"How Are You Finding Khorixas?"

Happy Thanksgiving from Namibia!

It’s been nearly a week since the members of Nam 27 arrived at their permanent sites. It goes without saying that as a PCT I’ve done more adjusting in the past six days than I have in my entire life. It’s been difficult at times and heartwarming at others. (It takes only a minute to realize visiting the third world is a far cry from actually living in the third world.) Most every day has been filled with one type of challenge or another and coming from a comfortable place, that alone has taken some getting used to.

I’m living in a small village called Khorixas with another Nam 27 volunteer. It’s in the Kunene region, about three hours northwest of our home base of Okahandja. Khorixas is a quiet, dusty town with a post office, a Multi-Save, and very few resources. While the other 12 regions of Namibia are known for exporting diamonds and uranium, or producing beef, lamb and goat, the Kuene region has no exports and no real source of commerce. The unemployment rate in Namibia is high, hovering above 50 percent. But here the number is even greater. Of the roughly 20,000 residents, only an estimated 400 have regular work or a continuous source of income.

I’ve been assigned to work with the Ministry of Health and Khorixas State Hospital on community outreach and preventative education. My supervisor is a Nigerian doctor, and in fact, the only doctor permanently stationed at the 120-bed facility. I report directly to the principal nurse, who has been working at the hospital for 35 years. The facility is a far cry from the one I candy striped in more than a dozen years ago. The equipment is dated and there are just two working computers for the entire compound. (There’s no Internet.) Nurses tend to some 3,000 patients each week. Those in need of advanced treatment or further attention are sent to Windhoek, four hours away.

The hospital has just one ambulance to serve an area that stretches as far west as the coast and as far north as Opuwo. But as I learned Monday, that ambulance has been out of commission for some time, and there are no plans for repair. Instead, one of the hospital’s all-terrain vehicles is now being used to collect the injured.

I arrived at my site on Saturday and since then have spent most waking hours getting to know my colleagues, neighbors, roommate and community. I met my Kenyan roommate and was introduced at five churches on Sunday; given a tour of the hospital, introduced to staff, the mayor (who asked me if I knew Oprah or Bill Cosby) and the tribal leader on Monday; shown the preschools, the Ministry of Education, the Craft Center and introduced to a pastor on Tuesday; and taken to the orphanage and the teacher resource center on Wednesday.

These meetings served as more than a way to get to know the people in Khorixas. They helped to identify potential secondary projects for the next two years. During training a number of health volunteers discussed creating a web-based business for local artisans with the help of our IT team to generate income. The women at the craft center, who carve nuts, string beads and design jewelry, would be perfect candidates for this. The orphanage, which houses 18 children in three bedrooms, is in desperate need of new beds, mattresses and more space. As of now, nine girls share just two bunk beds in one room. The woman who runs it also feeds 33 other hungry school children from the squatter village every day. The hospital needs a resource room so that nurses and patients can easily access information about TB, HIV, family planning, childcare, hygiene and proper nutrition, and the teachers’ center in town is in desperate need of materials for classrooms and educators.

We aren’t supposed to tackle anything in our first three months at site (I’ll be returning for two years in a month or so). Instead, that period is for observation, discussion and research. But at least this brief visit has given me the chance to feel more comfortable with my surroundings, to interact with the people, and to identify some of their needs.

It seems, from where I stand, there are many.

This past week has also given me a chance to grow accustomed to what will soon be my day-to-day life. It’s one that involves a 6:02 wakeup call from the neighbor’s rooster, no hot water, no working sinks, washing dishes in the bathtub, using a flashlight to navigate the hallways and a diet of almost exclusively peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.

Strange as it may sound, I still cannot wait to return to Khorixas.