Goodbye Namibia!

Dear Namibia,

Today, I'll leave you for, well, at least a little while. And I'm going to miss you. 


Well, I'm going to miss parts of you, like:

• My beautiful, peaceful walks to and from school
• Those people who took the chance to get to know me and were my friends through the good and the bad
• Adding emphasis/urgency to something by repeating the same word (now now, soon soon, hot hot, here here)
• Hitchhiking – encountering super awesome people with good stories and good things to say
• Hitchhiking – when hitchhiking turns into type 2 fun and ends with a great story
• The relaxed pace of life
• Well dressed adult men walking through the capital with Barbie and other small-girl-oriented backpacks
• Spectacular Namibian sunrises and sunsets
• The spark of joy on another’s face when I greet them with a smile
• Afternoon thunderstorms
• Warthogs grazing next to the road 
• Baby warthogs!!
• Celebrating small victories
• Small children who squeal with delight when I greet them 
• How I can keep any number of things in my bra (phone, money, ID) and it's completely normal
• My Nam Fam and the incredible camaraderie that develops between volunteers  
• The beautiful desert
• The way that, somehow, things always work out

But you know, there are things I'm really not going to miss, like:

• Your horrible, horrible customer service
• Very expensive, usually slow internet
• Hitchhiking – standing on the side of the road for prolonged period of time in the sun wondering if anyone will pick me up
• Hitchhiking – getting picked up by racist white assholes who tell me I’m wasting my time, or talk about how stupid black people are, or talk about any number of things that one doesn’t feel like talking about
• Public urination EVERYWHERE
• Fat Afrikaner men wearing short shorts
• The consistent, omnipresent staring. Come on, Namibia! It's not nice to stare.
• The consistent butchering of English
• Not being able to deal with medical things without the intervention of Peace Corps
• The lack of common sense/problem solving/deductive reasoning in the general population
• The expectation of the general population that I am an expert on everything
• The expectation of the general population that I’m rich and should give them money
• My colleagues and learners telling me how fat I’m getting
• Small children who ask me for 'one dolla' every time I walk to the shop
• The people who use "This is Africa!" as an excuse for, well, everything.

Thank you, Namibia, for making me appreciate things like the beautiful east coast mountains, indoor hot, running water, washing machines and dryers (!), driving a car whenever, wherever I want to, and all those amenities that I can't think of currently but am (shamefully) a little excited about having access to.

I think I will write a couple follow ups once I'm back in the states, specifically one about vegetarianism/veganism in Peace Corps (since I never got around to posting that one), and some others about readjusting to life in the states.

Thanks to all of you who read about my time here! 

Farewell, Namibia!!