It's nearly 3:30am...

I went to bed last night around 10, after having passed out cold on the couch sometime before that... this happens on Friday nights.

But it's now nearly 3:30am, and I was woken from a really bizarre dream where I was in a car- and a slightly grown up version of one of my students was driving- we were driving from Grand Rapids (Michigan) back to Kalamazoo- but along the way, on the highway, we kept driving past high schoolers in states of random undress playing in the puddles on the highway- and by the way, the ones that were dressed, were clearly in their Prom best. I tried to get out my cell phone to call 911 and report that there were people playing on the highway, that we kept nearly hitting- but the driver had the radio on so loud, that I could not hear anything. All the buttons in the car were in totally random places, and I kept searching for the button to turn it down...and yelling at the kid driving that I couldn't hear. Then I heard the lady on the phone (the 911 lady) say, "I've been waiting for you to talk for like 2 minutes now..." and I proceeded to get in a fight with her over the fact that she should have said something LOUDLY when she picked up. Then, the kid takes an offramp, and suddenly, it's not night-time anymore like it was on the highway, and we're zooming through this little town, and she's driving WAY TOO FAST and she takes a turn that goes by an old (but still functioning) church and then it was a dead end, the end of the street blocked by big pillars, to cut this road off from being a throughway- and my student, she's like, "Let's just see if we can squeeze through here..." Of course we could not, so with reckless abandon she throws it into reverse and we back back down the street, and as we drive by backwards I see the pastor (who in my dream happened to look like a Latvian politician whose kids used to go to my old school) and some of his parishioners coming out of the church.

Then I woke up, because still, it was so LOUD. I sat up in bed, thinking, "What the hell? I'm not dreaming anymore! Why is it so loud?" We sleep with the air conditioner on, so we're used to that relatively "white" noise in the night- but this was something different. I got up out of bed, and went to the window, and realized that it is raining so hard that the sound is not of raindrops, but just the dull roar of sheets of rain coming down. I just opened the door to see how loud it sounded outside, and realize that our roof must amplify the sound. I don't know what it's made of, but, um, clearly, not a rain friendly material. There are occasional flashes of lighting, and I heard one boom of rolling thunder... but mostly, from inside here, it sounds like a fan is turned on high and blowing in your face- like the AC is up and making a lot of noise. It's really loud white noise.

But, it's funny because the sound is so dull- I want to it to separate- I want to hear the little raindrops... but I suppose, that won't for a while. In the 25 minutes it's taken me to distractedly get this down, the rain hasn't eased up at all. I wonder how long it will last. Ah well... I'll go back and listen from bed...

Camping on the beach...

Once a month we have "early close Friday" at school. Schools ends at 13:20 instead of 15:00, so everyone gets a nice slightly extended weekend. Many of us at school take advantage of the situation to head to the beach on a Friday instead of Saturday and spend the night. By the time we get there it's about 16:00/16:30- which gives us enough time to set up the tents in the light, and have a swim or a surf. So that is what we did. Then we all dried off, had some drinks, some snacks. Eventually (in the dark- its getting dark these days around 18:30/19:00), we made a fire, cooked dinner on the grill (Joel and I warmed up alfoil wrapped packets of Thanksgiving dinner) and ate in the way you do when you can't really see your plate. :) It was just a little cloudy, so we saw some amazing stars.

I have never slept on a beach before- and I have to say that 1) sand can be really hard and really uncomfortable and 2) the sound of the waves all night is really, really soothing. I told Joel that next time we go we have to spend some time actually making sure that we level out the sand below our tent, because the amount of lumps and bumps digging into me was just not cool. Otherwise though, it was a nice sleep for me.

The best part of spending the night at the beach is, of course, already being at the beach come morning. :) Joel had set his alarm for dawn to see if there were any waves that early. He got up, but there weren't, so we went back to sleep. We ended up getting up around 7 and enjoying the sunshine. Joel eventually got to surfing, although there were very few waves today. I laid around in the sun reading and went for the odd dip in the water. It was lovely. Finally, around 11:30 we set off to home. It's great because now, it's still Saturday afternoon- but we feel like we've already had a full weekend in a way. It really is lovely. :)

Here's some photo evidence...

Early morning chillin on the beach- after our first swim

Can you see the crab? This beach is littered with crabs- when you walk they literally scatter in all directions with every step. You have to make sure you zip your tent at night, cause I've heard stories that they get in otherwise. Also they don't disappear at night- as you walk you can *just* see them- and you just hope that they can see you better than you can see them...

not cute

cute

super cute

contemplative (actually, he's probably thinking- "Can I surf that wave? Are they getting bigger? Maybe they are...I should get out there....")

Crab friend

Mon and Don hanging on the beach- do you like that custom beach chair?

Our camping business on the beach...

In other exciting, but totally unrelated news- there is a new blog! 4 windows is a collaborative project fueled by my soon to be sister in law Mook- but 4 windows isn't just about her- it's about all of us- "us" being Joel and his 3 brothers and the women and children who make up their families. You can find the link to the blog at the top of my "Blogs I like to read" list on the left. We've posted our first post- "the families"- this is who's participating. We'll post pictures once a week- just one picture from each family, from each corner of the world- pictures will fit a theme- and we're guessing that eventually we'll all see that even though we in 4 different corners of the world, our lives don't look that different. Or maybe they do. :)

Angola Tour 2008

Packed to the gills with stuff (so, so, so much stuff!), only an hour and a half after our scheduled departure time- here we are, ready to set off on our 9 day trip down the coast of Angola- from Luanda to Lobito, followed by Benguela, then down to Lubango, finally Namibe and Tumbwa- and then to turn around and do it all in reverse!

Ladies and gentlemen, this post marks the completion of my attempts to document this trip. Start here, and read all the way to "The Desert" to take in the full experience, or if you've already read all the rest, know that you have reached the end, at the beginning. :)

Camping

My biggest worry about this trip was not about doing a lot of driving, not about having to sleep in a tent, not about cooking over a campfire- it was about being able to shower. Call me what you will (Dad still calls me Princess, so that is ok!), but I need a shower, every day, otherwise I am just not a happy camper (uh, pun intended?). Without a shower, I feel dirty, smelly, and greasy, and it's not a way I like to be. So, I was worried about the camping. Luckily, even though we camped 6 out of 8 nights, we had showers (cold, but that was fine) every morning. Whew. So it was all good. Here's some photo evidence that we camped!

This was our first campsite in Lobito. This is in the morning- you can see everyone is bright eyed and bushy tailed! :)

Cooking breakfast

See, lady-towel-heads are evidence enough we've had showers. :)

This was our second campsite- after the farm. It was actually another farm, but we camped further up on the "mountain". It was a really beautiful site.

Our campsite in the early, early morning. Some of our campers (the photographer) were woken up really early by the sun, and captured some great pictures...

...like this one!

Now, the two nights we were down in Tumbwa (the desert place) we stayed in this house. It was nice enough.

And here we have indoor cooking. The one in blue was making bread in the pojke pot- it's like a little black cauldron- great because you can throw anything in there, and then just stick it in the fire. When we went on the pre-trip shopping trip, he insisted that he would make pojke pot bread, and that we needed to buy lots of flour. But then we reached this house, didn't think we'd be camping anymore and started giving the ole guy a really hard time about his bread. So, he stepped up to the plate and made some really delicious bread in the pojke!

The Chasm

There were two "sights" to see in Lubango- the Big Jesus on the hill and what we called the Chasm- which is actually called Tundavala. I'm not sure why it was, but somehow the world chasm ended up being said about 879 times in the hour that it took us to finally get to it. It was indeed a chasm though.

There was a funny little story though- we were in Lubango, and we saw one road sign showing the way to Tundavala. So we followed it. We followed the road for a long time, but saw no more signs. So, at one point we pulled over to ask for directions. The driver asked a man on the side of the street, "Is Tundavala this way?" He said yes. Then the driver said, "And what is it up there?" And the man replied, "It's nothing, it's just a hole." Understatement of the year!

Here we are, though you can't see what there really is to see...

This!

It's a giant gorge- you can barely see the bottom from up top.

We are standing at what is hopefully just a look-out now. Unfortunately, during the civil war, this place was used by soldiers to throw prisoners of war to their deaths. What a horrible way to die!

I seem to be missing some pictures...this was a really inspiring place. It was just a beautiful natural thing. Actually, Joel and I kept talking about how much my brother my enjoy the place! I'm not sure they would let you climb it Martin, but, it looked like it would have been fun! :)

People, street scenes, randoms

Across the street from a gas station sort of in the middle of nowhere. Kids selling stuff. We gave them some bread.

Lady and baby. Love this pic.

OK, this is us obviously- at the Chinese restaurant in Lubango! It was, for me, the best meal of the whole trip by far! I got to speak some Mandarin which was fun, and I got some veggies cooked in true Chinese style, which I haven't had since leaving Shanghai. The eggplant was so good we ordered two. Oh man was it good.

Kids on the street in Tumbwa. One thing that we noticed repeatedly was that these kids all take care of each other. We watched this group of kids for a long time, and these two held hand and walked around together the whole time.

See, I told you. :)

These little girls were so cute. They were eating toothpaste. She even has it smeared on her face, you see?

We saw a lot of kids on "bikes" like these.

At a gas station- we attracted a lot of attention where ever we went. We handed out bread and bananas and candy and water and toys all along the way. It's not much, but the light in their eyes was amazing.

A street market.

We gave these kids a whole bag of apples. It looked like this might have been an orphanage.

In Lubango we discovered that kids have to bring their own chairs to school- hence this scene.

They don't have a lot of toys, so they play with whatever is around, including rusted out old vans.

Different kind of kids! :) Did I mention before that there were goats and cows all over every where we went? There were.

A shot of Sumbe I think. Very typical look of a town.

A car in Benguela.

One of ours. Just funny. :)

Ladies selling stuff by the roadside in Namibe. I caught the eye of the little girl with the beer bottle, and I waved at her. Almost until we drove away she just kept staring at me and waving.

Market in Lubango (this is by the way, what the market I shop at on weekends looks like as well. People just sit on the street side- sometimes they have makeshift tables, sometimes not).

Buying bananas

Oh, those same kids going to school again. :)

This was the bar where we met the farm guy (see his tractor in the background?). We gave the kids in this picture candy and balloons.

They didn't really know what to do with the balloon at first, and when one popped, the little one almost cried. We gave him another.

They were shy, and tried to run away to play with their new stuff.

Lobito market.

same

Something burning somewhere. Lady with stuff on her head.

These people were some of the first we came across on our trip. We gave the kid a piece of candy, and one of the drivers gave him a Coke. I felt so bad for him after that because he sucked down both SO fast- I just knew that sooner than later, he would probably have the worst stomach ache!

Lady with oh so cute baby. One thing that we couldn't help but notice was the state of the breasts of the women in the countryside. For one thing, there were just lots of them that weren't wearing shirts at all, which, well, we're just not used to are we! This lady did have a shirt but, it was mesh, so you could see her long, flat as a pancake breasts through it. We girls reasoned that it's a combination of never wearing a bar, plus nursing lots of babies, topped with the way they always have something tied over their breasts, literally flattening them down. If you look closely, you can see that this young woman's breasts look more like that of a really old western woman's.