Hayestack

It was about midnight and we were just slipping off to sleep when loud screams of searing pain snapped us back to reality. Someone was murdering a child outside our bedroom window. Georgina jumped up and peered out. The body was slung to the branch of a tree and was howling pitifully like an animal.

“They’re skinning it,” she said. “Looks like a goat”

“Poor kid,” I thought. I could see black shapes moving among the shadows and I suddenly realised the date. It was Halloween and midnight at that. Maybe our neighbours were Satanists performing a sick, sadistic ritual to placate their evil spirits. Couldn’t they go “trick and treating” instead? There was a severe crack of bone as they tore their poor victim apart in their frenzy.

Let me digress for a moment and tell you about Namibian sweets. They are unutterably disgusting. To my mind they are inedible. Wrapped in shiny, coloured foil they are all show and no substance. Street traders sell them individually by the side of the road. We had one on our pillows at the posh Tsumeb hotel to confirm its luxury status. It tasted sweet and scented like cheap perfume. It began to foam in my mouth. Was I eating the complimentary soap? No, it had been in a sweet wrapper, and had looked like a sweet. Were they used as punishment for naughty children as in “Go and wash your mouth out with soap and water.” Perhaps I should have washed my hands with it and eaten the complimentary soap instead. It couldn’t have tasted worse.

Back to the slaughter. It turned out that our neighbours were having a separation party and had killed the goat for the occasion. The man was leaving his wife and family to live with his second wife/mistress a couple of hundred miles away. They were having a big party to celebrate. In fact, it was a two goat party. We were treated to slaughter part two the following morning. The children were sitting around in eager anticipation. We had thought the midnight killing was to spare them, but no, here they were in the best seats. We had a great view from our bedroom and, like bullfighting this was definitely a spectator sport. The handsome, white male goat had been strung up to the hanging tree by its hind legs and for some reason didn’t like it. It screamed horribly. The father and two oldest sons stood by ready to do their bit. One of the sons grabbed the goat’s horns to stop it swinging like a pendulum while the father danced around, his large knife glinting in the sunlight, trying to find the best angle of attack. The father stepped forward and put the knife to the goat’s throat. The creature struggled so fiercely that the two killers could barely restrain the animal’s head. In a few moments a thick line of red liquid began to pour from the goat’s neck. All the while the goat screamed hysterically. Suddenly, the father stepped forward again, grabbed the goat’s genitals and sliced them off with one swift stroke of the knife. There was now an empty, pale pink patch between the goat’s legs. All the while it kept screaming and panicking though now, no doubt sensing that the game was up, was putting up less of a struggle. The five and six year olds were, by now, in a high state of animation running around copying the harrowing death cries of the agonised goat. After some minutes the goat became still. The steady trickle of blood from its neck continued. “Baargh, baargh.” The children still danced around screaming in mock imitation of the goat’s last agony.

The party was a big one and grew to a crescendo throughout the day. People kept arriving, the women carrying bowls of food, the men six-packs of beer. They seemed less eager than the women to relinquish their burdens but sat down in a group becoming more animated as they drank and chatted away. A bakkie (pickup van) arrived with a cheap looking sideboard and bookcase. Maybe the deal was that she got some MFI furniture and he got his freedom? Fair, no? The DJ tested his equipment. The house vibrated with the noise. The hired, plastic chairs arrived and were set out for a formal meeting with a table at the front. The master of ceremonies began to list the programme for the evening. There would be speeches, eulogies celebrating the family’s worth, the father’s sterling qualities and his achievements (eg. gaining his freedom at so little cost). There would be singing and there would be dancing. At this the heavens opened and everyone, carrying their plastic chairs, ran for shelter. I hoped the sound system had been flooded beyond use, but, miraculously, it survived.

The rain subsided and the group reformed. Again the heavens opened and again people ran. The party was not proving to be a unparalleled success and, like the couple’s marriage, was on a steady decline until it petered out around midnight. It all seemed rather sad.

Try wedging yourself in a tree where a branch meets the trunk and take a succession of 10 minute naps throughout the night. This is how the bushmen traditionally slept and how they became known as tree sleepers. How they managed to procreate is a mystery.

At the end of the Tsumeb training we stayed on a campsite called “tree sleepers” which has canopies built high in the tree canopy on which you can erect your tent (no slinging legs over branches here). The bushmen are ancient nomadic tribes of hunter gatherers but the hunting bit has been radically curtailed since the government naturally does not like the stock of animals in the game reserves being depleted. Consequently, the bushman’s self sufficient way of life and culture is dying and they will all eventually live in corrugated tin shacks in a rundown township and sit around drinking homebrew with the other unemployed. It’s called progress.

As dusk fell we sat around a large campfire holding bits of dough on long sticks over the glowing embers of a wood fire. We ate kudu (a kind of large antelope) in all its manifestations. We ate it roasted, stewed, minced, boiled and pounded to death into a kind of powder. Kudu is very versatile and very tasty. Unfortunately, Mr Sainsbury does not stock it yet. Get some when he does. After this we had the traditional bushman desert of ice-cream. I think it may have been black mambo flavour.

The best, however, was yet to come. We were led by young George (a traditional Bushman name) in a torchlight procession through the pitch-black night to a circle in the forest where a large fire was already blazing. On one side was a group of about ten young bush people (average age, maybe 15 years) in traditional bushmen costume (ie. not much at all, maybe just a scrap of animal skin to cover their modesty). They performed a variety of traditional dances one of which closely resembled the “ant” dance (see Tsumeb 1). The boys shuffled around in a very close approximation to ice skating and the girls escorted a rather solemn faced bride to her wedding. For a few moments we were all bushmen observing and re-enacting our culture under a star-studded African sky.

Later that evening we had an electrical storm which sent those treesleeping scurrying groundwards to finish the night in the terrestrial tents.

The bush toilets deserve a mention. These are traditional porcelain surrounded by stick walls. It is notoriously difficult to find sticks that lie together without leaving gaps. This has the advantage that one can see who is approaching in sufficient time to burst into song to prevent any surprises as there are no doors in the toilets or showers. I recommend showering with a friend as this affords the opportunity for a rendition of two part harmony.

The following morning George took us on a bushwalk. He showed us how to make string, how to snare game and how to make poison (so don’t cross me!). He told us that the tastiest mushrooms grow at the base of a termite mound and he showed us how to make fire. That’s him in the picture above. I don’t think my new-found skills will be of much use in the UK.

The final exercise of the week was to go in groups to different organisations to discover their views on Namibian education. My group had to visit the small but impressive Tsumeb Museum. It is run and owned by an elderly German couple and is stuffed with pictures and memorabilia from the German Second Reich which colonised Namibia at the end of the 19^th century. There is no hint that German occupation was a disaster for the Namibian people, Herero and Nama in particular. The German curators eyed us with suspicion at first but melted and even became outspoken when they realised this was not a post Second World War skirmish. Disregarding Basil Fawlty’s advice, we did, in fact, mention the war, the colonists’ war with the Herero and Nama people when the Germans slaughtered hundreds of thousands, pushed the remainder into the Kalahari desert and eventually sent the remnants to concentration camps and into slavery. I was surprised that there was no hint of this genocide in the museum, but the curators justified this by saying it didn’t happen in Tsumeb. Obviously, genocide or not, if it doesn’t happen in your back yard you are at liberty to ignore it. This species of Namibian ostrich was new to us. The curators were much more vociferous when we began to ask about education and the environment.

“Young people don’t want to visit museums. They get everything from the internet,” they explained.

“Do you try to make the museum more appealing to children?”

“No.”

“Do you go into schools or even send them promotional material?”

“No. We had a party of ninety children here once and it was too many. We had to split them into 2 groups,” they explained, and we could still see the stress in their eyes. I felt sorry for them.

You have to admit, children get under your feet. They pick their noses and touch things. They chatter, they bustle about and exert far too much energy. Museums should be reserved for the elderly where they can sit and muse upon how much better life was in the old days.

We mentioned the copper mine. Their countenance immediately changed. You could see them begin to seethe, their blood begin to boil. The mine shaft was in the centre of town, its tower providing an attractive landmark especially when lit up at night, much like the one built by monsieur Eiffel, though, of course, on a much smaller scale.

“It should be shut down,” they insisted, as if talking about Dachau concentration camp. “It is spewing out arsenic, heavy metals and asbestos into the environment and people don’t know about it. Don’t drink the water,” they warned. We, innocents, who had been drinking the water all week, felt suitably alarmed. We had felt fine and healthy before this revelation. Now we felt decidedly ill. We slunk back to our hotel and downed a large glass of Windhoek lager thinking this might be one of our last acts on earth.

The mine had been closed twice before with the loss of 500 jobs. Phoenix-like it has both times risento life. Maybe this explained why Tsumeb was a ghost town. Maybe all the inhabitants were being gradually poisoned. I had thought Tsumeb would be a great place to which to retire. Maybe, here, you would reach your final resting place sooner than anticipated.

Our second visit was to the Ministry of Youth, National Service, Youth and Culture. We were met by a large, black lady bustling around her office as if harassed by a wasp.

We were greeted with,

“I hope you’re not going to take up too much of my time!”

This came across as a command rather than a question and something told us that this “Big Mamma” would not mince her words. Half a question might be all she had time for. I stood by the open door ready to run. She was dripping with gold even to a couple of gold teeth which glinted in the sun, and she had a circular eruption in the middle of her chest just above her very ample bosoms. It looked very much like a bullet hole, and there was no doubt in my mind that someone had attempted to assassinate her, but only a gold bullet could do the job.

“I deal in crime, youth crime. I sort out peoples’ lives,” she asserted, warming to her subject. I imagined her to be a one woman rehabilitation centre. One word from her and the most hardened criminal would mend his ways forever.

“I’ll do anything to help my youth. I’ll sit with the magistrate, with the prosecutor, visit cells.” She leaned back in her chair with satisfaction and smiled at me broadly. Her gold teeth dazzled me. I felt like an insect before a praying mantis. My legs were jelly, I could not escape. I was a gonna. She had just to flick out her tongue….

“Come on, ask me more questions. I’m enjoying this.” Time was now no object. We were mesmerised.

We asked about school fees. She winced as though we had touched a nerve. The boiler inside her was building up pressure. Soon steam would be shooting out of her ears and nose.

“It was better before independence.” She snorted. If she had said “I am a witch and I eat children,” we would have been no more surprised.

I don’t want you to make notes about this,” she said to me imperiously. My note book fell to my side as thought in fear of its life. My memory cells creaked into operation.

“Education was free before independence. Talent was optimised, not wasted. I have not paid my school fees. The gold chains draped around her neck told us she could well afford to.

“The government promised us free education and they should keep their promise. I shall have to pay though.” She relented.

“I want to see my child’s report and they won’t give it to me unless I have paid the fees. There is too much bureaucracy, too much incompetence. You take a large group of children a long way to an event, a concert or something, and half way there someone says they have not booked the tickets, or they’ve lost the form to register for food. The children go back home disappointed.” She slumps back in her chair exasperated. The next second she’s up again giving me another beaming smile.

“Why doesn’t she just kill me now and have done with it,” I think.

“What is the state of education in Namibia?” She is so eager for questions she has started asking them of herself.

“Well, you know, the Government ministers send their children to school in South Africa.” She looks at us knowingly. We try to look disapproving. She seems satisfied. She wants more questions but it is time to go. Will the mantis release its prey?

“You know, my colleagues are jealous of me, yes, j_e_a_l_o_u_s.” She says the word with relish.

“They say I get special treatment. I get things done. I go over their heads. I go to the top. They don’t like that.” She certainly seemed like a woman who would stop at nothing to get things done. I tried not to stare at the assassins’ bullet hole, mesmerising though it was.

We eased ourselves out of the door and she followed us down the stairs. Were we in Tsumeb long? Was she going to ask us back for more questions? She was going down to Windhoek to sort out the protesting orphans of war veterans who wanted Namibian documents and rights that had been denied them. They were camped outside Parliament and were in for an interesting time. She would get things done. She would sort them out. We did not doubt this for one second.

A sad note

David, one of the more mature volunteers, received news that his father had been taken dangerously ill. A flight home was booked on the internet and he was driven back to Windhoek overnight. Unfortunately, his father died before he reached home. The news saddened us all.

What perplexed me, however, was the fact that 2 two of the volunteers were left to drive David to Windhoek, thereby missing some of the training, while the VSO staff seemingly sat around doing nothing. I hope I am wrong about this and that their continued presence in Tsumeb was essential. But it did not seem that way. This was not their finest hour.

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.