The proposal!

So, for those of you who haven’t already heard the tale of Ant’s proposal, here it is!

It was Thursday 27^th January and I had just returned from a 4 day stint in Okakarara.  Whilst I’d been busy at work during the days, the evenings had been quieter with only my Kindle and podcasts for company.

Ant decided that we should have a ‘date night’ on our return and was preparing to cook me a surprise 3 course meal.  With a glass of wine poured and starter being served, I had no idea that this was going to be anything other than an evening at home with good food and good company.  After we’d finished our starter Ant suggested we go out for a drive to a place that he’d found to take some good scenery and sunset photos.  He wanted to try out the new monopod that he'd bought in Singapore and, despite several attempts, we’re not very good at low-light shots yet.  I agreed although I questioned how much of the sunset we would actually see as there were heavy grey clouds…Ant remained very optimistic though, so I reluctantly agreed to go.

We drove about 15 minutes out of town, eventually down a dirt road leading to a farmhouse and empty campsite.  It just so happened that Ant had sussed this out before and knew that there was a good spot through a field of cows where we could sit and ‘get some good photos’.  Sure enough, it was a lovely view across the African bush with hills in the background.  Still totally unsuspecting, I went for a quick loo stop in the bushes whilst Ant nipped back to the car to fetch the surprise 4^th course to our meal and with the cool box….

Bent down on one knee, Ant opened the cool box to reveal some champagne on ice, glasses and a little white box.  At that point I though blimey, I think he might be going to ask me, but I didn’t want to give it away, just in case it was a necklace or something else and he then felt bad.  However, a moment later he popped the question and of course I said of course!  Several tears were shed in the moment along with long-arm photos of ourselves whilst drinking champagne.  We did try to take some sunset shots (fairly unsuccessfully) but this was not the main objective after all.  

The ring is beautiful, and it apparently took Ant several visits to the jewellers in Singapore to select the right one...who'd have thought the netball tour was a decoy?!  Being a gentleman, he'd sneakily asked my dad's permission first whilst paying the bill at the telecomm shop, so of course my mum and sister were in on the secret as well.

We’re waiting until we come home to the UK before having the wedding, so plenty of time to plan all the details (I didn't fancy a tribal wedding, apparently you have to slaughter at least 6 cows for it).  It's looking like it will be December 2012….very excited!!! xxxxx

Optimism for 2011

We have started the new year at work with increased optimism. By no means does this mean that our resource will not continue to be underutilised or that our placement will in any way be cost effective, but we do now have more opportunity to make some progress with some of the projects we have identified.

January saw the end of the region’s transport budget for this financial year with two months to go. This represents an improvement on last years budget management in which the funds available for transport were spent by October. Funds are now only available for essential activities, of which rehab unfortunately is not one.

However we have both been able to conduct outreach exercises by hitching rides with colleagues whose work is deemed of higher importance. Julia has been back to Okakarara and spent a week undertaking service delivery, supporting Eben, the CBR volunteer who is still diligently turning up to the clinic everyday to support the community, and organising the acquisition of some donated wheelchairs. She will be returning next week for an event to present the wheelchairs to their lucky recipients and will hopefully be able to continue monthly support visits. This should also give her an opportunity to keep her Otjiherero up to scratch as it was getting a bit rusty. (Afrikaans is more useful in Otjiwarongo).

I have been to Otavi, a small town an hour north of Otjiwarongo. Rachel, a Peace Corps volunteer, has been doing a great job supporting community members with disabilities by establishing a disability committee and gaining much needed donated wheelchairs. Unfortunately Rachel does not have a rehab background, nor is she supported by a Ministry of Health rehab worker or with any rehab equipment. I visited to address a rather politically sensitive mess regarding donated wheelchairs. Without going into details all is now sorted and I am hoping to perform monthly support visits and to engage the disability committee members in some training. The main language spoken here is Damara Nama. I’ll give it a go but I think the clicks might be beyond me! Further benefits of my visits will include a great lunch spot and fresh veg market.

Demonstrating new found Occupational Therapy skills... I'll be basket weaving next!

Last week we managed to visit Osire, a refugee camp about 90 minutes from Otjiwarongo. The majority of the refugees are Angolan, with others from Burundi, Congo and Rwanda, and the widely spoken language is Portuguese – another language to master! There are 6000 refugees and the camp is now in a process of repatriation for these people. We met the CBR volunteers and it was like a breath of fresh air. Three volunteers make up the committee providing rehab for 125 people with disabilities (they even had a record!). They get support from Diomede, a nice chap from Burundi with physio assistant training. They expressed the usual needs of support, resources, incentives and training, but in a much more optimistic way than other committees we have met. They are the only committee we have met that I would describe as active and it will be good to finally have an opportunity to work with a group that are motivated and receptive to training. We should have no problems with monthly support camping trips to Osire as transport is provided by the UN.

We have also been busy getting our fingers into some pies in Otjiwarongo with limited progress. Julia is providing clinical support to the rehab worker at the hospital here. I’m sure she would be a delightful lady if the world was not against her and people just got off her back. Unfortunately Julia’s progress has been slowed due to this ladies attendance at the hospital being affected by spending most of her time ‘working in the community’. We have had some meetings regarding other projects including providing disability awareness and rehab training on the Nursing diploma course. We are awaiting feedback from these meetings.

Me and one of our volunteer friends Toyah enjoying the rains last year

January also saw the most rainfall in Namibia since records began in the 1890s. After seeing one of the clay walls in our complex collapse and experiencing a few leaks in the house we did get a bit concerned about our clay home surviving the rainy season. However all seems ok so far and fingers crossed we make it through to the end of March.