Windhoek and the Week that Was (alliteration!)

Unfortunately there was a change of plans and MacDonald never came for tea. Trust me when I say that I was as disappointed as you are now.

Friday morning Engelhardt and I left Swakop at around 9am for Windhoek. We were packed like sardines into a tiny van called a “coombi”. It was no bigger than an average North American mini-van but there were 16 of us all squeezed in. Apart from being intensely uncomfortable, the only incident of note during the 4-hour journey was getting stopped by the police for speeding. But the really surprising part was when a couple people got out of the back of the van with open beers! (Keep in mind, it was about 11am at the time.) Apparently having open alcohol in a moving vehicle is perfectly legal in Namibia, as long as it’s behind the front seat. Even Engelhardt was surprised that they were consuming it right in front of the police though. In the end though, the speeding ticket made for a much needed pit stop. I was unaware that one’s rear end could be both numb and in agony at the same time. Oh well - live and learn I guess.

When we got into Windhoek we took a taxi to Engelhardt’s friend’s house. Engelhardt has known Elizabeth for years from having house-sitted for her when she lived in Swakopmund. She is an American, with a 10-year-old adopted South African son named David. The house was beautiful, complete with swimming pool, hot tub, and two pedigree golden retrievers. After settling in, Engelhardt and I went into town, specifically to the polytechnic university to find Marcelino (former Mascato exchange chorister). Marcelino gave us a tour of campus and we even ran into another Mascato member studying in Windhoek, Barverly. Engelhardt then had a rehearsal to go to, as his audition was on Saturday morning. When Engelhardt was finished, we bid adieu to Marcelino and met up with Elizabeth and David for a very nice meal downtown.

On Saturday, Engelhardt went into town early for his audition. He said that he felt like it went pretty well and that he got good feedback from the judges. After his audition Elizabeth, David, and I met up with Engelhardt and Marcelinas (composer of !Gawigu, not to be confused with Marcelino) for lunch. Marcelinas has some great stories to tell about his experiences as a musician, and he’s becoming quite well known as a composer, which is great and well deserved. After lunch we headed back to Elizabeth’s for a quiet afternoon and pizza for dinner. Engelhardt also got the result of the audition – unfortunately he didn’t get it. In fact, apart from one person, the only people who were successful were students at the college of arts, and the judges were the teachers from the college of arts! As a side note, the results of the auditions have now been called into question since it seems that the judges so obviously favoured their own students, and Engelhardt might get to re-audition!

Sunday was a pretty quiet day. We were in limbo a little bit because we had to buy train tickets back to Swakop, but weren’t really sure when the ticket office would be open. Also, almost all the stores are closed on Sundays so there wasn’t much to do. We did make tacos for lunch though, which was fun.

The train trip back was somewhat interesting. It was certainly nothing like Hollywood’s portrayal of an African train journey, but then, Hollywood’s portrayal of anything African is usually either completely wrong or about 50 years out of date. The carriage was old and a bit dirty but totally unremarkable in any other way. Luckily, we had quite a lot of space to stretch out because the train was quite empty, and Elizabeth had upgraded our tickets to “business class”. (She was generally extremely generous and wouldn’t let us pay for any meals either!) What I was really wondering though, was how could this journey possibly take as long as the schedule indicated? Apparently, we were supposed to leave at 7:55pm and arrive in Swakopmund at 5:20am. How does a 4-hour car ride translate into a 9 and ½-hour train ride? Well, I guess the answer is that the train has a tendency to either stop or go backwards for hours at a time! When we got going, we would be going at a respectable pace, but it never seemed to last long before we would jerk to a stop for what seemed like no reason at all, and just stay stopped for hours! In the end, we arrived in Swakop at around 7:20 – two hours late, and having slept for no more that an hour at a time. All in all though, I would take the train over the coombi any day. Just being able to move if you were uncomfortable made up for the 7 and ½-hour difference in travel time.

When we did finally get into town though, I went home to get some real sleep, but poor Engelhardt had to go to work! I felt so bad for him. We met up at Mrs. Venter’s for lunch though and then went to run the rehearsal for the new Mascatos. Engelhardt was going to teach the girls and I was going to teach the guys. But for the first half of rehearsal there was only one guy there, so we just all rehearsed together. When a couple more guys showed up I led a sectional for about 20 minutes.

Right at the end of the rehearsal I got a call from the classically trained Soprano I/pig-squealer extraordinaire herself, Megan! She’s been traveling through South Africa and Namibia with a small tour group for the past week or so and was making a two-day stop in Swakopmund. So we met up at the internet café and I showed her around town a little bit. We also had a great dinner at the Lighthouse – I had the oryx, she had the springbok, both were delicious.

On Tuesday, Megan had some activities planned with her tour including quadding and sand-boarding (both of which I informed her are extremely hazardous to the delicate ecosystem of the Namib desert. She didn’t care.) For some reason she also felt the need to jump out of a plane. I’m not sure what the motivation is there, but she seemed quite pleased with herself. After all that foolishness, we bought some groceries and made ourselves a delicious dinner – chicken with caramelized garlic, scalloped potatoes, and vegetables.

Megan left with her tour early Wednesday morning, but she’ll be back for two weeks on the 15th (same day Michelle arrives). On Wednesday afternoon Engelhardt, Linus (who arrived back in Namibia while I was in Windhoek), and I teamed up to teach Linus’s choir “Hold Me, Rock Me” and “Zulu Mama”. It’s nice having Engelhardt and Linus there to sort of ease me into a role of actually running a rehearsal. I’m also trying to think of some other easy western music, preferably a cappella, and preferably which I would know, to teach them. So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

Thursday was a mostly quiet day. I went into town to go to the internet café. Then Mrs. Venter picked me and took me on a couple errands. Afterwards we went back to Mrs. Venter’s house where MacDonald has been working hard creating the memoirs of the choir’s trip to Germany. For anyone who was in the choir when Mascato visited Canada, you will remember the books that we got at the end of the trip with accounts of each day written by the choristers. Well, Mascato does this for every trip, and compiling, editing, and typing all of these entries is a huge job. Later, MacDonald and I went out for pizza and we had tea at my place afterward (finally, tea with MacDonald!).

Friday I was over at Mrs. Venter’s again, helping MacDonald a bit with the memoirs, and trying to catch up on my blog. It was really hot on my walk over to Mrs. Venter’s and it was still quite early in the morning. They’ve been saying that the East Wind is coming for about the past two weeks, but now I’m starting to believe them. (The East Wind is a phenomenon similar to the Chinook winds that we receive in Alberta sometimes, but since we’re in the desert, we don’t just get hot weather, we get sandstorm. For those who were on the tour last summer, I’m sure you remember the sandstorm during our performance at Haaganenni [sp?] school.) In the afternoon we had two choir rehearsals – one for the new Mascatos and one for the old Mascatos. In the first one, I led an alto sectional. It was a bit of a challenge trying to demonstrate correct vocal technique while singing in my falsetto. I think in future I’ll just demonstrate an octave lower. It’s funny how without even thinking about it, I’ll just start parroting some of the techniques that I’ve learned over the years with Scott and Bruce (and other clinicians and such). Bruce’s “vowel sleeve” in particular has come up many times when trying to create a more unified sound. In the second rehearsal, we had a men’s’ sectional led by Theo. It’s certainly different from a Kokopelli men’s’ sectional. There were a couple times when I thought fights were going to break out (I’ve heard Koko actually was like that back in the day – something about defending Jenica’s honour . . .). But I was informed afterwards that it’s always like that, and it’s mostly in good fun just to keep things lively.

Today, we have another rehearsal, as well as a rehearsal for the musical. Afterwards, I’m going to stay over at Garth’s house in Walvis Bay. Megan and Michelle are both arriving at Walvis Bay airport tomorrow, so now I can just get a ride with Garth, rather that have Mrs. Venter drive me all the way out there.

Btw, it is very hot and windy today. I think the East Wind is here!

-Joel.