Arjen Westra’s African Weblog

On my trip through Namibia’s Caprivi Strip, I stopped at a small coffee joint to satisfy my caffeine-needs. In the end, I am still a Dutch. It was not my first time that I visited this small place in one of the poorest areas of beautiful Namibia. The type of area where people die of malaria because they can’t find transport to the nearest hospital or can’t spend two dollar to safe their own baby’s life. On the outside, nothing had changed. Still the dark orange/brown red-earthy color. Inside still the slow service and the super friendly girl who looks like she doesn’t need anybody as a customer today. Yes: everything looked as usual: I was even happy with the absence of Take Away Coffees. The mugs are on the way, like two years ago, I was told. But I observed something new there in the far dark corner and it made me angry, actually: it made me mad. I saw two gambling machines. I asked who had put these things there, at first nobody could tell me. I noticed the Russian signs and buttons on these what must once have been flashy and bling-blinging Mokba-one-armed-bandits. I could almost smell the wodka. After asking around a bit, some guys told me that a white guy had put them there and someone from the Ministry of Finance was the owner. Now that is what I call development! I took my instant coffee. Outside I found these young guys begging, hiding their small glue bottles in their hands when you approached them and I imagined how the future for these guys would look like if the gambling machines would be connected soon. The locals seemed not very interested in the machines. Some of them told me that all in a lot of shebeens (local ‘drinking places’ ) these machines had been placed recently. I want to stop here and leave the cynical thinking up to the cynics. Hope to meet you on the road! Have a nice day! And keep exploring!

Been a kind of offline (moving in and out almost every country between Kenya and South Africa)in the past months, collecting stories from Africans telling about their lives, their frustrations and most of all: their dreams. I met fishermen on the Cape who are not allowed to fish and had to flee into crime and drugs, I met beachboys in Mombasa who in order to be more succesfull with a muzungu lady, are planning to visit a witch doctor ‘before the season starts’ to get a black magic battery in their wallet, and i talked to Tanzanians being frustrated about the fact that the country’s mining profits are disappearing abroad, other Tanzanians who believe that they can make a difference by starting a business and treating their employees in a human way by paying them a normal salary and treating them as human beings (soemthing you could not always say about so called decent companies in Africa., On the road i talked to Zambians that use chili to keep away the elephants from their village, to Kenians that keep hope for a better future although the new Grand Coalition Government cannot take away the impression that they are as clean as they pretent to be and to Namibians that are happy that there is no solution in Zimabwe ‘The money used to go to Zimbabwe but now the countries around (Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia) get some investment too… Look: none of the neighbouring countries are doing bad, in fact they are very fine.’ Stories will be available for my appreciated customers in Netherlands and Belgium.

Shortly you will find more grassroot audio and pictures online. Owners of an iPod: since a few months you can subscribe to the Official Africareporter.net Audiopodcast. Please subscribe by clicking this link iTunes users can go to the Itunes StorePodcast directory. Search for “Africareporter” and subscribe. Alernatively, you could visit this website: Podcast Directory But the best option for anybody is this link: Africareporter.net Podcast Enjoy. Comments and request are welcome! See you on the road!
Ok, enjoy your day, full of nice audio and pictures!
[mygal=africatravel]

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That is the name I gave to this small community of Himba people in Namibia’s Northwest where is just passed some days ago. Probabely the only Himba-community with a white female Minister of Finance. Himba’s are to Namibia what the Maasai are to Kenya and Tanzania and Bushmen to Southern Africa. The difference in Namibia is that white ‘native’ people talk about their fellow nationals the San and the Himba in a very strange way: just as if the white nationals are superior to the natives. AIt seems to be a trend among whites in Southern Africa to do something good. And that is also how a lot of these white well-do’ers behave: We are doing something GOOD. Look how GOOD I am. And i have to believe how GOOD they are of course. I ran into a white lady who ‘adopted’ this small community of Himba people, when according to the lady they came to her with the question if they could stay on her land. The lady said yes, you are welcome. Her motive, how could i even think it would not be, was very noble: helping these poor Himba-people who are, in fact and according to the lady ‘very normal people’. It took the lady a lot of effort to ‘help this Himba’s stop drinking’ and she almost cried, I had the impression. I almost felt like offering a tissue, when she was talking about HER Himba’s and the pain SHE had gone through to make them adjust their behaviour (to what?). Now every day in the tourist high season, the small community gets ‘more than five trucks with guests a day’. Every tourist pays 100 Rand to visit (approximately 10 euro’s). That is an average turnover of 750 euro a day, or more than 5000 euro a week. When I asked the lady what’s in it for the Himba’s, she told me: ‘…everything is for them and I am the one buying food for them, I know exactly what they need, and exactly how much they need of it. The rest of the money goes in an account. I am their Minister of Finance and decide what happens with the money.’ I fully understood, of course. Who wouldn’t? On a yearly basis, that is more than 240.000 euro, for this 20 head community of mais-eating Himba’s. Interesting he? This has been going on for years, that’s why I would call these people The Himba Millionaires. I did not find a nick name for the lady, who truly is a VERY NORMAL lady of the white tribe of WEDO’s (Well do’ers). Any suggestions are welcome! Pictures are clickable! Much better! [mygal=himba]

Sand, sun. Endless space. Sweat dripping from my chin. This the area where Bushman or San survive. High un-employment and more than average number of Aids orphans. Chinese, yes, even here in the middle of nowhere are opening their trade centers. There plans to give them agri cultural land some 200 kilometer more north east from here in Rundu. Amazing thing and quit anachronistic: gprs is working, so it did this posting with my mobile.