it's hot. this morning we went swimming in the river, beside women bathing and doing their laundry. we made sure there weren't any crocodiles before stepping in.
i'm sunburned now. the fan's on. it's after 5:00, and all we did today was eat toast, drink tea, take some photos, swim in the river, walk to the bike shop, walk to lunch, come back to sarah's place.
tomorrow we're headed back to rundu, kerri's town. and then i'm off for a very cool development: i'm going to be visiting some Bicycles for Humanity sites (4 or 5 of them, i think) and taking pictures for a book. the backstory: Giselle, a brazilian journalist, is a friend of a Peace Corp volunteer here. she's been in namibia for the past 5 weeks, interviewing and taking pictures for a 'coffee table book' on the organization Bicycles for Humanity. the organization helps Namibian communities - it trains women in bike maintenance and repair; donates the bikes to nurses, who otherwise have to walk to their home-bound, HIV-positive clients houses. Giselle has some amazing stories about the ways people have become empowered through this project - a woman who never raised a dime for herself who is now a bike race champion; a disabled man is now able to support not only himself, but his family
as well...
after one month of interviews and picture-taking, and just a week before her flight home to Barcelona, Giselle's camera was stolen. so i'm going to go back to the people she met with, talk with them, hear their stories, take their pictures, and then have my photos published in their book. i leave on sunday, will come back to rundu on thursday.
i only have two more weeks here...
i was thinking about what i've seen, and how unsurprising it's all felt. women walk with buckets of water balanced on their heads. they carry babies on their backs, with bright, patterned fabric. they bathe at the riverside. in the car, we pass grass huts. everywhere we go, kids run up to me - a white woman with a camera around my neck, asking for me to take their picture. when we visit a school, they swarm me, fascinated with my white skin. people sit. the sun is red in the morning and evening.
in some strange way, i feel as if most everything i've seen, i've already seen, in a picture... from someone else's trip, from national geographic... it's all so different from life in denver, and yet it's not a surprise; it doesn't feel out of the ordinary because it's how i've always seen the 'landscape of africa'. i think i expected to find surprises - to arrive here, and see that it's different than what i had in my mind. but nope. the only surprise is that discomfort i feel from the interest people have in me because of my skin, race, and nationality. or what i don't understand about those dynamics here. that's to sort out later, i guess.
it's hit that beautiful moment of the evening. outside, someone's practicing the drums. i'm listening to Cat Power on iTunes. in a little while, we're going to cook curry and drink Windhoek Lager. i feel like i'm just touching this place, but don't understand it at all.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
first southern african days
it's morning here. tuesday, i keep reminding myself, but the name of the day of the week doesn't really stick. i say it, and moments later, i have to think hard to remember again. is it sunday or saturday? those also don't really seem to 'apply' to the mode i'm on.
okay. so some of you are working right now. or, you're sleeping, i think, but will soon wake up to tuesday morning. i've been here in southern africa for 5-6 days now. arrived in namibia's capital city, windhoek, where kerri met me inside the airport - while i stood in line to get my entry stamp. outside on the road we put our packs on our backs, walked out into the afternoon sun -- i literally saw only the airport and car rental tents - not another building in sight. we walked on the left side of the road, stuck out our hands, and thus started our journey to-and-through botswana by hitch-hike, or 'hiking' as it's referred to here (it's common mode of travel in the region; we only have one more day of it, so worry not for my safety). that first afternoon, we got a lift from one africaaner (white people whose ancestors settled on the continent generations ago), caught a lift from Ishmael, then another from another couple, and arrived at the grocery of the home of another peace corps volunteer...
in the morning we sat in a 16-wheel bus with Andre, a man from Durbin, South Africa. he's from the Zulu tribe, was making the trip from northern namibia down to johannesburg... he played us traditional zulu music and, upon hearing about my brother's musical background, pulled out his favorite south african jazz... but mostly, for the 3 or 4 hours in his truck, we watched the road, talked a little about life, and what occupies his mind while he's on the road. while we drove between the namibian and botswanan border, he pointed out a group of army-green tents - refugees from DRC - living between two countries. i asked him what they were waiting for - were they waiting to enter namibia, to enter botswana? another place? andre said - they're waiting for peace to come to their home, and then they'll be going back.
mostly, what i've felt is how easy it is to be here compared to my recent travels to mongolia and china. i walk with my camera around my neck, kerri sticks her hand out to catch a lift with any passerby -and off we go, for another conversation, another entry into another tribe... i meet the dichotomy of being invited to feel safe, hop in any car, with the mental awareness (though w few visual indicators) that there's much more below the surface. visually, i'm in a place of peace. it's just the stories, that i hear bit by bit, that speak to a harder life.
we spent yesterday and the day before on the river. our guide, KT, 'pulled' us along in a mokorro. we were about 500 yards from an elephant. a praying mantis landed on my foot, a lime-green frog on my thigh. we were pulled along the reeds, in a flat, so flat, plain covered by water. with a long stick, he pulled his way 12 km to our camp spot. in the evening, we walked out to see wildbeast; in the morning, on a 4 hour walk, we saw first a herd of zebras - in the red of the african early morning sun - and then later as we walked, spotted a family of giraffe, zebra hanging out among em. they looked at us, ate, at each other, walked a bit, ate, looked around again.
today we're taking a plane ride over the delta. tomorrow we're headed up to kasane - and chobe national park.. on saturday (in however many days) we'll be in a village in namibia, spending time in a school - talking about gender equality, as part of an AIDS prevention training.
on sunday night, when our guide, KT, lit our fire (in about 20 seconds - dry wood and elephant dung), kerri and he exchanged stories about witch doctors - what they do, curses they've cast, people they've saved...
it's nice being w kerri. i'm so accustomed to being on 'high-alert' when i travel - because 1) mongolians warned me to be and 2) because my gut instincts don't apply when i'm not in my home - so i go on a higher mode of awareness just to assure my safety. but kerri has lived in the region for almost 3 years -so she knows what's safe, what's a risk... and putting our hand out and getting into the car w 2 botswanan men and a woman or a south african truck driver (sorry mom and dad) is only the start of another conversation, laughter, and exchange.
--
We all seek education because it grants us two gifts: access and realization. Just like a map, education’s first power is its ability to expose people to possibility; its second is its ability to enable people to arrive at their goals.
okay. so some of you are working right now. or, you're sleeping, i think, but will soon wake up to tuesday morning. i've been here in southern africa for 5-6 days now. arrived in namibia's capital city, windhoek, where kerri met me inside the airport - while i stood in line to get my entry stamp. outside on the road we put our packs on our backs, walked out into the afternoon sun -- i literally saw only the airport and car rental tents - not another building in sight. we walked on the left side of the road, stuck out our hands, and thus started our journey to-and-through botswana by hitch-hike, or 'hiking' as it's referred to here (it's common mode of travel in the region; we only have one more day of it, so worry not for my safety). that first afternoon, we got a lift from one africaaner (white people whose ancestors settled on the continent generations ago), caught a lift from Ishmael, then another from another couple, and arrived at the grocery of the home of another peace corps volunteer...
in the morning we sat in a 16-wheel bus with Andre, a man from Durbin, South Africa. he's from the Zulu tribe, was making the trip from northern namibia down to johannesburg... he played us traditional zulu music and, upon hearing about my brother's musical background, pulled out his favorite south african jazz... but mostly, for the 3 or 4 hours in his truck, we watched the road, talked a little about life, and what occupies his mind while he's on the road. while we drove between the namibian and botswanan border, he pointed out a group of army-green tents - refugees from DRC - living between two countries. i asked him what they were waiting for - were they waiting to enter namibia, to enter botswana? another place? andre said - they're waiting for peace to come to their home, and then they'll be going back.
mostly, what i've felt is how easy it is to be here compared to my recent travels to mongolia and china. i walk with my camera around my neck, kerri sticks her hand out to catch a lift with any passerby -and off we go, for another conversation, another entry into another tribe... i meet the dichotomy of being invited to feel safe, hop in any car, with the mental awareness (though w few visual indicators) that there's much more below the surface. visually, i'm in a place of peace. it's just the stories, that i hear bit by bit, that speak to a harder life.
we spent yesterday and the day before on the river. our guide, KT, 'pulled' us along in a mokorro. we were about 500 yards from an elephant. a praying mantis landed on my foot, a lime-green frog on my thigh. we were pulled along the reeds, in a flat, so flat, plain covered by water. with a long stick, he pulled his way 12 km to our camp spot. in the evening, we walked out to see wildbeast; in the morning, on a 4 hour walk, we saw first a herd of zebras - in the red of the african early morning sun - and then later as we walked, spotted a family of giraffe, zebra hanging out among em. they looked at us, ate, at each other, walked a bit, ate, looked around again.
today we're taking a plane ride over the delta. tomorrow we're headed up to kasane - and chobe national park.. on saturday (in however many days) we'll be in a village in namibia, spending time in a school - talking about gender equality, as part of an AIDS prevention training.
on sunday night, when our guide, KT, lit our fire (in about 20 seconds - dry wood and elephant dung), kerri and he exchanged stories about witch doctors - what they do, curses they've cast, people they've saved...
it's nice being w kerri. i'm so accustomed to being on 'high-alert' when i travel - because 1) mongolians warned me to be and 2) because my gut instincts don't apply when i'm not in my home - so i go on a higher mode of awareness just to assure my safety. but kerri has lived in the region for almost 3 years -so she knows what's safe, what's a risk... and putting our hand out and getting into the car w 2 botswanan men and a woman or a south african truck driver (sorry mom and dad) is only the start of another conversation, laughter, and exchange.
--
We all seek education because it grants us two gifts: access and realization. Just like a map, education’s first power is its ability to expose people to possibility; its second is its ability to enable people to arrive at their goals.
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