On the Road Again

Like the great Willie Nelson of my childhood, we are “on the road again”. Our passionate intervention last week had the effect of proving our competence and energy, but not of convincing those in Windhoek to change their minds. Yesterday we loaded up the car and drove the 1500odd miles to Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip. While many of the volunteers we trained with are finishing up their work in their projects, ours is just beginning.

I am of two minds about the ‘relocation’. My main objection comes from a reluctance to move. While not ready to start ‘nesting’ yet, I have been feeling the strong urge to put down some sort of roots - somewhere, anywhere - after six years of not seeing further than the next six months. Call me old (I am almost 26 after all) but I am tired of living out of a backpack and tired of not having a home. We had just started to make friends in the area, the poor nameless dog, mother of the pups, has recently intimated her intentions of becoming our housedog, and I was ready to plant a garden. I wanted to see how the seeming barren land surrounding us will spring to life once the rains come. Driving through Oshakati the other day I was given a glimpse at the pain I will experience at leaving this country. For I truly felt a stab of pain and regret at the prospect of leaving the ugly, dusty town with which I have begun to feel a sense of ownership, a sense of belonging. In short, I am loathe to start again. Getting to know a new town, a new culture, a new set of people, a new job. Again. After all, this is our fourth move, our fourth new beginning, in just five months.

And yet I know how incredibly lucky I am. How lucky I am to get to have new beginnings. The day before I found out I was moving I had read an entry in a blog I have been following for the past two years. The writer is eloquent, full of grace, strong of mind, and heroically positive in the face of the unimaginable, and I know her much better through her words than through life. Yet the words that she does share, which no doubt are her way of making sense of her world, help me to make sense of mine. For the better. How interesting that in today’s small world we are able to learn from the insight and wisdom of people halfway across the world, oftentimes strangers, when just two hundred years back, a second in the grand scheme of things, we would have been forced to struggle on alone. I say this because after reading her entry I was able to overcome my usual pessimism and, shall I say, tendency to tantrums, and see this through the eyes of opportunity. Which it is.

The job is a good one, for Brian and I personally, for me professionally, and for the end goal of achieving something worthwhile. The HIV/AIDS prevalence in the area if 41%, the highest in the world. 41% of adults over the age of 15 are HIV positive. The TCE program there is ending in September and seems to be in a bit of a mess. The staff and management there admit not having the skills to fix the situation. They don’t know it yet, but we have just received funding from the CDC to begin a new five year program which will include field testing – this is huge and represents a massive opportunity to reach people and to change lives. Our job is not to be normal DI’s but to go in and strengthen the programs, review the systems and staff, and build the capacity of the Division Commander in preparation for the rollout of the new program. I am not giving up on my Support Group Training, which I hope to pilot in the Caprivi and then roll out in the other divisions. I also hope to help in some way with the creation of the new program, since this is effectively what I want to do ‘when I grow up’ and since contacts with the CDC can never hurt my future job prospects.

The location presents a new adventure, a new experience. The Caprivi Strip, if you look at it on a map, juts out from Namibia like finger. It is bordered by rivers and touches Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana and as such is minutes from both the famous Victoria Falls in Zambia and the Okavango Delta and Chobe River in Botswana. In culture and climate it is more like Zambia than Namibia. It is full of lush vegetation, bird and animal life, and political strife. I have heard that it is not unlikely for people living in the bush to come across elephants and lions in their day to day encounters. The Caprivi Strip is currently in the legal process of succession, which I doubt will ever happen, after a civil war from 1994 – 1999. So, as in many parts of Ireland, talking politics is a no-no. Don’t worry, I will be safe.

So we are taking this week to say our good-byes and to pack, once again, our backpacks. Except this time I will be traveling with much more than one backpack. It seems I have acquired a number of home comforts in the last two months. And, in quite a different context to its original meaning,

I’m letting go. Little by little.
But I am.

Letting go of unrealistic expectation and learning to accept things as they come. Not an invaluable lesson, to be sure. In fact, I think I am starting to get excited…

“On the road again, I can’t wait to be on the road again”