Under Orion's belt

Two-month anniversary, yes I have been in Outjo for two months, where has the time gone? Two months and what have I got to show for it, no real purpose defined, no job description/function, no real community integration and my language skills in Damara and English have not improved but actually decreased. Seriously, what am I doing here, I need to get my act together. Two months and I don’t really feel like I have anything to show for it, it’s like I’ve wasted the last two months.
So let me share how I spent my exciting two-month anniversary of being a Peace Corps volunteer in Outjo…it was just another typical day…
First, I actually got to sleep in. Ok, slept in until 8. This is the latest I’ve slept since coming to Namibia. It probably has something to do with the fact that I couldn’t sleep the night before and didn’t actually fall asleep until after midnight, more than three hours past my bedtime. After waking up and surfing Facebook for a while I decided to go for my morning run. Because I was in such a fabulous mood I decided to go for an extra long run. It was fabulous. The only downfall was the cloudy morning I started running in faded. The sun seemed to peak through the clouds and no matter where I was running the sun decided to shine directly on me. Even in the morning, even on a cloudy day the Namibian sun is hot.
When I returned from my run I grabbed some breakfast and headed into town. In Namibia everything closes at 1 on Saturdays so I had only a small window to run to PEP to get more phone credit, the building store to get a hammer and nails, the post office to send a package to my Caprivi friends and to the grocery store if I wanted to eat this weekend. After strolling through town I returned home in hopes to improve my current bed net situation. My ceilings are super high and my walls are cement so I couldn’t really put my net up comfortably. It’s up against my windows because I needed the window latches to hold the net up. This means that as I sleep the net hugs the bed and in turn me, and in order for me not to touch the net in the night I sleep as straight as a pin in the middle. It’s really not comfortable and well if I’m going to be here for two years I might as well attempt to put this thing up right. So anyways, after adding two nails to bring the net away from the window I was stopped in my attempts as one of the elderly who live in my Old Age Home can and yelled at me for a good ten minutes. Apparently people are sleeping at 1:04 in the afternoon. I told her I was trying to get it done before 2 because that’s when I figured people would be taking their naps. She continued to ream into me about stupid crap and disregarded my question “When would be a better time to hammer?” Silly woman, seriously, as mean as she wanted to be she can’t get rid of me, the hospital and the government own the building-not her.
After that fun event I attempted to clean my apartment while watching RENT. Gosh what I would kill for a vacuum. Instead it took two hours to sweep my carpet with a hand broom. It was seriously the most disgusting thing I’ve done thus far. There was so much dirt and dead bugs, ew, I just felt gross afterwards. Then I attempted to clean my bathroom where the ants have taken over. After dooming (bug killer) the room there was a thick layer of ants with bees, wasps, beetles and moths in the mix. Ugh, seriously the grossest (is that a word?) day yet in Africa. It was really defeating since when I woke up this morning the dead moths are back on my bedroom carpet and well the ants have returned to the bathroom with a vengeance. I’ve decided to attempt to doom the outside of my bathroom (did I mention I’m on the second floor). Ha, maybe that will make the old woman come yell at me again, oh well.
After my horrible cleaning day…seriously 4 hours and only two rooms clean, in America I could clean a whole house in that time, I decided to go exploring in the bush surrounding Outjo. It was seriously so much fun until the weather quickly changed as soon as I was an hour out of town. As I attempted to get home in the massive storm I learned that you should never go exploring in the rain without the proper shoes. After a scary fall from some rocks I thought, maybe it’s best to just get home and stop goofing around. Wow, what a cold walk home. The crazy wind and the rain were so chilling. Maybe just the coldest I’ve been in Namibia. Luckily I live in a town, because there were quite a few times I got a little lost and with the storm it was hard to see the mountains and find my location, but the street lights helped guide me home. I got home soaking wet, freezing, legs bleeding and so tired, but gosh it was a great little adventure.
After dinner the storm passed and I went for an evening run. The clouds parted and after I finished stretching I just laid out under the stars, gazing off into la-la land. I was directly under Orion’s belt. The stars were so beautiful. I started thinking about the last four months, being in the Peace Corps, the fact that I’m in Africa starring at the stars, my family and friends who are half way around the world from me and what I’m going to do with the rest of my service and the rest of my life for that matter and well I decided to let everything go and just enjoy the moment under Orion’s belt just for what it was, a beautiful peace.
I laid there for awhile, I was just caught in a perfect moment. I didn’t even mind the bugs which were eating me alive, or the snakes which could have been making their way towards me, I just was…sometimes that’s all you can do is just be in the moment. Maybe it’s this Taoism book I’m reading finally getting to the best of me but it was just great to block everything out and just focus on Orion.
Oh just to update you, the little change to my bed net-LIFE CHANGING! It’s like a whole new bed, a whole new life, it’s amazing and wow I slept so great last night. And some of you may be thinking wow Amanda you are so active now, running, hiking, yes, yes I have become somewhat of an outdoors junkie. But don’t fret no matter how many runs or walks I go on I’m not losing any weight, it’s hard to lose weight when you eat peanut butter on everything, gosh I love that stuff. Well hopefully this week I will be doing the outreach that got cancelled last week and if so maybe I will have fun stories to share, if not another week of trying to find stuff for me to do, trying to find my place and how I can help in this town, oh Namibia, oh Peace Corps, oh my life!