The Desert Nation

It's been a week since Mandy and I have been back in South Africa, though I've driven to and from Knysna twice already (a total of 20 hours in the Jeep). I have barely had time to organize any thoughts on the incredible adventures we've had. I start a new job this week, so I am anticipating not being able to focus on anything else for a while as well, so I've decided to take this Saturday to reflect on our most recent journey - a sojourn across Southern Africa. The first installment will cover Namibia!

To help export our experience to readers here in Africa as well as abroad, I've cut together some video footage and decided to bolster our account of the experience with some photos and explanations. In our hurry to document all that happened, perhaps we were not accurately able to portray what exactly was going on.

To start, this map is a depiction of the exact route that we took during the six days we traveled, with one day of travel starting in Windhoek, Namibia (pronounced vindhook for those who are still struggling with the Afrikaans pronunciation) and ending in Livingstone, Zambia.

We awoke for an early flight on Air Namibia (this was a first time flying with them for me) direct from Cape Town (CPT) to Windhoek (WDH) which took just under two hours in the air. The landing was quite intense, with the pilot flying his small plane as if it were a puddle jumper, banking and nose diving at will. I, like usual, napped through it while Mandy had several heart attacks in succession; the usual drill of white knuckling the arm rest while she professes her overwhelming conviction that this is it, we're all going to die. We landed, eventually, and stood in line for immigration, both of us slightly nervous we wouldn't be let into the country. We are always nervous about that. It always feels as though we're troublesome little kids sneaking into an R rated movie or into a restricted area, intent on having an adventure, unsure whether or not we're actually allowed to have an adventure. Needless to say, we were welcomed with open arms into Namibia (phew). 

So, a little background: Namibia is something of a new addition to the maps of Africa, as much of Southern Africa was reorganized/renamed during the tumultuous years leading to the end of apartheid and the dissolution of the dominance of colonial powers here.

In 1840, Jan Jonker Afrikaner (no surprise here, an Afrikaaner from South Africa) established a settlement in present day Windhoek, naming it for the two Afrikaans words meaning wind and corner. Before his usurpation of Namibian nomenclature, the Nama people of that region had referred to the area as Ai-Gams (hot springs) while the Herero people had called it Otjomuise (place that steams), both referencing the twelve springs that are near what is currently the city center. 

After Jonker built a church and laid out some gardens, Windhoek experienced brief prosperity and expansion, though fighting between the Nama and Herero eventually wiped out the settlement, and in 1885 it was observed by a botanist that "only jackals and starving guinea fowl remained under neglected fruit trees". 

In the meantime, the British had taken over Walvis Bay and the Germans in 1884 had declared present day Namibia a protectorate under the name German South-West Africa. Creative, I know. In highly German fashion, they sent over a whole bunch of armed forces and were tasked with keeping the peace between the Herero and Nama while using Windhoek and it's life-sustaining springs in the hot, inhospitable desert environment as a base. 

Often times looked over in this synoptic history of Southern Africa is the fact that this is the time and place the first genocide of the 20th century occurred. The "Herero Wars" were a series of slaughters in 1904-1907 where the Herero and Nama who fled violence were kept from leaving the Namib desert, thus dying of thirst or starvation. There were also reports the German army poisoned desert wells to help speed the process of eliminating two ethnic groups along. Survivors were put in concentration camps (such as the famous Shark Island) and used as slave labor for German settlers. The death rates in these concentration camps are calculated between 69 and 74%. An estimated 50% of the Nama population and 80% of the Herero population was exterminated. An alarmingly sick individual by the name of Eugen Fischer also conducted medical experiments on inmates at the camps (one of his staff members later on was Josef Mengele). This is apparently how Germany practiced for the Holocaust. Too bad no one cared enough about Africa to see it coming in Europe. 

Germany officially apologized for this in 2004, though stated there will be no financial compensation for their actions. Also, only as recently as 2011 did the German government agree to return several skulls taken by Fischer to their homeland to be buried. I highly suggest reading the linked articles. It's only Wikipedia and it's still infuriating. 

In the meantime, a fort was erected, three castles were built and the main road through the city was christened Kaiser Street (though, thank God, it's now called Independence Avenue), and with influxes of German and South African immigrants, Windhoek grew and prospered. 

Then there was a bit of a scuffle back in Europe and Germany wasn't allowed to dream of world domination any more (oh wait, no they still did that, they just weren't allowed to have colonies). Thus, German South-West Africa became South-West Africa and South African troops occupied Windhoek starting in 1915 for five years on behalf of the British Empire. It remained under South African control even after the British left, and was ruled under the racist regime of apartheid until it gained its full independence as Namibia in 1990. Since then, Namibians have felt they have comparatively much less to complain about, reveling in the new, nonviolent egalitarian state that has emerged.

In the following years, Namibia and Windhoek have seen prosperity and development. Currently, Windhoek is listed as growing at about 4% per year (most of which is in informal settlements on the periphery), and had a total population of 322,500 in 2012 (67% Black, 16% White, 17% Colored/Asian/Baster). 

Namibia has a total population of 2,100,000 and thus a population density if only 2.5 for every square kilometer, the second lowest of any sovereign nation after Mongolia. This gives rise to vast expanses of empty. Desert scrub-land along rolling hills for as far as the eye can see, oftentimes without a single person on the horizon. Namibia is vast, harsh and inhospitable dotted with clusters of ingenious survivalists, forging a life from the dry sand and crackling bush. We skipped over the rippling sands of the Namib desert and the eerie ghost towns consumed by dunes on the Skeleton coast during our flight, though I hope to venture back there some day. Instead, we explored the neat suburbs of Windhoek, tucked away along the hillsides, expertly manicured and groomed with the world's oldest grey water reuse system. The purple-flowered relatives of the Jacarandas of East Africa cover Windhoek, and the city feels as though it is an Eden among the desert beyond.

Either they have a poor understanding of English or a very strange sense of humor, which is likely part of the German colonial legacy (source: Trey Parker, Matt Stone)

The air is inexorably dry. So dry, it whisks the moisture away from your lips and your eyes and each of your skin cells without your even knowing. All of a sudden you crave a bath. You find yourself fantasizing about swimming in the ocean, pouring a bucket of water over yourself, anything to revitalize. In all of Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia receives the least rainfall. The country is flanked by two deserts and the only major relief, the Orange River, demarcates the southern border with South Africa. 

The sun is relentless. The heat shimmers everywhere along the horizon, and it is easy to see you are simply baking in one of the world's most effective convection ovens. The first thing I did was buy sunglasses. 

We left Windhoek the next morning to drive out across the desert. I love the long drives, and I reveled in the tireless landscape. The heat had consumed everything here. Eventually, we arrived at a border post - a simple building and a barbed wire fence - and our passports were stamped yet again. On to Botswana. 

- Rh