Long weekend in Luderitz

Greetings and salutations readers of this email or readers of blog.

I stared up at my homemade wall calendar the other day, and after some serious counting on my fingers, I realized I have been in Namibia for almost five months. That. is. crazy. Not “I can’t believe it’s not butter crazy!” but kind of like, “The kid in my class that eats paper” meets the bug as big as my right hand kinda crazy. I live here folks. In all sheer and said honesty, I have yet to accept it. Somethin’s gotta give.
Just last weekend, I cut loose and headed to the coastal town of Luderitz (look it up on google if you can, it’s purdy). My trip started by heading to Keetmanshoop to hitch hike with some friends. So, just like everybody else, we walked out to the highway, stuck out our hands, and began the wait. After maybe an hour, a government official picked us up, which was pretty awesome, until…he gets a phone call (we are still two hours away from Luderitz), and he declares, “Oh, I have to go back to Keetmans to pick some people up. I will just drop you in Aus (town of 3,000 people in middle o’ nowhere) You will be fine. Someone will pick you up.” What. the. hell. He still wants us to pay him $20 to take us two hours, but Rashid (my friend) totally wants us to jump ship without paying b/c this dude is pretty ridic, but I can’t b/c my laptop is in the trunk of the car. I can lose $20 to keep my ‘puter. We are dropped in middle of nowhere. Stuck. It’s is 3 in the afternoon. We wait on the side of the road for almost 2 hours. We finally decide we are going to have to camp it up in Aus, so I run to the store to buy matches so we can build a fire.
But me running to the store, it has the same effect as going to the bathroom at a restaurant has when you want your food. You leave to pee, and when you come back… Voila! Your food awaits. After a 20 minute walk to get matches, across some railroad tracks, up a hill, past some houses, and a very random encounter with one of my students who happens to live in Aus, I return to find we have not only gotten a ride, but when I introduce myself to our lift, she opens her mouth to speak and the only thing I hear is, “Hi, I have an American accent, because I’m from America too.” Ahh-ahh—ahh (Insert trumpets here, American trumpets, dammit!) The sweet symphony of our nasally, awesomely direct, perfectly splendid accent wafts into my ears. The sound of an American accent here is such a mental lifeboat, it is crazy. Heather (as I find out later, b/c that is what she actually started her sentence with) works for a company out of Australia, was checking out a local Namibian zinc mine, and is now on her own vacation. She regales us the rest of the trip with stories about living on a boat for six years with her boyfriend, and travelling around Latin America. I’m trying to figure out the right question/way to ask how I obtain her life, but I never do. Maybe if I just pat her hair, or you know, steal her DNA (one or the other, give or take an arrest) it will rub off, and I will magically inherit a boyfriend/boat combination. I will let ya’ll know what happens.
Finally make it to Luderitz. It is a cute lil’ town with lots of old school gingerbread house lookin’ German architecture. There are nine of us total staying at our two friends very nice, very hot shower-y, apartment. This brings the total up to eleven. Yeah, that’s right! I teach 7th grade math! Nine + two is ELEVEN. What now?
Now, boat tour. Paddy and Jacob (our Luderitz pals) set up this wonderful boat tour with a local Luderitzian named Gunter, who took us out on his sailboat. I’d like to consider this trip my first African safari, and this kid’s first African safari included penguins, dolphins, flamingos, and seals. Seals are stink-nasty, by the way. They poo on the rocks, and then stay there. So it’s kind of like you are visiting them on their big rock litterbox. There is however, no litter, so it is just a poo box. Ew. The penguins were terribly cute, and smaller than I thought. When the boat pulled around, they all stood really still. I think I heard one of them saying out of the corner of his mouth, “Don’t move…they’ll see us. Stay. calm.” I still saw them though, so HA I say to you penguins. Ha. Also, flamingos fly…awkwardly. It doesn’t look like it’s supposed to happen, but it does. Like, cheese in a can. It works. Maybe I would eat it if stuck on an island. But how is it cheese? And how do they fly? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
My group also stopped by a local soccer game in the location. But we couldn’t even really tell if the game was starting, or what was going on. After watching “the game” for nearly half an hour, this is what I had gleaned: People were on the field. There was a ball. Sometimes, it was kicked. After deciding we couldn’t even tell the teams apart, and the game was in total chaos, we hit the road/sand. Also, we were all sitting together, (eleven Americans sittin’ in the front row, what what) and for a couple of minutes, I kind of felt like we were the show. Went to a great bar/restaurant/kind of a Harry Potter party for one of the Britsh VSO volunteers (he looks like Harry Potter, like really. really. It was amazing). Listened to Sweet Home Alabama (?!), and another night, heard Celine Dion singing her own version of “You shook me all night long!” It was not ok. She needs to stay in Vegas where I can be much less sober to hear her gouging out AC/DC’s song with her vocal chords of steel.
Not much else happened in Luderitz. Just a lot of hanging out, really good time, an Easter barbeque on the beach that lasted for almost six hours. Oh! Some of my friends found snails in the ocean, so they made up some fancy pants Namibian style escargots if you will, and it was actually pretty good. Yes, I ate snails directly from the ocean, and yes, I’m still alive. Once you’ve been here for five months, your stomach develops a coat of iron. It is eventually knighted by a local queen, and can handle anything remotely edible. This must happen, or you will die. The food breaks you down, then you build yourself up. It’s like boot camp, but you don’t get a prize, or to climb the rope wall.
So now I’m back at school. Bet you forgot I teach, huh? ME TOO. They really shouldn’t give us breaks, because then we have fun and don’t want to teach and so we get the flu. Oh yes, the day I returned I got the flu, felt like death, and just recovered. Had to crawl from my bed to get water. It was ugly. But it did involve Sprite, and I don’t really know how ugly anything can be with Sprite.
Anyhow, I have three weeks left, and then I’m heading to Victoria Falls with my friend Jenn, and some other people. I think we might also tour around Zambia. Has anyone been to Zambia and/or know someone who knows a friend who’s got a friend that’s been to Zambia? I’d love to know what I need to do while I’m over that border.
School is good. The kids are good. I hope I am teaching this well, and that they are learning. I hear that the first year you teach is almost always a disaster, and I don’t quite think it’s that bad, but I just worry. My best subject for teaching is actually math. Who woulda thunk it, neh? Eh. English is a little more difficult because it’s so abstract, and there’s so many ways you can do it.
OH. I am also the proud owner of one very fancy, very cute, very sleepy kitten mitten. He is really just a kitten, not a mitten, but I bet if someone hunted him, and skinned him, he would make amazingly soft mittens. His name is Harold Crooner Bloom. He is white with a brown smudged nose, and a grey tail. I’m really glad I found him because he not only likes all the same movies as me, but also likes looking at the Scrabble board, and milk; all things I like.
I want to thank everyone for the thoughtful emails, notes, and packages. I wish you all could see me when I get my packages or letters. Once I am safely behind my door, I usually hug the letter and then do a little happy dance. Or a big happy dance, or a line dance if you’re writing from Kentucky. I did a line dance the other night. For like, two minutes. It was the Electric Slide so I don’t know if it counts. It may or may not have been 3am. It was awesome.
I am feeling… better? Slowly but surely. Something I never knew about myself that I have learned here: I cannot live alone. I have never lived alone so I didn’t know it was unacceptable to my personality/person. I need someone else. Just a breakfast eatin’ pal, and a “How was your day?” pal, or “Are these all your dishes in the sink?” pal. I need that. I didn’t know. So maybe I’ll get one, maybe not. We shall see. Please send me good vibes to help me get a roomie friend. I hope you all are doing well, and know that I think about ya, and I miss ya. But things are gettin’ better ‘round these parts. How’s things in yours?
A girl whose hair’s getting too long for its own good,
Grace

Roughin’ it, toughin’ it, and poetisizing in my poetree tee


March 8, 2008
Last weekend, I headed to Keetmanshoop courtesty of the village council secretary, Michael. We picked up three random people on the way there to complete our full car. If you are ever riding around in a car with an open seat here, bets are that seat will be filled with some hiker by the end of yo’ trip. It’s kinda fun. I like to think of random characters we might pick up. This time, it was a man, his daughter, and someone who could have possibly been a grandfather. They all spoke Nama, and I politely nodded, and said like, the five Nama words I know. If you are not a Native Nama speaker though, like, every time you utter a word in Nama, everyone gets REALLY excited, and starts laughing hysterically, which makes you not want to speak it. Ick.
Went to Keetmans for a break from Bethanie, and got, well, kind of a break. A bunch of Peace Corps volunteers were there, maybe 8 (guess everybody wanted a break), and then the four Norwegian students came to hang out too. Pretty full house, and a pretty nice weekend. Hung out with the Norwegians who are leaving for brief tour 'round Namibia/Southern Africa before headin’ back to the land of fjords, snow, and of snoos. Heheh. Snoos is Norwegian “sucking tobacco” that you suck on behind your front teeth. The Norwegian SCORE volunteer in Keetmans gave some to my friend Jacob, who, after putting it in his mouth was told by Jan, “Yeah, the first time I tried that, I threw up everywhere.” Awesome. By the way, Snoos is banned in the states. Hot.
ACK. It was really nice having the Norwegian students here for nearly 3 weeks! I didn’t realize how important it is just to have someone that can relate to you, and not from the community to also be like, “Yes, that is weird that sometimes you don’t have math for athletics, etc. “ And just fun to hang out with them in general. Ok, done gushing, if that was gushing.
Pretty rough week at school. It has been hard enough for me to learn a good teaching style for the 5 classes I teach, but I’ve also been put in charge of Window of Hope (AIDS club), helping coach basketball, literacy class, girls’ club, and extra tutoring if any kids in my class need it, and they DO. I kind of got overwhelmed this week, and had a total shutdown, and became “Teacher zombie version 2.0.” Not even 3.0. TWO POINT ZERO. Like, 3.0 wouldn’t have canceled literacy class. But 2.0 did. I just needed some time to decide which of these activities is most important, and then ditch one. I can’t do them all. But it’s like, do I help kids with math, or help kids that can’t read? And not like, can’t read well, it’s like CAN’T READ. Ack. I am seriously debating whether I’ll leave the house today.
Anything else… hmmm. Drunk man tried to hug me the other day in Keets, and my friend Paddy literally picked him up and physically moved him out of my way. It was amazing. And funny. Been eating like a single college kid. Oatmeal for breakfast and maybe lunch, maybe tuna for dinner, some milk, whatever is around. I cooked for a while, but then it’s just me eating it, so then I have to eat lasagna like, ten times a week. And by lasagna, I mean “thing that looks kinda like lasagna” b/c lasagna noodles haven’t quite met Namibia yet.
My sister sent me the coolest shirt ever. Like, if there a contest, and many shirts competed, this shirt would judo chop all the other shirts until they wrinkled up and begged for mercy, which my shirt would not give. For it is a merciless shirt. However, it’s coolness will only be appreciated by me. It’s a shirt with two green trees on it, and the trees are made out of two poems (pretty good poems, upon inspection) so they are “poet-trees.” Eh? Eh? Badum-ch! Do you know how many Namibians will get this joke? The same amount that don’t eat meat.
I just looked over this entry, and I think it sounds kind of negative. I think it sounds negative because I am still quite homesick. I made a list of things I like to talk about the other day, which included politics, books, poetry, religion, punny stuff, sarcasm, and “Curb your Enthusiasn/Office type humor.” But the few and the proud get my humor here. It’s so weird when I say something I know would be SUPER FUNNY at home, and you could hear a pin drop in the room. Booooo. Hoo. But I really haven’t been talking about these things here. I am in a very conservative community, and I guess I need to find a balance of what I can say that is acceptable, and what is not. However, I’ve, as we say “toed the line” a couple of times here, and it usually ends with the other person being like, “You’re NOT religious?!” or “You don’t like MEAT? WHY?” Although I totally ate springbok a week ago. I just wanted to know what it tasted like. Oh, the guilt the guilt.
Ok, I’m going to make a list of all the NICE things that have happened recently. Auntie Anna and Jackie gave me a lift back from Keetmans, and they helped me with my Afrikaans. Hung out with Iris and Frans. Karina, in my reading class, read her FIRST WORD. That is very very exciting. Denis in grade 6 gave me a pack of chips, which totally is the Namibian equivalent of giving an apple to the teacher. Rock. Four boys came to after school math tutoring, and I think it helped. Yay. Got a package from my sister. Petro gives me free coffee and counseling whenever I stop by. Dawid Rooi is not really a bad kid, and he is, very slowly, showing this to me. Many kids have volunteered to help clean the library, and they WILL clean it. I think the secretary, Aletta, and I are going to be friends. I have a very slow, but very real, internet connection in my house. I will go on Easter break in two weeks. (takes deep breath…exhales) Good good things. Ok. Happy thoughts. Only then can I fly. Someone should send fairy dust to make this complete.
Well, that’s all. I’m going to rock out to some Arctic Monkeys, consider which activities to cut from my week, make the Starbucks coffee Mel sent me (thankya thankya). If anyone wants to email me a poem, or you know, an email, I will relish every word. Here’s part of a poem I was sent recently:

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
Two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she way crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”

And he was serious. He was a serious man.
Who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
Just because the world said so. He really
Liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
As valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems had been
Hiding
In the eyes of skunks for centuries
Crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us,
We find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
In your drawer, the person you almost like, but
Not quite.

And let me know.

-Naomi Shihab Nye