Swakopmund
June 6-8, 2002
How are you today mommi? George and James do a pretty good job looking after me-making sure I’m happy so I don’t unglue on this trip and make a problem for everyone-maybe they think we don’t like roughing it even though we have spent 30 years backpacking and trekking. In spite of their best efforts, and in spite of my determination-I unglue anyway as we pull into Swakopmund on the coast…I had gotten little sleep the last three nights in my thin nylon and cotton sleeping bag that we bought in Nairobi because our camping gear had not arrived before the start of the trip. I spent the day in the truck crossing the ice-cold desert in a levi jacket and sleeping bag and I am frozen to the bone. I natter constantly to myself: no one wants to see out-the others were partying late the night before and are all asleep! So why can’t we pull down the clear plastic tarps over the open windows?!!
The bus station is only two blocks away and in a fury I threaten to catch a bus to Cape Town…the only thing that stops me is that the truck has pulled into the locked hotel compound which is such a patchwork of spaces (three other trucks are also inside the compound) and buildings that I can’t find the front door out of the place…I retreat to our assigned room and slam my luggage down on the floor-Bob looking on helplessly! I stood in the hot shower for half an hour in spite of the written warnings on the wall to use the desert water sparingly. I crawled into bed and had been meditating for awhile when I heard Bob ask whether I wanted to join the others to eat in the compound restaurant. By this time I had calmed down enough to grudgingly admit that I had to eat.
The dinner was wonderful. I had fried Atlantic fish with a lemon sauce and Bob had Leopard’s Belly-a stew of Warthog, mushrooms and vegetables wrapped up in a pastry like an Italian Calzone and by the end of dinner I was smiling and laughing again. Nikki had half a dozen fresh oysters and game liver and onions. Sarah and Heather had Ostrich kebabs.
James and George had beef steak. Rod came over and encouraged me to stay…”you are part of the group” he says…which just made me want to leave all the more…but he promised that I could sit up in the front half of the truck where there was no wind. This definitely was the low point of the trip for me-cold and no sleep was not a good mix! And no it didn’t help to think of all of poor Africa where a lot of people are not only cold but do not have enough food this winter because of the latest drought…
Swakopmund was like a time/place warp; the small resort town by the sea reminded me of San Diego-nice wide streets with palm trees up and down the medians except you saw “Right of Admission Reserved” signs above the doors of all the businesses. Retail shops have iron gates that are locked and when the retailer sees you standing at the gate he or she pushes a button that releases a lock so you can enter. Big time security…
Everything is immaculate and run efficiently-by the white Afrikaner owners…the Blacks are the waiters, sweepers, garbage collectors and car watchers…my first experience in an openly apartheid society feels very weird. One evening coming back from the latest Woody Allen movie (only six people in the theater and half of those left early). I scared the pee water out of one of the car watchers when I went up to him and ask if his job ever got boring. Apparently not used to being approached or acknowledged on the street by Whites, he gave me a terrified look that said “hey what’s coming down here,” while one of his buddies comes dashing over to help out his friend. Embarrassed to have put him in that position, I just laughed and slowly moved away as he, realizing I wasn’t setting him up for any bad thing, finally smiled.
We ate twice at a pub that served incredible German food with an Afrikaner bent. Rod had recommended the pig’s knuckle-huge-on a bed of sauerkraut. I delightedly peeled off the delicious crackling.
My hair was in desperate need of conditioning and I needed some pampering so I had my hair washed and colored while Bob bought an interesting African mask and a $40 Ostrich belt that he thought he was paying $4 for…that old decimal problem again!
The owner of the beauty shop was Afrikaner and my hairdresser was black. Afterward, when I walked to the back to tip the hairdresser the white women looked striken. Later in Cape Town Heather had her hair done and while the Black beautician was working on her she leaned down and asked if Heather could keep a secret. Then she requested that if Heather were going to leave a tip could she give it to her personally as the tips were never passed back to the Black beauticians. So now apartheid is just going to go underground like in the rest of the world.
While we are doing this, the other riders participated in some of the activities offered in the area-Nikki, Michelle, Adrian, Sarah, Heather and Fi went sky diving and Jimmie, George, Nikki, Michelle, Adrian, Michael and Sarah, Heather and Fi went riding quad bikes in the huge sand dunes; George took a tumble in his bike. Fi, Heather and Sarah and Adrian went both lay-down sand boarding and stand-up boarding on the dunes-they screamed down a sand dune, they said, on a board at 80mph! They spent the evening and early morning singing kareoke in the bar with no dinner.
Bob and I of course dropped into bed and the bar is far far away…
In the morning, George has coffee and cereal set up for us and we share the outdoor “kitchen” in the compound with the other truck riders. One of the other trucks has a couple in their 70’s on it-they looked like they were having the time of their lives. I wondered if their truck had a stereo.
Tags: African Continent, Culture, Food, Namibia, Swakopmund, Truck, Worst Experiences
Zoe
Being a White Afrikaner, born long after apartheid, one gets the idea that one of the worlds biggest sins, is to be white and afrikaans. I had to work for my education, work even harder to get a job in a BEE (Black Empowerment) society, and when you worked hard enough, saved money and start your own business, Do you want me to employ only whites, because it seems if you employ black people, who insidently went to the same schools, had the same education as me, this is apartheid. Maybe it is time to learn, that apartheid was something of the past, but BEE and people like you keep it alive !
Annoyed Afrikaner – I was born here too.