Visit to the Kalahari

A group of three families from the US and a friend from Sweden took a trip a few weeks ago to the Kalahari Desert in eastern Namibia, about 300 km straight east from Windhoek. The Kalahari isn’t actually a real desert, as it has many trees and plants and it does receive some rainfall. It technically is a semi-desert, and is the world’s largest sandy area – it is located in eastern Namibia, western Botswana, and northwestern South Africa. (it’s where the God’s Must be Crazy was filmed, and is home to “meerkat manor”. We camped in a very nice lodge (the others stayed in the lodge), which had four cheetahs and a leopard, as well as sprinkbok, oryx, and some meerkats. We camped just feet away from the game fence, but the cheetahs didn’t bother us while we were sleeping. The kids enjoyed the pool and a nature hike, and especially the trampoline & pool table. On the second night, we went out a few kilometers and spent the night with some of the San people, also called the Bushmen (there are debates about which is the appropriate word to call them. Apparently some dislike the term “San”, and prefer Bushmen. The ones we met referred to themselves as Bushmen, so I’ll use that too). It was quite an experience. We went on a nature walk with them, and saw how they used all of the plants for water, medicine, poison and other things. They showed us how they shot with bows, and we picked some berries with them. They would see so many things out in the bush that we just didn’t notice at all. It was quite amazing – they must have the best survival skills/outdoor skills on the planet! They were all wearing their traditional outfits that day, though they don’t usually wear them. One of the American women with us spoke Dutch, and she was able to communicate with them for all of us – as Dutch is close enough to Afrikaans, and they all spoke at least some Afrikaans from growing up under apartheid. Then they cooked us dinner (which was delicious) around a HUGE fire, and did some of their traditional dances for us. At the dances, usually the women sit by the fire and sing and clap, and the men dance around the fire. The dances tend to have stories, like the “Oryx dance” which is something about fighting with an Oryx. They had us get up with them and dance as well. They asked us to show them some traditional dances from the USA, and all we could think to do was the hokey-pokey. So there was quite a surreal moment there where we were standing around a big fire in the middle of the Kalahari Bush, singing and dancing the “hokey pokey” with about 25 Bushmen. They especially thought it was funny when we sang, “put your rear-end in, put your rear-end out…”. We also danced some waltzes around the fire, and Ruby got up and showed off her moves from her Namibian dance classes (which is Owambo dancing). Some of the Bushman kids got up and danced with her. All the Bushmen young and old seemed to relate best to Ruby! They then told us some stories around the fire, which were quite interesting. They told us stories afterwards, like about how a lion once came into their camp and they shot it dead with a bow. We didn’t stay in an actual village, but rather in some small huts that were built for visitors like ourselves, which had a small bed and a candle. As we were so far out away from anything, the stars that night were simply amazing. There were so many stars in the sky; we could barely pick out the normally easy constellations, like Orion. The Bushmen slept around the fire, and we slept in our little huts. The next morning we all were up at 6, and the Bushmen were back in their regular clothes. They went from looking like an exotic, rich tradition to looking like desperately poor people. They made breakfast and sang songs in the morning with beautiful harmonies, and then we had a very nice good-bye.


Our whole group, the Americans, the Bushmen and the woman from Sweden!


Alice, Maxine, Ross & Luke with the Bushmen


Alice walking with the folks


Maxine Tracking


Maxine shooting


Ruby & Marna with some ladies


Cooking over the fire


Oryx dance


More dancing

The whole thing was a bit uncomfortable, as we had an Afrikaner guide with us some of the time, who was incredibly patronizing to the Bushmen (she even called them “dumb” at one point, though we all hoped that she didn’t mean it and it was just a translation error, as they were certainly anything but dumb, and she did seem to genuinely care for them); and we felt a little bit like gawkers. However, the Bushmen themselves did not seem at all uncomfortable, and seemed to be having a good time. They were very social with us and definitely had pride in their culture. We were told that this is one of the few ways that they can maintain their traditions now that it is virtually impossible to be nomadic anymore. It’s inevitable I guess that cultures change, but I hope the Bushmen will be able to keep as much as their culture as possible in the 21st century.

Wika

Wika is a German festival that goes on here in Namibia in April, celebrating the coming of “winter”. This is the largest German-Namibian event of the year. They have lots of parties, events, dances, etc. They held their big parade last Saturday, and we all went to the show on Saturday morning at 11:11. We were expecting floats, perhaps with people dressed in lederhausen and knee socks, dancing to polka music. We were shocked that the parade consisted of big mac trucks pulling loads of drunks down the street, throwing a variety of things into the crowd, such as glass beer bottles. There were few costumes, and virtually no decorations. The decorations and/or costumes that were in the parade were generally not appropriate for children to view for a variety of reasons (lewd, racist, etc.). The kids didn’t seem to notice any of it though, as the one saving grace is that the partiers on the floats did throw lots of candy, so all the kids there were happy. We had a cultural experience, but it was a different culture than we expected!

World Social Work Day

April 15th was International Social Work Day, and it was a day full of events in Windhoek! Two of my UNAM colleagues were on “Good Morning Namibia” at 6am talking about social work and our UNAM department. Then, there was a big even with the launching of the Namibian Social Work Association – it recently joined the International Federation of Social Workers, and this was their first event. My colleague was elected president of the new association, and I gave a keynote speech on the need for social workers to become involved in solar energy as an area for social development (I think it makes perfect sense – but you probably would have to be in Namibia to appreciate it). It was exciting to see the energy of the social workers in Namibia, and they are clearly excited about gaining more of an identity within the country and were inspired by thinking that 500,000 social workers across the world were celebrating World Social Work Day. This event also got covered on the national news. As UNAM has the only social work department in the country, almost all the social workers in the country are our alumni. After this big event, we rushed back over to campus where the students also launched a new association: the UNAM Social Work Society. This was quite an event. They had it in the UNAM Leisure Centre, which is a thatched hall with a large dance floor. About 150 students were there, and they all were dressed in black and white. There were a number of speakers, scripture readings, and between each event, there was a singer (hip hop, etc.) or a dance crew. The different years (first year students, second year students, etc.) all got up and danced to “show their dedication” to social work, as well as the male students, the international students, the organizing committee, and even the lecturers (“go prof lightfoot, get down prof lightfoot” the dj sang). I was the “international” speaker at the event, and I had to tell the students that I had seen no event even close to being like this at a social work department in the United States. I didn’t take photos, but I’ll try to get some from a student and post them. The newspaper had a brief story on the student event, but I can’t get the photo to load.

Damaraland

I’m getting behind here in the Blog. I will write about our “autumn” break camping trip up north through Damaraland two weeks ago, and later catch up on other things we've been doing. Camping trips aren’t for the faint of heart here in Namibia. Namibia is a great place to camp, but you can really get out there! We spent the first night in a place called Omaruru. The woman who owned the rest camp had hundreds of birds in cages and outside, so it was quite loud early in the morning. Ruby was not fond of Omaruru, as there was also a pig roaming the grounds which would chase her around. She did NOT like that pig at all. We then ventured up northwest into Damaraland, a part of the country where the Damara people live. This is also a place with many rocks and gemstones that one could just find laying on the side of the road. Because of all the rains, there were numerous road wash outs. We had to wait for several hours in one place for a grader to fix a wash out. Later, we got ourselves stuck in the middle of a river with our combi. Luckily, a group of men and boys spent the day hanging out of the river, digging and pushing people out for money. It took three Land Rovers (the first one broke its winch, the second its alternator) and about 10 guys pushing and digging with shovels to get us out of there. After our river episode, we went to see some ancient rock engravings in TWYFELFONTEIN. We saw the famous “Lion with the long tail”, and many others. These are more than 2,000 of these rock engravings that date back 6000 years, and it is supposedly the greatest concentration of Stone Age carvings in the world.


Some Damaraland Scenery






Our Combi stuck in the riverbed


We then went on one of the worst roads, though it was classified as a major highway, with numerous river crossings, washouts, sketchy detours, up to a lovely, remote lodge called Palmwag. Palmwag has an exclusive lodge with beautiful chalets that tourists use as a stop in their “fly-in” vacations, as well as a very nice small camping ground with 8 sites. The campground had beautiful views of the countryside, and even had its own bar and swimming pool! Ruby made friends with all of the campground staff when she would sit at the bar by herself drinking her Orange Fantas. We stayed for a few days here, and enjoyed going on hikes up the hills, playing in the creek, and searching for agates and other stones. One night there was a huge storm, and we got to witness a “flash flood” right by our campsite. You could hear the flood coming for a few minutes, and then suddenly the little creek that our campsite overlooked became a river about 10 times as large in about 5 seconds. It was remarkable. Bill and a few other people had to form a human chain across the “river” to help some people who got trapped on the other side. The area around Palmwag was especially green because of all the rain, and there were beautiful wildflowers. All the vegetation made it hard to see animals, but we did see springbok, gemsbok, impala, and some giraffe. We saw evidence of recent visits by the desert elephant, but didn’t actually see any of them.



Girls Hiking at Palmwag


Girls at the top of the hike


Our campsite - with the great view

After Palmwag, we drove over the pass to the skeleton coast. The drive itself was fascinating. In about 120 kilometers, we saw two houses, and they were at the police checkpoint. The land turns from beautiful green hillside to barren desert in about two kilometers. In the barren desert, the only thing that seems to grow are Welwitschia plants, which can grow in areas with virtually no water. We saw lots of Springbok in this barren landscape too. After we entered the gates to the Skeleton Coast, the landscape became even more barren (at noon, the person at the gate told us we were only the second car to cross the pass that day). Only the southern part of the Skeleton Coast is open to cars, and visitors going to the northern part must use light aircraft and stay in very pricey lodges. We then drove down the coast for about 100 kilometers through the dunes and saltpans. At one point, we ran into our friends coming the other direction. We had a fun hour visiting with them on top of a dune looking at the ocean.


Entrance to Skeleton Coast Park at Springbokswater


Windy Skeleton Coast

We stopped a few times to play at the beach and to look at old Shipwrecks (it’s called the Skeleton Coast for a reason). Most of the wrecks were north of where we were, but we did see a few small ones. We camped that night at what the guidebook calls the most barren, windswept campsite you’ll ever see. The name of the campsite is “Mile 108”. We were there without about 10 South African groups, who all came with generators, wind guards, and all sorts of wind-camping gear that we’d never seen before. They were all there for fishing, and we saw photos of huge fish that they catch. We looked pretty pathetic there with our two cheap tents that we tried to shield from the wind with the combi. We were happy that the Afrikaners were there though, because we got a flat tire, and found out that our spare tire was locked with a padlock! Luckly, the Afrikaners were well-prepared, and three of them came and got our tire out without essentially saying a word to us.


Skeleton Coast Campsite


The next day we visited the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, which is home to the largest breeding colony of cape fur seas in the world (these are actually sea lions, but they call them seals). There were literally 250,000 seals in this one rocky part on the coast. We could get very close to them on a walkway, and we just watched for hours. The baby seal pups were a few months old, so it was fun to watch them practicing swimming and playing. There’s also a nice lodge here, and we stopped here for a breakfast.



Seals at Cape Cross

We spent the night in a seaside vacation town called Henties Bay, which was only settled about 30 years ago by folks who wanted to go fishing on the coast. It’s very nice, and we ate at a great, little seafood restaurant that was lined with photos of people with their fish. On our way home, we went on a gravel road for about 150 kilos, which made for excellent gemstone hunting. We stopped 5 times in different spots and collected lots of quartz.


Looking for gems