Before I left for Peace Corps, I had a summer free to enjoy life and climbing (thanks for that, Mauritania!). It was a magical summer.
But since coming to Namibia, there’s been an unfillable hole where climbing had been. Finding other climbers and talking about it eases the discomfort of not climbing, but nothing compares to being on the rock.
Last year I’d contacted some Namibians in the MCSA (Mountain Club of South Africa), but nothing really came of it. Unlike my group of climbing friends, I didn’t find them particularly welcoming to an ‘outsider.’
Last week, we had a 4 day weekend, and feeling a little desperate (ok, a lot desperate), I contacted the MCSA person again to see if there was at least bouldering (climbing close to the ground that doesn't need a rope) around. She put me into contact with another member of the MCSA which turned out to be pretty great. I gave him a call, found out that people would be climbing for the weekend, that the climbing community in Windhoek is pretty young and fairly new to climbing, that they’d love to learn new techniques, including trad (traditional) climbing, and, most importantly, that we’d be able to join them wherever they decided to climb over the weekend. I got in touch with the other PCV climber; she was easy to wrangle into the weekend.
So to Windhoek we went. We climbed at a spot just outside of Windhoek (with very sensitive access issues – you have to be a MCSA card carrier or a guest of a MCSA card carrier to climb there) – it was pure bliss to climb outside on real rock again. It gave us a chance to reacquaint ourselves with everything before the big show: Spitzkoppe.
We headed to Spitzkoppe Friday. I was in a state of high-strung excitement. The drive from Windhoek west towards the coast goes through a beautiful part of Namibia – large, sharp hills, small towns, open spaces filled with African bush. I drove with a South African pilot who lives with the MCSA guy I’d contacted. He’d been climbing once before at the crag outside Windhoek, and showed signs of a possible climbing addict. We had interesting conversations the entire drive, which made the drive quite enjoyable.
Distances in the desert are deceiving. Something that’s 20 miles away seems much closer in the wide open spaces. The drive to Spitzkoppe from the main road is a tease. It’s a 30 kilometer drive on washboard dirt roads that seem to be passing the rocks before finally turning off toward them. I’d been to Spitzkoppe once before, but just passing through, and not even entering the park itself. The rocks are beautiful sandstone outcroppings in otherwise relatively flat, open African bush. They kind of remind me of Devils Tower, but instead of just one outcropping, there are several. Knowing I’d be camping amongst and climbing on these beautiful rocks put me in a state of high-strung excitement.
Spitzkoppe is made up of several different areas of crags and boulders, and you can camp anywhere inside the main entrance. We drove to a campsite between 2 of the peaks. I felt like a kid in a candy store driving in (as most climbers do when they’re surrounded by big, beautiful rocks). We set up camp in a narrow valley between 2 peaks looking out onto a larger rock called the Potocks and the main Spitzkoppe peak (which is to the left and not visible in the picture of my tent).
We arrived just before sunset, and it felt like we were camping in a cathedral of rock. The setting sun against the peaks of sandstone, the silence of the desert – it made my forget the hassle of getting there, and in fact made me forget the general state of discontent I’ve been in the last few weeks. We made a fire and drank some beers and admired the twinkling sky from our perfect campsite.
In the last photo, the main Spitzkoppe peak is on the left.
Namibia’s getting cold (it’s been in the 40s in Gobabis in the morning). The desert gets very cold at night, and Saturday morning I was pretty chilly. We set out early Saturday morning with the Spitzkoppe guide book in search of easy routes, but time and again would arrive at climbs to find that they weren’t what the book described, that the bolts had been cut, or some other disappointment. Additionally, it seems that climbs have been set that aren’t in the book. We walked around for a few hours before finally arriving at a big boulder with some easy sport climbing. We each climbed once, then went back to camp to wait for the rest of our group to arrive. In the afternoon we did a bit more climbing, although Caitlin and I were both getting sore and our hands were starting to hurt from the sharpness of the sandstone. We climbed until just after sunset (rappelling in headlamps) and headed back to camp for an awesome night of cooking and drinking and talking and laughing. I feel so fortunate to have met this group of people.
Sunday morning we wanted to climb a bit, but after breaking down camp, and looking for climbs that never materialized, we’d run out of time, and headed back to Windhoek, where I’d come back east and Caitlin would continue south to her site.
It’s hard to describe how the weekend so positively affected us. Just like other athletes passionate about their sports, climbers suffer when there’s no climbing to be had. Not climbing has definitely negatively influenced me and my psyche. To be able to sit and talk to someone for a couple hours about climbing things (that no one else here cares about and doesn’t want to talk about) was a relief. It was refreshing. To be on the rock and be thinking only in that moment was good for my soul. To meet people who are eager to climb and eager to learn about climbing and eager to share their experiences did us both a lot of good.
There's a downside to the bliss, though. It was a reminder that, no matter how much I like what I’m doing here, I’ll never be completely happy with such a big part of who I am missing. I’m also getting to the point where I’m ready to be rid of the underlying unhappiness, to make a real salary, to be able to drive a car when I want…. to be a real person again. And honestly, that could be anywhere where I can have friends and climbing – Africa or America. And so, coming back to site was hard.
Of course, the upside is that now I’ve found climbing friends here, and I’ll be climbing again in less than 2 weeks in an amazingly beautiful, peaceful place.
Throughout my travels in the last few weeks (I’ve been back and forth to Windhoek for the dentist and the climbing trip) I’ve had some very interesting conversations with people from many different backgrounds, about a lot of different things. One recurring topic is the state of things post-independence. Most people – black, white and coloured – will tell me that they think things were better before independence. I do a lot of listening during these conversations, because the topic is sensitive and one wrong comment from me can make for a very long, uncomfortable, or even hostile, car ride. People that I talk to feel a general dissatisfaction with government agencies, but most shrug it off with the “this is Africa” justification. However, it was explained to me by someone who I would describe as of Latin descent, therefore not fitting into the white/black/coloured categories, that at independence the SWAPO party (Southwest Africa People’s Organization) – today still the ruling party, and the organization responsible for the freedom fight – was so eager to oust the white ruling party of South Africa that they ousted people from office and government posts without first training the people who would be taking over those posts, resulting in the posts being filled by someone who had no idea how to do the job. It has been hinted to me that even today the family of freedom fighters are given preference in certain governmental posts, whether they are qualified for that post or not.
The trip to Spitzkoppe included a discussion of culture on education. Discussions about culture and how culture affects things can come dangerously close to being xenophobic and racist without either party intending them to be. The line between xenophobia/racism and cultural observation is very blurry.
My least favorite conversations begin when the other person (who is almost always white) begins with “I’m not racist, but….” followed by some unmistakably, incredibly racist comment or tirade. This happens quite a lot, unfortunately. And the line between racism and cultural observation isn’t blurry at all. It’s quite bold, and the other person is obviously standing on one side.
I’ve been mostly impressed by the kindness of strangers over the last few weeks. Coming back to site from Windhoek this last time, I got a lift to the airport (which is 40 kilometers from Windhoek on the road to Gobabis), and was starting to get a little nervous I wouldn’t get a lift to Gobabis before dark (it’s getting dark around 5 now). Shortly after I started to get nervous, a farmer from Gobabis stopped to pick me up. He also runs a drilling company that drills boreholes in communities with limited water access. He told me that his church wants to get involved in helping to improve the lives of the people in the location; while I know that he certainly means well, his ideas did seem to have the “taming the wild savage” undertones to them. We also talked about how some volunteers in the north are beginning to talk about family planning at their clinics. Of course, this isn't a new idea, but in the past there have been clashes of culture, and those promoting family planning have been called racist. It's difficult to bridge the cultural gap to help people alter their ways of thinking, to help them understand that they don't need 8 children to have a "pension," that Namibia's population is growing rapidly and that the country can't support so many people.
I could go on and on. I think I should save it for another post.
As always, thanks for reading. :)
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