The Grand Namibian Epic

To the bush and a farm

There comes a time in the life of every person living on a 3-month Angolan visitor visa, and who wishes to stay more than the aforementioned three months, that one must leave the country and (for those of us living in the south) make the trek into northern Namibia. For Tom and I, that time came at the end of April 2006.

We were accompanied by SIM long-termer and fearless leader for this trip, Becky, as well as fellow short-termer, whose first visa was also close to running out, Marcela. Becky came armed with her trusty British steed Tinka, a robust 8-year-old Land Rover Defender. Early one Saturday morning (though not as early as planned), this motley quintet set off from Lubango, bound for the border.

We soon departed from the main roads onto bush tracks, headed towards the Tchincombe farm, run by SIM missionaries Stirling and Donna Foster. The farm provides a base in the middle of the bush for agricultural employment (for about 200 workers), literacy work (which Donna does with the ladies) and Bible studies, as well as providing the location for a church of the União denomination. They live with kids Jeffrey and Meghan, as well as Carolyn who looks after Jeff and Meghan's education. 'Twas great to visit the farm: not only was it a refreshing stop on our journey, but a chance to see a rural SIM project in action. 12(?)-year-old Jeffrey showed us around the many-hectared farm, the land of which is primarily used to raise cattle, whilst Meghan enjoyed pointing out various wildlife forms, including a surprisingly speedy turtle.

Worn out by the hours of trampolining and chicken-and-duck-herding that I had enjoyed with the kids and Brent (a Lubango-based pilot for Mission Aviation Fellowship), my slumber that night was sound. Just as well really, for the alarm clock was singing its familiar monotonous tune before the crack of dawn on Sunday, and we were on the road out of the farm as the sun was rising before us.

Taking 'roads' through the bush was not without its supply of adventure. For one thing, bush roads do not have signposts. The supply of written directions that Stirling had dictated to us did not stop us making a plethora of exciting detours as well as a series of unplanned requests for directions from locals for whom Portuguese was not the first language. The journey also included many mud-holes, most of which were navigated successfully by Becky's skilful driving and Tinka's weighty momentum. However, there was a mudhole in which even four-wheel-drive could not help us.

I was the first to take off my shoes, roll up my trousers and dive in (a little too literally on one or two occasions) quickly followed by the others. A lot of log-fetching, pushing, revving and many other delightfully muddy things later, Tinka was freed from her hot and sticky prison.

I firmly believe that it was only the grace of God that got us out of that bushland. On at least two very crucial occasions, he sent along a knowledgeable Portuguese-speaking local to help us find our way and give us mechanical advice. He also kept us in joyful spirits on our adventure-filled journey, and gave Tom a very good idea which proved a lynch-pin in getting released from the mud.

Nevertheless, despite my and Becky's best efforts behind the wheel, arrival at the border before it closed was to evade us.

Ondjiva

We decided to spend the night in the southern Angolan town of Ondjiva.

Our night there, sleeping at the house of a União pastor, Bioco, was a real blessing. The setting, in the bairro (poor suburban area), took me back to my time in Mozambique: sleeping under the same mosquito net I used back then, on a concrete floor in a small house, built out of adobe bricks and capped with a sheet of corrugated iron held on by bricks as a roof. The toilet/washroom could be found in a separate hut a few feet away, built strategically over a deep long-drop hole. Water was obtainable via the manual pump outside, and we soon got to work filling buckets and bowls with which to wash Tinka. It didn't take long to realise why the local lads my age were so well-muscled!

We were welcomed and greeted by many local church members (Pastor Bioco was away in Lubango) who opened up the house for us and helped us to clean the car and settle into our home for the night. One helpful man popped out to get a piece of material to act as a curtain so that Tom and I would have something other than an open doorway at the entrance to our room. It was as we were finding a way to hang it up using a spare nail and a piece of a straw bag that he taught me a local proverb: "Quer não tem cão: casa como gato", which roughly translated means "He who doesn't have a dog makes do with a cat" ... in other words, if you're in Africa, you need to learn to improvise!

As darkness fell, I found some of the local children hanging around the house and couldn't help but start singing and playing with them (after denying requests for money from one or two of the bolder ones). After a brief absence, they all returned to sit with Tom, Marcela and I: we sang songs for one another and learnt a little about the children before they went home to bed. Soon after, we did the same.

On to Namibia

I was oblivious to the sun's early ascent outside our window on Monday morning, but it wasn't long before the electronic cockerel-device made itself heard in my earhole. After some particularly delicious scrambled eggs cooked up by Marcela, the four of us clambered into Tinka once more. This time we enjoyed a relatively smooth road for the last half-hour to the border. In fact, life continued in the same vein all day. We crossed the border with hardly any hitches and the minimum of paperwork (a few forms each). Coping with our entry to the compound on the Namibian side of the fence, though, required a major brain-switch: not only were we to talk to all the officials in English now, but we were expected to drive on the left-hand side of the road. Can life get any more confusing? I think not.

For Brits especially, Namibia would be an easy introduction to Africa. The Namibian Dollar is about a tenth of the pound, making mental conversions as easy as falling off a log (I don't even bother to go beyond the US Dollar conversion when I'm dealing with Angolan kwanzas for fear of making my brain crash). Namibian English also tends to be similar in vocabulary to that we find north of the English Channel: tomato sauce is no longer "ketchup"; I can go to the toilet instead of being excused to attend the "washroom". The locals drive on the right side of the road (as opposed to the wrong one) and there is even a SPAR supermarket.

Not that it isn't still Africa... Just about everybody here drives Toyota pickup trucks, often weighed down with passengers clinging on; readers of the "Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency" books would recognise parallels between Botswana and Northern Namibia. Shops and bars can be seen everywhere with names like "Number One Place To Be Bar" and my personal favourite, "SNIP: We cut, you pay". I didn't check what service can be procured there, my guess is that it is more likely to be haircuts than vasectomies.

The Consulate

But back to the tale. Having only been in Namibia for about an hour, we three short-termers were already in the Angolan Consulate to begin the re-application process. Before leaving Lubango, I had been prepared for the possibility that God was to send me to a new place (Namibia) for the remaining months. It was with some degree of trepidation, and a prayer of "not my will, but Yours be done" that we made our way through the gates, past the armed guards and into the building. It did not seem to be our lucky day, as the lady at the desk - speaking in English to another applicant - did not seem in the best of spirits. When it came our turn to be served, we greeted her in Portuguese and asked how she was. And from that point on, she was super-charming.

As far as I was concerned, our God was making his will very clear through the smoothness of things at the Consulate ... we were to be back in Angola! Beyond the minor inconvenience of having to fill out the application forms many times over to ensure that they were legible and entirely mistake-free, things could not have been much better. By noon the next day, we were walking out of the doors with freshly-granted visas. Praise God.

Rest and recreation

All this excitement marked only the beginning of our stay in Namibia. With paperwork filled out, it was time to move on to the other purpose of our stay - having a short break. It was getting late in the day on Tuesday and we were a little concerned about some noises that Tinka was making, but decided to go ahead and make the drive south to the Etosha National Park. I had the pleasure of being behind the wheel and giving Becky a break. That's something else about Namibia: probably the longest, straightest roads I've ever driven. If you could see over the steering wheel (thankfully, I can - just), you would see only the road stretching to a heat haze on the horizon. Just like in the movies, apart from the fact that directors don't usually choose to include the sound of snoring from the back seat.

We knew that sunset was to be a little before 6pm, and with the disappearing of light over the horizon would come the closing of the gates to the park. We were cutting it fine. Too fine. Even once you reach the gates, there are another 45km to the campsite, with a speed limit of 60kph (the campsite also closes its gates at sunset). At five thirty, the white dot on the horizon at the end of the sandy track was gradually taking the shape of a lookout tower and entrance gates. I slowed to a halt at the ranger's window. "Can we make it still?" "Sorry, you're too late." What was to be our fate? Would we be left outside to fend for ourselves against hungry lions?

No such misfortune. The ranger invited us in to camp in the entrance compound. A large fenced area of dusty ground with no other humans. And toilet facilities. It is widely held to have been the best night of our time in Namibia. Nothing but the four of us, Tinka, the sun heading off to go and light the lives of GAPers and others in the Americas, and an expanse of grassland beyond the fence. Having set up the tents and watched Tom do a sterling job of starting a fire (using only one match), we enjoyed our chicken stew by star- and fire-light, and eventually retired to the tents. The small tent that Tom and I were using had two doors on each side: one solid and one netted. It was great to fall asleep seeing the stars through the mosquito net, and not to worry about the Machine of Slumber Destruction Complete With Beeps.

I was up early the next morning: I had, as I'd hoped, been woken by the light of approaching dawn. I scaled the lookout tower with no aural accompaniment but the sound of nature awakening, and read again the Genesis account of creation as I watched the sun rise. I don't know how He did it, but it sure is beautiful to watch it all in action.

And indeed watching it in action was to be the theme of the next couple of days. Rejoicing in the money saved by missing a night's official camping (we are missionaries after all), we headed into the park.

Well, I'll try not to make you too jealous, especially as the pictures you will all see in due course each say a thousand words. Suffice to say, I was privileged to see and to be so close to zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, oryx, springbok, warthogs ... ooh, the list goes on.

The week - as with everything on this spell in southern Africa - was passing quickly. Thursday was soon upon us: the day to return north to Oshakati ... Tom's 19th birthday too. We left the camp with high hopes for our last game-viewing trip, following the glorious time we'd had the previous evening following some giraffes into the sunset. Perhaps our rendition of "Happy Birthday" caused them to flee to some quieter corner of the park. The most exciting spotting as I drove towards the exit was a large lizard that crossed the road behind us. Tom seemed to be enjoying his day, nevertheless, and (as usual) great fun was being had by all.

Tinka's rest

It was now to be Tinka's turn for a bit of pampering (if having a prop shaft changed can be referred to as such), and so we said goodbye to her at a local garage for a few hours. She was ready to take us home that evening, although not all the work was complete. So it was back to the mechanics the following morning.

We inherited Trevor, a large white Toyota pickup (the locals call it a Bakkie) for the day, and went off to do various important bits and pieces of shopping so that we would be ready to head home on Sunday. Becky suggested that I should drive him as he was so similar to UK cars, but to the disappointment of all, no doubt, I realised I had left my licence in Tinka.

It was on a return trip to the garage to pick up some bits and pieces (including my licence) that things changed slightly. "Do you think you'll be ready by the end of the day?" asked Becky, hopefully. "No," came the reply from an extremely helpful (but very busy) chief mechanic. "Oh." A brief moment of silence. "Are you open tomorrow?" The mechanic raised his eyebrows briefly before commenting, "No, but we're open on Monday."

And so it was that plans changed. Various other problems had arisen in Tinka, and we had been told in no uncertain terms by the guys at the garage that Tinka was not to be driven. Meanwhile, various parts had to be sent to Windhoek (Namibia's capital, an 8-hour drive south) for modification. And so it was that our stay was extended, and that my friendship with Trevor the Pickup really began.

Our accommodation whilst not at Etosha was a very comfortable house belonging to the Finnish Lutheran Mission. If you're ever in this neck of the woods, you'll find it in the small settlement of Oniipa, just outside Ondangwa (in turn about 40-50km south of Oshakati). It has become apparent to me that no bona fide Finnish mission station should ever be without a sauna. This house was no different.

And so in due course Tinka was ready for us to begin our journey to Lubango - which you already know from the last entry on the blog was not quite as smooth as we had hoped it would be!

But now we are back safe, teaching at the hospital has resumed, and life seems at least as busy as ever, the weeks flying past ...