The other evening, as we were driving to his village, Pete and I saw a large snake in the middle of the road. It looked like a pale rosy python.

Yesterday afternoon, some of the boys killed a baby spitting cobra on the school grounds.

The other day, Pete and I ventured to the cuca shops behind the mission grounds. We had never been there before. These are very small rural bars that don’t sell anything except traditional beer and the one large bottle of Sprite that we were able to buy. There are all kinds of traditional beer, but the last one I tried tasted to me like goat’s milk and I haven’t been keen to repeat the experience since. It was quite awkward to sit down and join the people in the cuca shop, who were just sitting around talking in Oshiwambo, but we did. We sat on benches and everyone drank out of small plastic measuring jugs. The bar was just a one room brick hut that was bare inside apart from the benches, a counter and a small table that was placed in front of me and Pete. We didn’t really talk to anyone, unless you count smiling, the occasional awkward laugh and head nod. The other people in the bar were mostly older men and women except for the young girl serving the beer. At one point a woman came over and helped herself to some of our Sprite. We then realised we should offer it to all the people present. This helped us to superficially integrate ourselves. One woman said no thanks, but we could buy her a drink “tomorrow”. So, we were expected to come back!

Last night my roommate took us to meet two German doctors who work at the local hospital where she also works as a physiotherapist. The reason for meeting them last night is that they both play guitar and said that they could fix my guitar string for me. It was really nice to meet them and their enormous dog, Max, who is a mixture of Labrador and Rhodesian ridgeback. Apparently his mother is even bigger than he and weighs 50kg! This is the kind of dog I would like to have next year (although Pete is not so sure). Sylvia told us that she has a real problem with Max wanting to kill the goats that wander freely all over town. The other day he killed one and Sylvia had to go find the owner to give him money. The owner told Sylvia that she should just let Max roam freely so that he gets used to the goats, but Sylvia replied that she doesn’t have the money to pay all the goat owners for the killings that occur in the meantime. She returned home quite upset about the incident and told Hans, her husband, about it. Hans replied, “But where is the goat, why did you not bring it home to eat?”