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The Workshop.
I was standing in almost total darkness, just beyond the reaches of the solar-powered lights. Only a few meters beyond the party, looking in on my companions and I remembered that this is why I came. It was the last night of the community workshop and we were spending it at Spitzkoppe. African music was blaring through the night and everyone, from 20 to 60, was drinking beers and dancing. The sense of camaraderie has worked its way into people's smiles and any earlier tension from discussions vanished with the setting sun. The workshop had been an intense 5 days but the community participants were wonderful and we'd accomplished a lot. The participants were sad to go but we would be visiting all of their communities soon enough.
Spitzkoppe is a community-run campsite surrounded by a massive rock formation in the middle of the gravel plains. Nestled into an overhang at the center of the rocks is Bushman's Paradise, a whole mural of Bushman cave art left over from the former inhabitants of the area. Some people say Spitzkoppe is a spiritual center. When I woke up the next morning in open air -no need for tents but watch out for scorpions- to a full-on sunrise firing across the rocks, I understood the sentiment. What could be a better backdrop for understanding the successes and failures of community-based tourism?
We'd been planning the community workshop at Gobabeb since the beginning of August. The idea was to help to the communities involved in the Desertification 2002 conference to make brochures and posters for the conference in Cape Town and the international visitors to their communities in April. There are five communities who will receive visitors as part of the conference, three in Namibia (Grootberg, Gibeon and Kuiseb) and two in South Africa (Paulshoek and Suid Bokkeveld/Wupperthal). Each community sent 3 representatives to the workshop. The community members had arrived in Windhoek at 6:30am on a Friday morning and set Petra, Gabes, Arnold and I (the main organizers) running around frantically trying to fit all of the luggage and all of the people in one combi (minibus). We fumbled our way down gravel roads to Gobabeb, wondering why the back wheel made a swish-swishing noise and finally arrived in one piece.
On the first afternoon while the participants still rested in their rooms, several of the workshop organizers had a discussion about the participants' motivation for coming to the workshop. They were given a per diem for each day of the workshop, even though all of their costs had been covered. How much were these people motivated by a few extra dollars and how much by a real drive to be a part of the workshop and the upcoming conference? Anyone who has done development work faces this dilemma on a regular basis. Are people involved out of dedicated to their communities or personal motivation to gain skills, money, recognition? I'm not sure if I'll ever know. Obviously it changes from person to person. For myself, I've decided that if people show up and do what they're supposed to, that is enough for me.
After the workshop got rolling, we spent four days discussing development, the Desertification 2002 conference and learning more about each community's particular situation. We had the usual rounds of panic over the PowerPoint projector not working and other minor technological mishaps, but basically things ran smoothly. For more or less the first time in the five months I've been here, I really regretted not speaking much Afrikaans. Most of the participants understand English quite well, but when it comes to talking, Afrikaans is the language of choice. I chose to strategically position myself next to Arnold, a Namibian who has mastered English and Afrikaans in addition to Damara, his tribal language, and beg quick summaries of questions and comments. If I listen hard, I can usually understand the subject matter but the direction of conversation in Afrikaans is lost on me.
The participants themselves all have distinct characters. There was Katrina, an older woman from Western Cape, South Africa who has laughing eyes and tells wicked stories. She's promised to show me her paintings of Cedarberg Mountain when we visit. There's Herlus, who wears plaid pants and a big green baseball cap and reminds me unmistakably of one of my Grinnell housemates. He has promised to teach me the traditional Nama long-arm dance. And Celacy, a South African woman my age who speaks only a little English, but somehow I feel quite close to her. Bob, the Wilderness Shepherd from Grootberg who says he won't teach me Damara til I learn Afrikaans (it'll be a long wait). Of course, Maria, a self-starting woman who quietly runs half the activities in her area.
Finally, the first round of brochures was designed and we sent the community members home with plans for more. Petra, Gabes and I will spend another 3-4 weeks in the field visiting each community and working more closely with each group on preparations for international conference visitors. I am definitely looking forward to seeing them all again.
Namibians.
Namibians are an odd bunch, the people I know here just as much of a cultural mish-mosh as where I grew up in New York. On the way back from Botswana a few weeks ago, we picked up a Canadian couple who was backpacking from Ethiopia to South Africa and needed a ride to Windhoek. We ran into them on the street the next day and asked them what they thought of Namibia so far. "People here are so many colors," they answered.
After living in Kenya, I thought of Africans as the people who had been living in Africa for thousands of years, deeply connected to their land. In Kenya, even the most recent tribes have been around for hundreds of years longer than any white person has. The first European to venture upcountry from the coast into Kenya was a missionary in the 1890s. There, white people have a comparatively shorter history than blacks.
Although Namibia has been inhabited for thousands of years, the inhabitants are always changing. Many of the tribes who lived here are recent migrants from central Africa to northern Namibia or South Africa to southern Namibia. The local tribal histories do not account for so many generations and the cultures are woven with European fabrics. The traditional Topnaar music sounds like a German Oompa band. The Herero dress has layers of petticoats and the Nama surnames straightforward as Issacs and Bank. We visited our Afrikaans landlady's family farm that has been in her family for five generations. She is no less Namibian than any black I know.
I asked a colored friend if she would like to go out with us for dinner. She accepts. "I used to be very uncomfortable going there. It was restricted, you know." No, I didn't. Only ten years free of apartheid and memories do not fade quickly, even though Namibia wasn't anywhere near as militant as South Africa. Blacks and coloreds weren't forced to live in Windhoek's townships and my white, colored and black friends have the same memories of the nuns at the Catholic school they all attended.
I ask two different black friends if they think there is still animosity towards whites. One says no. Blacks just don't understand white people or what they do. Yes, says the other. And he doesn't know if it will ever change. But to be fair, I have never felt that seething emotion directed at me. Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to be a white Namibian, trying to find a place in your mind where you can put the past aside. Then I hear stories of how the system was challenged by whites and blacks alike, how the white-run newspaper building was blown up for its editorials, and I suppose it is like all other independence struggles. Some put themselves on the line while other side quietly aside, white or black.
How it is.
We are driving to Botswana, already on the far side of Gobabis, almost to the border. For the first time since I have been in Namibia, I see water in a riverbed. The sky has gone dark and suddenly it pours. We stop the car. I stand barefoot in the empty highway, late afternoon and scream at the heavens. Just to welcome the rains, so they know we've been waiting. What's different about my life here? I live in a place where zebra are mundane and rain is extraordinary.
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