Etosha Road Trip

I'm not sure what I can write about Etosha National Park that other blogs and travel sites haven't already written. The place is simply amazing, there's tons of animals, and tons of driving. As part of Mark's celebratory forty-first, we drove north to Etosha for the weekend, stopping outside the park to sleep at Ohange Game lodge, located ninety minutes southeast of the Von Lindquist (east) entrance of the park. We ate outside under the stars and enjoyed sleeping in orange chalets.

Following that, we spent two nights experiencing what Namibian Wildlife Resorts (NWR) were like inside the park. The NWR company has monopoly on all national parks in Namibia, so you don't have much of choice. They aren't my favorite company because they sacrifice customer service in exchange for proximity. 

Our first night was spent at Onkoshi, perched on the edge of the pan with the lodge and chalets built on stilts. Walking on the suspended boardwalk, it was like we were waiting for high tide to come in. Supplied with a single fan for the room, I worried we would all roast and sweat together, as the temperature that day rose to over 90 F. Thankfully, as soon as the sun went down, so did the temperature, well below 40 F. Interestingly, with all of the dust kicked into the air, the sun and moon sets are gorgeous but without lingering moments of romance. They just set and that's it: they are literally done and dusted. 

On the second night, we stayed at Namutoni in a family room that had side by side shower heads in the recessed bathtub. What seemed like a fun idea of taking a family shower (I'm totally joking. I think...) turned sour when one shower head fell off revealing tatters of saran wrap that was stuffed inside the pipe. At least we had air conditioning and a mini fridge to chill the remaining two beers of our trip. 

In between lodge stays, we were on the road, driving from watering hole to watering hole on an obsessed mission to see elephants and cats. A lot of the animal sightings depend on being in the right place at the right time, so Mark and Margo got luck with a leopard sighting after I successfully whined my way to be dropped off at the lodge. Our friends enjoyed teems of lions at one watering hole, and others got to see cheetahs. It was hard not to be jealous, but I did take solace that we finally got to see more elephants than we could handle, some of which we could smell their breath they were so close. In case you were wondering, they smell bad. 

As a last hurrah in Etosha, Mark elected to drive west out of the park which added on two hours of driving. But we were both keen to see the lesser frequented area, and saw basically nothing. It was the kind of nothing that makes one irritated and grumpy after being on the east side and inundated with wildlife. We blew past anything that wasn't feline, thinking that maybe we'd been in Namibia too long when giraffes or oryx were no longer exciting. Then we saw elephants mating in the bushes, so that helped. The kids logically followed up with "how are babies made?" and immediately regretted asking me that question. 

Ohange Lodge

Kudu

Literally surrounded by wild animals and she's reading a book. 

Onkoshi

Onkoshi

Moon set. 

On the edge of the pan at Onkoshi. 

Among the acacia thorns.

We couldn't' figure out if he was truly stuck or just resting his big head.
After 15 minutes, he extricated himself with moderate struggling. 

Watering hole at Namutoni.

Banded meerkcats at Namutoni.

Black rhino sighting early in the morning. 

Greater Kestrel. 

Emily Goes to Court

This sounds like a brag, but I am friends with one of the Namibian Supreme Court Justices. He and I met several months ago in a writing group that was started by a Fulbright Fellow who taught  at the University of Namibia this past year. Though the fellow has since left the country, the group has managed to stay together much to my pleasure, meeting every couple of weeks to share our stories. One of them introduced themselves as a lawyer. 

Then I came to find out that he wasn't just any lawyer, but a human rights one. Oh- and by the way: a Supreme Court Justice. The words that flow onto his paper tell stories of his clients who were involved in the resistance during Apartheid. They were tortured. Abused. Thrown in jail while he was shunned by family and friends. He was threatened - and not the banal, fist shaking kind of threats.  For years he fought for the underrepresented, winning cases by arguing against the laws that protected no one except the elite. He did was what necessary: sneaking in cameras to gather evidence. He met with clients in the dead of night and under excruciating environmental conditions and surveillance of the police who had all the power. 

He's the kind of guy to think about when you are having a bad day.  He's the kind of guy whose name is David but goes by Dave. He's passionate, humble, damn smart, and kind. I hope that some day  his own story is told. There just aren't enough Daves in this word. 

Last week Dave set me up on a tour of his workplace. We met his law assistant Kema, a lawyer also dedicated to human rights.  She walked us around the monolithic building that was built on a hill facing the center of downtown. Its visionaries chose a Moroccan Riad theme to set it apart from existing German colonial styles around the city: a spacious white courtyard in the middle surrounded by two stories of public, semi-private, and private offices that would oversee the law of the land. Long, rectangular pillared corridors flank the main entrance as if they were embracing the city. They used simple square windows to encourage air passage, and angled vents to reflect the sun away from the interior. The entrance has the judicial articles of the Namibian Constitution etched into the granite. Though the building is imposing and slightly terrifying to walk into, it is open to the public. Anyone can attend court hearings or visit the reading room provided you check in with security. 

Inside, the two courtrooms A & B are bright white with an accent wall at the back center where the Justices sit. The boxy red and pink granite stone from Karibib (a small town west of Windhoek) pay homage to Spitzkoppe, a 120 million year old mountain that rises out of nowhere in the Namib Desert. I sat in the Chief Justice chair and immediately slid off the polished leather. It took a considerable amount of effort to stay put, it was so poofy. I wondered if that was done purpose. To remind the judges of the effort it takes to get there in the first place. 

We passed through the reading room and entered the library which houses hundreds of thousands of newspapers and books. Some of them were from the 1600's, covered in stiff animal hide. A few had broken spines, exposing the painstaking detail of an individual who hand-sewed the pages together. There were law books in English, Afrikaans, German, Italian, Dutch, and Latin. Seeing a sack of brown sugar forgotten on a chair made the place feel a bit more human. 

As part of the grand finale, we were introduced to Dave who stood in his office that was lined with hundreds of more books, some still in boxes from transporting them to his home office, his preferred place of work. Dave walked us through the prestigious judge's entrance into the courtroom and answered questions about cases he'd tried and cases he'd judged. He spoke candidly about his career and the perilous paths it took him. 

Finally, he walked us outside where he shared details about the plants and trees that were planted outside of the building. Dave is 100% Namibian with a huge admiration for horticulture. Most plants are protected because of their uniqueness and important roles in water conservation. For example, the shepherd's tree taproots can extend as deep as 68 meters below the surface. It's a hearty caper family tree whose berries are a key source of nutrition for animals and humans. Plus they can be roasted as a coffee bean substitute. 

At any rate, I am thrilled that he took the time to show us around. The court definitely felt less intimidating afterward. But then again, I wasn't (and hopefully never will be) on trial. Then I think this place would be terrifying all over again. 

Supreme Court of Namibia:
built in 1997. No buildings are
allowed to block the front. 

Courtroom A. 

There's always 3 judges, and sometimes 5.
The acoustics in the room require that presenting lawyers
speak clearly and loudly whereas everyone can hear a pin drop from the bench. 

Fine tuning their book return system.

Books dating back as early as 1664.

Supreme Court Justice Office

Supreme Court Justice Office.
 The Justices are just like real people.

Memorial gardens.

Supreme Court Justice Dave Smuts
 talking about one of the acacia tree variations,
intentionally planted to stay consistent with Namibian landscape. 

The woman who is going to change it all: Kema.

Diamond Processing in Namibia

I always thought that diamonds were a snooty business, especially when people take out their monocles and tweezers to scrutinize imperfections. They do it all over a swatch of black velvet and bright light, determined to see every angle, every sparkle. Diamond people are the ones who won't touch handrails. They wear Italian fashion, get manicures, and carry an alligator skin binder. That, or their assistant does.

It makes sense though. Historically, Greeks once considered diamonds to be the tear drops of Greek gods. Diamonds symbolize power, courage, virility, and love, and especially reserved for royalty. So when I booked a tour to visit Hard Stone Processing, one of Windhoek's smaller but highly competitive diamond dealers, I imagined all sorts of vain snobbery.

The experience was anything but. Greeted by a bespectacled man named Thomas, he was in jeans and a fleece pullover. We walked past the security guard who left his loaded rifle tilted against the chair, the kind we used to set out for church functions at the school gymnasium. Thomas sat us down on a saggy, white leather sectional and handed us a laminated sheet on the four Cs: cut, carat, color, clarity. He explained that in his processing plant, there are two diamond categories: aggregated, which are boxes of unprocessed diamonds that come from Canada, Botswana, and South Africa, and un-aggregated, Namibian originals. Many people want a home town original, he said.

Namibian diamonds are mostly mined from the sea. They washed up there from the Orange River millions of years ago. At some point they returned to the Namibian desert, starting a diamond frenzy back in 1908. (See the Kolmanskuppe blog post for more of that story). Because of this, Namibia one day will run out of diamonds as there are not significant mines within the earth. But for now, the Namibian diamond companies enjoy a prestige that was once kept as a highly guarded secret.

Thomas pulled us into one of his labs, where a technician named Axel was using an ultra-red light laser to project the rock's image onto a computer screen. He too was wearing jeans and fleece. He manipulated the image with a sophisticated software from Israel that plots points on a rough diamond to make future cuts. The technician turned a 2-D image into 3-D like it was no big deal. Between Axel's eyes and the software, he could pick out inclusions that he'd need to compensate for when the official cuts would be made. All this on a cloudy white rock that was no bigger than the piece of gravel I once got stuck up my nose as a child.

Thomas and Axel introduced us to several of his artisans, many of whom had been there for ten years or more. They wore smart, blue cotton uniforms, warmed by portable heat lamps. A few were in charge of the beginning process called bruting where two diamonds are placed on a spinning axle across each other and spun around to give them a round shape. The computer screens on these babies were fresh out of 1984, just like the Macintosh 128K.

Some artisans were assigned to buff the diamonds, a painstakingly patient job that involves micro adjustments to keep the diamond as symmetrical as possible. They use a what looks like record player to smooth the rough parts, a clamp to hold it, and a monocle to inspect. The whole process takes about one hour per diamond.

The last group we visited were the ones creating facets around the circumference of the diamond. Perched on stools, these employees have to have a steady hand and well developed fine motor skills to make the final marks.The problem is, the facet machine can make the diamonds extremely hot and force them to ping out of their holders. Their solution: they built a netted cage to minimize the fly-zone.

One of the most famous cuts HSP does is the Namibian Sun. It's a patented design of the sun on the Namibian flag, a perfect circle outlined by twelve triangular sunbursts. They only use Namibian diamonds and Namibian artisans, and is only available in Namibian jewelry stores.Their first Namibian Sun masterpiece was donated to the First Lady of Namibia. I am not sure if they meant their current First Lady, Monica Geingob, or the succession of First Ladies (there's only been three). Either way, it's one hell of a souvenir.

Crazy enough, after the diamond receives its finishing touches and is ready for shipment, they are placed back into their original container: a folded piece of paper with a sticker on it. By then the paper is thin and gray with smudgy pencil notes. The folded pieces of paper are boxed up and sent to Belgium for further evaluation and grading. I guess that diamond business isn't 100% snooty after all. After all the care and handling these artists do from computers to lasers to tools, I'd knock the snootiness down by at least 20%.

Showing us the future of this rough diamond.

Bruting machine, something
I imagine what a multi-media
modern artist might conjure up.

The old timey way to brute a diamond,
using a foot pedal and wooden dowel.

One of the owners is an
honorary Turkish consul. 

The workspace.

Clamps aka Table Tongs.

The buff girls.

All hail President Hage Geingob.

The facet cage.

Admiring a 2 carat Namibian Sun diamond.

Saturday morning shopping

It's 7:30am on a Saturday and I am standing in a fat, globular line for the gates to open at 8:00. The folks at the front arrived between 6:00 and 6:30, before the sun was even thinking about coming up. Most of the locals are standing in the chill wrapped in blankets and towels, holding space for their friends who arrive late. No one here pretends to be apologetic about pushing their way through, they just do it.

The cold air smells strongly of manure and faintly of blood. I can't take a deep inhalation through my nose not because of the smell, but because of my allergies. My sinuses are blocked because of the dander and animal hair floating in the air and I regret not bringing coffee. Drinks can wait, I reason. I am here to experience one of Windhoek's most anticipated sales of the year: the Nakara Leather Factory Sale. 

Nakara only holds their sale once a year and only at their factory site. They hardly advertise. Or if they do, they stick with the German and Afrikaans newspapers. Plus their website had been down for about a month prior, so you really had to pay attention to the rumors for the official sale date. I found out about the date when I was talking to heavily lip-stained individuals at a wine extravaganza the night before, an event that had advertisements on every light pole in town. 

The clock ticked closer and the crowed squished tighter, pushing toward the gate that I hoped would  open inward. I worried this leather sale might resemble a Black Friday or a wedding dress sale in the States and regretted wearing my slip on clogs. If I went down, would anyone notice? And what about the children who dotted the crowd as well? I could feel my chest get tighter as the employees on the other side rattled the chain, unlocking the gate.

Once that gate was cracked, it was all over. About fifty people sprinted forward with blanket tails flying behind them. They'd played this game before, dodging the wide eyed newbies and sliding past the little ones. I had no idea what I was looking at or where I was going, so I let the crowd carry me around the sharp left hand turn. Down a long outdoor corridor were neatly stacked waist high mounds of skins: springbok, kudu, cow, zebra. Shoppers had already started making discard piles, scrutinizing one layer of skin before tossing it aside. 

In high school, I worked at a bingo hall to earn money that went to fund the marching band I was in. Every weekend, we would don our marigold band t-shirts and stand behind the pickle counter. Pickles are like scratch tickets, except players don't scratch: they peel. The sound of perforating cardstock still gives me chills. Our customers were mostly chain-smoking women with terrible lipstick.  They'd slap down a twenty or a hundred, and we would count out the pickles. Some of them were 50 cent and 1 dollar pickles, but most of them were 25 cents. These women were fast and didn't miss anything, not a winning pickle, not if you miscounted their sacred stack of 2,500. They'd open those pickles as fast as I could sell them, leaving a sea of losers swimming around their ankles. 

It was deja vu. I watched people guard their piles, making rapid assessment of quality, one layer at a time. Only when they found their desired skin would they relinquish their territory. The scavengers would take over, making even bigger, tangled messes. By the time the weakest arrived, the only things left over were the dusty, furry haze of poorly handled material, and kins with patchy bald spots or weird patterns. I picked up a few springbok furs and tucked them under my arm, ignoring the pungent tannery chemicals that gave me contact high.

Shopping carts were only doled out to the serious buyers who could afford it. I am not sure how this was determined, but the cart guards were turning people away forcing a few to sling heavy zebra or cow hides over their shoulders instead. The guards had eyes everywhere.

The corridor eventually led into the warehouse to the smaller items. Ostrich bags of all shapes and sizes went down one wall, wallets on the other. In the center was rack after rack of leather jackets and belts. The cement floor was clean but slick from loose hair. I felt pressure begin to build behind my cheeks and my eyes burned, begging to be scratchedt 

I picked up an ostrich bag pretending to look like I knew what a decent ostrich bag should look like.  The lady next to me said it was hers and grabbed it out of my hands, giving me side eye and a curled lip. I picked up another and ran away from her, but she had turned her back to me, already forgotten. I browsed the wallets and glanced at the jackets. One man caught my eye who was doing a runway walk with a black leather jacket, testing out the zippers and sizing the pocket depth. I wondered if he knew it was a women's jacket, but it didn't matter. He looked great. I hope he bought it.

After the initial ten minutes of adrenaline, my enthusiasm for leather shopping petered out. People must have smelled my lack competition because the elbow jabs got a bit sharper and I was easily weaseled out of the fold. I turned around to an orderly row of employees who wrote out my invoice, then onto another row of people who rung up my bill. I was passed onto the baggers, funneled past security, and escorted to the one-way exit. Checking out was a bit dreamy, and as I stared at the cinder block wall, I wondered if I hallucinated the entire thing. Smells of grilled droëwors and glühwein pulled me around the corner to the exit where food vendors set up to feed the masses. The glühwein wasn't hot enough and I thought that an 8:15am beer might make my allergies worse. But I love that it was there. Namibia is good for things like that.

Haunted by Ghost Hides

Except for Dave Matthews Band blasting throughout the place, our visit to the Tannery Market was a decent one. There is a new local market scene in Windhoek, based out of a converted tannery warehouse about 5 km north of the city. Free and easy parking, free entry, and convenient daytime hours give this market a distinct advantage over the others. We walked into the wide doors, past rows of picnic benches immediately to our left, and scents of caramelized smoked brisket to the right. Directly in front were the smaller food stalls that did not demand ventilation for grilling. 

These stalls were set up in between concrete partitions where enormous oak drums once rotated thousands of pounds of animal hide soaked in a chemical solution to preserve the skin and separate the fur. The oak drums were likely hooped with massive bands of stainless steel, each with mechanical arms on either side of the barrel, working together linked pistons to rotate them all at once. The beverage stall was set up in a corner of the warehouse where likely a conveyor belt moved wet, intestine colored hides to the next station for water and flesh removal. After which, the skins would be trimmed and split, separating the top-grain from the unwanted bottom layer. 

At the end of the giant room sat two bouncy castles, placed underneath a yellow-red painted H-beam that stretched the width of the warehouse, about 40 feet above. The beam still had gnarly construction type hooks hanging,  with just enough rust to threaten a fall. Perhaps it was here, where thousands of pale, bleached hides would hang to dry before the next cycle of tanning and dyeing. 

Beyond the main room were two more rooms, each walled off on the bottom half but with a history all their own. Birds flew in freely under the eaves, where they would game plan to retrieve discarded, forgotten pieces of food that missed many mouths and hit the concrete floor. The swallows chirped and the crows cawed. No wonder Deets thought this place was haunted. Despite the happy screams of children and the roar of jovial Afrikaans conversation, he sat in his chair silent and wide eyed, without an appetite.

Inside, the concrete bricks felt cold and unforgiving, especially with the partitions pained a moody black.  Outside, the mood was much lighter with sunshine hitting the walls and faces of people with pearly red cheeks. The dust kicked up from children playing tag, and Arabian horses stuffed themselves with hay as their caretaker guzzled orange drink. On one side of the building was the vast parking lot with armed guards patrolling row after row. On the other, were the Brakwater Mountains with endless stretches of camelthorn trees, already thirsty from the rainy season about two months ago. Not a drop of moisture was in the air, a stark contrast to the hide soaked history of this building. 

The next market at the Tannery will be June 30. I would like to go back on the premise of learning more about the building that once employed hundreds of staff in the creation of tanned hides. What happened to the staff?  How did they manage the daily processing load? It's a process that prior to our visit, I had never given much thought. Well, a few Youtube videos put that curiosity to rest. Imagine the smells of the factory as freshly skinned hides begin the curing process, perhaps with salt to reduce the rate of decomposition; when they are dumped into a vat of milk-lime, or when soaked in sulfuric acid. No wonder Deets was wigged out by the whole place. 

The hip thing to do in Windhoek: go to markets

Stairway to god-knows-where.
Photo: https://www.instagram.com/tannerywhk/

The great yellow-red H beam.

Drying hides: ghostly skins from animals once.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbj1QicTdpI

 Chemical treatments with white
partitions supporting the barrels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbj1QicTdpI

Partitions now separating food stalls.
Windhoek being cute and whimsical.
https://www.instagram.com/tannerywhk/

Thoughts on Bidding

During every tour with the Foreign Service, there comes a time where bidding becomes an obsession; a period of strategic planning of finding jobs that will be appropriate to the needs of the family: a job that will challenge Mark and help him grow as an officer, an hopefully one that doesn't steal his soul, a place that has decent school opportunities for the kids, and if the Jim-dog can come. We consider my opportunities as well. Can we find a country that I get to explore, or even better: can I work? If I have learned anything at all about myself in the entirety of my life, is that I love to work. I need to work. I crave work, to deter the idle hands of spousal life that is always a precarious risk when your spouse works in the Foreign Service.

Even though we won't likely find out where we will go until September of this year, bidding already takes a large amount of effort and attention for Mark. He needs to reach out and network, making inquiries as to whether he would be a viable candidate for position X. He seeks advice from past bosses and organizes his thoughts into this complicated web of"if, then" possibilities. It's exhausting but part of the game. Maybe he will get formal interviews by the end of summer, maybe not. Maybe he will be led to water, but will he drink? Will he find something that fits his and our needs? Can we have the best of both worlds?

My point is, there is so much to consider and yet a lot of things are out of our control. It's a long, drawn out dance and while he has his methods to keep him sane, I have to admit that bidding season always leaves me in limbo. I don't work from home or telework, so  I can't really make a career decision of what to do with myself until we know where we will be going. Even then, it's still a mess of "if, then" possibilities and a metric ton's worth of "what ifs" and "maybes." For example: if we get posted to a place that requires language training, then I have to decide whether to work, take language, or study something else. Would anyone even hire me as a nurse? Would I start at the bottom of the totem pole if I did? Probably. Should I study something like massage therapy, or go back to school for a Masters? I wouldn't mind working as a temp, in fact, it could be very fun. But a decision like that in lieu of taking language could be a detriment to my wellbeing at post. After all, human beings as a whole need to feel understood, to be able to communicate.  

All of this consideration leaves me overwhelmed. It also leaves me angsty, gassy, and sometimes hot tempered. I thought maybe it would help to write about it. Maybe it will make it worse. Either way, I should be grateful that I am spoiled for choice. 

During the hiring freeze last year, I toyed with the idea of teaching yoga as a home-owned business. There would be a lot of annoying business junk that I would have to face, but it seemed like a decent option. Plus I am at a crossroads of deepening my practice and I am barely getting to know the fundamentals of a meditation practice. There is so much that I don't know, but at the same time, so much that I want to offer. I thought, perhaps another yoga cert would be just the thing.

I also considered getting an online certificate in copy editing, a skill that could be useful in not only personal blog posts, but to help others, preferably as a paid gig. Boring and painful to read someone else's drivel? Absolutely. Useful? Also absolutely. 

Then a writer friend of mine told me very recently that I should consider getting an MFA in writing, probably the nicest compliment I could ever get. In the U.S., there are a few programs where I could earn an MFA as a low-resident, meaning I would travel to the school twice a year for 2 week, onsite intensives. By intense, my writer friend indicated, would be literal blood, sweat, and tears, as we'd be baring our souls 24/7, writing, editing, critiquing ,etc. Something like 4 semesters and 60 credit hours later, I'd get a Masters degree.

In fact, during my MFA research today, I was looking at the faculty list at one of these low residency programs and saw my college freshman english lit teacher. Even after 18 years, I recognized her immediately and felt nostalgia and admiration pound in my chest. I don't remember much about her class, except that she was an overwhelmed grad student. Half of my class was football players. We tried to write rhetoric and personal essays and I tried too hard to be quirky and funny. I also remember trying baclava for the first time in her class, though I don't remember why. 

Of course I stalked her on FB and sent her a message saying hello. Turns out, she's kind of a big deal in writing circles with all kinds of awards. I bought her books then read her CV with a growing sense of unease and paranoia. How on earth could I ever amount to something like that? How could I possibly have enough intelligence and self-awareness to accomplish such a feat?

Mark told me to shut the hell up. 

Yoga and meditation (as a unified concept, you can't have one with other) basically teaches us to live in the present moment. I observe and honor this concept, but at the same time, I fight it because our lifestyle demands a huge amount of planning and flexibility. It is so easy to get swept up in the "if, then" statements. I definitely love the flair of drama that fuels my ability write, wallow, and freak out about my future. So for now, I give myself the next thirty minutes to do just that. Then I will shut the hell up. At least until tomorrow.