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As the past slides by we look to the future
This year has in no uncertain terms been the most challenging, engaging, and rewarding year of my life. Soon I will be waiting at the airport for the next year of Grinnell fellows to arrive and take part in more or less the same experience I am now finishing. As this year slips by into a handful of memories I am thankful for everything that I have the pleasure to experience and to everyone I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with. The work has been at times overwhelming, largely because I was completely unqualified to hold this position when I came and I wonder what real impact I have made in a year on the organization for which I work. As an individual, I have left little impact. But as a whole, I know that the Grinnell Corps position has become something worthwhile for Gobabeb and the DRFN. Fellows come from year to year with their own abilities and interests and leave what they can as far as outputs and projects completed. Indeed, as the Gobabeb Centre losses its permanent funding from it
s German donors in 2007, the support of the Grinnell Corps program will become even more valuable than it already is. The Grinnell Corps gives two permanent staff members with a Grinnell College background to a station that does important, but unfortunately largely under funded work. Each year, the station sees a fresh set of faces, ready to bring all their learning and enthusiasm from their Grinnell education. In a place that is as isolated as Gobabeb, new inputs, skills and ideas are extremely important to the vitality of the community and the success of the institution as a whole.
I have found many hardships during my year. The isolation and interpersonal difficulties that are necessarily part of a small community have at times been very trying. Having little or no ability to leave the station when things get too frustrating make it even more difficult to not get along with individuals in the community. The inability to solve problems that are presented to me as part of my job have been at times very frustrating. I often find that I have too much time on my hands or too little time to get projects done. I also tire of the necessity of doing menial work, which is nonetheless necessary. But whether or not these worries are worth considering or even all that different from other work situations is a point for consideration.
Much more than the hardships, I have been thankful for this amazing opportunity to fill roles and have responsibilities that I never would have imagined I would have had so soon out of college. You have to be able to move beyond yourself a certain distance to make a year like this work. If you come to the desert and Gobabeb with expectations about how you will work or what you will be doing, you will be disappointed. If you come to Gobabeb with the expectation to grow and change and experience then your expectations will be exceeded. You will be both teacher and student during this year. You will give as much as you receive and find out things about yourself you never knew. This position is more than writing papers and taking exams. It is a chance to apply what you have learned both in and out of class. It is a chance to put everything you have done in school into action. And you wont get a grade for it. Only the satisfaction that you have added a little something to what has been in motion for so m
any years now, hidden away in the desert.
I am also extremely grateful for getting to know another country and its people. Namibia is a beautiful and rich country and in many ways. It is also a country of poverty, disease and hardship. Its people are diverse and persevering. And I have had the pleasure to know many of them personally. Africa and Africans just have different way of life. It has sometimes taken an open mind to fit into this way of life, but living here for a year has expanded my worldview well beyond what it was when I left college. I know I will miss the place and its people when I leave.
I have been here for almost a year now, and am looking forward to leaving Namibia, Gobabeb, and the DRFN in good spirits. I have plans for continuing on in my studies and better equipping myself to contribute to the same kind of things that I have been experiencing this past year. Although I do not know how exactly this year has changed me, I know that it has. I have become much more confident in myself and my abilities. I have realized that I have a great deal more personal power than I have given myself credit for and that have I a great deal to offer. I know that I have important skills that I can contribute to the world and hope someday to do so to the best of my abilities. And I also know that my Grinnell education gave me many of those abilities, and without my education, I would not have been nearly so effective in the things I have accomplished this last year nor would I have had the courage or opportunity to pack up my bags and head to Africa. I am thankful to Grinnell for everything it has gi
ven me.
I now look forward to moving on in life. I could spend many more years in my position and still leave the job only half done, but I am contented in the fact that many other Grinnellians will continue on in my place, furthering the goals of the station and the DRFN into the future.
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