August 15, 2011
I never really thought that this day would come for some reason. I remember arriving here in Namibia and meeting PCVs who had been here for a year, and they would always pause in disbelief to answer the question, “How long have you been in Namibia?” “12 months… yeah, yeah, one year I guess.” That’s me now. I’ve been here for one year. Weird.
It’s a strange feeling mostly because it feels like my true understanding of this place is just beginning. At our training we had this 60 year old woman who was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) who had been here for over a year. She gave us a pep talk on why we should never go home early (Early Termination or ETing) because it takes a long time to understand your environment. She told us that just when you start to think that you get what’s going on around you, you wait a few months and you realize that you didn’t get it. After a year you might think, oh I get how this works, and then you learn that you didn’t. It takes time. Now, I see where she is coming from. Do I feel like I accomplished a lot here in a year? No, not at all. Do I feel like I learned a lot in a year? More than any other year of my life.
I’ve learned how to shower out of a bucket… Eggs don’t need a refrigerator… How to wash clothes by hand… How to squat on the balls of my feet for long periods of time… Pound mahangu… Sweep by using hay and bending at the waste... How to t9 my feelings... I learned how to SHARE… America might be as equal as opportunity gets... Come on, just cut off the mold, it’s still good… Hoe a mahangu plant... How to make a baby stop crying (not)... How to sleep to the lullaby of a baby crying hysterically… Spoiled milk is yogurt… How to run a soccer tournament alone… Forks are overrated… What it’s like to be a minority… How to shamelessly bucket shower naked with meme…We really don’t need to eat all that food… How to sleep in the sand every night... Bake cake from scratch with spoiled milk and no margarine... How to share one drinking cup with every other person at a party... I also have a culture… How to suck sugar from a stick (sugar cane) and gnaw on flavored wood (oondunga)… How to stand up for my needs without feeling guilty... BO shmeeO… How to really be wrong… How to cook in a kitchen full of anthills… You don’t need toilet paper to pee… You don’t need a toilet to pee… What it’s like to not understand anything that people are saying for hours at a time… How to be patient… You don’t need to be a writer or be an artist or be a singer to write or draw or sing… White girls don’t put a weave in their hair because their real hair will fall out... How to tolerate children getting beaten… What it’s like to wanna beat a child… How to eat kidneys, intestines, stomachs, full baby exotic birds, goat penis, goat meat, chicken necks/feet, fish heads and eye balls, catapillars, bone marrow, frogs, kudu, crocodile, Oryx, zebra, springbok, ostrich, and dog, just to name a few … How to tolerate diarrhea for weeks on end… and so much more.
I read a blog post of another PCV who said that he was still not convinced he should be here or that he should stay the whole time after one year, and I felt pity for him. I don’t think I’m there. I’m convinced I’m here for the whole time, God willing. As that 60 year old PCV said, “If Nelson Mandela can sit in a prison on Robin Island for 23 years, you can spend 27 months in Namibia.”
