The visit to the desert continued with a 3 day stopover in Swakopmund, the 4th largest town/city in Namibia on the coast. It was originally built at the end of the 19th century as the main harbour for trade from Germany to Southern Africa but is now predominantly a tourist venue. The main centre is full of colonial German architecture and seems a bit quirky here between the ocean and the Namibian desert. The streets are wide, it is clean and it was a good place for us to have a few days of normality staying in basic chalet style accommodation rather than tents. Our crew (Victor, Mike and Sam) also got a well deserved rest. I have to admit I really enjoyed the chance to sit in a restaurant with a table, a cold glass of wine and a waiter served meal; whether the food was any better than Mike's which he produced off two rings is questionable! The town however was pretty dead at night, the locals all returning to their homes on the outskirts once it began to get dark. The meal times here are pretty early too - most restaurants are empty by 9.00pm.
There was once a train line running along the coast - the photo above shows the struts of a bridge. Some would say I was foolish to go walking on my own and they would be right although I always felt safe. However, I did have a wake up call. At the end of a lovely day I was sitting on the beach close to the centre of town reading a book and watching the sun go down. I hadn't realised that most of the other people around me had already gone when a young lad crept up behind me and tried to take my back pack. He didn't get it as I had my arm firmly through one of its straps, but he did get my beloved iPad as the top was open. It was a wake up call for me and a relatively harmless reminder that I must be more cautious in this land of inequality. I am really missing my iPad though!
When I was in Cape Town I decided not to do a township tour - voyeurism being part of my reasoning - but I think it was a wrong decision for me - such visits make me think. So the following day I went with some of the others from the group to where some of the locals live. We started with a visit to a very small starter school - just 3 rooms, a headmistress and 3 teachers. We enjoyed interacting with the children but it did not give a realistic view of education in Namibia as it was so tiny.
The guide told us that good schooling is provided for children of all ages in the main town. I wanted to see a more substantial school but my opportunity will come in Uganda. I recalled visiting a secondary school in Kenya on my cycling tour 10 years ago when the 300 pupils sang for us African style - an unforgettable experience and a visit that I have often thought about as the teachers were really trying to do their best in an adequate brick building but without electricity, piped water or sufficient resources. Would be interesting to see what type of education the guide considered to be good for Namibians. Our visit did in fact end with a little performance from 3 local youngsters in a little hut. They were good, but how good I won't really know until I get home and listen to the CD that I bought from them; it wasn't expensive, so nothing much lost.
Homes were provided for the locals in the 1960s when they were moved away from the coast to make way for the growing tourist centre. Divide and rule was the order of the day, with each of the three main tribes being given a different standard of accommodation. The lucky tribe that got the more substantial homes I think did pretty well, with quite sizeable homes divided into 3 rooms and with inside toilets - not much worse than our chalet style accommodation in the town. Not so lucky for the least favoured tribe; I gather the allocation was arbitrary!
Nowadays the accommodation works much as in any town with the youngsters and older inhabitants choosing the smaller homes; above is actually now inhabited by those who do not want to pay any rent. We were told that everyone gets a home. Our guide had spent a year living in the main colonial town centre, but had made the decision to move back into one of the homes in the township as he missed living there. Most people seemed to be enjoying their surroundings despite the high level of unemployment - there were many bars - and I was particularly pleased to see women sitting there chatting and having a beer as well as the men. Below is one of our group dancing with our driver.
But I did wonder whether we were getting the full picture. In a period of about 10 minutes I saw 3 people come up and get water from this water point using some kind of token. Doesn't really look like a life style of choice to me.
The hedonistic highlight of my holiday so far was a 3 hour quad bike ride in the dunes, right next to Swapkomund. I've never been on a quad bike before and I really enjoyed it!! The views were amazing too.
No comments:
Post a Comment