Düsternbrook Guest Farm, Namibia

Well, Our final volunteer project of 4 has finally arrived and we are now into our second week of time on the farm.

We are located about 50km from the capital of Namibia, Windhoek 18km on a dirt track to the oldest farm and guest house in Namibia.

The Farm House

The farm acts as a lodge for mainly German tourists passing through, but it's specialities are a Leopard and Cheetah feeding tour each day, as well as game drives on the farm to see some of the wildlife that Johann has got.  Wildlife includes Giraffe, Zebra, Kudu, Oryx and a few other specialities.

• As volunteers here, we have taken on a few responsibilites.  There is a Kindergarten for the workers children, currently 4 children, aged 3 to 5 years.  The Kindergarten had not been in use for a while, so job number 1 was to sort it out. Now I have been running it for 2 weeks and we have been having a great time, planting lettuce, learning sounds and making and painting.  I am lucky again that this Kindergarten has been well stocked with resources as there is plenty of play learning to be had.

Jeyda and Anto

Snack time

The classroom

• Rich has designed a playground in the mini football pitch and has begun digging and collecting scrap material for this.  For the guests children, this will look great when it's finished.

Sand pit preparation

The current football pitch

• As well as running the Kindergarten, Johann, the boss, has asked us to get his guides trained in safari guiding and also the staff in First Aid.  So, using a manual created by a past volunteer on animals, I have commenced training the 2 emergency drivers in wildlife! A learning for me as well as them! So I'm finding out a lot about the animals here.  I have also started the first aid training with the staff, some of which though that to put our a fire on someone was to blow a fan at them!!! Or that the recovery position was lying on your front! Oh well, at least I will teach them something!

Old Lapa Dining area

• In the evening, Petch and I head up to open the bar whilst the site manager is on his leave.  We serve the guests their drinks before dinner and then join them at the table for a 3 course meal.  So far we have had Oryx roasted and stewed and meat-balled and Impala steak.  All meat is hunted on the farm and used here for dinners and also the feed the leopard and cheetah's.

The Bar

We are able to jump on a tour whenever we like too and so I took the opportunity to get some pictures of this and went this week.

Leopard Feeding in the tree

Jumping for the Oryx meat

The cats are in enclosures. There are 2 leopards kept separately, and 4 Cheetah's kept together, and a 5th with only 3 legs in another encloure.

Christian coming back from fetching the Cheetah's

A still hungry Cheetah

Reception area

The pool

Part of the scenery

river

The farm is HUGE and the scenery is quite spectacular with plenty of marked out walks which we have been going on, mainly for exercise to burn off our 3 course meals!

hippo dam

On of the 5.2km tracks takes us out to a dam where the 4 Hippos live, alongside warthogs and baboons.  It certainly makes the evening run entertaining! I jut hope that a wild mountain leopard is not lurking somewhere in the long grass, though I've been told that my meat is a lot tougher than it's preference of young game!

Travels through Malawi and Zambia

After finishing our time at Butterfly Space in Nkhata Bay, we took off for a while to see the sights of Malawi.

Our first stop was to the Island of Chizumulu, on the otherside of Lake Malawi, closer to Mozambique.  We set off one morning on the Chambo boat, in true african style, plenty of goods on board and being ferried to this boat.  in a row boat almost ready to capsize.

The Chambo

arriving to the Island

Being rowed to shore from the ferry

Sunset on Chizamlu

We didn't do too much for 5 days, hoping to go to Likoma Island, but the ferries were unreliable and so we stayed put! Not a bad time really, reading, swimming and walking around the Island (which can be done in an hour and a half.

View from Wakwenda retreat

The fish drying on the racks on the beach

After leaving Chizumulu, we cam back to mainland and we headed 3 hours north to Livingstonia, a missionary settlement established by Scottish Missionaries.  The small settlement is up on the top of a plateau overlooking the lake where we spent 3 relaxing days at Mushroom Farm. We spent a day hiking the 10km return trip to Livingstonia to see the Old Stone House Museum and Church and small hospital, and dinner at a neighbouring lodge called 

Our tent

Inside the tent

View from the ledge

Sunrise from our tent

The Bar and Restaurant area

After long bus journey to Lilongwe, a few nights to recuperate in the backpackers, we boarded the bus to Lusaka in Zambia.  A further night in Lusaka and then we boarded the bus to Livingstone where we spent a few days seeing victoria falls, walking with Lion Cubs and Rich did a Microflight over the falls.                     

Butterfly space, nkhata bay

We arrived in nkhata bay about 3 weeks ago now and are living in a tired looking paradise right in lake Malawi.

Butterfly space is a resort for volunteers which offers a variety of projects, or you can come and stay if you are just travelling through.

I am involves in little leapers, the nursery school attached to butterfly. I work 8 - 12 Monday Friday with 12 delightful and highly energetic children aged 4 to 7. I've been continuing to embrace the jolly phonics programme that I learned and taught in Tanzania and have also been using the many tricks learned in our Uganda teacher training session with Ali and Nikki.

We also do swimming lessons for them, as some of them have never been in the water, despite living next to a lake! Lots of spare volunteers are needed for this!

What I also implemented in our first week was a business plan for the FAWN HIV women's group that come to butterfly. Rich and I cooked Ugandan roleggs for them, (the common street food of Uganda that we loved), of chappati wrap of egg and veg omelette). I took them shopping for the starting ingredients and set them up in town and they have since been continuing to sell to mzungus and locals in town.  Its great for us its its a cheap delicious lunch in a place where there's not much else to buy but  bread, beans and rice, dried fish, deep fried goat and chips!!

Rich cooking Chappati

Necky enjoying her roleggs!

Butterfly has an amazing kitchen and staff and we enjoy a communal dinner each night and either breakfast or lunch all included in our volunteer package. The food is delicious! We have started to increase our exercise accordingly!!!  Our hut is right on the edge of the water with amazing sunrises and we are able to enjoy a swim at the end of the day!

our hut

the sun deck

balcony

view from bed

sunrise

Rich has been busy too. He has written a proposal for nkhata bay council regarding the construction of numerous bins in a rather untidy town. He has met with various council members and environmental officers to get this underway.

He has also been building tables and shelves for little leapers and the other butterfly nursery school up the road.

Butterfly has had many volunteers through July and had a big school group for 2 weeks and world race mission group for 3 weeks. Water has run out regularly, the lake and my soap have become good friends and the poor staff have been busy in the kitchen that I've often helped out with dinners.

Now it is quiet again and there are less volunteers to spread around the jobs that need doing in the community, we may have to spread our wings and help out with youth club each day, disabled club on Fridays, sewing on Wednesdays and the new HIV women's nutrition group on Mondays that study a years course on healthy eating and natural medicine.

Lucille Flood also visited us for 5 days which was amazing. We played netball on Chikale beach when Butterfly ran a sports day, and had a good old catch up!

the beach

Lucille and I washing  in the lake, Rich rinsing!!

view from the toilet (compost toilet!)