I wrote a friend a Facebook message about a month or so ago explaining this really wonderful moment I had here in Outjo. I decided to rewrite it for my blog and make it a short and sweet entry…considering most of mine tend to be novellas.

It was April 8^th, a Friday, and it was the night of our first ‘Outjo’s Families First Nights.’ The event went well, with about 40-50 kids attending and…4 adults. We were riding back to the hospital and we took one of the back roads. We dropped Michelle, the other Peace Corps Volunteer in Outjo, off at her house and began heading back to the hospital.

I was riding in the back of the open pickup truck and it was a brisk night, but not cold enough to be uncomfortable, but rather kind of refreshing. There was a full moon that night and as the pickup hopped and jumped down the dirt road, kicking dust high into the air, the moon seemed to chase after us through the bush. The blue light shone through the dust filled air and gave a dense depth to the camelthorn bushes on either side of the path.

There were no artificial lights to wash out the stars and the sapphire sky stretched out above us like a backlit perforated membrane. A central part of the sky featured an arc of stars and luminescent dust that happens to be the arm of the Milky Way that our own solar system resides in, now only visible from about one-third of the places on Earth. The smell of sun dried grasses and the chirp of thousands of crickets filled the silence.