Road Trip!

My Thursday started at 4 am when I rose and staggered across town to the Treesleeper office for breakfast and coffee. Moses and I were leaving at 4:30 for Omaruru, a town 400 km south of Tsintsabis, to pick up five solar hot water heaters and 2500 reeds. Transporting the heaters and the reeds required a truck, which we were supposed to meet in Otavi at 6am, necessitating our early start. I arrived at the office and, still groggy, hopped in Stasja’s car.

 

We watched the sky turn from black to indigo to orange to translucent blue as we rocketed through the bush on a gravel road toward Otavi. With Stasja behind the wheel, we had the pleasure of spending the prettiest part of the day spotting kudu and watching the sun rise over one of the most scenic parts of the drive. We covered the 150km to Otavi easily and met out truck at a gas station.

 

The truck was on old Mercedes freight truck from the early ‘70s with an open bed that from the look and smell of it was used mainly for transporting cattle. Moses and I met the driver, Desmond, and his copilot, 16-year old John. The four of us squeezed into the cab and started the loud, slow drive toward Omaruru. Because of the roar of the old truck, we didn’t do much talking for the first leg of the trip. I mostly looked at the bush and contemplated what methods I would use to endure the next three hours sitting with my shoulder wedged against the door and only one butt cheek touching the seat.

 

The road south out of Otavi is comparable to US highways in Texas: flat, straight, and surrounded by rangeland. The first town we came to was Otjiwarongo where we stopped for diesel. It was about 8:30 and I was hungry - because I am always hungry - and because I hadn’t eaten since 4:30. I was in the mood for a certain local delicacy, so I looked around the gas station parking lot for vendors and spotted them near the road. I was looking for fat cakes (fried dough) to eat with some jam I had in my pack, so I approached them and scanned their bins for some cakes. The first woman was selling mopani worms out of an old oil can. I have tried mopani worms (roasted caterpillars) before and they taste like, well, roasted caterpillars. I passed on the worms. The next woman was selling chicken in some kind of sauce. I was actually tempted by the chicken and when I mentioned (more like motioned) to her that it looked good, her response was “hahnvleis,” which means chicken meat in Afrikaans. That much was already clear to me and knowing that it would take more energy that I had this early in the morning to get a more precise description of the dish, I just responded. “Leker,” (tasty) and moved on. I spotted my fat cakes a few vendors down, but first I had to decide whether to buy some oryx meat (antelope) from the next woman down. She tempted me with a free bite-sized sample and won me over.  I bought enough for the guys, picked up my fat cakes, and returned to the truck, my wallet one dollar lighter.

 

I put the food in the truck and when I climbed down from the cab, a smiling young African woman holding a white shopping bag and a young man with a digital camera approached me. She reached into her bag and pulled out a fistful of condoms. “Are you in the truck?” she asked. “Yeah,” I said. She began giving her spiel as Desmond and John walked up behind me with quizzical looks on their faces. “I work at an NGO that is trying to fight the spread of HIV. Truck drivers are one of the highest-risk populations for HIV and AIDS since they travel so much, so we’re making an effort to reach as many truckers as we can,” she said as she handed us condoms from her bag. We dutifully accepted her gift. “Do you mind if we take your picture?” she asked. We didn’t mind, so holding up our condoms and smiling, we posed for the man with the camera. “Here,” the woman said, handing me a huge, brown, wooden penis. With the condoms in one hand and the penis in the other, I smiled as enthusiastically as I could as the young man took our picture. Assuming the phallus was a gift, I thanked the girl for the work she was doing and turned to walk back to the truck. Just as I was about to hop in, she yelled, “Hey, I need my penis back!” At this Moses and the truckers cracked up. It was a phrase they repeated over and over for the rest of the day.

 

We got back on the road and turned west toward the desert and Omaruru. As we drove sparse bush gave way to volcanic hills and orange granite outcroppings. Omaruru sits in a stunning location on banks of a perennial river in a natural bowl on the eastern side of a jagged volcanic mountain range. We skirted the town on our way to a Catholic mission and school to pick up the reeds.

 

The Mission is also situated on the banks of the river and sells reeds that grow in the riverbed. We arrived at the mission around 10. We crossed a cattle grate onto the compound, which consists of a dilapidated school, a hostel, and a church that surround a huge sandy courtyard that is dotted with gardens and towering eucalyptus trees. We continued along the driveway past the church and through a collection of small bungalows. Kids sat in the shade of scraggly bushes and under makeshift porches topped with corrugated metal and peered at our truck as it passed. A couple of men stood beside a workbench around which were scattered pieces of reeds. Women hung laundry to dry in the blazing sun. Beyond the bungalows was a soccer field where we were supposed to pick up our reeds.

 

We pulled up to the field and met the parish receptionist who was in charge of our order. Stasja had talked to her on the phone a number of times and had arranged the terms of our order: 2500 reeds cut to 2 meters and bundled for loading in the truck. Curiously, there were no reeds in sight. We got down from the truck and introduced ourselves. After a bit of small talk, she informed us that the boys cutting the reeds had only cut 1600 so far and the ones that were cut had not yet been cut to size. Over the next 3 hours, Moses and I stood counting and loading the reeds as they were brought to us. By 1:30, we had only loaded 1500 reeds, so Moses decided to go into Omaruru to pick up the solar hot water heaters. As an assurance that he would not run off with the reeds, the receptionist insisted that I stay behind.

 

I was dropped off at the parish office, which was locked. The receptionist had disappeared, so I just decided to sit down under a tree and have lunch. A bald, pot-bellied man walked past my tree and greeted me, asking who I was and if I needed anything. I introduced myself and was about to say that, no, everything was fine, but on a whim I decided that I needed a tour of the mission. He told me that he was busy with work, but that he could spare a few minutes. He showed me around the school, the church, the hostels, and the offices. The receptionist appeared again and offered me some coffee. We all had a cup of coffee and some peanut butter and jelly I had brought along for lunch.

 

After lunch, the receptionist introduced me to Fr. Hermann, a small and spacy but hospitable man from south of Munich. He offered me a tour and coffee, both of which I had already had. Undeterred, he insisted that I join him for a walk in the riverbed. He changed from his Birkenstocks into black leather walking shoes, donned a wide-brimmed hat, and led me through a wire fence into the riverbed. We walked for probably 45 minutes and then he dropped me off where the reeds were being cut. In the two hours I had been gone, they had only cut 300 more reeds. I was getting more and more irritated with the whole situation, but I realized that only one thing could make the situation any better: I grabbed a machete, got on my knees and started chopping reeds.

 

After about an hour, Moses was back with the truck and the heaters. I stopped chopping and started loading. We agreed that we would leave at 5, regardless of how many reeds we had. At 5 we left with 2100 reeds and started our trip back to Tsintsabis. My stress level was pretty high, but seeing the sun set behind the volcanic mountains west of Omaruru eased my mind a little. As the sun set in the West, a nearly full moon rose in the indigo-blue eastern sky.

 

Our return trip began in Omaruru with food and jokes; after a couple of hours, our supplies of caffeine were running low and we were beginning to nod off. Car-sleep delirium set in soon after and was only interrupted by the strain of the truck’s engine as it climbed the hills south of Tsumeb, the last town before Tsintsabis. We passed through a deserted Tsumeb and I began to fall asleep again. This time my rest was interrupted by Desmond’s cursing as the engine began to smoke and make knocking sounds. He and John got out and lifted the hood releasing a plume of smoke. They checked the engine oil and the water level in the radiator but couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Luckily, the truck had broken down on the last hill before cell phone reception ends and the bush begins. I called Stasja to pick up Moses and I; John and Desmond slept with the truck. It was 11:30. It had gotten cold and the moon cast an icy glow over the landscape. Staja arrived and we left ghostly-looking shipwreck of a trick for home around midnight.

 

The drive home was uneventful except for nearly hitting a porcupine the size of a small German shepherd. Being back in Tsintsabis felt strange after such a wild day, but my bed felt as comfortable as always. I closed my eyes at 1am and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.