Special Days V: Recreation, with SWIMMING!!

In Peace Corps parlance, which is rife with acronyms and initialisms, the initialism PST means Pre-Service Training.  However, some of the PC staff informed us it might also stand for Pretty Stressful Time.  Every now and again, they make an attempt to alleviate the stress.  (The stress-alleviation effort, beginning with Group 42, the one right after mine, has taken the form of a much shorter classroom-based PST with a much longer site-based component.)

Stress-reducing scenery.

Thus, one lovely Saturday (pretty much all days are lovely, at least in terms of weather, in the Namibian winter, so that was nothing special and yet of course wonderfully special), we gathered at the training center and took seats in the combis (vans) for transport to Gross Barmen, about 25 kilometers from Okahandja.  The combis had to make three trips, I think, so some folks got longer at the resort than others.  There was some discussion, during the wait, as to whether spending many more hours in the company of the same 50 or so people (31 trainees plus about 15 staff and trainers) would really reduce any stress.  There was plenty of space, though, and a lot of those 50 people are just wonderful.

Otjiherero trainer Remsey works it, baby, by the small pool.

Gross Barmen is the site of a natural hot spring that was once a gathering site, presumably, for the San people, and definitely for the Herero people as they migrated into the area in the 16th century and pushed the San farther to the drier parts of the region.  Sometime in the late 19th century a group of Germans built a mission there as they worked to convert the Herero to Christianity.  Eventually there was also a police station, and remnants of buildings still exist, though the Europeans seem to have largely abandoned the site with the outbreak of the genocide against the Herero in 1905.

Nowadays it's a resort, run by Namibia Wildlife Resorts, which is similar to the US National Parks Service or the National Trust in the UK.  From what I understand, Gross Barmen is much too expensive for most Namibians to visit.  However, presumably the funds from fees paid by wealthy local and foreign visitors, plus corporations and organizations like Peace Corps, go to help support social services and other initiatives for the poorer people of the country.  So, conscience salved.


The big pool.  I just got in there and more or less stayed.  For hours.

The hot spring has been channeled into a small pool in an indoor facility, which also contains a steam room, sauna, some photos and information of historical interest, and a starkly beautiful spa-services area offering massages, skin treatments and the like.  None of those services was affordable on a Peace Corps allowance!  However, PCN did cover access the the spring and the big outdoor pool for us, and people used them as they saw fit.  The hot spring was toasty but never uncomfortable, and the outdoor pool was sublime.  I did laps and laps and pencil rolls and dolphin dives and hung out in the wet, chatting with other water-centric trainees.  I vaguely recall teaching someone to dive, sort of.  Hmm.



Trainer Rachel, who lived in Scandinavia for many years, took charge of lunch.

At some point we had lunch.  Potato salad, greek salad, chicken and maybe some beef.  Who cares?  Water was the point.

Rather a Pretty View, Really

When I went to Training Manager Benna to make sure it would be okay if a group of us trainees walked one of the hill trails outside Okahandja one Sunday morning, he said something like, "I was wondering when you would ask.  Usually trainees are up there the first weekend."

The road to the trail

Well, we talked about it a lot... but someone said they'd been warned of bad men.  Someone else said they'd been warned of snakes.  No one knew where the trails began or where they went.  Host families seemed to think leaving the streets of Okahandja was a bad idea.  However, I see mountains, I want to climb them, and the bad men don't seem like they'd be much of a match for a dozen or two robust, young-and-strong or middle-aged-and-cranky Americans, and there are snakes everywhere.  So I finally realized that one of the volunteers from earlier classes would be able to assist with locating the trail, and she was glad to do so.  We invited everyone to gather at the training center at 9am, and put up a big sign reminding them (a few of our trainees are city types) to wear good shoes and sunscreen and bring water and a snack.

Steep enough to be interesting, without, mostly, having to scrabble

It's a lovely walk, about 45 minutes to the top of what some previous trainee class decided to call Pride Rock.  There are a couple of nice scrambly bits, though nothing terribly challenging, and great views all the way.  On our first trek we saw numerous baboons.  We never, thank you Tara, saw a snake.

A rocky promontory about halfway up; great lookout and re-group point.

The top was mostly bare rock, with a small tree or two and a few bushes.  The wind was brisk up there.  We broke into clumps and chatted and snacked and basked.  In Namibia, it's always basking weather (pretty much), but I haven't gotten sick of it yet.  At some point I asked whether people would like to try for a few minutes of silence, and everyone stopped talking.  Immediately, the wind seemed to pick up, and it brought the chortling of the baboons with it.  Mystical.

View from the top.  The dry rivers still astonish me.

The next week we went again, and again the wind freshened as soon as we stopped chattering.  That week we didn't have baboons, though.

They are smaller than you, but much stronger, faster, more nimble, and their teeth are huge and pointy.

Here's a link to all the photos, to try to give you an idea of how beautiful it is.

Food Part One

This could have been Special Days V and VI, but no... This is food, part one, as I expect the subject will come up again.  First and most important, I am now at my permanent site and within a very expensive cab ride of expensive Indian food, so my paneer needs are being better met than I had any right to hope.  (‘Expensive’ is a relative term; I get a great Indian meal for about twenty-five American bucks, and enough to take home to feed me for two or three more meals.  Even with the ten American bucks for the round-trip via the informal taxi system, it’s cheap by US standards.  However, my monthly living allowance is about US$ 160, so it winds up being pricey by Peace Corps standards.)

Sharpening the knife before dispatching
a goat.

Anyway, of greater interest, I suspect and hope, is NAMIBIAN food.  Pretty much anyone in this country will tell you, often without your asking or expressing interest in any way, that Namibians love meat.  It makes absolute sense.  In a desert country – and even the riverine area on the northern border, where the population is densest, doesn’t get much rain for eight months of most years – meat makes sense.  Desert plants are naturally tough, as they need to be to survive that climate, and very difficult for humans to digest.  You need multiple stomachs, or super-digestive juices, like a cow.  Or a goat, sheep, or one of myriad varieties of antelope, like springbok and kudu and eland and so forth.  For humans, letting the livestock eat the grass and scrub and then eating the livestock makes much more sense, personally and ecologically, than trying to grow vegetables with little or no water available.

All of that said, in Namibia today lots of people don’t get to eat much meat.  A significant portion of the population lives in deep poverty, and what little meat they might be able to buy, or be given by more fortunate family members, goes to the father.  Many children survive mainly on porridge, and not a lot of it.  Namibia also suffers a wide income disparity, with a few very wealthy people throwing off the World Bank’s average income calculation, so the country qualifies for less aid in some areas than it would if they used median income instead of average.  Soapbox!

MEAT!

Yeah, more meat.  Ooohg.

When the Peace Corps trainers and homestay families put on a feast, however, they take the task seriously, and pots and plates and platters get LOADED with Namibian specialties, almost all cooked over open flames in the side yard of the training center.  We gathered one sunny Saturday morning (there is virtually no other kind of Saturday morning in May in this country, unless you’re by the coast and get some mist some mornings) in Okahandja and met the two goats in the back of a bakkie (pickup truck) that we (well, not me – no way) would soon be eating.  The chickens were in cardboard boxes in the kitchen.  The knives and machetes and axes were spread about a bit.  The Knorr’s soup mix was in plastic bags from the Pick ‘n’ Pay, and firewood was piled everywhere.



Host families, trainers and Melodia’s lovely mother set to work butchering, chopping, mixing and dropping things into pots according to languages.  My Afrikaans group prepared sausages and potato salad, as well as fatcakes and roosterbrood, two of my favorites.  The former is a variation on Dutch olliebollen, which essentially translates as ‘greaseballs’ and is related to what, in English, we call doughnuts.  Why are we squeamish about calling these things what they are?  They are sweet dough – cake dough – deep fried in fat – fatcakes.  Get over it.  They’re delicious, and if you need calories, as you might in a sparsely-populated land with a long dry season and many kilometers to go before you find a duiker or a neighbor’s cow to eat, they’ve got lots.

I don't know if mopane worms qualify as meat,
but they're certainly protein.

Roasting the bread

The Afrikaans ‘brood’ means ‘bread,’ and ‘rooster’ is more-or-less ‘roasted.’  Roosterbrood is unsweetened dough – bread dough – cooked on the grill, and if you like bread it is rip-roaringly delicious.  That many chefs choose to cut the rolls open and rub in a bit of garlic butter before serving is just that many bonus points.  And then one small contingent of Afrikaans speakers pulled out a portable burner and crèpe pan and started making cinnamon-sugar crèpes, and my joy knew no bounds.

Cakes, frying

The long wall of our training center was lined with tables, each groaning with food.  I walked Wilhelmina, my hostess, along the offerings, holding both our plates and requesting a bit of everything with meat for her, and everything without for myself.  Her plate was dramatically more full, but I’ll tell you – that Damara/Nama spinach dish, scooped up with roosterbrood, was tasty-delicious enough to keep me happy for a week.  Wilhelmina had brought an old ice cream container in which to take home her leftovers, and there was enough in that for two meals.  The amount of work and care and knowledge and kindness that went into this feast was astonishing – and enough to keep me happy for a year or two. 

Lots of learning going on here.

Fast forward a month, and it’s our turn.  The trainees got to host an American feast for the trainers and host families, and we somewhat half-heartedly sorted ourselves into regional groups.  There was talk of tacos, banana pudding and salmon – and eventually there were actual tacos and even a taste of banana pudding.  Salmon proved too daunting. 

I use the term ‘half-heartedly’ with caution, because there was huge enthusiasm for the event.  However, everyone, or almost everyone, was getting pretty sick of flip charts, Powerpoints, role plays and each other after eight weeks of forced together-time.  That said, as we counted off the days, the excitement grew, and when a New Jerseyite promised funnel cakes, ambitions erupted.  The trainers kept reminding us that our host families would want MEAT (and so would the trainers).  As a bona fide vegetarian of 30-plus years’ standing, who had been eating meat daily and cooking it weekly for two months, I gave myself a pass and decided to make macaroni and CHEESE – with BROCCOLI! in it.  There was a definite flurry of vegetable-rich recipes flying about the (very informal) meetings.

Grilling, mostly pizzas

Wilhelmina loved the taco meat, but not the crunchy bits.

Buying enough cheese to feed 100 people mac ‘n’ cheese, albeit a tiny serving each, was a thrill.  Getting together with three friends to make pizza dough, sauce and my casserole was a delight.  Our hostess’ host sister or cousin or niece or someone was a great ‘help,’ her host mother fed everyone soup, cheese sauce is like a soul food for me, and we teased each other and stirred and kneaded and tested and texted our host families that we would be out after curfew.  Then we wrote out a list of *everything* she would need to bring to the party the next day for our kind hostess, packed her host family’s refrigerator, and hopped into her super-kind host father’s car.  He drove us three visitors all over town to deposit us safely with our own kind host families.

Singing, listening, graciously accepting thanks

The next day we met early at the training center, wrangled barbeque grills and a dodgy oven, set up tables and laid out paper plates and plastic forks.  Our host families started showing up around noon, and we were almost ready for them.  In fits and bits, we loaded the tables and everyone took seats in the hall.  While the food cooled (we love cold pizza in America!) our ex-Army volunteer MC’d the appreciation speeches.  Our SoCal marketer led us in prayer, and a couple of musical-theater lovers led a sing-along of Namibian folk songs.  A few people made speeches in their new languages, endeavoring to thank host families for their generosity, kindness and patience, but there aren’t words enough in any language to convey the depth of our gratitude.  Training manager Ben and Host Family Coordinator Lydia spoke, too, and passed out certificates of appreciation to each family present.  Then they (finally) let the host families loose on the buffet. 

A health volunteer with an excellent
feel for pizza sauce.

There really wasn’t a whole lot of meat.  There were beef tacos, hummus and fresh-baked bread from the west, jambalaya or gumbo from our southern volunteers (plus that banana pudding), pizza with a great variety of toppings, funnel cakes and mac ’n’ broc ’n’ cheese (I crumbled potato chips on top of one pan!), brownies, apple cake, and a whole bunch of other things I barely got to taste, as by the time the host families and trainers and staff had gotten theirs, we volunteers were down to scraps.  Even a scrap of that pizza sauce was worth the wait.  The sauce chef learned a thing or two from Italian grandparents.  The gumbo not only had many meaty bits, but also hard-cooked eggs.  I heard from a server that a lot of the Namibian guests were eager for an egg.  I think it’s a great idea for gumbo; it came from a Missourian who’s lived in Louisiana for many years.







Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve never had a funnel cake in the U.S.

Digging in at last

The funnel-cake-and-gumbo team

After we got everything cleaned up, a few of us went over to the beer garden next door.  I ordered French fries.  They were good.  Later, one of the other volunteers told me that her host dad had liked the macaroni and cheese especially much, once he had pulled all those weird green bits out of it.

You can look here for more photos if you like.

Special Days IV: Coronation

Okahandja, where I did my Peace Corps training, is a town of about 20,000 in central Namibia, in the savannah that provides such great pasturage for the country’s world-renowned beef cattle.  (Okay, ‘world-renowned’ may be an overstatement, but Namibian beef is supposed to be highly valued in Europe.  You Americans do not know what you are missing.  A vegetarian for 30 years, with strong reservations about the meat-eating I’ve done in Namibia to integrate culturally and environmentally, I can acknowledge, reluctantly, that if I didn’t have moral qualms the Namibian beef I’ve eaten would be delicious.  It is like eating hot beef-flavored ice cream.)

Anyway, the oft-acknowledged leading experts of cattle rearing in this area are the people of the Herero tribe, whose word for ‘thank you’ is the title of this blog.  They moved into Namibia around five hundred years ago, and preferred the huge expanse of savannah to the more fertile northern area, where the Ovambo and other peoples did their farming and ranching.  So Okahandja was a center of their activity, and the site of some of the initial battles in what became the German genocide of the Herero in the early 20^th century.  Different sub-tribes continue to hold major events, celebrations and commemorations in the area, including the coronation of a new paramount chief, Advocate Vekuii Rukoro, on the first weekend in May 2015.

The Chief-elect and First Lady-to-be

I do not understand about the sub-tribes:  there’s something about green flags, white flags and red flags and maybe there are other flags as well.  I understand from the national newspapers that there may have been some controversy about the selection of Advocate Rukoro as paramount chief.  I don’t understand that either.  I do not know what source, if any, I could trust for an objective and accurate account of any of this.  So I’ll just note that there’s more to all this than I understand, and then tell you about what I saw on Saturday 2 May, when I attended the coronation on the big open ground near the new Okahandja Mall.

Presumably one green flag amongst the many red.  The two at the front told me to take their picture.
I don't know whether they thought I was from a newspaper or something.

All of us trainees convened at our training center, where we discovered that a few of our trainers are Herero, and were proudly bedecked in their tribal celebratory garb.  The colors for the day were red and black, and my Afrikaans facilitator, Isabella, was wearing the dress and headdress with which Herero women proclaim their heritage.  The dress, with big leg-o-mutton sleeves (puffed at the shoulder and tight on the lower arm), a high waist and gigantically full skirt that sweeps the ground, is apparently modeled on Victorian-era German dresses.  The headdress, an elaborately-wrapped turban with a horn sticking out on each side, and on special occasions a fancy pin or two, evokes the cattle that are so prominent a part of the culture.  They come up with some glorious prints and color combinations for the dresses, and headdresses usually match although sometimes you see a woman just in the grocery store or somewhere wearing something a little more clashy.

Isabella front and center; both men are also Herero.

The men’s clothing is not nearly so colorful or ornate; I would not be able to spot a male Herero by his outfit – nor a child.  There were a lot of uniforms on this special day, though; I've read that they're modeled on German cavalry uniforms but don't know whether that's true.

So we took the Peace Corps combis (vans) to the parade ground, and the place was packed with black-and-red-clad, dignified, mostly adults under numerous tents, in innumerable folding chairs.  One of our facilitators talked with an event official – I have no idea what she said – at length, and while they conferred a boy of maybe ten or twelve attached himself to me.   After some official-looking back-and-forthing, two men ushered us in front of the chairs lined up to face the dignitaries, including the soon-to-be chief, to sit on the ground.  Another official brought over a length of red carpet and unfurled it so we could sit on that, and we all shifted out of the dirt, smiling gratefully and trying not to block the view of the many people behind us.  The speaker seemed to be introducing us – he was speaking in Otjiherero, of course, but said, “United States of America,” and we got a lot of approving nods and smiles and a smattering of applause.

Before we set out for our special seating, I told my young companion that I thought he couldn’t come with, but in a few minutes he was pasted back to my arm.  I hope I was as comfortable a prop for him as he was for me.

Majorets, I believe.

The ceremony was almost entirely in Otjiherero, so I really don’t know what was happening.  Having arrived late, we missed the Namibian and African Union anthems, introductions of dignitaries, a few prayers and some welcoming speeches that would most likely have included prayerful commentary and many, many thank yous to many, many people, followed by the statement, "The protocol is observed."  This is standard procedure in Namibian speechifying events.

It was surprisingly comfortable, sitting there on the thin, red carpet in the blazing sunshine with an unknown prepubescent leaning against me, wondering about the history of these people, and trying to remember whether I’d put on any sunscreen at all that morning, and hoping for a glorious and noble future for this tribe that has known such suffering.  This is obviously (I hope) an over-glib comparison, but in fact it was a bit like watching a cricket game.  Great weather, ancient tradition, no idea what’s going on, happy to be here.  No Pimm’s Cup.  Smatterings of applause; join in when you hear it.

The shuffling, threatening approach to the chief-to-be. 
The crowd of approachers got much larger as it proceeded
very, very slowly toward the head table.

There were a lot of speeches; occasionally a few words of English broke out, but mostly Otjiherero.  Pretty frequently, someone would walk right up to the lectern, or the dignitaries’ tent, and take some photos.  I believe they were not official event photographers; it was just an okay thing to do.  A troop of boys in military-style uniforms, some a bit tattered, paraded past.  I think they were called majorets.  A group of Nama people performed a drama – a short theatrical performance based on various historical events in the long history of Nama-Herero alliance (which has included some turf battles, too, just to keep the thing from getting stale).  There was trouble with the P.A. system.  Then a group of majorets and men in military-style uniforms grouped together, standing very close and tight, and slowly approached the paramount-chief elect and his wife at their head table under the dignitaries’ tent.  I have no idea what this was about:  threat?  obeisance?  allegory?  More militarily-garbed youngsters, this time with a sprinkling of girls.  Then Advocate Rukoro left his tent and moved to a majestic chair in a smaller tent, and the informal photographers closed in, blocking the audience’s view quite effectively.  When he emerged, he was wearing a scarf that read, “Paramount Chief,” and he did a brief walk around waving and still being pretty well blocked from view by photographers.  There was the most beautiful cow you can imagine waiting to come into the main ceremony area, with several sheep following behind.  In terror that the next step in the ritual would be butchery, I fled.

That's he.

More majorets.  Note the fake beard on the middle one.

Rarely is one privileged to see a more beautiful animal.  Maybe it got a reprieve from the new chief.

I lost my little companion during the fleeing process, but saw him later as I walked home.  He flew across the street toward me and gave me a most tremendous and satisfying hug.  A few weeks later, we were in the newspaper, identified as a volunteer teacher and her pupil.  I only wish I had taught him anything at all.

Lower right - self and kid.

If this is 2015...

...then I’m probably not in Dublin.  That was a bit more than 20 years ago, when I hopped the Atlantic to study poetry.  And yet, I keep getting these flashes of déjà vu.

First and biggest is the slightly-off-kilter feeling of being in a place that isn’t that different than the place I’m used to being, but is different enough to be noticeable.  It’s like walking up stairs that aren’t exactly the same height.  It’s not difficult, but you do have to pay a bit more attention.

I have amused myself tremendously with the observation that the only difference between Namibia and the US that has really freaked me out so far is that Wilhelmina kept bananas in the refrigerator.  You don’t keep bananas in the refrigerator!  You can’t keep bananas in the refrigerator!  And maybe no one else in Namibia does – one of my PST colleagues said her host family was astonished that she ate vegetables raw, as in a green salad with tomatoes and green peppers and carrots.  That family always cooked their vegetables, and she thought maybe all Namibians did the same.  The rest of us assured her that we got raw vegetables in our salads – drenched in mayonnaise, sure, but raw.

Curiously, one of the ways living here is like living in Ireland is that people generally don’t keep eggs in the refrigerator.  In Ireland the butter was usually on the counter, too, but it’s too hot for that here.

It’s too hot during the day, but in Okahandja in July, nights get chilly, and there’s no heating indoors.  Ireland had indoor heating but to a much lesser extent than in the US.  So in both countries, I spend at least some of my indoor time bundled up in multiple layers, shivering lightly for warmth as I study.  That’s another one:  constant studying.  And in the matter of heat, there’s also the hot water.  That was the first point of similarity that really struck me.  In Dublin, if I wanted a shower, I would switch on the hot water heater about 30 minutes ahead of showering time.  Same thing at Wilhelmina’s.  If I just want to wash my face, I would/do boil water in the electric kettle and pour it into the wash basin.  Tiptoeing down the hall after Wilhelmina had gone to bed, chilly, over-read and carrying the kettle to the bathroom, I sometimes thought I was 27 again.

Renée, my landlady/housemate/friend in Dublin, had an automatic clothes washer.  Wilhelmina does, too, but knowing that I almost certainly wouldn’t have one at my permanent site (and I do not), and concerned by the cost of all the water the machine uses, she didn’t offer it to me.  So I washed my clothes in her laundry sink, and then hung them on the line.

Wash on the right, rinse on the left.  The slanted sides are ridged for scrubbing.

Giant difference between Namibia and Ireland: though I line-dried/line-dry my clothes both places, in Namibia they dry fast and reliably, hung out in the heat and sunshine.  In Ireland, good laundry days weren’t hot and sunny – there were no hot and sunny days – but windy.  With enough wind, even hanging out in the light drizzle that descended almost every day, clothes would get at least close to dry after ten or twelve hours.  In three months I’ve been here, I’ve felt a few drops of rain twice in Windhoek (the capital) and once in Swakopmund, which is on the ocean and gets quite misty.

In Dublin the sky would be lower and less blue; the greenery less abundant and flowerier.

Ireland and Namibia are both left-hand drive countries, so you have to look right, then left, before crossing the road.  In Namibia, drivers seem to have the right-of-way at all times.  I don’t know whether it’s legally theirs, but I know they take it and they’re bigger than I am.  In Ireland, motorcyclists would sometimes drive up onto the sidewalk and almost brush against pedestrians, parking inches from an astounded American's kneecaps.

I’m kind of broke-ish in both countries, although in Namibia I at least have some financial cushion in the form of real estate on the other side of the Atlantic (and of the equator).  Nonetheless, I took myself out for afternoon tea one day in Ireland, and the Shelburne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green fed me so much cream – on the scones, on the cakes, on the cocoa I had instead of tea, and cream cheese on the sandwiches – that I felt a midge queasy for hours afterward.  Apple pie came with whipped cream, as did most other desserts.  Renée kept cream for her coffee.  I haven’t seen whipped cream for three months here in Namibia (there’s some ghastly Cool Whip-like substance in some bakery cakes that tastes acidic and chemical; one thinks of battery acid though one has never tasted battery acid).

I’m writing poetry again, and eating from dishes on which the soap suds have been allowed to dry, unmolested by rinse water.  However, I haven’t had a sip of whiskey nor been near a pub after sundown.  Perhaps I should see what I can do about that.

Special Days III: Windhoek Tour

On our second Saturday in Namibia, our Namibian trainers took all 31 of us trainees to Windhoek, the national capital city, for a multi-hour tour.  We boarded a Sunshine Tours motor coach – very comfortable – and got driven the sixty kilometers to the capital on first-class roads.  I stared out the window assiduously, despite the brilliant sunshine drilling directly into my eyeballs (note to self:  right hand side of the bus next time), but did not see much in the way of fauna.  Cows, of course, and maybe a kudu but maybe a trick of the light and the twisty thorn trees.

Our first stop in the big city was Peace Corps headquarters in the Ausspannplatz neighborhood, where we got MORE SHOTS! from the medical officers.  Yay!  We all got lots of shots before we left the U.S., including yellow fever and, for me, a measles refresher.  My blood work showed I had no measles immunity remaining from my childhood vaccination.  Scary, I thought.  Once in Namibia, we got rabies shots and, for some (like me), Hepatitis B, both of which required multiple inoculations.  Some people had to get flu vaccinations, too.  They jabbed us outdoors, on a pleasant garden patio.

Heroes' Acres plaza

After that, we drove about ten kilometers out of town to see the Heroes’ Acres memorial to the men and women who fought for Namibian independence.  This is a beautiful stone plaza surrounded by hills, containing both actual graves and honorary ones, an obelisk, and a long uphill climb on a stone staircase to a beautiful belvedere that puts you more-or-less level with the peaks of three mountain ranges that ring the site.  The long climb, our guide told us, was designed as a reminder of the suffering people endured as they struggled for freedom.  It is an absolutely beautiful space, and I was deeply moved to visit it.  Our Namibian guide and facilitators were as well – Namibia achieved independence just 25 years ago, so many of the people with whom we work were involved in the struggle.  One of the youngest staff members uses an English name with us, but her name at home means ‘End of the World.’  She was born in a period of terrible fighting in her area, and her parents thought their world might truly end before their daughter’s life fully began.

A magnificent place for contemplations

We also visited the site of some of the early fighting in the Windhoek area, when in 1959 people protested the apartheid laws that allowed the government to force them to move from their homes into new neighborhoods to suit the convenience of others.  That area is now a cemetery, and includes a mass grave containing the bodies of about a dozen Namibians shot by police during a protest.

Metaphor

Then we went to the mall.  We bought bedroom slippers and index cards to turn into language-practice flash cards and cheeseburgers and sleeping bags and I found a yoga mat.  Also, I discovered Yaeli’s and their fabulous fresh juices.  I got one with mint in it, and I wished I could move into the glass and just stay there forever.


Next stop was Katutura, the neighborhood to which those protesters were forcibly removed in 1959.  It has grown and largely prospered since, and now contains one of the major hospitals, thousands of homes and several markets, including Single Quarters, where you can get mopane worms and many other tasty treats.  The dried worms, to my taste, were pretty much flavorless and unpleasantly chewy.


What with parking issues and other slow-downs, we didn’t have time to visit the national museum.  I am still saving that for another day.  I sat on the left side of the bus headed back to Okahandja, and so had the setting sun to drill itself into my skull.  I saw some baboons on a hill.

I've never seen a better epitaph.