Jet Lag

My second day in Namibia began at 9am, when Dollar knocked on my door. He was going to show me around the town and help me pick up some things I needed, including a cell phone. Everyone here has a cell phone, and they all use them constantly. They’re very inexpensive compared to Canada (mine was N$350 or about $50 Canadian) and almost everyone uses “pay-as-you-go” cards. I also picked up some toiletries, which I was running low on, and a supper cheap sweater (it’s cold enough here that the two that I brought won’t be enough). The walk into town from where I’m staying is very beautiful and goes right along the ocean. As we walked there, some girls called our to Dollar, “Hey, Sunshine”. Apparently they recognized Dollar, but didn’t know that his band is called “Afroshine”.

Speaking of Afroshine, they have received a very enticing offer from one of the countries top two producers. Basically, he wants to take them under his wing, and work with them for a couple years to help them get going. It sounds like a great opportunity!

After a morning of walking and shopping, I needed a nap. Now I thought I was just tired from the long walk – one would think, having slept from 9pm to 9am, that I would be adjusted to this time-zone. Not so. I slept for about three hours before getting up around 5pm to go grocery shopping with Mrs. Venter.

Going out with Mrs. Venter is like going out with royalty. I don’t know if people behave the way they do towards her because they know her or because she just has an intangible quality about her, but the respect that she commands from people borders on reverence. When you’re with her, you just feel that you’re in the presence of greatness (which, of course, you are). So anyway, I picked up some groceries – mostly healthy things because one of my goals for the next three months is to get into better shape. However, Mrs. Venter was quite concerned that I hadn’t picked out enough “treats”.

When I got home, Dirk and Marie had dinner ready for me. We just ate in from of the TV and chatted, and talked about Wade, Fahim, Steve, Sam, and Lisa who they had hosted during our tour last year.

A little later on, Garth stopped by. We caught up and talked more Afroshine stuff. One thing that’s delaying Afroshine’s move to Windhoek is that Garth has a very good job at Standard Bank, and they won’t let him quit! Even the head of the company in Namibia has talked to him to try to convince him to stay. Garth has also been part of an advertising campaign for Standard Bank. Apparently his picture is in all the newspapers. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll have to check it out soon.

So back to the title of this blog entry. I went to bed last night at about 9:30pm, feeling quite tired and feeling that that was a reasonable time to be going to bed. Well, at 1am I woke up, and was completely awake. I couldn’t fall asleep again until around 4 or 5am. But when I did sleep I was out until about noon! So yeah, my sleep cycle is seriously messed up

-Joel.