Running in the Desert

The one and only package that has been seriously delayed was a package my mom sent with my tennis shoes.  It took this package 5 months to arrive in Aroab and thank goodness it finally did! 

Originally I thought I might be in a very conservative place and wouldn’t be allowed to wear anything that came above the knee… boy was I wrong!  Anyways, for that reason I decided to bring hiking boots instead of tennis shoes and that I would just work out in my room doing yoga.  My mind was quickly changed when I arrived at training to find that the majority of my fellow PCVs ran and that there is an annual marathon in Swakopmund.  Many people expressed their interest in participating in the marathon, so I figured, why not do it also.

 

So after my shoes finally arrived, 6 months before the marathon, I started running.  It was very difficult for me to get into a consistent routine.  I blamed my lack of motivation a lot on the winter weather.  It was a factor since I am now a complete wuss for cold weather (it starts to get cold end of April – in my opinion).  The winter months are freezing and a concrete house with tile floors and no heat does not encourage one to get out from under their covers in the morning.  Not being able to run after work was also annoying.  With the time change, I could only run for 30 minutes max before it would be too dark.  Excuses aside I was able to train and ended up really enjoying running.

I stuck to the same road because I didn’t want to run in the village where people could see me.  I was a complete newbie and couldn’t run 5 minutes without walking!  Plus there are only four routes if you don’t run in the village.  To get me started my friend, Sachi, who was a runner in college, wrote out a training plan for me.  She started me with a mix of running and walking until I could run without needing to walk.  I couldn’t run fast (and still can’t), but I found that I could run distances.  Another reason I stick to the same route, even today, is because I can measure my distance.  When my dad visited we took the rental car out and made markers with stones 3Km, 5Km, and 10Km out from the village.

Running in a desert environment can be boring for some, but I have grown to love it.  It’s peaceful and you get a beautiful sample of Namibia’s vast landscape.  I stay on the main road to avoid snakes and don’t have to worry about baboons or elephants chasing me.  While training for the marathon, Saturday’s were my long run days and I loved them.  One particular Saturday I heard something that sounded like the sea.  When I found that it was coming from the wind rustling the small leaves in the trees by the bridge 1Km outside of the village I decided to lay down on the side of the road and listen for a bit.  On occasion a bakkie heading to or from a farm will pass me, but thankfully that day there were no bakkies.  They probably would have thought I was crazy, but I wouldn’t have cared because I miss the sound of the sea so much.  That was also when I saw my first owl.  It was either an African Barred Owlet or a Pearl-spotted Owlet and I was very surprised to see it out in the late morning.  Since then I have seen owls more often, but not at all during these summer months.  They show up sometimes in the trees at the school.  The kids always find them and point them out.  While I love the landscape and owls my most favorite thing to see when I run (and my most favorite thing about living here) is watching the sun rise or set.  Before the sun comes into view over the horizon or just after it goes below it there is a line of pink that separates the night sky with the day sky.  I am fascinated by it.  I’ll leave you with a photo that somewhat captures the beauty of it, but of course doesn’t do it justice.

In addition to the beautiful sky you can see our water tower and primary school.

How to Eat an Orange

A friend of mine recently wrote a hilarious post about not posting enough and it got me thinking… I need to stop looking at posts as being this terribly daunting task of telling you every little detail of every day or every week of my time in Peace Corps.  Being concise has never been a strong point of mine and my folder of all the posts I have started is a great example – only 11 have actually been posted out of 20.

So as a fun little welcome back to my blog, for you and for me, I’ve decided to provide you with step by step instructions (pictures included!) on how to eat an orange, Nam style!

Step 1:  Soften it up by… throwing it on the ground, rolling it around, and squeezing it. 

Kids from the 2013 Diversity Tour showing me how it's done!

 

  

Step 2:  Make a hole, the size of a dime, at the top.  I find that the easiest way to do this is just to use your teeth.

Make sure you use THIS side… 

And not THIS side (Trust me... I've learned the hard way.  If you make the hole on this side eventually the other side will get a split and you'll get dripped on during step 3!).

Like this!

Step 3:  Enjoy the juice! 

Steps 4 & 5:  In the words of Mimi (left above) & Ndina (right above), “Make like this, to eat like this.” 

Step 6:  Compost the peels in your compost bucket… but don’t forget to hold your nose!!!

The One Year Mark

PCNam Group 36 is officially at the one year mark.  A year ago yesterday each one of us said goodbye to loved ones, our homes, and a country of comfort and familiarity.  For most of the group, but not all, tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of our first day on the continent of Africa.  I hate to use the phrase I think every volunteer has used to describe their Peace Corps service, but there’s no other way to say it… it really is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by.  The year has flown by, but if I look at how much I've had the opportunity to do I wonder how I was able to fit it all in.

 

Most of Group 36 just after arriving at JFK

Made it to Windhoek!

Like it was yesterday, I remember having one last chat with my dad on his porch in the dark at 4:00AM, the drive to the airport, the tears that were shared saying goodbye just before I went through security.  I remember my ride from the Philly airport to the hotel for staging, meeting everyone for the first time, doing the skits and activities in staging and going over our hopes and fears, having my last meal in America at Chipotle, running to Target for last minute things (the watch I got has treated me very well), cramming in as many last minute phone/skype calls as I could, having a lovely conversation that lasted hours into the night with a roommate I had just met that afternoon, taking a long hot shower not knowing if I would have one for the next two years, riding the bus from Philly to JFK, waiting for hours for the airport to officially open, watching movies on the plane (They included Shawshank Redemption, The Hunger Games, and 21 Jump Street…  How I remember that is beyond me!), arriving and sitting around at the Jo’burg airport, getting off the plane in Nam, going through immigrations, seeing my first warthog on our way to the training site, and so on and so forth.  I could probably go on for pages and pages, but the one thing I’m the most happy about is that I remember the people that I was with and got to know along the way during those first couple days of uncertainty… Ethan was the first group 36er I met in the van ride from the airport to the hotel, Chris was by me when we were handing in papers and receiving our government issued passports, Elisabeth was my roommate at staging, I went with Lindsay to Target, Janine sat with me on the bus from Philly to JFK, Mariah and I hung out that morning until JFK officially opened, I walked on the plane with Tim and Lindsey, sat with Amanda on the 15 hour flight, apparently fell asleep in a really funny position on the plane from Jo’burg to WHK next to Sam, roomed with Sachi and Daphne at Kukuri…  Again I’m sure I could go on for pages and pages.  All of those moments, while they may seem trivial to the reader back home, were the beginning of a seemingly long journey that has ended up going faster than I was ever prepared for.

A good friend of mine pointed out the uniqueness of the connections we have with fellow group members.  She commented on how the bonds we make during our time here are slightly odd and uncharacteristic from those that we are used to back home.  Here, strong relationships are made with people you spend only two months of training with and then SMS the next three until you can see them again because phone calls are simply too expensive.  Through these friendships, at this point in our service, I’m finding it very interesting to hear how different everyone’s thoughts are on their experiences at site and in Namibia.  Apparently it’s typical for a volunteer at this stage to start critically assessing their professional and personal accomplishments, or what many consider at this time in service, lack thereof.  The assessments usually reflect on what one has or hasn’t done, what one came in thinking they would do and how much of that didn’t happen, how integrated one feels, and so much more.

When I go through these questions about my own time here I feel inadequate.  I’ve been here a year and what do I have to show for it?  What have I done to help my community and specifically the local business owners?  How much have I integrated?  How much of the local language do I know?  Not nearly enough for my standards, but my standards stem from an American upbringing.  It’s important to remember that we are in a different country even though we are now used to shopping at the local shop, eating (and, for some, starting to cook) the local food, greeting with the local greetings, etc.  To hear my friends go through questions like these with me and discuss what they are thinking about for their future (in Namibia or at home) and what feelings and emotions they are going through just makes the fact that, no site and no person is the same, more and more apparent to me.  I have great respect for each volunteer I’ve gotten to know here because of the many struggles they are having to go through.  Many of us struggle with missing events back home (like funerals, holidays, birthdays, or weddings), feeling like we’re not doing enough, worrying that we don’t have the appropriate expertise for what we are being asked to do, not feeling that our work is sustainable, feeling like we are just filling a position that doesn’t allow time for development work we are supposed to do, worrying that due to culture we cannot change things that we want to change most (like corporal punishment), or that we don’t have time to have the cultural exchanges that we’d like to with local friends.   Another struggle I didn’t originally give much weight to is the thought of people going home.  When you hear that a fellow volunteer, who has now become one of your closest friends, is being sent home due to a Med or Admin Sep (Medical or Administrative Separation) or they are ETing (Early Terminating – when a PCV decides to end their service early) or even just considering it, that can really have an impact on you.  Each volunteer is affected by these things on varying levels.  Some experience all of them while some only experience a few, but none the less we all go through struggles while serving and I find it nice to know we’re not alone.

I am extremely privileged to have met so many dedicated, kind natured, and caring people who feel so strongly about making a difference in the world.  Their friendship alone has motivated me to want more for my community.  I came here thinking I could change a community, but that it would be ok if I really only affected one person.  What I’ve learned in the last year is that that’s not the case anymore.  Understandably, some people get discouraged by this point in their service because of so many failed attempts at having sessions or working with individuals or increasing learner marks, but I think those things and my friendships have only motivated me more.  I want to make a sustainable difference.  I’m not sure how I will do it, but I intend to try my hardest during the last year of my service.  I have grown to love my community.  It is officially my home… I want to contribute to it and that’s that.

What I call the north north

We got a couple of holiday days for Easter and the week after I was to attend a gardening workshop in Omaruru.  Since Omaruru is pretty far north I decided to take the holiday and visit some PCV friends in the north north.  I call it the north north because it is on the opposite side of the country from me, just near the border of Angola, and because I use the two words together basically to emphasize the single word.  If something is really far north it is “north north.”  If you want to know if something is here you say, “Is it here here?”  It came from me using the Namibian phrase “now now,” meaning right now.  Apparently my Namlish is improving quite well.

Anyways, I headed north on the B1 and traveled 1,340 Km to Ondangwa where my friend Ruth picked me up.  She had rented a car for the holiday to head over to Opuwo.  We stayed on her homestead the first night and I absolutely loved it.  I am very happy in my village, but I must say the homestead life is what I imagined and really wanted to have during my service.  The homestead consisted of several small cinderblock structures most with a thatched roof but her house had corrugated metal sheeting.  There is no indoor plumbing, so she collects her water from a tap in the center of the homestead and washes things in a bucket.  She has a pit latrine for a toilet and small open air structure for bucket bathing.  Many families in this area grow crops of mahangu which they store for consumption throughout the year.  The homesteads are spread out much more than the homes in my village where everyone lives in one concentrated area (similar to a neighborhood near downtown Raleigh, but not quite the same).  The north also has a much larger population, which I attribute to the sheer lack of resources in the south and the apartheid time when many of the Namibians were forced to move above what was called ‘The Red Line.’  I crossed the line in Oshivelo on my way there and back.

Crossing the red line in Oshivelo.

Walking through the mahangu to Ruth's homestead.

Ruth preparing something good!

The smaller structures in the middle are where the mahangu is stored.

Possibly way too excited about fetching water.

For some reason it rained a good bit which apparently wasn’t common, but for someone who can count the number of times it has rained in their village on one hand it was pretty awesome to see it rain three days in a row.  In Opuwo we went hiking, took a trip out to Ruacana Falls, and basically ate a lot of good food.  Ruth is an excellent cook!  The hiking was nice because they have actual mountains there.  I can see land for miles in and around Aroab, but the view doesn’t include mountains or anything green.  Ruacana was awesome!  I kept thinking… If we were in the states this definitely wouldn’t be allowed.  There were pretty much no railings or barriers.  You could go almost anywhere you wanted.  When we got there the falls were really low, but after about 20 minutes they opened the dam above and we got to see tons of water flowing down.  My favorite part was going to the bottom of the falls and getting soaking wet just watching the water come down.  Another interesting thing about Opuwo is diversity of the people.  You can see many traditional Himba people everywhere.  They’re a pretty interesting tribe.  They mostly live out in the bush herding cattle and the women rub a substance called otjize all over their body that gives their skin a burnt red coloring.  This otjize helps moisturize the skin, protects their skin from the sun, and I’ve heard (but haven’t found an official source yet) that it is also used to keep them clean.  If you’re interested in reading more check out this website. Also if you’ve seen the documentary, Babies, you’ve seen a year (his first year) in the life of a Himba baby.

Before the dam was opened...

After the dam was opened.

The Group after getting soaked at the bottom of the falls.

Himba ladies with babies in Opuwo

My biggest observation from the trip is that I’ve gotten so comfortable at site I forget sometimes that I’m in Africa, but being in the north definitely reminded me that I am and of fortunate I am to be able to have this experience.