Southern Africa - Day 5

Friday, 17 January 2020 - Namibia 

We continued our journey north, moving towards Namibia. We stopped at a place called Trawal for gas and toilet break. Then lunch - another big portion of fish, calamari and rice. I think this is the first holiday where I am putting on weight! After lunch we crossed the border to Namibia and settled in on the banks of the Orange River.

Like South Africa, Namibia was originally inhabited by the San or bushmen. It was formerly a colony of Germany, and was administered by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate after WW1, and annexed as a province of South Africa after WW2. The South-West African People’s Organisation launched a guerilla war for independence in 1966, but only gained independence in 1990. 

Being under South Africa it went through apartheid rule although not as strictly implemented as in South Africa. Apart from the various tribal languages, they also speak English, Afrikaans, German and a bit of Portuguese brought from the Angolans. Most people here speak English fairly well and this makes it really easy for us. 

We then made a pit stop at Bitterfontein and then to Springbok. Springbok started as a mining town - tin and copper. Most of the people here are descendants of the bushmen or San, known as the Nama people. They are very light skinned, it’s quite interesting to see - pure African features including the hair but really light skin. Beautiful. Their language is one of the languages with the clicks. 

At dinner our guides told us a bit about African culture, which is that a man can marry any number of wives, and usually they marry relatives for example sisters, or aunt and niece, etc. The idea is that should something happen to one of them, a family member (i.e. the other wife) will still be looking after the children. And this is another common thing in African culture - if a husband dies, one of his brothers must take responsibility for his wife and children. Ditto if a wife dies. Actually it makes a lot of sense, the culture is very family oriented but I don’t think I am ready to share my non-existent husband with anyone.

After dinner we all drank beer, wine, whiskey and poison and talked mostly politics. It was quite fun for a change. Most of them are older and more experienced than me so it was a nice grown up conversation. The problem that I have back home is that I seem to be surrounded by fools and I do not suffer fools.