Welcome to Namibia, or Matu Mujakurua moNamibia

After the fifteen hour flight to Johannesburg, we had a six-hour layover at OR Tambo before boarding the plane to Windhoek, Namibia’s capital.  Everything went smoothly, although ankles were starting to swell.  I cleared Immigration with ease, walked into baggage, and was greeted by a smiling American woman who demanded, “Peace Corps?” and then confiscated my passport and WHO card.

The passport is a special, no-fee version with a white label on the cover that identifies me as a Peace Corps volunteer, and a special diplomatic-ish Namibian visa on the inside.  The WHO card certifies that I’ve had my yellow-fever vaccine, but still need rabies and a second round of hepatitises.  Eventually I would get both documents back, the Peace Corps rep assured me, and I went to start hauling suitcases off the luggage conveyor.  I grabbed every one I saw with a bit of Peace Corps yarn attached to the handle – we’d been given the purple wool scraps back in Philadelphia, in furtherance of a PC tradition.

All 31 of us strolled through customs without a check, and were greeted by a banner, several signs and numerous Peace Corps volunteers and staff waving and shouting.  The luxury motor coach that would take us to our training center could not contain all our baggage, so we left the sidewalk laden with suitcases that a crew of three or four loaded into a pick-up truck and trailer, and gathered for a group photo, with the banner.  Peace Corps DC e-mailed it to two of my sisters to assure them I had arrived safely.  This is, presumably, a more important step for the parents who have waved their 21-year-olds away from home.

Then it was 90 minutes on the bus – I spotted an ostrich, and lots of cows and goats.  This is a much less-impressive game count than on the ride from Windhoek to Otjiwarongo on my first trip to Namibia, a year and a half ago.  That time, I saw baboons, steenbock, weaver birds, kudu and warthogs and maybe more.  It was dry season then, though, and the animals were moving around more to find food.  April is the end of the wet season here, and the whole world seemed electric green, which was surreal for me after the sere scenery of my previous visit.

But this time, when I arrived at my destination in suburban Windhoek, there was a choir lined up on either side of the drive into the conference center, and they sang and danced a joyous welcome.  The singers were members of the Okahandja Youth Choir augmented with a dozen or two Peace Corps staff members.  They sang a capella and didn’t sound it – their voices and occasional snapping or clapping percussion sounded like an orchestra.  After we volunteers chose rooms (three sets of bunk beds in a room about 2x5 meters – less than 120 square feet, with two closets containing a total of five clothes hangers), the Youth Choir entertained us in the courtyard as the sun set behind some buildings, still managing to share shreds of its pink-and-gold glory.  It was infinitely enhanced by the glory of the nine young singers, whose voices were born to weave and bob together.

There was fish for dinner, and then we got mosquito nets for our bunk beds and a can of something called Doom that would kill or at least repel the skeeters.  I slept really well.