There Is A World Inside The World That You See
The training wheels are off and I’m tottering along trying not to fall… for the next two years. All that is running through my mind is “Holy shit, I’m going to fuck this up and the government is going to have to perform a massive covert operation, wipe Otavi off the map, pretend none of this ever happened, and whenever someone walks by and says ‘hey, remember when…’ shout ‘La, la, la, I can’t hear you!’ at the top of their lungs.”
Albeit my job consists of streamlining an NGO and creating secondary projects to help orphans, vulnerable children, and individuals affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This is probably not the stuff of national security, but you never know…
What are the odds that I will be considered for a Nobel Prize for my work thus far?
a) I created a website for my NGO. This was a testament to my newfound patience as Namibia has dial-up Internet access. If this is an unfamiliar term to you, youngsters of the technology age, you can find it cross-referenced under “Dinosaur” in Wikipedia.
b) I called every embassy in Namibia and followed up on fundraising letters that we sent them three weeks earlier. Hmmm… this is a bit reminiscent of my previous job in the States, déjà vu much?
c) I met the community. As Otavi is approximately the size of a postage stamp it did not take long to walk through town. Location is a bit larger and I spent a bit of time simply walking around, introducing myself, and meeting people in their homes. However as many families exclusively speak KhoeKhoe, I quickly exhausted my extensive KKG vocabulary and we spent quite a while staring at each other and smiling expectantly until my friend decided it was time to leave.
I’ll be expecting a forthcoming call from the Nobel committee…
