Wild at Heart

All I really, really wanted to do in Namibia was ride an ATV in the desert. I did that – wearing my Gretchen Wilson t-shirt, no less – rendering the trip wholly successful.

Namibia has been on my to-see list for the past year. It has a really interesting history, alive today in the architecture and pastries from its time as a German colony, and in the townships and radical inequalities from its time as a possession of apartheid South Africa. German and Afrikaans are still widely spoken, along with indigenous languages and English. Namibia won its independence recently, in 1990, and has been doing fairly well on its own.

Colonialism makes for a bit of an identity crisis and as this church in Windhoek shows, Namibia is not entirely sure whether it is German or African.

My proudly Namibian sandboarding instructor boasted to me that middle-class South Africans have been buying homes in Namibia because should the political situation get worse, Namibia offers a brighter future. As a patriotic temporary resident of South Africa, I pointed out that Namibia’s democracy is really more like a one-party state itself and that SWAPO, the ruling party, has just built an unnecessarily extravagant State House with taxpayers’ money. But then I had to get back to sandboarding.

Courtney and I opted for the "unskilled" sandboarding, which was more like tobogganing than snowboarding. Nevertheless, I managed to wipe out. Courtney wiped out on the ATVs though, so that made us even.

My patriotism further prevents me from calling Namibia more beautiful than South Africa, but it is indeed a very pretty country, where the sun nearly always shines. The 400 km drive from Windhoek to the coast took Courtney and me past the long grass and wildflowers of the Kalahari and into the vast Namib Desert without hardly a town or traffic along the way.

I was surprised at how green the Kalahari Desert was!

This, to me, is a proper desert - the Namib.

Most recently, Namibia has become (in)famous as the country that Brad and Angelina escaped to for three months prior to the birth of their biological daughter, Shiloh. As a little bit of a pop culture addict, this may have played into my motivation to visit the country. But it was sheer luck that a co-worker of mine at the Treatment Action Campaign offered Courtney and me the use of her family’s holiday home in Long Beach, the same place the Jolie-Pitts had called home, for our stay on the coast. The best part was that with our own house, we were able to do a huge Easter egg hunt on Sunday.

Long Beach is small, and it didn't take us long to track down the resort where the Jolie-Pitts had stayed, order drinks, and proceed to grill the server for details.

I think it’s really cool that with just a car, a guidebook, and a friend, I saw another African country. A year ago, I’m sure I wouldn’t have felt confident doing that.

A year ago, I’m sure I wouldn’t have tasted the zebra.

Pangs

Every day last week, I returned to my flat pretty convinced that I have the coolest job on the planet.

One day I was perched at the Cape High Court – one of an army of HIV-Positive t-shirts – observing the case that TAC is pursuing against Matthias Rath and the Government for violations of the Medicines Act. Our lawyer argued well and I think that the judgment will come in our favour, forcing Rath to stop selling his unregistered medicines as a cure for AIDS.

Another day, for the next issue of Equal Treatment, I was interviewing Zimbabwean refugees who are waiting to be processed by the Department of Home Affairs in line-ups that are months long downtown. These people had unbelievable stories to tell and I can’t wait to see my article in print.

I’m really, really happy here. I am gaining invaluable experience at work and savouring all that Cape Town's summer has to offer in the evenings and on weekends.

Bringing St Paddy's down South.

But pangs of doubt hit me.

Do Western volunteers bring valuable skills to Africa, or are we occupying positions that native citizens should be trained and remunerated for? I could get work in my home country. Should I stay there, and leave Africa for Africans?

Do journalists create awareness, or just publish compelling stories by exploiting other people’s pain? The Zimbabwean refugees whom I interviewed are still sleeping on sidewalks, five days after I met them. Don’t I owe them something more, after they gave me their stories?

And another thing – I remember that very early in my stay, I was appalled by how middle-class South Africans could live such fine lives in the midst of abject poverty. When did it become easy for me to accept, to adopt the same carefree lifestyle? How unjust is it that I’ve enjoyed more of what South Africa has to offer than most of its citizens?

Case in point: my friend Courtney and I are spending the Easter long weekend in Namibia, South Africa’s neighbour to the north-west, a place that has been described to me as “God’s own country.” I'm really looking forward to it. We fly out of Cape Town on Wednesday morning; spend two nights in Windhoek (Namibia’s capital); drive to the coast for three nights at Long Beach; and then make our way back to South Africa on Easter Monday.

Story of my life.

The varied landscapes, the diverse cultures, the relationships I've built compel me. For better or for worse,

I’ll always be making my way back to South Africa.

Hush

My plane ticket home is for one month from today, which means that I won’t be able to ignore the fact that the most exciting year of my life is rushing to an end for much longer.

South Africa will soon be far, far away. I’ll have to dig through online news sources to find out what happens with Zuma’s corruption trial in August. If he’s convicted, he won’t be eligible for the presidency, and then what? Who will lead the ANC? Who will lead the country? I’ll care, but I won’t be a part of it anymore.

Shhhh. I can still go about my life as per usual for a little while.

At work, the current issue of Equal Treatment is in the editor’s hands and now I’m working on new projects. The first one is with the legal side of the organization. I’m assisting with two cases that we are pursuing against individuals and companies who illegally (and deeply immorally) sell unregistered medicines as bogus cures for AIDS. Secondly, beginning later this week, I’ll be spending two days a week at TAC’s district office in Khayelitsha, which is the same township
where I taught an after-school program back when I was a UCT student.

There’s been lots of playing as well. My friends Jessie, Courtney, Sarah, and I went on a road trip for Jessie’s last weekend to Cape Aghulas, the southernmost point in Africa, and stayed overnight. I wanted to rip across the Southern hemisphere’s longest unbroken beach on an ATV, but horses were the only transportation permitted (for environmental reasons – oops), so we rode them, barefoot.

For Jessie’s last night out, karaoke was the obvious answer. We selected Spice Girls for our final performance together. It was deliciously awful. Life has been quieter since I took Jess to the airport on Thursday.

Quieter, but not quiet. Especially since I traded in Herbie for a new yet-to-be-named ride, and she has a radio and CD player. There’s no better way to get to the beach, I’m sure of it.

My housing arrangements have also been upgraded – in the material sense, at least. I was relocated to a two-bedroom on the 18^th floor, which happens to be the penthouse. My apartment grew three sizes and became outfitted with a balcony that looks out at Table Mountain. It really feels more ornate than anything and I’d rather have Jess.

Overall, February was one of my best months in South Africa. It was also somewhat exhausting.

Too bad there’s no time to rest. For March, I’m most excited about the plans that Courtney and I are making to spend Easter in Namibia, the reunion that I am trying to organize with my little Karoo sisters, and a stopover in Knysna, my favourite town along the Garden Route, before I fly out from nearby Port Elizabeth.

As my groceries were being scanned at the Pick & Pay the other evening, the cashier paused for a moment to shuffle through the postcards that I was purchasing. Once. Twice. I started to grow impatient. But my heart melted when she locked eyes with me and breathed, “Isn’t it a beautiful country?”

I jog along the boardwalk at Sea Point in late afternoon, watching the sea swallow the sun. I drive in the countryside on the weekends in the silence of unspeakable beauty.

Yes doesn’t seem like a strong enough word.

The view from the balcony