#44 – True, Real, Unbelievable Healing – Yoga in Namibia with Gergentia Shoombe

Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #44 – True, Real, Unbelievable Healing – Yoga in Namibia with Gergentia Shoombe 

Welcome to Episode #44 of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast! This week, I welcome Gergentia Shoombe onto the show. She is a yoga teacher from Namibia. She teaches power yoga, yin yoga, and yoga alignment at the Virgin Active Windhoek clubs and at the Yoga Shala. She has been teaching yoga full time since 2016. After a serious car crash, and doctors saying she’ll never walk again, Gergentia beat the odds through yoga and eastern healing techniques like Qi Gong and Reiki. 

My conversation with Gergentia Shoombe, a yoga teacher from Namibia, was so astounding as we took a deep look at the power of the body and spirit to heal. I hope that this conversation gave you a glimpse into how everything can come together even as it falls apart.

If you’re looking to tune into a podcast episode that is all about inner strength and the strength community gives you, then this is the conversation for you.

Tell me more about Gergentia Shoombe

Gergentia’s parents are war veterans and her older brother and herself were both born during the liberation struggle and only came to Namibia after 1990 when Namibia gained independence. Being born under this conditions, Gergentia has a deep sense of community, service, and empathy. This been a force behind her journey as a yogi and holistic student and practitioner. Her yoga journey begun about 12 years ago when she was involved in a car crash that left her with lower back paralysis and a femur fracture. She remembers the doctor saying: “You will never walk, jump or run again. Even if you walk, it won’t be full mobility.” This was something that she just couldn’t accept that. Gergentia began her journey into healing. She came across Qi-gong meditation, Reiki healing, and Maha-matra chanting with a monk in Swaziland.

What to expect in the Yoga In Namibia episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast

After a serious car crash, Gergentia knew she needed healing, and she found meditation. She couldn’t sit, stand, or walk— but she found peace in meditation as she was on her journey of healing.

In the beginning, yoga was simply meditation for her, before she even learned asanas. In all actuality, she didn’t think her body could do asanas, as after the car crash, her doctors thought she would never walk again. She had never even tried asanas before her car crash, and it wasn’t until after she had done some healing therapy work with Qi-Gong and Reiki.

In Swaziland, a monk introduced Gergentia to bhakti yoga and Maha-matra chanting which led her to change her whole life and led her to study holistic healing therapy. She applied to do a yoga teacher training with a the Africa Yoga Project.

Thank you for listening to the Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast!

Connect with Gergentia Shoombe

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Wild Yoga Tribe Podcast Episode #44 – True, Real, Unbelievable Healing – Yoga in Namibia with Gergentia Shoombe

[00:00:00] Lily Allen-Duenas: Namaste family. And welcome back to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Today, I am so excited to welcome Gergentia Shoombe onto the show today. She’s a yoga teacher from Namibia and she has been having just the most incredible journey. So excited to dive into it with her. She’s been teaching yoga for many years and came to it actually after a serious car crash and doctors telling her she’ll never even walk again.

[00:00:30] So she beat the odds through yoga and Eastern healing techniques, reiki and QIgong. And she’s taught yoga in both Namibia and South Africa. So I’m sure we’re going to have a lot to talk about today. So thank you so much Gergentia for being here on the show with me today. 

[00:00:49] Gergentia Shoombe: Thank you Lily for having me.

[00:00:51] Lily Allen-Duenas: So let’s dive in. Can you tell our listeners more about how yoga first came into your life? 

How did yoga come into your life?

[00:00:57] Gergentia Shoombe: I feel like yoga called me to it because I came to find it while I was in the process of healing from the car crash. That was after the doctor said, you never walk properly again. Or even if you walk, you will never run or jump. I was desperate for healing. And I found this group in the park that practiced QiGong meditation.

[00:01:25] So I went simply to just get my mind to accept where I was. And with Qigong the slow movement really helped me get some of the movement in my spine back because I was also suffering from lower back pain, lower back scoliosis as a result of the car accident. So it was after this group in the park that the rest of the journey just opened up and a friend of mine was in Swaziland and just asked me to come there, while she was going to deliver a baby in Essay. And I will say yes, because I am off work, I have nothing to do really. And she made sure that I actually could still continue with my yoga and my meditation. So she hooked me up with this place called Serendipity that had lots of yoga teachers there and the Reiki masters.

[00:02:30] And it was at this place in Swaziland that I met a monk. And he introduced me to Bhakti yoga and meditation, and that journey took about eight years before I met the Africa Yoga Project. So in Bhakti Yoga meditation. Got so strong in my meditation and understanding myself from the conscious level. And then I changed my whole life and studied holistic healing therapy.

[00:03:12] And so when I found, when I was finishing with my course, I was doing an internship and it was like late day, last minute, day. The Africa Yoga Project popped up on my screen. And then I applied, I sent it, I didn’t even think anything of it. And then two weeks later, they called me in. They’re like, are you ready?

[00:03:35] I’m like, yeah, I’m ready. You can interview online. I got full sponsorship. I went there and I found myself doing asanas, which wasn’t even what I expected because for me, yoga was simply just meditation, I didn’t think anything of the asanas, cause I didn’t even think my body can do things that people do in the yoga class.

[00:03:58] So it was the last place I will go. That’s simply like how, in a nutshell, the rest is history.

[00:04:06] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. That’s a big nutshell though. It’s pretty big. 

[00:04:10] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah. Yeah. Like a lot happens in just that one year.

[00:04:18] Lily Allen-Duenas: Absolutely. So it sounds like you’ve never done yoga asanas before the car crash.

[00:04:24] Gergentia Shoombe: No. Yeah.

Learning from a Monk in Swaziland

[00:04:26] Lily Allen-Duenas: Okay. And so then after the crash, you came to meditation and Reiki and Qigong, especially in Swaziland with this monk. Could you tell us more about the monk? I just feel like you really got my interest peaks when you mentioned. 

[00:04:40] Gergentia Shoombe: The monk offering Bhakti yoga meditation, Maha mantra chanting. And he didn’t have a big following, but he was originally from Swaziland and he was doing this as solo work in Swaziland. And that evening I knew there was yoga. 

[00:05:01] And I had Elba take me there plus it was raining crazy. And I walked into this room and there was this guy, black guy in orange robes. I was more fascinated by the fact that he’s African and I never related monks to like blacks. I just thought asians, monks, that’s all I could relate to from the movies.

[00:05:26] So I met him there. We say hello. He explained what we are doing here, showed me the mala beads, showed me some books, like Bhavad Gita and the Science of self-realization and the mantra was a bene, right in front of him. And he said, this is what we’re going to chant when he goes through it, Hari krishna. And I just closed my eyes and chanted away. Like I’ve been doing this all my life. It was just like that day with the monk. I was supposed to stay in Swaziland for three weeks. I ended up studying under him for six months. So my post meant to be three weeks, and ended up being six months. And what was six months?

Hari Krishna Festival

[00:06:19] Gergentia Shoombe: He invited me to go to a festival and Hari Krishna festival in, Durbani it’s one of the biggest festivals they ever host in South Africa and I went there. And I met the temple, the deities, the rest of Krishna people, devotees. And I was with the Hari Krishnas for a good eight years. I went and I started the temple for two years while I was studying holistic healing therapies in Cape Town.

[00:06:48] And I even got initiated. That’s where my name, Imani Devi, comes from. It’s my initiative name from the Hari Krishna Temple.

[00:06:58] Lily Allen-Duenas: Wow. That’s amazing. That’s absolutely amazing that you got to stay in the temple as well for two years while you were in. Holistic healing training that must’ve been quite an experience. 

[00:07:09] Gergentia Shoombe: It was 

[00:07:10] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. 

[00:07:10] Gergentia Shoombe: Deep soul searching. It wasn’t easy, but I had the right foundation and environment for growth.

Self-Growth is Hard Work

[00:07:18] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. Self-growth isn’t easy. It’s hard work.

[00:07:23] It really is. And I admire you a lot and I have a lot of respect for you and for people who are willing to just dig in and just say, I’m, I want to heal. I want to heal. And especially after your car crash and being told, No. you’re never going to walk.

[00:07:41] You had a lot of people and maybe, kind of energy around you of people saying you can’t. Gosh, it’s so awesome that you just said, I can, and then you found people who supported you and said, Yes, you can. I’m sure the monk, I’m sure your community just backed you up in that. Am I, Am I right? 

When Doctors Say You’ll Never Walk Again…

[00:08:02] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah, because from the moment that doctors were telling me this, everything inside of me was discerning. I was just like no. How can you say that it’s just a broken leg, but what I also found out later, actually I hit the two weeks there, lower back paralysis but my mother told the doctor: don’t tell her.

[00:08:23] My mom is also a nurse. She’s a midwife. She just waited it out and it will just sit at the end of the bed with the pen and poke in my left foot. And then one day I was just like mama, you are irritating me. So she was a big help for me, she’d be like, use anything in your power to help yourself, even though you are bedridden.

[00:08:45] So even after the operation, I had metal in my back installed. When I have to go for physio, which is meant to be like an hour, I will be there for four hours. So the first thing was for recess, just learning to sit on this baby chair. And I would just sit on that chair for two hours and just cry.

Learning to Walk Again

[00:09:04] Gergentia Shoombe: I will look at anybody I’ll just get into a child’s pose kind of, and just cry from the deep in my bones. And I remember even when I have to move from the chair to like learning, to stand and hold myself to walk. I stood for, I don’t know how many weeks this looking at this space in front of me and asking myself, how do people walk?

[00:09:31] How do I walk? So the fact that I could’ve remembered my brain was failing me. My memory was also gone, I was ready to begin. I was ready to just be new, like a child. And one day I remember I took that step and that step never stopped.

[00:09:50] Lily Allen-Duenas: I love it. That explanation of you had to be a child, because I know that is a lot in Bhakti yoga and in the path of devotion of just coming and approaching it from this open beginner’s mind from having that sense of just surrender. Wonder of discovery. And so two for you to just write before diving into a spiritual path, go through such a transformation, such an act of going back to the beginning.

[00:10:20] It just seems like it ‘s a wow, like a gift in a way, the silver lining of it, a gift, right? 

Recognizing the Strength Inside 

[00:10:29] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah. So there was so much strength inside of me that was like wanting to come out. I accepted that I was at the junction, like this accident when I was in a car crash, I would hit that out of body experience and into the light.

[00:10:47] And there, I was told you are going back. And I was like, no, I don’t want to go, what am I going to do there? No, you have to go back because your job is not done. So I tried to put up a fight like, Hey look, I have a broken leg. I have, it’s yeah, you can break your leg. They can’t break your spirit, take your life.

[00:11:09] Before even the conversation could go finish. I was back in the body and they were pulling me out of the car. So it was actually that pulling out that pain that’s screaming that it’s what took me in the coma after that. When I came back, I had this background and I have just the memory from there.

[00:11:30] Like I come here to do what I need to do, and it’s not that, but I also remember having a kind of contract or an agreement that if I go back, you’re gonna have to make sure everything opens up and aligns for me. I don’t want to go back and struggle. So for a few years, I just said like I’m a child of the universe, it is opening up for me so that I came back with the mantra that will irritate people around me.

[00:12:00] And that’s how everything came to me. My studies, I didn’t have to spend a penny going to Swaziland to meet them on, air flights, accommodation, food for the next six years into the temple everything was taken care of. All the way into the Africa Yoga Project, getting the scholarship and finally putting it all together.

[00:12:22] This is what I’m meant to do. This is what it is. It was all given as a gift, I promise you, Lily. I didn’t have to work for it.

[00:12:33] Lily Allen-Duenas: That is what happens when there’s flow. When you just like, sit, surrender, let go and fall into alignment with your life’s calling and life’s path. It’s like the manifestation of things, just the universe meets you, meets you and supports you.

[00:12:48] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah. It looks like it’s falling apart, but actually it’s coming together. 

[00:12:54] Lily Allen-Duenas: Ooh. 

[00:12:55] Gergentia Shoombe: world. 

[00:12:55] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yes. Yes. It’s falling apart. It’s really coming together. 

[00:12:59] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah. That’s.

[00:13:03] Lily Allen-Duenas: We’ll admit that it’s uncomfortable. We’ll admit it’s scary. We’ll 

[00:13:07] Gergentia Shoombe: It’s painful. Yeah.

[00:13:09] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah. 

[00:13:12] It’d be nice if it didn’t have to be so painful. So why don’t we talk about Gergentia, Africa Yoga Project a little bit more. I’d love to learn about that experience and doing the training with them and actually how just learning asanas went with you and your healing processes. 

The Africa Yoga Project

[00:13:31] Gergentia Shoombe: That was one place I wanted to run from. I know anybody from a yoga teachers training 2016 or 15, would tell you, I was a hard student. So when I attract the students in my class, I’ll get them. Totally. Because I came from that place. I couldn’t even sit.

[00:13:52] Number one, like in a chair, I couldn’t do a chair. So what happened? I got this scholarship and they first sent you all these questions of inner-inquiry. So the shadow work was starting, even though I had a lot of trauma no matter how deep my traumas were until the Africa Yoga Project was like the best doctors, psychologists were all in these power yoga teachers training.

[00:14:25] I remember like the voices of Moses Banja he will come to me and say Gergentia, the same way you are given up in this pose right now. It’s the same way you give up in your life. I will just keep sweating and keep going, but it was hence at some point, I was like, this is like a military school. Like I did not come for this. My body is not strong enough to do this kind of thing, but AYP is a community and family. Just thinking about it makes me very emotional, because if it wasn’t for everybody that was there saw the potential in me. I wouldn’t be here right now. I wouldn’t be teaching and my life would probably be so different. They believed in me even when I did not believe in myself, they believed that he’ll even when I had the conviction that this is my condition. Words like that are the community of the hands that came to me.

[00:15:26] That hug me, those eyes that saw me and told me you are doing so well. I remember my sister, Irene, we are still very close. She was like one of my hosts. She had this beautiful smile and I was just like, I want to smile like that. Even if the life that they live is not like the best life ever.

[00:15:48] They live in slums and all, but they love, they share the abundance in giving and I just want it all that it’s like, God took me from Namibia to teach me how to live from a community that I yearned for inside of myself, because I was also born in exile and in exile this is exactly how we were like, before we came in Namibia because in the community or in the camps where all the kids stayed together.

[00:16:18] And really some of us didn’t know who our parents were. And a lot of them were maybe orphans, every father was like everybody’s daddy, one mama was everybody’s mama, every house you could go and eat, that community came back to me when I was in AYP and that was actually over 20-something years living in Namibia and missing my childhood community. It was brought back by the Africa Yoga Project. There was a lot of that inquiry that made me actually understand who I was and my purpose and what I’m doing here. So there was a change of career from doing corporate advertisement before the car accident. And now I am a holistic therapies practitioner. And now here I am doing yoga and I’m just like, wow, this is a whole lifestyle. It’s all here. It’s all coming together. So that brought me into the presence of not wanting to miss anything.

[00:17:29] I want to take it all in. And that kind of pushed me to take whatever it is that Africa Yoga was giving me the pains, the love, whatever I was speaking up, just told myself, you have this one chance and people don’t have it. And I also admire so much and look at this woman and like all the way from home, doing acrobats and you never went home. What an amazing woman. So I also wanted to share that I wanted to take everything that Kenya Nairobi is, giving me and bring it back to Namibia. Also one of the memories I have, we were, I think, on day seven or whatever else, our training.

Doing the work and emptying to become whole

[00:18:14] Gergentia Shoombe: And I asked Paige a question, with our dog and the heels of the feet touching down or are they high because I see some people, with heels down and some are up. She looks at me and she’s what do you think? And that just shut me off. Immediately right there. And I am the kind of person who has my emotions on my sleeves.

[00:18:37] Immediately, there was some work going on. I’m looking at this one and I’m about to punch her and she takes a breath and she’s looking at me. What do you think? I’m like, I really don’t know. It’s your yoga courses, your studies, your, I just don’t want to go home and teach people, things that are not supposed to be, how it’s supposed to be.

[00:18:57] And she kept quiet and just looked at me. She’s like how do you feel right now that I started shaking and I’d be like, I’m shaking, I’m sweating. And then the next question was like, who do I remind you of? And my God, I just say my mother and my whole world crumbled down. 

[00:19:15] She just turned to face all these other 70 students in the room and said: this happening here is the story. And all of us here carry stories like this. And by that time, it’s like I’m being ripped open like onions, and layers of masks were falling off. Right there in front of everybody. It’s not expected, not ready, but already with my journey of where I’m coming from in the pains that happened to, I don’t know, the past, I was also tired of hanging on. I just let it go. And it was also time for a break for lunch. So I went to my room and what followed after that was just throwing up. I was throwing up buckets and buckets of emotions that are bottled up, so much in my body. When I came back, it felt like I had a big hole in my stomach.

[00:20:16] I remember somebody asking me, like, how do you feel? I’m like, I had a hole in my stomach and she said to me, it’s yeah, exactly. You do have a hole because whatever moved emotion, moved out of that area, you have left a void, which we must now feel. So what are we filling this void with? What do you want to eat?

[00:20:37] For instance, I want to eat watermelons, if anything, it’s just give me watermelons. If you look at the color red, and if you think you have chakra, I was so open to my healing that it was happening. I was just like, wow. Mind you, I’m already Reiki Advanced and I’m just looking at this happening. Wow. People have spending hours and hours of money and years of in therapy, when you can just do an Africa Yoga Teacher Training and all your demons come out, 

[00:21:09] Lily Allen-Duenas: It’s hard work. Yes. 

[00:21:11] Gergentia Shoombe: It’s hard work, but not for those that are ready. When you’re ready, it’s not really hard.

[00:21:17] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah.

[00:21:17] When you’re open to that moment of change, as you just said, it’s like, somebody just asked you the question, who do I remind you of? And it just fell out of your whole body. So it wasn’t work to get to that realization, but you were in that mental state of hard work. You were sweating, you were shaking, you were a lot of what you had been, all the stories, all the narratives, all of those expectations of yourself and others had already started to be stressed. 

[00:21:45] And so I think that kind of created this environment of finally being able to let go, as you said, you just vomited up emotions and had this empty hole in you. So I wouldn’t dismiss all the hard work that it took to get you to that moment where then all of a sudden, like it took no work at all. Just came out.

[00:22:06] I get what you mean though. 

Transformation and Letting Go

[00:22:07] Gergentia Shoombe: Oh, just like my life has been, I was getting ready for this moment. And I didn’t even know, all the things that I’ve been through were preparing me for this moment. And it was one of the most beautiful moments ever. I won’t forget it.

[00:22:21] It’s every day, like it’s from that day to now. The healing is still going on, it made me realize how much people we carry without even knowing we are carrying loads and loads of unnecessary bullshit that we need to drop. In the end deep down inside, we all just want to stand in a space where somebody is looking at us. It’s seeing that, allowing us to break down if we have to.  

[00:22:57] Lily Allen-Duenas: I love how you said the healing’s not done yet. I love that because it’s true. There isn’t just one, one thing you have to say, or one experience you have to have, or one, one more meditation technique to learn before it’s just like, I’m healed. I’m perfect. Everything is great.

[00:23:18] And that’s hard for people. I think, to also come to terms with the fact that self-growth and growing and expanding, or even rooting down, rooting down into ourselves. It’s not something that has an end point. You’re not just going to be the best person and the best version of yourself and the happiest, everything. At one point, you just have to keep on the path and just one foot in front of the other. Let’s keep getting better. Let’s keep going. 

Allow yourself to feel all of your emotions

[00:23:48] Gergentia Shoombe: Yes. Let’s admit we are scared. Let’s admit we are feeling what we are feeling. Let’s admit what we are feeling, don’t run away from where you are like, don’t try to change your feeling blue for people around you to feel okay. If you’re feeling blue right now, it’s see I’m blue feeling blue right now. Rather than, oh, I’m feeling blue, but like me feeling blue is going to make everybody else around me feel uncomfortable.

[00:24:21] So I’m going to try to feel a bit pink. No, that’s how layers can come. And before you know it. And not living your original self. So this place allowed me to be my original self and it was the first time I ever felt seen and heard and recognized. It was also the first time I felt like I saw myself, as I am.

[00:24:44] Lily Allen-Duenas: I so can relate to what you are talking about, and it’s the biggest gift to be able to see yourself as you really are just free of all of those quote unquote, as the parable goes, the dirt on the mirror, all that dirt caked on. And we just gently clean a little bit to see ourselves clearly, rarely, and it’s not a linear path as we mentioned, but it is a beautiful one and an important one. 

[00:25:11] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah.

[00:25:12] Lily Allen-Duenas: I’m glad we’re talking about it. And I hope our listeners really are just feeling that connection of yes yes, I want to see myself a little clearer or yes. I want to drop some of those narratives and allow myself to just be, like thrive flourish, grow all of it. 

We are all vibrations, understanding this through the lens of attachment

[00:25:31] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah. Also the notion of being a perfect nobody like nobody wants to be nothing, but like for the first time I was like, yeah, wow. I don’t need the titles. Finally, it all makes sense to me. Even as I was in the temple, like I’m a mother of two, I had issues with the law of detachment.

[00:25:57] And I couldn’t understand the devotees, how they left their homes for so many years and developed themselves to the service of Krishna and to stay there like how I love home so much. I’m going home every third month. I miss my babies. I feel attachment to my mother, like I’m my mother’s only daughter.

[00:26:17] I had all these attachment issues. And for the first time, I could touch really, it doesn’t mean like I don’t laugh at them or I’m not thinking about them, but like I realized I could connect from a place of nonphysical and in the vibration. And that’s what we really all are. And this is the lesson that I teach my children every day is to know that they are vibrational.

[00:26:47] We are not detached from it, like I’ll call my son and he’ll be like, how did you know? I was just because I’m your mother. I know. Because I can feel it in my belly, I feel something was off yesterday. I knew too that I needed to call you. So learning those things in me actually embodies the experience is not just like reading it from the books anymore.

[00:27:13] Plus it’s really happening to me. It was so beautiful. It’s so beautiful to experience a day like that with anyone. 

[00:27:21] Lily Allen-Duenas: You’re right. Absolutely. I would also love to ask you, what is your personal definition of yoga?

What is yoga?

[00:27:31] Gergentia Shoombe: Coming together, yoga is life itself. Yoga and all the eight limbs, it’s us coming together and knowing who we are, breathing is you connecting to a whole life, the cosmos blowing around us. It’s so powerful. Not being in a rush and one with nature, like the whole practice, it doesn’t matter which part of it should come through. Like I started with meditation and in the meditation. I wanted to see what everybody was seeing. For instance, then I realize I don’t even meditate like everybody meditates. If I try to meditate like the moms, I don’t think I am really meditating these days where I’m at, where I’ve destructured my religious beliefs and trying to be more and more light of identity, just being perfectly me or imperfectly nobody. I know now, not even all the rules set out there in the books, you can read it, but you have to embody the practice. So for me, it’s like yoga is like a whole life explained in one, whether you’re explaining one part of it or the other, yoga is life, but the life is for the living. You have to live it so you cannot understand it unless you are living some part of your yoga practice.

[00:29:18] So that’s what I feel. It is.

[00:29:23] Lily Allen-Duenas: I love that yoga is life itself. That’s perfect. And so Gergentia also, I would love to hear more about yoga in Namibia. Is It really popular now? is it just starting to gain some awareness? Could you share with me and our listeners a little bit more about yoga in Namibia? 

What is yoga in Namibia like?

[00:29:44] Gergentia Shoombe: Yeah. The really small populated country, it’s like 2.4 million. It’s a big land, but it has a small population. So let’s say 10 years ago it was not even a thing when people called me crazy when I went vegetarian, but today just like the mainstream on the internet, it is all over.

[00:30:11] It is coming up in new ages, all practicing some form of yoga. It’s not so big in the capitol at the moment, and has a couple of yoga teachers practicing different modalities of yoga, but it’s not popular. It’s not popular yet. For instance, I teach at Virgin or the Virgin Active clubs.

[00:30:37] And when I came in, I had such a big, deep desire to share my yoga practice and also to make earnings, to make a living. And I needed something stable. So I went into Virgin Active, hoping they would take me on and I called them while I was in a different region.

[00:30:57] And I told him I want to do an interview on yoga. And so come in tomorrow, I’m like, no, call me tomorrow. I am one 800 miles away. Monday calls for interviews are not here because I believe, and then I came in and then I got a job, and they are like start – here’s the schedule see where. I couldn’t see myself anyway, but guess what?

[00:31:18] On a Friday, there were no classes on Fridays. Nobody comes to the gym in the evenings. And then on a Sunday, there were no classes. So for me, I was like my days. So the group exercise manager looked at me. Nobody comes on a Friday or on a Sunday to the gym. I’m like, put it on and yogis will come, and that was before Corona.

[00:31:43] You see just like yoga mats popping up 30 people plus working in the yoga. Just like that it was a big surprise. So I also did know, so I have quite a good following. And now I also teach at one more studio, just yoga studio. So we are just getting there. We are just getting there, but they said a lot of information that we still need.

[00:32:11] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, 

[00:32:12] Gergentia Shoombe: I’m constantly trying to teach, not just the asanas, but the principles of yoga, especially because I understand that you have to embody yourself in the practice. If you know what you can do, because your body doesn’t even have limitations, you will not do yoga like me. So there’s a lot of that information that needs to go, and there’s a lot of skepticism about it being religious and blah, blah, blah, blah. So I try to stand in between those bridges without actually being religious about it. 

[00:32:54] Lily Allen-Duenas: I think a lot more people did come to yoga during the pandemic because there were less options you had to figure out things you could do at home and ways that you could still move your body. And so Gergentia, you also, some of our listeners might not just be very familiar with your country. Could you tell them a little bit more about what Namibia is known for, or like why someone would come and see some of your natural wonders? 

What is Namibia like?

[00:33:20] Gergentia Shoombe: Everybody should come to Namibia. Why? Number one is one of the least dense countries in the world and Namibia is also a home to the oldest deserts in the world. They say the Namib desert has been around for 55 million years. Namibia, we speak about that language and 11, our native English is our national language. Portuguese is also widely spoken because Angola it’s just next door.

[00:33:58] And it was also a Portuguese colony, and also now maybe I have one of the most indigenous of tribes, the Himbas, I don’t know if you have heard about them in the mountains. They, they practice everything still traditional, they still worship their traditional gods.

[00:34:21] They even when they have to mate the father and the mother, they go and find a song and that song, they sing together to call that baby. It’s just beautiful. So Namibia has a large population of free roaming cheaters in the world. We have places where you can chill with wild animals.

[00:34:46] Lily Allen-Duenas: Oh, amazing. Thank you so much for sharing more about that. And it just sounds so. So unique, so many gorgeous things to experience and witness and as you said, there was such a small population. There’s so much open space. 

[00:35:03] Gergentia Shoombe: It’s one of the worlds where you also have the ocean and the desert and that road between you can drive on this coast and they don’t crash they don’t the ocean. Don’t go in the desert, don’t go in the ocean. If you want to understand yourself, you need a retreat. I feel like the next big yoga retreats should be in the Namib desert.

[00:35:29] Lily Allen-Duenas: We’ll talk about that after. 

[00:35:31] Gergentia Shoombe: So out there. So any yoga teachers that are wanting to come together in this creation with me. Let’s do it. It’s a big dream for me. Yes.

[00:35:42] Lily Allen-Duenas: So if somebody did want to reach out to you and get in touch, what’s a good way to do that? 

How to get in touch with Gergentia

[00:35:47] Gergentia Shoombe: The best way I don’t have a website is to find me on Facebook or Instagram. I’m running this project called the Oshana yoga project. It’s a project that takes yoga to less advantageous people like kids in the slums and the youth. Rural communities. And you can also find me on my personal page. That’s Gergentia Shoombe on Facebook or on Instagram is Holistic Yogini.

[00:36:20] Lily Allen-Duenas: Yeah, I’ll link all of those in the show notes, as well as on my website, wildyogatribe.com so if any of our listeners just want to click quickly and connect with you do that there, but thanks for so much for sharing and thank you so much for being with me today on the show. It has just been such a true joy to be with you. 

[00:36:43] Gergentia Shoombe: Thank you Lily. Thank you for this opportunity to share my experience with yoga or with you and your audience. 

Thank you for tuning in to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast 

[00:36:52] Lily Allen-Duenas: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. My conversation with Gergentia Shoombe, a yoga teacher from Namibia was so astounding as we took a deep look at the power of the body and the spirit to heal. I hope that this conversation gave you a glimpse into how everything can come together, even as it falls apart.

[00:37:21]  Thank you for listening to the Wild Yoga Tribe podcast. Be well. 

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