No Computer, No New Blog Posts

Updating my blog has been a pretty difficult task this month. Mainly because my computer blew up a few weeks ago, leaving me with nothing to type on and no way to keep everyone updated. It was traumatic at first (loss of technology here almost always is). But ultimately, it's been a bit of a blessing. It's freed up time to finish reading those last lonley books left sitting on my shelf, visit friends and say my goodbyes.

Seven weeks is barely any time.

Work is slowing down, but my life has still been remarkably busy. Two weekends ago a few volunteers and dozens of learners traveled to Swakopmund for the Lucky Star Marathon. I've always been one to get emotional during road races (I cried while working a water station at the New York City Marathon), and this race was no different.

Except that it was.

Instead of top althletes in performance gear, it was hungry, barefoot, learners running against a strong headwind as mac trucks blew past them on a busy (still open) road. These 13 and 14 year old kids passed more professional looking runners with a smile on their face, bright-eyed and breathing heavy. The race is designed to be run alone, as a full 26.2 miles (which most adults did); as a team, where each partner runs a half (which most volunteers did); or as a 4x4 relay (which most of the kids did). Every learner looked so proud! We hitched a ride with a group of learners from Usakos that had already finished and one of the boys told me he couldn't talk about how happy he was because he'd probably burst. And one of my favorite girls from Camp GLOW was a part of the winning relay team.

It was inspiring. And emotional. And a highlight of my Peace Corps service.

Most of the following week was spent in Windhoek going to doctors appointments and visiting the dentist (no cavities!) as part of our Close of Service. It's hard to believe two years is coming to and end, and while so much has changed, I can't help but look back at those early blog posts and realize I'm in the exact same spot--trying to stuff my life into a single backpack and embark on a new adventure in some other part of the globe. I'm sad to say goodbye to this place I've grown to love and now call home, but I'm also eager to see what else is out there and begin a new chapter of my life.

Two years sounds like a long time. But as it draws to a close, I find myself wondering if it's really enough time. Katrina, Tu-o and Emma spent the afternoon at our house yesterday and while their excitement in having us "catch" their photos made me laugh, it also made me sad. They'll keep growing up, only now, I won't be here to see it.

Saying goodbye to your family--even an adopted one--is never very easy.

Reflections of a Recreational Reader: Part VI

No computer has meant plenty of time for literature. Here are some of my favorite quotes from my most recent reads.

In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not.
-I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Bill Bryson

The creative mind plays with objects it loves.
-Carly Jung

Money is what's needed to survive. Time is what's needed to live.

It's better to have something to remember than nothing to regret.
-Frank Zappa

The best part of one's life is spent earning money in order to enjoy questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.
-Thoreau

Self nor wealth can be measured in terms of what you own or consume.
-Rolf Pots

very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because the respect of their neighbors depends upon their possesion of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely perfers travels or a good library will in the end, be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else.
-Bertrand Russell

My greatest skill has been to want little.
-Thoreau

As it happened, I did not grow up to be the kind of woman who is the heroine in a Western, and although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to that bend int he river where the cottonwoods grow. Deep in that part of my heart where the artificial rain forever falls, that is the line I wait to hear.
-Joan Didion

That is the charm of a map. It represents the other side of the horizon where everything is possible.
-Rosita Forbes

Once a journey is designed, equipped and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity...no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards and policing are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip. A trip takes us.
-Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck

We see as we are.
-Buddah

As soon as we take one thing by itself, we find it is hitched to everything in the Universe.
-John Muir

Every moment is golden for him who has the vision to realize it as such.
-Henry Miller

People say what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that is what we're really seeking. I think what we are seeking is the experience of being alive.
-Joseph Campbell

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
-T.S. Eliot

If the fulfillment of one's dreams is the only referendum on whether they are beautiful or worth dreaming, then no one would wish for anything. And that would be so much sadder.
-David Rakoff

The joy of youth is not to be bothered by where things might have gone, but to find our where things are going.
-Suze Rotolo

It is impossible to say a thing exactly the way it was, because what you say can never be exact. You always have to leave something out. There are too many parts, sides, cross currents, nuances; too many gestures, which could mean this or that, too many shapes which can never be full described, too many flavors in the air or on the tongue. Half-colors. Too many.
-The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Attwood

I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive or not...We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loved ones and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed. Forget who we were.
-Joan Didion

Just a Toothbrush: Frans Frederick Primary

Yesterday was a pretty amazing day. I learned that there's now a Namibian named Jill and I heard from one of my favorite GLOW learners, Zumbureeke. Then, as if I didn't feel great enough going two for two, I got to watch Lorain and Isabel conduct their very own dental outreach at Frans Frederick Primary School. It was incredible to watch these two dedicated ladies run the entire show.

Together, they reached about 400 learners, and provided them all with toothbrush and toothpaste thanks to your kind donations. (I just got to watch.)


Frans Frederick Primary School (This was probably the most difficult picture I've ever had to organize!)


Pre-Primary


Grade 1s


Grade 2s


Grade 4s

I have to admit I felt a real sense of accomplishment on the ride back to Khorixas. Although I never expected to make preventative oral health care one of my primary projects as a health volunteer, I did hope to find energetic and passionate people to work with in my community. My goal was to reach Namibian children with limited access to care.

And that's exactly what we've done.

Over the last year, we've conducted workshops at 11 schools and reached nearly 3,000 learners. Our tiny town was named number one for dental outreach in all of Namibia. And last month, the National Oral Health Day was hosted in Khorixas, by none other than Lorain and Isabel.

I'm happy because they started it with me.

I'm proud because they finished it on their own.

Jill-Tasha!

There's now a real live Namibian Jill!



My friend Natasha, the one who recently had a baby, named her new daughter after me. (Or, perhaps more accurately, after us, since the little one's full name is Jill-Tasha.)

She said she wanted her baby girl to be ready for America.

I say that's the nicest thing anyone's done.

Ever.

The Pot is Broken. We Can All Go Home.

There’s an old Mexican saying that when the pots have been broken, we can all go home.

Earlier this week, the remaining members of Nam 27 got together at a four star hotel in Windhoek (with hot showers, real beds and huge buffets) for our Close of Service conference. We talked about what we would do in our last three months of service.

We talked with RPCVs about adjusting to life back in America. We filled out as many exit forms and as much paperwork as we did to get into Peace Corps. We talked about resumes and grad school applications, the most memorable moments of our service, and the reasons why, even when things got tough, we decided to stick it out. We said goodbye. And then, we broke our pot. The one we’d signed and decorated and filled with our hopes and aspirations nearly two years ago.

And now, we can all go home.


Nam 27

It’s hard to believe that in three months my time in Namibia will be over. Two years, said and done. And while I’m certain I’ll be able to recreate something similar to my former life back in NYC, I know that recreating this experience—the friendships I’ve formed, the adversities I’ve overcome, the personal growth I’ve experienced and the tragedies I’ve faced will be impossible.

It’s a "once in a lifetime".

And one I’ll be eternally grateful for the opportunity to have had.


Celebratory Springbok Shots Before We Say Goodbye