Fam in Nam

So, as I promised, this post is about the best of what’s happened since you’ve last “kept tabs”: my family came to visit! I was looking forward to it since before I arrived in Namibia, and it passed so fast that it almost seems like it never happened. Glad I have lots and lots of pictures for proof.

The day after Term 1 wrapped up in mid-April, I met my family in Livingstone, Zambia to start our ~15 day Fam in Nam adventure!

And since they let me (made me?) plan it, that meant lots of driving, lots of moving, lots of going everywhere. So fun and so tiring. It was definitely a vacation I needed a vacation from, so I was glad I had a few days to recover before term 2 started (now already 6 weeks ago!). Since Namibia is on a trimester, Term 1 lasts Jan-Apr then there is a 5-week break, Term 2 lasts May-Aug with a 2-week break, then Term 3 lasts Sept-Dec with a 5-week break until the next school year. So for my first long holiday, it was wonderful to share it with my family!

Here’s a map that sums up our adventure:

We saw 3 countries, most of the regions of Namibia, and traveled from the most volumous waterfall in the world to the oldest desert in the world. It was a trip of contrasts, to say the least. The pictures here will be a mix of mine, Danielle’s and Iza’s (the latter two being the best ones–jealous of those new camera phones!).

Day 1 off the plane, I took my family straight to Victoria Falls. It was even bigger and more impressive than when I saw it in Feb and March. So much water! I heard a statistic that when Victoria Falls is in high water season, the amount of water that falls in 24 hours is as much as the city of New York uses in one year. Let that sink in…

Basically, Vic Falls does not disappoint, even the third time around!

Then, keeping with my moving and shaking mentality, we left the next day to go 2 hours to Kasane, already in Botswana. Kasane is the entrance to Chobe National Park, one of my favorite parks. We spent the day resting, drinking wine, and playing cards. Because there were 5 of us, it was a bit difficult to find lodging for the trip (most rooms are set up for a max 2 people), so we stayed at quite a few unique/off the grid places and a few Air BnBs (yes, we have those here). Which was nice because it allowed us to cook and just sit and hang out. Kasane (like most other towns) is small and at night there aren’t things to go see and do–everything happens in the day. So, with winter coming, we had a lot of nights just chatting and playing cards and being together. Which was so so wonderful. Anyway, the next day was full of adventure with a half-day game drive and then a sunset boat cruise on the Chobe/Zambezi rivers. This I think was my favorite day on the whole trip. There’s nothing I like more than driving, or being on water, or really just moving. And it’s even better when everywhere you turn is a stunning carmine bee-eater nosediving into the river, or an elephant playing in the reeds, or even a crocodile resting right next to the boat. It’s a special place. I was so happy my family got to see most of the animals in the region, too (basically everything except for any big cats).

The next day we headed up home, to Namibia, another 2 hours away. Here we rented a car that we would have for the rest of the trip. We were now free to go wherever, whenever! We stayed along the Zambezi river and again just enjoyed being in such a beatiful location together. I got to show them my shopping town, my commute, my routine. We also went to eat traditional food at the market–so fun to show my family how to eat pap with their hands.

This was Easter weekend, so we went early Sunday morning to my village and we attended the service at the Catholic mission church (Catholic mass is a Catholic mass, no matter where you are). This was the most energetic mass I’ve ever been to, with dancing even (ok, maybe a Catholic mass isn’t the same Catholic mass, no matter where you are). It was fun and we obviously all stuck out as makuwa (white people). But then we had brunch at my house, where my host dad and fellow volunteer in the village joined us. We made a Polish Easter salad (YUM) with kiełbasa that my parents snuck in from the states. It was just so surreal to have my family in my house and to see my school, my room, this part of my life. I think it made at least my mom feel a lot better about my being here.

After Easter weekend, we headed out of my region towards Etosha National Park, in the northern part of Namibia. Etosha is known for having herds and herds of animals come to different watering holes at once. It’s pretty flat and arid, so unlike in Chobe and the other parks in the Zambezi, you can see a lot of open land at once, and thus a ton of animals because theres’s only few places with water on a huge expanse of land. One of the camps we stayed at in the park had a new bunch of animals every hour of the day: in the afternoon we spent hours watching families of elephants, at sunset my mom and I witnessed a rhino and its baby shyly coming in for a drink, at 3 in the morning Danielle woke up to some noises and when we investigated we found a solitary leopard taking a rest from her hunt! It was so incredible. We were able to self-drive through this park, but one night we decided to go on a night safari drive (you’re only allowed to self-drive dawn to dusk), which was a super unique experience! You drive out at sunset and then when the sun goes down, the driver starts using a red beam as a searchlight to catch any eyes reflecting back. I couldn’t keep up with how fast he was searching but he was so good at seeing things! We ended up seeing hyenas, rhinos, owls, jackals, even the rare African wild cat (only the size of a house cat, but still…). It was beautiful and cold and a neat experience (although I did start falling asleep at the end). I was just a little sad for my family because at this point, they had not seen any big cats (only Danielle and I got up for the leopard). Not that this is guaranteed, obviously, and not that this makes the trip, but I was really hoping we’d see at least a lion (they’re so majestic!). Luckily, when we were 5km away from the gates of the park, we spotted a herd of lions (via a large line of cars) sleeping under a few shady trees! If I remember right it was one male, three lionesses, and two cubs. Finally! I was glad we got to see them lounging about. At this point my family had almost seen the entire Big 5 and Ugly 5 (only Danielle saw all). You may have heard of the Big 5 already. I’ve heard different explanations, but one is that these are the most dangerous animals to hunt/encounter (except a hippo is not on there, so it’s confusing). They are the lion, leopard, elephant, water buffalo, and rhino. The Ugly 5 is just a spin off of this you probably haven’t heard of, consisting of the hyena, maribu stork, baboon, blue wildebeest, and warthog. You can probably guess why they were named this (if not, google images might help). It’s so amazing to see all of these animals in their natural habitats. I often will forget on a game drive or by a watering hole that these are just everyday animals, living their everyday lives.

Then we continued our drive towards Damaraland, a somewhat desolate but more mountainous area. We stayed in the shadow of Mt. Brandberg, Namibia’s tallest mountain and got to see the White Lady cave painting, which is 20,000 years old. After Damaraland, we continued west to the coast and Swakopmund/Walvis Bay. We spent two days here, cold. Cloudy and windy and with such a chill! But it was beautiful. I hadn’t seen the ocean in a long time. Swakopmund has a strong German influence, so it was also cool exploring the streets. And in Walvis, we went kayaking with seals! It was a really fun experience–they come right up to the kayak and splash you and nibble at the oars.

From there, we traveled towards Sossusvlei and Deadvlei. If you’ve seen any pictures of Namibia, I’m sure you’ve seen the iconic NatGeo photo of Deadvlei: dead camelthorns contrasting a dry, white earth and bright orange dunes. We spent one day exploring and driving on terrible dirt roads, and the next day we hopped in a plane and got to see the dunes from above! The dunes are part of the Namib desert, the oldest desert in the world. It was just so crazy–such a different climate than I’m used to!

We continued south towards another part of the coast, Luderitz. Here we saw more rocks, dunes, oceans. And a ghost town! There was a diamond boom that lead to its creation, but in the 50s it was abandoned because of a crash in their value and more easily accessible ones found further south. The houses were left to the demise of the sand and wind and most of the rooms are almost full of sand already. This was right outside Luderitz, which is another small town with heavy German influence and a famous crawfish festival (we missed that by a week). Again, cold. We spent a day here and then already had to make our way back up to Windhoek for my family’s flight!

We drove a ton, saw a ton, ate a ton, enjoyed a ton. I saw pretty much every place I wanted to in Namibia! I was so happy all 5 of us were there (Got to see all of the Pajak 5. Yes I’m leaving that joke in here). But it was so hard to say goodbye! Harder than when I left the first time. But, I’m so grateful and so happy that they made it out here. Love you all!!