Return

Well, that interval certainly proved longer than I intended…..

When I last wrote in June, we were so excited to be taking our farewell journey with our friends, camping together throughout as much of Namibia as we could show them in two weeks.

By the time we saw them off for their return flight home, we had five days to get all our goods packed, surrender our trusty car to the new owner, give away what we couldn’t take back with us, and get our little apartment in good shape to give back to Poly — all concrete tasks; all easily handled.

The camping trip with Bruce and Peg provided lots of ‘that’s the last time we’ll see that’ moments, but at the time, we were so excited to show them everything we could, the little twinges of sadness that bubbled up got shoved aside to be dealt with later. It wasn’t until we actually started to pack up our six(!) suitcases

that we realized what profound sadness there was going to be in leaving. We had come to love Namibia and our life in beautiful Windhoek,

but most especially, the amazing friends we had made and the irreplaceable experiences we had during our year. Turns out, coping with non-concrete emotions of sadness and loss—not so easily handled.


The day before we left was my birthday. The teachers at the preschool asked that I visit one last time to say good-bye (again!) and celebrate my birthday. The kids and teachers presented me with beautiful gifts crafted from shared memories of my extraordinary year spent with them.

They sang all the songs they knew, some of them mastered just for this occasion. There were dances, recitations, hugs, laughter, and tears all around.

Hard as it was, I finally had to hang up my Teacher Lynn moniker and leave the school for the very last time.

Here is what my walk to my car was like.

It broke my heart.

Our farewell dinner with friends was emotionally just as difficult. Even though we laughed a lot, ate and drank heartily, were saluted with an original limerick written just for us by the poet laureate of the group,

and gifted with such thoughtful mementos of our year together, leaving our friends behind was like a little death.

We've been back for six months now.  It has taken these past six months to start to put it all into perspective, to try to figure out how to be home when a large part of us still feels like we left home behind in Namibia.

A woman I met a few days before we left Windhoek told me, “You have been changed by being here. Africa’s in your blood now…..you’ll come back”.

I hope she’s right.


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P.S. There are more adventures to chronicle. I intend to do just that. Check back in a couple of weeks if you like.

Camping Safari – the last two days heading back to Windhoek

The morning of January 13, leaving the Caprivi to head back to Windhoek, we had a big drive ahead – from Kongola 620 km west back across the Caprivi Strip to Rundu, then southwest toward Grootfontein for the night. We had a final cup of coffee at the Lodge that morning

and with the truck packed up and our low tire situation rectified by the Lodge grounds manager who graciously let us use his tire gauge (ours was faulty) and compressor (while I admired his amazing bonsai collection growing in pots throughout his yard), we headed back down the road to Kongola.

Everyone gets up and at it early in Namibia. The store at Kongola was already bustling with business as we turned west onto the B8 toward Rundu.

 The morning was overcast with rain threatening all around. The road toward Grootfontein was long and with rain around most of the day, I took only a few photos.

Again, elephants eluded us throughout the 80 km per hour zone where they frequently cross the highway. I think everyone’s thoughts were turned toward the fast approaching end to the adventure. My own thoughts were bittersweet -– we had just had the best vacation the professor and I could remember with all our kids-- but we would have to see them off and back to their regular lives in a short two days.

By late afternoon, we had arrived at Roy’s Place, our stop for the night. Roy’s has its own unusual style and is a popular location for overnight campers.

One of those campers described to me the huge herds of elephants she had seen on the same stretch of highway where we saw none!

The next day, January 14, we made the 510 km drive from Roy’s back to Windhoek.

 
As we got closer to Windhoek, we could tell that since December 29 when we left, there had been lots of rain. Enough to turn normally sun bleached fields to verdant green and shrubby grasses to giants, taller than some men!

 We got back to Windhoek by late afternoon with gigabytes of photos to offload to laptops, all of them images of memories to last a lifetime.