I heard that a kindergarten was being named after my friend Marybeth late last week. What a great honor to have a building in your name doing so much good work for the less fortunate. For those of you who have never heard of Marybeth, she is an American volunteer who has devoted the greater part or her life working with impoverished children.

Marybeth was also my roommate last year and in this time I learned of her unconditional devotion to these poor children. She has currently just finished writing a book. The book is designed for teachers in similar situations, working in very poor neighborhoods, with little resources. It basically is an instructional manual on how to create educational and fun games from recyclable materials such as bottle caps, cardboard, plastic containers, you name it! It's a novel idea and I am really looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

So when I heard Marybeth needed help making the new kindergarten shine, I was ready to put in work! We head down to Katutura Sunday afternoon with paint in tow, ready to go.

So, maybe it's not what you expected of a kindergarten? But this is pretty standard of what you find in Katutura in terms of dwellings. All around us were buildings of a similar caliber. Our aim was to make this one stand out and to attract the children. These kindergartens aim to keep the kids off the streets and out of trouble, while fostering a learning environment which is scarce in these parts.

A clean slate to start.


Marybeth decorates the wall with the alphabet while the kindergarten owner expresses love for her first student. The little guy on the right looks intrigued. I really like this shot.


When building from basically nothing, you have to make use of the resources at your disposal. I thought it was neat that bottle caps were used as makeshift washers to secure the metal sheeting to the wood frame.


Some creative directors we picked up along the way. We tried to get input from the kids to see what kinds of pictures we should paint. These four were super helpful.


Ha, Yes I painted that sun and clouds over top the green hill with the help of my friends here.




Things are coming together here as we put the final touches on the main wall.


Inside we tried to make things as educational and fun as possible. The numbers 1 to 10 were put up with corresponding objects of the same number. Kimera did the 'bloody hand prints', we realized after how this might be considered scary! Lets hope it does not provoke panic!


We attracted a lot of attention in the neighborhood. Obviously some might be curious or jealous of us beautifying this one building. Lots of kids came through to have a look as well as parents who may now be considering sending there kids here. I overheard that tuition would be somewhere in the area of 60 dollars per month, which is about $10 Canadian!


Around the site we saw many of these bathrooms. In fact they stretched far into the distance for anyone looking for a very private experience. Actually, the city expects this area to grow exponentially in the next little while. Therefore the bathrooms are laid out well in advance for the community to grow around.


Naturally a small paint fight broke out, which resulted in us getting a little filthy.




The crew with the finished product! The international team consisted of 4 Germans, 2 Canadians, 1 American, and three Namibians!

First post from my new laptop! No, I did not get the Internet at home, unfortunately. Actually I had to bring my computer into the office to get some updates using the network available here.

Thought it was a good opportunity to do so, as we are currently in the dark at home! I woke up this morning, quite luckily naturally. My alarm clock was dead and there was no power in the house. When I went home for lunch, I was surprised to find that the power was still off in the building. And again after work, I was rather upset to find the power still off and electrical workers scrambling to get it back up and running. Usually power outages are short and sweet, this happens to be the longest one I have experienced. The word from the experts is that we should not expect power until at least tomorrow! So we are in the dark for the night!

Only a few weeks ago we went a weekend without water. It should be noted that all of these problems are limited only to my apartment building. Seems they are having trouble keeping the building maintained! A friend of mine says we, as tenants, should band together and demand a price cut for the days without basic services. I'll consider it, but I really don't get too excited about these incidents. It is good to learn to live without such basic expectations.

Got my flashlight handy and had a nice crisp (read cold) salad for dinner. I won't have to worry about my fridge stock going sour, because it is damn cold outside, actually I would probably be wise to just leave the fridge door open!!

Penguins! Such an amazing little creature! I love the way they walk and waddle all over the place. They always seem to have somewhere to go in their little tuxedos.


The penguins live here on Boulder Beach which would surely be a place to visit even if there were no penguins. Huge boulders just deposited here by some prehistoric force. The beautiful setting sun offered great views.


Walking with the penguins. I am pretty sure the gang in the background are on the way to save their friend and beat up Stefan.


Penguin mother and child.


Perfectly tailored suits~


Penguins swim like ducks on the surface and can dive.


Its a strange reality but thats the way it is in this unique little town. Humans must co-exist with there well dressed friends.


"Honey, I'm off to work!"