Trick or treating with the US Embassy

We've enjoyed several functions sponsored by the US Embassy this year. Trick or treating house-to-house is a little hard in Windhoek, given the burglar bars and barking dogs in front of every house. So, the Embassy employees set up a Halloween function as a substitute.

We started at one home, where kids arrived in costume (and some adults). After the activities (see photos below), we left to drive to several other Embassy employees' houses. Kind of like a progressive dinner, but trick-or-treating. At a couple of the houses, the candy was handed out through the locked burglar bars, which was a little odd. But, everyone enjoyed the activity. The Embassy surely went to a lot of work to organize it.

Some photos below. More on the Picasa site.

Tristan spotted his costume in a local store.

Musical chairs to the tune of "Monster Mash".

Gwen and Annie (our fellow Fulbrighter family, the Bates') do some trick-or-treating at one of the Embassy homes. Burglar bars are still burglar bars, even if they've got cobwebs, eh?!

Happy birthday, Tristan!

Tristan turned 12 on Oct. 23, and his party was today (Halloween). Tristan asked to have a paintball party at a local paintball center.

The teams, suited up.

He invited several friends, and Dad even got in on the action to make the teams even.

It was our first time to play paintball, and I'm guessing it won't be the last. Quite a fun way to spend a couple hours. Everyone started with 100 balls, and the first game went fairly quickly as we learned you have to conserve ammo! We reloaded between games.

Tristan after the second game. An unconfirmed source states that it was his father who shot him in the face. This cannot be confirmed by official sources.

During breaks between games, we had a Halloween cake. More photos on the Picasa site. Kudos for Kelly for venturing into the arena with a mask on to get the action photos.

Trick or treat

There is a Halloween sub-culture in Namibia. It's a holiday that most people know about, and a few celebrate the "American holiday."

Kelly convinced me to come along with her to the Future Professor Pre-Primary (preschool) where she's been working. Teacher Suzy was beside herself when Kelly told her that I taught at Polytechnic. "Students," she whispered. "You are Future Professors, and here we have a real professor!" Hmmm...debatable.

Kelly worked with the kids on their ABC's, and then it was time to have some Halloween fun. Kelly had brought stick-on mustaches for everyone, as well as some masks. The kids just had a blast. They started calling each other "Grandma" and "Grandpa" because of the mustaches.






Happy Halloween from Namibia!

Day of reckoning

Today was 'semester marks' day at Polytechnic. It is the day that lecturers have to turn in semester marks for courses. It marks the end of the lecture portion of the semester. Yes, Spring Semester is over.

November is examination month, and a student has to have a 50% mark in the class thus far to sit for the final exam. So, today, students were running around to see which courses they were going to be able to write final exams.

It is not a common occurrence to fail the semester marks. One colleague had 10 students out of 26 fail his semester marks. Another had 6 students of 20 fail. One of my fellow lecturers told me that her first-year instructors 'curved' the semester marks so that 50% of the class members failed. Hmm...talk about artificial selection!

When a student takes the final exam, they have to achieve at least a 40% to pass the course. So, you can have a 90% on the semester marks, but if you don't get a 40% on the final exam, you don't pass. I think that is correct...it's very complicated, and I'm not sure I really do understand.

I'm not sure how to describe the mood of the students today. Failing a course is not the end of the world for them...they can take it again next year. So, there was this odd atmosphere of students running around to check lecturer's doors. No one acting really mad if they failed. Most probably expected it. It was kind of like learning you didn't win the lottery. Oh, well. Next time.

I'm happy to report that no one failed Ecology II. Yet. We'll see how the final exam goes.

Ring around the sun

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, Windhoek witnessed an interesting solar event...a halo around the sun. Kelly was at her preschool, and the kids went outside to look at the "rainbow circle". Students at Polytechnic were pointing at the sky.

I've seen rings around the moon, but never a ring around the sun. The photo at right is from The Namibian, which confirmed that the halo is produced by ice crystals in high cirrus clouds, which refract sunlight to form a rainbow.

That was the scientific explanation.

However, the paper also reported that the Nama people of southern Namibia held a belief that such a ring around the sun predicted the death of an important leader. Ironically, Wednesday was the day before the funeral of Rev. Hendrick Witbooi. Rev. Witbooi (1934-2009) was an important figure in Namibia's independence movement, and shared his name with the Captain Hendrick Witbooi (1825-1905), who is featured on all Namibian paper currency.

Putting fire back on the veld

Namibia and Nebraska have many things in common, and one is that the use of fire on grasslands has been greatly diminished in the past 100 years. The effects of fire suppression in Nebraska result in cedar tree infestations. In Namibia, there is concern that bush encroachment (acacia trees) may be enhanced when fires do not happen, and seedlings survive in mass numbers.

My colleague at Polytechnic of Namibia, Dave Joubert, is studying the effect of fire on seedlings. He invited me to come out to his study plot this week to help with pre-fire preparations and the prescribed burn. Photos of both experiences are on the Picasa photo site.

It is always a thrill (in fearful and fun ways) to watch a patch of grass burn. And, it's interesting to think about landscape dynamics that have been changed as humans have learned to control fire. The veld (rangeland) is a product of the dynamics that shape it, and the removal of an important dynamic, like fire, should have consequences. The results of Dave's study should be of interest to farmers in Namibia who are looking for ways to increase grass on their farms (by decreasing bush).

Back in Nebraska, my graduate student, January Frost, and I have had a paper accepted for publication in the journal Restoration Ecology. It details the effects of cedar encroachment on bird communities along the Niobrara River in northern Nebraska. This type of research (effects of bush encroachment on bird communities) has yet to be done in Namibia. It might be a reason to return!

Even the French are having problems...where are the hunters?

In the midst of the current battles on health care in the US (yes, we have CNN and BBC), it is perhaps a little heart-warming to find out that there is something that even the French haven't figured out. No, not health insurance. Hunter recruitment.

Today, The Namibian newspaper reported that the average age of French hunters is 54 (click here for the same story at Yahoo News). The US is facing similar declines in hunters and fisherpeople, which threatens funding of conservation. Hunters and fisherfolks pay considerable amounts of money through their licenses and other purchases which not only support conservation, but directly provide the budgets for state wildlife agencies. Agencies are now engaged in hunter recruitment campaigns to avoid laying off staff and cutting programs. On the educational side, my UNL colleagues and I have started to participate in a national program designed to expose our wildlife students to hunting.

It is interesting to consider why The Namibian printed this article about French hunters. Approximately 3% of Namibia's GNP comes from foreign hunters (including many French). If you doubt this, take a look (below) at the number of horns being processed during one week by one taxidermy shop in Windhoek! If the number of hunters declines in the US and in Europe, Namibia's ecotourism industry (the hunting portion, at least) can plan on a similarly-paced decline.

Essentially, the message appears to be that if you are considering investing in hunting-based tourism, you might want to reconsider.

It will be interesting to come back to Namibia in 25 years to see how hunter-based tourism plays out. It is an industry (from the hunter's assistants to lodge workers to the taxidermy workers) that is supported by the current low wages paid to uneducated assistants. Liability insurance is also a minor component of business expenses, at the present time. The hunting industry in Namiba could face hard times if (1) the number of hunters shrinks (as projected), (2) worker wages increase as Namibia becomes more developed, and (3) if liability insurance becomes more expensive here.

Stay tuned.

Why you should always befriend agronomists...

In a previous posting, we showed a photo of one of the strangest animals we'd seen in Namibia--spotted at the Windhoek Show. The photo is re-posted here.

In the caption for the photo, we noted that "this breed of goats" was very unusual because of the thick tail, and that we were not sure of the breed's name.

It turns out to be a very interesting breed of goat. So interesting, in fact, that it is really a sheep.

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I learned this information from our good friend Uapii, tonight, who tactfully shared with me that I had misidentified it on the blog. He's a good man, that Uapii. I think it may have been difficult to tell a big guy who grew up on a farm that he can't tell a sheep from a goat.

The breed is a Damara Sheep, and the breed has been around southern African since 200-400 AD. It's also called a 'fat-tailed' sheep, which is pretty descriptive. It's an indigenous breed to southern Africa.

Thanks for the correction Uapii. I have to say that the conversation at our social gathering, following Uapii's correction was stimulating. Lots of educated people trying to decide how one tells a sheep from a goat. The best answer: sheep have curly horns...

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Uapii noted that every species of goat in Africa has a tail shorter than your hand. If it has a long tail, it's a sheep. So, now I know. This is why it is good to have agronomist friends, like Uapii.

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I still think it looks more like a dog with horns.

The Kamanjab Combined School Choir CD project

During our trip with Larkin's brother, Noel, we stayed at the Kamanjab Rest Camp. We had stayed there previously during our hunt with the Pegg's and Hygnstrom's from Nebraska, and enjoyed the managers of the camp.

We received a special treat on this trip, as the manager arranged for the local school choir to come sing at the camp. The camp was full with 2 buses of Europeans in tents. Petra, the manager, has developed a relationship with the choir to help gather funds for the school. They come sing, and Petra passes the hat. The money goes for copy machines, blackboards, paper, and other equipment--the kind of things that we take for granted in the US. Every school has these things, right? Well, not here.

The students in the choir are middle school and high school students. They are from farms and communal conservancies around Kamanjab, and they stay in the hostel (dorms) at the school. So, they don't see their families for most of the semester. They go through a lot just to get an education. Their parents sell firewood or goats or butter just to raise the money for their school uniforms--for many of their families, school uniform purchases are the only item for which they need money.

They are incredible musicians. We were fortunate to think ahead, and we brought the video camera to their performance to film a couple songs. They were so good, I just let the camera roll, and we recorded 25 songs (they don't want to stop singing...!) before I ran out of tape. It was a beautiful 1.5 hours under the stars, listening to their voices. The choir is conducted by 3-4 student conductors--as far as I could tell, there is no 'music teacher'--just the school's Headmaster heading up the activity. You can play the video below to hear one of their songs.

When we arrived home from our trip, it didn't take long to splice the video tape to digital form, and then transform the digital video clips to audio files. PhiHat Recording Studio* was born. We have created a CD with 25 tracks--some of the most beautiful music we've heard this year. All live. All from the heart. Drums. Quiet songs. Rhythmic songs. Stomping feet. Even some dogs barking in the background on one song...

In true African fashion, the CD is now on its way through a messenger service (Petra's husband, Petrus owns a service garage and has a shuttle to bring spare auto parts to Kamanjab from Windhoek) to Kamanjab, where I've asked the students to identify the songs by name. And, they'll come up with a name for their CD. We'll get some group photos, and make a great-looking CD to sell at the local lodges around Kamanjab. Voices raising money for their school.

Petra reported via email yesterday that when she told the Headmaster about the idea for the project, she collapsed and cried with joy. "You've made our dreams come true," Petra said. Well, it is a dream to be able to share an evening with such a talented group of students. It feels good to be involved in a project that can help others, even if just a little bit.

But, the fund raising doesn't have to stop at the lodges around Kamanjab! If you like the video clip below and want to experience about 50 minutes of wonderful Namibian music, you can reserve a copy. To find out more details, just send us an email (larkinpowell at gmail.com) and we'll get back to you with more details when it is ready to distribute. We're donating the CD materials. The money goes straight to the school. It will probably sell for about US$10, with additional for shipping by airmail to arrive in the US by Christmas!

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*PhiHat is after the Greek symbol 'phi', which is used to represent survival estimates in the wildlife literature. A little 'carrot' or 'hat' over the symbol specifies that it is an estimate from a sample.

Sacred fires

Sacred fires

Each morning, the eldest in the village adds wood to the sacred fire. A fire that never goes out. Their offering of scarce firewood makes the fire the center of society. A fire that connects the family to their ancestors. They gather around the fire to pray to their ancestors for guidance. They gather to grieve and to celebrate. The fire smolders through the night as the stars in the sky above mirror the collective fires across the landscape. Thousands of fires. Billions of stars.

Five hundred years ago a little bushman climbed a kopje and spent the evening scratching the outline of a giraffe on the sandstone. When he was finished, he laid down on the warm rock and watched stars fall in the sky. As the moon rose, his fire died and he fell asleep.

Two thousand years ago a group of bushmen gathered under a rock and began to paint. Maybe they were describing a dream or recording a great hunt. As they ate their evening meal, the sun set over the Brandberg. The smoke from their fire made black streaks on the rocks. The Milky Way swirled above them.

Four to five million years ago the climate changed in southern Africa. Forests disappeared, and grasslands expanded. Paleontologists tell us that this is the event that spawned the incredible diversity of antelope. Grassland expansion may have also responsible for the dramatic evolutionary event which resulted in several species of hominids, standing erect to efficiently carry food across the plains. We can imagine an evening somewhere in an African grassland when a group of Australopithecus afarensis sat watching a group of Australopithecus africanus pass over the crest of a nearby hill. Both groups spent the night under the stars. Both groups used the full moon to find food.

Today, we look at the stars around our campfire, and they seem to suck the breath from our hearts into the heavens to mix with the souls who have viewed the skies before us. Eyes glistening, reflecting some inner satisfaction.

Maybe satisfaction comes from feeling closer to the stars. From having stripped away all that doesn’t matter. Now there is less between you and the sky.

Maybe the feeling is realization of how small we are in the space of history. A realization that sacredness has a vast history on the African plains. We share whatever is sacred, whatever makes us whole, with these bushmen and Australopithecus.

Gravity works slowly on thoughts sent starwards. But gravity is gravity, and as you stare at the skies, the weight of previous celestial conversations pulls images into your memory.

Eons of star gazers. Souls bare. All under a well-watched sky. A sky full of sacred fires.

Good night.

--L. Powell
After many conversations with many people about the stars and sacred fires in Namibia

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

We've enjoyed spending the past couple weeks with Larkin's brother, Noel. He arrived from Boston, MA in time to take advantage of Tristan's October Break from school, and Larkin managed to get a break from teaching. So, we took off to Etosha, northwest Namibia (Kamanjab and Brandberg), and the coast. It was a great time.

Noel seemed to bring us luck at every turn. More lions than we have ever seen in Etosha. Singers at several of our evening meals. Pretty good success catching fish on the coast.

We've got the story of the trip posted in photo-form with captions on the Picasa site...feel free to link over and enjoy!

We ended this trip with the sober realization that Noel was the last of the three groups of family/friends to visit us in Namibia. It is always nice to see familiar faces, and we enjoyed sharing experiences with everyone. But, the year is winding down. Next year's Fulbrighters are starting to contact us with questions about their year in Namibia. Time to pack our bags!