The Beginning of Home-stay Two: Katutura

So the last couple of days have been really busy. We started classes yesterday with history, and then we went on our home-stays last night. This home-stay should be interesting. We had liver and onions for breakfast this morning along with some eggs and bread. The culture is definitely different than what I am used to and that makes it hard. It’s easy to be around the American college students here because there isn’t much culture to overcome. However, living with an African family is tougher simply because it is such a different culture. It is exhausting just socializing because I have to put in lots of effort to really partake in conversation, while if I’m with someone of the same culture, we don’t have to put in so much effort because we understand each other better. But I also really respect the fact that my family knows English and many other languages, whereas I know none of the Namibian languages.
My host family is great though. They are Oceavambo. It should be quite an interesting weekend. My parents are Oscar and Hilma, and their children are Matthew (15), Anna-Marie (12), and Sarafina (9). Tonight we are going to a memorial service at a Lutheran church for an elderly person in the congregation who died. Then tomorrow we will actually go to the funeral service. On Sunday we will go to church. So my weekend is pretty well planned out. I’m hoping for some down time to relax and read, but we will see if that happens. I won’t be able to be on the internet, but I am sure that I will post sometime next week with a more enthralling update.