Perspective

Hi Blogfans. Sorry it has been so long since I’ve written. It’s been a long and hard couple of weeks that have left me exhausted at the end of each day. It isn’t one thing in particular it’s just the natural progression of life for a recently arrived ex-pat. The honeymoon phase has worn off and now things are beginning to get a little more frustrating. In fact, one of the volunteers and a friend of mine went home last week. She was the second person we’ve lost since our arrival so we are down to 20 from the original group.

Training is only 2 more weeks, fortunately, because everyone is on edge. There is a lot of pressure to perform. We are expected to get high scores on our language exams and if the afternoon we work in small groups on our community project (we have less than a week to plan and implement) and then when we get home, we have to be on our best behavior because we are in someone else’s space.

There’s no sure fire way to cope. We’re all trying different things because most of our coping strategies just aren’t available to us here. For example, I cannot afford to call home on the PC salary, so I must wait to be called. But once we move to our permanent site housing, we’ll have an opportunity to settle in and create a space that is our own and that we find comfort in. I so much look forward to that time.

Today, six of us went on a hike to get a little perspective and some much needed exercise. We had our sites set on the tallest peak we could see from town. We followed a dirt path until it became barely discernible cow trails and then eventually disappeared altogether. I wasn’t thrilled about bushwhacking in black mamba territory, especially since I knew my EMT skills would mean next to nothing if we couldn’t get an injured person to the hospital quickly. We made it out alive with mere cuts and scrapes from the loose rocks and thorny bushes and tress. We did see a baboon in the distance, found the quill of what must be a GIANT porcupine and nearly walked through the webs of some very gnarly looking spiders. It’s a great feeling to stand atop a peak where very few people have ever been or will ever go. This area of Namibia has a beautiful mountainous landscape, unlike the flat desert-land I’ll be heading to at the end of the month, but all that I’ve seen of Namibia is truly beautiful.