Happy belated Easter everyone! I spent the Easter weekend in Namibia on a rafting trip led by my landlord who apart from managing several rental houses is also quite the nature man. He organized a five day trip rafting down the Orange River in Namibia for 37 students (11 from my house, 9 from Northwestern, and 16 from Stanford). He and four other guides led us down a 70km stretch of the river in little two-person boats called crocs, which are like kayaks but more easily manoeuvrable for novice rowers. This was the most atypical Easter I have ever had, but I have to say it was one of the best.
On Thursday we all piled into a 60 seat charter bus at 5am and headed for the border. The drive usually takes about 8 hours, but with the size of the bus and the trailer we were towing behind us, not to mention the lengthy pee breaks and border crossings that are required with that many people it took us around 12, so it was a long day of driving. We arrived at Amanzi River Camp around 5 (note that I left my phone and watch at home so I either had a vague sense of time or none at all on the trip), had a little swimming time in the river, ate dinner and went to bed. It was a cold night at Amanzi and we didn’t get much sleep because none of us were properly dressed for non-tent weather, but we survived. The next morning we woke up at sunrise, ate breakfast, and packed up camp, which required putting all of our belongings in a water tight “dry bag” that would sit in our boats with us along with a cooler of food that had been packed for the trip. Then after a short safety talk and rowing lesson we were off on the river! The Orange River is the border between South Africa and Namibia, so the whole way SA was on our left and Namibia on our right. The River was unusually high according to David (our landlord/river guide), which made our trip easier because the current was strong and required little paddling. The first couple hours that day we actually were just swimming next to our boats and floating down the river enjoying the scenery—I thought I was in heaven! We were on the river for the bulk of the day, and when we pulled over to have lunch David said that he usually doesn’t get as far as that in a whole day, and we still had a few more hours to go. We set up camp for the night on the South Africa side of the river, literally in the middle of nowhere. No toilets, no tents, no nothing. All we had with us was our sleeping bags and mats and whatever we had packed in our dry bags. While I have been camping before, I have never truly “roughed it” until this weekend. David and the guides cooked chicken and sausage over the campfire, and after dinner the stars were out and in abundance, so we all got into our sleeping bags and watched them for hours. I think as a group we saw more than 10 shooting stars that night, it was phenomenal star gazing. The next two days were pretty much more of the same; waking up at dawn, paddling down the river, being in constant awe of the landscape surrounding us, and epic stargazing at night. On Sunday we had covered so much ground that we had time for a long hike along the way. David kept stressing that it was a pretty strenuous hike since there was no trail, and he wasn’t kidding. This hike was practically straight up ¾ of the way, and the last ¼ was covered with loose rock so you had to choose your footing carefully or else the person behind you would get a face-full of rock. The view at the top was well worth it though—you could see for miles in both directions and the river below you. Also there were these strange plants that are millions of years old—they grow 1cm every 100 years and were at least 5ft tall now. After the hike we only had one more hour of paddling left before we reached our destination. We then got picked up and driven back to Amanzi where we spent the last night of the trip before heading home early Monday morning.
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| Our first "rough" campsite |
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| Our lovely sleeping area |
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| some of us at the top of our first hike |
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| Old, old tree. |
Five days without a phone, iPod, TV, computer, or internet gives you a lot of time to think. It also makes you realize what is really important, and I have realized that none of the aforementioned objects really are. Life is too short to be wasted worrying about material things, and that is a lesson that I have been learning slowly throughout my time in South Africa. I am as guilty as most of being a typical consumer of things I don’t need at home, and I am going to challenge myself to change that when I get back to the states. I know it’s going to be difficult, especially since I won’t be without a phone, iPod, TV, computer or internet. I have all those things and I use them, which is fine in moderation. The trick is putting all of those things aside once in a while and asking yourself what is really important. For me the answer is family, friends, and helping others. As long as I can be around people I love and do what I love to do while helping others I know I will be happy. Everything else is just a bonus. Even as I am writing this, I know that words are not enough to describe what I was feeling and thinking on this trip. For me it wasn't just a "weekend in the wilderness" as I have so cleverly titled it. It was a realization that the things that have mattered to me for the past 21 years of my life might no longer matter, and the fear that I might, when I return back to the lifestyle to which I am accustomed, not be able to acclimate to my old life. To again quote Into the Wild, “At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world of abstraction and security and material excess, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence.” This trip in general, and especially these past five days, have given me an accute awareness of what I do and do not want out of life, and I am both excited and terrified to find out how I will incorporate those values into my life back home.
In other news, last week I shadowed my friend Melissa on one of her service days. Melissa works through the Amy Biehl foundation doing tutoring and mentoring in schools. She spends half of her day at St. Mary’s primary school teaching a reading class to 6th graders, and the second half of her day at John Pama primary school facilitating a peer education class on HIV/AIDS. The day I was following her though, she and a couple other volunteers had organized a spelling bee competition for the 6th and 7th graders and I was asked to be the judge. Hanging out with the kids all day was such a great experience, they were so nervous about the spelling bee and practiced all day. They did really well in the bee, and one of Melissa’s adorable 6th graders even won! It was such a special moment, he was so happy and excited and didn’t stop smiling until we left. The reason I was shadowing Melissa is because I am going to start teaching a similar reading class at a different elementary school one day a week, and after my experience with Melissa’s students I couldn’t be more excited to start. Though I have enjoyed my experience at Gender DynamiX, the work there has been slow and there have been some logistical conflicts that have prohibited me being able to really get involved in the organization, so from now on I will be there just one day a week and at my school one or two other days. The kids have this week off so I will hopefully be starting next week, more news on that to come!
