Coach Peterson?

Since the majority of the people who read this are in America, I am here to fill you in on a little known fact in the US: The World Cup is/has been going on in Germany. That's soccer if you are still confused. So all of the world has been going mad with football. In the little town of Khorixas, the secondary schools had a tournament this past weekend (the 24th and 25th of June). Four teams were formed at each of the two schools. Entry was a couple dollars per player and spectators could come for a whopping dollar (fifty cents if you were a youth). Each team was supposed to have a sponsoring teacher who would be there as a representative in case the team got in a fight or something. One student came to me asking if I would be the teacher for their team. This was after I had already turned down their request for money, so I felt I could handle hiding out on the sidelines for a couple hours. I had to be there at 9am on Saturday for the first game. Easy enough.

Saturday, I think I'll be able to get some school work done after the game so I walk to the school with my bag and leave it in my classroom before heading out to the stadium. When I get to the stadium, a teacher and the principal from Welwitcia (the other school, pronounced "vell-veet-chia") are both there along with all the Welwitcia teams. No one from Goreseb has arrived except me. Immediately, both of the other staff members demand where the Goreseb kids are, do I have the list, do I have the fees, why wasn't I here earlier, and why the chicken crossed the road?!!! Every time I tell them that I don't know, I'm met with another question from the list. Maybe I should have made up an anwer? The kids were abducted by flying baboons, the list is tatooed on the insides of my eyelids, the fees were deposited to a swiss bank account, and I would have been here earlier but the alternator in my donkey cart is shot so I had to walk. It takes ten minutes for me to explain that all Iknow is that I am supposed to be here for only one team, and that team is not relying on me for money. And the chicken crossed the road to get away from demanding teachers who ask a lot of repetative questions!

Luckily, students start to arrive and take the heat off of me since they have more anwers than I do. Apparently, the hostel didn't have any water so the students had to carry water in wash basins from the youth hall across the street to the dining hall so that the minor meals could be cooked. So breakfast was late and the students would be arriving shortly. I prefer the baboons answer.

A half-hour late (on time by Namibian standards), the first team is ready to go. Not my team, but the teacher is not there, so they need me to be present anyway. So I sit and watch the first half from the sidelines. I cheer and clap at the appropriate times, trying to further my understandings of the finer points of soccer. Most people know my knowledge of soccer prior to arriving in Namibia was limited to the following: It is played on a really big field, one ball is used, no hands allowed, and most of the world goes flippin' nuts over it. Since being here, I have watched several youth games and exactly two World Cup games. I had to have the "Off-sides" rule explained to me by Anne during one of the youth games and I have relied on televised commentators for lessons on strategy.

Half time, we walk back into the locker room (a room under the concrete bleachers that has a long series of breaking wooden benches). I go with the team since I feel I have a stake in this, though I don't know what it is, so I should be present. At the end of the break, one of the students turns to me and says, "Do you think we should make any changes, coach?" Wha, wa huh? Coach? Aww crap! It happened again! The same thing happened when I went to that school board meeting: I thought I was just going to make an appearance as an active member of the community. Instead I ended up being a polling officer and had to help run the election of the school board. Now I'm the coach of a team that isn't mine, in a sport I've only learned the basics of in the past month! Ok, quick, think of something... "You're, no... we're up one nill. Make sure we keep the defence tight to keep the lead. We have the speed advantage so keep the passing up and try to get some distance from the defenders. Watch for crosses and let's keep this lead!" I don't think it had an effect, but it was all that I knew. If I had kept talking, I probably would have started sounding like John Madden or Yogi Berra. "Ya see, we got to kick the ball in the goal to make the goals that will give us the points. That's the only way we're gonna win this game! We gotta kick the ball in the goal and get some points!"

So the game went on. The team that I was "coaching" but was not mine won 1-0. Then it was my team's turn to play. They also won 1-0. This lead to a slight conflict of interest at the first game of the second round when the two teams I was the coach for ended up playing eachother. I stayed with the team that had come to me during classes on Friday. They were down 2-0 going into the break but got their momentum back half way through the second period. They got to 2-1, but time ran out, so I will envoke a quote from a coach whose name illudes me at the moment: "We didn't lose, we ran out of time." Of course none of the other teachers ever showed up, and eventually the one's from Welwitcia also left, leaving me and the three referees as the "authority" figures on the field.

Coaching was a lot of fun, though I'd still be nervous about doing it again. I should probably watch a few more World Cup games first.

Bye Khori

When I got back from the All PCV conference in Swakop, Anne was about two hours from leaving. We did the good byes for the third time since I had thought she would be gone by the time I got back. Her term of service with SCORE ended and it was time to go back to Norway. We had some great times and she was a wonderful house mate. When I had first arrived, she had sent me a text message asking if I liked dogs since she and Diane were getting two. Khori, as she was named stayed in Anne’s room the first few nights and then became an outdoor dog after some issues with choosing appropriate places to defecate. Of the two dogs, Khori was always the more excited one, constantly shoving Mina out of the way when someone would sit down to pet them.

When it was getting to be time for Anne to leave, Khori was sent down to a house at the end of our street to live there. Since Diane is planning on leaving Khorixas in September, we thought it would be best if the two dogs began to work on being apart. For about a week before she left, Anne and the rest of us would be constantly trying to chase Khori back down to the other house where she kept escaping from. When Anne did leave after I got back from Swakop, Khori was a changed dog. It may have happened before I got there, but you could see the difference in the dog. She was visibly thinner with sunken eyes and a hunched over posture. After Anne left, Diane and I sat down and talked about what to do with Khori. We both thought it was just a phase she was going through due to being banished by all of us the previous couple weeks. I said I would look after her until we found a nice farm she could go stay on outside of town. Neither of us wanted to let her become another stray dog in Khorixas, but being the pet of a volunteer would mean she would be abandoned constantly as old volunteers left and new ones arrived. We wanted a consistent owner for her.

As the week moved on, Khori got worse. On Tuesday, she would not move much and was just sulking around the yard. I tried to give her some food and water, but she wouldn’t have any of it. It’s been getting cold again in the house and I thought keeping her inside for one night may help so I secured our entry way and brought a rug in for both dogs to sleep on. After about a half hour inside, one started whining so I went out to check on them. Opening the outside door, Mina ran out and Khori walked out as well. I figured that’s where she wanted to be so I went to bed.

Wednesday, I got up as normal and opened the back door. Mina came inside, but Khori was nowhere to be seen. This had been normal for her since I had been back so I didn’t think anything of it. Mariel, who has been on leave from Gobabis doing some teacher training at my school, and I came back from school at about two thirty. We keep a dog bed inside a small outer room of our house that used to be a servant’s quarters. I poked my head inside to see if Khori was in there. I found her lying on her side as if asleep. I walked in to pet her and see if she had improved, but found her body stiff and cold. It looked like she died in her sleep. I sat down for a minute on the steps outside my house. I was still in shock when I went inside to change out of my school clothes. I went down the street and borrowed some tools from a neighbor. I wrapped Khori in one of Anne’s sheets she had left. Mariel carried the tools and I carried Khori as we walked into the bush at the end of our street. At the end of our street is a path that goes into the bushes and joins up with a dirt service road. Arriving at the junction, we started walking off trail towards the cell tower that is in the distance. I wanted to have a place where she could easily be found by those who knew, but impossible to stumble upon. We stopped a few meters from a dry creek bed and about forty meters from the road. I put down Khori’s wrapped body and took the pick axe. We busted the ground apart with the pick and dug a hole. I set Khori inside. We both stood there and stared for a long time. I started crying, touched the sheet one last time and said she was a good dog and I will miss her. We covered her up. Before leaving, I said I was sorry she had been through such a hard life and I hoped she was better now. We went back to the house and I made the calls to Anne and Diane.

Bye Khori.

Learning to Fly

Last Wednesday I was picked up by Peace Corps for the All Volunteer Conference which was being held in Swakopmund. A bit of trivia, Swakopmund is a German word meaning “mouth of swakop.” Ok, nice enough. But the word “swakop” is a mutation of the Nama phrase, “tsoa xoab” (pronounced “ts-o-ah hh-oaab” make a lite hacking sound with the ‘h’) which means “bottom excrement”. And “bottom excrement” means exactly what you think it does. So roughly translated from the German/Nama mish-mash, the birth place of Brad and Angelina’s baby is Mouth of Feces. There’s a story for the celeb magazines, “Brad and Angelina have baby in Mouth of Feces!” Before anyone asks, yes I did see Brad and Angelina. They stayed in the hotel with us. We ate crumpets and took long romantic walks on the beach. Then we all climbed in a giant magic Makelani nut that took us to the moon where we joined the Smurfs for a cribbage tournament. The winner got a mystery date with Al Gore. Now that we have that out of the way, we can get on with the real story.

This conference was designed to give all the volunteers a chance to get together and figure out how best to work on the HIV/AIDS problem in Namibia. It ran from Thursday to Saturday with Wednesday and Sunday left for travel purposes. So Carl came into town on Tuesday night and we were picked up at about eleven in the morning on Wednesday. We were picked up in a vehicle already carrying another four Kunene Region volunteers. We took the gravel road from Khorixas south to Uis (Ooo-ee-sss) and then southwest to Henties Bay. Just outside of Khorixas we spied three elephants grazing next to the road. “Elephant! Elephant! Elephant!” was the smartest thing I could come up with at the time. We stopped and took some obnoxious pictures. This was the second game sighting the other volunteers had had that day. The first was a cheetah they had followed along the Etosha fence coming down from Opuwo. The road went through some of the most beautiful territory. Rolling hills and rocky outcrops led us down to the Brandberg mountains which we went around before getting to the long dusty table top that makes up the last ninety kilometers before Henties Bay. This part of the drive was one of the most interesting since it was a perfectly flat barren landscape that eventually just turns to water when you reach the ocean. No real topography, just sand everywhere from horizon to horizon. Then, eventually, one of the horizons becomes more reflective and starts to have waves. The road makes a sharp left to avoid spilling into the Atlantic and becomes salt. First off, the salt road is not white. It is a dirty black color from all the oil and tire tread that is left there. Second, it is not smooth. It is a thin, pockmarked strip that is harder than any gravel road and makes for a fairly bumpy ride. But hey, this is the first time I’ve seen the ocean in seven months, so I’ll take what I can get.

We blew past Henties Bay and arrived in Swakop at about four thirty. We had just enough time to drop off our stuff and do a little shopping before all the shops closed. Peace Corps put us up in bungalows at the south end of town. Rooms were between two and six people who all shared a bathroom and kitchenette. Chad and I got a two person bungalow that was one of six surrounding a little patch of grass where people could barbeque and comment on how nice grass is. Grass is nice. The stuff they water grass with is not. Each time the sprinkler was turned on, the outside smelled like a pleasant mixture of sewage and fish. Luckily, we were in town for about eighteen hours of each day.

Our meetings were held at a large conference center in town where they served us a nice breakfast and lunch buffet. The sessions were the same as always. Sit around and discuss things, make lists, etc. Taking into account all the things we had complained about for Reconnect and Pre Service Training, PC had a few activities that got us out of the conference center. One was an organized a trip through the town on Thursday that helped to contrast the rich white community with the impoverished black communities. This was followed by a brief history of Swakop and a question and answer session. It was informative, but I was a little sceptical of our information since the representative of Swakop was a public relations guy.

The other fun activity we did was getting to go to some of the schools in the town to work with the kids. Our task was to create a lesson that was about HIV/AIDS awareness. We had to fill a two hour time slot and were in groups of four or five. Our group based our lesson on the idea of making choices and thinking about the future when you make those choices. When we arrived at the school (Swakop Senior High) on Friday, the secretary said that she hadn’t expected us to be there before two in the afternoon. It was eleven in the morning. Go Peace Corps planning and communication. The teacher, Jenna, who greeted us was a former PCV who had been here with group 20 four or five years ago. She had met a guy here during her service, dated for a while, came back as a Crisis Corps Volunteer (Google that if you want more info) and married to gain citizenship here. Now she was handing over her grade 10 learners on short notice so that we could see if we could teach them something.

We had our class, which went well. I’m happy PC organized this since I had no clue how to conduct a class with my learners and this answered a lot of my questions. The students knew a lot, certainly more about HIV than the average American student, and some seemed to really take our main idea of choices to heart. The main idea of the lesson was creating a time line for your life. (You can do this at home if you want. We all did it during training and it will certainly get you thinking.) You draw a long line on a piece of paper. The start of the line is when you were born and the end is when you die. In the middle(ish) you put a mark to designate the present. From the start of the line to the present is the section that is the past. On that line you write down different things you accomplished during your life like graduating, first job, etc. To the right of the present is the future where you do the same thing with goals you have for yourself and other events you see happening later in your life. An extension of this is to also include the things that are needed to reach those goals, but that requires more time and a fairly mature audience. Anyway, after the goals exercise is done, a second line is drawn parallel to the first starting from the present to death. This is introduced as the alternate future you fill out if that same day you were diagnosed as HIV+. Participants are then told to fill out the second line with what your goals and life events would be after that. The big questions are: What events changed? Which ones moved? Is the line shorter? Are there new events? Etc.

After our class was done, we got to meet the principal and sign his guest book. While we were talking to him, Jenna came back and we found out she was a sky diver and her husband was a jumper for a company that operated outside of town. Will had already been organizing a trip out and this was the same company he had been talking to. She invited us out to a bar at the airport for that evening. Hang out with sky divers and pilots? Ok.

That night, she called my cell and Carl, Mariel and I went over to her place for a beer. We walked back to the conference center where Pam, the volunteer stationed in Swakop, was having a concert with her school’s choir, which is also where we were that day. The concert was great and included traditional songs from Namibia, South Africa and a few other southern Africa nations that I can’t remember at the moment. She was selling CDs so of course I got one. First CD purchase in Namibia! And it doesn’t suck! Wahoo! After the concert, Jenna, Matt (the other Matt) and I went out to the airport three kilometers outside of Swakop. A building at the end of a hanger made up the offices for the skydiving company. The second story above the offices was a bar where a great many Afrikaaners were hanging out. Jenna introduced us to some of the others. Most were just friends or family of someone else, and a few were jumpers or pilots. We sat around playing this dice game that I still don’t completely understand but I know that if you roll three one’s, it’s a good thing.

After two games and a fair amount of Matt and I badgering her, Jenna agreed to take us back for the birthday party we thought we were going to in the first place. The birthday shenanigans were already in full force. We had missed someone standing up on a table and leading the entire bar in the National Anthem of Namibia, but things were still happening enough that talking to someone next to you required yelling. We retired for the evening with about five hours to spare before we would need to be back in town for breakfast.

Since it was the last day, the sessions for Saturday were pretty scattered. We would jump all over the place, from a critique of the conference, to reports about the different comities, to changes to the logistics for the rides back to site. The phrase of the afternoon was, “Just one more thing…” since everyone was trying to get their two cents in at the last second. But finally it was all over and the real fun began.

We crammed down a few bites of lunch before the call came that a combi was waiting outside for us. Eleven of us made our way to the exit and got into the combi. The driver took us back out to the airport Matt and I had been the night before. We were given some waivers to sign and then it was into the hanger. It was a small room for something that looked like it was supposed to hold a plane. Harnesses and coveralls were hung by the door. A series of cubbies with neatly packed parachutes was along the wall opposite some couches for lounging. The floor was partially carpeted so that large groups could sit together. After a quick overview of how to fall, Christine, Elizabeth, and Chad got suited up. The coveralls (jump suits?) were yellow with blue arms and legs. The guys we were jumping with, called Tandem Masters, took us out to the plane to give us an introduction of about how to get out of a plane at 10,000 feet (yes, they do still measure altitude in feet). Surprise surprise, stick one leg out, scoot forward, and gravity does the rest. So the three of them cram inside the plane which taxis off and is out of sight after a few minutes. The total time for the climb is a little less than thirty minutes, fifteen minutes away and then fifteen back. We were back outside watching the skies after about twenty five minutes. Sure enough, the plane shows up as a little dot right overhead. Then the little dot drops off a littler dot. Then another. Then another. The fall time is about thirty five seconds, after which the parachute opens for the five to ten minute trip back to earth. And when the trip back to earth is over, everyone is grinning like idiots. Screaming, hootin, hollerin, and incapable of complex sentences. Christine’s trip may have been a little more exciting than most, since her chute had “a problem”. When her main chute opened, there was a knot and after about four exciting looking spirals, the tandem master cut the chute and opened the reserve. From the ground it was over before we could really figure out what was going on. Part of the deal is that the tandem master has a handy cam glove on videotaping the whole experience. When we watched her video, we could actually see the main chute being released and the second coming out.

Our one hic up over, the rest of the group went through the same process. Suit up, strap the harness on, practice stepping out of the plane with the tandem master, fly up, jump, land, tell friends how cool it is.

My turn! With the plane only fitting three people and three tandem masters at a time I was part of the two person group. With the extra space in the plane, a recreational jumper went with Aaron and I on our jump. The climb by itself was gorgeous. We flew out over the sand dunes going south out of Swakop, made a 180 degree turn and came back towards town. Some thin clouds were coming in off the coast and made it look like a big white blanket was being pulled over the earth. The ground slowly changed from looking like a miniature model, to looking like a painting. When we were two kilometers from the jump point, we lined up inside the plane. Wait, first off I want to make sure you have a good idea of how big this plane was. Think of a small bush plane or sight seeing plane. This was just big enough to fit six adults plus a pilot. There were no seats except for the pilot and a door had been removed leaving the guy sitting in front having to just hang out next to the wild blue yonder. So, at 10,000 feet I roll over and kneel next to the door, far closer to the recreational jumper than I would be anywhere else. The tandem master, Derick, kneels behind me and clips on four attachment points to his harness, two at my hips and two at my shoulders. After tightening them, I am basically a 175 pound chest weight on him. The recreational jumper steps out the door of the plane and hangs onto the wing strut as I fumble my way up to the door as best as I can remember from our 8.5 second training session. Derick sticks his foot out the door onto the little metal step. I stick my foot out and immediately get it blown sideways. Oh, right. The plane is moving. I get my foot settled next to his and sit on my other foot with a knee hanging out the door. Derick slaps my left hand because I have it clutching the door way and I don’t realize it. Both hands on my chest, I look at the other jumper still holding onto the strut just in time to see him fall away. At this point I really have no choice in the matter and Derick shoves both of us out the door.

The first two seconds bring that exciting falling feeling where your heart jumps up into your throat. The other half minute is pure euphoria. A deafening wind was whipping by my ears but there was no sense of falling. It truly felt like flying. Nothing was getting bigger or rushing at me. Just the sound of wind and me screaming at the top of my lungs in excitement. We flew (fell) facing the other jumper for most of the trip. At 5000 feet it was time for us to open up so the other jumper changed to a sitting or almost standing position and just dropped out of sight. When the parachute opened, it wasn’t the jerking feeling I had expected. We just sort of slowed down. Once the chute was open, Derick loosened up the harness a little bit to make our close relationship more comfortable. He pulled down the steering lines and let me play around with the controls for a bit. They were pretty straightforward: pull right makes you go right, left is go left, all the way up is as fast as possible, and all the way down is stop. We were still above the cloud cover and pulled a few spins going down before he took control and brought us into the clouds. Inside the cloud must have been ten degrees colder than outside. The lack of depth perception meant the cloud was constantly on my hand but just out of reach. Since visibility was almost nothing, we had to get through the cloud fast, but it was one of the most surreal things I’ve seen.

Back on the ground, I was grinning and jumping around the same as everyone else. After the requisite back slapping, hand shaking and dancing around, I got the jump suit off and went to the office to deal with the monetary issues. Having made it back to earth, I had to pay. When I got there, the woman who does all the editing of the handy cam videos said that my camera had been screwed up. Apparently the battery had died during the plane ride, which Derick had yelled to me on the way up. So no video for me, but I did get a discount and a free t-shirt out of it. Looks like I’ll just have to go back and do it again later.

What Am I Doing?

During Reconnect we had several discussions about the idea of sustainability. Since it doesn’t do a whole lot of good for the communities we live in to have improvements that last only two years and then die after we leave, most projects we start are supposed to be designed to carry on after we leave. Simple and straightforward as that sounds, when you get into the details of it, the task is daunting to say the least. Before you even start you need the resources, then a dedicated Namibian to work with who will keep the project going when you leave. And all this rides on the presence of a support staff who will actually support you. I’m not sure I’ve painted an “accurate” picture of the average work ethic here, but well… let me call on a quote by one of my co-workers who is Namibian and has lived and worked here her whole life, “Aai man, we black people, you know, we are lazy!”

Knowing that I would never get anything working if it wasn’t wanted in the first place, I brought all my ideas to a grinding halt. During the first week of the term, I handed out a form that asked what the school accomplished in the past, what it took to accomplish that, what they wanted to accomplish in the future, how I could help, and how it would be continued after I left. I gave them a week to fill it out and put together the common ideas over the weekend. Most of the ideas were good involving different school improvements ranging from computers to community involvement with the school. A few of the ideas were just out of left field. One teacher wanted me to go to the town council and convince them to pave the streets and repair/install street lamps. Right. That’s what I’m here for.

Last Wednesday, I had a meeting with all of them to talk about how what they had brought to me and how I would be able to help. I placed the common goals that they and I had together and modified both into three projects I would work on over the next eighteen months: media center (computers and library) improvements, funding, and community/school development. I want to start basic computer classes for students and teachers based on a one week series designed by Jason and Jay, our IT masters. Those classes would then be expanded to the community level and offered to the town for a cost of N$50 (about 8USD) per person. Keep in mind, these are the most basic of skills, how to move the mouse, how to turn on the computer, how to save a file, how to open a file, etc. After that, I wanted to start a more advanced class for personal computers and a job specific class for becoming at least decently trained in word processing and spread sheet use. This got a good response from the teachers. I had asked for two volunteers to help me with teaching, and instead I got three, including the acting librarian.

On the funding front, I thought just saying I’d ask for money would be a pretty poor way of going about this, though that is what most of them had in mind. Hurray for stereotypes! As a compromise, I told them that I would try to hold a grant writing workshop for all of them so that they could find their own money. I have no experience at all with this, so I’ll be enlisting the help of Patrick in Otijwarongo to run the workshop. This got the most enthusiastic response, though I think it may have been for the wrong reasons. One teacher said she would write a grant to have improvements made on her house and another said that she wanted me to make a business proposal for her. Not help her. Write the whole thing for her. What is the business, you ask? To start a tourist campsite outside of town. That’s sure to help the school! I told her I’d think about it, which means that I’ll think about burning the last bridge I have with her. Though, I don’t think it’ll be a loss since we don’t work together anyway and she is really just at school for the pay check.

The community/school development was really just a catch-all to bring in the smaller projects I will do and make it look like I didn’t turn down anything (like street lamps). A few good ideas the principal and the vice-principals had were for career guidance for upper level students, and study skills classes for all the students. These two suggestions came up during a meeting I had with them on the Tuesday prior to this big Wednesday meeting. I had called it with them to say that I was willing to start these things, but I wouldn’t have enough time with the class load that I had. They agreed to reduce my classes to only three or so per day next year so that I’ll have time to concentrate on these other things and serve as a support teacher for when other teachers are absent that day. My biggest concern with this is that they won’t hire anyone new. They’ll just increase the load on the other teachers so that they won’t have time to keep up the things I have started or do any teacher trainings I organize. I’ll keep badgering them to start looking for a new teacher and we’ll see how it works out.

So that’s it. I have my own little rough schedule for the next five terms and it’s looking good. I’ve got my supportive staff and people who say they are willing to carry on the work. The resources are scarce, but there. I’m sure I’ll look back on this post later and laugh about how crazy I was, but for now I’m really optimistic about how well this could work.

The Deep Freeze

This will be a short one since there’s not much I can say about it. It got crazy cold here the past few weeks. Starting on the first day of the term, the lows in our area got down into the one or two degrees Celsius (that’s the thirties for those of you who insist on keeping things in Freedom Units). The highs during the day were still in the mid twenties (seventy to eighty) making for some strange outfits. I was standing at assembly on the first day back and I saw a 12th grader lined up wearing his school uniform which consisted of a long sleeved white shirt, black slacks and dress shoes. He had accessorized with a pair of puffy ski gloves due to the cold. I have heard other stories about people coming to work wearing only the hood part of those Siberian-style parkas or just normal clothes with a huge blanket wrapped around them.

Maybe I’ve grown a little too accustomed to the climate here. If it is less than sixty in my house I am freezing and my walks to school are looking rather comical with my hands jammed in my pockets, chin down in my coat, and arms straight at my sides. Of course when I walk home during the mid-day heat wave the jacket is in my bag and I can’t wait to put on a pair of shorts. That is of course until I take a shower and still have to jump back into warm clothes since the water is at the same temperature as the previous night.

The Fish River Chronicles – Ai-Ais

Will had booked us for two four person rooms under Chad and Silas’ names so Will and I stayed behind while the others checked in. The guy at the counter told them they would have to pay an additional N$80 per person for the night they were spending in the park, which everyone laughed at since we had the same speech from the other guy at the beginning of the trip. The others finagled him for a while saying that we had just spent four previous nights in the park but hadn’t paid for those either and we prepaid for these rooms. Then another guy came along and said that we didn’t have to pay and to just tell them that “Stanley said it was okay.” What? We go from having to pay eighty bucks each to having to pay no money? I suspect a fair amount of skimming going on here. Hey, let’s get all the white people to pay an extra eighty dollars! Oh crap, they might be catching onto us! Quick, tell them Stanley said it was alright. They’ll believe it if Stanley said it.

Anyway, we got into our rooms, unpacked some stuff and promptly “funktified” the whole place. Everything smelled like a nasty combination of sweat, feet, sunscreen and dirt. Having staked our claim to those rooms and anything else downwind, we went hobbling to the indoor hot tubs. Ai-Ais is centered around a natural hot springs that is piped into to large indoor hot tubs that are big enough to be pools but not deep enough for that title to fit. Nothing is deeper than four feet and there are three circular areas in each pool for five or six people to sit in. Water jets shoot thick arcs of water onto a large area at the end of each pool. Aside from causing a deafening amount of noise, the water from these jets provides a decent massage if you stand under them. This is the perfect place to end a long hike. One of the few entries I have written in my little book says, “Everything hurts” which was true. Sitting in a hot tub for a couple hours didn’t cure that, we were all still hobbling when we got out, but it made the hobbling much more pleasant.

Aside from the hot springs, Ai-Ais is the same as every other rest camp in Namibia: some private little huts, lots of tent sites, and a large building full of hotel rooms. The one thing that Ai-Ais has neglected to cover well is the evidence of apartheid. Before Namibia gained independence, it was called South West Africa. The towels in Ai-Ais have had the coloring that says, South West African Resorts covered up by new lettering that says Namibian Wildlife Resorts. They didn’t even buy new towels. This is easy to miss, but what is hard to miss is the dinner knives. In the restaurant, the knives have the initials SWAA engraved on one side. Yup, your dinner is being cut by knives that belonged to the South West African Army. The very army that was defeated to gain independence.

One night sleeping in a real bed at Ai-Ais and it was back on the combi for the ride back to Keetmanshoop. I was amazed by the quality of this combi service. They negotiated with us well for the price and called with a two hour advance notice that they were on their way when we got picked up. After having been on so many lousy combi rides, some which were downright dangerous, it was a real surprise to have such a great experience with these guys.

One sort of strange thing did happen on the ride back. We were on the desolate road on the way out of Ai-Ais running parallel to a farm fence. All of the sudden, the driver slams on the brakes and jumps out. The other two drivers (along for the ride) also get out and open the sliding door for us. What have we stopped for? There is a jackal that had attempted to jump the fence and got stuck a long time ago. It was hanging there, half way over the fence, dead. And we stopped to look. We all look at each other wondering why this required us stopping. We shut the door, the drivers get back in, and we drive the rest of the way back to Keetmans. I suppose if this were a film or book, there would be some symbolism to the dead jackal. Lots of long camera shots on the jackal and our reactions. Not much sound except maybe the flies and insects buzzing. Then more long camera shots as we drive off. After the movie, people would guess what the director wanted us to get out of that dead jackal. Was it reflecting the idea of choices? Triumph over obstacles? The futility of existence? That must be why we watch movies. Because in real life, a dead jackal on a fence is just that. Dead.

Ok, I’m not going to end on that. We went back to Keetmans and caught the train that night back to Windhoek. Same deal as the ride down, but we were on the off-peak this time so the tickets were about ten dollars cheaper. Up to Otijwarongo for the next night and back to Khorixas to find out all sorts of news. Nothing that has a huge impact on me, but it is personal enough to others that I don’t want to post it on the internet. Safe to say, I’m going to have one new room mate in less than a month, and another one in late September.

This was an absolutely awesome trip. I can understand why it is viewed as one of the must-do things for Namibia. It is certainly up there on my list of top backpacking trips. I want to thank everyone who was on the trip. They were an absolute pleasure to hike with and I’d go on another trip with any of them with no hesitation. A big congratulations should be handed out to the novice hikers who were with us. This was an intense trip for a first time out and everyone was able to hold their own very well. Thanks to Will and Chad for all the organizing and providing the leadership on the trail. Thanks to Jay, Shoni, Jason, Megan and Patrick for accommodating some or all of us while we travelled to and from the canyon. I hope we didn’t trash your places too bad. You can send the cleaning bill to Jeff, I’m sure he’ll understand. Finally, thank you to all the people back home who read all this dribble. Check out Jason’s blog (www.mindofjason.com) for links to other stories of our group. Since that sounded like a cheesy way to end this, I’ll leave you with one last thing.

SAND IS EVERYWHERE AND THEY SHUT OFF MY WATER AGAIN!!!

The Fish River Chronicles – Day Five: A Line in the Sand

Day five started with us still on the wrong side of the river as far as ease of travel was concerned. The going was super slow as our side of the river continued to stay rocky and covered with bushes. Crossing, even if it were possible (which it wasn’t), would still have taken too long considering we would then have to cross back to get to the next shortcut. Will, Andrew and I were out front when we finally got to the end of the rocky section. We waited for Lindsay, Silas and Irene who were about ten or fifteen minutes behind. When they got there, the three of us continued on. The area we were in on the map is called the Big Flats which is true. The river continued on to our left and we turned a ninety degree angle to it to cross a large set of plains that stretched out in front of us with the river no where in sight. Remembering the fiasco of the previous day when the lead group had gotten separated, Andrew waited for the other group while Will and I continued on. We were a long distance behind the Afrikaaners and were following their boot prints as we walked on. The tracks started up a draw into the hills and, after consulting the map, we figured out that this was an unmarked short cut that would take a substantial distance off of our trip. I went back to the point where I could see Andrew in the distance and gestured in big arm motions towards the draw. He hollered an “Okay!” and we went on. Will and I followed the prints up the winding draw, leaving big arrows in the sand where other draws joined so that the following group would know where we had gone. Before going up into the last rocky pass, I made an arrow in the sand that was supposed to direct people to where the footprints were, but it instead looked like it was pointing up a different draw. I would only figure this out later. At the top of the rocky pass, Will and I made a large rock stack that would stand out against the sky when viewed from the bottom of the draw. We kept going up the pass until we were at a barren saddle. Will found a copied map that the Afrikaaners had dropped and a big arrow made out of rocks that someone else had left a long time ago. We looked at the map and the direction on the arrow and concluded this was the right way to go. We found more boot prints that confirmed this, but wanted to wait for the others. We had some peanut butter and crackers and waited about twenty minutes. No one had shown up yet, so we walked back down the way we had come and eventually went all the way back to where we had first left them at the river. Figuring that they must have at least gone on to the next river area, we went back up our shortcut and continued downhill to the river.

What had actually happened would have been pretty comical from an aerial view. Will and I had been sitting at the top of the pass while the others were making their way up the winding draw. At the bad arrow I mentioned earlier, they assumed the arrow meant for them to turn left so they continued up that left draw as Will and I were descending a different draw on the other side of the same hill. We backtracked and then came back up again all the while they were going down to the river. We eventually caught onto their tracks as we went down to the river on the other side of the saddle. The tracks were easy to differentiate since the Afrikaaners all had boots while half of our group were using running shoes.

Will and I eventually got down to the river to find the following written in the sand: “WE CROSSED HERE. NAM25” We were both a little bit sore about this since for every crossing we had done for four days straight, we had always waited until all ten people were there before we left a crossing. It was a good thing the note was there too because Will and I probably would have assumed that the others had not crossed and would continue to back track looking for them.

After that crossing, we knew we were on their heels so picked up pace to get to the next crossing. When we reached the next crossing, they were just finishing crossing and about to have lunch. We recounted our stories of who was where when and how each group was getting worried about the other. After lunch, it was one last push to the end at the Ai-Ais rest camp.

The evidence of Ai-Ais begins about a kilometer before you get there in the form of hoses and pumping stations. Whether these are for inflow or outflow, I don’t really want to know. Both possibilities kind of disturb me. Half a kilometer before Ai-Ais is a small dam with a tower. The dam seems to be just for show during the rainy season since even at this time of year it was overflowing on one side. As we came in the last few hundred meters, South African tourists who were staying at Ai-Ais were coming the other direction for an early afternoon walk. A day on a train followed by five days of walking through a desert canyon can add a substantial amount of funk to the body. These tourists smelled great! And we smelled terrible!

The Fish River Chronicles – Day Four: Shortcuts

We started day four with the intention of making some substantial progress in getting ahead of the Afrikaaners since we had been close the whole trip. We got a nice early start, but they were still out before us. Grr. We had our first opportunity to take the shortcuts marked on the map on day four. To cut off large sections of the river, there are trails that make use of the lower passes that have formed on the lower half of Fish River Canyon. These usually involve a steep up-hill section followed by a long winding descent that goes through the flat lands where the river no longer flows. Will, Chester, and Silas were out front at first and arrived early at the start of the shortcut. Lots of blister repair in the morning left the rest of the group spread out about fifteen minutes behind them. After the next group got to them, they took off through the shortcut while the second group waited for those of us in the back to catch up so we wouldn’t miss the turn. As a large group we ascended into the pass which was a little bit of rocky scrambling in the beginning followed by a well travelled trail. Another river crossing met us at the other end. This one was easier than most since it was an all gravel base and less than knee deep the whole way with calm water. We agreed that the tapings were taking too long and we needed to have some more permanent solutions. Duct tape was adopted as the repair material of choice and we continued on.

The terrain this far down the river had changed dramatically since the start. The canyon had given way to a river that wound between rolling hills. The ground on the inside of the bends was so flat and compact that we could take entire kilometers off of sections just by being on the inside of the curve. The river had also calmed to the point where finding a crossing was a simple matter of identifying the widest section. This sped a lot of our progress.

We made another crossing before the second shortcut and Will, Chester and Silas made fast progress up into the pass while the rest of us had a peanut butter break. After making the climb to the top of the pass, we missed a fork in the trail and ended up about two kilometers down stream of where Will, Chester and Silas were. After jogging up river to find them, Chad came back to take us to another river crossing and another shortcut. We had lunch at the top of this pass about a half hour ahead of the Afrikaaners.

After lunch, we went down a winding path that took us to a small dried up stream bed. We were out of sight from the river for a few kilometers and when we got back to it we were at the site of an old German soldier’s grave. I may offend some when I say this, but the question occurred to me, how many Nama tribesmen do you have to slaughter to have a big metal headstone carried in for your grave? I don’t know a whole lot of Namibian history, but I’m sure this guy wasn’t exactly leading the local people to an independent and economically prosperous future.

Onward. We left the river again to cut off a corner that met us up with, of all things, a dirt road. The road rounded a bend and began heading towards the river. In the distance on the other side of the river, we could see what looked like one of those little concession stand structures you see at high school stadiums. One wide window opening with a Men’s and Women’s bathroom off to the side. We were walking with the Afrikaaners at this point and we both reached the next crossing together. Ten feet from the river side, the road turned to pavement and stayed pavement all the way across the river to the other side. No more than shin deep with almost no current, this was the easiest river crossing we would have. The concession stand was locked up tight, but it still made for a comical rest point. We’re at day four on our hike and we’ve reached a concession stand? What? Continuing down the road, we figured out that this was a part of a private game reserve and shortly after the concession stand there was a sign telling us that we didn’t get to stay on the road any longer. Back on the trail, we eventually rejoined the river. The Afrikaaners were already there contemplating a river crossing. Knowing that this was a long bend and we could see that the going would be easier on the other side of the river, we contemplated the same crossing. Some votes were for crossing and some were not. It was late in the day and a crossing did not sound too fun plus the conditions looked like they might change further down the river (and all the people who wanted to cross, myself included, just didn’t object) we skipped crossing. After some hairy scrambling over big rock outcrops, the terrain did change so that we could make camp.

Lindsay, sorry but you too will some day look back on this and laugh.

Some people went down to swim and clean up at the river while others unpacked some stuff. I was in the middle of making a fire when Chester comes running into camp saying, “They’re saying get the med kit.”
“What?” was the most meaningful thing I could muster in reply.
“They said get a med kit.”
I dropped the sticks and ran to my pack. The med kit was in the top, where I always keep it. I busted through the short trees that separated the river bed from our camp and went running the thirty or so meters down towards the river with Will and Chester behind me. I was expecting to see a crowd surrounding some injured person but instead I see everyone standing shin deep in water and Irene says, “Oh look, they’re really running!” Then Lindsay turns around with a bloody hand covering her nose. I’ll find out later that, wanting to get the cold entry over with fast, she had done a sort of shallow push off with her head underwater and ran straight into a rock. There was a minor scrape on the middle of her forehead and two little gouges in the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t bad and she was laughing for most of the ordeal. Chad had been down there and got her laid back on a big rock while I opened up the med kit. We got her cleaned up with a little piece of gauze to cover the wound and two pieces of tape to hold it in place. It looked kind of like those little breath-rite strips worn by football players and people who have trouble sleeping at night. We all went back to the campsite where Chester, Andrew, and Silas had gotten the fire started again.

We put one more gauze dressing over the other soaked one before dinner. The bleeding had stopped, but we didn’t want to reopen it until morning. When we first got back to the fire, Andrew grabbed his med stuff and handed out nose tape to everyone so we could all look as cool as Lindsay did. Dinner that night was macaroni with either pesto or curry sauce depending on which packet you got. We believe that the pesto sauce is sold out in every town between Keetmanshoop and Otijwarongo because of the PCV population. It never seems to be in stock, and when it is, we buy all of it. As far as the things volunteers fight over the most, pesto sauce is somewhere between donated books and free internet time (both of which are above food, water, electricity, and safety). Dessert was a huge treat. Irene and Elizabeth had packed in the ingredients for Apple Crisp and mixed them all together for a sort of Apple Cobbler type dish. That was followed by a few cups of hot chocolate. Not a bad way to finish the last night camping (except for the hole in Lindsay’s nose.)

The Fish River Chronicles – Day Three: Side-to-Side

After the late start on the morning of day two, we wanted to have an earlier start. We would be damned if we were going to be beaten down this river by a bunch of middle aged Afrikaaners in gaiters with trekking poles! Unfortunately, we started with a river crossing which meant that it was blister fixin time. This was the day for river crossings and we would continue the cross, fix blister, cross, fix blister routine all day. One of our worst river crossings happened on day three. We had just finished lunch and the river made a hard so we had to cross to avoid the second living group (third if you count Afrikaaners as wildlife) of animals: baboons. The baboons of Fish River make their homes in the steep rocks on the sides of the rivers. After lunch, we approached the next crossing and could hear the baboons barking down at the bend. Chester continued on to see if there was an easier crossing downstream. As he got closer to the baboons, their barking grew louder. We dubbed them the Brain Eating Baboons, though we knew nothing of their diet. Still, it seemed like a good idea not to anger the locals. So it was time to cross. The only section of the river that met our requirement of being less than half-a-Matt deep was the swiftest and the rockiest. The rocks here were at least as big as bowling balls and had sections where they were the size of a twin bed and came up high enough to bang your knee on them. Going was slow but we didn’t lose any packs, though Lindsay’s Chaco did slip off resulting in Chester floating after it.

Elizabeth I’m sorry, but I have to post this. Don’t kill me. I promise, you’ll look back on this later and laugh.

We got everyone across and Will, Irene and I went on to the next crossing which was really an island. I found a crossing that was swift, but didn’t get any higher than a little above my knees. The rocks here were also a lot smaller making the going much safer. Silas and Lindsay caught up to us and said that Chad was still taping up Elizabeth’s feet. She had had the worst blisters by far, was now missing one toenail and would probably lose another by the end of the trip. When everyone was at the crossing, we got most people and all the packs over. On the last trip, Will and I went back for Elizabeth. These blister repairs were eating away at time and we were about half a day behind schedule. The patch job that Chad had just finished on Elizabeth had taken an hour and we didn’t have the time or the supplies to do it too many more times. With Will steadying me, I carried Elizabeth on my back across the river. Half way, Elissa got out her camera on the other shore line. The image is of me standing knee deep in swift water laughing hysterically while Will steadies me and Elizabeth leaning forward screaming in my ear, telling Elissa not to take the picture. And the good news was we had crossed to an island and had another crossing to make ten minutes later. Same deal, but no pictures this time.

Our camp that night was a little windy. Chad and I finally figured out that the pot we had been cooking in was wide enough that we could use both his stove and mine to cook. Dinner was instant potatoes with beans and salami. We had bought a salami log that was at least two feet long and four inches in diameter. We had been using it for lunch most days and it met its end on this night.

Despite the wind, we still made a fire easily. During the rainy season, the river swells and brings a lot of wood and reeds down. This makes clumps of dead wood that builds up in the living bushes next to the river and then dries for the rest of the year making natural firewood bushels in every camp site. Everything is so dry and making a fire is so easy it’s a wonder the whole place doesn’t burn down.

The Fish River Chronicles – Day Two: Crossing Time

We wake late since this is probably one of the best beds some of us have had in three or four days. While making breakfast and packing up camp, the Afrikaaners pass us and something occurs to me. All of us put on at least some amount of an accent when speaking English to Afrikaaners or locals here. Some are more thick/dramatic than others, but we all do it. I’m sure they can hear it, but it does help a little bit with communication. Although it is a little grating to hear when one of us accidentally keeps it when we talk to the others in the group. After breakfast, Dr. Chad starts patching up blisters for some of the less experienced members. This is a pattern that will be repeated for the whole trip.

Since we had moved about sixteen kilometers down the river the previous day, we had made it past the biggest boulder hopping issues for a large portion of the trip. The terrain switched to slow walking over big round river rocks. I don’t know which one is better, but I think the risk of breaking a leg was replaced by the risk of a badly twisted ankle. We left one rocky section to find the sandy section just before a river bend. As with most winding rivers, the insides of the turns on the Fish River are much easier to travel through than the outsides. On this curve we were on the outside and there was a two meter section of cliff that we couldn’t get past so it was time to cross the river. Chester found a section that was pretty easy to cross right before the curve that involved walking part way out through some nasty mud and then on submerged granite slabs until the bottom finally switched to sand for the last third of crossing. Since we didn’t have those nifty survival bags, we had to carry our packs each time we would cross the river. This limited us to crossings that were waist deep or less which meant that we frequently had to pick the widest sections with the strongest current. Most of our crossings were at least thirty meters. The patterns for this first crossing would hold true for most of the trip. Chester, Will and whoever else was in front would find the crossing and most of the guys would cross first. They would then go back for other packs or to provide something to drag down when others would fall. Once every one was across, Dr. Chad, Andrew and I would get out medical kits and start re-taping blisters. Then it was on to the next river crossing.

Luckily, that was the only crossing we would have that day. After a few more bends, we got to the sulphur hot springs that were raved about in all the guide books. Our only river crossing for that day had put us on the wrong side of the river for them, so we dumped the packs and swam across. The hot springs is sometimes referred to as Palm Springs. Legend had it that two German Soldiers went AWOL here during the first world war and spent time living in Fish River. One was supposed to have been suffering from skin cancer and the other had some infection or something and both were cured by the healing powers of the hot springs. The healing powers of the springs don’t work too well for aquatic life, though. Next too where the springs meet the river, a catfish had met its demise when it tried to swim in sulphur water. It is said that the soldiers are the reason there are the palm trees growing near the springs (thus “Palm” springs) and the wild horses that live in the canyon. When we got to the springs they were little more than a scalding hot trickle of water that came out of the ground and flowed down to the river. Even if there had been a substantial pool to sit in, it would have been way too hot. Just standing where the springs met the river caused you to jump back. We lounged in the water in the cool sections that were near the springs and tried to pull some of the hot water towards us. It was nice, but it doesn’t deserve the glowing description given by the guide books and brochures. It’s a nice stop, but if you spend longer then about ten minutes there, you start to wonder how many other dead things are below the surface of the muddy water.

We swam back to our stuff and had lunch. It was easy going for the rest of the day and we got to see some of those wild horses in the afternoon. We had seen evidence of them during the trip (tracks and dung) but it was impressive to see them for the first time. We had rounded the inside of a bend and they were down by the river about a hundred meters from us. Four horses, three brown and one white, grazing next to a desert river in the African bush.

I think this is about the point in the trip when we really began to spread out when we were walking. We took a break on the bend after seeing the horses. I was in the front group with Chester and Will and other groups of two and three were spread out at ten or fifteen minute intervals behind us. Chad was in the back since he and I had the two main med kits, it made sense for us to be at different ends of the group. Chester and Will had been a few minutes ahead of me and we waited for Andrew, Silas and Lindsay before we moved on. It was getting late in the day and we decided to find a camp around four thirty. We were about to cross around the next bend on another rocky section when we waited for the other groups to catch up. Forty minutes or more passed before we even saw them, so we went back and made camp just before the start of the bend. This was good since there was an easy crossing we could make the next morning. Our camp was behind a natural amphitheatre of sand that was about four feet tall. We did some “swimming” in the two foot deep water followed by a camp fire. Dinner that night was Pad Thai (sp?) which consisted of macaroni with a sauce of ginger, soy sauce, peanut butter, garlic, and diced peanuts. Oh, and sand. Sand is an essential part of every meal. Despite the simple mixings, this was really good! Maybe it was because we were camping, but this was amazing. I think it could make a decent PC recipe since Thai food is almost impossible to come by here.

The Fish River Chronicles – Day One: The Descent

The Fish River Canyon hike starts with a 500 meter descent down into the canyon. The start is a breathtaking view of the first few curves of the canyon. I’m sure you can find this picture by Googling Fish River Canyon. Many of the guides to Fish River claim that it is the second largest canyon in the world and the largest in the southern hemisphere. This begs the question, “how do you measure the size of a canyon?” Height from lowest to highest point? Volume? Greatest depth? Average depth? Length? Width? Number of baboons? I have no idea, but I do know that this one must have been measured incorrectly in most of the guides. Don’t get me wrong, this one is big, but if anyone with two functioning legs can get from the top to the bottom in two or three hours without a parachute, it can’t be that big.

The descent begins with a trail that has been partially cut out of the rocks in the side of the observation cliff. Chains on metal poles that have been cemented into the rock serve as a wise safety precaution. I wouldn’t trust my life to one of these things, but they are good for helping with balance and providing that all important false sense of security. The switchbacks of stone end after the first twenty or so meters of vertical distance and change to hard packed dirt switchbacks that continue the descent via a bushy draw. The closer we get to the water, the larger the rocks become and eventually the trail becomes part of the dried up water drainage leaving us to pick our own way down to the actual river. About half way through the descent, we met a South African couple who were on their way out. They had been hiking with the man’s father who had twisted an ankle and was sitting at the bottom of the canyon. When we reached the water, we found him sitting comfortably on the sand in the shade of a rock outcrop. He was a little overweight, but in fine condition to be doing the hike. He and the couple had been there two days waiting for his condition to improve so that he could walk out, but it never did. He had the supplies for five days of travel and was happy to sit and wait for assistance so declined any help we offered. He said he had some sort of rescue insurance that would come down and get him out of there somehow so was not worried about his safety. He seemed to be content with the situation and enjoyed our company as we took a break before continuing on our way. As we left, I thought about how screwed we would be if we experienced a similar situation.

We took a break to drink some water and put on sunscreen since the cool of the early morning had warmed to the roasting of mid day. Peace Corps provides us with sunscreen and I hand mine around for anyone who wanted to grease up. Andrew borrowed some and we quickly figured out that PC must have got a great deal for this trash. The stuff is like water and leaves your skin pearly white. Andrew and I both look like we got dowsed with flour. I think costume design team used this stuff to color the emperor’s skin in The Return of The Jedi. One last great quality, it washes right at the slightest hint of water or perspiration.

Travelling that first day involved a large amount of negotiating large boulders and picking our way along the shore. This early in the canyon, the walls are still very steep making for some gorgeous scenery but lousy hiking terrain. Layers of brown sedimentary layers made up of centuries of wind and water soil deposition sat on top of a large section of metamorphic rock that continued down to the canyon floor. It made me wish I had taken better notes in some of those Geology classes.

We took lunch break a little further down river and most people seized the opportunity to go swimming. The water looks like a river of chocolate milk and tastes like a windy day in the desert. You can’t see any deeper than about four centimeters and my filter was pretty well clogged after the first two liters. Hooray for Iodine! Though, I still got my upper-body workout by attempting to pump water for the next two days. The hike continued and we eventually caught up with the group that was in front of us, a group of six Afrikaaners who were on their second day. We would spend the rest of the trip within a few kilometers of them. They were all in their fifties and decked out in matching gear they had all bought from Cape Union in Windhoek. They had obviously bought from a list since everyone had the same pack, sleeping pad, little chair, gaiters, shirt, and hat. The one thing they did have, that we really should have bought, were “survival bags.” These brightly colored, heavy-duty trash bags are big enough to hold a pack and won’t puncture easily. They are not dry bags since you can’t seal them, but they are air tight when you wind the top shut and hold it. You put your bag inside, seal as much air inside as possible, and then swim across the river while holding the top of the bag closed. These would have been great to buy, but no one had mentioned that they were almost essential to doing this hike. Anyway, we passed the Afrikaaners the first night before finding camp.

We dumped our stuff and set up camp. We had enough tents for everyone to be under a shelter if it started to rain, which is probably why it never rained. Still, the tents were good for warmth for those who wanted it, and the people who were carrying one would be damned if they were going to carry the stupid things all this way and never set them up. For dinner Chester had made tortillas at his house on the way down so we had rice, bean and cheese burritos. That evening brought two revelations: One, sand is everywhere. It’s in the boots, in the clothing, in my hair, in my sleeping bag, in my pack, in the water, in the food, in my socks and in my ears. The second is that blisters are going to be a problem. Everyone has at least the starting evidence of blisters. Some people have it worse than others, but these feet will be a horror show at the end of the trip.

The Fish River Chronicles – Goin’ South

I want to start by apologizing for the number of typos in the last posts about reconnect and learners. I was typing it on a Mac and… well… how can I put this lightly? I think products made by Apple look cool but have the functionality of an angry baboon with a typewriter and should be placed in the same category as those oversized sunglasses, the band Radiohead, large handbags, pre-faded jeans, the Macerana and The Chapele show DVDs: cool fads for trendy kids to buy and then replace when the next pretty-shiny-thing comes along. If you want to debate this point then you can come on over to Namibia. I live in Khorixas under a mosquito net. Bring it! But this isn’t a blog about how much Apple sucks (there are enough of those), so back to business. This will be long, so I’m going to divide it up into several posts and make an attempt at posting them in chronological order. Thanks for reading!

After Reconnect, we had two weeks of vacation to fill. Ten of us wanted to do Fish River Canyon which is high on the Must-Do list of Namibia. Like any good socialist government, Namibia has a series of forms for you to forge and fees for them to skim off the top of before you can start the hike. Each major attraction in Namibia is run by two totally separate bodies: the Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) office and the Namibian Government. The government owns the land and the NWR owns all the hardware. Before we left Windhoek we had to jump through hoops for both agencies. The government wanted us to fill out forms and pay for how long we were going to be inside the park. These amounted to about N$200 per person ($33 US). We also needed forms completed by a physician saying that we were physically fit enough to do the hike. This included normal physical fitness questions regarding resting and exercising blood pressure and heart rate, susceptibility to seizures, general physical ability, vision, muscle spasms, tumors, hair loss, number of times we’d had Scurvy, tooth decay, athlete’s foot, if we were from the south, number of missing limbs, etc. It also included some strange questions about the presence of different chemicals in our urine, and other diseases I had never seen before. Luckily, we had Clara, the PC Med. Officer on hand at our Reconnect sessions to check us off on all of those things. She had our PC med files and was able to get most of the information from that. The only thing left to fill out was to determine our exercising heart rate and blood pressure. This was solved by us running in place for two minutes and then checking our vitals with the blood pressure cuff that had the mercury rolling around in the bottom of the carrying case. I asked Clara’s assistant about it and she told me, “oh yeah, I don’t know why it does that.” Oh, well that’s ok then.

We had our dates reserved and our requisite intake of mercury completed before the end of reconnect so all that was left was a little bit of equipment outfitting in Windhoek. We spent the night at Jason’s place to have a full day of shopping before our train ride south. With three out of our ten person group having never done a backpacking trip in their life, we had some purchasing to do in town. Lots of money was blown at Cape Union for sleeping bags, pads, packs, fuel, headlamps, fleece, and a couple tents. At six in the evening, eight of us started the urban trek north through downtown Windhoek to get to the train. Three from our ten person hiking crew were going to hike down instead and Amy came with us for the train ride south, making the total eight… if my basic arithmetic skills haven’t faded yet. How do you make eight white people walking through Windhoek more conspicuous? Put big packs on them.

The train station in Windhoek looks like it was taken out of a story book. A large central spire formed the mid point for matching arch ways that were reminiscent of, but where else, Germany. A large parking lot out front was filled with taxis yelling at you about their ride, and bordered in back by rusted antique train parts. The required single-room train museum was adjacent to the main station and had a restored caboose sitting on disconnected rails out front. Inside, there was minimal technology which added to the authenticity of the station. Time tables were still printed on paper and posted on the wall next to a big calendar with Peak and Off-Peak rates. Exchanges of currency were recorded in a big log book that would take a cryptographer to decipher. With only ten minutes left before departure, the large main entrance area had been turned into a baggage/passenger holding area. Sitting was done on your bag and each person was eyeing the others to make sure they wouldn’t try to steal anything. Security was provided by a couple guys with sawed-off shotguns who were spending their time flirting with girls in opposite corners of the train station. Although boarding had already begun, everyone was waiting around for something, but no one could decide what. At first we were content to sit on our bags like everyone else and provide a new distraction for the security guards. But then our fearless leader, Will, found out we could actually get on the train.

I suppose this would be a good time to introduce the players: Will, much to my happiness, assumed the role of leader of this adventure. We dubbed him the Transportation Tzar during reconnect after a fairly absurd “discussion” we had had with the Country Director regarding our safety during travel. Will had become our spokesperson in bringing our travel concerns to the CD’s attention. The largest threat to volunteer safety here is the issue of riding with other people from city to city. I could really dive into this, but I’ll save it for another time. In short, there is no easy solution to the issue of dangerous travel and, to an extent, it is to be expected. But we do have simple ideas to make it safer and it’s hard to push these ideas through the bureaucratic nightmare of PC administration.

Chad made up the medical side of our group. Within the first two days he was given the title of Doctor since he was usually patching up blisters at the beginning and end of the day. Chad brought a lot of the equipment like the stove, fuel, a pot, and other cooking stuff. Chad wasn’t on the train with us, and instead went down to Rehoboth with…

Chester. Most days during the hike, Chester was out in front leading the pack. He had, by far, the smallest (but still heavy) pack and provided the big pot we cooked our dinners in.

Elissa was the Okakarara representative and another member of the “Not Omaheke” group. You may remember her as “E” in the Independence Day post that didn’t happen.

The other five in our crew were all from the Omaheke region, which is chock full of volunteers. Andrew, Elizabeth, Irene, Silas, and Lindsay all live fairly close to each other and make up part of the larger Omaheke crew which is at least a dozen strong.

Will, Elissa, Andrew, Elizabeth, Irene, Lindsay, Amy and I all boarded the train and made our way to our compartment. The only train I had been on before this was the little kid one that’s at the Puyallup Fair so I had no idea what to expect. The economy car we were on had sleeper compartments on one side and a hall on the other. The hall was just big enough that two people with normal builds could brush asses as they turned sideways to pass each other. The road had to be cleared for anyone who was overweight which involved ducking into a stranger’s compartment and exchanging awkward pleasantries. The residents stare wondering why this tall white guy has invaded their sanctuary until the traveller rumbles past and I duck back into the safe anonymity of the passage way.

The train has different rates depending on if you want to watch lousy movies in comfy chairs or lie down and not sleep during your train ride. Not sleeping is the cheaper option, so we filled an eight person compartment on the economy car. This means that eight adults can sit knee-to-knee on two benches that are under overhead cots. The backs of the benches can be brought up to form two more cots making a total of six sleeping areas for an eight person compartment and enough room for three people’s bags. In the name of spreading democracy, we invaded a second compartment when it was time to sleep. On the way down, I felt like I was in one of those feel good commercials that uses the happy times of backpackers crammed in a train to make travel, jeans, alcohol, hairspray, deodorant, or Mentos more appealing. We shoved our stuff into the overhead cots and busted out the drinks, snacks and cameras. The trip from Windhoek to Keetmanshoop is about 500km and takes twelve hours giving us plenty of time to talk, wander the train, sleep, and watch enough of the movie playing in the business class car to know we would be better off sleeping. The trip takes twelve hours because the train combines passenger travel with normal rail freight so it stops in every town possible. As far as long distances go, I think the train is a pretty decent way to get around in this country. It costs the same and is a lot safer than riding in a car and it’s basically free lodging for the night.

In Keetmanshoop, we stayed at Jay and Shoni’s place and met up with Chris and Cynthia who we had been visiting up in business class during the train ride down and Chester, Silas and Chad who hiked down that evening. Keetmans, as we call it, can be summed up in two words: Flat and Dirt. This is the end of the rainy season and the areas in the north of the country have a decent amount of green brush growing. The southern half however looks much like you would imagine a desert to look like. Flat and dusty. I really can’t add any more detail because there is none. Jay and Shoni work at a youth center combining AIDS awareness and education with computer classes. The general feeling among the volunteers is that Jay and Shoni make up a viable replacement for Superman because of the amount of successful work they do there. They are co-teaching (along with HIV/AIDS classes, an internet café, and a bunch of other community projects) an amazing self-esteem/goals workshop for out-of-school youth and adults that should really be adopted by every philanthropic organization the world over. This isn’t just my opinion, this is the opinion of every volunteer that saw the presentation during reconnect.

At Jay and Shoni’s place we met Ci-Ci, the dog they accidentally adopted. Ci-Ci is a mix of a Razor Back and Something Big. This dog stands as high as my hip, smells terrible, has only one eye, massive dandruff, and a urinary tract infection that causes him to drip blood on the floor every minute or two. This dog is ugly. And is possibly the most loyal and loving dog in the entire country. Ci-Ci lost his eye when a kid stabbed him with a metal wire. The eye got infected and started bulging out several centimeters from the head and was infested with maggots. Jay and Shoni got the youth center to pony up for the vet bill to have the eye removed and the dog has stayed around Jay ever since. The infection caused the ear on the same side of the head to lose function so if you say anything around him, Ci-Ci will perk up the one good ear (that has an old slice in it) while the other just sits there. When we walk through town with Jay, the dog never goes more than two meters from him. Being significantly larger than most other dogs in Namibia, Ci-Ci causes quite a ruckus with the other dogs but can still hold his own and will defend Jay without mercy. Most times we walked with Jay, Ci-Ci would end up chasing off entire crowds of dogs usually with them yelping.

Keetmans served as our starting point for the Fish River trip, which is what this post is about in case you forgot (I did). We negotiated with a combi driver to drop us off at the Hobas entrance and pick us up at the Ai-Ais rest camp six days later. The drive is about two and a half hours and we each paid N$100 for the ride which is pretty good since the driver has no chance of getting any hikers for the return trip so has to go empty. The scenery on the ride down to Fish River is similar to that around Keetmans but with a few more animals. We chased springbok off the road and saw a few zebras and ostrich in the distance. At the Hobas entrance, which is also a rest camp, we were hit with a decent taste of Namibian Bureaucracy. One room of the Hobas offices is dedicated to the NWR side and another is for the Namibian Parks and Recreation. Since I had abstained from handling financial matters for this trip I don’t know what the details are, but one of the offices said that we had to pay an extra eighty or ninety dollar entrance fee. So, to borrow an analogy from Will, we had to pay one person to walk into the theater and another person to watch the movie. Okaaaay… Tempers flared, words were exchanged and we eventually got away with playing the home town card and got the Namibian Resident Discount since two of our volunteers were from the same town as the guy working there. I’m pretty sure we could have gotten this anyway since we did the same thing when we went to Etosha and told them we were volunteers living in the country and got the same discount.

After verifying that we had complained about every fee possible, we got back in the combi and drove the last ten kilometers to the entrance to the canyon.