Sunday afternoon, September 10, 2006: We are driving home to Shakawe from Rundu, Namibia, where we have spent the weekend. Rundu is an approximately three-hour drive northwest from Shakawe. We visited the town in mid-June for a daylong shopping excursion, and liked it well enough to want to return for a weekend "getaway." Rundu, like Maun in Botswana, has several large well-stocked grocery stores, a couple of pharmacies, hardware stores, and other specialty shops. There also are several great bed-and-breakfast lodges with accommodation at affordable prices.

On arrival Friday night we ate dinner at the Omashare Lodge, which has excellent food served in a pleasant outdoor courtyard with a great view across the Cubango River into Angola. Because Angola has a significant Portuguese-speaking population, and cross-border migration has occurred for many years, the language can be heard in Rundu as well. During dinner we asked our server whether she knows Portuguese. She does, and also knows Ovambo (a dialect common to northern Namibia), Afrikaans, and English. It is common in this part of the world for everyone except people living in the more remote villages to be familiar with at least three languages and dialects, and sometimes as many as six or seven.