When you hear “Africa” you probably
think something along the line of a vast dry, sandy, dusty, hot, desert. When
you think of (or research Namibia if you have no idea what Namibia is) you get
images of high sand dunes, vast wastelands, and “traditional” women with no top
on. At least this is what I got when I Googled Namibia upon receiving my
invitation. When I arrived and after living here for over a year I learned how
incredibly diverse the country and its people are. When you arrive you find
yourself in Windhoek, a metropolitan city where you can for the most part get
anything your heart desires. There are high-end hotels, swanky high-rise
apartments, multi-level parking garages, specialty grocery stores, coffee shops
and the latest fashion trends. Favorites among Peace Corps volunteers include
soft serve ice cream, Indian food, and KFC. There are super nice suburbs, which
trick you into thinking you are back in the United States except for the
security walls surrounding all residences, and then there is the location or
the “ghetto” just like any other major city in the world.
Windhoek is in the mountains and a
drive through these mountains in any direction will bring you to smaller towns
and much smaller villages. These places are generally flat, dusty, gravely,
freezing in the winter nights and disgustingly hot in the summer afternoons.
Homes are built of concrete and sometimes painted bright obnoxious colors,
others are built of pieces of corrugated tin and anything else they can find
around to patch up holes. Continuing south for hours on end you will still come
across the same housing.
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| The road to Schlip. 50k of pretty much this |
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| During training I lived in a neighborhood called Smarties because of the brightly colored houses |
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| The largest highway in the country. The B1 |
Sandwiching the main highway
through the country are two of the oldest deserts in the world, the Namib and
the Kalahari. In both you find the classic Sahara sand dunes, the ones in the
Namib though are a vibrant red-orange though. As you drive further west into
the Namib you find the place where desert meets sea as the sand dunes abruptly
end on the coastline. Traveling up this coast you find a few towns built on
industry. One of them, Swakopmund, is a main tourist attraction heavy on the
German influence. Here you find beachfront housing, expensive seafood, Italian,
and German dinners, a movie theater, swimming, and souvenirs. Further north up
the coast you find what is accurately termed “the Skeleton Coast” for the
number of shipwrecks and whalebones that litter the coastline. The only way to
access this part of the country is with a 4x4 vehicle.
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| Swakopmund's German influenced Florida beach town look alike |
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| The giant waves of the Namibian coastline |
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| Where sand meets the surf |
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| The Atlantic Ocean is actually just over those sand dunes |
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| I met some seals in Swakopmund |
From the northwest coast traveling
back east you run into one of the largest game reserves in the world, Etosha
National Park. A highlight of southern Africa, Etosha is home to every African
zoo animal you can imagine, and here you can get up close in personal with
them, driving your vehicle along side a lion chasing down its prey or having to
stop for a herd of zebras, elephants, or giraffes to cross the road.
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| Don't worry, his belly was full of lunch |
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| Traffic in Etosha |
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| Kelley stopped the car, did a u-turn, and pulled up to take a picture of these little guys on the side of the road. |
For the lacking population in the
southern part of Namibia, the north quarter of the nation is home to a majority
of its population. Up here you have populations bursting with culture and
tradition, mud huts (there are concrete and tin homes too), and greenery due to
the rivers and tributaries that weave around. Moving east you have hippos and
crocodiles that roam freely and the further you go you have elephant crossing
signs every few kilometers. You also have larger towns, making fried chicken,
fresh fruits and vegetables, and transportation easily accessible. Here is
where you might say you get “true Africa” and while it might not be a high
tourist area, it is something to experience in itself.
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| Rundu up in the Kavango Region |
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| The Kavango River. Angola on the left, Namibia on he right. |
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| Sunset over the Kavango |
The people are just as diverse as
scenery. There are skin colors ranging from rich dark to deep tan to
how-could-you-live-in-Africa-your-whole-life-and-still-be-this-white? While
English is the “official” language, Akrikaans is also spoken widely due to the
previous South African rule and you will find many people also fluent in
German. You have the difficult “click” language spoken and various dialects of
that as well as 4 other main Bantu languages which each have 5-10 or dialects of
their own. Much vocabulary crosses but each language is unique in its own way.
Dress ranges in colors, fabrics, animal
skins, or lack there of. Each speaking to their own individual culture and
experience. Dance, ceremonies, and food all rich, all diverse.
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| My students in traditional Nama dress |
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| My students in their traditional Herero dress |
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| My students in their Owambo skirts |
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| Nama dress for men |
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| My students rebelling against cultural dress day. These are my clean village boys |
A line from the Namibian National
Anthem speaks to this diversity saying “contrasting beautiful Namibia”. This is
true as in just one day you can travel from the ocean and sprawling sand dunes
through the mountains to an urban city while you keep your eyes peeled for
giraffes on the side of the road. The next day you can head north to the green
banks of the Kavango or Zambezi rivers traveling through rolling hills,
mountains, wastelands, and mud hut homesteads. If you’re lucky you will catch a
glimpse of the hippos or crocodiles that live in the water.
Nearly 10 years ago, Peace Corps Namibia has had a group of
their volunteers working toward promoting this diversity throughout the country
as well as diversity throughout the world (I could not believe it when I was
asked if coming to Namibia was the first time I saw a black person). We do this
through hosting an annual Diversity Tour (which I will talk about in the next
post), conducting diversity sessions to new groups of Peace Corps trainees,
providing educational material for schools around the country, and are working
on starting up a Pen Pal Program. I joined this group, as I am passionate about
overcoming cultural differences and barriers, and quickly found myself
president. It has now become one of the larger projects I am working on during
my service and I love it. I am sure you will hear much more about it J
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