loneliest canadian

2009-04-01T02:48:00.000-07:00

Efundja!

2009-03-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

March 12, 2009
Efundja!

Efundja means flood and I guess I’d better write about it now because we are poised to enter another season any minute now. Back in January the rains came. I have walked and wondered at rain in Vancouver, Seattle and Tofino but I have never seen anything like this. These rains are biblical! They create flash floods that wash away cars and even houses in a frantic second. Here in my district we have had evacuations (over 90) and even several drownings. We are busy at the hospital delivering mosquito nets by helicopter to stem the flow of malaria the rains have brought with them. Of course, my experience of the rain is shaped by my daily activities. I haven’t been forced to flee and no-one I know has drowned. Instead, I have only been jolted awake at night and even had to stop counseling mid-session due to the deafening pelting of enormous raindrops on the thin, tin roof of the hospital and my little flat. I have had to brake to a complete standstill while driving at mid-day due to the wall of water that creates an absolute white-out. I am serious when I tell you I can not see the front of my little 4WD from the dashboard during these heroic rains. I have also been halted in my travels when roads are temporarily washed out. Take a look at the pictures! The rain brings a few plagues along too! First comes the water; then comes an unimaginable number of bullfrogs, dragon flies and stunning lilac coloured lilies; next comes malaria and drownings; then the seasonal rivers start to flow from Angola bringing cholera and snakes. But Namibia is reported to have the fastest evaporation rate in the world and even as I speak the oshanas and rivers are drying up again. The boys are hurrying to catch as many fish as they can before the last of them burrow into the sand for next year. The people here make the most interesting traditional cone-shaped net/baskets to catch fish with but some, of course, use their government-issue mosquito nets instead. If they don’t catch malaria they can sell the now permethrycin- poisoned fish to make up their school fees. The season ends this month and already it is dry and hot enough now to dry my laundry outside in much less than an hour. Next week the mud will be almost gone and the memory of donkeys, goats and small children swimming in desert oshanas and turbulent seasonal rivers will be a memory. So I hope I have painted a little picture of yet another season my readers.

I have to apologize for taking so long to update the blog. I have been selfishly living in the moments. I really mean that. Here in Okahao, time is quite different than it ever was in Canada. It is definitely not linear or regular. Some moments last as long as a childhood summer day and others are over so fast I am not sure what happened. I find myself lost in time a million times a week. Sometimes I look up and find hours have passed. I guess I must be filling the time with new experiences but truthfully my inner witness seems to be on holiday and I can’t seem to narrate these or commit them to paper. I imagine myself describing these to you later, over a beer, when I am somehow back in Victoria. The version of me that comes back might be a little changed though. Maybe the telling of the stories will put shape to this miraculous side-track in a way that seems impossible now while I’m in it.

Today is Thursday and I started the day planning to take off into the heart of Okahao district by helicopter to deliver outreach as well as medicine and condoms. The helicopter did not arrive for some mysterious reason that probably only the pilot knows. I guess we will go tomorrow. That seems a perfect way to launch into another weekend. I hope to take some colleagues and go and visit the falls a couple of hours away. They should be quite spectacular and if the camp site isn’t flooded it should be a great place to dodge rain and spend some more moments. Love to everyone!

Laura
PS here are some important messages! Birthday kisses to you know who(s)! And tell those little girls my cat, “Okutsi” is fine! She is living in my ceiling so she is safe from the rain. The latest interesting animal for my list is an enormous, poisonous, yellow-footed spider. Aria, I love you and you make me proud every single day! I gratefully accept phone calls and emails FROM EVERYONE but please don’t count on the mail to reach me .

Oshana

2008-12-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

December 9

Last week an Owambo friend of my colleague offered to give us traditional waist beads. Mine are beautiful! They are the colour that would happen if you blended all the tones of the Namibian sky. I am talking of the colours in all their transient vividness as I have seen expressed upon the sky these last 3 months. Namibia is a truly beautiful country! I have been watching this symphony of change in all the new oOshana (ponds, lakes and water holes) that form while the sand turns greener with each rainfall. In the three short months since my arrival I have seen the landscape turn from lion-coloured and dusty to a shimmering expanse accompanied by an explosion of fleshy, succulent flowers dotting every type of vegetation. But the skies! The sunsets are actually a match for the rainbow of flowers below. I watched one sunset while I was in Etosha National park that I can only attempt to describe. I’m not sure what part of the scene was more humbling. It might have been that every subtle tone in the palette of fire was painted across the horizon. Or it may have been the herds of elephant, zebra and springbok splashing and sharing the watering hole with birds and bats in front of us.

I love that here in Okahao there is hardly any light pollution. I have never before appreciated a full moon like I do here. Under a full moon the sky is not dark at all but more of a filmy twilight. It’s a bit like the view of my bedroom from inside my blue mosquito net. My bedroom has only the one overhead light source but outside is different. Now that there are so many oOshana the moon is reflected back up to the stars in a million novel sizes. Night time is usually calm here so the million moons I see are still and perfect. The stillness is in shocking contrast to the electrical storms that gather here most late afternoons before the clouds empty their contents.
The rains have also brought changes to my daylight hours. Suddenly there is birdsong and chirping lizards everywhere. The domesticated animals that wander freely in and out of the hospital grounds have suddenly multiplied too. Donkey foals, goat kids and chicks are at every door. We don’t have many cows here in Okahao but I can tell you that the calves are not far away either. The loudest are the donkeys but I think there is something ahead to look forward to. My neighbour tells me the Elephants migrate through here once a year and if I am alert I will be able to see them too. That pleasure will have to wait till after my vacation though because next week I am back to Canada for Christmas. I hope to see many of you while I am home so please contact me by email (no phone in Canada anymore). I am off now to ask my neighbour to watch out for the little cat, Okutsi, who I am feeding. Maybe next time I’ll tell you about her!
Ka lapo nawa

Prayers for impossible things

2008-10-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Infrequent, shadowy clouds and blowing leaves chased the stars around the night sky just ahead of the windy rain last night. I was sleeping in a treetop in an area called Tsintsabis and experiencing my first desert lightening storm. It was a noisy night when the cicadas were replaced by heavy water droplets, rustling leaves and bending boughs. Yes, the “small rains” season is upon us now and we have overnight shifted from extreme aridity to extreme humidity. It rains hard and briefly most days. I may have missed my opportunity to enjoy the fruits of my garden but that is because there is a nasty sewage leak in my yard and I am afraid to plant near it. We’ll see… the maintenance man said he might fix it this week. If he does get to it I still have time to harvest a crop of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants before the real rainy season starts in the New Year. I wish I’d had a sweet, ripe tomato last night in my tree! It would have tasted delicious in the wee hours illuminated by lightening!

I drove home with some new packages of seeds today from Tsumeb in my new car (Thank you so much Nick for all the time and effort you put into sorting out the Canadian business for me!). Along the way I found myself musing at the evolutions of language. English phrases translate into a multitude of uneven and creatively spelled business names that litter the signs here. Take for example the “Medium Life Bar” that sits in its simple splendor outside the town of Outapi. Maybe “la dolce vita” or the “good life” didn’t translate well or maybe compromise just makes more sense here. Either way, the beer is cold and cheap and everyone is welcome. For the miracle of ice though I have to wait until I get home.

Speaking of miracles, Namibians are religious and they have useful prayers for everything. I know this because the prayer for “impossible things” is translated into both English and Oshiwombo on a Church wall in Oshakati. I wonder if this is the prayer I hear the families whispering to their loved ones on the ward here. I like to think it is used more for fanciful things like learning to fly or possibly to become fluent in just one of the many Oshiwombo dialects. Or maybe my package from Melanie really will arrive if I try this prayer. I am almost willing to convert to the Church in this faint hope. I mean no offense to those of you who attend Church. As I constantly have to tell people here, I have had the luxury in Canada of cherry picking from the best of all religions and I just can’t bear to limit myself to only one. So even though the beauty of such a prayer is seductive I think I’ll remain outside a little longer.

I am writing this on yet another quiet Sunday night so soon I will get my weekly phone call from Aria. To make my phone work I have to unplug my computer so I’m afraid this is the best I can manage for today’s blog. Good night all. Please send photos!!!!

Love Laura

Nawa Nawa

2008-10-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

October 6, 2008
Nawa Nawa (Everything is good)

Last Sunday night I slept under the stars at Hippo Pools campsite at Ruacana Falls which is right on the Namibia/Angola border. One actually has to cross into Angola to access the falls (when some of my travel mates took photos of the Angolan side, a border guard came out waving his gun at us). Once you’ve made it through the border there is a something comparable to the endless, high altitude stairs of the Inca Trail (Aria, you remember that, right?). The views and the swim in the exquisite, cool turquoise pools at the bottom were definitely worth the full 5 days of stiff calves and hamstrings. It was especially gratifying on such a hot day (42C and still not even summer here)!

At our nearby campsite we spent a lot of that hot Sunday in the beautiful calcium-green Kunene river (and yes it is crocodile infested!). It is near the end of a long dry season here and there is not much water around so this trip was a real treat! The night under the stars saw us sitting around the Braii pit eating delicious Kudu steaks (thanks Dylan) and gazing at the southern cross. It was an entirely fulfilling day.

Unfortunately the next morning meant an early wake up. In fact when we got up at 6am the sun wasn’t out yet so we had breakfast under the stars too. Then there was a frantic 2 hour drive back to work. My friends got me half way back to Okahao but I made the last hour by taxi and arrived on time for an 8am meeting. This was a pretty important meeting where I met some of my districts community volunteers. These are the meme kukus (grandmothers) who live in the villages and do medical and social follow up for us. It was a combined meeting to introduce me and my counterparts and say farewell to a departing VSO. So we had another feast! I finally got to try Mahangu. This is the local staple food made of a tangy variety of millet. It makes a kind of bready cereal that was served with braii chicken and a delicious gravy. This wild chicken is a million times better than anything I ever tasted in Canada.

Tuesday I went to our regional headquarters in the town of Outapi. I was to start a 2 or 3 week orientation with the Chief Social Worker. Instead I ended up in a 3 day meeting of the regional management committee. This is one of the many committees on which I sit. I am not joking here. The meeting really was 3 days long and utterly, indescribably inefficiently run. This is Robert’s Rules taken to its most ludicrous extreme. Kim you would truly not believe how this meeting progressed. Still it was useful for me to learn about some of the nitty gritty challenges of trying to provide care to many thousands of needy people with skill shortages, decaying hospitals, no budget and serious communication and transportation issues.

I came home to Okahao tonight to do my chores and get a few things for the busy social weekend ahead of me in Ongwediva. So now my clothes and bedding are all hand washed and hanging out on my line to dry. Yes I really do my laundry by hand. My dishes are clean and put away. The resident insects are getting into their party clothes. And I have a moment to gather my thoughts. While I was away there was another suicide in Okahao. This region has an extremely high rate of suicide and as one of a very few regional social workers we have been tasked with coming up with a response. As a sit here typing the brilliant and beautiful church choir is singing to a packed house for the funeral. The Church is a stones through from my back porch. Funerals are not unique here. I think they happen 2 or 3 times each week. So with the choir as a backdrop I thank you for your kind thoughts and support. It means a lot to hear from you! Please keep sending your comments and emails.

Eewa

Laura

Mwaleipo (greetings all)!

2008-09-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

September 23, 2008
2 weeks of sun and sand in Namibia and I finally have time to write my first blog. It’s been quite a journey from the clean urban shops of Windhoek to the dry sand streets in rural Okahao about 50km south of the Angola border. You’ll all be happy to know that I have a spare bedroom in my safe little flat in the hospital compound. Everyone welcome! Okahao is a simple town of about 2000 people with bumpy, sand roads and a scattering of dusty buildings ranging from stately, if small, government buildings to more ramshackle tin and cinder block homes and cuca shops (beer and sundries). Most of the people I see in town actually live out in smaller, more traditional villages and come in to access services and jobs.

I seem to have managed to figure out the local transportation options. These range from jamming myself into the back of a pick-up (bakkie) full of people or getting into a crowded taxi (sometimes 8 people in a toyota corolla just like mine at home). There are minivans (combis) too but those are even more ridiculously crowded. I haven’t tried them yet. Many people also hitch-hike. I think I’ll be buying a car as soon as I can find one. I need to tackle transportation pretty often because there are no banking or shopping facilities here. The nearest town with amenities is Oshakati about 60(?)km away. Oshakati is also the centre for socializing.

My office is in the CDC ward at the tiny hospital. The CDC ward is basically out-patient support and pharmacy to people living with HIV/AIDS. The ward is packed with people all day, each and every day. They come to see the rehab worker, get their ARV’s (anti-retrovirals) from the pharmacist or see the doctor but so far people have been shy about coming in to see me. My role in the community and region is very slowly coming into focus and I’ll tell you more when I have the ‘lay of the land’.

I am beginning to make friends and I have even located a native language teacher. I start formal lessons in Oshikwanyama tonight. The international volunteer community is a very tight social network and I have been busy socializing in my free time. The staff in the hospital and all the local memes (women) and tates (men) are also very friendly and helpful. I have tried some of the local food. Gembok, springbok and zebra meat so far AND I have tried a San delicacy, mopane worms. These are huge caterpillars you can eat raw or sautéed. I tried them with onions and tomato. Gembok is delicious! All sorts of game and other meat is very popular here and everything is cooked at Braiis (basically barbecue). I have two 19yr old female fans who come to visit me regularly. They can’t wait to meet Aria. Lots of people are interested in having a pen-pal. Let me know if YOU want to be connected to someone.

I am sorry I am not attaching photos yet. The problem is the internet connection is very slow and expensive here. I will try and post some to the blog soon.

Tange Unene