Volunteering part 5 – Alone in Khorixas for a year.

Did you miss the previous posts? Start reading from part 1 here

The first day I woke up alone in my home for the next year I was both excited and frightened. I decided to go for a walk. The first place I walked by was a school, Welwichia primary school, and I felt like a superstar. The kids came running to the fence, climbing on each other and the fence screaming “#hoba” (this is not a hashtag on Instagram, but the hashtag is one of the 4 clicking sounds of the Damara language) (For those who know how to write Damara: Sorry I don’t, so I might use the wrong symbols and I just write the things the way I heard it) Later I found out #hoba means “white man” A few kids walked up to me and followed me wherever I went. They told me everything they saw in Damara and I tried to say the same. Out of 100 words I learned one. “heis” meaning “tree” because we have a word “heis” in Norwegian meaning elevator. Except that everything was just strange combinations of difficult sounds.

I first walked to the stadium, but nothing happened there so then I walked to the Location (Khorixas is divided in three areas: Town, Location and Dunkerhoek, more about this later) After reaching the first crossing close to Welwichia Secondary School I met some boys playing football in the street so I joined them for an hour or so. After beeing out for a long time it became hot and I needed something to drink. I bought a Fanta from a local Shabeen. I usually only drink water, but I forgot to bring anything to drink for this walk in the African desert heat. Good for me it was cold season. The rest of the year I was always wearing backpack along with my shorts, shirt and sandals. In the backpack I had a first aid kit (came in use once), 1 waterbottle and 2 balls (netball and football) and a pump.

After this I decided to walk to the orphanage I visited the day before. That was easier said than done. All houses looked the same and all streets looked the same. I had to ask for help, but most people didn’t know about the orphanage. So I kept on walking where felt right to me. For some reason all streats in location goes in the same direction except for one on each side and two streets in the midle with no streets between them. This means going from 1 to 2 takes 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes and going from 3 to 4 takes almost 10 minutes insted of 1 if there was some streets crossing in between.

At least it was like this in the beginning. After a while I found out there was shortcuts that saved you from most of this. Some houses had holes in their fences to their neigbours where it was possible to walk through or a smal passage behind Elsas bakery (great bananabread and only place selling soft ice I found) that saved you from going all the way up to Eddie Bowe Primary school to go from one side of location to the other.

When I finaly got help I was just 1 minute away from the orphanage and I don’t think they knew the name of it, but knew that there was a place some #hoba had visited before. Then I spent some time at the orphanage (I’ll tell more about this place later) before heading home. The way back was a lot easier since I lived close to the petrol station and the supermarked close to the “river” (I didn’t see any water there the entire year), but it meant going downhill would always bring me home.

I think I spent about 5 hours on this trip and looking back on this now I think all the impressions outside made me want to spend a lot of time alone in my room watching “Friends” or playing “Civilization” on my computer. Most days were similar to this and I think this made it difficult for me to become a member of the family I lived with. I spent most time alone and I didn’t contribute socialy or in any other way to the family that had opened up their house to me. Read more about living in a host family here