Great Desert Flower of Namibia

Nico, my dear co-pilot,

You told me that she was flying again, but you didn't say that you would join her so soon. You were the great desert flower of Namibia, who managed to thrive in the most inhospitable environment with an inexhaustible supply of smiles and joy. Just as I began to feel stranded in a sea of desiccated Earth, you appeared out of nowhere. The first time I saw you was in the sky--like warm rain, you landed before me and nourished me with your kind, imaginative, and gentle demeanour. Oh Nico, I will never forget the freedom of being in the air with you, soaring over the sands of time, restrictions, intolerance, bureaucracy, and racial tension. You simply treated everyone as a dear friend, regardless of who they were and even when they did not reciprocate your gesture.

I keep flashing back to fragmented memories from Omaruru---from the commonplace task of taking sodas out of the refrigerator and marking our names on the tab sheet to the extraordinary experience of feeling the wind slip over my face as we watched the sun descending under the darkening sky with Brandberg Mountain in the distance. Every time a new one comes, I smile, because for a second, you are reborn to me. Despite my best intentions, this feeling always slips away the more I relive the memory in my mind. And then you slip away... Later, I see a purple aster growing out of the sand or hear an engine roaring overhead, and you are born again. Then, the flower disappears from view and the roaring fades, and you leave once more, like an undulating wave that makes contact only for a precious moment before returning to the sea.

One day, when my wave reaches its crest, it too shall be compelled to return to the source from which it came. Then, the energy that my wave carried will be transferred to the next as it goes out and touches land for that ephemeral time of its own. My understanding of this also comes and goes in waves; I touch it when I see what happened to you not as a death, but as a continuation of the transition that occurs at every moment. Is it not true that you and I are made up solely of non-you and non-me elements?

I will always remember our fabulous adventures above this beautiful planet and I will try my best to follow your example, radiating happiness and joy in my actions without discrimination, like a sun which extends a smile to everything in its path of warm light. It is difficult to feel sad when I am so filled with gratitude for everything that you have given me. Thank you, Nico, for simply being who you were and sharing the wealth of your wisdom with others in every way that you knew how. I will find you again, this time blowing across the crimson sands, continuing to transform them in ways that even you yourself could not have imagined. When I do, I know that I’ll be standing where the sea of red meets the sea of blue.


Fly free, my friend.


Heather

Desert Flower

“I didn’t expect you to come back.”

I handed the boy my shopping bag full of groceries including bread, lunch meat, and drinking yogurt.

“Well, I did,” I smiled. “So you told me that you would tell me why you didn’t want to come with me when I returned.”

The boy hesitated.

“You promised,” I insisted.

“I didn’t go with you because I don’t feel comfortable going in those places.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the boy sneaking a peek through the plastic to determine its contents. He smiled shyly. I handed the bag to him, then said goodbye and continued into town.

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My mind travelled back to the windsock dancing in the wind, alone amongst sand and distant blue waves, which were beginning to whitecap. Each individual strip of fabric was undulating to its own tune, but the collection of movements was all together a tune of its own, beautiful to witness.

As I was interacting with my glider wing, I noticed that when I was listening to, giving, and receiving with the wind, my mind was quiet – I wasn’t thinking! Mario later scolded me for that very point, saying that I missed the objective of the entire lesson and didn’t complete even one of the exercises that he had asked me to do. He asked me in a very frustrated voice what my goal had been out there, in the desert off to the western side where I had wandered, and I tell you now that no matter how hard I try to rack my brain for reasons as to why I did what I did, and forgot what I was supposed to do, I honestly cannot come up with any. I only remember feeling that the wind was speaking to me through the wing and when I genuinely listened, it danced with me. Whenever I became distracted or reverted to an automatic reaction, the wing dropped to the ground.

I was so focused on this interaction that I became oblivious to the direction in which we, the wing and I, were heading, or at least how quickly we were moving there. I remember wondering, “is this something like God?” as my wing filled with air and I responded with the brakes and A-risers.

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Fleeting interactions with Charles came and went. His communication was irregular and not always clear. I met his family in an outer suburb of Swakop; we had dinner and watched a movie together. Charles was silent most of the time and tended to avoid me. I couldn’t determine whether this perplexing behavior could be attributed to extreme shyness, general apathy, or perhaps even regret towards my presence in his home. In the end, it was I who lost interest in the whole endeavour of meeting with him and getting him to talk. Why should I try to force a situation into a direction it doesn’t want to go?

--

My heart warms when I think of Nico, his wrench which he always carried on him (“because you never know when you’ll need one!”), the flower strapped on the nose of his plane with a :-), the way he always called me Milady, with a bow, our antics in the hangar practising our switches, watching a Namibian sunrise from above. I miss you, Nico. You understand what magic is and how to summon it. You do what you do because it is what you love and what you find to be inspiring. People judge and criticise you because they don’t understand you; their ignorance is illuminated through their ridicule. You, like so many other things I’ve discovered since I’ve been here, should continue to exist—and need to—because you make life beautiful. You make the lifelong daily struggle to find meaning worth it through simple (inter)actions that you may never know so greatly impacted another person. The time I spent with you was a wonderful gift and I will never forget it.

Please, Nico, continue to exist as you do.
Don’t give in and never give up.

Getting Higher in Omaruru...

Yesterday evening we arrived in Omaruru and went directly to the airfield. Several pilots were already there with their microlights in preparation for the Microlight Association’s meeting the following morning. Mario and I unloaded the equipment which included 2 paragliders, 2 Käfige, 2 motors, some mattresses, pillows, and other sundries. While Mario was setting up the powered gliders, I took a couple of flights in the microlights of David and Nico Van Dyk from Uis. It was incredible to see Namibia from the sky, though both David and Nico noted that the landscape was extraordinarily green this year due to increased rainfall. We flew over mountains, dry riverbeds, and even Nico’s uncle’s house! On our motorcycle with wings, we soared over the lush green bush until the sun tucked under the horizon. Afterwards, we had an evening braai and a few drinks (an Appletizer and orange juice for me), chatting in a mixture of English, German, and Afrikaans. I was delighted to discover that my comprehension level had not declined over the years since my time in Tübingen.

That night, we slept in the hangar under the wing of one of the microlights, tail number V5-UEH, Schneeger in between Mario and me. I slept soundly, hovering mosquitoes notwithstanding, until daybreak when I was awoken by the sound of the hangar door opening and with it, the roar of several engines starting at once.

“Heather!!!” Nico yelled excitedly from the entrance. “Would you like to come flying still?”

Sleepy-eyed, I popped out of bed like a child on Christmas morning and ran over to grab my shoes. Five minutes later, I was wearing my goggles and adjusting my headset, preparing for take-off as 8 other pilots were doing the same.

The sun had barely crept over the horizon and the wind was completely still. After our run-up, we took off into the frozen wind, leaving a trail of dust behind us, and lifted off into the sky. As we climbed, the air became significantly warmer and I was able to relax into my chair a bit more. Being so high again for the third time in just 12 hours was incredible. I half-thought I was still dreaming next to Schneeger in my sleeping bag; I was so happy at that moment, well I still am! Flight is such a marvelous thing, especially with the freedom of being in a microlight or under a paraglider wing.

We landed and were transported by a covered shuttle to a rather large colonial-style house for coffee and breakfast. Afterwards, we returned for the meeting, which I admittedly skipped in favour of writing and resting. Mario and I are planning on travelling to Swakop this evening in order to return to the dune tomorrow morning to sail over the foggy sands once more. Our hope is to be able to continue to do so each day until the end of the week.