One Year Since

In mid-April, at the anniversary of my arrival in Namibia for Peace Corps service, I had in my head the idea of a blog post about things I haven’t done for one year or more.  I started a mental list, thinking I would post it on 18 June, the anniversary of my swearing in as an official Peace Corps volunteer and my arrival at my service site.

 

Then I got a cold.

 

Not having been sick for a year or more was one of the landmark items on my mental list.  I usually get at least one cold every year or two, and many of my PCV colleagues have had multiple bouts of illness (often digestive).  Through my 20s and 30s it wasn’t uncommon for me to get several colds a year, with terrible coughs, and an occasional attack of something the doctor would call bronchitis, and that kind of stuff.  But I had been really healthy more or less since 2013.

 

Then I got a cold.

 

I was up in Otjiwarongo for a permagardening workshop (excellent – expect a post about it by August, maybe, heh heh heh).  I had been in Okahandja twice in the previous month.  The nights are starting to get chilly.  I think, between the travel, the change in the weather, and the very starchy meals I’d been eating in Otjiwarongo, my immune system just decided to take a little break for a few days.  The cold was pretty mild, and did not generate the horrible hacking cough that makes my life, and that of everyone in hearing distance, truly miserable.  Half a box of tissues later, I was fine.

Tangentially part of the permagardening story.

Then my PC boss Linda asked me to go back to Okahandja.  And I had guests, so I would not have time for laundry (a full-day affair, really).  But there’s an automatic clothes washer at the guest house where I would stay in Okahandja.  Dropping my dirty clothes into a machine, twirling a dial and walking away, and returning to magically clean clothes, was another item on my haven’t-done-in-a-year list.  The temptation, however, was too great.  I did not try to get by on the remnants of clean wardrobe I had; I packed some laundry soap and dirty t-shirts and headed to Swakopmund, first stop on the way to Okahandja.

 

And I ate nachos.

There's a creamy cheese instead of sour cream - thicker, a bit tangier.
They call it 'cottage cheese' on the menu but it's not US-style cottage cheese,
thank goodness.

There’s a couple of places in Swakop that offer nachos; I had them at Tiger Reef, right on the beach.  Fifty bucks, or a bit less than five US dollars, and the guacamole wasn’t the avocado-iest thing I’ve ever eaten, but it didn’t taste like frozen lettuce like the guacamole I used to get in Dublin in the 90s.

 

Then I went on to Okahandja and did laundry in the machine.

Forced to choose, I would prefer to live without nachos the rest of my life
rather than go without this bliss-inducing wonder machine.

So that’s three things off my list:  I have been sick, I have eaten nachos, and I have done laundry in a machine, and all quite recently. 

Things I still haven’t done, though, for at least a year:  drunk really good wine, or carefully constructed a menu for a meal to pair wine and food beautifully; driven a car on the highway (I sometimes have to back up the company truck stored in my backyard in order to get at the laundry line, and then drive it forward again into its hiding place); flown in a jet, regional or otherwise, or even been to an airport, or taken a train, subway or public bus; lifted weights; gone on vacation (coming in September); worn tights or nylons; spoken to a member of my family or anyone I knew prior to 13 April 2015; eaten real whipped cream; played with or walked a dog; or been in a city with a population above 500,000.

 

Things I have done in the last year that I had not done before include:  knowingly eaten worms, skydived (tandem and static line, which required riding in a very small plane), ridden in a car going 180kph, said intelligible words that contained clicks and pops, put a condom on a wooden model of a penis with an audience watching, explained what 'noon' means, agreed to allow a small group of total strangers touch my hair, met a US ambassador, and eaten chakalaka.  I love chakalaka.  Kind of.

Oog.  I just ate the nice dried worms, not these slimy-looking cooked ones.