(Mokoro trip on the river: the poler is using the old-school standing style but the overlanders just want to get the hell away from a pod of hippos, Okavango River, Namibia)

We take the de rigueur Okavango mokoro trip this morning with the British overlander group which definitely adds to the fun. Our guide Cosmo, a priest in training who has returned to his village, relates the dark tale of the "Nearby" Lodge (named after the children of the original owner). According to our guide -- the lodge keeper was a suicide after catching his wife in flagrante delicto. This is the introductory portion of our tour of local custom and superstition – much of which seems to involve the theft or seduction of married women. For instance: the placement of a certain species of bird’s legs on their hearth will cause the separation of a married couple. This is quite interesting – a much better tour than I ever imagined. Cosmo takes us to a Hambukushu village where the local agricultural practices are explained and how this all relates to the way the structures are arranged in a kraal. Fences are for keeping animals (including domestic) out of the food stored inside and the mahangu (pearl millet) plot. Also answered is how ownership of individual cows and goats is determined as the small individual herds commingle on the shoulders of the roads and the open veldt – land which turns out to be the tribal grazing commons.

(How this system of agriculture works: inside a thatched roof granary in a Hambukushu kraal, Okavango River, Namibia)

Our mokoro oarsmen and polers laughing for much of the journey (no doubt at us tourists and possibly? Cosmo?). We pass a pod of hippos who assign two large sentries to chase us away. The sentries accomplish this in short order – a mokoro is no match for a hippo being much bigger and much faster than these traditional dugouts. Several in the group subsequently inquire if hippos can be eliminated from the rest of the venue but Cosmo is nonplussed and says simply that there are more on the river ahead and thus unavoidable. Well – they are dangerous and all of this is not making the other person in my mokoro any more comfortable. These dugouts are tippy and he is very, very large. (I fell asleep – better here in the mokoro than behind the wheel of the Hilux.)

(Just like home in the American South: an ancient Mercury Comet "up on blocks" near a Hambukushu village, Okavango River, Namibia)

After the mokoro trip, we set out for the Caprivi Strip and Katima Mulilo having packed earlier, settled our account and said farewell to Beth Phillips and her family.

The B8 is notable here for its loneliness and its numerous Elephant Warning signs. Will voices suspicions of an old VW Jetta with tinted windows that sticks with us for many kilometers. We are checked at the various police roadblocks but the Jetta’s license plates do not match familiar Namibian labeling schemes (but what-the-hell-it’s-Africa) and maybe because we border Angola and Zambia and Botswana here in this part of Namibia. We are also not that far from Zimbabwe.

Suddenly the “Low Fuel” indicator lights up on our gauge and we are now focused on what our GPS calculates is our remaining distance to a fuel station. We cut our speed to slow consumption but when we refuel in Katima it suddenly jumps to “Full” without taking the expected amount of fuel. Previously we had not let it drop below “One Quarter” so we note this idiosyncrasy in our truck and this is a minor thing. Best of all we hear a strange unearthly music from a nearby car, the rhythmic tune with drums and flute built around the sound of a baby crying – very compelling. We ask the fuel station attendants about the tune and they say only that it is “Zambian". The car playing it pulled away before we could ask but it must be a hit because we hear it floating in the air in Katima again and again. We find the Caprivi River Lodge just at dark -- once again the GPS is very useful -- especially in the last kilometer or two.

Labels: Katima Mulilo, Ngepi Camp

¶ 9:58 PM 0 Comments

Thursday, December 21, 2006

We eat breakfast and get our bearings. We run some errands in Rundu: the post office (NamPost); Telecom; the mail drop to mail letters; “Tango” or cell phone air time to call ahead to reconfirm our arrival (and whereabouts) with two upcoming destinations. We have learned that the Phillips will be at Ngepi Camp when we are there – it will be nice to meet Beth’s family. And we must follow up with Bovu Island in Zambia because they offer a travel visa service and will fax ahead our details to the border post at the Katima Mulilo bridge crossing.

We spend some time looking for an internet café or some such facility but give up eventually and leave for Ngepi Camp. We approach the Caprivi Strip and pass the northern entrance road to the Khaudom Game Reserve. Had at one point in the planning of the trip considered crossing Khaudom but Estelle has validated the decision to avoid it in December, “not a good time to see game” or “cope with the deep sand roads there in the rainy season”. Estelle asks us to “just look at the entrance road when you pass by on the B8” and though she and Arnot regularly conduct trips there, they are quite clear it is to be avoided during the summer months.

We turn off at Divundu and take the road south towards the Mohembo Border Post and Botswana. A series of humorous signs and then we reach Ngepi Camp http://www.namibiareservations.com/ngepi_camp.html. Another bush camp like Roy’s – but each camp is actually unique. Here we are right on the Okavango River’s edge in what Ngepi calls a “tree house”.

(We get a good feeling about Ngepi Camp even before we arrive there: a sign marking the way off the road between the B8 and the Muhembo Border Post, Namibia)

A large, cheerful group of guests including a lot of overlanders have set up tents. A gin and dry lemon on the simple wooden deck overlooking the river. The bar here must be one of the world’s great “happy hour” destinations and Tim, the Australian bartender, is doing a fine job in the role of host. The Phillips arrive and we spend several very pleasant hours in their company: the parents and their three attractive daughters. Will and Carole especially pleased by Ngepi and our companions. Lots of hippo noises and hippo action draws attention to the river.

Labels: Ngepi Camp, Rundu

¶ 9:47 PM 0 Comments

(On the B8 in Kavango Land above the Rinderpest Fence: a kraal)

We are up very early so as not to be on the road after dark for the long drive ahead. When we had returned from Otjituuo to Roy’s in the dark we encountered 4 or 5 kudu on the gravel road. Kudu tend to be as unpredictable and skittish as American deer but are more the size of moose.

We re inflate our tires at Roy’s but use our own electric pump powered by the truck’s battery. The plastic tubing again proves to be unequal to the task: this time it blows a fuse on the cables and clamps arrangement attaching it to the battery. We complete the job using a muscle-powered floor pump (the old-fashioned backup) but this is shaky as the unit I have suffers the same problems as the electric pump (shoddy tubing and components). I complete the cock-up by damaging a half-rotten valve stem which will eventually develop a slow leak in a day or two.

We reach the veterinary fence on the B8 and here Will remarks that he is now “out of his zone of knowledge”. On one side of the fence the cattle are cordoned off from rinderpest (foot-and-mouth disease) and on the other are cattle unprotected from an epidemic scourge that altered African history in the 1890’s. The Africa of western popular imagination appears – this is Kavango Land. Kraals with thatched roofed buildings and rough wooden pickets and thorny brush piled at their base. Large numbers of people and cattle amble along the roadway (at intervals). The cattle small but with long, upward curving horns and the ubiquitous goats. The fence cordoning and isolation policy was also used in Botswana in the past to control the tsetse fly and the spread of sleeping sickness.

Labels: Calai, Rundu, Veterinary Fence

¶ 2:43 PM 0 Comments

Leon will guide us all day in what turns out to be one of the most interesting days of this portion of the trip. We have a fuel problem because the advice we got in Tsumeb that had us “just asking our guide” how to buy some in Tsumkwe turned out to be too optimistic. There is no fuel station here and no fuel was immediately available. While we have enough to go on our trip today and return to Grootfontein for more – this will amount to a time-consuming 120 km detour on our way to Rundu. The Lodge obliges us by selling enough for us to make to it to Rundu from Tsumkwe which was very accommodating. I should have filled my jerry cans before we passed the last fuel station just to be sure. Our fuel consumption however is very good with the diesel engine.

We drive south on sand tracks to a San settlement in order to take the tourist “walk with the bushmen” which does NOT turn out to be a cliche.

(The shoot-out begins: Canon vs. Nikon in a San village south of Tsumkwe, Namibia)

(Later these photos were printed and we mailed them to Leon to take back to the village.)

(Will is invited to try his hand at setting the snare: the San are extremely friendly and he has very much enjoyed teaching San children in Otjituuo -- later we go on the game drive to end all game drives with six San hunters on our roof rack hitching a ride back some 20 km to Tsumkwe; above right -- approaching the Pans, the hunters having just spotted a leopard running off to the left out of the image)




(The Pan with flamingos feeding: as we drove back the hunters on the roof had a continuing conversation with Leon in the cab -- here in the last image Leon is convinced to stop the truck so that the hunters can capture a warthog fleeing just ahead of them -- and they almost got it)

Labels: Tsumkwe

¶ 2:37 PM 1 Comments

(Not Hansel and Gretel: that was our chalet -- this is a last fond look at the restaurant and bar at Roy's Camp, Namibia)

We leave the B8 for Tsumkwe – the tribal administrative center for the San people. Initially when the trip was planned, this plus its remoteness are the draw. Later Will becomes interested because he wants to look at the school. The San make up a significant percentage of his village and classroom. Tsumkwe is about a four hour drive (at our speed) from Roy’s. We cross the veterinary fence line (to control the movement of animals and therefore foot and mouth disease) and enter “eastern Bushmanland”. The road runs east as “straight as an arrow” with the only major features being two large dips in the road as we pass the turnoff for Kano Vlei. Before we reach the vet fence we see the entrance gates of the large cattle farms that characterize much of rural Namibia. Past the veterinary fence a national forest and the open Kalahari.

Will’s temporary Namibian “citizenship” opens the door for us again. Arnot and Estelle are interested in him relocating to Tsumkwe and teaching at the school there. He has played with the idea a little because of his interest in the San but the distance to Tsumkwe is an insurmountable difficulty. It is U.S. government policy to forbid Peace Corps volunteers to own or operate motor vehicles in Namibia. And that would mandate a five hour hitchhike to Grootfontein – the closest market town. Arnot and Estelle also shop in Tsumeb – adding another hour to the journey. hitchhiking in Namibia actually means sitting for hours under a particular tree and waiting for rides to happen along. These typically are the kombis that operate as public transport (gypsy cabs) and which are in various states of repair but always driven at high speed on the tricky gravel roads. Single car accidents – rollovers – are all too common as drivers misjudge their speed and traction. Actual collisions exact a high toll too. Just the week before we drove the same route a terrible accident on the B8 to Rundu involving a heavily loaded kombi and an army truck towing a cargo trailer with a chain ended 17 lives.

Estelle calls the Head of Department for the satellite schools that are established in the San settlements that are outside of Tsumkwe. These schools include Grade 3 with the village school on Tsumkwe ending at Grade 9 – the exit point for most San learners here. We are taken on a tour of the village school by this young man who himself has risen further in the educational system (in terms of qualifications) than any other member of the San.

The Tsumkwe Self-Help Store, Tsumkwe, Namibia)

The San themselves, like many “aboriginal” people, are hammered by the impact of alcohol. This is a big part of why driving at night is unwise: people use the roads for pathways because it is easier to walk on the roadway – particularly if you are tipsy. Tsumkwe was an administrative and recruitment center during the Bush War (Namibia’s war for independence from SA control0. The South African Army used the San as scouts and trackers in their war against SWAPO. Grootfontein was the major staging area and air base for military operations in the area. We are very close (by air) to Angola where SWAPO based itself along with Cuban and Russian troops but in fact the entire area to the north saw military operations to a greater or lesser degree.

Secret base “Omega” is to the north (in the Caprivi) and the San scouts were billeted there in order to participate in the clandestine operations mounted against bases in Angola.

The San found themselves on the wrong side of this history – but the entire story of their contact with the outside has been tragic. So the war introduced a cash economy and further undermined their “hunter-gatherer” lifestyle. Our guide translates our apologies to the many people who want to sell us crafts when we return to our truck but their disappointment is a low point.

Another long war waged against the tide of inevitability and weight of logic. In the words of one of the veterans (we are beginning to meet and spend a lot of time with men like “K” in Alexandra Fuller’s Scribbling the Cat http://www.opendemocracy.net/arts-Literature/zimbabwe_2922.jsp) “We must have been crazy to think we could dominate a majority [of people] like that. It was doomed from the beginning.” There was universal conscription – the transformative impact for the men of military age reminds me of my own (South East Asia) and my father’s generation (World War II).

And so the social and cultural reverberations continue: forced migrations and continuing dislocation; life cheapened to nothingness; psychological scarring that will never really heal. And what is modern war of national liberation or the very latest imperial misadventure without a civilian population that suffers a disproportionate amount of the force delivered by modern weapons yet whose allegiance is the ultimate prize?

Once again we are treated to great hospitality by the Oosthuysens. We learn to our discomfort that they returned from vacation to the lodge to accommodate us (as once again we are the only guests). Estelle spends much time with us and recounts the story of the Laurence Marshall and his first expedition to the area. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/05/RVGPGLVUOS1.DTL&type=books

Estelle introduces us to Leon whose father worked with the Marshall family. Leon guides us to the giant baobob trees. The oldest, “The Grootboom”, has recently perished but there are others as huge. Leon himself typifying why the San fascinated the Marshall’s, indeed so many other outsiders who have encountered them. Leon is friendly, tolerant of us, taciturn but eloquent in his hand gestures to local “hikers”, pedestrians, and to direct me to the correct sand track toward the baobabs we visit.

(The Holboom(?): one of the giant baobabs we saw this day, south of Tsumkwe, Namibia)

(Massive survivor: baobab located south of Tsumkwe, Namibia)

(Will "chimping" with his camera: some welcome shade in a baobab tree south of Tsumkwe, Namibia)

Back to Estelle’s patient hospitality. She is a sort of model host in her beauty and intelligence. Arnot is now working on other lodge tasks leaving Estelle to the chore of teaching us from her great store of local history and ethnography in a voice and delicate accent I can still hear. So unexpected in such a remote location but someone who nevertheless is very much of this place. Will and Estelle discuss San learners – their difficulties with arithmetic possibly a result of the language not having a counting system above the number “4” (and 4 is expressed as the sum of 2 plus 2). Both note both their gifts as linguists and as artisans.

A horse belonging to our hosts spends the night quietly on the covered porch of our accommodations. Probably the safest way to stable the horse is not to confine it too closely (giving it the ability to avoid any hyenas that might sneak into the lodge compound at night). But this is a little mystery in a place that is at once comfortable but also not immediately understandable to us as tourists and outsiders.

(End of day: near Tsumkwe, Namibia)

Labels: Base Omega, Tsumkwe

¶ 10:38 AM 0 Comments

(Old boundary from the "South West" [Africa] days: approaching Otjituuo on the C42 from Grootfontein, Namibia)

Roy’s style reminds me of the Spadena House in Los Angeles – but definitely it is African. It has been designed by the owner’s sister and is a bit like “Hansel and Gretel meet the Bushmen”. We set out for Will’s village arriving mid-morning after doubling back to retrieve the keys to his house and stopping in Grootfontein at SPAR for groceries to stock up Will’s pantry.

We reach Otjituuo and stop by the police station where Will has stored his laptop. We are locked out of the school grounds but find the principal who happily admits us. We park and begin to unload his food – this to make life a little easier since hitchhiking into town to buy food is a big weekly chore (to say the least).

(Otjituuo Primary School: the pond accumulated during last winter's heavy rains; the cows are highly valued by the Herero people)

Carole busies herself cleaning his abode in the time-honored way of mothers but he has kept it surprisingly neat considering all the recent end-of-term work and stress. His house tidy and shelves stocked with food; we take a tour of the school and a very low-profile tour of the criss-crossing dirt trails in the village. The San (the more correct term for the Bushmen) and the Herero live separately; we also glimpse the shebeens (the local, simple taverns); the small Caltex station and store. We have spent a little too much time in the village but it is important for Will to be able to lock up and leave with a sense of closure.

(Looking east at the police station -- and noting also that the village has a government provided nurse -- your blogger casts a long evening shadow: Otjituuo, Namibia)

Liezel is a little put out with us for arriving an hour late for dinner but there has been much to do and the driving distances are long. She is happy to hear however that her meal is so good as to clearly take first place in our ratings so far – eclipsing even La Marmite in Windhoek. We had tried to call her several times to warn her about running late – but it turns out that the phone line has been down for days: no email or VISA payments as a result either. But we are carrying enough cash so no matter. Liezel and Heinrich are all about kindness and hospitality: Heinrich even permits me to park and re-inflate my tires when we return from Tsumkwe – the next leg in our journey.

Labels: Grootfontein, Otjituuo, Tsumkwe

¶ 5:24 PM 0 Comments

(Lost worlds and romances: Ghaub Guest Farm, near Tsumeb and Grootfontein, Namibia)

Breakfast at Ghaub’s. Theuns tells us a story about an experience with elephants. A group of people are relaxing after a meal at their campsite in the bush. A family of elephants appears silently as is their fashion and walk through the campsite. One pauses next to the table and reaches into a pile of fruit on the table retrieving an apple with its trunk. Having eaten the apple, the elephant begins to stroll out of the clearing. One of the campers unwisely picked up a lemon from the same pile of fruit and threw it at the elephant. The elephant turned around sharply and walked back to the campsite. Eyeing the lemon thrower, the elephant took its trunk and gripped the top of the campers’ caravan (RV trailer) parked there and shook it violently from wheel to wheel. The elephant, having made its point, ambled away. Moral: Never throw anything at an elephant or perhaps, what does an elephant eat? Anything it wants to.

(Part of the beauty of this lost world: a Verreaux's eagle-owl(?) at Ghaub Guest Farm, Namibia)

Back to Tsumeb to pick up laundry, Will’s newly repaired eyeglasses, and some truck related items at Build-It and Cymot (bungee cords, screw hooks and eyes, and shackles). Will is spared the errands and goes to a Peace Corps get together in Tsumeb. Carole and I pay for a 15 minute session at the internet café, and attend to some roof repacking, and journal keeping. We rendezvous with Will and set out for Grootfontein while arranging to meet the Peace Corps volunteer there for dinner. We meet at her place in “the location” where we are immediately noticed and engaged by a group of teenage boys who have been happily downing either “tombo” – the local home-brewed beer or Tafel lager, a big brand in southern Africa. A long, joshing conversation about blowing this small town and coming to the US – how “bad it is here” – a pretty normal comment by kids this age who want to leave a country town and see the world. This part of the location is the closest to the actual commercial center of Grootfontein and is where the so-called “colored” or mixed race population lives. The houses, modest in size, nevertheless sit in a grid and have plumbing and electricity. The place has the same feel as the area I lived in for four years when I was very young (we moved from a trailer to a small house in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains when I was a year old). We invite the kids to come see the US but comment that Namibia is a very interesting place and give the usual advice about working hard and finishing school.

Beth emerges from her rented rooms and jumps in the truck. The Phillips family will join her soon for a family vacation like ours but tonight we are hoping to treat her to something nice. She has been a good friend to Will and has helped to lessen his sense of isolation and struggle as a first-year teacher in the village. Beth, very confident and friendly, climbs in the truck and we settle on Lala Panzi Lodge at her suggestion. We fail, I am sure, to feed her adequately because the menu offers her little as a vegetarian. She is invited to a wedding reception later on in town so we are hopeful that she will get more to eat there. Dropping her off at the party we head for Roy’s Camp http://www.namibiareservations.com/royscampe.html about 60 km north of Grootfontein on the B8 at the Tsumkwe turnoff.

We arrive about 9:30 or 10:00 PM cheerfully welcomed by Heinrich and Liezel. We are very happy to settle in here and the accommodations are both whimsical and comfortable.

Labels: Grootfontein, Tsumeb, Tsumkwe

¶ 4:38 PM 0 Comments

(A clan of banded mongeese: Ft. Namutoni, Etosha National Park)

(Watchful adults pick up the young in their mouths and keep the clan in a dense pack: Ft. Namutoni, Etosha National Park)

We set out for the Ft. Namutoni gate and exit Etosha.

(Ft. Namutoni: the eastern gate of Etosha National Park and a colonial sentinel meant to guard the northernmost German settlements against cattle epidemics and the Ovambo people)

In Tsumeb Will points out the tree where he hitchhikes to Grootfontein. Tsumeb is one of those towns that have a lot of technical know-how which must be the legacy of its days as a former copper mining center. We get the truck (and its engine) washed off at the Engen station. We notice a truck with a similar “kit” and learn that they have obtained their vehicle from Drive Africa too. They are “repeat customers” of Drive Africa and provide us with a recommendation regarding service for our truck. We need bodywork now however because the driver’s door will not open due to our collision with the springbok.

We find Auto Tech, the “panel beaters” as collision repair is known in Africa. Auto Tech has a designer showroom and collision repair center that would put anything in the world to shame. Even though we have arrived well past noon without an appointment our wait is minimal and Jacob fixed the door for free. The actual repair of the dent(s) will happen later but at least we can open and close the door. We leave with an estimate for Drive Africa (repairs are only done with a “go-ahead” or approval from Drive Africa) and out of gratitude we go to Auto Tech’s service center in town and have the 5,000 km service performed plus new front brake pads, 4 new shock absorbers (recalling that a leaky shock was spotted at Kgalagadi) and a tune-up. We are probably overcharged as tourists a little bit but considering the free repair to our door (and no appointments on a Friday) we leave happy. This would not have been the scenario if we had been in the US and especially if we were traveling.

(Private security is ubiquitous in southern Africa: two security guards at Auto Tech, Tsumeb, Namibia)

The truck is now clean inside and out (part of the service) and now has much improved handling as the shock absorbers must have been worn out all around. Will’s sense of thrift is violated but we are only at the beginning of a journey which will put 25,000 km or more on the Hilux so it is money well spent. We get Will’s eyeglasses repaired and drop off some laundry – both to be picked up tomorrow.

We have been in “German colonial” Namibia for some time. While Windhoek has authentic structures from that period (late 19^th to early 20^th century) this area is much more evocative of the romantic, pioneer guardian mind-set of people only one or two removes from my generation. Even though the lookout tower at Okaukuejo (not from the colonial period) and the Fort at Namutoni (a reconstruction of the original) are “new” – they still convey something. Tsumeb has flame trees lining its streets and the old Minen Hotel which is “period” and preserves the past.

Not to make any sort of a deluded detour into a romanticized past (connecting with Winnetou so-to-speak) you must also consider the Herero war and their pursuit in defeat and misery and merciless slaughter on the Kalahari by a victorious von Trotta and the Schutztruppe. And there is the struggle of the Dorsland (“Thirst land”) Trekkers (one of the many Afrikaner migrations away from British control) that is threaded with the struggle, suffering and ultimate failure so familiar to the American West. Isn’t the American story essentially a tragedy too? Growing up in the West is very suggestive. The lonely grave site in Etosha of a Dorsland trekker was so familiar. Isolated immigrants, abandoned enterprises, busted dreams, and thousands of dead tribal people.

(Flame trees in bloom: Tsumeb, Namibia)

Ghaub Guest Farm http://www.namibiareservations.com/ghaube.html halfway between Tsumeb and Grootfontein characterizes the ambition of this period perfectly. In a valley along a road that winds 20 km from the main highway with the same ancient calciferous mountainsides, verdant, solitary until at the last moment a group of kudu make an appearance. We pass the Gothic lettering at the gate which dates the farm “1895”. Welcomed by the staff we join the temporary manager for dinner with his family on a quiet terrace. Theuns van der Merwe was the manager at the Midgard Lodge which is of great interest to my son. Midgard had scaled back and the government school there had closed. The school’s furniture would be of great use at the school (Otjituuo Primary School) where my son is teaching and the two agree to try to get the local authority to agree to its transfer. This practical result lessens Will’s unease in these comfortable surroundings – his isolation and the hardship he sees in the village where he lives make too much of a contrast. Soon it apparent we are the only guests and we later learn Theuns has traveled here just to open it up for us.

Labels: Etosha National Park, Grootfontein, Namutoni, Otjituuo, Tsumeb

¶ 3:38 PM 1 Comments