The archival week.

Well... I got yelled at by a national hero today. The man pictured above is Toivo Ya Toivo who lead the resistance against apartheid during South African rule over Namibia. Mr. Toivo happened to be wandering the archives today. We just so happen to know who he is because we've been restoring recordings and news articles of him. So I thought I'd be friendly and say hi. I approached him and said very calmly, "excuse me are you Mr. Toivo?" He replied by yelling, "I might be! The hell kind of pants are you wearing son?! PULL THEM UP?!" Seeing as my pants were pulled up as high as they go, I calmly replied, "Well sir they are as high as the stitching permits." He then yelled, "THEN WHY WOULD YOU BUY SUCH GARBAGE?! WHATS YOUR NAME?!" after introducing myself and telling him I was from Utah working on the recordings of his imprisonment with Nelson Mandela, he said, "psssh! THERE ARE NO TAPES!! PULL UP YOUR PANTS?! UTAH!!??!?! YOU'RE ONE OF THOSE TWELVE WIVES PEOPLE!!!!" he then held my hand and made me walk down the hall with him continuing to rant about youth and their pants.... So.. I met an international icon today. He was just like everybody else that has no clue about where I live. I have horns, twelve wives, and my pants are the wrong style. I guess I should feel honored to have been in his presence. But it was a tad off putting to be yelled at by the man you are helping to preserve in history about something as unimportant as polygamy and pants.

On another note the school decided we deserve access to blogger today so I thought I'd get a note out. It's been a pretty busy week, restoring and transferring tapes. Digitising (they don't use z's for anything) as they say in the archives here. Working out the shots for our documentary, finding a good direction to take the story, and wondering if we can really fit everything into just 22 minutes.

Sunday Dr. Tjivekua, the rector here at Polytechnic took us to the Okapuka game reserve for lunch, and an animal exhibition. Dr. Tjivekua is from the Oshiherrero tribe, and he told us about his family, and the different adventures he had been on. The best part of Okapuka is that all the food is hunted there, so it's the freshest possible meat you can get in Africa, if Oryx is any more delicious than this, I could die. The rest of the week involved business as usual, transcribing, restoring, backing up, filming.

Wednesday we began working with the students from the Poly to help them get hands on experience with the equipment they've been studying. Jordan and I attempted to cram 2 semesters of audio classes into a 1 hour lecture to explain why we use certain file types, etc. It felt good to realize that the training had sunk in, and soon we were able to show them editing in Vegas. During a break I was able to talk to Petrus who is very into videography, and he gave me a digital copy of one of his favorite movies, "My Cousin Vinny." They love that movie here, of all the movies to have an odd cultural phenomenon Joe Pesci and crew seem to reign supreme in Windhoek.

After the long work day on Wednesday we decided to blow off some steam at Joe's Beer House. Joe's is known for it's exotic meats and wierd dishes, we figured there would be no better way to enhance our experience. I ordered a skillet that contained crocodile (kinda yummy), oryx(very yummy), zebra(yummy), and Ostrich(life changing). After eating these tasty treats I decided that I will import Ostrich and Oryx yearly for a barbecue, you haven't lived til you've eaten Ostrich. That's why they can run so fast, if they were slow, they'd be extinct because everyone would eat them.

Anyway i'm to the point of rambling now, life in Namibia is pleasant, and the work load helps keep the time moving. Next week we begin our workshop with the heads of various international museums... Wish me luck.

Tom