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Below is a picture of where I was born. It’s beautiful. An oasis of green. Look at it. Take your time and see how many key community features you can pick out.
Answers at the bottom of the page.
Don’t scroll down because there are no answers there. How many of you immediatley scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the page? Be honest. You did didn’t you. Tsk tsk!
The brown sandy bits surrounding the town were my playground. My mates and I would spend hours in the desert and we learnt that being barefoot could be hazardous to ones health. Especially if you stopped walking and were stood beside an ankle high dried out shrub with a puffadder curled up beneath it. Its skin ended up being prepped as a band for my scout hat. But it was too short so languished at the back of my sock drawer until eventually almost a year later mom’s shrieks alerted dad and me to the fact that at long last she had found it! I smiled at dad. He grinned back. Its’ a Namibian man thing.
If you read Max’s interview of me, you will learn that the hospital patients, both human and animal, (situated immediately left of the point where the dirt road leading up from the bottom of the picture meets the outskirts of the town proper) featured a lot in my life from birth until I went to boarding school in South Africa. It’s a Namibian thing.
I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.
Here is a picture of Oranjemund long before I was born. It’s stark. Not a lot of green. In fact there is zero greenery. Look at it. This is what my ‘pioneering’ parents came to from the UK after WW2.
No rationing or a cottage in sleepy village in Oxfordshire for them. No. They’d rather chuck it all in, follow a dream and go live in a box in the sand in the world’s oldest desert!
I cannot relate to their determination to seek a new life in Africa if meant going to live in a pondok. But they’d just come through the war and I suppose this was the lesser of two evils maybe?
Truth is, my dad had skills that De Beers needed. They, (De Beers and the township elders) did not know it but my mum had skills and talent too. Her talents would reveal themselves in later years once the township matured into a fullblown town and childcare became an issue. She founded the nursery school. Its’ a Namibian thing.
I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.
Here is a picture of Oranjemund’s swimming pool. Date unknown but this is where my father taught me to swim at the tender age of 1yrs old. He took me into the water with him and then let go of me and waited to see what happened.
This was a pioneering technique back then. He did not know if I’d sink like a stone and die or do what we now know babies do in water - swim as if it’s their natural environment. I did swim. Immediately. Apparently I stayed underwater showing zero signs of panic and kicked my little legs to gain momentum. For many years to come I preferred being underwater. Even today while underwater I feel as if I am in my element, my universe. But back then, dad took a risk. He shocked his buddies!
My earliest memory of the pool and buildings was when it was surrounded outside by dense lines of of conifers. As a kid we would swim and climb these trees then go and swim again. Our favourite pool games were the dangerous corner touch and the less dangerous multi-bombing.
Bombing entailed getting about ten or so of your mates to line up behind you on the highest diving board and then jumping off in the bomb position immediately one after the other to create and maintain a large plume of water. On impacting the water, each bomber would disperse the area by diving to the bottom either left or right of the impact zone. This ‘game’ was taken from black and white war movies of a Lancaster bombers releasing their payloads over some target. Well to us it was run-of-the-mill sport except when your mate behind jumped too soon and landed on your head. When this type of mishap occurred, and it did many times, it was a bugger to remain focussed to clear the impact zone underwater! But we did and no lasting ill-effects manifested.
The pool was managed by Mrs Van der Hoeven. She loved chlorine. Oh boy was that water chlorinated. This led to many confrontations with my mother. From my perspective, being an underwater swimmer, meant you had to see where you were in order to navigate between the hundreds of thrashing legs of all the other swimmers. Protracted periods underwater with eyes open led to my pond scum coloured eyes going red. And I mean ‘R.E.D’ !
My mother thought this was unhealthy. I on the other hand did not care. I was having fun. Loads of fun. It’s a Namibian thing.
I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.
Here is a picture of how Oranjemund was progressing from wooden crate houses to bricks and mortar. The standardisation of the house layout made for quick and ultra economic construction.
What you are looking at are the “Guest Houses” where visitors on mine business could stay over. I guess Radisson or the Marriot chains would not consider this as opposition would they?! I used to walk past these houses in later years. They looked nothing like this. They were houses, not these military accommodations!
Little by little the town grew. The brick houses replaced the wooden shacks and so the town took the look of a proper town still in development. Work at the mines was picking up too. The diamond yields were impressive. Quality product was being delivered to the diamond houses in Antwerp and New York.
Prosperity was looming and with it the founding of social amenities was also about to boom. One such sign of the growing affluence was the erection of the Rec Club. Aah yes, the Annual Diamond Ball became the must be seen at event of the year. Mum looked radient, the belle of the ball and dad looked splendidly striking in his tux and bow tie. Naturally I was too young to go. Naturally, mum and dad went. Naturally they thought I’d be safe and sound asleep at home.
Wrong! I was on the roof of the Rec Club looking down at the waltzing couples and howling and hooting with laughter whenever my mum and dad took to the floor to waltz or foxtrot around. They looked so splendid the two of them and I always voted them the best dancers at each of the gala events I snuck out of home to go climb up a tall building so that I could peer down at my parents doing their thing. Dad seemed to be able to make it look like mum was gliding on air as they twirled and spun and cha-cha’d the night away. I was spellbound.
Had the moms and dads looked up, they’d have seen many tiny smiling faces peering down at them from the skylight windows! There would have been hell to pay. But as fortune would have it, we kids were never rumbled. Only in the 80’s did I tell my dad about my nights on the roof each year of the Annual Diamond Ball. He laughed his head off, smacking his thigh in glee at his then tiny but daring son. I think he felt pride and was happy that I actually spent one night each year on a roof transfixed by the razzmatazz of the ball, watching him and mum enjoy themselves. I did. It’s a Namibian thing.
I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.
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.
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.
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.
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.
*** Courtesy of BBC Online.
**Thanks to Mike Alexander at Oranjemund
*Detail courtesy of National Geographic
Here is a picture of my father, padded up & taking tea in his century scoring innings at Oranjemund cricket ground. My mother is seated behing my uncle lending her support to his 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 I have of my father at ‘play’. I had one of him in his Andy, a racing dinghy based on Uffa Fox’s ‘Flying Dutchman’ design. But alas the photo has disappeared.
Pictured below is a surviving picture of the Andy called Whiterose, one of which dad built. In fact he and his brother Philip (stood next to my father in the photo alongside) and Aubrey Baker plus assorted help built three of these beautiful boats. They were quick and sliced through the water like a laser through paper. Thanks to Google Earth, I can call up (See colour pic from Google Earth below on right), a satelite picture of the disused garage structure (blue roofed structure) in which they built the three yachts. The garage was situated approx 70 yards from our house.
What I recall about the boat-building is the smell of sawn timber and varnish. One of my memories of those long ago days is about the hours my dad would spend varnishing then sanding it down with water and the finest emery paper. The repeating this process again and again, section by section unti the hull of the boat was completed and showed off the grain of the wood beautifully. Dad was most proud of this aspect of the job.
He named his boat Whiterose. He raced nearly every Sunday but was not the best yachtsman. He built better than he sailed. Dad always seemed to get caught wanting when it came to the start of the races. He finished middle order or stone last in the majority of his races! Not like Bertie Reed was my dad!
My mum’s brother, John was the first person to sail a craft on the Pink Pan. He then went on to build an Enterprise class yacht. He did better at racing than my father and as the younger of the two, I suspect it galled my dad sometimes. John also climbed Mont Blanc in his youth. But he did not play rugby. My father played scrumhalf, when he was at school and in the RAF.
I suppose this evened the score between the two of them! Not that there was ever any real rivalry between them. This was a feature about my world during these formative years at Oranjemund. It appeared to me later in life that I had a large extended family. Many is the time that if I was playing at a friend’s house at their teatime, I would be told to take a seat and tuck in as well. The adults looked after us kids and the communal spirit prevailed. It’s a Namibian thing.
I have been away too long. I will be back. I need to get earthed again.
