Eembaxu

After traveling a couple of hours through the country we made it to our church. We stopped along the way at a store for Pastor Ruusa and Teopaulina to pick up some food. While I waited in the back of the truck I met two people. The first was a young man who was asking me something but I couldn't understand him. It wasn't just the language problem, it was hard to understand any of the sounds he was making. I saw his tongue and saw karposi's sarcoma lesions all over it. The poor young man was one more of the victims of HIV/AIDs in a lot of the African countries. My heart broke for him and he became my first real face of AIDs. He walked away when he realized I couldn't understand him. I felt so ignorant and useless. (Actually I didn't even begin to realize how ignorant I had been- I had been thinking HIV/AIDS was not such an issue here in the US anymore. I hadn't read about it in a long time. Once I returned from Namibia I started noticing it more and more in the news. Contrary to my naive belief, we are still under the grip of the disease here too. The statistics are beyond frightening. How did I ever get so complacent as to not pay attention to this?)

The second person I wet was a young woman who was a Peace Corp volunteer from Texas. She was teaching in a small school in a very rural area of Namibia. We chatted for a little bit, waiting for Ruusa and Teopaulina to return. We got on the subject about what she was looking forward to when she returned home to the US. Besides family she said she wanted pizza, good pizza. I asked if she was going to be in Windhoek any time soon and she was- she was picking her mother up from the airport in a couple of weeks. I told her to go to the Gourmet Biergarten on the main street in the city. We had the best pizza there. Better than most places here in the US. How surreal to be sitting in the back of a pick up truck somewhere in Namibia being able to recommend a pizza place to local. It was so funny.

The women came back and I said good bye to my new friend and we were back on the road. Before long we arrived at the church. Pastor Ruusa's home was a traditional homestead connected to the church and I was so excited to be able to spend time here.

The church of Eembaxu

Pastor Ruusa's homestead

The family's living space was in the building to the left. My room was in there as was the area set aside for me to prepare meals for myself. WHAT??? I have to admit I was kind of freaked at the thought that I had to make my own meals but it was really a misunderstanding. There was a women's conference going on that weekend and the pastor had a lot to do for arriving participants. There was no time that day to prepare a meal for me. After that I was well taken care of and just wish I had more time to settle in so that I could have tackled cooking in Namibia but instead I settled for a slice of bread with peanut butter.