Namibia

My time in South Africa is almost over, and I'm finally able to set aside some time to reflect on Namibia and my experiences there. Here are some lasting impressions of the country:

My first impression of Namibia was surprise and gratitude at how warmly we were welcomed. I feel like everyone wanted to talk to us and shake our hand. People on the street, vendors, and workers would stop what they were doing to ask where we were from, and if we liked their country. Walvis Bay and Swakopmund (a German colonial town) seemed relaxed and friendly, especially compared to the hustle of Marrakech in Morocco. As Jonathan pointed out, once the vendors realized we weren't going to buy, they were happy to light up a cigarette and talk to us.

In the one of the pre-port lectures before we arrived, a professor mentioned the notion that Namibia is considered a young country. It's called “young”for two reasons. Namibia just gained its independence in 1990, after a long history of oppression by Germany and South Africa. It's also called “young”because AIDS has taken a serious toll on the population. It is estimated that one in five people have HIV/AIDS, and half of the population is under 20 years old. The epidemic, combined with the harsh desert climate that covers most of the country, makes Namibia the second most sparsely-populated country in the world, after Mongolia. Namibia is twice the size of California, but it has a population smaller than Chicago.

The people of Namibia seem proud and overjoyed to be free. When I waved to a local man who was walking on the opposite side of the street, he responded by throwing his arms in the air and shouting “this is freedom!”A couple of people I spoke to, who were in the country when it became independent, spoke of the transition with obvious reverence and pride. Despite this, there are some ugly remnants of the apartheid system left over in the forms of racism and voluntary segregation. We met a group of white, college-aged Namibians at a bar on the first night. They were very friendly toward us, but expressed deep hatred for black Namibians. One of them told us to look around the restaurant, and to notice that all the tables were separated by race. He said that if a black person were to sit down at a white table, or vice versa, a riot would have broken out instantaneously.

I don't really have a sense of how widespread that kind of racism is. One of the young guys we spoke to swore that everyone in Namibia felt the same way, but that seems unlikely to me. Still, for the rest of our stay, I kept an eye out for friendly interactions between white and black locals. I didn't see any. (If anyone reading is familiar with these kinds of racial issues in Africa, please share your knowledge in the comments).

I was impressed by Namibia's progressive legal foundations. It's the only constitution to include the protection of the environment (I believe 15% of the country's land is government-protected). It also includes compulsory education for children. Most of the country's government money is spent on its schools.

Namibia's natural settings are breathtaking. The ocean meets the Namib desert abruptly, so on one side of the road you can look out and see the ocean and its marine life, and the other side is endless stretches of sand dunes. I had some fantastic opportunities to see both types of land. I was part of a desert tour in 4X4 vans that took us through the desert. It was really otherworldly. The rock formations are alien and beautiful. There wasn't much animal life to see, besides one lonely springbok (kind of like an antelope). There was, however, some fascinating vegetation. Our tour guide pointed out which plants were healing or poisonous, and which ones were moisture-filled and could be used for survival. We also spent some time examining a certain kind of flowering plant that has extreme longevity. The one we saw was around 600 years old, but they've been known to live for as long as 2000 years. The exact names are escaping me right now but I'll check and post them soon.

The desert is also home to the “singing rocks”, which are boulders that have high iron content. If you hit them with another rock, they ring like bells. My music/sound professor was also on the excursion, and we organized and recorded an impromptu “rock concert”.

The Namib desert only gets a few millimeters of rainfall each year, such a small amount that it's hardly worth mentioning. We were there during one of the extremely rare periods of rain, and I felt a few drops fall. While the clouds ruined our chances for stargazing, it was very special to experience rain there.

I also got an incredible chance to see some of Namibia's ocean life. We took a tour known as the “seal and dolphin encounter”, in a small boat that traveled quite a distance from the harbor. Some of the cape fur seals have discovered that they can get an easy meal from those boats, so they jump right up onto the boat to be fed. We got to pet and feed them. Somehow they remind me of big dogs, mostly because of the way our guide interacted with them (petting them and scolding them when they didn't behave). Our guide could also called out to the local brown pelicans, who flew along side the boat and let her toss fish in their mouth. I have a hilariously timed picture of a pelican stretching its gular pouch right before it caught a fish. A haviside's dolphin swam alongside our boat for a while. It poked its head above water a few times, eyeing the boat. We also saw an ocean sunfish, which are the heaviest bony fishes in the world. It was hard to see under the water, except for a few moments when I could grasp its hugeness. They weigh an average of one ton.

During the boat trip, our guide pointed out a Russian ship that was sitting still in the water. Its crew had a license to fish for one specific type of fish, but they illegally broke the agreement and fished for rarer (and more expensive) fish. They were caught, and the crew is forced to remain on the ship until the court proceedings are finished. They've been there for ten months already, and it could take as long as three years. Each fisherman is allowed one day on land per month, with a police escort. Pretty intense.

Insane drivers aren't confined to Morocco. In Namibia it's the taxi drivers you have to watch out for. I don't think we took a single legitimate taxi during our three days there. They were just local guys in normal cars, with a small “taxi”sign in the window. They consistently drove 40 km/h over the speed limit, and would take down the taxi sign when if they passed a cop.

I look back on my time in Namibia with fondness. It was the most welcoming country on the voyage thus far. Friendly, beautiful, and frankly surprising. Namibia was a blank slate in my mind before we arrived, and now I wish the country's strengths were more widely known. I also wish I had been able to spend more time there, to get a deeper sense of the culture. I will definitely want to return there if and when I can get back to southern Africa.

I'm finishing this post as we're about to leave South Africa, which has been an absolutely amazing experience. I'm working hard to keep up with my writing, and I'll hopefully have a South Africa post ready in a couple of days. I'm also experimenting with ways to post photos from our limited internet access. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!