The Lounge

It occurred to me as I visited the Peace Corps lounge today (Sunday) that many of you at home have never even seen it!  So here it is, the grand Peace Corps volunteer lounge, established so that traveling volunteers can crash, relax, use the Internet or make phone calls.  It's a horrible mess, but it's a homey kind of mess.

The front door with a single pad lock. If you think this may be unsafe, consider that this door is inside a 10-foot gated compound that is guarded 24-7.	You enter to the computer, sitting idle (if your lucky) on a shaky table in front of an even more shaky chair.	The notice board with two-year old notices.
The second room with a couch, closet, table, phone and lots of junk.	The other side of the second room showing the book case of old books and more junk.

It should be noted that several volunteers have volunteered to clean the place up, but just like so many places in life, it just gets messy again.  I actually like it messy- somehow it doesn't feel right to have an orderly lounge in the middle of Africa.

The book case in the lounge holds a decade long conglomeration of reading material.  Most of the good stuff has been snatched by volunteers, so all that's left are the unknown authors and titles. 

There's also a bathroom and shower, which has never looked used despite the signs on the shower warning of no hot water. 

The main room also has a large grid of cubbies that we use as mail boxes or long term storage- whatever the need may be.

In the summer we crank on the air conditioning and in the winter we turn up the heat.  It's a very comfortable and messy place that has welcomed hundreds of volunteers for many years.  Hopefully it will welcome a continuing stream of volunteers in the future as the education and health problems in Namibia persist.

Next time I'll give you a tour of the Peace Corps offices.