Yossarian in Africa

Namibia turned 18 on March 21. We were out of school extra long with the Easter combo weekend. As I told you we were planning on traveling the (im)possible road west, which we did. We traveled in a diesel Land Cruiser which really made the road seem like cake. We splashed through mud, sand, holes, trenches, goats, donkeys, cattle, broken glass, flooded oshanas, and police check points.

It was random circumstances and an overly generous local that allowed us to travel so nicely. To say that most vehicles in Namibia are not served regularly is quite an understatement. It is rare to find one that simply runs “nice,” but to be able to drive on that road alone is something special. We passed the other traffic going about twice their speed, and with our skin color, we were easily recognized by various learners, colleagues, and friends as our diesel overtook them.

Ovamboland was flooded as we drove though. They typically have large “puddles” of water called oshanas following the rainy season. But a season of higher than normal rains as well as Angola releasing their flood gates has caused the oshanas to overflow into one another and even to come up to the road (it’s supposed to get worse). There were many locals capitalizing on the new fishing opportunities. The lucky ones had poles; others used nets, spears or their hands. Some even used their mosquito nets.

But aren’t the nets treated with insecticide? Yes they are, so they are polluting an already cholera-infested water system. Why would they use their net that protects them from malaria? Because it was free and they don’t use it anyway (Sorry Rick Riley but you’ll never be able to protect EVERYONE from malaria). This is not the only incidence of mismanaged aid in Namibia, or even Ovamboland. There have been reports of residents of other areas showing up to receive the disaster rations. To digress even further, I feel the need to give another ridiculous example of mismanaged foreign aid. Something like several hundred million Namibian dollars was given to the Namibian National Teachers Union (NaNTU) by a U.S. AIDS group (probably PEPFAR – The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). Apparently, the money was given to NaNTU without any restrictions, because they decided to distribute the money to all the HIV positive teachers in the form of N$75 food vouchers (roughly US$10). Despite the mindset of many politicians and philanthropists, money alone won’t fix most problems – especially in an environment as rife with corruption and poverty as Africa. Don’t read too far into my cynicism.

Back to the weekend. We reached Ruacana Falls on Friday. The falls are really special because of how close you can get to them. Sudden and certain death awaits the smallest slip or mistake, which in the end made it more impressive than Vic Falls, despite the smaller scale.

Our campsite was a conservatory, meaning that it was run by locals. Some of our friends had been before, and were smart enough to reserve campsite 1, which was campsite #1. It was settled in the middle of the valley between some bluffs and the Kunene River. The fire pit was a surrounded by a large concrete circle and a 3 foot wall/bench. Recent rains and floods, though, had caused part of the campsite to collapse into the river, including a third of the fire circle. What remained was a still a big fire area, but now the side next to the river was open, and an 8 foot drop to the river below, which turned a safe, good view into a slightly dangerous, great view of an island in the middle of the river that was infested with giant crocodiles. Only now that the river was flooded, the crocs were homeless. So of course the fearless Americans threw their KFC remains below trying to tempt the croc, to no avail.

From the top of the bluffs we could overlook the entire camp grounds, croc island, Angolan mountains and Namibian green, rolling hills. I’ve come to appreciate the interaction of ecosystems more than scenery. So while others were admiring the views, I was thinking about the millions of dragon flies swarming peacefully above us. There sheer number was impressive. Not only were they soaring in and out of the mist at the falls but they were also at our campsite, everywhere in between and presumably downstream as well. Their food was my main enemy: mosquitoes.

The dominant organism in the ecosystem looked like a caterpillar, but in fact was a worm – I think. (There were also a lot of moths around, so I assumed they could have been caterpillars. But these worms were much larger than the moths so it seems unlikely they were the same species.) They were massive inch worms, ranging in color from light blue, to neon green, yellow or red. Spots and small black “horns” speckled and protruded along their back. They appeared very menacing, but the small black horns were actually just hairs. There was a rumor going around that if they touched your skin it would burn you, but my friend Cedar held one with ease. Like the dragon flies, their numbers were impressive. You could find them at any given time during the whole weekend by just observing the plants around you. When you instantly found a branch – or in some cases an entire tree – that had been stripped of all its leaves, you would also see hundreds of these worms eating away.

We spent one morning hiking around the camp grounds. We crossed a tributary, viewed some rapids, and climbed around on rocks. That afternoon we went to the falls. The path to the bottom looks innocent to start. After a short time, it starts to descend down old concrete stairs (reinforced by a wobbly hand rail on one side) and through over grown vegetation. After walking for a few minutes a man came up the steps that looked to have been completely submerged underwater. A few more minutes and a few more drenched people and I began to realize I would soon be as wet as them. First the mist felt like a small sprinkle, but it gained strength with every step. Soon the mist from above us came trickling by in a nicely built concrete ditch to the side of the stairs. But the trickle also gained strength step by step, and unable to be contained in the ditch, the stream of water rushed over the steps, spilling onto the following step – and this pattern continued for the bottom half of the 500 steps. When we had almost completed our descent, the path emerged from the vegetation and we were unprotected from the torrential mist. At this point my right hand and arm had to block the pain of the mist on my face, so I wasn’t able to hold on to the hand rail – which was okay, because the handrail was now covered in a thick slick layer of algae. The algae were also growing on the steps under the rushing water. In the sun at the top of the falls we thought the bottom would be a great way to cool off (and it was), but after being there a few minutes the mist and wind became too miserable to tolerate any longer. By the time we reached the top again we were tired, wet and cold, so we just sat in the sun on the rocks overlooking the falls drying, relaxing, talking, and observing.

By the time we returned to the campsite we were exhausted, but climbed the bluffs again to watch the sunset. This second night was less cloudy then the first night, and turned out to be quite a colorful display.