Cool Chameleon's and Rachel's Rad Birthday

Hello All,
We just got back from a very long extended b-day getaway for Rachel. We went to stay with our wonderful friends in Okahandja for the long Easter weekend (its a 4 day weekend here). We had a fun relaxing time using the fast internet and talking to friends and family. Rachel especially enjoyed the many Skype birthday parties and they made her feel very special so thank you all for that!!! Sadly she wasn't able to eat her birthday brownies until yesterday becasue we didn't have access to an oven until now. It was an extended birthday because we stayed in Windhoek for the rest of the week so Rachel could receive some much needed physical therapy appointments for her neck and back. They have helped a lot and her headaches have gone away so far. She is also wearing her glasses more often and got a tennis ball to help massage her back when its hurting.

Rainbow over Nkurenkuru
(as usual rainbow pictures are never as awesome as they are in real life)

Yesterday Rachel and I were leisurely strolling down our typical riverside walkway (the river is extremely high by the way) and on our way back we saw a snake in our path. Rachel screamed and I immediately ran at the snake and as it struck I grabbed it by the fang and tore its head off. Okay well actually I just also yelled(well actually cursed but...) and ran away with Rachel for a few yards until we were safely away. The snake had slithered off the path but it was a big snake. From what I saw it was probably 2-3 inches in diameter and a greyish color. That means to us that it was either a mamba or a cobra. The problem was this was the only path and the sun was going down so we slowly walked back up the path while clapping and stomping our feet. The snake had gone by then and we slowly made our way by. Some people were coming up the path and I said "Ezoka ezi" which is my best attempt at "there's a snake." They just laughed and said it is okay to walk. Anyway today we had a more pleasant reptile encounter when we found a chameleon in our yard while returning from grocery shopping. Here are the pictures of us and our friend. We both decided that a chameleon would be a really cool pet. Just watching the different pictures and you can see his skin color change, pretty cool indeed. Also his eyes can move independently of each other and rotate 360 degrees!!!

Our Chameleon Friend

Though non poisonous I am still a bit freaked out by these things

Rachel and the chameleon
This is when it was angry from us trying to pick it up and pulling it by the tail. The expanded throat with the orange stripes means its a male and its ticked off.

Crazy eyes as promised

Full sized view

The stare down

Here are some pictures from our last failed trip to Katope with By Provision
Amazing Preying Mantis with Cool Coloring

Butterfly in Katope

Kid on donkey in Katope

Kids in Katope

Caleb blowing excess water from the well
Gary measuring the well depth
(ended up being 3 meters of water in the bottom)

Pintailed Whydah

I call this one the lion butterfly but who knows what it is

In other news while I was waiting around for Rachel's appointments everyday I did some snooping around in the Windhoek libraries doing research on hydrology and Namibia's groundwater. I ended up finding a list of 28,000 boreholes north of Okahandja where they work, most of which have all the information they want. I also found where to purchase a geological map of Namibia and hydrogeological map as well. Gary and Elizabeth already had a the water one so I bought them the geological map. I also got the people at the ministry to make some maps of various portions of Namibia with boreholes on the map. This way when they are going to drill in an area they can find it on the map and then look up the boreholes to find the water depth and total well depth of surrounding holes.

Talk to you later everyone!!!