Life and Death in Namibia and Adventures in the Great North

The end of term two went smoothly, and group 30 joyously reconnected for our last IST. What I failed to mention in my last blog update was the death of my friend Floria on the 19th of August. Floria worked at the Ministry of Education office just behind my house, and I would often go and sit in her office after bad days at school. She was taking classes and often asked me questions about how I do my lesson planning. She has a 12 year old daughter who’s reading Charlotte’s Web.
I knew that Floria was sick, but I didn’t realize that she was so sick. The last day I was at school, Yolande (the secretary) told me that she’d passed. I didn’t think that we could possibly be talking about the same person.
The thing about living in a place with such a high HIV/AIDS rate, poverty, hunger, etc is that life and death just kind of…. happen. Don’t misunderstand. Death is tragic. It’s heartbreaking. But it happens so often, to everyone, there is a sense of desensitization. Many of my learners are orphans, living with aunts and uncles, older siblings, grandparents, friends of the family. They speak nonchalantly of dead parents, cousins, aunts, uncles. Learners without parents are the norm, rather than the exception. I’ve had to get myself in the habit of saying “parents or guardians” when talking about, well, parents and guardians in my classroom.
Part of the culture shock cycle is thinking that you understand a particular element of the host culture (and maybe even being pretty stoked about understanding it), only to realize at times that actually what you (thought you) understood is… inaccurate. I feel that way about the perception of life and death here. I’m not trying to generalize an entire culture’s view of death and dying, because, just like everyone in the US deals with death in his or her own way, so do Namibians. But, because of the prevalence of death here, on the surface there appears to be a feeling of desensitization. Just when I think I get it, I don’t.
Moving on. I returned about a month ago from my first trip to the northeast of Namibia, to that narrow piece of land that extends east called the Caprivi strip. I crossed the red line the first time during the April/May holiday, but Caprivi is another world altogether. It’s almost like its own country (and in fact, there is a secession movement there). I stayed with another volunteer in Katima Mulilo, and did a lot of reading, relaxing, and buying things at the open market (which I sorely miss from my days in Latin America). It’s been nice branching out form group 30, and meeting the other volunteers in country. Hiking north, it seemed like one of our group had some bad hiking karma. Hiking south, 1400 kilometers, was an adventure all its own. The people you encounter mostly always have a story about volunteers. Maybe they had a teacher who was a PCV, or maybe they’ve given a lift to another volunteer before. Of course, there are those people who have met PCVs or other volunteers and have a bad taste in their mouth. I managed to get a lift with some Israelis who’d bought a car in South Africa and were driving all the way to Ethiopia, where they are going to resell the car. We overnighted in Rundu, and I left before they woke up, hoping to get an early lift all the way south to Windhoek. An hour and a half later, when they left Rundu, I was still looking for a lift… so I rejoined their roadtrip again for a few hundred kilometers. I then got a lift with a family returning to Windhoek from Rundu (well, their farm 180k from Rundu), a family clearly run by the matriarch, who, 10 minutes after joining them, told me that I was now part of their family and informed me that I’d be joining them for December holidays at their farm. The last leg of that trip was in a VW Golf taxi from Windhoek to Gobabis, with 4 drunk men in the back seat, me in the front seat, and African techno music blasting most of the way, and the driver trying to make conversation with me over the techno. It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) that I was happy to be on terra firma in Gobabis that night.
The first week of Term 3 didn’t go so well for me, I actually didn’t go to school due to some health problems (I saw the doctor in Windhoek, everything’s ok). Things are on track now, though, for a great term. And, thanks for my dad and his lovely wife Rose, there’s a nice light at the end of the tunnel that is Term 3.
More to come soon!