27 Hour Countdown

27 HOUR COUNTDOWN BY BARBARA HANNA

When you fall on the sand dunes in Namibia, your fate is sealed. Step by step you trudge along. The fine grains beneath your feet pull you into the earth and threaten to hold you there. You squint against the unabating sun - Why is everything fighting against your climb? The sand rides the whistling wind through your hair and your clothes, striking your skin. Crawling now on all fours, you push up just a bit further, stretch your fingers to the edge, clutch that final handful of grain - Silence. Slowly, you rise. You tilt your chin to feel lucid air sweeping over your face. The glittering sand adorns your arms and you feel it resting heavy like a crown in your hair. The scorching sun sits ahead as your equal, and your dry lips crack as you smile.

When you fall near children in Namibia, your fate is sealed. Before you can count to three or even think to get up, you feel the weight of a small child land on you. Then another. Then a third. Soon you lose track of the number, and you should be upset, But how can you be? Under a mountain of giggles, you don’t even mind that you can’t breathe because you are laughing instead reviving your life with a different kind of oxygen than you ever thought you needed.

When you fall for Namibia, your fate is sealed. Back at home, you long to return despite the 18-hour flight time and 9-hour layover; You vow to go back. You take what you have learned and hold it close, keep in contact with the friends you have made. And, one day, you will find yourself packing your bags to bursting, kissing your anxious mother and worried father, crossing an ocean and three continents on your way to fall once more.