For my 26th Birthday we decided to make a weekend of it. On the Friday night we all went out for a meal to Benatis, which is pretty much the only decent place to have dinner in Katima. Jemma had gone to a pizza place once where they served her pizza that was still raw no less than 3 times (after repeatedly sending her order back). Needless to say she hasn’t been back there since. Benatis has huge long tables so you end up sitting with other people you don’t know which can be quite nice. All of the seating is outdoors which is a little odd, but I guess you can almost always guarantee the weather to be warm enough. The table we sat on had huge white lights above us which caused a bit of a problem at first as there were hundreds of cicadas flying around, climbing in and out of the lights above our heads. They have a habit of flying into me and falling on me, so after the 6th or 7th time I’d screamed the owner got the hint and turned the lights off. There were still plenty of other yellow lights around but for some reason the cicadas aren’t attracted to them.
We ordered our meals and started drinking. Some of Glenn and Jem’s friends turned up to join us too; Etienne, Francois and Ruan. The food came and was surprisingly nice. There is still something about eating in Namibia, especially in Katima that puts me off. Most of the meat in the supermarket is already out of date before you even buy it. It’s an amazing achievement if you manage to find mushrooms, and even then they tend to be on their way out already. Katima is in the north east tip of Namibia in the Caprivi Strip. It’s the furthest you can get within the country away from the capital, Windhoek. It is probably the poorest part of Namibia, and is so far from anywhere that it’s like being on another planet. There doesn’t seem to be any level of customer service which is hilarious but can be frustrating at times. If they don’t understand your order instead of coming and asking you to confirm, they will just ignore it. If you ask for something that is not on the menu, they just won’t do it. For example at Tutwa café a gentleman asked if he could have a club sandwich. They served chicken sandwiches and bacon sandwiches so he assumed that he could have a chicken and bacon sandwich but the waitress just said no, it’s not on the menu. It’s like they have their routines and will stick to them, even if it’s to their detriment. Very odd. I have discovered not to bother asking for anything in Africa (not just Namibia) as whatever you are asking the answer will be no. I have asked on many occasions if they sell certain things in the supermarket, all I have ever got is a no. I don’t know whether it’s just pure laziness or a lack of caring but there have been times when I know they sell something as I’ve seen It, and I’ll ask just to see what answer I get; it’s always no! It’s quite amusing actually, although does make finding your way round a different country incredibly difficult.
After the meal at Benatis we headed back home to play some games. Etienne, Francios and Ruan came too. Of course we started with ‘Ring of Fire’ which always ends in a drunken stupor, but that’s the way we like it. Although Africans are big drinkers they tend to be very reserved, well the white Africans anyway; they don’t like talking about sex, playing stupid games, or generally making a fool of themselves (The black Africans seem to have much less problem with nudity than the whites). All the guys there were egging us on to play strip poker, but in hindsight I think they clearly did not think they would have to take any of their clothes off. I guess that would have been a safe assumption as I had never played poker before and Jemma didn’t seem particularly interested, but in actual fact we whooped them. Jem and I ended up basically fully clothed while all of the guys ended up completely naked. They were not impressed, I think their plan had backfired big time.
We ordered our meals and started drinking. Some of Glenn and Jem’s friends turned up to join us too; Etienne, Francois and Ruan. The food came and was surprisingly nice. There is still something about eating in Namibia, especially in Katima that puts me off. Most of the meat in the supermarket is already out of date before you even buy it. It’s an amazing achievement if you manage to find mushrooms, and even then they tend to be on their way out already. Katima is in the north east tip of Namibia in the Caprivi Strip. It’s the furthest you can get within the country away from the capital, Windhoek. It is probably the poorest part of Namibia, and is so far from anywhere that it’s like being on another planet. There doesn’t seem to be any level of customer service which is hilarious but can be frustrating at times. If they don’t understand your order instead of coming and asking you to confirm, they will just ignore it. If you ask for something that is not on the menu, they just won’t do it. For example at Tutwa café a gentleman asked if he could have a club sandwich. They served chicken sandwiches and bacon sandwiches so he assumed that he could have a chicken and bacon sandwich but the waitress just said no, it’s not on the menu. It’s like they have their routines and will stick to them, even if it’s to their detriment. Very odd. I have discovered not to bother asking for anything in Africa (not just Namibia) as whatever you are asking the answer will be no. I have asked on many occasions if they sell certain things in the supermarket, all I have ever got is a no. I don’t know whether it’s just pure laziness or a lack of caring but there have been times when I know they sell something as I’ve seen It, and I’ll ask just to see what answer I get; it’s always no! It’s quite amusing actually, although does make finding your way round a different country incredibly difficult.
After the meal at Benatis we headed back home to play some games. Etienne, Francios and Ruan came too. Of course we started with ‘Ring of Fire’ which always ends in a drunken stupor, but that’s the way we like it. Although Africans are big drinkers they tend to be very reserved, well the white Africans anyway; they don’t like talking about sex, playing stupid games, or generally making a fool of themselves (The black Africans seem to have much less problem with nudity than the whites). All the guys there were egging us on to play strip poker, but in hindsight I think they clearly did not think they would have to take any of their clothes off. I guess that would have been a safe assumption as I had never played poker before and Jemma didn’t seem particularly interested, but in actual fact we whooped them. Jem and I ended up basically fully clothed while all of the guys ended up completely naked. They were not impressed, I think their plan had backfired big time.
The next night, the actual evening of my birthday, the guys (minus Francios) came round again for a Braai and some more drinking games (I think we had broken their African prudishness). If you use the words BBQ in Africa you literally get laughed at. I’m not entirely sure why but when I have asked the question apparently BBQ sounds girly and braai implies you will have ‘proper’ meat; steak, chicken etc. I don’t really get this but never mind. After the braai we started on Ring of Fire again and slowly got rather plastered. After putting Jemma to bed we somehow ended up playing naked Cluedo. I have absolutely no idea how this happened and it was completely pointless really as we all just sat there naked trying to cover ourselves and work out the killer at the same time. After gaining some clothes we decided to play Truth or Dare, another game that always ends up in a drunken mess (It was drinking Truth or Dare of course). Somehow the rules seemed to work out that no matter what happened, you drank a shot of vodka. After learning some things that I probably would rather have not, it all ended with Glenn being dared to get into the dam at the bottom of the garden. This dam has not been used for god knows how many years and besides the stagnant water, I hate to think how many leaches, snakes etc are in there. Glenn certainly stank we he reappeared and we decided that was the time to call it a night.
All in all, with the bungee jump, meal, braai and drinking games it was a pretty good birthday.
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