Spring Break 2.0: Better than the DR?

There is one thing to know about Spring Break at the University of Cape Town: It doesn’t exist. The one week “vac” or “holiday” in September is spent catching up on work or sleep (which Americans do neither of here). Anytime we call it spring break, our South African friends put on their best American accents and reply, “Ohhhh my God, are you, like, going to CABO?”

Well, Namibia isn’t exactly Cabo, but that’s where I found myself traveling for seven days, driving through the sand dunes up the Atlantic coast. Since I’ve returned, people at UCT keep asking what I thought of “Africa” because Cape Town (and most of South Africa) does not provide the cliché and stereotypical African landscapes made oh-so-famous by Nala and Simba. Namibia however, provided me with aspects of Africa I never even imagined.

The first five days our group camped in tents, went hiking, canoeing, climbed sand dunes and toured Fish River Canyon (the second biggest canyon in the world). We walked through caves with Bushmen who showed us ancient paintings and showed us which plants could cure stomach cramps, migraines and skin cancer. This was the Africa that I had pictured when I envisioned my semester. However, Namibia has only been an independent country since 1990 and its colonial German influences are clearly prevalent - every rest stop specialized in apple strudel, schnitzel and German artifacts that looked terribly out of place. As we left the bush, we entered the beach resort town of Swakopmund (also the birthplace of Shiloh Jolie-Pitt) where most people are white, German is the most spoken language and all the architecture is European. Much to my surprise, we found our own slice of Germany in the middle of the vast African desert (although poorly timed since the capital, Windhoek, is known for having the biggest Oktoberfest in the Southern hemisphere).

In a country my parents' generation still probably knows as South West Africa, I felt so far from Cape Town and even further from New York – especially during Rosh Hashanah. As many of you probably know, I am one of the few Jewish people on my program. So this break falling over the Jewish New Year did not faze any of my new friends. I, however, felt guilty in Solitaire, Namibia that I wasn’t doing anything for the holiday. But even in this teeny town (the smallest one in the country) that consists only of a bakery, hotel and a campsite, my friend Ross and I sat down next to an elderly couple. As they started a conversation they noticed my New York accent as fast as I noticed their Israeli accent. The pair raised their children four blocks away from me in the City before moving back to Israel. We wished each other a “l’shana tovah” before going into our separate campsites, and I remembered that you can even play Jewish geography on an adventurous Namibian spring break.