Overnight in Oshikango

This morning, since Erikki Nghimtina is at the homestead, I was able to take another hot shower before school this morning. I am loving it! After school, I went over to Aoife’s (the Hangala homestead) and we had a snack and watched some CNN and Al-Jazeera before heading into Oshikango to meet up with Connie and Tomane. As much as I was craving real news and pop culture, within 5 minutes of hearing what’s going on, I realized that I haven’t missed much – the same news stories as always…

When we got to Piscas’s, we saw Tomane from a distance, busy with hotel business and decided to get a table outside to have a beer and chat until Connie arrived and Tomane was not busy. Connie arrived shortly and eventually, Tomane came and told us that he was busy cooking for us and invited us to move inside. Once again, dinner was amazing – we had the most tender, delicious pork, fried potatoes and salad. After dinner we had coffee/expresso ad sat around chatting. There were stories of when the fighting broke out near the Angolan border when Aoife and Joann were removed from theirs posts, there was a story of an accidental shooting of one of Tomane’s friends in Pisca’s and lots of discussion about the prostitutes in Oshikango and how they are not allowed in the restaurant, back patio or rooms at Pisca’s, but that he cannot control what the truckers do in their cabs, under their cabs, or on top of their cabs.

Tomane was unable to give us a room for the night at Pisca’s, as they are usually fully booked now, but Connie insisted that we stay at her house rather than drive back to the village. We followed Connie back through the main shopping center, through where the Chinatown warehouses are and down a dirt road a short distance and came upon a relatively new development of a modern looking community of individually gated houses. Connie has a security guard at night, a barred porch and a gate on her front door. Her home was really nice, definitely the nicest I have seen since arriving in Namibia. It’s a 3 bedroom flat with a huge kitchen area, small sitting room and bathroom. She is renting and has been there 3 months, but just bought some land to build a larger house on. She said that she is waiting to build the house because she is in the midst of building a warehouse for her business. One of her neighbors, a young Lebanese guy in his early 30’s came by for a bit. Apparently there are about 35 Lebanese in Oshikango and they are all involved in importing and exporting. His family has been in South Africa since the 1970’s. Around midnight we went to bed – I slept in Connie’s daughter’s room and Aoife slept on the couch.

In the morning we got up early to drive back to the village in time for school.