The Walvis Bay Wellness Centre has officially been opened on World AIDS day 2008! Now sitting at Johannesburg airport, I am going back to Amsterdam today; I cannot believe how fast time went in the last few weeks… I can now look backwards, without any regrets, being very sad though, Namibia is a wonderful country! So many things have happened, the clinic has been successfully launched and so many other activities have taken place…

My assignment in Namibia is going on, it’s been now a bit more than four weeks and the project has been evolving a lot, satisfying changes, it’s such a world and such a task to work in the HIV/AIDS world and to realize how people try to solve this problem. The Wellness Center in Walvis Bay will be launched on the first of December, and still a lot to achieve but motivation is there and will be there thanks to people’s help and support as well as various other impressive initiatives around AIDS prevention.

I arrived in Namibia a week ago and it’s been quite hectic to start up on the assignment. After a quiet and sightseeing week-end, I met a lot of key people who will help us out to raise funds locally. So many people are very enthusiastic about the project which really motivates me to do my best and get the wellness center running properly!

Today is my first day in Johannesburg (SA), where I'm going to be in transit until the end of this week before flying to my final destination being Namibia. I will be working from Windhoek and Walvis Bay during the next two months for North Star Foundation, initiative providing HIV/AIDS prevention education programme through roadside wellness centers all over southern and eastern Africa.

During the last two days, I’ve faced quite a learning experience… my first actual contact with the field took place in Zimbabwe where North Star Foundation is planning to set up a wellness center at the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe, in Beitbridge. We went up there to check out some spots where the center could potentially be established. It sounded like an easy task which ended up being a very long and shocking process…