Language, Homestay and most importantly, puppies!

Languages in Namibia can be very complicated. Although English is the official language, the majority of the population speaks their own local language. The main languages include: Afrikaans, Oshindonga, Oshikwanyama, KKG (this one’s a click language!), Oshiherero, and Silozi. These languages each belong to a specific tribe, although the location of these tribe can be variable. During the first week, each of us were placed into a language group which helped some of us to narrow down the mystery of our site placement. My language is Silozi, the best language (but I’m a little biased) which lucky for me is only spoken within a small region of Namibia called Zambezi. If you are looking at a picture of Namibia, it’s the little arm extending out of the top of the country. The Zambezi region is known for being lush and tropical so it looks like I will be returning to a climate I’m familiar with, and the good ole malaria territory once again. (Don’t worry, I’m stocked up on my bed net and prophylaxis!)

The Malozi (Silozi speaking people) culture is awesome for multiple reasons:

1. Hakuna Matatah is also a Silozi phrase and actually means no worries
2. Our language instructor is a rapper who calls himself Top Dog
3. As stated above ^ we learn a lot of slang and pick up lines in class
4. Many of the words such as cheesee, booka, applye, maango are derived from English and just add a vowel in somewhere.
5. However, the slightest change in some words can have an entirely different meaning. For example mulalelo means dinner, but mulaleka means waking up with a spirit in your bed  
6. ^ Witchcraft is a thing here too
7. Zambezi is one of the only places with a natural sources of water in Namibia
8. During the rainy season, people often travel by canoe, which I am very excited for

Making pop at cultural day

We have been slowly learning more and more about the culture of the Zambezi region and had a cultural day to introduce us to traditional cooking. In Zambezi the main foods are tapi (fish) and buhove (pronounced Vuhove or also called pop; it’s basically cornstarch and water that you cook into balls and use to eat other food with your hands). Our group helped clean and fry the fish and learned to prepare pop over a fire.

They told us we are allowed to play around with our food here

The language learning has been a bit of a struggle, especially because we have to pass a language interview with a certain level of proficiency before we begin as volunteers. Luckily for me, two of my homestay family members speak Silozi so I am able to practice a bit with them.

Now for my homestay:

The front of my house

My mom and little sis

Unlike most families in the States, extended families in Namibia are just as important as immediate family. Normally my mom, dad and 2 sisters are the only ones who live at home but when I arrived at my homestay, there were about 15 people staying with my family in a house that is about the size of my house back in the States. After the initial shock of being constantly surrounded by people, I’ve grown to love how social my family is. My dad, Bainga is from Zambezi so his entire side of the family speaks Silozi. My mom Monica, has a beautiful voice and is absolutely hilarious. I have two teenage brothers, Danny and Masule who are normally away at boarding school, but when they are home we play Frisbee and are obsessed with Drake. I have a 15 year old sister Namasiku who loves to practice her French with me (apparently I’m actually good at the language by her standards). My youngest sister Julia is 4 years old. I call her my little monkey because she’s always climbing me and following me around. She has definitely filled in the role of the annoying but adorable little sibling.

Cooking dinner before my eyes started watering

As a woman in the house I am expected to help with cooking in the family. During my first week, while I was helping make dinner my mom asked me to cut up some onions. I think onions may be more potent here, because within a minute tears were streaming down my face. My mom noticed I was crying and immediately started laughing at what she thought was her overly emotional new daughter. My eyes started watering again the next night when we cooked fish over a fire. For the first few days my family thought that I cried every time we cooked because I hated Namibian food, which definitely is not the case. Now they just have me cut the tomatoes and cook on the stove inside to spare me the tears.

How could you not love this?

I almost left out the most important members of my family: PUPPIES. My family calls me their good luck charm because the day I arrived our dog Bubbles gave birth to 6 puppies. They are about 2 weeks old now and are just starting to open their eyes and squirm around. My favorite part of every evening is coming home to hold the puppies with my siblings. I have fallen in love with them and I may or may not be adopting one of the puppies to take with me to site when I leave in 2 months…

On Friday we are leaving for our Community Based Training (CBT) in Northern Namibia so I will be leaving my computer behind for the next few weeks, but I will send updates when I return!

Bubbles and her 6 babies

The monkey and I playing with puppies