Windy In Windhoek
The Otjari Hostel sits comfortably on a hill overlooking the modern city of Windhoek. It is blue sky city. The air is clean and the sun shines all day. But all is not well in paradise. The high metal railings and barbed wire that surround most properties, the security guards outside many shops, hostel alarms and warnings that the hostel was being targeted by criminals (there had been a break-in the previous week) would could have scared the living daylights out of any of us. We must walk to the shops in groups, treat every stranger as a potential mugger and question the motives of anyone who dareds to say hello. It would take a little while to relax and take the same precautions as if you were walking the street s of East London, though the British social security system denies London thieves the excuse of abject poverty. I may be stupid, but if I had to be mugged, and I never wish to be, I would rather the dreadful deed were done by someone trying to prevent his family from dying than by a drug-crazed yob who might blow it on the latest rap album or a gram of crack cocaine.
Early Sunday morning found us taking the guide book tour of the city. The streets were practically deserted and the few cars would toot their horns and wave at us. How friendly, I thought , and waved back. Obviously, anyone with half a brain cell would have realized that these were taxis touting for business.
Walking down Independence Avenue was like walking along the High Street of any Western city, smart shops, interspersed with older architecture and a few statues of former heroes long, and often deservedly, forgotten. But wait. Here’s an installation of old rocks. They are meteorites, part of a shower that hit the Namib desert millions of years ago. This is something that Oxford Street doesn’t have. Also, where on the Champs Elysées would you happen upon the fossilised head of an elephant set on a plinth to mark the place of an ancient elephant cemetery?
We climbed the hill to the Christus kirche and watched smartly dressed Germans carrying, not beach towels, but Bibles, walk soberly through the main door. The thought of an hour or so of unrelenting German at such an early time in the morning, admittedly broken up by a beautiful Bach chorale or two, was enough to stop us following them. Instead, we headed for the neighbouring Parliament Building and watched the many black lizards with spotted yellow heads sun themselves on the low walls.
By the fountain on the lush lawns the statue of Charlie Chaplin turned out not to be the British-born actor but one of the founding fathers of Namibia. Reassured by this, we headed down the hill towards the President’s house. This was a low, unassuming bungalow that might have belonged to your retired , admittedly well-heeled grandparents. It was here that Georgina was nearly shot as a potential insurgent. I’d always suspected she had a double life, a female James Bond, Jane Bond, I suppose. She couldn’t resist the impulse to cross the road and peer through the imposing gates like an innocent tourist.
She hadn’t reached the cats’ eyes in the middle of the road (if there had been any) when, “Hey, you” yelled a gruff voice. We spun around to see a sweating gorilla of a soldier pointing his submachine gun directly at Georgina. Had I been the slightest bit chivalrous or even had my wits about me I should have thrown myself between Georgina and the soldier to take the bullets. Fortunately, I was neither of these and stood frozen to the spot, my life flashing before my eyes. I’d just got to early adolescence when,
“I just wanted a peep through the gates,” I heard Georgina plead.
“You can’t do that,” said the soldier, eyeing her for grenades hidden beneath her clothing. Fortunately, her contours were such that they would immediately display the slightest unusual bump, though she may have successfully have concealed them about her upper person.
“It’s not like Buckingham Palace, then?”
The soldier looked bemused and grunted nervously, his trigger finger twitching uncontrollably.
Georgina inched carefully to the right side of the road, smiling in the most sincere way she knew how. The soldier’s gaze followed her every movement as we carefully progressed down the hill and moved out of the soldier’s range of vision.