Merry Boxing Day

K writes:  “Reading [the blog] out of time – you write about November in April, etc. – just gives an exaggerated feeling of how far away you are.”  I rather like that idea.  Yeah.  That’s why I do it.  Anyway, this is from December 2015:

Much of Namibia shuts down for the ‘festive season,’ which is essentially December.  That’s prime planting season, as the rains start about then – in November in lucky years, January or February in less good times.  Lately it’s been as late as March.  ‘Rains’ doesn’t mean a 20-minute sprinkling, which can happen anytime (but only very rarely does), but a long, thorough, drenching rain that goes on for hours, and recurs every day for weeks or months.  When they do start, you want to be ready, so people living in towns and cities head for farms and villages, especially in the riverine northern parts of the country, where the best growing and most people are.

The Namib desert is not renowned for its agriculture.

So my foundation closed for five weeks: 4 December until 11 January.  Almost everything else was closed at least 11 December until 4 January.  Many of my friends headed to farms; Peace Corps volunteers around the country headed for Victoria Falls, Etosha, Swakopmund, Capetown.  I stayed snug at home.  After the first week, a circuit blew at the office, so I couldn’t even go in and work on my business training slides.  And oh, my goodness, did it get HOT.  The Afrikaans language has no word for ‘hot,’ which is deeply weird.  You can only say ‘warm’ (pronounced ‘vahrm’) and ‘baie warm’ – ‘very warm.’  What they need is a word for hot, and another word for a desert summer day 20 degrees from the equator, at sea level; something that would approximate ‘blisteringly, meltingly, expletive-deletingly, unnecessarily, gruesomely, hellishly hot.’  Seriously.

I turned my desk into the sideboard.

However.  Christmas.  My friend Fabiola had not completely abandoned our small town, so I invited her, George and Cherial over for Christmas dinner.  But then they wound up spending Christmas with family after all, so they would come instead on Boxing Day, the 26^th.  Except that Cherial wound up staying at her grandmother’s farm after all, so my Christmas 2015 was one day of sweating quietly on the couch, and one day of cooking and festive-izing with Fabiola and George.  We had crackers – both the pop-gun kind with crowns, and the ones that go under cheese.  Fabiola and George willingly tried cheese and crackers, but remain skeptical of the concept.  We listened to Christmas music, thanks to Noisetrade, and looked at photos of the USA.  “Is there always water in the river?” George asked of a picture of the Mighty Mo.  “Yes,” I said.  “That much?!” he demanded.  “Sometimes more,” I clarified.  He’d like to see for himself.

Preparing to roast carrots, onions and green squash

Yorkshire pud to be.

Mushroom sauce.

Filet of BEEF!  Leaving me free to get at most of the pud, with sauce.

Mince pie.  The fancy grocer provided the prepared filling; very sticky and very, very rich.

It's rather a heavy meal for such a hot day, really.

On the 27^th I got an SMS from the post office saying there was a Nampost Courier delivery for me, and I figured it would be something from Peace Corps HQ in Windhoek.  Like, magazines or something.  But when I went and collected, it was a PRESENT!  For CHRISTMAS!  Sister3 elaborately arranged for a gift-basket delivery via Omba in Windhoek.  (I am blessed with kind and generous friends and relatives, but everyone who had thoughtfully put parcels in the US post back in November got their thank-you e-mails when I received the lovely Christmas deliveries ’round about Valentine’s or St. Patrick’s Day.  Gosh, mail is fun.)

Prezzies!

Merry Christmas to All!

How Green Was My Desert

As my new boss drove us out of the central Namibian savannah and into my new desert home last June, he talked a bit about the landscape.  While much of Namibia enjoys a rainy season in the summer (late November or early December through March-ish; Andy writes eloquently about it), the Namib Desert doesn't go in for that sort of thing much.  However, Lysias assured me if it did rain, the desert would turn brilliant green!  I've heard and read about the wildflowers that bloom in the southwestern American desert after rainfall, and have yearned to see that.  So I crossed my fingers.

And it rained several times in the first few weeks I was here.  And the desert did nothing.  Over time, I have come to understand that 'rain' doesn't mean the twenty-minute sprinkles of last winter.  'Rain' means something like what happened in mid-April, when we got hours of steady, serious rain one Wednesday afternoon.  So I went hopefully into the desert with my camera, and found sand.  Lots of sand, the usual scrubby bushes, maybe a couple of small white or yellow flowers.  Every other scrap of flora was some shade of brown, including the brownish-green of the most ambitious bushes.

Well!  On the sixth and seventh of June -- we got rain.  We got slamming, torrential, amazing bucketloads of rain pouring down on us from late on Monday, when there was hail, too, until Tuesday afternoon, with frequent intermissions and resumptions.  It was astonishing.  People were saying, "not for ten years," "not in twenty years," "never in my lifetime."  Along the coast they had slashing great streaks of lightning, and closed roads as the water pooled up, waiting for the sand to find room for it.

The junior library roof leaked quite a bit; many homes did, too.  Why not?
The sand's going to get in with the east wind no matter what, and rain is not
an issue - until today.

A fairly brief clearing in the morning.  This kid had probably never waded
through a puddle not made by a carwash before in his life.  And maybe never again.

The powerful east wind of winter is usually a late-night and morning
phenomenon, but it kept up through early afternoon on The Rainy Day.

And the water hung around for hours -- in some places, days -- too.

So, that's rain, right?  That's really rain.  The water stayed pooled in a few places, in the desert, for a week or more.  So a few days after the storm I went out with the camera, and found... sand.  Scrub.  A couple of flowers and a few new patches of green stuff that reminds me of star of Bethlehem.  Nothing, though, proportionate to the excitement of that rainstorm.

Okay, greener than usual, but...  (The evening light is lousy
for capturing the green tones, but there are a few in there; there really are.)

A month after the rain, camera-less, I started to notice... tiny, thick-leaved green things.  Brighter color and more leaves on the bushes along the river tracks.  And in a few places, grass!  Like what they have in the savannah for game and cattle!  Grass!  A few days later, I took out the camera for real.  Recently I've been telling people I'm going to get myself one very small cow, and start a farm.

Grass, sparkling and waving, like this is a prairie or something.
It makes my heart sing; it really does.

The green follows the curve of a shallow indentation, presumably once
a 'river', which is what they call the dry channels here that funnel water
through the savannahs every two or three or four years.  Or twenty.

Green!

Green and a bit succulent.

Seriously, one, very small, cow.  A Jersey, perhaps.  Ooh, wait.
She won't like the water here; it's very chalky.  Never mind.

 

 All the photos, including several of flowers in white, yellow and purply-pink, are here.

A Few Notes from Gideon

Gideon was one of the first people I met in my new home.  He works in my building as a cleaner, gardener, general handyman and IT specialist.  Not kidding.  He's one of the best at keeping the library's computer lab running.  He also sings in the big choir at the big Lutheran church and smiles a lot.  He picks up the mail for my foundation, and one day he brought me a postcard one sister sent from Paris.  I spoke a bit of French for him, and the next day he came into the office and asked, in French, if he could sit for a minute.  He learned the words on a phone app.

Today he stopped by and agreed to a brief interview.

He was laughing through his struggle with English,
and I grabbed the camera to take a picture.  As soon
as the lens cap came off, he made this serious face.

Name:  Gideon Gomachab  What do you do for work?  General worker; I am doing everything.  What do you like most about your job?  I enjoy reading and watering the garden.  And what do you do for fun?  Singing and doing maradon.  Maradon?  Marathon running.  Mostly I participate in the Rössing marathon and Areva marathon.  I usually do five kilometers.  Not the long run; the 42 kilometers?  I would not be able to do that thing – it's too far.  How long does the five kilometers take you?  About 45 minutes.  When was your last singing competition?  It was in June, with the church, in Uis.

Gideon at work, keeping the grounds beautiful.

Where did you grow up?  Sesfontein  Do you like it better here in the desert?  I don't like the desert, but I stay here.  I came in 2006.  I came to study and then started working.  I stayed for the job.   How did you learn so much about computers?  I was helping the people in the library who needed to do this, this on computers, and then I went when the man taught some classes from Rössing Foundation.  But mostly you taught yourself?  Yes, yes.  Mostly I just learn myself.

What's your first language?  Damara-Nama  And what other languages do you speak?  English (pronounced 'Ingleez')  I'm not good in Afrikaans but I'm learning.  Also a bit of Otjiherero.  Fabiola says you're really good at Damara-Nama.  You write it really well.  I used to write elder people's wishes every Sunday for the radio.

Trying to think what's 'typically' and 'un-typically'
Namibian about himself made him laugh so much he
didn't notice the camera until too late!

What's 'typically Namibian' about you?  (Gideon thought a long time to come up with an answer for this one.)  I keep a garden and grow typical Namibian food like mielies, wheat grain, pumpkin and watermelon, and sometimes we are also growing tobacco and then we are selling to the big companies.  What's 'un-Namibian' about you?  (Again a lot of thought, but this time he could not come up with anything.)

Happy Anniversary

looking back to December 2015:

Following on a delightful Thanksgiving, us five PCVs gathered at my house for festivity and fun had to get ourselves to Windhoek, Namibia's capital, for Peace Corps Namibia's biennial (every other year) All-Volunteer Conference, which in 2015 also incorporated PCN's 25th Anniversary Celebration.  Whoo hoo.

December (and part of January) is 'the festive season' in Namibia, and a lot of businesses shut down for several weeks.  (My foundation closed for five.)  This reflects a combination of year end, Christmas and the onset of summer, which is also the rainy season.  Many, many (maybe most) people who might otherwise live in towns are needed back in their family villages for planting and other field work.  So enormous numbers of people are traveling, especially in early December, and even the last day in November.

This was vividly clear when we got to the hike point and found dozens and dozens of others waiting hopefully for rides.  Sadly, travelers on the road were much scarcer, and we stood for about two hours in the blazing sun (occasionally ducking under the crowded canopy available for waiting travelers, but it's too far from the road for anyone actively working to bag a ride) before three of us got a ride, and maybe another ten minutes before M. and I scored a sweet double-cab bakkie with a local tour guide.  On the three-hour drive, out of the desert and east into the savannah, we saw, heard, smelled rain lovely rain at several points.  Whoo hoo.

Swanky!
The rooms weren't nearly so luxe, but who cares?!  Let's go to the pool!!

We got to stay at the plush Hotel Safari for this special event, enjoying swimming pools, workout rooms, and extremely generous buffets (and many thrilled/thrilling conversations about special treats like cheese! and fresh berries! and dessert!).  We had two days of conference activities, including reminders about Peace Corps rules and several 'Open Spaces' discussions.  Open Spaces is a meeting methodology whereby participants engage in multiple small-group conversations at once.  Patrick, our admirable director of programs and training, invited suggestions for topics, and then volunteers to lead or manage the conversation for each topic.  If you're not leading a group, you can wander from place to place and touch on several different subjects, or settle in to a single one that grips you specially.  There were about 130 PCVs at the conference, who came up with subjects like "Macroeconomics of Namibia", "Dealing with Difficult Supervisors/Counterparts", "Classroom Discipline", things like that.  It's a useful format to keep people engaged and share practical ideas.

And this is just part of the cold buffet!  Cheese tray at the back.  Hot foods
just steps away.  Everyone ate about three times more than they do at home.

We also spent a few sessions in our sector-specific groups.  PCN supports programs in three areas that the Namibian government has requested:  education is the largest, then community health, then community economic development.  CED is the youngest program and it's growing fast.  The Health volunteers mainly focus on HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment, but also do a lot of work with tuberculosis, malaria and nutrition, with plenty of other areas, like exercise, coming in for attention, too.

Community Economic Development is not, typically, conducted
under chandeliers here.  But just this once.

We also got free t-shirts.

The third day was the anniversary celebration.  The government of Namibia actually reached out to the US Peace Corps before it was even officially the government, in the aftermath of South Africa's concession of the territory but before the transition to the new, freely-elected leaders in 1990.  They asked for teachers; the independent nation had chosen English for its official language, and most people did not speak it.  So Peace Corps started setting up its administrative infrastructure (pretty lean), and soon after Sam Nujoma was sworn in as the first president, 14 US volunteers arrived and dispersed to various towns and villages to try to teach English.  Since then, over 1,500 volunteers have served here.

A few volunteers organized a photo contest in memory of J.P., an ec dev
volunteer who died in a swimming accident at the end of 2014.  I never got
to meet him, but he was much admired, loved and mourned.

We were honored by the participation of Namibia's Prime Minister, Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, who gave the keynote address.  We also heard from the Hon. Thomas Daughton, US ambassador to Namibia, Dick Day, the regional director for Peace Corps's Africa operations, Carl Swartz, our country director, and my friend Kaan, an economic development volunteer, who put his speech on his blog.  We also got some lovely singing from the Okahandja Youth Choir, who entertained us when we first arrived in country, and again at our swearing-in.

The OYC performed more in the hall after the official ceremony;
they've recorded a CD and were selling it.

Then they let us loose on the cake.

The anniversary made national TV; I don't know whether the cake did.
But it had four flavors under those flags.

It's actually a bit inspiring to me to think my small efforts are part of this larger continuum.  And it is definitely inspiring to meet the other volunteers and hear what they're doing, and how they're overcoming frustrations (continual and very real), and celebrating successes (large and small and also continual, especially the small).  The Peace Corps staff are also amazing; Patrick, Linda and Efraim (the ones I see most) work with extraordinary diligence, competence and commitment for us volunteers, for Namibia and for the greater idea of service to community.  Sappy?  Maybe, but real, too.  And I got to go swimming, kind of a lot.

The view from the pool, floating on my back.  There was one day
when I swam in a very light rain.  Bliss.