Swakopmund

The smell and sounds of the ocean--lovely. Smell of 80,000 seals hanging out--not so delightful--  But incredibly intertaining.  Doug and I headed out for our first trip to the coastal town of Swakopmund.  This little town is heavily german-influenced (cuisine and lots of white folks speaking German) and considered the "adventure" capitol of the country.  Weather was fairly overcast and a bit chilly so on Saturday we drove up the beginning of the Skeleton Coast and went to the Cape Cross Seal Reserve.  Doug kept trying to temper my expectations with comments that, "You know the seals might not be there, this might not be the best time of year...blah blah blah."  But we came up to the watch deck and there were thousands upon thousands of seals.  Little baby seals, big fat momma seals, brother and sister seals--will send photos as soon as I get them off the camera.  We wanted to bring one home for Finnegan but we thought he might get jealous.

On Sunday we decided to partake in some of the "adventure capitol" title of the town and headed out for a day of sandboarding.  There are HUGE dunes in Swakopmund and people fly over them, drive quad bikes on them, take tours around them and sandboard.  Doug did stand up sandboarding since he snowboards and I did the "lay-down" option.  So much fun and so MUCH sand.  I'm sure we'll be shaking it out of all of our parts for days.   Doug wouldn't like me bragging but everyone was impressed with his mad sandboard skillz--his years of snowboarding in Colorado gave him an edge on the other boarders for sure..  We'll definitely have to try this out at the Sand Dunes back in Colorado. 

We also were able to stay this weekend with Doug's friend Angela who was such a lovely host.  And she had two English labs named Phoebe and Hector so that was fun as well.  More later.  We have a short week as Easter holiday is both on Thursday and Monday--more details on our next adventure soon.

Daan Viljoen Park: literal translation—Gigantic Spider Park

Doug and I wanted to get out of the big city this week and get some hiking in so I inquired at the Poly about a nearby game park which was in Lonely Planet called Daan Viljoeen.  The bonus of the park was no animals that can eat you, so you are able to hike around.   Several people suggested that it was closed—in between owners—but we thought we’d drive out and see what we found.  When we got out to the park, a game guard from the ministry of tourism let us in and gave us a map for a lovely 10K hike and sent us on our way.   The park was clearly in between owners--trails were not well maintained and facilities were under construction but they said we were welcome to hike the trail.  We started up the trail when Doug stopped me immediately as I had almost walked through a spider web, where this lovely creature was in the middle…

We then took a moment to look on the trail and realize that the thick webs we had spotted in front of us were EVERYWHERE.  And so we went on our 10K hike like a scene from Indiana Jones—gigantic spiders all along the way, through the entire hike—with occasional breaks when we walked in dry river beds or got up on high hills where the wind had discouraged them from building a web.  About halfway through, Doug came up with the brilliant idea of a big stick to knock down the webs which prevent our passing—always being careful to try and not kill the spiders—we needed as much good spider karma as possible.

4 hours later and after seeing several other types of wildlife—wildebeests,  a large pack of zebra, a gemsbok, baboons and warthogs, we got back to the car and noted that we would not be returning again soon.

I checked on the web last night and turns out these spiders are in the argiope family and perfectly harmless—they even call them garden spiders in the US.  I don’t care—I’ll be adding freakishly large spiders to my list of –could have done w/out seeing those creatures to my list.  Right behind all the snakes here.  

 George Michael's Inspiration--Chameleon, taking a sand bath

Wildebeest giving us the eye--close up he had strips like a zebra

Landscape of the park--rolling hills.  If you look close--you can see the spiders everywhere.  Just kiddin. 

Work at the Poly

I started work  at the Poly on Wednesday.  During this first week I met with all the Deans of the schools and the heads of the departments to discuss the “foundation courses” (courses for first year students).  To give some background the Poly is an applied sciences college—the schools courses are both theoretical and practical—schools include the School of Business, Biomedical sciences, engineering, Communications and land management.  It is a European system where students typically have a three year diploma and some stay on for an “honors” 4^th year degree.  My time here will be spent thinking through what the school can do improve retention and in particular what can be done to make first year students more successful. 

Some challenges:

·         English—courses are taught in English and English is the national language of Namibia—yet only about 2% of the student population has English as their first language—for most students English is the 3^rd language that they speak.  They do not have teachers in K-12 who have mastered English and along with that, the professors who teach them here are also not often English-dominant either.  So for most they are really working on two degrees—one in their focus area and a pseudo-degree of mastering academic English.

·         Limited post-secondary options: In Namibia there are two universities—University of Namibia, The Polytechnic and that’s it.  There are some vocational schools but the concept of community college is non-existent.  The School of Engineering here has created a very successful “bridge” program where students come for a 1-year bridge year to help prepare them for the rigor of the engineering program—of those students who complete the bridge year—they are typically more successful than the students that gain immediate entrance into the school.

·         Critical thinking and problem solving:  the Namibian education system is not particularly strong and even the best students are not adept at problem solving.  They have been taught in a system where memorization not structured thinking is rewarded.  They often have a rough transition into a university model.

·         Transportation and housing: Similar to UC Denver, only about 400 students live in campus—the rest live throughout the city with a good majority living on the outskirts of town in Katatura (similar to Soweta in South Africa).    Many students walk 10K per day to get back and forth to class because they can not afford taxis (there is no bus system here). 

Some opportunities:

·         Students at the Poly come from all around the country.  There are significant government dollars available to send smart students to university.  The government also has an access policy that forces the university to take larger numbers of students than in the past---admittance is based on a test score.  While attending university is not common—the best and brightest from around the country will have an opportunity to study.

·         Students are very hard workers---there is no sense of entitlement about getting to college.  Not many students get to go, so if you’ve made it this far, then most students here take it all VERY seriously.  As one professor told me, “These students are not as many American students, coming to college to “party.”

·         Students are motivated—when asking professors about what their students’ strengths are, all of them mentioned that these students are very motivated to do well.  Sometimes they lack the ability but they are willing to try hard and put in the hours to learn.

Some interesting tidbits about general university culture here:

·         They have a tea lady in the admin office—her entire purpose is to bring tea, coffee and cookies to our meeting.  Very fancy.  I think we should have a tea lady at UCD--let's see if there is room in the new budget:)

·         Students attend 6 courses per semester—this translates to six 1-hour lecture courses that occur four times per week.  They are literally here from 9:00AM-5PM everyday.  Night classes begin around 5PM and the university only seems to go dark  around 10PM.

·         All the students love to wear NY Yankees and NY Mets t-shirts—they love the logos and have no clue about what either of those teams are in the US. 

The view...

This is our view of campus--the yellow building is where I will work.

Another view of from our back porch.  Windhoek is nestled around mountains.  Very green right now from all the rain.

 Everybody remember this guy? Handsome devil.

Denver-London-J-burg-Windhoek = arrived

30 plus hours of travel but I made it.  Doug and a driver from the Poly picked me up on Monday afternoon at the Windhoek airport--I was very happy to see his smiling face.  We were taken back to our super nice 7th story "flat" at the Poly Heights.  It's got a full kitchen, bath room, living room and bedroom--and it even has a washing machine (fancy). We'll settle in today and I start work at the Poly on Wednesday.  Will write more when I have some interesting news to report...

Getting closer...

Arrived in Heathrow and in for a long layover until my PM flight tonight to Jo-burg.  Flight to South Africa will be the longest and then a quick 2 hour flight to Windhoek.  I did consider wandering out into London but it's quite cold outside and my warm jacket is with checked luggage.  Only major travel snafu is that my Kindle was dead when I opened to read it on the flight.  Currently using my handy new outlet adapter to charge it up.

A study in contrast: living in Namibia

The modern city of Windhoek where I will work at the Polytechnic University. 

About two million people live Namibia, and one million are here. We will live in Faculty Housing at the "Poly" which is located on a hill above the downtown.  The university has nearly 12,000 students from all over the country.  

This is a photo of one of the houses at the "Fish Farm" where Doug works up in the Caprivi Region. The Fish Farm is on the outskirts of a city called Katima which is located on the banks of the Zambezi River.  This is about 13 hours away from Windhoek by bus.  So we have a place in the city and a place in the country.  Many more elephant and hippo sightings in this backyard.