Picture: Springbok crowding in the shade to avoid the overwhelming heat (over 100F)
After many sad goodbyes, I left the guest farm and began my camping tour of northern Namibia. I have a great guide named Manny and only one other traveler, a 59-year-old Parisian named Dominique, who speaks very limited English.Now I wonder how I will leave. I love hearing Claudia’s stories every day and folding the napkins and setting the table with Getrud. I want to be here when Kasiki takes his driver’s exam. And the thought of leaving Anna and never seeing or hearing from her again… I can’t imagine.
There are at most 25 people here—not even enough to fill the seats in a NYC subway car—and everyone lives and works in an area the size of two city blocks. But, because of this, each person is important. I care about them, and I’ve worked hard to make a place for myself in their world. But tomorrow a van will come for me and I will get in it. I will say goodbye and turn my head and never see them again.
Somehow this will happen. I know it. But I prefer not to think about it right now.
Pictures: Some people I admire: Claudia, Getrud, and Kasiki; cute little Anna; and a final shot of me at Duesternbrook
Tomorrow the rest of my journey begins…
Today was my last day of crazy ESL kindergarten (thanks god, as Claudia would say). That’s one thing I won’t miss. I know there are only two children, and my sweet Anna is one of them. But the other student, Denzel, is violent and uncontrollable. He screams and cries for much of the class. He’s hit me in the face and thrown rocks at me. His idea of conflict resolution is picking a chair up over his head like he’s going to smash it down on you; and I’ve seen him push Anna to the ground and hit her repeatedly in the head.
I thought maybe it was me and my inexperience, but yesterday Claudia joined me and was shocked by the behavior. And now Getrud (Denzel’s mother) tells me that all the volunteers have had problems with Denzel, even the professional teachers. Getrud herself cannot control him.
Now kindergarten will be poor Claudia’s job for the next month while she is here. I hope the kids learn a lot. Anna has come so far in the past month and I would hate for her to regress. And Denzel needs whatever discipline he can get. But, after Claudia, there will be another long break with no volunteers and therefore no kindergarten. I wonder what will happen…
Video: Anna and Denzel in a relatively quiet moment, playing with blocks
Picture: Kasiki and his family after German classIn this small community, I’ve found one of the most impressive men I’ve ever met. It would be a shame not to tell you a little about Sigberth Kasiki.
Kasiki came here as a night watchman. Security, he said, is a good way to prove oneself, be promoted, and make a better life. Now, less than a year later, Kasiki seems to do everything around here: caring for and giving tours of the three-legged cheetah, cleaning the pool, gardening, and doing the maintenance. All this happens during the day, so I was surprised to find out that he’s still the night watchman. He’s paid only for three daytime hours; the rest, he laughed, is “volunteer.” The owner and the manager want to reduce his workload, but that they can’t find anyone they trust more than Kasiki.
In high school, Kasiki’s teachers wanted him to pick a trade to study, but he refused. “I wanted to know everything,” he said. “I could not pick just one thing.” Today, at 29, he’s still a student of everything. He attended all my guide-training classes; I’m tutoring him for his driver’s exam; Claudia is teaching him German; and, if I was staying here longer, he also wanted to learn Excel. He comes prepared for all these lessons, studying in his “off-time” and full of questions.
“I never knew leopards were eating fish. But how do they catch them?” he might ask.
“I don’t know, Kasiki. The materials just said they can eat fish.”
“Well, you must find out and let me know.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll add it to the list…”
By the end of one class, I had a full page of obscure questions to research: What kind of fruit can leopards eat? How do they get water from drinking blood? How do they fish? Why is their infant mortality rate so high? Over the next two days, he kept asking for answers, until I had to give him my final answer: “I’m sorry, Kasiki. The Internet doesn’t know.”
Kasiki’s ambition and mental energy are noticed by everyone. The owner and manager give him more responsibilities every day; and the staff watch with a skeptical eye. Kasiki and his family are not Damara, but from the Kavango tribe in the north. That means they are outsiders; and, without family here to help, they are the poorest.
When his wife and daughters (including Anna) joined him on the farm, there was immediate tension between his silent, jealous wife and the Damara women, who teased and laughed at her. Even in the kindergarten, Denzel shuns Anna because she’s Kavango and because she eats the crumbs that fall out of his mouth. But Kasiki avoids taunts, maybe because he is the biggest, strongest man on the farm or maybe because he just doesn’t allow it.
Still, he’s very tender. His face lights up when he sees pictures of his daughters; and he spends a lot of time with them. He can end a violent kindergarten altercation in less than 10 seconds, and he stops Anna’s tears with only a few hushed words in their language.
Today I asked him again the one thing I cannot understand: “When do you sleep?” He only laughed. “Hard work cannot harm you,” he said. “I work hard now, and later, one day… One day I will sleep.”
Video: Kasiki and the farm's three-legged cheetahIn one way, the guests are the most important people here, because they financially support everyone else, but that’s hard to comprehend when they have so little social value. They come and they go, and mostly they blend together in a German-speaking, speedo-wearing blur. Still, I serve them and dine with them every evening, so I want to take a moment to reflect on the guests.
The best guests are those who talk and share stories—like the Dutch rheumatologist who wants to volunteer abroad but finds that Africans don’t need rheumatologists, the Swiss woman who says she has a single son my age, the ecologist who invited me to Frankfurt, the German man who felt WWII guilt when visiting Poland, and the gay Frenchman who was an illegal alien in Florida for eight years.
It’s also a plus whenever a guest speaks English, orders only beer and doesn’t need a glass, or collects their neighbors’ plates and makes a stack for me on the table. In general, though, as long as they’re polite and don’t order iced coffee or mixed drinks, everything’s fine.
Then there are guests I don’t like at all.
The worst was the white Namibian woman who made Getrud cry and then tried to comfort her by patting her behind and saying it was firm like her horse. White Namibians are hearty stock, but I prefer a bit of softness.
Another piece of work was the German man with the mullet who went bare ass at the pool while changing into his swimming suit. I don’t care if it’s common in Germany, as Claudia says; there are some things you just don’t do, and taking your thing out at a hotel pool is one of them.
I’m also not a fan of the woman who asked, “Is this white wine?” when I served her red wine by mistake, the guy who joked “Hurry up,” while I was serving the starters, or the British ambassador who told me I should say “pudding” instead of “dessert” because it sounds higher class.
Finally, I was saddened that the only black guest (and black African at that) turned out to be a troublesome alcoholic who didn’t use silverware.
And so the parade of guests continues, undoubtedly full of internal drama but little affecting real life on the farm.
Picture: Getrud and Denzel The first time Getrud saw my iPhone, she frowned and said, “Oh, it’s too big.” Then she realized it had Facebook on it and decided it was okay. So I played her some music… First Miriam Makeba, to impress her. She knew the songs and sang along. Then, Marvin Gaye and Nina Simone, whom she’d never heard of. “You don’t listen to music,” she said after a while. “You listen to stories. I think it’s quite nice.” She asked how to dance to music like this, and we danced for a moment in the office.
Getrud is 22-years-old and a mother of two, including my student Denzel. She was just 13 when her mother died, and she had to move to Windhoek to be raised by her sisters. A few years later, at 17, she started dating Christian and was soon pregnant. They moved in together (the Damara rarely marry), and eventually she started working on the farm as a substitute cleaning woman. She was promoted to the office and now manages the formal dinner seven nights a week, with no day off.
She told me she doesn’t have any close friends here... maybe because she’s different from the others. She looks guests in the eye, smiles, laughs... You could pluck her off the farm and drop her into a New York City job interview and I think she just might get it. And she’d do a good job, too, as long as she didn’t have to use a computer... She’s the type of person who doesn’t bring her cell phone to work because she doesn’t want to be distracted, who looks forward to folding new napkin designs every night, and who won’t give anything to the guests that has fallen onto the floor, even though they would never know. In other words, she’s wonderful.
Here’s a video I took of Getrud showing me how to say “Let’s go to the dance” in Damara. This sentence is special because it includes all four of their click sounds.
For three weeks, my only sources of news have been German-speaking tourists and a weekly Windhoek newspaper. So all I know is that there’s a French railway-worker strike, some parts of South Africa experienced flooding, and a Namibian man died when a warthog hole he'd crawled into capsized on him.
So what have I been missing? Anything good?
It started with the owner, who had a Facebook account but didn’t know how to use it. I showed him around Facebook and even made a page for the farm. The next day, the manager came to me and whispered that, while the owner is away on vacation, she’d like a lesson, too. Then Claudia, my fellow volunteer, said she doesn’t understand Facebook either and would also like my help.
Then came the staff… Only two have computers, and the rest don’t understand how to use a computer at all. Yet somehow Facebook is very important to them, and they check it constantly on their cell phones. An office worker, Solastika, updates their accounts using the farm’s computer (which is why they all have the password “solastika”).
Since Saturday’s party, there has been a frenzy of Facebook activity, with everyone wanting this picture or that uploaded. Profile pictures have been changed; new albums have been created. Of course, I have to do all of this for them.
Then yesterday I was summoned to come to the house with my iPhone for a Facebook photo shoot. Three of the ladies wanted sexy pictures taken on the veranda and then in the lounge. After every shot, they’d giggle and squeal and talk about how awful it was. When we were done, they immediately began checking their phones to see if I’d updated their profiles yet—though they hadn’t even given me their log-in information. In total, I updated four Facebook accounts, none of them my own.
Below is a bit of my handiwork…
1:Loli on the veranda
2: Getrud in the lounge
3: Foxy with a phallic wooden alligator
4: Gertrude and me being silly
NOTE: Even as I was posting this in a supposedly out-of-the-way area, one of the girls found me to request more photos. Then I moved to an even more more out-of-the-way area, but ANOTHER girl found me here and also requested Facebook updates.
On Saturday, the staff threw a party for Claudia and me.
As soon as we walked in, Justine put on dance music and suddenly all the women were dancing around the table. They didn’t need to rest from work or even drink alcohol; they just started dancing. Justine dropped to the floor and scooted in time to the music; and Lauren did her special “vibrating” move, which I have to get on video. Getrud explained the lyrics of one of their favorite songs: “It’s summertime. Let’s party; let’s dance.”
Claudia and I wanted to hear some Michael Jackson. But as soon as Justine put on “Beat It,” the younger girls sat down. They also sat through “Billie Jean” and even “Thriller.” I think they don't consider it dance music. As soon as it was over and the “real” music came back on, everyone started dancing again.
The women who drank had Savannah beer, poured in mimosa glasses. Getrud's boyfriend, Christian, brought a box of rose' wine for Claudia, me, and the guys. He also like dancing with the wine box, putting it on his shoulder and gesturing to it in time to the music.
Christian was our party planner and wanted everything to go well. Throughout the night, whenever he thought I should be doing something, he’d say, “This is Africa!” In this way, he guilted me into dancing to world music, eating chicken, and using a wine glass that wasn’t mine.
The next day, Getrud was still excited about the party and couldn’t wait for me to post the pictures on her Facebook account. I asked how often they have parties like that, and she said this was the first one all year. “Why don’t you have more?” I asked. “Well…” she said, “we do see each other every day.”
Pictures: (1) Dancing ladies, (2) Justine and Claudia, (3) Foxy sitting out during Michael Jackson songs, (4) Christian, (5) Getrud and Jenelle
Picture: Getrud with the elandWith the owner on vacation and the manager more relaxed, I’ve had a chance to get to know the people here better.
Except for one family, the staff are all from the Damara tribe, one of the original tribes of Namibia. They have four “click” sounds they use in their speech, ranging from the standard click to something sounding like a kiss. The Damara were foragers until their land was divided up by farming peoples. Today most work on farms like this or have low-level jobs in town.
The family that works on this farm has been here for several generations. The highest paid makes US $150/mo and has one day off a week. None have cars, so leaving the farm is always complicated. As long as they work here, they rent stone houses from the farm owner. These have concrete floors, electricity, and basic plumbing. When workers reach the government-pension age of 60, they retire to an area called the “outpost,” which is further away but still on the property. There they continue to pay rent to the owner.
None of the younger ones want to end up a pensioner at the outpost. But changing direction in life is difficult—especially with a national unemployment rate around 45%.
Justine grew up here and works as one of the chefs. Her mother is the wash woman, and her sister runs the office. Justine is savvy and goes to school on her off-days to study cooking. She wants to open a restaurant in Windhoek, but the owner of the farm told her that, if she quits, he won’t allow her back on the property. That means she wouldn’t be able to see her family or visit the graves of her ancestors, which is very important to the Damara.
Her sister, Sola, wants to leave as well, but first she has to save $10,000 to buy a big enough house for her family.
My friend Getrud has two children under the age of four. Both of them live at the outpost because she and their father work too much to be with them. Her toddler has started calling her grandma “mother.” Getrud would like to move her family to Windhoek and get a better paying job, but the children’s father doesn’t want to leave his mother and sisters behind.
The owner of the farm seems unaware of any worker unhappiness. He’s charismatic and comfortable with his authority, like someone who has always been “the owner”—or, at worst, “the owner’s son.” Claudia calls him a colonial master, which makes me laugh.
Three months ago, he took a new girlfriend and brought her onto the farm to be the manager. It’s difficult for her to assume authority over people who’ve worked here all their lives; so she overcompensates by being bossy. When she wants something done, she orders the first person she sees to do it. Many of her sentences begin with “You must…” And she gives little positive feedback. I witnessed her using the F-word with a gardener who couldn’t understand her English: “Just f-ing do it!” She gets things done at the expense of alienating the staff and, frankly, stressing them out. Unfortunately, there’s no recourse when they’re unhappy with their work situation.
Still, these are quite interesting and fun people to be around. I wish there was more time to just talk with them and listen to their stories because that is my favorite part of being here.
The three hours of kindergarten are the longest of the day. By 10:30, we were only halfway finished, but we’d already practiced flashcards, played the memory game, sang songs, taken a long walk, and colored. I can’t come up with enough activities. And forget about structure. I’ll leave that to a more experienced teacher. But at least today I figured out one of Anna’s tricks… When you upset her, she puts her head down, where you can’t see it. Then she licks her finger and makes tear tracks down her face. Finally, she looks up with big eyes so you can see that she’s been “crying.” Very clever little deceiver. Now I understand why she has foamy tears. She’s been outwitting me this whole time.
And we have a new student this week. The two year old was removed for being too young, and he was replaced by Getrud’s three year old, Denzel. Denzel is such a little MAN… He loves cars, likes to show how strong he is, tries to stare me down, and doesn’t listen to anything I say. He has forgotten a lot of his English, so his attention span in the morning lasts about 10 minutes. He rebels by trying to get Anna to take direction from him instead of me.
Yesterday was tough for Denzel, and today started off the same. He had a huge crying fit (real, not fake) when Anna ate a bite of his lunch. I generally ignore crying, but eventually I picked him up and brought him back to the table, where Anna and I were coloring. Then I rocked him like a baby until he stopped crying and eventually came around. Maybe that was some sort of bonding experience because after that he smiled at me and even let me read him a book. He did pee in Anna’s hands later, but neither of them seemed to mind…
Here’s a link to the most ADORABLE video of Anna, which I took today while the kids were “gardening.” She really loved watching it afterwards. I’ve never heard her laugh so much.
Yesterday I went hiking up the mountain behind the main house. I had to leave a little after 7am to avoid the strong sun. It's 100 degrees here during the day (38 Celsius).
Picture: The main houseTo understand my experience here, you must also understand Claudia, my fellow volunteer. Claudia is a 55-year-old German woman who has taken a year off work to travel through Africa, volunteering in various countries. She worked with HIV-positive families, planted trees, made paper, evaluated pre-schools, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro (where she had a love affair with her 25-year-old African guide... “He left no part of my body untouched,” she told me).
When Claudia came to this guest farm—one day before I did—she didn’t have a project lined up to work on, so she made herself useful: asking guests if they’d like anything to drink, cleaning up after they ate, assisting in the office… She did so much that within a couple of days the staff stopped doing their work, content to let her do things for them. Subsequently, she was never approached by the owner to discuss possible work projects and, instead, became a regular member of the staff (except unpaid, of course).
Every time I feel like I might be finding my way here, Claudia comes to me with some harrowing story that puts the fear back into me. Her stories usually involve verbal abuse and bullying… maybe she was told to stop talking so much or someone snapped at her for dropping something. Sometimes she brings stories from the staff about how unhappy they are. Whatever her stories are, they are always awful. And I don’t think she’s exaggerating; I once saw her being reprimanded, and it was very uncomfortable.
But these are her experiences, not mine. I have carved out my own niche of work, where I do not have to deal so much with serving the guests, and I get along fine with both the owner and the manager. With the staff I am cordial but not submissive. So while I know there is a lot of negativity around me, I could be in pleasant denial of it if it wasn’t for Claudia.
What I really need here is a friend. The days are very long. It is too hot to go outside for more than a few minutes at a time between 9am and 6pm. I could bear it all if I only had someone to talk and laugh with. I think that's what's really missing for me here. But Claudia is my primary companion, and her unhappiness is contagious.
Picture: Cactus in bloom above the dry riverbedThe kindergarten will always be challenging, as it is anytime when you have to entertain a 2- and 4-year-old for three hours. There was more crying today, as Anna is obsessed with Adriano’s food and can’t focus on anything but getting it away from him. Plus, she cries whenever we don’t do things exactly her way. She is precocious but a bit of a little diva. If anyone out there knows what kind of songs/activities might be good for ESL four-year-olds, please let me know.
My strategy here has been to work hard and stay out of the way. No one has been mean to me, though I’ve seen and heard enough about Claudia’s troubles to want to tread lightly. Tomorrow I meet with the owner to review the work I have done for him. If it goes well, then I’ll be set here; if he’s displeased, things may get rocky and I may be thrown back into the kitchen. We will see…
For now, good night from the savanna.
Picture: On the breakfast verandaThe first day of kindergarten was postponed and, instead, I went with the farm manager to Windhoek, the capital. A family of four from the staff rode in the back of the truck. This was the family of Anna, the little girl I have been playing with and trying to teach English. Anna’s parents were taking her to the doctor because of her ongoing cough, which is not getting better and which she has now passed to her baby sister. We dropped the four of them—mother, father, preschooler, and toddler—alongside the road, near a shanty town, and continued into the city to do the shopping for the farm. As we drove on, I saw a woman with a club foot, hobbling down the street on crutches.
Here I feel somehow connected with the time of my grandparents in the southern U.S. Black Namibians, which I think are about 90% of the population, are everywhere: walking or sitting along the streets, waiting tables, cooking food, working cash registers, assisting in stores, driving taxis, gardening, doing manual labor… But you walk into an office and suddenly it’s all white Namibians. At our farm, the white mechanic and the white office manager eat at the table with the guests; none of the black staff do. And, from what I have seen, there seems to be no shame or embarrassment in this; it’s accepted as natural.
The feeling of superiority and inevitability I sense from time to time from white Namibians is something my grandparents would have agreed with. But, coming from modern-day U.S., my perspective is from the other side of reform, so I know more is possible. I certainly have a new respect for all the progressive people and ideas that changed life in America over the last three generations.
And I think what this kindergarten really needs is a black volunteer, who can be a role model for these kids in a way that I cannot be.
When we picked Anna and her family up again on the way back—we had about three square feet left in the back of the truck—I heard some bad news. The medical clinic was closed today, and the only doctor her father could find was too expensive. So Anna was not treated and is still coughing.
If I think about my situation for too long I will never make it through, so I have to think of only one day at a time.
The disparity here between the pampered guests (whom I must participate in pampering) and the staff is unbelievable. I know this is what ecotourism is about and that ultimately it creates jobs for the local people. I know it is a good thing. But it still breaks my heart to see the German children playing at the pool and then to see little Anna in the staff kindergarten, who can’t stop coughing, is covered in dust and snot, and wants to drink from dirty bottles.
On the plus side, Anna’s English is better than that of the German children… In that way, the kindergarten program is working, though I don’t know how. Tomorrow I begin working there and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. I tried a few things today with Anna, for practice, but her English and her attention span are limited. I know I should have structured lessons, but how do you structure lessons with ESL preschoolers? I have no training or experience, and I am lost.
On my other project, updating the farm’s green initiatives management plan, I have much more confidence. I know I can make something really good, as long as I don’t have to spend too much time fetching beer and food for the guests. It seems that many things here are unorganized, and that, if you let them, everyone will try to hand off their jobs to you. Maybe tomorrow will be better, since it's a weekday and there will be fewer guests and more staff.
I’m very lonely here and often feel the weight of being some sort of servant. I have not yet remembered why I wanted to do this and I do not recommend it to anyone. My only consolation—if there is one—is that now for the first time I really understand poverty. And for the rest of my life I can appreciate my status in the happy elite… and vacation in Europe like a normal person.
BTW, I know I only shared this blog with a few of you, but I’m so thankful to have you as a link to the outside world. I would lose my mind without it.
Twenty hours, one ocean, two planes, three Xanax, and four True Blood episodes later, I'm in the Windhoek airport, utterly drained and unable to remember my reasons for coming here.
My driver is a 30-year-old Namibian named Vania. He’s attractive and has awesome style, so I’m surprised to hear he’s from a northern tribe and has only left Namibia once, on a road trip to South Africa. He asks what it is like to ride on a plane and wants to know if we have different tribes in the U.S. He can’t comprehend what the subway is, but he says it sounds dangerous.
The rocky dirt road to Dusternbrook goes for miles with no animals or people in sight… only desert trees and brush. I realize Vania is taking me to the middle of nowhere. He asks why I am staying in the bush for four weeks and I have no answer.
At the farm, I’m greeted by Johann and Sabina, who run the place. Both are warm and very welcoming. Life on the farm seems slow, at least today, and the lack of noise is completely distracting. Sabina shows me my room and I immediately fall asleep. Two hours later, I wake up scared to realize that I'm not in Brooklyn.
After my nap, Sabina gives me a tour while a giraffe follows at a distance. There are antelope and warthogs everywhere and two very happy dogs. At sunset it’s time to feed the hippos. I stand in the back of the jeep as Johann drives fast down a bumpy dirt road. I have to grip the handlebars tight and bend my knees to absorb the shocks of the bumps and twists and inclines of the road. The wind blasts my face, but I keep my eyes open to watch the antelope and warthogs running away from our headlights. I hope we do this every day.
At the hippo pond, we put out hay, and the four Germans and I enjoy our “sundowner” drinks while listening to the night sounds and watching the hippos eat in the dark. Back at the farmhouse, we have dinner and I take questions about the U.S.’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. But these are easier than the questions about my work and why it's important. Everything I say about software, simulations, and mental health training seems so silly in this setting and--in my mind at least--begs the question, “So why are you here?”
Finally we discuss my major task as a volunteer: re-establishing the kindergarten for the staff members’ children. They stopped having kindergarten almost three months ago, when the last volunteer left. Now I have to figure out how to resume teaching English to a group of 4- and 5-year-olds. First class is Monday morning, and I have two days to prepare.
