IS YOUR CUP HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY
I don’t think it really matters.  Nor does the shape of the cup matter, but what does matter is what’s inside your cup.
And the plot thickens.  All part of the trip which we will remember I’m sure.  To cut a long story short, we slept on the road for 2 days, waiting for the mud puddles to dry up, got stuck a second time on the same 30 km road before hitting the tarmac back to Omaruru.  The mozzies were having a fat jol in all the water puddles and we hadn’t taken anything for malaria but quite frankly my dear …...  We decided to give Etosha and the Caprivi a miss and rather tour around the south of Namibia where rain floods weren’t a problem. We arrived in Omaruru and Theo announced that the gear box wasn’t working so lekker.  Happy days. 
We chatted to a guy at a pullover about the rain and road conditions up north while he waited to buy a big red rooster.  I didn’t ask.  He told us about the time the floods hit Rundu one year.  He woke up to a flap flap flapping noise.  The river had come down and was running through his house and a big fish was flapping under his bed.  He said crocodiles and all kinds of animals get washed down.  I chatted to a homeless 15 year old Herero boy who spent the night sleeping on top of a roadside table.  We gave him some breakfast and he showed me his pocket album filled with happy photos of himself, other young boys and volunteer girls. I read some letters written to him from the foreign girls and I realised they worked at the Haven which I suspect he had run away from.  He was educated and couldn’t have been on the street for very long.  We gave him a pep talk about going back but I wondered what would become of him and what had happened in his past life. 
Next morning the gears seemed to be a bit better so we moved on to Okahanja where a mechanic looked at it, said it should hold till we reached Windhoek where we could go to a gearbox place.  We booked into a campsite and wow, like wow.  You have no idea how blissful it was to soak in a bath and scrub.  I cleaned the inside of the caravan and Theo hosed down six inches of mud on the bike and the bottom of the truck and six inches of salt packed on the rest of the truck accumulated from Kleinzee to Henties.  We chatted to other travellers camping, mostly Germans, who also had changed from their original plans to go north after hearing about the heavy floods. 
Next day we left for Windhoek, all spic ‘n span and broke down 20km before reaching the city.  We were stuck without any gears.   There wasn’t really much space to pull over and heavy traffic zoomed past into Windhoek at 4.30 in the afternoon.  But wait, over the fence was a truck place.  Gert, the owner at Truck and Cab had us towed the 200m into the yard and will open up the gearbox tomorrow.  He said luckily it didn’t happen on the other side of Windhoek or towing would have cost a fortune or further south at Keetmanshoop where there aren’t always spares readily available. We thought bloody hell, luckily it didn’t happen in the bundus on the way to Etosha where’s there’s buggerall. And so we wait. 
Well, turns out we need a new gearbox.  We contacted our insurance to put a claim in since the gearbox gave problems after working it hard from trying to get out of the mud. They aren’t happy.  R26 000 later we have a reconditioned gearbox and new clutch plate but we’ve been sleeping here at the garage for nearly a week waiting for the work to be completed and for our own money to be released from savings to pay the truck place.  I’m feeling down.  It’s been raining most of the time so we can’t even explore the area by bike.  We did go into Windhoek one day to shop for a few groceries, visited the most uninteresting museum ever, made a bee-line for Joe’s Beerhouse, apparently the one place you have to visit in Windhoek but they were closed. 
The whole truck breakdown has really affected my psyche.  I’m depressed to realise that life really does revolve around money.  I mean, if we didn’t have backup funds we’d be totally screwed.  What happens when that runs out?  We aren’t looking for work right now cos we have to be back in South Africa in April to renew the truck license and have the roadworthy tested again so our time here is limited.  No prospect of any income, and sitting here a week waiting for our payment to be cleared has made me feel like a criminal and a failure.  Yes we have our health and yes there are people out there who don’t have anything but its not about being thankful for what you have its about how you feel inside.  Right now my insides are despondently sad.  We watched a movie on the laptop earlier which made me think.  The chick said feeling sad is easy cos it means you’ve given up.  Our lifestyle to permanently travel this way was our own choice and we have always felt proud, no matter if we are parked in a friendly persons driveway or in the bundus by ourselves but today I feel like a squatter waiting for my luck to change.  
I’m sure my spirits will lift once we leave here.  Gert has been friendly, in fact he even took us into town this morning to get more groceries and is letting us use a bathroom with a shower behind the factory.  I would also want payment for work done before letting customers disappear.   More fights lay ahead with the insurance though and hopefully we will be refunded.  Can money buy back your mojo?