Game hikes and Katatura
4/22/2007
So far this had been quite an adventurous weekend!
Yesterday I was invited by one of the doctors here togo on a game drive in the local game park near Windhoek. It is situated about 20 miles outside of town and is known for its rare mountain zebra population. Four of us went on the drive in the doctor’s large 4X4 vehicle. We left the city about 2:45 and began driving on the 4X4 road through the park. On of the unique features of this particular park is that you can get out and walk around as there are not the dangerous animals, like lions and hippos that you would see in other parks. We drove about a third of the way through the loop having seen several species of animals and birds, including kudu, springbok, wildebeest, oryx, and warthogs. About a third of the way through the loop, we decided to get out and look out over some of the hills to see if we could see anything a bit further away. We did sowithout much luck and then got back into the car tocontinue on our drive.
However, when we got back into the vehicle it wouldn’t start. We tried and tried, and nothing! Not even a hint of life left in the car. Luckily this wasn’t a dangerous park, so we decided we would walk along the road and then hopefully another group would pass us and take us to the office where we could get someone to come and help. We began walking around 4:00p.m. along a rough dirt road and I unfortunately had stayed in my flip flops thinking I was just going to be riding in a car. Not the best hiking shoes !
As we walked through the rest of the loop, we were able to see a very large herd of Zebras, which is quite unusual as they normally stay far from the road. Perhaps since we were not in a vehicle, they had not yet run off. The herd had probably 6-10 zebras, one of which was a beautiful baby. We tried to walk quietly to get a closer look and take some pictures. In doing so we saw the entire herd run across the road, probably 20 feet in front of us. The main group went over the hill to avoid us, but the large male of the group decided he needed to make sure we stayed away. He began grunting and stomping his feet at us, tryingto scare us away. At this point we tried very hard to move quickly and quietly as zebras have a notorious reputation for being quite mean and it isn’t unheard of them to charge and bite. Luckily he seemed to be fine with us leaving and we moved on along the road. We continued on and also saw a large herd of giraffes in the distance. We even came across a giant wildebeest about 5 feet from us as we came around a corner. It sort of startled us all, but it was amazingto see it so close. Everything was just beautiful!
Unfortunately, throughout this entire walk, not a single person passed us on the road. We finally arrived at the park office around 5:15 and were able to call one of the park employees for help. We all piled into the back of his pick-up truck and rod sure it had to do with the battery. The gentleman helping us decided to go back to the office where hehad access to another car battery (we found out later from his own personal car) to see if we could get it to work and get us at least out of the middle of the park. At this point it was starting to get dark. The park ranger left and we went to work taking out the old battery and discovered that it was completely dry, not a drop of water in it. Hence it made sense that we were having the problems that we did.
Even though it was not the best of scenarios, we were e backover the same very bumpy road to the car. As it wasgetting close to dusk, the animals were reallystarting to come out and we saw quite a few more, onlythis time we were driving very fast and had to lookquickly.
Back at the car we tried jumping the battery, stillnothing. We tried a few more tricks and for whateverreason, nothing was working, although we were pretty able to watch an amazing sunset coupled with a fastmoving thunder and lightning storm coming toward us.It was amazing to watch the entire sky light up into amillion different colors, backlighting the trees full of bird nests. Amazing!
Finally, with the help of the borrowed battery, wewere able to get the car started and get home, withthe promise that as soon as the shops opened in themorning, the doctor would buy a new battery and bringback the borrowed one so this nice gentleman would beable to drive his car again. What had started out as asimple game drive turned into quite a hike andmemorable adventure.
Today, a friend and I went on a tour called the “Faceto Face” tour of the local township, Katatura and thesurrounding informal settlements. Katatura wasoriginally built under the Apartheid system tosegregate people according to their skin color andethnic background. This meant that people who hadbefore worked near where they lived were forcefullyrelocated to a place far away from town and segregatedby tribe. The government was afraid that if youallowed people from different tribes to be unified,they would unite and try and throw out the government.Thus it was very important to try and keep people asseparate as possible to maintain power. We visited agraveyard where many of the freedom fighters had beenburied. It was upsetting to see how many of the graveshad no name, just a small stone or rock with a numberon it. The records of who is buried there had longsince been lost.
The tour also included us going to the local market tosee what was there and to talk to many of the people.The tour specifically aims to allow people to interactwith the people you are learning about and tounderstand who they are. In the market, we saw manyshops as well as a large meat market and BBQ area. Iwas reminded once again how much Namibians love theirmeat. About 6 BBQs were lined up and people weregrilling fat and strips of meat that were then cutinto bite size pieces that you could put in a newspaper "cup¨ and take with you. You season it with some salt. This however, is not considered ameal, but instead a snack. As it was 10:00 in the morning, I passed on the "snack¨ of steak, especially after having just walked through the areawhere they were carving up all of the meat for peopleto buy and take home. We also met several women makingHerero and Ovambo dresses which were very interesting. The Herero dresses are especially intricate andinclude a headpiece that has long "horns¨ that stickout of each side. Hereros are traditionally cattleraisers and the hats are made to look like the hornsof a cow to honor them. I’m fascinated by the hats and would love to see how someone makes them.
The tour continued through the township and into theinformal settlements on the other side. The informalsettlements are small plots of land that thegovernment sells to people very cheaply and they canbuild a small house, usually of corrugated tin, on theplot. There is no electricity and water is availableonly at a tap point every 200 meters. There are alsopublic toilets and showers that people can go to. Mostof the people living in the informal settlements arethose who are moving to the city from the villages,and a few refugees from other countries who come tothe city to find work. However, there is very littlework to be found in the city and thus most peoplecontinue to live in poverty. The informal settlementshowever, are not squatter communities. They are fairlywell planned, have a road system and people have topurchase the land. With the purchase it means thatthey have a right to the land so the government cannotcome at any time and take it away from them like inmany other cities with the same issues.
It was interesting to compare the areas with otherplaces I have been in Southern Africa. The poverty wasevident, especially in the informal settlements, butthe organization and cleanliness of the areas wasastonishing to me and somehow made it feel less dire.It was a strange feeling as I know that hunger ishunger, regardless of whether your house is made ofmud or tin. I’m still trying to let the experiencesettle in to really sort out what I think about it.It was very interesting to see and to discuss with ourguide some of the feelings surrounding this area andthe mass migration to the city. Our guide, Philadelphia, told us that coming to the cityrepresents hope for many people. However, many of themend up living worse than they did when they were intheir villages.
I’m now getting ready to go to a lodge for meetingsfor the week. It is just outside the city and I’mtold it is quite nice, especially if you are able toget out and walk around a bit. The change of scenerywill be nice but it will also mean that I will beworking through most of the evenings. Hopefully itwill be a productive trip and that we will be able to accomplish what we set out to do.
I hope you all are well and enjoying springtime!
Keep well,
Lisa
So far this had been quite an adventurous weekend!
Yesterday I was invited by one of the doctors here togo on a game drive in the local game park near Windhoek. It is situated about 20 miles outside of town and is known for its rare mountain zebra population. Four of us went on the drive in the doctor’s large 4X4 vehicle. We left the city about 2:45 and began driving on the 4X4 road through the park. On of the unique features of this particular park is that you can get out and walk around as there are not the dangerous animals, like lions and hippos that you would see in other parks. We drove about a third of the way through the loop having seen several species of animals and birds, including kudu, springbok, wildebeest, oryx, and warthogs. About a third of the way through the loop, we decided to get out and look out over some of the hills to see if we could see anything a bit further away. We did sowithout much luck and then got back into the car tocontinue on our drive.
However, when we got back into the vehicle it wouldn’t start. We tried and tried, and nothing! Not even a hint of life left in the car. Luckily this wasn’t a dangerous park, so we decided we would walk along the road and then hopefully another group would pass us and take us to the office where we could get someone to come and help. We began walking around 4:00p.m. along a rough dirt road and I unfortunately had stayed in my flip flops thinking I was just going to be riding in a car. Not the best hiking shoes !
As we walked through the rest of the loop, we were able to see a very large herd of Zebras, which is quite unusual as they normally stay far from the road. Perhaps since we were not in a vehicle, they had not yet run off. The herd had probably 6-10 zebras, one of which was a beautiful baby. We tried to walk quietly to get a closer look and take some pictures. In doing so we saw the entire herd run across the road, probably 20 feet in front of us. The main group went over the hill to avoid us, but the large male of the group decided he needed to make sure we stayed away. He began grunting and stomping his feet at us, tryingto scare us away. At this point we tried very hard to move quickly and quietly as zebras have a notorious reputation for being quite mean and it isn’t unheard of them to charge and bite. Luckily he seemed to be fine with us leaving and we moved on along the road. We continued on and also saw a large herd of giraffes in the distance. We even came across a giant wildebeest about 5 feet from us as we came around a corner. It sort of startled us all, but it was amazingto see it so close. Everything was just beautiful!
Unfortunately, throughout this entire walk, not a single person passed us on the road. We finally arrived at the park office around 5:15 and were able to call one of the park employees for help. We all piled into the back of his pick-up truck and rod sure it had to do with the battery. The gentleman helping us decided to go back to the office where hehad access to another car battery (we found out later from his own personal car) to see if we could get it to work and get us at least out of the middle of the park. At this point it was starting to get dark. The park ranger left and we went to work taking out the old battery and discovered that it was completely dry, not a drop of water in it. Hence it made sense that we were having the problems that we did.
Even though it was not the best of scenarios, we were e backover the same very bumpy road to the car. As it wasgetting close to dusk, the animals were reallystarting to come out and we saw quite a few more, onlythis time we were driving very fast and had to lookquickly.
Back at the car we tried jumping the battery, stillnothing. We tried a few more tricks and for whateverreason, nothing was working, although we were pretty able to watch an amazing sunset coupled with a fastmoving thunder and lightning storm coming toward us.It was amazing to watch the entire sky light up into amillion different colors, backlighting the trees full of bird nests. Amazing!
Finally, with the help of the borrowed battery, wewere able to get the car started and get home, withthe promise that as soon as the shops opened in themorning, the doctor would buy a new battery and bringback the borrowed one so this nice gentleman would beable to drive his car again. What had started out as asimple game drive turned into quite a hike andmemorable adventure.
Today, a friend and I went on a tour called the “Faceto Face” tour of the local township, Katatura and thesurrounding informal settlements. Katatura wasoriginally built under the Apartheid system tosegregate people according to their skin color andethnic background. This meant that people who hadbefore worked near where they lived were forcefullyrelocated to a place far away from town and segregatedby tribe. The government was afraid that if youallowed people from different tribes to be unified,they would unite and try and throw out the government.Thus it was very important to try and keep people asseparate as possible to maintain power. We visited agraveyard where many of the freedom fighters had beenburied. It was upsetting to see how many of the graveshad no name, just a small stone or rock with a numberon it. The records of who is buried there had longsince been lost.
The tour also included us going to the local market tosee what was there and to talk to many of the people.The tour specifically aims to allow people to interactwith the people you are learning about and tounderstand who they are. In the market, we saw manyshops as well as a large meat market and BBQ area. Iwas reminded once again how much Namibians love theirmeat. About 6 BBQs were lined up and people weregrilling fat and strips of meat that were then cutinto bite size pieces that you could put in a newspaper "cup¨ and take with you. You season it with some salt. This however, is not considered ameal, but instead a snack. As it was 10:00 in the morning, I passed on the "snack¨ of steak, especially after having just walked through the areawhere they were carving up all of the meat for peopleto buy and take home. We also met several women makingHerero and Ovambo dresses which were very interesting. The Herero dresses are especially intricate andinclude a headpiece that has long "horns¨ that stickout of each side. Hereros are traditionally cattleraisers and the hats are made to look like the hornsof a cow to honor them. I’m fascinated by the hats and would love to see how someone makes them.
The tour continued through the township and into theinformal settlements on the other side. The informalsettlements are small plots of land that thegovernment sells to people very cheaply and they canbuild a small house, usually of corrugated tin, on theplot. There is no electricity and water is availableonly at a tap point every 200 meters. There are alsopublic toilets and showers that people can go to. Mostof the people living in the informal settlements arethose who are moving to the city from the villages,and a few refugees from other countries who come tothe city to find work. However, there is very littlework to be found in the city and thus most peoplecontinue to live in poverty. The informal settlementshowever, are not squatter communities. They are fairlywell planned, have a road system and people have topurchase the land. With the purchase it means thatthey have a right to the land so the government cannotcome at any time and take it away from them like inmany other cities with the same issues.
It was interesting to compare the areas with otherplaces I have been in Southern Africa. The poverty wasevident, especially in the informal settlements, butthe organization and cleanliness of the areas wasastonishing to me and somehow made it feel less dire.It was a strange feeling as I know that hunger ishunger, regardless of whether your house is made ofmud or tin. I’m still trying to let the experiencesettle in to really sort out what I think about it.It was very interesting to see and to discuss with ourguide some of the feelings surrounding this area andthe mass migration to the city. Our guide, Philadelphia, told us that coming to the cityrepresents hope for many people. However, many of themend up living worse than they did when they were intheir villages.
I’m now getting ready to go to a lodge for meetingsfor the week. It is just outside the city and I’mtold it is quite nice, especially if you are able toget out and walk around a bit. The change of scenerywill be nice but it will also mean that I will beworking through most of the evenings. Hopefully itwill be a productive trip and that we will be able to accomplish what we set out to do.
I hope you all are well and enjoying springtime!
Keep well,
Lisa
posted by jacob at 9:34 PM
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