You say goodbye, and I say hello

It is goodbye to Khorixas.

Peace Corps broke the news to us that they would be placing us in a new site in Namibia, due to safety/ security precautions. (We knew this was in the cards, which helped us cope a bit.) This meant we needed to break the news to our principals and schools (who knew nothing, which PC intended for the purpose of protecting our safety). And almost immediately, we would depart Khorixas for good. Kevin and I shared our stories of "how it went" at our respective schools and the theme was the same: sad, disappointed, and broken hearts- often accompanied by tears- on the giving and receiving end of the news-bearing.

Just to give you an idea, site changes are quite uncommon in Peace Corps Namibia, especially after the volunteer has confirmed that the site is suitable medically and programically (i.e. there is work for the volunteer) and he/she gets settled in. In our group so far (of 45 to start), 2 site changes took place before the end of Pre-Service Training (PST) due to medical reasons (these volunteers were supposed to be placed at sites with hospitals in case their severe allergies were triggered), and 1 took place during Reconnect in late Nov/early Dec for programming reasons. And then most recently, there's us, after spending 5 months at site (and 7 in Namibia).

For me, the school principal and others publicly gave words of thanks and farewell. When a grade 8 female learner volunteered to also speak, she barely blurted out a sentence before bursting into tears in front of the whole school. All I could do was hug her, with tears also running down my face. I also spoke, giving the kids encouraging words to hang on, after expressed my thanks and my sadness that I needed to leave.

Just before all this, we had spent some time in Windhoek to take care of "Peace Corps business" before leaving Khorixas so when we returned, one of my classes sang impromptu songs to welcome me back. They were unaware I was not back to stay and I couldn't tell them, so I held it in and silently interpreted the song as one of good-byes. The learners would discover this soon enough.

And there we were, in Peace Corps transport (unfortunately it was not a helicopter or something cool, just a Land Cruiser :-P ) with our ever-growing number of belongings (remember we have bikes now!). Destination: Windhoek (the capital). But only for the weekend, and then we will be moved to our new site next week.

Thankfully, having each other as support (yay marriage!) helps tremendously. And we couldn't dream of forgetting Patches, who slept like the angel that he is (sometimes!) at my feet during the 4.5-hour drive from Khorixas to Windhoek as I was finishing Grogan's Marley & Me.

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This was just after he took the initiative to army-crawl his way into a tiny caveat of space under a folded-down seat in the Land Cruiser, making sure we weren't leaving him behind. (He still makes a habit of sleeping on our bags and belongings that he can see will be accompanying us when trekking somewhere. But since all those things were already packed to the brim in our transport, I guess he had no other choice!)