So this past weekend was so full of fun and things, that I barely slept!! It was the last weekend with the five American girls who were also living at the Wadadee Student House, and they also volunteered with me at the BNC. They were really cool, and we all got to be really good friends! So Saturday morning started our fun. We went to the local (well, 45 mins away), Living Bushmen Museum, which is run by a group of Bushmen who live near Windhoek. It was an amazing experience as they were really excited to share their culture with us, and to show us what they do. We chose the craft program, where we got to see a fire made, arrows made, make jewelry ourselves, and shoot a bow and arrow! It was tons of fun!! My arrow shooting skills are not very good, but it ws interesting to use a bow made out of a stick and some string (well, actually string made out of tendons from a kudu), rahter than what we use in the US in archery clubs and stuff. When we made jewelry, we all got to make bracelets, and keep them. The beads were made out of ostrich eggshell, and seeds that the women had gathered. It was fascinating to see how everything that they used was natural, and came from their habitats, and not from stores. After an eventful and fun filled 2 hours at the Living Museum, we headed out of Windhoek in the opposite direction to go to the Amani Lodge, the highest inhabited place in Namibia. The view from there was gorgeous, all the mountains around Windhoek are there, and you can see a little bit of the city. Amani Lodge is a large cat rescue center, and hotel. But rather than hotel rooms, there are only bungalows, a small restaurant, and acres and acres of land where the cats live. One of the coolest things that you get to do when you are at this center is pet cheetahs, a 7 month old and a 13 year old! Oh, and you also get to pet a warthog!! The cheetahs were awesome, so pretty, nad very soft. They are also the only large cats who purr, like housecats, only about 100 times louder!! After playing with the cheetahs for about 30 minutes, we headed down to a safari truck and drove away from the lodge to see the leopard and lions! The leopard was gorgeous, and the way it moved was incredible. It almost looked like a housecat when it jumped and climbed, but was so much more graceful and sleek looking. The lions were really cool too, even though I had seen them in Etosha. The male at the lodge is larger than the ones we saw in Etosha, and it has a bigger mane. We also heard and saw the lions do a mating call, whcihw as pretty hilarious! After seeing all the animals we headed back to the lodge and saw the sun set over the mountains, which was spectacular to watch!
Sunday morning, we went to a birthday breakfast for Katie (a girl in the house), and ate at this hotel in Klein Windhoek that overlooks the city. The view from there was also amazing, and totally worth waking up early for! The food was also amazing, it was a giant buffet breakfast with freshly squeezed juices, good coffee, and piles of good food! After breakfast we went potjie (poikie) shopping. I've written about potjie's before, its a traditiaonal Southern African stew cooked in a three legged cast iron pot over a fire. We have been making it with chicken, but it can be made with almost any kind of meat, and its delicious! That evening, after laying in the sun for the afternoon, Shaun cooked the potjie, and some of our friends came over and celebrated Katie's birthday, as well as said goodbye to the girls, as they all left yesterday, some for Seattle and some for Egypt. So that concluded the weekend, but it was amazing, and I got a bunch of really cool pictures!!
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