Namibia weblog

The first few days

Arrival

September 19th 2004

Rosanne writes:

"Namibia is quite high altitude, 1600 meters, which has some impact on us all, mostly nosebleeds and a reduced jogging capacity. Our malarial prophylaxis is giving us weird dreams and distorted sleep patterns, so there is quite a dazed feel to these early days.

We had a seven hour but spectacular drive up to the north in a car sent by UNAM – University of Namibia, our employer. The mountains covered in sparse scrub seemed very grand emerging from the dust and desert all around. There was a haze from dust in the air and we drove hour after hour through this until it went completely flat: scrub as far as one could see with random giant boulders of granite. The colours were shades of pale ochre and sand. Each stop we made was breathtakingly quiet, just a small insect hum. Once we surprised some ostrich who flounced off with ruffled dignity. The trees were gaudily decked out with the nests of weaver birds and some acid green blossom, but mostly they are bare and scorched and thirsty looking.

And then the other kind of Africa, the noisy busy one, just over the veterinary line, where the land becomes common land and the road was instantly lined with hopeful merchants of the five-year-old kind, offering firewood or coke bottles of goats milk. The road was instantly turned into an obstacle course avoiding cattle goats and donkeys who just like to stop. We even saw a new mule corpse.

More numerous than household beasts were the crowds of blue-shirted school-kids on their way to or from invisible schools in the middle of nowhere.

We have a house, with three bedrooms and a large sitting room, sofa, fridge, all luxuries. We have a garden of sand and an acacia tree, and now a small row of newly planted spinach seed. We have plenty of other VSO volunteers in the neighbourhood who came round to take us out of our paranoia of mosquitoes and personal safety and lead us to the nearest local bar; take us to the supermarket to buy up considerable quantities of bleach and much needed cleaning equipment and some pillows; feed us and reassure us.

We wait, poised in limbo, to go into our workplace tomorrow morning and see what lies ahead.

A driver calls for us at 7 am!"

Day 2

September 20th 2004

"We are now here, at UNAM, and have spent the morning in our new workplace and have met a hundred or so new colleagues, some of whom have curtsied, and all of whom have expressed pleasure that we will be working here. The building is the most interesting building we have seen and is spanking new and smells clean and is deliciously air conditioned; I suddenly don’t feel so tired any more!

Our programme director is busy planning meetings for us. We are supposed to do a fortnight of exploration and we might visit the Agricultural College which has the only laboratories for 60 kilometres. We will visit schools, the regional offices of the Ministry of Basic Education etc. In such a day of planning, viewing and administration we also opened a bank account, a telephone account and bought a bright yellow watering can. The internet is ludicrously slow, but with the system operative from home, maybe I can cook and eat whole dinners while the process rumbles on. We think tenderly of broadband.

We went for a walk yesterday evening, starting off down our suburban road of concrete block bungalows with severe walls and security wire along the tops. I had in my hand some empty carrier bags to collect dung in for our feeble row of beans and spinach planted in the dry dust. I gathered up a bagful and was immediately spotted from out of the shadows by a boy who wanted to know what I was gathering. Unsurprisingly he didn’t quite grasp my intentions. But we then found a huge open space of what felt like wilderness. There were shrubs and trees and sand and a few tracks: animal, and humans shod in fancy trainers; scraps of drying grasses all wispy and yellowed, and some distant palm trees. It smelt of Africa, that pungent spicy smell from the sage bushes."

Day 3

October 1st 2004

Thursday evening is volley ball and pizza night in Oshakati. Most of the local volunteers all meet up at the SOS club to play very competitive volley ball and then have a locally cooked pizza. We met lots more people and had a great night. The pizzas were very garlicky and certainly kept all life forms away from us. We also met the first serious local mosquitoes also out for a feast. It was great to meet up with a huge pack of mostly volunteers, all very happy to have a night out.

We started Friday with rain. I was astonished to hear the first rain drops start at 5:00 am. Rosanne was not nearly enthusiastic enough about the rain when I woke her so she would not miss it. We were told it never rained until October. The rain changes the smell from dusty to sour, as if reconstituting all the dirt shed on it by people goats and cattle. Short lived: it lasted a few minutes, and by the time Rosanne was out of bed at 6 to go for a cool morning run, it had gone.

We were collected as usual at 7:30 and then we set off to the local school that was having a science week and we were promised that the final day would involve pupils presenting their projects. Imagine our surprise when we were shepherded into the main hall to find 800 pupils, the whole school, all sitting patiently and quietly waiting for the start of the presentations.

There were three inaudible speeches, including a long key note speech on the benefits of science to Namibian Society by our Boss. The pupils were a little restless towards the end but we were amazed how patient the pupils were. There was a steady mumbling after half an hour. Then the pupils started their presentations. They were great. Huge cheers from the crowd. A pinhole camera demonstrated right up on the dais about 50 m away. A home made overhead projector and several alternative energy transfer machines which lit up model villages set about with wishful palm trees. It all took hours.

We loved it, but had to leave to write our first assignment. The Dean of Studies, our Boss, had asked us to write a submission by Monday morning for the New Foundation Course. The course was first suggested two years ago and no-one had got round to submitting a submission to the University Senate until two days before the deadline next Tuesday. So we have all worked hard to sort out the submissions.

We are off home for the weekend soon without much planned except I spotted some avocados in the supermarket, there is great south African wine, and there are a few beers in the fridge.