27 December 2007: Rags to Retail

So we didn’t go out last night. We hung around the Cardboard Box where we ordered beer and shots at the bar. We sat with the other volunteers at a table over looking the bar and pool area. There was a lot of talk about going to bed early. I watched all the time for Alile and when she passed, I made a small wave in her direction. I sat for a while longer so as to not look so desperate and then excused myself down to the bar.
Alile said something about a volleyball game that we had talked about the night before that we hadn’t played that day. She offered to by me a beer and I bought her a shot in return.
After finishing her shot, Alile went to sit at a table by the pool. There was nothing for it but for me to go there as well. I sat down and was greeted by several other people at the table. Alile’s boyfriend, Jared, was there and I shook his hand. There was also an Austrian man who spoke the kind of English that makes me ashamed of my being an All-American unilingual. His girlfriend was next to him. She is Spanish and is very happy and speaks with her hands and kisses you on the cheeks when she sees you.
I sat with the group and smoked cigarettes. At one point a small Japanese man that is also staying at the backpackers got up and started to juggle clubs about the size and shape of bowling pins. Later, one of the Namibian workers at the Cardboard Box played Bob Marley songs on an electric guitar. Everyone started to clap in time or to bang on the plates or the table or whatever was at hand. We all moved to the music and everything flowed together.
And then, all at once, I was aware of the time. I looked up and saw that the other volunteers had gone to bed. I felt suddenly like I had deserted them and I felt very out of place. I didn’t know how to excuse myself, so I didn’t. I got up casually as if I was just going to the bathroom, and went to bed.

I woke up earlier than I would have liked to this morning so that we could move from our temporary private room back into the dorms. Felix and Sam and I ate our breakfast of Namibian “pancakes” at the bar and then left to go to the mall and to look into renting a car. We stopped first at a tourist info center where we were directed to a travel agent several blocks away.
The inside of the travel agency was very clean and sterile- like a clinic for those with the travel bug. We were pointed to the first desk in a long row where we were helped by a very lovely young lady with a name tag that read “Wilhelmina.” I remember because, well, she was hot, and Wilhelmina just isn’t a name you see in Zambia.
Wilhelmina called Budget and got us a pretty good deal on a car for ten days. Our plan is to drive from Windhoek to Swakopmund and then on to the sand dunes at Sossusvlei and back to Windhoek.
While we were working out the details, Felix got nervous and had to walk away. Sam and I smiled at this, but I understood. I get nervous at these sorts of things as well. It’s a good thing Sam is here to hammer things out logistically.
After the travel agency, we went to the mall where Sam helped Felix and me pick out new clothes to replace our tattered rags for the New Years celebration in Swakopmund. I found my clothes relatively easily. I got a new shirt and a pair of real flip-flops and a new belt. Felix was a different story. He tried on several things that Sam had picked out and none of them worked. While Sam was away looking for something else, he told me that he was worried that Sam would be upset that he didn’t like anything she picked out. When he went back into the dressing room, Sam said she was worried that Felix was feeling that she wasn’t helping him enough. I enjoyed the whole thing immensely. It ended with Felix buying a shirt that Sam had dismissed earlier.
Afterward, Felix and I tried again to find a Christmas present for Sam. We looked at purses, but Felix said that they would be an empty gesture. Then we struck on an idea (both of us at exactly the same time). We would get Sam a picture of the two of us. We found a Shoprite that has a photo center and blew up two pictures from Felix’s camera- one of Felix and me and a second of the three of us. Then we walked through at least five different photo shops before we found a double frame that would hold the right size pictures. Next time, we will get the frame and then the pictures.
At a stationary shop in the mall, we bought felt pens for personalizing messages to Sam on the back of the frame. We went to a restaurant where we could sit down to write our messages. We even bought wrapping paper and wrapped the frame. I’m pretty proud of the whole thing.
When Sam met us for lunch she unwrapped the present and loved it and demanded to know whose idea it was. We told her the truth: we had thought of it, both of us, at exactly the same time.
Tonight, we wear our new shirts to a Windhoek night club.

Vaulting Us

What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
-Jack Kerouac


Vaulting Us
Neal is tall and often has to fold himself when fitting into the small spaces offered hitch-hikers. Artie is short and fat and his bulk doesn’t fold. But these things weren’t a problem for Neal and Artie the last time they left Lusaka by car. They sat next to each other in the back of a Toyota Corolla that roared away from Lusaka- eating 140 kilometers an hour.
The two were on their way back to their provincial capitals for the last time so that they could settle things. The next time either of them left Lusaka, it would be on board a jet. They had been in this country in the middle of southern Africa for two days short of twenty-six months and both were about to rediscover the way of life that had been steadily clicking, buzzing and whistling like a modem in their absence.
America. The United States of America.
Artie hated calling it America and himself an American and usually used “The States”; always capitalized in his mind. He didn’t know how to refer to himself as anything but an American, so he simply said “I’m a Minnesotan.” Artie needed to go home, but wondered inside if that home was still there.
Neal had a fiancé waiting for him there in “The States,” and the thought of her there held his mind like a beacon- guiding him through any doubts about readjustment.

Before the Corolla, the two had taken a cab to the outskirts of town. The cab stopped at a place that didn’t seem like any sort of destination and Neal and Artie stepped out and on to the side of the road. “You have change for 50,000? Thank you, boss.”
Many cars drove by them on the side of that road. There were lorries with loads: lumber or pieces of cellular phone towers or goats or people. There were small cars and pickup trucks and many cabs that slowed and stopped to ask if a lift was needed. The cab drivers would say that they could be booked to go where ever the two were headed and were told that the two hadn’t the money to book a cab that distance. The cab driver would then advise the two to take the bus. “No, thank you- the bus is expensive and dangerous.” Neal and Artie preferred to chance their luck with the lottery of driver generosity on the road.
Once a large diesel pulling a school bus on a flat bed went by. It was a large yellow school bus with black stripes down its sides like the ones that any American child has ridden to school. The diesel together with the school bus piggy-back took up a big part of the road- and the sky above the road- and buffeted the two hitch-hikers with wind as it passed; picking up speed to get out of town.
As they stood on the side of the road, Neal and Artie joked about this life that had been theirs for two days short of twenty-six months. People filed by on their way to nearby places. Mothers with babies walked with their loads on their heads. School children walked by in their uniforms with different colors for different grades. A group of men with shovels and picks walked by and stopped briefly to ask why the two weren’t taking the bus. The men with the implements said that they were on their way to dig a grave, but were none the less jolly- they bummed a cigarette and walked on.
Neal looked down the road leading back into Lusaka during a gap in traffic and sighed. “Every time we do this, it seems like we are never going to find our way home.” As he finished the sentence, another stream of cars rolled by and Artie turned to wave his hand- palm down- in the African version of sticking out a thumb. The cars continued past. Some of the drivers waged a down-turned finger in a circle to tell the travelers that they were “just within”- not leaving town. Some of them shook their hand side to side- palm up- as if shaking a pair of invisible dice. This meant that they were full- or not allowed to pick up hikers. Most drivers drove past and simply stared. These were the ones that aggravated the two the most. “At least give us a sign.”
Digging through his wallet- mostly for something to do- Artie realized that he had quite a collection of business cards that he had never asked for. Laughing, he handed them to Neal and explained that drivers- usually those that don’t charge- have a habit of giving their card. The hope is that this random American that the driver has picked up may some day be a valuable connection across the sea. Mostly these cards were simply moldering in Artie’s wallet. Neal suggested that the future of the cards was to continue to do so.
Neal and Artie stood there on the side of the road for over an hour being alternately ignored by drivers in shiny extended cab pickup trucks and socked by the displaced wind around tractor trailers. They were at least another hour from considering giving up when the dark blue Corolla pulled to a stop just in front of them.
The driver was a man named Simon in a brightly colored plaid suit. There was a woman in the passenger seat in a more traditional dress that was never introduced. They were on their way to the funeral of Simon’s brother. Neal and Artie gave their condolences and then let the conversation go the way Simon wished. He asked about the upcoming presidential election in the United States and expressed his doubts about the American public electing someone who is of African decent. Neal and Artie wanted to and did believe that the U.S. wouldn’t let something like race effect the outcome of the elections.
Simon said that he had studied in the U.K. and asked the two hitch hikers if they had ever been there. Neither of them had. Eventually the conversation died away and there was just the rumba music on the radio and the purr of the road under the car. Neal closed his eyes and leaned his head back and went to sleep. Artie couldn’t get to sleep on transport and he looked around at the landscape and thought about girls. He thought maybe he would go out dancing when he got back to his provincial capital. Occasionally he looked at the speedometer and thought about how the driver was going a little to fast for his liking.
Artie’s mind moved briefly from girls: one hundred and forty kilometers is how many miles per hour. Fifty kilometers is thirty miles… sixty into one hundred… forty more… divide by five…multiply by three… twenty- four more. We’re going 84 miles an hour. This is too fast. Maybe not in a sound car, but who knows what’s wrong with this Corolla.
As the Corolla pulled out to pass the tractor trailer pulling the school bus and rumbled over a set of speed bumps without stopping, Artie decided that there are some things that it’s just best not to think about. He looked over at Neal sleeping open-mouthed next to him. He knew that their paths would diverge in about one hundred kilometers. Neal would go north and Artie would go west and the next time that they would meet would be in the United States; maybe at Neal’s wedding. Even though this wasn’t the end of their friendship, Artie felt the full weight of leaving for the first time. It would never again be like that moment for them again. There would be other times, but never times like the crazy Kerouac dream in which their friendship had been forged.
The car loped over another set of speed bumps and Simon apologized- saying that they had already started the viewing of the body. Artie said that it was no problem and meant it because he was fairly sure that the Corolla was a free ride. But when the bumps woke Neal, Artie looked at his friend and quietly crossed himself. The two travelers smiled. Risk had to be a joke in situations like this- or it would be too much to bear for two days short of twenty-six months.
Seeing that both of his passengers were awake, Simon disclosed that he had gone to school for law and that he was working as a Lawyer in Lusaka. He launched into a speech about the treatment of prisoners in his country. Neal realized this was a plea for support. Artie continued to nod and listen to the pitch. When Simon reached into the pocket on the inside of the brightly colored plaid jacket, the two travelers smiled. Simon handed the card to Artie and it was filed into the wallet along with the pile of others decaying there.
Neal and Artie were dropped from the Corolla at a police check point some fifty kilometers from their parting junction. They thanked the driver profusely for what was indeed a free ride and stepped out into the sun. Neal didn’t think that the police were going to be any help, so the two started to walk down the road to where they would be out of site and cars would be less afraid to stop. As they walked they talked about shotguns and slug-barrels and their conversation could have been pulled from any other point in their service. As the police post disappeared over the horizon of the road behind them, Neal and Artie were again hit by the wind of the tractor trailer with school bus as it rolled steadily by.
Shortly after the school bus, a Land Cruiser with an open bed stopped and Neal and Artie climbed in the back. They sat down on the hard, sun-heated metal of the wheel wells and held on to the walls of the bed as the truck accelerated. Artie looked through the back window of the truck and could see the console. One hundred and forty kilometers per hour. They flew past the school bus.
The Land Cruiser stopped in Kapiri- about ten kilometers short of the junction- and Neal and Artie climbed immediately into an old blue taxi cab. The cab had no shocks and it floated like a boat to the petrol station at the junction. At the station, Artie and Neal at shawarmas and drank coke and didn’t say much. With the food finished, they sat at the table full of empty greasy wrappers. The cars continued to rush by, and Artie couldn’t help noting that they were going his direction. “Well, I guess…”
“Yeah.”
As they walked from the station, an old man on crutches approached them and greeted in the local language. A group of younger men nearby said that the man was hungry and that the two Americans should buy him something. Neal reached into his wallet and pulled a couple of ragged bills and handed them to the old man. Artie gave nothing and the two of them started to walk away. The younger men called after them that they hadn’t given enough. Neal turned to explain that they were volunteers and that the money to hand out to everyone wasn’t there. There was a need to decide who to give to and who to deny. Artie never turned. Finally Neal also turned around and the young men continued to yell as the two walked away. Neal shook his head. “Assholes.”
It will never be like this again.

At the road, Neal and Artie faced each other. The moment had come. They hugged quickly and reminded each other that they would meet in “The States.” They turned and walked in opposite directions.
As he was walking away, Artie turned and looked again at his friend. Two days short of twenty-six months. They had shared some of the biggest challenges of their life. It had seemed like such a long time from the other end, and now it was coming to a close.
Artie had to wipe tears from his eyes before he could talk to the driver of the truck that stopped to take him to the next town on the road back to his village. Shaking his head, he climbed into the bed of the truck and sat down on a wheel well and his eyes were soon dried by the wind as the truck passed the school bus.
Through the window he could read the speedometer: one hundred and forty kilometers an hour.

26 December 2007: Boxing Day

After our Christmas dinner in the bar last night, Sam, Felix and I went back to the room we’ve been given to make up for the lost reservations. We drank wine and talked. We talked about Zambia and Peace Corps and being so far from home. I was happy just to sit with these two people who mean so much to me, but after awhile we decided that we were being antisocial and headed back to the party.
When we got there, the girl with the dreds was standing at the bar. I had a couple more beers to add to my mounting courage and waited for an opening. When the time was right, I rolled up to the bar and stood next to her. For once, I hoped that the bartender would take his time with my drink. I tried to say something that was smooth, unassuming and cool all at the same time. “Hey there. How are you?” Perfect.
Over the course of the evening, my table helped me out by sending me up after everyone’s drinks. I found out that the girl in the dreds has a name, and it is Alile. She was born in Malawi and moved to Belgium eight years ago. I told her my story as it is and we seemed to have some chemistry. She started to tease me about the number of drinks I was ordering. I swore that they weren’t mine, but reveled in the attention.
The night wore on and people began to either go home or become belligerent. On one of my trips to the bar, I invited Alile to come sit with our party. She said she would and after a bit sat down next to me at the table. I introduced her to Felix and Sam and Bizaro Us and some random Canadian girl that I didn’t really know. Slowly people left the table and before long, it was just the two of us.
We talked about life in Africa and life in Europe and I talked about going back to the US. Alile told me about her family in Malawi and her newer life in Belgium. She told me about her boyfriend from there- whom she was traveling with. He was the man with the moustache that I had seen earlier. His name was Jared. My heart dropped at first, but I settled into the idea and just began to enjoy the company of this wonderfully interesting woman. We talked for close to two hours.

When I left the bar, I positively floated back to the kitchen area. There was a balcony where I stood to smoke a cigarette. While I finished the Marlboro Menthol, I saw that Felix was in the kitchen making soup.
I went into the kitchen and told Felix about the conversation I had just finished. He shrugged at the part about the boyfriend. “The guy with the moustache, huh? Figures.”
We started to talk about Africa. Felix is extending for a third year. We talked about how the continent gets under your skin and I said that I don’t think that I can leave Africa forever. We talked for quite a while. While I remember what was said, I remember that the kitchen pitched and shifted and was out of focus at that point. I was excited. Nothing was holding me back. I was drunk.
Eventually, Sam came into the picture and herded us back to the room and I fell into bed. When I closed my eyes, I felt Africa all around and I could see only Alile.

I woke up this morning with a headache and the group spent the morning lounging around or in the pool. In the early afternoon, we drove to the Windhoek mall in the car that Bizarro Us had rented. We ate pizza at the mall- real-honest-to-goodness pizza with real-honest-to-goodness parmasian cheese- and then walked around. Everything is closed today because it’s Boxing day. Still, it was strange to walk around a mall. We rode up and down on the escalators and allowed ourselves to be captivated by all the displays in the store windows.
In the afternoon, we went to a movie. Sam and Felix went to some Disney movie where the characters come alive. I opted out of that and went with Frank and Jolene to “The Golden Compass.” It was just ok. At least it had Sam Elliot in it. I’ll take anything with Sam Elliot anyday over talking chimpmunks. We finished first and went back to the pizza place to wait for the other two.
There’s a place here called the “Hemingway Cocktail Lounge” that I really want to visit. It’s got big pictures of Ernest Hemingway and quotes from the book on the outside. I imagine drinks like “The Tequila Sun Also Rises” or “The Old Man and the Seagram’s,” or maybe just leather jugs of wine and big plates of raw swordfish. But I’ll have to wait. The lounge is also closed for Boxing day. Stupid British and their ridiculous holidays.

So now we’re back at the Cardboard Box relaxing and getting ready to go out. I’m waiting and hoping that Alile will come out, but there is no sign of her yet. I’m also hoping that her moustachioed boyfriend wandered away in the night. Not much chance of that.

25 December, 2007: Christmas in a Strange Land

A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

The atmosphere at Joe’s Beerhouse in Windhoek is somewhere between that of a family restaurant found anywhere in the states and that of a dive bar that I used to frequent in Superior, Wisconsin. The walls are covered in African memorabilia and there are waitresses walking around everywhere with trays of game meat and big pitchers of German beer.
We went to the beerhouse last night with Bizarro Us. We sat down and ordered food- big plates of meat- and it came with lightning speed. I laughed at Felix’s order- a pork knuckle- because of its size. The hunk of pig was only slightly smaller than a bowling ball and fried crispy brown. It came with sour kraut and a cup of mustard for dipping.
As soon as we sat down, Jolene began talking about ordering an Irish Car Bomb. I agreed to join her in this endeavor and we ordered a glass of Guinness and a shot of Irish whiskey each. We had a little trouble at first because the shot glasses containing the whiskey were too big, but we called the waitress and were soon set up with the right equipment. Jolene and I touched glasses, said, “Merry Christmas,” and dropped the shots of Jameson in the glasses of thick, dark beer. I drank mine quickly without tasting much of it- I’m a champion guzzler- and Jolene took a little longer but emptied the glass before putting it down. Cheers rippled across the table. Jolene put down her glass, took a breath and glowed. As I tucked into the rump steak in front of me, the whiskey and beer coursed warm inside and would have struck me as Christmas cheer if anything about the situation had felt like the holidays.
I finished my steak with way-too-big bites and then finished a good chunk of the pork knuckle that Felix couldn’t cram down. Then Jolene and I ordered another Car Bomb. Feeling fine, I followed the group to the back of the bar and we ordered more beer- big bottles of German beer- and talked about the Peace Corps. While we sat and talked and smoked, we watched a European family celebrating at a table not far away from ours. In their group there was a boy that couldn’t have been more than eleven. His parents (I assumed) were buying him shots. After the third or fourth drink, the little tike was off his barstool and couldn’t get back on. Luckily, his mom was there to give him a hand. I thought then- as I had thought countless times before- that I’m definitely a stranger in a strange land.

I woke up this morning feeling hung over. Felix and I made eggs in the backpacker’s kitchen. It was a big pan of scrambled eggs with onions and ham and tomatoes and cheese. As we paced about the kitchen, chopping and frying, we chatted with a fellow from Australia named Bill. Bill is also volunteering in Africa and has been doing so- on and off- for quite a few years. He seems like an extremely nice person and I wrote down his email. You never know who you’re going to meet next when traveling in Africa from backpacker’s to backpacker’s. So far, at the Cardboard Box, I’ve met Bill from Australia, and others from Italy, Israel, Ireland, Canada, and some very nice nursing students from Norway. This place has collected quite a few people and their perspectives.
We took our breakfast and went down to the bar. On the way, we passed the front desk. The girl working there was a different girl from the day before. She was wearing a very short black skirt. She had perfect legs and a seeming animosity toward everyone and everything. I said hello and she glared at me. It must be terrible to have to work on Christmas day, I thought, and proceeded to the bar.
After the big plate of greasy eggs, I started to feel like a normal human being again. Felix and I went back to the dorm room where Sam had remained. Sam and Felix decided to have a nap, but I couldn’t sleep. I said that I would be at the bar and walked out.
In the bar I put 20 Namibian dollars in a machine and was given a pack of Marlboro menthol cigarettes in return. This was the first cigarette machine I had seen in a very long time and I had been looking at longingly ever since we had arrived at the Cardboard Box. I went to the bar and got a Windhoek Draught. Sitting down at a booth as far away from the bar as I could, I tried to put myself in the writing mode so that I could record the events of the past two days before they disappeared forever in the fog of beer and credit card debt that is slowly gathering through the course of this trip. I wrote about a half a page with workable focus and then was distracted.
I looked up briefly to gather thoughts and took a long cool drag of the menthol. I exhaled a wring of smoke and squinted. The sun glared off the swimming pool just outside the bar. I was about to go back to writing when a figure came out of the water and cut the glare. She stepped on the stone edge of the pool and stood there for a moment with beads of water drying on her brown skin and then smiled at someone or something to my left. I smiled too and then caught myself staring and tried to look back at my notebook. I couldn’t help but look up with the corners of my eyes. I had seen her the day before in the lobby, but didn’t realize it until this moment. Now I noticed her completely with orange bikini and perfect dreadlocks as she moved across the pool area to a picnic table where she stood talking with a very European-looking man with a blonde mustache. I sat there for another ten minutes or so trying to write and trying not to stare. I failed at both, so I mostly just smoked and stared and fell in love.
I was in this state when Felix walked up the table and said that Sam was coming down in a bit and that we were going to play Rook. I said that I was almost done- though I hadn’t written much at all- and that I would really like to play some cards.
When Sam came down, she brought a deck of cards specially designed for Rook and I realized that I had no idea how to play Rook. We read from a little direction card in the deck and I gradually became more and more confused by the game. Sam said that the best way to learn was to play. I nodded while looking out to see where the girl with the dreadlocks was. She was back in the pool. I sighed and looked back at Sam who shook her head and started to deal.
I picked up on the game pretty quickly, but half way through the game my phone rang and the little screen said that it was from my parents. I excused myself from the game and answered the phone. Finding a quiet spot in a hallway of the backpacker’s I sat down and talked with my mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law. I could hear my family opening gifts. I could hear them drinking hot chocolate. I could almost smell the peppermint and pine in the living room. I said less and less as the conversation went on, and when the call was finished, I went back to the card game in a melancholy mood. I watched as the girl with the dreadlocks got out of the pool again. I feel a million miles from everyone.

So now I’m going to the kitchen where we’ll make a Christmas dinner of pasta with Bizarro Us. We’ll eat it in the bar.
Merry Christmas.

Christmas Eve 2007: Bizarro Us

We saw maybe a dozen elephants. They were always close the road and lumbered or thundered away as the bus approached. For the first two, I shook Sam so she would wake up and see them. She didn’t seem to enjoy the elephants enough to justify having her freshly awake and questioning why I would do something as stupid as waking her up, so I stopped doing that. I am always impressed with elephants, so I kept awake and kept my eyes peeled as we made our way through the Kaprivi strip. I have decided that I need to research this little strip that’s been making cartographer’s lives a little more interesting since- I guess- colonial times. Why is it here?

Then Felix and I talked about pioneers. We talked about the changing definition of a pioneer. We decided that the pioneer of today is pioneering intellectually instead of actually clearing a physical path in a new land. After the conversation, I took two Benadryl. Twenty minutes later I was drooling on myself.
I fell asleep to a Bob Dylan song on my mp3 player. I only woke up when the bus pulled into an Engen petrol station. The three of us stumbled off the bus in that rumpled, matted state that comes from hours of sleeping on transport. I was starving.
We walked up to the convenience section of the store and found the doors locked. A station attendant was selling convenience items through a window. “You can buy anything you want through the window,” a man standing outside said. I looked, but could see nothing on the inside of the store from the outside. I decided that the process of discovering the stores inventory through a series of questions directed at a man behind a window would be a little more than I could handle in a strange place with two Benadryl in my system. I turned around and looked at the road that passed in front of the station. I had no idea where we were or how long the bus had been rolling along.
When I got back on the bus, I used the mildly disgusting bathroom and was glad that it was only mildly disgusting. The toilet has surely seen years of groggy bus passengers relieving themselves in a moving vehicle.
I worked my way back up to the dark upper level of the liner and fell- almost face first- into my seat. Sam had brought along a bag of trail mix that was roughly the size and weight of a bowling ball. It was at this point that it made its appearance. I took two handfuls and chewed them slowly. Thanking Sam, I put my headphones back on. The shuffle function had brought the mp3 player around to a song by Beyonce Knowles that featured a siren. I turned the player off and fell back to sleep almost immediately.

When I finally woke up, Felix was watching the sunrise over the country just outside Windhoek. The terrain had changed quite a bit while I slept. The land was now all low sand and scrub brush. It was nearly 0600 hrs and we were nearly to our destination. The sunlight was all golden fire and it lit up a strange new land and the Benadryl was wearing off, so I was beginning to feel like a human being again. We made short comments to each other about the beauty of it all and chose to keep the really profound thoughts to ourselves.
We pulled into the bus station (a parking lot) at about 0630 hrs and got off the bus. I would like- for the sake of the story- to say that we were incredibly relieved to be getting off the bus because of how long and grueling the ride had been, but I can’t really say that. The ride had actually been quite pleasant. It had been the most painless eighteen hours I had ever spent on a bus.
We had two options for the cab that would take us to the backpackers where we are staying. The local cab would take us for N$6.50 (Namibian dollars) a person and a private cab would take us for a flat fee of N$40.00. We started to walk for the local cab, but we were approached by the driver of the private cab who told us that the local cab may try to rip us off. He said that the local cab may double the price because we are foreigners. We did some quick math. Doubling the price made the fare N$13.00 per person. This multiplied by three made the fare for the local cab N$39.00. “So the local cab might rip us off,” I ventured. “But you’re definitely going to rip us off.” I was relieved to see that despite the big buildings and development around us, a little bit of logic had followed us from Zambia.
So we took the local cab to the backpackers. The place is called The Cardboard Box. When we arrived, we were told that they had never heard of people with our names or descriptions. So our reservations were gone gone. This angered Sam- our logistics officer- because she had been corresponding with someone here since November via email. So Felix and I sat in the lobby reading magazines and Sam discussed our situation with the new girl at the front desk. The boss is away because of the holiday and we needed to talk to him. Sam sat down at the computer there in the lobby so that she could retrieve the emails as proof, but the thing wasn’t working very well and she just spent a lot of time looking despondent. I walked up to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be o.k. Sam.” Then my brain screamed at me: WE’RE IN A STRANGE CITY IN A STRANGE COUNTRY AND WE HAVE NO PLACE TO STAY! WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO DO??!
“It’s going to be alright, Sam. We’re going to get this figured out.”

So we decided that we would go sit down at the bar and have a beer while we waited for a room to open up. They said that they could put us in a dorm room for tonight and then they would have to figure something out for the next couple of nights. That is the closest to a feeling of security that we are going to get for the time being, so we decided to have a couple of beers to make that secure feeling last.
We are drinking the local beer here in Namibia, so when we went down to the bar we ordered three Windhoek Draught cans. We sat at a table in the bar area and looked at each other and ate pancakes. The pancakes in Africa tend to be more like crepes. They are rolled and you sprinkle sugar over them. I don’t know any pancakes that act that way in the USA.
I put a piece of “pancake” in my mouth and asked why Windhoek Draught was being served in a can. We decided as a group that none us know how draught beer can be sold in a can. I decided by myself that I would research draught beer.
At one point during the conversation, I got up to take care of a matter of great importance to my bladder. I don’t know how draught beer can be served in a can. I do know that two cans of it make me pee like a race horse. While I was up I passed by a table where a middle aged woman and a young Asian man sat talking. They were discussing development work with American accents and I had to quickly suppress the urge to run up to them saying, “you’re Americans?!? I’m an American too! Can we talk about current events and then be friends forever?”
I relieved myself and then walked back to the bar area. With the more pressing issues off my mind, I decided to stop to talk to the Americans. I was very glad that I did.
I found out that they are Peace Corps volunteers in Botswana and that they are spending their Christmas vacation doing almost exactly the same thing that Felix, Sam and I are doing. The middle aged woman’s name is Jolene, the young Asian man (who, as it turns out, is only half Asian) is Frank and they even have a third person in their group- a blonde girl named Susan. They are three volunteers from Botswana. We are three volunteers from Zambia. They have a blonde girl and a half Asian guy. We have a blonde girl (Sam) and a half Asian guy (Felix is half Thai). We have met Bizarro Us. Jolene is Bizarro Me. I haven’t worked out how, but she just is. Bizarro Us is a great group of people and they have almost the same itinerary, so we will be spending a lot of time with them on this vacation.

We have decided to go shopping. We are spending the afternoon walking around one of Windhoek’s malls. It seems to me that this city is made up- almost exclusively- of shopping malls. The main mode of transportation is the escalator. There is a distinct mall smell and it is universal and it permeates everything. Even now I smell like mall.
Felix and I have been walking around for almost forty-five minutes. We have been looking for a Christmas gift for Sam. Buying this gift probably should have been done some time ago, but Felix and I aren’t good at shopping. I’m only good at impulse buying and Felix is not good at spending money in general- it makes him nervous. So I’ve spent most of the afternoon pointing at random things and saying that they would be good gifts and Felix has spent most of the afternoon telling me that the things I have been pointing at are impersonal. I think we are at an impasse. We have decided mutually that the things we have seen in this mall are all empty gestures. In fact, this entire mall might be devoid of a deeper meaning.

Hundreds of people, thousands of people, millions of people are looking for something. They are searching for whatever it is that will make them feel whole. And the places that they are left with all have that mall smell. They search and eat Cinnabun and their weapon is a Visa card. The mall smell permeates them and they keep searching through this empty world full of things.

We have decided that we will have to buy Sam’s present tomorrow. We are obviously not in the right frame of mind for shopping. We will buy her Christmas present- or maybe just find her Christmas present- on Christmas day or maybe the day after. If we can manage to find something that isn’t an empty gesture, it won’t matter.
Tonight we are going to have a Christmas Eve dinner with Bizarro Us. We are going to eat game meat and drink African beer on this balmy Christmas Eve in Namibia. I will wait to record those events tomorrow.

It doesn’t feel like the holidays to me without snow, but I am happy to be with Felix and Sam. I stopped thinking of them merely as friends a while ago.
I’m happy to be with family.

Happy Christmas Eve.

23 December 2007: Charge, Sam!

Last night i found myself chatting with the beautiful Zambian lady that works at the reception desk at Jollyboy's. She was drinking a Mosi at the bar after her shift. I was drinking a Castle and trying to impress her with the three or four words that I know in Bemba.
Bemba is similar to the Kaonde that I have been learning in the Northwest province, so I have a few Bemba words in my "idiom" pocket that I can take out and throw at people who I feel would appreciate it. I felt that the beautiful Zambian lady that works at the reception desk at Jollyboy's would appreciate it. I think that she was impressed, but it could have been the Castle more than my local language skills.
She was smiling and I was looking into her deep brown eyes and explaining what I am doing to save babies in Zambia when Felix laid a hand on my shoulder and said that the ping pong table was open. My love a of ping pong and my love of beautiful Zambian ladies conflicted for a moment.
Ping pong won. I don't know what that says about me.

They call it ping pong, but really the ball makes more of a pick pock sound as it is batted back and forth.
Pick... pock,pick... pock,pick... pock, pick...
That sound could be heard for hours last night in the Jollyboy's bar area. While Sam sat in the lounge area reading about how a man named Robert Langdon fashionably exposes the seedy underbelly of the papacy, Felix and I played ping pong nearly to exhaustion. I was covered in sweat. I know that ping pong doesn't seem like a sweating sport. But I am the guy who sweats playing cribbage, so ping pong really gets me worked up.
In Felix I have found the perfect ping pong partner. He is about on the same notch as me on the skill scale- not obliterating me or having to be taught- and he seems to find as much joy as I do in simply volleying the ball back and forth.
Like I said, we played for hours. We were playing pretty well, too. A group of people playing pool nearby even commented on our ping pong prowess. They were a combined group of Australians and Americans. The Americans were trying their best to impress the Australian girls with their stories of heroism in Africa.
Felix and I scoffed.
Scoff... pick... pock, pick... pock, pick...
We scoffed heartily until they said that we are good at ping pong. Then we took a brief break from scoffing in order to bathe in the warm glow of recognition.
I was bringing my A game until the beautiful Zambian lady left the bar and walked by on her way out.
Pick... pock, pick... click, click, click... sigh...

Sam is an incredible person. We decided a couple of months ago that each one of us would be in charge of a certain aspect of the vacation. Sam is in charge of logistics, Felix will drive the car that we are going to rent in Namibia and I was supposed to design the official trip T-shirt. Felix hasn't had to drive anything yet and I failed miserably at delivering any sort of shirt, but Sam had done a wonderful job at logistics. She has made the reservations in Windhoek and Swakopmund and she has bought the tickets that are taking us to Windhoek from Livingstone as we speak. (I will owe her my first born by the end of this trip). These are wonderful things because, if left to our own devices, Felix and I probably wouldn't have even gotten started on this vacation. If we had, we would surely be cold and hungry right now.

So the bus left at 1200 hrs today. This is also a wonderful thing, as the room that we slept in last night had an odd way of making all time outside of the room inconsequential. So we got up at around 830 hrs today. I had a nasty ping pong hangover and limped to the bathroom where I washed and brushed my teeth. Sam and Felix weren't up yet so went to the shop in Jollyboy's and used the computer for a while. After I finished, I decided that I needed to go remind them that time was still moving ahead full steam here on the outside.

Once we were all roused we had breakfast at the bar and started out with our bags toward the bus station.

Felix and I sat at the bus station while Sam went to get snacks for the road at Shoprite. As we sat, the first of the men selling copper bracelets came to see if we would like to buy some authentic Zambian souvenirs. Felix declined, but I wasn't so quick to dismiss the gentleman. "They will be wonderful souvenirs to bring home," I said to myself. "They will be light and the people will love them and praise me for my thoughtfulness." I bought two of the gentleman's copper bracelets for a very reasonable price. Then a second man selling copper bracelets came along and said that he would sell them for any even better price than the first man. I quickly counted on my fingers. "There are many at home who will want these bracelets." I bought four more. That's when the first man came back.

So when the bus pulled into the station for us to board, I had fourteen copper bracelets secured in my back pack. I also had the words of Sam and Felix that I wouldn't be allowed any where near another man selling copper bracelets.

The bus that we are on is a double-decker. The tickets that we have for this bus are business class (or the bus equivalent) and we are sitting in the top part of the bus. We had discussed where we should sit while we were waiting for the bus to arrive and decided (because of what other volunteers had told us about the view) that we would sit in the very front. So we had prepared ourselves so that we would be good and ready when the bus came and we would get the front seats. Obviously all three of us would be unable- as a group- to rush the bus in order to secure the seats. We needed a better plan.

"Charge, Sam!"

There was very little need for our plan. The bus is nearly empty. We all have our own row of seats and we decided that we didn't really need to sit in the front at all because the sun would probably be terrible up there while travelling west.

We stopped at the Zambian side of the border to show our passports. Sam, Felix and I were proud of our level of cultural integration as displayed by our complete refusal to stand in line. We passed the cue and went straight to the counter, where our passports were promptly stamped and we were among the first back on the bus.

The road improved immediately when we crossed the border into Namibia. You can see people improving the road from the Zambian side of the border.

Right now we are travelling on the thin stick of land called Kaprivi that reaches over from the northeast corner of Namibia to touch Zambia at the Zambezi river. The sun is getting closer and closer to the flat and increasingly more arid land that is rolling past the bus. Sam is sleeping with her headphones on and Felix and I are having a discussion about development. I will take a Benadryl at some point so that I can fall asleep on this bus (I have trouble sleeping on buses). But I think I will wait a while. We just past a large white, triangular sign that featured an exclamation point in the center above the word ELEPHANTS.

While I wait for the Elephants, I am feeling very contented. I am happy to be on vacation, and even happier to be here with my friends. When I look outside at the things that can be seen from this bus window, everything is so bright and beautiful that I wonder how I could ever have doubts. I am a very lucky person.

22 December 2007: Zen and the Art of Pay Toilets

Last night I slept at a fellow volunteer’s house in Lusaka. I arrived late because of a trip to the police post on Kabulonga road to report the money that I was missing. I had met my friend Samantha at our volunteer headquarters just down the street from the police post and she walked with me to file the report. She’s had money stolen since coming to Zambia and we talked about what I had to do in order to make it right again- or as right as it is going to be.
We filed the report with an officer named Steve who was just cinching his belt as we walked in. I wondered why his belt had been un-cinched in the first place, but I didn’t ask. Some things you just don’t want to know. He wrote the details of my experience down in a book that was lying open on the desk. I said that a staff member from our office would be along to pick it up in a day or two and then left without a great deal of confidence that the wheels of Zambian justice would turn very quickly to solve my case.
Samantha said that she will be able to lend me money- she’s one of my travel companions on this holiday- and we started back to the office. I set my mind to holiday mode. I’m determined to make this a good vacation hell or high water. I need the vacation. Things have been stressful at site. I found out a couple of weeks ago that my cat was killed. I guess she was killing chickens at a neighbor’s house and he “offed” her (trust me, you don’t want the details) and the two kittens she had with her. I never was a cat person in the states. I can’t say that my cat in Zambia completely changed that- she was left at my house by a previous volunteer- but it was nice to have the company. She was a friend. A friend that made me sneeze, ate big ragged chunks out of any bread product left unguarded for more than five minutes, and was almost constantly pregnant, but a friend none the less.
That’s all I have to say about that.
This is going to be a good holiday simply because it is a holiday.
When we got back to the office from the police station, we met the third of our party. His name is Felix and he was in the volunteer lounge working on the computer. I opened the door and embraced him in a half-hug, half-tackle. He said something about how we were off to a great start. I laughed- I think it was mostly from sleep deprivation- and then flopped down on a couch in the lounge. We joked and caught up while Felix finished the document that he was typing: a recommendation letter for another volunteer. There was some question about Felix’s qualifications concerning the writing of recommendation letters. But we were agreed that the volunteer for whom he was writing the letter has the qualities of a leader, excellent local language skills and impeccably well-kept facial hair. I think those were the details.
After Felix had finished (or gotten darn close) the three of us walked down the street to a petrol station/convenience store/pizza joint where we could order chicken. Figure that one out. The western love of one-stop shopping has made it even to Sub Saharan Africa.
We ate greasy chicken at a small table and I tried to figure out if the feeling I had at that point was contentedness or simply exhaustion. I think it was a pleasant middle-ground. I was happy to be where I was. I was on vacation- and even a convenience store is fascinating after several months of reading books by candle light and eating boiled leaves and corn mush.
From the petrol station/convenience store/pizza joint, we wanted to take a taxi. Upon setting foot in the parking lot of the petrol station we were rushed by somewhere in the neighborhood of ten taxi cab drivers. They all quoted the same price, so we took the one with the nicest hat. We got into his little white car and guided him to the house where we would be sleeping. We used directions from a text message that Sam had managed to save. I had deleted the same text because my inbox was full and because I’m an idiot. Texts are only so descriptive and we got close enough to not be totally lost, but far enough away to disturb our friends neighbors- who directed us to the right place.
We chatted a while with our friend and I took a cold shower (there is almost constantly something wrong with the plumbing in Zambia) in order to wash away the funk of the road. Cold or not, it felt good. That night Felix slept on his foam camping pad on top of an empty bed frame. Sam slept- like an arctic explorer- in a huge sleeping bag on the floor in a corner. I had brought an air mattress that my parents had left when they came to visit and I inflated it with no small amount of pride. I set my alarm clock and we fell asleep after a small conversation about something that escapes me right now.
We woke early this morning and took the same cab (we had told him to come back when he left us last night) to the outskirts of town where we could flag a ride south to Livingstone. The cab driver had no hat on in the morning. I tried to hide my disappointment. While we drove, Sam complained that my air mattress had made a lot of noise on the tile floor- I roll around in my sleep- and that I had kept her up. I was far too refreshed to pay any attention to her complaints.
The hatless driver dropped us off on the side of the road in a place where he said we would easily be able to secure a lift. It seemed to be a good place to hitch, but a poor place to get breakfast.
My kingdom for a meat pie.
After forty-five minutes or so of waving at traffic, we were picked up by a man (in an even nicer hat than the cab driver’s) with a Land Cruiser. We sat in the bed of the truck with the man's kids, a bicycle, and a pile of unidentified- but soft for the most part- objects. We listened to The Black Eyed Peas on my mp3 player with Sam’s speakers as the rolling southern province landscape spread out behind us.
What am I going to do with all that junk inside my trunk?
We stopped in Mazabuka at a Shoprite and ate chicken and chips in the parking lot. It was at this point that Felix and I decided that we had to use the bathroom. The rest of the party had already gone at a guest house down the street. After eliciting promises that we would not be left behind, we walked down the street to the guest house.
The lady said that the bathroom was for guests only and that we would have to pay 5,000 kwacha if we wanted to use it. That’s a lot for a piss. I was upset, but Felix took it in stride. He has a way of doing that. At our first in-service training we had been presented with a session on coping with life in the village. When asked how he copes, Felix is rather known for saying- in his rumbling, Barry White-like voice- that he “just figures out what’s wrong and fixes it.”

I smoke.
While I was fuming (not smoking), Felix talked to one of the maintenance guys behind the hotel and we were allowed to piss in a field in back for free.
The driver of the Land Cruiser took us as far as Choma. He dropped us off in the center of town. We walked to the outskirts- Sam is morally opposed to paying for transport- and sat eating gigantic mangoes on the side of the road.
After an hour or so of debate over our position, we looked at the black rain clouds looming over the north of the city and decided to take a cab to a new spot. But as we were about to get in a cab, a white man in a rather nice truck stopped and said he could drive us to Livingstone. He was going there to meet his family that was coming up from Pretoria for the Christmas holiday. He is doing some sort of independent contracting having to do with mining in Zambia and he hasn’t seen his family for months. The three of us sympathized.
We were dropped off in the court yard of Jollyboy’s backpackers in Livingstone where we removed our bags from the bed of the rather nice truck and thanked our South African driver profusely. We made it from Lusaka to Livingstone without paying a kwacha.
We checked into a dorm room and then went to the bar so that we could get beer and sandwiches. That’s when I noticed that Jollyboy’s has a ping pong table.
Things are looking up.