The other me

Who would you be if you weren't you?

In an alternate universe, I never left Namibia. On that mellow, dry day in September 1999 I wasn’t on the coach starting the long journey back to London - I was standing outside field base, waving goodbye to the volunteers.

Perhaps I moved - to South Africa, or Botswana or Kenya. Perhaps I stayed in Namibia to become an operator for an outfit of flying doctors, never marrying and adopting a lot of rescue dogs.

But as we are in this universe, in which I am a conformist coward, I didn’t stay. I got on the bus, came back, went to university. And here I am.

So as you can imagine, when I was recently invited back to the area, to spend some time in the Okavango Delta and the Kalahari Desert, I immediately rummaged for my passport and dialled up a box of Malarone.

My family came with me. Giles was in his element, he is a natural in the desert - like a meerkat. Or maybe a honey badger. My children were brave about it all, but were felled at various times by the heat, the mosquitoes, all the flying.

Kitty, in particular, is tall and pale with a fragile digestion. At least once a day she went completely white, tugged at my sleeve and said, “I am going to throw up.” She was then carted off to the shade, in order to lie down on khaki canvas and take small sips of water.

One afternoon our host, Mr Bones, invited us to the Makgadikgadi, one of the great salt pans of the Kalahari, in order to play a game.

We arrived on the salt pan by desert bike, nothing but salty sand in every direction. Zimbabwe was that way, Namibia that way, South Africa over there. Mr Bones placed a jerry can 20 metres away from us.

“Players must walk in a straight line to the can,” he said. “Blindfolded.” He held up a finger. “Let me tell you, this is much harder than it sounds.”

We were all hopeless, even players born and raised in the area. We all of us set off in wild directions, walking stupidly in circles, crunching over the salty mud. The unblindfolded players bent double, wheezing into palms with laughter.

And then Kitty. She took off her glasses, handed them to Giles and suffered to be blindfolded. She set off confidently in that stiff walk she has, her left hand clenched hard as it always is when she is on the move. As she inevitably veered off course we all giggled and made jokes about walking to Namibia. But then, she stopped. She turned.

We gaped and stared. She adjusted her course forty-five degrees and walked directly to the jerry can.

“I have never seen this,” said Mr Bones, after a pause. He fitted the blindfold himself, he said. It was no small matter of personal pride that she could not possibly be cheating.

Heading back across the sand for our dinner in convoy, Mr Bones in the lead, Kitty was allowed to drive the desert bike. I was her passenger. She wound her kikoi about her head to see off the dust and the salt and slotted her round glasses back onto her face.

She drove like a mad person, hunched over the handle bars with her elbows sticking out at right angles. It was like riding pillion to Cruella de Vil in a Mad Max Reboot. I saw both of our lives flash before our eyes - who doesn’t know someone injured in a bike accident?

“Slow down!” I screamed. “Stop yanking the handlebars around! We’re going to tip over!” After the most terrifying 2km of my reasonably long life, Mr Bones came to a stop and the children swapped round with the adults.

“That was a nightmare,” I snapped, hustling to get off the bike and to tear my own kikoi off my head. “You are a lunatic.”

“Well, I thought it was fun,” said Kitty, folding her arms. “And I’m a great driver, actually.”

A huge electrical storm boiled on the horizon to the east. Sheet lightning lit up the distant sky. Dust kicked up from Kitty’s boots as she capered in the twilight.

Inflexible, translucent and with a dicky tummy, yes. But I don’t think she is a coward.