well toto, we're definitely not in kansas anymore

As the title implies, namibia is different than any place I've ever been, particularly kansas (or valpo for that matter). but I do like it...
first week of classes went alright, not too much exciting during the week except we went out for dinner on valentines (all 20 of us) and ended up waiting 2 hours for our food that wasn't very good, and my internship went better (but still not sure what I'm gonna do the whole time), and I think I'm going to enjoy my classes.
so 11 of us went camping this past weekend. we left friday late afternoon for Rehoboth, a town about an hour away from Windhoek with a population around 20 or 30 thousand. The make up is different than I've seen before, almost everyone is of mixed race, and they refer to themselves as basters. we ended up at the wrong camp grounds, but it ended up working out. just chilled on friday and saturday we went to a dam/lake and hiked around. very very beautiful. there are so many mountains around. namibia is very dry but some parts still seem to have lush looking plants, though overall the look of the country is dry (it's dessert). just radically different from the midwest. came back to the camp grounds and met some locals and spent the evening talking, dancing, relaxing with them. incredibly welcoming people. one man offered for some of us to come stay at his place for a month, others offered to have us over if we were ever in town again. a couple girls took us on a walk to a stream/waterfall the next morning which was beautiful and we got to see some of the city that we would have never seen if it wasn't for them. since the town is smaller and racially different than windhoek we got some different reactions from the people, but overall people were friendly and wanted to make sure we enjoyed Reho, which we did. It was a fun weekend, though apparently we missed out, because some girls met the first prime minister of namibia and hung out with him all saturday evening! however, I saw two baboons near the road on the drive back and that secured it for me that we're definitely not in kansas anymore. :)