Driving
Namibia!
This feeling has been catching me by surprise lately: walking back to the staffroom after class, in the supermarket, and now, as I drive the Oshakati-Outapi road; euphoria hums sweetly through my veins.
The scenery rushes by as the car hurtles along at 130km. Palm trees, whoosh! Termite mounds, whoosh! Oshanas, donkeys, goats, cattle, cuca shops, whoosh! The long road twists and curves across the unchanging, flat landscape. An old woman in traditional dress sits on the ground beside the road. She appears unperturbed by the cars that speed past. She wears dark sunglasses and sits staring down the road in the direction from which I have just come. I imagine her to be content to just sit, lost in her own thoughts. Then the second is over and I hurtle past her. Indapo nawa, meme!
The windscreen wiper breaks and I keep going. I wait for the raindrops to obscure my vision and force me to pull over. The raindrops build up on the windscreen, but suddenly they are gone. I don't remember seeing them disappear. I hope that I will not need the windscreen wipers anymore.
I see a dog in the distance. Don't you dare run out onto the road, dog! But the dog appears determined in its course, as I am in mine. I think that I can outpace it in my car. Dog, stop running! I swerve, narrowly missing the dog as I am forced into the other lane. That was bloody close. But that is the end of my reaction to the incident and I continue my journey without any real break in pace.
Why are the cars coming towards me now driving in my lane? They must be overtaking another car. This game is a test of my nerves. I will stay my course. But this car is not pulling over again. Instead it swerves off the road and stops. In the distance, a donkey keels over on the other side of the road. Something is wrong with that donkey. I feel sadness at the sight of a donkey keeling over. I draw closer in my vehicle. I glance at the donkey, which has now uprighted itself and is walking among the other donkeys. Its intestines are hanging out of its right side.
I start crying as I drive past. Doesn't that donkey know that it will soon die? Donkey, this could have as easily been me as you. It wasn't your fault, donkey, yet now you will die, even as you try to continue along your way with the other donkeys at the side of the road. Although I did not see the car hitting the donkey, I can see it clearly. Immense sadness overwhelms me as the donkey tries to continue grazing with the other donkeys. Perhaps the donkey does not feel anything. But what if the donkey glances back and notices that its guts are trailing along beside him?
I can't shake my bitterness at the unfairness of it all. One moment living, the next you are hanging onto your life by your innards, and realise that you will soon die. A sharp memory surfaces in my mind: I am finishing a run when I see two children crouching low in the grass ahead of me. They are a boy and a girl who look to be between the ages of 8 and 10. I reach the children and see that they are bending over a goat. They have just killed the goat and blood oozes from the fresh wound that runs across its neck. The children giggle as I pass them. I wonder if they are laughing at the shocked expression on my face.
My sadness and bitterness taint the rest of the journey. I reach the road to Oluvango and I see that it is in terrible condition. The land has flooded on either side of the dirt road, which is now ridden with hundreds of potholes that I cannot avoid. The roof light inside the car shatters as I pass over and into a particularly long patch of potholes that shake the car too roughly. I just want to get home. A deep groove in the road catches me by surprise and the car collides with a nasty deep thunk. I turn off the dirt road onto the village trail that leads to Pete's house. I shift quickly between second and first gears and back to second again as I maneuver through the deep puddles. A mantra is stuck in my head: please don't stall in the mud, please don't stall in the mud.
Pete opens the gate and I am happy that I am not the one to dip my flipflopped feet into the muddy pools. Home safely in Namibia. I start to cry again as I remember the donkey.
Namibia!
This feeling has been catching me by surprise lately: walking back to the staffroom after class, in the supermarket, and now, as I drive the Oshakati-Outapi road; euphoria hums sweetly through my veins.
The scenery rushes by as the car hurtles along at 130km. Palm trees, whoosh! Termite mounds, whoosh! Oshanas, donkeys, goats, cattle, cuca shops, whoosh! The long road twists and curves across the unchanging, flat landscape. An old woman in traditional dress sits on the ground beside the road. She appears unperturbed by the cars that speed past. She wears dark sunglasses and sits staring down the road in the direction from which I have just come. I imagine her to be content to just sit, lost in her own thoughts. Then the second is over and I hurtle past her. Indapo nawa, meme!
The windscreen wiper breaks and I keep going. I wait for the raindrops to obscure my vision and force me to pull over. The raindrops build up on the windscreen, but suddenly they are gone. I don't remember seeing them disappear. I hope that I will not need the windscreen wipers anymore.
I see a dog in the distance. Don't you dare run out onto the road, dog! But the dog appears determined in its course, as I am in mine. I think that I can outpace it in my car. Dog, stop running! I swerve, narrowly missing the dog as I am forced into the other lane. That was bloody close. But that is the end of my reaction to the incident and I continue my journey without any real break in pace.
Why are the cars coming towards me now driving in my lane? They must be overtaking another car. This game is a test of my nerves. I will stay my course. But this car is not pulling over again. Instead it swerves off the road and stops. In the distance, a donkey keels over on the other side of the road. Something is wrong with that donkey. I feel sadness at the sight of a donkey keeling over. I draw closer in my vehicle. I glance at the donkey, which has now uprighted itself and is walking among the other donkeys. Its intestines are hanging out of its right side.
I start crying as I drive past. Doesn't that donkey know that it will soon die? Donkey, this could have as easily been me as you. It wasn't your fault, donkey, yet now you will die, even as you try to continue along your way with the other donkeys at the side of the road. Although I did not see the car hitting the donkey, I can see it clearly. Immense sadness overwhelms me as the donkey tries to continue grazing with the other donkeys. Perhaps the donkey does not feel anything. But what if the donkey glances back and notices that its guts are trailing along beside him?
I can't shake my bitterness at the unfairness of it all. One moment living, the next you are hanging onto your life by your innards, and realise that you will soon die. A sharp memory surfaces in my mind: I am finishing a run when I see two children crouching low in the grass ahead of me. They are a boy and a girl who look to be between the ages of 8 and 10. I reach the children and see that they are bending over a goat. They have just killed the goat and blood oozes from the fresh wound that runs across its neck. The children giggle as I pass them. I wonder if they are laughing at the shocked expression on my face.
My sadness and bitterness taint the rest of the journey. I reach the road to Oluvango and I see that it is in terrible condition. The land has flooded on either side of the dirt road, which is now ridden with hundreds of potholes that I cannot avoid. The roof light inside the car shatters as I pass over and into a particularly long patch of potholes that shake the car too roughly. I just want to get home. A deep groove in the road catches me by surprise and the car collides with a nasty deep thunk. I turn off the dirt road onto the village trail that leads to Pete's house. I shift quickly between second and first gears and back to second again as I maneuver through the deep puddles. A mantra is stuck in my head: please don't stall in the mud, please don't stall in the mud.
Pete opens the gate and I am happy that I am not the one to dip my flipflopped feet into the muddy pools. Home safely in Namibia. I start to cry again as I remember the donkey.
posted by Sinéad at 7:04 AM
2 Comments:
wow, that was very poetic and really moved me.The poor donkey i feel so sad for him! You've such a lovely style of writing.I hope you're ok though, you sounded a little traumatised by the whole drive!And now you have little baby spiders in your room :-( i don't know how you're surviving, i'd be in a fit of freaking out every time i went into my room!I was just talking to mum there and i was reading your blog entry out to her and she said something very typical, "why doesn't she get pete to kill them!" It's freeezing here in Dublin, and there were big riots in the city centre today will email you and tell you more soon.
nic x
wow hun - you transported me from the grey of Scotland with your writing!! Thank you,
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