A Thing I Had Not Done Before

Looking back to February 2016 (nothing much seems to have happened in January):

I wrote recently here about things I hadn't done in a year, which was to say, mostly, things I used to do routinely in the USA and haven't done at all in Namibia.  Like traveling on trains, planes and in my own automobile.  At first I wrote that I hadn't been in an airplane since April 2015, but then I remembered that I have.  I have!  The thing is, the two airplances in which I've flown were more like golf carts with wings than the jets and regional jets of most of my air travel.

That's because I've been skydiving.

Birthday girl second from left.

It started in January, when J. wrote to say that she wanted to celebrate her birthday by skydiving, and did I want to come.  Sure, I said.  Love too.  Birthdays are important, and skydiving in Swakopmund is a popular activity with us PCVs, who knows why, but it might be fun.

So five of us gathered one Friday evening at the Municipal Bungalows in Swakop, and had a fun tourist-town evening with fancy food and dancing and a broken lock on the bungalow and a guy breaking in after midnight and no one realizing that it was some strange guy and not one of us five women being unusually discourteous and clumsy until he was halfway up the stairs to the bedroom, and then I leapt up and shouted, "Get the [deleted] out!" and T. sat up and screamed and the guy stumbled down the stairs and I did, too (really steep, slippery wooden stairs and me without my glasses), in time to see C. come out of the downstairs bedroom shouting (and she's smoked for years and sounds scary and authoritative, and does not delete her expletives), and A. wander out of the bathroom waving a toothbrush in consternation.  The guy ran out the front entrance of the campground, past the security guard watching TV with headphones.  Then a few of our group went over to the office to demand a working-lock bungalow, and I went back upstairs to decide whether I should put on pants or go back to bed.

Full story on request, but don't ever stay at the Municipal Bungalows.  Security was heinous - non-existent, really - and customer service in the aftermath almost as bad.

View's all right, though, at times.

Eventually (cf: security and customer service above) we piled all the furniture in front of the door and went back to pretend to sleep while hissing at each other about the scary intruder.

The next morning, Martin from Ground Rush arrived more-or-less on time to collect us, with a guy who didn't introduce himself and kept making obscurely cavalier remarks about skydiving.  He seems to have been a hobby skydiver who was just hitching a ride to the drop zone in the company vehicle.  First stop was the office, where we signed waivers and proffered credit cards, and then it was out to the drop zone, just a few kilometers east and a bit north of Swakop, generally out of the fog/mist/cloud zone.  There were two sheds, a toilet, a bit of tarmac, no potable water and some picnic tables on two small spots of carefully-cultivated lawn grass.  And wifi, but I'm not sure anyone used it.

We got a brief introduction from Frank, who requested we not hold the sides of the wide-open airplane door when our tandem partners or jumpmasters or whatever they're called wriggled us over to the edge.  Some people, he explained, get nervous at the last minute and generate so much adrenalin or whatever it is that their grips on the door edges become almost unbreakable, and they don't have enough leeway in the flight pattern to allow for patient waggling of each of ten fingers loose from the frame.

It was sunny in the morning, but by the time I jumped the cloud cover was thick.
Uusually Swakop goes the other way: misty mornings and clear afternoons.

Then we sat at the table and waited.  Many hours.  Many, many hours.  I was a bit concerned about how my digestive system might react to freefall, so I elected not to eat or drink that morning, and stuck to it as morning ceded to afternoon.  Instead I chatted with a lovely young woman from Windhoek who was there with her boyfriend.  They went up about mid-day, and came plunging gracefully down, and she landed first, and was so excited I threw my arms wide and we hugged gleefully.  Then her boyfriend landed, and she raced to him, saying, "Wasn't it great!?  I can't wait to do it again!!"  He stared at her like she was a crazy person he'd never met before.  Different strokes, right?

About 3pm, rather hungry, I started to suit up.

All four of my friends went up before I did, and each of them loved it.  One screamed as she dove, trying to wake a dear friend who had recently suffered a stroke 10,000 kilometers away.  Then it was my turn.  Jack had provided me with a purple jumpsuit, and a harness, and checked all my straps carefully.  Checks complete, we walked out to the plane and everyone made thumbs-up gestures to each other.  At about 5,000 feet -- skydiving around the world is done in feet, even though almost everywhere is metric -- one of the guys jumped out, and we watched him fall away into the overcast sky.  At around 10,000 feet, another guy edged up to the door, looked at me and said, "Push me."  "Really?" I asked, and he nodded, so I reached over and shoved his shoulder, pretty gently, and out the door he went.  That was Matheus, I believe, and that was enormously fun.  I want to do it again.

Ready to push a stranger out of a plane.

Then Jack told me to sit on his lap, and I listened to buckles clicking into place, and I crossed my arms over my chest and he wriggled up to the door, and I said, "Perfect track record, right?" and he said, "Right," and I said, "Wouldn't want to mess it up now," and he chuckled and rolled us out the door.  I uncrossed my arms and let them fly out and back, and let the wind fling my feet into the proper position, and looked at the world all spread out in the almost-gloaming below me.

Swakop is known for this heavy cloud cover that can stop abruptly
a few kilometers from the coastline.

We plunged down, the plane vanished above us, Jack kept pointing to the videographer when I wanted to look at the ocean, and very soon there was a loud noise and a strap slammed into my neck and my whole body jerked abruptly upward.  Well, probably not, but that's how it felt.  Then I started to feel slightly nauseated, and when Jack handed me the controls I very gently steered us, slowly, left and right and slowed us down a bit and then right some more, but was mostly content just to drift, chatting casually with Jack and breathing through the nausea, which I think was a function of not eating more than skydiving.



The pink splotches by the sea are salt pans. And this is another odd cloud pattern
for Swakop; usually they're thick over the ocean and end abruptly slightly inland.

And Jack took back the control straps, and soon I could see little people waving to us, and then we came in a RUSH onto the ground, and I held up my feet as instructed and we landed gentle as thistledowns, or maybe not quite.  Big hug to Jack, high fives to friends, and about two liters of water straight down the gullet and strongly recommended we get ourselves some SANDWICHES somewhere!  Which we did, and then everyone napped and we went out to hear some music and met a couple of the skydivers at the pub and they took three of us to a couple of dance clubs and to their flat, and then a pilot drove us back to the Bad Bungalows at 5:00am.  So that was fun, too.

The parachute is called a 'canopy', and this one is very lovely.

But I didn't have nearly as much fun with the actual diving as my friends did, and wasn't sure if it was lack of vital nutrients and, frankly, maybe a touch of something headed toward dehydration, or if I really didn't like it.  So I decided to try it again, which I did in June.  [cliffhanger!]

Toasty!

"It's a sacrificial service."  This is not official Peace Corps communication, I believe, but it's certainly something I've heard from staff occasionally.  'Sacrifice' is, of course, a word of myriad connotations.  But I don't have a heating pad or hot water bottle here.

The physiotherapist wants me to keep my arm warm as I have pulled something in it that is being markedly ornery about healing fully and quickly.  She recommended a heating pad.  She mentioned that the receptionist makes heating pads, using cozy fuzzy cloth, like a velvety polar fleece, with barley inside.  You throw the thing in the microwave for two minutes, and the barley warms up and you can fling the pad onto your afflicted area and it will stay toasty warm for 20 minutes or more.

And they cost $140, or about $14 in US terms.  But my living allowance is paid in Namibian terms.  So.

The ShopRite charges $10 for a bag of barley.  I bought one.  I though about using a re-usable menstrual pad as the container, but then realized a sweat sock would be much better.  Pour in a bit of barley, knot the sock, drop it in the microwave, heat for one minute (I started with two minutes - ouch!) and then drape it over my arm, coax it into my sleeve, tuck the knot under a convenient strap.  And then do my stretching exercises.  It does indeed stay warm for twenty minutes or so.  The smell of warm barley makes me yearn for Welsh rarebit, but that's a minor inconvenience.

Now my microwave, plus the indoor toilet, qualifies me for Posh Corps status, I believe.  However, for my friends serving in less plush circumstances, I'm confident the sock can be warmed in the oven, as I recently confirmed that one can dry sheets in the oven at a very low temp, resting on a heavy paper shopping bag.  (Laundry day got a bit away from me:  "Hmm.  Continue to laze in the sun reading Dave Eggers, or get up and wring out the sheets and set them to rinse?"  I blame Mr. Eggers.)  I expect that even volunteers who only have stovetops could heat the barley sock in a covered pot over a very low flame.

I love when I come up with work-arounds.  It's unaccustomed, and very welcome, brain exercise.

Tasty Too!

Last night I was leading an English Improvement training with five or six adult learners (of very various degrees of English proficiency) and then wanted to go along to a memorial service for a dear friend's niece.  I can't write much about that here as this is a fun post, and memorial services, however uplifting or meaningful, are just not fun.

The point, however, is that I knew I wouldn't get home for dinner at a reasonable hour, so I ducked into the small local grocer to see what I could find for a stop-gap.  I found this:

It's tasty!

Sadly, it's also probably poisonous in myriad ways, not just because it was quite peppery, really.  But, while the 12-point type claims, "Popcorn's our passion.  We searched the world until we found the very best.  Then we heated it by air to POP and smothered it lovingly with our scrumptious seasoning"; the fine print says: "INGREDIENTS Popcorn (60%), Vegetable oil (palm fruit with antioxidant: TBHQ), Seasoning [Maltodextrin, Salt, Milk solids (whey powder), Sugar, Spices (pepper, paprika), Acidity regulators (E330, E260), Vegetable powder (garlic), Hydrolysed vegetable protein (soya), Flavourants, Monosodium glutamate (E621), Anticaking agent (E551), Flavour enhancers (E631, E627), Spice extracts]."

Who uses sixty percent corn and forty percent palm oil and MSG to pop popcorn?  My home recipe is, like, 85/15.  However, it's the E260 that'll really get you.  Unless the soya is protecting me!  Yeah, I think the soya is probably protecting me!!

Anyway, it was totally tasty, and ten bucks versus $15 for Creamy Cheddar flavour Simba Chips, which are probably even worse on the health-food scale.

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.

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.