Namibia: Windhoek and Keetmanshoop
hey hey,
so I’m in Windhoek Namibia right now, it’s not what I expected it to be, its well, a modern city, large shopping malls, clean new buildings, good roads, lots of white people etc. I can’t say it really feels like Africa, Malawi was africa because life was basic, Tanzania was Afrika because of the mess and bad smells, this place is more modern than Tilburg is, more stores, restaurants and better roads.
But here’s the thing, we’re staying in the white part of town, we drove through the other neighborhoods and they’re much more what I expected, poor people who have nothing to do but drink all day, really small houses made of all sorts of left over materials (which seems really efficient). I guess Namibia is a country with large contrasts, and its really clear that the white people still have all the power here. they’re the bosses of every store, and the black people seem to do as they say.
we’re staying at a place called “Paccini Lodge” which is run by a german lady, she’s very strict and there are signs with rules everywhere, there isn’t that much allowed, but according to her thats what keeps this place safe. I dunno if I agree with that…
After being in Windhoek a few days we moved to Keetmanshoop (a 6 hour drive, at night, with 10 people in a small van) which is a smaller town, more primitive in ways, but still pretty modern for an african city I’d say, we stayed at a place called the “Central lodge” which was of course also ran by Germans, it was a nice place with good food and a large swimming pool.
on a Saturday we were there we went to an internet cafe to see how fast it was, they advertise their internet as “ADSL”, but its not what they have, if you find a connection over 5kb/sec you’re very lucky. while we were waiting for our stuff to upload I stepped outside and realized that there was nobody there, the streets were empty and I wondered why, it felt like a ghost town almost, just a clean ghost town with perfect concrete roads (germans), the supervisor at the lodge told us that its normal and its like that every day, stores close at noon and people go inside to sleep, later I heard from the guy who’s driving us around that its because of this thing called “payday” people all get paid on the last friday of the month, and then go on a shopping spree, but the store employers also get paid on that day so the stores close and everybody ends up getting totally drunk at the townships. on Monday everything was back to normal and the stores were open 9 to 5.
A concert was held at a small soccer stadium, a ot of kids showed up (they don’t have any other form of entertainment) and it seemed to be a succes, Nanibia is home to the Namas, names somewhat look like a mix between black and asian, people have really pretty faces it seems. and are all very slender. the Namas are genetically proven the oldest race on earth. We again had problems with the audio equipment overheating at the concert, and the amp died a few times, but nobody really seemed to mind.
the day after the concert we drove back to Windhoek, which is a 6 hour drive through the desert, since its the rain season, it was really green and looked amazing. we’ve been back in Windhoek a few days right now, we got to hang out with some german students which was a nice change of things, spending 35 days with the same people all the time sorta gets to you at times.
it’s 8:30 am right now, the battery is about to die, and today I might actually get to repair my macbook pro (I’ll write about all that later)
only 31 more days to go I think,
you guys better comment!!!!