Just bought running shoes for 8€. And some other randomness. Maningue nice!

Just wanted to let you know that I’m back on track. All I needed was a message from my mom, a video from Ady, some dancing and a hug. The dancing probably continues tonight, in one way or another. We shall see.

Tomorrow I’m going for another prison monitoring visit with the Mozambican Human Rights League and work. I haven’t told you about the last one yet, but that’s a story I’m saving for another day. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos for you due to both security and integrity reasons, but I believe the insights are interesting enough. Surprising enough. Upsetting enough. Disturbing enough. One day.

Have a great day, darlings. Look out for the leopards.

As I already told you, there were two things I wanted to do in Namibia. See the red dunes in the Namib desert. And see some wild cats. So with only a few days left of my two week easter trip, I made some research and found a place called N/a’an ku sê Foundation which is just about 50km from Windhoek. It is a wildlife foundation with a game park, lodges, and various kinds of wild animals that have been found either hurt or abandoned, and that the foundation now takes care of. Some of these being lions, leopards and cheetahs – I had found my place and booked a “feeding tour” for only 25€.

I had seen lions before, but not his close, and not this angry. There was a fence separating us from the animals, but there were little children in the jeep I was with, so the lions got their hopes up. The guide fed them by throwing meat over the fence and the jumps were impressive. I guess they actually could have jumped those fences if they wanted to. The ladies were the hunters, as we all know, but it was interesting to see how the lion actually was dominating the two females completely. He was in charge, no doubt. And he was a quite upset king.

When we got to the cheetahs, I was in awe.. apparently, once you tame a cheetah – they stay tame forever. These huge and gracious creatures were sweet as kittens and even made the kind of “mjau” sounds we all know. I asked if I was allowed to touch them. “At your own risk” the guide said, while patting one himself. So I put my hand through the fence and a cheetah walked up. It looked at me and then stroked its head against my hand, and licked it. The tongue felt kind of like the tongue of a cat, only even more rough. The feeling was overwhelming.

We continued to the leopards, which, as the guide told us, unlike the cheetahs – never can be tamed. These are the animals that unconditionally will rip your face right off. The guide didn’t have to explain that to us again when we got to see them, it was actually really uncomfortable being close to these demon looking animals, despite the fence. The were projecting the kind of “I can see right through you, you bad human, and I shall cut your throat and drink your blood while you sleep.” message that you sometimes get from evil house cats. Difference was these kittens had slightly bigger fangs. Let’s just say that leopards don’t seem particularly friendly.

On our way back to Windhoek, we met a man that was taming a wild horse, and found a really nice tree. It had been the prefect last day in Namibia, and I was driving, of course.

So, you’re having one of those days with a weird heavy sensation dragging you down from the moment you wake up. And then there’s little details enhancing random feelings of worthlessness, confusion and sadness. You want to give love, smiles and support but you need a hug yourself and miss your positive, strong and happy self. Not all days can be good days, you tell yourself.

And then your friend from many time-zones away writes a message, and you call her using this life-saving invention called Viber. She is working on a big project that has kept her awake all night, but she lets you talk. You complain, you tell her about the things that break your heart and the little details that drag you down. She listens, smiles while talking, boosts some of that confidence back into place, passes on some of her strength, gives you some real advice, some of her unforced wisdom.

You go home. You put loud music on. You try dancing it off but it doesn’t really work, there’s still sadness around.

Then she sends you this:

It doesn’t say much, but in the meantime – it says everything. And you know that you would do anything in the world to make sure this girl stays happy. Because you love her and that wise, strong and considerate chilango heart of hers.

(Yes, she gave me permission to upload the video. haha)

Having one of those days when everything feels like it’s in sepia.. no reason, really.

Workshop on the new Sida at Work Contribution Management Process. And chocolate.

I would like you to join me for a music festival in Swaziland the last weekend of May, here are a couple of good reasons:

Bushfire 2011

Ayo – Down on my knees

Jeremy Loops – Mission to the Sun

Nancy G & The Human Family – When I woke up this morning

Sakaki Mango & Limba Train Sound System – A fly on Russia

Lira – Wa Mpaleha

Napalma – Bigger Party

Ras Haitrm – Inity

The tickets for the three days of art, music and dancing are just 400 rand – we have ours already. Convinced to join? Get your tickets here. Woop!

Back in Windhoek, I met up with Baldwin again the next day and asked him to show me something than I had not already seen, so he took me to the Katutura township in the outskirts of the city.

Katutura, “The place where we don’t want to live” was created in the late 1950′s following the forced removal of all black people from Windhoek city centre. Today, Katutura houses more than 2/3 of Windhoeks total population and the people live in metal sheds that they sometimes use as shops, bars and hair salons during the day. But despite suffering from overpopulation, obvious sanitation issues and difficult access to clean water and electricity, the very poor township felt like a safe and extremely friendly place.

I spent some time in the Havana district where I met 17 year old Rejoice with the amazing smile, who had just painted her face red. Painting the face is a Himba tradition to protect it from the sun and give it a beautiful red nuance. Rejoice was shy, but her mother an I laughed it off. Oh, and the little boy on her back was not her son, it was her little brother.

We drove around the township and met a big group of playing kids. Later, I spent some time in a hair salon where Cornelia was getting her hair braided while her little girl Respect was running around. She wasn’t sure about the age of her child, but said she thinks she’s around 2 years old.

The people I met in Katutura were a little shy, but very keen to talk and interact, and really friendly. The obvious contrast to the sparkling city centre of Windhoek made a big impression on me. One needs to go a bit outside in order to understand what Namibia is all about.

Buying nailclippers on the street in Maputo. Just found this. You just have to love China.

I’m on a morning walk on my never ending street that despite its length never runs out of interestingness. People sell everything, everywhere. Vegetables, clothes, electronics, sunglasses, furniture.. whatever you might need. Bought a really good weekend backpack yesterday for 7€ – really starting to get into this street shopping thing. Need a coconut?

Every morning, I wake up to this tune. It’s sunrise, melancholy, dreams, memories and happiness in a song and it makes me think of little sparkles and colourful drops of magic. Doesn’t get much more cheesy than this, but there isn’t a better time for being cheesy than in the morning. I’m generally not very good at the whole waking up thing. This way it kind of works. (And I have another, less pleasant, alarm just in case.. haha)

Detektivbyrån – Laka Koffa
E18 (2008)

One thing you learn early when living in Maputo is to always watch your step. This hole is 1,5m deep and could easily break a leg if it wanted to. But despite these horrendous sidewalks, I consider my daily walk home from work a pleasure. I wouldn’t call it relaxing, but it’s certainly not boring.

Before arriving to Namibia, I had been obsessed with Gregory Colberts “Ashes and Snow” for a while, and was very excited about finally getting to see those red sand dunes in the Namib desert. The main difficulty in Namibia is, however, the dependency of a car. If you don’t have one ot don’t have unlimited amounts of money to spend on renting one, you’re basically stuck in Windhoek. I put a note on the notice board in the hostel saying that I’m looking for a travel buddy and that my aim is to get around to see “cats & sand”. I only had four days to spend, and was slowly realizing that renting a car was far more expensive than what my budget could possible handle. I met Nate in the hostel, he was in the same situation and we both sat around thinking about a solution. Windhoek was a nice city and we went with some people from the hostel to eat at Joe’s beerhouse where we got to taste zebra, oryx, ostrich and Springbook meat. It was different, but tasty. And on the way back we were 8 people in the taxi, T.I.A style.

I was emailing with a friend from Copenhagen who had hooked me up with some contacts in the places I was going on my easter trip, and one of his Zimbabwean friends was based in Windhoek. We emailed about meeting up and I mentioned that I probably would need to rent a car. Baldwin didn’t hesitate a second before offering his car, just like that! I asked whether he had ever visited the Namib desert. He hadn’t. So I convinced him to join us. The more, the merrier!

Nate and I checked out and stood waiting outside the hostel as a black and sparkling Mercedes C220 pulled up. “Wait, is that the car?” Baldwin stepped out and greeted us, this was going to be random and fun. We laughed. We didn’t have any plan other than getting to the desert and camping there, so Baldwin had arranged tents and sleeping bags and all the equipment we would need – he was the best organiser ever! We went to shop for random food that we could eat for dinner and breakfeast, basically cookies, bread and fruits, and then we drove off. It didn’t take long before I was allowed to take over the driving and I was so happy! The guys were having beers and I was stepping on the gaspedal, going through dirt roads and amazing landscapes in a car that would respond properly to anything I asked it for, it was the perfect set up!

We arrived to Soussusvlei quite late and found out that we would have to camp in the people-packed camping area outside of the park which wasn’t really what we had hoped for when dreaming about tranquile sand dunes and starlit skies. We decided to try an alternative way, the acting stupid one, and got in to the park just before it closed. We found a sand dune that we liked and parked the car. Right there, we saw the sunset, waited until the stars came out, set up our enormous tent and had dinner. The guys were scared of snakes and scorpions and didn’t want to get out of the tent, but I refused missing out on sleeping under the full moon, so I took my sleeping bag out and spent the night there, alone, with a jackal howling in the distance.

Baldwin woke us up before six and we went to do what people usually do in the Namib desert, we climbed the dramatically red dunes, hung out in the beautiful dried out lake, and took many photos. Luckily, we got to the places before the tourist masses and could leave before the sun got too intense.

On our way out from the park we were asked why we hadn’t gotten out before closing and made up the best excuse in the world. It worked, and the drive home was even more fun as we had a great adventure to laugh about, and great music to sing along to. My hair was full of sand – and I got to drive all the way home.

We’re going to have a hot and beautiful day in Maputo today. My phone says 32 degrees, I say hurray! Good morning!