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“Evening star landscape over Kwando River channels from campsite #3, Mudumu National Park” by jacashgone is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Not many people consider listening to their grandfather reminisce about the past as time well spent. However, not many people have grandfathers like mine.
My grandfather was a world traveler to the highest degree, a regular cosmopolitan man with a heart for every place he visited. Speaking three languages fluently and always trying to learn more, it wasn’t uncommon to get a phone call late at night about how he was hundreds of miles away from his last location. He was a man with many friends and very few enemies.
Yet though he had spent years in places like Paris, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Sydney, and London, he always told me that Mudumu National Park in Namibia was where he felt most at peace. Surrounded by water, animals, and jungles and half a world away from the United States, my grandfather found his happy place.
While my grandfather only lived in this little-known area for three months, he used to say that he has each sunset memorized for safekeeping. His favorite ones were always a mixture of soft lavender, blue, pink, and orange, so unlike the navy and burnt bronze displays I see on clear nights.
The journal he kept of his visits tells what exactly about Mudumu National Park remained with him:
“It’s the wildness of it. The beauty of standing on the shores of the Kwando River at sunset surrounded by the soft drone of insects is something too precious to be described. It feels almost sacred.
…
“I’ve heard people say that every sunset and sunrise is more or less the same. That statement alone tells me they haven’t bothered to watch a few in their entirety. Each one has a personality, and I intend to view as many as I can before I go.”
My grandfather’s love of sunsets and travel has been passed on to me, one of the reasons I dream of following in his footsteps across the world. One day, I hope to stand on the banks of the Kwando River just like he did and witness the colors that took his breath away. Maybe then I will understand why this will always be my grandfather’s river.
