one concussed entry

This morning I woke up feeling funny… I wasn’t smashed next to Podge in a tent, I wasn’t lying on hard ground and I wasn’t sweating like a monkey. For a minute I was incredibly disoriented. But then it all came back to me – it was Christmas Eve and I was in Swakopmund lying in my very own bed! My own bed... that in itself was a lovely early Christmas present, but it’s nothing compared to the rest of the day.

Today we went sand boarding. After breakfast, Michelle (an American), the owner of the sand boarding company we were using, picked us up and took us out to the dunes. When we got to the dunes we learned that we were going to be spending the day sand boarding with Michelle and her Rastafarian husband’s entire extended family. And as the day progressed, there were moments when I even felt like a part of the family.

Trevor. This is how you are supposed to sand board. Observe the
awed crowds in the background.

The dunes were breathtaking. I’ve never seen anything like them before and as I’m sure you can imagine, I was in geology heaven.

Trevor, Katie, Podge and I collected our gear and then hit the slopes.

Sand boarding is very similar to snow boarding. Except that it’s on sand… duh. Oh and there are no lifts anywhere near the slopes so after each ride down, you get to walk back up.

And before each run, you have to wax the bottom of your board so that the iron minerals in the sand don’t stick to the board and slow you down.

Now, I’ve been snowboarding before, but boy was I rusty. And I kept running into the same problem that I have when I snowboard; I can keep my balance just fine, but I can’t turn for the life of me.

I fell.

Sand boarding was a ton of fun! Even though I wasn’t anywhere near as good as Trevor and Katie, I still had a few brief spells of brilliance.

But then it happened… on my last run I ended up on my heels, the board dug into the sand and I went flying. I whacked my head pretty hard and ended up with a concussion. I actually don’t even remember that last run. I only know what happened because Trevor took a video of it (a video that I have prohibited him from posting anywhere on the web). I now fully sympathize with every person who has appeared in a falling clip on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Luckily, after just a few very disoriented minutes I pulled myself together and was fine. And I'm 100% okay today. I still know that W&M is the greatest university on the face of the planet. We ended sand boarding by using our boards to sled down the backside of the dune. At the end of our ride, lunch and a soccer ball were waiting for us. We ended up playing keep-away with most of our guides and their family until it was time to leave. But it was pretty cool that even in the middle of the desert, soccer helped two very different cultures come together and feel more comfortable around each other. After our game we were even invited to play in a tournament the day after Christmas!

T and I sledding down the slope!

I spent the rest of the afternoon lying in bed nursing a pretty awful headache, but my fantastic travel buddies kept a watchful eye on me. They also whipped up a delicious Christmas Eve dinner of lentil soup, kudu, springbok, broccoli and potatoes. It wasn’t quite my mom’s broccoli casserole and pork tenderloin, but it was very tasty and we were definitely getting envious looks from those sitting around us.

To end the night, we went to a Christmas Eve service at a German church that was right down the road from our guesthouse (oddly enough, going to the service was my idea). We thought it would be a nice way to experience a bit of home and a bit of the local culture, but we quickly realized that listening to a church service in a foreign language is… tough. We all may or may not have dozed off at one point or another.

When we arrived back to our guesthouse after the service, there was one last Christmas Eve surprise waiting for us – Podge had made us all Santa hats that could double as stockings! We promptly hung them up and crawled into bed, hoping Saint Nick would be able to fit all of our presents inside them.

Good 'ol Podge!