MY AFRICAN TOWN-OKAHANDJA

 A lot of people ask me what it's like living in Namibia. So I thought I would take you on a little tour of town. Driving from the South, you are almost to town when you cross the Okahandja river.

  River you say ? Well sometimes in the once a year rainy season the river flows.

But it is dry as a bone right now .

Main street such as it is......

Although we have normal style grocery stores there are also lots of street markets around town.

There are a lot of individuals selling things around town too. Anything from cheap Chinese imports to baloney by the slice. Here is a boy selling cellphone credit at USA$ .50 to 1.00 a pop.

And speaking of Chinese imports, every town has it's China store !

One of the banks in town. Notice the line at the A.T.M. It was twice as long last week

end because  it was month end and everyone gets paid only once a month.

Our only tourist attraction is the wood carvers market.

Once a year in August the Herero tribe has a nice parade.

City Hall, or "The Municipality" as we call it.

Passion Flower. 
Okahandja was known in the old days as The Garden town. These days, not so much.  I can say however that the municipality has at least been trying lately to beautify city property. 

Okahandja is the nearest town for a lot of farms in the area, so we often see live stock in town. Goats, sheep, cows or hides are common. This truck also has some roofing material and bedding.

Here is a nice old colonial building.  We used to call it the haunted house until we found out it was the library.

H

ere's the house we used to live in, before we sold it last year. Most houses are cement block construction, a lot like Florida houses, but with no central heat or air conditioning.

 Here's another residential street in town. Everyone has some kind of a fence and the gate is considered the real entrance to the home. In other words, to be polite, you wait at the gate to be invited in, you never just walk up to the front door without and invitation.

We usually have very pretty sunsets in Namibia. Some say it's due to all the dust in the air. What ever the reason, we enjoy them.
I hope you have enjoyed the small tour. 

Next blog I will give you a tour of the squatter's camp located about a mile out of town where we have built a community center and where we have our job skills training.