So, picking up where I left off... hiking is interesting. I have had a few interesting hiking experiences, involing sitting in the back of pickup trucks, or being jammed bewteen into a five inch space between a large, loud, constantly drinking man and a large, loud constantly shifting mother and her baby in poorly ventilated vehicles for hours at a time, however this time we were very lucky. The reason for our good fortune may have had something to do with Lindsay. When I am hiking by myself it is very difficult to get a ride from an Afrikkaner. This is understandable because I'm usually scruffy, unshaved and dirty. I pretty much look like the type of person that you would never want to allow to sit in your car. Lindsay on the other hand, is an attractive, white female. She can get rides from Afrikkaners in seconds, which is nice because often times they have nice cars and don't ask for money.
So the standard procedure for the trip would be for Lindsay to stand by the side of the road and for Jay, Chris (another guy I forgot to mention in the previous entry) and myself to stand behind a tree. Lindsay would then recruit a driver and he would agree to give her a ride and at the last moment we would all come out and he would have to give us a ride too. It works brilliantly, and this trip was no different. We found an Afrikkaner to give us a ride most of the way there in exchange for no money.
So after many hours in the car, we finally arrived in the Northern part of Namibia. We were dropped of in Oshakati, the second largest, and possibly most crime infested city in Namibia. We met up with some other Peace Corps volunteers and we all went to KFC for chicken (It's the only American fast food restraunt in Namibia and it's a local favorite. Many people refer to it as "the Kentucky", so it would be common to hear the phrase "We must go and buy the Kentucky tonight.") After some delicious fried food, Jay walked outside and promptly had his cell phone stolen. Two men came up to him (I was standing next to him). One was holding a pair of pants on a hanger and he asked us if we wanted to buy them. While this was happening the other guy slipped his hand into Jay's pocket. Jay immediately felt it and grabbed his hand. I then grabbed the hand of the other guy, but then Jay checked for his wallet and saw it was still there so we let them go after giving them some a culture experience through a variety of American swear words (turning in to the police would have been a big hassle and would have probably resulted in nothing happening to them). 10 seconds later, Jay realizes that his wallet was not the target and notices that his cell phone is gone. We assemble a team of searchers and scatter through the cluster of shops and open market stands, but those two are long gone, unfortunate, but common.
Once again my time on the computer is running short. Sorry again to start typing, only to give you very little information. I've been trying to upload pictures while typing this, but so far I have had no success. I'll keep on trying.
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