october was too much to ever recap. i can't rehash the details at this point, and i won't recount a travel itinerary. i won't abandon the blog, though, so i will do what i can to try to put a few of the pieces of what i can remember on paper.

i didn't realize how much i could crave the ocean. the first part of our group's three weeks of traveling was to Swakopmund, a little city on the coast where i had my first encounter with this side of the Atlantic. I'd heard that Swakop is kind of like a neo-Nazi stronghold in the country, but in our few days of visiting with city officials and wandering the town and climbing dunes i didn't pick up on any of that.

and then there were homestays, we got our last sets of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. we stayed in a region called Omaruru. i was placed in a town called ozondhati with a Herero family where i stayed in a room with 6 kids under 7 years old and my host sister. the grandpa and grandma of the family slept in a tent out front next to the car parts that they sold to supplement the income from the goat post a couple of miles away where i saw my first slaughter. a bunch of the other students staying in the village in town and i piled into the back of a pick up truck to pick out a lamb for the cook out the next day.

i have to go for now. i'll write more soon, but i just wanted to put something up in the time between now and when i actually do that.