"I'm paining..."

This one will be quick because I only have two things to say. First, I’m sorry for not getting these posts up in a timely manner. The network (translation: cell phone signal) is terrible here so I can’t even load my blog page at school. And (probably from a combination of the heat and the [internal] stress of living in another completely new environment) I’ve been really tired lately, meaning that I crash at about 9 PM and wake up for school at about 6:30. My motivation (and desire for that matter) to get up at 1 AM and stay up for a few hours during internet happy hour to wait ages for pages that may or may not load, is very minimal.














On the homestead at dusk with some of my (many) siblings: Tresia, Atu, Moses, Margarita, Sophia and (being held) Cassia.

Second, I got my first blisters from pounding mahangu. Before I started pounding, one of the girls relayed to me the message from my meme that I shouldn’t pound because I might hurt myself. We all had a good laugh at this one. What was I going to do? Drop the pounding stick on my foot? Ironically, this warning turned out to be quite prophetic. In a matter of 15 minutes I acquired 6 blisters, two of which opened up and are still stinging 12 hours later. I could have avoided getting so many blisters if I’d stopped after the first one appeared, but, in my stubbornness, I wanted to see the mahangu through to its flour-form finish. It’s quite amusing to show these blisters to my Namibian colleagues because they all squawk and tsk and shake their heads (quite literally, even the men). It was definitely worth it, though...and my hands will be much tougher for next time!