Swakopmund

We traveled four hours across the dessert to arrive at the coastal town of Swapokmund Wednesday late afternoon.  Colonized by the Germans in the early 1900's, it has a European feel. After settling in and enjoying a nice group dinner at The Tug -a boat transformed into a restaurants on the ocean Wednesday night, we were ready to see another side of Swapokmund Thursday.  We were greeted by our local tour guides, Nico and Bombo. We drove through Mondessa, the township formed  during apartheid to relocate all of the Black Nambians. The size of your house was determined by one's tribal membership. Sixteen thousands residents currently live there in, by U.S. standards, very small houses with electricity and running water.  Further down the dirt road is the informal settlement where 7,000 unemployed residents live with water available at central pumps ( for a fee) and no electricity. 

We visited the elementary school in Mondessa settlement and exchanged musical performances of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" for "If You're Happy and You Know It" with a classroom filled with curious first and second graders.  

Next we had the honor of meeting with the first and only female chief of the Damara tribe in her home - a remarkable, petite, wise, no-nonsense, 89 year old woman who has been re-elected by her 9,000 constituents for three consecutive, four- year terms. We also heard from Mamma Nafalina sharing history and culture (family structure and marriage traditions) from the Herero (formerly Himba) tribe.  

We also visited the monument erected to acknowledge "the thousands of Herero who perished under mysterious circumstances at the realm of their German colonial masters in concentration camps in Swapokmund. 1904-1908."

Lastly we heard from Raili Hasheela from the Namibian Coast Conservation and Management Project about environmental issues facing this community.

Friday morning we loaded up the vans and headed south for Walvis Bay, a major port and industrial center on the coast.  We met out tour guide, Joseph, at the local library and proceeded to take a breath-taking journey through impressive, massive sand dunes to reach our destination of the Topnaar community - rumored to be descendants of one of the oldest tribes in Africa - eight thousand years old.  This group has been allowed to live within what is now a national park.  The positive is that they can continue to live along the Kuiseb river (an ephemeral river, where for most of there year all the water is underground) and harvest their traditional food- the !Nara melon. But life is tough and they are not allowed to build permanent structures for homes.  Their livelihood is also threatened by uranium mining, which will draw water from the underground river.   We were impressed by what they are doing to fight for self-determination.  

In the afternoon we learned about the Namibian export processing zone, which is bringing needed economic activity to the country, but the real highlight was climbing Dune 7 before heading back to Swakopmund.