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First of all, I look like such a goofball in that picture. Then again, I am wearing a wide grin and standing in front of a blackboard, so maybe the picture's appropriateness makes up for the fact that my left eye is half-closed… I am happy out here in the dunes, enjoying every aspect of my first real "job" which happens to be located in the most beautiful place on Earth. My days are incredibly full; at the end of two months I have had no choice but to learn a lot and to learn it fast. For those of you who don't know much about my position out here, all at once I'm the teacher that puts the "training" into the Gobabeb Training and Research Centre, a fundraiser, the HR coordinator, a writer, and generally just an indispensable member of the Gobabeb team. Actually, that doesn't even begin to cover it, and okay, I haven't been happy all of the time. Maybe I should quote my July monthly report to give you a better picture (this was during one of those rare days when I just felt like there was NO way that
I could possibly get it all done in a year-never mind get through the day):
I want to learn, for instance, about desertification and Welwitchias and Afrikaans and desert ecology and the scientific method and how to be a better trainer, and meanwhile apparently I should have known that the NAMDEB funding was for this student specifically and "didn't Sarah tell you about this?" and oh yeah, " you should be prepared in a month to write an essay to be circulated across the country about desert ecology at Gobabeb" and "you're getting all of this, right? If you need help, just look around on the Gobabeb server" and apparently it is actually part of my job to do A, B, and C, particularly D, which is the ever simple task of improving community relations with disenfranchised Topnaars that don't speak English, and "what should the interns do next, Laura?" etc… that "sentence" was a muddled run-off to prove my point-it's extremely difficult for me to know where to start, what to tackle, and how much time to spend on each of the various aspects of my job.
But like I said, I'm getting the hang of it. It sure does help that the desert is so astoundingly beautiful and that my company is amazing.
The Namib Desert is the oldest in the world…
There have been many moments at Gobabeb when I have felt completely at peace with the world and myself. (Why are clichés so often the most appropriate way to describe a feeling?) My easy adoption of this Zen-like attitude is a little surprising, especially considering that I am still struggling with so many aspects of my chaotic and mad balancing act of a job. But I am living in an ancient desert, and when living someplace that feels thousands of years old, it's easier to remember that, oh yeah, this is one hour of one day of one month of my one year here… and what's a year in the scope of a natural history that features the growth of mysterious two-thousand-year-old desert plants or the voyage of powerful sand dunes whose grains took a millennia to travel across the continent? I have the space out here to breath and think, and sometimes I even catch myself philosophizing about human existence, a pastime I couldn't fit on to my to-do list very often at Grinnell. There is so much beauty here, and I think my
soul-if I have one, of course-has grown in response to such a wondrous and expansive landscape. I have not, however, abandoned my love of the social sciences to become a philosopher; for every sunset blurred by my emotional tears (okay it's usually just because of the sand that gets lodged in my contacts), another one has been spent debating about the ethics of eco-tourism. Yep, my Grinnell education rears its ugly head every single day (did you know, for instance, that it is literally impossible for a Grinnell alum to think non-holistically about issues involving conservation management and development? Or how about the connection between environmental education and HIV? And how can we combat culture loss? Should we? And how do you tackle Namibian politics? Or even start to conceptualize race in this country?)… It's no surprise that after I walk through the moonlight to my bedroom, I fall asleep as exhausted as a little girl who has spent her day at the zoo.
Globalization at its finest…
But it isn't always a big and mysterious puzzle that I have to solve RIGHT NOW… sometimes life at Gobabeb is just good old-fashioned international fun. Nothing beats watching the World Cup with a group representing six different nationalities and ranging from the former South African regional director of the World Bank to the Topnaar locals. We always try to include one another in our various cultural favorites. One night Julia and I organized a game of Pictionary for the interns and students and invited a visiting American professor to join in. Unfortunately, the Americans had a clear cultural advantage over the Germans and Namibians, understanding the subtle meaning of words like "sports jacket" and "king size". We felt a little awkward, maybe a little guilty at times, until one of the students drew something that looked like, what, a ski-lift? A caterpillar? We were shocked when the Namibians started shouting "BILTONG!", sending the room into a huge, collective, fit of laughter. Who knew that our
extremely American version of the game would include the word for the dried meat favorite of our Southern African friends? The American professor, who had only been in Namibia for a few days, had no idea what we were laughing about… and how can you explain that a biltong is like beef jerky, but soooo much better? Leave it to bonding over dried meat for me to realize that I have truly made a home for myself here…
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