Soup Kitchen and Game Drive

Yesterday was extremely busy but one of the most incredible days I’ve had here so far. In the morning I volunteered at a soup kitchen in an informal settlement. I put my limited cooking skills to use, cutting potatoes, cabbage, carrots and taking the casing off of sausage to make huge vats of soup. Hundreds of children came with a hodgepodge of carrying containers. The settlements were the same ones that I described in the earlier post about Katatura…very poor with very limited access to water.

Before serving, the kids lined up for song and dance. One would play drums while the others clapped along, and one by one they would do a solo routine down the line. It was amazing to see how open most of these kids were with all eyes on them…even when I was much older I would shy away from being the focus of attention when dancing.

The kids each received two pieces of white bread, a large ladle of soup, and a cup of juice (like Tang). I was told that for some of the children the soup kitchen was usually their only meal every day. While seeing extreme poverty is always saddening, lending a helping hand was uplifting, and it was impossible not to get caught up in the celebratory feel of the morning. It was one of my best experiences so far in Namibia.

As soon as we got home from the soup kitchen we had a game drive in Okapuka. It was a private reserve and for $25 we got a 3-hour tour and saw the park rangers feed their lions. The highlight of the trip was the white rhinoceroses. The rangers fed them chocolate, and they would get right up next to our car, literally inches away. There were no doors so we were not at all separated from the rhinos, so I initially had a jolt of adrenalin, but quickly realized that the rhinos were pretty docile and friendly. They are even larger than I imagined, and I couldn’t help but think I was in Jurassic Park looking at a dinosaur.

After, we went to see giraffes, a couple of crocodiles (did you know they can live up to 2 years without food??? They store a lot of fat in their tails) and then went to the lion feeding. The lions were beautiful, but they were very much contained to one area and we viewed them through a protected area. The lioness was in heat, which meant that the lion left all the food for her and just watched her eat until she was done. I have seen lions before in Tanzania, but I was again struck by how large and powerful these animals are.

Today I head to informal settlements to talk to possible plaintiffs for our litigation. We are visiting a small town north of Windhoek. The reports we have heard are that the ratio of people to acceptable sanitation facilities is several hundred to one. I will keep you posted on my project when I return!

My pics from the soup kitchen will be up later, but I lent my memory card to our TA so that we could get the pics to the other volunteers.