You know you're getting old when...

This past week, I went on a week-long excursion with first-year Ecology II students at Polytechnic. We went to Etosha to watch animal behavior and conduct a road game count. Then, we went to the Waterberg Plateau for a 48-hour waterhole count from blinds (hides). We camped and students cooked the meals.

This morning, I was standing in line to wash my plate and cup before we left for Windhoek. One of the students, Cecilia, took them from me. I protested, asserting that I was capable of washing my own dishes.

"Prof, you are elderly and a man," she said. "You shouldn't be washing dishes."

"You'll have to tell my wife that," I replied.

"You wash dishes at home?"

"Well, when she cooks, I wash dishes, and when I cook she washes dishes," I explained.

"Good," she said. "I was afraid you were washing dishes all the time."

The ironic fact is that in a culture with fairly well-defined roles for men and women, Namibia appears to be advancing quickly to include women in positions in government. Our students in Nature Conservation are about 60-40 men/women, in what has been a traditionally male-dominated field. Many recently-hired Ministry of Environment and Tourism employees are women.

Now, about this 'elderly' thing...