Because I had so many Namibian dollars left (each is worth about US$0.13), we needed to go shopping today because, unlike rands, Namibian dollars are useless over the border (rands are pretty much equal to Namibian dollars, so here they\u2019re interchanged. Yesterday I got change back in Namibian coins and a 20-rand note).<\/p>\n
We started out going to a shop, but we stopped to look at the people selling \u201cAfricana\u201d on the side of the road. They were selling everything from trinkets to baubles to textiles to fabrics. One of my favorite things (though I didn\u2019t buy it) was the hippo with its mouth open. There were many, many carvings of it on the curb.<\/p>\n
The man from whom I bought stone giraffes said that his name was Robert, he was from the Caprivi Strip (in the north-east corner of Namibia), and that he had carved the giraffes by hand. In reality, his name probably wasn\u2019t Robert, he probably wasn\u2019t from the Caprivi, and he most definitely didn\u2019t carve the stone because he got all his things from the trailers behind all the other sellers, and the stuff was most likely imported from Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
Ethan bought a kudu leather bracelet and a stone leopard, too, before we moved on, passing a primary school. One of the kids said to Ethan, \u201cCool hair, dude!\u201d (That\u2019s because he\u2019s gelled his hair up in a spike.)<\/p>\n
Ciao!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Because I had so many Namibian dollars left (each is worth about US$0.13), we needed to go shopping today because, unlike rands, Namibian dollars are useless over the border (rands are pretty much equal to Namibian dollars, so here they\u2019re … Continue reading