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Namibia: Land of Contrasts
Like the environment that surrounds it, life at Gobabeb is unpredictable and in constant flux. In the desert, day and night temperatures may vary by 20 C, the flood may come from upriver when here there are blue skies, the non-rainy season could bring rain, and the winter months could bring east wind conditions that are hotter than summer. Fluctuations at Gobabeb take on a different form, but are no less extreme. Groups change their dates, number of participants, or interests, the people you need for training or research go into town, a vehicle you need is not available, or there simply isn't funding.
Organisms in the desert have adapted to the challenges of a harsh and erratic environment by being creative, opportunistic and efficient with scarce resources. For example, some plants may flower year round so they're ready to make use of the occasional rain for reproduction, some beetles wearily trek to the top of a dune on sporadic fog days to collect water on their bodies, and large mammals come out of nowhere to feed on the grasses in the dunes that grow only after significant rainfall. I've found one must adopt similar strategies in order to survive the high variability and limited resources at Gobabeb. Here, good planning involves flexibility and opportunistic initiative rather than discipline and skillful attention to detail. It may seem responsible and smart to plan the perfect weekend trip far in advance, but the weeks leading up to your trip will most likely change it so much that, after all that time and effort, your plan is either unrecognizable or nonexistent. Instead, at Gobabeb, if you hear
rumors of an open seat in a car and seize the opportunity, you'll find yourself in town for the day- not knowing what you really need, but marveling at your luck nonetheless. Through experiences like these, Gobabebians develop a sense of when to seize control of a situation and when to relinquish it to the fluctuation of the environment.
I will pause here to give a little geographical information. Mental maps are important for conceiving a place, and I forget no one knows what I mean when I say "in town." Chances are, if you're heading out of Gobabeb - for a simple one-day supply trip or a weekend getaway - it will be to the coastal towns, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund. Walvis Bay is about 100km (1.5 hours on sand/dirt roads) northwest of Gobabeb and Swakopmund is an easy 30km up the coast from there. Walvis Bay has a nice lagoon filled with migratory birds (including hundreds of flamingoes), but is also the location of Namibia's main harbor and fishing business, which gives it both an industrial feel and a fishy-sewage smell. If people want to do any more than basic grocery shopping, usually trips will also stop in Swakopmund. "Swakop", in contrast to the humble Walvis, is a popular vacation spot that resembles a small German town. Swakopmund is a nice place to spend a few days - you can shop, walk on the beach, and hear your fill of German and
Afrikans - even if it's cuteness-factor feels very out of place. Outside both Swakopmund and Walvis (and Windhoek) there are expansive residential zones called "locations" that are left over from the apartheid era and so still house almost all blacks or coloureds. The population of both towns is about 40 000, but because a large percentage lives right outside the towns in these locations, they feel a bit smaller. This makes Windhoek, with 260,000 residents, the booming metropolis of the country. Although Windhoek has some nice dining and entertainment options, it's not an especially interesting city, making the appeal more the people you know there, rather than the city itself. I've been to Windhoek (4.5 hours from Gobabeb) only twice since I've been here, and Mark and I head to the coast on average once every 2.5 weeks. (But, like the desert conditions, it varies a lot so the average really isn't representative.)
Gobabeb life also fluctuates on a longer time frame. August and September brought loads of training groups, and just about the time I was getting comfortable designing and leading courses, October brought a shift in focus from practical external training to addressing the inner-workings of Gobabeb. Through Annual Planning sessions and office work, words like capacity-building, communication, result indicators, and milestones rang through my head and made me all too aware of how important these issues are to making an organization run smoothly. During this time I was also thrown into another aspect of my job as training coordinator: intern supervision. In a matter of weeks, five new interns had arrived that I was responsible for orienting, directing, and "monitoring". I found this required entirely different teaching skills, including balancing the role of supervisor and peer. In addition, because these interns (all European) replaced 4 Namibian GIST students, we saw that personnel and social dynamics are yet
another thing in constant flux at Gobabeb.
With all this talk of fluctuations, perhaps your image of Gobabeb has turned to one of total chaos. Or you picture Gobabeb as a giant pendulum that you must react to and comply with in order to survive. Neither is an accurate depiction. The unpredictability of life at Gobabeb doesn't eliminate all control we have over what we do. On the contrary, the freedom in our jobs allows our creativity and initiative to play a large part in determining our tasks. With this freedom, however, the Grinnell Fellows also get tremendous responsibility. At its worst, this responsibility leaves us feeling under-qualified and directionless, but at its best (and with experience), it makes us feel essential and challenged. My past few weeks' work is the result of an opportunity I was lucky enough to come across and motivated enough to pursue and be responsible for. Just as I was getting stir-crazy in the office, I carefully exchanged a few emails and was suddenly writing a grant proposal for Gobabeb to test a UN Desertification Ed
ucation Kit. But that was only the first challenge. The next was budgeting the US$12,000 for training before January 2006 (when the test-phase ended), then contacting schools and communities, designing several desertification programs, and finally, implementing them.
When the first programs lined up last week on top of already-booked university groups, I was beginning to think that my "great initiative" had gotten me in a bit too deep. But luckily, the other things I'd been working on came together - intern training, station efficiency, community relations - and the unpredictability of Gobabeb, the busy week, and my weighty responsibility suddenly seemed more manageable. After a full day-program with Narraville Primary School, we sat watching a student skit on how "government officials" could contribute to combating desertification (we'd already heard from the farmers, scientists and youth). The skit was running past their scheduled departure, but after a quick glance at the bus driver, I comfortably let it continue. And watching a small President Bush with a Namibian/ Southern accent and a Texas swagger arrive casually late to their "desertification world meeting", I was glad I did.
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