As of today (July 21, 2009), I have been in Namibia for five months. My goodness the time flies! That is not to say that there weren’t plenty of days which endlessly dragged on, but overall I am amazed at how fast the time has passed. The last week has been particularly hard for a variety of reasons, and it dawned on me today that having hard times is ok. It’s easy to forget that life is different here and I am still adjusting. Learning to be patient with myself has been a process, but I think I am slowly making progress. :)
Last week I broke my routine and left site for the first time since I was sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer back in April. I had my first meeting as a new member the Volunteer Support Network, an organization run by PC Volunteers in Namibia to offer confidential support to our fellow volunteers working in the field. I was lucky enough to get a free hike down with our Ministry of Health patient bus, which was awesome because it literally left 200 meters from my front door. The down side is that it was a typical hike in Namibia: I was crammed into a seat too narrow to accommodate my small frame and the lovely lady who climbed into the seat beside me brought along a full sized keyboard, which she then preceded to stuff into the non-existent space between us. (Leg room is way overrated, right?) So there I sat, smashed against the window with said keyboard digging into my legs, when two lovely Herero women in yards and yards of traditional dress squeezed into the row with us. “It’s only 8 hours,” I said to myself as I inwardly braced for the long journey. Within about 20 minutes my back started to ache and my legs went numb. Oh well, at least the ride was free.
I tried to fall asleep quickly, which wasn’t too difficult because it was 6am (did I forget to mention that?) and when the throbbing in my back forced me to open my eyes a couple of hours later, I was greeted with a lovely surprise. We had just crossed the red line, a check-point which divides the rural north from the rest of the country, when I saw something move in the bush. I squinted my eyes against the harsh morning light and there stood a HUGE elephant, eating his leafy breakfast right off the side of the road! I was so excited to have spotted an elephant in the wild that I literally tried to jump out of my chair. This didn’t go so well, as I bashed my already numb legs into the sharp edge of the keyboard, while simultaneously jarring the poor lady who was sleeping next to me with her head resting against my shoulder. Oops! She sort of snorted awake, and glanced at me for a second before she readjusted the keyboard and fell back to sleep.
My heart pounded as I contemplated the thrill of this sighting. The elephant was remarkable; large and proud, it feasted on the tree totally oblivious to our bus full of people gawking foolishly at it as we barreled down the road. It took my breath away, seeing this giant animal in the wild. No zoo could ever compare. I sealed the mental image of it in my memory, and settled back into my seat only to sit straight back up three minutes later. Moving slowly across the land stalked a herd of 10 full grown giraffes! It was one of those moments where it dawned on me: this is indeed Africa!
Spending about five minutes in Windhoek gave me the opposite reaction though. The capital is huge and bustling. There are too many cars, too many shops, too many lights…it was overwhelming. It was as if someone had magically transported me into different area of the world. In 8 hours, my quiet, dusty Opuwo streets had transformed into multi-lane roads with actual streetlights! Designer clothes had suddenly replaced the rich red ocre of the Himba people. Exotic restaurants punctuated the blocks of shiny new buildings and all around everyone seemed rushed. Namibia is often called a land of stark contrasts, and traveling from my region down to the madness of Windhoek, this becomes very apparent. Almost as soon as I arrived in the big city I was ready to go back to site. Don’t get me wrong, the food in Windhoek was amazing! We had Tex-Mex, Indian food, Sushi, and good hamburgers and fries. Unfortunately I had gotten a stomach bug right before I left Opuwo which prevented me from eating very much at one time, but what I was able to eat was DELICIOUS! However, good food aside, the most valuable aspect of being in Windhoek was coming to the realization that I really love my site.
Our VSN meeting went very well and it was great to get to spend time with some of my fellow PCV’s. I am now back home in Opuwo for the rest of this week, and then Sunday I will head down to Windhoek again for our “Reconnect” which is a two week long Peace Corps training. I will meet up with my group of Health volunteers for the first time since we swore in so that we can all discuss what we have been doing for the last three months and hopefully gain some skills which we can use in our future projects. I am so excited to see my group again but I must admit the prospect of going back down to Windhoek so soon is a little daunting. At least this time around I won’t have the stomach flu, so hopefully I will be able to enjoy the delicious food a bit more!
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