Mother and Father in Namibia

Mother’s Day to Father’s Day: JR’s parents spent these holidays on day-long journeys from Bloomington, Indiana, USA to Windhoek, Namibia and back. Maybe that’s why this itinerary was still relatively cheap when they decided to take this opportunity to visit Africa for the first time. In between, 12-15 May in Windhoek; 15-24 May at the salt ponds in Swakopmund; 25 May-3 June on a northward loop that included Etosha National Park; 3-6 June at the salt ponds in Swakopmund; 7-8 June at Gobabeb desert research center for their Open Day; 8-12 June on a loop south that included Namib-Naukluft National Park and Namib-Rand Nature Reserve; 13-14 June back in Windhoek. They celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary in the middle of the Namib Desert, the oldest desert on earth, and the driest area of sub-Saharan Africa! Just a year or 2 shy of 70, Albert and Kathy nevertheless embraced African-style camping. For more than a month, they slept in a tent (okay, it was a pretty big tent [3x3 m, plenty of standing room], with cots and pads)! They packed and moved effortlessly from one campground to another, some more rustic than others: at one extreme, the pit toilet at the Salt Company was a half-mile away; at the other extreme, some of the camping sites had individual power and light, flush toilets and warm showers, and special rooms for doing dishes. Although we promised them laundry access at least once a week, in fact we never made it to a Laundromat, and they ended up washing most clothes by hand. And they didn’t bring any extra baggage – just one carry-on apiece, plus one small checked bag that mostly included books and clothes for Katie and some biology textbooks. They were wonderful traveling companions, and we will be forever grateful for this strong connection that they’ve forged through discovery with their granddaughter, and for this opportunity for us to explore parts of Namibia that we would otherwise have been too busy to visit.

Funniest things they said on the trip: Mom, en route from Windhoek to the salt ponds on the coast: “Is that a real giraffe?” Yes, indeed, 4 of them – the first of many that we watched over the next month. They really do look other-worldly, with their long necks sticking up above the bushy vegetation of this arid land. Probably, you’ve all seen pictures of giraffes spreading their front legs to be able to stretch down to drink water, but did you know that they hop their feet back together when they’re done? Dad, while on the dirt road circumference around Namibia’s tallest mountain, Brandberg: “Could you stop a minute? I think I just saw a Welwitschia.” In fact, along that stretch of desert road, there were hundreds of these curious plants, with their two leaves that grow perpetually from a low woody trunk, sporting small male or larger female cones. Apparently Namibia has NO native gymnosperms – is this weird, or what! Especially coming from the Pacific Northwest, which is chock-a-block full of conifers! – and Welwitschia is the closest it gets!

The trip was also book-ended by two critical meetings at the Polytechnic of Namibia. It is with a great deal of relief that we report that JR’s “baby”- the new Agriculture and Aquaculture programs- passed at the school-level on May 9 and passed at the university-level on June 13! Woo-hoo! Well, the curriculum development aspects of the Fulbright year are not entirely complete, as JR will now coordinate the development of a new BSc in Applied Biology across several schools, and AT continues to advise on the development of the Namibian Business Innovation Center.