Entries Tagged 'Namibia' ↓

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Does Namibia still dine out? Do you never go to restaurants? Are there no social occassions in Namibia that require the use of restaurants? Are there any humans alive in Namibia? No? Of course there are. And of course they go out to socialise and dine at restaurants.

I should think so. Even I went out on evenings to restaurants in Windhoek.

I ask this because when I checked the Worldwide Tipping Guide, I did not find Namibia listed. Do publishers around the world think that Namibia is still some prehistoric game park where no humans live and thrive and also where cities, transportation infrastructures, cafe’s and restaurants, gyms, banks, shops, utilities, TV and electrical supply do not exist?
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While A and B Listers begin to tremble in fear of losing their favoured Blogebrity ranking and Blogosphere status and more worryingly, be afraid of the quite real possibility of having to get used to using the same toilets as us mere mortals, and also while the debate about traffic loss due to the success or fad of Facebook, MySpace, Jaiku, Twitter etc continues, let’s get back to earth to some realism and introspection about that ultra-sophisticated Southern African style social-gathering event - The Braai.

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Seeing a mirage is not a strange event to Namibians. Living in the world’s oldest desert prepares you to not be shocked by unnatural visual effects and strange hallucinatory happenings on ones’ horizon. Namibians respond to seeing a city in the distance with, ‘Oh ja, ho hum. Nice definition for a mirage’.

Yesterday I was pushed back on my heels in absolute wonderment. I found a human ‘oasis’ in blogosphere. Mind you, it was not any ‘oasis’.
I had stumbled across a group of extremely rarely sighted and elusive Namibian bloggers at a corner of blogosphere called Facebook.

I could not believe my eyes when I saw the list on Facebookof 852 wonderful, beautiful, young, enthusiastic and vibrant Namibians collected proudly into a group of enthusiatic Facebookers and bloggers under a common group banner titled ‘Namibia’.

Namibia needs bloggers!

Yes we need all those of you Namibians on Facebook to also register at Afrigator. Don’t be shy, join in. It’s an opportunity to show the rest of blogosphere that we Namibians are a force to be reckoned with and are not to be treated like some distant cousins.

Do it. Sign up at Afrigator now!

Namibian Bloggers Rule

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The BBC’s Click Programme reports:

Namibia lies on the south west coast of Africa. It is bigger than Turkey or Pakistan, but home to just two million people.

Although electricity, voice and data all flow here, the cables only serve the cities - the areas with enough customers in one place. Out of town the power stops and the mobile signal fades out. If you need to make a call out here, you have to do it by satellite.

Calling from the desert is possible with a satellite phone. Satellite phones have been used by remote travellers for several decades.

Read more here

Namibian WWW/Cellphone Solution

ANNOUNCEMENT

iScatterlings has added a forum to this blog. It is a fully operational and feature rich forum which includes use of your own avatars (you can upload your own) and edit what you write before posting.

To access the forum, click on iScatt Forum in the iPages section of the sidebar on the right.

Enjoy!

In the picture below, I am on the left. Notice the use of a single oar. They were borrowed from the yellow rowing boat pictured at the bottom of the photo down below. I am with my cousin. I am in in my very own canoe. My dad bought it for me. Just wished he’d thought to get the proper dual canoeing paddle!! It made no difference to me. I enjoyed so many outings in the craft with a single oar, I don’t think a proper canoe paddle would have made much difference to my enjoyment.

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Here is a picture of the main entrance to Oranjemund’s primary school. This was the first proper educational institution I and all the children born at Oranjemund went to after nursery school. I can still remember my first year there and how bad I was at math! I recall the names of the classmates who like me were in awe of going to ‘big’ school for the first time. We were like rabbits transfixed wide-eyed by the headlights of an approaching car. I loved school. And I was an absolute stickler for punctuality. Still am!

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Here is a picture of one of Oranjemund’s lesser known secret locales. The Recreation Club was an essential communal facility to allow adults to meet friends for a quiet drink and maintain social circles in a suitably condusive environment. These were also the days of absolute chauvinism where men had their own bar from which women were prohibited to enter.

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Here is a picture of Oranjemund’s shop. One of the focal points for the community. I just dig the two palms standing sentry at the entrance to the establishment. I recall these two trees as being taller, so this photo is very old.

Notice that there are a lot of blinds in use. I liked the archway effect of the Continue reading →

Here is a picture of my father, padded up & taking tea in his century scoring innings at Oranjemund cricket ground. My mother is seated behind my uncle lending her support to dad’s best ever innings. He was facing an international bowler. Don’t know who it was but my dad clouted him around the park that day! This is the only picture Continue reading →

Here is a map** of where Oranjemund is located. Beneath that is a map of Namibia and where it is located in Africa which places Oranjemund’s locale in proper context within the vast space that is Namibia.

I thought you would like to see where it is (Oranjemund) that I have been writing about. A lot of people may not know the precise location of Namibia in the world’s geography, so here it is.

I also included a Timeline of events that dictated the path to Independence and sovereignty of Namibia by the people from whom colonialisation had previously denied them full partnership and ownership of the natural resources found in Namibia.

NAMIBIAN FLAG & FACTS*

Population: 2,031,000

Capital: Windhoek with population 237,000

Land Area: 824,292 square kilometers (318,261 square miles)

Language(s): Oshivambo, Herero, Nama, English (official), Afrikaans, German.

Religion: Indigenous beliefs, Christian

Currency: Namibian dollar, South African rand

Main exports: Diamonds, copper, gold, zinc, lead, uranium, livestock

Life Expectancy: According to the UN - 49yrs (women) 48 yrs (men)

GNI per capita: US $2,370 (World Bank, 2005)

Literacy Percent: 84%

TIMELINE: Namibia***

A chronology of key events:

1488 - Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias visits.

1886-90 - Present international boundaries established by German treaties with Portugal and Britain. Germany annexes the territory as South West Africa.

1892-1905 - Suppression of uprisings by Herero and Namas. Possibly 60,000, or 80% of the Herero population, are killed, leaving some 15,000 starving refugees.

South African occupation

1915 - South Africa takes over territory during First World War.

1920 - League of Nations grants South Africa mandate to govern South West Africa (SWA).

1946 - United Nations refuses to allow South Africa to annex South West Africa. South Africa refuses to place SWA under UN trusteeship.

1958 - Herman Toivo Ya Toivo and others create the opposition Ovamboland People’s Congress, which becomes the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo) in 1960.

Independence campaign: South African troops took on Swapo

1961 - UN General Assembly demands South Africa terminate the mandate and sets SWA’s independence as an objective.

1966 - Swapo launches armed struggle against South African occupation.

1968 - South West Africa officially renamed Namibia by UN General Assembly.

1972 - UN General Assembly recognises Swapo as “sole legitimate representative” of Namibia’s people.

1988 - South Africa agrees to Namibian independence in exchange for removal of Cuban troops from Angola.

1989 - UN-supervised elections for a Namibian Constituent Assembly. Swapo wins.

Independence

1990 March - Namibia becomes independent, with Sam Nujoma as first president.

1994 - South African exclave of Walvis Bay turned over to Namibia.

1994 - Nujoma and Swapo re-elected.

1998 - Hundreds of residents of the Caprivi Strip flee to Botswana, alleging persecution by the Namibian goverment.

1998 August - Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe send troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo to support President Laurent Kabila against rebels.

1999 August - Emergency declared in Caprivi Strip following series of attacks by separatists.

1999 December - Nujoma wins third presidential term.

1999 December - World Court rules in favour of Botswana in territorial dispute with Namibia over the tiny Chobe River island of Sedudu - known as Kasikili by Namibians.

2001 November - President Nujoma says he will not stand for a fourth term when his presidency expires in 2004.

Founding President Sam Nujoma served for 15 years

2005: Namibian founding father replaced

2002 August - New prime minister, Theo-Ben Gurirab, says land reform is a priority. President Nujoma says white farmers must embrace the reform programme.

2003 November - Union representing black farmworkers calls off plans to invade 15 white-owned farms after reaching agreement with white farmers’ group. Government says illegal land occupations will not be allowed.

2004 May - Road bridge across Zambezi river between Namibia, Zambia opens amid hopes for boost to regional trade.

2004 August - Germany offers formal apology for colonial-era killings of tens of thousands of ethnic Hereros, but rules out compensation for victims’ descendants.

2004 November - Hifikepunye Pohamba, President Nujoma’s nominee, wins presidential elections. He is inaugurated in March 2005.

2005 September - Government begins the expropriation of white-owned farms as part of a land-reform programme.

2005 November - Two mass graves are found near a former South African military base in the north. They are thought to date back to the apartheid-era independence struggle.

2006 June - National anti-polio vaccination campaign is launched following the death of at least 12 people from the disease.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings about my childhood days. We are a people who can and like to share. It’s a Namibian thing.

I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.

It’s a Namibian Thing VIII

*** Courtesy of BBC Online.
**Thanks to Mike Alexander at Oranjemund
*Detail courtesy of National Geographic

Here is a picture of the Oranjemund power station. This is where I learned to know what a turbine does. Directly in front of the plant is a large roundabout. The largest in Oranjemund. When I played cricket with my chums on it, (yes, anywhere relatively flat and with some green grass on it was just fine by us!), the trees were larger and there were more of them.

But what facinated me and kept me spellbound was the size of the structure that housed the plant which generated our electricity. Collectively I spent hours transfixed by the sounds and smells coming from the building. The large doors you can see were always open which allowed me to linger longer on the roundabout to observe the goings on inside. The attending engineers appeared to me to be dwarfed by the machinery. But then I suppose size ratios to a small child’s highly imaginative mind did get distorted and exaggerated out of proper proportion.

Michelle, can you see Olivia on the extreme right?!

One of the attractions to me too was the roof. Yes. Don’t forget that the Recreation Club’s roof was in effect passe’ and ‘old’ hat to me as a simple climb. But the Power Station roof presented something else that was in a class of its own. It was an enigma. A delicious challenge. An outrageous dream! Impossible?

I walked past the Power Station at least 3 times a week. To the left of photo across the road was the Park where we could swing, go on the slide and a couple of other apperatus for children. We could also gather there to fight.

A lot has been said about apartheid but not too much was mentioned about the white on white apartheid. I suppose it was inevitable in a town like ours to have two distinct factions created. English and Afrikaans. Us kids pepetuated the divide and I cannot believe that as I type I am recalling one or two huge events in our gang warfare. Yes it was puny and innocent stuff compared to what happens these days between gangs but back then as little boys, it was seriously sad that the only time we united was on the sports fileds against a common foe. It’s a Namibian thing.

I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.

It’s a Namibian Thing VII

Luckily I reserved my rights to return to blogging if cold turkey got too much!

All I need to do now is manage the urge to compete. From now on I will only blog when I feel inspired to do so.

It dawned on me at 03:23am that I was competing and not blogging. Being a Type A person means I need to win and this is what was wreaking havoc with my creativity. The need to win became more important than content. And not having any perceived and worthwhile content to upload immediately in order to quell my obsessive need for a blogging ‘fix’, was frustrating as well as on completion, a short term ‘high’ that afterwards kicked in the feeling of inadequacy. And the resultant “woe is me”, “slit my wrists” attitude. Pathetic.

But I guess plenty of people go through this.

I think the Namibia series needs to be explored and expanded more. There is relevence there and my history can be the focal point for a story. Luckily I have a story to tell and one has just popped into my mind. Amazing. As I typed this I recalled the Power Station at OM and the part it played in my early life.

*Mmmmmmm I cannot believe I did that and…….*

PS: Thanks Champ, Robin, Mumzat and Shutterjane and Dave (have a good trip and take plenty pictures) for your comments and thoughts.

Cold Turkey!

Here is a picture of the Oranjemund cricket ground highlighted at top right. This is where I learned to play cricket. Here and in the hardpacked sand alongside our house. After school and at PE lessons I seem to recall that Mr Dickenson would lead us out to the pitch for practice. It is also at this ground that my father hit a century off an international bowler. I have a photo of dad taking a cuppa tea during a break in his innings. Dad ran up 126. I never ever made a ton. I was always out before I reached 60 runs. Always.

Back at school, we did not have to worry about ruining the strip. That was taken care of by the green coir mat that was laid the length of the wicket for us kids. I had some fine innings here despite the cricket bat being almost as tall as I was and the balls getting help from the mat!

I also found my niche fielding position at slip. I spent most of my future cricket playing days at slip and forays at silly mid-on with some time at gully too. But it was at slip that I was most successful. Between balls being bowled and during the run-up and getting focussed and into the slip position for the delivery, you can get a lot of thinking done while fielding. So I turned my thoughts to learning the game and the intricacies and nuances of the bowler/batsman battle.

So I learned to focus on the oncoming ball and the batsman’s reaction. I took some fine catches as a result of always anticipating that the ball would nick off the bat and come my way. The constant anticipation played havoc with the nerves but paid dividends by way of the number of stops and catches I took throughout my cricket playing days which were cut short because my left knee gave in. I blame the red polished stoep at the front door entrance to our house. It was so slippery and as I was always in a rush, I slipped and tripped onto my knees a lot. So I think the beginning of the end of my cricket began on the highly polished stoep at 21 1st Ave..

After school when not at the hospital or walking off in the desert to the Pink Pan, I played cricket in the street with a few of my school buddies. There was a very quick bowler in our group. Well anyway I at least thought he was. The pain he inflicted on unguarded shins was enought to prove he bowled quickies. I faced a lot of balls from him and came to learn from his bowling action to depict where the ball would land. He had a good bodyline action, fine balance as evidenced by the run through after releasing the ball. And speed.

Just below the cricket field perimeter is what I think is part of the school and what I recall to be the netball courts behind the new external classrooms which were built to accomodate the increasing number of students. I used to walk to the gate at the end (left in the picture) to the white buildings of what I think were the Ovambo hospital. I stand corrected if I am wrong.

It was here that I called on the recuperating men, shared the bags of peanuts and ‘ooohed’ and ‘aaahed’ at the small kittens and pups they were allowed to care for and bring to good health. Lucky animals. Very kind and caring men. It’s a Namibian thing.

I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.

It’s a Namibian Thing VI

Here is a picture of Oranjemund hospital. I had some fine times here both as a patient and as an after-school visitor. I think the after-school activities here were the most interesting but blood and gore appeals to people’s dark side.

My first visit here was when I was born. For years, my father kept repeating the tale about Dr McGregor telling my mum to, “Hush woman and bare doon. Ye shoulda remember that 9 months ago ye were squealin with delight lassie!”

I arrived at a healthy 8lbs and changed my family’s lives from that moment on. I developed asthma. Bad asthma. A desert apparently was not the best place to live as a practising asthmatic so after two years of quack remedies, I made my parents decide to move country.

Having just learnt, by now aged 3 yrs, the art of swimming underwater in an outdoor pool, my parents took the good Dr’s advice and packed up the family to move to the dry cold of Canada.

We went to England from Cape Town by Union Castle boat to UK to say “hello, goodbye” to the family members of my parents who had not yet followed them to Namibia after the war. The boat trip took two weeks to get to Southampton. Apparently onward travel to Canada by boat had already been reserved and paid for. Our family remained in UK a month saying their goodbyes. Unbeknown to them, I had other plans. Heehee!

Two weeks before the Cananda boat was due to sail, I caught chickenpox!

Then the rest of the family caught chickenpox and so were advised not to board the boat for fear of infecting the entire human manifest with the plague! So that was the great Canada Caper cancelled and we returned by Union Castle boat to Cape Town and then back to Oranjemeund. I do not know the details but my dad was given his old job back. Lucky. It’s a Namibian thing.

I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.

It’s a Namibian Thing V