Flashback

Today my memory was given a jerk and I was taken back to November 1983.

We were living in Hermanus at the time and Regina was three months pregnant with Cecilia. One morning I got a call, the one that all guys who were still doing camps dreaded. The voice on the other side identified himself as a corporal from the regiment I was affiliated to. He then asked: "Why are you not there?" I replied: "Where is there?" "Rundu" was his terse reply.

It turned out that they used my old address in Pretoria to call me up for a three months camp in Rundu on, what was then, the South West African northern border. I was then promptly rerouted to the next camp which started that same week in Messina, close to the Rhodesian border in Northern Transvaal. I missed the best 3 months of Regina's pregnancy with Cecilia as well as all our family birthdays, Christmas and our anniversary.

Well enough of the past. Tonight we sleep in Rundu! That is why I went down memory lane. We arrived here at 18:30 when it was already dark so we did not see much. When we went to the restaurant at the Kavango Sands Lodge, where we stay, we heard a hippo grunt down at the river. Tomorrow morning we will have breakfast again overlooking the Okavango river.

We left Windhoek at 12:00 today and traveled through an unusual landscape. After Grootfontein the horizon kept falling away below the tree line. It created the illusion of a never ending see of trees. Because it is so flat the road is straight and level all the way to the horizon.

Tomorrow we start with another round of work in this area and should be back in Windhoek on Friday.