last wednesday was one of the best days that i can remember. as i described it in an e-mail,
i think yesterday was one of the best days i've ever had. i rode the motorcycle back to berseba -- the volunteer there who was my roommate (kiwan) was leaving town for good, and i still had a bicycle in the garage there. the motorcycle ride was fantastic. it's a long, lonely, rocky, sandy, road. the bike isn't really built for off-roading, but i like to pretend it is. i was flying (it felt like -- i was actually doing about 55), swerving for rocks in the road and sliding around curves. it was great. once, i slowed down for some goats, and didn't get going fast enough for a riverbed. i spun so far in the sand that the back wheel was ahead of the front one. i didn't fall over, though, and actually didn't get stuck. just started it back up and kind of pushed with my feet while the back wheel spun and brought her out of the ditch. the goat guy just stood there and wondered about my having greeted him in khoekhoe
then, the people of berseba were really glad that i came back to visit. the bad students liked my motorcycle and the good students liked me. lots of kids, especially ones that i did a lot of talking to and correcting, told me they missed me and that they were doing well in school and that they still think about how i used to encourage them. it was really nice. the kids applauded when i walked into their classroom, and i had them raise their hands to ask me questions. the new math teacher at the school had a tear in his eye when he talked about how great of a person it sounded like i'd been. i got the impression that the memory of me was better than i'd ever been, which i don't think is all that bad. i hugged some friends, talked with some other people, and it was nice.
then, i loaded up the bike pretty heavily (it carried a bicycle, two sets of wheels, a backpack with some parts in it, and a sleeping bag -- a picture should be forthcoming), and started home. it turned out that i'd punctured the front tire a little bit, and so i pumped it up every so often and generally went much more slowly home. i was really glad to have made it. i don't think i could make that trip that way too many times without something going wrong -- it's a rough road. it saves about 170 km over the tar road, and still nobody drives down it that doesn’t live along it or like 4-wheeling. i felt happy for every time i’ve biked city park or generally gone fast down a hill on a mountain bike.
oh, and there was also a spring-fed pool in the middle of the road (after i’d gone 90% of the way). when i got to it, there was a duck-like bird swimming in the middle and it was obviously too deep to ride through. i went off the road a ways, and crossed where the stream was full of big flat rocks. i felt like a motocross guy – i was, no kidding, riding from rock to rock through water and planning where each tire would end up after the hops. kind of like eric when you mountain bike and he does his trials thing.
then, last thursday i was mostly minding my own business, taking care of my sick girlfriend, when i happened to talk to a nice man (nm) from the ministry of home affairs on the phone. the conversation went something like this:
jon: “how are you?”
nm: “fine. and you?”
jon: “fine.”
nm: “i’m afraid i’m the bearer of bad news for you. we’ve decided to deny your visa application.”
jon: “oh”
nm: “this doesn’t mean that you have to go back to the usa. really, you can go to any country that will allow you to stay there.”
jon: “i see”
nm: “can you come next week to get your passport?”
jon: “yes”
nm: “ok, see you then.”
i then spent a while running around saying “yippee, deported” and “yah don’t have to go home, butcha can’t stay here” repeatedly... really, i’d been enjoying working from bethanie so much that i hadn’t engaged in my namibia-side activities that much. in most of my volunteer activities, i was needing to either poop or get off the pot, and leaning towards getting off the pot. it was super nice to get kicked off the pot, because then i could point to the guy who kicked me off the pot if anyone had been hoping i’d fill the pot when it turned out i wasn’t going to. just an analogy.
after burning up some money trying to get orbitz’s automated call system to recognize my voice for its prompt system and finding out they couldn’t help me, i got kristin’s dad (who’s good at this kind of thing) to help me figure out a flight home. he discovered that i wouldn’t be able to change my ticket over the phone to any flight before september. the ticket agent suggested i go to the northwest ticket office in my town and try my luck. yeah.
thinking that i very well might end up buying a whole new ticket, and not wanting to screw around in africa for any longer than was necessary with money-saving advance purchases, i decided to leave monday and try to get out of the country on tuesday. kristin and i spent a nice weekend together. we took the bike out both days and she practiced riding it (she thought seriously about keeping it, just so she’d have a way out of town). she’s getting pretty good. and we played some monopoly and ate pizza and such.
the next few days weren’t that interesting....
monday – i rode 640 km to windhoek. got to home affairs and it took a long time to find my passport. people there mostly sit around and photocopy those things that go on office walls that say “1) the boss is always right 2) if the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1” and stand around. the guy was nice enough to ask if i wanted to sell any of my stuff really cheaply and to say that i must not want to work in namibia very much if i wouldn’t come back from the usa if they approved my work permit. i was smart or chicken enough not to tell him to go straight to hell.
tuesday – i rode ~1000 km from windhoek to upington. i was real ditzy, and managed to lose a brand new pair of running shoes and nalgene bottle. i also screwed up and left my headlight on for a long time during the day. the bike’s charging system was very weak, and this resulted in my finishing the ride to upington in the dark. i actually decided to stop and sleep by the side of the rode, after my usual night-time practice of following a semi didn’t work out because they were all going really fast. usually, the danger is that there’ll be an animal in the road and you’ll hit it... semis take away that danger, but at really high speeds i get nervous about rocks or potholes or whatever. anyway, i screwed around trying to find a decent place to sleep for about 30 minutes, then realized no vehicles had gone by and i could see the white stripes in the road just fine by moonlight, so i ended up going about 30-40 by moonlight, and leaving the road if a vehicle came from either direction (which happened three times in two hours, so wasn’t a big hassle).
wednesday – i left the scoot with the guy i’d bought it through. he’s going to sell it and send me the money. i trust him. i left him with a much more detailed list of its problems than he’d given me, which reminded me of my dad. (he might be the best person ever to buy a used car from – he’ll tell you in great detail what’s wrong with it). i showed up at the taxi rank and said i wanted to go to jo’burg. they said it had just left, and rather than getting the big finger (like would have happened in namibia) they called the driver on his cell phone, he turned around, and we went and met him. nice guys, they were. jo’burg is nuts. we drove through a whole neighborhood with the ground covered in about a foot of trash. everybody was driving or walking like they didn’t notice. i joked with the driver that he needed four wheel drive. nobody could tell me if there was a strike or something or if it was just normally like that. i stayed in an old hotel that once was probably the best one in town. there were big chandeliers and a fancy dining room, although now they use a metal detector and search your bag for weapons before they let you in.
thursday – i came to the airport, there was space on the same flight that i was booked on for january, i paid my $200, and am waiting for it to leave. i’ll be in newark at 3:30 in the afternoon. i’m planning to spend approximately a week at gretchen’s, then head to austin. i’ll make a denver trip while my parents are there, and catch up with those folks.
in austin, i’m going to try living in brad and caleb’s basement and see how it goes. i’m also going to be in the market for a boat... they have one, but it’s not something that you’d get in the water behind and say “i’ll follow you.” it should be good stuff. i’m really looking forward to it. it also sounds like there’s lots of good work in the pipe through ascendant.
kristin is holding up pretty well. she says she misses me. our status is, for any of you who are wondering, “we will decide whether we want to date some more when she comes back in december.”
i think yesterday was one of the best days i've ever had. i rode the motorcycle back to berseba -- the volunteer there who was my roommate (kiwan) was leaving town for good, and i still had a bicycle in the garage there. the motorcycle ride was fantastic. it's a long, lonely, rocky, sandy, road. the bike isn't really built for off-roading, but i like to pretend it is. i was flying (it felt like -- i was actually doing about 55), swerving for rocks in the road and sliding around curves. it was great. once, i slowed down for some goats, and didn't get going fast enough for a riverbed. i spun so far in the sand that the back wheel was ahead of the front one. i didn't fall over, though, and actually didn't get stuck. just started it back up and kind of pushed with my feet while the back wheel spun and brought her out of the ditch. the goat guy just stood there and wondered about my having greeted him in khoekhoe
then, the people of berseba were really glad that i came back to visit. the bad students liked my motorcycle and the good students liked me. lots of kids, especially ones that i did a lot of talking to and correcting, told me they missed me and that they were doing well in school and that they still think about how i used to encourage them. it was really nice. the kids applauded when i walked into their classroom, and i had them raise their hands to ask me questions. the new math teacher at the school had a tear in his eye when he talked about how great of a person it sounded like i'd been. i got the impression that the memory of me was better than i'd ever been, which i don't think is all that bad. i hugged some friends, talked with some other people, and it was nice.
then, i loaded up the bike pretty heavily (it carried a bicycle, two sets of wheels, a backpack with some parts in it, and a sleeping bag -- a picture should be forthcoming), and started home. it turned out that i'd punctured the front tire a little bit, and so i pumped it up every so often and generally went much more slowly home. i was really glad to have made it. i don't think i could make that trip that way too many times without something going wrong -- it's a rough road. it saves about 170 km over the tar road, and still nobody drives down it that doesn’t live along it or like 4-wheeling. i felt happy for every time i’ve biked city park or generally gone fast down a hill on a mountain bike.
oh, and there was also a spring-fed pool in the middle of the road (after i’d gone 90% of the way). when i got to it, there was a duck-like bird swimming in the middle and it was obviously too deep to ride through. i went off the road a ways, and crossed where the stream was full of big flat rocks. i felt like a motocross guy – i was, no kidding, riding from rock to rock through water and planning where each tire would end up after the hops. kind of like eric when you mountain bike and he does his trials thing.
then, last thursday i was mostly minding my own business, taking care of my sick girlfriend, when i happened to talk to a nice man (nm) from the ministry of home affairs on the phone. the conversation went something like this:
jon: “how are you?”
nm: “fine. and you?”
jon: “fine.”
nm: “i’m afraid i’m the bearer of bad news for you. we’ve decided to deny your visa application.”
jon: “oh”
nm: “this doesn’t mean that you have to go back to the usa. really, you can go to any country that will allow you to stay there.”
jon: “i see”
nm: “can you come next week to get your passport?”
jon: “yes”
nm: “ok, see you then.”
i then spent a while running around saying “yippee, deported” and “yah don’t have to go home, butcha can’t stay here” repeatedly... really, i’d been enjoying working from bethanie so much that i hadn’t engaged in my namibia-side activities that much. in most of my volunteer activities, i was needing to either poop or get off the pot, and leaning towards getting off the pot. it was super nice to get kicked off the pot, because then i could point to the guy who kicked me off the pot if anyone had been hoping i’d fill the pot when it turned out i wasn’t going to. just an analogy.
after burning up some money trying to get orbitz’s automated call system to recognize my voice for its prompt system and finding out they couldn’t help me, i got kristin’s dad (who’s good at this kind of thing) to help me figure out a flight home. he discovered that i wouldn’t be able to change my ticket over the phone to any flight before september. the ticket agent suggested i go to the northwest ticket office in my town and try my luck. yeah.
thinking that i very well might end up buying a whole new ticket, and not wanting to screw around in africa for any longer than was necessary with money-saving advance purchases, i decided to leave monday and try to get out of the country on tuesday. kristin and i spent a nice weekend together. we took the bike out both days and she practiced riding it (she thought seriously about keeping it, just so she’d have a way out of town). she’s getting pretty good. and we played some monopoly and ate pizza and such.
the next few days weren’t that interesting....
monday – i rode 640 km to windhoek. got to home affairs and it took a long time to find my passport. people there mostly sit around and photocopy those things that go on office walls that say “1) the boss is always right 2) if the boss is wrong, refer to rule 1” and stand around. the guy was nice enough to ask if i wanted to sell any of my stuff really cheaply and to say that i must not want to work in namibia very much if i wouldn’t come back from the usa if they approved my work permit. i was smart or chicken enough not to tell him to go straight to hell.
tuesday – i rode ~1000 km from windhoek to upington. i was real ditzy, and managed to lose a brand new pair of running shoes and nalgene bottle. i also screwed up and left my headlight on for a long time during the day. the bike’s charging system was very weak, and this resulted in my finishing the ride to upington in the dark. i actually decided to stop and sleep by the side of the rode, after my usual night-time practice of following a semi didn’t work out because they were all going really fast. usually, the danger is that there’ll be an animal in the road and you’ll hit it... semis take away that danger, but at really high speeds i get nervous about rocks or potholes or whatever. anyway, i screwed around trying to find a decent place to sleep for about 30 minutes, then realized no vehicles had gone by and i could see the white stripes in the road just fine by moonlight, so i ended up going about 30-40 by moonlight, and leaving the road if a vehicle came from either direction (which happened three times in two hours, so wasn’t a big hassle).
wednesday – i left the scoot with the guy i’d bought it through. he’s going to sell it and send me the money. i trust him. i left him with a much more detailed list of its problems than he’d given me, which reminded me of my dad. (he might be the best person ever to buy a used car from – he’ll tell you in great detail what’s wrong with it). i showed up at the taxi rank and said i wanted to go to jo’burg. they said it had just left, and rather than getting the big finger (like would have happened in namibia) they called the driver on his cell phone, he turned around, and we went and met him. nice guys, they were. jo’burg is nuts. we drove through a whole neighborhood with the ground covered in about a foot of trash. everybody was driving or walking like they didn’t notice. i joked with the driver that he needed four wheel drive. nobody could tell me if there was a strike or something or if it was just normally like that. i stayed in an old hotel that once was probably the best one in town. there were big chandeliers and a fancy dining room, although now they use a metal detector and search your bag for weapons before they let you in.
thursday – i came to the airport, there was space on the same flight that i was booked on for january, i paid my $200, and am waiting for it to leave. i’ll be in newark at 3:30 in the afternoon. i’m planning to spend approximately a week at gretchen’s, then head to austin. i’ll make a denver trip while my parents are there, and catch up with those folks.
in austin, i’m going to try living in brad and caleb’s basement and see how it goes. i’m also going to be in the market for a boat... they have one, but it’s not something that you’d get in the water behind and say “i’ll follow you.” it should be good stuff. i’m really looking forward to it. it also sounds like there’s lots of good work in the pipe through ascendant.
kristin is holding up pretty well. she says she misses me. our status is, for any of you who are wondering, “we will decide whether we want to date some more when she comes back in december.”
