Hayestack

Just as in Israel at the time of the birth of Jesus, everyone in Rundu travels at Christmas.  It’s not that  we need to be registered for taxation, it’s just too hot here. At times the mercury hits the forties.

Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, we are going to Bloemfontein.  This is the legislative capital of South Africa, sitting smack bang in the middle of the country and is the home of our dear friends, Kathleen and John.  Funnily enough, there is a small town called Bethlehem just up the road, but we will not visit it as the inns will probably be full, i.e. no room at.

We are sitting on the forecourt of the Engen Filling Station at 10pm with Mary (see "The African Church") waiting for the Intercape Bus to take us to Windhoek and then on to South Africa.  We are advised to sit where it is light as people lose their luggage in the shadows around the corner.  Mary has completed her 3 years as a missionary in Namibia and is on her way home to Weymouth.  She hates travelling alone, so the fact that we are on the same bus as far as Windhoek can either be seen as, a) coincidence, or, b) God’s design.  Personally, I favour b).

Eventually, the brightly-lit, double-decker coach looms into view and we snuggle down for our overnight ride to Windhoek.  Only an aeroplane seat is less comfortable for sleeping and it is only sheer exhaustion that eventually renders me unconscious.  Georgina, who falls asleep before any vehicle has gone more than half a mile, has been snoozing for hours.  The bus makes a comfort stop at every 24 hour garage on the route whether we want it or not.  it has been designed (no doubt and very wisely) for someone with an acute case of diarrhoea. Or, maybe, the driver just wants a cigarette? Those of us with stronger constitutions groan as we pull into yet another garage and stumble, zombie-like off the bus and towards the nearest convenience.  The forecourt is instantly transformed into the set of  "The Night of the Living Dead". Georgina stays asleep.  How does she do that? 

We roll into Windhoek at 7.30 in the morning  and stop at the minimalist central bus station.  It is so minimalist the casual observer might think it’s just an empty car park.  In fact, it is just an empty car park, but does boast a public convenience in one corner, not that we need it after all those stops.  Our connection to Upington leaves at 6.30 this evening so we have the whole day in Windhoek.   We get plenty of amused looks as we stagger along Independence Avenue to the VSO office.  I have a huge rucksack tied to my back (Georgina insists I do up all the straps around my waist and chest, and I always forget to undo at least one when trying to take it off, with the consequence that I have to squirm and wrestle with the damn thing before it will let me go).  Also, I have a couple of large bags hanging from my neck giving me the appearance of being prematurely stooped. Georgina is dragging along her rucksack on wheels and grappling with a variety of carrier bags.  She looks for all the world like the archetypal "bag-lady".  Together we must resemble ageing hippies on our way to a music festival.  Peace and Love, man. We dump our bags at the VSO office and try to straighten up.  We creak and groan.  We have each lost at least an inch in height. 

The British have the dubious honour of having invented the concentration camp during the wars in South Africa.  However, was the Germans who transformed them into the evil instruments of terror that they became.  One of their earliest ,the "Alte Feste", can be found on the hill overlooking central Windhoek, near the Parliament building and just down the road from the President’s Palace.  It was here that the German colonists imprisoned the Herero trouble-makers who, for some reason, objected to having their land stolen and the genocide of their people.  Outside is the prominent statue of a German soldier on horse back celebrating their victory over the native peoples.  It is a wonder  that this monument to colonial repression and cruelty hasn’t been blown up years ago.  Namibians must be unusually tolerant and forgiving.

We try the railway museum.  It is situated in Windhoek station with the entrance on the south side.  The sun at midday is directly above us.  Like Peter Pan, we have no shadow.  We  climb the winding stair to reception.  It should be open but there is a metal gate barring our way.  We ring the bell.  No reply.  We ring again.  No reply.  Maybe the receptionist has had a heart attack?  We peer into the entrance hall but see no body.  Maybe this museum doesn’t like visitors?  Some don’t. We tramp down the stairs and go away.

We head for the smart shopping mall at the end of Post Street.  As I pass the installation comprising 12 or so meteorites  I notice that the person walking beside me is not Georgina but a disheveled and less than fragrant young man.  His hair is unkempt and he has a strange look in his watery eyes.  He is walking too close to me and I begin to feel distinctly uneasy.  He tells me he has just been let out of a mental hospital.  He needs the fare to get home.  His bus leaves in half an hour. Could I give him some money?  I turn around and see Georgina lagging behind pretending to look in a shop window.  I lead the madman away.  No need for us both to be knifed.  Peering out of the corner of my eye, I see no weapon about his person but his demeanour yells "unpredictable" at me.  Resorting to the last refuge of a scoundrel, I decide to tell him the truth.  "I have no spare cash to give you".  Our trip is already testing available resources.  "I take euros, rand, anything" he tells me.  This beggar runs an international outfit.  Would he take Mastercard?  I speed up.  He speeds up.  I slow down. He slows down. A limpet could not have been more tenacious.  And all the time he is explaining to me why I should give him money.  He favours euros.  He wants me to give him euros.  Are they strong this week?  He must know something I don’t, or, maybe he really is just mad? We reach the mall entrance.  The guard gives him a knowing look and he disappears into the crowd.

We go to visit Kentucky Fried Chicken to kill time.  We were nearly drawn into King Pie, which has many establishments, but Colonel Sanders wins the day.  We could have gone to Hungry Lion, the African equivalent of Macdonald’s, but we would have had to cross the main road and we now have our bags back.  Sadly, it is too much effort.

We take a window seat and after spending 10 minutes moaning about the paucity of the portions, we sit and watch the behaviour of the street beggars outside.  They merge with the passing crowd and at first glance you may not know they are there.  They have targeted the entrance to KFC and are hunting as a co-operative group.  The first boy accosts a young man leaving with a take-away.  It may be fast food, but this young man is not fast enough.  He momentarily hesitates and the young beggar senses a kill.  He follows the young man down the street digging deeply into his not inconsiderable resources of persuasion.  They are followed at a distance by a straggler who, unsuccessful at making first kills himself, hopes to benefit from anything that is left over.

This leaves the way open to beggar number two who has already been summarily brushed off by his first mark and is stalking another.  The attack fails.  The woman does not even acknowledge the predator’s presence as she marches smartly away.  This is how we will leave, though our bags will slow us down.  In the meantime, we are safe inside  since there is a security guard at the entrance who, though half asleep and looking thoroughly bored, by his very presence is keeping the beggars out.  It is time for us to go.  We hitch up our bags and gird up our loins.  I give my wing support a brief briefing. We know the enemy is outside, camouflaged and waiting for us.  With courage and determination we shall withstand all assaults and win through to a glorious day of victory and liberty.  We shall not tire nor be deflected from our purpose.  A bus is waiting for us and we shall not let it down.  With a steadfast smile of encouragement we open the door and wing our way into ambush alley.  In an instant we are facing a direct onslaught.  "Give me some money" comes the opening salvo.  I veer to one side and the words go over my head.  I open up the throttle but chummy is light and manoeuvrable.  His is a newer model and unencumbered by baggage.  He slips from my right flank to my left releasing one volley after another as he pursues me down the street.  His aim is good but he incurs no serious damage.  We maintain speed and height and surge on regardless.  He sees his attack is failing and breaks off.  I reduce speed  for Georgina and we reestablish group formation.  "Give me a dollar,"  A goon emerges from my blind spot out of the sun.  I did not see him coming.  Only evasive manoeuvres can help us now.  I dive behind a telegraph pole and skim a line of parked cars.  Chummy falls back to avoid collision but clings to my tail strafing me mercilessly.  I try to pick up speed but my engine splutters and threatens to stall.  I am about to enter a free-fall dive.  I can see the ground racing up towards me.  But no, my plugs spark back to life and I shoot forward.  My pursuer has no heart for the struggle and backs off.  I see a new wave of goons crossing the road to my right but they have another target in their sights.  We are free and our victory is in our grasp.

We are the first ones on the bus and get the front seat.  The engine is off and the upper deck is rapidly turning into a sauna.  Passengers are congregating outside and I see the madman who had accosted me earlier outside the mall.  He is carefully selecting his marks, young, female and friendly. He must have changed his tactics as I was none of these.  His fictional bus would have gone 2 hours previously.

I peruse the people chatting in the car park.  There is a lady in a green dress with 2 blue parrots standing one on each shoulder.  They are so still they must be stuffed.  No, they move their heads. They seem happy on their perches and make no attempt to escape.  There are no shrieks of "Pieces of Eight", but surely, this must be Mrs Long John Silver.  Admittedly, she does have 2 legs, but, there again, she does have 2 parrots. 

The town of Tsumeb was the location for the second part of VSO training. It is an old copper mining town about 2 hours drive from Rundu and is a tiny version of Windhoek. This old German town has green lawns, smart shops, pavements and even traffic lights. One of the more charming characteristics of this place is that there is very little traffic. I stood in the middle of Main Street at 5.30pm on a Saturday afternoon and there was not a vehicle to be seen in either direction, not even parked. In any other town I would have been flattened in seconds. Most of the time it is a ghost town but comes alive at midday when the shop workers take their lunch break and loll against the walls or sit on the pavements. Several cars can then be seen congesting the road. I once saw a queue of three cars at the lights in the centre of town. No doubt the town authorities will bring in a congestion charge if it gets worse. At least, I think the lights are traffic lights, though they seem to serve no real purpose as the traffic is so light. The alternative explanation is that they are the Christmas lights left over from last year. They are bunched in groups facing all directions and are seen at best advantage from the exact centre of the junction. I stood there one evening (there was no danger as there was no traffic) and watched spell-bound as they twinkled at me like lights on a Christmas tree. It was all I could do to stop myself from bursting into a verse of “Hark the Herald Angels sing”.

We were reunited with the other new volunteers full of new experiences and enthusiasm (Oh, to be young again). They are scattered around north Namibia, mostly in places with names beginning with “O” that are totally forgettable. They all loved their jobs, the people and the country.

Our VSO leaders had the best rooms in the best hotel in town. The rooms led off a small courtyard shaded by luxuriant flowering shrubs and overhanging trees in which the swimming pool was situated. A stone sculpture, reminiscent of an Italian villa stood next to the pool. We, the volunteers were destined for self-catering bungalows but the first of our group to arrive were horrified, designated them a “gulag” and refused to stay there. Consequently, we were booked into the second best hotel in town. This was still pretty good luxury and every time I had a hot shower, a huge breakfast, lunch and dinner, I mentally thanked all those VSO donors who had given their precious money to make this luxury possible for us. Admittedly, this was an exceptional circumstance, but in the interests of solidarity and not wishing to squander meagre resources on such opulent living, maybe VSO staff should have been prepared to join us in cheaper accommodation. This, however, would have gone against Namibian/African culture where the few at the top get to spend foreign donations on conferences in the best venues, with expensive accommodation and meals while the great majority at the bottom eke out a meagre existence on “pap” (maize meal) in a mud hut. I have heard it argued, by people who should know better, that this sort of thing is understandable as Namibia is a young country (18 years) and still developing. We should be more understanding when they squander on luxury money that could have helped alleviate poverty. But hey, that’s teenagers all over, isn’t it?

We walked around the Cultural Village Museum exhibiting a variety of huts made by different tribes. Those of us with open sandals became suddenly aware that they were being eaten by ants. Some managed to find a rock to stand on out of their way, but most of us jumped up and down, stamping our feet to shake off the painful creatures. Having seen a few African dances, I am convinced that this was how they started. When you stamp your feet you automatically spread out your arms to keep balance. All you then need is a young man with loads of energy to expend, thrashing the living daylights out of a drum, and you have an authentic African dance. Try it, unless you have a weak heart and/or don’t want to look like an idiot.

It’s good to stamp in Africa. One of the volunteers trod on a scorpion without realising it during the lecture on land reform. The rest of us had fallen asleep. It was the only exciting thing that happened that afternoon.

Have you ever lain in bed in a semi conscious state and gradually become aware of a persistent sound in the background that you feel you’ve been listening to forever? A semi conscious state is my natural milieu. Some are born zombie, some achieve zombie and some have zombie thrust upon them. I am definitely in the second category. It was all my own work, in fact, my life’s achievement. Ask me what I did yesterday and I wouldn’t have a clue. See, zombie. In fact, Karin (our intrepid, Dutch house mate) asked me if I’d had a good morning. My mind was blank. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I had done that morning (zombie). In my defense, it transpired that I had done nothing. “It’s senile dementia,” you will be thinking. No. I’ve always had it. Is there such a thing as juvenile dementia? Can brain cells die when they’ve never been used?

As I was saying, if I can remember that far back, the night in question, I was falling into a deeper state of unconsciousness, (commonly called sleep) when my unused brain cells became aware of a persistent sound in the background. It was not an unpleasant sound, such as howling mongrels or cock crowing, so I let it be. But it did not go away. It sounded as though it was coming from a neighbouring garden so it was nothing to do with me. It was not my responsibility. I fancied it sounded like crackling flames. Someone must be having a midnight bonfire. But there was no smell of smoke. This was unusual because even when nobody is having a bonfire in Rundu the air smells of wood smoke, which in itself is not unpleasant, putting you in mind of a) delicious braai, b) roasting chestnuts c) Guy Fawkes, take your pick. It definitely sounded like fire. If our neighbour’s house was not burning down then maybe ours was? This thought was more than usually motivating and, clothed only in the cloak of night (tropical nights are very balmy), I peeked out of our bedroom door.

Bats have very sensitive directional antennae. They can fly through a forest without hitting a tree. When was the last time you found a dead bat lying at the foot of a tree? [QED] I have never particularly wanted to be a bat. Black is so passé nowadays. Just thought, that would have made me Batman, no? Cool. Anyway, I could have used the bat’s keen auditory abilities that night. The fire was at the front door; no, in the garage; yes, the garage. But there were no flames dancing merrily through the garage window and no smell of smoke. I listened again. It could be a waterfall. Had the rains begun already? My last remaining brain cell woke up. What was in the garage apart from beer bottles, boxes, Linda’s car and a pile of spare parts which had cost her a fortune to replace? (She’d already, and very honestly, warned us against buying her car.) The hot water tank, of course. It must be spewing its contents all over Linda’s car. Well, at least she’ll have a clean car. I lifted the garage door and a blast of hot air hit me. It was like entering a sauna. All our precious hot water was being dumped onto the garage floor. It didn’t even have the decency to land on Linda’s car. But even Linda, the next morning found enough hot water to have a shower. But isn’t that the way in Africa? Disaster might strike and it often does, but by some miracle or quirk of fate things seem to work out ok in the end. I don’t understand it but long may it last.

I went shopping today. This is not exactly news as I go shopping most days. Today, however, was different. I have given up looking out of the window in the morning and wondering what the weather will be like as it is hot and sunny most days. The days when it is not hot and sunny it is sunny and hot. I am not yet fed-up of this as I am still making up for a life time of sun deprivation. But when I ventured out of doors this morning the sky looked different. It was still blue but today there were some white, wispy things up there. I haven’t seen one for a long time but I think they call them clouds. There are two periods of rain in Namibia, the little rain and the big rain. The little rain occurs mid October and the big rain at the end of December. It was 1^st October today, so the little rain is imminent. Georgina and I are only equipped for the little rain as we only have a little umbrella. When the big rains come we are going to get wet.

The clouds were premature. It has not rained today. The only wet I became today was from my own sweat dripping onto my neck and trickling down my back. Had I stayed out any longer, the trickle was in danger of becoming a raging torrent.

Shopping recently has become a life and death experience, quite literally. Rundu has opened a new shopping mall, small, compact and boasting a brand new escalator. It has opened for business but they are still building it. To by a loaf of bread you have to enter a building site, and without a hard hat. Avoid the piles of bricks and dumper trucks. Weave your way around the scaffolding and pray that the workmen above you don’t drop a brick or piece of scaffolding on your head. Don’t look up or you will lose your footing on the polished marble ramp which, I suspect is Rundu’s substitute for a ski piste. Try as it might, I don’t think Rundu will ever be in contention to host the Winter Olympics. I inadvertently tried out the ski slope this morning and nearly fell on my first attempt. I was spared any serious injury (no bruising to my first attempt) apart from the horror of hearing the peanut butter jar crash against the marble ramp and realising the eggs were in the same bag. Miraculously, nothing was broken, though the peanut butter seems crunchier now.

Once you are in the mall the only other danger is from high prices. Food prices seem comparable to those in the UK, the choice isn’t as big and the quality isn’t as good. I suspect the managers ring Mr Sainsbury everyday to find out what he is charging. The shelves are fully stocked but this may be because no-one can afford to buy anything. Stealing isn’t an option either if you were that way inclined. To leave the shop you have to negotiate what can only be described as a tight line of riot police who will study your receipt, inspect your bags, eye you up suspiciously and only let you out if everything checks out. If you buy nothing you will be frisked. This, I suspect, may not be an altogether unpleasant experience for some, but Marguerite was outraged the other day when an overzealous guard wanted to see inside her handbag.

“I have come here to help this crazy country, yet you treat us like criminals.” She protested.

But all the stores are the same. They are all rife with crime and that’s only the prices they charge. Two new supermarkets have opened in the last month so competition may push prices down unless they, too, have a hotline to Mr Sainsbury. I am not holding my breath.

The most exciting thing about the mall is the escalator (I can’t believe I said that – my life must have become very sad). But it is a very versatile escalator. When I saw it the other day it was full of joy riders and they were going up. Today it was empty and the direction of travel was down. There are not yet any shops on the upper level so the escalator’s use is purely for pleasure. You can tell the escalator virgins as they have not yet realised that hands and feet have to be co-ordinated. One without the other spells disaster but great entertainment for any onlooker. One brave lady, the other day grabbed hold of the handrail as though her life depended upon it, but her feet let her down at the last minute. She was practically sprawled on the steps before her feet decided to join her. Her 2 children looked on aghast as if this monster was devouring their mother. It was not enough, however, to stop them trying out the novelty for themselves. Don’t mock. We were like this once.

This will probably be a short entry as I shall probably fall asleep over my computer. The reason is simple. Throughout every night we are subjected to the deafening cacophony of a hundred Baskerville hounds seemingly baying for our blood. The effect is spine-chillingly awful. It can start with one puppy spluttering over a chicken bone and within seconds the whole of Rundu resounds to the howls of huge packs of pseudo wolves. They snarl and threaten each other. “You want a piece of me, you come and get me”. And they often do. One place for carving each other up seems to be just outside our bedroom window, and given the fact that there is no glass in it, just fine mosquito net and a few slats, a savage fight can sound alarmingly near. I have not dared put on the light in case they are actually in the bedroom.

Almost as annoying is the irritation felt at seeing these very same dogs the next morning stretched out under a shady tree snoozing the daylight hours away so that they can stop us sleeping at night. Rose took us on a tour of Rundu in her car. We passed many dozing dogs. “Swerve to the left,” I urged as we approached one, but Rose could not be prevailed upon to decrease the dog population by a measly one. Neither should revenge tempt you to give a dozing dog a hefty kick up the north pole. This is rabies country, after all. Let sleeping dogs lie. What puzzles me, though, is, if Africans are prepared to eat dog, then why are there still so many of them around? They are a good source of nutrients and they probably taste as good as a steak. Eat more dog is what I say.

Then the cocks start crowing. Don’t believe these creatures only crow at dawn. I can personally vouch for the fact that, given half a chance they will crow all through the night. There is a cock a few houses away. Its call is answered by one a quarter of a mile down the road, then by one a quarter of a mile further on and so on until the sound of the cock reached Windhoek seven hundred miles away. Georgina assures me that when her grandfather kept cocks he would put them overnight in a coop where the ceiling was so low the cocks couldn’t stretch out their necks to crow. Ignore the connotations of medieval torture. This sounds like a good idea.

In the rare and, oh so brief, moments of silence in the night I can hear something prowling in the garden. It sounds as if it has the weight and dimensions of a gorilla. It can’t be John the gardener as he only comes on Mondays and Thursdays. What it is and what it’s doing I do not and don’t wish to know. Besides, Georgina is safely between me and the window, so I snuggle down under my mosquito net choosing to ignore that a rampant primate would make short work of a flimsy bit of lace.

A new horror has emerged to destroy any chance of a goodnight’s sleep. Yesterday, a couple were married next door. Part of the tradition is to ensure that anyone within a one mile radius gets no sleep that night. They easily achieve this with what sounds like a hundred African drummers a choir of a thousand well versed in African chants and excessively loud ululations. You have to remember that our windows are neither double nor even single glazed. This facilitates the sounds travelling directly from their drums and voices to our ears with no let or hindrance. After 2 hours your brain begins to throb. After 4 you are on the verge of insanity. After 6, your thoughts turn to bloody murder. Each of our gardens in this part of town has a large and substantial air raid shelter plonked in the middle of it to protect the population against Angolan shelling during the regional uprising a few years ago. Contrary to popular belief, they were not shelling Namibia for helping their enemies in the war but, I believe, to stop the nightly cacophony of dogs, cocks and weddings. Unfortunately, they did not succeed.

If you go further north than Rundu you will find yourself in Angola. This is not to be advised as Angola is still covered in landmines. At any rate you would first have to negotiate the hippo and crocodile infested Okavango River. Only yesterday I was told of a girl who went walking along the river bank and was never seen again. The police were called and they concluded she was taken by crocodile. They will grab a limb, drag you into deep water, barrel roll until you are helpless or drowned, then devour you. The thing to do, apparently, and I will perfect this technique, is to cling onto the croc so that you spin with it, meanwhile sticking your fingers into its eyes. If it does not release you, lift up its tongue so that water enters its lungs and is in danger of drowning. If you have the presence of mind to do this you will survive with just a bitten limb. However, I know of only one instance when this technique has been successful. So, I suppose the moral has to be don’t go near crocodile rivers and banks. Unfortunately for us the Okavango is a prime site for recreation and pleasure. Only the other day we watched a sensational African sunset whilst walking along the river bank.Fortunately we saw no crocodiles.

Our first impression of Rundu was that it was built on a beach and was designed by a recalcitrant class of “A” level geometry students (ie. It has form, but no meaning). It is a town of right angles. Go north and you will reach the river (watch out for the crocs). Go east/west and you are parallel to the river. It has recently developed from a one horse to a two horse town. Soon, due to road development between Namibia and Angola it will be a town of a herd of stallions. At the moment it is building a new shopping mall. Though this will in no way rival Lakeside or Bluewater, it does have its own escalator. At the moment the locals step on and off gingerly as though they may be consumed by the monstrous machine. Soon they will be blasé about new technology and become just another westernised town. But, maybe their destiny will be different. Cuba and China helped Namibia a great deal to achieve independence, no doubt by selling them arms. There is a large Cuban presence in the hospitals and Chinese presence in diamond production and retail. The sad fact is that Chinese companies bring in Chinese workers. They do not employ Namibian workers who would improve the Namibian economy. I would not wish to see another Tiananmen Square in the centre of Windhoek nor Rundu. Hopefully, the Namibians are cagey enough to use communist money to develop their country, and ultimately, to retain human rights and the rule of law to join the roll call of truly civilised Nations.

Our journey from Windhoek ended as we approached the Ministry of Education compound. An armed guard at the entrance held up his hand for our vehicle to stop. We carried on regardless. Bullet in the head time, I thought. But the driver stopped and we completed our journey. The Deputy Minister of Education had expressly awaited our arrival. We were suitably impressed. Ignatius, a Zimbabwean from Birmingham instinctively furnished expected diplomatic niceties. Everyone was honoured and praised a couple of times if not more, and we were allowed to leave.

Exhausted, we arrived at our new home for the next two years. It was a large, low bungalow, surrounded by a sandy beach boasting a huge cactus, mango tree and exotic plants with profuse exotic flowers. Surely this would have been paradise had it not been for the air-raid shelter planted ominously in the centre of the garden. Rundu had been bombarded by Angolan rebels several years ago. The cold rains of Britain seemed a whole world away.

We were greeted by Linda and Rose, surely two of the nicest people in the whole wide world. They made us feel at home and were generous to a fault. This was now our home and we should make it so. Linda, from Lowestoft and older than us, was an amalgam of Gloriana and Ellen Orford, at once benign authority and caring mother. Educated, articulate and with her ear constantly to the ground, she proved an invaluable source of wisdom and knowledge. Rose, the enchantingly lyrical maid of Limerick, instantly brought to mind the Loughs of Yeats and Innisfree. Irish hospitality is legendary and Rose was truly and unashamedly Irish, thank God.

The established volunteers had organised a dinner at the lodge overlooking the Okavango River. There would be mosquitoes so we should wear Deet, the latest essential in fashion accessories. The meal was a delicious, meaty blur but we walked there and back without being mugged or eaten alive by mosquitoes. Life was so much more relaxed here. We felt at home.

By the end of the week’s training session in Windhoek everyone was anxious to reach their placement and start doing their bit for Namibia. Some were staying in Windhoek but most were going to see the real Africa up north. The details of where we would all be living were sketchy at best. Georgina and I knew, for example, that we would be sharing a house with established volunteers, Linda and Rose, and new girl, Karin, who is Dutch and makes her name sound like “Garry”. Other knew precious little. Alison, for example was told by the previous volunteer that she would have a mattress under the desk in her office in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t seem to be joking, she told me with alarm. When pressed about other aspects of the placement he was either non-committal or avoided the question altogether. This inevitably raised concern and not a little anxiety. His claims that he enjoyed the job were less than convincing. Nevertheless, Alison, to her credit, determined to carry on manfully (or should it be womanfully) and is now, no doubt snug on her mattress under the desk in her office in the middle of nowhere.

It is not that she came totally unequipped. Her former colleagues had had a whip around and bought her a very smart jungle hat which to my mind bore a striking resemblance to a female version of the old colonial pith helmet. It led me to wonder if her colleagues, in giving Alison this elegant and, moreover, useful gift, they weren’t actually taking it (the pith, that is).

It was in these last days in Windhoek that we met Namibia’s future top model. She was sure of this and, judging by her tall, slim body, air of grace and deportment I wouldn’t be surprised if she were right. Georgina and I were heading in the same direction as Albertina down one of the back streets towards the centre of Windhoek when she introduced herself. She was certainly more friendly than any supermodel I had read about. She was still in training so probably hadn’t done the module on surliness and phone throwing yet. We walked down Robert Mugabe Avenue and I had an overwhelming desire to spit, which is strange because I never feel that way when walking down Nelson Mandela Avenue. Mugabe apparently is regarded by many African leaders as a father figure for his role in helping his country achieve independence, but his present work of systematically destroying his own people seems to be strangely overlooked. Maybe Hitler would have been forgiven the holocaust had he won his war.

There wasn’t much room in the mini-bus when the six of us going to Rundu had piled in with our entire luggage. Georgina and I sat in the back, our journey made more interesting by the imminent collapse of the luggage stacked behind us. An unexpected zebra crossing, or wart hog, or ostrich could have caused an avalanche.

The seven hour journey from Windhoek took us through continuous scrub land, the tedium of which was alleviated at regular intervals by the small towns of Okahandja, Otjiwarongo, Otavi and Grootfontein. Try saying those after your third bottle of Windhoek Beer (or before it if it comes to that). The roads were metalled, straight and quiet, though not deserted. An occasional mountain would rear up in the distance then disappear. Hannah asked where the Red Line was. I said I knew a Red Lion in Shrewsbury but she was less than amused. Then we were upon it. Armed guards eyed us suspiciously. Beyond this was rabies country. As they let us through I made a mental note not to foam at the mouth on the way back.

We drew near to Rundu and the scenery began to change. There were more trees and groups of huts began to appear. These were mostly made of traditional materials, branches and thatch though here and there were shacks of corrugated iron to blot the landscape. Occasionally, an abandoned and rusting car with its wheels missing added an extra touch of western squalor. But that’s progress for you.

Rundu is right on the border with Angola.  We can clearly see it across the short stretch of the Kavango River.

Namibia is great. We are now in Rundu, on the Angolan border. We have been here 6 days and are settling in well. We are sharing a house with 3 other volunteers, Linda, Karin and Rose. Rose goes home soon so then we’ll be 4. Our house is a bungalow with a hot shower, a cooker, a fridge and all we need. It’s very hot here in the day when you are walking along but it cools down in the evening. Everywhere is very sandy, the gardens and the roads, so it’s hard work trudging home from the shops. The school is fine. the classrooms are about the same size as in SILD and there are only 14 blind & VI children at the moment in the 2 classes, but the teachers don’t have much of an idea what to do with them. I am having a great time collecting things. We sang 10 blue bottles today and used some long, rattley seed pods to sing shake your shaker, so it’s just like home but hotter!!! Must water the tomatoes, cabbages and mango tree. Bye for now. Love to everyone.