it's not supposed to be like this

A difficult passing
Sunday, 25 April, 2010

I’m leaving today to go on vacation. I’ve been looking forward to this day for months. A way to take a break and come back ready to tackle whatever challenges I might face next term and for the final 6 months of living in Namibia. I’m going. I can’t wait.

But a large part of me wants to stay. Not because I’ll miss Nicky. Not because traveling is exhausting and stressful. Not because I’m afraid of everything I’ll miss out here while I’m gone for 3 weeks.

Because Stephania, my host mom, the person who took me in as if I was her daughter, who I lived with for the first and hardest 6 weeks of living here, died last night in Windhoek after suffering a terrible car accident last Friday night.

On 16 April, she was in the back of a closed bakkie (a pickup truck with a cap on the back) traveling to town. The way the accident was explained to me, immediately upon my return from a weekend in town, was that the driver saw someone hiking, so pulled over to pick them up, but had to turn around to go back and get them. Without looking, the driver pulled back out to turn around and there was a car coming from behind them and drove straight into the back of the bakkie, where Stephania was sitting. She was sent flying from the bakkie with the cap.

Her family rushed her to Windhoek because they didn’t trust the hospital in Rundu. It was determined that three ribs were broken and those ribs had punctured her lungs. I don’t think anyone knew the full extent of her injuries. Daily I would ask learners and teachers if they’d heard anything, constantly trying to get updates. Everyone always told me that it looked like she was getting better. I’m sure it was too early to tell. I was planning to visit her on my way to South Africa.

This morning, a friend in the village sent me a message asking, “Did you hear the bad news?” I immediately thought of 2 possible deaths - Stephania’s or this woman’s son who I’m now teaching for a second year. I didn’t really think she’d be the one to inform me if something happened to her son, she’d be too busy mourning herself and I’d find out from a different source. I didn’t want to believe that Stephania had died and just yesterday Nicky was telling me that she was still doing OK.

I asked, “No, what happened?” After about a half hour of painfully waiting for her response, she told me, “Stephania died last night.”

I told Kaitlin, “I need to call you.” We talked.

I didn’t know what to do. I’m planning to go on vacation to South Africa for 10 days. To visit distant family who are looking forward to having me, and I’m looking forward to get to know. I asked Kaitlin, “Do I still go on vacation?” Yes. For a few reasons. One. You can’t do anything right now for the family. Two. You need a break. Three. When you come back, you can still show your support and love for the family. You have to go and take care of yourself right now, Lori.

Right. Myself.

What gets me most is that this is life for so many people. For me this is two years. I am going on vacation to take a break. When it’s your own life, you don’t get to take a break. Life keeps going and you have to do everything possible to keep up with it. I get the luxury of being from a first world country, currently living and trying to keep up with the heartache of a third world country. But in the end, I get to go. This isn’t my life. But it’s the life of the people I love and they don’t get a break, a vacation, when they need it even more than I do.

I know what it’s like to bury someone you love and who wasn’t supposed to die yet. I buried Djami last year. And being around for the funeral, memorial and burial were the most important things to me at that time. I know that staying here would be helpful for me; to mourn with everyone who is missing a family member and friend. That’s how I see it, but I know I have to listen to what my friends are telling me as well. I have to take care of myself and by skipping my vacation, I will not be taking care of myself. I need this vacation.

The first thing I did when I came to Andara was bury Stephania’s father. He died the day I moved here. I was brought immediately to his home and was accepted into the funeral arrangements as part of the family. It was hard. The first night I was here, I sat with Stephania and Leleti (her daughter now in grade 7) and watched Catalina and Sebastian (a terrible Mexican soap opera dubbed over in English from Spanish). I was sitting on a bed with Stephania while Leleti was on the floor in front of us. I was going back and forth being trying to hold in the tears of wanting to leave and feeling completely fine with wanting to leave, getting the tears to stop because I told myself that the next day I could go back to Windhoek and the USA. Somehow I made it through that first day, and many days after that. And I’ve been here long enough to bury the next generation.

I saw her two weeks ago in town. Leleti was the one who ran up to me and immediately we fell back into our easy, sister-like relationship. I hadn’t seen them sitting outside of OK Foods, so I went over and greeted Stephania. We had a short conversation and that was the last interaction I’ll ever have with her.

After Djami’s burial, I told Ritha that I don’t want to have to bury anyone else I know well while I live in Andara. She told me I would have to. If only I’d known who it was.

I told Kerri that I didn’t want to bury another person I knew while living in Andara. She gave me several examples of volunteers from her group who had one extremely difficult burial, so if I went with those statistics, I’d be fine.

I told Mark I didn’t want to bury another person I knew while living in Andara. He told me that the longer I lived here and the more lives I became invested in, the more likely it’d be that I’d have another tough funeral to go to.

I liked Kerri’s answer best so that’s the one I was believing, even though I knew even at that time that it was the least accurate.

Nothing ever stays the same. It changes too fast. And the pace of life here can’t possible keep up with that pace of change.

Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. When a Crocodile Eats the Sun