Benson and Basson

So it’s started. The countdown. The realization of my leaving. I can feel it and I can tell that some of the kids are starting to feel it. One of the people I will miss the most when I leave is a 13-year-old sixth grade boy named Basson. Almost from the first day of class I’ve been attached to him and the attachment has only grown throughout the year. He’s skinny and small with big dark eyes and a bright smile. Basson has a gentle soul. While he enjoys his fair share of play and joking around I’ve seen him hold a nervous 2^nd grader’s hand on the way to the store, carry a girl’s bag for her as they hailed down a car to hike, and offer this same girl his only sweater on an exceptionally cold morning. These my seem simple, trivial gestures but here in Omatjete such actions by a 13 year old boy (or any boy) are as rare as rain.

What I love most about him however is his intense love of books. I remember watching him in the library, how absorbed he was, how impossible it was to distract him from the bright pages. Our library is a small converted classroom with one table and one chair. The children sit in groups on the floor as they read (or talk). But not Basson. He likes to hide away instead. I’ve often spotted him curled under the only table or situated between the chair and a corner or ducked behind the door. He likes to be alone. That way it’s just the book and him.

I began to realize that he was sad about my near departure when he stopped slipping into his own little world at the library. The past two weeks he has come to sit next to me instead, engaging me in conversation about what he’s reading, sitting just close enough so that his tiny, childlike arm can brush against mine.

(Basson, on my left/ Ovandu-Ovawa on my right)

It’s taken me five months, but I finally finished Charlotte’s Web with both of my classes. The kids who actually listen were devastated at Charlotte’s death. I was overjoyed that they’d noticed and better yet—cared. Basson never takes his eyes off the photocopied pages while we read. The day we finished he showed up at my house asking to see my copy just for a little while. I’m not sure I would’ve said yes to any other boy. Basson doesn’t know it yet, but that copy is staying here in Namibia when I leave- with him.

I’m taking my friend Benson to the doctor to get an HIV test tomorrow. He came to me in secret, begging me not to tell anyone. Benson is in ninth grade at the closest high school—Otjiperongo. I haven’t really let myself think about the possibility of the test being positive. Because if it is, I still have to leave and if it is I will leave knowing a kind 16 year old boy will soon be dead. Benson is the source of a lot of sadness for me. He’s a good kid, cares about school, knows English reasonably well, thinks about others, and yet still he has opened himself up to AIDS. I worry that if he isn’t hearing the warnings, no one is.

(Benson, grandmother, and cousin)

That’s when the guilt starts. Thinking about leaving these kids, wondering if they will end up in Benson’s shoes in just a few short years. Knowing that even if I was to stay there’s no guarantee that I could save them. Saving is too bold a word. An arrogant word. A hopeful word. A word we are all desperate to be capable of, at least for one person. And a word that has eluded me for eleven months.

Living here has been a heavy experience. To be needed all the time. To have the world around you become a drain and you are the spinning bath toy trying not to be washed away. The water is filled with greed and selfishness, with wishes and curiosity, with admiration and laziness, with real love. I feel constantly dizzy, constantly tugged upon.

It’s such a strange extreme. Sometimes I think everything I do is pointless and other times I think, my God, what would happen if I weren’t here?

It just occurred to me that Thursday is Thanksgiving. One of my favorite holidays having spent many wonderful ones as a child with a grandmother I have recently lost. We’re supposed to eat good food and reflect on what we are thankful for. So often my thankful part gets lost amongst the stuffing. This year, however, I don’t have any turkey; all I have left is my thanks. Thanks that Benson felt like he could confide in me, thanks that I have a family who will miss me this Thursday, thanks for Basson’s tiny little arm, and thanks to all of you for taking the time out to listen.

Happy Thanksgiving.