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"Chapter 3"
I really enjoy reading the quarterly reports of the current Grinnell Corps and especially the past Namibia fellows; I marvel at the variety of personalities who have filled these positions, and that despite our differing takes on life at Gobabeb, we have somehow had similar experiences. I am impressed at how especially Sarah's second report directly reflects much of what I am feeling right now. Somehow I am both comforted and a little humbled by this, like maybe I'm not so original or special. All past fellows convey a feeling of settling in at this point, of adaptation to the variability, the erratic and unpredictable pace of life here, and of change. Just as they survived-no, excelled at-their first six months at Gobabeb, I have too.
During our recent Thanksgiving visit with the Lesotho fellows, Julia and I spent a lot of bus time discussing our experiences so far. We shared the realization that we are as ready as we will ever be to face the new challenges of 2007, that "it is time for Chapter 3". If our hectic arrival and initial euphoria fit under Chapter 1, then our adventures-in-teaching and the bittersweet growing pains of getting settled-in made up the days of Chapter 2. Now that we just might have the skills and experience to set some new big goals and to achieve them, an appropriate title of Chapter 3 could be something like "Time to get serious". At the end of the year, almost the halfway point, we are gearing up to support each other through various long-term projects and our increased involvement in very big and very real challenges facing Gobabeb.
2006-"International Year of Deserts and Desertification" and the year we officially run out of donor funding…
While I have shared several milestones with past fellows-surviving the five-day Biology field course with 50 University of Namibia students, for example-December 2006 marks the end of Gobabeb's donor funding and thus presents an additional series of unique challenges as we attempt to generate income. My life is impacted by this in several ways, some basic and obvious, some subtle and more difficult to handle. This era demands more creativity and frugality with all projects, and more time strategizing about funding opportunities, writing grant proposals, interacting with VIPs, and contributing to Gobabeb "value proposition" (identifying our economic assets). We are also working to attract expensive international conferences to the station and exploring the development of community-friendly eco-tourism ventures. Most of the time I can recognize the value of this experience, but sometimes I just feel overwhelmed or frustrated. The so-called "funding crisis" adds palpable strain and tension to an already
exceedingly small (and isolated) work environment-nobody enjoys news that a favorite co-worker's contract has not been renewed in order to "rethink our marketing strategy". But hey, this is the real world, and as my boss once told a frustrated intern who wanted us to buy seven new automatic weather stations (yeah RIGHT-see Julia's report), "we are an African organization, after all".
Financially the big picture can look a little bleak, indeed, but I should not discount some of Gobabeb's recent and major successes. Earlier this year we hosted the International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) conference, which raised money and awareness of the station, and also strengthened our connection to a global network of incredible scientists (with whom I thoroughly enjoyed spending time). We can also boast the fullest training and visitor calendar yet-so far, I have taught about desert ecology and environmental protection to a record of 469 people ranging from elementary students, to national and international University groups, to several employees of the local uranium mines.
We have also been acting as the Namibian secretariat for the UN declared International Year of Deserts and Desertification (IYDD), which basically assigned us the responsibility of coordinating the nation-wide activities which fall under the auspices of the IYDD grant, promoting the message of "Proud of our deserts while combating desertification". Pretty cool stuff. Julia and I serve on the steering committee which decides how best to spend the money, and as the primary members of the "IYDD editorial team" (thanks to the internationally renowned reputation of Grinnell's writing lab), we will have written and edited a series of articles for a variety of publications by the end of our year. I also developed the idea to host a nation-wide essay competition for secondary (high school) students and to invite the winners to participate in a "desertification youth leadership workshop" at Gobabeb. As the brain behind the idea and the training coordinator at Gobabeb, I am now responsible for organizing and
implementing the entire event.
"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love"-Carl Sagan in Contact.
I love that quote (and book), but in order to apply it to my daily life at Gobabeb, I would amend it to "through love and laughter". At the risk of sounding incredibly clichéd, I am completely sincere when I say that beyond any skill set learned at Grinnell, I mostly rely on my ability to see the bright side of a situation and my sense of humor. I am surviving with my optimism intact because I can detect the absurd and wonderful in most of the strange situations I keep ending up in. I have realized that laughter is the best-maybe the only-way to reduce enormous challenges into emotionally manageable pieces. Let me illustrate with two different examples…
As a stakeholder with a vested interest in the livelihoods of the local Topnaar community, Gobabeb was recently invited to spend World AIDS Day at a Topnaar poverty alleviation workshop. A little background: the Topnaar, with a rural population of less than 300 are one of the poorest tribes in Namibia after a series of lame development efforts have failed to effectively raise their standard of living. The community also suffers from a long history of internal strife, and currently divides itself politically between the Chief of the tribe, Seth, and his arch nemesis, Rudolf, the head of the Topnaar Community Development Fund. As the government is unwilling to work with them as long as they are unable to unify behind one leader, the division is a major obstacle.
Several interesting participants were in attendance at the workshop, including government officials, the Chief, and Rudolf. The discussions covered everything from livestock management, to tourism, to AIDS, to Uranium mining; they were serious, interesting, and important, but the moderator often found it difficult to keep the Chief and Rudolf from arguing over each point. By lunch, we were mired in a heated discussion over the need to provide the community with Anatolian sheep dogs which could protect goat herds and thus decrease the community's incentive to hunt hyenas and jackals-but who would get the first puppies? As we patiently endured the back and forth equivocation and obnoxious one-upmanship of the Chief and Rudolf, my mind reeled as I gauged the scope of this challenge. I am witnessing road blocking in action, I thought to myself, as these two stubborn individuals delay serious progress for an entire community. My stomach growled and I felt a headache coming on. And yet there it was, like a gift,
a humorous moment: "Ladies and Gentlemen", the Chief loudly declared, "As you can see, this issue of fast tracking puppies into our community has created yet another major bone of contention between us". I looked at my friend Emily and passed her a note that simply said, "a DOG-bone of contention?"-we suppressed giggles until the lunch break. (And, for what it's worth, at the end of the day I noticed the Chief and Rudolf shook hands and made plans to attend an informal series of team-building meetings… again, all is not lost).
In another instance, the poignancy of one late-night joke, shared with my African friends around the table at Old House, taught me several hard lessons at once. We were discussing our parents and cultures; somehow I told the story of my Dad's blues band, mentioning that it took years for my Mom to give up calling it "The Midlife Crisis Bluesband". My friend Jefta interrupted me-"what does 'midlife crisis' mean?" I did my best to explain the phenomenon of American men in their 40s or 50s who realize that maybe they should be doing more with their lives, and who channel their boredom and anxiety by buying a new car, or say, joining a band. This poor explanation met a lot of blank but patient stares from my friends, followed by an awkward silence. But Jefta knew what he was doing and smiled as he planted his follow-up, "Sooo, should I be going through my midlife crisis or what?" He's twenty-six. For that split-second as my friends unconsciously decided how to react, I despaired under the weight of what he had
said: the cultural differences between us were vast, I had been insensitive, AIDS has reduced the average Namibian life expectancy to forty-two… But just as my cheeks started to burn, my friends surprised me by erupting into a collective, totally unstoppable, fit of laughter. We reacted the only way we could, by laughing until we couldn't breathe. My heart immediately lightened, and I went to bed that night feeling a little tender, as if I had just had a good cry, but redeemed.
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