Merry Christmas From Namibia!

This brief post was brought to you by Elliot. Again, the adult version follows.

Today was Christmas! We woke up to some delectable cinnamon pancakes for breakfast for a nice start to the day. Our plan then was to attend a local church service. After a few failed attempts, we found one that we were on time for, although the entire service was in Afrikaans. We then proceeded to go to a nearby shopping centre and had a bucket load of chicken at KFC. After over ordering, we went back to the lodge where we assembled by the pool in order to cool off until dinner. During this time, a family of warthogs were also seen. Finally, we had a Christmas dinner which went so late that we weren’t able to stay for desert and dozed off ready for the next day.

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Merry Christmas from Namibia! It was a low key Christmas. We drove around 100km to get to the nearest town, Tsumeb, to attend a Christmas service. There were many churches but we had to make a few attempts to get the start time right! We were too early for the first, too late for the second and finally just on time for the lucky third attempt. We were the only non “black” family at church which initially felt a little confronting, but they made us feel welcome and the minister was kind enough to stay the important parts in English to be inclusive. Even though we couldn’t understand the bulk of the service, we were able to enjoy the magnificent and moving singing of the congregation. I’m amazed at how such beautiful sounds just come out! On account of our big trip, we didn’t exchange Christmas presents but the children were allowed to pick a souvenir of their choice along the journey.

At our KFC lunch, we were reminded about how privilege and blessed we were. We were approached by a man for money. We declined but offered to buy him a meal instead and his gratitude was so palpable. Rather than eating though, he carefully packed it away in his bag. As we ate, he patiently waited. We were not sure why then felt awful as realisation hit. He was waiting for us to finish so he can finish off the leftovers. We set aside what was edible in a neat pile and move away quickly so he could eat in peace. It was a rather humbling experience.

Kentucky Fried Christmas!

Happy Family!

The sink hole not work stopping at...

On the way back, we stopped at Lake Otjikoto, a limehole sinkhole. We were charged N$5 (AUD5) per adult. To be honest, other than its interesting history where retreating German forces in 1915 dumped their weapons in the lake to prevent it from falling into South African hands , it was not worth the entry price to look at it…

The rest of the day was as described by Elliot. Not much happened!