The Trip of my Life!

This week’s post was meant to be a follow up and conclusion to Beyond Sight— Seeing with your Whole Self but nothing has gone according to plan for all the moving parts that needed to go into ensuring that. But such is life and, as Forrest Gump in his movie said his mother told him—

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know which ones you’re going to get.”

So, I’ve decided to share a very personal yet beautiful experience that will probably stay with me for all my days in this wonderful place called Earth.

More than two decades ago, on one Friday morning, in Maun, I hopped into a Cessna as the only passenger and flew over to Windhoek. The capital of Namibia. I’d gotten a lift in an aircraft that was going for a maintenance service and would, on Monday, be in it again for the return trip. The only thing I paid for were the minuscule tax fees. I used to work at the Airport, so I had months before asked a good acquaintance that worked for a tourist company to be on the look out for such a deal for me.

It was a shopping trip for a laptop. The currency differences between the two countries would make it cheaper. Visiting Windhoek for the first time was a bonus of course.

The trip couldn’t have taken more than two hours and as the plane prepared for landing, I was astounded from above at the precision of the divisions between buildings. As if a ruler had been used. That’s what proper planning looked like. And true to rumour, Windhoek was spotlessly clean. From the airport, into the taxi and all the way to the backpackers I’d booked into, I was on the lookout for even a sweet wrapper. I’d never seen anything like that. It was clinically clean.

I spent most of my day at the backpackers, sitting in an outside area with chairs around the swimming pool. It was insanely hot and any thought of going out to explore dried up and vaporised in the heat around me. Reading my novel provided a much needed distraction but I probably didn’t hydrate as much as I needed to. I knew it would be hot but didn’t think it would be much different from where I came from.

In the evening, other backpackers besides me gravitated toward the bar where they had some local music playing. There was a group of Swedes with whom I struck up conversations and I had to get over a shock to my system in their appearance. I don’t know if I pulled it off but I did my best to not stare. They were like apparitions to me.

I could see in their faces that they were young, probably even younger than me but their hair had gone completely white on their heads and eyebrows. With the bluest of eyes I’d ever seen. The girls had such long hair, almost to their waists and later after we’d all guzzled beers and the night was winding down, inhibitions were too.

We openly discussed appearances and with permissions, I was touching the girls’ hair that reminded me of dolls. They were touching to feel how mine- coarse, kinky and curly felt. They were also unusually tall, especially the guys. Listen, I thought I’d seen white people but those were whiter than white.

They explained how it was the cold area they came from in Sweden, in the most northern part that gave people like them their physical traits. Besides genetics. They were so beautiful, in a different way. Their own way.

We were young, spirited and blessed with the energy to get moving again the next morning after only a few hours of sleep.

We all bundled up in taxis to go to the Maerua Mall, then I was told the biggest shopping mall in the city. Before 11 am, I had terribly chapped lips and after getting a medicated lip balm from the Chemist, we went our separate ways. My first task was to get a computer and all else could come after that.

After a bit of walking, I found the electronics shop where I bought the laptop from. With plenty of change and time, I decided I was going to walk the length of that entire mall. I was in no hurry but I began to feel strange and didn’t immediately know why until I realised that it was because it felt like I wasn’t in Africa.

It slowly dawned on me that I’d never before experienced feeling like the only black person in any place. I saw only mixed race people. So incredibly beautiful. And white people.

What happened next was an out- of- body experience. And you only know it as such after the whole thing has ended and you’re taking apart what on earth had happened.

I was floating above. Gliding is more like it. I saw myself looking and seeing everything so clearly. My mind didn’t label anything, I was just an observer. Language can be so limiting, so to give you a proper sense of the sensations, I’ll compare it to something I’ve only ever seen in movies.

I was rolling as if on skates and the world glided past me but there was a sense of a full 360 degree angle too. In a sense, it was the second time, time seemed to have slowed down in my life. Although the experiences of the two events can never be compared beyond that.

So, I have no recollection of how long it took to walk from one end of the mall to the other. It’s true the mall is huge. And then I walked right back again, gliding, watching, completely detached. The awareness that I hadn’t yet seen a face in my own colour somehow also there. The magic of that entire experience was interrupted and broken by the mind doing it’s familiar thing. As soon as it pointed out that I saw myself looking at myself. Poof, that was that!

I’ve been trying to remember if I felt sad after that, but I can’t. I do clearly remember though that I walked into a tiny book store with trinkets and gift stuff. An old lady was behind the counter and when I paid for the only things I got for myself on that trip- a gorgeous silk scarf and beautifully brown leather- bounded Bible, she said to me

“Your face is shining so beautifully.”

I had no idea what that meant but I thanked her and decided to look for somewhere to sit down and have lunch. I settled on a Sushi restaurant, to give myself the first and last experience of that anywhere outside of Japan. (I’m yet to travel there) It was also the last time, I told myself, I’ll ever walk the length of any mall just for the sake of it. Those are just concrete blobs in space.

After sitting down I realised I’d just gone through something magical. I think when years later, reading up on those rare experiences, I had no trouble knowing exactly what it was. My mind travelled back in time and snatched that from the pool of memories and experiences.

Back at the backpackers later in the day with the Swedes travellers, I met more people, the circle of conversations widened and on a request the workers there organised taxis to come and ferry us to the famous township- Katutura. To my surprise it was also spotlessly clean! Another first for me.

In a tinned structure, with local music blaring, we talked, danced and laughed the night away. I wrote the names of all the popular music CDs from the region (Southern Africa) that I knew of, as they’d asked. We took photos, exchanged emails because the group was heading to the Skeleton Coast early the next day.

When the Cessna touched down before mid-day on Monday, the currents of my life took their own directions and routes. The weekend in Windhoek with the people who’d looked like nothing I’d ever seen before got lost into the background of life.

We never kept in touch. The northern most part of Sweden geez… far out of the orbit of my life. I never printed those photos, from an old camera that used SD Cards. I’ve kept and even moved here with that camera!

Now as I am penning this piece, there’s an urge to see if I can’t do something about that. God forbid the technology is not completely obsolete now.

Only because I’m curious to see if I’ll see my own shining face looking back at me.

I’ve never really seen the popular TV series The Game of Thrones but of course I know the images, there was no escaping that even for me who didn’t watch TV.

One of the reasons why I love travelling so much is because it’s an authentic show, all in a class of it’s own. I saw real people, in real time whom I believe were of the Aryan race. That too also came to my mind much later. When I saw the dragon lady from the TV series.

From my own encounter with them, there was nothing ugly, untoward. Not a tingle of ‘racism’ that vibrated from them to me. If anything, only wonderment at the variety of people who walk this Earth. Many different shades are we coloured. I’ve no idea why we were ever called ‘coloured.’

It was enough that I had an extraordinary trip in more ways than one. The trip of my Life!

I hope to get the chocolates I want in the next box. Till we meet again.