HOW SUBLIME

I’ve lived in Namibia for seven months now as an American volunteer at an environmental education centre called NaDEET. In December and January I hitchhiked and couchsurfed throughout Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. This week marks my second holiday since living in the Namib Desert and I’ve decided to spend it in Lϋderitz with my good friend from Germany, Kolja, and the two wonderful writers of this paper, Jess and Emily.
It took Kolja and I two days to hitch 350km from the desert (we walked five of those) because the only people driving the gravel roads toward Lϋderitz are tourists coming from Soussusvlei and these people can be wary of picking up hitch hikers. One German guy even stopped and asked us where we were walking to – “Lϋderitz eventually, but there’s this petrol station about 40km away. It would be nice if we could have a ride there since a storm is coming,” I replied. “Yeah, well (he looks at his GPS)…you only have 350 km to go,” he said as he laughed. Then he drove away.
A farmer drove up to us about three hours later and insisted that we get in his fully packed car. He spent 20 minutes rearranging firewood and fresh meat to make room for us, and then he went in to the petrol station to sort out a room. The following day, we sat amongst a herd of cows and 9 freak bush dogs who rummaged through our packs. Again, many tourists passed but all insisted that they didn’t have any room. Morale was running low when a brigade of three trucks led by a Toyota Hilux arrived at the petrol station. They picked us up immediately and agreed to drop us in Aus on their way to Oranjemund. When we arrived in Aus it was raining again, so they invited us to a great lunch until the rain stopped.
Kolja and I had met Emily and Jess in Windhöek a few months ago since most volunteers in Namibia end up meeting each other eventually. We agreed to come to Valombola Pre-Primary School to help out for the day and what I saw was more than I was expecting. I looked on as young children arrived with tattered clothing; burnt bread dough for lunch; and as little girls played hopscotch using a fallen barbed wire fence. In truth, the kids may have been too young to understand their situation, but I believe they know that their hill is much steeper to climb than many other children’s hills. Yet, they were full of smiles and laughs as they came in and gave Emily and Jess big hugs for the day. They handed me animals made out of Play Dough and treated me like a privileged guest.
These intrinsically genuine acts of kindness from these children showed me what was at the heart of Namibian culture before tough living conditions and unfortunate life experiences made some pessimistic in this country. In a way, I am like these children as I am new to this culture as well. My vulnerability as an outsider is so inextricably obvious that many Namibians, including the farmer and his wife who picked us up, find it surprising that nothing bad has happened to us yet. After my time in Lϋderitz, my response has now become “Well, why should anything bad happen?” You see, hospitality is the name of the game in this country and it shines most brightly in Lϋderitz. Despite the media reports, the crime statistics, the paranoia and the harsh living conditions, Namibians truly are an inspirational hope for the rest of Africa and they have my utmost respect. The goodness of my experiences in this part of the world can be summed up by a short conversation we had with a man as we walked back from Valombola through Benguela. He had pulled over his car to ask us “What are you guys doing? Just looking around?” “No sir, we’re walking back from doing volunteer work at the school,” we replied. “Oh! Well, thank you for teaching our children,” he said and then drove away. How sublime. •