The last months in Namibia were inundated with moments both devastating and euphoric.
On March 10, 2014, Group 35’s beloved Ashley Earl passed away. As we trickled into Windhoek from all corners of the country, there was no shame in the tears and disconsolation. And what a reprieve that was. The few moments spent in Okakarara following the news of her death neared unbearability. Distracted with the demands of organizing a memorial, we darted throughout the city pulling it together for the next day’s service. Our phones were ringing off the hook demanding answers from those who knew her best: What colors should the flowers be? What kind of music would she want? Are the speeches organized? Have all the right people been notified? Do we have all the materials we need? Which church can we use on such short notice? In our two years plus of GSD-in-Namibia-experience, we were the perfect team to effectively execute these kinds of tasks. Walls and conflicts that existed amongst us, which had, moments prior, loomed so paramount and unconquerable, became instantaneously inconsequential. Ashley wouldn’t have approved of all the fuss, but there’s no doubt she would’ve relished our unity.
For many of us, Group 35’s COS ceremony were our last moments with her. These times would be exactly how she would demand to be memorialized. We were at Dillon’s, a terrible Afrikaner karaoke bar in the industrial area of Windhoek. The music was bad and the place had the reputation of attracting a racist crowd. The twelve of us packed into a taxi, ready to take over the place. The music was barely danceable, but we were giving it our all, most notably Ashley. As we concluded the night, she twerked twenty meters across the parking area to a group of Namibian girls, promptly establishing a dance party. I think I can say that for all of us who witnessed this magical moment, she will forever be remembered this way.
In a daze returning back to real life in Okakarara, it occurred to me that I would need to notify one of my ladies, Girly; she’d become particularly close with Ashley during their time together on a Boys and Girls Tour. The crushing force of despair and events indecipherable continued; we held each other and mourned together. I dragged myself through the next weeks. I didn’t feign all was ok, despite this being a much utilized technique for the other hardships faced during my service. Consolation was abundant. Namibians, and particularly the youth, understand unexplainable and unjustifiable hardship and meet occasions such as these with admirable courage and resilience.
With barely the physical energy to make it through the day, my aspirations of running in the Two Oceans Ultra in Cape Town at the end of April, dissipated. I still crumbled, while simultaneously finding solace in all the people that had made my time in Namibia a possibility. My problems were their problems and they were there to assist in the solutions despite the abundance and frequency with which they occurred.
I got sick; nothing remarkable considering my recent health history but, despite the nagging fatigue I couldn’t shake, running was the only thing that made sense. My hours under early morning Namibian sky had maintained my sanity the previous two years and there was nothing else to shake the tightness in my chest. I began to run and against better judgment (and thoroughly infuriating my host mother, Nelly), ran 48 of a 50 km race in the outer mountains of Windhoek. I had never in my life received a DNF, but after the initial 30 km of uphill at an altitude of 1,700 m, my legs had disintegrated; the dangers of the downhill leg of the race increased with each cumulative step.
Ashley and I may have shared more sweaty moments than normal ones. Our first days in Namibia, she led us through pre-dawn, butt-busting workouts. She was there to cheer and walk patiently beside me after my first ever half marathon. I was viscerally connected with her during that race in Windhoek. She pushed me up those never ending, undulating hills, each kilometer loosening the grief sewed deep in my chest. A few days later, my host dad, giving me an I-told-you-so-look, handed me drugs for my newly acquired sinus infection.
It was the last weeks of Peace Corps and there wasn’t enough hours in the day to do what had to be done in preparation for my impending departure. My fights with Nelly increased as my health continued to deteriorate. She was furious with my refusal to acknowledge my body’s demands for rest. And of course in hind sight, it is difficult to justify considering the consequences I would face in later weeks, but in my muddled and inverted state, it was the only way. I was consciously choosing to leave people that had become so indelibly ingrained in my life, success, and happiness, and there was no way to make sense of it all, except to do everything humanely possible. For months, our biggest source of contention had been my choice of clothing. She did not approve of my Okakarara adapted business casual dress: boy pants, baggy shirts and Chacos, which she infamously termed To-Death shoes because they will never wear out. I’d insist on having my hair plaited weekly and slap on some sunscreen. This was the extent to which I’d admit to being female. Amidst the chaos of my going-away braai, I returned home and proclaimed, “Ok, do what you want with me.” Nelly and her sister double teamed me, one on makeup, the other on hair; they put me in the first every curve-revealing clothes ever sported in Okakarara. Entering the party, most of my kids and colleagues didn’t recognize me and when they finally realized the otjirumbu in front of them was me, jaws hung agape. Nelly, and everyone else for that matter, loved it. Mom always does know best.
I was incredibly fortunate to have three of the most important men in my life escort me to Windhoek on the day of my departure: my host father; Chris, my 5-year-old brother, reading buddy, and partner in crime; and Tjinouhona, the young man Nelly purports as my future husband. In the moments before leaving, we gathered in the living room. Me trembling beside my confidant, Priscilla, they prayed for my past and future, radiating compassion, love, gratitude, and so much more. The energy that enters every cell of your being when you are prayed for in this way is a true testament to a divine existence. As my body heaved with this incredible weight and tears pooled on the floor, my youngest brother Neil wailed inconsolably alongside me. The other brother, amidst his elation about going to Windhoek, bewilderment with the luggage, and on the verge of despair with the awareness that all the adults were weeping, clung to me as we pulled away from the hospital. My last glimpses of the most significant and critical people in my last two years are forever imprinted in my consciousness.
The last time I wrapped my arms around Chris’ little body – his eyes, round and wide and his faced, showing with absolute clarity an inability to understand – knew with the unbreaking resolve of a five-year-old, that the situation unfolding in front of him was unjust. As was protocol, Nelly and I were in contact regarding the boy’s departure and estimated arrival time. An hour late, they had still not returned home to Okakarara. The hours crawled by, I drifted in and out of sleep and in the early morning hours, Nelly and I were both in a panic. Minutes later we find out from one of the hospital drivers that they had been in an accident. My roommate and future travel buddy for the next three months woke up to me in hysterics. Bawling into the phone incomprehensibly to Nelly, I’d lost my voice. My mind was the near the point of combustion imagining their fates. A higher being was truly watching over them; their new car, totaled after colliding with an eland, and not one of them sustained injuries.
Sitting at the bank in Windhoek hours later and watching the teller crack my ATM card to pieces, it became innately undeniable that I did not have a life in Namibia anymore. My time and life as a Peace Corps Volunteer was over.
My last nights were spent with a colleague and his family, the entire lot of them escorting me to the airport at five in the morning. From take off to landing, I wept my way to Cape Town. The man next to me quickly changed seats. The flight attendant seemed to be inherently concerned regarding my water loss and insisted on handing me bottles and bottles of water. With less than 36 hours left till I was due to complete my first ultra marathon, I spent it making up for the innumerable nights of insomnia that had accumulated.
On April 19th, four badass Peace Corps Namibia volunteers completed the purported world’s most beautiful marathon. Life post Peace Corps was off to an equally inconceivable and extraordinary start.
williapg 