16 October 2007
Part I: The Trek
After a long hiatus, I’m back with some more for the people. I’ll give my mom, Erin and Steu specific shout outs for harassing me into writing another entry. This story is a little dated (it happened at the end of August) but I can’t think of a better place to restart my blogging career.
So basically, during the last vacation I really had no plans and needed to get out of town. Herman, the kombi driver at MYO, happened to be heading up to the north of Namibia and invited Casey and me along. His cousin was getting married in a traditional ceremony in her village… and quite frankly I think he just wanted to be known as the guy who brought white people along. In any case, I’d been wanting to head up there and had some time to kill so I accepted.
Sidenote: The northern part of Namibia (or just plain “the north” as it’s usually referred to here) carries the name Owamboland—because it’s populated by the Owambo tribe. I always get confused by the difference of usage between Owambo and Oshiwambo, so if you’re reading this and getting irritated by my inability to use the two properly: get over it. You have too much spare time. Anyway, a large chunk of Namibia’s residents live in this area. The resistance against South Africa before independence was concentrated in Owamboland. And they won. So now the ruling Southwest African People’s Organization (SWAPO) is mainly representative of this, the largest tribe in Namibia.
The start to the trip was delayed by two everyday African scenarios: one serious and the other not so much. The original departure date got postponed by a week because of a death in Herman’s family. To this day, I have no idea who it was. No one really talks much about this sort of thing here because it’s, sadly, not uncommon. It was just mentioned to me as any other reason why we had to wait would be:
“We can’t leave tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
“Someone died.”
“Oh. Um…”
“We can still go next week. I’ll let you know.”
“Um. Ok.”
It’s not callousness. People have just learned to adapt to the reality of life. I find it to be a mix of sad and rather inspiring—a prime example of the different existence for people here. But I’m getting off track again.
The second delay was the more garden variety type: a “misunderstanding.” I’ve included the quotes because like many African misunderstandings, this one was doesn’t fit my definition of that word. I’d go more for indifference. Instead of catching a minibus taxi (or taxi kombi) filled to the brim with people heading up north to visit family, Herman organized us a ride in his friend’s car (allegedly a Mercedes). Now this was music to my ears since the minibuses are notorious for not being the safest mode of travel. Bad tires, poor maintenance, careless and sometimes drunk drivers—these are typical stories of local transportation. On top of all that we didn’t have to get up at 6am to catch the kombi, which made my day.
When the time came to meet at Herman’s place for our ride, Casey and I showed up early to avoid any confusion. There the three of us waited… and waited… and waited. Finally Herman phoned his pal, who was supposedly on the way from the gas station. Turns out the guy skipped town after filling up and decided not even to let us know. Now my vote was to rant at him until he turned around and came back, but I think Herman realized the futility of that ahead of time and hung up after a few choice words. (Actually, I have no idea what he said since he was speaking Oshiwambo, but I’d like to think he at least gave the dude a piece of his mind.) So now we were back to square one.
Herman told us to wait and took off between some houses and shacks in search of a minibus that was still going that afternoon (it is 1:15pm by this point). It was getting a little late for a 10-hr drive up north in a kombi by my calculations, but waiting just to get up at 6 the next morning didn’t seem like a positive alternative to me. He returned after 10-15 minutes and had found a ride leaving immediately so we picked up our bags and followed him to step one of our adventure.
Arriving at the taxi rank, we were barraged by several street vendors selling god knows what. Someone tried to sell me phone credit, another some pirate designer sunglasses, but mostly people just giggled at the two white people being ushered onto a kombi heading to Owamboland. Once aboard we settled into the far back seat with Herman and sat back for the long journey. There were still a few over the shoulder glances coming back our way from the other passengers, and to be fair the Afrikaans greetings we were getting were quite friendly. Casey and I, neither of us able to speak Afrikaans, did our best to return the salutations.
Part I: The Trek
After a long hiatus, I’m back with some more for the people. I’ll give my mom, Erin and Steu specific shout outs for harassing me into writing another entry. This story is a little dated (it happened at the end of August) but I can’t think of a better place to restart my blogging career.
So basically, during the last vacation I really had no plans and needed to get out of town. Herman, the kombi driver at MYO, happened to be heading up to the north of Namibia and invited Casey and me along. His cousin was getting married in a traditional ceremony in her village… and quite frankly I think he just wanted to be known as the guy who brought white people along. In any case, I’d been wanting to head up there and had some time to kill so I accepted.
Sidenote: The northern part of Namibia (or just plain “the north” as it’s usually referred to here) carries the name Owamboland—because it’s populated by the Owambo tribe. I always get confused by the difference of usage between Owambo and Oshiwambo, so if you’re reading this and getting irritated by my inability to use the two properly: get over it. You have too much spare time. Anyway, a large chunk of Namibia’s residents live in this area. The resistance against South Africa before independence was concentrated in Owamboland. And they won. So now the ruling Southwest African People’s Organization (SWAPO) is mainly representative of this, the largest tribe in Namibia.
The start to the trip was delayed by two everyday African scenarios: one serious and the other not so much. The original departure date got postponed by a week because of a death in Herman’s family. To this day, I have no idea who it was. No one really talks much about this sort of thing here because it’s, sadly, not uncommon. It was just mentioned to me as any other reason why we had to wait would be:
“We can’t leave tomorrow.”
“Why not?”
“Someone died.”
“Oh. Um…”
“We can still go next week. I’ll let you know.”
“Um. Ok.”
It’s not callousness. People have just learned to adapt to the reality of life. I find it to be a mix of sad and rather inspiring—a prime example of the different existence for people here. But I’m getting off track again.
The second delay was the more garden variety type: a “misunderstanding.” I’ve included the quotes because like many African misunderstandings, this one was doesn’t fit my definition of that word. I’d go more for indifference. Instead of catching a minibus taxi (or taxi kombi) filled to the brim with people heading up north to visit family, Herman organized us a ride in his friend’s car (allegedly a Mercedes). Now this was music to my ears since the minibuses are notorious for not being the safest mode of travel. Bad tires, poor maintenance, careless and sometimes drunk drivers—these are typical stories of local transportation. On top of all that we didn’t have to get up at 6am to catch the kombi, which made my day.
When the time came to meet at Herman’s place for our ride, Casey and I showed up early to avoid any confusion. There the three of us waited… and waited… and waited. Finally Herman phoned his pal, who was supposedly on the way from the gas station. Turns out the guy skipped town after filling up and decided not even to let us know. Now my vote was to rant at him until he turned around and came back, but I think Herman realized the futility of that ahead of time and hung up after a few choice words. (Actually, I have no idea what he said since he was speaking Oshiwambo, but I’d like to think he at least gave the dude a piece of his mind.) So now we were back to square one.
Herman told us to wait and took off between some houses and shacks in search of a minibus that was still going that afternoon (it is 1:15pm by this point). It was getting a little late for a 10-hr drive up north in a kombi by my calculations, but waiting just to get up at 6 the next morning didn’t seem like a positive alternative to me. He returned after 10-15 minutes and had found a ride leaving immediately so we picked up our bags and followed him to step one of our adventure.
Arriving at the taxi rank, we were barraged by several street vendors selling god knows what. Someone tried to sell me phone credit, another some pirate designer sunglasses, but mostly people just giggled at the two white people being ushered onto a kombi heading to Owamboland. Once aboard we settled into the far back seat with Herman and sat back for the long journey. There were still a few over the shoulder glances coming back our way from the other passengers, and to be fair the Afrikaans greetings we were getting were quite friendly. Casey and I, neither of us able to speak Afrikaans, did our best to return the salutations.
(Me and Herman in the Taxi Kombi)
Now I imagine this is hard to picture for most of you, so I’ll try to describe it better. First of all, we’re in Mondesa—the black township. You don’t see many whites in this area. In fact, most of the residents of Swakopmund have never even driven through it. So our presence, although not unheard of, is quite unusual. Add to that we’re getting onto a mode of transportation that VERY few white people use (mostly foreign volunteers). In fact, I’ve never even heard a story of a local white person riding in one of these. So it’s a bit of a spectacle for the people watching.
Once on the road, another kombi legend turned out to be true: mid-day drinking. The guy sitting in front of me pulled out a small bottle of cheap brandy and began to pull off it. (I was to realize soon enough that this was the first bottle of many… the man came prepared.) It smelled like paint thinner, but I’m sure it was better than his breath so I figured more power to him. That idea backfired on me when later he spilled a 1.5 liter bottle of coke on my shoe. Classic.
The ride ended up taking about 10 hours. I attribute this to our stopping at EVERY town along the way. Sometime people got off. Sometimes people got on. Sometimes we just stopped for snacks and the bathroom. Everywhere people were trying to sell stuff: bags of oranges, key chains, cell phone credit, etc., etc., etc. At one stop, the rest of the minibus seats filled up completely so we had to jam another person into the back seat with us. There were 5 individual seats but I have no idea what toothpick they were using to determine their size. In any case, 4 of us in the back was an awkward fit. Leg to leg, hip to hip, arm to arm and shoulder to shoulder in a crowded bus during the late afternoon heat is not comfortable. This is the point where you realize why this transport doesn’t fit into the normal tourist itinerary. Thankfully the man got off after only 45 minutes or so. I was not looking forward to swapping sweat with him for the next 4-5 hours.
Once night started to fall, I began to get nervous about the last leg of the journey. At each stop I double-checked to make sure the driver wasn’t one of the crowd headed for the beer cooler in the service station. It seemed like his 2 pals were running interference for him though, so I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t hitting the bottle a little. (I know for a fact the guy in front of me was, those little brandy bottles didn’t stand a chance.) My insecurity about the nighttime travel wasn’t appeased by our man’s driving either. During the most dangerous part of the journey, a winding bit of road over some hills, he was really moving. It wasn’t bad enough to warrant shouting at him from the back, but I was white knuckled and tight bottomed. Once we came out of that alive, however, I began to relax.
Not even the sudden stop on the side of the road got to me. Although the blown tire on the trailer wasn’t entirely reassuring, at least it wasn’t on the bus. We all got off to stretch our legs while they changed the tire. A few of the men wandered off a little way into the bush and relieved themselves while the rest of us chatted and looked at the magnificent view of the stars. Casey, Herman and I had bought a couple of Tafel Lagers at the last stop so we cracked those open and enjoyed their coolness in the warm evening breeze. A lot of the other passengers did the same; the blowout obviously wasn’t fazing them in the least.
Now I imagine this is hard to picture for most of you, so I’ll try to describe it better. First of all, we’re in Mondesa—the black township. You don’t see many whites in this area. In fact, most of the residents of Swakopmund have never even driven through it. So our presence, although not unheard of, is quite unusual. Add to that we’re getting onto a mode of transportation that VERY few white people use (mostly foreign volunteers). In fact, I’ve never even heard a story of a local white person riding in one of these. So it’s a bit of a spectacle for the people watching.
Once on the road, another kombi legend turned out to be true: mid-day drinking. The guy sitting in front of me pulled out a small bottle of cheap brandy and began to pull off it. (I was to realize soon enough that this was the first bottle of many… the man came prepared.) It smelled like paint thinner, but I’m sure it was better than his breath so I figured more power to him. That idea backfired on me when later he spilled a 1.5 liter bottle of coke on my shoe. Classic.
The ride ended up taking about 10 hours. I attribute this to our stopping at EVERY town along the way. Sometime people got off. Sometimes people got on. Sometimes we just stopped for snacks and the bathroom. Everywhere people were trying to sell stuff: bags of oranges, key chains, cell phone credit, etc., etc., etc. At one stop, the rest of the minibus seats filled up completely so we had to jam another person into the back seat with us. There were 5 individual seats but I have no idea what toothpick they were using to determine their size. In any case, 4 of us in the back was an awkward fit. Leg to leg, hip to hip, arm to arm and shoulder to shoulder in a crowded bus during the late afternoon heat is not comfortable. This is the point where you realize why this transport doesn’t fit into the normal tourist itinerary. Thankfully the man got off after only 45 minutes or so. I was not looking forward to swapping sweat with him for the next 4-5 hours.
Once night started to fall, I began to get nervous about the last leg of the journey. At each stop I double-checked to make sure the driver wasn’t one of the crowd headed for the beer cooler in the service station. It seemed like his 2 pals were running interference for him though, so I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t hitting the bottle a little. (I know for a fact the guy in front of me was, those little brandy bottles didn’t stand a chance.) My insecurity about the nighttime travel wasn’t appeased by our man’s driving either. During the most dangerous part of the journey, a winding bit of road over some hills, he was really moving. It wasn’t bad enough to warrant shouting at him from the back, but I was white knuckled and tight bottomed. Once we came out of that alive, however, I began to relax.
Not even the sudden stop on the side of the road got to me. Although the blown tire on the trailer wasn’t entirely reassuring, at least it wasn’t on the bus. We all got off to stretch our legs while they changed the tire. A few of the men wandered off a little way into the bush and relieved themselves while the rest of us chatted and looked at the magnificent view of the stars. Casey, Herman and I had bought a couple of Tafel Lagers at the last stop so we cracked those open and enjoyed their coolness in the warm evening breeze. A lot of the other passengers did the same; the blowout obviously wasn’t fazing them in the least.
(A preview of things to come. Me and the fam in the back of their bakkie.)
Since the rest of the trip went without a hitch I have to mention the giant cloud over the entire 10-hour drive: the music. I’d heard some stories about the ear-splitting tunes they these drivers have been known to play, mostly consisting of kwaito (Namibian hip-hop, usually in a language I can’t understand) on the radio or on mix CDs. However, I was not prepared to listen to the one CD this driver brought with him. Nearest I could tell it was R&B gospel music in Oshiwambo. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem as I’m an open-minded listener, but hearing the same 5 songs on repeat for hours on end was enough to drive me nuts. Luckily I brought my iPod and was able to somewhat drown it out when the driver didn’t have the volume knob maxed out… which wasn’t very often. Herman felt the same way I did, and the poor guy didn’t even have headphones to help him escape. I’ll never forget our conversation at the last service station:
Me: “Man this music situation sucks.”
Him: “Yeah, I knew I should have brought my new mix CD.”
Me: “Probably should have, hey? What was on it?”
Him: “Oh man, it’s nice. Do you know Michael Bolton?”
(This is the point where Casey and I exchange looks and wonder if the guy has finally picked up sarcasm.)
Me: “Um… are you serious right now?”
Him: “Yeah, he’s great.”
Casey: “I think I’d rather take the 4-songs on repeat.”
Him: “No way. Why?”
Me: “Why?!”
(Still not sure if he’s jerking my chain. All signs inticate otherwise, but come on… Michael Bolton!?!?)
Him: “He makes nice music.”
At this point Casey and I mumble something like “sure he does” and slowly walk away from the conversation. After that I was still not happy about the loop playlist but secretly thankful it wasn’t Michael Bolton on repeat.
(More preview. Casey with some of the cousins at the wedding.)
The last part of the trek to the village where Herman’s aunt stays provided a good window into things to come: a stop in a place I was completely unfamiliar, meeting some random African relatives of Herman, and a bumpy ride on a country road. More specifically, the minibus pulled over to the side of the road at the previously specified drop-off location: a local bar, or as they’re commonly known: shebeen. The little pickup truck, or bakkie, waiting out front was our ride to the farm. The cab was occupied by a few of Herman’s cousins from the area. So we piled into the back and set off over the sand/dirt/rock path that wound from the main road to Ontananga, the village which was to be our home for the next 4 days.
To be continued...
P.S. I promised Adam a shout out months ago so here you are, Mr. Howlett. Last, but certainly not least.
Since the rest of the trip went without a hitch I have to mention the giant cloud over the entire 10-hour drive: the music. I’d heard some stories about the ear-splitting tunes they these drivers have been known to play, mostly consisting of kwaito (Namibian hip-hop, usually in a language I can’t understand) on the radio or on mix CDs. However, I was not prepared to listen to the one CD this driver brought with him. Nearest I could tell it was R&B gospel music in Oshiwambo. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem as I’m an open-minded listener, but hearing the same 5 songs on repeat for hours on end was enough to drive me nuts. Luckily I brought my iPod and was able to somewhat drown it out when the driver didn’t have the volume knob maxed out… which wasn’t very often. Herman felt the same way I did, and the poor guy didn’t even have headphones to help him escape. I’ll never forget our conversation at the last service station:
Me: “Man this music situation sucks.”
Him: “Yeah, I knew I should have brought my new mix CD.”
Me: “Probably should have, hey? What was on it?”
Him: “Oh man, it’s nice. Do you know Michael Bolton?”
(This is the point where Casey and I exchange looks and wonder if the guy has finally picked up sarcasm.)
Me: “Um… are you serious right now?”
Him: “Yeah, he’s great.”
Casey: “I think I’d rather take the 4-songs on repeat.”
Him: “No way. Why?”
Me: “Why?!”
(Still not sure if he’s jerking my chain. All signs inticate otherwise, but come on… Michael Bolton!?!?)
Him: “He makes nice music.”
At this point Casey and I mumble something like “sure he does” and slowly walk away from the conversation. After that I was still not happy about the loop playlist but secretly thankful it wasn’t Michael Bolton on repeat.
(More preview. Casey with some of the cousins at the wedding.)
The last part of the trek to the village where Herman’s aunt stays provided a good window into things to come: a stop in a place I was completely unfamiliar, meeting some random African relatives of Herman, and a bumpy ride on a country road. More specifically, the minibus pulled over to the side of the road at the previously specified drop-off location: a local bar, or as they’re commonly known: shebeen. The little pickup truck, or bakkie, waiting out front was our ride to the farm. The cab was occupied by a few of Herman’s cousins from the area. So we piled into the back and set off over the sand/dirt/rock path that wound from the main road to Ontananga, the village which was to be our home for the next 4 days.
To be continued...
P.S. I promised Adam a shout out months ago so here you are, Mr. Howlett. Last, but certainly not least.
6 comments:
Good to hear from you again. But please don't make us wait another two months for the next episode. Love ya, Mom
So I can't tell if that shirt in the first picture has ruffles. All I can say is "But I don't want to be a pirate"
frankly I'm just flattered to have been mentioned...in the first paragraph, no less.
ah beau... I just can't get enough of your stories!! I love them and find myself laughing out loud in my office at them while everyone else looks at me like I am crazy :)
Glad to hear all is well... and please keep up with the blogs this time, I was also wondering why they weren't being posted anymore!!!
~Meesh
Love the shout out. My favorite part of the whole thing is picturing your face in certain situations such as being faced with a Michael Bolton music fest!!!! HA HA HA HA!!!
beausive....i can't believe you actually said "tight bottomed"!!! I love it....
Jacks
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