Sorry it took me so long to actually type this up. I wrote this on the flight home from Namibia when we were stopped in Dakar, Senegal.
I’ve been reflecting on my whole trip to Namibia, and there’s a lot that I can’t put into words. I feel like a part of me will always be in Namibia. A part of me will always be in Windhoek, the beautiful capital. A part of me will always be on Lennord’s farm, where I experienced the real Namibia; baking bread in a bucket and dancing all night. A part of me will always be with the Nama people, with their enchanting language. And with the informal settlements of Mariental where I saw how the other half lives. A part of me will always be amazed with the desert. What has a lasting impression on me isn’t really Etosha or Swakopmund, but the things that I could never see or do anywhere else. It’s more the people and the culture that I will remember. It’s the stories Angelika, our Otjiherero language teacher, told us about the Herero people and their traditional dress. It’s !Gai //Goas and the little girl that, after I tried to speak Nama/Damara with her, told her mom that she wasn’t afraid of white people anymore. It’s speaking English with the girl in Oshiwana Penduka. Taking pictures of the kids in Gobabis and seeing them so excited to see themselves in a picture. Haggling with the Himba woman to get the bracelet. I will also never forget Lucky and Clarence. Lucky, being so energetic and happy about everything and knowing so much about everything and everyone in Namibia. Clarence, she was so nice and helpful in the field. Another thing about Namibia: the smell. The informal settlements, anyway, had a particular smell. The concrete cities stifled it. But whenever you were in or drove by an informal settlement, it was clear, but so hard to describe. It was like campfire smoke, something cooking, plus dirt and dust and earth. It was unique. And it wasn’t something you could smell in the states, that’s for sure.
I can’t imagine only seeing Namibia as a tourist; only going to the places where other white people go, exclusively. Living in this white, western bubble, and never experiencing the real country. The country is the people. Really, I don’t feel like I experienced the real Namibia unless I was with the people. Swakop and Etosha were nice, but I was still a tourist there. You just can’t get a sense of culture from guided tours or museums. It comes from talking to the people and being with them. Doing this has made me very much aware of my race and how it affects my experience in another culture. It is impossible to integrate oneself into black culture without a little assistance. Which is why I’m happy I had this opportunity. If I took friends or family back with me to Namibia, it wouldn’t be the same. Because you need that link. That “in.” I don’t want to just be a white tourist wherever I go. Even if I go somewhere where I’m not obviously a foreigner at first glance, you will still be an outsider. I feel like I’ve had such a richer experience here just from making a few connections with Namibians. I only hope that I can get the chance to go back to Namibia and experience the country again.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
A Note on Convenience
I’ve done a lot of traveling in the past few weeks. For reference on Google Maps, I went from Windhoek to Mariental to Gibeon back to Windhoek and then to Etosha. While in Etosha, we started from the East end and drove all the way through the park to Tsumeb and then took the B1 back to Windhoek. So a lot of driving on a bumpy bus. I’ve also done a lot of driving in America as well. Commuting back and forth across Maryland as well as from Maryland to Massachusetts at the beginning and end of the summer. So I’ve done a lot of driving in both countries, and I think it’s safe for me to compare the two. And here’s what I’ve arrived at as a comparison: America is just so goddamn convenient.
In Namibia, most everything shuts down at seven. Everything except the restaurants and bars. The shops, the grocery stores, etc. In America, there’s always something open, no matter what time of the day it is. If I needed to, I could go out at three in the morning to get a roll of dental floss, a soda, whatever. There are even convenience stores, for goodness sake! Stores where you can buy convenience! This ties into the whole travel thing. When travelling in the US, specifically on the east coast where I’ve done most of my traveling, if you need something you can always wait 15 minutes or so for the next exit to get convenience. There are lots of signs on US highways telling you where you can get gas, food, and lodging, not to mention the distances to each town. In Namibia, it’s quite different. It’s not a densely populated country like the US. You can just drive on the highway for hours and not see a thing. I imagine that’s what it’s like out in the Midwest, but I’ve never been there so I couldn’t really say. All I know is, instead of seeing signs every five minutes telling you where you can get convenience and how far away that convenience is, you’ll see one sign that says, for example, “Okahandja 110.” It will only tell you the next town coming up, not the towns that come after it. And to be fair there are signs for the tourism lodges and guest farms. But those are few and far between, and way off the highway. You’ll also see signs that say “D1456” or something like that. A D with a four-digit number coming after it. Those are little dirt roads that may or may not lead to nowhere. I’d like to find out sometime. But it’s hard to be convenient when all the towns are spread so far apart and there’s nothing but landscape in between. And the population of Namibia is maybe only a third of that of New York City, but the country is the size of two Californias. Another thing, not very many people drive cars. The major highways are all two lanes, but it’s not a really a problem. You don’t see very many cars on the road. I don’t think very many people own cars, and if they do they only drive them short distances. It’d be impractical to commute from one city to the next since they’re so far apart. I think that a lot of American culture is centered on driving. Everyone has a car, everyone drives. Getting your drivers’ license is a rite of passage, and so is getting a car. Even the commuter mentality: It’s ok if I don’t live where I work, because I can just drive there. But it’s not surprising in a country where everyone can afford to own their own car and in most cases multiple cars. And I think that’s what makes a huge difference as well. I’ve seen people driving carts with horses and donkeys next to the highway and even people just walking on the shoulder (when there was one).
Regardless, Namibia is nowhere near as convenient as the United States. It has a smaller population with fewer cars and fewer major cities. And that’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. Just different. Just one thing to think about: How often do you go to Wal-Mart at three in the morning to buy dental floss? Do you really need all that convenience?
In Namibia, most everything shuts down at seven. Everything except the restaurants and bars. The shops, the grocery stores, etc. In America, there’s always something open, no matter what time of the day it is. If I needed to, I could go out at three in the morning to get a roll of dental floss, a soda, whatever. There are even convenience stores, for goodness sake! Stores where you can buy convenience! This ties into the whole travel thing. When travelling in the US, specifically on the east coast where I’ve done most of my traveling, if you need something you can always wait 15 minutes or so for the next exit to get convenience. There are lots of signs on US highways telling you where you can get gas, food, and lodging, not to mention the distances to each town. In Namibia, it’s quite different. It’s not a densely populated country like the US. You can just drive on the highway for hours and not see a thing. I imagine that’s what it’s like out in the Midwest, but I’ve never been there so I couldn’t really say. All I know is, instead of seeing signs every five minutes telling you where you can get convenience and how far away that convenience is, you’ll see one sign that says, for example, “Okahandja 110.” It will only tell you the next town coming up, not the towns that come after it. And to be fair there are signs for the tourism lodges and guest farms. But those are few and far between, and way off the highway. You’ll also see signs that say “D1456” or something like that. A D with a four-digit number coming after it. Those are little dirt roads that may or may not lead to nowhere. I’d like to find out sometime. But it’s hard to be convenient when all the towns are spread so far apart and there’s nothing but landscape in between. And the population of Namibia is maybe only a third of that of New York City, but the country is the size of two Californias. Another thing, not very many people drive cars. The major highways are all two lanes, but it’s not a really a problem. You don’t see very many cars on the road. I don’t think very many people own cars, and if they do they only drive them short distances. It’d be impractical to commute from one city to the next since they’re so far apart. I think that a lot of American culture is centered on driving. Everyone has a car, everyone drives. Getting your drivers’ license is a rite of passage, and so is getting a car. Even the commuter mentality: It’s ok if I don’t live where I work, because I can just drive there. But it’s not surprising in a country where everyone can afford to own their own car and in most cases multiple cars. And I think that’s what makes a huge difference as well. I’ve seen people driving carts with horses and donkeys next to the highway and even people just walking on the shoulder (when there was one).
Regardless, Namibia is nowhere near as convenient as the United States. It has a smaller population with fewer cars and fewer major cities. And that’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. Just different. Just one thing to think about: How often do you go to Wal-Mart at three in the morning to buy dental floss? Do you really need all that convenience?
Mariental Culture - The Informal Settlements
I honestly don’t have too much to say about the actual culture of the blacks, since I didn’t really experience it firsthand. But I saw a lot. And I’ll just relate what I saw.
I spent a good amount of time in the informal settlements. It’s like nothing you’ll ever see in the US. In the US, the government won’t just let you up and build your own house wherever you want. There are many laws governing where you can build a house and just what you can build it out of, etc. Here, people take up a plot of land and build a house out of corrugated iron or whatever they can find (sometimes they use reeds). And these aren’t just random thrown together shacks as they may appear. The bigger ones have garden areas, sometimes a concrete patio area, and shade nets for sitting outside, and different rooms inside the shacks. They don’t have running water, but they have electricity. Imagine that happening in the US: a whole bunch of people decide to build houses somewhere near a city, and the city hooks them up to the electrical grid! Also, a lot of the people living here are not incredibly poor. Some of them own cars. I saw with my own eyes a really nice TV inside one the shacks, only a bit smaller than a TV I have at home. A lot of them dress nicely, especially the high-school age teenagers. Also, the life they live doesn’t seem to be too terrible. Yes, there’s a lot of unemployment. Yes, there’s a lot of alcoholism. It’s bad, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think it’s all bad. Lucky and Clarence said themselves, growing up in an informal settlement is fun, and I can see why. It’s a very tight-knit community. Without permanent walls, you can just walk up to people in their houses and say hello. I saw the kids having fun. And each house had its own character. Each house was unique because the person living there, or the person living there before them, had built it themselves.
The main groups that we found living in the informal settlements are the Namas, the Kavangos, and the Ovambos. I’m sure that others (Damara, Caprivian, etc) are also represented, but those are the three that we mostly talked to. As I mentioned before, the Namas are from the south and traditionally are cattle raisers. I also heard from several sources that the Nama fight a lot. A few Ovambo/Kavango people who we talked to about establishing a reeds project said that we shouldn’t involve the Nama for this reason. We also talked to one Nama family and asked them if they’d be willing to use reeds to build a fence or a house. They said that they wouldn’t because if you get into an argument with someone, they might burn your house down. That was one of the weirdest comments we got. There is also definitely a divide between the groups. In many cases when we asked the Nama about working with reeds, they responded that that was what the Kavangos or the Ovambos did. Which is true, the Kavangos and Ovambos come from the northern, more fertile part of the country and are most used to agricultural work. But there is definitely a separation. When the other half of my group went into the informal settlements to return something, a group of drunk people surrounded the car and started shouting and asking why they were only giving jobs to the Ovambos and Kavangos. But in general, when we asked if they thought that the different ethnic groups could work together, they said yes. So that’s one thing about the culture. I don’t really have any more general information, but I want to describe some things that I saw in the informal settlements.
Cats and dogs. I saw a group of kittens that were sleeping on a rock in the sun. They looked only a few months old. Then I saw a puppy come along and nudge one of the kittens and wake it up. Then the kittens moved to another rock. It was the cutest thing ever. I also saw the skinniest cat I’ve ever seen, and a good amount of scrawny dogs. They just forage for scraps because there’s no food.
The kids. A lot of them would wave at us when we drove by, and we’d wave back. We were hassled by several kids in the city begging for money, but not really in the informal settlements. When I was done with one interview, I noticed that a group of kids had gathered behind me. I turned around and had a conversation in English! Just the standard greetings: “Hello,” “How are you,” “What’s your name,” etc. And she understood me! It was cute.
I interviewed one guy that had a University of Maryland hat. I wonder where he got it.
One house we passed by had this amazing garden in their front yard.It was almost like a sculpture garden. There were all these bits of scrap metal crafted together and painted bright blue. I did get a picture. I'll have to show everyone.
That's all for now, really. I'll post most later!
I spent a good amount of time in the informal settlements. It’s like nothing you’ll ever see in the US. In the US, the government won’t just let you up and build your own house wherever you want. There are many laws governing where you can build a house and just what you can build it out of, etc. Here, people take up a plot of land and build a house out of corrugated iron or whatever they can find (sometimes they use reeds). And these aren’t just random thrown together shacks as they may appear. The bigger ones have garden areas, sometimes a concrete patio area, and shade nets for sitting outside, and different rooms inside the shacks. They don’t have running water, but they have electricity. Imagine that happening in the US: a whole bunch of people decide to build houses somewhere near a city, and the city hooks them up to the electrical grid! Also, a lot of the people living here are not incredibly poor. Some of them own cars. I saw with my own eyes a really nice TV inside one the shacks, only a bit smaller than a TV I have at home. A lot of them dress nicely, especially the high-school age teenagers. Also, the life they live doesn’t seem to be too terrible. Yes, there’s a lot of unemployment. Yes, there’s a lot of alcoholism. It’s bad, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think it’s all bad. Lucky and Clarence said themselves, growing up in an informal settlement is fun, and I can see why. It’s a very tight-knit community. Without permanent walls, you can just walk up to people in their houses and say hello. I saw the kids having fun. And each house had its own character. Each house was unique because the person living there, or the person living there before them, had built it themselves.
The main groups that we found living in the informal settlements are the Namas, the Kavangos, and the Ovambos. I’m sure that others (Damara, Caprivian, etc) are also represented, but those are the three that we mostly talked to. As I mentioned before, the Namas are from the south and traditionally are cattle raisers. I also heard from several sources that the Nama fight a lot. A few Ovambo/Kavango people who we talked to about establishing a reeds project said that we shouldn’t involve the Nama for this reason. We also talked to one Nama family and asked them if they’d be willing to use reeds to build a fence or a house. They said that they wouldn’t because if you get into an argument with someone, they might burn your house down. That was one of the weirdest comments we got. There is also definitely a divide between the groups. In many cases when we asked the Nama about working with reeds, they responded that that was what the Kavangos or the Ovambos did. Which is true, the Kavangos and Ovambos come from the northern, more fertile part of the country and are most used to agricultural work. But there is definitely a separation. When the other half of my group went into the informal settlements to return something, a group of drunk people surrounded the car and started shouting and asking why they were only giving jobs to the Ovambos and Kavangos. But in general, when we asked if they thought that the different ethnic groups could work together, they said yes. So that’s one thing about the culture. I don’t really have any more general information, but I want to describe some things that I saw in the informal settlements.
Cats and dogs. I saw a group of kittens that were sleeping on a rock in the sun. They looked only a few months old. Then I saw a puppy come along and nudge one of the kittens and wake it up. Then the kittens moved to another rock. It was the cutest thing ever. I also saw the skinniest cat I’ve ever seen, and a good amount of scrawny dogs. They just forage for scraps because there’s no food.
The kids. A lot of them would wave at us when we drove by, and we’d wave back. We were hassled by several kids in the city begging for money, but not really in the informal settlements. When I was done with one interview, I noticed that a group of kids had gathered behind me. I turned around and had a conversation in English! Just the standard greetings: “Hello,” “How are you,” “What’s your name,” etc. And she understood me! It was cute.
I interviewed one guy that had a University of Maryland hat. I wonder where he got it.
One house we passed by had this amazing garden in their front yard.It was almost like a sculpture garden. There were all these bits of scrap metal crafted together and painted bright blue. I did get a picture. I'll have to show everyone.
That's all for now, really. I'll post most later!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Mariental Culture - Nama Language
The informal settlement community is predominantly Nama, as is most of southern Namibia. The Nama speak a language that uses clicks. Can I have an aside just about the language for a minute? It’s just so fascinating. In Nama, there are four clicks. Two of them are relatively easy for English speakers. / is a sound made by sucking on your front teeth essentially. In English, the sound is written ‘tsk tsk,’ and is used to express disapproval. // is a sound made by sucking on your molars. It’s a sound used to call horses in English. The other two are harder to distinguish. ! is a loud popping sound made by putting the tip of your tongue behind your front teeth (not against your teeth, but behind, on that ridge there) and drawing your jaw down sharply. ≠ is a softer sound made by pressing the flat of your tongue against the roof of your mouth and making the same jaw motion. Now combining these sounds with other vowels and consonants is more difficult. I think some people have this conception that languages that use clicks only use clicks. Now that’s just stupid. The clicks are essentially other consonants. In English, we don’t just speak with k’s and d’s and g’s, do we? As an example (the only thing I can kind of say in Nama): “!Gai //Goas” means “Good Morning.” “!Gai Tses” is “Good Day” (I think). “Thank you” is “Toxoba,” with the x making a sound that’s sort of a combination of an h and the German ch. “How are you” is simple: “Matisa.” So you can see that not all Nama words use clicks. Wikipedia has a good article on these things if you’re interested and there are some good videos on YouTube. Search for Nama, Khoekhoegab, or Khoisan languages. But let me tell you, I never got tired of listening to the Nama talk. It’s just amazing to hear these popping and clicking sounds come out of their mouths with no effort whatsoever. Someone who speaks another language could never learn that unless they grew up with it. It’d just be impossible to distinguish between a !Gai and a !Dai for instance. It’s crazy! But I love it. Another interesting note: another ethnic group in Namibia, the Damaras, also speak the same language but they are a completely different people. Also note that there are a number of languages that use clicks in Africa. The language that the San use, for instance, is different from the language of the Namas and Damaras. Sort of in the same way that Spanish and Italian are different.
Ok, I'm done. Next I might actually post about my experiences in the informal settlements of Mariental.
Ok, I'm done. Next I might actually post about my experiences in the informal settlements of Mariental.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Etosha
Just to interject in my Mariental story:
So I’m back from Etosha. We went “camping,” in that we lived in tents at a tourist resort. Our tents were near actual chalets and we had access to toilets, showers, sinks, a restaurant, a pool, and a bar. So I was living in a tent. But I was nowhere near roughing it. I was just a little uncomfortable at night. And during the day. It’s a six hour drive from Windhoek to Etosha, and we were on a big bus from the Poly. So Etosha is a big National Park and Game Reserve, kinda. You go there to see the animals. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we drove through the park on pre-determined dirt paths. We saw other people in their SUVs and safari vehicles, but all we had was a huge blue, white, and yellow bus with “POLYTECHNIC OF NAMIBIA” plastered on the side. It was the most conspicuous safari vehicle ever. Regardless, I saw zebra, springbok, steenbok, kudu, black-faced impala, another kind of impala, oryx, ostrich, warthogs, various birds including guinea hens, jackals, rhinos, an elephant, and two lions, one male and one female. We did a LOT of driving in that stupid bus to see all these animals, but it was worth it. There would be times where we’d drive and drive and we wouldn’t see anything for hours. Then I tried to nap or read. I got really tired of seeing springbok and zebra. They’re everywhere. The springbok is also served in the restaurant. We didn’t see the lions until the very end of the trip, too. So that was nice.
The best part was seeing the rhinos. We didn’t actually see them out in the park. You’re all going to think this is really touristy, which it is, but at the resort there was a man-made watering hole with a stone fence surrounding it along with spotlights and benches for all the tourists to sit and watch. So we went there on the last night because we had heard that there had been a rhino there before. We waited for a while and I was getting impatient and talking about how the rhino was never going to show up, and then there it was! It went to the watering hole, got some water, and then walked straight toward the fence. It got so close! Next to the stone fence separating the tourists from the animals, there are long wooden poles angled down so the animal can’t climb over them. Well, this rhino ran into that looking for grass and was very confused. Meanwhile, we and a whole bunch of Germans were crowded around silently taking pictures. I didn’t have my camera, but it was too dark anyway. Eventually it gave up and went back. A few minutes later, another rhino (I think the female) came to the watering hole to drink. Then a huge herd of zebra came by. Watching the two interact was very funny. The zebra would go into the watering hole staying on the other side of the rhino. But when the rhino would move, the zebra would all freak out and run out of the water. But then they would slowly come back until one of the zebra noticed the rhino again, and they would all rush out. This happened several times. The rhino was completely oblivious to all of this and kept on doing its thing. Very funny.
So those are the highlights of Etosha. I saw lots of cool animals. The end.
So I’m back from Etosha. We went “camping,” in that we lived in tents at a tourist resort. Our tents were near actual chalets and we had access to toilets, showers, sinks, a restaurant, a pool, and a bar. So I was living in a tent. But I was nowhere near roughing it. I was just a little uncomfortable at night. And during the day. It’s a six hour drive from Windhoek to Etosha, and we were on a big bus from the Poly. So Etosha is a big National Park and Game Reserve, kinda. You go there to see the animals. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we drove through the park on pre-determined dirt paths. We saw other people in their SUVs and safari vehicles, but all we had was a huge blue, white, and yellow bus with “POLYTECHNIC OF NAMIBIA” plastered on the side. It was the most conspicuous safari vehicle ever. Regardless, I saw zebra, springbok, steenbok, kudu, black-faced impala, another kind of impala, oryx, ostrich, warthogs, various birds including guinea hens, jackals, rhinos, an elephant, and two lions, one male and one female. We did a LOT of driving in that stupid bus to see all these animals, but it was worth it. There would be times where we’d drive and drive and we wouldn’t see anything for hours. Then I tried to nap or read. I got really tired of seeing springbok and zebra. They’re everywhere. The springbok is also served in the restaurant. We didn’t see the lions until the very end of the trip, too. So that was nice.
The best part was seeing the rhinos. We didn’t actually see them out in the park. You’re all going to think this is really touristy, which it is, but at the resort there was a man-made watering hole with a stone fence surrounding it along with spotlights and benches for all the tourists to sit and watch. So we went there on the last night because we had heard that there had been a rhino there before. We waited for a while and I was getting impatient and talking about how the rhino was never going to show up, and then there it was! It went to the watering hole, got some water, and then walked straight toward the fence. It got so close! Next to the stone fence separating the tourists from the animals, there are long wooden poles angled down so the animal can’t climb over them. Well, this rhino ran into that looking for grass and was very confused. Meanwhile, we and a whole bunch of Germans were crowded around silently taking pictures. I didn’t have my camera, but it was too dark anyway. Eventually it gave up and went back. A few minutes later, another rhino (I think the female) came to the watering hole to drink. Then a huge herd of zebra came by. Watching the two interact was very funny. The zebra would go into the watering hole staying on the other side of the rhino. But when the rhino would move, the zebra would all freak out and run out of the water. But then they would slowly come back until one of the zebra noticed the rhino again, and they would all rush out. This happened several times. The rhino was completely oblivious to all of this and kept on doing its thing. Very funny.
So those are the highlights of Etosha. I saw lots of cool animals. The end.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Mariental Culture - The Afrikaaners
In general, going to Mariental has fulfilled one of my goals in coming to Namibia: to experience a culture completely different from my own. I’ve been exposed to both the white culture and the diverse black culture. Just as a disclaimer, let me note that everything I say is based on my week-long observations and very limited knowledge of the history of the region. I am not an anthropologist or sociologist, but I do find people interesting. Also, race is a very pertinent issue. In the US, we generally try to ignore race and pretend everyone’s the same. But going to Namibia, and especially Mariental, has made me realize that it is not the same here. Also being a foreigner and a racial minority. I’ve never been so aware of my whiteness. But really, it’s like this: I’m white. Everyone knows I’m white. Why pretend like I’m the same as everybody else? Why should I never say the words “white” or “black?” So I might talk about race a lot. It’s not “politically correct” by US standards, but it’s real. It’s what’s happening here.
Before, I mentioned that there are farms in Mariental. All of these farms are run by white Afrikaaners that employ the locals to work on the farms. Now the Afrikaaners are interesting. I don’t know too much about their history (I’d like to know more), but they are descended from the original white colonizers of the area. The language, Afrikaans, is sort of a combination of German and Dutch. And let me remind you that Namibia only gained independence and ended apartheid 19 years ago. In Windhoek it’s clear that the blacks have regained power, but a lot of these Afrikaaners in the south still hang onto their roots. Also during apartheid, Afrikaans was the language of the whites. While the cities may have moved on to speaking English, most people in the south still speak Afrikaans and not English. This includes the blacks. Many Afrikaaners refuse to speak English. And it’s obvious that there is still a lot of racism amongst them. We witnessed this at the deli at Spar. The Afrikaaner boss of the deli kept talking down to the Nama employees. We could tell even though she wasn’t speaking English. The attitude was obvious. And we heard from those working on the farms the severe penalties for stealing the crops. To put it in short, the Afrikaaners are all hillbillies. Rednecks. You should even see them. All the men wear short shorts like they were back in the 80s or something. One night we went to the Mariental Hotel for dinner. Then we remembered that a few days ago, a (white) lady in the grocery store handed us a flyer for an April Fool’s Day Dance on April 3rd, which just happened to be that night. So we decided to stick around to see the hillbillies, as we call them. Apparently this Hotel was a gathering place for them. They come down from their farms all the way to Mariental to hang out there. So we wanted to check it out. Now, you might think that because we were white and they were white that they might have been friendly to us. Not. The case. As soon as we walked in everyone was staring at us. Our liaisons at the DRFN, Lucky and Clarence, might have been the only black people there. I was afraid to even go up to the bar. All these huge men in short shorts and their pretty wives and girlfriends just made us feel so unwelcome. But oh well. We were bored after a while, so Dennis and I decided to dance (swing) to the music that was playing. We had seen one couple dance swing to this one song before, so I thought it might be ok if we tried it. I didn’t notice, but apparently everyone was giving us angry looks. Lucky said later that he had seen one Afrikaaner lady say “Where did they come from?” in Afrikaans while we were dancing. We were having a great time, but we were still outsiders. It was interesting. We left once one of the rednecks started playing guitar and singing bad versions of American songs.
So that’s the Afrikaaner culture that I observed. Of course, they’re not all bad. I’ve made a lot of generalizations. But if a white person in Mariental wasn’t racist and redneck, I wouldn’t call them Afrikaaner. And there are plenty of non-racist white people there too. We interviewed at least one farmer woman who was very helpful to our project. I just wanted to throw that disclaimer in there.
Next: My observations on the diverse black culture of Mariental.
Before, I mentioned that there are farms in Mariental. All of these farms are run by white Afrikaaners that employ the locals to work on the farms. Now the Afrikaaners are interesting. I don’t know too much about their history (I’d like to know more), but they are descended from the original white colonizers of the area. The language, Afrikaans, is sort of a combination of German and Dutch. And let me remind you that Namibia only gained independence and ended apartheid 19 years ago. In Windhoek it’s clear that the blacks have regained power, but a lot of these Afrikaaners in the south still hang onto their roots. Also during apartheid, Afrikaans was the language of the whites. While the cities may have moved on to speaking English, most people in the south still speak Afrikaans and not English. This includes the blacks. Many Afrikaaners refuse to speak English. And it’s obvious that there is still a lot of racism amongst them. We witnessed this at the deli at Spar. The Afrikaaner boss of the deli kept talking down to the Nama employees. We could tell even though she wasn’t speaking English. The attitude was obvious. And we heard from those working on the farms the severe penalties for stealing the crops. To put it in short, the Afrikaaners are all hillbillies. Rednecks. You should even see them. All the men wear short shorts like they were back in the 80s or something. One night we went to the Mariental Hotel for dinner. Then we remembered that a few days ago, a (white) lady in the grocery store handed us a flyer for an April Fool’s Day Dance on April 3rd, which just happened to be that night. So we decided to stick around to see the hillbillies, as we call them. Apparently this Hotel was a gathering place for them. They come down from their farms all the way to Mariental to hang out there. So we wanted to check it out. Now, you might think that because we were white and they were white that they might have been friendly to us. Not. The case. As soon as we walked in everyone was staring at us. Our liaisons at the DRFN, Lucky and Clarence, might have been the only black people there. I was afraid to even go up to the bar. All these huge men in short shorts and their pretty wives and girlfriends just made us feel so unwelcome. But oh well. We were bored after a while, so Dennis and I decided to dance (swing) to the music that was playing. We had seen one couple dance swing to this one song before, so I thought it might be ok if we tried it. I didn’t notice, but apparently everyone was giving us angry looks. Lucky said later that he had seen one Afrikaaner lady say “Where did they come from?” in Afrikaans while we were dancing. We were having a great time, but we were still outsiders. It was interesting. We left once one of the rednecks started playing guitar and singing bad versions of American songs.
So that’s the Afrikaaner culture that I observed. Of course, they’re not all bad. I’ve made a lot of generalizations. But if a white person in Mariental wasn’t racist and redneck, I wouldn’t call them Afrikaaner. And there are plenty of non-racist white people there too. We interviewed at least one farmer woman who was very helpful to our project. I just wanted to throw that disclaimer in there.
Next: My observations on the diverse black culture of Mariental.
Back from Mariental
Hello everyone, I’ve arrived safely back in Windhoek from my fieldwork in Mariental. Instead of giving you a day-by-day account of my adventures, I’m going to make a few posts about my experiences. First, I’ll talk about the town itself: Mariental, Hardap Region, Namibia.
Mariental was originally built around the railroad that goes through the region. Engineers were advised not to build in the flood plain of the Fish River, but you know how those things go. The Fish River is an ephemeral river, meaning that all or part of it only flows a month or so out of the whole year. The rest of the time it is a dry riverbed. The Fish River is also big. And when it rains in this region, it rains hard and the river floods. It all starts at the Hardap Dam which is an absolutely huge dam that sits on the Fish River. The Fish River is one of the only ephemeral rivers in the world that has a dam. Right in the Hardap Dam reservoir there is always water though. It’s only downstream of the dam where it is dry most of the year. Now the reason this river is dammed isn’t for hydropower or anything like that, it’s to provide water to the 25 or so farms that are between the dam and Mariental. Water runs from the dam into irrigation channels directly to the farms. They use what is called flood irrigation to provide water to their fields, which is actually a very inefficient method of irrigation. The water just floods the entire fields and some parts get a lot of the water while other parts get only some water, and sometimes the water runs quickly over the field and washes away the fertilizer. Then you have a lot of runoff of water with fertilizer that runs back into the Fish River and fuels the growth of the reeds. But that’s getting a little too much into the details of my project. My original point was that there are farms above Mariental. They mostly grow maize, wheat, and grapes.
The town itself is relatively small. There are almost no restaurants. There’s a large Engen gas station that has a Wimpy, a burger joint. That’s really the only restaurant. We did go to the restaurant at the Mariental Hotel, but that’s a story for another time. So we mostly cooked our own food at the place we stayed. For lunch though, we had two options: Wimpy or the deli at Spar, the grocery store. So we ate at Wimpy a lot. I had the vegetarian burger almost every day. It was terrible. So there are various businesses in Mariental. The other part is the informal settlements. I’ll talk more about those later as well.
More to follow later. Right now I have a bad cold so I need to get some rest. I might not post everything before this weekend. This weekend we are going to Etosha national park for safari activities. We’ll be living in tents. Whee. So no internet there. We’ll see how much I can post about Mariental before then.
Mariental was originally built around the railroad that goes through the region. Engineers were advised not to build in the flood plain of the Fish River, but you know how those things go. The Fish River is an ephemeral river, meaning that all or part of it only flows a month or so out of the whole year. The rest of the time it is a dry riverbed. The Fish River is also big. And when it rains in this region, it rains hard and the river floods. It all starts at the Hardap Dam which is an absolutely huge dam that sits on the Fish River. The Fish River is one of the only ephemeral rivers in the world that has a dam. Right in the Hardap Dam reservoir there is always water though. It’s only downstream of the dam where it is dry most of the year. Now the reason this river is dammed isn’t for hydropower or anything like that, it’s to provide water to the 25 or so farms that are between the dam and Mariental. Water runs from the dam into irrigation channels directly to the farms. They use what is called flood irrigation to provide water to their fields, which is actually a very inefficient method of irrigation. The water just floods the entire fields and some parts get a lot of the water while other parts get only some water, and sometimes the water runs quickly over the field and washes away the fertilizer. Then you have a lot of runoff of water with fertilizer that runs back into the Fish River and fuels the growth of the reeds. But that’s getting a little too much into the details of my project. My original point was that there are farms above Mariental. They mostly grow maize, wheat, and grapes.
The town itself is relatively small. There are almost no restaurants. There’s a large Engen gas station that has a Wimpy, a burger joint. That’s really the only restaurant. We did go to the restaurant at the Mariental Hotel, but that’s a story for another time. So we mostly cooked our own food at the place we stayed. For lunch though, we had two options: Wimpy or the deli at Spar, the grocery store. So we ate at Wimpy a lot. I had the vegetarian burger almost every day. It was terrible. So there are various businesses in Mariental. The other part is the informal settlements. I’ll talk more about those later as well.
More to follow later. Right now I have a bad cold so I need to get some rest. I might not post everything before this weekend. This weekend we are going to Etosha national park for safari activities. We’ll be living in tents. Whee. So no internet there. We’ll see how much I can post about Mariental before then.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Swakopmund
Hello everyone! I hope you’re all doing well in the States. I just had an awesome weekend in Swakopmund.
Let me first say that the desert is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it my life nor do I think I ever will again (unless I come back here of course). It was a four-hour drive from Windhoek to Swakopmund, going north towards the coast. The landscape gradually turned from beautiful mountains to arid desert. Mountains are weird here. They just seem to rise up out of nowhere, and then you drive by them and they’re gone. Another interesting note about the drive: along the side of the road I saw a pipeline. Being an American, my first assumption was that it was oil, because oil is an important natural resource in our society. But then I thought more about it, and realized that it wasn’t oil…it was water. Namibia is a desert; therefore water is the most important natural resource. Duh! Also, as another note on the landscape: Namibia has mostly ephemeral rivers, meaning that the river is only there some of the time. The river might not even run for years, but a sign is still there tell you that there’s a river. Instead of a river, you see a bunch of plants growing in a dried-up riverbed. It’s pretty cool actually. Swakopmund also has an interesting feature unique to the area: the fog. Every morning and evening (I think) fog rolls in from the ocean, and that’s the only way anything grows in the area. The plants and insects get a lot of their water from the fog. When we first drove in, we could see the fog rolling in from the ocean. And it wasn’t like normal fog. It was sort of like a low-lying storm cloud that just made everything sticky and humid. Oh, and it was pretty cold. In Namibia, it’s colder on the coast. And I, assuming that we were going to the beach where it would of course be hot and sunny, didn’t bring a jacket. Big mistake. But I never really had the time to buy one because I was so busy. Which I’m about to get to.
Friday night our advisors took us out to dinner. It was at a steakhouse that had a Native American theme. It was weird. Then we all just went out afterwards to a place called “The Lighthouse” – right next to a lighthouse in fact – that had a really good view of the ocean. Of course it was too dark to really see, but I had my first view of the Atlantic Ocean from the other side.
Saturday morning was Sandboarding. There were two options for Sandboarding: lie-down or stand-up. I took the lie-down option because I have no skill in Snowboarding, and just wanted to have fun without having to learn how to do it. Well, they took us out there and I had my first view of the sand dunes. They were huge. Majestic is a good word. Like I said, you’d never see anything like them outside of Africa. Absolutely beautiful. Anyways, out of the large amount of people going Sandboarding, only four of us did the lie-down boarding. It involves sliding down on your stomach face-first on a flexible piece of board down these gigantic dunes. They’re also very steep. First of all, the walk up is brutal. Walking in sand is tough anyway, but when it’s a huge steep dune and you’re carrying a big piece of board, it’s much harder. Also, I’m afraid of heights. So when I got to the top and got ready to go down for the first time, I was terrified. In fact, every time I got ready to go down the dunes, I was terrified. They’re very steep, and you’re falling face-first with you face inches from the sand. It’s really intense. It got better though. It was also better when I screamed. Once we got to the biggest dune of all, I was not going down it. I was getting on the board and I kept telling the guy “No, no, I can’t do this.” Well, eventually he got tired of it and he just pushed me. If he had not pushed me, I would not have gone down it. But I’m glad I did. Also on this last dune, they clocked our speed. The fastest I went was 63 km/h, or around 40 mph. That is the fastest I have ever gone outside of a moving vehicle. Just imagine going face-first with your head inches from the sand down a huge, steep sand dune at 40 mph. It was intense, to say the least. Total, I went down 6 times, each time on a different dune. I’ll probably never do anything like that ever again. It was awesome.
The best part was that after we were all done and I had poured all of the sand out of my shoes, they gave us sandwiches, water, soda, and beer. This was all included in the price of N$250, or around US$25. What a great deal.
Later that afternoon, I went horseback riding through the desert. That was nice. Definitely not the intense experience of earlier. Not much to say about it really, except that the desert is absolutely beautiful, which I’ve already said. By the end of the day I was exhausted.
The next morning, I went on a desert tour. This time I took my film camera to get some artsy pictures. The tour itself was like 5 hours long. Our guide was a really cool person too. We saw lizards, snakes, skinks, and chameleons. The skinks were the interesting ones. They’re basically lizards with no arms, legs, or eyes. They’re not snakes. Strange. We went driving around the desert in these huge vehicles and sometimes went directly over the dunes at crazy angles. That was scary. At one point, we went to see the “roaring dunes.” We stopped at the very top of this large steep dune. Then the driver killed the engine and let the vehicle slide down the dune on its own. Then we could just hear the sand grinding underneath us, roaring if you will. It was really cool. Honestly, one of the coolest things I saw in the desert was the old South African Railway, built in the 50’s, abandoned in the 80’s, due to sand. All that was left of it were old concrete slabs and twisted metal wires strewn over the dunes. It was quite a sight to see. I got some really good pictures of it. Overall, the tour was just really great to see the desert. It’s not something that I’m going to get to do again anytime soon.
So, that was my trip. Now I have to get back to work. Come April 1, I’ll be in Mariental! See ya!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Hello!
I have arrived safely in Namibia. Let me first start out by saying that the internet is almost non-existant on the campus, contrary to what we were told. We have been told to bring our laptops to the IT center, but one student has already done this and they only gave him a proxy to connect to - not solving the problem. So I don't know when if at all I will get actual internet on my laptop, so I may just have to stick to internet cafes (which cost money and have a time limit) and no Skype or pictures.
In general, everyone speaks English. People are either nice to you and will say hi, or they just stare at you. Before, we were told all these things about how to not look like tourists, etc, but it's just impossible to fit in when we're the only white people. So I've sort of given up on that.
Let's see, what can I tell you about my trip so far that would be short? Windhoek is an absolutely beautiful city. The weather is beautiful, the clouds are pretty, the city itself is bright and colorful and there are mountains surrounding it that just seem to rise up out of nowhere. There is a nice large park in the middle of the city. It actually reminded me of Key West a little bit in that the buildings are painted with bright colors and a lot of the residences are surrounded with high walls. The house that we (the girls) are staying at is awesome! We have a large house with a big kitchen and common room and dining area. Since we are technically off campus, we have our own security guard as well as walls and a gate around our house. You also need to unlock a gate in front of our door and the door itself, and there's an alarm system triggered by motion that we can set when all of us are away. Our individual rooms also have locks. So security is pretty tight.
As for our activities, so far we have found a great italian restaurant with good pizza. The exchange rate is about N$10 for US$1, so everything is cheap. 30 minutes at the internet cafe is N$10. The pizza is about N$6. We've also done a few touristy things while we were here. Peet (our prof. and advisor) took us on a bus tour of the city. We went to Katatura, a sprawling community outside of Windhoek. Most of these houses are very small, but also brightly colored like the buildings in Windhoek. Next we went to the "informal settlements." These were houses made from whatever these people could find - mostly corrugated steel. They were large enough maybe for a few people to lie down in. And these houses just stretched for miles over the landscape. I encourage you to look up pictures of the city of Windhoek and Katatura, since I can't upload my own pictures. We also found a really cool place to hang out near where we are staying - The Cardboard Box. Not only is a good hang-out place, it's also a hostel. We met a few European travelers and an American from Virginia who was looking to retire in Namibia. It was very nice.
So my weekend was great, but the party's over now. We have to get to work. Today my project group and I will visit the DRFN to meet the people we will be working with. We will most likely be giving a presentation to the DRFN tomorrow as well. We have a presentation on Thursday an a new draft of our methods section due next Tuesday. Every Tuesday morning we will have lessons on the Herrero language, which will not be very useful to those of use traveling to other parts of Namibia. I wish I could just hang out and be a tourist for 2 months, but that wouldn't get me much credit. Oh well!
My half-hour is almost up. I may not be able to get any emails or anything for a while. I'll try to come back to the internet cafe within a week. See you!
I have arrived safely in Namibia. Let me first start out by saying that the internet is almost non-existant on the campus, contrary to what we were told. We have been told to bring our laptops to the IT center, but one student has already done this and they only gave him a proxy to connect to - not solving the problem. So I don't know when if at all I will get actual internet on my laptop, so I may just have to stick to internet cafes (which cost money and have a time limit) and no Skype or pictures.
In general, everyone speaks English. People are either nice to you and will say hi, or they just stare at you. Before, we were told all these things about how to not look like tourists, etc, but it's just impossible to fit in when we're the only white people. So I've sort of given up on that.
Let's see, what can I tell you about my trip so far that would be short? Windhoek is an absolutely beautiful city. The weather is beautiful, the clouds are pretty, the city itself is bright and colorful and there are mountains surrounding it that just seem to rise up out of nowhere. There is a nice large park in the middle of the city. It actually reminded me of Key West a little bit in that the buildings are painted with bright colors and a lot of the residences are surrounded with high walls. The house that we (the girls) are staying at is awesome! We have a large house with a big kitchen and common room and dining area. Since we are technically off campus, we have our own security guard as well as walls and a gate around our house. You also need to unlock a gate in front of our door and the door itself, and there's an alarm system triggered by motion that we can set when all of us are away. Our individual rooms also have locks. So security is pretty tight.
As for our activities, so far we have found a great italian restaurant with good pizza. The exchange rate is about N$10 for US$1, so everything is cheap. 30 minutes at the internet cafe is N$10. The pizza is about N$6. We've also done a few touristy things while we were here. Peet (our prof. and advisor) took us on a bus tour of the city. We went to Katatura, a sprawling community outside of Windhoek. Most of these houses are very small, but also brightly colored like the buildings in Windhoek. Next we went to the "informal settlements." These were houses made from whatever these people could find - mostly corrugated steel. They were large enough maybe for a few people to lie down in. And these houses just stretched for miles over the landscape. I encourage you to look up pictures of the city of Windhoek and Katatura, since I can't upload my own pictures. We also found a really cool place to hang out near where we are staying - The Cardboard Box. Not only is a good hang-out place, it's also a hostel. We met a few European travelers and an American from Virginia who was looking to retire in Namibia. It was very nice.
So my weekend was great, but the party's over now. We have to get to work. Today my project group and I will visit the DRFN to meet the people we will be working with. We will most likely be giving a presentation to the DRFN tomorrow as well. We have a presentation on Thursday an a new draft of our methods section due next Tuesday. Every Tuesday morning we will have lessons on the Herrero language, which will not be very useful to those of use traveling to other parts of Namibia. I wish I could just hang out and be a tourist for 2 months, but that wouldn't get me much credit. Oh well!
My half-hour is almost up. I may not be able to get any emails or anything for a while. I'll try to come back to the internet cafe within a week. See you!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Off to Africa
Well, I'm about to leave for Namibia. I won't have access to the internet for a few days, so this won't be updated until then. But I'll be sure to update it as soon as I have internet access. Until then, here are my contacts:
Email: michelle.e.terry1@gmail.com
Phone (Skype): 240-436-2747
Wish me luck on my 17+ hour flight!
Email: michelle.e.terry1@gmail.com
Phone (Skype): 240-436-2747
Wish me luck on my 17+ hour flight!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)