Opposites and Paradoxes

It's hard to figure out what to write here.  Everything just kind of trucks along at a steady pace, and nothing seems significant enough for a post, though I don't want to leave anything out either.  In the month and a half that I've been here so far, I've found it very hard to settle in.  Gobabeb is such a unique and polarizing place, leaving me extremely happy one day, and extremely sad the next.  I never really just feel neutral here, instead everything seems to work in extremes.  Gobabeb is a place of opposites and paradoxes.  Let me give some examples:

Gobabeb is the quietest place I have ever been.  At night, my room is silent, with only the sound of wind and the occasional howls of jackels to break through the silence.  Whenever a rare plane flies over, we all stop and look for it as the loud engine breaks through our usual peace and quiet.

Gobabeb is the loudest place I have ever been.  School groups bring giant speakers and blast hip hop music as they run around yelling and singing.  The TV is always on in old house playing a soap opera, music videos, or most recently South Africa's version of American Idol.

Gobabeb is extremely lonely.  Some days I talk to maybe one person in passing the entire day.  I'll stand over the stove cooking in silence, only to move to the table to eat alone.  I'll walk to my room realizing that I haven't said more than a couple words to anyone all day.

I am never alone at Gobabeb.  Some days I can't get a minute to myself as I rush from giving a nature walk to a group of tourists to give a lecture on the scientific method to 30 Grade 10 learners from Walvis Bay.  As soon as the clock hits five and everyone else leaves work to cook dinner and relax, I am climbing a dune with 25 loud Grade 5 learners who decide it's a good idea to start a sand fight.  I finally sit down for a second only to realize I need to grab the UV lights to go on a night-time scorpion hunt with 16 American University students.  I finally lay down in bed happy to finally be alone, only to wake up the next day to do it again.

Scorpion Hunt

There is not enough to do here at Gobabeb.  Some weeks I'll sit at my desk planning a trip to Botswana just to pass the time.  I sit around waiting for the phone to ring just to give me something to do.

There is way too much to do at Gobabeb.  Some weeks I work non-stop from 8 to 8 only to have barely made a dent in my long to-do list.  As soon as I feel I've made progress on one project, someone drops an entirely new project on my desk.

Gobabeb is boring.  I wake up on a day off wondering what the heck I'm going to do with an entire day off.  I desperately wish the internet was fast enough to download movies.  Perhaps I'll just take a nap...

There are so many things to do here.  Should we climb the dunes? Should we set up sand volleyball? Should we set up the projector to watch a movie? Maybe we should take off the pool cover.  Or perhaps we can have a potluck. And when on earth am I going to have time to go backpacking in the Naukluft mountains. Oh and I ran out of bread, I better bake another loaf.  And when in doubt, old house always needs a thorough cleaning...

My job is monotonous.  I give the same tours over and over to each group.  I run the same programme for every learner.  I sit at my desk and make the same phone call 50 times.  I listen to the same hold tone on every phone call.

My job is never the same.  One day I'll sit at my desk sending emails and making phone calls.  The next I'm at the MPI tower changing cryotraps and taking flask samples.  The next day I might be with a group of Swedish tourists.  The next I might be with a group of Namibian school kids.  The next I might be off to Swakup to buy plants for the YES Programme.  Next week perhaps I'll be going to Windhoek to recruit learners for GTRIP.  No week is ever the same.

Going to the MPI Tower

There are very few people at Gobabeb.  Only 12 people consistently work here right now.  I guess sometimes there can be as many as 15, but not recently.  In fact, most of our staff was away on a course in the north for the past month, leaving only 4 of us at the station.  I see the same faces every day.  I see the same people at work, in the kitchen, around the tv, and on my days off.

There are so many people at Gobabeb.  Over 1000 students visit Gobabeb, and over 200 researchers come to do work each year.  In the past month I have played jenga with a German lizard scientist, had a potluck with an American family, been invited to dinner with German tourists who spoke very little English, been offered drinks from Topnaar men and teachers, watched the moonrise with two Namibian teenage boys, talked about aerosols with French scientists, and much more.  There are almost always exciting people at the station, and very few of them stay for longer than a month.  Faces are always changing around here.

Moon-Rise with Teenage Namibians

I have learned so much at Gobabeb.  I can literally talk for hours (and do on a regular basis) about the three unique ecosystems here.  I can name many plants and animals by their scientific names, English common names, Afrikaans names, and sometimes even Nama names.

I have learned next to nothing here. The only information I actually know about Namibia is the information I recite on an often daily basis for tourists.  I cross my fingers that they don't ask many questions, because I don't have any of the answers.  I sit to talk to our director about a programme that I am in charge of, only to find that I am supposed to give lectures to graduate students about statistics, desert ecology, ephemeral rivers and plant biology... Nothing I know allows me to contribute here.  I am simply the history major that ended up with a bunch of brilliant scientists, don't mind me.

Giving a Station Tour

Overall, it is hard to get a handle on my new life here in Namibia.  Some days I feel very happy here, and can't wait for the next day.  Other days I wonder what I'm doing here and what good I could possibly be doing.  Though sometimes I get whiplash from one day to the next,  the changes are becoming comforting.  As soon as I get settled on one emotion, I often flip moods entirely.  However, the rapid changes simply mean that the days that I feel homesick and useless, I can take comfort in the fact that this feeling will pass as quickly as it came.  On days where I feel happy and productive, I embrace the feeling while it lasts.

As I slowly build a routine, I am getting more and more settled despite all the rapid changes.  No matter how different today is from the next day, I can stay grounded in the things that stay constant: my morning runs, my weekly sun-downer in the dunes, my monthly town trips.  I've begun to find things to keep myself busy and focused, no matter what is happening at work or among staff members like sketching, baking, running, and reading.  I hope that when I find some constants in my new life, the changes will become less significant.  More like gusts of wind blowing through grasses rather than waves on a shell.  While a shell is at the mercy of the waves, being whipped back and forth and thrown against rocks and beaches, grass moves with the wind while staying rooted in the earth below.  I'm so poetic I know.

Baking Muffins and a Cake

On a Mid-Day Run

Right now I am feeling very happy and settled here at Gobabeb.  But once again we are on the brink of some very big changes.  While there have only been a few people here the past few weeks, the rest of our staff is returning tonight with a handful of university students here for a course.  While the past few weeks have been very quiet and slow, the schools just got off for holiday, leaving us with school visits every day this week.  On top of that, the YES (youth environmental summit), a programme for 30 Grade 11 Namibian learners that I have been planning for the last month and a half begins in two

weeks.

The Garden Before YES work

It seems like everything is changing once again... but that's what makes life exciting here in the Namib.

Cultural Differences and Human Similarities

I had my first Namibian school group a couple weeks ago.  I didn't feel prepared at all: I didn't know the information to give tours, I had no idea how to run the programs, and I didn't even know where the campsite was.  Thank goodness Robert has stuck around, because I was able to sit back and learn as he led the tours and ran the programs.  Though I was learning a lot about the station and our environment, I found that there was a lot more than cool nature facts that I would have to learn to do my job.

As Robert led the first tour, every student had a cell phone out.  They were taking pictures, texting, and even taking phone calls as Robert led the high school group around the station.  The kids took pictures of everything, from photos of a rain gauge to shots of each student individually striking a pose in front of a Mustard Bush.

We tried our best to convince the teachers to accompany us on the next tour, in the hope that they would encourage participation, but the teachers refused outright, citing the need to get meat.  As Robert introduced the weather station, the kids were unable to define weather, climate, or even a desert.  We moved around the weather station, finally arriving at the last instrument: the Stevenson Screen.  Suddenly, every student's hand shot into the air.  They could name every fact about the Stevenson Screen! "Sir, sir, it has a wet bulb and a dry bulb."  "Sir, sir, it is white to stay cool."  This went on and on until they had named every basic fact about the instrument.  I was bewildered.  It was clear that the Stevenson Screen was on the Namibian high school curriculum, but the definition of weather was not.

 As we moved to our next program, I brought a group of students around to set pit traps.  I hadn't said much throughout the day, as Robert was leading and I was trying to learn everything I could.  I was therefore surprised when a few of the girls wanted me to pose in a photo with them.  I happily complied, confused as to why they were interested in documenting their experience with me: the woman who stood in the back and took notes the entire trip.  Don't get me wrong, I'm used to taking pictures with girls who don't know much about me; after all, I worked at a Girl Scout Camp.  But unlike at camp, every student in the group wanted a picture with me, while I'm sure less than half knew my name.  As we headed into the dunes for a sundowner, the kids continued to snap photo after photo, each boy following me around to get a picture on top of the dunes.

Walking up to Station Dune

As we walked down the dune back to camp, I heard the bleat of a goat in the distance.  I immediately realized what the teacher had meant about getting meat earlier.  It was silly of me to think anything different, but when someone says "I need to get meat," I generally picture a run to the nearest grocery for boneless chicken breasts and ground beef.  As the nearest grocery is about two hours away, it made much more sense for the teacher to go to the nearest Topnaar village and barter for a goat.  I walked into camp looking around for the animal, only to finally see it poking it's head out of the school bus window.  As one of the boys walked by me with a large knife, I was trying to decide if I was ready to see a goat be slaughtered.  I had no problem with the group killing and eating a goat, in fact I'm sure it had received better treatment than most animals I've eaten, but all the same, I was mentally preparing for the sight.

Overall, I felt out of my element the entire weekend.  I wondered if it would be somehow culturally insensitive to scold students for using their phones, and how to get teachers to participate without being rude.  I've created and led a multitude of programs for hundreds of groups of kids ranging from 7 years old to 17 years old, and yet I did not feel ready to lead Namibian school groups on my own.  Robert discussed his frustration with teachers that do not participate.  I told him that we have to recognize the fact that this is a cultural issue.  However, just because something is cultural doesn't inherently make it okay.  I said it is our job to push back against these problems while simultaneously recognizing the cultural sensitivity of the situation.

As the school bus pulled away, both Robert and I sighed with relief.  An American University was coming later in the day, and I was excited to work with people I could relate to.  I was ready to have intellectual conversations and have a group who was excited to learn about things like climate.

The group pulled up and quickly unloaded their massive bags of luggage from their bus.  We jumped into our first tour, which I led, feeling confident about both the information and the group.  One of the students asked to talk to Robert about climate change, and he happily complied.  As they sat down, it became clear the student did not believe in climate change, leading us to wonder why she was doing a project on the subject.  Robert did his best to have a productive conversation with the girl despite their differences.

As we sat with the group that night, they were loud and boisterous, doing impressions, blasting music, and laughing at their bus driver's sexist jokes.  I felt way out of my element, sitting in the back with a smile plastered to my face.

That night Robert and I found ourselves having the same conversation about we had a few days previously about cultural sensitivity.

The next morning I walked up to the group, only to hear them discussing something insensitive that was said the night before.  This led to a discussion about intolerance and the need to be open minded.  I was extremely surprised that the group was having this discussion at all, and was pleased that they were clearly pushing their boundaries.  I felt a bit ashamed of myself for giving up on this group and becoming so frustrated.  Encouraging simple discussions about tolerance like this would be so much more productive than writing the group off entirely.  I mentally shook myself, and promised to do better for the rest of the visit.

We drove to the nearest Topnaar village, and I was interested to see how the group would react to seeing the living situation of the indigenous people.  The first three questions were about religion.  By asking three questions about religion first, it became clear that the group felt that whether or not the old Topnaar man and woman were faithful Christains was the most important piece of knowledge.  Our hosts answered the questions quickly and easily (illustrating that they are quite used to getting these questions), before the group moved onto other topics.  Overall the visit was great for both the group and for me.  I didn't know what to feel as the students walked around the small house snapping shots of corrugated metal and cardboard walls, homemade dresses, and hungry animals with their $1,000 cameras.  I did not blame the students for this; I have a similar camera in my backpack, an iPhone in my pocket, and brand new REI clothing on my back.  The sight reminded me to check my privilege, and to keep what is truly important constantly in mind.

Visiting a Topnaar Village

As the group pulled away, I learned an important lesson:  Every person/group, no matter their background, culture, skin color, or country of origin, will be different from you.  However, you can find at least as many similarities as differences if you put in an effort.  It is essential to focus on these similarities rather than the differences, no matter how obvious the differences or small the similarities.

In the end I found that I ran into just as many cultural differences with the American group as I did with the Namibian group.  But even more importantly, I found that both groups were capable of having important discussions, whether that simply be about the definition of weather or be a more complicated talk on the importance of tolerance.  These discussions would never be had if I had only focussed only on cultural differences instead of human similarities.  Everyone is capable of opening their mind, and that is something I will never again forget.

After all, it's all worth it when you get letters like this: