A few moments in a lifetime

I wake up begrudgingly, entirely unwilling to open my eyes. Heaving myself up, I stuff my feet into shoes before my toes have time to complain about the desert’s morning chill. My sisters sleep obliviously on, faces drooping against their pillows; definitely not the movie-scene image of a sleeping beauty. Ploughing my fingers across closed eyes, I open the door to the dawn.

I step out, my yawning face pausing mid-gape. In your sleep you can forget the beauty of the Spitzkoppe mountains. But not for long. It is the most lonely place; a seemingly impossible rocky outcrop, sanded over and smoothed round, strewn across the middle of the Namib Desert. Not a very easy place to reach, but well worth the three hour drive in an 80’s car that threw itself over the many rocks in our path with what seemed like reckless abandon.

As the sun begins to chew away at the blackness of night, I meet my father on his own 5 A.M. plod to the rather distant outhouse. Here we are both struck, quite suddenly,by an impossible morning miracle. No, there are no desert predators gamboling along our path, keening for attention... Crazier than that. As the clouds that obscured our vision of the stars last night – much bemoaned, I can assure you – slowly disperse, and the sun rises from its rest, a startlingly clear rainbow dominates the mottled sky. Yes, you may be quite used to rainbows, stating, “oh you poor sap... I've seen my fair share of rainbows!” followed by a little guffaw and a smack on the knee. But in the middle of the Namib desert, this is really no ordinary miracle.

My father and I run to our respective rooms, tiredness and pee forgotten. If you have sisters then you know, we are not particularly delicate in our morning summons. And this cannot be waited on! I jump onto my twin’s bed, bellowing my need for their awakening. Thrusting my foot out onto my older sister’s bed, I strike a leg, making sure that my presence and the emergency of the situation is felt.

Seconds later, we sit on the little outcrop near our hut, staring at the blazing sky; blue stained by the rising sun, leaking orange across its expanse. Another, paler rainbow pitched up while we were inside, stitching itself into the sky. I am struck dumb, among possibly the only people to ever see a double rainbow at sunrise in the middle of the Namib desert.