Settling In

I haven’t written as of yet about the actual work that I’m doing here because, well, for a very long time I wasn’t doing any work. From talking to other DI’s this was expected, but it took about a month for Brian and I to begin tofind our niches in this project and this organization. In the end it took a lot of uncharacteristic patience (both of the swearing and crying variety and the deep breath and understanding variety) and finally our own personalized stubbornness/initiative to find our way. For about two weeks we waited for someone to take us out to the field but nothing happened, meanwhile we spent the time trying to set the information gathering / database system to rights – a serious feat not yet completed. I also got extremely good at solitaire and have moved on to spider solitaire – level intermediate thank you very much. However every day spent like this seemed like a waste as to me this is not a normal job where I can justify a certain amount of idleness and uselessness with the thought that I am getting paid to sit here. With this job I am taking a year out of my life to get something done and sitting in an office playing solitaire is not. getting. things. done.

In the end we just did it ourselves. We both made plans with our individual Field Officers to make field visits and recruited two student ‘interns’ to escort us there. Brian started a Sports Club for teens in the local area with the help of the security guard at the gate to our compound. He also volunteered his services with the DAPP Child Aid project two doors down and is now helping to start a very exciting recycling project in our area – it will be the very first opportunity for residents anywhere in the North of Namibia to recycle their waste instead of burn it. The plan is for our immediate area during the first year and to roll out over much of the north over a three year period. The project is currently in the funding proposal / finalizing contract phase and I think he is more excited about it than TCE.

In the meantime we are just about getting comfortable in our home. Posters are up. The erratic electricity in our house fried our old electric hotplate so we splurged and invested in a beauty of an appliance – a plug in conventional toaster oven with two burners on top that can fit a chicken dinner for four. I have been experimenting with cookie baking in our temperamental little friend. To inaugurate such a purchase we had a dinner party with the TCE staff and Child Aid neighbor Jacopina. It was the first dinner party I’ve thrown without the presence of wine (drinking is frowned up here) but it turned out well – our dart board and Bob Dylan/Billy Joel playlist was a hit.

As part of our self improvement regime Brian and I have both been running two or three days a week in the field immediately adjacent to our DI huts – I’m very happy I endured the torturous three months of training last year in preparation for my book clubs marathon relay race because my running debut # 2 has been 100 times easier than the misery of last February in Cork.

Although the weather is cooling down into the winter months (cool at night/morning, bordering on 30 in the day) the proverbial spring has sprung – in the last week kittens emerged from the iron roof of our kitchen/living room, explaining the random thumping overhead we’d been hearing ever since we arrived. The same day little baby birds hatched in the thatch roofing of our hut; they now wake me up with rustling and chirping every morning from 5am on. But hey, who is to discourage new life? We all co-exist and in the mornings I put in an ear plug and roll over. All except the dogs, that is, who are having a field day chasing the unfortunate kittens through the tall grass. So far I think they have all escaped early death. Vision, the most dog-looking dog in the pack of coyote-like dogs has become our friend. He often sleeps outside our kitchen and sometimes even runs alongside me as I loop the path around the soccer field, although he seems confused that I keep running but never actually get anywhere. In the end he gets bored and trots off.

And so one month in we are settling into both our new jobs and our new lives. Here is wishing spring has actually sprung in your neck of the woods…