On computers, and other mysterious life forms

At the risk of incurring penalties for copyright infringement, I've not only stolen my own words, I've stolen Noah's idea to steal my own words. My first Grinnell Corps Report appears below.

Sorry Noah. By way of appeasement, I've inserted this adorable picture of you.

Since arriving in Namibia on the first of July, I have had scores of new experiences, most of them good or at least comical and very few of them predictable. From these experiences I’ve come to new realizations and learned some important lessons. The most recent lesson is that you should never allow your hair to be braided by four Namibian kindergarteners with small, yogurt-covered fingers. Not unless you wish to look like Einstein electrocuted for several days. I have also come to realize that, over the past three months, I’ve become a tremendous nerd, and that this is a good thing.

Call it goofy, call it downright strange. Call it what you will, this game, which goes by the name "entertain yourself in a confined area by jumping up to catch a small blue ball using butterfly nets", is unique to Namibia. The lesson here is that you should never be afraid to look stupid, as long as you're having fun.

It is nearly impossible to live and work at Gobabeb without sounding (and often looking) like a geek in the extreme. There are several reasons for this. The first is my job description. I work as the Research and Information Technology Support Services Fellow, which translates into “computer guy [or in this case, girl]”, and means I can usually be found sitting in a nest of Ethernet cables and extension cords, paging through the Windows Server 2008 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant and attempting to wipe cyan toner from my hands. Before I became Gobabeb’s resident IT support, I agreed with one of my favorite writers, Dave Barry, in saying that “I am not the only person who uses his computer mainly for the purpose of diddling with his computer.” Now I diddle with more purpose. 

Additionally, the strong tendency to speak in acronyms at Gobabeb has replaced half of my vocabulary with abbreviations that sound more complex than they really are. For instance, the GRTC hosted SAAG and SASQUA conferences on two consecutive weekends; masters students at Gobabeb are studying the HSL and working with NERMU on LTER projects; my job involves a fair bit of time on the phone with MWEB to repair our VSAT connection. My personal nerd factor increased one day recently when I looked in the mirror to find myself wearing a NASA trucker hat, a Dartmouth shirt, and a flash drive (loaded with a digital dune atlas) as a necklace. I will mention that all of these items were gifts from visitors to Gobabeb. But when it comes down to it, I think the most significant reason for my perceptible dorkiness is that I cannot describe the landscape surrounding Gobabeb without referring to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or both. 

Gobabeb Research and Training Centre is at the intersection of three ecosystems, two of which are named in a way that suggests the presence of water, but this is for the most part misleading. They are the dune “sea”, the Kuiseb (an ephemeral river), and the gravel plains. This situation is ideal for Gobabeb, as it provides a unique opportunity for comparative research across environments. Additionally, each environment provides its own opportunities for adventure. The sand dunes, for instance, are the perfect spot for a sundowner with friends and for sandboarding, which is lots of fun provided one remembers to shut one’s mouth when crashing. There is also great potential for someone to provide a little entertainment for nearby Star Wars geeks by climbing the closest dune at dusk, dressed in an appropriately-hooded brown robe, and uttering the sandperson (or Tusken Raider, if you prefer) cry. 

The crest of nearby Station Dune

Northward movement of the dunes is halted by periodic flooding of the Kuiseb River, which separates the dune sea to the south from the gravel plains to the north. There is much to love about the sandy riverbed, which remains dry most of the year. The Kuiseb is home to fluorescent scorpions, a wandering collection of goats and donkeys belonging to the nearby Topnaar communities, and sand volleyball courts, among other wonders. 

The riverbed, below the station

The gravel plains are something else entirely. During my first month in Namibia, as we drove through a particularly desolate-looking section of the gravel plains where black rocks jut from the earth at odd angles, my thoughts turned, as they are wont to do, to Lord of the Rings. I remember thinking that Frodo’s walk through Morodor could have been filmed in this area and was relieved to find that the pair of eyes staring out from behind a large rock belonged to a donkey rather than an orc. However, it took just one afternoon in the gravel plains for me to develop an appreciation for their singular beauty and that of the surprisingly diverse biota which inhabit the gravel plains. I was running along a road so as not to disturb the delicate biological soil crust when, to my left side, I witnessed a young springbok pronking (a sort of hilariously stiff-legged, head-down bouncing accomplished by lifting all four feet off the ground simultaneously) while several ostriches ran headlong in the opposite direction. When I turned around to head back to the Centre, I was just in time to see the silvery full moon hovering above the setting sun, red over the dunes. It was too perfect; I couldn’t help feeling like Luke Skywalker in the famous scene from A New Hope, looking out at binary stars on the horizon of the desert planet Tatooine. I think even the least Star-Wars-obsessed of you would’ve found it strikingly beautiful, too.

The plains northeast of Gobabeb

My point in all of this is that Gobabeb has something for everyone, nerds, sports enthusiasts, and stargazers alike. If you’re a language person, you might amuse yourself by picking up on the conglomeration of words and accents used by station employees and interns, most of whom are from Southern Africa or Europe. Be warned that if you do this, you will begin pronouncing “plant” the British way and refer to traffic lights as robots. Animal lovers could venture to Walvis Bay for a dolphin cruise, during which a seal may board the boat and flop his way across your lap in pursuit of the food table. Movie buffs and geology enthusiasts are encouraged to visit nearby Mirabib, a large rocky outcropping (or inselberg) rising out of the plains, which Stanley Kubrick used as the background for his famous opening scene “the dawn of mankind" from the film 2001- A Space Odyssey. All told, one year will seem a very short time in which to experience everything that Gobabeb has to offer.

Mirabib in the movies! (2001: a Space Odyssey) Apparently Kubrick thought Mirabib provided the ideal setting for the Dawn of Man. (http://fogsmoviereviews.com/2011/10/02/movies-that-everyone-should-see-2001-a-space-odyssey/)

Mirabib in real life! I guess I can spot some similarities...