First Few Days

Hi friends and family!

I figured that writing online might be easier than spamming you all with my goingsons, so I intend to write what I'm up to every week in case any of you are keeping track. Let me know what’s new in the states, I'm sure I will be craving news from home!

The journey to Namibia was long, but overall it went smoothly. After a festive finals/going away party last Thursday (thanks to all who came) I packed up and hopped on a flight to DC for a few days. Nikki took me to delicious sandwiches at Potbellys and we feasted at the Obama's DC hangout, Ben's Chili Bowl. My flights to Windhoek were long and uneventful, but I woke up to to beautiful blue skies and sunny but not too hot weather. I’m staying at an apartment run by the Casa Blanca Hotel (http://www.casablancahotelnamibia.com/). It’s pretty nice and not too far from downtown Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

In my first couple days I’ve visited the University of Namibia (UNAM), the Legal Assistance Center and downtown Windhoek. UNAM is pretty amazing. Since the fall of apartheid here about 20 years ago they have added a lot of buildings and progressive departments (like gender equality studies) and increased enrollment from 150 all white students during apartheid, to more than 7,000 students now. At the 4-story library virtually every seat was taken with students studying. Education seems to be highly valued, and that makes me think the country is on the right track.

The Legal Assistance Center is pretty small, but they take on big constitutional impact cases. We are teaming up with them for the cases we will be bringing. More to come on that in future posts.

Downtown Windhoek is very developed. It has all the amenities of a major city and is clean and fairly safe. While apartheid has officially ended, the socio economic gap created under apartheid plus residual apartheid sentiment among some keeps segregation pretty alive from what I’ve seen so far. Today I’m visiting a township just outside Windhoek called Katutura, so I’ll see more of the flip side then.

I hope everyone at home is doing well, and I’ll keep in touch as best I can!

Gab

P.S. I am having some trouble uploading to Blogger, so my first few photos can be viewed from facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2180335&id=203345&l=28f0f16bf7