I'm not going to say that it's
impossible to capture this whole experience/feeling in writing, but
it sure as hell isn't easy.
I've been thinking a lot about the
relationship between places people live and the people themselves.
The past year has been a brand new place for me. I hadn't even heard
the name Namibia until a few months before arriving. I've heard a lot
of stereotypes about Americans while abroad, but only one really rang
true for me. It was said by this young German tourist. “You guys
are on your own planet,” she said in a conversation over pizza.
Well Eva, if you're reading this, I know I argued with you at the
time, but you were right.
Namibia. The land itself is so unique.
The biggest sand dunes in the world border one of the most dangerous
coasts in the world for ships passing by. Savannahs stretch hundreds
of miles where there are still wild elephants. There are petrified
forests, and mountains that loom over the capital skyline. And sand.
So much sand.
So this place is the setting, ancient
and almost unbelievable that somewhere like this still exists. What's
the story? The people, who are just as diverse as the land that they
inhabit. The Owambo, Herrero, Himba, Afrikaaners, Basters, Coloureds,
Xhoisa, Damara, Kavango, Caprivi, Tswana just to name a few.
This is where things get tricky. When
I went to Haiti, I was only there for seven days. Most days, I went
out of the city to the village with a mobile medical clinic. I
remember people being friendlier than I could imagine. Even the ones
who couldn't communicate with me in English just seemed to be
grateful of my presence. I felt like I was saving the third world all
by myself.
Being here in Namibia, for nearly a
year, I've been able to see the other side of the coin. Yes, people
can be altruistic and welcoming. They can help you if you're lost, if
you've never ridden on a kombi before, teach you words in their
language and they constantly do these things. But they're people, and
there's a lot of them, almost 2 million here in Namibia. Which means
some of them lie, cheat, steal, rape and kill. They can be petty,
more racist than you could believe, and put faith in things that are
so wildly untrue it seems ridiculous (see Illuminati Conspiracy). In
all of this mess, it can really screw with your head, especially if
you're here doing humanitarian work in a volunteer capacity. You
wonder how you're going to come out of it with any sort of positive
outlook.
Some people say you have to weigh the
good with the bad. How the hell do you do that? Take the number of
positive experiences and subtract it by the negative ones? 1/2x times
the square root of y, x being positive experiences and y being
negative ones...just took the GRE.
I've had so many of both kinds,
positive and negative encounters here. I've had people open my eyes
and made me want to close them. But here at the end of my year, I
have this overall feeling of deep satisfaction. And I can only hope
that it's a sign that this was worth it. I'm sure I won't know for a
very long time if that's the case. I think this satisfaction comes
from the level of integration I've come to have with my school,
community, and Namibia in general. I've become comfortable with this
complicated relationship between the land and the people who live
here.
I'm going to miss it very much.
