North and back - a bush warrior's tale

Late July – Early August – Late September 2013

I felt something vibrate in my pocket, I was almost alarmed until I realized that this is 2013 and the only thing that should vibrate in the pocket of your jeans is a mobile phone. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, the name Alexander Shapumba flashed across the screen. “Real nigga wasup?” said Alex in his usual upbeat mood, I was slightly sluggish from the fatigue of the long drive “I am good brov, do you miss me already?” we are affectionate like that (no homo). Alex was inquisitive; he asked “where are you”. I replied that I was in Omuthiya, which is a town in northern Namibia (Refer to the map below). Alex was slightly perplexed and inquired “Malima, how on earth did you get to Omuthiya?”. I told him straight and without hesitation “I drove!”, somehow Alex was still not convinced. “Malima, who drove you to Omuthiya” he blurted out in astonishment, I reiterated to him “Dude, I already told you. I drove to Omuthiya”. Alex was surprised; I don’t blame him because I failed my driver’s test a few times, so driving 800 km in a day alone with only a TkZee CD for company  is an achievement in itself (TkZee is a musical trio, from South Africa). When you look at someone like a little brother as Alex does towards me, you sometimes underestimate what that person is capable of. But how did I end up in Omuthiya in the first place? (Omuthiya is labelled B on the Map).

My Second mission with my new job was an expedition to the north of Namibia, a little excursion to pin point the water potential of the villages surrounding Omuthiya. Omuthiya is one of those towns whose pretentiousness is unrivalled, it is a little shrub trying to be a forest. Anyways let me tell the story, sit down and brace yourself.

As usual, all I got where GPS coordinates. The faith that my boss has in my ability to find remote places is comforting. The trip was really not much to write home about, I drove and kept driving, past the Indecently shaped Omatako mountains, through the agricultural triangle and over the famous “Okandundu kashomeya” (Little mountain of Tsumeb). If you are lost then consult the map, the route I took is in green and the destination and departure points are marked as B and A respectively, If yaa’ll don’t get that then there is no hope for the world.

 

Omuthiya (B), Windhoek (A). Travel from A to B, simple enough

I arrived in Omuthiya after nightfall, so I parked next to the side of the road. Had myself some fast food for dinner, it’s a harsh life in the field for a geologist. As a pretty boy I had to wash my face to exfoliate before bed and what not, just because I am a bush warrior does not mean that I shouldn’t care for my skin (Don’t judge me). I slept in the back of the car, my mental resignation letter still ready and prepped. The morning greeted me with unrestricted cold and reminded me why I loved my sub zero sleeping bag, the children of Omuthiya also showed off their pretentiousness. These kids were late to school but walked slowly with audacity only shown by Cristiano Ronaldo. I spent the rest of the day surveying a village called Onakakunzi East, which was hard to find because it turns out that there are three of them (Onakankunzi’s East, West and North). I met the village headman who lent me his son as my backup for the day, I tried to convince him to give me one of his daughters to marry if I found a water source in his village, but the girls weren’t exactly my type. I drove back to Omuthiya only to be told that I needed to stop because all the villages on my list had already been surveyed, frustration kicked in. Wasted a whole day and got peoples hopes up for water that won’t flow for another few months. Luckily for me, my friend Sugarman was in town and he offered me his room for the night, he added in his little brother Vaino as my slave for the time I was there. The great thing about Northern Namibia is the great hospitality, a guest is never left to suffer, because you could be a guest in someone else’s home. Vaino did not disappoint, he definitely is going to make a great manager in his future, and I slept like a dead soldier. The morning came like a premature baby, too early. I decided to drive home for the morning and visit my mom and my aunt, it is the least I could do even though I had to drive back towards the west later that day. The mothers were glad to see me, the prodigal son had returned in one piece. That morning was great, home is truly where the heart is (Mine is a village called Oshipanda, Tshuupindi na Kooma). Saying goodbye was hard but my boss had called me the previous night to tell me that I needed to drive back towards the west, almost 1000 km’s to Khorixas in Damaraland. I hit the road with the musical legends TkZee as my only companions.

The pretentious town of Omuthiya

The drive to Khorixas was smooth till I passed the town it’self and went further west on a gravel road. The interesting part began, the roads out there in Damaraland are silent death traps. The rivers cut deep gulley’s in the roads, the bed rock is still exposed and can burst a tyre if you descend into the gulley too fast. There is this one spot where if you don’t have your wits about you’ll end up writing your car off, like the one on the side of the road at that exact spot. Probably left there as a warning, as you descend into a gulley cut in by the river, you realise that only one side of the road is navigable. The side of the road you descend with has rocks in the middle meaning you have to stop suddenly or swerve to the other side, those with wits slow down and manoeuvre, those without; well let’s just say the burnt out car next to that spot is an indicator of what happens. That is where anticipation and common sense as a driver comes into play, I might not be the best driver but I sure am one of the safest. I put my GPS on and after getting lost for 5 km’s or so, I finally got to Arbedseidal. To my surprise I found out from the clearly fuming and unimpressed driller, that someone had beaten him to it and already completed the work. To make it worse they had spotted elephants less than 500 meters from where they were camped earlier in the day, I was sleeping in my car. I am no coward but aint no way I was sleeping in a tent in elephant country. The hard part of being a bush warrior is that you are on your own, you cook your own food and make your own conversation. If you are lucky then the driller will have someone with him in his team who cooks pretty well, otherwise its canned food. So you carry with you a mobile kitchen, potable water, first aid kits and all your equipment. But it’s the being by yourself in the middle of the wilderness, not these hills and thorns surrounding Windhoek but real wilderness where even antelopes will chase you. The drillers are real men, they do the wilderness thing like it is their calling. But those chaps are not the best of company, all they talk about is getting back home and cleaning their pipes. I was tired and really had no energy to make a plan B, which would have to wait for the morning. My mental resignation letter had an extra paragraph added to it that night.

Eventually a solution was found for the embarrassing problem at hand, somebody’s Monday was definitely bluer than everybody else’s. I did my thing (I can’t tell you, trade secrets) and the boys got to work to provide water to a deserted place called granite rock, this place was virtually a ghost settlement. The foundations and buildings were still new and the dry carcass of a cow that still hadn’t finished decomposing pointed out how bad the drought situation was. Water is life but water is hard to find, we moved on to the next location. As we were at it, a French couple drove by. I could tell from the accent in the wife’s English, she was surprised I could speak their language and give directions as well. Her husband was not as pleased, he clearly did not like the way his wife was now smiling at me in astonishment like a European kid seeing a live goat for the first time. This time, we did find water: good news for the cattle because with only their hides holding their bones together, they needed water. I left the boys finishing up, I had new orders. After driving down from the north, I had to drive back up there and start with some work just the next day. That evening I sat atop a long winding carbonate ridge and contemplated the logic of the life I had chosen. My mind weighed up the pros and cons of the nomadic pattern of my career so far, I couldn’t scrape together enough positives to convince myself that there was a future in this type of uncertainty. But God works in mysterious ways, sometimes you get another chance to do it right. Another chance to follow you heart, it seemed as though that chance was about to materialize. But my mental resignation letter was still ready, all I needed was an alternative option that allowed me to pay my bills.

So I would have to drive halfway across the country and make it to the north by the next morning. I was already a bit fatigued so this latest marathon was not something I was looking forward to, I carefully put my foot down as I head back to Khorixas, careful enough not to kill myself. I decided to make a quick pit stop and visit Werner, Werner was the older guy in the house when I grew up. He taught me to slaughter a goat, cut down a tree with four strikes and mack on girls. When a guy like Werner decides he is getting hitched then you know the world might just end (Read all about his wedding here), Werner was glad to see me. It’s amazing how people just assume you will never grow and ogle in excitement at the sight of you all grown.  I left Khorixas that afternoon with one aim; make it back to the north in one piece. That is easier said than done.

I left Khorixas at 15h30. In the middle of winter that meant that I only hand two hours of good daylight left. I would have to drive most of the eight to nine hour journey at night. The route I’d taken to Omuthiya was going to be too long and too congested. Werner advised me to take an alternative route. This route screamed adventure and alternatives. The bumpy unpredictable shakes of the gravel road between Khorixas and Kamanjab made me impatient, I wanted to eat up this gravel road and hit tarmac.  Whilst tarmac allows you to speed like a hijacker making a getaway, gravel requires an approach more centred towards safety. Kamanjab was the smallest small town I’d seen yet, it overtook Arandis by a long shot. All the elephant warning zone signs scared me a little, there is only a little mini ATM machine in Kamanjab so I would have to use all the cash I had to fill up and hope it would reach Okahao. Off I went, the road from Kamanjab to Omakange is pristine. It winds and curves like a voluptuous woman’s body, going up and then down. The Views take your breath away, the scenery changes from shrub to Mopane Savannah very quickly. Gone is the bland white soil, replace by red earth sneaking under mountains and encircled by Mopane trees. 

The setting sun really disappointed me, it robbed me of the opportunity to see more. But in the dark, the road to Omakange starts to frighten. There is wildlife everywhere, eyes open and vigilance on high alert or else it’s a head on collision. There is no traffic on the road, so if your car breaks down then you are alone for at least 24 hours. There is also the issue of long zones that still don’t have any mobile phone network connection. It seems all the animals come out at night, Kudus and Oryx saunter along without a care in the world. 50 km from Omakange, I saw a shadow in the road. I couldn’t swerve left, there was a concrete pillar there. The concrete pillar indicated that I was on top of a culvert (mini bridge), I couldn’t swing right or I would hit this massive animal. So at 120 km/h I made a decision, the right wheel was going to take the damage. As I braced for Impact, I saw spiky proponents flung into the air. It was a fucking porcupine, it moved out of the way and I headed on to Okahao. I got to Okahao on empty, I filled up the petrol tank and headed off. Just for reference sake Okahao is the regional capital of Namibians with long fingers, If Danny Ocean was a Namibian:  his home town would be Okahao. I made it home via Elim and Oshikuku, tired dazed and shaken. At least I would get to sleep at home on a bed and not in a flimsy tent or on the back in the canopy. The thought of having to wake up tomorrow and work on a Sunday was making my mental resignation letter a paragraph longer. 

The life of a bush warrior meant that I spent that Sunday finding a road and a water source for our first drill site, when I made it home that night I promised myself that in 2014 I was starting the career change process : I have way too much talent to die a nomadic geologist.

Monday came with a surprise, it turns out that our assignment had been downgraded so just like that another administration bungle had fucked up my whole day. So I decided to take a leisurely drive around Oshakati, go to a few of the old places. My old primary school, which has now turned into a secondary school. My old church, which now has new offices: religion is a good business these days. I drove past Erundu, which was the best school back in the day but now it just looks dilapidated. The paint is cracking off the walls like a crumbling marriage, it’s sad. Finally, I made it to the old neighbourhood. The library, the old houses. Everything had changed, where there were fences before now stood walls. We made holes in the fences when we were young so we could get around easier, but you can’t make a hole in a wall. The kids don’t play outside anymore. The place was a ghost town, I decided to take a picture. The biggest mistake I could have done, I swear.

Never ever take pictures of military installations, even if the only part that is in the picture is a water reservoir. Yes, believe it or not I was interrogated by Military police for five hours. They wanted to know why I took a picture of my old neighbourhood and why the water tower was in the picture. The Military Police are good at pointing out the obvious, like why would I need to explain myself If I was a terrorist. If I was a terrorist I would just turn up and bomb the place, but nope. The corporal, who writes good English by the way just had to call his sergeant. So he says “okay, just explain to the sergeant what you told me”, like I could have sworn that I’d seen something like this on a Trevor Noah comedy DVD. I was getting annoyed now, so I recounted the story to the sergeant. I have to admit that a guy in field clothing driving a rented bakkie with a South African number plate looks suspicious. I told him I took a few pictures to go show my friends, “What friends are these” he asked. He was clearly implying the friends I was talking about were spies of some sort. But if you receive an email with confirmation form my boss and a signed letter, then clearly it should be clear to you that I ain’t a terrorist. But nope, the sergeant wanted a fax. Apparently because any of my “friends” could have type that email, which is true but the company seal and signature of the owner? Do my friends have time to forge that as well? The sergeant wanted a fax, apparently there are certain things in a fax that you can’t tamper with. If he knew that a fax is just a machine, and any machine can be tampered with. But I gave in, I was not going to waste a night locked up over such trivial nonsense. He got his fax and let me go. Just in time, it was beer time of the day. 

The next day, the hustle went on. I drove deep into Ondonga, making a stop at the councillor’s office to get directions. The kind gentleman I spoke to, told me to drive until the men stop speaking Oshidonga and I shouldn’t stop driving until they start speaking something else. The men started speaking Oshikwanyama after the plains turned into forests, I knew I was at the very edge of two kingdoms. Turns out that this village was so deep in the wild that animals look like those in the nature park. Most people don’t know this but birds are very good indicators of changes in eco-systems and environments. The birds I saw in Onatuwe were foreign and something you see in Etosha National park. Driving back was a nightmare, with no proper roads. Small clearings and paths were my way out, snaking and swerving. Trying to control a bakkie (pick up) in 4 x 4 in deep sand, I almost hit a tree. I swerved into some less dangerous looking shrubs and lost the radio antennae in the process, I cringed and hoped it wouldn’t come out of my salary. Almost getting lost in the process as well, thank god for GPS’s. When I finally made it back to a proper gravel road, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was not about this type of life, I had ventured 160 km’s away from the nearest clinic into areas where water comes from underground wells. Places that look so untouched by civilization that wild rabbits run around free like it’s their birthday, wild rabbits are rare in the parts of Northern Namibia touched by civilization and deforestation. I needed a desk job and a corner office, I’d given three years to the bush and it had taken enough. My mind was made up, this was my last mission. I would consequently withdraw my mental resignation because I needed a job and it paid the bills, we are slaved to the system and the jobs that allow us to survive. We serve the job sometimes, it doesn’t liberate us. But that is just me being dramatic, I think.

The next day actually turned out to be a rest day, I got to relax. So I decided to go and visit one of my best friends from high school, which will be a decade ago next year (I am old). Since the last day of high school nine years ago, I had only seen her once. I went to visit her in hospital, she’d delivered a baby boy three hours before but was walking around like nothing happened (women have balls). We rolled back the years, laughed and cried (I laughed and she cried (I ain’t that sensitive). When we met in high school it was a re-union because we had gone to the same kindergarten, I honestly don’t think I would have survived half the shit in high school without a friend like her. It made me realize how much I suck at keeping in touch with my friends and how my funeral will be the emptiest in history. The next day I drove back to Windhoek using the route on the map, I arrived at ten in the evening. Tired and drained, the couch was waiting for me. But looking on the bright side I had made it back in one piece, with improved driving skills. I went to the North and back.