Namibia Independence Day Holiday

Tuesday, March 21st, was Namibia's Independence Day Holiday. Quite frankly, the holiday was a disappointment and nothing like July 4th in the States. Other than everything shutting down for the day, the was no evidence of any real celebration in Windhoek. No fireworks, no parades, nothing. It appears that the national government handles the celebration events which are rotated around to various locales, this year they were up north in Elundu (near the Angola border). The events consist mainly of politicians giving speeches focused on remembering the armed struggle for independence and calling for continued national unity.

Most Americans (including myself) no little about African history and the various independence movements. Namibia gained their independence from South Africa on March 21, 1990 after a very long struggle against European colonialism and domination by apartheid South Africa. A couple of weeks ago we visited the National Museum which addressed the region's history from the first Dutch explorers in the 1600's, the era of European colonialism, through the armed resistance that resulted in independence.

This is the National Museum. It has an interesting "Tea Pot" design and was built by the North Koreans.

The museum had lots of artifacts (primarily photographs and military equipment) but very little interpretive material to place things in context.

Sam Nujono - The George Washington of Namibia

Anyway, in the late 1800's Germany annexed or colonized the region. Thus, the strong German influence that remains in the area as many of the streets in Windhoek still have German names and spellings. As with most of colonialism, it was all about control of the land and natural resources. As a result, the Germans forcibly removed or relocated many of the local tribes from their traditional homelands. Several tribes, mainly the Herero and Nama, revolted in armed resistance. The Germans won and slaughtered most of the tribes. It is estimated that 85,000 Herero fled into the desert ahead of the German army and only 15,000 survived. 10,000 Nama were also killed. Afterwards, the Germans issued an extermination order against the tribes. These events are memorialized near the Waterberg Plateau. As we speak, the Herero and Nama have sued the German government for reparations due to the genocide - they are seeking $30 billion NSD.

A memorial to the Herero and Nama resistance and deaths

After WWI, the Germans conceded the region, then known as South West Africa, to the British. The British then in turn made the region a protectorate of South Africa (which the British Empire controlled at the time). After WWII, the UN passed a resolution that was intended to lead to eventual Namibian independence but South Africa refused to honor the agreement.

In the 1950's, the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) was created and began a campaign of resistance to the South African government. SWAPO based their operations in southern Angola and would make cross-border raids into Namibia. Obviously, the South African government responded accordingly. Thus, began Namibia's long struggle for independence. Apartheid was also implemented during this same period.

Sam Nujono, the first president of Namibia, was one of the original SWAPO freedom fighters and lived in exile for three decades in Angola. He, as well as many of the SWAPO resistance fighters,  are still alive today. Below is his statue. He is considered the equivalent of George Washington.

In the late 1960's, Portugal ceded Angola. Angola quickly fell into civil war between three regional/tribal factions. By the 1970's, the Angola civil war had narrowed to two main factions and became embroiled in Cold War era politics. One faction leaned communist/socialist and allied with the Soviet Union. That meant the U.S. had to side with the other faction which meant allying with South Africa despite the arms embargo imposed due to apartheid. SWAPO aligned themselves with the Soviet faction as their interest was opposing all things South African. Cuba eventually joined the conflict and at one point had 40,000 troops in Angola. That of course increased U.S. interest in the conflict. The museum had pictures of Fidel Castro meeting with Sam Nujono and other SWAPO leadership.

The conflict and battles occurred primarily in southern Angola and northern Namibia. As far as Namibia was concern, the conflict was essentially a stand still with neither side gaining any significant advantage. But, South Africa eventually recognized that there was no economically viable plan for continuing the prolong struggle and allowed the U.N. mandate for Namibian independence to proceed. The peace, including the end of the Angola civil war, was brokered by U.S. lead negotiations. Thus, Namibia held free elections and gained their independence.

SWAPO leadership won all of the elected positions and has remained the political party in power every since (receiving over 80% of the vote in the last election). The political leadership has respected established term limits and there have been multiple peaceful changes in leadership. But all of the leadership has come from former SWAPO freedom fighters, including the current president. It is equivalent to having the U.S. founder fathers still alive. So, Namibia is essentially a one-party democracy. Below are statues of some of the other founding fathers.

Locally, the United States is viewed as have been on the wrong side of history and government relations are on the cooler side. But, the locals show no hostility to Americans and we have been well received and treated. As you can see, Namibia history is complicated and is best represented by a nearby road intersection of Fidel Castro Blvd. and Bismark Strasse.

View of the Parliament Building 

View Looking Out Towards Windhoek from Parliament Building

The National Museum has a nice restaurant on the top floor with some of the best views in Windhoek.

Krist Kurche from Top of the Museum

Can actually see our apartment building behind the large white building

Rehoboth

Yesterday we drove about 100 km south of Windhoek to the village of Rehoboth. This is not a normal tourist stop so there are no pictures of tourist things. It was an interesting drive.

First, as we had just climbed the hills south of Windhoek and were cruising down the highway (the major highway in Namibia--a two lane sealed road), we passed a highway sign that baboons were climbing on. There was a troop along side the road. We are obviously getting used to Africa, because we simply said "Oh look at the baboons on the highway sign." It didn't even seem that out of the norm.

The scenery was wonderful. It reminded us of spring in Nevada or southern Utah. Simply beautiful rock formations with distant mountain views.

The solitary tree standing about the rest is a Shepard's tree. They are all over the landscape.

I am really starting to appreciate the beauty of this country.

Just for a bit of information on Rehoboth:  Rehoboth is just barely north of the Tropic of Capricorn. This area was settled in 1871 by the Basters, a mixed race of the Dutch and Nama people. They left the Cape town area under pressure from the Boer settlers. There are about 35,000 Basters in the area. They mainly work livestock. The town itself was nothing unusual. It did, however, really emphasis the inequality and poverty of almost half of the population of Namibia. We took a few pictures of some of the houses. 

There were several homes without plumbing as witnessed by the outhouses. 

This home actually had electricity and windows. 

I do not want to give the impression that this is how everyone in Africa lives. There were also nice homes made of cinder block with plaster-like covering. While not fancy, they are standard middle class homes with modern features. Here you are either in the upper 50% that makes a decent living wage that allows you to support your family, or you are in the 50% that live in extreme poverty. 

We also drove up to a Lake Oanab Resort. This is one of the few places in the interior of the country that has water sports. It is on a lake formed by the Oanob damn. While not as nice as the resort we camped at last weekend, the lake is really nice and they have a couple of speed boats for tubing, paddle boats, and canoeing. We figured the grandkids would love it here. 

They also had a small collection of parrots and birds. 

Along the road, both last weekend and yesterday, we keep seeing these big "bugs?" scurrying across the road. They are about 3" long. We snapped a picture this week.

Bruce did some research and found out they are long legged Armoured Katydids. I was relieved when they had six legs. I thought they might by some kind of spider. There is always something new to see!

Weekend Part 2

The next morning we had originally planned to head up to Otjwarongo and visit the Cheetah Conservation Fund. However, we rethought the idea because we did not want to be under tight time restrictions when we go there. So we decided to stay closer to Okahandja and visit a private game reserve called Erindi. This private park is over 70,700 ha of wilderness and would be our first real introduction to the savannah and pans of Africa. They cater to tourists and have over 15,000 animals including all the big 5, hippo, hyena, etc. We reserved a game drive for 10:00 and left to drive the 40km to the park around 8:30, thinking we would have plenty of time. However, we did not count on the conditions of the dirt roads. It has been raining a lot, at least in African standards, the last two months. The road was a mess with washouts and washboard bumps.

Driving down a good part of the road.

It took us until almost 11:00 to reach the reserve and then had another 25 km to reach the lodge. About an hour into the drive to the lodge, we turned around because of the road conditions. Lesson learned: Off the main road (note I said road as in singular, not plural) driving conditions can be difficult and take much longer than you anticipate. We have a small SUV with good clearance and it performed well, but next time we decide to travel on a gravel road, we will rent a more sturdy 4 wheel drive. Even with the difficulty, it was still a good trip. Of course we missed the guided game drive, but we did manage to see along the road:

Not sure what bird this is. It is about 4 ft. tall and was running around a rancher's fenced in pasture. Just in--Bruce has done some research and thinks this might be a bustard.

A really big bird nest. You would think looking at this that it would be fitting for some kind of prehistoric gigantic bird, but it is actually a pretty small bird that makes this nest. A social weaver bird is only about 5 inches long. This is a communal nest that they build. They do not require any water, getting all they need from the insects they eat. 

Found in middle of the road. He did not seem to happy when I moved him off to the side. Doesn't look much like a road does it?

A large troop of baboons. I am starting to get the impression that the baboon is the raccoon of Africa--a noisy, get into everything annoyance. They are bigger than they seem in the picture and have some pretty hefty fangs. You don't want to mess with an adult one. 

Quiver trees or in Afrikaans: kokerboom  They are a member of the aloe family.

When was the last time you saw an elephant crossing sign?

Wilda beasts

More giraffes. I still think they are so cool when they pop their heads up about the trees.

Impala

And our first zebra.

Another lesson learned: You can find wildlife everywhere in Namibia. Yes, we have yet to see elephants, lions, aardvarks, rhinos and many other African animals. But we have not been to Etosha or even more than 150 km outside of Windhoek. We have not paid any money to go on a safari or game drive. I know at some point we will, because we want to be able to experience them all. But we are happy in finding the natural landscape, floral and fauna of Namibia that is out there for all to see by just driving or hiking around. This is an amazing place and we are so blessed to be able to experience it. 

The ending of the experience is a bit of a downer. We arrived home to find our power out in the apartment. (Ran around the neighbors handing out frozen meat so it would be used instead of going to waste.) The electrician can in today and found that the water heater in the bathroom is faulty, causing the main breaker to trip. He turned off the power to that water heater, so we have power to the rest of the apartment, but until a plumber shows up, it looks like cold showers for us. I'm ready to go back to the tent!

Camping trip

It has been a busy weekend. We decided to go camping. I know, I know. I said never again a few years ago, but this African camp, Omatozu Game Park, convinced me to try camping again. We reserved a tent and headed out early Saturday morning. The camp is just about 25 km north of the town of Okahondja, and took us about  2 hours to get there. The drive was nice, Traffic was light and we got to finally see something besides city. Here are the pictures of the camp ground.

pool house

Main lodge

Ceiling of main lodge

Light in lodge. It was a wire basket with roots! So cool.

Dinning area

View of water hole from lodge

I hope you can see that it was very nice. Then they showed us our "tent".

Outside

Inside!

 I like having a king size bed in a tent. It beats a sleeping bag. It also had air conditioning and a complete modern bathroom in the back complete with a shower, toilet, vanity and even a hair dryer. I decided I could do this kind of camping, A three course steak dinner and a hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, yogurt, cereal, bread, salami, juice was also included. The complete cost of this "rustic" camping experience--N$1,800 or about $140.00 US. We thought it was a pretty good deal. Since this is the low season, we were the only ones there. It was like having our own private wait staff. It felt a bit strange, but we did get excellent service. 

On top of it all...

It is also a game farm. This simply means that in addition to running the ranch with cattle, the owners have worked to co-exsist with the native animals. We saw...

Impala

Tower of giraffes 

Termite mounds surrounded by bitter aloe plants.

Dung beetles. They were kind of gross, but at the same time fascinating. We watched them for quite a while.

Baby puma....

And mommy.

Just one of many birds. We also heard them throughout our stay, Many of them are very noisy little critters..


 We also saw onyx and a very small antelope but were unable to get pictures of them. Walking around the farm, we saw many footprints that we tried to identify. One really stumped us. It looked like a paw print of a larger cat, maybe cheetah or lion in size, but only had three toes and a pad. Cats have four toes and a pad. Birds have three toes, but no pads. So we don't know if it was a deformed cat,  an abnormally fat toed ostrich. or maybe a giant hare walking on tip toe. We debated all the options and came up empty.

We left the campground and went into the town of Okahondja. It is known for its wood carvings. On both sides of the town there are rows of little tin sheds where local craftsmen sell their wares. They had some beautiful things. We got so caught up in looking at everything, that we forgot to take pictures. I am sure we will go back and recommend it to any visitors. It is well worth a couple of hours of time. I purchased a lovely iron wood carving of a woman's head, a pair of giraffe bookends and this amazing little, about 4", beehive basket. Hurrah! I now have some decorations in my living room. The artists were amazing to talk to.

At the end of the day there was a stunning sunset over the watering hole.

That was day one.

Stay tune for day two posting tomorrow.