ahead of me, hoping I would be able to watch and figure out just how to get on top of this rock. Knowingly, he asked if I would like for him to show me how to get up the rest of the trail. Robin climbs Table Mountain once a week to keep in shape. As we hiked up the rest of the mountain together, Robin shared stories of his life with me and saved my life at one particular difficult section when I slipped on a rock but Robin was there to catch the handle of my backpack and pull me up to a rock to prevent me from falling off the side of a steep boulder. Robin was an electrical engineer with two kids and a couple of grandchildren, one who we discovered goes to University with my sister in Indiana (yay for small world moments). His family originally came from Britain, but Robin was born and raised in Cape Town. Recently Robin had retired and become a widower, and in protest of becoming the old man that sits home all day and watches bad television, he makes sure to leave the house everyday, whether it be swimming in the ocean, boating, climbing a mountain, exploring the city, or spending time with his friends.

— Katie

Blogger: Katie Karstensen

Program: Windhoek, Namibia

Lowell, Indiana → Chicago → Washington D.C. → Ghana → Johannesburg, South Africa

An early morning take off from Chicago to Washington D.C.

I’m constantly thankful that I’ve been instilled with a sense of adventure from a young age. I didn’t have the opportunity to travel outside of the Midwest before college, yet I was constantly outside hiking, attending camp, or even playing outside on my farm. Valparaiso University has granted me travel opportunities I am forever thankful for, and it is one of the reasons I decided to attend this school. I’ve known I wanted to study abroad since my freshman year and enjoyed the process of deciding where I wanted to go and which program would be the best fit for me. That process has led me to a semester in Southern Africa with a program through the Center for Global Education at Augsburg College, called Nation Building, Globalization and Decolonizing the Mind. For the next three and a half months, I will be exploring Southern Africa, learning about the history and its effects in this area, taking classes, and working at internship with Family of Hope Services in Windhoek, Namibia.

Nelson and Winnie Mandela’s House in Soweto

Our first few days in Johannesburg entailed getting a crash course in the history of South Africa, the role of Apartheid, and a focus in the role youth have played in the country’s history. We visited Nelson Mandela’s house, the U.S. Embassy, Apartheid Museum, the Hector Pieterson Memorial, and Regina Mundi. My first impression of Johannesburg were the vast amount of contrasts we encountered. During our driving tour, our group went through a rich subdivision, which had experienced white flight after Apartheid, and viewed large houses with extravagant gardens and maximum security. Then looking in the other direction across a field, there were a collection of tin shacks families were residing in.

In communication with local residents, South Africans know the United State’s political system in and out. In contrast, only one or two student in my group knew who the president of South Africa was, or that there are more than two political parties. The trend of finding contradictions has continued throughout my time here.

An exhibit from the Apartheid museum. Upon entering the museum, visitors were randomly given tickets saying “white” or “non-whites.” After receiving our ticket we had to enter in two different entrances according to our race.

June 16th Children’s Memorial, the route in which children marched and rioted in the streets. The accounts presented in the museum are from government records, due to government funding. The actual events of the day involved much more violence and blood from police officers towards students.

One of the stained glass windows at Regina Mundi, a church where the students involved in the June 16th march took refuge amidst the riot. Police shot at the walls of the church from the outside and banged their guns against the marble altar hard enough to chip off its edges to scare the students, but no students were shot within the walls of the church.

This particular window shows the image of a saint whose race appears to be white from the inside, and black from the outside.

Visiting the Union buildings with an overlook of Johannesburg

The first weekend in South Africa, our group was divided into pairs and hosted by families across the city of Johannesburg and Soweto. I stayed with a family where both parents worked for the police station, and had two children ages eight and fourteen. The family has been working with CGEE(Center for Global Education) for many years and welcomed my friend Emily and I into their homes as if we were their own children. Another difference I repeatedly notice is the lack of language education we have in the United States compared to other countries. Everyone I have met in this country speaks multiple languages including English, Afrikaans, French, German, Spanish, Xhosa, Damara Nama, and usually a few other African dialects. My host father speaks thirty languages and explains he needs to know them so he is able to communicate with everyone he comes in contact with through his criminal intelligence office. As we strolled through a market together, he bartered with five different women for vegetables and fruit, and after speaking to each told me which language they had been speaking in, all five speaking different native tongues and our father replying at ease to them.

Another favorite part of my homestay was the food. Food is generally a favorite part of my life, and cooking with my host mother and trying unfamiliar foods was a favorite part of my homestay as well. Every meal consisted of pop, a grain that is comparable to the texture of thick mashed potatoes. We ate with our hands and used pop to stick to our other foods and eat. I became an expert at making pop and chakalaka, a spicy vegetable mixture. While being in Southern Africa, I have also discovered my favorite tea. It is called Rooibos, a red tea that can be found in every household and restaurant here.

View from Top of Africa at the Carlton Center, the tallest building in Johannesburg

Dinner I helped to prepare at my homestay. On Sundays my host family has “seven colors meals.” They prepare a dish that consists of seven different colored foods, so may add foods like beets, carrots, squash, tomatoes, and other foods so they have a larger variety.