They Call Me White Ninja

     So here is another transportation story adventure for you all. About two weeks ago was Namibian Independence Day and I finally was able to spend an extended period of time out if my village. I was getting a little stir crazy and was running out of food, so it was just time. Now getting in and out of Schlip is difficult. Most people here have vehicles however with the nearest town being 100km away, its not common that they can just make a quick trip out. Normally what I have to do is ask someone about a week or more in advance if they are leaving. Plans often change by the day and vehicles fill up fast, but getting a spot quickly puts guilt on the driver to find an alternative for me in the event he changes things. Then if they are leaving when I want to go, I ask to travel with them there and back. Realistically, I could “hike” out of here, standing at the sign across from the small store and wave down the first person that drives by. Its getting back that is a problem. Most people have it pretty nice where their village is between 3 and 10km from a tarred road so worse comes to worse, they grab a ride to where their dirt road meets the tar and suck it up and walk the rest of the way. I’m not so lucky. If I try to hike to Schlip, I either have to be lucky enough to flag down someone going down my one lonely dirt road, or I get a ride 50km south to the middle of nothing and wait at my road, hoping someone will come. I have thought about trying my luck just once but the problem with living in the southern part of Namibia is that there is virtually no shade anywhere. SO not only would I be standing in direct African Tropics sun, I would be a girl by herself on the side of the freeway. Not too safe. This situation isn’t so bad, when I need to go shopping, I know I have a reliable way there and back and don’t have to worry about carrying groceries. However, it becomes very difficult when I have my own plans like attending a meeting and therefore need to find a one way.

            Long story short(er) a coworker says he can give me a ride home on Sunday no problem and when he pulled up the back of his truck (with a top on it, don’t worry) was full of about 10 kids and all their luggage. He tells me to sit in the front but I see there is already an older woman there who works at the hostel and her granddaughter. Her daughter who is somewhere around my age, was going to ride in the back now with all the kids. Okay now here’s the thing about sitting in the cabs of trucks like these… most of the time, since I am a guest I am offered a seat in the front cab. More times than not, this is the middle (excuse my French) bitch seat. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if all the trucks here weren’t manual because I then wouldn’t find myself squeezed next to or on top of someone I probably don’t know as my thunder thighs just constantly get in the way of switching gears.

            So I am faced with a choice, squeeze next to this lady and her granddaughter or in the back of a truck with my hormonal teenage students. I decided boogers and slobber weren’t worth it and I kinda missed my kids after not seeing them over the long weekend. Red flags should have gone up in my mind when half of them didn’t want me back there, one of them was my biggest trouble maker, but one of my favorites did sacrifice his seat on the China Shop mattress for a slightly less comfortable package of toilet paper for me.

            I quickly found out that the reason why most of these kids didn’t want me in the back was because they all wanted to finish smoking their packs before reaching the school grounds. The teacher driving was a smoker so the smell from the back would have gone unnoticed if it wouldn’t have been for Ms. Riley.  I just try to reason with them that they are going to have to stop eventually, its bad for everyone else back here and they are all 16 and 17 and essentially killing themselves. When that didn’t work, I told them I was allergic to smoke and that my throat would close up and I would die if they tried. Well the teacher in the front quickly lit up and Ms. Riley was unphased and fine so that gave the kids the go ahead and try. Now, I have many stories of how these kids everyday try to outsmart me and some of them probably do but many do not. These guys right in front of me decide they’re going to light up under a blanket. Hormonal teenage boys and girls under a blanket to hide something from their teacher only screams trouble, but apparently they didn’t know that. I didn’t want to go into teacher witch mode, there really was nothing I could do but next thing I know the whole back of the truck is filled with smoke because one of the kids opened up the blanket and let it all out. At first I thought the blanket was on fire and flipped out but they were all laughing and coughing, so I knew they were fine. Still I told them that was it, we were all going to die and they could finish the one cigarette they had going but had to be done. I have never seen so many kids rush at the last bit of a cigarette. You’d think it was a drop of water on a deserted island. My one trouble maker did tell me though that he felt bad smoking in front of me because he felt like he was disrespecting me. My heart fluttered a little bit even if he took five of the deepest drags in a row I have ever seen. This heart fluttering also didn’t last long.

            So now that this one kid isn’t smoking anymore, he now begins trying to kiss each of the girls. Now we were all in high school once, everyone is hormonal, and there is always that one annoying kid that just wants to kiss every girl and I was stuck with that guy in the back of a truck, thankfully not as one of the girls he was trying to kiss but as the teacher now in a dilemma of how to handle the situation. I honestly don’t know which is worse. I decide I am going to ignore it, I know these kids well enough to know they wont cross any lines but when he grabs a girls face and she yells “MISS” I can’t just sit there. There’s ten of us confined in this small tiny space, there’s no where for you to go and any movement you make affects the people around you. I try to get him to stop but he knows its making the girls mad so it just makes him want to do it more. I try to restrain him in some friendly, nonviolent, professional way (if that is even possible) and big mistake because now he has my attention and wants it all.

            All my students here love my hair. It looks like Barbie’s or like a movie star’s and I just sit there like “Guys don’t touch it, I haven’t washed it in 3 days…” Many of them also do this really weird thing where they gently brush their fingers along my jaw bone as they walk by me and then they kiss their fingers. I don’t even ask, I just give them a horrified look. But anyway, now that the trouble makers has my attention it becomes “Miss let me touch your hair” “Miss let me touch your face” “Miss can you take your hair down and shake your head like the people in the movies?” Long story short I got fed up and attempted to cease the touching of the teachers hair. Remember I am in the back of a cabbed truck with 10 kids and luggage and groceries and I have no where to go. I put my hands up to easily swat away at any incoming fingers and my little trouble maker makes a game out of it testing my reflexes. Now I have had years of practice swatting away unwanted attention. I am a seasoned natural. And I took a whole 3 weeks of self defense at MSU and know that the thumb is the weakest finger, I got this. My hands up in defensive mode and my first few quick defelcts of this kids hand and break aways from his wrist grab terms me the “White Ninja”. We all broke down into laughter but this very quickly escalated into him imitating me and accompanying ninja-like noises. You know little boys when they play fight. It was all HI YEA!! WHYYYA!! YOOOWWWWW!! No just imagine this happening in the back of a truck barreling down a dirt road with a bunch of teenage Namibians. You get the picture.

            My laughter brought my defenses down and my arms were grabbed by these kids who are 3 times stronger than I. I resisted and broke free a few times but my hair could not be salvaged. I was not a knotty, frizzy, curly, dirty messy of a mop. I decided to just give up, my little ninja did not and proceeded to roll over everyone in the back of the truck while demonstrating his ninja-like moves with his feet and hands. As we crest the hill giving us a view of the village I let out a sigh of relief that we are almost home because this has now been one of the most exhausting travels of my time here. Shoulda kept my mouth shut though because he then jumped on me and yells “One more time for old time’s sake Miss Riley HIYEAAAAA!!!! Come on White Ninja!”

            I made it home in one piece and managed to escape only with two pretty nasty looking bruises on my wrists. The kid was strong and I am fairly strong but I have small wrists, bruise easily, and was in a confined space. When I arrived at school on Monday first hour of the day he is sitting in my class sleeping obviously and a girl asks who beat me. Everyone got a genuinely concerned look across their face and then a questionable one when I nodded to the ninja sound asleep in the back, then they all laughed when I told them the story.

            Now anytime he walks by me and tries to touch my hair or face I swat at him and he gets into his defensive mode because “White Ninja is coming out!”

Just another day in the life