Life lately (or Welcome to the Shit Show!)

I have so much to blog about. So many feelings, emotions, thoughts, random crap I want to capture for posterity. But getting it all out in written form has been a first rate chore. And you know what. I DON’T NEED MORE CHORES RIGHT NOW. So here is my ineloquent (ha who am I kidding, I’ve never been eloquent) word vomit.

Things here are a real mess.

A few weeks ago we sent our housekeeper home a few hours after she arrived because she kept coughing. Um no thank you.

After she left I wiped down everything she could have possibly touched with Lysol spray, and we carried about our daily business. By which I mean Nate and I kept working and M watched television all day.

A few days later, two to be exact, M got a fever and our housekeeper called to tell us she was hospitalized, needed supplemental oxygen and had been swabbed for COVID. Well FUCK.

We immediately starting quarantining ourselves. At that point the president had announced a lockdown for Windhoek and we couldn’t go anywhere anyways. The biggest issue was that we couldn’t walk Artie and she went crazy with energy/resentment and felt the need to pee everywhere.

Luckily our housekeeper got her test results back eventually and she was negative. Whew.

As I’m writing this the president of Namibia is giving an address, undoubtedly announcing that Windhoek’s restrictions aren’t being lifted, as case numbers continue to rise and the situation deteriorates further. The funny thing is that there are a number of mitigation measures in place which SHOULD have prevented/decreased the spread of COVID-19. Like mandatory mask wearing, social distancing, hand hygiene, limiting of gatherings, etc. HA. I suppose maybe it would have worked if people were actually following the rules. It seems like most people here are relatively fatalistic about the whole thing and figure they’re going to get it anyway so why should they try to delay it.

Um, because hospitals will be overcrowded, there’s no vaccine yet, and the longer you can put off getting COVID-19 the more we’ll know about it and the safer you’ll be???

And then there’s other people  that think it’s all because of 5G or some scam by the government of Namibia to get money from the WHO. That’s just laughable.

I can count on two fingers the number of times I’ve left the house in the past 15 days, other than to walk the dog. Every time I’m struck by the number of people without masks, pushing their way into someone else’s space. I want to shout “Don’t you know there’s a pandemic you goddamn idiot? Are you trying to kill your grandma?”

Exactly three weeks ago, I was at E.A.T., a little place that sells coffee, prepared food and some other stuff, basically Society Fair in Windhoek, by a gas station. I was buying sandwiches for our camping road trip that afternoon. Some jerk without a mask pushed me out of the way at the cashier to ask about his coffee order. I looked around and realized everyone was crowded by the cashier waiting for their coffee, no masks like the entitled assholes that they were.

I got home and announced that I didn’t think we should go to E.A.T. anymore until people get more serious about disease prevention. Then the lockdown was proclaimed and it was a moot point.

I’ve heard some people say “We have to learn to live with this disease.” Yes that’s true. We do. But does that mean we throw all caution to the wind and pretend it’s not there?

Ugh.

Every day I’m grateful that we took advantage of the time between lockdowns. That I went to the bookstore and bought M literally bags full of activity and sticker books. That I splurged on a new Dutch oven at the Le Creuset store, knowing I’d be spending a lot more time in the kitchen in the months to come (omg it was so totally worth it). That we let things get disorganized and messy at home while we went off camping and exploring. That I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for a game night we hosted and froze half the dough. That I ordered a bunch of two-player board games on Amazon a month ago.

I remember thinking “When we’re stuck at home during the next lockdown, I’ll won’t regret a minute of this.” And it’s true. I’ve always felt that it’s important to go and do all the things while you can, and this pandemic has really reinforced that. Go visit that new city, go explore, if you see something you really want BUY IT (within reason of course), go to that fancy restaurant.

Live your best life now goddamnit. You never know when things will change.

Six months with Artie

Artie surveying Lake Oanob.

How has it only been six months since we adopted Artie? She’s such a natural fit for our family, it’s like she’s always been here.

After Athena died, it took us a few months to realize we wanted another dog. So back in February I reached out to a friend who works at the SPCA, asking if she could suggest any dogs that would fit our criteria (less than 40 lbs, youngish but not a puppy, good with kids) and she sent a short list. We went to the SPCA on a Friday afternoon and Artie, at that point her name was Keily, was not a dog I would have even noticed had her name not been on the list. But she seemed friendly and relaxed, and we took her into a little garden area to spend some off-leash time with her. She didn’t mind M and when I bent down and called her over she came running with her tail wagging. Which is more than you’ll get from lots of other dogs.

Nate and I looked at each other and were like “She’ll do.”

Often running, always happy

The next day we went back, signed the papers, got her microchipped and the rest is history.

Her easy-going, happy, playful personality and natural recall make her an all-around fun dog. She’s a great camping companion; she keeps an eye on M, goes exploring with him and she’s happy to snuggle up by the campfire at night. When we holler for her and shake a bag of treats she runs back so quickly you hardly realize she’d wandered off. And she does a GREAT job of keeping rock hyraxes, birds and all other wildlife away from the campsite.

Giving me a heart attack at Spitzkoppe (photo by B. Johnson)

She’s so amiable we’ve been lazy about training her. She knows “sit,” but that’s about it. We’ve decided to train her while we’re on lockdown for the next few weeks (months?), and she’s making fast progress. She still pees in the house from time to time but we’re working on that.

More exploring at Spitzkoppe

Artie is also officially a garbage dog. You can take the dog off the streets, but you can’t take the streets out of the dog. She will leave kibble in her bowl for hours and turn her nose up at treats. But if she finds a chicken bone or anything even remotely edible outside, she’ll eat it before you even realized it was there. And may the gods help you if you leave the trash sitting by the door and don’t immediately take it to the bin outside.

But no dog is perfect and these are flaws we can live with. If the past six months are any indication, the next decade with Artie is going be great. We love you, Artie Fartie!

Our girl Artie

Here we go again

The sign outside M’s school

Before we get started, I have no idea what’s happening with the formatting here… but I don’t care enough to fix it right now. Just imagine that there are in fact paragraph breaks.

At first it seemed like Namibia had done such a great job of nipping the COVID pandemic in the bud. There was an early lockdown, the borders were basically closed, and a number of other mitigation measures were put in place.

But in the second half of May, after a 45-day window of no new cases, cases started being reported again. At first it was just in returning quarantined Namibians and permanent residents. Then some truck drivers coming from neighboring countries tested positive.

Then some people escaped quarantine and oops they tested positive and spread the disease.

Then parts of the Erongo Region– the towns of Walvis Bay and Swakopmund– were locked down.

Oh, but guess what? There are five roads leading out of Walvis and Swakop (three paved roads, two dirt roads) and there were only police checkpoints on the three paved roads. The people in that area were free to come and, most importantly, LEAVE, using the unpaved dirt roads.

And so here we are. Every region in Namibia is reporting cases of COVID-19 and there is rampant community spread in many cities, including Windhoek.

The situation in Windhoek has been deteriorating for weeks now. On Wednesday afternoon a new lock-down was finally announced. This time there’s even an 8 pm curfew.

To be honest, it’s hitting me harder than I thought it would. Part of it is frustration with the fact that the lockdown didn’t happen sooner, which could have literally saved lives; part of it is that this is lock-down Round 2. We already did this once. If everyone had done their part and followed the rules, we wouldn’t be here again.

We are busier at work now than ever, and our nanny/housekeeper is no longer coming to our house. M had a short 4 weeks of in-person school back in July, which stopped on August 4 when it was clear the situation in Windhoek was going to hell. So he’s stuck at home with parents who hardly have time for him during the day, bored and watching too much tv. Luckily I did some shopping while the restrictions were loosened and we have a stockpile of a wide variety of books for him. And his new Kindle just arrived in the mail. Parents of the year, right here.

Every time I cough or M spikes a fever, I wonder if we have it. Where we could have gotten it. Who we could have given it to. Who they could spread it to. What the outcomes might be.

We are glad we travelled and explored while we could. Maybe now that we’re not going anywhere I’ll finally have some time to write about some of it.

Camping hand washing station

For now, I am frustrated, saddened and disheartened. But I’m ok really.

We will take care of projects around the house. I’ll have more time for painting and writing, being creative. We will play lots of Gloomhaven. We’ll try out some new recipes. And some new wines.

I’ll get through this. We will all get through this.