a labor of love..

It's been nine months, almost to the day, since my completion of two years of service with the US Peace Corps in Namibia. It's been an interesting transition, living back in the states... Ups and downs, and while it's good to be back -- Namibia, I miss you so.

I didn't spend a lot of time behind a camera - it altered too greatly the interaction with my kids... but here is a sampling of my last days in Mangetti with my ridiculous, brilliant, wonderful, obnoxious students... These few snaps are some of my favorites: siblings and cousins side by side, (with a few class photos thrown in). Can you see the family resemblance? The full album can be found here.

  

Apologies for any fuzzziness as I tinkered with the settings of a borrowed Olympus after my Nikon went kaput. And thanks to Ms. Ali for trusting me with your camera for a few weeks in the bush!

selfie.

Photography is such a slippery medium. 

You never know what emotion you're going to capture. 

Or whether, in fact, your subjects will look like themselves. 

A random thought, a flash of memory and the face contorts; you've photographed an entirely different person. Maybe, though, that's the whole idea.

this is africa, ne?

It doesn't always feel like I live where I live.

Despite the mud huts, the donkey carts, and epic tracts of sand traversed..

It’s surprisingly easy to forget..

Yet, something about wading amid deep hippo footprints and elephant
dung, pushing aside papyrus looking for a private spot to piss, on an island in the middle of the oKavango, really does trigger a realization as to one's current locale.

The weekend was spent near the mouth of the Zambezi [Caprivi] Strip around Divundu.

A couple of nights sleeping next to the oKavango River in an old hulk of an RV camper, with the sweet grunts of hippos as a lullaby through the night.

It was beautiful.
The icing, though, was the boat ride, piloted by an experienced guide, and an abundance of wildlife.

Palms | Kavango River

African skimmers | Kavango River

Bundled papyrus | Kavango River

Carmine bee-eater | Kavango River

Look closer, they're shy.. A lesser jacana. | Kavango River

Kids fishing | Kavango River

Pod of hippos | Kavango River

Crocodile | Kavango River

Fish Eagle | Kavango River

That shadow there? Its an elephant. | Kavango River

African skimmer eggs | Kavango River

Fishing | Kavango River

Bird in flight | Kavango River

Goliath Heron | Kavango River

Lily | Kavango River

vultures, and eagles, and parrots, oh my.

Well. Just when I thought I'd be spending a lazy day in the capital...

I found myself, instead, on a birding adventure at NARREC — a non-profit organization whose primary focus is to provide professional care and rehabilitation facilities for injured, orphaned and misplaced wildlife in order to facilitate their release back into the wild. 

We showed up a little later than we anticipated.. According to the directions on their site, take every unmarked left... They meant all but the third (fourth?) one, one could assume, as we found ourselves in the hills at a dead end originally. 

There are a host of birds currently at the centre; among them, various eagles, falcons, vultures, owls, parrots, as well as a number of mammals and reptiles... My favorites were two birds in particular. One, an injured White-backed Vulture, was a sweetie that would swoop over to the fence for a nuzzle. The second, a rescued African Grey Parrot, was capable of throwing its voice to sound as if it was speaking Afrikaans, which was a little jarring at first. Ek praat nie Afrikaans nie. But then we realized he was just trying to convince us to stay longer at their enclosure. I admit, I'm a sucker and stayed for a while with this last flirt. There may have been an Eskimo kiss or two.. Nose to beak. He was a spunky bugger. I considered thievery briefly. 

Visiting Windhoek? Check out the NARREC site for more information. Also, more here.

White-backed Vulture | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

Cricket or Grasshopper? | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

Black Eagle | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

African Grey Parrot | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

Flora | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

Deceased Fauna | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

King of the Ants | NARREC | Windhoek, Namibia

mosi oa tunya

Elephants! Maramba River Lodge | Livingstone, Zambia

Elephants stomping along.. Maramba Riverfront |  Livingstone, Zambia

A vervet monkey dashing about.. | Livingstone, Zambia

My Klingon face. Sim's normal face. | Livingstone, Zambia

Pinching the sunset with his strong hand... Mwahahaha. | Livingstone, Zambia

Sunset at the Zambezi Riverfront | Livingstone, Zambia

Mosi Oa Tunya [Smoke that Thunders] | Livingstone, Zambia

Sparkly chartreuse bits, Mosi Oa Tunya Park | Livingstone, Zambia

Rainbow Falls at Mosi Oa Tunya Falls | Livingstone, Zambia

The view from our chalet.. Bliss. | Bovu Island, Zambia

Boats afloat... Animal wants to escape... | Bovu Island, Zambia

Birds in flight... Bovu Island, Zambia

Sunset Canoe Cruise | Bovu Island, Zambia

Sunset, straight ahead... | Bovu Island, Zambia