Friday, July 19
Jul. 19th, 2024 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Phone calls from my Sweetie. His vacation days sound like he's had a wonderful time, and I'm so glad he took them. It's been fun living vicariously through his calls.
It's still very hot. I really can't work on anything, it's so hot. I'm yucky feeling all day long, even inside the house.
I did go see River later in the day (no session with the girl with health challenges today, too hot for her). He's SO TIRED, and the horse flies are really getting to him.
I brought him into the barn and hosed him down, as I have been doing every time I bring him in now, with this heat, and I think he enjoys it. I know I would.
I've been slathering him with this longer-lasting fly repellent cream, just tons of it around his groin because the flies love that soft, exposed skin. He's getting that cream all over his tail, though, and it's all greasy now and the dirt is sticking to it. It's pretty gross looking.
Yet, I won't be able to wash it all out until "fly season" is over, and who knows when that might be. Not usually until the first frosts in late September.
We did our best to work on gentle but meaningful things, like just staying with me at a brisk walk, yields, backing up, and some gentle ridden work.
I did see R and her daughter L in passing as they brought out some horses to work with since it was cooler.
Then I came home and let everyone out into their pastures, had something to eat, then brought them back in.
I worked with Dandy and Wonder together again, and they did SO much better today with both staying with me at the same time. No need for sending them out on the circle or anything, they remembered to stay with me today.
Very nice to see.
I put the water on the garden tonight. I was watering using the stored rain water in our two huge tanks, but those are empty now, so this water is from our well, which I kind of hate doing.
It's supposed to remain this sweltering hot for another week though, so I kind of have to water.
I've really been noticing how helpful it's been for me to study so much geography this last couple of months. I'm noticing that when I read books or articles, or people talk about places they've been, that I have a better idea of where those places are, and what they are like.
Namibia is the DRIEST of the sub-Saharan African countries. It is also one of the most sparsely inhabited countries in the world. It is just very inhospitable.
Another region that was populated first mainly by the San, Nama, and Damara tribes, then also by Bantu people right up until the arrival of Europeans, which didn't happen until pretty late in the game, because there just isn't much reason to colonize it. Not much in the way of agriculture or forests or water.
"In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive campaign against the Herero and Nama which escalated into the first genocide of the 20th century. German rule ended during the First World War with a 1915 defeat by South African forces. In 1920, after the end of the war, the League of Nations mandated administration of the colony to South Africa. From 1948, with the National Party elected to power, this included South Africa applying apartheid to what was then known as South West Africa. In the later 20th century, uprisings and demands for political representation resulted in the United Nations assuming direct responsibility over the territory in 1966, but South Africa maintained de facto rule until 1973, when the UN recognized the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) as the official representative of the Namibian people. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. However, Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994."
That genocide was awful, and you should look it up if you want to understand how bad it was. "Only in 2021 did the German government acknowledge the genocide and agreed to pay €1.1 billion over 30 years in community aid.[40]".
It is now a reasonably stable parliamentary democracy, and there is some mining (a very good source of diamonds) and agriculture and tourism, but most of the people there remain quite poor. The cities are fairly modern, and working on things like banking/financial sector to diversify, but that still isn't helping a lot of people.
It sucks that many of those poor people can't really even feed themselves with subsistence agriculture, and as it is, the cost of living is a bit high because a lot of food is imported.
The whole country is just different kinds of desert. Regular old desert with dunes, higher up desert, coastal desert, but it's pretty much all desert. One of it's best known features is...a desert. The Kalahari Desert.
Nope. Not much for water here on the surface. They rely on wells, and the only year round rivers are what forms their borders. Within the country, there is only occasionally surface water after a big storm that happens somewhere else and the water is trying to get to the ocean.
Things are not bad for human rights, for African standards. Still not fantastic for LGBTQ people and women, but hey! It's okay if you're a cis man!
Namibia is doing a lot to conserve it's ecosystems and wild life, as eco-tourism might be a big part of it's future solvency. Since it has good airports, roads, and is politically fairly stable, that bodes well for tourism.
Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Obesity and diabetes are huge problems here, there is a pretty low life expectancy of 64 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia
Phone calls from my Sweetie. His vacation days sound like he's had a wonderful time, and I'm so glad he took them. It's been fun living vicariously through his calls.
It's still very hot. I really can't work on anything, it's so hot. I'm yucky feeling all day long, even inside the house.
I did go see River later in the day (no session with the girl with health challenges today, too hot for her). He's SO TIRED, and the horse flies are really getting to him.
I brought him into the barn and hosed him down, as I have been doing every time I bring him in now, with this heat, and I think he enjoys it. I know I would.
I've been slathering him with this longer-lasting fly repellent cream, just tons of it around his groin because the flies love that soft, exposed skin. He's getting that cream all over his tail, though, and it's all greasy now and the dirt is sticking to it. It's pretty gross looking.
Yet, I won't be able to wash it all out until "fly season" is over, and who knows when that might be. Not usually until the first frosts in late September.
We did our best to work on gentle but meaningful things, like just staying with me at a brisk walk, yields, backing up, and some gentle ridden work.
I did see R and her daughter L in passing as they brought out some horses to work with since it was cooler.
Then I came home and let everyone out into their pastures, had something to eat, then brought them back in.
I worked with Dandy and Wonder together again, and they did SO much better today with both staying with me at the same time. No need for sending them out on the circle or anything, they remembered to stay with me today.
Very nice to see.
I put the water on the garden tonight. I was watering using the stored rain water in our two huge tanks, but those are empty now, so this water is from our well, which I kind of hate doing.
It's supposed to remain this sweltering hot for another week though, so I kind of have to water.
I've really been noticing how helpful it's been for me to study so much geography this last couple of months. I'm noticing that when I read books or articles, or people talk about places they've been, that I have a better idea of where those places are, and what they are like.
Namibia is the DRIEST of the sub-Saharan African countries. It is also one of the most sparsely inhabited countries in the world. It is just very inhospitable.
Another region that was populated first mainly by the San, Nama, and Damara tribes, then also by Bantu people right up until the arrival of Europeans, which didn't happen until pretty late in the game, because there just isn't much reason to colonize it. Not much in the way of agriculture or forests or water.
"In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive campaign against the Herero and Nama which escalated into the first genocide of the 20th century. German rule ended during the First World War with a 1915 defeat by South African forces. In 1920, after the end of the war, the League of Nations mandated administration of the colony to South Africa. From 1948, with the National Party elected to power, this included South Africa applying apartheid to what was then known as South West Africa. In the later 20th century, uprisings and demands for political representation resulted in the United Nations assuming direct responsibility over the territory in 1966, but South Africa maintained de facto rule until 1973, when the UN recognized the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) as the official representative of the Namibian people. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. However, Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994."
That genocide was awful, and you should look it up if you want to understand how bad it was. "Only in 2021 did the German government acknowledge the genocide and agreed to pay €1.1 billion over 30 years in community aid.[40]".
It is now a reasonably stable parliamentary democracy, and there is some mining (a very good source of diamonds) and agriculture and tourism, but most of the people there remain quite poor. The cities are fairly modern, and working on things like banking/financial sector to diversify, but that still isn't helping a lot of people.
It sucks that many of those poor people can't really even feed themselves with subsistence agriculture, and as it is, the cost of living is a bit high because a lot of food is imported.
The whole country is just different kinds of desert. Regular old desert with dunes, higher up desert, coastal desert, but it's pretty much all desert. One of it's best known features is...a desert. The Kalahari Desert.
Nope. Not much for water here on the surface. They rely on wells, and the only year round rivers are what forms their borders. Within the country, there is only occasionally surface water after a big storm that happens somewhere else and the water is trying to get to the ocean.
Things are not bad for human rights, for African standards. Still not fantastic for LGBTQ people and women, but hey! It's okay if you're a cis man!
Namibia is doing a lot to conserve it's ecosystems and wild life, as eco-tourism might be a big part of it's future solvency. Since it has good airports, roads, and is politically fairly stable, that bodes well for tourism.
Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Obesity and diabetes are huge problems here, there is a pretty low life expectancy of 64 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia
